Letters of death and resurrection [Trinity 12]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Isaiah 29:17-24

• 2 Corinthians 3:4-11

• St. Mark 7:31-37

Grace to you all and Peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus, the Christ.

 

Who speaks to you today, from His Gospel heard in His Church, saying: 

“And Jesus charged them to tell no one. But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.”

 

So apparently, these proclaimers were not paying attention. Jesus said, in our Epistle, that it is not the letter that gives life, but the Spirit. Yet they still proclaimed this miracle using words coming out of their mouth which translates to letters, which according to some teachers out there, cannot be the Good News, because the letter brings death.

So which is it?

 

We will focus on these letters of Jesus through Saint Paul today for this reason, because many teachers of the faith will use this verse to show us that organized religion is of the devil. It usually gets brought up when there is a debate and someone wants to use Church history as a point. They will then say, “the letter kills but the spirit gives life”.

 

What this means is that they want to win the point, no matter if they contradict themselves, because they also use letters. It also means they believe that the Holy Spirit does not use earthly means to save, only spiritual. So, we are not real Christians because we have written traditions, hymns, prayers, and sermons and those are all of the letter and so they all bring death and so you are at the wrong church right now, my friends.

 

What is this letter that kills? In order to understand Jesus as not contradicting Himself, we simply look ahead to how He explains it in the next verse of the Epistle. The letters are the letters that are carved in stone, belonging to the glory, glory!, of the Ministry of Death. And what was written on stone, but the Ten Commands given to Moses! So God wrote and initiated the Ministry of death?! And we teach it to our children??!

 

Yes they are written on stone and kept in the Ark of the Covenant. They are also written on our hearts. Thus linking those stone tablets with our hearts, which God says are made of stone, in Ezekiel 36:26. The Letters, the Law, written on stone tablets given to Moses, also written on the stone hearts which we all have, by the same finger of God. Hearts closed to God and to our neighbor. 

 

You don’t think so?

 

Let me prove it to you. We also have written letters of death we call the laws of the land. Written by men, written on paper which can be changed or erased at will. Recently, for the only reason being that government programs need to continue to receive funding, the Trans-gender movement has been out-pacing the homosexual movement. Interest in homosexuality has plummeted and been replaced by trans-issues. 

 

We think that once a law is written and codified, that outrage ceases. Women’s suffrage, Civil rights, Roe v. Wade, and the Obergefell case are all examples of the outrage culture getting their way and yet not being happy with the results they wanted, because they just want to be outraged. 

 

But the trans-movement has officially erased them all. When these “trans” laws, these letters, get on the books, no one will matter because everyone is the same. There is no difference between men and women so there are no women’s rights. These letters, written in the stones of our country aims at death. The death of meaning and the deaths of all who disagree.

 

Repent! How did we get here? Whatever we have been doing for our entire lives brought us here. No matter how noble or good we thought it to be, those actions brought us to today. We may have had good intentions, did our best, and tried to follow God, but here we are. Will blaming letters get us out of it? No. That is the sin from which we need rescue.

 

That is the true meaning of Jesus’s words, because it has to do with sin. The sin of glorifying anything that is not God. Sin makes it so that when God shows up to confront it, only one survives and it won’t be sin. Jesus calls it a ministry of death, not because it is a death ray just waiting for someone to sin, but because when someone sins, they remove themselves from the source of life: Christ.

 

Coming back to the Commands then, the same thing appears to happen. Humanity is erased because the commands and demands of the letter of the law are superhuman. They are at levels that describe something else, not human. Just looking is adultery. Just being angry is murder. Just fearing is idolatry. There might as well be a command against breathing, as high as that bar is.

 

Is this really what Jesus is saying? First that religion is of death and second that we can never reach righteousness? 

 

The letter is the ministry of death only when sin reads, marks, learns, and inwardly digests the things of God. The Glory and Holiness of the Letter remains, even though it kills the sin and the sinner. Look again at the Gospel. Jesus uses words, letters, and the very fingers that wrote out the Commands on stone in order to right the sinful wrong of this deaf, mute man. 

 

What does that mean? It means that the many spirits of humans attempting life, do not reach it. It means the spirit of sin is the letter that causes death, as Jesus says, “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life” in John 5 (v.39-40).

