Faith not faith [Epiphany 3; St. Matthew 8:1-13]

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From the Gospel heard today, Jesus speaks, saying:

“And behold, a leper came to Him and worshiped him, saying, ‘Lord, if You will it, You are able to purify me.’”

Faith takes no holidays, Dr. Luther writes. Meaning, there is never a time when it is not purifying and not creating belief. There is also never a time when it is not speaking of Christ and acting Christ-like, usually in the form of your own words and actions.

Thus Jesus continues our thinking about purification from last week at the Wedding at Cana, where He used stone jars to turn water into wine. These stone jars were not food grade, but were set aside for Temple baptisms and other purifying and sanctifying rituals.

So we see that turning water into wine was not just some magic trick, but an actual sacrifice on Jesus’ part made ahead of His hour of crucifixion. Yet, it was necessary because without suffering and sacrifice, there can be no purification on earth, much less faith.

In fact, Dr. Luther makes another point and teaches that, “What is of God must be crucified in the world”. So long as it does not lead to the cross (that is, to shameful suffering), it is not recognized as a work that comes from God, inasmuch as the only-begotten Son was not protected against this experience but rather was appointed the example of it" (AE 25:177)

Faith leaves these two men from the Gospel lesson no choice but to seek Jesus out. And if everything in their lives had been prosperous, they would have been like everyone else and not sought Him out. But because they were suffering or someone they loved was suffering, they not only looked for Jesus, but found Him.

“He who does not know Christ does not know God hidden in suffering. Therefore he prefers works to suffering, glory to the cross .... These are the people whom the apostle calls "enemies of the cross of Christ," for they hate the cross and suffering and love works and the glory of works .... [By contrast] the friends of the cross say that the cross is good and works are evil, for through the cross works are dethroned and the old Adam, who is especially edified by works, is crucified. It is impossible for a person not to be puffed up by his good works unless he has first been deflated and destroyed by suffering and evil until he knows that he is worthless and that his works are not his but God's.” (AE 31:53)

  

This is faith understood within the entire context of the Bible, because faith is not understood without also understanding law, sin, grace, righteousness, flesh and spirit. Thus, St. Paul spends all his time on these subjects in his letter to the Romans.

Doing the works of the law and fulfilling the law are two very different things. The law is not simply works to be done or not done as everyone naturally understands it. Works do not fulfill the law. Fulfilling the law means doing its works with pleasure and love in a godly and good life voluntarily, without the compulsion of the law in the first place. This of course, is never accomplished without faith.

Sin is not only the outward works of the body, but also all the inward activities that move you to work. Any action takes inward planning on our part, before the work takes place. When Scripture looks on your inmost heart, it finds only unbelief in such a thing as your heart. Unbelief alone commits sin and faith alone makes a person righteous.

Grace and gift are different. We have different gifts, but the same grace. We are still sinners, yet there is no condemnation in Christ. Because we believe in Christ, God favors us and does not count sin against us. Instead He graciously deals with us according to faith in Christ until sin is slain.

Righteousness is a divine work, meaning God freely gives it and credits it to us on account of faith in Christ. In faith we are free from sin and take pleasure in God’s commands and in serving our fellow man willingly and happily, offering all we have to his aid.

Flesh and spirit does not mean outward and inward. Flesh means everything, inside and out, that is corrupted by sin. Body, soul, mind, and senses are afflicted by the flesh, since it was born from the flesh and we long to remain in the flesh. The flesh is a man who lives and works, inwardly and outwardly, in the service of the flesh’s gain and of this temporally life. The spirit is the man who lives and works, inwardly and outwardly, in the service of the Holy Spirit and of the future life in faith.

Faith seeks God. Faith seeks God in suffering. Why does God conceal himself so deeply--or conversely--why does he manifest himself so paradoxically as to only show Himself in suffering? He does so in order to crush human pride so that man, having ceased to work, might be prepared for God's work (AE 31:55).

Just as the stone jars at the Wedding in Cana were empty, so too must we be emptied. For Christ was emptied for us, in order that He be that perfect sacrifice on the cross to purchase faith for us.

