He follows you [Trinity 24]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE 

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Isaiah 51:9-16

• Colossians 1:9-14

• St. Matthew 9:18-26

Grace to you and peace from Him Who is and Who was and Who is to come; from Jesus Christ the faithful Witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth.
                  
Who speaks to you in today’s Gospel saying:

“Jesus rose and followed him, with his disciples”

 
God’s Word to us today, and He causes it to be written in order that we understand His atoning sacrifice. He will be the one to ransom, sacrifice, and work sanctification. And when He does, it will be a complete work, such that anyone saying there’s more to do, does the work of the anti-christ. Believing this, we take this faith to our lives, living for God and neighbor in peace and comfort, not doubt or distress.
 
Our Gospel reading opens with a ruler coming to kneel at Jesus's feet. Why? Because Jesus is the true ruler and, just as the Magi knelt at infant Jesus's feet, so too does all proper authority in heaven and on earth bow before Christ. Which then makes the next verse that much more uncomfortable, where Jesus is being led by an inferior ruler.
 
An inferior ruler to lead to an inferior world. One that is ruled by death. “follow me Jesus to my dead daughter”. Imagine Genesis being written that way. Here, Adam and Eve, says God. Inherit this dying trash world. Be fruitful and multiply to futility and have dominion over decay. 
 
Not to increase depression and despair, but to prove the reality that you are all on your way to the last day. For what this ruler confesses is what we hear in Revelation 12: “and there was war in heaven”. Jesus steps down from heaven and asks for the situation report. “My daughter has just died”, Jesus. That’s the situation.
 
Everything that God made was very good (Gen. 1:31). This included all His angels (Job 38:7). In a cosmic tragedy Scripture does not detail, some angels rebelled against the loving gifts of the Holy Trinity. Satan wanted to be worshiped (Matt. 4:9; 1 Tim. 3:6). Other angels fell with him (Rev. 12:7, 9). Satan in Hebrew, means “adversary.”  Devil in Greek, means “Accuser” or “slanderer.” 
 
Also known as the demon or Beelzebub or the prince, the ruler of this world. Satan, the devil, is the great tempter (Matt. 4:1-13; 1 Thess. 3:5; Luke 23:31-32; 1 Pet. 5:8-9) and he has started war in the spiritual realm. A war that oozes out and finds footing in all our battles and wars on earth. 
 
Maybe we hear satan’s plight described by Isaiah:
“How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations!
For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the farthest sides of the north;
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’
Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, To the lowest depths of the Pit.” (v12-15)
 
Not only external war, armies and guns, but also spiritual war. In our sin, we don’t take it seriously. We pay respects, lip service, but that's it. “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; We sang a dirge, and you did not wail” (Mt 11:17). As in, we did all the right things, and said all the right words, but it wasn’t enough? That’s not fair. How do you fight something you cannot see?
 
Just as He followed the ruler in today’s Gospel, Jesus follows the ruler of this world: satan. Jesus does not sit idle on the king’s throne, as earthly rulers usually do during a war. for though Isaiah seems to be talking about satan’s plight, he is prophesying the Way of the Messiah.
 
Jesus is the true Morning Star as He names Himself in Revelation 22:16. Where the father of lies, lies, Jesus speaks truth. Both did fall. The devil was banished, the Son of Man stepped down into His own, rational body and soul, yet still a cut down from where they were.
 
Weakened nations. You could say that the Good and Holy Law of God has weakened nations, by demanding and commanding a righteousness unable to be achieved. Or even before that, by saying there is a limit to what humanity can do. That there is a right and a wrong. This infuriates humanists, naturalists, and relativists who just want their own truth. So divisive, Jesus!
 
Jesus said in His heart and to His disciples, I will ascend to heaven, above the heights of the clouds. In St. John 20:17, “go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” He says He will ascend, but first a second descent is made.
 
First to earth, then He was brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the pit. There, to be imprisoned by our sins, not His own. But showing that that prison cannot hold Him, He did not go to serve time, but to proclaim victory. 
 
The point is, the deceiver deceives, even so far as to pretend to be the Christ. This is why we have been warned of the Anti-Christ. On the coat-tails of the true God-Man, Jesus Christ, comes the Tempter with power, to deceive, if possible, even the Elect.
 
So we have a copy-cat at hand. What are we to do? 
Jesus says, “Let your loins be girded about, and your lamps burning;” (St. Luke 12:35). That is, the work is finished, its time to go. That’s the difference, if you caught it. Jesus has accomplished all He came to do. The devil will still say there is more to be done.
 
Jesus says, the last hour is now on its way. Not the last hour to get things done, but the last hour when all things are done and its time to go! The devil says you have lots of time to get your stuff together. Jesus says, “You are my people”, in our Old Testament reading. You are my people now. The devil says, not quite yet.
 
Jesus says, “I will follow you”. HE is going to follow US. I don’t think you realize yet how amazing that is. There is no room for Him waiting for us. There is no time for turning back. Be ready, for today the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing, in Word and Sacrament. 
 
That Father has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. You are pre-approved, as they say. Not for anything you did, but because the King follows you. He follows you to your sin. He follows you to confession. He follows you to your grave. 
 
Not to end you, but to renew. “And He who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’…‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true’” (Rev 21:5).
Jesus is not following us to wait for us to renew ourselves. He makes us new. A new creation. A new heart. A new Spirit.
 
The new is not like the old. We are familiar with the old, and this is the Way Christ first comes to us: in the flesh, in suffering, in dying. His atonement on the cross is Him following us, because the wages of sin is death. He purchases faith, the forgiveness of sins, and eternal life there.
 
But what is the new? Isaiah says, “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert” (43:19). And we do not perceive it because of sin. But when sin is taken away, when sin is paid for, what do we perceive?
 
Easter. The Resurrection of Jesus is the completion of making all things new. That is that now bodies can rise from the dead. Now, the Right Spirit within us does not just “change lives” or “realign values”, but resurrects. 
 
The faithful, inferior ruler kneels in faith. Faith that the Ruler’s Right Arm fights for us in spiritual and physical ways. Not only can He forgive sins and make a sinner righteous, but He can also reverse what spiritual warfare does to us. He can make alive what once was dead.
 
Age, disease, dying. These are all things we usually don’t associate with our spiritual battles, because they are fights we can’t win, no matter how many cruciferous vegetables we ingest. This is our clue that something is wrong in the spiritual realm. The next is when we find ourselves siding with the ruler of this world. Where does that come from? Why does it keep coming back?
 
