Forgiveness is never silent [Lent 2]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Genesis 32:22-32

• 1 Thessalonians 4:1-7

• St. Matthew 15:21-28

 

Grace to you and peace. (1 Thess 1)

 

Who speaks to you on this day from His Gospel heard, saying:

“O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.”

 

Today God puts before you this Canaanite woman in His Gospel. He wants you to hear it, because He wants you to believe that it is Jesus Who will be persecuted, suffer, die, and on the third day rise again. This moves you to repentance in confessing your sins to your pastor and receiving absolution, that is forgiveness as from Christ Himself. The entire life of the Christian should be one of repentance, because God has come to forgive.

 

But can He do so while remaining silent? As our Canaanite woman is ignored, so too, do we feel as if God is ignoring us or remaining silent, when we need Him. “To You I will cry, O Lord my Rock: Do not be silent to me”, says Psalm 28, “Lest, if You are silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit” (Psalm 28:1).

 

As sinners, we struggle under this revelation and under the command to “wait silently for God alone, For my expectation is from Him” (Psalm 62:5).

 

It is popular, American Christianity to think that when God wants to make you great, He always first breaks you into pieces. In order for you to really expand your horizons, give you abundance, or elevate your spirituality, first God must bring you low. You know, to teach you a lesson, or to teach you humility, or to just be a jerk, as our Gospel seems to present today. 

 

God must have great things in store for this woman, apparently, for she is taken down not just one notch, but several. First, Jesus ignores her, probably because she is a woman. Second, the disciples complain about her. Third, Jesus misidentifies her as not part of Israel. And fourth, Jesus mansplains to her, because, well, she didn’t get it the first few times.

 

Saying “because she is a woman” is just an excuse, however, from both sides of those who despise God’s Word. One side tries to dismiss the Word, saying it was for that time and place only and we know better now. The other side tries to create dogma here: see? that is a woman’s place.

 

When we try to understand from some sort of Social Justice Warrior standpoint, we lose faith. And, while we were busy with that, Jesus moved on to a bigger point: Faith. He does this by exalting this woman. He doesn’t do this with any of the disciples at all, but to the woman. 

 

In this way we discover the alleged “silence of God” where He stops talking, stops explaining, and stops taking sides. Today’s Gospel is one example. Not only is the woman suffering, but we are suffering today, because we are trying to find good things for our life, which exclude suffering.

 

We believe God is silent when He doesn’t give clear guidance or speak up when we feel we need Him to, so we suffer in our sin. We believe He is silent even when He says He is not. From Psalm 50, “Our God comes; he does not keep silence” (v.3). 

 

But we throw examples in His face. There’s the time between Joseph and the Exodus of 300 years where God did not speak up, even when all those babies were being murdered by Pharaoh. In-between the Old Testament and New Testament, there was no new Word of God for over 400 years. 

 

Repent! You may even be tempted to conclude that this is how God wants it. That He just traipses about, looking for broken people that He can scam into His religion if He just breaks them down enough. And if that is how you think, then God has done His work well, for you are to be led to repentance.

 

Repentance for believing God causes suffering for enjoyment. Repentance for believing God is silent. Repentance for not seeing Jesus in this exchange.

 

Jesus is treated like the woman, like a dog. He doesn’t mistreat the woman for fun. He treats her this way to show us how He is going to be treated by us. At Jesus’s Word, this woman becomes a type of Christ. She is elevated to the position of representing Christ on earth. She increases and He decreases. 

 

First, Jesus is ignored. He claims to be God, which is blasphemy, and He is believed by so many people that the Jews are afraid to oppose Him. Second, Jesus is complained about. He doesn’t wash before He eats, He eats with sinners and tax collectors, and He interrupts Jewish business, which they interpret as God’s business. 

 

Third, Jesus is misidentified. He is thought of as a fanatic, a false messiah, and an upstart trying to incite rebellion against Rome and the Temple. Neither side wants Him, but both are willing to put Him down for peace with the world. And fourth, Jesus gets true religion mansplained to Him. Jesus we don’t do those sorts of things around here. Jesus, we try to make people feel good about themselves and make them prosper, so they know God loves them. Conform or get out.

 

From Dr. Luther:

Here you can see what it means to believe. It may indeed seem an easy matter, but it is in fact a high and great art. Therefore when you feel your sin, when your bad conscience smites you, or when persecution comes, then ask yourself whether you really believe. At such times one is wont to run to saints and helpers in cloisters and in the desert for succor and relief, crying: "O my dear man, intercede for me! O dear saint, help me! O let me live! I promise to become pious and to do many good works." That is how a terrified conscience speaks. 

 

But tell me, where is faith? If you believe in the words of Christ, "None of them is lost whom Thou hast given Me" (John 17:12), then, as a Christian, you must say: "I acknowledge no saint here. I am a poor sinner deserving of death; but in defiance of sin and death I cling to Thee, and I will not let Thee go. I have taken hold of Thee, dear Lord Christ. Thou art my Life, and this is the Father's will, that all who adhere to Thee have eternal life and be raised from the dead. In the meantime let my fate be what it will. I may be beheaded or burned at the stake." 

