God in suffering [Feast of St. James]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE.

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Acts 11:27-12:5

• 1 Corinthians 4:9-15

• St. Matthew 20:20-23

 

Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you all from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. (2 Jn 1)

 

Who speaks to you all today, saying,

“You will drink my cup…”

 

And as we ponder the mystery of our Lord calling St. James today, and Jesus’s miracles, we see a God and Savior Who takes a personal, intimate interest in the lives of His people. In other words, in the suffering and oppression of His people. For not only does He come to Call, alleviate, and heal, but He takes on all evil, suffers, and dies, in order to rid us of our evil and create eternity with Him and without it.

 

To get to that point, though, is a monumental chore, because in order for that eternal day of bliss to come, we must suffer and die with our Lord Jesus Christ. That brings us in front of many challenges to our faith and our sanity as we have to live through a world that has been so devastated by sin, death, and the devil that hardly anyone believes anymore.

 

In the face of this evil, people despair of God and His promises and become atheists, sometimes. And most times they vent their frustrations about God in a very public way. The most common is the unbelievers question: why bone cancer in a three-year-old child?

 

The question is meant to destroy faith because it is meant to do three things: 1) it presents an evil against, apparently, the most imaginable innocent person, 2) it appeals to all the emotions attached to, caring for, and loving a child, and 3) it is meant to prove that God does nothing about these sorts of things all to conclude that God doesn’t exist.

 

I can even give you an example. I once counseled a man at the death of his wife. She had been fighting cancer for years and the last few years of her life, she was winning. She was back to being able to do things again, instead of being in a bed. She was gardening, walking the dog, and doing laundry. 

 

One day, that clean laundry needed to be brought upstairs, the machines being in the basement. Climbing the stairs, for whatever reason, she fell backwards, hit her head on the concrete, and died. Here is where I coin my phrase, what doesn’t kill you, delays the inevitable. A seemingly senseless death with no rhyme or reason as to why she had to struggle through life only to lose to a basement floor.

 

Or what about the stray bullet from a gang fight that strikes and kills someone completely unrelated to the incident? What about the American bombs that are dropped on women, children, and doctors who have nothing to do with our current foreign policy deficiencies?

 

The 5000 and the 4000 people that Jesus feeds are hungry. Why do they have to be hungry in the first place? Why can’t they be made not to eat and simply live life without having to be hungry? 

 

Life is full of seeming meaninglessness. No one can explain these things. All the unbeliever does is point out biology and spout off some $10,000 college words. There is no point to these sufferings and oppressions, to him.

 

So to the atheist, though I don’t think they really are atheists, to the unbeliever who wants to get God with this question about why He allows 3 year olds to get bone cancer, I have this question: explain to me a world void of meaning. A world where the 3 year old asks you, why he is sick, and you tell him something like, because that’s just how it goes. The unbeliever has nothing better to say than the Christian, in response.

 

To the unbeliever, the world has no meaning, therefore it is survival of the fittest or the luckiest. Whoever is stronger, or more fit, wins, and whoever is unfortunate enough to be struck by the universe is just unlucky. No love. No mercy. No rhyme or reason. Just plain meaninglessness.

 

This is a world of chaos that no one would survive very long in, either physically or mentally.

 

Life under faith and under the cross of Christ does give meaning to these seemingly meaningless things. 

 

First off, through the lens of the cross, we see that the entire world is corrupt and does nothing but kill you. You may eat your vegetables every day, discover a diet that the Bible says is holy, and keep as far from GMO’s as possible, but the world will eventually kill you either at three years of age or 103. No one is getting out of here alive.

 

In this light, we see that of ourselves there is nothing good. That the corruption also lies within us. We do not remain guiltless simply because we are presumed innocent, not in prison, or have a clean rep sheet. We all know our own darkness keenly and that is why the Christian will run to Confession and Absolution as often as he needs and before every Divine Service. 

 

Secondly, God speaks to faith and tells us that it is He Who brings calamity upon us. Not only the story of Job, but all the kings of the Old Testament, when they didn’t listen, God punished them. We hear from Hannah in 1 Samuel 2:6: “The Lord kills and makes alive; He brings down to the grave and brings up.” Hosea 6:1 says, “Come, and let us return to the Lord; For He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up.”

