Pills and Medicine [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

 

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 called him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’”

 
Thus far from the Gospel, included in God’s Word so that we begin to understand that the world is not always what we think it is. We are Jesus-pilled, so to speak, when He arrives in His own rational body to do His own work. We didn’t think things were that bad, but His suffering, death and resurrection points us to the hostility of the world towards God and the centrality of the cross for us. 
 
This should point us, in faith, towards our hymn of the day. When we look out on the world, we should immediately be distrustful because of its corrupt nature and because of our own corrupted senses. There is good to be found in the world, because of God’s mercy, but the world will pass away. The quicker we realize this, the quicker we will come to see blessings instead of curses.
 
The entire world is addicted to pills in some form or another and not necessarily literal pills. The most popular pills are what the Defamation League has termed “online pills”. Basically, virtual pills that have to do with how you think and how you conduct yourself in life. These pills were popularized by the movie the Matrix in 1999. Then, there were only two pills: red and blue. Kinda political huh?
 
We’re only staying on the surface of rabbit holes today. 
In short, the red pill would allow you to see the truth of the world’s lies, if you swallow it, and the blue pill would put you back into blissful ignorance of those lies, to lead a blissful life, allegedly. Thus, to “red pill” someone is to get them to see things in a different light, a truer light.
 
Such as our Shrewd Manager today. He was living the blue-pilled life. He had access to all his Lord’s wealth, accounts, and connections. He was the man. He was conducting business as he thought His Lord wanted, when in reality he was doing the opposite. You could say, his “red-pill moment” came when he was fired and he woke up to reality and realized his Lord desired mercy, not sacrifice of others’ money.
 
25 years later, in our world, and things have become more and more messed up, thus more pills entered the scene to describe the current thinking. There was the white pill where when “taken” would put you in a state of pure optimism about the mess of the world. There was a black pill where you completely despair of everything and reject it all, completely. 
 
There were also a set of so-called solution pills. Meaning, all the pills so far have only been about pointing things out and being angry, like the Media. There’s money to be made in being part of the problem, but there is no life to live there, no alternative to what they are angry at. The following two pills offer alternatives, again allegedly.
 
One of those pills was the Homestead pill, where you go buy several acres of land and live off-grid, away from it all. Another is the Trad Pill, short for traditional. This is where groups of online people think they have discovered “traditional life”, find a trad spouse, and live that trad life with them.
 
Plot twist: none of the pills worked! Being angry all the time at things that happen around you solves nothing, except producing more anger and division. Even the “solution pills” were sorely lacking in actual values and ended up hurting a lot of people and destroying marriages and relationships, because it was more than people could handle. What they all run into and what we run into is the Reality Pill.
 
You see, Jesus doesn’t just give us words to win arguments or reveal to us His Truth, The Truth, so we can start a podcast or yell at random strangers online, who are mostly bots, or fake accounts, anyway. In our parable, the Manager is red-pilled to reality, but then he doesn’t know what to do with that information. He is at a loss as to whether or not he should beg, get a laborer’s job, or die in despair.
 
The manager knew that life would go on, whether he had income or no, and that is reality. 
Jesus has given life, not pills or laws that trump any and everything. And it is a life to be lived out in His Creation, until He says its time to go.
 
Repent. As I said, there is money and attention to be gained in being part of the problem and no money and no attention in being part of the solution. You can tell, then, which pill we love to ingest the most just by looking in a mirror. You don’t even have to flip on a TV or look at your newsfeed to discover your addiction to outrage and shock. 
 
The Reality Pill is that we have to live with our decisions and our beliefs. They are not things we can leave as a post on FascBook or X. They are not just news headlines that flash on screen and then go away. What we believe is how we act. They are a part of us, whether we like it or not, and they determine our lives.
 
Our solution to all these pills? Show up. You make a baby? Show up and care for him. You have a job? Show up and work. You believe some political dogma? Show up and be the example. You have faith? Show up and support it. That is the solution. Don’t vote to make other people live how you think they should live. You live it. You own it.
 
Chapter 16 in St. Luke goes on past where our pericope stops at verse 9 and in verse 15 Jesus sums up the Dishonest Manager this way, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God” (16:15). 
 
Jesus goes on where the unrighteous manager cannot. Where we cannot. Jesus doesn’t just red pill us, that is, tell us that things are sinful and corrupt, but He shows up to show us. The Lord does not start a podcast or a news channel to announce His intent and give us a choice. He comes to renew the world by His suffering, death, and resurrection.
 
