Palm Sunday [The Passion according to St. Matthew 26:1-27:54]

It is a glorious witness to the power of God when we hear the same Gospel reading from Advent 1, on Palm Sunday. Glorious, because Jesus is coming; not just to a Silent Night in Bethlehem, but to fallen creatures singing His praise today, but shout “Crucify” on Friday.

Thus, Jesus speaks today, saying:

“When morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death.”

Another wonderful witness comes from the Pharisees. Their patriotic speeches are littered with unintentional prophecy. The high priest declares that it is better for one man to die than for a multitude to suffer and the Pharisees incite the Good Friday crowd to say, “His blood be upon us and our children!”

Pilate gives one final witness before the cross. He inscribes upon it the charges brought against Jesus. In his eyes they were meant to deter anyone else from doing this same thing, so they would not be crucified as well. It read, “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.”

Even the Moslems are not to be outdone. 1000 years after Jesus on the same highway that Jesus is riding upon and the same Great Gate He passes through to Jerusalem are, today walled up and blocked with a graveyard. Their thinking is that if a Jewish Messiah were prophesied to come in through the East Gate (the King’s gate) he would have to be ritually clean. Touching dead bodies negates that and here’s a wall just in case.

They are all better witnesses of the person and work or Jesus Christ than you, because they are willing to sacrifice everything for it and take Jesus at His Word. They believe putting Jesus to death would show everyone just how not-godlike Jesus really is.

Remember, death is not your friend or their friend. So, while Jesus will die, death is not going to do what everyone wnts. This is because death is not a thing, in and of itself. Just like sin is not a thing. Both of them are not created things and they have no business being here.

Yet it is here. We can not explain it. We can not rationalize it. It is something that should not be. It causes much harm, much sorrow, and much regret. It is the one thing you avoid at all cost and yet, here Jesus is practically running to His death.

The first time we hear of death, it is from the lips of the Lord. He says that eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil will only lead to the death of Adam. Thus the Prophet of prophets tells us of death and also tells us it is not His doing.

Think about it this way: your bodies cannot handle heaven. They can’t even handle life on earth and yet they were made by God. Does this mean God is a failure? Many of you love various sins and vices and use the excuse that God made you that way. Does this mean God is schizophrenic?

God created all things. There is only one Creator so anything that is here or that we discover is made by Him and yet it is also true that God did not make death. How we understand that is how we understand sin. God created your bodies and souls, but He did not create them corrupted or fallible and yet they are.

Likewise, God created life, but He didn’t create life to end. He is life. That would be ridiculous. In light of this, we call death what it is: a corruption. God created life; sin corrupted it. And it is corrupted beyond repair. It is corrupted to the genetic level, never to be undone.

In your sin, you deserve nothing but this death. In your sin, you also cheer on those who wish to prove God to the world by putting Him to death. You wish to see for yourself, for you are not completely convinced, Jesus dying just like you: alone and afraid.

However, Jesus dying is exactly what the plan is. He says to you, “Your will be done”. You wish to see God share in your struggles and grief? He does. You wish to see God handle the stress of life and the anguish of despair? You got it. You desire to see God having to die? Sure thing.

What the Pharisees don’t understand is that it is precisely through death that Jesus is proven to be faithful and true. It is exactly in His Blood poured out upon them that they save everyone. What Pilate doesn’t get is that a true King lays down His life for friend and foe alike. What the Moslems don’t understand is that not even death can stop this King of Life.

Death is the last enemy to be overcome because it is the last door for a Christian to go trough. Death is the last enemy because it is the final cut between old creation and a new creation, for one who has died has died to sin and sin and the Law can no longer condemn him. However, in Christ, the Christian does not die, but falls asleep.

Jesus, the Lord of life has had His creation wrenched from His hands and thrown down a death spiral. What was once forward, life, is now backwards, death. However, Jesus goes backwards, into death, in order to once again right the ship.

Jesus reverses the reversal. It can not be explained any better. Death, which is irrational and unnatural, must be conquered by the irrational and unnatural; namely the death of God.

And, as we heard last Wednesday evening, this death is proclaimed by your entire body in the Lord’s Supper. No more does sin and sorrow reign, because Jesus has given us His pledge. The sign of all this is the cross of Jesus. His pledge to you is the Sacrament of the Altar.

