Fear of Good [Trinity 2]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Proverbs 9:1-10

• 1 John 3:13-18

• St. Luke 14:15-24

 

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Rom 1)

 

Who speaks to you today, saying:

“Blessed is he who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!”

 

These words of Jesus’s Gospel are given to you today, to show you just how afraid you are of the goodness of God. It is too good. It is so good, that you are left out. It is only in His invitation that we are pointed to His mercy and forgiveness, which invite us in to union with God, both in body and soul. We apply this when we encounter Him in His Word and Sacrament.

 

These words and the excuses given in the Gospel, and found in Deuteronomy 20, will be our focus today.

 

There is a “controversy which has arisen…concerning the righteousness of Christ or of faith, which God credits by grace, through faith, to poor sinners for righteousness.”

 

“one side has contended that the righteousness of faith, which the apostle calls the righteousness of God, is God’s essential righteousness, which is Christ Himself as the true, natural, and essential Son of God, who dwells in the elect by faith and impels them to do right, and thus is their righteousness, compared with which righteousness the sins of all men are as a drop of water compared with the great ocean.”

 

Thus far from our Book of Concord, which accurately describes what our man at the table is getting at by saying “Blessed are those who will eat”. As if their spot at the table is a foregone conclusion. Of course I’m going to be there. Of course my blood line will be there. No matter what I do in this life, as long as I have the right last name, I’m in.

 

This is the mythical “frozen chosen” who will then go on in the teaching of Jesus, from the Gospel reading, to make excuses, godly excuses, as to why they are not more concerned with how they treat their neighbor today. They think that in the details, they can catch God and get in on a technicality or a loophole, in Jesus’s Name of course.

 

The other side to this controversy is that “others have held and taught that Christ is our righteousness according to His human nature alone.” This is the side we are most familiar with, for it deals with believing God only gives His righteousness to those who look like they have it. 

 

In good works and shining personalities, these men believe God gives only human righteousness in order to work towards a godly righteousness, eventually, sometime in the future. Regardless, your unrighteousness can still condemn you by a technicality or loophole: “remember that time the Body of Christ got stuck in between your teeth? Sorry. Deal-breaker.”

 

In opposition to both these parties it has been unanimously taught by the teachers of the Augsburg Confession that Christ is our righteousness not according to His divine nature alone, nor according to His human nature alone, but according to both natures; for He has redeemed, justified, and saved us from our sins as God and man, through His complete obedience; that therefore the righteousness of faith is the forgiveness of sins, reconciliation with God, and our adoption as God’s children only on account of the obedience of Christ, which through faith alone, out of pure grace, is imputed for righteousness to all true believers, and on account of it they are absolved from all their unrighteousness.” (SD III:1-4)

 

If this is such great news, why the anxiety? Why the hesitation to heed this generous and perfect invitation to His own, true Banquet? I will give two examples and maybe then, you can tell me.

 

First is Exodus. Everybody loves a good underdog story, where the line between good and bad is easy to see and everyone lives, freedom-ly ever after. God swoops in to save the day. He sends His super-man, Moses, works His superpowers, the plagues, and even sends His people through the Red Sea in order to free His people. God is good. God is great. I’m sure glad He’s on our side.

 

Second is the Babylonian Exile. Nobody loves an Old Testament forsaking. For years, the kings of Israel and Judah could not get a good word from true prophets, so they murdered them. Each time they prophesied destruction on Israel, they hardened their hearts. God was finally against them, leveled His own Holy City, and banished His own holy people, Adam and Eve style.

 

Back to the invitation: which God is the God of the invitation? Is it the God Who believes in the tenacity and perseverance of people, setting them free to go on to bigger and better things? Or is it the God of Heavenly Righteousness, Who will show no mercy in the face of disobedience or slip-ups?

 

So which is it, O godly man? Are you ready to plight your troth upon the Lord? To risk your truth and all you hold true on this God Who may or may not feel good today? Or will you hedge your bets in sin, as you always do, and take all sides, because who knows, really. 

 

You cast all your bets in with the immortal words of Treebeard, who says, “I am not altogether on anybody’s side, because nobody is altogether on my side.” (The Two Towers). Nobody cares for myself as I care for it. I can’t go risking all my hard work on some fancy story-tellin.

 

There is one final excuse God allows, in Deuteronomy 20:1, 5-8, and it goes like this, “When you march out to battle your enemies…The officials will continue to address the troops, stating: ‘Is there anyone here who is afraid and discouraged? He can leave and go back to his house; otherwise, his comrades might lose courage just as he has.’”