 

That is, you search the letters in search of other letters which you can use to justify your prejudice and your sin, instead of searching for the letter that brings life, that is the Word of God, Jesus Christ. In the sinful world, the perfect world is just one piece of legislation away. In God’s World, the perfect world in found in His Man: the Messiah.

 

God has not changed His mind in Jesus, allowing Jesus’s words and letters to give life. God’s Word has always given life. It gives death to those without faith, for it is only faith that takes a hold of and receives the things of God. The letter does not kill. The wages of sin is death. The free gift of Faith is eternal life in The Word. 

 

The reason why God’s fingers and letters do not cause death is because God’s fingers and letters have been crucified. His fingers protrude from nail-pierced hands that have carried the sin of the world. His letters drip and ooze with forgiveness on account of His crucifixion.

 

In the resurrection of Jesus, the Spirit of God given is a life-giving Spirit. Likewise, because of the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the letters of God also give life. Along with the fingers of God, the Hand of God, and the spit of God. 

 

It is the letters of men that bring sin, death, and carry the power of the devil. Men may have written the Bible, but those letters are the Spirit-inspired Word of God. Men wrote our hymns, prayers, and sermons, but any of that which agrees with the letters of God, also are good for teaching the Gospel.

 

And that is the goal: gaining the free Gospel. Although the Gospel given is spiritual, the mode by which it is given is human. Jesus, both God and man, came to secure eternal life and salvation for all who believe. Believe what? His word. How is that given? By hearing. Hearing what? Hearing the words and the letters God used, in His body, to accomplish it.

 

God’s Word has gone out to all lands, through His Apostles. Scripture does not say “to all spiritual lands” nor “through spiritual Apostles”. These lands are your lands. These Apostles are your Apostles and their teachings have been written that you may believe. 

 

Thus the Church keeps and guards this eternal treasure, not so that no one can find it, but so that no one can take it and mess it up. The Church keeps and guards in order that we may always find Christ opening our ears and tongue to His Word and Sacrament, and not our failed attempts at purity in the doctrines of men.

 

Because it is not the doctrine of men that brings God into communion with you. It is the fingers, ears, and tongue of God that does such wonderful things. In Jesus, God comes to commune in Body, Blood, and Spirit. None of them are separated. Christ retains His humanity and His divinity, always, such that His Spirit and His letters give life. 

 

In that communion, you are given such a miracle as to speak plainly your confession in front of God and the whole world. The proclamation that Christ lives, that He is eternal God, and that He has come to save you through means. Means which you can grasp with ears, tongue, and heart.

 

Love is not love [Trinity 10]

 

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Jeremiah 8:4-12

• 1 Corinthians 12:1-11

• St. Luke 19:41-48

Grace to you all and Peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus, the Christ.

 

Who speaks to you today, from His Gospel heard in His Church, saying: 

“And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold”

 

Love is love, they tell us.

And I can hear St. Peter quoting holy Scripture while Jesus is driving out of the Temple in today’s Gospel, “C’mon! Thus saith the Lord, draw near to me and I will draw near to you! Why are you running away??”

Come. Clo. ser. Love. is. love.

 

Draw near to God, but wait till He calms down first. Draw near to God, but first put that flaming sword away. Draw near to God, but first turn off those heavenly faucets. Draw near to God, but first drop the thunderbolts and firestorms out of Your hands. Love is love.

 

If Jesus has to leave a constant, heavenly reminder in His Word to “not be of the world”, then you know your default position is “of the world”. You are of the world because you believe Love is Love. How the establishment gets you to believe this is they make the definition of “love” all about you and who wouldn’t approve of that?!

 

They reason to you this way: “shouldn’t you be able to love your wife and love your family? No one should be able to tell you how to do that. You see, we agree?” 

By this they do two things: first, they eradicate any possibility that truth lies outside of yourself and second, they confuse “leaving people alone” with “making laws against others who don’t believe”.

 

Leaving people alone is just fine and Christians can be on board with this. Jesus has given the example of “shaking the dust off your feet” with any city or house that refuses to believe, no matter how much truth is given (Mt 10:14). He has also said things like, “let the dead bury the dead” (Mt 8:22) and “don’t cast your pearls before swine” (Mt 7:6). 

 

However, you leave them alone because it is not you who saves them, but it is God’s Word that works. You may not be the one to “save” them, but your goal is simply to give God’s Word. Once that’s accomplished, good. But even before that, we have Jesus referring to some people as dust, dead, and swine.

