Samaria of heaven [Lent 5; St. John 8:46-59]

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Jesus speaks to you today, saying:

“Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?”

In John 4:4, Jesus says that He must go through Samaraia and since we have encountered Samraia in one form or another throughout the gospels, it would be beneficial to know just what Samaria is. For we have Jesus commending the Good Samatian, but we have the Jews condemning the Samaritans as demons, in the gospel today.

The word “Samaria” comes from the Hebrew “shamar” which means to guard or watch. Thus, a Samaritan is a guardian or a watcher. It was this name that the owner of the mountain gave to it, in northern Israel. 1 Kings 16:24 tells how Omri, king of the northern part of the kingdom of Isreal, “…bought the hill of Samaria from Shemer for two talents of silver, and he fortified the hill and called the name of the city that he built Samaria, after the name of Shemer, the owner of the hill.” Which means “patiently standing through the night watch”.

At this time, the people here were not Samaritans, but Israelites. Israelites that had broken from Jerusalem and her kings. Israelites descended from Abraham and inheritors of the promise of the Messiah. In other words, brothers and sisters of the Jews.

However, no righteous king ever held the office in Israel, and Judah in the south fared little better with her kings. This leads to a worship of false gods. Though there was a temple in Samaria, the capitol city of the north, the gods were many, on account of which God gave them up to their sinful desires and sent Assyria and Babylon to conquer and destroy them.

It was then that an interesting pause takes place. The King of Assyria brings foreigners to live in Samaria and because the place was holy, because of the Lord’s Name dwelling there, and because the new tenants did not fear the Lord, He sent lions among them to kill some of them (2 Ki. 17:24-25).

Miracle of miracles, the king of Assyria commanded an exiled priest of God be brought to live among the people and teach them all about God. What the priests of Israel failed to do in Samaria, the king of Assyria does in unbelief. Though they still worshiped other gods, the people of the area were at least now hearing the true Word.

After the Jews own exile into Babylon ended, they returned to their southern kingdom to find the “northerners” in this state of mixed religion and ever after entertained a jealous feeling towards them as strangers and enemies, calling them “samaritains” after the mountain, and not Israelites.

So the Jews hated them, as they do all other nations (gentiles; goyyim). So it is that the Jews use this word to insult Jesus today. So it is that Jesus uses this name to refer to the merciful, Good Samaritan. And in the case of the 10 lepers, Jesus calls the one a stranger, for he was a Samaritan. And also gave this charge to His disciples: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans” (Matt. 10:5).

In mentioning Jacob’s Well, in John 4:6 with regard to the adulterous, Samaritan woman, Jesus shows that the Jews should not be jealous, but repentant, for during the time of Jacob and the Patriarchs, it was the Jews who possessed that land in the north, not the Samaritans. But, by sloth and transgressions they had lost it, so little is the advantage of excellent ancestors if descendants are not like them.

Moreover, after such a short, tiny trial of lions, the new Samaritans immediately returned to right worship, while the Jews still do not hear the words of God, as Jesus says in the gospel. (NPNF 1^st:XIV:107-108)

It is the Galileeans and Samarians that receive Him (John 4:45). Both of these groups of people believe, to the shame of the Jews, and Samaritans are found to be the better for they believe at the word of the woman at the well and desire Jesus to stay among them, whereas in Galilee they believed after miracles, such as turning water into wine.

Not so the Samarians. They believed Him through His teaching alone. They understood that their role as guardians had come to an end, because the true Guardian, the true Watcher had come. “He watching over Israel slumbers not nor sleeps” from Ps. 121:4 now not only refers to the Jews, but to Israel of the north as well. And if Israel of the north, then Samaritans, Galileans, and all nations.

“He rules by His might forever; His eyes keep watch on the nations” (Psalm 66:7). 

“Indeed, He will speak to this people Through stammering lips and a foreign tongue” (Isaiah 28:11)

When Jesus talks about foreigners and nations in the Bible, He is not necessarily talking about those outside the Jews. He is talking about Himself. For Jesus is the Messiah that comes from the outside, from eternity, to do His normal-yet-alien work of guarding and forgiving sinners.

To emphasize this point of salvation needing to come from outside yourself, He is raised in Nazareth of Galilee. And as we are told, no good thing comes out of Nazareth, much less that area of Samaria.

So it is that to the sinner, to those do not hear the words of God, honor the Father, or does not keep Jesus’ Word sees this work of truth as a lie. For though Jesus is a foreigner, from eternity, He is just like us except without His own sin. Though Abraham has died, he lives. Though Jesus is accused of having a demon, the Holy Spirit looks like a demon to those not of God.

And that is all of us. Which is why Jesus came for all of us. He has adopted us as sons, sons of the foreigner, in order that by this alien power of forgiveness, we too would share in eternal life. We too would have our ears unstopped by Baptism. We too would have our lameness cured by the Bread of Heaven.

This life in sin and corruption that we are familiar with, Jesus calls foreign. His Word says we must leave here and the only way out is through death and resurrection. He appears to us as the king of Assyria, destroying all we know, and dragging us to the font, to exile in heaven.

Though that sounds funny to say, our sin and the devil always want us to live in an upside-down world where the Lord is evil. Jesus has come as our true Samaritan, our true Guardian. He receives all the insults, all the injury, and all the calumny, but does not seek His own glory. He does not seek revenge, but silently passes in front of His shearers as they condemn Him and cast Him out of the city.