Faith is not a human notion or a dream of the imagination, as some people define it. When they see no improvement of life, after belief, they say faith is not enough. Faith is a divine work which changes us, despite all outward appearances. It makes us born again. It saves us. It creates belief in us. It kills the old Adam in us and makes our hearts, spirits, minds and powers altogether different.

Bringing the Holy Spirit with it, Faith never stops. It is living, busy, active, and mighty. It doesn’t stop to ask whether good works are to be done, but before the question is asked, it has already done them. It is impossible to separate works from faith, which is why Jesus can comment on the centurion and say that He has never found such a faith before.

Faith is key to salvation, but faith does not rely on faith. There is no demand from God for the sinner to have faith, you cannot. Faith doesn’t include knowing one has faith nor even requiring belief in having faith, for he who doesn’t think he believes, but is in despair over sin, has the greatest faith. Christian faith puts no faith in faith, precisely because it is faith in God’s Word alone.

The Word of Christ is sacramental. Meaning, it is completely and utterly outside of yourself; external to you. It depends on external facts for its meaning: the life, suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. And its truth is located in the Christ Who speaks the sure word of promise, without conditions, to sinners.

There is no internal contemplation of faith. There is no profound reflection in faith. There is only Christ, Who, through the Holy Spirit, creates faith by means of the proclamation of the Gospel. It is not personal experience, but the content of God’s Word that saves you. To believe that Christ’s Word is for you is to be uninterested in the fact that you believe and instead captivated by what Christ has to say to you.

Wine to water [Epiphany 2; St. John 2:1-11]

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For Jesus speaks to you today from His Gospel saying,

“When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, [he] did not know where it came from…”

The closest Jesus ever brings us to understanding this “water into wine” miracle, in any sort of scientific way, is when Moses turned the Nile into blood. Yet, there, it was not such a grand and wonderful thing. Though truly a miracle of God, the Nile was the source of everyone’s drinking water, not to mention food: fish and the like.

When the Nile was turned to blood, everything in it died and began to rot away, stinking up the entire kingdom of Egypt. Truly a God to fear, but a God to love? Maybe if you can get on His good side, but not if you are on His bad side.

Thus, the miraculous sign of changing water into wine presents us with a dilemma. Is it a good thing or a bad thing? Clearly, the wedding party thought it a good thing along with the rest of the drunkards. But not everyone was happy about it.

When presented with the God Who changes water into wine, He seems easy to believe in. He is the magician. The Santa Claus. The joy-bringer. He attends our weddings. He brings gift-wrapped boxes overflowing with love, commitment, and fidelity. He is there for our baptisms and our confirmations. He makes friends from enemies, sons from orphans, and diners from the famished. He stands ready in all our life events to transfigure the day into one brimming with smiles, laughter, and unforgettable memories.

But where life goes up, it also comes down. So we encounter the God that changes wine into water. He lurks in the corner of the courtrooms as the divorce decree is issued, when what God had put together, man tears asunder. He is there when the son we shipped off to war returns to us with a missing leg, arm, or the desire to live. He is there when the cemetery dirt clings to our polished shoes converting joy to grief, hope to desperation, and life to death.

Neither God is easy to believe in. When we are prosperous; when things are going well, the first thing we forget is our true source of joy. We focus all our attention and worship on the gift, rather than the gift-giver. We fill our glass with this gift-wine and become drunk on the pleasures and blessings it seems to give. The man with wine forgets the water and the God that transformed it.

The “wine-to-water” God is not easy to believe in either. When gifts of God are removed or taken, a man’s anger burns hot against heaven. A lost wife, an ended career, a dead child, a disappearing home, reputation, money, or friends. Their apparent repossession causes great bitterness and darkness inside a man. Instead of turning to the God Who can give real rest to his restless soul, he bends towards promiscuity, alcohol, or a loaded pistol. The man with water despises the God Who stole his wine.

The God Who changes water to wine and wine to water is one God and there is no getting around Him. This one, true God is baptized into the water for purification and comes out filled with mortal wounds and the filth of the sins of all humanity. He drains all six stone jars filled with the wine of God’s wrath and suffers horribly, finally meeting His end on a cross.

