Where the Holy Spirit is [Lent 4]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Exodus 16:2-21

• Galatians 4:21-31

• St. John 6:1-15

 

Grace to you and peace. (1 Thess 1)

 

Who speaks to you on this day from His Gospel heard, saying:

“He said this to test him, for He Himself knew what He would do”

 

And what Jesus would do is feed the 5000 men and teach us about the work of the Trinity on earth. Jesus never acts alone. He always has the Father and the Spirit all working together in perfect love to rescue sinful humanity. What this points us to is that the work of the Trinity continues even to us, today. Thus, the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Spirit is God.

 

When you look at our Apostles’ Creed, in Luther’s Small Catechism, separated out into three parts, you notice something. I try to point this out every time to my catechumens, and that is that the Second Article is the largest. Almost unfair, we think, that Jesus gets more airtime than the Father and the Spirit and the Spirit gets the least of all.

 

This is primarily because the Bible just doesn’t talk about the Spirit that much. And that’s on purpose, because when we do hear about the Holy Spirit He is doing spirit things. Invisible things. We know that the Spirit created all things. If the Father molded and fashioned from clay, then it was the Spirit that breathed life into creation. And what does breath look like?

 

You can see our very first problem when dealing with the Holy Spirit: He can’t be seen and neither can His actions. There is the incident at Jesus’s Baptism where He took on the form of a dove, but that’s the only one?

So, how do you know someone is present without knowing they are present?

 

First, God tells us of His Spirit, so we know He’s there. He was there at the beginning, He searches all things, even the depths of God, and He is called God. And second, perhaps most important, we are told what the Spirit will be doing when He is around. This is important because it gives us a clue as how to find Him.

 

Maybe an example: if it is your shift to open a restaurant in the morning and you get there before the chef does, then the kitchen should be clean and untouched. Everything put away, no smell of food, and no mess. Your shift ends and its someone else’s job to close the restaurant. They come in the kitchen after you leave and find a completely different room. 

 

In other words, you may not ever get to see the cook, but you know when he is in the kitchen and when he is not. Food is served, tools are used, a presence is felt. On top of not seeing the chef, nobody really talks to him or seeks him out. You thank your servers for the food. You greet and chat with the hosts, but when a chef’s job is well done, all you are thinking about is how satisfied you are. The chef himself does not enter your mind.

 

This may put us on the right path to understanding the Holy Spirit. However, we don’t have to wrack our brains or create false emotions to reveal the Holy Spirit among us. We are already told what He’s going to be doing, so when that happens, we say the Holy Spirit is here.

 

As our catechism teaches, He is going to be calling people to faith in Christ, gathering them around Christ, enlightening them with the gifts of Christ, and keeping them with Christ.

 

What is the Call? We throw that word around a lot. We choose to use it for our “calling” or what we seem born to do in this life. Though important to us, it is just a throw-away word when used like that. For, our hearts can change quickly, our lives change often such that our callings also can change.

 

When the Holy Spirit Calls, He uses the ultimate power. The Power that brought all things into existence: the Word. “Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says ‘Jesus is accursed!’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 12:3).

 

The Spirit is a preaching spirit. He preaches the Word, but He chooses to do so in this way, from 2 Thessalonians 2:14, “He called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” This is St. Paul speaking, so he is saying that the Holy Spirit calls through the gospel preached by men. Men ritely called and ordained. 

 

Next is the gathering. In one sense, if no one is there to hear the call, then there is no point. So at the Call of the Holy Spirit, the Faith He created gathers the believers. He gathers on purpose. Not to make friends, not to be uplifted, not even to be encouraged. He gathers because the Lord is coming, “at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’” (Mt 25:6)

 

Then He enlightens all with the epiphany that Jesus Christ is God. Jesus is God and man and He has sent His Word to Call and gather, and His gifts to enlighten. “our gospel came to you not only in word”, says St. Paul, “but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction” (1 Thess 1:5). In this The Spirit also sanctifies and keeps us, that is by Him we are “sealed for the day of redemption” (Eph 4:30).

 

Sealed means baptized. At that Word, we can finally return to our Gospel reading and the feeding of the 5000 and begin to see the Holy Spirit working there. At first, there is just Jesus, the 2nd Person of the Trinity. Then there is Jesus giving thanks to the Father as He breaks the bread. 

 

But look at the whole picture: Jesus was preaching the Gospel. People were gathering to hear Him and to get a miracle. He was speaking and teaching of His oneness with the Father and keeping them close to Him with His words and His good deeds. Though Jesus was doing this directly, the Holy Spirit was there, Calling, gathering, enlightening, and keeping.

 

Now, if we simply look at the Feeding of the 5000 in a natural way, then there is no need to accept the Spirit, indeed we cannot. Only those of the Spirit can interpret spiritual truths (1 Cor 2:14). So what is so spiritual about feeding 5000 people?

 

How could Jesus possibly feed every Christian alive if his body only weighs at most a buck-45? You know the Flesh and Blood of Our Lord are not at all like the food and the feeding of the 5000 where Jesus took a finite amount of fish and bread and moved it beyond its physical limitations in a miracle that was a rather obvious foreshadowing of the Lord's Supper.

 

Also, Jesus could walk out of a sealed tomb and walk through locked doors, so it should be obvious that He can be in more than one location at one time.

 

What is the demonstration and proof that the Holy Spirit is working among us? Our own feeding of course! Our own presence when Jesus is giving thanks to the Father on our behalf! Our own ears hearing the Word being preached and taught to us. Our own seal, freely given in the waters of Baptism. Our own given promise to never leave or forsake us.

 

We quickly mistake the Holy Spirit for a movement in our guts and though He can move and act in our lives, a pep-talk or an afternoon at Taco Bell can give you the same results. The Holy Spirit moves and we are moved, for our whole life. He is not done with us until Jesus’s work is complete in us. He will move and act until we are safely in our heavenly mansion.

 

But notice His movements and actions are still unseen. Unseen, because we have been talking of Jesus. That is, when the Holy Spirit acts, we have Jesus. When He speaks or moves or does His work properly, we will not think of Him, but of Christ. We will be fully satisfied with Christ and that is His goal, like a good chef.

