The Responsibility of God [Trinity 12]

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Isaiah 29:17-24

• 2 Corinthians 3:4-11

• St. Mark 7:31-37

 

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

 

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

“And looking up to heaven, He sighed deeply and said to him, ‘Ephphatha!’ which means, “Be opened!”

 

When we see something wrong in the world, the very first thing we say is, “Who did that”. When you find milk spilled in the kitchen or the toilet paper all over the floor, you shout, “Alright who did this”. When Jesus walked through Eden and found death all over and the rank of sin heavy in the air, He asked, “Who did this” or “Who’s fault is this”.

 

Though unlike in my house, there were only two people in Eden, so the answer was pretty easy. This is why the Lord said, “Adam where are you” instead. 

 

For us to have to face this deaf and speech-impeded man today in our Gospel reading, we find the roles reversed. It is not the Creator asking, but the creature: “who did this”. Why is this man born this way? Why must he face life with such handicaps? 

 

The disciples asked this same question in St. John 9:2, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Notice how they only try to blame people, as if trying to blame God for something is unthinkable. God would never cause sorrow or sadness, so there must be some other reason, right Jesus?

 

Jesus says, Nope. “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him” (Jn 9:3). Now, I don’t know about you, but that sure sounds like Jesus just said, “Its God’s fault” to me. Or at least, God didn’t care enough to change things, in order that He would be able to show His might.

 

That’s hoodwinking, that is. To create the problem just so you can sell the solution is bearing-false-witness to the highest degree, as is common in our country today. Is that what God is doing here, making people sick just so He can swoop in like the hero and save them?

 

God did not create death. God did not create sin. But He did create responsibility and someone must be responsible. Someone must hold the key to at least understand what is happening. 

 

They say that if you put too many keys on your keychain, you can end up destroying your car’s ignition cylinder and switch, over time: or a person. How many keys do you have? House keys, car keys, office keys, other people’s house keys. What about emotional keys? Family? Marriage? Community? Job? 

 

It is not unheard of, especially in our days, to hear of mental breakdowns and an ever increasing reliance on pharmaceuticals to deal with alleged “mental health”. It seems to be only a matter of time before we all break down. Is it because we are living in harder times?

 

In a way, yes. Harder because the strain on us is not physical, but mental. It is the world overburdening us with “keys” we have no business holding or caring about. The world’s cares are not our business, but the media wants them to be. Our country’s emotional and moral strife is out of your reach, but the internet wants it in front of your face, constantly.

 

Why is that? It is for the same reason this deaf and speech-impeded man is thrown in Jesus’s face. The devil, the world, and our sinful nature want to see what He will do. We can’t even handle our own family business and we think we can solve the world’s problem with Dominion voting machines? What can this Jesus do in the face of actual incurable handicaps?

 

Jesus takes responsibility. The Lord owns up to the fact that He is in charge and things are a mess. “In order that the Word of God might be revealed as Him.” Might be “epiphanied” as Him. Because He is in the flesh, suffering as we do, we can know that He is not just giving trials to see if we “measure up”. God does send us sorrow and sadness and He lays the cross heavy on our shoulders such that we break underneath it. 

 

Not us, but that sin and death in us would break, which make the cross we bear too heavy, in the first place. For the true epiphany, the true “showing” in this act of Jesus, today, is God made manifest. True God is Jesus, in the flesh. Not alien flesh, but our flesh. The same flesh susceptible to sin and death. The same flesh that bears the ailments and handicaps of this life. God lowers Himself even beneath our burdens, in order to carry all burdens.

 

This is Jesus’s cross He joyfully bears. He picks up the too-heavy key chain and the broken cylinder as His own. In this man’s suffering, we see part of our Lord’s suffering. 

 

Yet, in revealing Himself as Jesus, we run into another problem. That of His hiddenness. Why must we suffer here? Why can’t God just get rid of all suffering with a snap of His fingers? It is the hidden will of God that says, this is the way. That He has chosen to make salvation in this way: the way of the cross. 

 

Does the power of handicaps, cap the love of God? No. Does the strength and weight of your “keys” deny you access to the favor of God? No. For if Jesus can return sight and speech to this man, indeed, if He is able to be made man, suffer and die and rise again to glory, then what can stand in His way? Nothing.

 

Thus, if He promises you a cross to bear, it will be His cross that He already bore for you. And if He promises a death like His and a resurrection like His, and eternal glory like His, what is to say that He is hiding something or playing tricks? 

 

We may be born blind or mute or with too-heavy of burdens, but that corruption is not God’s doing, neither is His sitting still in light of it. He has thrown Himself into it, flesh and blood. It is no business of ours what God does with what He has created. If one suffers and another does not, who are we to say we could do it better?

 

This is the Lord’s impenetrable will. We are not allowed to peek there. He has, however, His Revealed Will, which is shown partially in today’s blind and speech-impeded man, and fully in Christ on the cross. That He has come to take responsibility, though it is our own fault. He has come to bear the burdens too heavy for our sin-filled bodies.

 

He bears them and He crucifies them, along with Himself. Jesus opens this man’s eyes and mouth to speak of Him. Jesus opens heaven to all believers. He has but one, singular will: that all repent and live in Him.

 

They say that the devil’s greatest trick he played on the world was convincing everyone he doesn’t exist. That’s only half-right. He convinces us that he doesn’t exist, while existing to convince us of this. He, sin, and the world give us a double-mind, able to believe two contradicting things at once. That lies can coexist with truth. That light can remain with darkness or even needs it. 

 

Such is the satanic twist that now we go about our lives, looking at suffering, and thinking double thoughts. See, Jesus is just doing the same thing. How can there be suffering, yet healing promised by God? How can there be healing promised by God when I have yet to experience it?

 

The difference is not that one is healed and another is not. The difference is, one has faith in the Resurrection of all flesh, and another does not. In satan’s kingdom, suffering is meaningless and so he is double-minded about it. In the Kingdom of the heavens, suffering produces hope in the Resurrection.

 

It is with the Resurrection of Jesus and His promise made to us in Baptism, that we then can see suffering and healing, not as contradicting, but as the narrow way. The narrow way of hope that God knows what He is doing.