 

Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom, according to Christ’s divine righteousness. And, blessed is everyone who does now eat bread in the kingdom, according to Christ’s human righteousness. 

 

For, according to the Person and Work of Jesus Christ, we must reject the following:

1. That our love or good works are a merit or cause of justification before God, either entirely or in part.

2. that by good works man must render himself worthy and fit, that the merit of Christ may be imparted to him.

3. that our real righteousness before God is the love or renewal which the Holy Ghost works in us, and which is in us.

4. that two things or parts belong to the righteousness of faith before God in which it consists, namely, the gracious forgiveness of sins, and then, secondly, renewal or sanctification.

5. that faith justifies only initially, either in part or primarily, and that our newness or love justifies even before God, either completely or secondarily.

6. that believers are justified before God, or are righteous before God, both by credit and by beginning to act righteous at the same time, or partly by the credit of Christ’s righteousness and partly by the beginning of new obedience.

7. that the application of the promise of grace occurs both by faith of the heart and confession of the mouth, and by other virtues. 

 

It is incorrect when it is taught that man must be saved in some other way or through something else than as he is justified before God, for Christ’s sake. “blessed is the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works”, declares Romans 4:6.

 

St. Paul’s basis of argument is that we obtain both, salvation as well as righteousness, in one and the same way. Yes, when we are justified by faith, we receive at the same time adoption and the inheritance of eternal life and salvation; and on this account St. Paul employs and emphasizes those words by which works and our own merits are entirely excluded, namely, by grace, without works, as forcibly in the article concerning salvation as in the article concerning righteousness. (SD III:53 )

 

Christ is your righteousness. Therefore, Deuteronomy 20, where we find these legit excuses, begins by first saying, “Do not be afraid”.

“When you march out to battle your enemies and you see horses, chariots, and a fighting force larger than yours, don’t be afraid of them, because the Lord your God, the one who brought you up from Egypt, is with you. As you advance toward the war, the priest will come forward and will address the troops. He will say to them: ‘Listen, Israel: Right now you are advancing to wage war against your enemies. Don’t be discouraged! Don’t be afraid! Don’t panic! Don’t shake in fear on account of them, because the Lord your God is going with you to fight your enemies for you and to save you.’” (Deut 20:1-4)

 

Whether today God is disciplining you in your sin or He is comforting you in the Gospel, He is one God. He is the God Who both leads out of Egypt and into Exile, going with you to both places. He is the God Who leads besides still waters and comforts with a rod of iron. 

 

The Lamb Who stands as if He were slain, with seven horns and seven eyes, and demands fealty, touches your shoulder, and is seen as the Crucified Jesus, with His raw, imprinted palms.

 

Everything is made ready by His, no-excuse life in front of the Father, for you. He has bought a field and intends to be buried in it, for the sins of the world. He has purchased 5 yolk of oxen and preaches faith to all who hear those 5 Books of Moses. He marries a wife and intends to purify her with His own, true Body and Blood.

 

Is God angry with you today? It matters not. His Son has risen from the grave, divorcing you from the condemning law. Is God happy with you today? It matters not. Not even prosperity keeps Christ from the cross. 

 

Our faith is in the Promise made in Blood. Our hope is in the invitation, freely given for Jesus’s sake, that whether we encounter a flame-engulfed mountain, or a still lake, with a “God’s Table here” sign, we say, “the man on the middle cross said I get to be here.”

 

For true blessedness does come out of the bread of the kingdom of God alone and in mercy, Jesus declares, “I am the bread”. 

“as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ Then Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.‘

And Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. I am the bread which came down from heaven.” (St. John 6:31-41)

 

And the Banquet of the Blessed gathers around the Bread.

 

Amen.

 

Seen and Unseen [Trinity 1]

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Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Rom 1)
 
Who speaks to you today, saying:

“Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father's house”

 
And one of the “hims” sent to his father’s, and our fathers’, houses is St. John. Our Epistle from him today says, “he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God Whom he has not seen”. Likewise, I say, “he who does not love his church whom he has seen cannot love the eternal Church whom he has not seen”. Yet.
 
Jesus’s method of operation is sacramental, that is to use creation to work His salvation among us. We hear these words of Jesus today to point us to what is unseen in what is seen. That Jesus’s Promise of salvation is only through His Word, that is the Gospel purely preached and the sacraments administered according to it.
 
For, in no uncertain terms, St. John the Apostle declares that you must love God and you must love your brother. On top of that, you must love your brother whom you can see and you must love your God, Whom you cannot see.
This is the part when you run away.
 
