The Man [Feast of St. Matthew]

 LISTEN AND WATCH HERE.

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Ezekiel 1:10-14
• Ephesians 4:7-116
• St. Matthew 9:9-13

To you all who are beloved of God in Rensselaer (Monticello) called as saints:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

 Who speaks to you today as always, only through His Gospel saying,

“For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

 In the Old Testament reading from Ezekiel, you hear the prophesy of the Four Gospels to come and proclaim the favorable year of the Lord (Isa. 61:2) by the forgiveness of sins. To follow the Holy Ghost handing out and proclaiming whatever He gives and says, these four living creatures are representing what the Gospel does. The fire is the Light of the World speaking His Gospel through them. Speaking of mercy and not sacrifice. Preaching the truth in Love and the fullness of Christ.

 For it has been since Apostolic times that the Church has associated these four living creatures in Ezekiel with the Four Gospels. The human face with the Gospel according to St. Matthew whose feast day we celebrate today, the lion with St. Mark, the ox with St. Luke, and the eagle with St. John. Each animal representing a unique aspect of the Gospel associated with it.

 For St. Matthew, it is the human face, or literally, the face of a man. This is because a recurring phrase in St. Matthew’s gospel is “the man” when talking about and referring to Jesus. The sad part is that it doesn’t come through in English translations, but St. Matthew is known for emphasizing the man-ness of Jesus and focusing on the human nature of Jesus.

 Not that St. Matthew forgets or neglects the divine nature, but that we hear more of how God was made man and what sort of things He spent His time doing, as a man. Meaning they are important for us men. This comes out in our Gospel reading, though again not in English. 

 In v.12, the Greek says, “But The Man, hearing [them], said…”

And it happens all over St. Matthew’s gospel. “The Man” did this or “The Man” did that. Jesus is The Man and as Man He lives a life of perfection, He suffers, dies, and is buried just as men are. It is in this part of the mystery of “God made flesh” that St. Matthew keeps our attention on throughout his gospel book.

 Even though it is St. John’s gospel that holds the phrase “Behold the man” uttered by John the Baptist, the first 2 chapters of St. Matthew are not in the other gospels. This includes the genealogy of the man, Joseph, Jesus’ earthly father, that same man giving Jesus His Name, and the wise men, flight to Egypt, and the murder of the Holy Innocents.

 So it is that the Man, Jesus, does hear, as the gospel said He heard the Pharisees. He hears the Pharisees cries of self-righteousness, their self-proclaimed wellness as the gospel says, and He also hears the tax-collectors’ and sinners’ cries for mercy, those who are sick or evilly afflicted with a worldly lifestyle. Jesus hears even when all parties have no idea they are praying for those things.

 For whether you think you are well or think you are sick, Jesus passes in front of us and calls out. But He calls out in a rough way and St. Matthew uses himself as an illustration for us. You see, at the beginning of the gospel pericope, it is Matthew being called and spoken to by Jesus. At the end, Jesus says that He has come to call and speak to sinners. St. Matthew, in his own hand, is calling himself a sinner.

 Now, you would sinfully think that since St. Matthew is writing this gospel to be heard by the whole world that he would take the time to make himself look good. Maybe he would be the first one Jesus called, or the beloved disciple, or the most devoted. This would be the time to do just that and other writers have done it and continue to.

 In the Koran, Mohammed is continuously promoted as the “model for all men” and is given the most “blessings” from Allah. In Mormonism, John Smith had the secret knowledge and all the best stuff from everyone. Even in the eastern religions, you are the best if you live life virtuously and to be copied by everyone else. And any book by a politician, well, you know.

 Instead, St. Matthew knows John the Baptist’s words well, “He must increase and I must decrease” (Jn. 3:30). There is something bigger than St. Matthew happening and St. Matthew is very much aware of this something. We are made aware of his awareness in the very first verse of his entire gospel book and in one other place, for example. 

 When St. Matthew says, “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” in 1:1, he literally says in the Greek, “The book of the genesis of Jesus Christ…”. Meaning, St. Matthew knew he was writing scripture, as in, finishing or completing what Moses’ book of Genesis started.

 In another place in St. Matthew’s gospel (24:14, 26:13), he records Jesus saying “wherever this gospel is preached” and “this gospel will be preached” throughout the whole world. “This gospel” meaning this book that St. Matthew was writing. 

 But that didn’t matter to St. Matthew. He didn’t try to paint himself rosy. He knew that God knew his sins. He knew that he was already exposed to the Almighty and that every single one of his thoughts, words, and deeds was known. He also knew that they would be revealed to everyone on the Last Day, so why try to hide them now?

 No, St. Matthew’s trust was not in how well he did things in Jesus’ eyes neither was it in how well he wrote about those things that Jesus did. St. Matthew’s trust was in the Man. The Man, come down from the heavens in order to hear sinners and call them to follow Him to Confession and Absolution. 

 Jesus says, “Follow me” and tax-collectors and Pharisees follow Him. Like moths to a flaming torch, all creation cannot help itself around God’s Word. When God says, “Follow me”, St. Matthew rises as if from a deathly, sinful sleep to follow. Man to man, God stands in front of you and speaks to you.

 Jesus stands in front of you, calling you a sinner, but He does so from His cross. He may have the face of a man that you can grab hold of and scourge, but He is also the face of God. And, in St. Matthew’s gospel, He is the God-man come to call sinners to follow Him where His Body and Blood is to be a ransom for the many (Mt. 20:28).

 He makes the demand of you, from our Introit, to speak wisdom, talk of judgment, and hold the law of God in your heart. But instead of extracting that tax from you, He taxes Himself and suffers and dies in order to purchase and win you. 