 

That He can bring salvation even out of suffering. That He can conquer this world with His death and resurrection. And that He can grant kingdom-expanding faith in Word, water, body, and blood.

 

Because that’s the real fear, right? That God is not responsible enough to be able to encompass all my fear and all my suffering and all my doubt in His plan. There must be a gap. There must be more than His Church, because its not working. But Jesus doesn’t ask for a clean heart, He gives it. He doesn’t ask for a right spirit, He gives it.

 

He doesn’t ask for you to have the key to life, only He has that. From Revelation 3:7, “These are the words of Him Who is Holy and True, Who holds the Key of David. What He opens no one can shut, and what He shuts no one can open”.

He asks simply as He asks another blind man, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”, in John 9. The answer, as always, is: “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).

My Pharisee the hero [Trinity 11]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Genesis 4:1-15

• 1 Corinthians 15:1-10

• St. Luke 18:9-14

 

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: 

“The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.”

 
With this, Jesus introduces us to the Pharisees, a biblical word that is well known and overused. But they are given as examples for us, for God says, “you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach” (Mt 23:3). So what do they preach and what do they practice that earned them un-justification in today’s Gospel, even with this apparent endorsement from Jesus? 
 
The real lesson, in today’s Gospel, is mercy. Not just mercy on a global scale, but mercy on a small scale, as in “I will show mercy”, saith the Lord (Ex 33:19). If the Lord is merciful, then we should be merciful, that is, fighting for the Truth, His Church, and His forgiveness in a world full of the opposite. This mercy the Pharisee, in our Gospel reading, forgot.
 
Yet, that fight is how the Pharisees are actually the heroes of just before Jesus’s time. They fought the good fight. Where the world wanted to forget God and become sinful pagans, they fought for the Word. Moses and the prophets are theirs, for they believe their words are God’s words. The existence of Angels and demons, the resurrection and judgment on the last day, the necessity for preserving and keeping the Law, and even waiting for the coming of a Messiah are all treasured beliefs, with which we agree.
 
And when the Greeks and the Romans came, conquering and threatening religious and civil life, it was the Pharisees who stood up and became vassals of those states, securing an appointed, intermediary role between their people and Rome. All they did was for the good of the people and for God. If not for them, their religion would have ceased to exist, allegedly.
 
Thus, among them come some heroes of Christianity: Nicodemus, Gamaliel, Nathaniel, most probably Simon of Cyrene, the apostle Paul, and even the historian Josephus were or had been Pharisees at some point. Now maybe you can understand why Jesus said, “Your righteousness must exceed the scribes and the Pharisees” (Mt 5:20), back on the 6th Sunday after Trinity.
 
With this example, the Christian in this world then, must be a defender of truth. The marriage of one man and one woman is the truth, not divorce or polygamy or any other deviation. Defending the dignity of women, not promoting pornography. Protecting children and raising them in truth, not pawning them off to others. Living with honor, high morality, and virtue. 
 
This is what the Pharisees fought for, this is what Jesus proclaimed. 
When exactly was it in our lives, that we traded honor for gaslighting, high morality for tolerance, and virtue for vice? When was it that we thought, “Cain wasn’t so bad, just misunderstood”? Or, “I can get by with my sins, God will have to forgive me in the end.”
 
“You hypocrites!”, says our Lord in Luke 12:56, “You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” Do you not know that this day your soul is required of you? Do you want this to be the Day the Lord Returns and finds you, doing what, not what you are supposed?
 
Dear Christians, do not be proud of what you have made of yourself. Be thankful. Thankful that you have been passed over, thankful you have a Mediator, thankful there is Mercy. 
 
Be like your heroes, the Pharisees. For, what did all the true Pharisees, in Jesus’s time, do? They listened to Proverbs 9:8, “Do not correct a scoffer, lest he hate you; Rebuke a wise man, and he will love you” and converted. Do not correct a hypocrite, but rebuke a Pharisee. 
 
And what is rebuke, but teaching and preaching the truth. Show truth to a Pharisee and he will love and believe and be saved. “I am the Truth”, says Jesus and that is what He showed them.
 
We hear from Isaiah 30:18, “Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you; therefore He will rise up to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for Him”.
Wait for Grace to come upon you. Not just grace to hallow God’s Name, do God’s will, or let His Kingdom come in your own fashion. But wait for Grace and mercy to act in the flesh, on His own.
 
Thus, a true Pharisee converts from his Old Testament hypocrisy, to New Testament forgiveness when Jesus suffers and dies to institute the New Covenant promised by their prophets. That is, “the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jer 31:31-34)
 
Know the Lord? No. We all already do. 
Believe the Lord. Believe that He has come in the flesh. Believe that He has come in Mercy. Believe that He is Grace, mediating between God and man for the forgiveness of sins and the redemption of all works. 
 
For it was according to the Scriptures, our Epistle teaches, that Christ died for our sins, was buried, and raised on the third day. Not so that we could self-justify our actions, but that we could find healing in His wounds and mercy in His Body and Blood. 
 
Since the true Pharisees are all Christian now, what we are left with are hypocrites. Hypocrites who not only trade God’s Word for man-made laws, but who trade the Lord’s Christ for man-made religion. They trade communion for lording it over others. They trade humility for the best seats in the house. They trade service for worldly honor.
 
But, Service is God’s business. When you trade that away, you lose. You cannot out-serve God. You can follow His example and mimic Him, but your service is in His shadow, in His wounds. First God serves, first God is wounded for your transgressions, first God is humbled on the cross, then, in His exaltation, you are exalted.
 
Not your service to Him, but His to you. There’s the lesson from the Pharisee, or hypocrite, and the Tax Collector. The Hypocrite relied on himself and declared himself the winner before the end. The Tax Collector relied on “not-himself”, “anything but himself”, because he knew that Jesus had come to seek and save the Lost. He believed that Jesus had come to give His Body and shed His Blood that he would live.
 
