No other Word: the 1st Command [St. Matthew]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Ezekiel 1:10-14

• Ephesians 4:7-16

• St. Matthew 9:9-13

 

Grace to you all and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Phile 1:3)

 

Who, once again speaks to you today, saying: 

“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.”

 

In the first place, you shall have no other gods (Ex 20:3). 

What does this mean? You should fear, love, and trust in God above all things. 

In the second place, in this house, St. Matthew is a hero and not just because he followed Jesus. He is a hero, because the true Hero, Jesus, called out to him and made him one. And at the Word the heavens were made and all the host of them and St. Matthew was called out from the receipt of custom.

 

In the third place, those who are well have no need for a physician, but those who are sick, and St. Matthew is sick. Although he presents himself as being pretty healthy, wealthy, and wise, we know he is sick, because the Word of God has come for him and calls to him. Jesus would not, otherwise.

 

Tax Collectors. Do you know why we have ridges on the rims of our coins? Tax collectors would shave off the edges of the gold and silver coins to make new ones, all the while making the old ones worth less. The official name for that practice is inflation. 

 

Tax Collectors. 

When we ask chatGPT about the ancient practices of tax collectors during St. Matthew’s time, it tells us that Publicans actually bid against each other for the right to collect taxes and paid a fee to Rome to do so. They were not paid by the Empire, so their paycheck came from whatever amount above the regular tax they could get from the people.

 

The collectors had the backing of the military and so were able to threaten, coerce, and assess the value of private property, income, and traded goods on the spot. If one could not afford the taxes, you could take out a high-interest loan to cover it, trapping families in debt, which is why usury is a sin against God. Yes, we’re still talking about ancient practices…

 

Thus, one reason they were seen as traitors is because their wealth went back to Rome, not to their own community. They were considered most unclean for Temple, because they ate and drank with the goyim, and were usually shunned in society, grouped with sinners, as the Pharisees comment in today’s Gospel reading. 

Truly, there is nothing new under the sun and we have not changed our ways.

 

And this was St. Matthew’s whole world and he thought it was wonderful. He probably grew up in Jerusalem and it became small and po-dunk, to him, as he learned of the Empire and the wider world. He began to see his future as he strived for higher education and a chance at tax collecting. Bigger and bigger his dreams got.

 

Worldly friends, worldly work, and worldly play. Hey Levi, let’s go party! Yeah! Hey Levi, let’s go drinking! Yeah! Hey Levi, let’s go count de money! Yeah! Week after week. Month after month. Year after year. Party again? Drink again? Money again? Didn’t we do that last week, guys?

 

Suddenly his world wasn’t so big anymore. Suddenly, he took a look at his life and found that, instead of being a man of culture, he had become a man of ill-repute and there was only so much he could say to make himself believe that it was everyone else’s fault, instead of his own.

 

Then one day, someone mentioned a saying going around recently. It went, “he who sins is a slave to sin”. And Levi paused and thought, that couldn’t mean me, could it? And as he continued his life, spinning faster and faster down the proverbial drain, another saying was thrown in his face as he was trying to focus on business:

“Follow me”.

 

This time, his whole world stopped spinning. He stopped spinning a thousand miles per hour. He stopped dreading the next extrovert, social interaction. He stopped counting other people’s money. This happened, not because he heard a still small voice, but because he heard a Word with authority. Unlike the scribes, unlike the Pharisees, and unlike his rabbi. 

 

Follow me.

Levi had no reason to obey. He had it made. He was well off. Maybe had a kid or two on the side. And because his grandmother nagged him, he went to sabbath every once in a while, and gave a tithe…sometimes. There was no benefit, no advantage, no promise of return on Levi “following”.

 

Yet in those words there was a fire he could not deny. There was a declaration that “what you have is not your own”. There was a condemnation there that “You shall not charge interest on loans to your brother, interest on money, interest on food, interest on anything that is lent for interest.” (Deut 23:19). And there was a promise there: “I have not forgotten you”.

 

At that Word, the heavens and the earth come into being, and at that same Word, Faith comes into the being of Levi, now known in the Lamb’s Book of Life as St. Matthew. Sure, at first, St. Matthew is not forgotten. All of his sins now are confronting him and bearing their demonic fangs. But St. Matthew is also not forgotten within the Lord’s Atonement for all his sins.

 

We are not St. Matthew and we do not sit at the receipt of custom and we do not have Jesus walking past and saying, “Follow me”. However, we do have that same Word. And it is found in the catechetical question: Who is your god?

 

Though we underestimate the Word; though we doubt it; though we question its relevance in our day to day lives, He has been given to us. And He does the same work on us as He does to St. Matthew. In our sin, we believe that throwing a bible verse into normal conversation is awkward, embarrassing, and irrelevant. Though that’s the trick: it should be.

 

But that is coming from you who are saturated in it. You have been already brought into the widened world of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For those not there yet, the Word is a shock to the system. Again, as it should be.

 

For example, imagine this awkwardness with me as you sit down with an acquaintance and ask him, “So, which god do you serve?” He has more than likely thought of this before, on his own. And this will link to many topics, among which are “how do you make hard decisions” and “why do you have the values you do” and what gives your life purpose”. 

 

Asking, “what is God’s first commandment and what does it mean”, stops the world from spinning. And either the person will know it or should know it or will reject it completely. Either way, you find their true god. You find what they truly fear, love, and trust above all things and it is usually the self.

 

That is our lesson from St. Matthew today. In our sin we believe we can create the life we want and God will be pleased no matter what. And He’s not. We know He’s not, because He has come to give His own life, which is not ours to begin with. He has come to remake us into what pleases Him and that is only found in His Word, His Son Jesus Christ.

 

So, so what? So what if the world thinks Scripture is awkward? So what if you challenge others to really confess their values? So what if you both leave a little more purposeful and contemplative? Is it best to leave the blind men in the pit or pull them out?

 

This is St. Matthew’s position at the time of the Gospel reading. He hears Jesus’s words and he could care less what the soldiers think. He hears Jesus and he could care less what his friends and colleagues think. He hears Jesus and he could care less what the Pharisees think, because the Word has come to take away sins and St. Matthew has plenty of those.

