The Sermon [Epiphany 3; St. Matthew 8:1-13]

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From the Gospel heard today, Jesus speaks, saying:

“Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed.”

The restoration of the sermon to its ancient place and power became one of the marks of the Reformation. The Reformers constantly castigated the church of their day for their neglect of correct preaching (Reed, 306). Such are the words that faith gives to the centurion who begs Jesus for a sermon to heal his servant, from the Gospel.

Dr. Luther says,

“We have no slight reasons for treating the Catechism so constantly [in sermons] and for both desiring and beseeching others to teach it, since we see to our sorrow that many pastors and preachers are very negligent in this, and slight both their office and this teaching; some from great and high art (giving their mind, as they imagine, to much higher matters], but others from sheer laziness and care for their paunches, assuming no other relation to this business than if they were pastors and preachers, for their bellies' sake, and had nothing to do but, to [spend and] consume their emoluments as long as they live, as they have been accustomed to do under the Papacy.” (LC Intro:1)

This is because the sermon is the vox ecclesia, the voice of the living Church, lifted in witness, instruction, testimony, and exhortation. So, if any of you happen to find yourselves at a church that asks you for your testimony, I expect you to have one of my sermons handy!

Gospel, Creed, sermon. That is the order of things. The Gospel is heard to create Faith in us, again and again. The Creed is confessed in order to repeat back to God what He has spoken to us in the Gospel. The Sermon is heard after those to give modern light to eternal truth.

So it is that each of our readings for this 3rd Sunday after the Epiphany of our Lord, speak of the power of the spoken Word of God, which is the traditional and historic origin of the sermon. God speaks, so how could we not have a sermon? The very first sermon ever heard didn’t bring the house down, but built it up. The Lord used a sermon to create all things, choosing His theme words as “Let there be”.

In 2 Kings, Elisha is confronted by a general, a warrior, a fighting man with his retinue. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t go out to meet him either! Elisha preached from inside his house, telling Naaman to go wash himself. Naaman refuses in anger, being insulted by this sermon from Elisha, but note what his servants say:

“…had the prophet told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it?” (5:13)

This is how I often picture my sermons. If they were great, people would listen. Naaman takes the point, that washing is such a simple thing, why not just do it, if only to prove the prophet wrong. God gives us the point that, if the infinite, eternal Creator of the universe takes the time to come to us in His Word, simple ink and paper, then why not listen?

Even the listening is so simple, but the outcome that the Word of God produces in that listening is not. For the universe, the Word spoke and it came into being. For Naaman, the Word was preached in a sermon and he was cleansed. For the leper and the paralytic servant, a word was spoken; rather, the Word Himself spoke and the leprosy was eradicated and the paralysis was lifted. All at the preaching of the Word of God.

So it is that our Augsburg Confession teaches that “The chief service of God is to preach the Gospel” (AP, XV, 42). Not to secure jobs for future pastors, but to prove Christ’s own command. Jesus was enacting these healings by the Word in order to show us that that same Word would not be lying when it raises itself from the dead. Belief is always the point of the Sermon.

This is why God chooses to work through means. In this case, His Word preached, as He promised. Did you think meditating on God’s Word day and night, and hearing the Word meant in private at home or in your heart? The Lord always intended for His Word to be preached and He always intended it to be preached in His Church. Not just intended, but ordained for all time that it should be this way.

Thus, when the pastor preaches Christ as the Lord given by God, Christ Himself preaches; when he testifies to the word of God’s dominion, God testifies to His Word through them. “Our Lord God will alone be the Preacher.” That is what Jesus says in Luke 10:16: “The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects Him who sent me.”

God thinks the sermon is that important, hence the Reformers’ anger at the lack of solid preaching to the people. Yet, after the Reformation, another side of the horse was discovered when the Reformed traditions fell off it. Preaching can also be given too much prominence and made the center and sum of all worship. This only led to its devaluation, mere moral lessons, and the church’s loss of all reverence, mystery, order, beauty, and historic continuity. 

