To the Altar [Trinity 6]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Exodus 20:1-17

• Romans 6:3-11

• St. Matthew 5:20-26

 

To you all, the Elect Exiles of the Dispersion; may Grace and Peace be multiplied to you (1 Pet)

 

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

“First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift [at the Altar].”

 

From our Old Testament reading, we deal with the man, Moses, who was given the task of taking God’s holy Ten Commands in his hands and setting them before us. By the hands of a man, God’s Word is in the world.

 

However, that almost didn’t happen! When Moses was born, he had less than a thousandth of a percent chance of making it to his first birthday. At the time, Pharaoh told every Egyptian to find any son born to a Hebrew woman, and murder them (Ex 1:22). 

 

Now, even though this sounds like a government mandate or a bipartisan (meaning both left and right) law passed to protect the murder of the unborn, it is not because of those things that Moses was possibly not going to make it. It was because God ordained it to be that way.

 

And God ordained it, not because God loves murder, that’s Pharaoh. It was ordained so that God could bring Moses back from the dead. So that He could show the power of His Great Name to call all the murdered children back alive again.

 

So, it is by GRACE that Pharaoh is allowed to fall into the great shame and vice of murdering infants. Pharaoh fell into sin, by his own choosing, in order that Moses be brought back from the dead. Not just any death, but death by water, for Pharaoh had ordered all to be thrown into the Nile.

 

Romans 1:28 says, “And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.”

 

In that Grace, the reportedly “murdered” Moses, comes back from the dead and leads God’s people out of the Egypt of sin and death, through the Red Sea waters of Word and Life. For it was God’s promise to save His people through the Red Sea waters.

 

So in a very strange-to-us-sinners way, God brings good (salvation through water) out of evil (Pharaoh’s addiction to murder). Thus, we hear St. Paul comment on this in Romans 9:17, “For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘“’For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.’”

 

God did not cause Pharaoh to sin, but He used Pharaoh’s sin to work out the salvation of His people in the power of His Name. Moses is baptized into death, in his little reed boat, at God’s Word. That same Word, Moses gives to all Israel, “Believe and be baptized” in the cloud and in the Red Sea, as St. Paul later recorded in 1 Corinthians 10:2.

 

All this is done in order that God’s people be made to receive God’s Word in His proper context, that is, at the Altar. 

 

Israel was brought out of Egypt in order to go to Church, as Exodus 3:18 says, “you and the elders of Israel shall go to the king of Egypt and say to him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us; and now, please let us go a three days' journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God’” and as our Old Testament chapter concludes the 10 Commands with “make me an Altar” (Ex 20:24).

 

Dear Christians, in order to move to the Gospel, we need the Altar of God. In order to have any chance of fleeing this culture of death that we have fashioned for ourselves, we need this power and Name of God. 

 

The Name of God was spoken to Moses in the burning bush. Exodus 3:14-15 says, “’Say this to the people of Israel: I AM has sent me to you.’ …“The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.” This is My Name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.’”

 

Jesus then claims this Name as His own as we hear on the 5th Sunday in Lent from St. John 8:58-59, “Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.’ So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.”

 

The Jews knew Jesus was saying He was God, that’s why they picked up the stones. They thought murder was allowed to them by God to keep the faith pure. Little did they know that they share in Pharaoh’s sin as they scourged and crucified Jesus, fulfilling their sick, murderous lusts.

 

After we hear Jesus say in John 2:19, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” along with Jeremiah 7:11, “this [Temple], which is called by my Name”, do we have a man or a building? “But Jesus was speaking about the temple of his body.”

 

Though the Gospel is the murder of Jesus Christ, true God and true man, on behalf of the whole world, it is not for you to accomplish. God accomplishes His Gospel for you. This is because murder and anger keep you from God and His Altar. So the goal of not murdering, not getting angry, and of reconciling to your adversarial brother is for you to be able to go to the Altar.

 

In truth, it is not enough for you to just be righteous or practice righteousness, as Jesus teaches today in the Gospel. It doesn’t matter if you go around “not murdering” people or not being angry. That is your Christian duty. No holy points to be earned there.

 

No, you must make it to God’s Altar. You must make it to the reconciliation. You must be able to go to the “place where I cause my name to be remembered” in order that God “come to you and bless you” (Ex 20:24). If that doesn’t happen, no amount of NOT murdering is going to help.

