A life to live [Lent 4]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Exodus 16:2-21

• Galatians 4:21-31

• St. John 6:1-15

Grace to you and peace. (1 Thess 1)
 
Jesus speaks to you on this day from His Gospel heard, saying:
“And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, ‘Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.’”
 
When Jesus says, “take and eat” does that make you wanna run to your closet for more Bible study or does it make you want to find a meal?
 
When the devil comes to tempt you, it is always in a way that you will believe him. He wastes no time. So we should not be too proud of ourselves when we resist a big lie, because there are many more small ones already at work in us.
 
One of those small ones is doubt. When I say small, I just mean harder to detect. Doubt is actually a huge issue for everyone and its obvious in the way we gravitate towards popular opinions and fads. The doubt we are going to address today is going to be the doubt of scientific evidence.
 
The devil wants you to doubt where you live. He wants you to question the ground you stand on and the environment that sustains you. He wants you to believe that you are a spinning ball of nothingness and that there is life-threatening danger where you can not see or test, but experts will be sent to you to confirm these fears.
 
When that happens, the main teaching is to doubt what you can see, hear, taste, smell, and touch. The expert drapes a fleece over his teachings so that you have to trust him. Don’t worry that your eyes don’t see what's happening, he can see it, so just believe.
 
As a result of that, we are adrift in a vacuum of nothingness, and seemingly have no choice but to give the expert all our money and read his books about what’s really happening in the world, because what do we know?
 
What kind of world does this create for someone? Not only are you paralyzed with fear, unable to function and think, and ready to throw everyone under the bus so that you can be safe and secure, but now nothing is real. Not even God.
 
In this world, the Israelites will not be receiving bread from heaven, in the Old Testament reading, and we agree with them. They are in a desert. There is no irrigation for vegetation. And they are wandering around. Bread comes from planting and harvesting. That can’t happen if we are always moving. 
 
Yeah, we know, God is spiritual and supernatural, but the experts all agree, bread comes from wheat and wheat comes from the ground. Yes, God “gives us our daily bread”, but He does that through farmers.
 
In this world, the Israelites will also not be receiving quail in the evening. Nothing lives out in this dessert. This is not even a quail’s habitat. The experts all agree that quails live in woodlands, croplands, and open spaces that are covered with bushes such as grasslands and farmlands, not deserts. There may have been migrating birds at night, that were easy to catch, though.
 
This small doubt about what you can determine for yourself on where you live, snowballs into the big doubt of God in the world. It does not stop with “natural science”. It quickly and purposefully moves to supernatural science, ready with all sorts of opinions and expert papers, unverifiable by anyone outside of their field of study.
 
As it attacks God’s Word, it goes like this:
we do not know:

• Whether Christ’s institution of the Sacrament was actually “on the night He was betrayed.”

• Whether the Last Supper was a Passover meal so that Jesus could be seen as the Passover lamb that takes away the sin of the world.

• Whether the Last Supper was one event or a composite of multiple events. Three events are given as probable. In some treatments, even post-resurrection events are folded into the composite.

• What Jesus actually did during the institution of His Supper.

We also don’t know:

• Whether it was an actual event, or something created retrospectively by a subsequent theology of the cross.

• Whether Jesus said, “Do this.” Instead, this is seen as being added to the text for liturgical necessity.

• Whether all of the disciples drank of the cup, because it is too hard to believe, and it must be an embellishment by the evangelists.

• Whether Jesus took the cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, since that might have been added to the text for the sake of liturgical parallelism.

 
By all this, the Sacrament, Jesus feeding us, is nothing more than table fellowship that Jesus practiced with sinners and disciples on multiple occasions, interrupted by the crucifixion, and resumed in the resurrection. As such, it is unrelated to the events of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.
 
And this is current, popular Biblical scholarship, widely accepted by just about everyone, even churches, simply because the experts say-so. Imagine God being this way! You can’t. And that’s the point. God can’t exist in the face of so much scholarship and so He doesn’t, they conclude for you.
 
Repent. This same doubt trickles down into your own study of God’s Word. You also will read or hear about bread and quail from heaven, but you will keep it on paper. You also hear of a feeding of 5000, but you don’t ever think to look for it. You read about faith, but what does that have to do with you?
 
Dear Christians, it is the Incarnation of God that takes all the venom out of the devil’s temptations. This is because, even in the very beginning of the story, God doesn’t just say nice things, He does what He says. In the beginning He created man, male and female, He created them. At the end, He becomes one.
 
This is how the Lord combats any and all doubt as to what we live on or whether or not God is out there. He doesn’t just leave the idea on pen and paper, He makes it happen. Jesus doesn’t wait for the crops to produce fruit or the birds to migrate. He feeds His people. Now.
 
In the Incarnation of God, the Lord is not just giving ideas, He is creating a life to be lived.
 
Psalm 78:19-20 “Then they spoke against God; They said, ‘Can God prepare a table in the wilderness? Behold, He struck the rock so that waters gushed out, And streams were overflowing;
Can He give bread also? Will He provide meat for His people?’”
 