The Sermon combines the sacrificial and sacramental elements. It is an interpretation and expansion of the Word. It is an expression of personal Christian conviction; a testimony to the experience of God’s people in accepting His Word as the rule of faith and life. (Reed, 307)

So it is, that when we look to our Epistle reading from Romans 12, the sermon becomes the practical answer to all of our Lord’s commands made to us there. How are we to live in harmony? By hearing and believing the same things from God, explained to us in the sermon. How are we to associate with the lowly? By hearing the exalted, un-hearable Word of God, spoken in our language.

In fact, you even overcome the evil in your own heart with the good of hearing God’s Word preached to you. Such is the power of preaching the cross of Christ, as we hear preached to us in 1 Cor. 1:18. Such is the strength of the forgiveness of Christ that it can be preached to all the world by mere men, as Jesus says in Luke 24:47.

So, there is a burden to the sermon. That it must be Christ’s words. We must be able to say and boast about it as Jeremiah does, that the Lord has put His words into the pastor’s mouth (1:9) and with Paul and all the Apostles, that God Himself has said this. For this reason, even a poor sermon is not incorrect, because it is God’s Word, not man’s, and He will confirm, praise, and crown it because He spoke through him and the Word is His.

This is something that God says we can trust Him with, so that we are not chasing after the man who sits in the office of preacher, but rather the Word. The true Faith pursues the Gospel, will wrestle all night for it, and will not let go until it receives forgiveness from Jesus’ hands.

The sermon gives us Christ, in words we can understand, to move us on to the Altar of God in confidence and in Christ.

The Gospel [Epiphany 2; St. John 2:1-11]

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For Jesus speaks to you today from His Gospel saying,

“When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from…”

The Treasure of treasures. The Gift of gifts. The Piece de resistance. The one thing that the Church guards and keeps as close as our heart and mind and soul and strength is the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Not gospel music, not gospel books, but the Gospel; the good news that Jesus justifies sinners by grace through faith, for His sake alone. 

In fact, in our Divine Service, the Gospel, the Creed, and the Sermon occupy the final step which pushes us towards God’s ultimate sign, revelation, and epiphany to us: that of His holy Supper. Such a deep connection exists between the Gospel and the Supper that the pastor is encouraged to read the Gospel slowly and chant the words of institution at the same speed to emphasize that point to the congregation.

So it is that today in the gospel book of St. John, Jesus turns water into wine; He turns Law into Gospel. He shows us that His top priority is our justification through the Gospel wherein we do not experience dull turmoil in life, neither are we going to eat bread by the sweat of our brow or produce thorns in the ground anymore. In creating wine, He creates gladness in the hearts of men and in giving wine to a wedding, He multiplies that gladness by a hundredfold.

Ps. 104:14-15 says: “You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man’s heart.” 

Ecclesiastes 10:19 “Men prepare a meal for enjoyment, and wine makes life merry, and money is the answer to everything.”

And Proverbs 31:6–7 says, “Give strong drink to the one who is perishing, and wine to those in bitter distress; let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more.”

So the first of the Gospel gifts that Jesus wishes to give to you in His Word and Sacrament is that of joy in the wine. And we find that wine set for us to drink and waiting on this very Altar. 

However, turning water into wine is not the final step nor is it the final sign that Jesus gives us to teach us His Gospel. It is only the first. The first step taken toward the Altar of God’s Gospel where now, in wine, unlimited joy is poured out of the chalice and it never runs dry. There are then 6 more steps, or signs, that Jesus gives to show us His true Gospel.

The next step up and the next revelation of the Gospel is 2 chapters further into St. John, chapter 4, with the healing of a nobleman’s son. The son did not just have a cold. He was terminal and eventually dies. Without even going to see the son, Jesus’ word saves the boy from afar, placing another gift on the Altar of the Supper; that of healing.

Gift number 3 is shown in chapter 5 of John, in which we see a man who is not whole, waiting for someone else to throw him in the pool at Bethesda, hoping that an angel will heal him, if he makes it in. But the man has no one to toss him in and he is severely crippled and un-whole, and so has suffered with this for 38 years. Jesus asks if he wishes to be made whole. 

