Belief [Trinity Sunday; St. John 3:1-15]

LISTEN OT THE AUDIO HERE.

Who speaks to you all today saying,

“If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe,how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?”

Belief is a secular value, even though it is used over 300 times in the Bible and is usually associated with Christianity. Most of the time, belief is defined as those reasonings about what things are or how you think about what is. These beliefs color how you view the world and everyone in it.

So, a person can believe in God and the supernatural, but another can also believe in no-gods and only the natural. One person can believe all life is valuable and another can believe only certain life is valuable. Simply because someone believes does not make that belief true. You do not want to confront the person who believes your life is not valuable, even though you think it is.

And yet we know that belief can be good. You can believe that life is important, no matter how small. You can believe every person has the rights and dignity of every other person. You can believe that hard work and determination go a long, long way in this world. You can not believe in everything. You need to pick your belief and stand there and sometimes that means in opposition to others.

What really confuses me is those people who say they believe in everything, not just one thing. They believe that if they can just pick the middle of the road in all things (moderation), that they will have become more enlightened. They believe that if they accept all truth as equal, that they will find themselves ahead of the pack.

The reason this confuses me is because when you believe in everything, you do not have any sort of form or structure to your belief system. It just kind of floats out there, changes with the weather, and you’re not that interesting to talk to. And something that has no form or shape is called nothing. Thus, a belief in everything is a belief in nothing.

But, contrary to the opinion of some, everyone believes in something. Even a belief in nothing is still something. Likewise, everyone has their own creeds or list of values and judgments. You can not live and survive in this world without such a list. Talk to someone enough, and their beliefs, how they judge the world, will come out.

What do you believe in? This weekend we have the travelling Vietnam Memorial wall in town. Those names up there mean they believed in something. Regardless of what you think of the politicians that sent them to fight a war or the reasons for fighting, those servicemen invested their entire lives into what they swore to do. Have you ever invested your life in like manner?

Nicodemus risked his very life to go see Jesus. No, he was not sneaking around and lying as some think, but he was searching for righteousness. He was investing his entire life into discovering its whereabouts and the only reward he would get when his true allegiance was made known, was ostracization and death for leaving Judaism.

Jesus was bound and determined to not only risk His own life for His beliefs, but to let others take it from Him. Even though He laid down His own life, Jesus was still a man; a man that stood alone in order to believe in the only true thing to believe in: you.

Yes, yes. Jesus perfectly believed in God and lead a perfect life in His eyes, but listen again to what Jesus is saying to Nicodemus. God must not be born again. God must not be born of water and the Spirit. It is Nicodemus who must do these things, and even though Nicodemus does not get it, Jesus gives us the answer: he must be born of the Spirit. Belief must be given.

Repent, dear Christians. It is not enough for you to believe in something. You must believe something. Belief on its own is not anything to be proud of, neither is belief in something to the exclusion of others. It is not what you believe, but Who you believe. And before that, it is not Who you believe, but Who believes in you.

Yes, Jesus believes in you. He believes in you so much that He created an entire cosmos for you to live and breathe and grow in. He believes in you so much that He gave you His own breath as your breath that you might share His joy in this creation. He believes in you so much that He gave you His very personal name and revealed how you could find Him any time you want to.

And it is Jesus’ faith that today opens your lips in the words of the Divine Service and the Athanasian Creed. For this is not just what you believe, but Who you believe. The creeds are not just there as an academic exercise, but as a precise statement of Who is to be believed, this is why the creeds are hated.

First off, they exclude any pagan or humanist religion. They force the reciter to take a stand with the God that is being described. The one and only God that has created all things and sends His Spirit to care for all things.

Next, they quash the belief of any who would say of God “great spirit” or “mother” or any iteration other than Father. The one who recites is forced to believe in the manliness of God. Not only that, but then that believer is made to believe that God became man and accomplished His greatest work as a man.

Remember, that Christ’s own words were that the work that one should be doing to be doing the work of God is believing. Not just believing, but believing in the One sent from God, that is Jesus the Christ of God.

This is why the Church centers around the Body and Blood of Jesus, because it is there that this belief is handed out. In the Lord’s Supper, you not only confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord, but you believe with your heart, mind, stomach that there is one God, the Father Almighty, the Son, Jesus Christ crucified, and the Spirit not created but proceeding.