It is of the very moment on His cross that our Lord said, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all [nations] to myself” (Jn. 12:32) and “He will raise a signal for the nations and will assemble the banished of Israel, and gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth” (Isa. 11:12) and “On that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who lift it shall grievously hurt themselves. And all the nations of the earth will come together against it” (Zech 12:3).

Based Baptism [Wednesday in Lent 4]

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This evening, we hear Jesus speak through baptism, through St. Luke saying:

“Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened”

There are so many new age, green, vegan, organic cleanses that it boggles the mind. Every religion of spiritual or physical concentration requires you to cleanse yourself in one way or another. So does everyone spiral over baptism?

From herbal cleanses to mental exercise cleansings to vaccines. Every. Single. Person wants you cleansed or at least to wash your hands, cover your mouth, and stay 6ft away from me. These agencies promoting this stuff reads just like the catechism. They tell you what a cleanse is, they reveal the benefits of such a cleanse, they tell you the scientism behind such claims, and then tell you what this all means for you, that is the elimination of all disease from your body.

There is also the spiritual cleanse, which must be done as its own monster, and is highly recommended that you pay a professional. In other words, theirs is the true church. The true clean church that not even God can imitate.

As we said last week, everyone is religious, though they will not admit it. though they will religiously deny that they are religious and religiously seek your repentance for not believing them, they will religiously follow their religion, for good or for ill.

I say “they”, but I do not want to foster hate towards our neighbors. When I say they, I mean “him”, as in the liar himself, the devil. It is the devil wrapping these lies around the truth. He knows God wants a clean people and that He will work it out for them, but the devil will everything he can to convince us to find cleanliness apart from baptism.

Not only do you have to pay for this “natural” cleanliness, but it becomes impossible to achieve. While they may work for a little while, not every body reacts the same to everything and eventually the body will die, cleansed or not. 

does this mean that these natural cleanses are of the devil? No. does this mean we shouldn’t use any of them in the hopes of improving our life? No. Does this mean that worldly things are corrupt and that to love and trust them is of the devil? Yes.

so these methods are part of God’s creation. He has placed among us such things as are good for us and our health. That is the easy way to understand these things. Don’t make a religion of them. there may be super-foods, super cures, and super effective materials, which is probably one reason God chose super-boring water to save you.

We quickly forget that our God is a weak God. So weak, that He relies on biology to mature and age Him, that He is utterly dependent upon father and mother for nurturing and protection, and that He completely and definitely dies.

In 2 Corinthians 12:9, Jesus says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Now who can say that He only meant St. Paul’s weakness or our weakness? In Christ, we see God intentionally and purposefully taking on weakness so that on the cross, we see the weakness of God that perfects the power of God.

So when we see Israel crossing the Jordan, completely dry, into the Promised land, and when we contemplate on the circumcision made without hands, and when we hear Christ tell us to make disciples by baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit we think cleansing, we think power, we think weakness, and we think Baptism.

Now here is the real divider between baptism and regular water and the rest: God’s promise. Not just the Word, but the Word, the Command, and the promise of salvation. Those make a sacrament, those produce the forgiveness, those bring the gift of peace.

If we just had the Word or just had the water, then every letter that has come from the mouth of God would be a sacrament or “way to access God” and every puddle a baptism. Simply speaking words or sounds or getting wet would be God’s mode of redemption. This is the mistake of many religions, even of many Christians.

If we just had the Word and a command, then the field is a bit smaller, but not much. It would mean every word from God that tells us to do something would be the road to His Love. We all would be headed to the Middle East to fight Israel’s enemies, in one example. That is not the way.

Because we have the promise along with the Word and the command, we have a unique-to-christianity means of salvation. Unique because no other God on earth works through means. No other god offers the free forgiveness of sins, a death and resurrection, and eternal life all in one pre-wrapped package of water and the Word.

The Line drawn between God’s true religion and the rest of the world is the sacraments because of this intimate connection between the spiritual and the physical. Baptism should be a no-brainer. That it offers salvation should be a “of course” moment.

And it is a no-brainer for those who believe, because the God who unites God and man, flesh and spirit in one Christ, and can rise from the dead, can certainly unite water and word, physical and spiritual to create a holy place of redemption for His physical and spiritual people.

What about temptation [Lent 4; St. John 6:1-15]

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Why Pray? [Wednesday in Lent 3]

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Our Father icon

Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father's Son, in truth and love. (2 Jn. 1)

This evening, we will hear Jesus speak from His own Prayer as we hear from Dr. Luther:

The best and happiest life consists in the 10 Commands and the Creeds. Now follows the third part of catechesis and how we ought to pray. For since we are so situated that no man can perfectly keep the Ten Commandments, even though he have begun to believe, and since the devil with all his power, together with the world and our own flesh, resists our endeavors, nothing is so necessary as that we should continually resort to the ear of God, call upon Him, and pray to Him, that He would give, preserve, and increase in us faith and the fulfilment of the Ten Commandments, and that He would remove everything that is in our way and opposes us therein. But that we might know what and how to pray, our Lord Christ has Himself taught us both the mode and the words, as we shall see.

