What a Pastor [Easter 7]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

 READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Ezekiel 36:22-28

• 1 Peter 4:7-11

• St. John 15:26-16:4

Grace, mercy, and peace [are yours] from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. (1 Tim 1)
 
Who speaks to you today, from His Gospel heard in His Service, saying: 
“And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.”
 
On this Sunday after Christ’s Ascension to the Right Hand of God, we have Jesus teaching about the Office of the Holy Ministry. In one of the signs of Christ's church on earth, Jesus gives the ordaining of pastors, gives them their marching orders, and sends them off with a “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours” from St. John 15:19-20.
 
For bearing witness to Jesus is not a simple thing. The word “witness” in Greek is martyr. At the start, it is the Apostles who will be the martyrs and will be persecuted. But what then? After the Apostles fulfill Jesus's Word by being killed, is that it for the Church on Earth or is there a continuation?
 
Jesus founded a Church and He has sent men to pastor it. So what is a Pastor and what is Ordination?
 
The first question is not as easy as you may think. Defining a pastor can be as simple as “someone who leads a church”. However, the hard part comes when you try to define the words “lead” and “church”. It is at that point that Christians shatter into a million denominations, sadly enough, being tricked into believing that a good leader is charismatic and popular and that a church is just a self-help rally.
 
Beginning at the beginning, the Apostles ordained pastors to shepherd the Church after them. they did not cater to their own egos and teach that “no one could fill their shoes so good luck picking someone”. 
 
Acts 14:23 tells us, “And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.”
 
St. Paul directs St. Titus, “This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you” (1:5). 
 
And 1 Peter 5:1-4:  “So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.”
 
Also from Acts 20:28:  “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.”
 
These verses set forth three of the terms Scripture uses to describe the work of the office of pastor: elder, overseer, and shepherd.  (Pastor in Latin means “shepherd.”)  Pastors are to shepherd God’s flock with His Word and Sacraments, and be regarded “as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God” (1 Cor 4:1).
 
The Church did not make up the Office of Pastor and neither did I. These “under-shepherds” also are not to be “leaders” or “in charge”. Christ is in charge. What happens between Pastor and congregation, then, is not leadership, but familial relationship. Thus pastors are called “fathers” as St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4:15, “For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.”
 
So we have this Pastor, but now what? He must be Called and Ordained. Hebrews 5:4 says, “And no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was.”
 
We teach that no one should publicly teach or preach or administer the sacraments in the church without a call issued in a regular and orderly way, says our Confessions (AC XIV). This refers to the structure and setup of the church, how its work should be carried out in an orderly way. Because, let’s face it, the phrase “called by God” has been used and abused an hundred times over.
 
In order to prevent just anybody from stepping into Christ’s Office of the Holy Ministry, the Church then takes over as best She can by educating, examining, calling , and ordaining. This is the way the Church has decided to interpret the “call from God” by educating, examining, calling, and ordaining men for the Office.
 
Even St. Paul, who was Called by the Risen Lord Himself, did not begin his witness immediately, but listened and learned for three years first. After that, he made his way to St. Peter in Jerusalem and was examined by him for 15 days (Gal 1:17-18). 
 
The Church’s educating and examining come from the Apostles’ doctrine and is passed down through the laying on of hands, prayer, and the Word of God. Because it is connected with the Word of God and prayer, ordination surely imparts divine blessing. But ordination does not bestow a special power on the one ordained which is not given to others in the church; nor does the efficacy of the means of grace depend on ordination, as others claim. The Word of God is effective with or without the rite of ordination.
 
The office of the holy ministry comes from God, through the church. Pastors are not superior to the members of the church. The ministry is not a difference of level or power, but of Office. When called ministers deal with us by Christ’s command - that is, when they teach, admonish, and comfort us with the Word of God, then we should receive their instruction, admonition, and comfort as though God spoke to us Himself.
 
The purpose of the office of the ministry is for the public administration of the means of grace for the purpose of saving souls. We have been given the Gospel (which is to be preached) and the sacraments (which are to be administered) in order to make disciples of Christ and teach them to observe what He has commanded (Matthew 28:19-20), to edify the church of God (Ephesians 4:12), and to save lost souls (1 Timothy 4:16).
 
The authority of the public ministry comes from God and the power is found in His holy Word alone, not in those who minister the Word! Yet the way we keep the Word publicly preached among us is completely church custom. 
 
Yes we have biblical support for what we do, but we could just as easily sit around and draw straws to see who God chooses to be pastor next. We don’t do that for the same reason that we don’t spend Sunday mornings in silence, waiting for God to speak to us.
 