 

And the strength of that Word moves the Holy Spirit, Who was given to St. Matthew, to forsake all and follow Jesus. The Root that gives the fruit for free. St. Matthew followed Jesus to rebelling against the world. He followed Jesus through His suffering and death, to the empty tomb and His Church. 

 

It’s not enough that Mathew change his ways. He must now live within the Body he has been baptized into. But he cannot get there on his own. He must be brought there, through the Word. Then he must be brought back, through Baptism. Then he must be brought back, through the Sacrament of the Altar. 

 

Because that is where Jesus is leading him to. To follow Jesus is to find His Word and sacrament and pitch your tent there, until He returns. To follow means the fulfillment of “You shall have no other gods”. And that fulfillment means to live and have your being where that God has chosen to dwell. “You shall have no other gods”, and the One, True, Triune God is preaching the forgiveness of sins and communing with His people.

 

 

 Amen.

 

 

Copy and Original [Triumph of the Holy Cross]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Numbers 21:4-9

• Philippians 2:5-11

• St. John 12:32-36

 

Grace to you all and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Phile 1:3)
 
Who, once again speaks to you today, saying: 
“the crowd answered him, ‘We have heard from the Law that the Christ remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?’”
 
Thus far from God’s Word written down that we may read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest it. How this is accomplished is through Word and Sacrament and Catechesis. We must be taught the Truth of God. In fact, the rules must be memorized in the light so they can be trusted in the dark. For in life we are faced with many copies and impersonators, thus we memorize the Original in the Light so He can be trusted in the darkness.
 
Today we are commemorating the recovery of the True Cross as discovered by St. Helena, Emperor Constantine's mother, in the 4th century AD. Maybe unfortunately, what she found and brought back to Rome was a piece of wood that was tested on sick persons. It healed one and so was declared a piece of the true cross of Jesus.
 
Now, before you get all prejudiced against icons and relics, St. Ambrose preached that when St. Helena found the true cross, “she worshiped not the wood, but the King, Him who hung on the wood. She burned with an earnest desire of touching the guarantee of immortality.”
 
So we give her the benefit of the doubt, not having been there ourselves, but St. Ambrose makes an important shift in distinguishing between the Original and the copy. For St. Ambrose, the wood of the cross was the copy, in other words, the thing that points to the real thing, the Original. 
 
This is also what the crowd was after, in today’s Gospel, when they ask about the Christ. Jesus is talking about dying, when the Scriptures clearly speak of the Christ never-dying. And if the Christ is ever-living, not dying, or maybe unable to die, then that would make Jesus the copy and the true Messiah yet to come.
 
Let us help the crowd and St. Helena today, and think about what rule would let us distinguish between a copy and the Original. For what is at stake is the truth of the world and the rescue of sinners from this wicked world. It is not worth simply winning a philosophical argument. 
 
The first thing we can examine is the weight of reality that the thing carries. The Original will go all the way and is robust and complex. The copy will only satisfy for a moment and becomes useless after it reaches that point. 
 
Take the wood of the cross. While we can allow that a healing miracle took place because someone touched wood, its usefulness ends there. It helps with nothing else. It does not comfort in times of sadness. It does not forgive sins. Though it can heal, it is limited. 
 
The next rule we examine is where the thing demands that we look. Back to the cross: where are we to look for results in the wood of the cross? It wants us to look at it and it wants us to look inside ourselves for devotion to it. This is the demand of a copy. 
 
Instead, the Original demands we look through it to something outside of itself. The true cross will not point us to itself, the wood, but the weight that hung on it. When we have crosses up in church, they point us to Jesus, not to itself. Extra nos, is the fancy Lutheran Latin phrase. Salvation is found outside ourselves.
 
And finally, what sort of satisfaction do we get from the copy as opposed to the Original? Are we happy for a moment and then needing more later, like a drug? The copy is fleeting, the Original is rooted in fact and satisfies real hunger.
 
And yet, in icons and relics we find God’s Truth. He is not willing that any of His creation NOT participate in salvation’s history. St. Cyril says it this way: “He was truly crucified for our sins. For if you would deny it, the place refutes you visibly, this blessed Golgotha, in which we are now assembled for the sake of Him Who was here crucified; and the whole world has since been filled with pieces of the wood of the Cross.”
 
Here now is the true witness of the true cross: it held Jesus. That it was set up outside Jerusalem. That it existed in time and space. We have word of it. We have physical proof of it. You can deny it all you want, but it doesn’t make reality less true. 
 
It is not the cross that draws all nations, but the God-man on it, Jesus. Jesus is lifted up. Jesus will draw all men to Himself. However, it was on the cross that all this was accomplished. It was the True Cross that held Jesus, but when Jesus was taken down, it was no longer the True cross. Thus, if the cross is not causing the suffering and death of God, it is not the original, but a copy.
 
This is taught by God in two ways. First, when He tells us that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, He is saying that the Sabbath Day was a gift to be enjoyed, not an immutable law over us or even over God Himself, for men to attempt to find God guilty of breaking the Sabbath Day laws.
 
And second, is understanding baptism and the sacraments. God does not give us the inner-working details of Baptism for a reason. So that we cannot take it into a laboratory and make it into a superstitious thing, like being able to bottle it and call it holy water. Or worse, being able to make it without needing Jesus. Baptism and holy water are only valid when they are used as God said. No more no less.
 
It is Jesus Who is Lord of the sabbath. It is Jesus Who is Lord of Baptism. It is Jesus Who is Lord of the cross. Just as the Sabbath was made for man, so the cross was made for Jesus, not the other way around. The copy of the cross only serves to let Jesus pay for the salvation of all. The true cross brings that salvation to all.
 
It is Jesus’s job to use the cross, it is our job to preach Christ Crucified and to continue to proclaim His death, through His Supper, until He returns. This we must be taught. We must be catechized and this must be memorized or else we will be mesmerized by the world and its false crosses. 
 
What we memorize is “with what has Christ redeemed you? Answer: Christ has redeemed me not with gold, or silver [, or wood], but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death”. 
 
We memorize Daniel 7:13-14, that though “I saw One like the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven…He was given dominion…that will not pass away, and His kingdom is one that will never be destroyed”, it is by His wounds we are healed (Isa 53:5).
 
We memorize Isaiah 9:7, that even though “Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end”, it is the Blood of Jesus, His Son, which purifies from all sin (1 John 1:7).
 