 

Like a great chef, the place is prepared, the table is set, and all things are in order, not for you to receive Him, but to receive that which He sets out for you: the Body of Christ. Jesus says later in John 6, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (Jn 6:63).

 

And the words that He has spoken which give spirit and life are gather, be washed, commune, believe. Indeed, the flesh avails nothing; your flesh. Your flesh cannot be spiritual. It cannot receive nor interpret spiritual truths. The flesh of Jesus avails everything. It has suffered, died, and risen from the dead.

 

And the Body of Christ is what the Spirit uses to bring spiritual truths to natural man. For in Christ, God and man are united and what God has can be transferred to us. Your flesh cannot save you, but your flesh can be saved. It can be brought into the divine by Jesus, given forgiveness, and granted eternal life.

 

The Holy Spirit is living, active, and always working. He is the verb rather than the noun, which is why we have a hard time pinning Him down. The old self likes to think that you can make a believer out of yourself, that you're the one who has to make yourself what God wants you to be. It can't be done. Having created us and come to us in Christ, God sends His Spirit to grace us.

 

 

Screaming prayer [Wednesday in Lent 3]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Job 10:1-7, 13:15-25

• 1 Peter 4:12-19

• St. Mark 9:14-27

 

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

 

Who speaks to you, as we continue in His Book of Job heard, saying:

“I cry to You for help and You do not answer me; I stand and you only look at me” (30:20)

 

Ah, very familiar words, close to my heart, and even very Jesus-like, as we remember Jesus’s prayers from the cross of His death. For tonight we get to the heart of Job’s complaint, in his book. It is that he is complaining and he wants to speak to the manager. 

 

“Hear, O God, my voice of complaint” (Psalm 64:1) is actually a line from the Psalms and it is a hymn that the Lutherans have sung in the past. What this reveals to us is another aspect to prayer. It is no mere small talk that we are invited to God with, but actual, meaningful talk. Life and death talk.

 

Thus, Job reaches this point tonight, in our study. He has encountered God as his apparent enemy, when God initially attacked Job’s goodness. If that wasn’t confusing enough, all the blessings Job thought were God’s rewards to him for his life of piety, turned out to be the very thing holding him back. And last week, Job almost got some comfort from friends, but it turns out they wanted Job to just admit how evil he was, so God could change His mind about Job.

 

Overwhelming and crushing are those experiences. They leave little room for a man to even find a quiet place to think, let alone get sorted with God. So what is a crushed soul to do? Cry out. Scream and kick until you get what you want. Just as Job has been stripped of his earthly possessions, now is he stripped of his dignity.

 

Not that he is acting shamefully, just that now all he is is laid bare. Nothing is between him and the entire universe. He has been exposed so might as well use it to his advantage and let it all out. In chapters 10 and 13 we hear of the real, raw Job. When he was prosperous, he had self-control. Now in his poverty, he is ready to take God to court.

 

Look again at how chapter 10 opened up. “I loathe my life; I will give free utterance to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. I will say to God, Do not condemn me; let me know why you contend against me”. And finishing the thought, chapter 13:3 “I desire to argue my case with God”.

 

Job does not “behave” as some sort of pure, “Christian” man, here. He complains. He argues. He yells at God. This is an excellent understanding of prayer, for us, because this is honest prayer. We hold back from God, in our prayers, because we think we’re being humble. “Oh don’t worry about that God…” or “that’s asking too much”, or “even if I ask, God won’t heal or give”.

 

Job is finally being honest and God approves. Not that Job’s prayers before weren’t honest, its just that Job had nothing to pray for. He prayed for purity without knowing the full extent of his impurity. He prayed for protection without knowing the full extent of his rebellion. He prayed for rescue without knowing the full extent of his depravity.

 

Instead of the pious “lies” of Job’s friends, “it’ll get better”, “just try harder”, “confess your guilt”, the Christian is given freedom in prayer to tell God exactly how much it hurts. Yes, it is important for us to do better and try harder, but God can also actually heal. He can change things and so our belief, our prayers should reflect that. 

 

Unless we think God is too little? You hesitate to pray for healing, especially cancer, but God is the Perfect Physician, is He not? Pray for hard things, because your God is the God Who does impossible things. Things like the marriage of God and man in one Jesus Christ.

 

Believing that our Baptism saves us in that Union, we pray. We pray as our catechism teaches us, “with all boldness and confidence”. Not some boldness, all of it. That means being raw and vulnerable. That means speaking the awkward out-loud and saying the hurting things out loud. God is not holding back from you, so you should not hold back on Him.

 

He can handle it. He is God. Job says, if his complaint was against man, he would not be impatient, because people are people. He is impatient before God because it is pressing and because he knows and believes that only God can do something about it. Question, doubt, be angry, just be sure to return to the God Who Hears.

 

Think of it this way: it may be that prayer is not us trying to overcome God’s reluctance or to change His mind. But, that prayer is clinging to and laying a hold of God’s promise and willingness. The Lord has promised good to me and I’m going to hold Him to it.

 

To Job, God has seemingly disappeared. Job says in chapter 23, “Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his seat! I would lay my case before him and fill my mouth with arguments” (v.3-4).

 

Yet, even though Job cannot find the Complaint Department, his resolve is filled with faith. From 23:10, “He knows the way that I take; when He has tried me, I shall come out as gold.” Though Job can no longer “feel” God’s presence, he believes that God knows what’s happening and will still do His work of salvation.

 

Job plans to keep right on believing until God acts again. He plans to go right through the dust and ashes, until he comes out clean on the other end. His hope is that he will find that place where God is, to face Him, and talk with Him. His hope is in His Savior to come, Jesus Christ, Who both locates God and has the face of God.

 

Job is not going to listen to the devil who says curse God and die. He is not satisfied with the empty piety of “just try harder”. He knows sinful life needs a Savior, a Savior that takes away the sin-filled, onto Himself, and opens Himself to debate.

 

In Jesus, God has opened up the Psychiatry stand. He has laid the plan out for all to see. There is no secret. The rich can get into heaven as well as the poor. The healthy get in, just as the sick do. Jesus universalizes God’s favor, because God’s favor depends on Him alone.