 

The Love is Love crowd will not stand for that, because now they are oppressed and we must love the dust, dead, and swine-people too otherwise we are Soil-ists, Alive-ists, and Domesticated Animal-ists. On those accounts, Jesus is out. Christianity is incompatible with Love is Love and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

 

Now we come to find that love is NOT love. Now Love is what we say love is and that can change, so stick to your tweeter accounts so you know which love we are talking about today. Love is love does not mean love is love. And since that’s the case, we can’t just leave it up to people to define this love. We must do it for them, for the greater good, or else.

 

Repent. You believe love is love. How do you know? Jesus, in the Gospel today, overturning tables and beating people until they leave the Temple, makes you uncomfortable. In fact, you have been so desensitized by the “love is love” programming, that thinking about these things doesn’t even gain your attention any more. You are not being “authentic, to your true self-self” if you let someone else define love for you!

 

Let me make the point: if the slogan was “adultery is adultery” would you get upset then? 

If the slogan was “abortion is abortion”, as if to say we make excuses and word-salads to promote these satanic activities because someone thinks that their life and identity are enwrapped in nothing else besides these behaviors, would you protest then?

 

So what is Jesus doing today? Jesus is being loving. Contrary to all senses and sensibilities, Jesus is lovin on those people. Do not go against your conscience, when you witness these seemingly unapproachable acts of God. You act the same way. You stop yourself, for the most part, from doing certain things or participating in certain things because the Holy Spirit has convicted you of sin in the matter. 

 

In the same way, Jesus is here, cleansing the Temple, after Palm Sunday, of sin. You see, true love is not you laying down your life for your friends (Jn 15:13) or believing all things (1 Cor 13:7). True love is God laying down His life for you, to rescue you from something that you don’t even know is killing you for all eternity.

 

The real question is, if “love is love”, then why did God have to die on the cross? If “love is love” could save the world and everything was just fine in the Temple, then why did the wrath of God descend upon those “innocent” dealers and money-changers? They were just providing a service for those pilgrims from out of town, after all, right?

 

Love is love when you can love your enemies. Love is love when you can love God’s enemies. Love is love when God’s enemies, those who sin against Him, no matter how much, are declared righteous, not of their own doing, but of God’s divine Action! 

 

In the Temple with His whip of cords, God is not driving away or causing unnecessary division here, we are. We live with double-mindedness, where we say one thing and do another, also known as hypocrisy. We believe God doesn’t know what He doing. We believe in religious freedom in the Church. This comes out as we flee from the God we have begged to draw near to us and flinch from the sting of the horribleness of our sin, when He does. 

 

God is the only single-minded being in Creation. We approach God with a backup plan when He does things we don’t like. God approaches us with His Body and Blood, a one-way ticket. In this way we can see that not all love is the same. Our double-mind thinks it has the upper hand, because it thinks twice as much as God does. It’s sinfulness believes that it tricks God into having this sort of violent zeal for the Lord’s house in order to catch Him doing it and then not believe in Him when He acts.

 

St John 2 says, “And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath consumed me” (John 2:17) “and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me” continues the quote from Psalm 69 (Ps 69:9). 

 

When it is in that, Scriptural zeal, it refers to Christ. That the reproaches, the sins of the sinners, fall on Christ and not on the backs of those who deserve it. The men being driven out today had lots of love, but no faith. The sin within has lots of love, but no faith.

 

You see, Jesus doesn’t believe in you or your love, that’s why He saves you. It’s because Jesus knows you completely that he knows how completely you need to be rescued from your love and from the divisions you cause, especially between you and the Lord. They need to be driven out, violently, because you hold onto them violently. And in Christ, He reveals the gracious magnitude of God’s love, come to cleanse all from division, and unify in His Body and Blood.

 

Jesus knows good and well that there’s nothing inside us worth believing in. In fact, everything inside us looks absolutely untrustworthy. If anything, when the Lord peers into our hearts, He should hightail it for the hills, getting as far away from us as He can. But He’s not that kind of God. 

 

He loves before He looks. And even after He looks, He still loves, because His love has nothing to do with us, except He bestow it upon us. It is not sparked by our goodness or sustained by our obedience. God is love. It’s who He is and what He does. While we were still loveless, He was full of love to save. While we were still sinners, He was still the sinless, gracious, saving God He’s always been.