The cross of Christ is the answer. It is where the holy Blood of Jesus is spent and the empty tomb is the response, for that is where the promise of God is confirmed. Our Forever-Seed, our Forever-Priest, our Original is the man Who suffers, dies, and rises again. That not even death could hold Jesus, and no one or nothing else, proves Him true.
 
The cross of Jesus is the Original. By it, the world is widened and made more robust. With the resurrection of the dead now possible, life takes on new meaning. Eternal consequences for our actions, sure, but also the truth of everything Jesus said. In His resurrection all things are made new and Jesus satisfies for all eternity, not just a moment.
 
We are pointed outside of ourselves to Him. Jesus does the work. Not us, not wood. We were not there when they crucified our Lord, but we were here to sin against Him and fasten Him to the cross. That we find inside ourselves. Outside ourselves we find Jesus perfecting His work of salvation for us.
 
The cross is a moment in time. No part of history denies it. Jesus was a real person. Jesus was crucified when the Bible says He was. Even His enemies attest to the fact that His followers believed He was raised from the dead and were willing to suffer and die themselves for it. Without even being religious, as the world says, we have a real Jesus, really crucified, and really risen. 
 
All this and more, do our little crosses on our altars point us to. Jesus no longer promises to be on the cross for you and we do not crucify Him again, each Sunday. Instead, the Jesus of the cross, Christ Crucified, Who is raised from the dead, now says to find the fruits of His cross in Word and Sacrament. The cross is brought to us and we are drawn to Him.
 
Amen.

 

Apostasy: He loves, not me [Trinity 14]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Proverbs 3:1-8

• 2 Corinthians 4:7-10

• St. Luke 22:24-30

In the Name…

Grace to you all and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Phile 1:3)

 

Who, once again speaks to you today, saying: 

“Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?”

 

Thus far from God’s Word, His Holy Scripture, included for us that we may contemplate Apostasy, or falling away from the faith, moving from belief to unbelief. What we are pointed to is the medicine of Faith, given to us in Word and Sacrament, which builds immunity to such apostasy. That we may not be found with the Nine, but the One Who turned Back and worshipped Jesus as God. 

 

Why do we think of apostasy? Because Scripture talks about it. Jesus says things like, “Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come” (Mt 12:31-32).

 

And, “I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (1 Cor. 5:5). Elsewhere, St. Paul writes, “Among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, so that they will be taught not to blaspheme” (1 Tim. 1:20).

 

Here now we have presented to us apostasy, the possibility of losing our faith and being condemned for all eternity. We worry about this because the nine didn’t just not return to give thanks, at first they cried out in the same prayer we say every Sunday: Have mercy upon us!

 

Now, falling away from the faith is much closer to us than we first thought and much more possible. that is not the end of the story, because something else is closer. Romans 13:11, “now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.”

 

Thus, the Nine are Apostates. Those who have begun in the religion and quit it. “It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened”, says Hebrews, “who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age— and then have fallen away—to be restored to repentance, because they themselves are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting Him to open shame” (Heb 6:4-6)

 

They are those who have been given the forgiveness of sins, but reject it. They are those who seek another gospel, another message that they can then fear, love, and trust more than God’s. God has made their life better because of His Son, so they can now continue on their own. Like an immature child, they believe they have learned to swing on the swings by their own power.

 

However, who is in charge of our faith? We can certainly reject it, but that does not mean we can accept it, grow it, or take charge of it. The Father is in charge of it, the Son purchases it, and the Holy Spirit dishes it out. In other words, we have no say.

 

Salvation is God’s choosing. His work, His words, His rules. Not just, “He chooses to save some and not others”, but “in this way” He is choosing to accomplish this. Being chosen is not a matter of God’s whim, but of God’s Way. If you are on the Way, then you are a part of the plan. If you are not on the Way, then you are not part of the plan.

 

Easy. But if its so easy, why are there these Nine? Well, the further you get from Jesus, the more you get in the weeds, so to speak. From the parable of the Sower, these are they that sprout up, but are choked by the thorns and thistles, the cares and concerns of this world. Jesus has made their life better, now you can do it for yourself, too!

 

Listen again to what St. Paul said earlier:

“I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (1 Cor. 5:5). 

And, 

“Among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, so that they will be taught not to blaspheme” (1 Tim. 1:20).

 

Notice these apostates are delivered in order to be saved. Notice these apostates are handed over so they will be taught. If we take God simply as a lawyer, then not only are there unsavable people, but He made them that way as an example for us. However, His Word reveals the opposite. He created all to be saved and sent His Son as the example.

 

In our sin, we miss the work of God. We miss salvation because we are too busy trying to imitate God in the wrong ways. We think that, because we’ve been shown a little bit of favor, that we are now the favorite and can do no wrong. We think that because life has gotten better, we can simply go back to the way we were living.

 

In the first place, the Nine would have nothing to go back to, if it weren’t for Jesus. In fact, were they to return to the way they were living, they would be lepers again, but this time without Jesus, for He won’t pass by a second time in mercy. In the second place, Jesus comes to change things, not leave them the same.

 

The Ten lepers come forward as lepers, but leave healed. Not only healed, but saved. For Jesus has not come to do magic tricks with skin and bones, but to seek and save. To give faith. To forgive sins. 

 

“Have mercy upon us, O Lord” and He does. He makes the Way and it is only through His Son, Jesus Christ. Apostasy is horrid. Sins are eternally dangerous. However, the Way is forgiveness and the rules are Confession and Absolution.

 

Every patriarch has found forgiveness and that, I would say, is the only point to all their stories in the Old Testament. Adam, the cosmos destroyer, found forgiveness. Noah the drunk, found forgiveness. Abraham the adulterer, found forgiveness. And on down the line. Apostates all, but finding a Savior, because He found them first.

 

He found them first as humans. He found them first, in their sins. He found them first dead in their trespasses. And while they were yet sinners…

 

What’s the point? The point is, if the Nine were to turn back and confess, they would be forgiven. That is the lesson. Are you a backslider? Do you not love Jesus as much as your neighbor does? Have you sinned too much for God waste any more time on you?

 

Here’s the secret: no one loves Jesus. Not you. Not me. Not your super-star preacher down the street. 

I hear Christians say all the time, "Oh, I just I love Jesus. Oh, I love the Lord." Well, I don't.

