Eighth word: Life [Holy Wednesday; Passion according to St. Luke]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE.

“…and just as my Father has granted me a kingdom, I grant you…”

On this final Wednesday before Easter, we stop and reflect on the words our Lord has spoken from the cross. The first word of forgiveness, the second of salvation, the third of marriage, the 4^th of redemption, the 5^th of humanity, the sixth of completion, and the 7^th of commendation.

These have all worked for our good, painting a picture of how the Christ suffered and yet will rise again three days later. Yet, just as our bodies of dust and ash do not end in dust and ash, neither do our Lord’s words end at “I commend my Spirit”. Just as our Lord does not rest forever on the Sabbath day of Creation, neither does He leave us dead on the cross.

This evening I offer to you an Eighth Word of Christ from the cross: life. Yes, we go back to Zoe, if you remember our discussion on how Zoe is Eve’s Greek name, and contemplate how life can be on the cross of Jesus’ capitol punishment.

Yet this eighth word is not the noun, but the verb. So we should hear it in the way Jesus uses it when He says, “…Because I live, you also will live.” (Jn. 14:19), and when He says, “Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” (1 Cor. 15:45)

Because of Jesus dying on the cross, He becomes a life-producer or a life-giver. In the beginning, all creatures were living beings, even Adam, as in they were not created to die. The breath, or Spirit of God, was given to create life in a person, not to take it. And it is in this breath of God that we find what makes this Eighth word so special.

Heretofore, we have been listening to Jesus and Him preaching life to us from the cross. But that doesn’t help us out today. No, we need something special, something extra to get Jesus’ words from His mouth to our ears. That something special is proclaimed to us by the angel of Easter when he says, “He is not here, for he has risen, as he said.” (Matthew 28:6)

Angel means messenger. For this eighth word to take affect, not only must all seven words of Christ on the cross be completed, but also there must be someone to preach them, “as He said”. Many witnesses and events substantiate the message of the angel to the women after the fact. It happened, “as He said.” These three words are significant. Christ fulfilled the Scriptures and took up His life again (John 10:18) and you need to hear them in order to believe.

It is God’s faithfulness that sustains the Christian through this life. Every promise of God is “yes and amen” in Christ. And every time a baptized believer hears the words and promises of God, he receives exactly what they say they give. In this case, where Jesus receives death, the son of God receives life, in preaching.

Thus, this word of life was not just preached after the crucifixion, but since the beginning of time and up to this time today. It has been the subject of God’s preaching ever since He opened His mouth to say “Let there be…” It was therefore also on the lips of the Patriarchs, the Prophets, the Kings, and the Priests.

It also makes sense that this be the subject heading of all seven words of Jesus spoken from the cross, for by them we receive life. As He gives forgiveness, we find life. As He brings into paradise, we find life. As He weds His Church, we find life. As He is forsaken, we find life. As He thirsts, as He consummates, and as He commends, we find life in the Word of God preached.

So it makes sense that after the resurrection this Word was given by a messenger. It makes sense that there is still a messenger and will always be a messenger until the Lord returns to proclaim this same message: “He is not here, for he has risen, as he said.”

And, “Because I live, you shall live also”.

The one is true - “He is risen” - therefore the other is also true - “You shall live also!” “As He said!”

How the Passion? [Palm Sunday; St. Matthew 26:1-27:66]

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It is a glorious witness to the power of God when we hear the same Gospel reading from Advent 1, on Palm Sunday, especially with today also being the Annunciation of our Lord. It is glorious, because Jesus is coming; not just to a Silent Night in Bethlehem, but to fallen creatures singing His praise today, but shouting “Crucify Him” on Friday.

Thus, Jesus speaks today, saying:

"When Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said to his disciples,'You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.'”

We get to smash Advent and Lent together today, proving that you can not have one without the other. For today marks 9 months before Christmass, as in that day which St. Mary conceived Jesus in her womb. All that Advent prepared us for comes to fruition in the Passion of Jesus. St. Mary had to learn to deal with that sword and so must we.

This is the reason why we hear the entire Passion of Jesus on Palm Sunday: so that we may learn how to listen to it and meditate on it. I will give you three ways you are not to hear and meditate on the suffering and death of Jesus Christ and three ways you should meditate on it.

First, when you hear the Passion or see a crucifix, you are not to become angry at the Jews nor are you to lament about poor Judas and be satisfied with that. This is not meditating on Christ, but on wickedness.

Second, you are not to use it as a removal of suffering from your life, as if you believe that the fruit of your meditation lifts you above the regular life you live and that Christ’s suffering is no more than a talisman against your own possible suffering.