 

The key to the Temple is the Altar and the Temple is Christ. The Key to the Altar is His Name which gives salvation as St. Luke 24:47 says, “that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations”

 

God’s Great Name will be used for the forgiveness of sins. It will not be used to justify racism, military or political power, or murder. God’s Great Name will be used to locate His Altar which is the powerful thing here. 

 

Christ’s Altar was the Tree where on the world’s behalf, He shed a blood unlike the blood of goat or calf, to seal God’s guarantee of grace that cannot fail (LSB #564:3). This is the great power of the Name of God: not only can it perform plagues and wonders and miracles, but it can change you into someone who can be at His Altar.

 

The death and resurrection of Jesus seals God’s guarantee of salvation from your anger, from your murder, and from every little thing that prevents you from approaching God’s Altar of reconciliation to Him. Because He does the reconciling and He does the calming.

 

Here then, St. Paul teaches us from the Epistle reading, “You must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:11). You have no other choice. Do not look at your murdering heart for reform. Do not look toward your own righteousness for ascent. Look to Christ. Remember your baptism. Believe that you have a seat at the Altar because you have been united with Jesus in His death and resurrection.

 

The baptism that Moses underwent, from death to life, is yours. The baptism that Israel went into, from evil to righteousness, is yours. The Baptism that Christ took on Himself, which plunges a man into the depths of hell and raises him to the uttermost parts of heaven to sit next to God in Christ, is yours.

 

All this has been the plan and has been true since the first tree betrayed us. “You shall not plant any tree as an Asherah beside the altar of the Lord your God that you shall make” says Jesus in Deuteronomy 16:21. This is because He would plant His own tree and it is the cross.

 

“And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him” from Hebrews 9:27-28.

 

We face sin, death, and the devil to push us towards God’s love at the Altar of His Son’s sacrifice. We face murder and anger to reveal that God’s murder and anger is all used up on Christ Crucified. God ordains this for us that we would hear His Word and Sacrament and believe it, from the hand of Moses.

 

That Word being “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” in Exodus 20:2 and Romans 8:38-39, “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

 

Offered to you, by the Grace of God, at this Altar in Accident, MD.

 

The Diaspora [Trinity 5]

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 READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• 1 Kings 19:11-21

• 1 Peter 3:8-15

• St. Luke 5:1-11

Jesus judged [Trinity 4]

. . . LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE . . .

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Genesis 50:15-21

• Romans 8:18-23

• St. Luke 6:36-42

 

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 Church, saying: 
“Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven;”
 
No two words have ever been able to make a Christian so self-conscious and so angry at the same time as “judge not”. And there should be shame for the Christian in that, though not as the world wants it. There should be shame, because before embarrassment and anger at your neighbor for using those words, should be repentance. Repentance for forgetting what judgement is all about.
 
Let’s take a little trip through memory lane. In St. Luke 22, we are reminded of the conclusion of Maundy Thursday where Jesus was arrested to, what? Face judgement. Yes, the Christ, the Messiah of humanity, the Creator of all things is to be judged. 
 
Is He judged fairly? Well now that’s the tricky part. You see, back in Deuteronomy 17, the Lord God Almighty said, “If any case arises requiring decision … [in] any case within your towns that is too difficult for you, then you shall arise and go up to the place that the Lord your God will choose. ⁹ And you shall come to the Levitical priests and to the judge who is in office in those days, and you shall consult them, and they shall declare to you the decision. ¹⁰ Then you shall do according to what they declare to you from that place that the Lord will choose. And you shall be careful to do according to all that they direct you. ¹¹ According to the instructions that they give you, and according to the decision which they pronounce to you, you shall do. You shall not turn aside from the verdict that they declare to you, either to the right hand or to the left. ¹² The man who acts presumptuously by not obeying the priest who stands to minister there before the Lord your God, or the judge, that man shall die. So you shall purge the evil from Israel” (v. 8-12).
 
What are the take-aways here? The priest is God’s man. If you do not obey the priest, you do not obey God and shall be put to death. One of Jesus’s “crimes” was blasphemy, as in He had been doing acts of God without the permission of God, or rather God’s man, the High Priest. 
 