That is Original Sin. For it, Jesus is our Original Savior. Our only Savior. There is no substitute for Him or His work and that is a completed work. Done. For you. You do not deliver yourself, you have been delivered. You do not strengthen yourself, you have been strengthened. You do not raise yourself from the dead, will yourself to be born again, or decide to follow Jesus.
 
He follows you. He makes you alive in Him. He finishes His work, then bids you wait. Wait for Him, not in silence, solitude, or uncertainty, but in His accomplished work. Wait in His Church, His Bride. Wait in the forgiveness of sins, proclaimed to you today. Be bathed and eat and drink the Fountain of True Life Who says, “Take heart. Your faith has saved you.”
 
 

Lutheran is Christian [Reformation Vespers]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Revelation 14:6-7

• Romans 3:19-28

• St. Matthew 11:12-19

 

Grace, Mercy, and Peace are secure for you from God our Father, through our risen Lord and Savior, Jesus the Crucified of God!

 

Who speaks to us, even this evening, as we hear from the epistle to the Romans:

“It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

 

In this, our Lord’s revelation to us, we do well to ponder the epistle to the Romans as it places God’s righteousness solely in His passing over of sins. That is, when you are tasked to find the Righteousness of God, you answer: in the forgiveness of sins.

 

In Jesus alone we find it and this is why we celebrate the Reformation. It was a recovery of the Gospel. No that it had gone away, but that the righteousness of men had taken over as the chief doctrine of the Church. That doctrine that said, the New Man in Christ is only attained through a vow of poverty, a vow of chastity, and obedience to the Vicar of Christ. 

 

They taught the Ten Commandments were righteousness for the normies and were bare minimum requirements for being a normal Christian. But now that the Gospel has come, they say, there is a higher righteousness, a set of Evangelical Counsels they called them, that are for those who desire to become perfect in God’s eyes.

 

The word “evangelical” means Gospel. So even then, the Gospel was horribly confused with the Law, just as it is today. Churches are still looking to vows and pledges and decisions to determine who is or who isn’t perfect, or saved. Protestants are just sloppy Roman Catholics.

 

In this vein, the Lutherans wanted to be known as Evangelicals, in order to usurp and reteach what the Gospel actually is. That is it not based on works, evangelical or otherwise, but solely on Christ, His person, word, and work. And that work, as Jesus has already told us this evening is the forgiveness of sins; the Good News that we are freed from the guilt, the punishment, and the power of sin, and are saved eternally because of Christ’s keeping the Law and His suffering and death for us. (LSCE p.100) Here alone does God offer the forgiveness of sins.

 

With this recovery, comes the need to be distinguished, not boasting, but separated out from those who wish to live by the Law. Hence, the name of our denomination: Lutheran.

 

However, as we hear of the sole Name of He Who Saves, let us ponder these words of Dr. Luther:

I ask that people make no reference to my name; let them call themselves Christians, not Lutherans. What is Luther? After all, the teaching is not mine. Neither was I crucified for anyone. St. Paul, in I Corinthians 3, would not allow the Christians to call themselves Pauline or Petrine but Christian. How then should I – poor stinking maggot-fodder than I am – come to have people call the children of Christ by my wretched name? Not so, my dear friends; let us abolish all party names and call ourselves Christian. (Luther’s Works, Vol. 45, p. 70)

 

So, mayhap it is that we are in the wrong, calling ourselves Lutheran. Even celebrating the Reformation was not done in the church until well after the 16th century. And yet we continue to confess, with our Lutheran Confessions, that nothing we do is new or novel in the church. 

 

Pastor Johann Gerhard attempts to explain it this way:

It is not we who call ourselves Lutherans. Rather, our adversaries call us that. We allow this to the extent that this title is an indication of the consensus that our churches have with the orthodox and catholic doctrine that Luther set forth from Holy Writ. Therefore we allow ourselves to be named after Luther, not as the inventor of a new faith but as the asserter of the old faith and the cleanser of the church from the stains of Papist dogmas. 

Consequently, we also do not reject the names “Christian” and “catholic,” nor do we render ourselves unworthy of it by the approval of any heretical dogma, as did the Arians, Nestorians, Eutychians, etc. Rather, we are called "Christians" from Christ, as the only Author and Teacher of our faith. We are called "catholics" from our consensus with the catholic faith. We are called "Lutherans" from Luther as the asserter and defender of that faith, but especially as the reformer whom God raised up. (Johann Gerhard, Theological Commonplace, XXV).

 

I’m not sure how that makes things better or at least it hasn’t worked and we are still called schismatics, heretics, and deserters. For better or worse, we are given labels throughout history to use. For one thing, they shorten explanations. Instead of saying “factory processed and baked milled oats shaped into torroidal miniatures”, I can just say “Cheerios” and bypass all that explaining.

 

Likewise, the term “lutheran”. It doesn’t describe a religion so much as it describes a sign post in history and a sign post on the church door. The Christians went this way. The Gospel is preached this way. 

 

But what about this or that interpretation? Already taught. What about this or that history? Already purged the heresy. What about this tradition? Cleansed in light of the Gospel. What about…? and the list goes on.

 

That title “Lutheran”, teaches just what exactly goes on within these four walls and suggests we may find the same in other buildings that claim that name, though we must still be on guard. But that is another point of the Reformation, that we are always reforming. We must always reform because we are always led astray. That is we must always seek out and find the pure Gospel.

 

And since the Gospel is an eternal Promise made by God, we can seek out and find that throughout His Word. We can adjust our reading glasses as we study and inwardly digest the Lord’s revelation to us of His Son and search the Scriptures to find Christ, instead of some corporate or religious ladder.

 

The Promise has been and always will be the Free Justification of Sinners for Christ’s sake. The Lord threatens with His wrath against sin and His righteousness opposing sinfulness. In our sin, even the Gospel becomes an angry place for God handling sinners. And that is not right.

 

St. Paul counts it all joy to have received the Gospel together with all those who converted to the faith. He says in Romans 15:13, “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” 

“make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore”, says Psalm 16:11, equating pleasure with joy.

 

The Gospel is a comfort, not more burden on an already over-taxed conscience. The Gospel is peace, not more work that leads to disappointment and despair. The Gospel is Christ, Who has manifested apart from the Law, outside it. The Law’s sole purpose is to lead us to the Messiah. 

 

Thus, if we truly lived by the Law, we would not find more for us to do, but we would find Jesus doing everything on our behalf. That is, we would find the righteousness of God, given to us through faith alone, for Christ’s sake alone, for all who believe. 