Third, you are not to patronize Christ with your sympathy. Do not weep and lament superficially as if to say, “Why, why? Such a tragedy! He was so innocent.” This places a focus upon your own self-righteousness and you are satisfied simply having heard the story, gone to church, and going about your business as usual.

If meditated on in this way, we will focus on wickedness, on the removal of suffering where none is promised, and we will build up our own egos with how well we do things. However, God is not just God, He is God to us and for us and He gives us the true Fruit from His Passion.

So what is the good, right, and salutary way to meditate upon the crucifixion of Jesus?

First, you should become so horrified in your heart at the sight of Jesus on the cross that your conscience immediately sinks into despair. God was adamant that before Jesus could set sinners free, He must pay the costly ransom price for them. Simply put, you are the one who crucified Jesus. You are the Jews, you are the Romans, you are Judas.

When you view the nails, the crown of thorns, and the marks of the scourging you must firmly believe that it is your work, your wicked thoughts, and your sins that fashioned such a welcome for the Son of Man. As soon as you understand that it is the true eternal Son of God that steps forward to have mercy upon you and to offer Himself to the same judgment passed upon you in heaven, you must weep for your sins. Jesus says, “Weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children”.

For the natural purpose and work of Christ’s sufferings is to make all men equal and alike in this way: since Christ was so horribly martyred as to His Body and Soul in our sins, we must also like Him be martyred in our consciences by our sins. This type of meditation changes a man and then the Passion of Jesus accomplishes its true work: to slay the Old Adam and banish all lust, pleasure, and security.

Thus, in the second place, you meditate on Christ’s passion rightly when you find comfort in His suffering. St Peter tells you that, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed."

The comfort comes when you believe that Jesus wants your sins to be crucified and die, thus in your despair and terror you throw your sins from yourselves upon Christ. Stillness of heart only comes with confessed sins. If you deal with them yourself, they only grow stronger, but when you see that they are laid on Christ and He has triumphed over them and believe it, then they are dead and become as nothing.

God is full of love for you and through His sufferings you may press on through all difficulties and behold His friendly heart, full of life and forgiveness.

Thirdly then, in this peace, you live life. Now that you are an enemy of sin out of love, not fear, you may also do work while living in the midst of suffering and death. If a day of sorrow or sickness weighs you down, think how trifling that is compared with the thorns and nails of Christ.

If you must do something distasteful or leave it undone, think how Jesus was led all around bound and a captive. Does pride attack you: behold how your Lord was mocked and disgraced with murderers. Do unchastity and lust thrust themselves against you: think, how bitter it was for Christ to have His tender flesh torn, pierced, and beaten again and again.

If trouble or whatever adversity of body and soul afflict you, strengthen your heart and say: Ah, why then should I not suffer a little since my Lord sweat blood in the garden because of anxiety and grief? That would be a lazy and disgraceful servant who would wish to lie in his bed while his Lord was compelled to battle with the pangs of death.

At the sight of Christ on the cross, the Christian confesses his sins and receives absolution from the pastor. He heaps them upon his willing Savior, knowing that they crucified Him, but believing that this is God’s will. Armed with this knowledge and faith, the Christian then lives his life in faith, not doubting, but believing that all his sins are forgiven.

All of this is so planned out, because in nine months a child will be born in the city of David. He will be named by his father, St. Joseph, who heard the angel and believed. The child will be God in the flesh, dwelling with us as one of us. He will be raised by his father in the Church, until the day comes when the child will be given away in marriage, consummated in the crucifixion of the same God-man, Jesus Christ.

And for those reasons; for the reasons that His work results in the salvation of all people from their sins, He shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Almighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Because of His cross and passion, those who believe and are baptized will be comforted, helped, and delivered.

Christ is on the cross in order “… to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:

 'Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,

    and they shall call his name Immanuel' (which means, God with us).” 

Thus when we wake from our sleep of sin and death, we will do as the Lord commanded us: to take our place beside the Bridegroom in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.

The Consummation, commended to you [6th and 7th words of the cross]

This evening, we have combined the final two word of Jesus, consummatum and commendo, as He speaks to us saying:

“It is finished”

and

“Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!”

“At the consummation of the ages” is a phrase made famous by the Bible. It is used to refer to when the ages will be ended. Consummation means “the point at which something is complete or finalized”. So, when the Scriptures speak of the consummation of the ages, it means the time when the purpose of earth and time itself will be completed, as in fulfilled all it was created to do. There will come a time when there is nothing left for earth and time to accomplish.