No other life, whether it be called the monastic life or the life of St. Augustine or of St. John the Baptist, will arm a person for victory. Only faith in Christ can do so. (Martin Luther, ToDP, 1219)

 

In the decrease of Jesus, He increases, that is, His increase is His victory over sin, death, and the power of the devil. His increase is to suffer for the forgiveness of sins. His preaching is always and ever will be salvation in the death and resurrection of the Son of Man.

 

In this way, the Lord is never silent. Sure, He may not tell us which car to buy, which man or woman to settle with, or which path to take, but that is only because He has already said what He is going to say about all things in our life and His message is always the same: repent and be forgiven.

 

“Hearts that are secure and do not feel the wrath of God loathe consolation”, says the Apology of our Augsburg confession (Ap XII(V):264:51). If God appears to be silent to you, you are listening to yourself, the world, or the devil. You need to be shaken from your sin in order that you may be made to hear the Gospel.

 

“because”, our Apology continues, “the sum of the preaching of the Gospel is this, namely, to convict of sin, and to offer for Christ's sake the remission of sins and righteousness, and the Holy Ghost, and eternal life, and that as regenerate men we should do good works. Thus Christ comprises the sum of the Gospel when He says in the last chapter of Luke, “That repentance and remission of sins should be preached in My name among all nations.” (24:47)

 

And of these terrors Scripture speaks, as : “For mine iniquities are gone over mine head, as a heavy burden they are too heavy for me. ... I am feeble and sore broken; I have roared by reason of the dis-quietness of my heart.” (Ps. 38:4-8)

And Psalm 6:2-3: “Have mercy upon me, O Lord; for I am weak; O Lord, heal me; for my bones are vexed. My soul is also sore vexed; but Thou, O Lord, how long?” (Ap XII(V):259:30ff)

 

This is the constant, never-changing voice of God in any and all situations, be they silent or chaotic: the forgiveness of sins. When you face God’s apparent silence, He is pointing you back to where He is preaching. When God seems to not answer, He is answering you in the Gospel purely preached. When God appears to have left no trace of Himself in your life, He is drawing you to His Body and Blood given and shed for you; His true, bodily presence on earth.

 

St Ambrose reminds us that “It is faith that covers up our sins” (Ambrose, De Apologia Prophetae David 13, 3). There is no benefit to faith, if one first does not believe he is a sinner. There is no benefit to confession, if one is not then absolved. God first is silent to His only-begotten Son. God is first a jerk to Jesus, not a jerk, but a just and righteous God Who punishes evil

 

And that evil has been found in us. Justice demands justice. There are none good, only those who have faith and those without. “Therefore, let pious consciences know that the command of God is this, that they believe that they are freely forgiven for Christ's sake, and not for the sake of our works. And by this command of God let them sustain themselves against despair, and against the terrors of sin and of death. And let them know that this belief has existed among saints from the beginning of the world.” (Ap XII(V):271:71)

 

“Come, let us return to the Lord; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; He has struck us down, and he will bind us up”, says Hosea 6:1.

 

And

“You cause man to die and say, ‘Return, O children of man!’”, from Psalm 90:3, showing great faith in the resurrection.

 

For let us imagine that love is present, let us imagine that works are present, for this woman in our Gospel reading, for us in our lives, yet neither love nor works can be a propitiation for sin [or be of as much value as Christ]. And they cannot even be opposed to the wrath and judgment of God, according to Ps. 143, 2: “Enter not into judgment with Thy servant; for in Thy sight shall no man living be justified.” 

Neither ought the honor of Christ to be transferred to our works. (Ap XII(V):275:78)

 

And neither should we ever believe God to be silent on anything, especially on our forgiveness in Christ.

 

Smyrna in Prison [Wednesday in Lent 1]

TEXT ONLY / NO AUDIO

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Revelation 2:8-11

• St. Matthew 12:38-50

 

Grace to you and peace. (1 Thess 1)

 

Jesus speaks to you tonight, saying:

“Be faithful unto death and I will give you the crown of Life”

 

For many of us, this verse from Revelation 2 is our Confirmation verse and rightly so for it confesses the centrality of Faith given by God and hope in the Resurrection. However, where there is faith, there is the unfaithful and where there is resurrection there is the second death.

 

In the letter to the Church in Smyrna, we once again see the comparison between God’s Church and the Anti-church, satan’s chapel. Dr. Luther says, “Now when the devil saw that God built such a holy church, he was not idle, and erected his chapel beside it, larger than God’s temple.” (AE 41:167)

 

What this means is that these two churches are mixed like wheat and weeds. And while there are marks that distinguish, (The Word, Baptism, Communion, Office of the Keys, Called Pastors, prayer and thanksgiving, and the cross), there are also works that are indistinguishable, (leading honorable lives, loving neighbors, good citizens, upright, moral, charitable, holy living). The problem is that the devil will use these indistinguishable works, that the heathen practice better, and make others believe that these are the marks of the true church on earth.