This is most certainly Lutheran. And its even Biblical!

 

Faith not princes [Trinity 22]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Micah 6:6-8

• Philippians 1:3-11

• St. Matthew 18:23-35

 

Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father's Son, in truth and love.
 
Who speaks to you today, only through His Gospel, saying,

“And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt”

 
Thus far from our Gospel reading to remind us of salvation by faith alone. That is, no prince or elected official can save you from any event or work in your life. We should not trust in civics to show us compassion. We are not on God’s side, but He is on our side, offering us compassion through Christ Crucified.
 
Today we will cross the English Channel, to continue and conclude our history quest for Lutheran martyrs. We will cross it by blood. Emperor Charles V, of the house of Habsburg, whom Luther faced, had an aunt from the house of Aragon. Her name was Catherine and she was wed to King Henery VIII in 1509. 
 
This is important, because Charles V is who presides over Dr. Luther’s “Diet of Worms” and yet also will not allow Henry to divorce his aunt, as Henry chases after a male heir to the throne and starts the new religion of England, on the coat-tails of the Reformation. Though later on, the English will trace its roots to long before the Reformation, any religious changes that took place in England were political.
 
Issuing the Act of Supremacy, a pliable parliament and country-wide clergy crony-ship, voted King Henry VIII as Supreme head of the church of England. Though not much changed as the kingdom continued to ravage the English with extortion, they simply now had the church on their side, publicly. 
 
Though Henry could cut ties with Rome, he could not stop the Reformation’s teachings from infiltrating his happy island. At least, the Reformation supplied Henry’s new religion with some principles. At the most, it supplied him with martyrs who called it for what it was: heresy.
 
Among them is our final martyr this month: Robert Barnes. You see, Henry was making England great again. He was pulling them out of civil war, recovering the economy, and bringing normal life back to the island. So, if he wanted to get divorced against church teachings, who are his faithful constituents to say no? If he wanted multiple wives, start his own church, or even burn some anti-English priests, then who cares? As long as we don’t stop winning.
 
This was the England that Robert Barnes was living in. Born and raised there, he studied at Cambridge and became an Augustinian friar, same as Luther. He was also a member of a scholarly group that regularly met at a local pub called The White Horse Inn. These men were no longer satisfied by medieval scholasticism, they were disgusted by the corruption of bishops, and they were suspicious of church teachings that seemed to contradict the New Testament. They wanted reform. Within this circle, Barnes was introduced to the writings of Luther.
 
Preaching justification by faith alone, he was imprisoned for 2 years in London, yet still aided in the distribution of Lutheran books. In 1528, he fled from a warrant for his execution and found himself in Wittenberg, and subsequently thoroughly grounded in Lutheranism. 
 
Learning at Dr. Luther and the other reformers’ feet for an entire year, Barnes published his most important work: A Supplication to King Henry VIII. This was an attempt to defend himself against the English bishops and to convince King Henry of Lutheranism. 
 
The pure Gospel shines through Barnes’s pen, quote: “Scripture says that faith alone justifies because it is that through which alone I cling to Christ. By faith alone I am partaker of the merits and mercy purchased by Christ’s blood. It is faith alone that receives the promises made in Christ. Through our faith the merits, goodness, grace, and favour of Christ are imputed and reckoned to us.”
 
Henery was looking for approval for his divorce. The pope denied him, so he turned to the Reformers. Barnes was tasked to carry the reply to the king. It was negative. In 1540, Barnes preached his last sermon on the reformation, during Lent. 
 
He was imprisoned and on July 30, Barnes and two other Protestant preachers were burned to death. To the very end, Barnes remained steadfast in his faith and was able to give a thoroughly Lutheran final confession: “There is none other satisfaction unto the Father, but this [Christ’s] death and passion only… That no work of man did deserve anything of God, but only [Christ’s] passion, as touching our justification… For I acknowledge the best work that ever I did is unpure and unperfect… Wherefore I trust in no good work that ever I did, but only in the death of Jesus Christ.”
 
Repent! If you are still trusting princes and rulers to guarantee your freedom of religion, then you are in for a let-down. Freedom and rights sound nice, until you are in the way of elite freedom and elite rights. As George Orwell put it, “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.”
 
This is one lesson from our Gospel reading today. That you are the unforgiving servant who, when presented with trust and responsibility as a leader, immediately abuses his authority and claims immunity by divine right.
 
In other words, once we get the feeling that God is on our side, we take that as our signal to beat it into others. We take the grace and mercy we have been shown as a sign that we are now right. Absolutely right. 
 
This results in the cry we hear from St. Micah’s lips in our Old Testament reading. First, since none of my offerings matter, then maybe my Lord will be pleased if I enact His justice. That I hate what He hates and loathe what He loathes and everyone is going to know the Lord is God, or else.
 
But second, then the Lord reveals to us just what sort of offering we are bringing to Him: sin-filled. That is, the blood of martyrs. And, as St. Micah concludes, in order to truly purify the world, it is not enough even to sacrifice the fruit of our own bodies: our children.
 
But by the Gospel’s doctrine, we are taught that we are no longer dependent upon princes, elected or otherwise. For though the servant was unforgiving and undeserving, he was forgiven a debt that 10 people could not repay in their lifetimes. It was not the begging that moved the king, but pity.
 
Pity, but more literally compassion. The king was moved by His own compassion to secure a worthy and forgiving place for our transgressor. The measure of a king is not how well he enacts his own will for the people’s benefit, allegedly, but how well he enacts his own Lord’s will.
 
Once he crosses that boundary, once he transgresses his vocation, then it is God’s Word versus his. And God’s Word demands payment. Payment for the spilled blood of Abel. Payment for rebellion. Payment for the lack of compassion.
 
There is no lack of compassion in Christ. He Who is able to forgive 100 denarii, is also able to forgive 10,000 talents. In order to authorize such unlimited compassion, He pays the debt in Blood. That is, He not only ascends the cross and does not step off until He is dead and the payment complete, but He also unites His divine blood to our mud blood.
 
In the Almighty’s compassion, He frees the guilty and sends His innocent Son to the jailers. Not just a Roman jail or Jewish jail. This jail is what was spoken of in Revelation 20:7, “And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison.”
 
Indeed, since our true Prince and King has traversed the depths of death and hell, there is no place for earthly princes to send our beloved Robert where Christ cannot retrieve him. “The Lord is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?”, says the Psalms (118:6).
 