Of course the man says yes and of course Jesus says he is whole and he becomes so, telling him to pick up his bed and walk. In this sign, Jesus makes whole what has been marred by sin and death. A man who can’t walk or save himself is now given the legs of the new creation. The third gift on the Lord’s Table is that of wholeness.

The fourth step up towards the Gospel, we hear in the Feeding of the 5000 men. I hope I don’t have to explain this one to you, but John 6 does all the explaining necessary. Not only is there now bread on the Lord’s Table, but it is the Bread of Heaven; the Body, the flesh of the divine: Jesus Christ. The fourth gift is that of the Body of Christ, given for you.

The fifth sign of the Gospel is in the same chapter 6 of St. John where Jesus walks on water. The disciples are crossing the sea without Jesus. Late into the journey, they see Jesus walking on the water, coming towards the boat. They are afraid, because now not only can Jesus multiply bread, but He can also command the wind and the waves to carry Him. Thus the fifth gift of the Gospel, set at the Supper for you, is that Jesus is both God and man. All God, all man, all the time, even in the Divine Service; even in the bread.

In the 6th sign, heard in John 9, Jesus heals the blind man. Now we have already had “healing” placed up on the Table, so that is not the gift this time. The gift comes as a two-for-one in this round, for Jesus does not simply heal this man’s blindness, He washes it away while giving the man a title to refer to Him: the Light of the World. 

Not only does Jesus wash the man, but He comes back later to give a Creed to the man. “Do you believe in the Son of God”, Jesus asks. The man replies, “I believe”. So the sixth gift is a washing of rebirth and renewal and a Creed to confess. You could almost call this the gift of catechism, that is a revelation of Faith and what belief is. So we lay this 6th gift on the table.

Our final gift of the Gospel needs no explanation, but I’m going to give one. It is revealed in John chapter 11 in the raising of Lazarus. So while we say yes, the Resurrection is in the Lord’s Supper, it is not simply the Resurrection as an idea, but a Resurrection for you. Jesus demands that death produce life. He calls out, not in a general sense, but to specific people. He calls you by name. “Come out”, “The Supper is ready” (Lk. 14:17). Let all those who have been invited, i.e. those who have been raised to new life by the gifts of God, come and eat a meal with no price (Isa. 55:1).

So the 7th gift is not just a resurrection, but a Resurrection given in the Supper and given to you as often as you eat and drink.

Now the Table is set for you to finally digest what the Gospel really is. In these 7 signs in which Jesus manifests His glory, we are not hearing magic tricks or acts of shock and awe, but intimate signs of revelation. That God’s glory is not to be accomplished through slight of hand or military feats, but will come in humility, the humility of God, and will come at a great price, not a price you will pay, but the price of the Body and Blood of Christ.

Do not be fooled into thinking that the Gospel is some musical genre that only certain, boisterous people can sing properly. Neither be tricked into believing that the Gospel is another set of Aesop’s Fables to guide us. The Gospel is sent to save you. The Gospel is sent to rescue you. The Gospel is sent to make that which has been lost and killed, found and alive again.

And where does this Gospel lead us? Where do these gifts urge us to step up to in order to find them and claim them as our own? The place we are led is obvious from St. John’s proclamation today: we are led to the Wedding. This makes perfect logical sense for, what have we accomplished so far? We have been placing gifts on a table. We have been witnessing its prep and its set-up. We see plates, cups, napkins. We hear music. We hear prayers. Yes the feast is already ready, indeed it has been going on since the beginning, continues in your presence today, and will never end for all eternity.

Unlimited joy, healing, wholeness, the Bread of Heaven, the Two Natures of Christ, the washing of rebirth and renewal, and the resurrection. These 7 gifts comprise a completeness that is unsurpassed on earth and in heaven, because this perfection comes from Christ Himself, is instituted by Christ, and is given by the Spirit of Christ to you.

Yes it is the Holy Spirit that moves in the Gospel, granting us justification and sanctification, not in taking us back to the cross, but in bringing the cross, and the gifts purchased and won there, forward to us. There are seven pillars that Wisdom has hewn (Prov. 9) in His Church and so there are 7 gifts of the Spirit. 