 

The devil may even allow the reading of Scripture and the Lord’s Prayer to be said, to make them appear to be a great holy possession. But his purpose is different. He wants you to derive new strength and power from his aping tomfoolery, rather than from the works of Christ. 

 

Just as water becomes baptism by the Word and power of God, so the devil wants holy water to blot out sins. Just as the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ, so the devil wants bells to drive away demons, consecrated herbs to expel venomous worms, and blessings to heal cows. Whatever to make his acts look greater and more appealing than God’s.

 

Whatever to move men away from faith in Christ and to despise Word and Sacrament, because for us sinners, it is much easier to see immediate wants fulfilled in the devil’s sacraments than it is in Christ’s.

 

This is the tribulation in the Church at Smyrna. Though they have no specific sin mentioned against them, as the other churches do, they are caught between the devil and his chapel congregants: the world. They are thrown in prison twice: first for being faithful to Christ and second for being unfaithful to the devil, that is the State Religion. If you got nothing to hide, you got nothing to worry about, the saying goes. Too bad that’s a lie.

 

If there is no war, the media can create a war and everyone believes it. If there is nothing to hide, someone will create something to hide on you, to turn everyone against you. The truth won’t matter. It will only be that first, shocking headline of guilt, and your reputation is over.

 

You know why it’s prison? Because that is where the devil is going. In Revelation 20:2 the Lord says, “And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and imprisoned him for a thousand” million billion years. The devil’s mistake is that he thinks an earthly prison is just like hell.

 

But there is no comparison. His thousand million billion years outclasses ten days by any metric. The faithful in Christ will only deal with punishment, with bearing the cross, for a short while. The devil and those adherents to the Anti-church will bear that punishment forever.

 

That is the second death. The death that doesn’t end. The death that comes after the resurrection of all flesh, yet ends in hell, where punishment and separation from God last for all eternity. What overpowers this second death is the Crown of Life, which just so happens to look like a crown of thorns.

 

The First and the Last, the Man Who died and came to life, Jesus, bears His cross to gain the crown of victory. He runs the race. The race to save all humanity from their sins, is perfectly successful, and ascends in victory with His crown. It is His. His to wear, His to show, and His to give, if He chooses.

 

Jesus is almighty God after all. He needs nothing and has no obligation to give anything to anyone. And He chooses to cast His crown to you, which has the power over this second death that the Anti-Church possesses. That is, that they love their sins more than God and will carry them with them for all eternity, instead of the Love God wants to give.

 

This, The Bride of Christ, the True Church, does not suffer from. Though we are attacked by temptations, we will overcome them and finally win the victory, in Jesus. Again, from Revelation 20, “Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand” million billion years (v.6). 

 

The first resurrection being Baptism into the death and resurrection of Jesus.

 

When Jesus saw that we needed rescue, He suffered and died to purchase the Crown of Life for you, after spending 3 days and 3 nights in the belly of the fish. When He continued to see our need for the forgiveness of sins and reconciliation to God, daily, He richly gave us His Holy Church. And though several demons have taken up residence, possibly leading us astray, we have been given more than just spiritual marks.

 

The Light Jesus shines on His Bride is a purifying, sacramental light. Both spiritual and physical, we are taken in by our Good Shepherd by voice and action. We are faithful because we are a part of the Body of The Faithful, Jesus Christ. We are led to the Church of the Forgiveness of sins, not the church of miracles and good works. 

 

We pick up our cross, that is to walk through this sinful life, and follow The One Who Conquers as He calls us His brothers and sisters through Faith alone.

 

 

Beasts and the Lamb [Lent 1]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Genesis 3:1-21

• 2 Corinthians 6:1-10

• St. Matthew 4:1-11

 

Grace to you and peace. (1 Thess 1)

 

Jesus speaks to you on this day from His Gospel heard, saying:

“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil”, where “He was with the wild beasts” according to St. Mark’s account of the Temptation (Mk 1:13).

 

Presented to you today, is God’s account of His Temptation performed by Satan. Yes, Sts. Matthew and Mark recorded it, but it is here at God’s divine direction for you to hear, since He was there by Himself. All of Scripture is recorded at God’s command and by His will. The Lord includes His Temptation, because He wants you horrified of your sin, repenting of it, and be turned in love towards your neighbor. He points us to His Love found only by Faith and only received in our life, by Word and Sacrament.

 

Why the need to mention the wild beasts?

It is easy to control others if you give them a common enemy. An enemy you can dehumanize and call savages or beasts. To be fair, not all cultures are right. A culture based on sacrificing humans or constant warfare needs to be corrected in the light of the truth that all life is God-given. To call another human sub-human is reprehensible.

 

Reprehensible, because when you look at another person, you cannot help but see yourself. This is what the 5th Commandment is all about, because murder is not just you relieving someone of their life, but it is also you irreparably damaging your soul and your Faith. When you murder another, you murder yourself.

 

Though this may be a stark example, this is what sin has done to us and our world. It has put us in such a state that not only do we think and believe that others are less than human, but we also judge ourselves as less than human, and endlessly repeat this cycle of being curved in on ourselves.