God has spoken and continues to speak to us in His Word. God has sent His Apostles to preach, teach, and be martyrs. And God has created His Church to continue to Call and Ordain men to do the same. The Helper Who proceeds from the Father and the Son bears witness of Christ. And when we hear of Christ and His Work to purchase and win salvation for us, this is the Apostolic Church and this is God’s man whom He has sent to us.
 
 
Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!
 

Lifting serpents [The Ascension of our Lord]

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• 2 Kings 2:5-15

• Acts 1:1-1

• St. Mark 16:14-20

 

Grace, mercy, and peace [are yours] from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. (1 Tim 1)

 

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

“Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.”

 

In stead of St. Luke’s account of the Ascension of Jesus, in Acts, I’d like us to focus on St. Mark this evening. For, though it is important to believe the Ascension is about Christ, that belief needs to know where and when to believe and St. Mark takes us to that place where Faith may rest and grow: in Christ and His Church.

 

He does so by describing life in the Church after the Ascension. Specifically when listing all the exciting parts: casting out demons, new tongues, picking up serpents, drinking poison, and healing miracles. And because these things are so exciting, some Christians have taken them and run, making Christianity solely about doing them.

 

As in, if you don’t handle those snakes like the Lord said, then you ain’t got the Lord.

 

Here is your first step when facing these sorts of things: has God promised to close heaven to me because I do not handle snakes? Has the Lord condemned to hell those who do not exorcise, speak in tongues, heal others miraculously, or drink poison? Who even does that anyway, I mean besides Wesley…

 

Once you frame the debate in that manner, you will not find one ounce of support in God’s Word for any of that. What you will find support for, however, are the Apostles; those whom Jesus sends. These, after all, are the men Jesus is addressing in the Gospel and these are the men to whom much was given to confirm God’s Word through them.

 

St. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12, “For I was not at all inferior to these super-apostles, even though I am nothing. The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works” (v. 11-12).

 

In the very first place, these signs are given to Christ’s Apostles to proclaim the Gospel to all of creation. They were given and they were fulfilled in the Apostle’s works, for we read on in the book of Acts all of these deeds accomplished by the Apostles who preached the Word and administered the Sacraments to those hearers.

 

In the second place, we are not commanded to nor are we promised grace if we accomplish these things ourselves, but instead we realize our Lord’s lovingkindness and compassion for us, in them. That, as our heavenly Father, He does defend us from all danger and guards and protects us from all evil, even that of poison, serpents, and disease.

 

In the third place, God does not give gifts as some sort of party favors to show off in front of your girlfriend when you and the gang get together. God’s gifts have purpose and power and God’s purpose and power is always belief in His Son. 

 

Yes, the Son. What does it mean to cast out demons in His Name? It means no longer being a part of the world, overcoming it by the Faith of Christ. Don’t commune with demons. 1 Corinthians 10 says, “what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to commune with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot commune at the table of the Lord and the table of demons” (v. 20-21).

 

The Lord spreads His Table before you to show you which is His and which is not.

 

What does it mean to speak in new tongues? Babbling incoherently and pretending someone understands? No, it means speaking with a renewed tongue, a clean tongue. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come”, says 2 Corinthians 5:17. And “He who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new’” (Rev. 21:5).

 

You don’t put new wine in old wineskins. Our old, sinful tongues cannot handle the Gospel of Christ, they would burst apart. In His washing of rebirth and regeneration, we are given new tongues to speak of His suffering, death, and resurrection to all of creation.

 

We are not handling snakes, but “lifting up serpents”, says the Greek. This one should be easy to understand as we just heard of Moses lifting up the bronze serpent in the wilderness, in Numbers 21. And we know Jesus says it points to Himself in John 3:14-15: “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”

 

Its not “drinking poison”, but drinking “death-causing” things. With these words, hymn #760 comes to mind: “no poison can be in the Cup that my physician sends me.” We also remember Leviticus 17:14, “I have said to the people of Israel, You shall not eat the blood of any creature, for the life of every creature is its blood. Whoever eats it shall be cut off“ and St. John 6:53, “Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.“

 

What is really happening here, in St. Mark’s Gospel, is that the Apostles are going out to preach Christ Crucified and administer His Sacraments. They will lay their hands upon the weak, those suffering from sin-sickness unto death, and by that Apostolic act, they will have God’s goodness. That is how that part actually reads.

 

The Gospel that will go out into all creation is not parlor tricks or games, but belief and baptism. The only reason it would be snake handling that goes into all the earth is if God lied and baptism doesn’t save you and the Apostles were fake and they didn’t baptize anyone in the New Testament.

 

Well they did and they still baptize today, through their doctrine and the Lord continues to work through their words, as Jesus says in St. John 17:20, “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word”.