Jesus, at first to teach us, says, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Mt 10:28), but then continues the promise with, “you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption” (Acts 2:27).
 
“This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church” (Eph 5:32). Those in His Church by Faith. For by Faith alone does a sinner stand before God. By faith alone is he declared justified for Christ’s sake. By faith alone does the blood of the martyrs grow the Church, just as the Blood of their Savior cries out to all for the forgiveness of sins.
 
This is what Henry was lacking. This is what all sinners lack: the compassion and righteousness of God. It is not to be found inside us. It is not to be found by divine right. It is not to be found on earth, except that a man turn to Christ’s Word and Sacraments. 
 
It is for this reason that the Holy Spirit creates the Church, on earth, in opposition to all other entities of authority. Or rather it’s the other way around: once the Church is created, it is hated. Hated because of the free justification given. No earthly or political success or power is given. Only the power to have faith, be forgiven, and have eternal life.
 
 

One with Christ: martyrs [Trinity 21]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE 

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Genesis 1:1-2:3

• Ephesians 6:10-17

• St. John 4:46-54

Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father's Son, in truth and love.

 

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

“‘Go; your son lives.’ The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way.”

 

The blood of the martyrs fights against error, if only because those who murdered them must wear Abel’s blood on their foreheads, as Cain did. How does their blood fight against error? Because their blood is not their blood. Their life is Christ’s life and they are saturated in His Body and Blood from communion with Him.

 

As Jesus said to St. Paul, “’Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ And he said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And he said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting’” (Acts 9:4-5). But Jesus was already at the Right Hand of God, resurrected beyond all humiliation. How was Jesus being persecuted by St. Paul?

 

Paul was persecuting Christians, those a part of Christ’s Body by faith. Meaning, now that the Christian has been united with Christ, just as God and man are one Christ, what happens to His Church, His Body, happens to Him. He makes no distinction. 

 

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28). Jesus eliminates these man-made divisions, embodies unity itself, and even prays for our unity, which can only be found in His Word and Sacrament.

 

Sounds easy enough. So why are we divided? Why are we, at least in the U.S., as divided as we have ever been? Part of the reason is spell-craft. Yes even the witch and druid stuff that your catechism warned you about, but that is not the whole story.

 

To create a spell, you only need two things: the truth of a word and belief, ironically. By truth of a word, I simply mean using a regular word and the truth of it, meaning what it stands for usually. If you use the word “curse”, it has a definition, and if you believe that definition, it means something to you. Therefore if someone says they curse you, as a spell or something, then you already believe half of it, simply because of the word.

 

The other half is you believing someone can make the word do something, like hurt you. Or as Operation Mocking Bird puts it, “a lie repeated often enough becomes truth.” So, some LARP-er claiming to be a witch, dressing all scary, and screaming at you, repeatedly, the spell they believe in over and over, doing actual psychological damage, and you begin to believe. 

 

“Spell” just means words. Like spelling words or spelling bee. It is just words used in a lie to get you to believe what someone else wants you to believe. Like your TV. Like your “betters”. Like the oligarchy. Especially in an election year, I’m sure you could all list the “spelling words” that have been used in your hearing, against you.

 

Thus the strength of a spell relies on God’s creation, evilly enough. If words don’t mean anything, then the spell misfires. If we were not made for belief, then the spell would fail. But since the Lord has created for us a wonderful, ordered, and meaning-filled realm, these things can be lied about. A witch’s spell is a lie, but the word or words used are God’s own.

 

Satan works through spells. Our third Lutheran martyr for this month is Henry van Zutphen. He was from the same Netherland monastery as our brothers John and Hendrick from last week. He was one that fled, was arrested, broken out of prison, and attempted to run to Wittenberg, to where Luther was. 

 

On his way, he was stopped by locals who begged him to preach. Bremen historians mark November 9, 1522 as the date of the first Evangelical sermon ever in Bremen. He stayed for 2 years, preaching and teaching, when finally the “law” caught up to him. A mob, blinded by a “spell” issuing from local Franciscan and Dominican friars and Hamburg beer, kidnapped Zutphen from his home in the dead of night.

 

Marched barefoot and naked, they led him to the city of Heide, about a two day walk, for his trial. It took less than a day for him to find a pyre waiting for him, once they arrived, and his sentence of death. The spell was: “Today we shall gain favor with God and man. The longer we let him live the more people he will pervert with his heresy. Got to it, my lads. This is God’s own work!”

 

Except the fire didn’t light, so they had to dirty their hands, beating him to death December 10, 1524. Dr. Luther wrote more than a song this time. It was a martyr’s account, on par with the ancient accounts. Though he did not write it to create a Lutheran cult of the saints, but to make sure of 4 things:

• First, to establish publicly that Zutphen was a true martyr, dying for the faith while fending off the temptation to renounce his faith.

• Second, to place his martyrdom in theological and biblical contexts. Dr. Luther uses Psalm 9 to show that persecution of the faithful is part of the divine plan of salvation and to give comfort and hope in the midst of that. Verses 13 and 14 say, “O you who lift me up from the gates of death, that I may recount all your praises, that in the gates of the daughter of Zion I may rejoice in your salvation.”

• Third, to offer consolation and encouragement to Henry’s congregation in Bremen. That he was not a heretic, that what he taught and preached was God’s own Word, was true doctrine, and brought the Right Spirit with it. 

• And finally, to pray for the murderers. They need to be wept over, more than sainted Henry. They have now offended God with innocent blood and need the Gospel to convert them and bring them to the truth.

 

The magical words used were “heretic”, “anathema”, and “if you don’t do, you’ll suffer too”. The authority used was God’s own Name, to commit murder. The spell cast on the mob was fear and blackmail. 

 

For Jesus, in our Gospel, also encounters spells, those of “signs” and “wonders”. Can your god make the sun rise? Mine can. Can your god turn the Nile red? Mine can. Can your god give me my heart’s desire, make me his girlfriend, and keep the inquisitors away? Mine can.

 

Jesus confronts the spell that God has to be an Almighty tyrant, in order to be God. That He must give in to every demand His “followers” make of Him, or they will not believe in Him. That He must come and go at their beck and call or they will find other gods. 

 

To all this Jesus says, “Thy will be done”.

 

Jesus can’t help but be Almighty, it is what He is. He demonstrates this every single time He interacts with Creation. “Because of Your Promise”, King David teaches, “according to Your own Heart You have brought about all this greatness, to make Your servant know it” (2 Sam 7:21). Who He is, is The Giver, The God of Mercy Who visits His people with compassion, in Christ.