They are not the virtues of Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, and Fear of the Lord that the worldly catechism wishes us to believe they are. The gifts of the Spirit are the Gospel; the 7-in-1 in the 2-in-1 from the 3-in-1. The Spirit gives the Gospel in Jesus, Whom the Father has sent.

It is the Gospel that tells us that all these gifts are gathered. It is the Gospel that tells us that we are loved. It is the Gospel that lifts us into God’s presence, holy and justified in His Name. It is the Gospel that covers the multitude of our sins. It is the Gospel that converts the sinner and sustains him. It is the Gospel that brings heaven down to us. It is the Gospel that brings us hope’s light.

When we hear this Gospel in gospel music or gospel books, it is the Gospel. When we hear this in the Old Testament, it is the Gospel. It is not confined to what is labeled as “gospel”. Its only confinement is God’s Word and its only speaker and administrator is Christ. It is there, and only there, that there is any hope for us and this world.

The Epistle [Epiphany 1; St. Luke 2:42-52]

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For Jesus speaks to you today from His Gospel saying,

“And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.”

All of Jesus’ understanding and answers are given to us in the Gospels and the Epistles. In fact, so much teaching is found in the Epistles, that it has been falsely said of Christianity that without St. Paul, there would be no Christianity.

Indeed, St. Paul and the Apostles did use their letters for persuasion as well as teaching and preaching. Usually they follow a harsh menu and bring in a lot of practical points and tips. This is why many people focus more on the epistles than the Gospel, because in it are things to do.

This is what St. Paul is credited with. Jesus didn’t give a clear case for a religion, if He even was advocating for one scholars say, so St. Paul and the Apostles came and cleaned things up a bit. This is the trap. If you are simply looking for Christianity to be distinct from other religions by actions or love, then I have bad news for you.

This trap is large and spacious and we can see this even from the Epistle reading today:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. 3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. 4 For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, 5 so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. (Romans 12:1-5)

Just look at all the work St. Paul is religiously demanding in just 6 short verses. He is desperately appealing to us, wishing to stir up a deep emotional response in both action and reason. He is appealing to a higher power and its mercy, to prove that we should do as he says. That we should present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.

It then seems as if he goes on to give us the program to enact such a sacrifice: non-conforming mind renewal, testing, and discernment. Many Christians teach and live or die by this program they think is laid out here, even claiming to have the spiritual gifts to accomplish such feats of super-spirituality.

He goes on, appealing to grace this time in verse 3, to get you to be more humble, to be sober, and to have faith. And he convinces you by saying that we are all in this together, so why wouldn’t you want to help everybody?

All of the Epistles in the Bible could fall under the umbrella of any cult’s teachings, as any one can accomplish these same works without Christ. Also, for those who are only looking for works and love to single them out, without the Epistles there would be no Christianity for them.

Of course teaching is good. Of course living a life filled with love and obedience is better than the other options. But, we remain in our sinfulness if we think the Apostles are only giving us our best life now or if we think we need life changes to prove Christianity true.

The early Church never thought this way. The Old Testament and the Epistles were illumined by the Gospel and as such, they wanted to hear from both, next to the Gospel. As the years went by, the epistles paired better with the Gospel, probably because they were written within the same time period, and so it is that the greater portion of history that survived was those pairings.

In fact, the Epistle-Gospel pairings we hear even in our time, have been handed down to us in a near unbroken line for nearly 1300 years. If you look in the old hymnals, all each Service had was an Epistle reading and a Gospel reading. These readings have gone through more trial and error so that we can confidently say that we are hearing all that God wants us to hear, even though it is not the entire Bible!

The importance of the Epistle reading, then, is not its moral value or historic value, but its ability to preach the Gospel to us. The Apostles don’t give us a way to chose Jesus as our Savior, but a way to see how Jesus made Himself our Savior. The Epistles don’t tell us to decide between Jesus or sin, death, and hell, they decide for us that Jesus is already ours because of His actions and decisions.

I said earlier that the Epistles reveal to us what it was that Jesus was answering the teachers of Israel and we hear it even in this small space of the letter to the Romans. St. Paul doesn’t say “make your bodies holy”, he says “present them as holy”, as in they are already holy to begin with all you need do is present God with His own work, because He was the One Who made them holy in the first place. 