He forsakes kingdom, riches, and heavenly bliss. He is forsaken by father , mother, brothers and friends. He is painfully aware of rejection by those who seem close, yet betray in the end. He is stricken with the sorrow of having plenty, but fasting for 40 days and 40 nights. He knows peace and knows war. He knows love and loss; life and death.

This God-man, Jesus, is our God. He is the incarnation of God in the flesh. He is the very source and embodiment of love and fidelity in this way: that should water become wine or wine turn to water, He remains the same. Though our fidelity is consistently flighty and temperamental, His goal is always constant and true, that is to take us into Him.

He knows our every need and yet knows that without His death and resurrection, even all the wine and water in the world would be but a permanent death for us. It is not the temporal blessings that matter for they neither aid us against sin and death, neither do they reveal the God Who gives them. It is only in the cross of Jesus that we find our answers.

In that answer, we only find Jesus Who unites us to Himself, baptizing us into His suffering, death, and resurrection so that it is no longer we who live, but Christ Who lives in us. In faith, we gladly exchange our sinful sight for divine sight where we lose focus on the water or the wine that touches our lips and instead see the pierced hand of the loving God Who holds the chalice.

It is not the water that Jesus changes into wine that is the real gift to this wedding at Cana, it is the One Who changed it. Jesus is the gift. The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is Christ Jesus. God has become man and now greater things than wedding magic tricks will all of us witness. The greatest being the free forgiveness of sins for sinners.

Thus, it is not the wine of prosperity nor the wine of despair that is offered to you this day, but the wine of Blood: the Blood of salvation. Christ does not offer a temporary gift of happiness or celebration in His Church, but a permanent gift of eternal life, in His Blood.

This is the final step that the wedding party was not privy to: water turned to wine, turned to Blood. The shadow of a wedding that Jesus and His mother attended did not get to see the true wedding of God and man, in the purification of baptism.

And yet today, that same Jesus offers both to you free of charge. He takes the water and the wine and the wedding and makes it new. Now the water that dries up is the water of everlasting life. Now the wine that intoxicates is the wine of forgiveness. Now the wedding of disappointment becomes the wedding of God and His Bride, the Church. A perfect, holy union, made just for you.

And this wonderful gift does not go away or change any more than the giver leaves or changes. The forgiveness of sins is Christ’s one, true message to the world. The salvation of all people is Christ’s one, true mission to the world. And the eating and drinking of His wedding gift of His true Body and true Blood are all the sign we need to know that He is thinking of us.

Infant baptism [Baptism of Jesus; St. Matthew 3:13-17]

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Who speaks to you all today saying:

“and behold, a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.’”

Can an infant be saved? Or to put it another way: does the Baptism of Jesus have anything to do with my baptism or just my life in general?

On one hand this is an easy answer, because if God is spirit then He can do whatever He wants and who wouldn’t want to save the cute, innocence we call infancy, no matter what?

We do have a God Who can do whatever He wants, but much to the disappointment of our super-spirituality, God uses His infinite power to limit His actions to His Word. To His Word. This does not weaken Him! It makes Him stronger, because in weakness He is strongest. Though it seems like God is caged in by His Word, He shows that even in such a cage, He is almighty.

In His Light, we can not find a promise anywhere in His Word that says infants are innocent or saved in any other way than the one prescribed by Jesus for adults. In fact, we find just the opposite. We find that infants need Jesus, for, as He says, “bring the little children to me” and “except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom”.

God’s Kingdom is received through the regeneration of baptism and infants can receive that regeneration for they are the only ones that receive it rightly! If it is the infants who enter the kingdom in the right way and if that way is to be born again, then we all received the kingdom of God when we were baptized, even if it was when we were infants.

4 other places in the Bible tell us this is true. On Easter, Jesus tells His Apostles to baptize all nations. You don’t have much of a nation if children are not included in the “all” part. So “all” means infants too.

Second and third, we have already heard. That Jesus especially invites the infants to Him and that babies need what Baptism offers, rebirth, because they are sinners as well.