 But before we explain the Lord's Prayer part by part, it is most necessary first to exhort and incite people to prayer, as Christ and the apostles also have done. And the first matter is to know that it is our duty to pray because of God's commandment. For thus we heard in the Second Commandment: Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord, thy God, in vain, that we are there required to praise that holy name, and call upon it in every need, or to pray. For to call upon the name of God is nothing else than to pray.  Prayer is therefore as strictly and earnestly commanded as all other commandments: to have no other God, not to kill, not to steal, etc. Let no one think that it is all the same whether he pray or not, as vulgar people do, who grope in such delusion and ask, “Why should I pray? Who knows whether God heeds or will hear my prayer? If I do not pray, some one else will”. And thus they fall into the habit of never praying, and frame a pretext, as though we taught that there is no duty or need of prayer, because we reject false and hypocritical prayers.

 But this is true indeed that such prayers as have been offered hitherto when men were babbling and bawling in the churches were no prayers. For such external matters, when they are properly observed, may be a good exercise for young children, scholars, and simple persons, and may be called singing or reading, but not really praying.  But praying, as the Second Commandment teaches, is to call upon God in every need. This He requires of us, and has not left it to our choice. But it is our duty and obligation to pray if we would be Christians, as much as it is our duty and obligation to obey our parents and the government; for by calling upon it and praying the name of God is honored and profitably employed.  This you must note above all things, that thereby you may silence and repel such thoughts as would keep and deter us from prayer. For just as it would be idle for a son to say to his father, "Of what advantage is my obedience? I will go and do what I can; it is all the same;" but there stands the commandment, Thou shalt and must do it, so also here it is not left to my will to do it or leave it undone, but prayer shall and must be offered at the risk of God's wrath and displeasure.

 This is therefore to be understood and noted before everything else, in order that thereby we may silence and repel the thoughts which would keep and deter us from praying, as though it were not of much consequence if we do not pray, or as though it were commanded those who are holier and in better favor with God than we; as, indeed, the human heart is by nature so despondent that it always flees from God and imagines that He does not wish or desire our prayer, because we are sinners and have merited nothing but wrath.  Against such thoughts (I say) we should regard this commandment and turn to God, that we may not by such disobedience excite His anger still more. For by this commandment He gives us plainly to understand that He will not cast us from Him nor chase us away, although we are sinners, but rather draw us to Himself, so that we might humble ourselves before Him, bewail this misery and plight of ours, and pray for grace and help. Therefore we read in the Scriptures that He is angry also with those who were smitten for their sin, because they did not return to Him and by their prayers assuage His wrath and seek His grace.

 Now, from the fact that it is so solemnly commanded to pray, you are to conclude and think, that no one should by any means despise his prayer, but rather set great store by it, and always seek an illustration from the other commandments. A child should by no means despise his obedience to father and mother, but should always think: This work is a work of obedience, and what I do I do with no other intention than that I may walk in the obedience and commandment of God, on which I can settle and stand firm, and esteem it a great thing, not on account of my worthiness, but on account of the commandment. So here also, what and for what we pray we should regard as demanded by God and done in obedience to Him, and should reflect thus: On my account it would amount to nothing; but it shall avail, for the reason that God has commanded it. Therefore everybody, no matter what he has to say in prayer, should always come before God in obedience to this commandment.

 Therefore you should say: My prayer is as precious, holy, and pleasing to God as that of St. Paul or of the most holy saints. This is the reason: For I will gladly grant that he is holier in his person, but not on account of the commandment; since God does not regard prayer on account of the person, but on account of His word and obedience thereto. For on the commandment on which all the saints rest their prayer I, too, rest mine. Moreover, I pray for the same thing for which they all pray and ever have prayed; besides, I have just as great a need of it as those great saints, yea, even a greater one than they.

 Let this be the first and most important point, that all our prayers must be based and rest upon obedience to God, irrespective of our person, whether we be sinners or saints, worthy or unworthy. And we must know that God will not have it treated as a jest, but be angry, and punish all who do not pray, as surely as He punishes all other disobedience; next, that He will not suffer our prayers to be in vain or lost. For if He did not intend to answer your prayer, He would not bid you pray and add such a severe commandment to it.

 In the second place, we should be the more urged and incited to pray because God has also added a promise, and declared that it shall surely be done to us as we pray, as He says Ps. 50:15: Call upon Me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee. And Christ in the Gospel of St. Matthew 7:7: Ask, and it shall be given you. For every one that asks receives. Such promises ought certainly to encourage and kindle our hearts to pray with pleasure and delight, since He testifies with His [own] word that our prayer is heartily pleasing to Him, moreover, that it shall assuredly be heard and granted, in order that we may not despise it or think lightly of it, and pray at a venture.

 This you can hold up to Him and say: Here I come, dear Father, and pray, not of my own purpose nor upon my own worthiness, but at Thy commandment and promise, which cannot fail or deceive me. Whoever, therefore, does not believe this promise must know again that he excites God to anger as a person who most highly dishonors Him and reproaches Him with falsehood.

 Besides this, we should be incited and drawn to prayer because in addition to this commandment and promise God anticipates us, and Himself arranges the words and form of prayer for us, and places them upon our lips as to how and what we should pray, that we may see how heartily He pities us in our distress, and may never doubt that such prayer is pleasing to Him and shall certainly be answered; which [the Lord's Prayer] is a great advantage indeed over all other prayers that we might compose ourselves. For in them the conscience would ever be in doubt and say: I have prayed, but who knows how it pleases Him, or whether I have hit upon the right proportions and form? Hence there is no nobler prayer to be found upon earth than the Lord's Prayer which we daily pray, because it has this excellent testimony, that God loves to hear it, which we ought not to surrender for all the riches of the world.