 

The love of Christ is truly an untranslatable love. A No-holds-barred mercy. A Covenant of faithfulness engaged in, even if it costs God the lifeblood of His beloved Son. That love is the beating heart of God in cruciform display. The kind of love that chases us to the ends of the earth, picks us up, places us atop divine shoulders, and dances all the way home. 

 

There really is only one word that encompasses the totality of what that actually is - Christ. He is the love of the Father made flesh. “Remember your mercy, O Lord, and your Love, for they have been from of old”, says Psalm 25:6. 

 

God’s love has always been there, from of old. It is we who have changed, turned left and right, and have been driven by the wind of fad, fortune and “love is love”. Such that, when God finally draws near to us, we feel the depths of our degradation, we see the “darkness that can be felt” inside us, and we know its our fault. So we run, because we think the “whip of cords” is for us.

 

But Jesus brought the whip of cords for His own back and He wept because of the hardness of your heart to not see His suffering, death, and resurrection for you. For in three days, He rebuilt the Temple proper, that is, His Body, the Church, and baptized you into it.

 

The things that make for Peace, then, are in that Temple, that Body of Jesus. The time of our Visitation is such that God is made man, which is unheard of! The House of Prayer is found in the Lord’s Prayer and the Body and Blood that purchased and won it from God’s lips, to our ears, to God’s lips once again.

 

Unrighteous Mammon [Trinity 9]

 

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• 2 Samuel 22:26-34

• 1 Corinthians 10:6-13

• St. Luke 16:1-9

Jesus and St. Peter pay tax (left), while the pope bans taxes on the clergy (right).

from The Passionary of the Christ and Antichrist, L. Cranach, 1521

Grace to you all and Peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus, the Christ.

 

Who speaks to you today, from His Gospel heard in His Church, saying: 

“And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.”

 

Speaking of unrighteous wealth: Why then should you fear poverty? Why hunger after wealth?

You will answer: I fear lest I should ever be forced to come to another man's door to ask for help. And I hear many making this same prayer, and saying: may I never come to this, that I shall stand in need of the help of men”, says St. John Chrysostom, and then continued to laugh at them who prayed in such a way.

 

For it is in just such a way that you, in your sin, seek to capitalize, not just in life, but on God’s Word. You make poor people poor, because you believe in your absolute right to unrighteous wealth, that what belongs to you is yours by divine right and others have no hold or claim on you and yours. As if you saw your brother in need and made him seek b

bureaucracy instead of your charity.

 

An example of this is the “Kosher” label that is placed upon many foods in our grocery stores and in our days the “Halal” label, from Jews and Muslims, respectively. These labels mean that these foods have been “blessed” for ceremonial use. These labels are fabricated to make money and to show that the fullness of God which you are seeking lies behind a pay wall and, unless you cough up the dough, you don’t get it.

 

This has fooled many a Lutheran as well. Many churches use communion wine exclusively because of the Kosher label on it, thinking that somehow they are closer to their Jewish Carpenter Boss by drinking it, than any other wine. And they pay for it and are laughed at for thinking such things by those who sold it to them.

 

Those that hold to this unrighteous gathering of wealth are not satisfied to ask God to give daily bread. They gather a great store of riches of which they may depend, in case our God should die today or tomorrow. They believe that storage will then offer them a way out of this whole God, forgiveness, and everlasting life thing.

 

This is our true, sinful fear; that God is not true and that we have to lay up for ourselves treasure on earth, because we’re all there is. “Mammon”, the word Jesus uses in our Gospel today, means goods or riches, and such goods as one does not need, but holds as a treasure, and it is gold and possessions that one deposits as stock and storage provisions. This Christians do not do, they gather no treasures; but they ask God for their daily bread.

 

Mammon shows no such mercy. It lies quiet and lets others serve it, remaining silent in all matters. And for this reason the New Testament calls covetousness idolatry, since it thus desires to be served. This is how you distinguish this false god.

 

Repent. Either you must love God and hate money; or you must hate God and love money; this and nothing more. He is a lord over mammon who lays hold of and uses it for the sake of those who need it and lets God rule, Who says in Luke 6:38, “Give, and it shall be given unto you”; have you nothing more, you surely have me still, and I have still enough, yea, I have more than I have given away and more than can ever be given away.