 

Some may say that sort of vicious cycle creates hell on earth. That we believe that we have lost our humanity, and yet remain human by every definition of the word. We live with this malfunction every day, even if some of us are more adept at hiding it than others, this reality of inhumanity within us kills us.

 

Because of this, we believe sin has caused us to be less than human. That we have become something other than what God had created in the beginning. But that is false. If it were true, then what are we? More importantly, what was Jesus? If Jesus was a man, a human male as He claimed, then all His work was done for humans. But if we are not human, then that work is not for us. 

 

This is why, in our sin, we consider the wild beasts today.

St. Paul makes this comment in Titus 1:12; he suggests that maybe people can be beasts saying, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” And even though St. Paul is speaking against calling people beasts, he shows what we do, outside of faith. 

 

But God has created the beasts, so it shouldn’t be an insult, but it is. Not in the usual sense, meaning of lower and baser intelligence, but in the sense that beasts hear and obey God better than we do. A double insult.

 

For, every beast is mine, saith the Lord (Ps 50:10). They hear and obey. In things regarding God, they had the sense to stay away from His holy mountain, in Exodus 19.

In things regarding Creation, year after year they obey God’s command in the same way, each life, living, mating, dying. In this way, they are better than us and “All you beasts, wild and tame, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever”, as Daniel 3:81 proclaims.

 

Repent. We fancy ourselves human and that we can tame any beast, when we can’t even tame our own tongue. We fancy ourselves civil, decent, and upstanding. We fancy that these are the qualities of a person that sits in God’s favor. So when we hear of Jesus being tempted among the wild beasts, we think only of the difficulty of being outdoors with no defense against them.

 

When in reality, when the Gospel tells us that Jesus goes among the wild beasts, it is a picture of Jesus’s work on earth. That He goes to them because they have forgotten that they are fallen. He goes to them because they have forgotten they live in the life-less, merciless desert. He goes to them, because without Him, they would remain as beasts and die in their sin.

 

And when He comes, He presents Himself as a Lamb, a Lamb sent among wolves. There is only one thing a lamb has to offer wolves, or beasts, that is body and blood. There is no other skill or talent more valuable to a beast, from a lamb, than body and blood.

 

So it is that part of the temptation of Jesus is to show just how far fallen His creation is. It was not so in the beginning, but the time He chose for His Incarnation saw the world completely engulfed in sin, worse than Noah’s time, worse than Sodom and Gomorrah. Do I even have to mention what our place in history is like, in comparison?

 

This is His good and gracious will, however. For He said, “when the proper time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born subject to the Law” (Gal 4:4). That proper time included when we could not do for ourselves what Christ had to do for us, that is rescue us from our play-acting as beasts, remind us of our true humanity, and save us from that hell.

 

For what the Crucified Jesus has come to do is offer His flesh to the beasts. It is what a lamb does. He offers Himself on a silver platter, hiding His divinity, in order that He be able to be tempted on our behalf, as one of us. The God-man enters the fray, suffers, dies and rises again, not to make bread from stones, but to offer the Bread of heaven. The Bread that changes beasts into lambs.

 

Jesus willingly goes into life-threatening danger. Sirach 12 says, “Nobody pities the snake charmers who get bitten or those who go near beasts, and nobody will feel sorry for you if you run around with sinners and get involved in their wrongdoing” (v. 13-14). But all this Jesus does, because the promise is for salvation.

 

The promise from God is a covenant from God to let the beasts lie down in safety (Hos 2:18). The promise from God is that there will be water and bread and wine in the desert and no beast shall go near to destroy (Isa 35:9). The promise is not to destroy the beasts, but to turn their hearts, for the Lord will not remember old sin, because He is doing a new thing (Isa 43:18-19).

 

That New Thing is resurrection and regeneration. The beast in us is sin, and death, and the power of the devil. Yet, our sinful selves are spoken to, by God, and by hearing, receive Faith. So it comes to pass that beasts do honor and praise God by heeding His call to gather and eat and drink.

 

He says in Isaiah 56, “The Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, says, ‘Yet I will gather to  Him others besides those who are gathered to him. All you beasts of the field, come to eat,

All you beasts in the forest” (v.8-9)

 

And:

“Assemble yourselves and come; Gather together from all sides to My sacrificial meal which I am sacrificing for you, a great sacrificial meal on the mountains of Israel, that you may eat flesh and drink blood” (Ez 39:17).

 

For when the Root of Jesse comes to complete His Work on the cross, the wild beasts shall lie down with the Lamb of God, in the forgiveness of their sins (Isa 11:1-6). 

 

To sum up: in the first sense, part of what Jesus does in conquering sin, death, and the devil is that He restores all Creation. The wild beasts of the desert that used to be a threat will be good, once again. Their habitat will produce life. This extends to all of creation. What used to kill will no longer. What used to be harsh will now be pleasant.