For the Voice is in the Blood, as Genesis 4 taught us today. The Blood cries out, not for vengeance, but for mercy. The God Who Justifies is the God Who bleeds for His creatures. 
 
So the word and judgement we should be concerned with is hypocrite, not Pharisee. “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy”, says Jesus in Luke 12, “Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops” (Lk 12:1-3).
 
That leaven we know is evil and malice toward our neighbor and toward God (1 Cor 5:8). Toward God Who, in our days, speaks to us through His Word alone and manifests His Glory and His Mercy in cross and Sacrament. The malice satan has is the malice of the hypocrite. They want to be like God, but they don’t want to do it God’s way.
 
The remedy to hypocrisy is humility. Humility towards God’s Will and actions. Not “thank you Lord for making me, me”, but “thank you for granting Your Holy Spirit through Your Word alone”. Not “thank you Lord it could always be worse”, but “thank you for uniting me to You in baptism”, “thank You for making me a part of Your Body in Communion”.
 
 

Rookie Numbers [Feast of St. Bartholomew]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Proverbs 3:1-8

• 1 Corinthians 12:27-31

• St. Luke 6:12-19

 

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 when day came, He called His disciples and chose from them twelve, whom He named apostles:”

 

As we celebrate the Feast of St. Bartholomew (or Nathaniel) today, we hear our Lord Jesus Christ choosing Twelve out of many, to be His chosen Apostles. 12 sent men, as Jesus was sent by the Father, to swindle the whole world out of their time, effort, and cash. And St. Bartholomew gives one of the best models of how to do this, that is, to be skinned alive for the Faith. So, once you do that, then the fame starts rolling in.

 

Jesus gives us twelve men to spread His Gospel and they are the only ones authorized by God, to do such a thing. If you want the words of God, you need an Apostle. Plain and simple. These twelve were not here for mysterious purposes, but to proclaim the free Justification of Sinners in Jesus, and for us to continue living in that teaching.

 

Throughout history, when men try to create religion, in order to keep the divine and the human separate, they often turned to symbols to describe heavenly things, because God is unknowable and can’t describe Himself or His own things, apparently. One of those symbols is numbers and thus numbers have been used in many religions. You think your mathematics are harmless, but it is a religion.

 

What I think happened was, God used a certain number of things for whatever purpose He described and some people took those numbers of things as the real message and gift from Him. That is, if you have the right number of things, or offer the right number, or are the right number, then you have access to God and no one else does.

 

So when God creates the world and everything in it in 7 days, 7 becomes a mysterious number. When God reveals Himself to be three Persons in one God, 3 becomes a religious number. When He chooses 12 tribes of Israel and 12 Apostles of the Church, now 12 joins the mix. And so on.

 

In this arithmancy, or numerology, however, numbers are given the driver’s seat. As in, they can even predict and move God without God’s approval. For example: if you chant a 3 by 3 Alleluia, then it is most pleasing to Him and your prayers are heard. If you accidently add an Alleluia, then He is displeased. 10 is right out.

 

Numerology is one of the things the Jews turn to after their return from the Babylonian exile, when the Glory Cloud would no longer appear in the Second Temple they built. With the apparent lack of the supernatural, the natural had to suffice for religion. As long as the proper amounts were present, as long as the proper days were observed, as long as the calculated laws were followed then God must still be there.

 

One example of this change is seen in the menorah, the candles used by modern Jews for Hannukah, mainly. The menorah, literally “candlestick”, was supposed to be based off the candelabras in the Temple, which had seven lights on them. 7, of course, being the days of the week according to the days of creation. A reminder of God’s giving light to the whole cosmos, yet being present with His people, in a tent.

 

Just before Jesus arrives, in this no-supernatural-temple-intertestamental-time, Hannukah actually happens where the menorah in the Temple stayed lit for 8 days, when there wasn’t enough oil for 1, in the attempt to restore the Temple again. Thus, the Jews changed the menorah for themselves, thinking that this was now at least some small miracle and word from God in so long a time. So now the menorah has 8 +1 candles, by law.

 

Now aren’t we acting the same way, pastor, with our candles?

[If you look we don’t have 7 either. We have 8 and if you count the Paschal candle, that’s 9, just like the Jews.]

Well, technically, there were two candelabras in the Temple, 2 x 7, for the two eyes of God, which makes 14. And the 8 we have are for the eighth day of Resurrection and Jesus at the center, with the Paschal candle, makes 9.

 

And on and on the crazy goes. And unless we heed the words of Isaiah, we will fall into the same trap of legalism and mysticism, forgetting God and forgetting the point. Isaiah says in 22:11, “but you looked not to Him that made it from the beginning, and regarded not Him that created it”.

 

Jesus is the giver from the beginning. There is no power in amount of things given or the number of stars, or the size of offerings. The sole power of them all is the Word of Promise behind them. It is Jesus Who promises that He will create all things in 7 days. “7” is not there first, then Jesus uses the magical power of 7 to do His work.

 

It is Jesus Who promises to rise again on the eighth day, not giving special power to “8” or using the special geometric and algebraic qualities of “8”, but giving resurrection.

 

Likewise, The Twelve. He gave the twelve sons to Jacob, the twelve tribes to Israel, and the 12 Apostles to the world in order that “their line … [go] out unto all lands, and their words to the ends of the earth” (Rom 10:18). That is that the Gospel be preached to all nations.

 

Here is what the religions of the world get wrong. They look to the creature, rather than the Creator. They look to the thing given and divine some mystery in themselves, instead of hearing from the Mouth of God what is the use and of what number.

 

Jesus only has one number: complete. Now, where does that fall on the number scale? It doesn’t. And that’s part of the point. All the way from the beginning, God plays ritual reversal. Where the world wants to create access points to heaven, God chivalrously just opens the door. Where the world wants to decode, and sacrifice, or please God, He speaks plainly.

 

The ritual reversal is: we don’t offer anything to God. He offers it all to us. It is all a gift. “He gave gifts to men”, He says in Ephesians 4:11. If Jesus wants to give 12 Apostles, then He gives the Apostles, not the number 12. After this, the number 12 now simply has the added job of reminding us of the Apostles, every time we hear it.