From Day 1, Jesus was not content to sit behind a commentator’s desk. Yes, He spoke. Yes, He caused His Word to be written. Yes, He expects a response. But first the Word was made flesh; He shows up, announces that the Kingdom of God is ushered in by Faith alone, and then give His own life to those whom He saves.
 
He gives His life to renew life. And even though He lays down His life, He takes it back again. This sort of distracts us from these worldly pills. The dishonest manager began to show mercy to his Lord’s debtors, regardless of what it did to the accounts or to the business. He didn’t have time to be greedy or selfish, because of all the Lord had put in front of him.
 
In front of us, Christ puts His cross. It is placed on us at baptism, it is front and center in our life of faith, and it is held before our dying eyes. This efficaciously draws us outside of our pill-induced, and sin-reduced life to the life and work of Christ, because we do not find the cross inside us, but outside.
 
And though we choke on the works and pills of this world, faith looks up and out to the cross, to see there the only life that can make a difference. The difference comes in Word and Sacrament, not protest and outrage. The difference comes in living a life that is not our own and instead gathering around the things God has prepared for us, in His Son, in the way He desires.
 
Jesus allows the world to remain to be an example for us. We are to learn that this world does not have our good in mind and we are to look to the next world promised to us, for that. Faith keeps our eyes fixed on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our Faith, Who has fulfilled the management of men perfectly.
 
Adam was given dominion. And we have royally messed that up. The Second Adam rose from the dead and has royally atoned for all things. He has freed His Christians from guilt and from pills, such that they only need concern themselves with honor, and the Holy Spirit will guide and teach all things. Jesus has covered the entire bill of whatever sort of life we think we could lead, with His Body and Blood.
 
Thus true management is in forgiveness. The Real-World Jesus has created runs on the stuff and nothing else. No amount of anger will produce the righteousness found only in the Blood of Jesus. The Shrewdness God wants is the unlimited forgiveness given to you and, believing that, sincerely forgive and gladly do good to those who sin against you.
 
What Jesus offers is only the true medicine of His Body and Blood.
Maybe we could call it the Christ-Crucified-Pill, though that doesn’t have the nice ring to it the others do, but that's probably the point. 

The Jesus Book [Trinity 8]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Jeremiah 23:16-29

• Romans 8:12-17

• St. Matthew 7:15-23

 

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: 

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves”

 

Beware of the false prophets who, will take one look at God’s Word and say, “That’s not what God meant” and then proceed to tell you what God meant. A very interesting fact, along this line of thinking, is the American Sign Language’s sign for Bible, for the deaf. It goes like this…

Why this is interesting is because it literally means, “Jesus book”. As in, you will find nothing else but Jesus in this, His own words, written for us. Thus, a false prophet will work his hardest to find something, anything other than Jesus in His own Book.

 

And the Lord has made it so that it is only in the words of the Prophets and the Apostles that we find and hear the true and revealed knowledge of God. And those words are the only infallible authority for faith and for life. Almighty God has thusly appointed these words to be His Word and we have termed this written, revealed knowledge of God as the 66 books of the Bible.

 

Now, that is just what we call them, not as if we put them together or we gave them their “power” simply because we “believe in them”. The Bible is something that we received. It was something that put itself together even before we thought of it. We do not define it. It is defined for us, therefore it is our duty to faithfully and clearly confess what the Bible is.

 

If only because our Lord presents us with many problems that could come from an unclear confession of the Bible, in all three of our Scripture readings today. In Jeremiah, we hear of prophets who ran and spoke, though they were not sent or commanded to run or speak. Our problem lies in how we are to know whom God sent? Even if its Jeremiah speaking, are we so certain about his words?

 

We also hear about dreams and dreamers. Dreams can be very powerful and very real to us. So it makes sense that when we encounter a dreamer, we tend to side with him in awe of his “gift”. So mysterious! So insightful! I wish I could dream dreams.

 

Then there is the problem of the Spirit in our Epistle reading. Which spirit and Who’s is He? A matter of grave importance, once we start talking about “death” and our bodies, don’t you think? Many false religions have taken this quite literally and have committed mass suicides, in the name of their “holy writings”. 

 

And finally, the false prophets, good and bad trees, and the “many mighty works” that do not get us into heaven, from the Gospel. What are those actually like and who’s to say which gain us recognition in front of God or not? 

 

Repent! We don’t really work too hard in the “getting things from God right” department and usually we don’t care, in our sin. We side with the world when it comes to where our stance is on the Bible. Why? Because, they say, its divisive, its intolerant, and its ancient. 