Neither does He wait for you to write the perfect confession or vow. Instead the wisdom and righteousness He wants is His own words which He conveniently pens down on paper, through the Apostles, for you. In His mercy, Jesus gives us His righteousness found in the gospel that St. Matthew wrote, through the Holy Ghost. Holy Wisdom is found only in speaking God’s Word, which you find in the Gospel according to St. Matthew.

 Thus it becomes St. Matthew’s priority to get his gospel book to all people. He does not just write, but he preaches. Legend has it that he wrote the gospel as a sort of catechetical, farewell letter to the Jews before leaving and being martyred in Persia, some years after. 

 We know that he not only carried his gospel and shared it, but that he did so in the context of the Divine Service, for all the Apostles and pastors “devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42). 

It is this gospel and Divine Service light that opens our minds to comprehend just how the four living creatures of Ezekiel represent the Gospel. Four faces, four gospels. Wings of the angel messengers that carry the message of God. And the Light of the World, unchanging, not turning to the left or to the right, and flashing for the world to see as we hear Psalm 97:4 say, “His lightnings enlightened the world: the earth saw, and trembled.”

In Christ Crucified, St. Matthew’s gospel book brings salvation and faith by hearing, in the light of Christ. Christ gives us His Apostle’s teachings to hear and read that we might be equipped, build up His Church, and finally attain the “unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God”…”so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes” as our Epistle teaches us today.

 This is the kind of God you worship. This is the kind of Savior you have, that the power of His salvation and redemption is stored in the gospel written by a man, a sinner, a tax-collector no less, and revealing the Son of Man to you, that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.

 We rise for the Gospel reading during Service, just as St. Matthew rose at our Savior’s words to follow Him. Not because they are pretty, but because in them we hear of mercy, of peace, and of forgiveness from God. We rise from our deathly slumber of our own sin, death, and the devil to once again shout “Amen” and “I believe” upon hearing it. 

We follow Christ through His Church Year, going again and again to the cross through Advent, to Easter, to the Last Day. We look around our own church in faith and see our Lord reclining with us at the Supper Table and know that His Word is for us. That when we hear His Word, we know that we are sick and we know that our God comes with mercy to call sinners to His healing waters, especially in His Gospel.

 

 

God's graven image [Exaltation of the Holy Cross]

 WATCH AND LISTEN HERE.

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Numbers 21:4-9
• Philippians 2:5-11
• St. John 12:20-36

To you all who are beloved of God called as saints:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Today, we once again look to the only place God is speaking these days, pointing to His cross, saying,

“Sir we wish to see Jesus”

When we talk about the cross, we are not talking about the actual piece of wood that killed our God, as if a true piece of it would create marvels and miracles among us. This sort of thing is what started this festival in the Church, when back in the 4th century, it was thought that a piece of wood was a piece of the cross. We do not deal with a magical, smoke and mirrors god.

When we talk about the cross, we talk about the crucifix, the cross with Jesus on it. We talk about the cross with Jesus on it, because of what the Greeks demand of Phillip an Andrew today, saying, “Lord, we desire to see Jesus”.

Now, the desire to see God is not unique to Christianity. Every religion, indeed, every person desires to see God. Whether or not they believe God is Who He says He is, or what He says He is, they desire to commune with whatever mysterious power is controlling things and making things what they are.

What is unique to Christianity is the world can see God. when we ask to “see God” we don’t need a golden calf, or a superman, or any other imaginary image to at best pretend to see god. We worship a God Who locates Himself. 

This is why the Greeks from the Gospel can ask Phillip to see Jesus: because He can be seen and He says He’s God. They must have been very familiar with Isaiah 55:6 when God says, “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near.” They knew that they didn’t have to search their feelings, they could just search for a man.

For Jesus doesn’t seem to answer the Greeks, at first listen. He appears to go on a side rant talking about seeds of grain and hating life. Jesus does it again as He continues, talking about glory and hours. He concludes that it will only when He is lifted up off the earth that anyone will truly see Him.

So it is that the Gospel reading ends with Jesus hiding Himself. Not because He was tired. Not because He needed to recharge. It is because He is directing us to where He is going to be found; where we can go to see Him.

Dr. Martin Luther said, 

    “Of this I am certain, that God desires to have his works heard

    and read, especially the passion of our Lord. But it is impossible

    for me to hear and bear it in mind without fanning mental images

    of it in my heart For whether I will or not, when I hear of Christ,

    an image of a man hanging on a cross takes form in my heart, just

    as the reflection of my face naturally appears in the water when I 

    look into it. If it is not a sin but good to have the image of Christ 

    in my heart, why should it be a sin to have it in my eyes?”

So when we ask God to show us Jesus, He tells us to seek the grain of wheat that fell into the ground and produced much fruit. That is, the seed of the Word of God Who suffered, died, and was buried.

When we ask God to glorify His Name in all the earth, He turns our eyes and ears towards the Son of God, high and lifted up upon the cross, drawing all men to Himself by way of His death. The light we are to walk in is hidden, but it is hidden behind means in order that it shine more brightly.

You think of the bright light of the Resurrection, as this light, and you are half-right. It is the light of the Resurrection, but it is that light shining through the cross of Christ. For even after the lights of Resurrection and Pentecost fame, the Apostles remain firm in their preaching, telling only of the crucified Christ (1 Cor. 2:2) and boasting only in His cross (Gal. 6:14).

The continued focus of the Apostles’ preaching and teaching was finding Jesus on the cross, whether it was baptizing everyone in His death and resurrection or communing with that same body and blood that hanged on the cross. The Lord of all hides Himself in means of the Spirit so that we might engage Him in all 5 senses.