I don't love Jesus because Jesus said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments."

Do I keep His commandments? No. I fail. Consistently.

So, I cannot sit there and say, "Oh, I just love the Lord”, while failing Him all the time.

 

All some people can talk about is me, me, me, me, me. I love the Lord. I have

cool songs. It goes, "All I want is you." All I want is Jesus. You call that worship.

 

You sit there and lie before the Lord about how much you want Him when in all reality He's not all you want. You want a pay raise. You want an ice cream. There's a lot of things that you want. And here you sit, just singing, “I surrender all”

 

Do you? You've surrendered all? Wow. What an immense pride.

I don't love Jesus. I fail Him all the time.

 

But one thing that is certain and that is despite the fact that I fail Him miserably again and again and am unfaithful, Jesus Christ has remained faithful and His love has remained steadfast and His mercy has never wavered. His mercy endures forever.

 

So because of what He's done for me, because He first loved me, I am able to love Him back. But no, I don't put any emphasis or focus on my love for Jesus. No, the apostle John actually said, “this is love. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and gave himself for us.” (1 Jn 4:10)

 

So if you want to know what love is, it's not about, oh, what a great love I have for God. No, the opposite. It's about God's great love for the world. So stop talking about yourself and your love and your faithfulness and begin talking about Christ, His love, His faithfulness towards you.

 

That is what Faith told this foreigner who returned, alone, to give thanks. It revealed to him Christ, the Son of the Living God. Did faith also not reveal this to the Nine? Yes, but they rejected. They treated the medicine as if it were dung. How can a man do the things of God?

 

Man can’t. Jesus can. Both God and man, He offends us to our very souls and warns, “Blessed is the man who is not offended by me” (Mt 11:6). The man who does not fall away because of me. The man who can withstand the Day of Judgment, having his judgement handed out to him by a man, Jesus.

 

Apostasy is not your feelings, but your belief. Excommunication is not a condemnation, but a chance to be taught to change. So do not be afraid of this change, that now you must believe in God’s Way. That He can become a man, that man can forgive sins, and that a man is now and ever shall rule the universe, return for His Own, and bring them with Him by faith alone.

 

Instead, be healed, turn back, pray, praise and give thanks.

 

Amen.

 

 

The Martyrdom of John the Baptist

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Jeremiah 1:17-19

• Hebrews 11:36-39

• St. Mark 6:17-29

Grace to you all and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Phile 1:3)

 

Who speaks to you today, from His Epistle this morning saying: 

“They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated— of whom the world was not worthy”

  

The celebration of the Martyrdom of John the Baptist was actually yesterday, August 29th. It is considered a Double Major feast day. This means that there are extra things accompanying the day in church. There are nine lessons read at Matins, instead of the usual three. Two Vespers services are dedicated to it, both the evening before and after. 

 

The Mass, or Divine Service, is a full one including the Gloria in Excelsis, proper collects, readings to the day, and the Nicene Creed. A Double Major feast day outranks simple and semi-double feasts, meaning it takes priority in the calendar unless a higher-ranking feast (like a 1st or 2nd class or a Sunday) occurs on the same day.

 

In our Church tradition, there is a hierarchy of feasts. 

In order: a 1st Class feast is the highest rank. Days like Easter, Christmass, and Pentecost take priority over everything else that could be celebrated that day. 

2nd Class includes most feasts of the Apostles, the Holy Name of Jesus, and major events in the life of the Virgin Mary.

 

Now pay attention here, Sundays. The regular Sundays that we celebrate year after year, such as today which would have been the 13th Sunday after Trinity are next in line. This is because Sundays are weekly celebrations of the Resurrection and naturally possess a high rank. In the traditional calendar, a standard Sunday will override most feast days.

 

Which brings us to today’s celebration of the 4th place, or Double Major. 

 

So yes today we break those Church rules, if you noticed, but who’s going to stop us? In fact, we can do whatever we want, in church, and all protestants do, though its not good for them. The reason we can say this is because celebrating the beheading of John the Baptist is not in the Bible. As in, no prophet or Apostle ever says, “On this day we celebrated John”.

 

Now tell me today, which path you choose: John or Herod. And before you make the ultra-self-righteous choice of John, let me clue you in on what is happening. John is following the 10 Commandments, specifically number 6, where you are to fear and love God so that you lead a chaste and decent life in word and deed and each love and honor his spouse.

 

What if I told you that Herod is also following the Law of God, would you believe me? 

First, Herod is king, anointed by God. From the Old Testament, “David told Saul, "I will not raise my hand against my lord, for he is the Lord’s anointed" (1 Sam 24:10), and we know what a great king Saul was. At this point in history, he was not even the real king, yet David still spoke these words.

 

Jesus reteaches this point in front of Pilate saying, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above” (Jn 19:12). Herod’s authority comes from God.

Even Samuel said of kings, “He will take your daughters” (1 Sam 8:13), as Herod seems to want to do in today’s Gospel.

 

Second, Herod is also keeping his word. In Deuteronomy 23:21 we hear God say, "If you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay fulfilling it, for the Lord your God will surely require it of you, and you would be guilty of sin." By executing John, Herod was choosing the lesser of two sins in his own eyes by avoiding the profound sin of lying and breaking a vow made before witnesses.

 

Finally, Herod is doing it all for love. John is breaking the law. God says, “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord” in Leviticus 19:18. Then there is Ecclesiastes 8:15: "And I commend joy, for man has no good thing under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful”, teaching that love should keep peace and joy for the community. And Proverbs 5:18 that says to protect the honor of your family: "Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth."

 

All Scripture. All God’s Law

What do you do, dear Christian??

 

Maybe you can feel a little bit what John felt, in front of his executioner.

Maybe you feel a little bit of what the Last Day will be like, when Jesus sits in Judgement of you.

 

Dear Christians, even if the devil uses the Bible, it is still God’s own Word. So, you have the advantage. You know the author. You even know how to contact Him to ask Him to send His Holy Spirit to you, that you may gain understanding. As you open your Bible, pray that you may so read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest what is being fed to you.

 

Dear Jesus, son of God and Son of man, reveal to us Your Will. Who is John the Baptist?

He is Elijah to come. He is more than a prophet. He is the greatest born among women. He is a reed not shaken by the wind. And he is rejected by men.