The Sacrament of the Altar places the burning coal of the Word of God on your lips in order that, when the Pastor of God declares, “Behold this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for”, your new found belief in Christ responds, “Be it done to me as the Lord wills” and “Amen, amen, yes, yes, it shall be so.”

Jesus first believes that it is right to sacrifice Himself for His mortal enemies: you all in your sin. It is in that atoning sacrifice that you are made to believe the same thing. In the belief of Christ, you are given faith to believe the same way Jesus does. It is only the one whom the Son chooses to reveal faith to, who gets to believe. Thus, the clear way Jesus has made for His people is in Word and Sacrament, for they contain the promises of God for the believer.

When you hear, “whoever believes and is baptized will be saved” and because of your baptism you find that the Bible is talking about you, you have exactly what the words say you have: salvation. When you hear, “whoever believes in the Son will have eternal life” or “this is my Body, this is my Blood given for the forgiveness of sins”, what do you suppose belief is telling you there?

Jesus’ belief allows the Christian to be close minded and open minded at the same time. He hears both heavenly truth, which cannot change, and he finds and seeks out earthly truth, which can be quite elusive. Jesus belief also allows the Christian to be myopic and clairvoyant. He is only focused on Christ and what He is doing, where He is at, yet he can be compassionate and sympathetic to all who face their own problems, regardless of what they believe.

Christ chooses to reveal Himself in His Church and He chooses to give Himself to you. Belief’s response is to be baptized, hear the Gospel, receive the sacrament, and confess, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of Sabbaoth!”

Lingua franca [Pentecost; St, John 14:23-31]

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Who speaks to us today, saying,

“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”

You did not understand all that you heard today, and hopefully that’s not usual. Regardless, you did not understand because for many of you English is your first and only language. And this is understandable. In order to survive and thrive in the USA, you did not need to know anything else.

Language is one of the keys to defining a people and maintaining society and culture. The importance of language is brought to the fore by our reading from Genesis in the Tower of Babel. The important point of this story is not how mean God was and how afraid He was of the great potential of men working together, but rather what they did in exercising that great potential: that is creating eternal condemnation for themselves.

And this is the great gift that language is. It allows a people to unite and accomplish that which they purpose. This was the impetus behind the rise of the United States of America. Though people with many tongues came together and were confused in their inability to communicate, one newer language bridged that gap: English.

Now you may say, see if everyone just learned English we wouldn’t have illegals, gangs, and other plagues on decent society. However, it was the unification of the US citizens that caused the problems we have in the first place. We reap today what had been sown in the past. The same language that had united, today tears apart.

Holy Scripture testifies to the truth of this. The Lord will cut off “…those who say, ‘With our tongue we will prevail, our lips are with us; who is master over us?’” (Ps. 12:4)

St. Paul is even more direct in saying, “In the Law it is written, ‘By people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners will I speak to this people, and even then they will not listen to me, says the Lord.’” (1 Cor. 14:21)

Language is important and it is a gift from God. You can not learn, you can not understand, you can not hear if you do not have an understanding of language and you will not survive. Similarly, if you remain satisfied with one language, you miss out on a vast chunk of the world’s beauty in other languages.

The Lord created language. There is a heavenly language and some say that was Hebrew, because that’s the tongue that God used to give the Law to Moses, however, St. Paul told us that it would be a strange and foreign tongue that would bring salvation to His people. So while the Jews were waiting for more Hebrew, Jesus was speaking in Greek. Likewise, while we are all waiting for God to reveal some special command or vision to us in some secret heart-language meant only for us, He is passing us over by speaking in regular old languages, not just English.

Repent! We use language against our neighbor. We curse and swear, tell lies and betray our neighbor, and slander him. Instead of immersing ourselves in the wonder that is developed language, we lock ourselves in our single rooms and declare supremacy saying that I have built this city and have made a name for myself and none is master over me.

Jesus says that all who see Him mock Him. They shoot out their language and shake their heads saying, “He trusted in God, let Him deliver Him, if He delight in Him.” Jesus uses this inflammatory language spoken against Himself as the vehicle for the saving Gospel. In fact, He uses language in general, to spread His Word.

It was language that created Babel, it was language that divided, and now it is language that recreates all as it should be. Though we live in a world of divided tongues, Christ unites all of us. For even though mean’s word prevailed against Jesus and succeeded in condemning Him, it was the Word made flesh; language incarnate that paid for you to hear the Gospel and believe.