And we hear that in God’s Word. He expressly teaches us that Jesus is the Divine Image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15). The Son of Mary is the image that God fashions for Himself for the world to see. An image that the entire world can look at, contemplate, and come to no other conclusion than God offers Himself in the place of sinners for the forgiveness of sins.

Why would we not want this image in front of us? Why would we not keep it close to us and look to it in times of trouble and doubt? Yes, there is the fear of turning it into an idol, but come on man. Idols are supposed to be comfortable, reassuring, and desirable. It is very hard to make a dying man on a cross sweet and cuddly. 

Yet, this is comfort for the Christian. It is comfort because it is not glorifying capitol punishment. It is glorifying a God Who is gracious and merciful and loving. God gave His only-begotten Son to suffer and die in our place. It is comfort because there is the promise. The promise that if Jesus dies and is buried, like our grain of wheat, that there will be hope.

Moses prophesied Christ’s crucifixion in the bronze serpent, which was also lifted up for the healing of all who looked at it and believed. Hidden in the crucifixion is the narrow way to the healing of God, for by His wounds we are healed (Isa 55:3). Since we will imagine those wounds in our head when we hear of it, we can, in all godliness, fashion a picture of them outside of our head.

So, the goodness of God is hidden in the suffering and death of Jesus, Who is exalted for His work on the cross. To find that goodness for ourselves, we have no choice but to turn to the only place where it is given: the same Body and Blood that worked out our salvation of the cross. 

For this reason, the crucifix has been one of the most treasured images of the church throughout the ages. And, as Moses showed, even before there was a “church” proper. It is our central message, as Christians. It is the center of Jesus’ work for us sinners. 

So much so, that we “keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2). the crucifix becomes this point of symbolism, teaching, and reinforcement of the important truths of God’s Word.

that is that in sin, God is hidden. He does not allow Himself to be found in the things of this world, even though it be the holiest work ever done. God hates sin. He hates sin so much that He did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all and now through Him graciously gives us all things (Rom 8:32).

At the very same time, the crucifix proclaims how much God loves you. God is gracious, merciful, and loving but only in the cross of Christ. God is all inclusive, but He only leaves the door open at the Baptismal font. God is all forgiving, but His hand of mercy only rests on His Supper at the Altar.

God is hidden and yet not. The Greeks cannot see Him because they are not yet looking through Jesus’ crucifixion. Everyone is following Him in the Gospel, because they have not yet witnessed the suffering of God. The world is waiting for a shining throne, shield, and sword to proclaim God’s presence on earth, yet they miss the light of the cross.

Seek first the kingdom of God where He is to be found: in His Word and Sacraments and in the holy images and icons that reveal that truth to us. For the Image of God will return and in order for us to recognize it, we need to acquaint ourselves and memorize it now. It is good, right , and salutary to keep Christ in front of us, literally.

The Martyrdom of the Baptist

 WATCH AND LISTEN HERE.

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Revelation 6:9-11
• Jeremiah 1:17-19
• St. Mark 6:17-29

To you all who are beloved of God called as saints:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Christ speaks to us by His Gospel, saying,

“When Herod heard John, he was greatly perplexed, and yet he heard him gladly.”

 

A really good question to ask yourself, on this holy day of the Martyrdom of St. John the Baptist, is what would you do with him if he showed up today? If you encountered St. John, Christ’s holy front-runner, the man to prepare the way of the Lord, he who pointed out the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world, would you sit and listen? Would you follow and write his words down, in order that other should hear?

 

This is a good question because it puts the strength of our faith into perspective. If St. John were to show up today, he would be laughed at, ridiculed, and cast aside. He would be called crazy, only a few people would go to him, and eventually he would end up dead. Sound familiar? 

 

Yes in each and every case of people in the Bible, even Jesus Himself, if they were to show up today, the same things would happen to them that already happened: rejection, suffering and dying. The real scary part is that you may end up doing those things to them! However, that won’t happen. From Adam to St. John, to Jesus. Their purpose is fulfilled and they won’t be coming back to do any more, except end the world.

 

What does this mean for us? It means we need to look to confessing our sins. We need to make sure that we have God’s forgiveness, because the end is near and it isn’t pretty. We take St. John’s example. It wasn’t the government that came down on him with a boot to his face. Though Herod did imprison him, it was the citizenry that called for his execution.

 

The Herod’s in the Bible have strange roles. Yes they are merciless. Yes they are rotten rulers and horrible fathers. But strangely they verge on edge of conversion. The Herod of Christmas calls all his priests together for a Bible class to find where God said He would be born. The Herod of John the Baptist does not kill John, but keeps him in prison and listens to him.

 

The Herod of the book of Acts searches for the Apostles, yes to kill them, but he searches for them anyways, just as you should be seeking out the Apostles and Prophets to hear them and learn from them. 

 

This brings to mind the word of the blind man who received his from Jesus in John chapter 9. The man shows himself to the Jews and they do not believe his story. They question him so extensively that at one point the man asks the Jews: “Why do want to hear my story over and over again? do you want to become His disciples?” (v.27)

 

In this case, becoming the disciples of John the Baptist means letting him speak publicly, letting him be imprisoned, and letting him be beheaded. It seems that the prophets and Apostles are destined to die. The words that they preach leave no room for doubt in the world’s heart that they must perish.

 

This is the force of Gods Word. Simply by saying that you need to repent of divorce and adultery causes Herodias to lose her head and consequently, St. John as well. The Herods and Herodias are minding their own business, living life to its fullest, and playing the game like pros. If only they weren't going against the rules.