 And it has been prescribed also for this reason that we should see and consider the distress which ought to urge and compel us to pray without ceasing. For whoever would pray must have something to present, state, and name which he desires; if not, it cannot be called a prayer.

 But where there is to be a true prayer, there must be earnestness. Men must feel their distress, and such distress as presses them and compels them to call and cry out; then prayer will be made spontaneously, as it ought to be, and men will require no teaching how to prepare for it and to attain to the proper devotion. But the distress which ought to concern us most, both as regards ourselves and every one, you will find abundantly set forth in the Lord's Prayer. Therefore it is to serve also to remind us of the same, that we contemplate it and lay it to heart, lest we become remiss in prayer. For we all have enough that we lack, but the great want is that we do not feel nor see it. Therefore God also requires that you lament and plead such necessities and wants, not because He does not know them, but that you may kindle your heart to stronger and greater desires, and make wide and open your cloak to receive much.

 Therefore, every one of us should accustom himself from his youth daily to pray for all his wants, whenever he is sensible of anything affecting his interests or that of other people among whom he may live, as for preachers, the government, neighbors, domestics, and always (as we have said) to hold up to God His commandment and promise, knowing that He will not have them disregarded. This I say because I would like to see these things brought home again to the people that they might learn to pray truly, and not go about coldly and indifferently, whereby they become daily more unfit for prayer; which is just what the devil desires, and for what he works with all his powers. For he is well aware what damage and harm it does him when prayer is in proper practise.

 For this we must know, that all our shelter and protection rest in prayer alone. For we are far too feeble to cope with the devil and all his power and adherents that set themselves against us, and they might easily crush us under their feet. Therefore we must consider and take up those weapons with which Christians must be armed in order to stand against the devil. For what do you think has hitherto accomplished such great things, has checked or quelled the counsels, purposes, murder, and riot of our enemies, whereby the devil thought to crush us, together with the Gospel, except that the prayer of a few godly men intervened like a wall of iron on our side? They should else have witnessed a far different tragedy, namely, how the devil would have destroyed all Germany in its own blood. But now they may confidently deride it and make a mock of it; however, we shall nevertheless be a match both for themselves and the devil by prayer alone, if we only persevere diligently and not become slack. For whenever a godly Christian prays: Dear Father, let Thy will be done, God speaks from on high and says: Yes, dear child, it shall be so, in spite of the devil and all the world.

 Let this be said as an exhortation, that men may learn, first of all, to esteem prayer as something great and precious, and to make a proper distinction between babbling and praying for something. For we by no means reject prayer, but the bare, useless howling and murmuring we reject, as Christ Himself also rejects and prohibits long palavers. Now we shall most briefly and clearly treat of the Lord's Prayer. 

In the Small Catechism, there is comprehended in seven successive articles, or petitions, every need which never ceases to relate to us, and each so great that it ought to constrain us to keep praying it all our lives.

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

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Jesus speaks to us today and says,

“Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and a divided household falls.”

Who is your master? Depending on how you answer that question determines many aspects of your life, your worldview, and your value system. It also determines what lies you are susceptible to. In fact, the liars want you to feel insignificant, in order that you turn to them for salvation.

Satan wants you to believe that you are a tiny piece of space dust, flying through empty space with no great impact on the grand scheme of things, until its time to grab your money for this or that boondoggle. He also wants you to believe that Jesus worships him as Jesus is accused, today, of casting out demons in his name.

So that when some of the people declared that Jesus was casting out demons in Satan’s name, they may be simply trying to preserve God’s holy Name. They understand that God has placed the priesthood on earth to man the Temple; the place where God promised His Name would be forever. They understand that only God can forgive sins and truly purify someone from demons.

Yet, in their sinfulness, they can not help but prove their unbelief. They cannot help but diminish the Temple’s importance by teaching as doctrine their own commandments (Mt. 15:9) and casting doubt upon the validity of the priesthood. They proclaim the strength of Israel, instigating riots and zealots to take back the land, thereby weakening it instead of strengthening it.

They proclaim the power of God, but teach and preach that it is the power of man and their sons that do works of exorcism and cleansing, charging money and livelihood for those things God hands out for free. A standard truism of the Bible is that we resemble what we worship. “Those who make [idols] become like them; so do all who trust in them” (Ps. 115:8). Our identities, and the way we view others, are shaped by our religion, who we call master, for good or for ill.

In our current case, panic shoppers faithfully mirror the god of materialism. Rather than being responsible citizens or loving neighbors, they are just consumers. The purpose of living is to have enough stuff. Buying and hoarding become sacraments. “Their god is their stomach” (Phil. 3:19). Other people are not fellow humans to be loved, but competitive consumers to be over-spent or, if need be, shoved out of the way on the way to the altar of the check-out line.

This leads to the materialists’ creed, that of false scarcity. False scarcity is the tactic used to present a good or service as “not enough to go around”, so every one is driven to “get one for themselves”, cuz no one tells me what I can or can’t have. This is the infamous Black Friday sales. This is also medical supplies, “not enough vaccines for every one” and is true in money as well.

Don’t be fooled. There are no “secular people” or religious “nones” in the world. Everyone is religious. It’s just a question of what their god and religion are. And the last few days have demonstrated, with abject clarity, with what heated zeal the god of materialism is worshiped. But this is not the first time this has happened and it won’t be the last. We bring our sin with us wherever we go and it infects everything we do.