 

And we don’t want to offend anyone by talking about politics or religion, so the Bible just becomes a bed-side book. A book we read in our closets or when there is nothing better to do, if we read it at all. 

 

So what is to resolve this for us? Do not be ashamed just because you have been told that the Bible is a book written by men. Everyone has a “book” in their lives that is holy to them and dictates their beliefs and values. Your decision to trust the Bible is no different than theirs, at least in that respect. 

 

However, Jesus’s book is different from all others. Then the question comes down to, why the Bible. These are all questions that the Bible resolves for us, if we believe what God wants us to believe about His book, or we should say books, 66 of them, because people also try to discredit it by saying one book can’t say its true and we believe it.

 

But there are 66 books that have been inspired by God and they all have 7 attributes that we believe in. 

Our first trustworthy attribute of the Bible is Inspired, that the Holy Spirit has given the thoughts and the words expressed by the chosen men who wrote our Scriptures. They are God-breathed, says 2 Timothy (3:16) and they are God-taught (1 Thess 4:9). They are no mere books of men.

 

Second, the words spoken and recorded in Jesus’s Book are Inerrant, meaning they do not wander from the Truth, Who is Jesus Christ. St. John 17:17 says, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth”. On top of that, thirdly, our Scriptures are Infallible, that since it is God speaking, He does not lie. He is the Person Who speaks the Inerrant Words and so, from St. John 10, “Scripture cannot be broken” (v.35).

 

These first three terms combined, then, give us the Sufficiency of Scripture, in the fourth place. That in them we have everything we need for life and godliness. It is not a textbook for every single topic we can dream up of studying, but it is the textbook on Salvation. “even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed” (Gal. 1:8), therefore there is one Lord, one Faith, one Gospel.

 

Clarity, is fifth. The Lord is clear on this, in His revealed Word. There are no secret puzzles to unravel in order to achieve what the Lord has given us to achieve and what He wants to achieve as well. “Thy Word is a Lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path” (Ps 119:105). It does not conceal, but gives light. It is clear on the Way of Salvation.

 

Sixth, Scriptures are Efficacious, they do what they say. Man’s words can only describe reality, Jesus’s Words create reality. If He says you are free from guilt and shame, then you are free. “it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes…For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith” (Rom 1:16-17). 

 

It is what blesses us and what works in the world for us. “Blessed is the man who’s…delight is in the law of the Lord” (Psalm 1:1-2). For lack of a better word, Seventh, the Scriptures are Awesome. Not awesome in a cowabunga way, but in the fullest and proper sense of the word: it inspires authentic awe in all who hear it. We don’t just want to read it, but we want to meditate on it and delight in it.

 

Again, we are not treasuring this Book to be Worshipped. We will not be setting the Bible up on the Altar, instead of Jesus. That is not the purpose of the Jesus Book. The Purpose of the Jesus Book is to hand over Jesus to us. Plain and simple. Every verse. Every chapter. Every iota.

 

In fact, I tell my catechism students to write in their Bibles, at the top of the beginning of every book, Jesus's words from John 5:39, “these speak of me”. So, we learn these seven truths about God’s Word, not so that we can be right, but so that we can believe them and live in them. It’s one thing to speak rightly about the Scriptures, but another thing to rejoice in the great truths of them.

 

And our rejoicing stems from and centers on the God-man Who gave us His Word in the first place. And He has 7 purposes for His Book to fulfill:

That He "(1) convey to the understanding of men the truths and precepts of holy Writ, (2) convert the unregenerate, 3) preserve and strengthen the faith of the regenerate, (4) rear them in holiness of life, (5) give them consolation in their afflictions, (6) furnish weapons of offense and defense, to combat error and falsehood conflicting with God's Truth, and (7) all this for the glory of God and man's eternal salvation."

 

The Jesus Book, our Jesus Book, is now a dogma of Faith, that is you cannot be a Christian and not cling to, delight in, and meditate on it. If only because the words of that Book have broken through into the flesh. The Word made Flesh is Jesus, both God and man, leaping out of the text and accomplishing exactly what He said. 

 

All of what we have mentioned today works us to that point: to confess that Jesus came in the flesh for us poor miserable sinners. That He came to give us new things to live for, such as His Life and His Truth. For the world has battled, since time began, to replace the Word. But the world will pass away. The Word of the Lord endures forever.

 

Glory and Cross [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 to you all and Peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus, the Christ.
 