 

Mammon, or unrighteous wealth, has to do with trust. Trust is the root meaning of Faith. Those who trust in wealth’s abilities sin. Those who have Faith, face this world of sin and distinguish between righteous and unrighteous service and cling to forgiveness in the Lord’s words, “What God has cleansed, do not call unholy” (Acts 10:15).

 

The unrighteousness of wealth does not negate the Righteousness of God. If we speak of earthly things, such as unrighteous wealth, then the Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof (Ps 24:1). What can you find in the whole realm that did not come from God? If we speak of heavenly things, then anything the Lord gives is a gift from the heavens. God is not, thereby, unrighteous!

 

St. Paul explains this a bit in 1 Corinthians 10:

“All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful...or build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor. Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience…If one of the unbelievers invites you to dinner and you are disposed to go, eat whatever is set before you without raising any question on the ground of conscience. But if someone says to you, ‘This has been offered in sacrifice,’ then do not eat it, for the sake of the one who informed you, and for the sake of [his] conscience” (v.23-28).

 

“God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of discipline” (2 Tim 1:7). They told Jesus, the Jews seek your life to take it and He said, “I’m going to Jerusalem” (Mt 16:21). Jesus knew Judas was going to betray Him to a violent subjugation at the hands of men. Jesus said, “What you have come to do, do quickly” (Jn 13:27).

 

Jesus knew His heavenly Father was going to have Him scourged, falsely condemned, and crucified and all Jesus said was, “Where and when, Father?” There is no timidity or weakness in God. He does not run and hide if you cook bacon in front of Him (pigs are unclean animals). He does not shriek in fear if you bring Him kosher wine. He does not exile you to hell if He smells money on you.

 

Christ has come to forgive and cleanse from all unrighteousness and no unrighteousness will be left unturned. The righteousness of God is found only in Christ and His crucifixion. This atoning crucifixion is not accomplished through meats, or false idols, or money. It is accomplished through the Body and Blood of God, apart from the Law.

 

This in order that the righteousness that pleases God be found outside of anything we think we can do or put in the way. And unless we love our sinful thoughts, words, and deeds more than eternal life with Christ, then the righteousness of Christ cleanses all of life for those who believe.

 

The crucifixion of Christ produces the Righteousness necessary to upend and overturn unrighteous wealth and its fruit: death. Unrighteous wealth demands service, obeisance, and sacrifice or else. The Righteousness of God in Christ demands nothing, but is of service to you in keeping Him forever.

 

You are the prize, having been granted faith in Christ. At the Word and by the deeds of Jesus, you are the pearl without cost, the treasure made worthy by the Worthy Lamb of God. This is because He does not just create righteousness, but baptizes you into His righteousness. He covers you with it so completely, that even the gates of hell break against it.

 

His righteousness reaches to the heavens (Ps 71:19). “The heavens declare His righteousness, And all the peoples have seen His glory” “glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (Ps 97:6, Jn 1:14).

 

Grafted into this physical Body of God, you now deal with earthly and spiritual riches. You are given the shrewd wisdom to be true sons of light, or rather part of the Body of the only Son of Light, Jesus Christ. In this Body, Faith rules and by faith all things are clean.

 

For example, Dr. Luther describes it this way: “You must hence remember that eternal life consists of two things, faith and what follows faith. If you go and believe and do good to your neighbor, everlasting life must follow, although you never think about it. Just as when you take a good drink, the taste will follow as soon as you drink, even though you do not seek it.” (Church Postils, Vol II:298)

 

Belief and faith cleanse the money that you use to the benefit of God and neighbor. Belief and faith give you courage to walk through the valley of the shadow of Kosher and Halal, acknowledging only the Triune God. Belief and Faith grant you the gift of Christ Jesus, His redemption, His grace, and His salvation by hearing and believing that Faith is to be found in Body and Blood.

 

God is not dying anytime soon neither is He going away. The fulness of His eternal gifts are not behind a paywall neither are they behind a requirement wall, apart from the Faith He gives. He is not petty. He will not kick you out because you use unrighteous wealth. 

 

He has given us all good things by becoming unrighteous on our behalf. He has cleansed our hearts and heads, by becoming unclean. He does not need to cleanse anything else. If you are clean, all things are clean to you. Similarly, if you are alive in Him, then all things are alive for you. Or at least, when you walk through death, as your Savior did, it will have no more hold over you than it did Him, for the Son has set us free indeed.