Hear that doubt! Things on paper or in your head will always create doubt as to whether or not they even exist. God is not a God on paper only, but in Body and Blood. Psalm 23 answers 78, saying, “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever” (v.5-6). So look for that house.
 
God prepares the table in that house. Not through a servant, not through natural science which He created, and not by chance. He prepares the table Himself, in person, immediately, and purposefully. For though He only fed the lost children of Israel in the desert, and He only fed the 5000 on the mountainside, today He feeds billions.
 
You’d think that after Christ’s ascension to the right hand of God that He would disappear into the abstract again, but you would be wrong. He ascended to Bodily be everywhere at once. To be at all promised meals, to be in every word of His Gospel, and to be there in every doubt.
 
Jesus purchases the forgiveness of sins on the cross in order that the Holy Spirit use His means to get them to you. Man does not live on bread alone, but on every Word that comes from the mouth of God, because now every word that comes from the mouth of God is attached to His Holy Supper and the Bread which is His flesh.
 
Here now, we see the devil routed. His temptations to doubt cannot stand in the face of a fulfilled promise. God said there would be bread and quail from heaven and there was. God said, “If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that” (James 2:15-16) and so provides a neighbor to love as yourself.
 
Jesus says, “Take and eat; take and drink” and lo and behold a meal is set before you, begging you to doubt. But there is no room for doubt anymore, because God’s world is full to the brim of Himself and His Church and the sacraments are proof of that.
 
 Does the natural earth produce grain and nature produce meat in time? Yes. But the holy meal set before you today has no such cycle. Its root is the Root of Jesse. Its lifeblood, is the Spirit of Life. Its body is the true Vine and its fruit is the fruit of the Tree of Life. God has planted Himself on earth, in Christ, and now grows Faith from there.
 
 The life of doubt and chaos and uncertainty is of sin. Sin that cannot see past a written word or a nice idea, will be stuck in the secret closet, believing that God has forsaken this life. We heard His promise made to us on Ash Wednesday from Joel 2:19:
“The Lord will answer and say to His people, ’Behold, I am going to send you grain, new wine and oil, and you will be satisfied in full with them; And I will never again make you a reproach among the nations.’” Speaking of the Sacrament of the Altar.
 
The life of Faith is a sacramental life. When the crowd in John 6 heard about the bread of heaven, they naturally thought that actual bread was going to show up, and He did. When Jesus talked about living water, He said, “but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14) and the woman at the well expected water to show up, and He did.
 
When God declares us to hear His Word and believe it, He causes Scripture to be written and also sends His only begotten Word to suffer and die and rise again from the dead, for you. God’s created world has meaning and you have meaning. 
 
The meaning is found in the union of God and man in one Christ and His union of spiritual and physical in His sacraments. So when you are diligently studying God’s Word, do as it says. All of what it says, for the forgiveness of sins, to everlasting life, found only in the bread and wine of God’s Word, given for you.
 
 

Destroyer Malakh YHWH [Wed. in Lent 3]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• 1 Chronicles 21:1-30

• Hebrews 11:32-40

 

Grace to you and peace. (1 Thess 1)
 
Jesus speaks to you on this day from His book of 1 Chronicles heard, saying:
“And David built there an altar to the Lord and presented burnt offerings and peace offerings and called on the Lord, and the Lord answered him with fire from heaven upon the altar of burnt offering. Then the Lord commanded the angel, and he put his sword back into its sheath.”
 
Before tonight, we have discovered that the Malakh YHWH has been gentle and kind. With Gideon, He strengthened and encouraged him to believe and trust in the Lord. With Samson’s parents, He announced the wonderful and happy birth of a son. 
 
Tonight, however, the tables have been flipped and the whip of cords takes to the air. The Malakh YHWH becomes the Destroying Angel with a sword. We’re not going to talk about David’s sin of the census, suffice to say it was done in unbelief and at satan’s request, as verse 1 said. 
 
So we are dealing with unbelief tonight, not simple doubting as Gideon and Samson’s parents. And when sin shows it ugly, death-filled grin, it must be destroyed. There will be no sin at God’s side which is comforting if we are going to be spending eternity next to Him!
 
Our first reference to the Malakh YHWH comes at verse 12, of the Old Testament reading, where He is the last of three choices offered to King David as punishment for his transgression. This is the choice the king chooses, saying something so profound that you should put it on your list of verses to memorize.
 
He says in verse 13: “Let me fall into the hand of the Lord, for His mercy is very great, but do not let me fall into the hand of man.”
 
This is not the first time that God has shown His serious side. The most memorable example would be Moses and Pharaoh and the 10 plagues. Remember that the final plague was the death of all the first born not protected by the blood of the Lamb. But Who was it going through Egypt doing the destruction?
 
Exodus 12:12 says, “For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord.”
 
And v.23: “For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you.”
 
And there is our Destroyer angel again. This time, He is directly linked to the Lord, to YHWH, as if they were one and the same.  And what He does is within the scope of the work of God, that His enemies are not people, but unbelief; sin, death, and the devil and that He wants the sinner to turn from his evil and live.
 