 

And their words are: ”Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”

 

 

We got to pray [Easter 6]

 

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Numbers 21:4-9

• James 1:22-27

• St. John 16:23-30

Grace, mercy, and peace [are yours] from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. (1 Tim 1)

 

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

“Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”

 

Rogate is the name of our Sunday and it means “pray”. Let us say this at the outset: the devil does not want you to pray. So, even before we pray for our winning lotto ticket, or a cure for cancer, or anything you might ask in Jesus's Name; the devil does not want you to pray. 

 

When Jesus preaches these words of prayer to us, our first thought should not be to grabble our hands and scheme, “what can I get out of God today” nor should it be, “God didn’t give me what I asked for last time, why should I pray again”. 

 

Our first thought should be, “why have my prayers faltered” and “why don’t I know what to pray”. In our sin, we begin thinking about our spirituality from the standpoint of “we’re good”, “we’re alright”, “there’s nothing wrong”. We think that we are so deserving and so godly that, of course God’s gonna give it to us, whatever it might be.

 

St James reminds us that prayer is not to be trifled with. He says in 1:6 “let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.” What does it mean, then, when we don't receive what we prayed for? We doubted.

 

Thus, our first sin against prayer is our belief that prayer is natural. Far from it. Prayer is not natural, but must be taught and learned. Christians are to be taught. Our nature is a sinful nature in which we despise prayer, preaching, and the Word of God. 

 

Which just so happen to be the exact places where God teaches you to pray: in the Divine Service and His Word. What a co-in-qui-dink. 

 

No. Not really. Did you think sin was only in the outside world in “those” who are outwardly against Christ’s Church and the Faith? No no no. The true sin that undermines faith and God’s Kingdom on earth is seated here in this holy place. 

 

Here is God’s Command: that you pray. Here is your life: that you don’t pray. At that point, does it matter whether or not God gives you what you ask for, whether or not you are heard, or even if you can move mountains with your so-called faith? 

 

Repent. You now see and understand the kind of situation you are really in, here. Not only have your prayers faltered, but they are not even prayers of faith that receive whatever you ask of the Father in Jesus’s Name. How can this be? How can God say “do something” and then not let us do it?

 

Though that question is usually presented as a gotcha question to disprove Christianity, the answer is quite simple. Jesus’s focus is not on you asking for anything and getting it. His focus is on His Name in which you must ask.

 

Yes! You missed it again. Your “woe is me” act is a satanic gift aimed at eroding your faith and getting you to give up your noble position of “One Who Prays in Church”. That is the real power of the Name of Jesus and a prayer said in it: that of making one a believer and therefore, One Who Prays.

 

That is the true evil of sin. Not its wretchedness that it makes of this world, but that it takes what God has called Good and Clean and bends it into “poor and unclean”. For God has created all things. He has not created death. Sin is nothing but something trying to find a place where God is not. 

 

The devil was created. All people were created, but they have been bent. God has created all people. What we have from Him is good. What we do with it in our sin, is what is evil. Thus, even our prayers are affected. However, the beautiful thing about prayer is that its effectiveness doesn’t depend on us.

 

It depends on the Name. The Name that you must hear about from the Father Himself. But the Father is not talking, the Son is. Hebrews 1 tells us, “now in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son.” But even Jesus has ascended on high, to sit at the right hand of God.

 

So it is “the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (St. John 14:26) and “he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come” (16:13).

 

This is the recipe that Jesus uses to create His Church. Step 1: the Father sends the Son. Step 2: The Son suffers and dies to cancel all debt to God and opens the way to holiness and “not doubting”. Step 3: The Son sends His Spirit to teach us of Jesus and to distribute His holiness and “not doubting”-ness. A neat, tidy circle that manifests itself in the Divine Service.

 

I pray for you, Jesus says. He intercedes for us, constantly, says Romans 8:34. He prays that God be glorified by His Work (Jn 12:27-28, 17:1-5). Jesus prays that His Word go out in the words of the men He has sent, that the forgiveness of sins be preached to all the earth (Jn 17:6-19). Jesus prays for your forgiveness from the cross. He prays for His Church to continue in His Word and Sacrament. And He teaches you to pray.

 

Here, our Epistle reading from St. James jumps in and gets it right this time. When he speaks of being doers and not hearers only, he is speaking of the Church’s responsibility of teaching prayer. Listen to the prayers. Listen to the prayers of Jesus and then repeat them as your own. 

 

Dear Christians, do not forget what you look like in St. James’s mirror. In that reflection you see the sinner who doesn’t pray. But look again and you will peer into the “perfect law”, that perfect sacrifice made to complete all sacrifices and to change your reflection into Christ’s reflection.

 

Your Lord has not accomplished all things for you, taught you how to pray, and sent you His Holy Spirit all so that you could forget about His righteousness which covers all your sin, even your sinful prayers. He covers them and makes them His own, changing their sinful state to His glorious state. 