You hear in tongues every Divine Service and unconsciously translate the language and words of God. That is a true gift of the Holy Spirit. So, you didn’t understand the Collect and the Epistle today? You have the ability and the option to learn to hear Christ on the cross for you, if you so choose. There is no unlearnable language on earth and in each one Christ the Crucified is risen and living.

Therefore the reason Babel occurred and the reason Pentecost cleaned up what Babel incurred, is so that God could manifest His glory, because now not only does God speak to His people, but He speaks to them in any and all languages, not just one.

In our Introit, we heard from Wisdom 1:7, but in verse 6 the Lord says this, “Wisdom is a loving Spirit and will not acquit the blasphemer of his language…for God is a true beholder of his heart and a hearer of his tongue.” From verse 7 we know that the Spirit fills the whole earth and He has knowledge of the Voice. It is through language that God communicates His grace to us and through language the Holy Spirit fills the world.

The evil we bring against ourselves and God is the same evil the people of Babel brought against God. Thus, the Lord caused three things to happen at Babel: 1) He confused their tongues, 2) He scattered them over the whole earth, and 3) He created many new lips or languages. Thus it becomes central to the plan of salvation that Jesus un-confuse tongues, gather from the ends of the earth, and create a new language.

This language we beg for in the Divine Service saying things like, “O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.” (Ps. 51:15). And in His great mercy, known only in Christ Jesus, God has known our unclean lips and the unclean lips of the people we dwell with and has cleansed us from them. He takes a burning coal of the Body and Blood of His Son, touches our lips, and makes them holy (Is. 6:5,7).

Baptized into Jesus, our lips speak no more evil or wickedness. They harbor no more ill will for God or our neighbor. Instead they speak as God speaks. They burst forth into songs of praise, thanksgiving, and forgiveness. They speak the richness of God for all eternity, because they speak only of Christ Crucified for dumb sinners.

Now you understand what language is for and, more importantly, what the language you hear in the Bible is for. The Lord has “…put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord.”(Psalm 40:3) And in heaven “…they sang a new song, saying, ‘Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.’” (Rev. 5:9)

The new song and the new language consists entirely of Christ and what He has done for His people in redeeming them from sin, death, and the power of the devil. And even if we only speak one language, the best way to use it is this way.

Divine Service murder [Easter 7; St. John 15:26-16:4]

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Jesus speaks to us today, saying,

“They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God.”

In this verse, the weakness of English comes out. To be sure there are the actions of putting out of the synagogues, and killing, and thinking incorrectly. But what is actually being conveyed here is a recreation and there’s a lot to unpack.

What’s happening here is that a second church is being erected inside God’s own Church. A church that excommunicates God’s Elect and kills them, all during their own “divine” service. This is the strength of the words St. John is using today and we can say this because his word for “service” is the same word used to refer to the Passover.

Thus, as we approach our 5^th Commandment from God, we run into an apparent contradiction that there is to be no murdering, but not only is there killing in the Old Testament, but from that it seems as if His followers can understand His commands and actions as demanding human sacrifices, if only to keep this church pure.

This is our blind, sinful way of understanding sacrifice and purity. That because men can be killed that they should be killed or because we can be angry with them, we should be. However, all this does is reveal our own state of depravity. What we are really trying to kill is God and since we can’t get at Him, we go for the next best thing: His chosen followers.

We must not only not kill people around us, but neither hurt nor harm them in any physical way. However, include anger in the mix and this commandment quickly becomes impossible, especially with sacrifices needed to be made and with enemies close at hand.

So we come to an impasse. God does not murder, but He kills. There must not be murder, but there is murder. There must not be death, but there is death and there is no understanding it. Philosophers have been at it for centuries and the best they’ve come up with is, “Suck it up”.

What makes sense of all the Old Testament murder and violence is the cross, because it is God’s work, not ours. All the deaths in the Old Testament were for purity’s sake; the purity of God’s people, whom He chose and whom He is very jealous for. “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.” (Mt. 11:12)

By the letter of the Law there must be sacrifice and we think, “What better to sacrifice than the unbelievers?” However, this is not an unblemished sacrifice, but a cheap one, cheapening God’s promise by its impurity. Maybe, we say, a true believer will suffice. Yet, afterwards nothing is different. Still not an acceptable sacrifice to alleviate God’s wrath.