 

St. John the Baptist: forerunner of Christ, minister of the baptism of Jesus, a burning and shining lamp to the world, an angel of purity before his birth, a special friend and favorite of Christ, intrepid preacher of truth, a voice crying in the wilderness, an example of profound humility, a glorious martyr of zeal for God's holy law, and gloriously fulfilling his mission.

 

Jesus chose John. Jesus also chose Herod, but Herod chose himself. Therefore, it is John who is to be trusted and not Herod, because of Faith. It is John who shows true love, not self-serving love, for love rejoices in the Truth (1 Cor 13:6). Love does no wrong to a neighbor and perfect love casts out fear. Herod was not afraid of God, but men.

 

It is John who truly keeps his word, his vows. His whole life was one dedicated to his vow of poverty and to not drink wine or any strong drink, in order that he be filled with the Holy Spirit (Lk 1:15). Much more than that, he keeps God’s Word. A sinful vow is not a vow. A vow to do evil must be repented of, not kept. John was revealing Herod’s sin that he would repent and live.

 

Which brings us to the topic of king. Can a king remain a chosen king while choosing to sin against the God Who gave him that authority? Do we get a free pass to rule how we want, love how we want, and act how we want simply because we can find justification somewhere?

 

The title of king is not the Title of God. Herod was a king, he was not God. He was a sinner in need of repentance. He was not sinless and certainly not to be worshipped as “can do no wrong”. 

 

The True King keeps His Promises. The True King Loves as His Father in Heaven loves. The True King lays down His life for His friends and does not allow another to take away that glory of the cross.

 

Jesus is the fulfillment of both John the Baptist and Herod, for both men fail. Herod most spectacularly, living in abject hatred of all things Jesus-related. And John because He could not bring about the true kingdom with his preaching of repentance. Where Herod stubbornly continued to rebel, John bowed to the dust, “He must increase, and I must decrease”.

 

It is not man that has revealed to you the Truth, but your heavenly Father. It is He Who chose to spread His Gospel throughout the earth and have it preached that those hearing it, may believe. Though John received the greatest honor in being able to say, “Behold the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world” and Herod got to keep “his kingdom”, the Spirit alone shines light on the Truth through the Word alone.

 

Herod had not only committed adultery in his marriage, he had committed adultery in God’s Word. He had changed the deal, changed what God had said about husband and wife. He made a new “word of god”, a false word and a false god. Same as the serpent in the beginning: “Did God really say one man and one woman?” 

 

It is Jesus Who agrees with the beginning, with the Head of all things, because He was there, creating all of it with the Father and the Holy Spirit. And it is Jesus Who said: you shall not commit adultery. And it is Jesus Who said, I have come to suffer and die that they may have life, and have it more abundantly.

 

Where Herod’s god brings death, Jesus, true God and true man, brings life. Herod wants John out of the way. Jesus wants John living forever in everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness. There can be no comparison in words-on-paper here. When God speaks, He speaks words of life in Christ. When the devil or sinners speak, it is always words of death.

 

So when it comes to celebrating John and placing his feast day among the myriad number of reasons to celebrate every word the comes from the mouth of God, we do not do so according to the Law, but according to the Gospel.

 

Meaning, we get to. We get to hear of John. We get to see his life. We get to hear his prayers and his preaching and we get to gather in the Church he attends to do it, rallying around the same Lamb, Who takes away the sin of the world.

 

 

Amen.

 

 

The Long Defeat to His Kingdom [Feast of St. Bartholomew]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Proverbs 3:1-8

• 2 Corinthians 4:7-10

• St. Luke 22:24-30

 

Grace to you all and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Phile 1:3)

 

Who speaks to you today, from His Gospel saying: 

“And I bestow on you a kingdom, just as My Father has bestowed one on Me”

 

God wants you to hear of His Kingdom in His Word so that you feel the weight of it. It is a kingdom not of this world and so we should despair and forsake this one in exchange for it. This points us to more confidence in living in Jesus, because our hope is in Him and His life, rather than our own.

 

How great is it to be saved at the last minute? You’re in trouble. Things are going downhill fast. There is no end in sight or you are about to fail completely. Then, at the last minute, someone comes out of nowhere and helps you. The day is saved, thanks to the Powerpuff Girls.

 

Or Han Solo saves Luke Skywalker. Athena jumps in to rescue Odysseus. The eagles swoop in to carry Frodo and Sam away from Mt. Doom. And Peter Pan flies in to fight Cap’n Hook, just as the Lost Boys are about to walk the plank. 

 

That last-minute character is called the Deus Ex Machina, literally, god from outside the machine. That means that whatever was in the book, in the story, in the machine was not good enough to allow the hero to win, to succeed. He needed extra, to win. He needed something outside the box or the story would end with evil winning.

 

A common story-telling theme we all are programmed to wait for. However, there was no such character for St. Bartholomew, whom we honor today. Also known as Nathaniel, in St. John’s Gospel, he is an Israelite in whom there is no guile. No dolor: pain, anguish, grief, sorrow, suffering, resentment, indignation. No deceit, treachery, trickery, cunning, or fraud.

 

This same word describes how Jesus was arrested in the garden. The English says “by stealth”. And in Acts, St. Paul declares Elymas the Mage who opposed the Gospel as “dolorous”, same word, and then he was struck blind. In our own day, this word shows up in condolence, as in “we send our condolences on your loss”. Meaning to literally “suffer together”. Kind of like Concordia: with one heart.

 

This famous and beloved St. Bartholomew was not rescued at the last minute from his suffering and martyrdom. Maybe you can think of David versus Goliath. David avoided martyrdom there, because the Lord gave him an impossible victory over Goliath. But what was traded? A life of sin.

 

And there is the Christian dilemma. either we lose our lives, quickly, for the faith in martyrdom or win for a while, but still lose in death, later. Man was made to live on the earth. We are bound to it. It is our Ash Wednesday confession to say, “Remember I am dust and to dust I shall return”. The Lord God formed man from the dust, from the very earth itself, and caused it to be a realm he can live in.

 

Bound to it and bound up with it. “Cursed is the ground because of you”, the Lord says to Adam. Cursed is the ground and through toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. You will plant wheat, and will reap thorns. You will sow grapes and will harvest thistles. “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your bread, until you return to the ground—because out of it were you taken” Gen 3:19).