For one, this is every religion’s claim. Christianity is not unique here. You can’t see God now, but you just gotta believe bro. You gotta just use your whole heart bro, your whole mind, strength, and soul must be given to the invisible sky-daddy, who’s just too shy to show up right now. Bro.
 
This is a part of Abraham’s complaint and maybe you can sympathize in our Old Testament reading. For Abraham, God has already appeared to him and so is not unseen, as St. John demands of us. Abraham’s complain is that God is making a promise that is invisible, unfulfilled, and in the future, which may or may not happen. Offspring are supposed to be visible, incarnate, but as of yet, not seen and Abraham’s biological clock is ticking.
 
But Abraham believed the Lord and that belief, that faith alone is counted as righteousness in front of God. What a powerful witness. No wonder Abraham was chosen to be a father of the Church and that God chose to show Himself, revealing to Abraham descendants as numerous as the stars.
 
Unfortunately, for Abraham, there were many stars, but no offspring and Abraham knows, feels, and believes this is his soul. This is why we find Abraham in chapter 16, committing adultery with his servant Hagar to force God’s hand. What was he to do? He listened to his wife, knew Hagar, and thus finally, the offspring of promise was in hand.
 
Then, God reveals Himself again, not to Abraham, but to Hagar. She says, “Have I also here seen Him who sees me?” (16:13). Though God had blessed Abraham, He now blesses Hagar who is not the mother of Promise. With these two revelations, there appears to be no sure way to make God appear for us, for He shows Himself to the righteous and the unrighteous alike.
 
Repent. One, important lesson we consistently forget is what is not seen is just as important as what is seen. The things you do and say in this life affect both your body and your soul. The mantra of the LGBTQIAAP+ marriage people is: “it doesn’t affect you, why do you care?”
 
One, you don’t live in a bubble. Your actions and behavior affect everyone around you. And two, you destroying your eternal soul does affect me, as I love you and don’t want to see that happen. Any sin destroys faith, destroys the unseen within you: addiction, fornication, immorality and others. They may not seem to have immediate consequences, but are deadly all the same.
 
The Rich Man, in the Gospel today, thought like Abraham, that he had what was unseen in his hands. He was communing with success, popularity, and prosperity. He truly believed the unseen favor of God was in those things he could see. That is misplaced belief. Belief is to be in the Offspring alone, for that is the Promise.
 
The Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, proves the God Who is unseen, and that He wills and desires to be seen only in Jesus. As our Christmas Proper Preface goes: “in the mystery of the Word made flesh You have given us a new revelation of Your glory that, seeing You in the Person of Your Son, we may know and love those things which are not seen.”
 
The unseen realm is real. The Word that gave the 10 Commands to Moses, Hagar, and the Rich Man to teach Who He is; The Word Who gave the confession of faith to the same and to us, in our creeds, to teach what we are to expect and receive from God, was made man. Made to be seen.
 
The Word was made flesh. The unseen Promise made to Abraham, fulfilled in the Offspring of David. The seen Mercy shown to Hagar and Ishmael all converge and are seen and found in the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.
 
How is that? The Blood of Jesus covers sins. The suffering of Jesus pays for adultery, fornication, and all sin leading to death. Where Isaac, Jacob, and even David failed, the Son of God does the Will of our Father perfectly, satisfying and fulfilling the Law in their and our stead.
 
Though conceived in sin, Hagar and Ishmael are not forgotten, but seen. The Promise made to Abraham was to see God, in the flesh, complete His Mercy perfectly. This He does in Jesus, the Offspring, the Son of Promise. Abraham is blessed, because he was given power to believe in the unseen. That is, he will wait for God to keep His Promise in His own way. “Abrahm rejoiced to see my day”, says Jesus in St. John 8:56, “and was glad.”
 
Lazarus was comforted in eternity, because he dared to believe that faith is given to wait for God’s promised fulfillment in and through suffering flesh. Abraham’s doubt and the Rich Man’s unbelief stem from the logic that suffering does not produce victory. Their reason blinded them from expecting the Promised Offspring to suffer. It is unbelievable to accept that success and victory be found in a sin-riddled, broken body on a cross. Wouldn’t you agree?
 
Yet, Jesus still gives us His Gospel. He still stands Lazarus up in front of us, our neighbor through whom we cool our sinful tongues on Moses and the Prophets, who preach Christ Crucified. We still side with the Rich Man, desiring to cover our guilt with our works and our reason, which tell us that suffering is not very loving, which is the motto of the devil.
 