With this, maybe you can begin to see a little clearer. There must be a death, but it is not to be meted out by your hands. Yet, when you judge God as too slow, you take God’s commands as the go ahead to create your own rules in Church and begin the purification by Law, for it is by Law that purity must be achieved, but it is by that same Law that we all deserve nothing but temporal and eternal punishment.

Repent. All we understand of murder, killing, and violence is through the Law and when we try to pierce into God’s mind with His Law, we find nothing but more murder, killing, and violence. We come to a warped conclusion of Who God is by using our sinful minds to wrap our heads around it.

The command to not murder comes to completion and perfection at the cross. All the seemingly murderous intent we assign to God is poured out upon the Son of God and its not even that somehow God has to learn about suffering or how not to murder, its that in Jesus God suffers on your behalf. To prove to you that He suffers because of your murdering.

Thus, Jesus is murdered for the murderers. To prove to the whole world for all time that it is sin and the devil that murders, God is murdered on the cross. You could almost say that God changes here, at the cross, because now the killing and the violence stops. But, He doesn’t change, of course, for it was always the plan to stop anger and death in all forms.

Jesus suffers and dies to purchase His Church and He does so with a death and resurrection. A death and resurrection which you must share in or be lost forever. Even in this New covenant there must be murder, but this is now a satisfied murder; a completed murder the Christian encounters in Christ and what does that look like, but a bit of water and the Word.

In our vile pit of murder, Jesus comes to us with His help and support. But the 5^th command is too physical for Jesus to simply offer a spiritual help and support. Jesus helps us by murdering murder in the flesh. His absorption of all the violence and anger plays out in His scourged and pierced Body, for you.

Now, in this light of lights, the 5^th Commandment is also about the cross. Though on it sinful man murders God, this produces a greater revelation: God can not be murdered and murder does not accomplish one thing, for its ultimate end, death, could not hold Jesus in its icy grasp.

Robbed of its purpose, murder and anger now are a fruitless tree, marked for termination. True life; a life full of wellbeing, help, and support is now found in Christ, Who will never die again. And since Christ attends Service every Sunday, the completion and fulfillment of the 5^th Commandment is also at hand, here, for you.

This plays out in the Confession and Absolution. By all rights, you should get what you deserve, standing here smug and proud in sin. However, by all rights, Christ has taken what you deserve and the murderous sinner is set free, in Christ.

Just like Barabbas, the Word of Christ pardons the guilty murderer. Just like grumbling Israel, the Red Sea covers all sin. Just like the thief on the cross, the condemned criminal Christ, gives the freeing word of the cross. And just like the wavering Apostles, the Supper helps and supports in every physical and spiritual need.

No longer are we to be confused as to what God demands from us. No longer are we to take purification into our own hands. No longer are we confused by wickedness or sin clouding our judgment, for the judgment has been cast on Christ. After the cross, nothing is left except the forgiveness of sins and new life in Him.

Though violence still plagues the world, there is no violence, murder, or anger in the true Church. Though the same murderous spirit of the devil harasses and assails us, day in and day out, we are not his, but Christ’s, baptized into His death and resurrection, having undergone our own death in baptism and being raised again to new life. A life without sin. A life in the Church.

The only place in the world God is not angry with you, as you suppose, is here where the sacrifice of His Son is given and shed for you. The only place in the world where death is but a sleep, is here in the continued proclamation of the Lord’s death. The only place in the world where help and support from God are readily and abundantly present, is at the Table the Lord sets in front of His enemies.

True Service done to God is done by God Himself. God creates the Service, God kills and offers the sacrifice, and God serves everyone in the Service. The spiritual and physical sign that God is working, defines the Divine Service over and against that false service where man is working. And where man works, sin and death work.

Where God works, there is forgiveness, life, and salvation.

The 4th Command and means [Easter 6; St. John 16:23-30]

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Jesus speaks to you pure doctrine today, in v.23 of the Gospel saying,

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name,he will give it to you.”

The Father is a Giver; the Giver. It is an attribute. It is part of His being. He gives. Thus, we contemplate this wonder in light of our 4^th command from Him: Honor your father and mother.

In approaching this 4^th Command, we find that it includes both heaven and earth. In the first 3 commands, our Lord demands how our relationship to Him is to be determined. It is in the next 7 that Jesus talks about our relationship with our neighbors. So, this 4^th command has been named “the hinge”.