 

The fate of this ground, Sts. Peter and Isaiah sum up for us Revelation-style, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.”

“All the host of heaven shall rot away, and the skies roll up like a scroll. All their host shall fall, as leaves fall from the vine, like leaves falling from the fig tree" (2 Pet 3:10; Isa 34:4)

 

Bound together to die in our sins, we must watch with all of groaning creation as everything fades, changes, and diminishes. Material victory in the world still results in a net-loss.

 

All of human history in this world is a story of grief. We build great civilizations, yet they fall. We fight evil, but it rises again in a new form. Material Progress is temporary and prone to corruption. We struggle to keep true beauty in the world, but it is a losing battle against time. And Ultimate Victory is impossible by regular earthly means alone.

 

What does Jesus say in the Gospel today? “I bestow upon you a kingdom”. A kingdom?! A kingdom of David true on the outside, but rotten within? A kingdom of martyrs, death, and more death? Indeed, Jesus says, if you do not believe that Jesus is the Great I AM, you will die in your sins.

 

But a kingdom of sin, death, and the world Jesus is not bestowing. And from David we know that it is a kingdom that is worth risking one’s eternal salvation for and from St. Bartholomew we learn that it is a kingdom worth dying for. This is because it is an undying kingdom.

 

God is not bound up with the ill fate of the earth. He is outside. He is foreign. He is unattached. That is until Jesus. Jesus is God binding humanity to Himself. He takes our form, He covers Himself with the dust of the earth intimately, inextricably. Meaning, in Jesus now God will die as His creation dies.

 

Hebrews says, “Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.” (2:17).

 

This God could simply start over. Sick to death of watching His own creation suffer so, He does not start over but regenerates. He causes a rebirth and a regeneration which He pours out generously by the Holy Spirit. This He purchases and wins with His suffering, death, and resurrection.

 

It is in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ that the long defeat is defeated. In Him, the decay stops and in His work, it is reversed. The dead come to life, what is old is made new again, and true beauty lasts for eternity. 

 

Death has lost and that means David, Bartholomew, and we can risk this life in the sure and certain hope of achieving that victory ourselves. Not “achieving” as in “will we win or won’t we”?? But achieving as in the Lord Jesus has given us His own merit, His own kingdom without any merit or worthiness in me or in all creation.

 

In His merit, we stop trying to command the world, to force it to stop fading, and to rule as a false god and simply let God work and let God win. "The battle is the Lord's" is the famous Bible verse from King David himself when facing Goliath (1 Sam 17:47). And in our day, it is no different.

 

There are days when we feel as though we have to be the hero of our own epic lives because no one else seems to be stepping up. In the face of the Goliath of illness, we step out onto the battlefield ready to fight the war all on our own. Hearing the cries of those who oppose the Word of God, we feel we must personally right those wrongs using our own strength. When the enemy warriors of pain, suffering, loss, and temptation beckon us to fight, we step out all alone, trusting ourselves. We stand ready to fight for personal control under our own strength.

 

But fighting those enemies is a young person’s game. You can only lose so many of those battles before you feel like the Israelite soldiers in front of Goliath. You hear the call to fight, but you cower in fear. Who has the energy to fight against every temptation? Who has the strength to stand up against enemies that look so fierce?

 

Taking a stone, David slung it and struck the Philistine warrior in the one place that could knock him down. Rushing up to him, he took Goliath’s own sword and cut off his head with it. 

It is Jesus Who, after David, will strike down the true Goliath of sin, death, and the devil, using their own sword against them! Their own sword by taking on the sin of the world, becoming a devil to sinners, and dying He rises to new life in victory.

 

Taking our own Stone that the builders rejected, the Cornerstone, we are turned towards Confession, forsaking our earthly ambition, and receiving Absolution, that is the forgiveness of sins from the pastor as if Christ our Lord spoke to us Himself, granting us entrance into His Kingdom.

 

We have been given a Faith that lives beyond death. Built on the Rock, David, St. Bartholomew, and we confess that our earthly defeats are merely a prelude to a transcendent, supernatural victory. All the saints must lose their earthly paradise so that they can finally look toward the true, unchanging Home that lies beyond the kingdoms of this corrupt world.

 

It is our hope to be saved. And for this salvation we trust only in our dear Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true man. Son of God Who has died for me and shed His blood for me on the cross for the forgiveness of my sins. And to seal this hope, Jesus leaves us His signs of Promise in Word and Sacrament.

 

 

Amen.

 

 

Good evil, evil Good [Trinity 10]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Jeremiah 7:1-11

• 1 Corinthians 12:1-11

• St. Luke 19:41-48

 

Grace to you all and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Phile 1:3)

 

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

“He made a whip out of cords and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle. He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables”

 

And God wants you to hear St. John’s version of this cleansing of the Temple by Jesus, in order that you see Jesus drawing a line in the sand. There is good and evil in the world and therefore there are good guys and there are bad guys. “Whoever is not with me is against me” Jesus says in Luke 11:23. And yet, He also says it a bit softer in Mark 9:40, “the one who is not against us is for us”.

 

We are to apply this to our lives by emphasizing and running back to the Gospel at all times, not the Law. We are not good lawmakers or law-enforcers; therefore, we would make a mess of God’s judgement, in our sin. God does not call us for that job, anyway. He calls us to His Gospel, to repent and believe. Therefore, that is also our call to the world.

 

We think, “what was so bad about eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” in Eden, in the beginning? Knowing right from wrong is Child Raising 101. However, because we have its fruit in our blood, we hear today’s Gospel and call Jesus a sinner, a bad guy, a villain. In our sin, we call good evil and evil, good (Isa 5:20).

 

Let me explain with a writing example. There is a way to write a good villain into a story that is believable, entertaining, and compelling. Exactly what you’d want in a book or a movie. There is also a bad way. One that makes the character seem forced and unbelievable. 

 

First, a good villain should have a relatable, simple emotional pathway that led him to his bad choices. Instead of some supernatural force changing their personality, as if they are the victim, we should see his choices flow naturally. People make bad choices when they’re sad or mad or stressed. We all do.

 

Next, is true competence. A real threat needs to be a real threat or we just laugh them off. He must remain dangerous from start to finish, think Jesus today. Which leads to ruthlessness. Along with that danger, we should fear for it at every turn. Instead of just being comedic relief, you want the audience to hold their breath each time the villain acts.