 

Here is the point then: I would rather God be involved in my suffering, than for it to have no meaning. For, just because God is involved does not mean He wishes it upon me. Rather it means that because God is involved, not just allowing it, that it will have an end and not last forever.

 

Listen to God in Hebrews 12, “ For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin. And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons:  

          'My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord,

            Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him;

            For whom the Lord loves He chastens,

           And scourges every son whom He receives.'

If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” (v.3-11)

 

If the world is giving out suffering, there is no end and none of those benefits and no meaning to it. If God is giving suffering, we know and believe His goal is forgiveness and eternal life and this is first and foremost proven in the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ: God Himself.

 

Because God is not just a third party on the scene, He takes physical responsibility and physically participates in the suffering of His Creation. He takes on our flesh. That means that He not only deals with His own Body, but then also deals with everyone else’s. Such that, when He is on the cross, dying, He is suffering multiple times over, with everyone’s sin and everyone’s suffering of all time.

 

“For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor 5:21). He joyfully endured the suffering and shame of His cross, despising its shame (Heb 12:2). In His suffering and dying, our release from all corruption and suffering is purchased and won. God suffering is righteousness for us.

 

He also then unites us to His suffering, death, and resurrection in Baptism so that when we suffer, our suffering ends just as His did: in Glory. The profit of being chastised by our heavenly Father is that you receive everlasting holiness, peacefulness, and righteousness. The benefits of being torn by the Lord in time, is that He will bind us up in eternity.

 

Jesus says that “a disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher” (Luke 6:40). 

 

God, our true Teacher, called you to all His Goodness, even if you suffer because of it (1 Pet 2:20-21). And now since all of life is good, sanctified by Christ in His Body, there will be suffering as default. But, “rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy” (1 Peter 4:13). Not just because it sounds nice, but because now your suffering ends, just as it did for Jesus.

 

And yet, the unbeliever is on the right track. The right track is to confront God and hold Him accountable for all this suffering. The right track is to approach the One responsible for this world and demand an answer from Him. And God answers, not with decrees or commands or college words, but with His very own Body and Blood.

 

The Lord takes responsibility and keeps His own Name holy by offering Himself up in order to rescue and redeem His people. For even though life is suffering by default, the end goal is not suffering, it never was. The end goal was always rest. This is the meaning that God, the Almighty gives to our suffering and the suffering of every 3 year old, and it is tattooed on His hands, feet, and side.

 

The unbeliever does nothing but offer hollow words of higher thinking. The God of all offers up His Body and Blood that in them you may find comfort and true healing of all your woes. 

 

And since we have that same, Crucified and resurrected Body and Blood directly in front of us, we can confidently say that, “having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.  And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope.  Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Rom 5:1-5).

 

In this short, time-constrained life we endure afflictions. Here, in time, we battle the powers and principalities that desire our despair and anguish that they themselves feed on. There in eternity, they have no place. The universe and high, holier-than-thou platitudes have no interest in your sufferings and offer no hope for the future. 

 

The Servant God comes to you as a man, gives you His entire Kingdom and life for all eternity and tells you that you suffer now so that you may reap the benefits of perfect healing. You have pain here, but there with Him it will be as a dream that is past and forgotten. You will be, and are today, held in honor, in Christ as our Epistle reveals to us.

 

Such honor, that the Lord of heaven and earth comes to serve you this medicine of immortality Himself. For from that tree of Jesus’ shame flows life eternal in His Name; for all who trust and will believe, salvation’s living fruit receive. And of this fruit so pure and sweet, the Lord invites the world to eat, to find within this cross of wood the Tree of Life with every good.

 

 

 

 

Real Food [Trinity 7]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE.

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Genesis 2:7-17

• Romans 6:19-23

• St. Mark 8:1-9

 

Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you all from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. (2 Jn 1)
 
Who speaks to you saying,

“I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat.”

 
There is a time and a place in the interpretation of holy Scripture for the use of allegory, whereby we take something that is said or written and turn something physical into something purely spiritual. 
 