 

In a sinful world, Jesus, the prophets, and the Apostles are like Samson’s foxes in Judges 15:

“Samson went and caught 300 foxes and took torches. And he turned them tail to tail and put a torch between each pair of tails. And when he had set fire to the torches, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines and set fire to the stacked grain and the standing grain, as well as the olive orchards.” (v.4-5)

 

The Philistines were minding their own business, living life to the fullest, and playing the game like pros. Samson butted in and ruined it all. In fact, if the Law would just go away, no one would have any knowledge of sin and there would be peace in the world.

 

Jesus says the Law will not pass away (Mt. 5:18), that He has come to bring a sword (Mt. 10:34) and that all must repent of their sins (Mt. 4:17). His preaching is like a fire (Jer. 23:29). Like a hammer that breaks the rock of sinful peace and does not give peace to the sinner. 

 

When Ahab saw Elijah, he asked, “Is it you, you troubler of Israel?” When the Jews encounter Jesus they are insistent: “He stirs up the people” (Lk. 23:5). And finally. Pilate, when he saw that Jesus really did stir up a crowd and that he was about to have a riot on his hands, gave Jesus the same fate as the prophets and the Apostles.

 

If the Word of God preached lands men in hot water, then the Word made flesh will not find a different ending. It is in the suffering and death of the martyrs of the faith that we are reminded of Jesus, the God-man, Who takes away the sin of the world.

 

It is in the firm resolve of the martyrs that we witness God’s firm promises to us, to rescue us from this place. Even though, without the knowledge of the Law there’d be no sin, that doesn’t mean a good thing. It simply means that without knowledge of sin, everyone would think that what they are doing is good.

 

This is part of the revelation of Jesus. That as both God and man He not only shows us the excellence of God and His Law, but lives it and dies for it. This shows us how fallen and corrupt the world has become. That it will not even accept its Creator and what’s more, will not even allow Him to live.

 

And yet, the prophets and the Apostles were waiting. Waiting for the time when not even death could stop them. And that time was fulfilled in Christ. For in the resurrection, death lost all of its power. So much so, that the murders of prophets and Apostles become a waste of time and that just gets the devil’s goat.

 

Ahab, the Herods, the Jews, and all sinners waste so much time on death thinking that it is the end of all their problems. They believe that this life is all people have and so they think that if they kill someone that it is the worst thing possible to do to someone else. But because of the resurrection, it is just a waste of time.

 

Ahab chasing after Elijah to kill him is such a waste of time, that if he were to succeed, he would simply speed Elijah to his ultimate goal: God's side forever. That corner that God’s Word backs the world into is that of futility. So much so that even if the world thinks it is getting its way, it is actually doing God’s will.

 

So we see in the Holy Innocents at Christmas and in John the Baptist today a fierce and stalwart spirit, even in the face of death. “Whether we live or whether we die,” they say, “we are the Lord's” (Rom. 14:8). Death has no more dominion over us.

 

As we are also the Lord’s through baptism, we preach His word of forgiveness. But that will back the world into a corner. And like a cornered beast, it will lash out to kill us. In that moment of perceived triumph, the world’s joy will turn into anguish as it realizes it has just lost. As satan thought he had God on the cross and in the grave, we will rise in Jesus’ Resurrection.

 

For that, we give thanks. Thanks that God shows mercy even to the dead, that He saves men, and that He gives us teachers to remind us in His Church. For that, we find strength from Faith, not just to stand tall in front of our enemies, but to stand tall in front of God Who forgives our lack of strength.

 

Finally, we imitate. Now imitate does not mean finding Herod and calling him an adulterer, in order that we have our heads chopped off. I mean, if it came to that then, yes, imitate. But imitate in the sense that, through sickness and in health, you believe God’s Word to gather you around His Word and Sacrament. 

 

For the same faith that Elijah wielded in front of hundreds of false prophets; the same faith that held the Holy Innocents firm to their mothers at the point of a sword; and the same faith that made St. John able to face the Executioners blade, flows in you. And it is this faith that allows you to hear your Lord cry out in forgiveness in His Gospel and it is this faith that dulls, weakens, and brings to nothing any and all things that would separate you from the love of Christ.

 

As Jeremiah says in our second reading heard today, “And I, behold, I make you this day a fortified city, an iron pillar, and bronze walls, against the whole land…They will fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, declares the Lord, to deliver you.” And in the resurrection that Jesus gives you in baptism, you are an iron pillar, even to death.

 

 

 

The Virtue Signal [Trinity 11]

 LISTEN AND WATCH HERE.

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Genesis 4:1-15
• 1 Corinthians 15:1-10
• St. Luke 18:9-14

To you all who are beloved of God called as saints:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Today, we once again hear Christ speak to us, saying,

“Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.”

 The modern lingo for what the Pharisee is doing in the parable is called Virtue Signaling. When you virtue signal, you practice publicly expressing opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate your good character or the moral correctness of your position on a particular issue. Usually without actually acting out the said virtue.

 In fact, it's noticeable how often virtue signaling consists of saying you hate things. The Pharisee is exalting himself, while hating his neighbor, without being exalted virtuously. What I mean is, instead of working to exalt his neighbor, the tax collector, and his God, in showing mercy as God would do, he is exalting himself by publicly demonstrating how much better he is than everyone else around him.

 The key to virtue signaling is to find something about your neighbor that you can make abhorrent to everyone else. If you can find some aspect of your neighbor that not everyone shares, something that makes them stand out, then you can seem virtuous over them. Some common things that have been used in history include skin color, ancestry, and health condition.