 

Our own candles in number are only here to point us to God. And by pointing us to God, point us to His greatest work of salvation on the cross. For there is only 1 Jesus on the cross, Who is 2 both God and man, part of the Trinity 3 in 1, giving us the 4 Gospels starting with the 5 books of Moses and the 6 days of Creation, with a 7th day of rest and an 8th day of resurrection, dying for us in the 9th hour, perfecting the 10 commandments, accepting us up to the 11th hour, through His chosen men, the Twelve.

 

It is not the numbers, it is Jesus. He says, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people”, in Romans 10:21, not “all day long I have given them number codes”. It is the hands of Jesus, pierced and scourged, that are the message that gives faith, forgiveness, and eternal life. 

 

This is what St. Bartholomew, and all the Apostles, suffers and dies for. It is the hands that are tattooed with nails that are held out for all to see and believe. And there are two hands, just as every man has, held out by God Himself, proclaiming to repent and believe the Gospel preached to you.

 

Jesus reveals to us that “a great sign was seen in heaven: a woman clothed who has been adorned with the sun, and the moon under beneath her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars” (Rev 12:1). What does one do with that truth from God’s own mouth?

 

Or when Jesus says, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (Jn 14:6) and “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise” (Lk 18:31-33)? 

 

If we keep God relegated to numbers and mysteries, then He is easy to control and life is easy for us. However, if God Himself has invaded our sinful world, and if He has proclaimed such truths to us, and if He has risen even from the dead, then what is more important than hearing that preaching and His Word, holding it sacred and gladly learning it?

 

And if that Apostolic preaching and teaching says that the living Christ comes among His gathered people to teach them and feed them in public worship, and that the life of the church flows to her from Christ Himself, then what is more important than weekly gathering together to receive His gifts and respond to Him with our prayers and praise and offerings?

 

Now you have a glimpse into St. Bartholomew’s motivation to suffer and die as his Savior did. Nothing is more important. Nothing is more important than communing with God Who comes to Church. Nothing is more important than seeing His Christ behind everything. Nothing is more important than knowing and believing that Christ is in His Word and Sacraments and in death, which let’s us trust that Baptism has the strength divine to make life immortal mine.

 

So, regardless of whether there are twelve gates, twelve angels, twelve names, twelve tribes, twelve foundations, twelve pearls, twelve fruits, or twelve times twelve and a half; now in these last days, God has spoken to us by His Son.

 

To be debt free [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: 

“The Lord commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light.”

 

Thus far from God’s Word, written for you to show you He does not change the rules behind your back. He does not, one day, chose Judaism, then the next choose Christianity. It has always been faith alone in Jesus, that pleases God. Jesus simply reveals the Resurrection in Himself, that we too may believe and live like we have a tomorrow, forever.

 

They say rich men are like God because they both are so rich that they have nothing to worry about. So if the rich man decides to change something on a whim, it makes no difference to him. He doesn’t suffer from the decisions, those who have less do. The manager in today’s parable seems to have a run-in with a rich man’s flightiness. He thought he was ok, until he wasn’t.

 

“The job changed on me”, cries the manager. Monday we were doing it one way and now Tuesday, the rules have changed. “Lord”, the manager explains, “if we are going to get ahead in the world, then we need to make a profit. If we want to make a profit, we have to get the goy for all they’re worth.”

 

And it was a successful, soft life for him. Notice what the manager can’t do when he’s fired. Not strong enough to dig and too proud to beg. Entitled. Spoiled. Full of soy lattes. He was comfortable in the work and thought he was following all company policies. 

 

Like Job, he was the perfect, moral businessman. Wealth, he knows, comes as a reward for playing by the rules and “goodness” is like money in the bank. The “goodness” of following the rules, no matter what was thought of them.

 

What Job knew, however, was what the manager forgot: that this world of business is unstable. At any given moment, currency can change, interests can flag, and attention shift. If any small thing of that sort should happen, you can find yourself bankrupt as quickly as you were made rich. For you were invested in one currency, or area of worth, but now the system is operating on different currency.

 

Both Job and our manager find themselves in this situation. Both are turned out. Both are bankrupted. Both have been shown that the goodness they thought they had a hold of, was not the right goodness. To them, the Lord changed the rules and it was not fair.

 

This is exactly what the Jews were fighting and how they felt, just before the exile to Babylon. In Isaiah 22 we hear, that the secret places of David and the houses of his city were all pulled down to strengthen the walls of Jerusalem, in defense against coming enemies. In this distrust of God’s faithfulness, even the religious ceremonies and ceremonial items were used as grocery items, instead of proclaiming God and keeping the Sabbath holy. 

 

“but you didn’t look to Him Who made it from the beginning”, says Isaiah, “and did not regard Him Who created it”. “For this sin shall not be forgiven you until you die” and “your robe, your crown and your management” shall be given to another (Isa 22:11, 14, 19-21). 

 

Awful harsh for simple business transactions, no? No. This manager, from the Gospel, was not in charge of simple business. Look at his shrewdness. He was in charge of debt, make no mistake. And St. Matthew just so happens to call sins, “debts”, in his Lord’s Prayer (Mt 6:12). 

 

What kind of debts? Huge, ungodly debts. These debts of oil and wheat are similar in size to the debt of the Unforgiving Servant in St. Matthew 18:24. His debt was ten thousand talents or twenty years of paychecks. The oil measures in at about 900 gallons and the wheat about 9000 gallons (fluid and dry measurements were considered the same). All unpayable.

 

Repent! What we and the manager and the Jews forget is the business of the Lord. We want the Lord to pay attention to outward appearances, statistics, and prosperity. We want His success to be based on how successful we are. And He promises as such, so it seems, and to our experiences, if you want your religion to be ahead of the others, you reward your followers better than everyone around them.

 

The manager was comfortable in this. Job was not. Job knew God to be a hard man and so he “would send and consecrate [his children], and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, ‘It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts.’ Thus Job did continually.” (Job 1:5)

 

And instead he suffered for being dutiful. Even his health and family were removed from Job, not just his job. However, same as the manager, this was not a change of the rules or a change of currency, on the Lord’s part. For the Lord’s business is forgiveness.