Thus, when we hear this word escape the lips of Jesus on the cross we seem a bit confused, because time does not stop after Jesus dies neither does the earth disappear. We see a consummation of nothing. Life goes on. Jesus is taken down and buried. Life goes on as usual. History goes on as usual.

But it doesn’t. Here in the act of dying, Jesus is finishing His work. It is not just a completion of what He has been doing since Christmas. It is the final sentences in the work that began with “In the beginning…” This is the final chapter in the history of all time. After the suffering and death of Jesus, there is no more to be accomplished.

St. Matthew knows this and he begins his gospel in this way: Mt. 1:1 says, quite literally, “The book of Genesis; of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham.” St. Matthew knows he is writing holy Scripture and he knows he is writing the last book in the series.

Where in former times we consummated ourselves with sin, death and the devil, now we have been consummated in Christ and bear His easy yoke of forgiveness and His light burden of peace. Yes, the other strong aspect of consummation happens in marriage. Sin is a marriage to death and the devil. The Faith is a marriage to Life and Jesus; a relationship consummated on the cross and in the Sacraments.

So when the next word out of Jesus’ mouth is “commend”, He is simply turning in the final draft. In Jesus’ dying woes, He wraps up His history of salvation and hands it over to His Father Who heartily and fully approves.

What has been perfected and commended? A recreation. One where an Eighth Day of Resurrection rules, instead of 7 days of a serpent on a tree. One where life, light and salvation are commended to us instead of eternal death. One where the Gospel is commended to us, instead of only the Law. For the Spirit of Jesus which is commended is not just the solitary soul of Jesus the man, but it is His entire being, His entire work, His entire Church. Where the Lord goes, His sheep follow. There is no separation now that baptism has consummated and united us with God.

What is to be said then about the consummation and commendation of Christ? That He did his work now we do ours? That HE gets His comfort, but we have to wait for ours?

No, they are gifts to us even today, for Jesus “…being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him” (Heb. 5:9). The glory that Jesus has been given by the Father, He has given to us, that we may be perfectly one even as the Trinity is one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. (Jn. 17:22-23)

And He in turn commends this salvation to us as a free give. Sets it before us as a King sets a table, commending His holy meal for the forgiveness of sins.

At this first conclusion of the seven words from the cross, we can see that the commendation also includes everyone of them in one complete and perfect gift. Forgiveness, Paradise, marriage; that we are wanted, not forsaken; that we are fed, not starved. All has been taken care of. All has been accomplished.

This is why it is hard to classify Christianity as a religion. If it weren’t for our piety and the fact that we still live on the earth doing work religiously, there would be no ground to say Christianity is a religion, because religion is all about “do”. Do this, do that. Always more to do and never done with it.

Whereas Christianity is about being done. God has done this. Christ has done that. So we say there are only two religions in the world: The one that says “Do” and the one that says “done”. We need only hear the Word of Jesus to know which is which: “It is finished”.

Tasting death [Lent 5; St. John 8:46-59]

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Jesus speaks to you today, saying:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.”

In the verse after this one, the Jews misquote Jesus and ask Him how He can say “he will never taste death”. So what are the Jews trying to say by saying “never taste death” and what is Jesus trying to say by “never see death”?

To start off, the word for “taste” is only used twice by St. John: here and at the wedding of Cana. There, the master of the feast tastes the water turned wine and it blows his mind. Here, like today’s Gospel, the word is used in connection with one of Jesus’ signs. Signs that point to His suffering, death, and His subsequent actions He will do in His Church, like communing with us by wine and tasting.

However, this still doesn’t say why the Jews used this word instead of the word Jesus used. There may be one part of the Old Testament that will help us out. In 1 Samuel 14, King Saul is fighting the Philistines, but he has already disobeyed and the Lord said his kingdom will not endure.

His son, Jonathan, like David to come, has become a greater hero than his father. Where Saul wants to do things his way, Jonathan takes the initiative in fighting and the Lord is givng him victories. He comes to hold great favor with the army and all the people. Even greater than King Saul.

In one long, drawn out battle, Saul proclaims a curse on anyone who eats until the army is victorious. The battle comes to a standstill because of hunger, yet a forest that has been captured is full of honey, ready to replenish low morale and low energy. Yet none ate, because of the ridiculous oath from Saul.

Jonathon does not hear the oath his father swore and eats the honey. He is reenergized for the fight and wonders why no one else is copying him. As the battle commenced, the Israelites begin to eat raw meat with the blood because of their hunger, yet this is a great sin against God. As Saul investigates how this happened, the Lord reveals that Jonathan is the guilty party who ate. As Saul demands his own son’s death, the people speak up and save his life.