Who speaks to you today, saying: 

“In those days, when again a great crowd had gathered, and they had nothing to eat, he called his disciples to him”

 
In today’s Gospel of the feeding of the 4 thousand, we see Jesus hiding. Not that He is behind a tree so no one can see Him, but that, instead of doing work immediately with His own hands such as His miracles, He is doing His work mediately, that is through something or someone else. In today’s case it is a double hiding, one because He makes His disciples hand out the food He multiplied, and two, He is handing out multiplied food and not some eternal power gift.
 
One thing we understand from this is how we even know about God in this world that seems completely devoid of Him. This, God wants for our lives, so that we know and believe that knowledge of God must be revealed to us and that it is impossible to understand Him only through the things He created, also known as the Natural Knowledge of God.
 
But, the scientist in me wants to get a piece of that bread that Jesus miracled and that fish and study it. Is it different from other bread and fish in the world? Has its structure been changed, seeing as though they multiplied and don’t usually do that? Was there something special about that particular bread and fish Jesus had, that made it possible for Jesus to use it in such a way that doesn’t normally happen on my table at home?
 
With these curiosities leading us into the unknown and invisible, we start on the path towards being a theologian of Glory as opposed to a Theologian of the Cross. A Theologian of Glory operates on the assumption that Creation and history are transparent to human intellect, or reason. That one can “see through” what is created and what happens, so as to peer into the invisible things of God. In other words, “what’s really going on”.
 
We may take bread as an example. Jesus held it in high esteem so we attempt to understand bread. We have taken it apart and put it back together, so to speak. We have delved into its secrets. We know how to make it, what ingredients come together for it. We even know their chemical make-up and atomic structure, peering into its blueprint. With this blueprint, we can not only make a variety of breads, but also bread substitutes, that is bread without God.
 
You may not know the difference between a hydrocarbon and a carbohydrate, but your body does and if we can make your body think its eating bread simply by feeding it a chemical formulae, then we would have achieved a state where we don’t need bread, as we know it. Jesus just had to use bread because He didn’t know what we know. 
 
And if we don’t need bread, then we don’t need Jesus. That is the logical conclusion of the Theology of Glory. That we can see beyond what God has made and discover how to make it ourselves, thus ultimate truth and ultimate knowledge become ours. God multiplied bread and fish, but so what? What was His real purpose behind such an act? Who is the real Jesus?
 
The problem with Glory is that you continue to run into God’s divine attributes; His timelessness, His immutability, His almightiness. If God immutably chooses people to be saved, before time even exists, then how can there be any freedom? If God is almighty, then why use bread and fish to feed people? 
 
Thus, the standard explanation for the Theologian of Glory is analogy. That is, since God is a higher being, He can only interact with us lower life forms in certain ways. So feeding with bread and fish becomes a clue to something bigger and hidden for us to follow, like a mystery novel. 
 
And Jesus says, guys its bread and fish and eating. What’s not to get?
 
Repent. In this way, we may become the true Christians, or rather, the true knowers of beyond Christianity, or whatever it would be called. We find ourselves above sin, above creation, and above the work of Jesus. We are not slow-witted like those others who need crosses and miracles. We can see. We can know. We can strip God down to His bare parts and know how He works, stealing His crown and taking His place as “god” of all.
 
This is what Dr. Luther described as the nakedness of God and then proceeded to warn us all that we should flee from such a thing as if from the devil Himself. Why? Because anything beyond what God has said and done for Himself is not Who God is or what He has done. It is the realm of “not God”, or demons. 
 
This is the same thing we do to the Church. We peer into its dark corners, we spy out its inner workings, and conclude that it is just as messed up as the rest of the world and not some purified Bride that has been purchased and won. Leading to the belief that Church is worthless and not to be considered in our quest for holiness.
 
A theologian of the Cross believes differently. They can’t get around the cross. Where the Theologian of Glory makes the cross of Christ transparent, as if there is something more important beyond it, the Theologian of the Cross is turned back to the visible and manifest. Not, what did God mean by this act, but what has God accomplished by this act.
 
Instead of contemplating the invisible intellectually, we instead comprehend the visible contemplatively, that is through suffering and the cross. This ultimately means that we believe God acted how He wanted and knew what He was doing. In multiplying the loaves and fish, He was not giving away a clue to the key to life, the universe, and everything. Rather He was revealing the Key Himself: Jesus.
 