 

Since this has been perfectly accomplished and since you have been commanded to pray, do not say “if I don’t pray someone else will” or “my prayer is nothing” or “what does my prayer matter”. 

 

Because the Father says pray, pray. Because Jesus is praying, pray. Because the Spirit moves in His Divine Service, listen, learn, and repeat the prayers of the Church. Do not trust in your sinful heart to produce the words, rather trust in the clean heart, the heart of flesh that Christ has purified and given to you in His Body and His Blood.

 

Prayer is a gift and a mark of Christ’s true Church. You have needs enough to fill every hour of your life with prayers, but prayer is not given by God to make a fool out of you or to deceive you. It is given to you in order to open you up that you would receive the gifts God chooses to give to you, for which you have prayed.

 

Of wandering Thoughts in Prayer. - St. Bernard

 

HAVE mercy upon me, O God, and assist me against myself; for such is my infirmity, that there especially do I fall into sin, where my obligations and endeavors are most indispensable to avoid and reform it. I am ashamed to think how often I pray, and all the while regard not what I speak. Thus do I pray with the mouth, but not with the spirit; for while my mind is rambling, my tongue runs over empty forms. My body indeed is in the closet of the Church, but my heart is at a distance, in the play-house, at the stock market, in a hundred other places; and then what wonder, if all I say be lost and fruit-less? 

 

For what can it possibly signify for the voice to perform its part never so punctually, if the mind in the meanwhile give no manner of attention? And can there be any greater perverseness, greater insolence, greater madness, than to turn the deaf ear, and run after trifles and impertinences, when we take upon us to converse with the Majesty of heaven and earth in prayer? 

 

Can there on the other hand be anything more senseless, more provoking, than for vile dust and ashes to behave itself negligently, and not to think the great Creator of the universe worth listening to, when He chooses and promises to speak to us by His Scriptures and His ministers? But especially, can anything compare with that unwearied patience and forbearance, that mercy and condescension of a gracious and forgiving God, which sees such wretches every day turning the deaf ear, refusing the voice of satan, charming never so wisely, hardening their hearts, regardless of their own duty and advantage, and yet instead of taking speedy vengeance, repeats His kind invitations, and cries aloud, “O ye simple ones, how long will you love your simplicity and scorners delight in your scorning, and fools hating knowledge ?”, says Prov. 1:22, 23, “Turn yourselves at my reproof, consider your ways, and be wise.” “Be still and commune with your own hearts and know that I am God.” (Psal. 4:4.) 

 

God speaks to me, and I to Him in a psalm ; and yet so great is my stupidity, that I often repeat the words without ever regarding the subject and the sense, the author or the design of it. And can I be guilty of a greater disrespect, a more manifest injury to Almighty God, than when I beseech Him to hear those prayers which I myself who make them, do not attend to, nor know what goes out of my mouth at the very instant of pronouncing ? I expect God should have a particular regard to me, while I have none at all either to him or to myself: no, can I hope for any benefit while I do which is worse ; while I bring into His presence a heart full of vain and loose, impure and sinful thoughts, and so offend his sign with corruption and filth, which is not indeed a heart, but the loathsome stinking carcass of a heart. 

 

You can. By the grace and redemption found in Christ Crucified, Who suffered to buy back your stinking carcass of a heart and rose again to send His Spirit to you with His heart, His righteousness, and His Body and Blood for you.

 

Baptismal identity [Easter 5]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Isaiah 12:1-6

• James 1:16-21

• St. John 16:5-15

 

Grace, mercy, and peace [are yours] from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. (1 Tim 1)
 
Who speaks to you today, from His Gospel heard in His Service, saying: 
“Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.”
 
We had began to talk about identity last week and how the Lord must give us our identity, because the world will too, but it won’t let us have just one. It will overwhelm us with the many identities it says we must have in order to be accepted.
 
We also made the point that we are not having our identity taken from us. No one is going to come and take anything from you. You have to give it away. And we are giving it away, freely. In joyful sinfulness, we gladly give our identity away for fear of being alone, or weird, or unwanted. Our true fear.
 
Today, Jesus continues to talk about His identity and, more importantly for us, His identity in relation to His Church. In the first place, Jesus is He Who is Crucified. In the second place, the church is She who is Baptized.
 
When Jesus talks later in St. John 16, He speaks of the little while when you won’t see Him and the little while when you will see Him. The disciples didn’t understand what He was talking about, because of the “see Him again” part. They knew Jesus had been predicting His passion, so they wouldn’t see Him after He dies and is buried, but they didn’t really think He would come back from the dead and be seen again.
 
Today, Jesus asks the same question when He says, “now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’” The Apostles don’t ask where Jesus is going, because they know He’s going to die, so why would they? Every one who dies goes to the ground. No point in asking.
 