For example, our OT mentions the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. To use allegory on these trees, we would doubt the historical fact of them being actual trees and instead say that they were representative of the growth of life and the situations we face as individuals. 
 
The Tree of Life would be all the positive decisions and events that take place and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil would be the negative and difficult times. So we should want to eat from Life so that we have a positive disposition and can positively influence others, instead of the other tree. But when life makes us “eat: from the other tree”, we must strive to make the best of it.
 
Because God doesn’t want us “eating” bad things, does He? He may have planted that tree, but it was just to show that He understands that life can be tough. He can’t help it that He created such a thing, but He can care for us no matter what.
 
Blah blah blah. And you eat it right up because of course Eden was so long ago, who knows if it actually happened. And what do trees have to do with God loving me and having the best life God wants for me? Allegory.
 
And St. Paul does not help out, in the Epistle reading. He heads straight to allegory, talking about “fruit” and “sin” and “gifts” from God. What else could those be but spiritual things we can’t see, because we can’t see them? Especially that word “slave”. Ugh. That better be an allegory or I’m never believing in the God of the Bible again. Yeesh.
 
Do we even have to talk about the Gospel reading today? 
 
Yes. We have to and we will. But first, back to Eden. While there is a time and a place for allegory, God gives no room for that kind of thinking at first. For God is using Moses and not a spirit to speak of and write these things down about 4,000 years after they happened. And while this should be some sort of spiritual trip that God gives to Moses, He instead gives Moses words we can understand.
 
He says things like “man” and “dust” and “ground”. He uses the words “breath” and “planted” and “garden”. He mentions rivers and gives their names as if we would recognize them. He talks about gardening and fruit and eating. If God wanted Eden to be an allegory, He should not have planted it on earth and put a man in it to work it. 
 
In the beginning, Jesus does not create a spiritual world, but a physical one. The danger of a purely spiritual, purely allegorical world is this: you have your “tree of life”, grand. But what happens when your “tree of life” isn’t all its supposed to be? What happens when someone else’s “tree of life” is better than yours, or worse yet, their tree of the knowledge of good and evil is better? In other words, how can you know who has the truth?
 
With that way of thinking, you can’t. It’s impossible. There is no standard to judge the truth if everyone’s truth is equally valid and, well, true. And this brings up another problem: it is impossible that everyone’s truth is true, if only for the simple example I brought up earlier of pitting each other’s experiences against each other. 
 
Especially when it comes to God and theology, because today we hear of Jesus feeding people. Did they just receive platitudes or positive thoughts? Was the bread a “hearty handshake” and the fish a “participation trophy”? An “I ate with Jesus today” button? As soon as you say you believe that Jesus actually fed 4000 men with real bread and real fish carried by real people and gathered in real baskets, you step foot into the realm of the sacramental.
 
When God comes in the flesh and declares, “I have compassion on the crowd”, He does not say it because He only wants their souls to be fulfilled and their lives to have purpose. “Compassion” means that Jesus’s belly is being scrunched up and poured out for them. These people are hungry and He wants to feed them, as in “put food into their bellies”.
 
Herein lies the full force of God’s religion: that He does not forsake His earthly creation, but remakes it according to His will and makes it do His will. It would have been easier, maybe, to create Adam to subsist on nothing but the energy of the universe, but God made it so that a fruit from the Tree of Life would maintain Adam’s life and power at maximum every time he ate. (AE 1:92)
 
It would have been easier, possibly, to simply send the crowds of 4000 away with a word of power to fill them up. It would have been easier, allegedly, to snap His fingers in order to save all of mankind from sin, death, and the devil.
 
Instead we have trees, and fruit, and gardens. Instead we have bread, and fish, and a man. Instead we have and are given Christmass and Easter. 
 
Mentioning the rivers of Eden, its gemstones and precious metal content, and their precise locations would all be worthless, unless something important was happening there. Something more important than the events in heaven or any other spiritual plane. 
 
Because of our natural limitations, as St. Paul says in his Epistle heard today, Jesus uses human terms. Not just human terms, but human vocal chords, a human tongue, and a human brain. Instead of snapping His fingers to make everything go away, He comes down to dwell in the midst of the sin and death that His people are suffering.
 