Here we have two main thoughts. The first is that Saul put an unnecessary burden of law upon the people, which was not commanded by God, causing them to sin even more, which is how the Law works. Jonathan, fearing God rather than men, sins against his father, but does what is right none the less. By eating, though, he has taken the curse within himself and will reap the consequences.

In this way, eating brings the man into communion with death which then convinces him that death is a part of God’s creation. And if death is a part of God’s creation, then it is just a part of life, thus Abraham can die, the prophets can die, and the Jews can throw this in the face of Jesus Who is promising eternal life in today’s Gospel.

Repent. Scripture says “taste and see” that the Lord is good, yet Adam and Eve saw the fruit and tasted. In complete doubt and rebellion, sin and death entered the world. Tasting and seeing go hand in hand, but we can not taste death and remain in the faith. Death must be done away with.

Jesus tells us that “…we see Him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.” (Heb. 2:9)

Not only will there be no tasting of death by Abraham, the prophets, or any of the believers, but it will be God Himself Who will swallow up death forever.

Thus, when we switch to the word Jesus uses in “shall never see death”, we hear only Gospel and therefore only life.

“For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:40)

God does not let death have the only say on earth nor the only face time. He comes down Himself to be the icon of Life, for when we look upon Jesus on the cross we don’t see death, but life, our life. So we keep Jesus on our crosses and on our Altars.

For we are not only to see the Son, but also to believe Him. And to believe Him means to hear Him and to hear Him means to taste Him and find forgiveness. This is not an intellectual sampling of whatever is on the religious buffet. This is a tasting, a gnawing and gnashing, and an ingesting of the Lord.

As we went over last week, tasting is part and parcel of the Lord’s plan in His Divine Service. It is in the meeting of the earthly and the heavenly that death is pushed out, sin is cast off, and the evil spirit is shoved aside to make room for the Holy Spirit. In the Lord’s Supper, there is only life, light, and forgiveness.

Though we still approach the Altar with the sin of Jonathan, instead of the curse condemning us as King Saul, King of kings Jesus acquits us through His tasting of the condemnation and His complete consumption of it on the cross. Jesus eats evil and spews out Good from His pierced side. Jesus ingests death, rises again with immortal flesh and blood, and sets this same flesh and blood before you to taste and see that the Lord is Good.

In unbelief, we believe that death is from God and that we must face this hell on our own to prove our worth, as the Jews believed. The gift of faith reveals to us that death is not a part of life. Death is not from God and is not found in God or at His Table. Thus, the Christian, baptized into Christ, will never see death nor taste it, because the Christian looks only for Jesus, only sees Jesus, and only tastes Jesus in the Sacrament.

The Good that the Christian discovers there, by faith, is that the sinner is reconciled to the great I AM Who was before Abraham. The Christian finds that in eating and drinking, there is a meal that was planned to be here since before the foundation of the world (Mt. 25:34)

For “…he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him” (Eph. 1:4). That we might see Him and in seeing Him also see the One Who sent Him (Jn. 12:45). That this seeing be done not just with the mind’s eye, but with the ear’s eye and the hand’s eye and the tongue’s eye, because this One “…was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you” (1 Pet. 1:20).

Death is not tasted in this place. Though we may hunger later, we are being filled to the brim with eternal life as God Promises. So that, even though we may die, we will live.

True thirst [Wed. in Lent 4; St. John 19:28-29]

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This evening, we hear Jesus speak His fifth word from His cross, that of thirst:

“After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), ‘I thirst.’”

The sheep ask Jesus when it was that they saw Him thirsty. It was on the cross. The goats ask when it was that they saw Him thirsty. It was on the cross. Not only is this one of the great verses for revealing Jesus’ humanity, but it also shows us Who is really thirsty here.

Now we can wax eloquent on what it means for us to be thirsty and then, by implication, show that our thirsting is not like Jesus’ thirsting but that He wants us to be thirsty for holiness in this world. He wants us to be so thirsty that we start enacting God’s righteousness on the world’s inhabitants and punishment for those who do not obey. Our own Christian Jihad.

Because thirsting for righteousness means making sure it happens on earth as it is in heaven, no matter who is hurt or what the cost is. Yes, we poor sinners believe that because we hear of God’s righteousness we immediately become His vessel to do God’s will. Thus, our crusade is to make sure righteousness abounds or else.