 

Pat what you owe! (Rom 13:7), the Word says, and we are debtors.

But I will prosper you, says the Lord (Jer 29:11).

So, who is right? The manager? Job? The Lord? 

 

Jesus says that we have our very life from the Word from His own mouth. The same life that Adam said came from his wife, the mother of all the living (Gen 3:21), the very life in the Breath of God (Gen 2:7). Indeed, Jesus even gives the command to “be fruitful and multiply”, suggesting success and blessing. 

 

But success and blessing are not the same thing, though they can be tied together. The world sees success and blessing as prospering in the material, money in the bank, people in the pew, a stable family life. So it transfers that experience to life with God. That if we pay the right amount, in those things, God will reward us.

 

“The measure you use will be used against you”, Jesus told us a couple Sundays ago. That measure is not just how you treat God, in some sort of imaginary way. That measure has to do with God, with His Christ, and with the neighbors He gives to you. For example, the measure you use against your wife will be what is used against you.

 

Jesus brings the measure and it is Himself. Jesus brings the rules and they are the Word made flesh. “A good man deals graciously and lends; He manages his words with judgement” says Psalm 112:5. Grace, pity, and favor are God’s mode of operation in the Old Testament and Grace, pity, and favor are shown in the Life of Christ. 

 

Jesus did not change the rules with Job. The cross was always the Way. Though Job could have success, Job’s greatest success would be found in the death of death. He even rejoices in this in his famous chapter 19 and when his fortunes are “resurrected” at the end of his book. “I know that my Redeemer lives, and in the end He will stand upon the earth. Even after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God” (Job 19:25-26).

 

Resurrection from the dead. Resurrection from the thing that actually destroys success and actually changes the rules on us: death. It was sin, death, and the devil that ruined the manager’s job, because he was focused on profit and not mercy. This reveals the shift from the Old Testament times to the New Testament times. 

 

Jesus did not change the rules on the Jews, he just continued to show mercy. He simply continued to cancel the debt of those who transgressed against His laws, no matter who had done so. Indeed, it was grace and mercy for they were His laws and His business which we profaned. And if the Lord commends shrewdness for dealing mercifully with a little, then He will commend a kingdom for dealing mercifully with all.

 

Jesus manages His own House perfectly. It is managed by faith and it is governed through grace and it is measured by Christ alone. There was no great change that took place from the Old Testament to the New and there is no great change from the New Testament to you. 

 

The New, is the Resurrection where, all having died to the Law that increases our debts, are freed from the Law by baptism. “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.” (Rom 6:3-5)

And “now we have been released from the law, since we have died to what held us, so that we may serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the old letter of [debts]” (Rom 7:6).

Faith works fruit [Trinity 8]

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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: 

“Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits”

 
This is the Lord’s Holy Scripture and He includes it for you to hear of fruits, or works, one more time. Not only are you required to do good works, but prophets have their own set of works, as St. Jeremiah teaches today in our Old Testament reading. Different from your commanded works, a prophet is to proclaim the Christ, the Messiah. And the only Good Tree is the cross of Jesus. If a prophet does not preach and teach the Blood of Christ, then he is false.
 
The Blood of Jesus is the only claim we have on God for anything. And yet, there are still those who teach that works merit salvation and sanctification. Those teachings are presented to us to fool us into thinking a diseased tree can bear good fruit. Their falseness is found in that they will turn to a dictionary, rather than Scripture, to make this point.
 
And the dictionary reads like this:
a) Even in the fallen state, man can, by his natural intellectual power, know religious and moral truths. 
And, b) For the performance of a morally good action, Sanctifying Grace is not required. 
Although the sinner, they explain, does not possess the grace of justification, he can still perform morally good actions and, with the help of actual grace, even supernaturally good works, and through them prepare himself for justification. Thus all works of the person in mortal sin are not sins 
 
The works of sinners are not sins? That’s convenient. The dictionary goes on:
c) The Grace of Faith is not necessary for the performance of a morally good action, they say, even infidels can do morally good works. Thus not all works of infidels are sins. And, 
d) Actual Grace is not necessary for the performance of a morally good action, for fallen man can perform good works without the help of Divine grace, by his natural powers alone. Therefore not all works which are achieved without actual grace are sins
 
Hopefully you can already hear the rise of the false doctrine of theosis. That, if there are works you can do which are not sin, then continuing to do them will cause you not to sin, and therefore not be a sinner any longer. The problem we all have is our sin. If we get rid of them, then we have no problem.
 
Grace seems to be their focus here, but its used in a strange way. That grace is sufficient for you in weakness, the false prophets will quote from 2 Corinthians 12:9, but “grace” used their way appears to be just a wink and a nod. As if God looks at your works and says, “Well, at least you tried” and that is good enough for eternal life. “Do your best and God will do the rest”, they preach.
 
Faith is not even mentioned; much more is the glaring omission of Jesus in all of that. We can work ourselves into godliness with “grace” without Christ. He may be our mediator at first, but then passes the baton to us, to greater heights of holiness. Thus, we peek into their million dollar dictionary of theological terms and find these two gems: condignity and congruity.
 
Both describe this imagined acquisition of God’s Grace. Condignity, or de condigno, declares that God will dignify human works with the grace of forgiveness and righteousness, no matter who does them. Congruity, or de congruo, promotes a grasping at any good work in the hope that God will offer His grace in return. 
 
How can either of those offer hope to the despairing soul? They cannot, because they are primarily meant to elude Scripture. If we can define away “sin”, “death”, and the “power of the devil”, then we can redefine and be “sinless”, “deathless”, and in control ourselves. He who defines the terms, wins the debate; apparently even against God Himself.
 
Repent. The intention of the one who works does not distinguish the kinds of merit he earns because of the work. In their security, hypocrites simply believe their works are worthy, and that for this reason they are accounted righteous, in their own minds. If you speak over yourself, “I am a good tree” enough times, even you begin to believe it.
 