But the devil and his armies are not idle. They seek to devour those who remain steadfast in the faith (1 Pet 5:8). As we sang at the beginning of this evening, the hungry billows of sin and death are curling and rising around the Lord’s Ark. The fiery darts blot out the sun. Who will stand and fight?
 
The Malakh YHWH, the Destroyer, will stand. And even if He is cut down He will stand up again. By virtue of His resurrection, we as well, if we are cut down, we will be made alive. Whether we live or die, we live. 
 
And this is the Way. Suffering, then glory. Back to 1 Chronicles, the Malakh YHWH pauses the destruction in order to stand upon a threshing floor and wait. Wait for what? For an altar to be built and a sacrifice placed upon it. 
 
What is so special about this threshing floor that an offering here puts an end to the punishment? This threshing floor becomes the foundation of the Lord’s Temple to be built by Solomon, later on.
 
But the Temple of God is not built by human hands, because it is not built at all but revealed. Revealed to be the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Who cares for His people and king David so much, that He is unwilling to allow even a mite of sin and suffering into His Kingdom.
 
At this threshing floor, for the making of Bread, the leaven of heaven comes to earth to take all pestilence onto Himself, and in return offering the Bread of heaven. At this holy Altar, the Destroyer Malakh YHWH sheaths His sword, when He sees the Blood of Faith upon the faithful. 
 
At Eden, because of the Old Adam, the sword was unsheathed. At Golgotha, because of the new Adam, the sword that was whole is broken to pieces. Christ subjects Himself to the flail of the threshing floor, being scourged, and suffers all pestilence dying on the cross, in order to present sinful David with fruit from the Tree of life. 
 
But David did not see this fulfillment in his lifetime. As our Hebrews reading says, “And all these [men], though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.”
 
We and king David do not understand the seriousness of God until after the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. We and king David do not understand the level of purity required by the Father, before the crucifixion of His only begotten Son. 
 
We do not understand the actions of the Malakh YHWH until Jesus comes to overturn the tables on the cross and take the whip of cords upon His own back. The wrath of the destruction of the Malakh YHWH falls on Jesus and in that act, He is victorious over all His enemies.
 
David and Israel retain their sin and so are subject to temporal punishment. However, in Christ, David, Israel, and we are justified by grace, through faith, for Christ’s sake. And by His Body and Blood, we are stood at the threshing floor of the Lamb of God, slain to win the forgiveness of sins for the whole world.
 

The ole Switcharoo [Lent 3]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Jeremiah 26:1-15

• Ephesians 5:1-9

• St. Luke 11:14-28

Grace to you and peace. (1 Thess 1)

 

Jesus speaks to you on this day from His Gospel heard, saying:

“Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.”

I have never liked this Gospel reading. Up to today, I have always seen the problem that we have with satan and his angels. That they can appear fair, they can make nice things happen, and can do “good” in order to deceive everyone. In this case, there could be an exorcism done where a demon casts out a demon.

Jesus tells us that false Christs will come, in St. Matthew 24, saying, “For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray” (v.24). Just what are these great signs and wonders? Exactly everything that Jesus and His Apostles did to prove the Word of God true, including casting out demons or baptism.

Why will so many be deceived? They refused to love the truth. 2 Thessalonians 2:9-10, NIV. "The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved."

How do we love the truth and not be deceived by the devil’s chicanery? We think that if we focus on results, that we will see the difference. That anything that happens that produces a good result and helps us progress in our lives is heavenly and anything that hurts or harms is of da debil.

The devil can fake good. He can make it so that it appears as if he is dividing his house in casting out demons, just to spite Jesus at His Word, when really its all just an act. He can make it so miracles and great wonders happen to you. He can save you from that accident, he can fabricate a medical miracle, he can even send you what looks like your grandma to give you advice and we feel good about all of that.

In this life of sin, you look for relief, you look for pragmatic results. Something immediate that you can turn to and say, see God really does love me and this proves that I believe in Him. Because something practical has happened, you base your belief on that.

Repent. The Lord says in 2 Corinthians 11:3-4, “But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.”

Listen. Another Jesus, another spirit, another Gospel. We immediately head to the pragmatic and measurable when we think of God’s goodness towards us. We want that practical sign from heaven, demand it. But that is not what Jesus says in the Gospel and it is not what the people marvel at. 

The devil can and does fake the pragmatic, putting our focus on ourselves and making us shift our faith into signs and wonders. The Key to understanding the difference is understanding that the crowd marveled at the speaking of the man after his exorcism, as in what he spoke about.

Yes, it is a miracle that a mute man speaks. But marveling is saved for revelations of God in Christ. So what this man is speaking is important. And we have clues as to what this is from other, similar exorcisms Jesus has done. 

In St. Mark 7, another man who was mute was released from that prison by Jesus. Afterwards it says that “his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly” (7:35). This “plainly” is better translated as “correctly” and better yet, as “orthodoxy”. 

Which means that when we hear verse 23 from our Gospel, “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters” we hear the true purpose of exorcism: to give Faith. The true purpose is not to fulfill some tiny wish of temporary satisfaction, but to be with Jesus and to be gathered with Him.