What we pass right by is what being thirsty means in the first place, that is, it means to suffer. Thirsting is not a giving of power or an elevation to a position of lordship. It is a humility borne under pain. Thirsting is such a burden that if you thirst for a measly three days, you will die. Not conquer a people, not win souls for the kingdom, but die.

Samson was a great Israelite hero. We all know his story, hopefully. Yet it was during a time when the Philistines ruled over them that it happened one day the Philistines were sick of Samson being a hero and demanded his capture. Israel agrees!!! Oh what a betrayal. Oh what disgrace. Samson is betrayed, but the Lord doesn’t leave him. He killed all of his Philistine attackers, 1000 in all, with a jaw bone of a donkey.

After this betrayal, he calls on the Lord saying, “You have granted this great salvation by the hand of your servant, and shall I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” (Jdg 15:18) Of course the Lord provided him with water.

Towards the end of Israel’s reign, as both Assyria and Babylon began to think Israel a prime place for a parking lot, both of them created propaganda against the current kings, cutting off their water and saying things like “On what are you trusting, that you endure the siege in Jerusalem? Is not Hezekiah misleading you, that he may give you over to die by famine and by thirst, when he tells you, ‘The Lord our God will deliver us from the hand of the king of Assyria’…do not believe him… for no god of any nation or kingdom has been able to deliver his people from my hand or from the hand of my fathers. How much less will your God deliver you out of my hand!” (2 Chron. 32:10-15)

Now, place these words in the mouth of Jesus on the cross as He suffers thirst. Has God granted such great salvation to all people and yet Jesus alone shall die of thirst? Will God fail to deliver His Servant from hunger and thirst on the cross, condemning the whole world?

If the Lord can make springs in the desert so that even the wild beasts can drink (Ps. 104:10-11), why can He not provide for His only Son? Here is an inside look into the thoughts of Jesus. He knows His people’s history. He knows His prophesy. He knows that God claims to be able to give drink to those who thirst, yet He is withholding from Jesus.

In the reading from Isaiah tonight, it is the servants who get to eat and revel, but the Lord’s chosen, the One to take on His people’s rebelliousness, is to be thirsty. In the reading from Revelation we hear that the one who conquers thirst; Who conquers in God’s Name, will never be thirsty again and He will be called Son.

In order to draw all men to Himself, Jesus suffers even thirst on the cross that we may hear the blessed Gospel and find no dry well, but a fount of living water, purified seven times. Water that gives life eternal, instead of thirst a few hours later. Water that regenerates and renews in baptismal grace, water that heals and forgives in communing with the Lord, and water that is freely given where our Lord had none.

The switch has been made. The scapegoat has been offered. God’s people will not suffer for their sins. Christ has accomplished and fulfilled that. God’s people will live life in a corrupted world, but they will never know real thirst, just as they will never know real death. The whirlpool of life giving water from the pierced side of Jesus has swallowed up suffering, thirst, and death forever.

The Show-me-bread [Lent 4; St. John 6:1-15]

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Jesus speaks to you today, saying:

“He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do.”

Jesus is testing Philip, His disciples, and He is testing all of you here today. We’ve already talked about the difference between testing and tempting concluding that God tempts no one, but that when testing comes, it comes to draw us closer to Christ, whereas temptation tears us away into greater shame and vice.

So what we are looking for is not just bread on our own tables, but a deeper understanding of the grace of God AND how that grace gets to us. Because I don’t know about you, but bread and fish are a silly way to teach about trust. There are so many other, more efficient ways of teaching and testing trust. Jesus could take them out on another stormy boat trip, He could find more unclean or sick people, or He could even have found more dead to raise.

No, Jesus chose this moment, in the midst of the most holy Passover, in the midst of hunger to teach the faith with food. Here He preaches against the doctrine of the devils that say it is impossible for God to become enfleshed.

Adam and Eve were tested in the same way. The Lord gave an entire planet full of food, but left one tree of no-eat-food. Would they trust the Lord to provide physical as well as spiritual food?

Abraham was tested as Melchizedek, the King of Peace, approached him with a holy meal, which Abraham received with thanksgiving and gave a tithe of all he had as a response. Joseph tested his brothers with their food.

And the longest, still running test that brings all of this together is the bread that was required to always be present in the Temple, all day, every day. Called the Showbread or Bread of the Presence, literally bread before the face, it was reserved only for the priests and was only to be eaten in the same holy place, by holy people.