 If you read all of Luke chapter 18, you find it is full of Jesus pointing out and condemning virtue signaling. At the beginning, there is a judge who did not fear God or respect men. He sits on his judge’s seat and judges his neighbor instead of helping them before they make it to his courtroom. Yet, because God is in charge, not him, he ends up showing mercy to a widow, even though he hates her and just because he’s annoyed.

 Just after the Pharisee and Tax collector parable, Jesus tells the disciples to bring the infants to Him and a rich, young ruler asks Jesus how he can inherit eternal life. What he’s really asking is how it can be clearly seen by everyone around him that he has earned eternal life. We know this, because at the end, he is unwilling to make himself poor, i.e. disgusting to others.

 At the end of the chapter, is the Gospel reading from Quinquagesima. In it, Jesus foretells His death and resurrection for the 3rd time. The disciples did not understand, so Jesus gives a blind man his sight back. Before that, the blind man sat there for decades with no one helping him. How could they? Regardless, he was neglected by all good virtue signalers.

 But you don’t need melanin, a yellow badge, or a mask to alienate and shun your neighbor, it just comes naturally, in your sin. Your drive to be better drives you to step on those who get in your way, but you keep the moral high ground by just saying so. Changing your profile picture on FaceBook is virtue signaling. Making sure you’re a part of the right social club, is virtue signaling. Relying on your last name, is virtue signaling.

 Now, be reminded of the Gospel I preached to you, which you received, and by which you are being saved. Virtue is not just for signaling. It is not just for life. It is for pointing to Christ and what He has done for you. 

 For the sinner, God takes on two roles. The first role is the Pharisee. God is the Virtue Signaler par excellence. He sets the stage and makes the rules. If He says “fast twice a week” or “give tithes”, then you better believe those things need to be done. Does doing them make you superior? No. Doing them is your duty. It is the LEAST you can do.

 Regardless, they are law. Fast, give offerings, do not extort, be just, and no adultery. This is easy enough and should be. This is how to combat virtue signaling. But it does not increase your virtue; your standing in other’s eyes. This is God’s Law. It is holy, but in your sin, you will never achieve that holiness, that virtue by following it.

 so it is that God took on a second role. The role of the Tax Collector. How can that be God, you demand? It can be God the same way that Abel’s blood can cry out to God from the ground and plead for mercy for his murderous brother. In the role of Tax Collector, God, in Christ, cries out for mercy on the cross and is justified by the Father.

 Jesus takes excellence one step further than the Pharisee, the Tax Collector, and the Virtue Signaler, in that His fasting, tithing, and virtue is godliness itself. His cries for mercy are for others, not Himself. His signaling is not to exalt Himself, but to exalt His neighbors, all of them, to His level.

 You are not gross. You are not a demon, an outcast. You are not unloved and someone to be avoided. That is sin, the world, and the devil talking. God has no problem eating and drinking with sinners, infected or otherwise, or even corpses. 

 The signal that Jesus sets up is His cross, on which He purchases you from your undesirable sinful self. He sets up heavenly virtue in being the Humble One, not the Tax Collector. As the Humble God, Jesus offers His spotless life to you, suffering and dying, in order that you live beside Him for eternity.

 In Christ, true virtue is shown, not the pale virtue we work out for ourselves here. Not only did He set up the Law and all virtues, but He also perfected them on the cross. this reveals that there is only real virtue in Christ, Who is both God and man.

 As God, Jesus is the only one able to be virtuous. You cannot be virtuous unless you are God, Who’s virtues they are. This allows Him to give to God holy things, where we cannot. This is how God remains holy: He makes the Law and then ends the Law. He becomes the virtuous ransom for all and overcomes death and the devil for us.

 As man, Jesus reveals what true virtue is for us once again, but on our level, and shows us that it is possible for us to find true virtue in this life. Virtue where we don’t just have to shout it at everyone else, but we get to act it out in all godliness.

 Not because we deserve it, anymore than the Pharisee or Tax Collector, and not because our virtue is what God wants. But because we failed to keep it, Christ kept it for us, and then gave us all the credit for being virtuous for all eternity.

 Jesus says at the beginning of this chapter of the Gospel (18:1) that He is telling us all this so that we pray and not lose heart. That we will be heard like the widow and given justice even in front of a God Who seems impossible to please. That we will go to our own houses justified in Christ, like the Tax Collector. That we will be brought into the Kingdom as children, inherit eternal life, and be rescued from death like the Blind Man at the end of the chapter.

 Do not lose hope. Though your virtue, false or otherwise, will not save you, Jesus has and continues to. Though your attempts at purity and righteousness fail miserably, Christ gives the greater forgiveness of sins and covers all your iniquities. 

Do not lose hope. Your virtue is God Himself: Jesus Christ. Your rescue and deliverance from this world’s troubles and pains stands close and weds Himself to you, baptizing you into Himself and feeding you His own Body and Blood. As He once traversed His own life and death, now He goes many more times over for each and every one of you. 

 You will not be separated from this love, so do not fear what man can do to you. Instead trust in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection, which surpasses any virtue ever imagined.

 

 

 

Standing at the Dormition of St. Mary

 LISTEN AND WATCH HERE.

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Isaiah 61:7-11
• Judith 13:22-25; 15:10
• St. Luke 1:41-50

To you all who are beloved of God called as saints:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus speaks in your hearing today, saying,

“And Elizabeth…exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!’”

Dormition is a word that is not so hard to figure out. You hear “dormitory” in there and that’s what it means: to fall asleep. In today’s case of celebration it means to fall asleep, never to wake again. Falling down to never stand again, at least until Jesus comes to wake us.