The Epistle does not demand that we just change the way our mind thinks or think of things from a different point of view. He demands a transformation, a renewal, both of which are impossible for us. Quite literally, the Word demands a transfiguration of the mind and a renewal of the Holy Spirit. Both of which are God’s work in you, when you hear the Word, because it is only Jesus who is transfigured and Jesus Who is renewed on Easter.

The equality and measure of faith spoken of in verse 3, along with everything else, all culminates in verse 5: the Body of Christ. Here is what caused all the teachers to be amazed, that God has a body and that He uses it to make His people holy, acceptable, and perfect, in Christ, by their access to Him.

The Body of God; the Body of Christ is the key to knowing what Jesus answered, because, like us, we want to hear God’s Word only as basic instructions before leaving earth, as opposed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, come in the flesh, to redeem sinful humanity, not by demanding vows and piety, but by offering and giving a transfiguration that only He undergoes and by sending a renewal that only His Spirit creates.

It was the Old Testament that led these teachers to Jesus and it is the Epistles that lead us to His understanding. That the Christ must suffer and die and three days later rise again. Is this not in the Epistles? Is this not taught, alluded to, and assumed in all of the Apostles letters? Yes. So much so, that Christianity does not need St. Paul to exist, neither was it necessary for St. Paul to make excuses for Jesus and create a new religion.

Instead, the Epistles exist to return us all to the Gospel. In likewise, and opposite fashion, the Old Testament exists to get us to the Gospel. Where the Old Testament gets us there by words only, the Epistles use word and deed, otherwise known as Word and Sacrament. Sacrament being the optative word used, because it means God is acting on His own with the things He wants to act with, for us.

The thing He uses is His Son, Who is amazed that more people don’t realize that He must be in His Father’s house, among His Father’s things, doing the work of saving His Father’s creatures. He is also amazed that sinful humanity feels such a strong need for answers that they are willing to kill God on a cross to get them.

The Epistles then amaze us by reminding us that our God was made flesh so that when we hear about “found Him in the Temple” and “sitting among the teachers” and “asking them questions”, we can believe that He does these things among us as one of us. That we have a God Who creates such a world that we might find Him as easily as we would find a child in a group of adults.

Gifts for you [Epiphany; Ephesians 3:1-12]

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True Food (#Fullofeyes)

Jesus speaks to you today saying:

“This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

It is to this eternal purpose that Jesus, the virgin-born-Son, summons the Wise Men to Himself and accepts their gifts all to show that this is an historic, global purpose and plan. It is a plan that is recorded in history. It is a plan that includes all people. And most importantly, it is a plan that includes us, who don’t have a manger to visit with gifts.

We are going to focus on our Epistle reading this evening to find out just what this purpose is and what it has to do with us, so bear with me for a bit here while I set it up. The phrase “eternal purpose” literally means “that which is set before the ages”. What’s interesting here is that the word for “purpose” or “Set before” is the same word the Old Testament uses to describe the bread that is continually set before God, in the Temple, the Showbread.

This dual meaning of “purpose” and “set before” sheds light on Epiphany and the role that God has given us in His Church. So, you must notice that St. Paul does not fail to mention where this eternal purpose takes place, in v.10, that is in the Church and through the Church. As in, we are not finding God’s purpose anywhere else.

St. Paul further cements the idea that we are in Church by giving us his pastoral titles, that of “prisoner”, “steward”, and “minister”. And that he is a pastor of this “mystery” that he mentions a few times. In the early Church, when referring to the “mystery”, it always meant the Sacrament of the Altar. The mystery then, is not just that God includes the gentiles, as Ephesians says, but how He includes them, i.e. with bread and wine in Church.