In so doing Jesus judges the High Priest and his cronies, as unworthy. In that judgement, Jesus is judged, as the High Priest Caiaphas rightly did. This on top of Jesus’s other crimes of desecrating God’s Law such as eating on the Sabbath, unwashed hands, eating with sinners, touching the dead and the diseased, and baptizing without authority.
 
Blasphemy! 
Also, Jesus was misleading the people (allegedly), condemning taxation, and allowing everyone to call Him king. God’s Man, the high priest, rightly then goes in front of God’s temporal authority, Pontius Pilate, and reveals this civil rebellion. Jesus is an Insurrectionist! A double condemnation.
 
Repent! This is exactly how the devil uses the law and God’s word against you. He takes you to court and backs you into a legal corner with no way out. You must either declare yourself guilty and worthy of temporal and eternal punishment or you must declare God guilty of insurrection, consigning Him to eternal punishment, with the devil as next in line to rule.
 
This is not the judgement you have chosen, though you must chose. Neither is this the judgement that the devil has chosen. This is the judgement Jesus has chosen in order to seek and save the lost. “He came to his own and His own received Him not” (St. John 1:11).
 
So we ask the question of the Reformation: can Church Councils be wrong? We faced this same question in our civil lives, the last couple years, when Romans 13 was constantly thrown in our faces: “obey your rulers”. Yes, God gives earthly power and is its only source, but does that make elected officials God, worthy of your unwavering devotion and obedience no matter what?
 
Likewise, can God’s man, in the form of the high priest, be wrong? 
 
The Pharisee Gamaliel, brought up this very question in Acts 5. He pleads the case of the Apostles in front of the priests and says, “So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!” (5:38-39).
 
How right he was, and the priests left the Apostles alone that time, but they did not leave Jesus alone. God’s man, the high priest, needed no witnesses, though the law says he needs 2 or 3 and they can not be false. Jesus says, “Then the high priest tore his robes and said, ‘He has blasphemed! What further need do we have of witnesses? See, you have now heard the blasphemy’” (St. Matt 26:65). 
 
What was it that pushed God’s man over the edge? Jesus’s claims to be the Son of God. In this confession, we find out what true judgement is and it has to do with confessing properly Who Jesus is.
 
In St. John 3, Jesus says, “Whoever believes in [the only begotten Son] is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil” (v. 18-19).
 
What this tells us is that judgment in front of God is directly linked to Who Jesus is and Who you believe Jesus is. The High Priest found himself opposing God and His only Son, Jesus Christ. He did not believe and is condemned already. Belief fulfills judgement, for by grace you have been saved, through faith.
 
Rejection of Christ leaves the judgment unfulfilled, for you to pay for, and in this case, the High Priest to pay for. Jesus says, “The one who rejects Me and does not accept My teachings has one who judges him: the word which I spoke. That will judge him on the last day” (Jn 12:48).
 
And as He said in His Law, “And the judges shall investigate thoroughly, and if the witness is a false witness and he has testified against his brother falsely, then you shall do to him just as he had planned to do to his brother. So you shall eliminate the evil from among you” (Deut 19:18-19).
 
And the high priest gets his. But no he doesn’t. Instead from our Old Testament reading today, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive” (Gen 50:20). Instead, the high priest gets to prophesy. He gets to point to the Lamb of God Who is judged in place of the world.
 
He says, “You know nothing at all. Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people” (Jn 11:49-50). The high priest judges Jesus worthy of death, in God’s stead, for it is already God’s perfect will to crush the Christ that He would pay for the sins of the whole world.
 
The priests even go one step further. Jesus’s condemnation and death is not enough. There must be a sacramental holiness attached to doing this work of God. They confess quite plainly, “His blood be upon us and our children” (Mt 27:25). It comes to pass exactly as God’s man judges and Christ’s Blood is now found in Baptism which now saves you.
 
Jesus, true God begotten of the Father from all eternity, and true man, born of the virgin Mary, is sent as a lamb to the slaughter in order to be judged in the priests’ place, in your place. Jesus is judged guilty of insurrection and blasphemy, claiming to be the King of kings, as the plate above His cross states.
 
Instead of judgement for bearing false witness, the high priest receives the Vicarious Atonement, meaning while he was yet a sinner, Christ died for him (Romans 5:8). Jesus is judged guilty, that the priests would be judged innocent. Christ goes to the cross, so you don’t have to.
 