The fourth, and most controversial, is that babies can have faith. We find this truth in quite a few places, three of which are: when Jesus says, “…whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.” (Mt. 18:6), meaning that if we lead or let children go astray from the faith, we better watch out.

The second place is when John the Baptist is in his mother’s womb and leaps when St. Mary comes to visit, who is carrying Jesus in her own womb (Lk. 1:41-44). St. John also is our third example, in that from birth, he was “filled with the Holy Ghost” (Lk. 1:15). Not that he was saved and innocent, but that he was set aside and chosen.

Repent! The apparent lack of mental consciousness does not equal lack of faith. If an adult can have faith, a child can have faith. If the able can have faith, then the disabled can have faith. Christ spared not one second of His human life to show us that each and every stage is worth having, even the diseased ones.

Your faith does not make baptism, it receives it. If you go about reading and understanding God’s Word purely from the position that God is almighty and my will must be free, then you will end up in bondage and without faith.

Dr. Luther writes that “no greater jewel can adorn our body and soul than baptism, for through it we become completely holy and blessed, which no other kind of life and no work on earth can acquire”. We will not withhold such a wonderful gift, especially since its not ours to give, but God’s.

So what does this have to do with your baptism and life on this planet? Everything! First off, your baptism would mean nothing if Jesus didn’t create it and if He didn’t get baptized Himself. Where you dirty the water when you get in, Jesus cleanses the water when He gets in, sanctifying even this tiny font in Rensselaer, IN, 2019 AD, and all fonts in His Church.

Second of all, since every person is worthy of baptism (being sinners), your whole worldview is changed. Now, a person is a person, no matter how small. Now, when you look on conception or the aged, you see a redeemed, valuable child of God and not just something to toss aside if it gets in your way. This view is unique to Christianity.

God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, from conception to death on the cross, in Baptism, in suffering and death, in order that whoever believes in Him would not perish, but always be wanted, especially by God, gifted with eternal life.

And, just like how our faith does nothing to baptism, neither does our thinking do anything to God. It is most important to understand this point in God’s dealings with men. Not only does God exclusively work through Jesus, but He also is the only One Who baptizes and He is the only One Who thinks of others, especially when dealing with mental illnesses.

Jesus is thinking of you. When your mind is wandering in Church, Jesus is thinking of you. When your brain becomes too feeble to work properly or think about anything, Jesus will think of you. Because, before you were born, indeed while you were a clump of cells with a unique DNA code, Jesus was thinking of you.

Preparing baptismal waters, just for you. Preparing life, preparing faith, and preparing a world with His Church in it. All so that you would find the Son the God giving baptism and forgiving sins. Your sins. In the same water that covers Jesus this day, you were baptized.

In the same water that flowed from His pierced side on the cross, you were reborn. In the same water over which Jesus said, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved” and “Let the waters be separated from the waters…”, St. Luke washes her infants.

Can infants be saved? Yes. If they can’t then you can’t either. Does baptism have anything to do with it? Yes. If we are not washed by water and Spirit; if we are not reborn; if we are not regenerated into the Body of Christ, there is no hope.

As St. Paul already preached to you this morning in the Epistle: “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.”  

Being in the presence of an infant being brought into the kingdom of God as a full member by water and the Word, truly leaves one speechless and with no excuses. If that small one can be saved, then I can too.

Unwelcome [Epiphany; St. Matthew 2:1-12]

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Jesus speaks to you today saying:

“And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.”

Today, we must begin to truly see the Lord’s Epiphany and begin to move away from calling these men, however many there may be, “wise”. First of all, the word Jesus uses to describe them is not “wise”, but “magi”, as in “magicians”.

Secondly, these fellows don’t have much wisdom for three reasons: first, they’re following a star. I mean what is this, Pinocchio? Two, they end up in the wrong place, and three, they need to be told in a dream that it’s a bad idea to go back to the murderous Herod.

So, we call them Magi and in doing so, we find other men in the Bible with the same description. In the 13^th and 2^nd chapter of Acts, the Apostles encounter magi and both times they are misleading the people and both times the Apostles must use apostolic power to subdue them. Not a very good picture of magi.