Stand up. Sit down. Stand up. Sit down. Begrudgingly named “lutheran aerobics”, or rising and our sitting down all through the Divine Service, grates on some and confuses everyone else. Usually you only stand up when someone important enters the room, but each and every time you all do it, the count of people remains the same before and after. You can see why its confusing.

 No more confusing, however, than calling a normal, young, pregnant teen the Mother of God. We have already talked about the mysteries of the Faith that God has given us. That is, those things He does and that happen in this world to which we have no explanation. We concluded then that we simply assert them and not try to explain them, which would just ruin them.

But what is so wrong with mystery? This world thrives on it. It cannot live without mystery. Take dinosaurs, for example. My son is absolutely absorbed by them. He knows names and features and yet he has never and will never see a dinosaur. The best paleontologist in the world can only offer him scraps of bone as proof. So many gaps, so much mystery, yet such a following.

 The sciences, though extremely helpful, continue to aid and abet their cult-like following by encouraging mystery. Just think of all the things you know, but don’t really know about. Gravity, black holes, space, viruses, among many others. You’ve heard people mention them, but when push comes to shove, you cant really say what impact those things have on your everyday life. They are mysteries that keep the money coming in.

 It should be no stretch of the imagination then, that a teenager can be called by God directly, overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, and give birth to God, and forever to be remembered as the Mother of God. And yet, for some reason, that’s too much for you.

The difference between the world’s mysteries and the Lord’s mysteries is this: the world hides its mysteries behind a veil of intellect. These gatekeepers are mere wordsmiths, trying to keep their jobs by describing things in the most complicated way. The Lord, on the other hand, uses words and displays His mysteries out in the open.

Or at least He has enacted them in front of more than just elitists who wish to keep their government grants. As St. Mary shows us, even a normal, unassuming, girl can be a witness to this. The mysteries remain mysteries and yet are revealed to the uninitiated. In other words, God hides His wisdom from the wise and reveals it to infants.

In this case, the infants are us, who have recently been newborn in baptism and had our minds renewed in the Spirit. We call ourselves God’s children, even His little lambs and we are. Our thoughts are not His thoughts and our ways are not His ways. Nevertheless, the Lord displays His thoughts to the world and makes His way directly in front of us, hiding nothing.

But, as it is written,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,

nor the heart of man imagined,

what God has prepared for those who love him”—

these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Cor. 2:9-16)

 This is why the world and the sinner doesn’t understand standing in the Divine Service. This is why you don’t understand a celebration of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of God. In sin, you don’t love God or your neighbor as you should. These things must be revealed to us and explained to us by the Spirit.

We stand as sprouts in the Lord’s garden, as we heard in Isaiah today. We stand as Judith did, in front of our enemies of sin, death, and the devil. We stand as St. John did when he heard the voice of his Lord’s mother, not because St. Mary was there, but because she was there with Jesus Christ.

Today we stand because the Lord of Life comes to commune with us in Spirit, Body, and Blood. We believe that our God is both spiritual and physical and so we physically stand. We believe that our God has conquered death so that we will stand, alive, on the Last Day, even if we are in the grave. We believe that standing is our preparation for that Day, because Jesus is here now and will be, then.

We celebrate St. Mary, not just because we can chop her down to being a sinner, chosen by God, just like ourselves, but first and foremost because the Bible, God’s Word, gives her great preference. So much so, that we sing hymn 670 that states that St. Mary, the bearer of the Eternal Word, leads the angelic praises of heaven.

The Bible gives her this magnificence because God’s Word of Grace has bestowed this upon her by His Gospel. “He hath regarded the low estate of His handmaiden”, sings the Magnificat, and He has regarded the low estate of you, His Church. 

Our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true man, Mystery of mysteries, walks an earthly, discoverable path for you and with you. This obvious path begins in the most obvious way that most are offended by it. For He begins in the same way we begin: conceived inside of His mother. And He is mighty, mighty enough to suffer, die, and rise again for you. 

Mary’s name, Blessed as it is, is not Holy. Only Jesus’ Name is Holy. And His holy mercy is on the Virgin Mary and upon you, His newly reborn virgins, made white and redeemed by His holy Blood that flows over you, from your baptism, and flows upon your tongues in our Lord’s Supper, today.

St. Mary is not dead, she has only fallen asleep, so you can still love her. The papists may have made St. Mary into a cultic, faith-denying co-redemptrix with Christ, but you can still like her and honor her. You may not love anyone as you should; your neighbor as yourself nor God as Himself, but Christ’s Gospel gives you love that you did not have before.

Jesus loved St. Mary. To love the Lord is to love Him in His saints as well. Jesus loves you and grants you sainthood so that with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven you may rejoice in the rich forgiveness, redemption, and resurrection that the Lord gives you. A resurrection at which you will, at last, truly stand up, never to lie down, die, again.

 

 

There is Sin [Trinity 9]

 WATCH AND LISTEN HERE.

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• 2 Samuel 22:26-34
• 1 Corinthians 10:6-13
• St. Luke 16:1-9

To you all who are beloved of God in Rensselaer (Monticello), called as saints:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Whom we hear today, speaking to us, saying,

“There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions.”

 Everything that God made was very Good, including all His angels (Job 38:7). As our Old Testament has told us, creation was full of mercy, blamelessness, and purity. In the rest of the reading, we also had humility, Light, strength to run, and perfection. We had a shield in God, a refuge, a rock, and security.

In a cosmic tragedy, the Scripture does not detail, some angels rebelled against the gifts of the Trinity. Satan wanted to be worshiped and other angels fell with him. Satan in Hebrew means adversary. Devil in Greek means accuser or slanderer.