The formula for sanctification in the true faith happened in three ways. First, God made the Altar and the Temple holy saying, “but he shall not go through the veil or approach the altar, because he has a blemish, that he may not profane my sanctuaries, for I am the Lord who sanctifies them.” (Lev. 21:23) Through the Altar, then, He made the food holy or most holy: “Seven days you shall make atonement for the altar and consecrate it, and the altar shall be most holy. Whatever touches the altar shall become holy.” (Ex. 29:37)

Second, the Lord consecrated the high priest and all the priests by their consumption of the most holy food as it is written: “I have given it as their portion of my food offerings. It is a thing most holy, like the sin offering and the guilt offering. Every male among the children of Aaron may eat of it, as decreed forever throughout your generations, from the Lord's food offerings. Whatever touches them shall become holy.” (Lev 6:17-18)

Third and last, the Lord consecrated all the Israelites through their involvement in the divine service and their own consumption of the holy food from their offerings saying, “You shall sanctify him, for he offers the bread of your God. He shall be holy to you, for I, the Lord, who sanctify you, am holy.” (Lev. 21:8) Thus God communicated His holiness physically with His people through the things He declared holy. By their access to the holy things the people shared in God’s holiness.

- Kleinig. Leviticus, pp.11

Repent. If Jesus is not holy, then He has some sort of super powers maybe. At the least He is blazing the trail for soup kitchens to come in the future. A great example of feeding the hungry to be sure. But, if Jesus is holy, then the feeding of the 5000 must mean a whole lot more.

Yet, it takes a demon to throw in our faces what should be evident from the get-go, that Jesus is holy. Not just holy, but The Holy One, “And immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” (Mk. 1:23-24)

It should shame us that we do not see the holiness of Christ sitting on the mountainside and handing out food. It should bring us to tears that we failed to put together that Jesus makes His people holy through His own Blood (Heb. 13:12). That whatever He touches, becomes holy.

And so we should not be surprised to see, in this feeding of the 5000 a copy of what was happening in the daily celebration and ceremony of Temple life. First, that the Temple and the Altar are holy, for The Son of Man is the Temple.  Second, that the Most Holy Lord provides sanctification for His Church through the breaking and distribution of the bread. And finally that all believers find redemption and sanctification in touching those things which Christ touches and hands out Himself.

Jesus is conceived by the Holy Spirit. What is born of the holy is holy. “Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and holiness and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30). Jesus is the holiness of God, the Light of God, and the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. He does not spend His time in idle munchings and crunchings. His business is the forgiveness of sins.

Thus it becomes the Church today, even at St. Luke, to fashion an Altar and a Temple-like place for the Word of God to come true among us also. It is meet and right to worship and bow down to the true Temple Who comes in the Name of the Lord. It is a holy work to take what has been made holy from the hands of the Holy and become holy ourselves.

For us today, it is a comfort that Moses and all the Prophets were worshipping and communing the same way we worship and commune. It brings great joy to know that the Apostles worshipped and communed the same way we do.

For God has provided a test. A test to see whether or not we would keep His meal at the table. The test is if there is still a meal in His Church where heaven communes with earth, where the spiritual communes with the physical, and where sinners commune with the most Holy and become holy themselves, not just with showbread, but with the very Body and Blood of God Himself, Who feeds so many more than 5000.

That is the test and yet Jesus provides all the answers. We don’t have to figure out the right meal plan, the correct place settings, or the magic words to get God to show up. It has all been figured out and revealed to us so that we might be able to run without hesitation to our loving God and find forgiveness of sins in a meal.

Frosaken [Wednesday in Lent 3; St. Matthew 27:45-49]

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This evening, we hear Jesus speak our fourth word from His cross, forsaken:

“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’”

In the Latin, we hear Jesus say the word dereliquisti, or as you might recognize today: derelict. A man who is derelict is said to be shamefully negligent in not having done what he should have done. In other words, he has forsaken his duties. Usually derelict is more used of buildings or objects that have fallen to ruin because they have been forsaken.

Either way, when we see Jesus on the cross in His own ruined body, we can clearly see this dereliction of duty. Someone has neglected Jesus. Someone has caused His ruination in not doing what should have been done.

The wonder of Jesus on the cross is that Jesus does not blame us. No, He has already spoken a word of forgiveness for sins done in ignorance. No, tonight and as we hear on Maundy Thursday, it sounds like Jesus is placing the blame squarely on God.

Imagine that. The Father forsakes His only begotten son. In a show of what modern scholars have called “divine child abuse”, Jesus is stricken, smitten, and afflicted all while the Father looks on, apparently indifferent to the entire matter, as He does not act to change it.