This God of compassion, Who chooses love over lordship, mercy over sacrifice, and life over death takes the hard road to prove it to us. He doesn’t just want our abject submission, He wants our love and devotion freely given. He doesn’t want a world of robotic “Yes Men”, He wants children, heirs to His kingdom.
 
So He plants the Tree of the knowledge of Good and evil, not because He wants us to fail, but because He wants to succeed for us. He wants to be faithful, even unto death on a cross. He wants to show that He is dependable, in spite of our failure. He wants to be chosen instead of the sin that oppresses us so.
 
So much does Jesus desire this world of love, that He creates it. He creates it by making two trees: one tree where we hear God’s truth and confess, and the other tree that was supposed to give Life, and will give life come hell or high water. For the Son of God ascends that tree, descends into hell, and rises again three days later.
 
The one thing that the feeding of the 4 teaches us is that, what was barred in Genesis, has been reopened in Christ and the price of admission to that table is “one God on a tree”. In Christ, God fed Adam Life by fruit and in Christ God feeds Adam eternal life by the Body and Blood of Christ, the “fruit” of the tree of the cross.
 
If this is allegory, then we are still in our sin and lost forever. But it is not. When God speaks of anything, His words are both allegory and concrete. When He speaks of trees, and fruit, and bread He is deeply caring for spiritual and physical needs. It is not and/or, but both.
 
So when you find yourself in the Divine Service, being directed to sit down, and the pastor then takes bread, gives thanks, breaks it, and gives it to others to set before you…you may think that your concrete world has just gone abstract. The truth is that your world is bigger than that and it is in the sacramental that all comes together to do Christ’s bidding, which is the forgiveness of sins
 
So the spiritual feeding becomes physical feeding. The spiritual forgiveness becomes physical eternal life. The spiritual Word of God becomes physical flesh to justify and sanctify you, for His Name’s sake.
 
 

Jesus, our Righteousness [Trinity 6]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Exodus 20:1-17

• Romans 6:3-11

• St. Matthew 5:20-26

 

 Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you all from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. (2 Jn 1)

 

Who speaks to you saying,

“For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

 

And as we consider all of St. Matthew chapter 5, we remember that Jesus says, in St. Matthew 4:17, “Repent! For the kingdom of heaven is at hand”. He says this so that you know clearly what your relationship with Him is. As in, your relationship with Him and with the Father is created by repentance, and faith in His promised blessings found in the rest of St. Matthew 5.

 

That your relationship with God is dependent on His revelation to you of your sins and your Savior is an important belief to have, because if not, The Beatitudes, and even the small section on righteousness that we heard from the Gospel today, snowballs on us as we try our best to fulfill it.

 

Primarily, we use it to change our lives drastically in order to show everyone we mean what we believe and follow these new commands from Jesus. But that’s not the half of it. The real kick in the gut, is when we finally get one thing right, the neighbor we are doing it for doesn’t cooperate or reciprocate and we lose it.

 

Hey pal. I just put all this work into loving you as myself and not getting angry at you or murdering you, and you can’t return the favor? 

 

Instantly, there are lines drawn in your heart and war is upon you. It is you vs. them. You who have the righteousness all wrapped up and “them” who are not like you. And guess what? God has to be on your side because you are following His Word, unlike your new-found-enemy. At that point, the devil has done his job and has taken the good that God gives and made you reshape it into a weapon pointed at your neighbor and God.

 

Because God also seems to not hold up His end of the bargain when you do everything right. In fact, in all of Matthew chapter 5, nowhere does God say He will be pleased if anything on His lists are accomplished. Nowhere does He say that He will bless you if you get all or any of this done. He only says He will be jealous, in the Old Testament reading from today, and we don’t need that.

 

This is not what Jesus is hoping for here. What Jesus is hoping for comes from just before our Gospel pericope in St. Matthew 5:19 which says, “Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

 

Repent! self-absorbed, we completely miss the point of Jesus words here. In our sin, we don’t just murder our neighbor but we murder God as well, so that we are liable. And Judge, Jury, and Executioner is the Lord Almighty Himself. You have angered your Brother and the dark, prison door stands open to receive you.