Here it is that the Lord reveals Jeremiah to us and his prophesy against God’s chosen people: “You shall die” (26:8), says the Lord, through Jeremiah. It was in this prophesy that Jeremiah predicted the coming destruction and exile of Israel, by Babylon, calling for 70 years of deportation. Of course this sealed Jeremiah’s fate and he would be killed, but no matter what the people did or how they reacted, the prophesy would come true.

This is the mindset that we need to have among ourselves whenever tragedy or disaster strikes close to home, that “with God’s permission the enemy has sent poison and deadly dung among us, and so I will pray to God that He may be gracious and preserve us” (Luther: Letters of Spiritual counsel, 242).

With God’s permission, Job was devastated, losing livelihood and family and health. With God’s permission, the Flood swept over the entire earth, ending all life. With God’s permission we have been given over to the sinful desires of our hearts and have exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator (Rom. 1:24-25).

It is the knowledge of this “permission from God” that drives home faith’s cry of “repent”. Each and every disaster that befalls us is a God-given opportunity to repent. To turn back to God and repent, because we deserve it, especially if God is sending it. If God desires that we suffer evil and be overcome by it, our defense will not help us (Luther, 235). 

We should pray as Jesus prays saying, Lord I commit to you my entire being. I am in Your hands. You have commanded me to live this life in this place and in these circumstances. Your Will be done, for I am Your poor creature. You can slay me or preserve me here as well as if I were in duty bound to suffer fire, water, thirst, pandemic, or some other danger.

Dear Christians, let us not be fooled by false gods and their fear. Repent of your sins, but repent and be forgiven. That is the Good News. Israel in Jeremiah’s time only heard the threat against their material things. They failed to hear God’s Promise, which He gave them before He told them of His wrath. 

In chapter 24, the Good News is God will “…regard as good the exiles from Judah, whom I have sent away from this place to the land of the Chaldeans.  I will set my eyes on them for good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up, and not tear them down; I will plant them, and not pluck them up.  I will give them a heart to know that I am the Lord, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart” (24:5-7).

Christ has loved us and gave Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God, as our Epistle says, to give us this very promise. Jesus offers Himself up to bring back all people from the exile of sin, death, and the devil (Rom. 5:2). To combat false idols, He does not content Himself in speaking through pillars of clouds, fire, or donkeys, as He does with Balaam. He takes for Himself a reasonable body and soul and proves there is only one God.

The God Who does not wait. The God Who does not deal in fear or scarcity, but peace and abundance. The God Who suffers and dies and rises again, gathers all men to Himself, lifted up upon the cross. The God Who goes to find the lost, exorcise them of their demons, and preach the Good News to them.

Who is sick and Jesus was not sick? Who is suffering and Jesus did not suffer? Who is possessed and Jesus was not possessed. Indeed, sin and death possessed Jesus such that He became sin for us, Who knew no sin Himself. But this possession could not last, for though He was found guilty, it was on behalf of us. So He dies the greatest sinner, but rises from the dead, never to die again.

This is the sticking point. The people whose god is the material, the powerful, the untouchable can not fathom, much less believe, in a God Who does not just cast out demons, but takes them upon Himself to take them away from you. This lowly God Who dwells in poverty instead of riches, Who lives among the possessed and the diseased, Who does not withhold salvation and purity just because of earthly events.

He brings us to His own purity which casts out demons and sickness alike, in His Word and Sacraments. He fights the visible and the invisible for us, granting us temporal health, maybe; temporal security, possibly; working out forgiveness, definitely.

Our Master, Jesus the Christ, does not work out His salvation in earthly prosperity, but makes it happen in spite of it. For we can be saved while poor, sick, or demon possessed. None of these things negate the work of the cross for you.

Why creeds? [Wednesday Lent 2; St. Luke 6:27-49]

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This evening, we hear Jesus speak from His Gospel and our Creeds as we continue to ponder the modern usefulness of catechesis and our Catechism in general.

There is a legend from the 4^th century that tells of the time when the Apostles were preparing to part from each other, go out into the whole world, and spread the Gospel. In order that their preaching and teaching be uniform, they each contributed what they thought was best and ended up with the 12 articles of the Apostles Creed.

Now, this may be a true story, it may not be. Regardless, the thrust of the legend is to solidify the hearer’s belief that, in the creeds, he is intimately connected to the Apostles and what they believed. This is one wonder that the gift of the creeds are for us today.

Yet, even with this significance, all 3 creeds are fruits of Faith, ways to express our faith in words, not Faith itself. This is because the Creeds came into existence during the life of faith that the Church was living with the Apostles. Meaning, that because Church life and faith is centered around Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, the Creeds naturally flowed out of that. In fact, this is how we receive all of the writings of the New Testament, as well.

In the act of His Baptism, Jesus becomes sacramentally involved with sinners. That is, that in Jesus, God unites Himself with humanity, taking on their sin in a very real sense. Such a sense that He can refer to His death as His Baptism and that we can share in that Baptism as well.

This then becomes the practice of the Church: that in the midst of Baptizing and Communing, She, and all those who believe, confess Who it is that is Baptizing them and Communing with them. And so, during the baptismal rite, we confess the creed in the form of questions, asking about belief, asking “Do you believe…?”

