Fan of Law and Gospel [Wed in Lent 2]

 

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Esther 13:8-17 (Apocrypha)

• St. Matthew 20:17-28

Grace to you and peace. (1 Thess 1)
 
These Wednesdays, we are trying to focus our attention on how we can witness Christ, that is how we can talk to others about our Faith with the hope that they also believe and come to Church with us. 
 
Last week, we said our first pro-tip to witnessing Christ is to become a fan of the Divine Service. Know the facts and the ceremonies like you know the facts and ceremonies of your favorite sports team. This tip works for two reasons: 1) because Jesus shows up at Church and its where He does His work and 2) people will see your interest and become interested themselves.
 
Tonight, we continue that fandom thought as we consider the way we hear God, that is through Law and Gospel. In other words, God’s No and God’s Yes. No and Yes is the simple way to understand Law and Gospel. God says no to us asking for His blessing in our sin or when we want to sin. God says yes to us only in one place, His Son.
 
These are the facts: God’s No and God’s Yes, and facts are one of the first things we need to be a witness. Emotions and feelings are not admissible in court and while they can help you communicate to people, your feelings and emotions are not theirs, neither do we find within them the power of God for salvation.
 
Though we harp on emotions a lot here, we do not dismiss them, we are all human after all. But when we want to win people over, we need to be more universal than that. So we mix them. We use both our emotions and our facts. We have our emotions down, but what are the facts?
 
To get to those, we have to go through Jesus, and in tonight's St Matthew reading, it appears as if Jesus has a secret saying things like “raised on the third day” and “whoever would be first must be your slave”. He also tells us at certain points in the gospel books, after He performs a miracle, to not tell anyone about it. You would think that His miracles would be great for personal testimonies, however, it is only one time, out of all those miraculous times, that Jesus says, “Go and tell”.
 
In Matthew’s gospel, its “Go and tell it to the Church”, in chapter 18. In St. Mark, it is in chapter 5 to a severely, demon-possessed man. The reason this guy gets the “go-ahead to go and tell” is because what Jesus does for him is closer to the facts of the matter, than all the other “hush-hush” miracles done.
 
That closeness is none other than what we confess in our catechism in the Creed, article 2: “I believe that Jesus Christ…is my Lord Who has redeemed me a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil.” And there is our witness! Nicely pre-packaged for us in our own Small Catechism!
 
In it are most all of the facts you need to be a sure and certain witness to others and tell God’s love for them. The 10 Commands sum up God’s will for our relationship with Him and towards our neighbor. Wonderful and holy works from God are found with them, and yet God still says “no” to most of what we want to do.
 
This is because our conflicting thoughts accuse us or even excuse us from these laws (Rom 2:15. These conflicting thoughts are unacceptable in witnessing, just as they are unacceptable in matters of faith. If you believe in God so much, why do you still waiver and why do you fight so hard against God’s Law? Remember, the Law always accuses us, it always reveals our sin (Rom 3:20). No amount of emoting in front of God relieves you.
 
As we approach the Gospel, in Law and Gospel not just the books, we come to Jesus’s big reveal of His secret which He wants no one to know. But He only wants no one to know before His resurrection. After His resurrection, after all the facts about God and His plan of salvation have been made known by Him, then it is, “Just as the Father sent me, I am sending you” (Jn 20:21).
 
So while the Law shows us our sin, the Gospel shows us our Savior. Faith cries out, “Jesus is Lord” (Rom 10:9) and “all men are liars” (Ps 116:11). My works only reveal my sin, but my Savior only reveals His salvation purchased and won for me. And to confess “Jesus is Lord” is the same thing as confessing that this man, Jesus, was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, was crucified, buried, raised and ascended. 
 
He is at the same time, in the same person, the Lord, the Son of God, one with the Father and the Spirit in one true eternal God. Again, a nicely pre-packaged witness, just waiting for us to speak it out loud. In the Gospel, Christ is center. God says “No” to us in our sinfulness, but all of God’s promises made are “Yes” to us, in Christ Jesus (2 Cor 1:20).
 
Where does this come out clearly in our day to day lives, in order for us to use the Law and the Gospel as a witnessing tool? Your Pastor’s sermons. So, witnessing pro-tip number 2 is to become a “sermon connoisseur”. 
 
St. Paul says to St. Timothy, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Tim 2:15). That “right handling” is to see the difference between Law and Gospel in what God says to us and it is the fundamental training every Lutheran Pastor goes through. Which means, it should be in every sermon.
 
Which also means you hear it on a weekly basis, at least. Which also also means that you have been a student of this art and have not known it. But now that you do know, you can look for these two things: God’s Law and God’s Gospel. You can listen actively for how God reveals your sin leading to repentance and for how Christ actively wins and dispenses His righteousness to us.
 
Maybe take some Sunday afternoon time to try and remember, with your family, where the Law and Gospel were in Pastor’s Sermon that morning, improving your memory of holy things and adding to your “facts” of witnessing.
 
This new listening will then spill over into how you read your Bible. That is, that you should be on the lookout from the same things: what God is telling you to do or not do, repent of and change. And at the same time, hear God’s promises made to you and His assurance of forgiveness in Christ.
 
And where does Law and Gospel and its application in our lives end? It doesn’t. It is the very center of our hearing and understanding God, thus it will be at the very center or everything we do. Not only will we be confessing God’s truth in Church, but in Christmas cards, explaining the importance of the season to friends and family. Also for funerals, graduations, new jobs, and new babies.
 
Let’s start with this evening’s readings. The Law from the OT is that God is in charge of everything and that He can save Israel if He wants to, but hearing Mordecai’s prayer it seems that its not so obvious God wants to. The Gospel is that God’s people are spared, not through earthly conquest, but through the person and work of Christ. God saves eternally, not just temporally.
 
What about St. Matthew? The Law is that the greatest must be the least, which does not work on earth at all, that somehow we have to get into Jesus’s kingdom, but that He is going to die. Of course the Gospel is the suffering and death of Jesus, followed by His resurrection, because it is there that the Least, Jesus, is made the Greatest, and that the price of sin, which bars entrance into heaven, is paid.
 
So is our witness to God’s loving care towards us, in Law and Gospel, and such is our place to bring where and when God works to ourselves and to our neighbors, not despising preaching and the Word, but holding it sacred and gladly hearing and learning it.