 

But as you walk towards your cell, head down in shame, your eyes spy another’s pair of feet and they are in your way from entering. “You are baptized”, He says and shoves you out of the way. His cell door slams shut, the lights go dark. They blaze on once again and the cell is empty, the bars are torn asunder, and the walls are razed. 

 

We are not learning about a holy life created by our efforts. We are learning about Christ. Matthew 5:19 does not say whoever breaks the commandments, but it says whoever looses them. In other words, whoever lessens their importance and, most importantly, teaches other men to cheapen them as well.

 

It is whoever teaches that will be great. And in the holy Scriptures, Christ is teaching and it is His teaching that is the authority now. St. Matthew 28:19-20 says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you”. 

 

It is not for scribes or Pharisees or even your own heart to read and interpret what the Bible is saying. It is for Jesus alone. Jesus alone speaks authority. Jesus alone gives interpretation of Old and New Testaments. Jesus alone has the right to teach. And here, in today’s Gospel, it is not the commands of Moses, but Jesus’ teachings that are the norm for all who would follow Him.

 

Let’s rewind just a bit and dissect this biblical word “command”. Yet another VBS lesson has come upon us and when we hear that word we immediately think the 10 Commandments and then some form or other of “marching orders” that are imposed upon us, or else.

 

But this is not what Jesus teaches. Going back to Moses receiving the 10 Commandments in Exodus, we hear what Jesus is truly teaching and He says, “Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights...He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Words” (34:28). 

 

From the outset, the Ten Commandments were teachings. Teachings designed to reveal God and His Christ. They were words God spoke to His people in order that they may better know Him and understand their situation. For, though Moses was given the Ten Words, he had faith that one day soon those words would be fulfilled by the Word, the Word made flesh (Jn 1:14).

 

Thus, the Ten Words reveal the Word made flesh. So when we then come to the “commands” written in our Gospel reading from St. Matthew, we find our murder directed at the Son of God and we are liable to judgement, the council, and the hell of fire. 

 

However, it is the Word made Flesh Who, upon hearing of our immanent condemnation, leaves His gift at His Father’s heavenly Altar and goes to where His “brother”, all of sinful creation, waits for Him: at the cross. Jesus, there, comes to terms with His accuser, sinners agreeing with Satan, that it is He to be imprisoned behind the gates of death. It is He Who should suffer and die for the sake of this “perfection” God seeks.

 

And they are right. For it is only in the Word made Flesh dying, that the full payment and sentence for sin is commuted. It is only in the fulfillment of all the murder and murdering spirits in the crucifixion of God, that true righteousness can be created. A righteousness that exceeds the scribes and the Pharisees.

 

God is our righteousness that gains us entrance into heaven. He is our righteousness that exceeds and surpasses all understanding. It is a gift and this is what Jesus is teaching: Our Righteousness (Jer. 23:6). And Jeremiah 23 goes on, “’Therefore, behold, the days are coming,’ says the Lord, ‘that they shall no longer say, ‘As the Lord lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt,’ ⁸ but, ‘As the Lord lives who brought up and led the descendants of the house of Israel from the north country and from all the countries where I had driven them.’ And they shall dwell in their own land’” (v.7-8).

 

So the Lord is our Righteousness. Nice. But how does His righteousness become our righteousness? Of course our Epistle reading marries us to the Word made flesh. In baptism, death towards sin is ours so that it no longer rules us. In baptism, resurrected life in Christ is ours and the righteousness necessary for heaven be given to us, perfectly.

 

Now, if we want to “teach men all things that Jesus has commended” we preach Christ Crucified year in and year out. We place our confidence in the Gospel, that is the forgiveness of sins. We get to hold fast to all of God’s commands, in Christ, the greatest and the least, because now the clean heart and Right Spirit placed within us lets us do no other thing.

 

If we wish to “do all God commands us”, it must be done in righteousness. righteousness inside and out. We must be immersed in it. It must flow from our pores. It must have free course in our lives and the way to do that is to stuff our ears with the preaching of Our Righteousness, bathe our uncleanness in His baptismal grace, and feed on His forgiveness such that, what is true on the outside becomes true on the inside.