 

Job doesn’t have to think that hard about what God is doing in his life, he just wants to. He wants there to be a reason when things go wrong so he can fix it, instead of going to Jesus. He wants God to be fair about things so that he can also be fair, instead of going to Jesus. Job wants his prayers answered by God, so that he doesn’t need a middle man.

 

Sometimes the best course of action is to just stay the course when you can’t understand what God is doing in your life. In order to get through the valley of the shadow of death, you have to go through the valley of the shadow of death. There is no other way. Head down. Elbows in. Knees bent.

 

That is how we get through to the man Who has heard our complaints, taken them to the cross, and changed them into eternal blessings for us. In Jesus, the entire plan is revealed, where Job only had part. God planned to love us from the beginning, He planned to love us in the moment, and He plans to love us eternally.

 

And the present is where it counts, so the cross of Christ is what covers the present. That no matter what we go through, God’s answer is the cross. The cross where we are paid for, saved, and redeemed. Job loses all, but all is paid for. Job gives up on all, but all is saved. Job forsakes his own life and birthday, but all his joy is redeemed with back pay.

 

For in Christ, God is not just restoring former prosperity, but restoring it to eternity. Though God hears our complaints, the Holy Spirit interprets them as cries for a Savior to intervene and redeem all the days that sin, death, and the devil have stolen.

 

Jesus says, “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life” (Mt 19:29). “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom 8:18)

 

So pray with Job, that you: “be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for all endurance and patience with joy" (Colossians 1:11) and “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer” (Rom 12:12).

 

 

A Good Eye [Lent 3]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Exodus 8:16-24

• Ephesians 5:1-9

• St. Luke 11:14-28

 

Grace to you and peace. (1 Thess 1)

 

Who speaks to you on this day from His Gospel heard, saying:

“When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are safe”

 

Thus far from God’s Word, caused to be written in order that you contemplate what God has given you. Not only in your body and soul, your members and all your senses, but what God has and is giving you today. That is an eye to see what the prophets and righteous men of old longed for: their crucified and risen Messiah.

 

This is the greatest and final purpose of an eye. And since Jesus has caused us to see Him each Sunday, we should strive towards that fulfillment and invite others to find the same, in His Church.

 

Famous last words, is the cliche. And by that we mean that this strong man has just raised his death flag. He has cast his hubris over the realm and manifested his authority. Good on you, chat. And yet, by doing so, it feels as if those could be his last words. That, by declaring victory, he has invited calamity. It is the last entry in his journal, just before he sleeps, and just before the thief breaks in and steals.

 

Our strong man has failed to listen to the Word heard in our Introit, “Mine eyes are even toward the Lord” (Ps 25:15). That is his eyes failed him in assessing his own strength. The very things he was counting on to count his worth, failed. He counted his weapons, he counted his servants, and he counted the cost yet something missed his eyes that grew wide, as the stronger man came crashing in.

 

What was it his eyes missed? If he were blind, we could give him that excuse, but I’m assuming he wasn’t. So it was something right in front of his face. To put the 8th Commandment construction on things, there is always going to be something we miss, the chink in the armor, and leave it to our enemy to find it for us. By, then its too late, though.

 

So what was it his eyes missed and why is it so important for us to find out? That second question is easy: because we have the same eyes. The same eyes that assessed, the same eyes that counted, and now the same eyes that miss something we carry around with us every day. 

 

Really, this should not be that big of a surprise. I’m sure you face many things, day to day, that were not on your radar. Things that you didn’t see coming. Things that “if only I…then I could have…” It is a regular occurrence for us to miss something. Usually, it is easily remedied when later found out, but sometimes it is more detrimental.

 

The unclean spirit, in the last half of our Gospel reading, saw an opportunity and seized on it. He jumped in that clean house with 7 of his buddies and was successful. In a negative way, of course, yet he saw an opportunity and took it. Now, what does an opportunity look like? Color? Shape? Size? He saw something unseen and came out ahead of his competition. 

 

So now we pass into the realm of the unseen and how can our eyes compete? Our Lord is leading us to true seeing, for if a demon can see it, then surely if we ask our Lord Christ, He will be quick to give us sight, and not a serpent or scorpion. No, if we ask, He is sure to give us the lamps of our bodies, as He says later in St. Luke chapter 11. 

 

And He better or we are lost, twice-over. Once, with the Daily-Life things we mentioned earlier, which are not trivial to us in this life. But twice with the Kingdom of God and His Christ. For we hear Jesus towards the End of the Church Year speak of false-christs saying, “if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There he is!’ do not believe it” (Mt 24:23). So now we need eyes to see even the unseen kingdom of God or find ourselves against Jesus. Lord have mercy.

 

The Lord does not stop there. For even He has eyes to see and His eyes see everything. This is disconcerting, because He catches everything we miss and misses none of the sin we commit against Him. It is all within His eyes that never sleep. The Psalms say, “The eyes of the Lord watch over those who do right; his ears are open to their cries for help" (Psalm 34:15), but who does right?

 

In the middle of our Gospel chapter, Jesus calls the eye, the lamp of the body. He says, “When your eye is healthy”, that is “When your eye is undivided and singularly carrying out the duties for which it was designed, then your body is full of light. The word for light is only used in one other place, to describe the cloud over Jesus at His Transfiguration.

 

However, Jesus continues, if your eye is bad, that is, if it is evil, doing the work of the evil one, the devil, then your body will be full of darkness. The darkness of Proverbs 4:19, “The way of the wicked is like darkness. They don’t know what they stumble over.” And the darkness of Exodus 10:21, a darkness that can be felt.

 

Felt as Jesus commanded of His disciples on easter morning, “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Feel me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Lk 24:39). 

 

We’ve come at last to our answer and the Proper Preface we hear during Communion at Christmas seals it for us when it says, “for in the mystery of the Word made flesh You have given us a new revelation of Your Glory that, seeing You in the Person of Your Son, we may know and love those things which are not seen”.

 

When the eye sees Jesus, it is no longer in darkness. For Faith does not grope about in the dark. Faith leads on and on to find the Rock, the steady and trustworthy flesh and blood of Jesus Christ to focus on. Jesus makes blind eyes see…Him. He gives the blind the ability to see Him as the Lord and master of their faith. 