However, there are also always conditions to being good enough. According to the false prophets, your “good enough” works must be morally good and in accordance with the moral law in object, intent, and circumstances. It must be done freely, without coercion, within or without. It must be supernatural, aroused and accompanied by actual grace and proceeding from supernatural motive. 
 
That’s a lot of big words there, miss… But how can works be accompanied by grace if we are seeking grace through them? How can we do supernatural work, when we are only flesh and bone??
 
This is St. Paul from our Epistle reading today. We are not debtors to the flesh, that is we have nothing that we owe to God in our flesh, to perfect our flesh for faith, before He gives us faith. Living according to the flesh, including good works, is to be a debtor to the flesh, having no Spirit. To live by the Spirit is to be led by the Spirit. Not by your whims and fancy, but by His Will as the Third Person of the Trinity, only revealed in the Word.
 
The Spirit leads us to the Tree and Holy Scripture tells us plainly the Good Tree from the Bad tree: Jesus. The same Jesus Who promises to make us fellow heirs with Him, provided that we suffer with Him. Suffer what? Suffer the belief that Sinners sin. That we sin because we are sinners and any work done by a sinner is sinful.
 
At the foot of the cross, our Father declares to us His Will and His Judgement. That His lovingkindness, from our Introit, be found in the suffering of Jesus Christ, His Only Son. And that that same suffering was inflicted in the Temple, His holy Temple, the alleged center of holiness and righteousness for the entire world.
 
The Will of God accomplished there which is to be praised and rejoiced in, is that Christ became sin Who knew no sin, for you. He took on the spirit of the false prophet and ravenous wolf, demanding works too good for sinful man. The thorns and thistles He wore as a crown and was cut down in His prime, tossed and left for the fires of hell to care for Him.
 
But we know what happens next and this informs us as to what actual good fruit is. Good Fruit is Resurrection Fruit. Not only does the Spirit give us love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, which any man can practice, but He will raise us from the dead to life everlasting with Jesus.
 
That fruit is only found in, with, and under the Body and Blood of Jesus. To please God, faith alone is necessary. To receive Christ’s own resurrection, baptism into His death and resurrection is necessary. To have the fruit of the Spirit: forgiveness, faith in Christ, and eternal life, eating and drinking the Body and Blood is necessary.
 
Necessary because that is where the Promise to be, is. The Promise is not, “in your works you will find salvation”. The Promise is “salvation belongs to the Lord” and “He will have mercy on whomever He will” (Ps 3:8; Ex 33:19). If He wants you to find salvation in work, He would have promised it and made a list for us.
 
But, salvation is His. It is His to hand out where and when He chooses. If He chooses.
 
In Jesus we know that’s what He chooses to do. There is no redefining of work or grace or salvation that will make a good tree a bad tree, or a bad tree a good tree. The standard is God’s alone, not man’s to weasel around with, redact, and find a another way in.
 
And the standard is the Cross of Christ. If a false prophet wants to be heard and believed, let him die and rise again, proving his words. A true prophet is heard, because he proclaims Christ Crucified, Who has died and risen for His own Word and His own glory. That He hands out His grace by His grace and that the sinner is justified for Christ’s sake, by grace, through faith alone. 
 
Can sin be done in faith? No. In order to sin again, after we have been forgiven and saved, we must be lost. “It is false”, our Confessions state, “and must be censured, when it is asserted and taught…that [we] might or could act contrary [to the Law of God], and [yet]…retain faith and God’s favor and grace” (SD iv:20)
 
If you want your works to reach God, they must be baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus. In other words, you must be fearful that any one of your good works could be a condemning sin. “So you also”, declares Jesus in Luke 17:10, “when you have done everything commanded of you, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’” 
“If you live by the flesh, you will die by the flesh”, says Romans 8:13.
 
Our Confessions stand here:
“Here mercy has a clear and certain promise and command from God. The Gospel is properly the command that directs us to believe that God is reconciled to us for Christ's sake. "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him" (John 3:17). Whenever mercy is spoken of, faith in the promise must be added. This faith produces sure hope, because it relies upon God's Word and command. If hope would rely upon works, then it would be uncertain, because works cannot quiet the conscience, as has been said before. Faith makes a distinction between those who obtain salvation and those who do not obtain it. Faith makes the distinction between the worthy and the unworthy, because eternal life has been promised to the justified. Faith justifies. (Ap V (III):224)
 
So what is it that makes a tree good and healthy? Faith. What makes good fruit from the Good Tree? Faith. What causes you to be known by the Lord on the Last Day? You got it.
Not the faith you have worked up on your own, made your own, and which is impervious to anyone’s opinion or scrutiny, even from the Word of God.
 
But the faith given. That faith that has the Crucified as its object and looks to the cross to reveal, explain, and teach all things. For, the Blood of Jesus is the only claim we have on God. We are not here to make our flesh sinless, but to be baptized into the death and resurrection of our flesh. 
 
 

Understanding and Faith [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: 

“And He directed the crowd to sit down on the ground. And He took the seven loaves, and having given thanks, He broke them and gave them to His disciples to set before the people; and they set them before the crowd”

 
This is God’s Word which Jesus sets before you to understand. Like a meal, you can understand how much this Word cost Him. This is to point you to the sacrifice Jesus makes for you. Not just 2000 years ago to middle-eastern hill people, but today. Today, may you hear His words, along with eating and drinking, and find there the forgiveness of our sins.
 
In St. Mark’s chapter 8 and part of 9, along with our Introit and the hymn we just sung, Jesus appears to be tackling the issue of understanding today, by setting His bread and His words in front of us. After our Gospel pericope, in verses 17 and 21, Jesus exclaims, “Do you not yet understand?” Not yet understand what? That Jesus is God in the flesh and that only God feeds in such miraculous ways, thus St. Mark is catechizing us. God has come and He has taken action.
 
Understanding, in general, is a sure sign of consciousness. In other words, being human is being conscious and being conscious means, you understand and can understand the world around you: up, down; good, bad; right, wrong. This is very helpful if you want any chance at survival. 
 