 

Then we should see all that in the attacks on the protagonist. They should be personal conflicts. The hero must face his own fears, values, and morality when facing off. Even if its just facing death. As soon as the conflict centers around something inconsequential or magical, you lose the plot.

 

Next, there must be payment. The villain must leave permanent scars on the world or the protagonist. True value and morality costs something and if you take your stand in them, you should be willing to pay for their preservation in the face of the villain’s values and morality, which you are trying to disprove.

 

Finally, pain can never be the excuse. The villain can have a tragic past or a sob story, but it should never grant them a free pass. They too were willing to put their life on the line for their choices and their values. That should not be cheapened by throwing away the consequences for those choices.

 

What does this have to do with good and evil in the world?

This same villain path sounds like the good guy path. The good guy also has a simply, relatable emotional path that leads him to his goodness. The good guy also be competent in what he does or else who will follow or believe him? He should be ruthless in his goodness, meaning we should fear him straying from the path at every turn, going back on his word. 

 

He should be attacking his opposition, which we would call evil, not accepting its ways but renouncing and denouncing them. And the victory over evil should be lasting. Good should leave more goodness in the world and a mark on evil so that it hesitates to attack again. 

 

And finally, the good guy should be putting his life on the line for his decisions. He should be invested, not detached. He should believe where he stands with all his heart, because again, if he is good then he wouldn’t change his mind.

 

Returning to our Gospel, this is the role Jesus is in, but you can’t tell who is good and who is bad. These poor businessmen. They are just trying to feed their families. Just trying to get by in this world they did not choose to be born in. You cannot tell. The fruit of the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil has failed to give you the wisdom necessary to handle that knowledge.

 

Jesus has come to seek and save…who? The good guys? The wise guys? The bad guys! Sinners. And sinners can be all those things. And because sinners can be all those things, what does an absolute good God look like to them?

 

He looks like the bad guy. He looks like someone to criticize. He looks like a liar and a lunatic, not a lord. Jesus today is destroying the Church. 

 

"…the hand of God has struck me", Job cries. In Ruth, Naomi despairingly says, “…the Almighty has brought me back empty." And from Jeremiah, “He has turned his hand [against me] again and again the whole day long." (Job 19:21; Ruth 1:21; Lam 3:3).

 

So we must take a stand and right now its either the bad cop, the grabblers and the unbelievers, or the bad cop: God Who is angry. In order to make that choice, I want you to ponder this Word of God through David. King David has just sinned greatly, but in this instance the Lord allows him to choose his punishment.

 

He says, “Choose what you will: either three years of famine, or three months of devastation by your foes while the sword of your enemies overtakes you, or else three days of the sword of the Lord, pestilence on the land, with the Angel of the Lord destroying throughout all the territory of Israel” (1 Chron 21:12). What a choice!

 

Now listen to David answer: “I am in great distress. Let me fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is very great, but do not let me fall into the hand of man.” (v.13)

 

Because man does not keep his word and is always the “bad cop”, David choses the punishment the Lord Himself will enact. He makes this choice because he knows and believes that it is the Lord’s will to show mercy. He has faith that the Lord’s, though He punishes, “…anger is but for a moment”, says Psalm 30:5, “but His favor is for a lifetime” (Ps 30:5)

 

In the Lord’s Mercy, that is in Jesus Christ Crucified for you, we find the Good Cop, so to speak. But we must go through the Bad Cop to get to the Good Cop. This, Jesus Himself teaches with His own Body and His famous words from the cross, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?”

 

Sin is horrid and is horrid to get rid of. Christ on the cross proves one end of that, then there is our end which does not need surgery, but a death. For we have wed our sin. We have joined together with it as one flesh. We have pledged our troth upon it, till death us do part. 

 

To divorce from such thing, a homewrecker is necessary. To us sinners, Jesus coming into the world looks just like that. He doesn’t care about the life we’ve made for ourselves. He doesn’t care about our comfort. He doesn’t care about how our sin has made us comfortable and sleepy in this corrupt world ruled by satan. Jesus is invading.

 

There is a reason the prophesy in Isaiah 53 says, “He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed” (v.5). 

 

So really, the Christian will never encounter the “bad cop” Jesus, because He is our substitute. Before we even get there, Jesus is taking our place in our sin. He is the villain character in the story that not only becomes the curse set before God for us, but also the one Who disrupts our life of sin, with His life of righteousness, which He freely gives to us.

 

In faith, that is trusting Christ’s person, Word, and work for us we receive His punishment in baptism, having been baptized into His death. The disciplines we encounter in this world, carrying our cross, are nothing more than the death throes of our sin on the edge of defeat.

 

For God’s true enemies are known to us. Death is the last enemy to be defeated (1 Cor 15:26). “Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God”, says St. James 4:4. The devil is God’s devil, of course, sowing weeds (Mt 13:39), and our own sinful nature and unbelief.

To these, the Lord has become an enemy, and anyone who fears, loves, and trusts in them (Lam 2:5). It is not humanity that is the Lord’s enemy. This is proved by the Incarnation of Jesus. It is not humanity, but what threatens humanity.

 

So Jesus comes. He comes as a man desiring mercy, no matter what. A simple, relatable emotional pathway to His choices to come. And He is competent. Not only is His life without reproach, but He can also perform miracles and signs. These, even the demons fear at every step.

 

This He directs at His enemies, but we are in their camp. So we must face our own fears and values, measuring them against Jesus, and find them lacking. Jesus’s ultimate attack on us is His call to “Repent”!

 

The payment He makes leaves its marks on Him. The work of nails and spear remain on His body. We too must be divorced and will have cross-shaped scars when we are made righteous in Him.

 

And though the payment was the life of God, there is no grudge. There is no repayment required. It was the Lord’s joy to offer Himself in your place, in order that you know the Lord’s mercy and be redeemed. According to the Law, you encounter God’s wrath, in your sin. According to the Gospel, you encounter your Savior and the grace of God.

 

Amen.