 

In the second sense, Jesus regenerates us, not into being human again, but into Divine humans, assumed into God. That is, joined to Him forever in holy Baptism. He gives us His Holy Spirit so that we remember we are His creation as He said, that we remember our original sin, and that we remember that we have been raised to new life, for Good.

 

For if God so cares for and feeds even the wild beasts, even in His own Temptation, then how much more does He care for and feed you His Body and Blood, O Little Flock! For perhaps once you were called beasts, but now you are sons of God. 

 

To My treasure in Ephesus [Ash Wednesday]

TexT OnlY nO aUDio

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Joel 2:12-19

• 2 Peter 1:2-11

• St. Matthew 6:16-21

 

Grace to you and peace. 

 

Jesus speaks to you on this day from His Gospel heard, saying:

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

 

These Wednesdays in Lent, I’d like to briefly go through each of the seven Apocalyptic Letters to the churches, in the book of Revelation. Tonight, it’s the church in Ephesus.

 

Now to Ash Wednesday: We do not forbid good works. We do not discourage godliness, such as fasting, rather we place of first importance that which we first received: Faith in Christ Crucified. For the best and holiest deeds fail, rust, and are stolen from us by the devil, as works righteousness. They must fail, for Christ alone must be all in all, to Him be all glory. Continue in good works, dear Christian, but let your first stop always be belief in Christ Crucified for you.

 

This belief we will focus on tonight, in order that our treasure remain in the wounds of Christ, in other words, heaven. This we find in the Apocalyptic letter to the Church in Ephesus, from Revelation chapter 2. Rather, we find that they have forgotten and abandoned the Love they had at first. 

 

Take a listen:

“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.’

‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’”

 

Though there is a lot in there and not time to go through everything, we will simply start at the top. That is, the key to understanding Revelation is Christ Crucified and that He has purchased and won His Bride, the Church, from sin, death, and the power of the devil. Meaning, we need to hear this letter as if it were being read in the midst of Church Service and Church things.

 

St. John is writing to the Church, as he says, and in that Church of Christ, Christ Crucified is of utmost importance. That is, the preaching and teaching of what Jesus has done for you. So what are our clues in this letter to Ephesus? 

 

First, there are words that were written, the letter, and they are being read out loud, just like Church. Second, Jesus’s Name’s Sake has been bestowed upon them, that is they are little Christ’s in Baptism, having received His Name there. Third, there is repentance happening in the presence of lamps, that is the Light of the World physically present among His worshippers.

 

This is where the threat of punishment comes into focus. In verse 5, if repentance is not present in Church, then the Lampstand will be removed. That is, if the people have no sin, then Jesus will move on, for those who have no sin need no Savior. Or if the people believe they can move beyond what Jesus is doing, in His Church, then there is also no need for Jesus.

 

Here is our danger and the fruitfulness of celebrating Ash Wednesday year after year. Our danger is that we get too comfortable with sin, any or all of them, and believe that they are not worth forgiveness or that they don’t need forgiveness or that we can do it better than Jesus. 

 

And yet, each and every year, the Gospel of placing ashes on our foreheads is what is preached: “He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap” (1 Sam 2:8, Psalm 113:7). Dust never had it so good since God formed us from the dust and Jesus was made dust, for our sakes. 

 

We may be dust, but from the dust God formed Adam and from the dust He reformed us into His Image, Jesus Christ, through Baptism. For there is dust outside the Church as well. The Church with no lampstand is the Anti-Church, the Church of Babylon. 

 

The Lord says in Revelation, “Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, ‘So will Babylon the great city be thrown down with violence, and will be found no more…and the light of a lamp will shine in you no more, and the voice of bridegroom and bride will be heard in you no more, for your merchants were the great ones of the earth, and all nations were deceived by your sorcery. And in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all who have been slain on earth’” (18:21-24).

 

But of the Bride He says:

“And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb” (Rev 21:22-23) and “in Her midst stands the Tree of Life” (Rev 22:2).

 

For the Church at Ephesus is promised the One Who Conquers and He will eat from the Tree of Life, which of course is Jesus’ victory on the tree of the cross. So what was the first love that was forgotten by the Church? Jesus. But not just any Jesus. The Jesus that came in the flesh. The Jesus that enfleshed His Church, His Bride, in His own Body. The Jesus that, with His Word and Sacraments, keeps and purifies Her until He comes again. 

 

The Love we have forgotten, in our sin, is that Love that dies, rises again, and Communes with His people, in His Body. The light of the Gospel has gone out like an Altar candle. We have traded the free forgiveness of sins for the “Lord’s work”, or what we think is the Lord’s work. Yes we hate evil and root out the false apostles, but we replace them with ourselves and our unshakable faith.

 

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Our Light is in our midst. We can return, says St. Joel in our Old Testament reading. Returning means rending our hearts, tearing up all the works we think we do, and simply gathering around the work of God. For where the congregation gathers, there Jesus is among us.

 

We sit at His feet and let Him do His work and speak His peace. We plant ourselves in the pew and “the words of Him Who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands” is preached and taught to us that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and the Son of man. 