The Lord’s eternal purpose is still wrapped up in Temple services with the Showbread, if only as a shadow of what we hold, this Epiphany. Because, it has always been the plan, always been God’s purpose to transfer His holiness to us gentiles. In the case of the Showbread, the Lord’s sanctification happened in 3 steps:

First, God made the Altar, the sanctuary, and the food from the Altar, holy Himself. In Leviticus 22 we hear: “They shall not profane the holy things of the people of Israel, which they contribute to the Lord, and so cause them to bear iniquity and guilt, by eating their holy things: for I am the Lord who sanctifies them” (v.15-16)

Second, He sanctified the high priest and all priests by their consumption of said holy food, as we hear Him say, “It shall not be baked with leaven. I have given it as their portion of my food offerings. It is a thing most holy, like the sin offering and the guilt offering. Every male among the children of Aaron may eat of it, as decreed forever throughout your generations, from the Lord's food offerings. Whatever touches them shall become holy” (Lev. 6:17-18).

Finally, the Lord consecrates all of His people through their involvement in His Divine Service and their own consumption of the holy food from their offerings as in Leviticus 21:8, “You shall sanctify him, for he offers the bread of your God. He shall be holy to you, for I, the Lord, who sanctify you, am holy.”

Thus God communicates His holiness physically with His people through His holy things. By the people’s access to the holy things, the people shared in God’s holiness, meaning His holiness becomes their own.

Jump forward to the Magi offering their gifts. In light of this revelation of the Showbread in Ephesians, the eternal purpose set in front of God; though it looks as if the Magi are offering gifts to Jesus to appease Him and show their devotion and piety, it is the opposite. They are offering gifts, but Jesus is making them holy and He is doing so in unprecedented openness and vulnerability, being but a toddler at the time.

I mean, compared to the steps and hoops to jump through in the Old Testament, to just be able to walk up to God in the flesh and bring whatever you got in your saddle bags just blows the mind. Yet, this meeting between God and man, with no barriers, is exactly what St. Paul is talking about in verse 12 of the Epistle. 

Dear Christians, in Christ you are now the Magi that come from all over. You are now the ones who stand in the presence of the God Who is present to commune. Your boldness and confidence stems from the simple fact that you have been baptized. You would not dare to come close to this Altar otherwise. 

In the Incarnation of our Lord, the epiphany is that God brings the holiness and wherever He is becomes holy because of Him. In this Epiphany light, we can say that the gentiles are fellow heirs, because Christ died and lives for them. In the Epiphany light, we can glorify God in our body, in sin or even in death, for not only has our sin been covered, but even death has been made to produce life.

And all of this has been brought in front of you as if you were the most important person in the universe. This Showbread from heaven sits in His Church, accepts your gifts of sin and death, all while radiating His own holiness and righteousness, communicating it to you, giving it to you on account of His work.

This is all a part of the great reversal. If we were a pagan religion, it would be up to us to find this mystery or to simply let it be as a metaphor. We would have to bring our brightest and best in hopes that it would please God, keeping the lights on so He’s not left in the dark, and leaving food out for Him to eat.

In Christ, it is the Almighty that gives the brightest and best to you in His Son. In Christ, it is the Almighty keeping the lamps lit to show His presence and remind you there is still time to repent in His Church. In Christ, it is the Lord Who leaves food out for you so that you approach Him with boldness or meekness.

Either way, hearing , believing, and approaching you receive God’s holiness. In the Divine Service, you do not go visit Jesus with the Magi, but Jesus comes to you and brings you to the foot of His Incarnation and every event connected to it, not just one. In Christ, all 2000 years of the Church happens all at once as we hear the Gospel, remember our baptism, and feast on the eternal Showbread of God’s holiness, Himself.

The OT [Christmas 2; St. Matthew 2:13-23]

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Jesus speaks to you all through His Gospel, saying:

“This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet,

‘Out of Egypt I called my son.’”

On this 12^th day of Christmas, something has triggered you to fly off the handle at someone. Maybe it was a funeral. Maybe its a baptism. What triggers the world is 12 Christians praying in freedom and peace. For Christians, their trigger is the Old Testament. Now before you say, “How dare you, pastor”, how many times do you turn to the Old Testament in your personal study of God’s Word for something more than moral encouragement?

It turns out that God seemed to be pretty strict in the Old Testament and it was triggering some Jewish converts who were then, in turn, triggering gentile converts, in the book of Acts with all of its strict demands. The Jewish converts wanted the Old Testament laws continued and the gentiles were preaching grace and inclusion without the laws.