As we see in the Old Testament reading, the good words are only in every other phrase. Every other phrase is sin: crooked, tortuous, haughty, darkness, troops, walls, shields. Things that shouldn’t be necessary in a very Good realm. The devil brought sin into the world through temptation, tempting Adam and Eve, who of their own free will yielded to the temptation.

The problem with sin is that it is never quite what it seems, to the sinner. There are the obvious ones to be sure. Those we call Actual sins, sin that is acted out or enacted in plain sight. However, it is the not-so-obvious sins that throw us for a loop. We can dog-pile on Actual sins, but how do we deal with the sins that are hidden and seem to have no victim?

A  victimless crime is defined as “illegal activity which appears to have no victim”. For example, there are no victims in any violation of any tax law. The state always claims its the victim, but only because you are not paying it off. Using and selling drugs are also victimless crimes, as they are perpetrated between consenting parties or done alone. 

 There are many other examples. In fact, as Christianity traveled the world, it encountered some cultures where these illegal-to-us activities are not-so-illegal. How do you love a people whose entire culture and being are dead-set against not sinning in this not-so-obvious way?

 Turns out, even the parable Jesus told you today, in His Gospel, seems to be a victim-less crime, because both parties consent, in the end. The crime is serious, true enough, at the start. There, the victim is a rich man who hires a man to steward all His possessions. Instead, the hired-hand proceeds to steward the possessions into the wind, scattering and wasting them as if they had no worth.

 So, what changed? What turned the crime-of-the-century into a laurel and hardy hand shake? It happens at the same time that the rich man turns into the Master, or, as the Greek tells us, the Lord. If the rich man is the Lord, then the impossible becomes possible and the rich steward can be saved from his unavoidable sin.

 It matters that the rich man is the Lord Jesus Christ, because with sin, there is always a victim: the Lord. No matter how confusing law, order, and justice is on earth, sin is always the complete and utter disregard of the fear, love, and trust God desires.

 God is always the victim in 2 ways: 1st because He is supreme, overlord, almighty over all He surveys, which is everything, so crossing Him is breaking the law. 2nd, because He is the victim/holocaust/sacrifice made and given for those sins. We see this also in the parable. In the beginning, the Lord is Almighty, handing down punishment with an iron fist. 

 Towards the end, He takes on all the debt and losses Himself. The steward pays nothing, but the Lord ends up paying for what was wasted at first and also the losses on the bills written out later. He ends up paying for the Actual sin, actuated against Him and His belongings, AND He pays for the intent behind those sins when He praises the unrighteous steward. We would call that intent Original Sin.

 Herein lies our true problem, our only problem in this life. Original sin is sin we can do nothing about and leads us inevitably to death. It is where all other sin comes from. It is our potential to sin. It is our thoughts that entertain sin. It is our mind that fights against and names sins in our lives. It is a disease, a virus, a corruption in our system that has no cure.

That is, until the Lord steps in to forgive our debts. That is, until the Lord comes in, not to justify our sinful works, but to justify us, body and soul. Our sinful works don’t just go away, neither are they winked at and swept under the rug. No, to forgive a debt means to pay that debt. Pay it in full.

 How big is the debt? How big is the Creditor? 

 Your sins that Jesus forgives are God-sized. And yet, in the crucifixion of God, they become nothing. A god-sized debt paid by a god-sized atonement. This atonement makes even the shrewdness of the dishonest manager as a holy deed. This forgiveness that Christ pays for with His Body and Blood covers the lack of honesty, diligence, and mathematical know-how of our attempts at purity.

 Love covers a multitude of sins and God’s love to us is shown in Christ on the cross. The cloak of Christ’s sacrifice hides us and our sin in His wounds. Baptism in His Blood washes the sinfulness of our day to day deeds and turns them into the holy life of Jesus, in God’s sight. 

 In the cross of Christ, is this refuge and shield from Original Sin. On the cross we find a God Who is able to secure our footing as we traverse the tightrope of death. In the suffering of Jesus, God has made a blameless way for us, which is the perfect and true way of the Lord. 

Walls crumble before this cross. Armies fall back as dead men. Darkness flies away. In Baptism, the haughty are changed into the humble, the crooked and tortuous are purified, and the blame-filled and the oppressed are shown mercy.

 We may delight in playing the victim day in and day out especially in front of God, but that is our sin creeping out again. The only hope and comfort found in this world is the Victim of God that takes away the sin of the world. Sin, both Actual and Original, is what separates us from God and from our neighbor and is the cause of every single one of our troubles today.

 God alone offers forgiveness of sins only in the Gospel, the good news that we are freed from debt; freed from the guilt, punishment, and the power of sin. Because Christ kept the Law and suffered and died beneath our sin, we are saved eternally.

 “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” (Rom. 10:4)

“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree’” (Gal. 3:13)

“He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (Col. 1:13-14)

 We worship a victim God. We run to and cling to the Paschal Victim, the Easter Victim. We offer thankful praises to the Lamb that paid the ransom for sheep gone astray. Christ, Who alone is sinless, has reconciled sinners, debtors to the Father. In the contention between guilt and innocence, death and life, the Prince of Life Who died, reigns immortal.

 

 

 

Fruit and Blood [Trinity 8]

LISTEN AND WATCH HERE.

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Jeremiah 23:16-29
• Romans 8:12-17
• St. Matthew 7:15-23

To you all who are beloved of God in Rensselaer, called as saints:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Lord Jesus Christ speaks, not just to His generation, but in history and to us today.

“Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

​ The lesson from Jesus today appears easy enough. Stay away from false prophets who do evil things and bear good fruit, then you’ll know that you’re not a false prophet or a bad tree…or you’ll be a good tree…or…at least bear good fruit. Bear good fruit, do good things. Fruit not blood.

Fruit not Blood means that instead of looking for the false prophets or enemies, you should be building something good, true, and beautiful. But fruit is hard. Just ask any parent. It is easier to hack and slash an enemy, than it is to raise children properly. It is easier to kill, than it is to reach out and build something to make your enemy a friend.

The way of blood is easy, as long as its not ours. enemies are easy and we all know easy is the way. to conquer them and feel accomplished, especially if its to the glory of God, all you need to do is pull the trigger. Or gather up your buddies, destroy his reputation, and run him out of town. 

The problem with that easy lifestyle is you may cut down one enemy, but more are waiting to take his place. “Living according to the flesh”, as St. Paul says in our Epistle, includes this never ending cycle of enemies. So we say, fruit not blood.

The fruit option sounds better and seems better too. Not only do we get the psychological benefit of doing good to others, but we also get to shine. There is no command or restriction from God against doing good. the possibilities are endless. Your opportunities to do good are only limited by the number of neighbors around you. 

And our communities are starving for this sort of attention. People lose their minds over not being told this other option of living. They only see blood and hopelessness, so they give up liberties and freedoms to try and pay for comfort and peace. for the time that you have been giving in this life on earth, nothing is better to do than to produce fruit.

As soon as we pick the fruit it rots in our hands. Jesus says, “On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not create many mighty fruits in your name?’” No matter how much fruit we think we produce, Jesus always places this doubt about how well we did or if we did enough, in our brains.

And we can’t blame Him. Of course we weaponize good fruits. They’re so good everyone should be doing them and those who aren’t should be punished, somehow, to learn a lesson or something. “You’re not doing it like me” so you make laws against those people that disagree and publically shame them so that they never work again. Good fruit so good, it has to be mandatory.

In our sin, we despise the Word of the Lord, as much as Jeremiah says. We say, “It shall be well with you” and neglect our neighbor and declare divine providence. We say, “No disaster shall come upon you” and fail to take responsibility for those among us who are hurting or even just think differently. 

Now we understand our confusion at Jesus’ words of good fruit and bad fruit. We do not understand God’s oracle, His Word. We jump to the parts where we can be better than everyone else and skip the parts where God is giving His Word to us which He speaks through Jeremiah in 23:33, “I will abandon you”.

How can that be a Word from God? How can God abandon the people He just warned about false prophets and good and bad trees? How can God abandon us? How can we prevent God from tell us “I never knew you”? This kind of high-intensity unreasonableness is not godlike, surely??

In our sin, it is certainly not what it seems. What we see is God vs. God. God saying one thing here and a seemingly different thing there. Especially when God says nothing shall separate us from Him, at the end of Romans 8. What’s important is to hear what God is saying and then the puzzle is solved. Nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The key is not just Jesus, but it is in Jesus. As in you being in Jesus. Inside another person. The Lord repeats the same words at the beginning of Romans 8 saying, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”. 

All fruit come from God. Fruit and Blood is what God does. Not only does He create the earth and all the vegetation, but He puts man in it as well. Fruit and Blood. Jesus gives the seedtime and the harvest and in the New Testament, equates seeding to giving faith and the harvest to gaining His people for eternity on the Last Day.

So must we simply wait for the Last Day in order to figure out which works or fruits were good and which were not? 

There was an article in an internet satire-news website called the Babylon Bee. It was titled: Jesus Still Planning To Assemble Great Multitude Of Every Tribe, Tongue, And Nation Despite Ban On Large Gatherings. 

Now, it is funny in its own right, but there is a deeper point for our discussion today. That is that we don’t have to wait. Jesus is gathering today and He is gathering in order to distribute the baskets of fruit He has from His suffering, death, and resurrection. 

Jesus promised that when He was lifted up, that He would gather all men to Himself. And He has been lifted up on the cross. Isaiah 11 says, “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.” And in the Gospel of John He says, “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.” (6:56)

For fruit to be good it must come from God. But it must not just be those things that you take from God, such as do unto others as you would have them do to you (Mt. 7:12). You must also take those things which God says to take. 

That is, the only way to find oneself “in Jesus Christ” is to be baptized into Him. The only way to be grafted into the true vine through a Sacrament of Grace, for it is God’s work, not yours. God’s fruit and God’s blood.

In fact, these are the only offerings God accepts. First a rent heart (Joel 2:13). A heart that is bleeding out for the sin of the world. And the fruits of the Spirit, that is a perfect life towards God. This fruit and blood Jesus possesses, we do not. These acceptable offerings Jesus gives to the Father, we do not. These precious gifts of grace Jesus purchases and wins, on the cross, in order that we may offer His fruit and His Blood to God in His place.

So, yes, produce fruit and not blood in your lives. But make sure your fruit is Jesus’ fruit or it won’t count. So, yes, this is all about Jesus, but it is all about Jesus fruit for you. It is all about Jesus’ Blood given and shed for you. It is all about “no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). 

We aspire to live a peaceful life, in Christ. Such that we can worship Him and wait for His Last Day. The fruit He gives us becomes apparent in our lives when we love God and love our neighbor, yes, but also when we hear God’s true oracle inviting us to His Church, so that we may be imitators of Him.

Suffering and dying for the faith, yes, but also living life under the Gospel and gathering together before the Last Day, in order to proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes in His Holy Supper. The lesson is hard when we look at it through our fruit, good and bad. The lesson is easy when it is about Jesus’ fruit for us. In sin, God abandons us. In Jesus, God never leaves us nor forsakes us.