In the 2^nd and 5^th chapters of Daniel, there are also magicians and they too are presented in a negative way. The kings of Babylon, with the exiled Jews in their midst, are having disturbing dreams and visions. In an attempt to understand them, they call in the conjurers, the master astrologers, and the magicians of the kingdom. But they fail and only Daniel can interpret the visions and dreams.

So when we get to our Magi of today, they have an uphill battle to fight in the ears of St. Matthew’s hearers. However, the point is not to despise these men. Far from it. They came to reject their science and art in response of the Word of God. What we should take away from our Lord’s Epiphany to the Magi are three things: 1) they don’t belong there, 2) they are foreigners, and 3) they were pious.

They didn’t belong in front of God made man because heretofore they have lived as if He didn’t matter, forsaking Temple and divine Service in their far-off country, and as if they mattered most. The Lord’s Name they have not honored, therefore their worship and prayers have faltered and gone to other gods. Israel is not for them, yet they are there.

We also find them pious in the sense that they do not ignore facts right in front of them. It is strange that this star is here and even stranger that it is only these magi that decide to do something about it, suggesting that everyone else, even the chosen people of Israel, ignored it, like us running through a red light by accident or anything else right in front of us that seemingly has nothing to do with us.

Repent. Our Lord did not refuse or reject the worship and gifts of these foreign, magi, gentiles. Though gentiles are excluded from God’s covenant as a rule, this new radical, presentation of God in the flesh now includes a warm welcome for those who do not belong.

You are gentiles. You have also not let God’s love rule over your life and so your love for others has failed. You have hurt others, failed to help others, and your thoughts and desires have been filled with sin. With that track record, the Lord’s presence in the last place you would want to be found, or found out.

Madeline in our teacher this morning, to understand this radical message of Epiphany. Indeed, she is our magi who we, along with the rest of the world, would declare her out-of-place here. What are the sights, smells, and deep thoughts of the Church to an infant? Or to our political and social opponents, for that matter?

We exclude. Jesus includes. He includes the entire world by His Word of forgiveness. Herod and the Israeli leaders heard the same Word the magi did, yet it was those who were unwelcomed that became welcomed. Children are the most persecuted and oppressed class of people in the world, yet no matter how small, they are welcomed as well.

And this is significant, because you heard Jesus say that unless you receive the Kingdom as a little child, you will never enter it. Today, Madeline gets to shine again and teach and show us just how such a miracle can take place: baptism.

The same Jesus that accepts the worship of the outsider magi, accepts our worship for the same reason. The Son has chosen to reveal Himself to all people in water and Word and in doing so, has shown us the Father and cleansed us from all unrighteousness.

Even Joseph, Jesus’ father, had to be scolded in a dream. There is no escaping sin, but there is a death and resurrection that does away with the guilt of sin. And since you, and now Madeline, have received this washing of regeneration and rebirth, you are welcomed. You have been transformed from unwanted, to wanted. From excluded, to included.

By the will of the Creator Who sent His Son to die for you, there is no more Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female, only saved and forgiven. This is the Epiphany of Jesus, where He reveals His plan of salvation for the whole world. Not in remaining a child, but in growing up, suffering and dying for you.

Jesus opens His arms to receive the unlikely, the unwelcomed, and the outsider. His wide embrace upon the cross encloses everyone, even those who reject Him. There is no place where the forgiveness of sins cannot get to and there is no ear that remains deaf when that Word is declared to them.

In the visit of the Magi on this, the Epiphany of our Lord, we receive hope. Hope that, just like the magi, we might be included. We might find joy. We might find a welcome at God’s table for us and in turn welcome others that we may deem as unworthy.

The magi and we do not have to be wise or kings or acceptable to be made a part of the Kingdom Jesus is bringing to completion within Himself. We do not even need a fancy star to prove to us that something different is happening to the world that no one else realizes.

We need exactly what the Magi, the shepherds, Joseph, and Herod needed: the Word. But not just any word: the Word made flesh Who dwells among us. That Word will accomplish our salvation and include us in His plans to redeem the world, one drop of water at a time.