 

He is Almighty in His Love and forgiveness and therefore cannot help but give in as a Father would. He comes down to face His followers and discuss with them, reason with them, what is to be done about things. He desires mercy, they desire sacrifice. He gives it.

 

He healed, raised the dead, and did many good works. His final good work was to be that sacrifice to purchase Life for dead sinners. Yes, as our Gospel taught, the Son lives. The son of God lives, never to die again. He has broken the spell of sin, death, and the devil by rightly using the words He made.

 

Sin is not just bad choices, but active rebellion against God. Redemption by blood is the only cure, found only in Jesus Who is both God and man. Death is not part of life, but separation from the God of Life. Reconciliation by sacrifice is the only remedy. The power of the devil is nothing but to twist and mangle the truth, thus the Word of God is sent, in the flesh, to dispel all darkness in our hearts, transferring us to His Kingdom of Light (Acts 26:18, Col 1:13).

 

The spell-breaker for this world and its lies is the Blood of Christ, now found to be circulating in His saints, whom He has counted worthy to suffer as He suffered. In Christ, His Word is Truth and continues to speak truth to this world. Spells aren’t real. It is simply our sinful nature agreeing with them and complying when they demand we side with the mob.

 

Jesus does not need death to transfer His people out of this sinful world or to accomplish His work. He uses His death to show the lack of power sin, death, and the devil have. If the world loved you, they would not kill you. God does not kill you, therefore His Word is the stronger and to be trusted.

 

The Lord is our Martyr and we are allowed to participate in His martyrdom, such that what happens to Him happens to us. Did He suffer and die? So will we. Was He buried in death? So will we. Did He rise again, alive from that grave, free from all humiliation, suffering, and murder forever more? So will we.

 

The Word of life stands in stark contrast to the word of death. 

“It was a strange and dreadful strife when life and death contended;

the victory remained with life, the reign of death was ended.

Holy Scripture plainly saith that death is swallowed up by death;

his sting is lost forever. Hallelujah!”, we sing on Easter morning (LSB 458).

 

“Christians to the Paschal Victim, offer your thankful praises…Death and life have contended, in that combat stupendous: the Prince of Life Who died, reigns immortal” (LSB 460)

 

The Church is Christ’s own Body. In the Blood of the martyrs is the Blood of Christ, crying out from the ground, as Abel’s did of old. Blessed in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints for that reason. Not only are they God’s own, Body and Blood, but they will continue to be His own, even when suffering and death have done its worst.

 

The error of spell-craft is fought against by the Truth. The Truth of the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus and His saints. No evil will overcome that. No hell can break down the gates of His Church. And no spell can snatch you out of the hands of God. They simply have no authority over you, since Christ has laid claim on you.

 

Fighting the world [Trinity 20]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Isaiah 55:1-9

• Ephesians 5:15-21

• St. Matthew 22:1-14

 

Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father's Son, in truth and love.

 

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

“‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless.”

 

Thus far from God’s Word, caused to be written that we may hear of the wedding garment Christ provides to us. For in exchange, He took on our sinful garments and ascended the cross. Likewise, it is only in the preached Gospel that God offers the free forgiveness of sins, both to you and to your neighbor and the world rages against this.

 

“Let the fighting men stop fighting this inhuman earth for one hour and [we] will learn how much security there is”. That is none, except in the Word of God. A quote from Rose Wilder Lane, daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder of Little House on the Prairie fame. What she means is that security is not promised in this life or on this earth, unless its found in the promises of Christ.

 

For the world is full of tragedy and disaster. You only have to look a couple states away to find flooding and damage that no amount of preparation could have stopped. These are the death throes of a world stained by sin.

 

Though I would disagree that the earth is inhuman, in its sinful corruption, it is rejecting life more and more until Jesus ends it. That means that today, just as it was in the 1800s, life is a fight. And I have quoted Ms Rose, because it is pretty near the mark of being the Martyr’s Motto.

 

The martyrs might have taken it a step further and say of this world that there is nothing left for God’s Children. Since Eden closed its doors, there is no garden to return to, no garden to walk alone in. The world has no use for a loving God, thus the Christian is in a fight.

 

This is our Gospel today. The Friend without a wedding garment is a martyr, though for the other side, seemingly. He stands up for what he believes in. He does not change what he thinks. He even goes so far as to bring himself in front of the opposition.

 

Though that is where he went wrong. “You will be brought in front of governors and kings”, as in passive, says the Lord. You do not seek your own martyrdom. Martyrdom finds you on the basis of the confession of faith. We believe this, not to scare us, but to put martyrdom in its place. It is what happens, but it is not what determines who is or isn't a Christian.

 

“You will be brought”. This Word of God leads us to our next Reformation martyrs, the very first to die for the Evangelical message preached by the Reformers: Jonny Esschen and Hank Vos. These two were young monks, of the same order as Dr. Luther, Augustinian, and therefore were known by Luther. 

 

One day in 1523, Professor Luther stopped teaching his class in Wittenberg for a moment to receive news from a messenger. “He began to cry silently,” one of his students said later. The news concerned the two young monks.

 

Their Augustinian monastery was in Antwerp in the Netherlands and though Brothers John and Henry were still in the monastery, they followed Luther’s teaching and taught it publicly. They had preaching duties, and they preached the pure Gospel of justification by faith alone apart from works, along with others from that monastery. The city’s people had been coming in overflowing crowds to the monastery to hear their preaching.

 

That drew the attention of Jerome Aleander, who led the opposition to Luther after the 95 Theses, and who wrote the condemnation of Luther after his trial at Worms. Aleander then went to the Netherlands and instigated the persecution of these monks who had turned Lutheran. No matter what pressure was brought upon the monks, like the apostles in Acts 3 and 4, they continued to preach Jesus with joy.

 

Soon their monastery was closed, then burned down, and all the monks put into prison. Some escaped; Brothers John and Henry went into hiding and eventually were found, arrested, brought to Brussels in chains, and put on trial. “Trial”

 

They went to the inquisitors. They were given a chance to live by denying the teachings of Luther. They said, “No, we will not retract anything, we will not deny the word of God.” Their judges said, “We declare you to be heretics, deserving to be burned alive.”

 

John and Henry were taken to the governing council and then the executioner. When they were first bound to the stake, the executioners waited half an hour, hoping their fear of death would make them retract the faith they had preached. They responded by singing psalms. Their judges said, “Become converted, or you shall die in the name of the devil.” – “No,” they said, “we will die like Christians, for the truth of the Gospel.”