So what is an early Church to do? It holds the first ecumenical council in Jerusalem in 50 AD and decides, unilaterally and universally, that most of the Old Testament was not applicable to converts and that the gentiles are included the same way the Jews are included, in Acts 15. Thus begins a battle that rages even to this day: deciding what the value of the Old Testament is.

In the 2^nd c., the battle rages on when a Christian bishop named Marcion proposed throwing out the entire Jewish Bible and never hearing from it again in Christian Churches. As time goes on, super-spiritualism began to creep into churches and teachers of God’s Word kept Marcion’s teaching alive, favoring finding the god within, as opposed to the objective God in the Word. There are still people today that want to do this and that teach this.

So it is that the Church found herself for awhile, without an Old Testament reading, having found that the Epistles and the Gospels harmonize much better. The old TLH hymnal is a testament to this, only using Epistle and Gospel readings. This is not to say that the Old Testament was never heard from, but that it was relegated to the daily offices and lesser services of the Church as opposed to the High Mass.

And we can get on board with that. Not only have we been set free from the Law (Rom. 8:2), but Christ has fulfilled the prophets, so what need do we have of hearing these old, jewish stories which may or may not line up with the command to love, as Jesus gives us? Plus, we have things to do on Sundays. Can’t sit all day and listen to God…

Or can we? Or are we supposed to? Indeed, if we are to be followers of Jesus, then all we should listen to is the Old Testament. That’s all He had back then, after all. Whenever Jesus or the Apostles mention Holy Scripture or the Bible in any way, they are only referring to the books of the Old Testament. 

When Jesus goes to the Temple or synagogue to teach, He teaches from the Old Testament. In Luke 4, the scroll of Isaiah was handed to Jesus and He read from Isaiah 61: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”

It is this Scripture that was heard and is heard today and it is this Scripture, from the Old Testament that is fulfilled even in our hearing. It is this same Scripture that Jesus says only speaks of Him, in Luke 24. 

Turn to all three of our readings for today. St. Matthew quotes the Old Testament twice. Not just to show off how much he knows about the Bible, but to give us Jesus. For the Egypt quote from Hosea 11 may seem to talk about Israel, but it is talking about Jesus returning for us.

In the quote from Jeremiah, it appears as if he is only giving bad news, but in the next verse in Chapter 31, Jesus says that those children are going to return from the land of their enemy, death. Another verse of hope. Another verse about Jesus from the Old testament.

In our Epistle, St. Peter chooses Proverbs 11 to quote, because the righteous Jesus is scarcely saved, being raised from 3 days in tomb, but the ungodliness and sin that He took upon Himself, caused Him to suffer and die on the cross.

Even the Old Testament is full of Old Testament quotes!

Jesus is the Messiah, not from the New, but from the Old. Jesus is the Crucified and Resurrected from the Old and the New. Jesus justifies us and gives us His Spirit in the New, as Kelton taught us this morning. 

It was not in the Old that we baptized our children, it was only things that we baptized. In the Old, God only interacted with things, in the New He interacts directly with people. He says that what was imitated poorly in the Old, is revealed in the New and is to be given to people.

It took “God made man” to get us to realize that we need to be baptizing our children, that we need to be showing them Jesus from both Testaments, and that we need to love our Old Testament. Not just because “that’s what Christians do”, but because we have heard the Lord in it, we have found Jesus in it, and we have believed that from it comes our salvation in Body and Blood.

Going back to our reading from Genesis today, we hear a very important point in verse 4. God tells Jacob to not be afraid of going to live in Egypt, not just in a “pull up your bootstraps” way and deal with it. God tells Jacob to not be afraid, because He is going with him. The Father tells Jesus to not be afraid, because He is going to call Him back from Egypt.

We too should not be afraid to dwell in the midst of sin, death, and even to read the Old Testament, because God is going with us and will bring us out again. He will take us down to things we don’t understand, like sin and death, and bring us up to show us His Son, baptizing and feeding us salvation we can understand, but not without the Old Testament.