 

From the beginning, dependence on God was the plan. Not just in a wicked overlord way, with strict submission or else. But in a way which reveals God’s love to us, for the fulfillment of all the commands, of the Word, is Love. not our love, mind you, but God’s love towards us which offers up the Word, His only begotten Son, not to condemn the world, but that through the Word made flesh, all would come to repentance and receive eternal life.

 

 The Last Days have come upon us, as Jeremiah foretold. We are the descendants of the house of Israel by faith (Gal 3:29) and Jesus has brought us out of the country of sin, death, and the devil. His Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, and keeps us in the one true faith by the power of Word and Sacrament. These are the teachings we learn by heart and these are the teachings we treasure in order that they may be readily available for us and for all you hunger and thirst for Righteousness.

 

Thus the Word teaches us in our Introit today that the Lord is the strength of His people and the saving strength of His Christ. He has saved His people and through faith, blessed His inheritance. He feeds them His Body and Blood and lifts them up forever in the baptism of death and resurrection by grace, for Christ’s sake.

 

Alleluia! Deliver me in Your Righteousness! Alleluia!

 

 

The Word, the Man [Trinity 5]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE.

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• 1 Kings 19:11-21

• 1 Peter 3:8-15

• St. Luke 5:1-11

 

In the Name…
Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you all from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. (2 Jn 1)
 
Who speaks to you saying,

“But at your word I will let down the nets.”

 
It is at this point in the game, that St. Peter mistakes the “word” for only those things that are spoken, written, or taught. It is not in the furthest corner of his mind that it could be anything else. You agree with him and who could blame you? English translations of the Bible have been pushing this point since forever.
 
The point being that when we think or hear “the word of the Lord”, we have been programmed to think only of lectures, or commands, or sermons. Verses from the Bible such as Luke 22:61-62, “The Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how He had told him, ‘Before a rooster crows today, you will deny Me three times.’ And he went out and wept bitterly.”
 
It appears as if St. Peter is there remembering only the words Jesus spoke to him and refers to them as “the word of the Lord”. Also in Acts 11:16, “And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’” Here we are shown the truth that the Bible is the word of the Lord and that hearing it, you hear God speak to you.
 
Of course we believe that the Bible is God’s Word, that He does use it to speak to any and everyone, and it is the only way that God speaks to people. In fact, this is so true, that if someone were to claim that God told them something and its not in the Bible, you would be correct in condemning them and saying they had a demon. You wouldn’t make them your friend by saying it, but you could do that and be right, if you wanted to.
 
The problem we run into is when we turn to the Old Testament and find men speaking seemingly whatever they want and calling it God’s Word, in both good and bad ways. As in true prophets and false prophets. Both say they speak with the word of the Lord and both claim authority by it. A real prophet was even punished for believing a false prophet! (1 Kings 13).
 
The difference between them is how they receive the word of the Lord in the first place. The false prophets receive it by chicanery, sorcery, or some other mediating spirit. For the true prophets, the Word of the Lord comes to them directly.
 
Now, you start to think telepathy or direct God download, or something like that. The problem is it is impossible to tell who has God’s Word and who doesn’t, at this point. Both claim the same things. On top of that, you don’t know who’s telling the truth until the events predicted come to pass. And while there’s always time for repentance, don’t you think we ought to be able to tell who’s speaking truth right away?
 
We should. And we can. But we don’t. Our sin-fancy is tickled when we hear someone speaking powerfully, agreeing with us, and saying God said it to them. We fall in line when they quote one verse of the Bible. We make excuses for these hooligans claiming to speak for God, saying “at least they are decent” or “what they're saying isn’t wrong”.
 
Repent. You are St. Peter who laughs at Jesus as Sarah did when God said she would birth a son at 90 years of age. At Jesus speaking to him directly, St. Peter mocks and back-talks like a 10 year old, “UGH, but we fished all night and didn’t get anything. Why do I gotta do it again??”
 
St. Peter acts this way because he is facing a man, his equal (Ps 55:13). St. Peter and you have this idea in your head that God is everywhere, which usually means He’s not paying attention to me and I can get away with stuff. You say in a similar thought, that there are angels among us, but you don’t mean actual angels, you mean helpful people.
 