But Jesus apparently wanted them to ask because apparently He is going somewhere different. He is going to Him Who sent Him. Who is that? Jesus tells us in St. John 20:31, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”
 
It is the Father Who has sent Jesus. All well and good. But what did He send Jesus for, that Jesus has to return to Him? St. John 6:38, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.”
 
Jesus seeks the Father’s Will, not His own (Jn 5:30). It is Jesus’ food, He says, “to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work” (Jn 4:34). So now God’s Will and God’s Work are joined together. Imseperable.
 
And what does Jesus teach us about that work? St. Luke 24:46, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead” because “it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt” (Isa 53:10).
 
So it is the will of God to Crucify His Son, that Jesus suffer according to His Will. Jesus is the Crucified, as the angels declare on Easter in St. Matthew 28:5, Who has gone to His Father’s Will joyfully, enduring the cross, “despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb 12:2).
 
From that, we get that the Father’s will does not end with the Tomb, but continues on. The Father’s will does not stop just because of the sleep of death, it goes on to everlasting life. Jesus says in Acts 13:34-35, “And as for the fact that he raised him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, he has spoken in this way, ‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David.’
Therefore he says also in another psalm, ‘You will not let your Holy One see corruption.’”
 
Thus, in the first place, Jesus is the Crucified Who is raised from the dead. The “where He is going” He wants His Apostles to ask about is the Resurrection. Jesus is going to the tomb, but He is going on, in deathless life, to the Resurrection of all flesh, and we honor Him and identify Him in that way only.
 
For us today, we not only ask where Jesus is going (bc we already know), but we also ask if we can go too. So what is God’s Will for you? The Father’s Commandment is eternal life, Jesus says in St. John 12:50, “And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another” (1 John 3:23).
 
Thus, in the second place, the true Church is the gathering of those who believe. Those who believe and are baptized for their salvation, as God commands in St. Matthew 28:19-20, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
 
So it is Evelyn who today gets to teach and to show you God’s Will for your life, fully and perfectly accomplished in Christ, and fearfully and wonderfully handed over to you, by the Helper Whom Jesus sends. You even got to ask Evelyn Who it was that sent her to us here and to this Sacrament of the water and the Word and her faith responded: Jesus Christ, Crucified.
 
In Christ, we are the Baptized Church of the Holy Ghost, brought into being and cleansed by the Water and the Blood, testifying of Christ’s great work on the Cross. We make it a point to learn from the Apostles and constantly ask Jesus where He is going.
 
Throughout the Church Year, we follow Him each time He answers. In Advent: to the flesh of man, He says. In Christmass: to the Virgin Mary. In Epiphany: to His divinity. In Lent: to His cross. In Easter: to His Resurrection. In Trinity: to His Church in Word and Sacrament. 
 
We hear our Shepherd’s voice, know Him, and follow Him. He has made His promises and He has kept them. And His Will is for a lifetime, says Psalm 30:5. It does not go away when you leave here and it doesn’t go away if you forget. Such that, having been born of the water and the Spirit, “no longer shall you be called Forsaken and your land, Desolation. For you shall be called My will and your land Lived In. For the LORD took pleasure in you and your land shall be lived in together” with Him (Isa 62:4). 
 
So when you want to ask God for something in His Name or what His is will for your life, the question you are really asking is “Where is Jesus going?” For where Christ Crucified goes is God’s Will for you and your destiny.
 
Where are you going Jesus? To my church. To my Body and Blood. To my resurrection of all flesh. To my everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness for you.
 
Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!
 
 

Identity [Easter 4]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Isaiah 40:25-31

• 1 Peter 2:11-20

• St. John 16:16-22

 

Grace, mercy, and peace [are yours] from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. (1 Tim 1)
 
Who speaks to you today, from His Gospel heard in His Service, saying: 
“So they were saying, ‘What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We do not know what he is talking about.’”
 
One of the points Jesus is trying to make today is that of distraction. The disciples are distracted by this “little while” and the pregnant woman is distracted by labor. In both cases, Jesus resolves the issue. You will see Jesus after just a little while of not seeing Him and you will have joy after just a little while of labor pains.
 
But, you are distracted. You all have attention deficit. You all have been conditioned by your overlords and mega-media to subsist in tiny fractions of information, since man’s ability to globally communicate. 
 
Famous author George Orwell, who wrote the book 1984 which if you haven’t read, read today, is quoted all the way back in the 1930s when reporting on the Spanish Civil War. He commented how in 1936, journalism died. He said this because battles were being reported where there were none, heroes being made of pretend actors, and mass casualties where not a shot had been fired.
 
This is all done to distract the people. If we don’t like one side, we tell how evil they are with spurious evidence. If we like one side, we make it every able young man’s patriotic duty to sign up and fight for them. Never mind that there’s a great depression, never mind that your family needs you at home, never mind that you won’t have a home when you get back home.
 