You see, understanding involves more than just knowing something. Understanding is not plugging numbers in an equation. That’s just computing. Any rusty robot can do such a thing. What consciousness and understanding give you is the truth behind the numbers. Instead of mindless computation, you believe that the mathematical rules that reveal 2 + 2 = 4, are true.
 
Same with animals. Though they seem to be conscious, they simply obey commands, whether they are right or wrong. It may be wrong to bite or attack a person, but the animal only knows rebuke and reward. Thus, obedience is not the way for us to consciousness either, since that can be produced by bit and bridle.
 
Maybe we get closer to understanding when we think of food. There are many things we call food and even things that our government calls “food”. Cows, eggs, and apples would fit the first category. Partially hydrogenated soybean oil, xanthan gum, and cyanide (in small doses, of course) would fit the second category. 
 
Yet, both categories are considered food. Understanding lets you know that consistently consuming hamburger is infinitely better than consistently consuming Xanthan Gum. Now you can say its a matter of quantity, but understanding is understanding. If your child is hungry, you reach for the bread, not the lab kit.
 
Let’s take this into the Feeding of the 4000, because Jesus brings up the leaven of the Pharisees and that’s where our misunderstanding begins. Beware the leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod, He says, and the Apostles reply, its because we don’t have any bread and Jesus, once again, tells them they are wrong.
 
Again Jesus makes this spiritual. Beware the spiritual leaven of the Pharisees and Herod, that is their doctrine and preachings. Do you not understand, Jesus asks, that a little leaven leavens the whole lump. If you have even a small amount of works mixed into your Gospel, then you do not have the Gospel. If you do not understand what Jesus is doing, then you do not have Jesus.
 
However, just as knowing only takes you so far until you must understand, so too, understanding without faith is just as bad. For the Pharisees and Herod don’t only have leavened doctrine, they also have actual bread they use on the people. Bread and circuses from Herod and the Bread of the Temple for the Pharisees.
 
Repent. As is understandable, when we understand something, it is mostly spiritual to us. An inward change, if for no other reason than you cannot see thoughts. Anything that comes out of the brain is physically only chemical and electrical. A brain surgeon will never come out of the O.R. saying, “well that guy had some interesting thoughts.”
 
But Jesus, when He created us, put all of His Wisdom into creating and locating these spiritual thoughts and understandings in a fleshy brain. Such that it is necessary to have a fleshy brain to have unseen thoughts. Jesus works our consciousness in and through our bodies.
 
Same with the bread. Jesus does His work with both spiritual bread and physical bread. Not only does He feed those in need with daily bread, but He also says, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4). 
 
This means that the understanding faith gives us is to see and believe that feeding and bread are the point. The feeding that God will do with every word that comes from His mouth, is going to be through the ears AND through the mouth. He is not going to be a bread King, but God of our daily bread. Not a food pantry king, with an endless supply, but a Father with endless mercy.
 
Thus, feeding is the way to God. It is how God is accomplishing His work of salvation on earth. He is not using bread only in a spiritual way, like the Pharisees, and He is not using bread only in a physical way, like the kings and elites of the earth. All to coerce and control.
 
He is using it as a sacrifice. It is a sacrifice. Food is always a sacrifice. Whether it is burned up on an altar or ground up to feed the priests, the food always “loses” and in this way, sent up to God.
 
God makes the sacrifice. 
 
Since Jesus is the Bread of Heaven and food is always the sacrifice, then Christ is the Bread of God Who taketh away the sins of the world. He is the food Who endures to eternal life. He is the Bread Who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. 
 
“This is the bread that comes down from heaven”, Jesus says in John 6, “so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (John 6:50-51)
 
How can bodily eating and drinking do such great things? Because God said so. It is His Word that declares, “This is how it is”, not any priest, or holy man, or leader. It is His Word that generates belief in His words, “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” It is the Word along with the bodily eating and drinking which accomplishes the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation to all who believe.
 
Now, let us answer Jesus’s question of, “Do you still not understand”.
Yes. We still do not understand, but we believe. We believe in You and Your Word. That it does what it says and accomplishes the great feat of the salvation of sinners. Help our unbelief.
 
Jesus makes the point to remind the Apostles that at both great feedings, the 5000 and the 4000, that there were fragments left over from the meal and gathered reverently, in order to foster their understanding. Their understanding that He is going to save and care for His Creatures is the most perfect and final way ever: uniting Himself to you.
 
And it won’t be a union only on paper or only breathing in your nostrils. It will be flesh and blood. It will be body and soul. It will be a perfect union of God and man in Christ, such that we will be able to say, “Yes, Jesus. Now we understand. We feed on You.”
 
Not just a “sitting at table” way, but a “baptized into Your Body” way. That being members of His Body means that we feed as the heart feeds. We feed as the eyes, hands, head, and feet. This is the fulfillment of everyday eating. That we eat and are never hungry again. As branches of the vine, through faith, we live accordingly.
 
Not as robots, but understanding what our Lord is doing and loving that it is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise. And since it has been set before us, we think about these things and rejoice (Phil 4:8). For God has revealed His glory, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it (Isaiah 40:5).
 

Enthusiasm [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, mercy, and peace will be with you all from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. (2 Jn 1)

 

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

“For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

 

Last week we talked about the voice of God and it was imperative that we understood it as external to ourselves. As in coming from God, not inside us. Today, we begin to examine our inner voice that the world continues to tell us to listen to and obey. So how do we know if its God’s voice inside us or if it’s just the Taco Bell we had for lunch?

 

“I tell you”, Jesus says. This is God’s Word, not mine, for you to hear over and over. It doesn’t change no matter how many times you read it. That you are not righteous, that you do murder your neighbor, and that unless you repent and die with Christ, you will remain unrighteous and murderous. It is the External Word that accomplishes true righteousness, and not anything internal to us. Trust, therefore, in the Lord’s Word and Sacraments to create and sustain faith in you and your neighbor.

 

So what happens when you give a spiritual law to fleshly creatures? They get confused, that’s what. Romans 7:14 tells us, “we know that the law is spiritual.” So when Jesus says, “You shall not murder”, we’re all like, “yeah, murder like, ‘murdering’ your good vibes, man.”