 

And Jesus’s eyes are the eyes of God. They are the lamps of His Body and His Body is set on a hill, on the stand of the cross for all to see and believe that God has given Himself over on behalf of sinners. Which means, in Jesus, the eyes of the Lord that watch over those who do right, are watching Jesus do right, perfectly, for us.

 

And because He does right perfectly, His eye sees clearly. Clear enough to take the plank and speck out of your eye, such that your eye no longer be evil. Yes, your sin has made you evil, a divided being, seeking your own cause and your own well-being. In fact, it has become your strength to oppose God in this way.

 

That you use the very gifts God gave you against Him, by becoming strong, fully arming yourself against anything God may do, and declaring your prosperity. In your sin, you raise your own death flag, daring God to come against you, because you have given Him credit for these things and plus, He was the one who gave them to you, right Adam?

 

But you missed something, in your evil preparations. Yes, you missed the Stronger Man, but you didn’t miss his overwhelming strength, you missed the source of said strength. You trusted in your armor, He trusted in God’s mercy to destroy your armor. Not to destroy you, but to save you from it.

 

The Stronger Man, is Jesus Christ, and His battle is against evil and good. Good as in our own good works you throw in God’s face. How you trust your own integrity and have hope in your own, manufactured fear of God. The Stronger Man, in a great show of violence, destroys that which keeps you from Grace, by destroying Himself.

 

This is what we, and the strong man, miss: the unseen mercy and love of God. Unseen only until Christ. For until Jesus it was just an idea on paper. Now it is flesh and blood on the cross. The mercy we couldn’t see in Advent, is brought to new-born light at Christmass. 

 

True seeing is seeing what God has done and what He is doing today. What He has done is make Pharaoh and Egypt quake and fear at their own sin against Him. What He is doing today is making us “light in the Lord”, as our Epistle taught. 

 

Yes, now that the eye is good, that the lamp of the Body of Christ has been purified by His precious blood and sanctified by His Holy Spirit, healthy, of one single unity in Jesus, now we are light as Jesus is the Light. For Jesus is the only Light of the world, and you have been baptized into Him.

 

Now, there’s not too much we can do about everyday affairs. Life is struggle here in this corrupt world. You will lose more than you win and you will miss more than you gain. But what of it? What is it to gain the whole world, but lose your being? What is the world to me with all its vaunted pleasure? Yea, though heaven itself were void and bare, Lord Thee I love with all my heart.

 

That is, since we have been given the Word, the heavenly treasure of treasures, what else do we need? Everything after that is icing on the cake, the cherry on top. We just don’t need it, and yet since we have been given such a great high treasure and a life to live with it, live with it we shall.

 

We shall strive to see only good and not evil. We shall take all sights captive to Christ. We shall have eyes only for our spouse. We shall not look to the left or to the right, but keep our eyes on Jesus. Because He works still and has more wonders to show us.

 

Wonders that we not only get to see, but smell, touch, taste, and hear. The Lord overwhelms our wickedness with His kindness shown in Body and Blood. He defeats our death flags and false gods for us, so that we may fear, love and trust in Him above all things. 

 

We may only see the material realm, at the moment, but Jesus has put eternal promises on and in the material. We begin to see His Presence as He breaks through our blindness, revealing our sin, and proclaiming His forgiveness. The promises Jesus makes for us today are what He uses to bring the immaterial, eternity, and material together, for our salvation.

 

In one Jesus, our eyes are given to see, two natures: God and man. And that is peak. O Lord now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Your Word. For mine eyes have seen Your Salvation…” and with those words we die with Him and with those words we are raised with Him.

 

 

Miserable Comforters [Wednesday in Lent 2]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Job 4:1-8, 11:1-6

• 1 Corinthians 1:10-31

• St. Luke 7:36-50

 

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

 

Who speaks to you, as we continue in His Book of Job heard, saying:

“God exacts of you less than your guilt deserves”

 

And these words are true, but are only Good News when we know and believe that Jesus is both God and man, and that He was crucified, died, buried, and rose again, for us, on the third day. Without that Promise of Jesus, Job’s words only burden the conscience further, revealing an endless string of sins that deserve punishment from God. It is the Gospel that brings hope, for the Law shows us our sin, but the Gospel shows us our Savior.

 

When Job’s friends approach him, after hearing the horrible news of his enormous losses, they do not recognize him. Covered in sores, dust, and ashes Job is half the man he used to be. They do not recognize him and yet they do, because they don’t leave or say anything. They just sit in the ash heap, next to their friend, and remain silent for 7 days.

 

And that would have been fine, yet on the eighth day, they chose to open their mouths. Not in spite, but in hopes that their words would bring comfort to the friend in need. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Job calls them all “miserable comforters”, in chapter 16:2. That doesn’t seem very charitable on Job’s part, so what’s going on here?

 

First off, there is only one Comforter, the Holy Spirit sent by Jesus Himself to preach to us Jesus Himself. So at the start, Job’s friends cannot be comforters in order to replace The Comforter. This, then, leads to the second issue. That Job’s friends, attempting to fix the situation, only make it worse. 

 

They are us, in our sin, when we employ our “theology of rewards”. That is the theology that says, “Just find the sin and God will start the paychecks rolling again”. And that is the satanic lie. The Law cannot fix your faith, your soul, or your life. It can only shatter the bones that were already fractured.

 

Let’s take a listen.

 

Job has just finished his little soliloquy of, “just let me die already”, in Chapter 3. (So dramatic!) Eliphaz is moved to answer Job in chapter 4. He preaches there that Job was able to do much good for others, in the past, “but now it has come to you, and you are impatient; it touches you, and you are dismayed”, from verse 5.

 

He, I would say rightly, uses the Law to point out that Job has been trusting in his own fear of God and his own integrity of his own ways, to be his confidence and hope (v.6). This cuts Job deep, as the Law of God should, and he cries out all the more. For the Law searches the inward parts, scrying where only the Spirit goes to uncover sin and convict the soul. Eliphaz concludes that this would never happen to an innocent and upright man, so something must still be wrong with Job.