Just follow the leader.
 
And this is what we’ve done to ourselves. We have thrown out our own responsibility to self and to family and to identity. We have given up our identity in the social and political arena, letting party chairs and talking heads give us new identities every day, and we wonder why our children and grandchildren aren’t around anymore.
 
As the “outrage-do jour” rages across headlines and news feeds, we get behind those who appear to think like us and demonize those who don’t, without a rational shred of proof. It never enters our head that someone could reasonably have a disagreement with us. No matter. You are distracted. The issue is not important, just so long as you’re not paying attention to what is important.
 
Repent. We are the once possessed man from St. Matthew 12, who sweeps his house clean and puts it in order, but does not fill the cleaned space. The demon comes back with several of his buddies and fills it for him and “…the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation”, Jesus says (v.43-45).
 
So it will be if we continue to be distracted. So it will be that we will miss Jesus, because for a little while we will not see Him and if we don’t know what comes after that, then we’ll just have to create our own Jesus and our own religion.
 
But that is not what used to take place among Christians. What used to be here was community. Community that could throw pot-lucks and laughter at that empty darkness and madness overcoming the world. Family that understood what the world wanted us to believe and rejected it completely in favor of Christ’s Church.
 
Jesus appears, today, to promise to leave, after having cleansed His house on earth. The disciples then remember that Jesus had been talking about His Passion quite often and that He will die. They don’t remember that He also said He will rise again, because no one comes back from the dead.
 
So they are distracted and frantic, such that they cannot stay awake in the garden of Gethsemane and neither can they remain by Jesus’ side as He is arrested and taken away. 
 
Is this what Jesus is producing in His religion? 
Don’t get distracted. Christ says we will see Him again. Are you in labor pains real or imagined? Jesus says joy comes in the morning. You don’t have to pretend to clean up your house, sweep it, and get things in order. Jesus says in Ephesians 1, “And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all” (v. 22-23).
 
Jesus already fills all things. You are not left comfortless, as orphans, or empty and left to fill up yourself with some sort of earthly crusade where only you and God are players. Jesus leaves and comes back and fills His church. He comes back to His believers in His resurrection.
 
It is in the Resurrection that our true hope, our true identity begins. It is in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ that we see God’s true ability. That He can take death and make it produce life. That He can take invisible-ness, ascending to the Right Hand of God, and make it visible-ness in Word and Sacrament. That He can take apparent emptiness, and make it complete fullness.
 
This is the Gospel of Christ that needs to be preached, because we need reminding. It is the Word of the Cross that is God’s power of salvation, but without faith it is foolishness. So much so, that when an unbeliever comes to church and sees empty pews and, maybe, empty words he immediately thinks this place is not any better than a host of other places or things with which he may fill himself with whatever.
 
It is only with the eye of God-given-Faith, that anyone sees the fullness of God, because faith hears God’s promise that He will fill all in all, that He will fully forgive sins, and that He has completed His entire history of work on His cross, and believes.
 
God does not leave us to fend for ourselves as some sort of test. He completes the project and hands it over to us for free. He did not leave Adam and Eve naked, but clothed them with His sacrifice (Gen 3:21), giving them His cover, His identity. For, as Adam and Eve were clothed, we too are clothed by the Almighty with the robe of Christ’s righteousness.
 
Isaiah 61:10 says, “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness”
 
And Galatians 3:27, “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”
 
We are now sons, in Christ. We are no longer sinners or empty vessels, but filled with Christ. We are sons of God, chosen to inherit all the Father gives. Chosen to be His believers on earth, His royal priesthood, so that while we’ll go through life wondering what will be the next thing we are to be outraged at in hopes of finally standing somewhere as myself, there will be no question as to who we are.
 
In putting on Christ in baptism, as Galatians 3 told us, we receive Jesus’ identity that He hands to us. With His identity, we also receive His inheritance. We do not have to kill, as the vineyard workers did in St. Matthew 21, we do not have to scheme, or sweep our lives clean. 
 
It happens in a simple declaration from Him. The objective declaration, having nothing to do with us, of justification by faith alone (Rom 3:24-26). Jesus says, “I said, ‘You are gods, And all of you are children of the Most High’” (Ps 82:6) and you are sons indeed. Jesus says, “ have set you free” (Jn 8:36) and you are free indeed. 
 
Free from the cares, concerns, and distractions of the world which promises all fullness, a real ID, and utter happiness, but fails, every time, to give it.
 
So, in order to fight back against this world that wishes to strip the Christian of his identity in Christ, and his values and his place, we rest in His justification, His resurrection, and plainly declare, “I am a Christian.”
 