Answering in the positive establishes that fact that you are being joined to the Church catholic; the universal Church. In essence, confessing the Creed was a statement that Baptism still determined the parameters, foundation, and content of the believer’s life.

Let me stress that point: confessing the Creed is a statement that Baptism still determines the parameters, foundation, and content of your life. Behind the public confession of faith is the idea that the believer not only accepts as true what God reveals, but also that he remains in his baptism.

I always tell the catechumens that they’re not taking catechism class to learn the right answers. There will be no test. We study, memorize, and recite in order to declare that we agree with God and that we agree with His Church. We study, memorize, and recite in order to prove to ourselves that we believe.

If we were to lessen the importance of the creeds or tamper with or remove them from the Divine Service completely, then we would be declaring first, that the doctrine preserved in the creeds is not appreciated or wanted, and second that the present significance of Baptism in our life is lost.

Because we are not just finding a preference for what we like, regarding God. And we are not trying to determine “what works for us” in Bible Study. What we are determining is whether or not we agree with God, because it is His Church and His Church’s creed.

There is a story about a young priest who told his spiritual advisor that he was having difficulties with some of the statements of the creed. “Recite it anyhow”, the advisor replied.

After a few days, the young priest again voices his misgivings saying that he can not in good conscience claim to believe all that the creed says. Recite it anyhow, was the only reply.

After several weeks of this, the young priest is thoroughly exasperated and confused and asks, “Why do you insist I repeat the creed when you know there are in it some phrases I don’t really believe?”

To which the advisor replied, “Because it is not your creed. It is the creed of the Church. When you recite it you are not directly saying what you believe. You are declaring what the Church believes. And you are declaring yourself part of that Church, no matter whether you believe every point of doctrine or not.”

This is the universality of the creeds. That , regardless of where life has taken us and regardless of the temptations and sins we are facing, God has given us such a gracious gift of mercy so as to place us in the midst of His Church, without any merit or worthiness within us.

So it is that Joshua can stand in the midst of a stubborn and stiff-necked people, confess Who God is, and demand allegiance from Israel because of the power of confessing the God Who Brought Them Out Of Egypt. So it is that Abel, Noah, and Abraham can face enemies, sterility, and even death and still come through temptation with faith, because God is confessed as the God Who Keeps His Promises.

So it is that Jesus can give us this lengthy laundry list of things that we have not done or left undone to God and our neighbor in St. Luke’s gospel, and still call us “those who hear”, “those who are loved”, and “those who confess and are baptized”.

Precious Chalice, precious metal [Lent 2; St. Matthew 15:21-28]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE.

Jesus spoke to us today and said,

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

I have always wanted to teach about and give a defense for the Common Cup or Chalice, in Communion. It started when I heard the synod’s reason for using the individual cups, that is, health reasons with no other explanation given. This is no reason to change practices as it has no basis in the Bible. That doesn’t mean its wrong or that you don’t receive the same blood of Christ. It does beg the question: why change, then?

For today, though, since the wonderful witness of faith is about eating scraps that fall from the Lord’s table, we will only focus on the positive aspect of the Chalice. 

Now even though the bank account hates it, up front the Chalice is special because it is made of or plated in a precious metal. This is not to say that Jesus’ Cup which He used at the Last Supper was made of a precious metal, though it may have been. And we also do not want to go so far into the weeds as to say that Jesus had a wooden cup or clay cup so we should be using that.

No, in the first place, faith will not let us doubt that the bread and wine are the Body and Blood of Christ and therefore, faith will not let us house the precious Blood of Christ in anything less than the best. We need to see with our eyes, just as much as taste to see, that the Lord is good. Imagine Communion being offered in plastic or styrofoam. Would that make you see it as less valuable or more, if served in those “use once and throw away” things? 

Now you can say that you would treat it reverently no matter what, but the truth is we are simple creatures. We can distinguish, just by sight, the importance of something. So when we couch the Body and Blood of Jesus in precious metal, it screams holiness and reverence. This matters!

Now for the fun part. Gold is a noble metal and is inert; meaning it won’t react to or tolerate any organisms on its surface. Silver is a bit different in that it is self-sanitizing. Its ions react to organisms and basically poison them. This is why silver is labeled as a heavy metal, along with lead. Take too much and it poisons the body due to it being unable to be absorbed by the digestive system.

Gold and silver do not exhaust this list, but join Aluminium, Antimony, Arsenic, Barium, Bismuth, Boron, Copper, Lead, Mercury, Nickel, Thallium, Tin, and Zinc. For some obvious reasons, only silver has been shown to be safer and more effective than most of this bunch.

This unique, medical characteristic of silver should change our view of silver, from a ‘harmful heavy metal’ to a “purifying precious metal” because of what’s called the Oligodynamic effect (from Greek oligos "few", and dynamis "force"). It refers to the biocidal effect of metals, especially heavy metals, that occurs even in low concentrations.

The oligodynamic affect works as follows: when the precious metal is ionized, or gives off ions of itself, those become attracted to the membranes and nuclei of the cells of bacteria such as E.coli, Hep B, HIV, etc. These ions then, attach and disrupt the cells’ processes so severely that they fall apart. The ion, however, remains afterwards, and is able to continue its work, going from cell to cell, thus sanitizing whatever it is attached to.

Apart from this, there is the very clear research done that saliva is a poor medium for these bacterium and viruses. In fact, research tells that viruses such as Herpes and HIV are not transferred by saliva at all. So, if direct transmission is impossible, then indirect transmission by Chalice is impossible also. They also show that using a purificator to wipe the Chalice between communicants greatly aids the silver’s fight.