The Other Jesus, a.k.a. satan, promises strength and prosperity now, because you follow A, B, and C. The other spirit promises spiritual gifts, Apostolic gifts, now, so long as you follow and bow down. The other gospel promises favor so long as you uphold your end of the bargain.

Dear Christians, there is but one Jesus. One Lord, one Faith, one baptism. One God Who is made man in order to expose satan’s kingdom for the sham that it is, and suffer and die to fulfill all righteousness for you. 

Had we been accused of casting out demons by Beelzebub, we would have no proof to offer to the contrary. It would be our word against theirs. Jesus Christ is the Word. He is the Truth that shines the light on exorcisms and baptisms. 

So it is that when we encounter any wonder or exorcism or baptism, we are to prove it by hearing God’s Word, as Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it”. Faith separates false exorcisms from true exorcisms. Though we may see practical effects in our lives resulting from baptism, and the demon cast out of course, the sign that the Holy Spirit is working and not satan is faith to confess Christ Crucified.

This is the confession of the mute man that speaks freely after his exorcism. He speaks of Christ and His Church. He speaks of unlimited mercy and forgiveness. He speaks of the miracles of the Gospel creating faith in those who hear it and the grace found in the water.

Jesus comes to fulfill all righteousness by taking on the world’s sins and paying the full price to cover them up and by dwelling and living with you. A true exorcism involves Jesus being close, not just good things happening to you afterwards. A true baptism includes a strengthening of faith to see Jesus where and when He promises to be and to speak with Jesus because He is that near.

To not just leave this up to how emotional we can get to “prove Jesus is close”, the Lord leaves us with a gathering, as He said.. This gathering is His Church who, in turn, gathers around His presence. His presence that He promises in Word and Sacrament.

No longer do we have nowhere to point when asked “where is Jesus”. No longer must we feel insecure about our feelings when asked to give a reason for our hope. Jesus settles in His own house, opens up the bulletin, and declares, “The Lord be with you”.

The house that is built on the Rock: His Gospel preached in its purity and His Sacraments administered according to it, stands. We who now enter through the Rock, hear the Gospel, and are washed and eat and drink according to it, also stand. In boldness and confidence we stand, because now we can point.

When satan begins exorcising or even raising the dead, we can say, “My Jesus is forgiving sins”. When satan is performing wonders and filling bellies, we can say, “My Christ is filling us with His Body and Blood.” When satan is offering a clean slate, a great reset, we can say, “I am baptized into Christ.”

In Christ Crucified through His Gospel and Sacraments He suffered and died to purchase and win for us, there are no more questions or doubts as to who is casting out demons. When a demon is pulled out of a person, when the unclean spirit departs, and when sins are forgiven for the 490th time, that person immediately wants to hear of Jesus.

This newborn Child of Light now wants words of truth to repeat with his own lips, hymns to sing at the top of his lungs, and prayers to hurl against the darkness. And Christ’s Church provides, from the youngest to the oldest. In this way, the Way, Jesus places us with Him. He takes us from darkness, which we love, into His Light. And His Spirit and His means, in Baptism and Communion, keep us there by virtue of the Father’s love towards His only Son, Jesus Christ.

Samson and the Malakh YHWH [Wed in Lent 2]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Judges 13:1-24

• St. John 18:1-8

  

Grace to you and peace. (1 Thess 1)
 
Jesus speaks to you on this day from His book of Judges heard, saying:
“And when the flame went up toward heaven from the altar, the angel of the Lord went up in the flame of the altar. Now Manoah and his wife were watching, and they fell on their faces to the ground.”
 
Last week, we saw the Malakh YHWH (Angel of the Lord) interact with Gideon the same way the angel interacted with Zachariah in Luke 1 and the same way Jesus interacted with His disciples on the Road to Emmaus, being revealed in the breaking of bread (Luke 24).
 
We concluded that this Angel of the Lord was something more than an angel and something more than a man, almost Jesus Himself, since He taught that the Old Testament was all about Him.
 
This evening, we ponder the Malakh YHWH and Samson, and take our understanding of God’s Word a step further in the word “pre-incarnate”. Pre-incarnate simply means “before He was made man”. It doesn’t mean, “before He existed” as in Jesus was just another created being like us and the angels. It means that we believe the Gospel according to St. John 1 when he says that Jesus was around in the beginning with God and He was God and He was working.
 
Colossians 1 also gets us to believe in the Pre-Incarnate Christ saysing, “…He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (v.17). 
And Hebrews 1: “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, ² but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world” and “of the Son he says, ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever’” (v. 1-2, 8).
 
Even Ezekiel gave us plenty of warning of the activity of Jesus before His birth saying, “In the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I sat in my house, with the elders of Judah sitting before me, the hand of the Lord God fell upon me there. Then I looked, and behold, a form that had the appearance of a man...He put out the form of a hand and took me by a lock of my head, and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and brought me in visions of God to Jerusalem” (8:1-3).
 
And with that “lock of the head”, we are brought directly to Samson, who is famous for his hair. Maybe Samson had long hair just so God could yank on it, thinking of how his life ended.
 