 

Bildad speaks up in chapter 8, saying if only Job prayed harder, for real this time bro, and repented better this time, really mean it bro, then God would reject him no longer. And in chapter 11, which was part of our reading tonight, Zophar just cuts right through all the red tape, declaring, “Job suck it up. You deserve much worse.”

 

Zophar’s main point comes in verse 12 with no filter, “a stupid man will get understanding when a wild donkey's colt is born a man!”

In other words: never. He attempts his comfort in saying that “God exacts of you less than your guilt deserves” (11:6), but does not give a reason for that. His conclusion is not to turn to the Gospel, which would be where you would do it, but to more Law. For, he continues to demand Job stretch out his hands toward God and prepare his own heart (v.13), but for real this time as if it wasn’t real the first 777 times.

 

Yes, “miserable comforters” because they are attempting to use God’s Law to bring about righteousness, where it only brings accusation. Job already knows he has sin. Job already knows he has more sin than he knows. The purpose of God’s commands and demands are to show how far we have fallen and how hopeless it is to try and fix ourselves, in front of God. 

 

Does that mean the Law has become useless? Far from it. “For on the one hand”, says Hebrews 7, “a former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness (for the law made nothing perfect); but on the other hand, a better hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God” (v.18-19). Law and Gospel.

 

The Law must be proclaimed to all people, but especially to impenitent sinners. And it does not go away either. Even the best of the Apostles and prophets constantly prayed for purification from their sins, as if they were tormented night and day, by them. So what hope do we have? Job’s friends were heading down the righteous path, preaching the Law: that Job did have, and was thoroughly corrupted by sin.

 

Where they forgot to turn, was towards the Gospel. They correctly wanted Job to repent, but they failed to take him to the only place where repentance counts: the foot of the cross.

And before we try to fix Job’s friends on their behalf, they may not have had the cross of Christ, per say, but they already had the promise of a suffering Savior. They already had God’s gospel of the Seed Who would crush satan’s head.

 

Thus, the miserable in their sins, must be comforted with the Gospel, and Job was miserable. The Gospel, “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", must be proclaimed to sinners who are troubled in their minds because of their sins.

 

Job has already confessed his sins and, like misguided priests, his friends simply pile on the guilt. Keep going, keep going, they shout. You have more sin! Remember when you pushed your sister down the stairs and blamed it on the dog in the 4th grade? 

These are the devil’s own words, “You are not good enough for forgiveness”. And his only other words to us are, “You are good enough without forgiveness.”

 

The fulfillment of God’s Law is not accomplished by mere outward actions or sincere efforts or the best of intentions.  The fulfillment of God’s Law is accomplished by love: pure, sacrificial, obedient, Serving. Perfect love for God and our neighbors. “Love God. Love your neighbor”, Jesus declares. Not two Greatest Commandments, but one: Love. 

 

And Jesus is love. Job and his friends want a fair God, “I deserve my fair share”, but what they need is a merciful God. A merciful God Who will not only restart the checks, but make it so the checks never stop for all eternity.

 

We call that salvation. And that salvation is only found in the Crucified and Risen, Jesus Christ. There is no other God but Jesus. There is no other Judge, there is no other way. In sinfully believing that God’s Law is a contract, we even attempt to fix God. We use our religion to escape the cross, for if we can pull ourselves up, then Jesus doesn’t have to worry about us.

 

You cannot deceive Jesus. It is His Law after all. He knows it better and He shows us better, by His life. The love of God is not found in fearful obedience, but joyful belief. Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to all who believe” because He comes to perfect it, in His own Body and Blood.

 

“Do we then overthrow the law by this faith?”, asks St. Paul in Romans 3:31, “By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law”. That is, a real and true “fixing” of the sinner is only found in the death and resurrection of Jesus, and the subsequent death and resurrection of the sinner in Baptism. A pure grace and mercy, given by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

 

Without which, we remain wicked. Without which we remain unrighteous. Without which remain that wild donkey’s colt of a man: stupid. In Christ, we are a new man, born again. We have cast aside our old ways and our own integrity, in exchange for a baptismal gown. 

 

For this reason the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, was sent to us. That we be sanctified, as our Epistle from Sunday said. That we “preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block and folly to the world, but…which is the wisdom and strength of God”, our 2nd reading declared. And, that we find our multitude of sins, those we know and those we don’t, surprisingly forgiven by grace, through faith, for Christ’s sake alone, as the 3rd reading said.

 

 

True joy be found [Lent 2]

 LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Genesis 32:22-32

• 1 Thessalonians 4:1-7

• St. Matthew 15:21-28

Grace to you and peace. (1 Thess 1)
 
Who speaks today, saying:

“Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table.”

 
I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart. That’s the sort of song we would give this woman in our Gospel reading, were she to grace us with her presence. Not because we wanted to be mean, but because we wanted to help. She would ask us what Joy is, and we would continue to confuse joy with happiness, of which that woman has none.
 
Do we know Joy? Maybe you have the name joy or know someone named joy. But sometimes people named Joy, aren’t joyful at all and just scream and whine on TV. There are also those who tell us to find joy in what we do. However, the word they use is not joy, but enjoy. 
 
Enjoy is something we can understand and know, again, because we mistake it for happiness. We can enjoy our hobbies. We can enjoy our food. We can enjoy our work. Or maybe you wish for the joy of your youth and your chase after it with all your mind, body, strength and soul.
 
When we find that we cannot grab onto joy, we throw Bible verses at it. 
Psalm 118:24 “This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.”
 
Habakkuk 3:17-18 “Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines…yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.” 
 
Romans 12:12 “Rejoice in our confident hope.” 
 
Psalm 30:5 “Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning.” 
 
Philippians 4:4 “Rejoice in the Lord always. I say again—rejoice!” 
 
Unfortunately, those tell us that there is such a thing as joy, but not where to find it. They tell us that we are to have it, but does not lay out the plan to grab a hold of it. It is the Law once again we are facing as we encounter God’s goodness, and cannot get to it. 
 
Our lady in the Gospel today knows this quite well. She has had to watch her daughter suffer while no one could help her. I’m sure, just like the woman with the flow of blood, she tried all the pharmaceuticals. But they are only in it for profit and not any real healing, so no joy there. 
 