 

The fire was lit and the flames rose toward them. One of them declared he felt at peace, “as if on a bed of roses.” The two said together, “O Lord Jesus, Son of David, have mercy upon us!” The flames burned through their ropes; but rather than run free, one of them threw himself on the fire, folded his hands and cried out, “Lord Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on us!” They sang the Te Deum and the Apostles’ Creed, still confessing their faith, until the smoke choked their voices. After four hours, they died. 

 

It was July 1, 1523. They were the first Lutheran martyrs: the first to be killed for refusing to deny Jesus’s Scriptural teaching of justification by faith alone. That is, they refused to don the cloak and tunic of the mad, sinful world and were ejected from it the only way sinful man knows how: murder.

 

In response to God bringing new life to this dying world, bodily, sin , death and the power of the devil reject it. They reject it because it is not how we do things around here. They reject it because it hasn’t been approved by the brass. They reject it, because if they accept, then they have to confess their own sins of being wrong up till now.

 

Of course we sympathize with the persecutors and we must repent of this sin. We become so inflexible and unloving that we believe what will fix everyone, excluding me, is a good old fashioned crusade. You believe with hard hearts and believe that persecution and suppression extends the kingdom of God.

 

But take heed lest ye fall! Acts 5 says it beautifully, “…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!… So the Apostles left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the Name (Acts 5:38-41).

 

This is first said of the persecution and murder of Jesus. The world was quick to condemn Jesus, because He offered hope and solutions, but at the cost of Confession. He offered joy and peace, but at the cost of your inflated social status. He offered salvation, but you first had to believe that you needed to be saved from a world that rages against the faith.

 

And to prove that to you, Jesus wore your body. He was like you in everyway, except without sin. He so pleased God that all grew jealous, because they thought God was pleased with them. But, in His Body, God revealed the price of truly Loving God: crucifixion.

 

And everyone could tell that Jesus was clothed differently. He was not fearful, He was not concerned with being honored by the mighty, and He did not pay attention to man-made rules. Jesus was concerned about Justification by Faith alone, wore it on His sleeve, and that’s how He was caught. 

 

You see, since the days of Noah, there has been a party going on. Sure, God would show up every now and then, but it was not our days and it was not in front of us. So, “they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage…and…were unaware“ (Mt 24:37-39). There has been a worldly wedding feast going on.

 

Thus it was at the coming of the Son of Man, Jesus. He found His creation celebrating and when He entered to join, He found they were celebrating the death of God and their overcoming of Him by reason. When Jesus shows up, it is a surprise. Is it true? Is He really God? 

 

They cowered a bit, but realized nothing was happening. No smiting, no thunder, no fire. Not only that, but Jesus was a man. Jesus was wearing a godly garment to an ungodly party. He was clothed in God’s own Righteousness and was therefore ruining the party. They bound Him, took Him outside of the city, and crucified Him.

 

This seemingly heroic act, on the part of sinful humanity, only proved one thing: that God’s Word is True and all men are liars and we should distrust them wholly. This was also the greatest fault of Johnny and Hank, to trust in God solely, such that now the act of murder hangs over the oppressor’s heads, instead of the faith they thought they flaunted. 

 

Dr. Luther wrote a ballad, so moved he was, called “A new song now shall be begun”, as in the Gospel has begun to bear fruit once again. In it, he sang, “Out from this world they both have trod;

Their heav’nly crowns they cherished; Like any pious child of God, For His Word have they perished.”

 

In our Old Testament reading, verse 5, Isaiah prophesies, “Behold, you shall call a nation that you do not know, and a nation that did not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord your God, and of the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you.” That is, the religious establishment may be comfortable, but God is calling those established by His faith, not by money or vote.

 

On top of that, if you find yourself sinning to keep God’s church on earth in order, then maybe you should step back and re-think your life’s endeavors. What glory is there in creating martyrs? What glory is there in having to resort to murder because you could not convince someone with your “better ideas”? 

 

There is none. But for Jesus and His Gospel, there is no end to His glory, even in the grave. Not only has He given clear and bold confessions of Faith on earth, but He has taken His godly garments into the grave and back out again. He has run rough-shod through all the embattlements of death and hell, defeating them at their own game.

 

Thus, the way to Life is open. Whether it is reached by Jesus returning and taking us there directly, or through the Christian’s grave, now sanctified by the Tomb of Christ. 

 

“Do not get drunk on the wine of this world” but be filled by the Spirit. This world will chew you up and spit you out without a second thought. Best to be filled with the Gospel, Body and Blood, so that when you are confronted with it, you recognize it immediately. And when you don’t find it around you, the freedom from the guilt and condemnation of sin for Christ’s sake, is the first thing off your lips.

 

The world is not idle in its corruption, but neither is Christ. For you will be brought in front of the Judge’s seat, clothed in Christ, and will live with Him by His side for all eternity. This, no raging of the world, physical or spiritual, can take away.

 

Martyrdom is real [Trinity 19]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Genesis 28:10-17

• Ephesians 4:22-28

• St. Matthew 9:1-8

 

Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father's Son, in truth and love.

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

“And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, ’This man is blaspheming’”

 
Thus far from our Gospel reading, important enough to be mentioned, because this charge of blasphemy is what sends Jesus to His death. It is no small accusation. It is in God’s Word so that we realize martyrdom is real, not just for Jesus, but for all who bear His cross. This belief that we too are martyrs, strengthens our faith and let’s us see the world and our neighbor in pity and forgiveness. 
 
Maybe the joke goes, “In mother Russia, you do not comprehend sermon, sermon comprehends you.”
Perhaps, then, we can make the statement: “You do not prepare for martyrdom, martyrdom prepares you.” Or similar: in order to teach that though you may feel you need to prepare to die for the faith, endure some apocalypse situation, or even share your faith in an aggressive way, you will not be able. Only the Holy Spirit does this, as our ancient Christian martyrs teach us.
 
That is, even though they were put in such audacious situations and condemned by such outrageous and unjust accusations and demands, they knew the right way to act and the right things to say. Now you could chalk this up to someone adding those details into the legend, writing it down after the fact, but we have a promise for just such a thing.
 
In Luke 12:12, Jesus promises, “…the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.” That is, the Spirit of Jesus will prepare us for martyrdom or to speak in front the super-spiritual, who are closer to God than we are, allegedly. The words we are to say and the strength needed to see it through, will be a gift no preparation can produce.
 