It takes a great amount of effort to infect a human being with something. You have skin and mucus for a reason: to protect you from these things. Even contact with these viruses and bacterium do not indicate inoculation. It just means you’ve been exposed.

But this knowledge has been around for millennia. That silver greatly reduces the spread of viral and bacterial infections, both inside and outside the body, is not new. But since in our modern times we trust in our own theories and discoveries, instead of God’s Creation, we have turned to our current medical knowledge to save us and in doing so become the arrogant acolytes who march to their own doom.

We trade God’s creation for what we can create ourselves and it is failing. Today, we turn to plastic and lab created things and they disappoint, not in the price department, and yet we keep going down this path. We have done this with time as well. The reason for Daylight Saving time and the Leap Year is because we are imposing our arrogance of human time-keeping upon the universe instead of living with the universe that God made for us.

As it turns out, silver and gold are still not enough for true purity and health in this world or the next. Because while it may outwit viruses and bacterium, it will not stave off old age and it will not disassemble death. So much so that our Lord even says that though you possess gold or silver, it must still be tossed into the furnace.

“But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver” (Mal. 3:2-3).

Gold and silver are the name of the game for God’s Temple in the Old Testament which covered everything there. That means they are going to be the name of the game for us. Not just that we make everything we use gilded, but that we remind ourselves that the Temple is God’s own Body so that when we think purity, we think the Body and Blood of Christ, not just gold or silver.

“The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace… purified seven times” (Ps. 12:6). Now there’s a twist that the Canaanite woman was not expecting. Though she was being treated roughly and she was the one begging, the Scriptures teach that it is the Word of the Lord Who will be mistreated, begging, and refined like precious metal in a furnace.

The fire of scourge, thorn, and cross refine the Word, Jesus Christ. Not so that He gets better, but in order that we be able to be baptized with His baptism and eat His food. He became one of us so that we could be as He is. So we keep those precious metals around church to remind ourselves that the true temple is the Body of Christ and true purity is hearing His Word and believing it.

And since we are baptized into that same Body, and eat of it, what Job says will be true for us, that the Lord “…knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold” (Job 23:10). We now share in this holiness, this purity that the precious metals we keep in front of us show. 

The Lord has said that when He comes, “…instead of bronze He will bring gold, and instead of iron He will bring silver; instead of wood, bronze, instead of stones, iron. He will make your overseers peace and your taskmasters righteousness” (Isa. 60:17). 

For though our gold grows dim and fades, though our bodies fail, Jesus, our Great Physician and Healer, is the one precious treasure needful and even if we had to eat and drink from tableware made of mud, His Body and Blood would still be given for us. But as we are able to make Church important and since we are to fear nothing but God, not even poison or disease, let us eat, drink and be merry.

For the Lord promises that “…the young women shall rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old shall be merry. I will turn their mourning into joy; I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow” (Jer. 31:13) in my Holy Supper, in My Church, says the Lord.

The Meaning of Lord [Lent 1; St. Matthew 4:1-11]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE.

Jesus speaks today, saying:

“You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.”

All too often, we pass over things that are extremely important and have such an impact on our lives that to live without them would be fatal. This is especially true of the things of God, not the least of which is because He chooses to do His work among us with, what we would consider, weak, ordinary, boring things.

So it is today, that when we encounter Jesus’ title of “Lord”, we simply file it under “things to take no notice of”. Not only because we don’t have lords, masters, and kings walking around anymore, but because we take it for granted and judge our time best spent elsewhere.

Calling Jesus “Lord” was of vital importance to the Church the Apostles headed, that they deemed it worthy of their entire lives and their deaths. From the beginning, Jesus was called “Lord” and it will be well worth our time to consider what “lord” means.

Like I have mentioned, the word “lord” is in such disuse today and so we really have no idea what it means for us. Since the wicked popes of the middle ages and the Reformation, the Church has freed those in bondage to any lord or master who may enslave them. Because of this, it has been said of American Christians that this is a “land of a thousand popes or lords”.

In the first place, then, in order to become a lord, there must be a title granted by someone who is one step above lord. Usually this involves owning land and swearing fealty to a king or overlord and pledging your land’s resources to his service. 

This is the first and second way to become a lord: buy land and have someone appoint you the title. However showy this title may seem, it was not without responsibility. The word lord comes from old English and it means bread-keeper, meaning that the lord was in charge of feeding his subjects while they tended the land.

the third way of becoming a lord is the easiest, that is, inheriting the title; being born into it. Almost a cheater way, but so it goes. You can even go online today and purchase estates that come with a lordship or buy into a seat at the House of Lords in English Parliament. So simple that it cheapens any dignity the word once had.

So how are we to understand it when Jesus calls Himself lord and then compels us to acknowledge Him as such? Well, it seems to me, so far, that Jesus has already fulfilled all the requirements that the internet requires in order to be a lord on earth. He has been granted the title by someone higher than Him, God. He has purchased, or rather created land which He manages and He has been born into the correct family, that is King David, inheriting the title.

By all human rights, Jesus is lord of earth. He has every right to exercise His authority over everyone, indiscriminately. He is well within His means to administer judgment and justice as He sees fit. This is not the type of lord who fasts or does things on his own.