It is one of the purposes of this command to transition from life with God to life with our neighbor, for we not only have an earthly father and mother, but also an heavenly Father and Mother in the Church. Thus the heart of this command is not just giving lip service to father and mother, but not to anger or despise them and other authorities over us.

And not only are we not to do things, but we are also to do things such as honor our parents and these other authorities over us, serve and obey them, love and cherish them. In this way we hear the words of St. John be proved as words of the Holy Spirit saying, “…he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20).

In honoring our earthly neighbors, we practice and are taught how to honor God. But how this takes place is not in the same way as us honoring our earthly father and mother because our heavenly Father and Mother do not reveal themselves in the same way. On earth, in this visible life we live in Faith, there are differences and similarities in both relationships, yet still both are given by the Father,.

In Christ, the Father created the universe and gave it to Adam and Eve. In Christ, the Father rescued His people from Egypt and gave them their freedom. In  Christ, the Father gave perseverance to His people that they might survive until the time came for a Son to be born of a virgin, so that all that we ask of the Father, in His Name, would be given to us.

This is truly how this hinge, this 4^th command, works. Not only are we giving to God, but God is giving to us. This means that there is always a movement from God to us. This means that in the 4^th command, God is revealing Himself as the giver of every good and perfect gift from above, in His Son.

We lament over how horrible it is to have been placed in our families, whether they are wonderful or whether they are a disaster. We despair over how well or how poorly we honor those authorities placed over us because we think that proves the truthfulness of God as our heavenly Father.

You believe that because you have been “blessed” with such and such a family or that someone else has not, that this is a sign of God’s good and gracious giving. Because you have so much, God must love you and because others have so little, God loves them less and they’ll just have to deal with it.

When we look to Jesus for our answers this is what we find: that, in Christ, God has bridged the gap between fallen humanity and holy God. That, in Christ, humanity is assumed into God and that, in Christ, the Father not only hears our prayers, but answers them and gives to us as He gives to the Son.

What has the Father given to the Son? In other words, what are the good things that the Good God gives? The Good Father gives to the Good Son good suffering, good crucifixion, a good death, a good burial, and a good resurrection. As the Father has lavished these His gifts upon the Son, you too should expect them in full measure.

Now we see what we are to truly ask for in the Son’s Name and yet they are not what we ask for. We ask for the removal of these things, because we can not bear them in our sin. In faith, we ask correctly, because the Son has come that we might have peace and freedom. Freedom from the wages of death.

Thus the Son gives another gift that bridges both heaven and earth for us: the Church. Jesus zeroes in on God’s giving and places it directly an easy to find place. In plain sight, that Lord offers His gifts to all who seek them and offers a simple way to honor both father and mother in obeying and serving the Church of Christ.

When the Lord promises His presence, we gather. When the Lord promises forgiveness, we take and eat. When the Lord promises salvation, we wash in it. When the Lord promises life, we pray, we sing, and we rejoice in His Good Gifts. In this way, the Church becomes a haven of keeping and treasuring the 4^th commandment, in honoring our Mother who we can see, we honor our Father Whom we cannot see.

The Lord’s Goodness and propensity to give profusely does not radiate off Him in indiscriminate rays. God always and will only work through means, meaning, those ways that He has already made ready for Himself and for us. In other words, the Father always gives to the Son, the Son always gives to the Spirit, the Spirit always gives to the Church, and the Church always gives to the baptized believer.

Asking the Father in the Name of Jesus is part of honoring your heavenly Father. In the first part is believing you have a heavenly Father and the only way that happens is if you believe in the Son. The Father only gives in the Name of His Son, the crucified and resurrected Jesus Christ.

As it turns out, the Father only ever gives to His Son. We are left out of that direct and divine relationship. Yet, it was the Son’s will that all be saved and be adopted into the same loving, divine relationship that He has. So we see Him being born as one of us, being raised as one of us, suffering and dying as one of us, being resurrected as one of us, without any sin of His own.

All this so that He would fulfill all of God’s Commands perfectly, give us credit for a job perfectly done, and lavish upon us with His gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation. We are commanded to honor, in light of our remaining sin and death within us, but we are given full credit in faith. Faith that points us to the true honor, true service, and true obedience in Word and Sacrament.