She probably even went to the priests who gave her prayers, verses, and maybe even some holy food or 10 hail Mary’s and a jar of holy water. Yet, there again she would find profit values and no virtue, for even the Apostles had trouble casting out demons, at first.
 
What we come to is that joy is not what we think it is. Because of this sinful misunderstanding, we often seek joy in foul and accursed places, only to find our hearts empty again. Thus, in order to fill that “feeling we had” back up, we become like an addict searching fouler and more cursed ways.
 
Yet, with this insight we glimpse what true joy is. It is a longing or an unsatisfied desire, more desirable that any other satisfaction. It is not a feeling of joy, neither is it some self-induced mental state. To find true joy, we must find the object it points to.
 
This is what the Lord has made: people. People who have a longing and a hungering, not just for truth or for happiness, but for the things of the Lord. Adam was made as a man that was designed to receive good things from God. We were made such that all of what God wants to give, we can handle.
 
Repent! We were made to be religious and we sinfully use that gift in two ways. First, we deny it. We see God’s Church and we scoff at it. It is so irrelevant and unmeaningful, how can I find joy there. Second, we embrace the gift sinfully. We take this religious feeling and make other objects false gods for us. 
 
Whether it is a joy we think we have found or a pharmaceutical that just has to work, because why would I be lied to? We find our objects and pour our religious spirit into them, without limit. Yet, when we are faced with what God has offered, we treat it like trash. 
 
Here is Jesus’s offering to us today, in His Gospel. Yes, the woman is seemingly mistreated, even before she gets to Jesus. Her cries for mercy were made before this meeting, today. The silence from Jesus is His answer as Savior. He has not come to heal, but save and heal perfectly. You can be a found-sheep and saved, without being healed.
 
The woman did not object to this, but still asked for help. Yet, there was still one area in need of confession. Are there any works left in her, blocking salvation by grace alone? Is she still holding on to genetics or false religion in her heart? Will she make excuses for herself?
 
No, if Jesus were to just look her way, it would be enough. If Jesus were to just breath in her direction, it would be enough. If He were to just see me empty and acknowledge my emptiness it would be enough.
 
Jesus is mistreated for this woman and for you. Shamefully mistreated. Shamefully mistreated unto death. We have heard Scripture already teach us to rejoice in the Lord and this is why. Jesus carries the hope that His mistreatment will be our honor. Jesus carries the hope that His death will be our life. Jesus carries the joy that comes on Easter morning, when all those promises come true for us.
 
There is the surprise that joy gives. That Jesus does not pass by this woman and her daughter and that He does not pass us by either. Jesus, in all His promises to us, stands faithful and completes His work on the cross. Before we were even born, Jesus is the object of Joy.
 
And there is the key to Joy: Jesus. He is the object of our longing that no satisfaction on earth can fill and He came to give us the power to house His Spirit, which sin, death, and the devil had thoroughly corrupted in us. Jesus is that object outside of us, which our body and soul hunger for.
 
Doesn’t the Bible talk this way? It says, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied" (Matthew 5:6). Can you eat or drink righteousness? Or from St. Matthew 4:4, “He answered, ‘It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
 
And every word from God is a meal for the soul and a meal for the body. Jeremiah 15 preaches, “Your words were found, and I ate them; and your words were to me a joy and the rejoicing of my heart: for I am called by your name, Lord God of Sabaoth” (v.16).
 
From the moment man was created, he was created to receive the Holy Spirit to gain power “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (Eph 3:17). Hearts that rely on God’s words and hearts that rely on God’s nutrition. 
 
Now, in the sacrament, our joy is three-fold. Not only has God sent His Son for us, but He has also given His Word to us. And not only has He given His Word to us, but He has manifested His Word among us, by promise, that we may feed on it and live. 
 
Truly we sing properly, during Christmas: “Oh where shall joy be found? Where, but on heavenly ground? Where the angels singing with all His saints unite, sweetest praises bringing in heavenly joy and light!” (LSB 386). This heavenly ground is Christ Himself, True Vine, and True Cornerstone of His Church. Into Whom we are baptized and find the fertile soil of salvation, in His Body and Blood. 
 
Now, we may return to our verses from before to put flesh on Joy. When Psalm 118:24 said, “This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it” we now understand that “this day” is the Day of our Lord’s Resurrection, which is now “this day”, today, in which we celebrate it, in His Church.
 
When Psalm 30:5 said, “Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning”, it is the same Easter morning which brings our Lord back from the dead, to serve His living Body, the Church, His true forgiveness of sins. And we are surprised by the fact that He was telling the truth and surprised that He kept His Word. Joy.
 
What the Canaanite woman was searching for was the joy that had eluded her life for so long. She was not really searching for help for her daughter, though faith would give it. She was searching for a Savior Who would redeem all the things that had gone wrong in this world of suffering she lived in. Her joy came when faith pointed her to the object, Jesus, and He said to her, “You, yes you, O woman. Great is your faith. Your will be done”.
  
Psalm 126:2-3, “Then was our mouth filled with joy, and our tongue with exultation: then would they say among the Gentiles, The Lord has done great things among them. The Lord has done great things for us, we became joyful.”
  
 

The devil's bet [Wednesday in Lent 1]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Job 1:6-12

• James 5:7-11

• St. Matthew 21:12-17

 

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

 

Who speaks to you this evening, from His Book of Job heard, saying:

“But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face”

 

The devil is a gambler. He is a gambler because he cannot see all things, as God can. So he must make a gamble on the future as we do. And in the book of Job, he gambles that man is so weak, that anyone of us will curse God to His face, the minute things don’t go our way. And he’s right.

 

This, the blessed Dr. Luther teaches, is at the core of Original Sin: we wish to be God. Indeed, this is the hook that finally catches Eve at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, “you will be like God” (Gen 3:5). From Noah, to King Saul, to King Solomon, even to St. Peter, who “took [the Lord] aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, ‘Far be it from you, Lord [to die]! This shall never happen to you” (Mt 16:22).

 

The devil bets, and because of sin, it seems a sure win, even within Jesus’s inner circle. The bet is that faith is just a business transaction, for God and man. That God needs worship from man, and we only worship Him for the “stuff”. So what happens to Job who has a whole lotta stuff?