In any case, Judges 13 sets the same scene as Abraham hearing about the birth of Isaac, Zachariah hearing of the birth of John the Baptist, and St. Mary hearing about the birth of Jesus. All were announced by angels and Samson’s parents get the Malakh YHWH treatment. 
 
Much the same as Gideon, there is a Divine Service offered here, in Judges 13. But, before that the announcement of a son. The son who was to be born of a woman who had never had children before and who was to be called a Nazarene (hear: Nazareth). Spoken by the Angel Who accepts offerings offered to God and ascends towards heaven. 
 
It would be sufficient for this evening to finish here as long as you are seeing all these similarities. Because time would fail us if we were “to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets” who all had a role in interacting with and communing with God.
 
And it is sufficient to see that communion is taking place even before Christ institutes His Supper. Why? 1, because it means God really doesn’t change, 2, that the God of the OT and the God of the NT are the same, 3, that Jesus is doing nothing new or novel, and 4, that everyone being included was always part of the plan. 
 
This is the case with our Malakh YHWH. The Father sent no angel to our race of higher or of lower state. He sent His only-begotten Son, Who was always doing the work. In the work, activity, and words of the Malakh YHWH we hear and see this truth. And even though the OT writers were afraid of making a man or angel out of God, as Samson’s parents were, later revelation by Jesus makes it so that God is made man.
 
Such that when we get to the handing over and arrest of Jesus, in St. John 18, we hear Him speak the same words from Judges 13. Samson’s parents are searching for a son and the Malakh YHWH declares that they will have a son and he will be a Nazarene.
 
When the thugs from the Temple come in Gethsemane, Jesus asks them who they are looking for. And true to form, they have nothing to answer Him with except God’s Word. That is “We seek the Nazarene”.

You are now children [Lent 2]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Genesis 32:22-32

• 1 Thessalonians 4:1-7

• St. Matthew 15:21-28

 

Grace to you and peace. (1 Thess 1)

 

Jesus speaks to you on this day from His Gospel heard, saying:

“It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.”

 

Last week, we came up against the hard wall of politics in church, that they must be talked about lest we begin to hate our brother because of them. And because of our sin, we must face this impossible task 7 times 70 times and make respect and forgiveness a way of life.

 

Today we join the Canaanite woman in this same struggle. The struggle of doing the same thing over and over again, yet expecting a different result. The very definition of insanity and the very same insult and accusation we hurl at our brothers on the other side of the political aisle.

 

The simplest way to understand this, though not the only way by far, is to try and understand the addict and his struggle. “This time I’ll beat it”, he says and doesn’t. Or “this time I am strong enough to encounter my substance again”. Each and every time the devil calls him back, promising a different result. And each and every time, our poor man is defeated. Insanity.

 

Another way to look at this struggle would be war or murder. We think that if we just go to war to rid ourselves of our enemy, then we can rest. And what starts you on this path is that you feel you have been wronged somehow and so you are “getting them back” for what they did to you. But your actions produce the same effect in someone else. A never ending cycle of hate, murder and revenge. Insanity.

 

However, do not make the mistake of thinking that it is only in these large, public sins that insanity takes hold of you, thus if you just avoid those, you’ll be safe. Sin has such a hold on you that it is your addiction, whatever form it takes. It is what you return to over and over again, as a dog returning to its vomit (2 Pet 2:22) expecting something different.

 

And I would say, that the public sins are easier to handle than the sins you keep to yourself. Public sins demand accountability, whereas secret sins can be kept close, to return to often, with no one the wiser. Insanity.

 

It appears as if God does not help today either, from our Gospel. The Canaanite woman must return to Jesus over and over, beg multiple times, and debase herself, humiliate herself. Along with all of us, she smashes her head against that wall again and again, crying out for something, begging for a difference this time.

 

Similarly, hear the parable of the persistent widow from St. Luke 8:

“In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’” And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily.” (Lk 8:2-8)

 

Repent. In our sin, we hear God telling us to continue to beat our head against a wall concerning God as well and maybe He’ll answer. We strive against the evil of this world and the evil we find welling up inside of us and are crushed by their weight. We hear God saying, “Don’t give up” and we conclude that He is never going to answer.

 

What we miss, is that God has not put up a wall that only a few, special, spiritual elite get through. What the persistent widow, the Canaanite woman, and what we beat on is not a wall, but a door. Not just any door, but the door that isn’t a door. The door of which it is said:

 

So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door…If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture” (St. John 10:7-9).

 

This is the power of the gift of faith and this is the care and concern we sang about in our Hymn of the Day. That is that we hear the Word of God and believe it. Believe that when He promises action and mercy on His part that He is not slow to act, as some consider slowness (2 Pet 3:9). And thank God, because the wall between the sinner and God is not even tangible, but invisible, which makes it even worse for us who are in the body.

 

In Christ, God is beaten upon. Jesus is the door upon which we knock to beg for justice and mercy. And Jesus is beaten; stricken, smitten and afflicted. In Christ, we are allowed, invited, to beat upon our God and Lord to such an extent that in the end, His Body and Blood cover us and we find mercy in those wounds, through Faith.