We confess this faith: the Christian is a martyr. Martyrdom is a real thing and it is a noble thing. Those who suffer through it are the Christian heroes, showing us just how heroic and courageous faith is. They treasure their confession of the one, true God such that they would rather suffer and die than fall away from the faith.
 
Our October Reformation hero today is Jan Hus. From Bohemia, he was ordained a priest and began preaching and teaching his people in the common language, which was Czech, in Prague. Until 1409, he was teaching that Scripture alone was the only authority in the Church, which led to him teaching against Roman practices such as simony (the act of selling church offices or roles), the sale of indulgences (granting remission of sins in purgatory for a price), and pilgrimages to view relics.
 
In 1412, he was excommunicated by Pope Alexander and forced to leave Prague, when he refused to stop preaching. Under the false pretense of safe passage, Hus was coaxed out of exile to attend a Church Council meeting in Constance, Germany, where they thoroughly condemned him and turned him over to local authorities to be burned at the stake July 6, 1415 for no other reason than “he was preaching the Word”.
 
Turned over to a secular court because, you know, God has that whole thing about “you shall not murder”. But if we hand him over to someone else and they murder him for us, then our hands are clean, right God? Sound familiar. 
 
“Pilate said to them, ‘Take [Jesus] yourselves and judge him by your own law.’ The Jews said to him, ‘It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death.’” (John 18:31). As in, we don’t have a good enough case so we must kill him. God will understand. It isn’t us doing the actual killing, so we’re not responsible. 
 
For Jesus and for the martyrs in Him, He says, “They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God” (Jn 16:2). So it will be persecution coming from the so-called “God’s chosen people”, because they are concerned with pleasing Him and making sure He is still almighty.
 
In our sin, we find that we are not willing to side with the martyrs. They are troublesome for us and extreme. If they just go along, they will get along. If they just spoke nicer and acted more Christ-like, then they would not have gotten arrested. If they have nothing to hide, they have nothing to worry about.
 
This is the timid, false faith which sin, death, and the devil produce in us and want in us. It stagnates us and makes us indecisive. We waffle back and forth between “I have nothing new to learn about the faith” and “if I just keep my head down, martyrdom won’t find me”. 
 
Soon, it will be impossible to forget Jesus’s words, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you…But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without a cause.’” (Jn 15:18, 25)
 
There was no cause to hate Jesus. For which work do you condemn me, Jesus asked. Was it the good deeds? Was it the compassion on the poor? Was it love of neighbor? No. And this is the frustrating part. It is not for any logic or reasonable argument to be made in court and found sound. It is simply because Jesus is not like you.
 
Once, you were of the world, hating the things of God without reason and despising His Word. Once you were on the devil’s side. What would I have done, as an apostle, at the time of Jesus’s arrest? Probably the same thing they did. I would have been a coward. 
 
That would have been for the salvation of the world, though. Had Jesus been prevented from going to the cross, He would not have completed His work. And, if He had not completed His work, Abraham, Jan Hus, and all the patriarchs and martyrs would have died in their sins. Nothing heroic about it as we can all accomplish such a feat.
 
But in the martyrdom of Jesus Christ, death is swallowed up. In the martyrdom of Christ, the Way is made to gain heaven. In the martyrdom of Christ, the Word of God is given proper authority over all, even the decrees and decisions of kings, presidents, and councils. For when the Pharisees condemn Jesus for blasphemy, they are merely revealing their own sin.
 
Their blasphemy is that God has not promised to forgive sins through men. Their blasphemy is that God has not said to all of creation “obey me alone” so that a paralytic might regain his legs through the Word. Their blasphemy is to accuse Jesus of lying about the very thing God had come to accomplish for all eternity, since the beginning: the free forgiveness of sins.
 
Jesus is not lying. He is not lying about the lovingkindness of God, He is not lying about the martyrdom of God, and He is not lying about the eternal life of God. What is death? It is nothing compared to the Life God possesses, which is the same life given to you, in Christ. “For it is not I who lives, but Christ Who lives in me. I am crucified with Christ” (Gal 2:20).
 
This love is what God declares. Just as He declared the heavens and the earth to spring into being, that same word is spoken to you who face death. Jesus goes ahead of you. He shows, with His own life, what the conclusion of this world is: martyrdom. But He goes on and shows what the conclusion of life in Him is: none. There is no end to His life, therefore there is no end to your life, Dear Christian.
 
It is the Word alone, in the flesh, Who gives such authority to men, to have faith in His Word of life over the word of death. Readiness to die is a gift of the Holy Spirit, and that the Lord will give it at the right time, when it is needed. The martyrs are not examples of superhuman faith; they are examples of the power of God and the work of the Holy Spirit. Cheerfulness in the face of death is not accomplished by our own strength, but by the Word of God.
 
Adam knew this. Though he faced his own death, a Savior was promised to him, through the Word. Job knew this. He even had the audacity to declare that even “after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God” (Job 19:26). And every person that died in the faith. They knew and believed and so received Faith, which also possesses the eternal life of Jesus.
 
The gift of bearing the cross is the gift of the Holy Spirit. It may be that we live out a life of relative comfort, yet steadfastly support our church, and that is our martyrdom. Yet, we do not forget that the day of the Lord is coming, like a furnace. 
 
And in that day, we will indeed have to live through it, but it will go just as it did for the 3 young men in Babylon. They were in the fire, but the fire did not touch them, because they were in the fire with Jesus. They did not plan that beforehand. But Jesus endures forever, and they will be made like Him, so we will endure forever in Him. 

Worthy [The Feast of St. Matthew]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Ezekiel 1:10-14

• Ephesians 4:7-16

• St. Matthew 9:9-13

 

Grace to you all and Peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus, the Christ.

 

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

“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.”

 

In our Lord’s words to us today, we hear it, at His bidding, to see God’s desire for mercy, fully accomplished and given in Jesus Christ, true God and true man. This should point us to the lack of merit and worthiness in ourselves, not just in a negative way, but a positive. Negative being poor, miserable sinners. Positive being, my worth depends on Christ and not myself. We apply this to life by giving and speaking to others about this worthiness Jesus offers to all.

 

Speaking of unworthiness, St. Matthew writes after the events in his gospel. Why is that important? It is important because he consciously chose to include the words heard today. Embarrassing words. Shameful words about himself. Anyone writing for posterity would not include these words, unless they added a caveat.

 

The caveat usually goes like this: yeah, I was bad and made bad choices, but when I turned my life around, I did good-er and am thankful for it. We quickly add the “good-er” part, because we want to make excuses for the bad parts and not be judged, essentially saying, “I wasn’t that bad”. And by doing so, we hope to fool God into looking past the sins of our youth, and agreeing with us.