 

 

Informed in Love [Trinity 9]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Proverbs 16:1-9

• 1 Corinthians 10:6-13

• St. Luke 16:1-9

 

Grace to you all and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Phile 1:3)

 

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

“He also said to the disciples, ‘There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions’”

 

Thus far from God’s Word given to us, caused to be written, that we may see how important information is to God. Any use of information should bring us to the Truth, Jesus. When it doesn’t, we take note and take those thoughts captive to Christ and perhaps leave them there. What good do they do us?

 

Mr. Rogers is very concerned that our society is much more concerned with information than wonder and reflection. And these are the thieves and discontents in our Gospel reading today. Jesus may praise the “shrewdness” in the end, but He does not praise, excuse, or condone their thievery. 

 

Neither the Dishonest Manager nor the debtors deal honestly with their Lord. They refuse to pay back, they refuse to deal fairly, and they refuse to repent. They are playing the game and using the information they have by being informed of the business to come out on top.

 

Information is still important in our day, as it ever has been. If you deal in insider trading, you get the best deal first. If you deal as a spy, you know what happens first. If you read the end of a book first…you get it. Information is key.

 

Thus, being informed should be a good thing, right? The more information you have, the better decisions you can make and the happier things will be. At least, that’s what we’re told.

 

Let’s go back to the Gospel reading. The Dishonest Manager was informed. He knew how to work the system and his Lord’s business and while that could have been used for good, he used it to be dishonest. As the Small Catechism says of the 7th commandment: 

“We should fear and love God so that we do not take our neighbor’s money or possessions or get them in any dishonest way, but help him to improve and protect his possessions and income.”

 

Likewise, being informed did not help the debtors one bit. They remained debtors, but now the Dishonest manager has made thieves of them as well. Thus being informed is not necessarily a good thing.

 

And the world has employed this “informed” strategery on you, to prevent you from being decent people as well. For when you say “informed” today, it means something completely different.

Informed, today, means just knowing about 57 different, horrible things that are going on that you can’t do a single thing about, at all times.

 

Inundated is the word. Buried under so much information that you have neither the mental capacity nor the energy to deal with it all properly. In fact, many have said that you should not be on your phone after a certain time at night, because your brain will still be trying to process all that late information while you’re trying to sleep and you won’t get good sleep.

 

Such as: how much do you owe the Master? Your body is telling you that you owe plenty. Those checks you are cashing today are going to come back. But what about your spirit? Is He also telling you something there? In your life, you promised to just be nice to people, until you weren’t.

 

In your baptism, you promised Him you would make every effort to live according to your confession, grow in Christian teaching, and not even persecution, need, or death would cause you to renounce it. How much did it cost you to not be nice? How much was it that got you to sin “for the last time”? It was without cost, wasn’t it?

 

And we would say we all deserved it. We all made the decisions. We all took the ticket. We all knew what we were getting into. Nobody made us make a decision. Nobody made the dishonest manager dishonest. Nobody made the debtors dishonest. The Lord gave us life, we did the dishonesty thing all on our own.

 

Let’s be honest. You do not know whether or not being informed is good or bad or whether or not the information you are gaining is good or bad to begin with. First off, we have to be sure there is honesty in this world. Once we find the source of that honesty, then the only conclusion is to follow it.

 

Like the unrighteous wealth we heard of in the Gospel today, information is a tool. It is not a toy and it is not given for us to pursue at the expense of others in God’s Name. It is a tool for showing the honesty of God and the dishonesty of our own selves. 

 

Information is not neutral. There is no unbiased information out there. It all comes with an agenda, no matter what the prologue tells you. Human objectivity is a myth. 

 

And while God does not snap His fingers and make dishonesty disappear, He does come to inject truth into the world. The Truth. He proves His truth, in Love. That is His solution to the dishonesty of sin: love.

 

Because He comes with the same story as any Messiah-complexed man. I have the truth! Believe me over those other guys! Follow me, not them! The difference is, Jesus gives. He does not take. He doesn’t just tell you, He shows you. 

 

He does not consider it a waste to step out of heaven into a virgin’s womb. He does not consider it a waste of time to be subject to His parents in His young life. He does not consider it squandering His Father’s power when He heals the sick, feeds the poor, and raises the dead. And that should be enough from Him to prove His truthfulness to us. 

 

In fact, that is His defense at His sham-trial in front of the high priest. He asks for which good work are they condemning Him. “I have spoken openly to the world, Jesus answered. I always taught in the synagogues and at the temple, where all the Jews come together. I said nothing in secret. Why are you asking Me? Ask those who heard My message. Surely they know what I said.” (John 18:20-21)

 

He tells us, then He shows us. For in order to perfect and fulfill His words and deeds as the God-man, He then goes on to the cross in joy and love for fallen humanity. Joy in that He gets to show the greatest love ever, that a man lay down His life for His friends and grant them faith, forgiveness, and eternal life.

 

And love in that He suffers death on a cross to purchase and win you from your dishonesty. This information does not come from the world, but is only revealed in the Bible. God’s truth about our Savior Jesus Christ, made known only in the Bible; the Old Testament, which promises the coming Messiah, and the New Testament, which tells us of the Messiah Who has come.

 

Jesus gives you His truth in true love. Love that is free of charge, leading to a message that is free of charge: the Gospel. The Gospel is without cost. Jesus suffered for it and His Apostles suffered double to make sure that was known.

 

St. Paul comments, “I preached the gospel of God to you free of charge. I robbed other churches by accepting their support in order to serve you. And when I was with you and in need, I was not a burden to anyone; for the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied my needs. I have refrained from being a burden to you in any way, and I will continue to do so. As surely as the truth of Christ is in me, this boasting of mine will not be silenced in the regions of Achaia. Why? Because I do not love you? God knows I do!” (2 Cor 11:7-11)

 

The information Jesus gives is therefore trustworthy. He has spoken in front of public scrutiny, He has done His work before all nations, and He continues to seek and save today in Public worship. This is what Jesus does with His information. “As it is written, He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever” (2 Corinthians 9:9).

 

In our sin, we weaponize the information we receive to wield against our neighbors and even against God. In Christ, we are invited into the unconditional, undeserving, and unending love of God. This is the information we obtain from the Creator of the universe.

 

Thus, it is the information we use to judge all other information. Not that we can get a degree in it, but that God’s Word keeps us in the Truth. The Truth that there is good information out there. The Truth that it is full of God’s love and mercy. And the Truth that there is a Way and a Life towards that source; in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

 

Amen.