This idea follows from trying to understand what the heck Jesus is doing on the cross. We would call this the Theory of Substitutionary Atonement. Where Jesus is suffering in our place. Where He is punished and we are let off scot free. He is our substitute, our stand in for our trial, our conviction, and our sentence commutation.

However, in our backwards-upside-down world, the Father forsaking anything is not evil, but good. If the Father forsakes people in the wilderness, it is good. If someone dies out of hand, it is good. If Jesus suffers and dies for crimes He did not commit, it is good.

Blasphemy! A God that abuses or punishes for no reason is no God at all, but a demon. If God claims to be a God of love, He has no right to enact this sort of thing on anyone, much less His only begotten Son.

But punishment is not inconsistent with love. We punish our own children, not because we hate them, but because we love them. When God forsakes in the Old Testament, in a secondary sense, it is to bring His people back to a better place than they are at or were headed towards. In the primary sense, forsakenness is to point us to Jesus.

Yet, we find more often than God forsaking, we forsake God. Moses says that we have forsaken the rock that begot us, the God Who birthed us (Deut. 32:18). Jeremiah says, “Have you not brought this upon yourself  by forsaking the Lord your God, when he led you in the way?” (2:17). It is all too often that we forsake God for the riches, concerns, and cares of this world, neglecting preaching and His Word.

And while God does forsake, it is not forever. In Nehemiah chapter 9, God mentions forsaking 3 different times. Once it is Him forsaking, twice it is Him not forsaking (v. 17, 28, 31). Psalm 9 says, “And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.” (v.10)

The righteous are not forsaken (Ps. 37:25) and Jesus has come to fulfill all righteousness. Thus it is these promises which our Lord recites over and over again on the cross, knowing that He is the Righteousness One and that though He is abandoned for a brief moment (Isa. 54:7), He will be gathered up to life again.

The cross is the freely-chosen, gracious choice and act of the Father, Son and Spirit. It is not just another man that the Father is forsaking because of our sins, but God who became a man Himself and took upon Himself His own just punishment.

This is why it’s so important to approach this challenge with an understanding of the Trinity, and an understanding of the nature of God. Jesus is God; He isn’t just an innocent third party.  He is the Judge Himself suffering, the One who determines the punishment and takes it, the One who passes judgment and receives it.  It is Jesus, the incarnate God.

The God who does not suffer with us doesn’t know us and becomes the remote God of deism. The God Who cannot at the same time be forsaken and yet completely one with Himself is another false idol. Jesus is the Lord of life even in the midst of death and He made a way for dead, sinful creatures to follow Him and live with Him.

Man has been derelict in his duties and has turned from God, causing the suffering and death of Jesus. But, Jesus does not give His life up by chance or fate, but lays it down Himself that He might take it back up again. He is forsaken by the Father in order that, as His redeemed children, we might never be forsaken.

As Johann Sebastian Bach put it:

When I one day must depart from here Then do not depart from me,
When I must suffer death Then step forward next to me!
When most full of fear I am in my heart,
Then snatch me from my fears By the strength of your agony and pain!

The demons [Lent 3; St. Luke 11: 14-28]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE.

Jesus speaks to us today and says,

“Now he was casting out a demon that was mute. When the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke, and the people marveled.”

After the New Testament was completed, demons did not leave us. Indeed some are on the right trail when they say, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing everyone he doesn’t exist.”

And living in the peaceful and insulated United States, we must agree. We do not see Satan at work anywhere. There are no people born to end the world. There is no fight for the Holy Grail. There is no one who is changing colors, vomiting profusely, or spinning their heads all the way around.

We just don’t see the demons working like they did in Jesus’ day. Jesus and His Apostles were casting them out left and right, so let’s go through the examples, at least in the Gospel of St. Luke, where demons were being cast out and what they were doing.

There was a man in chapter 4, accused of having an unclean demon, but all we are told of his affliction is that he was shouting crazy things like, “Have you come to destroy us Jesus? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” And Jesus told him to zip it and get out of that man.

Our next encounter is only second hand knowledge of Mary Magdalene. St. Luke says that several demons had come out of her. Historically she had been thought of as a reformed prostitute, so maybe that was the demon at work in her.

In Chapter 8, St. Luke tells us of Jesus meeting the famous demon “legion”. This possession made the man run around naked, live among the tombs of the dead, thrash about, and drive the man into the desert on multiple occasions.

At the end of chapter 9, the only son of a man was possessed and the demon would seize his body, make him scream, and throw him into convulsions, foaming at the mouth. The last encounter St. Luke records in today’s Gospel reading, where the possessed man was prevented from speaking, yet regains his senses after the exorcism.