In front of governors, blood-thirsty mobs, and fake news with “I am a Christian”. In the face of tragedy, sorrow, and an apparent decrease in attendance: “ I am a Christian”. When the world asks for your defense or your credentials, or when they demand to know why you aren’t mad like them: “I am a Christian.”
 
And finally, when the devil closes his case against us proving that we do not deserve to be here and that we do not merit the love of God, but deserve to be cast into the lake of fire, you say “I am a Christian.”
 
We don’t need war, plandemics, legal opinions, or voting to have an identity. That is not how we want to be treated and it is not how we should treat our neighbor. Instead we trust in God’s Word in our lives, God’s Word in their lives, pray for God to work, and continue to love them and invite them back home, to the Church Christ calls His own and fills to overflowing with His true Gospel and true sacraments. 
 
Jesus has already told us the next big distraction. But every distraction is the same: Doubt God, stay away from Church, hate your neighbor. Every single time. Will we see Jesus again? Yes. At the end. In a preliminary way today in Word and Sacrament. 
 
But read the end of the Gospel reading again. Jesus does not say, there, that you will see Him and rejoice. He says, “So you will have sorrow now, but I will see you…” I will see you and you will rejoice.
 
Dear Christians, Jesus sees us. Jesus knows us. We are not forgotten. We are where God wants us to be. We are seen and we rejoice. We know He is among us in Word and Sacrament and our joy will not be taken. 
 
Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!
 

Empty Church [Easter 3]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Ezekiel 34:11-16

• 1 Peter 2:21-25

• St. John 21:11-16

 

Grace, mercy, and peace [are yours] from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. (1 Tim 1)
 
Who speaks to you today, from His Gospel heard in His Service, saying: 
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep”
 
Where is everyone in church? On this Sunday we have heard God speak about the Good Shepherd. Our Good Shepherd. And yet, when we look around at this sheepfold, we find poor management. We see empty seats.
 
The emptiness itself is not what disturbs us. There is space in all life. People try to cow us into fear by shouting, “Overpopulation!” But that is just a myth. The reason why emptiness here, disturbs us, is because they are seats we know used to be filled. There used to be people there. 
 
People used to sit there, whom we thought had been gathered by the Good Shepherd, as in secure. And yet, whether by personal decision or involuntary death, they are no longer gathered in this place.
 
So what is it that we conclude? Do we say that our Good Shepherd is not so good as we thought? That because there is empty space where there was once full space, He is no longer our Shepherd, or simply a shepherd?
 
Yes. In our sin, we do blame our Good Shepherd and we will continue to. If He is so almighty that He can change things the way He wants them to or change them the way we think He should, and doesn’t, then He either can’t or won’t. 
 
So we absolutely lay the blame at His feet and say, “If You would have been here, you could have done something about it”. The same accusation hurled at Jesus, by Martha, at the death of her brother Lazarus saying, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (Jn 11:21).
 
But since it has happened, that the sheepfold appears empty, then we must judge You “not as good a shepherd as you want us to believe”. 
 
Yes, we are the spoiled, petulant child who gets injured, having been told not to do or not to continue to do what they had been doing, which was so dangerous, and turns to their parent or guardian and says “its your fault. You should have done something about this.”
 
And as children, we continue to run towards danger again and again. We continue to chase after the lie that somehow, if God could just change, then people would like Him more. That if His church would just modernize, then we would attract everyone who used to be here and more.
 
That if we would just listen to the devil and his demons, and change God’s Word, then we would see a real shepherd. We would see the pews filled to bursting, just like those other churches who are increasing in attendance and numbers, with our past members and numbers.
 
And there is the lie. There is the lie that somehow, someway, we can measure God’s goodness by the apparent “good” or “bad” that happens in this world, because we all know that the marks of a true church are growth in numbers and external good works. God says that somewhere…
 
Repent! The devil teaches that we can look at this or that group or gathering and conclude “God must be with them” since they are succeeding. And yet, would any of you deny that God was with Christ as He was suffering and dying on the cross? 
 
If it is true that Jesus can be rejected by every single person on earth, that His closest friends can forsake Him in His hour of deepest need, and that He can even cry out on the cross, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” (Ps 22:1), and still we can say, God was favoring and loving Him, then there is no ground on which we can stand to assert, “This church is empty because God’ hates us” because we did things wrong, and there is no godly good in suffering.
 
Dear Christians, in Christ Jesus we say just the opposite. That even though we are few, even though it get to two or three gathered in His Name, it is Good. That even though we go through suffering, it is good. 
 
Because of Christ, we know that it is sin that causes this suffering. We have chased after the devil and his lies of “new fads” and “modern times” and “popular”. We have preferred to hear him and what he is talking about as opposed to Christ and what He is saying now.
 