When Moses asks God, “Show me Your Glory”, what was it God did in response, in Exodus 33? “And the Lord said, ‘Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.’” (Ex 33)
 
Only His back! God refuses to be seen in any other way both for our protection and in order to put down any theology of glory within us. It is the cross alone which is our theology. Therefore the “back of God”, which Moses saw, was Jesus; the suffering and crucified Christ.
 
God presents us with how He wants things done. When He feeds the 4 thousand, He wants us focused on Himself, just as the whole incident is focused on Jesus. Jesus sees the crowd, Jesus calls the disciples, Jesus has compassion, Jesus gives thanks, Jesus breaks the bread, Jesus gives them to His disciples to distribute, and Jesus does the multiplying.
 
So when it comes to what He wants us to understand about His miraculous feedings, He wants us to hear and see what He does. There may have been multiple feedings, but He is not going to be a Bread King (Jn 6:15). In fact, if we continue reading St. Mark chapter 8 the Pharisees ask for a sign and Jesus gives them a Passion Prediction.
 
Meaning that they didn’t take the feeding as a sign, which is not all bad, because that’s not all there is. But the Sign given will be Jonah’s sign, that “the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again” (Mk 8:31).
 
The Feeding points to Jesus Who then takes us along with Him to the cross. It is His suffering, dying, and resurrection that Jesus wants us to use to explain the multiplication of the breads and the fish. It is not something in the bread or in the fish or in you, it is something in the Giver of all. That something is God in the flesh. 
 
You see, Adam and Eve knew they were naked in the garden and in sin they thought it a bad thing, even though Jesus created them that way, and it was in that bare openness that God walked with them. They knew Him and shared His righteousness, shared His will. In the Fall into sin and death, they couldn’t stand that blatant openness and wanted to cover themselves and God.
 
And God consented. He both clothed Adam and Eve and He put a veil over His Glory. And when that veil was torn in two, at the crucifixion of Jesus, we see and believe that Jesus is both God and man, risen from the dead. That God in the flesh has come to feed us with the bread of heaven, that can’t be studied or replicated by scientism, but must be given out of the heavenly Body of Jesus.
 
We cannot know God apart from His Scriptures. We can get a sense of His presence in light of His creation and because of our conscience, but we cannot tell Who He is or What He wants. That must be revealed to us. We must be told that the bread and the fish point to Christ and His Church. We must be told to take up our cross and follow Christ to His Church.
 
That the Bride is clothed and veiled in majesty, because of Her Bridegroom's Blood. That the Bride is rent asunder by schisms and yet one with Her Lord. That the Bride does not misuse the knowledge of God through works, but depends solely on the works of Jesus: His work of the Cross.
 
Because we only misuse His knowledge through works, Jesus wishes to be recognized only in suffering, and through that suffering, condemn the wisdom of this world that seeks glory in invisible things, that is in things where glory does not exist. All Glory belongs to God and His glory is Jesus Christ. The Theologian of the cross hears and believes this revelation from God, even though, to the world, it is foolishness.
 
A fleshy God suffering and dying? An all-powerful God handing out bread? What shame! What weakness!
 
What care! What compassion! What humility to stand before the creatures who rebelled and give them heaven’s own righteousness, pastors to administer, and the flesh and blood of the Son of Man to eat and drink for the forgiveness of sins. 
 
        “As silver tried by fire is pure, from all adulteration;
        so though God’s Word shall men endure, each trail and temptation;
        Its light beams brighter through the cross
        And purified from human dross
        It shines through every nation”
 
 

From Command to Word [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 to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Eph 1)

 

Who speaks to you today, saying:

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.”

 

“You have heard it said to those of old”, says Jesus. As in, that was for them and not for us. And so begins the descent into dozens of other excuses we offer to God for why His Commands are no longer useful, valid, or applicable to us. Not that they are outdated, but that we have evolved beyond them. There is no need for such vengeance, violence, and pettiness from people or God, as expressed in the 10 Commandments. We’re better than that, now.

 

Our Old Testament reading only gives two examples of this “violence”, but there are many more in the Bible we would label “unreasonable”. Being angry 3 or 4 generations down the road? What did they have to do with anything?

What if I’m not tired on the Sabbath or there’s an emergency? 

 

In light of that unreasonableness that our sin, the world and the devil love to capitalize on, let’s understand our Commandments a little better so that we are not fooled by the world’s foolery and continue to honor our Lord. Let’s start with Dr. Luther’s hymn which we sang first, today.

 

What we hear in stanzas 1, 11, and 12 are his commentary on the Ten Commands. Let’s make one small correction to our hymn: in the first place it is true that Moses did bring the commands off the mountain of God to us, but it was God’s Hand that wrote them. From God, to Moses, to us. This is and remains God’s pattern: that He does His work through men.

 

And God did write them for our good, though His Law always accuses us in our sin, it was Moses’ obedience to God’s Will that got them here. Now, as Lutherans, we tend to run from the word “obedience”, but there is a Gospel side to the Law among us. If your pastor did not obey God’s will and preach and teach the forgiveness of sins, would Jesus find faith on earth, when He returns?

 

So there is a benefit to obedience, but the true obedience is found in hearkening, listening with strong intent, to what God is saying and doing first. Moses’ obedience was hearing God invite him up to the mountain to receive good things at His hands. THEN, Moses delivered the goods to the congregation. An important point and order of things to not forget.

 

Why? Because in the 10 Commands God presents Himself, in His full glory, and He reveals the righteousness that exceeds the Scribes and the Pharisees. In, what we sinners call, His Holy Law God shows us the life He lives in purity and holiness and just how free from sin we have not been.

 

Repent. With Jesus on the scene to explain Exodus 20 to us, He only makes things worse. His catechetical teaching on the 5th Commandment takes God’s goalpost of following His commands, which we thought was close, and reveals that it is further away than we thought. Jesus teaches that our own works only take us further and further from this holy and godly life.

 

The “last penny”, Jesus speaks of then becomes less and less of obedience and more and more of life-force. Meaning, it is not about us giving 110% or all of ourselves to Jesus. How preposterous and impossible! However, it is about spending our very last breath paying for our sins. The “last penny” is that last piece of life in us until we die, as St. Paul says, “he who has died has been set free from sin”, from our Epistle (Rom 6:7).

 

Jesus is the First and the Last (Rev 22:13). He is the First Payment, that is the Creator of all things, giving of His very Self to bring all things into being. And He is the Last Penny, He Who’s imprisonment in death, destroys death. That Last Penny frees all from the slavery of death and pays for our fulfilled and perfect righteousness.

 

Does it not make sense that He Who gave the Law is the only One Who can fulfill it? Is that unfair to you, that God would give a Law that can’t be followed? Is that unthinkable? Illogical? Maybe, just maybe if we think beyond ourselves and our fragile feelings for one second, maybe God gave the Law for something, or someone else.

 

Dr. Luther has said, our Old Testament reading “makes it clear that even the Ten Commandments do not pertain to us. For God never led us out of Egypt, but only the Jews. The sectarian spirits want to saddle us with Moses and all the commandments. We will just skip that. We will regard Moses as a teacher, but we will not regard him as our lawgiver—unless he agrees with both the New Testament and the natural law.” (AE 35:165)

 

Remember these words? “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Mt 5:17). Not, “I have come to have you fulfill them”. Not, “I have come to explain how you can do better”. 

No. I have come so that I can fulfill them. Complete them. Bring them to their intended perfection.

 

“For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom 8:2-3).

 

We sorta knew it all along, but were too afraid to admit it. Too afraid to admit that Christ really has accomplished everything. Too afraid to be the “do nothing” church. Too afraid to be labelled as the “faith without works” church to turn to our Servant God Who does these wonderful things for us. 

 

Faith is not ashamed of the Gospel. It is not afraid to take a back seat to the Jesus Show. Our own work is a hopeless thing. ‘Tis wrath alone it can bring. But Christ is our mediator in such a thing. He shows us our sin and gives us that life before God, in Him. And in Him we have His works and His faith.

 

Romans 8 goes on: “He condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit”. The righteousness that pleases God is received by Faith. The holiness that pleases the Father is found only in the Son. The purity of thought, word, and deed is only given by the Holy Spirit.

 

Despair of your own works. Christ works in you now and lives in you. For your old self was crucified. We live with Him and we will live with Him forever. Trust in Christ. Not as a Helper, to give you a leg up on the Commandments nor as a “get out of jail free” card, a pass for not following the Commands. 

 

Trust in Christ as your redeemer, who redeems you from the pit to live today. Yes, He forgives your past sins. Yes, He has secured your future by His work alone. But there is still today. The Day which the Lord has made for you to commune with Righteousness Himself. The Fulfillment of the Law has come down all glorious just for you, today. He comes to His Church to tend and feed with His Holy Life.

 

So the Commands, the Law, is to be heard. And our response is: “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for Him, that He might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for Him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation” (Isaiah 25:9).

 

We have waited for Him and His fulfillment of the Law. We have waited for Him for three days, to see His Resurrection Day. We have waited for Him for our whole life to be glad and rejoice in His Divine Service where He once again tells us the Greatest Story of how He defeated death and turned His victory into a victory feast, where the fulfillment of the 10 Commandments in put onto lips and into mouths.

 

From Psalm 45:2 “You are the most handsome of the sons of men; grace is poured upon your lips; therefore God has blessed you forever.”

 

They are the Ten Words from God and show His total dominance over all humanity and our total dependence upon Him. For us, they are given in a four-fold way: instruction, thanksgiving, confession, and prayer. But there are so much more than 10. Every command, every Word from God should be heard and used by us this way.

 

For, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The Word is the Command.

 

 

Through Men [Feast of Sts. Peter & Paul]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Acts 15:1-21

• Acts 12:1-11

• St. Matthew 16:13-19

 

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Eph 1)
 
Who speaks to you today, saying:

“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

 
Today we celebrate the Feast of Sts. Peter & Paul and hear God’s Word of rocks and churches and gates of hell. Why? Because this is reality. God knows it. You don’t, because it is reality you cannot see with your eyes the way they are now, so it must be revealed to you. That is, you must be shown where to place your hand on the Rock. You do not have to make it up.
 
It doesn’t take a biblical scholar to notice that Saint Peter is first and foremost among the 12, in the Bible. Not only is he mentioned the most by name, but he is also given special prominence and is always referred to, especially by Saint Paul, as someone important. We find this church history recorded in art, as well. Usually, icons of Saint Peter have him holding a set of keys, keys to the church to forgive sins, to retain sins, and to open close the gates of heaven by the forgiveness of sins.
 
Saint Paul would be the second pillar of the church, if we may say so, though not a part of the Original 12. He is also of significance being chosen in a special way, having been given a revelation apart from the 12 and yet no different than the 12. He may have been brought in after Easter, but he received the same word, the same gospel, and the same doctrine as the apostles themselves. Thus Saint Paul carries the sword in Church art. The sword is the sword of the spirit to convert the gentiles and bring the Jews to the one true religion of Christ Crucified.
 
In today’s gospel, we heard of Peter being renamed “the rock” by Jesus. However, Saint Peter is not the rock upon which the church stands or falls. Faith given gives the Rock. Jesus is the rock, the only sure foundation and the temple itself. So what is Saint Peter’s job here and why does Jesus speak this way about him?
 
Let me put it to you this way, when we go out to clean up our cemetery and we want to level a gravestone that has sunken or fallen askew, and we have the heavy crowbars and men leaning into lift that heavy stone that cannot be lifted by hands alone and they’re struggling and straining and almost out of strength and someone asks for a rock to level the stone. What is it that they’re asking you to give them?
 
Are they asking for a vote on what a rock is? Are they asking for your feelings on rocks? Maybe they want to know the current political climate around rocks or how much they are on the stock market. Those things will surely help in that situation.
 
No. What those men want is a rock. A piece of stone that they can grab onto, shove under the grave stone, and get the job done. They need a physical tool to help them in the work in front of them. They don’t need thoughts or opinions on rocks. They need an actual rock.
 
Repent. You need an actual rock. The events in your life? The world couldn’t care less. If you graduate or get a new job, maybe your mom is impressed, but the world doesn’t bat an eye. If you lose a loved one, the world doesn’t miss a beat. If your family or marriage is disintegrating or if you are struggling, life goes on, unmercifully.
 
Peter and Paul knew this all too well. Who cares about what 2 men are teaching in 1st century Palestine? Nobody, much less 12 men. Who was on the scene for one brown man from the Levant, convicted and punished by the death penalty? Not one reporter. Who cares what life is throwing at you? I’ve got my own problems and I don’t need yours. Keep it to yourself. Everyone is going through the same thing. Nobody cares.
 
Vacillating in this depression and despair, you realize the emptiness in your world. It’s like living next to a freeway. Hundreds of thousands of people pass by your house every year, but not one would stop to help you or even know you needed help. Pressed down by this weight, we find that we cannot enter into the secret places of heaven.
 
“Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his mind of flesh” (Col 2:18). Who is Paul? What is Cephas? Did they die for you? Were you baptized into their names? (1 Cor 1:13). St. Peter’s popery failed him every time. St. Matthew records that immediately after St. Peter’s Great Confession, in the Gospel today, he is called “satan” by Jesus.
 