Jesus’s Blood also enters in, as the priests prayed for on Good Friday. For now His Blood covers sins, in Baptism. We are clothed in the Blood of the Lamb which washes away our sins, a crimson flood that leaves us as white as snow. In the Judgment of Jesus, there is acquittal for us in front of God.
 
Jesus says in St. John 16:11, “[The Holy Ghost] will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: …concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.”
 
Indeed, satan is one way to read the “ruler of this world”. 2 Corinthians 4:4 says, “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”
 
However, we also know that Jesus reigns. He is King of kings and Lord of lords. He has set the heavens in motion and created all of it. Satan is the usurper. This means that Jesus is also the ruler of this world. Jesus is judged even before satan is.
 
Jesus judges and therefore He is judged. Jesus condemns and is condemned. The measure Jesus uses is used against Him. He subjects Himself to His own Law and His own creation in order to “judge not”. Though He is judge, He wants all to turn from their wicked ways and live (Eze 33:11).
 
Judgement is not about you. Judgment is reserved for Christ in two ways. It is reserved for Him to judge on the Last Day and it was reserved for Him to be judged on Good Friday. And in that judgment of the only begotten Son of God, God and man are reconciled. There is peace between you and God. In Christ, we can confess with St. Paul, “if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged” (1 Cor 11:31).
 
The Christian therefore rejoices in judgment, not because God gives him super-judgmental powers on earth with which to do as he pleases as “God’s Man”, but because his God allowed Himself to be judged by sinners, in order that the sinners be made into saints, in Christ Crucified. And Christ Crucified is the light of the gospel.
 
The Gospel that says there is no more judgement for you to worry yourself about and no more judgment for you to mete out and no more worry that, if you don’t, you will have missed your opportunity to bring God’s Will on earth as it is in heaven.
 
Dear Christians, “judge not” means you are done judging and being judged by sin, death, and the power of the devil. You may rest in peace, knowing that you have already been judged innocent according to Word and Sacrament and that anything else left over will be properly taken care of on the Last Day.
 
Do carry on, testing the spirits and judging doctrine that you may remain in the one true faith, but rest in the full assurance of God’s Promise. That though you, in your sin, mean your judgments for evil and the world and the devil also, Jesus Christ means it for Good. The ultimate Good. The substitutionary Good that Christ is judged guilty and innocent and, because of that, not have our sins counted against us (2 Cor 5:19) and in faith being judged righteous.
 
 

Gospel for 1 you [Trinity 3]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Micah 7:18-20

• 1 Peter 5:6-11

• St. Luke 15:1-10

 

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 Church, saying: 

“Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”

 
Jesus does not send out recruitment fliers for His religion. His is an invitation. The difference is, an invitation stresses the importance of the individual, whereas recruitment does not care who is there.
 
Any main-stream sport today, except golf, is based on gathering points. The more points you have, the better your chance at being first place. If you have the most, you win. This works for board games as well as war and empires. Possession of the most pieces, the most flags planted, and the most people enslaved to taxation wins!
 
You see that your “club” needs members and so you recruit. You search the world for talent and you screen and shortlist. All this, because you just don’t want rabble, you want the best. You want productivity. You want growth.
 
This makes perfect sense. In our sinful worldview, we measure everything by success. If we plant a garden, we want success. If we start a relationship, we want success. If we start a business, we want success. And what does it mean to be successful? Numbers.
 
Here, the devil itches our ears. We hear from God “make disciples of all nations” (Mt 28:19), popularly called the Great Commission. And from St. Mark 16:15, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.”
 
These, and other words from Jesus, give us the standing orders to go and spread the good news, whatever that means. But it takes more than one person to do something of that scale, so we recruit. Many hands, make light work, we say. And this is how we treat God’s Church, as if it were an earthly kingdom in need of recruits.
 
And the devil’s itch grows stronger. We begin to replace the “good news” with “go and tell”. We begin to transform Jesus’ Church into a recruiting station. Instead of bringing people in, we are sending them away to “go and tell”. And in continuing this practice, this dogma, we cry and wail over how empty the Church is.
 
Repent! In a very backwards lesson from the Gospel today, Jesus is not going for numbers or quantity. He leaves His lucrative “mega-church” of 99 righteous and searches for the poor, miserable sheep. He forsakes guarding the 9 silver coins in favor of giving all His focus to one. 
 