When St. John gives us his warning of seen and unseen. He is not contradicting Jesus’s words of, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn 14:9). He is comforting his flock. You do not see God anymore, like you see your brother today. Your God has ascended to His complete and full power, uniting God and man in the flesh, unable to be seen by sinful eyes.
 
Your brother has need of you today. It is godly to respond to Jesus with praise and devotion, but not at the expense of your brother. He is just as worthy of forgiveness as you are, though he may be your enemy. 
 
Jesus has come back from the dead to report that He gives peace to you. Jesus has sent His Apostles and Prophets to teach you of unseen things. Unseen, but not untouchable. And not even just your neighbors. The Gospel teaches of unmerited grace in the unseen things made to be seen.
 
As Jesus was the unseen made seen, so too His work in His Church. The unseen favor of God is found in His Gospel purely preached. The unseen salvation of God is seen in His baptism, ritely administered. The unseen forgiveness in the union of God and man in one Jesus Christ is seen, handled, and tasted in the Body and Blood, given and shed for you.
 
For the Promise was, is, and always will be in the flesh of the Son, Who has made believers out of all Who trust in and drink of His Blood. That is, the unseen promise to see God has been made manifest to His Church in faith. The stars now shrink at the magnitude of offspring the Savior of the world has now produced in His suffering.
 
It is because God now has a Body, that our brother becomes this important piece in loving God. Now God just might look like one of them and if I practice hate here, I will take it with me to eternity. But if I love here, Love, Jesus covers a multitude of sins and is faithful to wash them away, for all eternity.
 
 

The Creeds [Most Holy Trinity]

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Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Rom 1)
 
Who speaks to you today, saying:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

 
On this Sunday of the Most Holy Trinity, we have confessed the longest of our three ecumenical Creeds. And if there were a longer one, I’d make you recite that too! 
The word “ecumenical” means something pertaining to the unity of the world’s Christian Churches. Which means that if you claim to be a Christian you can and should be confessing the three ecumenical creeds: Apostles, Nicene, and Athanasian.
 
Especially since this year marks the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, from which we receive our Creed in history. For 1700 years, these creeds have been confessed in Christ’s Church as a correct expression of God’s Word and for 1700 years, nothing has been found to be their equal.
 
So, we must ask: beyond Trinity Sunday, how often do you explore the trinitarian nature of God? To what extent has any of the Creeds informed and formed your faith?
 
This is asked in two ways. the first way is as a word from God, that is we feel chastised because we know the answer is negative. We feel chastised, then forgiven that we have more time to change our ways.
 
The second is mockery from the world. The world asks this question to force us to conclude that the Trintiy is not worth exploring not only in Church, but in our everyday lives. And if it is irrelevant to our everyday lives, then it is irrelevant to faith, thus, something to be rid of. 
 
And that is just what one, worldwide group calling themselves “lutheran” have done this year. Though not the full Creed, they have concluded that the filioque, the “proceeds from the Father and the Son”, is only causing division between them and orthodox churches and so should be deep six-ed.
 
This is not the first time this rather large group of so-called lutherans have done something like this. In 1999, what’s called the Joint Declaration on the doctrine of Justification was approved between them and rome and with the same thinking. Justification really only divides us, so we should just get rid of it. And they did.
 
This is the way of the world, to whittle and whittle and whittle away until it gets to where, it thinks or decides, is the least common denominator, the origin, the thing that unites. But it doesn’t want unity, it wants control. We would all agree with Dr. Luther King Jr that skin color should not determine someone’s worth. The world also agrees, but only so that it can prove that no one is different, you are not special, and you should just trust the experts.
 
We would all agree that the universe is a vast place, too vast one might say, and that we are only a small part of it, in hopes of producing some humility. The world agrees, but it wants you insignificant and irrelevant with that thought, so it can dominate.
 
We chip and chip away at life until there’s nothing left, because we have replaced our creed. Instead of Who God is and what He comes to give us, we confess hospitality, unity, and reconciliation. All of which are godly goals, but when turned into confession or dogma, become satanic lies that lead to great shame and vice.
 
You know you are in this trap when you hear someone make the point, “that isn’t very Christ-like of you” or “my Jesus wouldn’t act like that”. Not in an attempt to right a wrong, but in an attempt to shave away pieces of Jesus to His lowest, common denominator. Even more than that, since a proper confession is forgotten or lost, the law supersedes even Jesus Himself.
 
Hospitality is absolute. Unity is absolute. Reconciliation is absolute and they are our modern false gods. Even Jesus must bend His knee to these principles or He is not the real Jesus. 
 