 

At this point, the devil is elated. God is not only giving him a free hand, but He’s letting him stack the deck. Not only does he get to take Job’s stuff, but he also gets to take his health, in chapter 2. Not only does he get his health, but his wife turns against Job, advising him to “curse God and die” (2:9). 

 

Now all Job is left with is a life of suffering and that is the excuse and argument used by many today who advocate abortion and euthanasia. “Quality of life” is their god. Thus, that kingdom of God has let Job down and let us down. We expect the best, but find only discomfort. We expect easy street, but find hard luck alley. In light of this, we make our bellies our gods, instead, and wonder why life is so hard. Comfort breeds sloth.

 

We want a god that makes sense. We can understand hunger and eating, but we can’t understand the uncertainty of the next meal. We can understand order and compliance, but we can’t understand why anyone would be against it. Instead of God making sense, He hides Himself. At these difficult points, the devil inserts his own theology: the Theology of Glory.

 

You have already heard the word we use to describe this struggle, during Advent: anfechtung. Struggle. The spiritual discipline that makes a true theologian. And where this struggle originates is the hidden God. When God decides to hide Himself behind the cross. That is anfechtung: having to deal with all of life, with only the cross from God as His answer.

 

So the devil is sent to those who have put their trust in Christ. And when he arrives, he calls the question: can faith survive in the flesh? This is key because God has given us our body and soul, eyes, ears, and all our members; our reason and all our senses and still take care of them, He promises.

 

He also gives clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home, wife and children, land animals and all that I have. He richly and daily provides me with all that I need to support this body and life. All that goodness, only then to take it away, as Job already said, “the Lord giveth and He taketh away” (1:21)

 

When God feels like your enemy, that’s exactly when He is pinning you down to save you from yourself. Not even Jesus escaped this. “My God my God why have you forsaken me”, shouted from the cross. Sounds like a Job shout, no? All the anfechtung is being piled onto Jesus in a whirlwind of violence. And in that whirlwind, the greatest work of the Lord is accomplished: redemption.

 

Thus, Job also must be turned to the whirlwind of the sacrifice of the Lamb of God. He and the devil trust in faith as a work: how faithful I am, how loving I am, how generous I am, how successful I am. Glory is the goal and work is the currency. 

 

In the devil’s work, however, he is not allowed to take Job’s life, for two reasons. Two, Job’s life is connected to God’s Word. Job is a living breathing sermon of God. If the devil were allowed to murder, it would be a sermon that God would never preach. And the first reason is, Job is not going to be the one to triumph in martyrdom. Only Jesus can do that.

 

Job is left with the Word Alone and the Word is everlasting to everlasting. He has made His dwelling with man and not even the gates of hell will overcome that Church. The Word has become incarnate, suffered, died, and was raised on the 3rd Day for Job. Such that Job will see Him face to face, after he dies.

 

It is for the Good of all, that Jesus suffer and die. And it for the good of Job that he suffer and be made like his Savior. Job is being saved from himself, by thinking that his revelation from God is superior. He is as elated as the devil in his prosperity. He thinks he has won the eternal lottery. Until he is shown his God on a cross. Anfechtung.

 

However, even in this anfechtung, the devil does not have the last word. Look. The best the devil can do is drive us to the Word. The worst the devil can do is take our lives, but the Word Made Flesh has promised eternal life. You can begin to sense the devil’s eternal struggle. Even the evil he wants to do, is made into good, by God.

 

For Job also. Once God reveals Himself to be in the whirlwind, that is, in the Crucifixion of Jesus as God and man, then Job repents. Then Job can finally be free to live by grace alone. Free from the guilt and condemnation of his tribulation and his prosperity. His faith is taken out of his body and blood and placed in the Body and Blood of His Lord, offered to him as a sacrifice.

 

“For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Rom 8:3-4).

 

If Job was weak in the flesh, unable to fulfill the law, His Savior became weakest in the flesh to fulfill the law for him. The devil made the losing bet. He bet faith was a simple transaction, while the whole time Faith was from the God-man, Jesus Christ. Without faith, the devil was unable to see the life that was actually keeping Job alive. 

 

Job’s life, though he had forgotten, was a life lived by faith in his Messiah. As St. Paul reminds him in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

 

St. John Chrysostom quotes Isaiah 14:9 and puts it this way, “Hell was embittered, when it encountered Thee in the lower regions.” It was embittered, for it took a body, and met God face to face. It took earth, and encountered Heaven. It took that which was seen, and fell upon the unseen. The devil loses, because he does not believe the Almighty would unite Himself to man in such a sacramental way.

 

That Job’s life be tied to God’s life and that Job’s faith be tied to God’s faith and that Job’s suffering be tied to God’s suffering. Far from a sterile transaction, God has put His own Body and Blood on the line to keep His promise to Job. Job may doubt and waiver, but the Lord He is trustworthy. He keeps His promises. In this case, the promise to redeem Job from the ash heap and set him with the Son, forever.

 

In his sin, Job is the unwilling servant of God. Unwilling to suffer, unwilling to lose, unwilling to sit in the ashes. Yet, the Word drives Job on to let God be God and work out His own salvation on our behalf, also.

 

{Retro-post} The end of your resume [Ash Wednesday]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Joel 2:12-19

• 2 Peter 1:2-11

• St. Matthew 6:16-21
  
  

May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. (2 Pet 1)

 

Jesus speaks to you on this day from His Gospel heard, saying:

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

 

There is a lot going on this Ash Wednesday. Our Lord has placed our minds on fasting and what that is, in our Gospel reading. The Church today commemorates the death of the blessed Dr. Martin Luther, in 1546. And finally, we will begin our Lenten intensive for seven Wednesdays focusing on the Book of Job.

 

We’re going to explore Job for a couple reasons. Yes, he is one who suffers and so reading and studying his life during Lent makes sense, but more so because his book is usually difficult to understand. It is a hard and harsh suffering God allowed to happen and so, as always, we want to know why.