 

St. Matthew had no such fantasies, no such caveats. He lays his life out there in the open and the horrid sins he committed before he was called, as he was recalling and writing about Jesus. He allows the words of the Pharisees to stand which place St. Matthew squarely in the party of the sinners.

 

The same sinners of whom the Lord spoke in Genesis 13, “Now the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord” (Gen 13:13). The same sinners of which Samuel was told to prophesy, “And the Lord sent you on a mission and said, ‘Go, devote to destruction the sinners’” (1 Sam 15:18). And from Psalm 104:35, “Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more!”

 

Hearing it directly from God’s mouth, of course the Pharisees would have that same opinion in Jesus’s time. It is simply a matter of justice and God is a God of Justice. If the sinner and his lawlessness were allowed into heaven for eternity, it would be hell. 

 

It would be no better than where we are at today, where the wicked fill their bellies and get away with murder, theft, and wars. There would be no point in promising heaven, no one would want to go, and God would be labelled a false god, not worthy, Himself.

 

There would also be no point in following or paying attention to anything St. Matthew wrote. How could you trust a man to claim to have written a gospel book with a past like his? Did you hear what he tweeted back in college?!

 

Repent. The United States’ favorite pastime is no longer baseball, but character assassination. Breaking the Eighth Command is your favorite hobby. You love to call into question the past of your opponents, especially when it has nothing to do with the issues at hand. Because if you can break their public image, you can break them. 

 

If you can call attention to them, then no one will pay attention to you.

 

If you point your finger, three point back at you…so just point with five and you’ll be golden. 

If Christianity were up to us, to build, to maintain, and to increase, there would be no Christianity. If our worthiness were up to us, we would forever remain unworthy. If Church were based on how well we portrayed it to others, no one would be Christian.

 

St. Matthew knew this and wrote his gospel book thus in order to teach just such a thing. We are disciples at St. Matthew’s feet and he preaches to us saying, “Look. If I were making it up, why would I character assassinate myself? Why wouldn’t I want you thinking so highly of me so that you say, ‘truly he was a righteous man, worthy of God’s pen’”? How am I going to fleece you of your cash, if I made a living fleecing others and you knew it?!

 

And Jesus knows it. Therefore, He teaches, “He who through faith is righteous shall live” (Rom 1:17). Jesus doesn’t want you to believe in yourself. Jesus doesn’t want you to believe in St. Matthew. Jesus wants you to believe in Him and His Worthiness. 

 

St. Matthew wants your faith squarely on the crucified shoulders of Jesus Christ, so he retains his sinful past to show that it was at the Word of Jesus that he left his lucrative, comfy lifestyle, to pick up his cross, and be hated and martyred for the Truth.

 

What the Lord did for St. Matthew, He can do for you for just 30 easy installments of 99.99. 

Or as St. Matthew actually said it, “the sick have need of a physician; the sinners have need of a Savior.” 

 

But a Savior cannot be worthy Who dirties Himself with sin, Who stands in the way of sinners (Ps 1:1), as the more-righteous-than-you Pharisees conclude. A proper Savior and Son of God does not enter in the path of the wicked (Prov 4:14). But Jesus does. And He does so in two ways.

 

First, He does not commit sin. We usually read those verses as speaking about us, not Jesus. And we have underlined them in our Bibles, in order to come back and do them…later in life, because its all about me! Jesus stands in the way of sinners by standing with sinners. That is, next to them, with them in their life, going to where they are. That is how we should read those verses.

 

He enters the path of the wicked in order to reach the wicked, to talk with them, to reason with them. To discuss with them all that should be done about justice. What should God do with all these sinners?

 

Therefore, secondly, Jesus stands in the way of sinners and enters the path of the wicked in order to become sin and wickedness that He would be condemned, suffer and die with all sin of all time and regenerate us as righteous before God (2 Cor 5:21). He dives into the greatest and most wretched hives of scum and villainy in order to rescue those who need rescuing.

 

How else is He supposed to remain good and upright? As Psalm 25 says, “Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in the way (Ps 25:8). If He cannot talk to sinners, touch sinners, be with sinners, then they will be lost.

 

This is the love of the cross, born of the cross, which turns in the direction where it does not find good that it may enjoy, but where it may confer good upon the bad and needy person. "It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35), Jesus says. (AE 31:57)

 

This is the love of the Word Made Flesh; of the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world. That He Who was Most Worthy (Ps 145:3), Who is above all, and through all, and in all (Eph 4:6) was emptied, made Himself nothing (Phil 2:7) in order that you be full and complete and overflowing (Jn 15:11).

 

St. Matthew’s worth, then, was not based on his ability to keep up the appearance of a righteous, holy man. His worth was found, as Abraham’s was found: he “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness” (Gen 15:6).

 

Dr. Luther said, “He is not righteous who works much, but he who, without work, believes much in Christ” (AE 31:55). In other words, the righteous live by faith. Faith is the lifeblood which justifies and makes right with God. And faith is a gift to those made worthy by the Blood of the Lamb.

 

The words "without work" should be understood in the following manner: Not that the righteous person does nothing, but that his works do not make him righteous, rather that his righteousness creates works. For grace and faith are infused without our works. After they have been imparted, the works follow. (AE 31:55-56)

 

Christ is our righteousness. Christ is St. Matthew’s righteousness and in Whom we are to believe, if we have faith in St. Matthew’s gospel. 

 

Christ is our worth. Our Confessions state it this way:

“worthiness does not depend upon great or small weakness or strength of faith, but upon the merit of Christ, which the distressed father of little faith (Mark 9:24) enjoyed as well as Abraham, Paul, and others who have a joyful and strong faith” (SD vii:71 ).

 

“For Christians who are of weak faith…troubled, and heartily terrified because of the greatness and number of their sins, and think that in this their great impurity they are not worthy of this precious treasure and the benefits of Christ, and who feel and lament their weakness of faith, and from their hearts desire that they may serve God with stronger, more joyful faith and pure obedience, they are the truly worthy guests for whom this highly venerable Sacrament [and sacred feast] has been especially instituted and appointed; as Christ says…”They that be whole need not a physician, but they that be sick”. Also “Him that is weak in the faith receives”…(Rom 14:3), for God has received [you]. For whosoever believes in the Son of God, be it with a strong or a weak faith, has eternal life (John 3:15)” (SD vii:69-70)