Repent. Such is the importance of retaining our Creeds and such is the importance of you praying, studying, and meditating on them. When you begin to shave off doctrine, you begin to shave away from Jesus. But this has already been tried. 
 
First, they tried to strip away His dignity by shunning His words saying, “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son?” (Mt 13:55). Next, they tried to strip away his authority, “You are not greater than our father Abraham who died, are you? And the prophets died! Who do you make yourself to be?” (Jn 8:53).
 
When words failed, action took its place. Since they could not strip Him of His dignity and authority, they aimed at His honor, calling Him a liar, and they aimed at His body shaving it of both clothes and skin, such that He would bleed out on the cross.
 
They stripped Jesus, but could not reduce Him any amount. It only managed to drive the Lord’s point home that this is Who God is. This is what He is doing. This is His will, to suffer, die, and rise again for sinful humanity.
 
That is what we call a revelation. The work and will of God in the flesh reveals Who God is, what He wants, and how He gets it done. As our Small Catechism goes, first we run through the Ten Commandments to discover Who God is. Next is the Creed, “which sets forth to us everything that we must expect and receive from God, and, to state it quite briefly, teaches us to know Him fully” (LC II:1).
 
Romans 10 states, “if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” (10:9). But how do you do that? With the amount of information that one verse gives, out of context, you might as well be hearing it this way, “If you shalbbah dah habbidahkey xghfteohajd that garblerdarbleguck, you will be FLDSMDFR”.
 
Just saying the words “Jesus is Lord” is not good enough. You must be taught Who Jesus is, what “is” means, and what a Lord is. It would be enough if you “could by your own powers keep the Ten Commandments as they are to be kept, then you would need nothing further, neither the Creed nor the Lord’s Prayer” (LC II:3). 
 
However, “since the Ten Commandments have taught that we are to have not more than one God, the question might be asked, What kind of a person is God? What does He do? How can we praise, or portray and describe Him, that He may be known? Now, that is taught in this [creed] so that the Creed is nothing else than the answer and confession of Christians arranged with respect to the First Commandment. As if you were to ask a little child: ‘My dear, what sort of a God do you have? What do you know of Him? That child could say: This is my God: first, the Father, who has created heaven and earth; besides this only One I regard nothing else as God; for there is no one else who could create heaven and earth” (LC II:I:10-11).
 
“How can these things be”, demands Nicodemus. And the Teacher teaches. Jesus shows Nicodemus, that words are only half the battle. Nicodemus is not going to get any farther towards an answer in John chapter 3. He must move on. He needs John 18 and 19. He needs chapters 20, 21, and the Book of Acts.
 
He needs a Church that houses the Body and Blood of Christ which give strength and nourishment to his own mouth and pumps divine blood to his blood. For in the Creed, Nicodemus and the Church find the God Who gives. He gives creation, He gives redemption, and He gives sanctification.
 
Strip any of these points away and you have the devil. Replace any of the work God has done for you with your works of hospitality, unity, or any other good and holy work you fear, love, and trust more than God, and you have a demon.
 
Reduce Jesus and His work any amount from 100% and you have lost the faith. Thanks be to God, that Jesus reveals no matter how much sinful man attempts to strip off Him, He is always at 100%.
 
Take away His divinity and He remains man, while remaining God. Take away His humanity and He rises from the dead. Dissect Him down to His smallest atom and still there you will find the fullest of fullness. All the fullness of the Godhead, found in Christ in a crumb of bread and a drop of wine.
 
There is no reduction of God Almighty. The only reduction we do, in hopes of being ecumenical, is to our own faith. And though God reduces Himself to the flesh, it is only a stepping down. He loses no part of Himself in His incarnation or His Holy Communion.
 
Thus, we focus on the Rock of our Foundation each and every Sunday. We thank and Praise the Trinity every Sunday. We invoke His Name alone as we call down His Spirit to be among us. We dwell in His Word and His Work, now handed over to His Church, through the ages, to believe and confess with heart and mouth.
 
Hearts that have been transplanted and mouths that have been seared by the fiery coals of His Sacrament, given and shed for you. He lowers Himself to our level. This is no reduction, but a condescension. He allows His divinity to be handled by spirits and bodies that He has redeemed by His precious Blood.
 
You say “I believe”, because faith, which makes people members of the Church, is hidden to our eyes yet, however, the Holy Scriptures assure us that the Holy Spirit continues to gather and preserve His Church (LSCE q170).
 
Amen.