In sin we want heaven and earth separated. We function best that way. If heaven is up there, I can do my “heaven thing” every now and then: go to church, give thanks, maybe even pray. If heaven is way up there, I can also accomplish my earthly things without worry. God’s not breathing down my neck every second, causing strife, as others believe.
 
What we are getting at is a couple verses before our Old Testament reading, 1 Kings 19:9, “And behold, the word of the Lord came to” Elijah. In our reading, Elijah was not remembering God’s words to him neither was he listening to a speech. The Word of the Lord came to Elijah the same way the Word of the Lord came to St. Peter: in his face.
 
This is the way Christ calls His Apostles and His prophets. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Jonah, Micah, and Zephaniah. Nathan, Samuel, and many others all had the Word of the Lord come to them and tell them to preach to the people. What were they commanded to preach? “My Word”, said God. Not just “my words”, but my Word: the only begotten Son of God.
 
Psalm 33:4 says, “the word of the Lord is upright; and all his works are done in faith”. There is only one Who is Upright. All others have sinned. Isaiah 26:7, “The path of the righteous is level; You, the Upright One, make the way of the righteous smooth.” And Faith, we know is a gift from God alone, for it comes by hearing His Gospel.
 
The Lord is upright and faithful. He comes that His Word may go out to all nations and His sound out to all lands. He has a work to accomplish that cannot be done by man, for man is dead in sin. And what does uprightness have to do with unrighteousness anyway, asks (2 Cor. 6:14)? Nothing.
 
Nothing, until the Christ was made man. At that point, the unrighteousness of man became the Upright One’s number one priority as He now had a personal stake in the game. He was being upright on His own two feet, if you please. But this should not be a surprise. He was already seen walking in Eden with Adam and Eve and you need feet and legs to do that.
 
So the Word became flesh and walked among His own once more, even though He remembered His words to Jeremiah in 6:10, “behold, the word of the Lord is unto them a reproach; they have no delight in it.” Even though the Word has authority. Even though the Word has power. Even though the Word is full of merciful kindness, He is a reproach.
 
He is a disappointment to those in sin. Jesus comes as the Word made flesh, hiding His divine power so that He doesn’t destroy everything, and He disappoints. Not only is there no strong winds to tear mountains, or earthquakes to signal His presence, or fires, or low whispers, but He looks just like you. Which means, in our sinful minds, unable to do anything about the state of the world.
 
And yet, the Word stands and He stands forever (1 Pet 1:25). He does not just stand in front of St. Peter, but He stands up even after He is murdered. He does not just stand in power, but He will stand on the Last Day, alive. 
 
So after the appropriate amount of time, the Word of the Lord comes to St. Peter and, in usual fashion, gives him some words. And in spite of St. Peter’s sinful sass, the Word remains, and the fish return to the waters, and faith is restored on earth.
 
In the Word made flesh, the earthly world is unified with the heavenly. God is not just “everywhere”, but now He locates Himself in Christ, just for you. There are not just humans acting like angels among us, but the King of Angels Himself commands actual angels to guard and protect our spirits and our bodies.
 
When “The Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how He had told him, ‘Before a rooster crows today, you will deny Me three times.’ And he went out and wept bitterly”, St. Peter was not just remembering words. He was remembering a man, the Word of the Lord, and how he had just denied Him three times, to His death. That is the impact on St. Peter and the cause of his bitter weeping. 
 
This is all because the most offensive thing in the world is God daring to appear in the flesh. And because God appears in the flesh, the most offensive thing in Church is His Body and Blood on the Altar. 
 
Nevertheless, the Word Made Flesh continues to go to Church. The Word of the Lord continues to come to you, as He did with His prophets, to inform you that He is casting His nets to catch you with the forgiveness of sins.
 
This is why St. Peter calls you all a royal priesthood, earlier in his epistle heard today. Because in your hands and on your lips you take hold of the Word of the Lord, proclaiming to all the world, “Thus saith the Lord” for the forgiveness of all your sins.
 
For a true prophet is known by having the Body and Blood of Christ in his possession.