Now, how many of us have seen people shouting crazy things seemingly uncontrollably? How many of you have seen or know about prostitutes? How many of you know what a streaker is? How many of you have seen or heard about people doing unnatural things with dead bodies, or throwing bodily tantrums, or running into the wilderness with no proper preparations?

How many of you know someone who can’t speak?

Make no mistake. There are demons among us even this day and they still act like they did back in Jesus’ day, but as you hopefully noticed, we diagnose them differently now-a-days. Today, we have medical and scientific terminology to categorize these ailments. Tourettes Syndrome, personality disorders, mental disorders. All are given names which somehow seem to pacify us into thinking that they are under control, simply because we gave it a name.

Repent. We have been duped. We have been told belief in demons are for the superstitious and it has nothing to do with modern science. This fleece has been pulled over our eyes so that we do not see demons, but harmless biological and neurological ailments that, if studied enough and with enough government funding, can be cured.

More important than blaming modern health problems on demons is finding out that these are just normal, everyday happenings. These are sins and actions that anyone of us could, and probably have committed. Thus, we must conclude that the normal, everyday person is possessed by a demon, no matter how normal you may feel you are.

Most importantly, we don’t have to wait for the Jesuit or the exorcist or the spiritualist to come and send our demons into the next dimension, instead of our hearts. There is one demon Who has come to clean house, take names, and conquer victoriously.

In St. Mark’s version of the Temptation of Jesus, he uses the word “cast out” to describe Jesus going into the wilderness. This is the same word used for demons being “cast out” of people, in the Bible. 5 times Jesus is accused of being a demon. Twice they say that He works under the ruler of the demons, Ba’alzebub (Mt. 9:34; Lk. 11:15), Twice He is called insane and paranoid for what He says and they attribute it to demons (Jn. 7:20, 10:20). And once, He is flat out called a demon to His face (Jn. 8:48).

This demon has done things like care for others, remove evil and violent spirits, heal the sick, feed the poor, and love all people. We could use more demons like this! Yet, in our backwards, upside down world, this God-man is a demon. He is treated like a demon, exorcised like a demon, and punished as a demon.

Jesus predicts His suffering and death and everyone calls Him paranoid. He says He will lay His own life down and take it up again and they declare Him insane. He commands you to love your neighbor, to be baptized, and to eat and drink His Body and Blood and He is found guilty of demonic possession, worthy of death.

It turns out that Jesus does work in the possession business. He does send His Spirit to dwell in a person in order work His will in their lives. Where demons work sin and death. Jesus’ Spirit works life, light and forgiveness.

True demon possession is yielding to sin, thereby enslaving us to sin, as being possessed. True demon possession is not necessarily only as Hollywood portrays it, but the demon’s true intent is to turn you away from Jesus; His Gospel and His sacraments. It is important to recognize this, because demons are not scary, but friendly and persuasive.

And nothing is beneath them as a means to achieve their goal. They do all that stuff, haunt houses, and even pose as dead loved ones in order to turn us.

In the long run, it matters not what the demons do for they are judged. They can possess, oppress, even perform miracles and it will not fool you, the Elect. This is because even if someone were to rise from the dead, you would not believe because all who rise from the dead point to Jesus rising from the dead.

In the Last Days the demons will be given power to do New Testament miracles, but the Church no longer looks for those miracles because she has Jesus. The only miracles the Church seeks are those given in Body and Blood. The only exorcism she needs is that given by water and the Word. The only spirit she desires to be possessed by is the Holy Spirit.

The Age of Miracles is over, at least those that point to Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection. The Age of the Church and the age of demons is coming to its conclusion where the demons will be found guilty and the Church found innocent.

Jesus is no longer a demon or charged with that accusation. Easter cleared all that up. The Church on earth, however, will be called demonic and much worse, by those who are actually possessed.

Jesus indeed took our demons to the cross, not possessed by His own, but by that of all the world’s sin and death. He went to the realm of the demons, hell, and judged them guilty there sentencing them to eternal condemnation. While the prison doors are still open, the horde is being pushed back by Jesus alone.

Our battle cry then, is the same as at any other time whether we are encountering life, death, evil, or demons. That is that we are Christ’s. That we are baptized into Christ and that His promise stands for us and against the demons, so that we don’t have to. We simply rely completely upon His promise of salvation to forgive our sins and deliver us from the evil one.

Woman behold your son [Wed. Lent 2; St. John 19:25-27]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE.