He follows you [Trinity 24]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Isaiah 51:9-16

• Colossians 1:9-14

• St. Matthew 9:18-26

Grace to you and peace from Him Who is and Who was and Who is to come; from Jesus Christ the faithful Witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth.
                  
Who speaks to you in today’s Gospel saying:

“Jesus rose and followed him, with his disciples”

 
God’s Word to us today, and He causes it to be written in order that we understand His atoning sacrifice. He will be the one to ransom, sacrifice, and work sanctification. And when He does, it will be a complete work, such that anyone saying there’s more to do, does the work of the anti-christ. Believing this, we take this faith to our lives, living for God and neighbor in peace and comfort, not doubt or distress.
 
Our Gospel reading opens with a ruler coming to kneel at Jesus's feet. Why? Because Jesus is the true ruler and, just as the Magi knelt at infant Jesus's feet, so too does all proper authority in heaven and on earth bow before Christ. Which then makes the next verse that much more uncomfortable, where Jesus is being led by an inferior ruler.
 
An inferior ruler to lead to an inferior world. One that is ruled by death. “follow me Jesus to my dead daughter”. Imagine Genesis being written that way. Here, Adam and Eve, says God. Inherit this dying trash world. Be fruitful and multiply to futility and have dominion over decay. 
 
Not to increase depression and despair, but to prove the reality that you are all on your way to the last day. For what this ruler confesses is what we hear in Revelation 12: “and there was war in heaven”. Jesus steps down from heaven and asks for the situation report. “My daughter has just died”, Jesus. That’s the situation.
 
Everything that God made was very good (Gen. 1:31). This included all His angels (Job 38:7). In a cosmic tragedy Scripture does not detail, some angels rebelled against the loving gifts of the Holy Trinity. Satan wanted to be worshiped (Matt. 4:9; 1 Tim. 3:6). Other angels fell with him (Rev. 12:7, 9). Satan in Hebrew, means “adversary.”  Devil in Greek, means “Accuser” or “slanderer.” 
 
Also known as the demon or Beelzebub or the prince, the ruler of this world. Satan, the devil, is the great tempter (Matt. 4:1-13; 1 Thess. 3:5; Luke 23:31-32; 1 Pet. 5:8-9) and he has started war in the spiritual realm. A war that oozes out and finds footing in all our battles and wars on earth. 
 
Maybe we hear satan’s plight described by Isaiah:
“How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations!
For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the farthest sides of the north;
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’
Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, To the lowest depths of the Pit.” (v12-15)
 
Not only external war, armies and guns, but also spiritual war. In our sin, we don’t take it seriously. We pay respects, lip service, but that's it. “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; We sang a dirge, and you did not wail” (Mt 11:17). As in, we did all the right things, and said all the right words, but it wasn’t enough? That’s not fair. How do you fight something you cannot see?
 
Just as He followed the ruler in today’s Gospel, Jesus follows the ruler of this world: satan. Jesus does not sit idle on the king’s throne, as earthly rulers usually do during a war. for though Isaiah seems to be talking about satan’s plight, he is prophesying the Way of the Messiah.
 
Jesus is the true Morning Star as He names Himself in Revelation 22:16. Where the father of lies, lies, Jesus speaks truth. Both did fall. The devil was banished, the Son of Man stepped down into His own, rational body and soul, yet still a cut down from where they were.
 
Weakened nations. You could say that the Good and Holy Law of God has weakened nations, by demanding and commanding a righteousness unable to be achieved. Or even before that, by saying there is a limit to what humanity can do. That there is a right and a wrong. This infuriates humanists, naturalists, and relativists who just want their own truth. So divisive, Jesus!
 
Jesus said in His heart and to His disciples, I will ascend to heaven, above the heights of the clouds. In St. John 20:17, “go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” He says He will ascend, but first a second descent is made.
 
First to earth, then He was brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the pit. There, to be imprisoned by our sins, not His own. But showing that that prison cannot hold Him, He did not go to serve time, but to proclaim victory. 
 
The point is, the deceiver deceives, even so far as to pretend to be the Christ. This is why we have been warned of the Anti-Christ. On the coat-tails of the true God-Man, Jesus Christ, comes the Tempter with power, to deceive, if possible, even the Elect.
 
So we have a copy-cat at hand. What are we to do? 
Jesus says, “Let your loins be girded about, and your lamps burning;” (St. Luke 12:35). That is, the work is finished, its time to go. That’s the difference, if you caught it. Jesus has accomplished all He came to do. The devil will still say there is more to be done.
 
Jesus says, the last hour is now on its way. Not the last hour to get things done, but the last hour when all things are done and its time to go! The devil says you have lots of time to get your stuff together. Jesus says, “You are my people”, in our Old Testament reading. You are my people now. The devil says, not quite yet.
 
Jesus says, “I will follow you”. HE is going to follow US. I don’t think you realize yet how amazing that is. There is no room for Him waiting for us. There is no time for turning back. Be ready, for today the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing, in Word and Sacrament. 
 
That Father has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. You are pre-approved, as they say. Not for anything you did, but because the King follows you. He follows you to your sin. He follows you to confession. He follows you to your grave. 
 
Not to end you, but to renew. “And He who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’…‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true’” (Rev 21:5).
Jesus is not following us to wait for us to renew ourselves. He makes us new. A new creation. A new heart. A new Spirit.
 
The new is not like the old. We are familiar with the old, and this is the Way Christ first comes to us: in the flesh, in suffering, in dying. His atonement on the cross is Him following us, because the wages of sin is death. He purchases faith, the forgiveness of sins, and eternal life there.
 
But what is the new? Isaiah says, “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert” (43:19). And we do not perceive it because of sin. But when sin is taken away, when sin is paid for, what do we perceive?
 
Easter. The Resurrection of Jesus is the completion of making all things new. That is that now bodies can rise from the dead. Now, the Right Spirit within us does not just “change lives” or “realign values”, but resurrects. 
 
The faithful, inferior ruler kneels in faith. Faith that the Ruler’s Right Arm fights for us in spiritual and physical ways. Not only can He forgive sins and make a sinner righteous, but He can also reverse what spiritual warfare does to us. He can make alive what once was dead.
 
Age, disease, dying. These are all things we usually don’t associate with our spiritual battles, because they are fights we can’t win, no matter how many cruciferous vegetables we ingest. This is our clue that something is wrong in the spiritual realm. The next is when we find ourselves siding with the ruler of this world. Where does that come from? Why does it keep coming back?
 
That is Original Sin. For it, Jesus is our Original Savior. Our only Savior. There is no substitute for Him or His work and that is a completed work. Done. For you. You do not deliver yourself, you have been delivered. You do not strengthen yourself, you have been strengthened. You do not raise yourself from the dead, will yourself to be born again, or decide to follow Jesus.
 
He follows you. He makes you alive in Him. He finishes His work, then bids you wait. Wait for Him, not in silence, solitude, or uncertainty, but in His accomplished work. Wait in His Church, His Bride. Wait in the forgiveness of sins, proclaimed to you today. Be bathed and eat and drink the Fountain of True Life Who says, “Take heart. Your faith has saved you.”
 
 

Lutheran is Christian [Reformation Vespers]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Revelation 14:6-7

• Romans 3:19-28

• St. Matthew 11:12-19

 

Grace, Mercy, and Peace are secure for you from God our Father, through our risen Lord and Savior, Jesus the Crucified of God!

 

Who speaks to us, even this evening, as we hear from the epistle to the Romans:

“It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

 

In this, our Lord’s revelation to us, we do well to ponder the epistle to the Romans as it places God’s righteousness solely in His passing over of sins. That is, when you are tasked to find the Righteousness of God, you answer: in the forgiveness of sins.

 

In Jesus alone we find it and this is why we celebrate the Reformation. It was a recovery of the Gospel. No that it had gone away, but that the righteousness of men had taken over as the chief doctrine of the Church. That doctrine that said, the New Man in Christ is only attained through a vow of poverty, a vow of chastity, and obedience to the Vicar of Christ. 

 

They taught the Ten Commandments were righteousness for the normies and were bare minimum requirements for being a normal Christian. But now that the Gospel has come, they say, there is a higher righteousness, a set of Evangelical Counsels they called them, that are for those who desire to become perfect in God’s eyes.

 

The word “evangelical” means Gospel. So even then, the Gospel was horribly confused with the Law, just as it is today. Churches are still looking to vows and pledges and decisions to determine who is or who isn’t perfect, or saved. Protestants are just sloppy Roman Catholics.

 

In this vein, the Lutherans wanted to be known as Evangelicals, in order to usurp and reteach what the Gospel actually is. That is it not based on works, evangelical or otherwise, but solely on Christ, His person, word, and work. And that work, as Jesus has already told us this evening is the forgiveness of sins; the Good News that we are freed from the guilt, the punishment, and the power of sin, and are saved eternally because of Christ’s keeping the Law and His suffering and death for us. (LSCE p.100) Here alone does God offer the forgiveness of sins.

 

With this recovery, comes the need to be distinguished, not boasting, but separated out from those who wish to live by the Law. Hence, the name of our denomination: Lutheran.

 

However, as we hear of the sole Name of He Who Saves, let us ponder these words of Dr. Luther:

I ask that people make no reference to my name; let them call themselves Christians, not Lutherans. What is Luther? After all, the teaching is not mine. Neither was I crucified for anyone. St. Paul, in I Corinthians 3, would not allow the Christians to call themselves Pauline or Petrine but Christian. How then should I – poor stinking maggot-fodder than I am – come to have people call the children of Christ by my wretched name? Not so, my dear friends; let us abolish all party names and call ourselves Christian. (Luther’s Works, Vol. 45, p. 70)

 

So, mayhap it is that we are in the wrong, calling ourselves Lutheran. Even celebrating the Reformation was not done in the church until well after the 16th century. And yet we continue to confess, with our Lutheran Confessions, that nothing we do is new or novel in the church. 

 

Pastor Johann Gerhard attempts to explain it this way:

It is not we who call ourselves Lutherans. Rather, our adversaries call us that. We allow this to the extent that this title is an indication of the consensus that our churches have with the orthodox and catholic doctrine that Luther set forth from Holy Writ. Therefore we allow ourselves to be named after Luther, not as the inventor of a new faith but as the asserter of the old faith and the cleanser of the church from the stains of Papist dogmas. 

Consequently, we also do not reject the names “Christian” and “catholic,” nor do we render ourselves unworthy of it by the approval of any heretical dogma, as did the Arians, Nestorians, Eutychians, etc. Rather, we are called "Christians" from Christ, as the only Author and Teacher of our faith. We are called "catholics" from our consensus with the catholic faith. We are called "Lutherans" from Luther as the asserter and defender of that faith, but especially as the reformer whom God raised up. (Johann Gerhard, Theological Commonplace, XXV).

 

I’m not sure how that makes things better or at least it hasn’t worked and we are still called schismatics, heretics, and deserters. For better or worse, we are given labels throughout history to use. For one thing, they shorten explanations. Instead of saying “factory processed and baked milled oats shaped into torroidal miniatures”, I can just say “Cheerios” and bypass all that explaining.

 

Likewise, the term “lutheran”. It doesn’t describe a religion so much as it describes a sign post in history and a sign post on the church door. The Christians went this way. The Gospel is preached this way. 

 

But what about this or that interpretation? Already taught. What about this or that history? Already purged the heresy. What about this tradition? Cleansed in light of the Gospel. What about…? and the list goes on.

 

That title “Lutheran”, teaches just what exactly goes on within these four walls and suggests we may find the same in other buildings that claim that name, though we must still be on guard. But that is another point of the Reformation, that we are always reforming. We must always reform because we are always led astray. That is we must always seek out and find the pure Gospel.

 

And since the Gospel is an eternal Promise made by God, we can seek out and find that throughout His Word. We can adjust our reading glasses as we study and inwardly digest the Lord’s revelation to us of His Son and search the Scriptures to find Christ, instead of some corporate or religious ladder.

 

The Promise has been and always will be the Free Justification of Sinners for Christ’s sake. The Lord threatens with His wrath against sin and His righteousness opposing sinfulness. In our sin, even the Gospel becomes an angry place for God handling sinners. And that is not right.

 

St. Paul counts it all joy to have received the Gospel together with all those who converted to the faith. He says in Romans 15:13, “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” 

“make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore”, says Psalm 16:11, equating pleasure with joy.

 

The Gospel is a comfort, not more burden on an already over-taxed conscience. The Gospel is peace, not more work that leads to disappointment and despair. The Gospel is Christ, Who has manifested apart from the Law, outside it. The Law’s sole purpose is to lead us to the Messiah. 

 

Thus, if we truly lived by the Law, we would not find more for us to do, but we would find Jesus doing everything on our behalf. That is, we would find the righteousness of God, given to us through faith alone, for Christ’s sake alone, for all who believe. 

This is most certainly Lutheran. And its even Biblical!