At Gethsemane, “satan” could not be on watch for a lowly hour. Outside of the High Priest’s house, he could not even admit being associated with Jesus 3 times. In. A. Row.
 
St. Paul was a Jew of Jews, killing Christians as the religion was just starting, in hopes of squashing it out of existence. 
 
The impenetrable wall between heaven and earth is not breached by intention, or opinion, or knowledge, but by thorn, nail, and spear.
 
Our weakness follows men in hopes of bearing the glory of the majesty of God. The weakness of Jesus follows the Father and does not hope, but actually gains the glory and majesty of God. Who knew that rocks could be pierced by iron? Now we know.
 
“upon this Rock, I will build my Church”, but “He was speaking about the [Rock] of his body” (Jn 2:21). 
 
1 Corinthians 10, “Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ” (v.1-4).
 
Deuteronomy 32:4, “He is the Rock”
 
St. Paul, in persecuting and murdering those in Church, was visited by Christ Who said, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” (Acts 9:4). Jesus, both God and man, inseparably and eternally joins us to Himself.
 
Our sinful weakness desires the hope of salvation in our own, recognizable flesh. We are not convinced by someone coming back from the dead, because we do not come back from the dead. We are convinced by magic tricks and turns of phrase, though.
Jesus chooses to battle this corruption through men and through the death of death, in order that He gain all.
 
Jesus does not come as a Rock, with no feelings and no resemblance to men. He arrives as a man and spends 33 or so years proving it to everyone. “When he was twelve years old…Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers”, except His parents. “Why have you treated us like this”, they said (Lk 2:41-52). As if to say, you are a child and cannot be doing these things. You are too young. You are too immature. You don’t know. “Get behind me satan”
 
Later on, He was simply a carpenter, a poor boy from a poor family. “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?” (Jn 6:42)
 
How can He say He is the Temple; He is the Tree; He is the Rock? 
He is the Temple, because He can be utterly destroyed and yet return, alive forevermore, three days later. He is the Tree, because He can give His Saving Word into the mouths of men and it save just as well as if He spoke Himself. He is the Rock, because He continues to penetrate through heaven’s iron gates with His Body and Blood, for us today.
 
Here, now, is the true miracle of Sts. Peter and Paul being the pillars of the Church: that through them alone, God gives His gifts to men. That their example continues Christ’s preaching and teaching that causes paralyzed men to rise up and walk. Through them, the Word of the Rock that is a hammer that breaks the rock, continues to give faith to believe.
 
To break the Rock on Calvary, to purchase and win the faith which breaks the rock of our stony heart, the Word is preached. We look to St. Peter and St. Paul, because they are men chosen by God, empty vessels filled to the brim with God’s authority to forgive sins and preach and administer the Gospel. They are not Christ. Their authority is only in the words of Christ. When they speak contrary to God’s Word, they are no longer chosen.
 
This is not a papistic view, but a Christian view. St. Paul should be in St. Peter’s seat, if we are speaking of being “chosen the best”. But he is not. He, and all the Apostles, were sent to be pastors, not popes. To preach the Gospel in its purity and to administer the Sacraments according to it.
 
The Gospel that says your brokenness is healed. The Gospel that says your darkness is lightened. The Gospel that says your life is important, even though you are not an apostle, because you have the same Word of Promise that gave the Apostles their authority and their gifts, you are also chosen. This means that the holier, greater glory is found, not in spiritual gifts, but in belief and communion with the Lord.
 
It is unbelievable that Jesus would care about the Gentiles, be their Rock also, but believe it. It is unbelievable that God could be anything but “what the Jews were expecting” in themselves, but believe it. It is unbelievable that flesh and blood could house and utilize God, but believe it, because in Christ, they are remade One.
 
“He Himself therefore comes to us in order to lay hold upon us with that nature by which He is our Brother. And because our weakness in this life cannot bear the glory of His majesty, therefore His Word and His body and blood are present, distributed, and received under the water, the bread, and the wine.” 
 
“Nor does He will that we wander around the gates of heaven uncertain in which area of heaven we ought to look for Christ in His human nature or whether we can find Him; but in the Supper He Himself is present in the external celebration and shows by visible signs where He wills to be present with His body and blood, and there we may safely seek Him and surely find Him, for there He Himself, through the ministry of men, distributes His body and blood to the communicants. These most sweet and necessary comforts will be completely snatched away from us if the substantial presence, distribution, and reception of Christ's body and blood are removed from the Supper.” - Martin Chemnitz