 

And as God does His work in His Divine Service, that’s what that means, we find ourselves fasting, not from food and drink, but from our own works and from our sinful nature. Because, when the Lord preaches His Word, there is no room for anything else except His Will. And when the Will of the Lord is done, every evil plan and purpose of the devil, the world, and our sinful nature is broken and hindered.

 

Every plan to keep us in the dust and every purpose to inflate our ego to godly heights is excommunicated. For at His Word, we are strengthened and kept firm in His Word and faith until we die. This is His good and gracious will, which is our treasure.

 

Our treasure which is not consumed, no matter how much we eat. Our treasure which is not corrupted or touched by sin and death. Our Treasure Who is not hidden or stolen away, since the command is to worship in public. Our Treasure, Who is given and shed for you, for the forgiveness of sins. Not the sins of being dust, but the sin of not believing that dust can house the Holy Spirit. 

 

Yes, Christ is our treasure, but now since He has created a clean heart within us, we are His treasure in His Church in Accident. 

The Word on Love [Quinquagesima]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• 1 Samuel 16:1-13

• 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

• St. Luke 18:31-43

 

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Eph 1)

 

Who speaks to you on this day from His Gospel heard, saying:

“And Jesus said to him, ‘Recover your sight; your faith has saved you.’”

 

Just let me get all the clichés out of the way, you too, because today our Epistle has spoken of love. 

What is love…if it don’t hurt me…no more. This quote implies that love is a double-edged sword, something that cuts forward and back. You may swing one way and win, but it may bounce back at you and you lose. We can’t answer that question any more than we can answer “what is a woman” or “what is truth”.

 

But it wasn’t so from the beginning. In the beginning, love created all things. Nothing that was created, was created without love. Love also wins in the end, because Christ wins in the end. It is inevitable. Christ is God and God is love. To find out about love, you look to Jesus.

 

And yet, after the beginning, so much blood and ink has been spilled over this topic that it amounts to insanity, that is, doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting something different to happen. Handing a sinner “love”, plugs him into an infinite feedback loop from which there is no escape.

 

Not only does the sinner repeat the same mistakes of those in love, in the past, but he also continues to misunderstand love, believing either he needs to love himself first or everyone needs to love each other, or else. This cognitive dissonance produces anxiety, depression, and illness. Love in the hands of an angry sinner actually turns to hatred.

 

This is why love hurts. Not because you are a victim or you have your own “love”, but because you believe with all your heart that if you have love, you will feel loved, happy, fulfilled. You believe “Love wins” only when that happens for everyone and so you try to fix the playing field that makes everyone unhappy. That usually means getting rid of those who think differently. 

 

So much for love.

 

However, you can’t just forget about the things that actually make you fulfilled and happy. There is real blessing from God in love. He made it. He gave it. So there are good things to be had in relationships from love. But again, our sinfulness rears its ugly head, slicing us on the backswing.

 

When we look at verse 8 of our Epistle reading, we find the thorn in our side, concerning love.  “Love never ends”, says Jesus and there’s our problem, because we end. There is an end to our love, even though we try and say that “love lives on in those we leave behind”, its not the same. Anyone who has lost someone that loved them will agree. They would rather have physical presence, than spiritual platitudes.

 

Love is the greatest gift, our Epistle ends with, and we are to pursue it, the next chapter in 1 Corinthians begins, and he even finishes the letter with, “My love be with you all in Christ Jesus”. And there it is.

 

Repent. We will seek out love anywhere else, everywhere else except in Christ. 1 Corinthians 13 is not about you, it is about God’s love towards us only in and through His Son, and it is about the love we have access to, only in and through that same Son, Jesus Christ.

 

Love, Jesus, is not an encourager of self-destruction, or dysphoria, or dysmorphia. Love does not transcend boundaries, or patriarchy, or cis-white-alt-right supremacy. Neither does love desire the “hate-crime amount of years” for a jail sentencing. All these fall under the double-edged sword, for all are beliefs that hold a double-standard. True love does not force “love” on others.

 

When the Christian says “God is love”, he is referencing the God-man, Jesus Christ, Who is His own person. The Christian cannot make things up, because God has already laid out what love is, in His Word. And not just the Bible either. God has come Himself, as the Word made flesh, to explain love and to live out love, in Jesus.

 

Our Gospel reading today is the beginning of this understanding, because it is there that we see Jesus Who is both willing and able. He is able to save this man from blindness and He is willing to pay the price for his sight, which is to be handed over, mocked, scourged, spit upon, flogged, and killed. 

 

You see love is not just an idea or an action, but it is both, united together. But an idea and action do not have their own presence, they need a medium, a tool to act out, in other words a body. This is why love is so often acted out physically between a man and a woman. This is also why there is so much protesting about what love is. When there is no object for self-love, that person must force everyone else to be as miserable as they are.

 

God is love and love was made man. This is the real meaning behind, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Not just that there was a “life laid down”, but that a true man was there to do it. That is exactly what the Greater Love, Jesus Christ, did in order that love, Himself, be actually known on earth. 