 

Jesus suffering and dying is the result of our sinful persistence, at God’s command, as Isaiah 53:10 says, “It pleased Him to crush Him.” This is the hysterics and insanity of our sin: that God present Himself to us, ready to show mercy, and we crucify Him.

 

But do not lose heart, dear Christians! For while it is good to agonize over our sinfulness and realize the horror of them, better it is to be raised by Christ Crucified. And herein is the real lesson of the Canaanite woman, who appears to be oppressed by God. That her sinful persistence is changed into Faithful Persistence. And that faith bows her down in the dust of her addiction to sin, but Jesus says to her in that state, “It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.”

 

And Faith hears it this way: “I cannot give the children’s bread to those who think and act like dogs”, meaning Jesus wants us to believe that though we were dogs in our sin, we are children at His say-so. Jesus cannot give children-bread to dogs, but He can and does recreate us as children that we might eat the children-bread.

 

And the woman believes! She responds that even dogs eat children-bread. That is that even sinners will be welcomed by God to the children’s table. That Christ has not come to deny Himself to anyone, but He has come to open Himself to the sin of the world, take that beating upon the cross, all in order to turn dogs into children; sinners into saints.

 

This day, you find yourself beating upon the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ, true God and true man, not because you are insane, but because you know God promises mercy and that He gives it fully and completely in Christ, both in this life and the next.

 

There is no insanity in repeatedly beating upon the true Door, for it is unlocked and open by virtue of the Crucified Christ. It is not a wall, forever closed, but a door meant to be opened and meant to be passed through. The Canaanite woman, by faith, knows that no matter how insane life becomes, the Door will open for her.

 

The world does not promise blessing. The Door, Who is Christ, does. So we continue to “bother” Jesus, day after day, Divine Service after Divine Service, as the persistent widow expecting from Him the same thing over and over again. And He offers the same thing over and over again, that is the forgiveness of sins in Word and Sacrament.

 

Is this insanity? Far from it. Expecting to be able to magically make our sinful life fall away from us is insanity, because there is no promise that will happen. In Christ we do the same thing over and over again and expect the same result and it is very Good. No despair, no self-sacrifice, no futility, for God promises it in Christ.

 

For even though Christ does not change in His love towards us, we are the ones changing. In our Christ-given Persistence of faith, we now beg God in hope. Hope that He will continue to change our lowly bodies into His glorious body. Hope that He will return for us and show mercy. Hope that this world of insanity will end and that an eternal life of innocence and blessedness, for us, by Christ’s side will not end.

 

For You have promised, Lord, to heed Your children’s cries in time of need through Him Whose Name alone is Great, our Savior and our Advocate.

 

Gideon and the Malakh YHWH [Wednesday in Lent 1]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Judges 6:11-24

• St. Luke 1:8-17

 

Grace to you and peace. (1 Thess 1)

 

Jesus speaks to you on this day from His book of Judges heard, saying:

“Then the angel of the Lord reached out the tip of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened cakes. And fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened cakes. And the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight.”

Gideon is our hero of faith from Hebrews 11:32, but he is a reluctant hero of faith as you could describe his career with the phrase: I don’t know. Moses was the same, as were all the heroes in the Bible. They were called by God not because of their strength, but because of their weaknesses. This is because in our weakness, God’s power is perfected (2 Cor 12:9).

The first obvious weakness is Gideon’s reluctance. His second obvious weakness, from Judges 6, is his constant need of assurance from God, always asking for a sign. But, true to His Word, God sticks to the plan, as He said in Isaiah 7:14, “The Lord Himself will give you a sign”, and presents the Malakh YHWH to Gideon in a small Divine Service.

As we began to teach on Ash Wednesday, there is a lot of confusion as to what angels are in the Bible, mostly because of our sin of not listening to God. How we biblically define angels, always, is by the message they bring, for they are messengers. 

That is what the word “angel” means. Anyone can be a messenger, so we included men in the office of angel as well. Meaning that they are not angels nor do they turn into angels, but they simply do the same work of angels, as God’s Word attests.

Malakh is the Hebrew word for angel and YHWH is the Divine Name God gives to Moses from the burning bush. This Malakh YHWH, or Angel of the Lord, stands above all the other angels and messengers in quite a few ways, two of which are that He accepts worship, as with Gideon tonight, and speaks as God as with Moses.

What Gideon shows to us today, is that he cannot believe that this being in front of him is going to defeat Israel’s enemies, for they are numerous. Now, if you had a super-shiny, high and lifted up God saying you can do it, all well and good. But something here makes Gideon doubt over and over again, just like Moses.

It begins in v.11 when the Angel of the Lord enters and sits under a tree. We have gone through that exercise multiple times before tonight, seeing that spirits don’t sit, they don’t “look” with eyes, nor do they carry staffs in hands. 

This is important and this angel that is more than an angel is also important. If only for the fact that Jesus leads us to see the Angel of the Lord in that way and question whether or not something else is going on. He plants things in our head such as, “all things which are written through the prophets about the Son of Man will be accomplished” (Luke 18:31) and “all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled” (Luke 24:44), and “when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me” (Jn 15:26).