The Lord of Earth and Sky is the man Whom so-called evangelicals can get behind. He is high and lifted up. He hates sin. He is full of majesty and righteous anger all directed at the so-called evangelicals opponents, coincidentally. So that when He does finally come to take His throne, He will know who was on His side. One of their favorite verses to latch onto is from Philippians 2 where Jesus says:

“every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”

You have Jesus as your Savior, but do you have Him as your Lord? By this the devil means, “have you bowed yourself to the ground in abject deference yet”? Have you believed like me? Are you living, thinking, and breathing just like me?

This is not the way of the New Testament. Jesus being our Savior is not a prelude to His being Lord over us. Jesus is the Lord who saves not by a raw act of His sovereign power, but by humbling Himself to death on the cross. His lordship is not a tyranny or dictatorship but suffering for us.

This is where the devil and his temptations go wrong. He sees the poor excuse for a lord, Jesus, in the wilderness and tries to make Him like God. Sound like our OT reading?? He attempts to tempt Jesus as Lord, as in as YHWH the almighty, maker of heaven and earth. For this is how the New Testament wants us to read the word “lord”. 

When you confess with your mouth and believe with your heart that “Jesus is Lord”, you are saying that this man, Who fasts and is tempted, is the lone God of the entire universe. This is blasphemy of the highest order. That God, YHWH, Jehovah could even think of associating with humanity on their own terms is inconceivable.

Yet it is at that point of inconceivability we see Jesus meeting us, not just the devil. “Jesus is Lord” is the earliest form of a Creed in the Apostolic Church. Dr. Luther comments on this importance in the Catechism saying, “What do you believe according to the second article of the creed? I believe that Jesus Christ, true Son of God, has become my Lord. But what is it to become Lord? It is this, that He has redeemed me from sin, from the devil, from death, and all evil. For before I had no Lord nor King, but was captive under the power of the devil, condemned to death, enmeshed in sin and blindness.”

Though the devil wants to be king, he has no claim on any land, money, or titles of recommendations. Though in our sin we want to be king, we are in the same boat as the devil. In this sense, then, calling Jesus Lord is also learning how we are saved.

Dr. Luther continues in the Large Catechism:

“For when we had been created by God the Father, and had received from Him all manner of good, the devil came and led us into disobedience, sin, death, and all evil, so that we fell under His wrath and displeasure and were doomed to eternal damnation, as we had merited and deserved. There was no counsel, help, or comfort until this only and eternal Son of God in His unfathomable goodness had compassion upon our misery and wretchedness, and came from heaven to help us. Those tyrants and jailers, then, are all expelled now, and in their place has come Jesus Christ, Lord of life, righteousness, every blessing, and salvation, and has delivered us poor lost men from the jaws of hell, has won us, made us free, and brought us again into the favor and grace of the Father, and has taken us as His own property under His shelter and protection, that He may govern us by His righteousness, wisdom, power, life, and blessedness.”

“Let this, then, be the sum of this article that the little word Lord signifies simply as much as Redeemer, meaning, ‘He who has brought us from Satan to God, from death to life, from sin to righteousness, and who preserves us in the same’. But all the points which follow in order in this article serve no other end than to explain and express this redemption, how and whereby it was accomplished, that is, how much it cost Him, and what He spent and risked that He might win us and bring us under His dominion, namely, that He became man, conceived and born without [any stain of] sin, of the Holy Ghost and of the Virgin Mary, that He might overcome sin; moreover, that He suffered, died and was buried, that He might make satisfaction for me and pay what I owe, not with silver nor gold, but with His own precious blood. And all this, in order to become my Lord; for He did none of these for Himself, nor had He any need of it. And after that He rose again from the dead, swallowed up and devoured death, and finally ascended into heaven and assumed the government at the Father's right hand, so that the devil and all powers must be subject to Him and lie at His feet, until finally, at the last day, He will completely part and separate us from the wicked world, the devil, death, sin, etc.” (LC:II:28-31)

This is incomprehensible to the devil and blasphemous to us. That a lord would not buy his own lordship, but instead redeem enemies. That a lord would not submit and be of service to a higher power, but bow his head to sinners and serve them and offer Himself to them. That a lord would give up His inheritance in order to give it all away, does not make sense to our ears.

Yet this is what the New Testament teaches us and reminds us of, whenever we call Jesus “Lord” and we must be reminded of this over and over again, because we will never fully learn so rich and comprehensive an article of faith.

Indeed, now we must relearn the entire Old Testament with these new eyes that read “Lord” in the passages, but now automatically replace it with “Jesus”. The Lord is my Shepherd is now Jesus is my Shepherd. The Lord of Hosts is now Jesus of hosts.

In Jer. 23:6 “In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS” is now Jesus our Righteousness.

Back to the Fall of Adam and Eve in our Old Testament reading, it is Jesus who calls out to Adam, Jesus Who clothes Adam and Eve afterwards, and Jesus Who seals the Garden. In the Epistle reading, well, at least in that entire letter of St. Paul, the word “lord” is used 28 times, noting specifically what it is that he preaches to the congregations, that “…we proclaim … not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord” (4:5).

What becomes even more interesting is when we apply this new understanding to the Gospel reading and find Jesus almost speaking in third person about Himself. This is done on purpose to show how defeated the devil really is. For now his temptations are silly, next to Jesus.

Jesus, answering satan, says, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put [Jesus] your God to the test.’”

And again, “Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship [Jesus] your God and him only shall you serve.’”