 

And first of all, the reason we study any book of Holy Scripture is to find Jesus, for as He says in John 5:39, you all have the Holy Scriptures and these speak of me. Thus, even though we hear about Job, we are hearing of Jesus, even if we don’t see it. And what brings all of this together is dust and ashes, for Job says in chapter 42:6, “therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”

 

This means that there is common ground between us and the Old Testament. Not just because we are all created from the dust of the ground, but that there is a ceremony that Job follows to place himself in dust and ashes when the Lord’s hand is heavy upon him.

 

From Chapter 1:20-21, 2:8, “Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, ‘Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord’…as he sat in the ashes”

 

Job’s friends, “when they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him. And they raised their voices and wept, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven. And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great” (2:12-13)

 

“Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell to the earth on his face before the ark of the Lord until the evening, he and the elders of Israel. And they put dust on their heads” in Joshua 7:6.

 

“The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground in silence; they have thrown dust on their heads” in Lamentations 2:10, in shame in front of the Lord. Mordecai and all the Jews put on sackcloth and ashes, in Esther 4. And even the “king of Nineveh”, from Jonah 3:6, “arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.”

 

Its like finding yourself in a flash mob or a disney musical. Why does everyone know all the words?? 

 

Yes, there is ceremony, there is purpose, there is confession to be made in front of God as to Who He is, who we are in front of Him, and what we are to do about it. And we continue to hold ceremony in the Lord’s Church, which is a call for full retreat. We are to retreat from our sins and temptations and we are to retreat from our works, good or bad.

 

Deny yourself and retreat. That is God’s purpose in the book of Job and that is God’s purpose for you. For we find Job a righteous man. So righteous, that God brags about him in heaven. Job’s resume, likely better than any other patriarch of the Bible, is golden and reaches to God’s own throne. 

 

And yet, the devil is allowed to harass and harangue. We like to think we have a deal with God. "I do my part, He does His." In the ash heap, however, the contract is torn up. Job’s silence for seven days is the only honest response to the Law of God which always accuses us. You aren't here to "improve" this Lent; you’re here to die and be raised, in Christ. 

 

If we’re going to talk about Job, we have to stop trying to "fix" him. We’re so busy trying to justify God or explain away the pain that we miss the whole point, the whole point of Scripture and even the whole point of the Reformation. 

 

The book of Job isn't a puzzle to be solved; it’s a death sentence. A death sentence that ends in a resurrection. Job chapters 1 and 2 isn't a test of Job’s resolve. It’s the beginning of God’s war on Job’s "goodness" so that he might live by grace alone.

 

The Always-Good Law of God must do its crushing work on our sins and on all our works, in order that the Gospel can actually be good news. If we have defeated our sins, or racked up enough good works, or felt sorry enough, then we are the main star: see, I did it on my own.

 

In the example of Job, We are moved from the "God of my imagination"—the one who rewards the "good" boys and girls—to the God who shows up in the whirlwind and the wounds of Christ.

The God Who crushes and the God Who heals. Job isn’t a story about a man’s patience or perserverance; it’s a story about God’s "alien work" of killing the old Adam to make room for the new.

 

This was blessed Dr. Luther’s point and the point that all the Reformers were trying to make. There is no silver lining to kissing the pope’s ring, you will still be a dirty sinner in the morning. There is no silver lining to trusting in prayers to the saints or buying indulgences. Don’t try to sugar coat what God is doing. Just sit in the dust.

 

Thus when we return to our ceremony which unites us to Job and Luther, our Ash Wednesday liturgy, we don’t just "do" repentance; we are un-done by it. God’s Law doesn't just give us "information" about our sin that we can analyze and execute; it executes us. Right at the cross of Christ.

 

Throughout the book of Job, he is on full retreat. He is forced to start over, having lost family and earthly goods to marauders and he is forced to endlessly defend his righteousness, which comes from God, and yet try to understand why this happened, when he has done everything right. 

 

It's great. On the Eighth Day, Job finally opens his mouth and the first thing he says is, “I wish I was never born”. If this is how God treats those who love Him, I can’t imagine what His enemies feel. And if I’m going to feel like an enemy, what’s the point to even being here?

 

We are driven in that same way. Christ mounts His cross and demands, “Let see you explain this one away, boys!” Because the message of the cross is forgiveness. But if its’ forgiveness, then there must be something to be forgiven. If we don’t need forgiveness, then we better find a different religion. If we do need forgiveness, then we better get in the dust and ashes.

 

Because it is only in the dust and ashes that Jesus can do something with you. If you insist on being the potter and molding yourself, then you’ll have to go to the scrap pile. If you are emptied, confessed a poor miserable sinner, without any merit or worthiness in you, then there is hope. For Christ fills all in all, and that includes you.

 

And the cross is God in the ash heap. You think you sit alone? Job had his friends at first, but God was there listening, acting. “He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes”, says Psalm 113:7-8. And when He finally responds at the end of Job’s book, He shows He was there the whole time.

 

From Hebrews 9:13-14, “For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”

 

It is the will of God to forgive your dust and ashes, remove you from them, and place a crown on your head, giving you His Kingdom. In Christ, dust and ashes become princes. In Christ, Job’s suffering cleanses and purifies like a refiner’s fire, revealing the true gold and silver of faith in Christ. 

 

So we move ourselves through our ceremony, not because we need a reminder of death, but a reminder of who we are and what Christ has done for us.

"Remember, man, that you are dust, and to dust you will return." But also know, man, that God loved you and gave you the Savior. To you and to everyone: Christ who died for us on the cross, where our death was conquered by His death. Christ, who took upon himself the punishment that we must bear.

 

We deserved it, but He was made responsible for us. His death became our life, and the instrument of execution, the cross, became a sign of salvation. That is why the ashes on our foreheads take the salvific shape of the cross.

 

For if, being enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. (Rom. 5:10)

Who is Job without Christ? Who are we without Christ? Only dust. But by partaking of Christ, we are saved by His life (Rom. 5:10). Because the Lord said, "the one who eats Me, he will live by Me" (John 6:57). In the Eucharist, His life flows into us, becomes our life.

 

So run to church. This is where your salvation is worked out (from Phil. 2:12). God is waiting for you here during this time of Great Lent and always. Leave the vanity and thoughts about the earthly, and come to commune of the heavenly Bread. And although life on earth will still be deadly and hard, the One who died for you will be with you and in you to give you eternal life.