Because of these words, we reread the Old Testament and start finding more and more similar incidents to Gideon’s encounter. But we are still not sure. Along with Gideon we say, “I don’t know” about that. 

We don’t know, but the Lord is going to prove it to us. We demand signs from Him, even doubting His Word. 

The Angel of the Lord is having none of it. He has begun this conversation with Gideon and He is going to end it. And He began the conversation with the Gospel. Gideon is a reluctant coward, allegedly, yet he is declared a valiant warrior by the Angel of the Lord at the start and that the Lord is with him.

At this point, it gets even more interesting. Gideon wants the Angel of the Lord to prove His divine mission, that He will go with Gideon. All of us, along with Gideon, are doubting God’s Word, because all we see here is a man. He looks just like us. Gideon is looking at just another person, for all he knows, and not God Who could give him victory. 

But this is not the message and this is not the plan. The message is that Gideon is a valiant warrior and the plan is to defeat the oppressors. There will be no errors. There will be no obstacles. The Lord’s people have been brought out of Egypt, not to suffer, but to enter into the joy of their Lord.

The message is clear: there will be victory over sin, death, and the devil. The proof is also clear: the Lord will set His Table and win His victory. Gideon, though weak, is chosen to do God’s Will in order that God would be strong to save and get all the glory. Gideon is declared valiant in Christ.

The Lord’s Table then is the proof of God’s communion with us. It is on purpose that St Luke writes the same way as Judges 6:21, in his Gospel about the Lord’ s Valiant One Who fights for us, as we sing in a Mighty Fortress. In 24:30-31 St Luke records: “When He was at table with them, He took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight.”

Though Gideon says, I don’t know, now at his Lord’s side in heaven he says, “I do know”. And we say “I do know”. We know that the Old Testament speaks of Christ and we know there are angels and archangels and men. Now, we know that there is and there was and there always will be Jesus Christ, Who is to be found in the Old Testament doing the exact same work as He does in the New.

that is suffering and dying on the cross, giving faith through the preaching of the message of the cross, and saving us in Word and Sacrament. In Gideon’s encounter with the Malakh YHWH, we see this picture saying “I have seen the Lord”, not just of the Old Testament being about Jesus, but that Jesus Himself was the main character in all of it, working out salvation.

Sometimes by the title of Malakh YHWH.

Politics of peace [Lent 1]

b(._.)d  LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE.  b(._.)d

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Genesis 3:1-21
• 2 Corinthians 6:1-10
• St. Matthew 4:1-11

Grace to you and peace. (1 Thess 1)
 
Jesus speaks to you on this day from His Gospel heard, saying:
“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil”
 
Much to my chagrin, the word politics is not defined as “poly- meaning many” and “tics- meaning blood sucking pests”. Not only is it funny, but apt. Because the first-blood sucker on my list is the satan that our Lord’s Gospel presents to us, today.
 
And that devil is a politician, popularly understood. I mean just listen to him. Not only is he making promises he can’t keep, but he is acting as if he owns everything he can see and can do whatever he wants with it. As if the sun and the moon come and go at his command, though today its stocks and gas prices.
 
The devil is on the campaign trail and there is no end and no depth to his propaganda. On his way, he steals information, such as words like “politics”, to use against us and make us afraid of them. And when given that fear, they become false idols to us, since God alone deserves our fear, love, and trust above all things.
 
So we must smash this idol. Our first step is defining it and then talking about it. Because we are forbidden to talk about politics, in an unwritten rule. And yet, that is the one place that is tearing all of us apart. Communities, families, marriages are all suffering under this topic of politics and you won’t talk about it?! That is the devil’s game.
 
In the greatness of our modern knowledge, we have come to view politics as taboo and in doing so throw out knowledge as a fool would do. We have been lied to. We have been tricked into thinking that politics only means which party or which news channel you fear, love, and trust. When in reality, politics literally means how you treat each other in the polis, or the city.
 
It is conduct in the community. Plain and simple. And that is something that falls under Church jurisdiction, because it directly affects the well-being of your neighbor. If you are using the church/state separation as an excuse to hate your neighbor, then you are following the devil’s footsteps.
 
It is a thin line, to be sure, but only because we are so sinful. The politics that the Church should not be involved in is the fake politics: voting, campaigning, propaganda. All of which aim to divide and conquer, where Christ’s aim is unity and redemption. You do not endorse candidates here, you do not push “fake-political” agendas here, and you do not vote here. 
 
And there is a very easy way to avoid the devil and his fake-politics: don’t hate. 
That’s it. Just because you disagree, doesn’t mean you have an enemy. You don’t even have to agree with others as long as you truly listen to them and respect them and that is God’s Law. However, not talking about it, neglecting your neighbor, holds the same weight of sin. Instead of silence should be discourse, a gaining of information. Civil discourse leads to civil society.
 
Repent. That is the Christian way to do things, but it is not your way. As Jesus says in St. John 8:44, “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
 
Your sinful path is not civility, but conflict. Your sinful way is strife and discord, instead of peace and concordia. You would rather your “enemies”, those who simply disagree you, fall down and worship your correct understanding.
 