Here, then is the truth. That sometimes, and we’ll be good Calvinists here, people who were in church, never really believed what the Church taught in the first place. They believed in something else, some other aspect of things. They trusted in their preferences and private tastes. They believed that what they liked and what made them feel good, was how God spoke to them.
 
And when the Church got serious and proclaimed, no, it is in suffering, it is in denying yourself and bearing your cross that we find God, for us. That is where it got too hard and they left, just as happened to Jesus in St. John 6, “After this many of His disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” (Jn 6:66-67), when Jesus was talking about eating and drinking His Body and Blood and having life in Him by those things.
 
Well do you want to go away? Jesus continues in John 6, “Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?” (v. 61-62). Would you then believe? What if I came back from the dead? Jesus says, “they would not believe even were a man to rise from the dead” (Luke 16:31).
 
It is the Truth that drives people away and it is our sin that gives strength to our running legs. Most of the time it is not our doing, that people are not here, in our church. It is nothing we did, nothing we said. It is not necessarily our fault, though we have faults of our own. 
 
It is simply the Truth at work. It is the Good Shepherd at work, chasing out the hireling, chasing out the wolf in sheep’s clothing. Not that we think ill or bad of those people, or try to accomplish those things ourselves, or try to judge in the place of God. It is only the Shepherd Who judges. The Good Shepherd.
 
So it is only the Good Shepherd Who does things that appear bad to us and yet our entire Good is accomplished in those things, for us. That is, that He suffers and dies and rises again. Completely not good to us, but eternally good for us.
 
That He also ascends to the Right Hand of God. Disappearing! Completely unacceptable. Bad for us. And yet, completely Good for us. And then He sends His Holy Spirit to those Whom He chooses to reveal Himself (Mt 11:27) and to reveal the Father and to give faith and to save. He chooses, which means its exclusive. Bad for us because we are so Inclusive, but eternally Good for us.
 
Then His Holy Spirit chooses to create the Church, sanctifying the Bride of the Good Shepherd, giving Her all of His gifts, that of the Preached Word, Baptism, the sacrament of the altar, the Office of the keys, Calling of pastors who deliver such gifts, prayer, and bearing the cross.
 
This is so horribly bad in our eyes and yet this is the Goodness of our Good Shepherd. That He gives us, not only access to Him and access to His sheepfold, but also the Way to find His Goodness, true goodness. Goodness that surpasses all earthly understanding.
 
That is what He has promised. Heavenly goodness, not necessarily earthly goodness. He has our eternal Good in mind. And although we receive all earthly goods and all good things from Him that have to do with the support and needs of the body, it is of more significance to Him, of more importance that we look to His Son and believe.
 
And in Christ, we see things better than our daily bread. He has come to redeem us from those things which cause suffering and death to us. He comes to take us away from sin, death, and the power of the devil, and bring us to His side where we will not be susceptible to those things ever again.
 
At His side, we will be able to always enjoy His gifts and true goodness, with no repercussions, having been rescued from the lie told at the tree of the knowledge of Good and evil. 
 
And so our good shepherd will continue to exercise His rod and His staff for our good. Guarding and defending us from all danger and all evil of both body and soul, for our goodness. They will sting and they will hurt, but it will save us from even greater shame and vice.
 
For it is only our Good Shepherd Who knows us, Who knows our need and can supply it. We think we know, but we are just the sheep. We wander. We put any and everything in our mouth whether its good for us or no and we blame our shepherd when its not.
 
But our Shepherd just smiles, suffers the punishment for our wayward-ness, and goes to the cross in Joy. He rises again on Easter and says, “Yes you will suffer, but you will rise again with me. You will be with me. All my glory will be yours and my righteousness will be yours. And there will no longer be a question as to what is good and what is bad.
 
There will no longer be a question as what good our Good Shepherd has made for us, in this life or the next. So our pews may be empty and they may get emptier. But this does not mean that we turn away from our Shepherd, telling Him He has done poorly, and abandon His Word and Sacraments.
 
No, it means we cling to them even harder. We run to them even faster. It means we believe in them even more and say, if change is going to happen, then the Good Shepherd is going to have to do it. It is not going to be us. We will not necessarily make a difference, or fill this or that seat, or make this or that good or not.
 
It is only Jesus and His chosen way of interacting in this world, with us. 
 
So how do we fill this church back up again? More Jesus. And where do we find more Jesus? In His promises. In His Word and Sacrament. In the Sheep-pen which He has specifically suffered and died for that He might create on earth, for us. That is where we find more Jesus and that is where find Him working His salvation and spreading His Gospel to the ends of the earth.
 
He has done it. He is faithful. Our Good Shepherd has laid down His life on behalf of the sheep so that our eternal good is secured and that we can find our eternal good in a foretaste of things to come, in His Church on earth.
 
Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!