 

When we attempt to replace the Word with our experiences, reason, or our pleasures we become Enthusiasts. We name this grave sin, Enthusiasm, because this is what “inheres in Adam and his children from the beginning [from the first fall] to the end of the world, [its poison] having been implanted and infused into them by the old dragon, and is the origin, power [life], and strength of all heresy…It is the devil himself…[who is] extolled as Spirit without the Word and Sacraments” (SA III:VIII:9, 11), says our Confessions.

 

Enthusiasm is the move from the certainty of God's promises to the shaky sands of one's own uncertain thoughts or feelings as to whether God is actually doing or not doing what He promises. 

 

For example: Jesus tells us to not murder, but its spiritual. That gives us spiritual license to interpret and seek its heavenly meaning, rather than a literal interpretation. We attempt to uncover God’s intentions behind His legislation. The flesh hears “you shall not murder someone”, but the “spirit” hears “be reconciled”. Its not about murder, but reconciliation.

 

Thus, in our super-spirituality, we become the judge. We keep God’s Holy Law the way we want to. He may demand righteousness and “no murder”, but what that means to me is “enhancing life”. Maybe that means, if I advocate for the redistribution of goods needed for life to endure (whatever that looks like), unmoored from moral discriminations (whatever those are), with the hope—and trust—that just maybe the wrongdoer will repent, i.e. live like me, then I’ll achieve what God really meant by, “you shall not murder”.

 

This is spiritualizing the law, or enthusiasm. Again, while the Holy Law would prohibit violence, us spiritualizing it would involve limiting the use of violence even in situations where it's technically permitted, emphasizing peace and reconciliation and, on the other hand, authorizing violence if it produces the same, life-enhancing result. 

 

Spiritualized legal systems would focus on fostering communion and cooperation between people, rather than just enforcing laws, rights, and obligations. Ha! Spiritual Growth would then mean ritualizing the law in order that you are simply involved with aligning your actions with your values and striving for a higher purpose. As long as my goal is met, the ends justify the means to get there.

 

Repent. Sounds convoluted, right? If you are above the Scriptures, you are against the Scriptures. You must reject the “fanatical men, who dream that the Holy Ghost is given not through the Word, but because of certain preparations of their own, if they sit unoccupied and silent in obscure places, waiting for illumination” (Ap XIII (VII):13) says our Confessions.

 

Jesus does not promise to draw all men to Himself without external means. Jesus does not promise enlightenment, justification, or salvation apart from hearing God’s Word. You may wish to wait for a heavenly revelation without preaching, but just tell me if you suffer from that and I’ll drop a Bible in your lap. (FC II:13)

 

Jesus rejects enthusiasm today, in the Gospel already heard. He does this by stating the Law, spiritualizing it until only God can be righteous enough to complete it, and then putting our neighbor in front of us. “You shall not murder” has no teeth without another person in front of us. “You shall not murder” gains a physical meaning with the spiritual when you see yourself in your neighbor.

 

Meaning, our spiritual fantasies disappear when our neighbor, whom we are not supposed to murder, stands in front of us. Same with the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees. If that Righteousness were to be placed in front of us, all enthusiasm (the bad kind) would go out the window. There’d be no room for it. We’d have to deal with flesh and blood.

 

If the Law could save us or make us righteous, Jesus would not have endured the cross. If we didn’t need the spoken Word and administered Sacraments, then of what use is the Bible? 

 

God comes in flesh and blood so that there is no doubt what the Word is and what His Promises are. The Word is both spiritual and physical. Jesus is both God and man. He is Judge of both, He holds the authority of both, and He comes to proclaim both. He comes to give the Law and to complete it, in the flesh. He gives spiritual truths, Who just so also happens to be the third Person of the Trinity.

 

Dr. Luther speaks this way:

Our teaching is that bread and wine do not avail…Christ on the cross and all His suffering and His death do not avail, even if, as you teach, they are "acknowledged and meditated upon" with the utmost "passion, ardor, heartfeltness." 

Something else must always be there. What is it? The Word, the Word, the Word. (AE 40:212-213)

 

The solution is: the Word, the Word, the Word. Jesus shows up. The owner of the voice shows up, admits it, and gives the promise of the voice remaining with us, even if He goes away. The Word is made flesh, dwells among us, and leaves us a record of His words. Thus, our first line of defense against enthusiasm, our neighbors and our own, is His Word which endures forever.

 

“Chapter and verse”, is the direct reply to your neighbor’s enthusiasm and to yours. “Show me the chapter and verse”, you say when someone is speaking for God or from God or about God. Did God really say you get visions? Did God really say that all laws are in the shrine of your heart and whatever you decide and command in church is spirit and law, even when it is above and contrary to the Scriptures or spoken Word?

 

I don’t think so. If you are above the Scriptures, you are against the Scriptures. The Word is the antidote and we keep our noses in the Word to shield us from nonsense. And what does the Word give us?

 

The theologian, Gerhard Forde says, “In administering the sacraments, we do not merely say something. We do not merely impart information. We do something. We wash in water. We give bread and wine to those who come. We do not just explain Christ or the Gospel or describe faith or give instructions on how to get salvation. We give salvation flat out. There it is. In the mouth. There it is, on the head.” (Gerhard Forde, book "Theologies For Proclamation")

 

Hymns are useful to us in this respect, also. For we don’t just sing for singing’s sake, just because we like it. We sing difficult hymns. Difficult because we sing what it is we believe. We sing our confessions. We sing our doctrine. We sing the Son of God. So while it may seem difficult, our hymns defend us from our preferences and place us outside the box, so to speak. 

 

Enthusiasm is rejection of the External Word. Christianity is acceptance that the Truth is outside us, that we are trying to discern it, and that we live by it even at the expense of our experience, our reason, our pleasure, our popularity, and our bank accounts. 

 

Jesus may have promised to dwell in our hearts through faith (Eph 3:17), but not that He would save you there or redeem you there or have mercy on all mankind from there. He perfected that long before your heart was even formed and He will continue the same, long after.