You think these parables mean that Jesus abandons those He has already saved to seek out the lost, as is believed in many other churches. No. The 99 and the 9 are Self-Righteous. They “have no use for repentance” as our Gospel reading said. These are not the churched and the saved, these are the Recruiters who have no need for a Crucified Savior.
 
The Good News, or the Gospel, is not a business slogan or a “gatcha” to fish for men. The Gospel is the free forgiveness of sins in Christ Crucified. The Gospel is the justification of the sinner by grace, through faith, for Christ’s sake. The Gospel is the Word made Flesh. The Gospel is for you.
 
This fact, the sinner immediately forgets and the Recruiter immediately throws away. Because Jesus’ work is to save the world through His suffering, death, and resurrection, the Recruiter cannot sell that message. He must gloss over that and go for the sale of “make yourself righteous for God”.
 
What sin, death, and the devil do not understand is that the way of the cross is not a way of death or a path for a dead man. Hebrews 4:12 tells us: “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword.”
 
This means that the Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ is living and acts in His own way. This means that the man Jesus Christ is living. He lives and breathes and is His own individual. He dictates to His Creation and He dictates to His Church. His Church will be a cruciform Church for the forgiveness of sins.
 
The devil believes in numbers. He believes that if he has enough souls, eventually more than God, he wins. He does not want you, individually, he just wants supremacy. So when a church begins to focus on numbers and recruitment strategies…
 
Jesus does not forsake the 99, but He does focus on the 1. The difference is the 99 are able to live out a life of Faith, having heard of the Good Work of the Good Shepherd. The repentance purchased and won on the cross is for them. They simply love their sins more.
 
The one has yet to hear, because he is dead in his trespasses and sins (Eph 2:1). His ears are stopped, his tongue is locked up, and his eyes are blind. In order to rescue that one, the Son of Man must be lifted up. In order that God so love the world to give His only-begotten Son “that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16), He must be lifted up in two ways.
 
First, as the Bronze Serpent. Jesus must take on the role of the Chief of Sinners (2 Cor. 5:21), not with His own sin, but with everyone else’s. Second, He must be lifted up from the sleep of death. Then, in that work, He may go out to search, sweeping the house with the Light of Life, to preach the Law and Gospel to the dead sinner.
 
Jesus did not start off with 100. He started with zero. He has to create what He is seeking. His recruitment station was abandoned for lack of success. There was no one who stopped and today that remains true. No one is righteous. No one seeks God. No one.
 
Though Jesus wants His Father’s House filled with wedding guests, as we heard last week in St. Luke 14, He wants you. He goes to search, not for just anybody, but you. He leaves His heavenly recruiting station to bring the Gospel to you. Because, for Jesus, it is not a numbers game, it is life and death and He has defeated death, so there is only life to give out.
 
His life, to you. It is not enough for Jesus to have the bigger team, He wants the biggest family. He already has His angelic army that fills the heavens and the earth, as we hear in Joel 2:11. His glory already fills the heavens and His praise, the whole earth (Hab 3:3). He has no need for you to be a drop in that bucket.
 
He has a need to suffer and die on the cross. He has the need to rise again from the dead. He has a need to purchase and win baptism for you, so that you would be baptized into His Body. He has a need to secure His Body and Blood for you, so that you would be fed heavenly medicine, conforming to His image and becoming more Christ-like, literally.
 
He also has need of preparing and perfecting His Gospel, wherein He completes His Righteousness and fulfills Confession and Absolution in order that you would be able to repent and be the cause of endless rejoicing in heaven.
 
It is not the self-righteous “soldiers of the Lord” who hear the voice of their Lord and follow Him. It is His own sheep. His own sheep which He has raised from the dead. His own sheep who have had their dead ears and dead eyes and dead tongues made alive again, through the Gospel.
 
The Gospel that the Lord has need. He has need of personally invited guests to enjoy His victory over sin, death, and the devil. The strife is over. The battle won. The soldier’s job is no more. Instead, be lifted up with Jesus. Be raised to shoulder level with Jesus. Come and repent and enter into the Kingdom of Word and Sacrament, “you who are blessed by my Father, [and] inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (St. Matthew 25:34).