Christians must always first and foremost confess Christ, even if and when it spells political disaster for us. Because, in usual satanic form, the devil has so twisted politics to appear harmless to the Church and to faith, hence our want to separate the two, but in reality he corrupts it to seek and destroy all the Church stands for.
 
Here are some Church doctrines that clash with false politics, which satan loves:
Why do we advocate for natural marriage?  Because Christ, ordained it.  In St. Matthew 19:4-6, “He answered, ‘Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.’”
 
Why do we defend private property against authoritarian regimes that treat property as an arbitrary privilege granted by the state?  Because Christ ordained it in His 7th Commandment, “You shall not steal” (Ex 20:15). 
 
Why do we oppose abortion and instead advocate for life from conception to natural death?  Because Christ ordained it in His 5th Commandment, “You shall not murder” (Ex 20:13). And Christ ordained all of these things according to natural law, according to how people are to treat each other within their community.  Even non-Christians confess these truths by virtue of the reality that we are human beings and God’s Law is in us.
 
And since all of these “political” issues are matters of faith, matters of our Christian confession, we cannot simply be cowed into silence.
 
But there is a warning here.  We must avoid the temptation to being so blinded by the political that we lose sight of the sacramental.  For ultimately, political policies in force dart from one to the other, parties come and go, nations and empires rise and fall, the City of Man changes hands and swings from godly to demonic -  but the City of God, the Word, the risen Christ endures forever. 
 
So we find in today’s Gospel, the temptation of the devil to Jesus to withdraw from the world and He will not. To forsake His city where He promised to dwell for ever and His people to whom He made that promise, but He chooses not to. 
 
Along with that, His promises include that man will live on more than bread and circuses, that man does not need to test God, He will test Himself and prove Himself true in His crucifixion and resurrection, and that worship and service given to God only comes after God’s Divine Service to us, in Word and Sacrament.
 
Our belief is that God does not forsake this world but works out His salvation in time, in history, and in community. The Almighty Lord spends His infinite time and wisdom on becoming a man and maturing and living as a man. The God-man, Jesus Christ, moves and lives within communities, proclaiming the forgiveness of sins to any and everyone.
 
“Give to Ceasar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s” (Mt 22:21).
“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone” at the adultress (Jn 8:7), and
“It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife“ (Mk 6:18) are just some more examples of Jesus intruding on civil life.
 
But it is only an intrusion to the unbeliever, to the one who wants to have Jesus run for President and destroy the “other party”. To the one who believes that this life is all there is and if others don’t know they’re right, then that is failure and they go to hell. Jesus as Savior leaves behind those petty squabbles and gets to the business of His Kingdom, which is not of this world. 
 
Jesus intrudes in order to implement His own politics and do you know what Jesus’s politics are?
 
Suffering, death, and resurrection. The Christian Life.
 
God tempts no one. When we pray for God to not lead us into temptation, we are not praying for God to keep us away from our neighbor, but from the devil, the world, and our sinful nature. But these temptations do come. 
 
The Gospel is that neither fake nor real politics save us. Jesus overcomes both in the Gospel today. He overcomes fake-politics by taking on the very flesh and blood that we hate in others, in our sin, but yet is our flesh and blood as well. And He overcomes true politics by redeeming stone hearts, smashing them, and giving hearts of flesh.
 
Forgiveness is now heaven’s propaganda, but it is not a campaign promise nor is it something that God does not have control of. Forgiveness has no place in sinful politics, because it does nothing to advance an agenda.
 
Unless of course that agenda is that the sinner turn from his wicked ways and live. And there is where all our earthly squabbling hits a wall. The wall of Resurrection, of forgiveness. We can never forgive our fake-political enemies, but in Christ God demands it. 
 
And His demand is in such force, that even His only-begotten Son is subjected to it. Not through fault of His own, but through the fault that He take on Himself: ours. We have so failed in our ability to love our neighbor, despite disagreements, and to love God, despite the importance of civil matters, that He had to step in Himself.
 
Not talking about politics and religion has led us to hate our brother. And if we can’t love our brother, whom we can see, how can we love God Whom we can’t see? The Word of God is the freedom from hatred, because God has disagreed with us violently, and yet loves us and hears us. 
 
He has declared us sinful in all our thoughts, and all our ways, and all our politics. We disagreed. He suffered and died to prove His truth to us. His crucifixion cleanses hearts to agree with Him, repent, and receive the forgiveness that runs the politics of heaven.
 
The Christian lives in communities, no getting around that. In Christ, the Christian no longer has to be so afraid of losing those communities. For, family, community, and love are never on the ballot. There will never be a time when you cannot choose Faith, Hope, or Love over everything else in the world. 
 
No matter who thinks they are in charge of the world, the Age of the Church is upon us and we travel through Lent to see Jesus purchase and win that for us. The Age of Grace, where evil appears to have the upper hand, but really just burns itself out in self-judgment. Yet to those who believe, Word and Sacrament is salvation and the power of God, preached and administered in every community.