 

First, He preached and taught about love. He fed the poor, healed the sick, visited the imprisoned, and so on. The good works of Jesus are limitless. Even when He was walking around, St. John said of Him, “there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (Jn 21:25).

 

For God to condescend to our lives and do that for us, Himself, should be enough. But of course it is not. For sinners can also talk a lot and do a lot. There is no telling who is right or wrong simply by looking at their good deeds. This is the catch and trap we all fall into in the modern discussions on love.

 

Secondly, because of that sin, Jesus not only spoke and acted, but He showed true love in order to reveal that God does love His creation, through His Son. This is known because the life and sacrifice that Jesus made was accepted by the Father and He was raised from the dead. The resurrection of Jesus proves that the love of God is real, that is His way of love, and that He shows it to those who repent and believe.

 

But even that wasn’t enough for God. He knows words and sermons can be forgotten and twisted. He knows that healing this blind man, from the Gospel, was only for that man and not for us. He knows that His “not being around today like He was” puts an extreme amount of stress on modern believers. 

 

Thus, thirdly, He creates His Church. The place where preaching, the resurrection, and love all come together in the nice, neat package of Word and Sacrament. It is not enough for Jesus to just heal earthly ailments, they will come again and ultimately take us into death. It is not enough for Jesus to just “lay down His life” either, though this purchases, wins, and accomplishes salvation for all of time.

 

The love of God is such that He does all of that and continues to love in our hearts, minds, souls, AND bodies. The love of God does not find love on earth, but creates that love in which He delights. This means that no matter our state, God is able and willing to give His love to us so that we may be lovely for all eternity. This love is grasped only by faith.

 

Love is not the answer. Is love greater than faith? Shall I give up all in order to stay with love? Do I count as loss Christ, His Blood, His wounds, and all His benefits to obtain love? 

 

Love is the effect, the fruit, the what-comes-afterward. It is not the cause of Divine Forgiveness. For that is what we need for our love: forgiveness. No matter how much we love, we will never gain God’s love.

 

But, are we Christians saved the same way when we were baptized or has God changed the rules?

Is Christ’s Blood sufficient for our sanctification or not?

If you do get to heaven, how will you get in? By how much you loved your neighbor? Your spouse? Your enemy?

 

The love of man is generated by what it delights in; finicky, picky, fragile. From our Old Testament reading, David was unloved by his family, the seventh not at the feast. The love of God creates the love of God in you. David was chosen, because the love of God changed him into beloved of God, a man after His own heart, by Faith alone. 

 

“Love to the loveless shown that they might lovely be” we sing in our hymn (LSB 430:1). And let’s not forget Proverbs 3, “My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the LORD reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights” (v.11-12).

 

Love seeks to build up, not to indulge. If we truly love our neighbor, we will want what's best for him, not just what he thinks he needs. Because God truly loves us and wants our best, therefore He sent Love to suffer, die, and rise again. Our neighbor needs that love, that Jesus, just as much as we do. That Love will bring him to Church, where Jesus is speaking and working for him.

 

Thus faith suffers any and everything sent from God, be it tears or gladness. Because now we do not desire self-fulfillment, but love from the Father. As He spoke to the Son, “This is my beloved Son in Whom I am well pleased”. In faith, we unwearily pursue this love of Father to Son.

 

But He finds us first. He claims us first. He baptizes us first, into the Beloved, such that when the Father now looks at us, He cannot help but say, “You are my beloved”. Love never ends. Your sin does not end Him. The cross does not end Him. Death does not end Him. And united to Him in baptism, neither will any part of this world end you.

 

True Love desires faith in Christ, forgiveness of sins, and eternal life in Him. The world does not know love, because it does not desire these things, but Jesus loved you first so that you may.

 

In the dirt [Sexagesima]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Isaiah 55:10-13

• 2 Corinthians 11:19-12:9

• St. Luke 8:4-15

 

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Eph 1)

 

Who speaks to you on this day from His Gospel heard, saying:

“As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.”

 

In His Word, today, God puts these four soils. He wants us to hear about them, because, once again, He wants to show and prove His power over darkness, sin, and weakness. This points us to cry out with St. Paul, have mercy on my weakness, and He does. Therefore we should live our lives in hope, not doubting that God is with us and not even our lives can be against us.

 

So last week we discovered that the devil is struggling in his defeat, during Lent. Now what? We have been saved by grace alone, what do we do now? In other words, “what is life”? Especially when we must face struggle after struggle and yet believe in a God of lovingkindness and mercy. 

 

The big questions in life, right? Why are we here? What’s the meaning of life? If we take Jesus’s parable today at surface value, then we must conclude that we are dirt. Which makes sense, since God formed man from the dirt, in the beginning and its something we will confess on Ash Wednesday, “thou art dust and to dust thou shalt return.”

 

But the dirt doesn’t fare well in today’s parable. There seems to be four choices, if we get to choose, and only one right choice. The odds are not in your favor on picking the right one, if only because Jesus never tells you how to pick the right one. There is the belief that Jesus mentions, and holding the Word in your heart, but how does that work? Any heart surgeon will tell you that there are no words in any heart that they’ve ever seen.

 

So we could be dirt or we could be those who “see but do not see, and hear but do not hear”. That seems far more likely, because whatever Jesus is talking about in this parable, I just cannot seem to hear it.

 

And here we return to our questions about life. We never understand the decisions we are confronted with. Sometimes they are easy, but most of the time we are just winging it. We are never really “ready” to grow up and become married, parents, or employees. We just do what we think is best. “Seeing we do not see”

 

Most of the time we feel like dirt. And even though dirt has potential to produce good things, the first thing that always crops up are weeds. Weeds and bugs and verm’nts. We don’t make the right decisions. Everything always goes wrong. I wish I wouldn’t have done that. Why can’t anything work out? When’s my turn?

 

Repent. Whatever role you wish to see yourself in, whether in Christ’s parable or even in your own life, not only does God have other plans, but in your sin, you completely miss God’s mark. When you hear Jesus speaking to you, your sinful nature cannot help but rise to the surface and rebel.

 

On the outside you present yourself as a God-fearing, Christ-is-Lord, I-love-Jesus believer. You go to church, you give your offering, and you say the right things. You are a nice guy, who would ever doubt you? 

 

That is, you are a nice guy until the going gets tough. Then it comes out. But that’s just natural, you’ll say. Nobody’s perfect. We’re just human. And you’re right but not right. You are just human, but life under God, means humans are to confess and seek absolution, or forgiveness for their sins, not excuses.

 

This is what God means, when He says, “bear fruit with patience”. Yes we should seek to be more patient and pray for it, but we should also realize and believe that when God comes near, sin in us causes turmoil with His presence, because when God draws near, He brings His kingdom, His Law, and His Will with Him.

 

And those things always accuse us of never doing the right thing. “For the heart, truly feeling that God is angry, cannot love God”, “in agony of conscience and in conflicts [with Satan] conscience experiences the emptiness of these philosophical speculations. Paul says, Rom. 4:15: The Law works wrath. He does not say that by the Law men merit the remission of sins. For the Law always accuses and terrifies consciences” (AP IV(II):36-38).

 

God demands patience in the dirt. Patience in life, in the dirt. Because it is in every moment, every decision that the holiness of God comes near. Not just every once in a while, but every turn we face. No matter what it is or how small it is, God says it is good for you to be here. 

 

God is in the dirt. One of my favorite paintings is named the Circle of Giorgio. It is a painting of the Holy Family, resting for a bit on the way to Egypt with the infant Jesus. Sts. Joseph and Mary are kneeling in the grass and baby Jesus is in a circle of dirt, by Himself. For He was not born in a palace, but in a feeding trough, in weakness.

 

Today, Jesus is the Sower, Who is not walking around heaven’s Gardens or Eden’s paradise. He is seeding, spreading His own Word from His lips, in places where there is no life. Before Jesus gets to the path, there is nothing there, not even birds. He plants the Word and life takes place. 

 

Before Jesus gets to the rocks and the thorns, there is nothing to choke out, nothing to wither up. Jesus throws His life into these places and life happens. Before Jesus gets to the good soil, nobody knows its good until the seed falls into it and dies, in order to produce its fruit.

 

Dear Christians, Christ has risen from the dead to produce in you the life that He seeks from you. And now that Jesus has finished His work, you are living that life today. How can that be true, when life is such a train wreck? It is true, because life in the dirt is life under the cross.

 

It is the cross of Christ that forms every part of our lives today, though we may not be able to see it. Sure we see the suffering part, but the blessing and goodness is for the eyes of faith to discover. Jesus was not much to look at, says Isaiah 53:2, and yet His life proved His identity. His perfect life towards God and His perfect sacrifice for you.

 

And in His God-made-man-perfection, He comes to play, to work in the dirt, in order to make the dirt rise up and sit with Him on His throne. Rejoice, dirty Christian, for your Lord comes to you, where you are in your weakness. 

 

Our Epistle has taught us this morning, that we ought to boast in our weakness and, as we have seen, our weakness is our whole life. That weakness God shares with us, in His Son. That weakness God embraces to Himself, in Jesus. That weakness, God crucifies and buries in the dirt, in order that a new man arise, daily, to live before Him in righteousness.

 

In our weakness, the power of Christ rests upon us. Not the “I can sin however I want” weakness, but the weakness of a terrified conscience that knows, no matter how hard it tries, sin continues to come back, threatening eternal condemnation. 

 

The potential of dirt, of the sinner, is in Christ alone. By His Word and Sacrament, He regenerates the sinner, causing him to produce the same life that God does. We must bear our weakness still, we must bear our cross, but those lead to forgiveness, in Jesus. Faith shows that in the midst of dirt, the Savior rises, changing us into His excellent fruit, pleasing to God. 

 

This happens, no matter what our lives look like, because our faith is not in ourselves, but in the God Who suffered, died, and rose again for us. So live your life like you trust your baptism and let Him do the washing. For it is only in His Word of Life that any life can be had. And any life in His Life is a washed life, a holy life, unto the Lord.