The real misunderstanding of unbelievers is that God can be both spiritual and physical. Not only that, but that God can die, being one substance and one person with Jesus. That He can be buried in the ground, same as you. That He can fulfill your will in striking the final blow against Jesus and in the same act, relieve you of your guilt as you cry out, “I put my Lord on the cross!”

It was the will of the father to sacrifice His Son. It was the Son’s joy and delight to give His Body and spill His blood upon you and your children, in Baptism. It is the great endeavor of the Lord that the Bridegroom die and bleed upon your sins, in order that Jesus now be your life in death and bring you to heaven’s portals.

Soli deo Gloria [Trinity 9; St. Luke 16:1-9]

We hear Jesus today, speaking to us, saying,

“The Lord commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness.”

Giving God the glory. What does that mean? There are many people who just love to “give God the glory” and how I understand it is: first, they do something nice or unselfish, then, if asked about it, they will simply say that God get’s the glory for it.

On the surface, this seems legit. God has all the glory anyway so of course you would agree that all good things come from above and you would also want to give God credit instead of boasting in our works. That’s just called being humble. This gives the appearance of our having a passive role and God, the active.

But what are you really giving to God? If He already has all the glory, can you give Him more? Also, why are you only giving God the glory when good things happen?

Is God not worthy of glory when He sends us trials? But, that would defeat the purpose of believing that God is love; that He is only around and responsible for happy-happy, joy-joy things.

If you are truthful with yourself, you will see that giving God the glory in this way is selfish, egotistical, and un-biblical. It is not God’s glory you are lifting up in your works, it is your own. You want to feel good and you want to look Christian doing it.

Allah akbar is a phrase we may all be familiar with. It means Allah is greatest. Subhan-allah would be Arabic for “give glory to Allah”. And the list including all those who offer glory to some god, in the same way, goes on and on and on. With everyone offering glory to their own god, does ours even get any?

Repent. God does not want part of the glory and neither does He want a sin-filled glory that sinners offer. Consider the dishonest manager of the Gospel. What is praised by his Lord? It is not good works nor is it glory given. It is a job well done.

However, the dishonest manager’s prudence is no prudence. In fact, he fails completely and neglects to collect his Lord’s debts fully. But, it is exactly in this shrewdness that he is praised. Why? Because, by it, God will reveal mercy, not sacrifice.

Jesus says that He glorified the Father on earth having accomplished the work that the Father gave Him to do. And in the same prayer, He demands that God glorify Him. This is a might backwards from our giving glory to God, no?

Here is Jesus, demanding God glorify Him. Why? Because the Father has promised to Glorify the Son and the Son has fulfilled the glory of the Father. You see, God’s glory was never ours to begin with. The glory of the Trinity fills only that which it encompasses and that is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Jesus is glorified upon the cross. You could almost say that, in order to truly “give God the glory”, you would have to have a hand in crucifying the God-man, Jesus.

If you were serious about giving God the glory, you would need to want to take the place of those roman soldiers and nail Jesus upon that tree yourself; you would want to replace the Pharisees’ false witness with your own false witness, in order to put Jesus, the Christ, to death.

This is because the glory of God resides with the Son, sent to atone for the sins of the whole world, on the cross. In the dishonest manager’s foolish shrewdness, the true nature of his Lord is revealed: that He is self-sacrificial and forgiving and he is praised for it.

In your sin, your Savior is truly revealed. Not that you continue in willful sin, but that your sinful nature continues, and in your own dishonest managing of God’s glory, your Redeemer is shown to be the most merciful in granting full pardon and remission of all your debts to Him.

The Glory of God hangs on the cross. The Glory of God suffers and dies in order to purchase you. The Glory of God rises again, from the dead. The Glory of God sits at the right hand of the Father, in Glory, so that you may share in God’s glory.

The glory of God is a gift. Being baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ, you are now bathed in this glory, that only the Son has. Having heard the life-giving word of the Cross, you are clothed with the Glory of God.

The Sacraments are where God’s glory is given, not just to us, but also to God. We receive God’s glory, through His Son, but also, in our receiving these things from the Holy Spirit, we show that God’s promises are true; that He keeps His Word, and that they are for us, simply by taking and eating. In doing so, God gets the glory.

How can this be? Because it is not just water; it is not just words; and it is not just bread and wine. These are the promises of God. This is where heaven meets earth and earth must repent of its sinfulness and be forgiven. For, Jesus has not come for the righteous, but for sinners.

So give glory to God for all things. Give glory to God in your sinfulness, for it is not about you, but about Jesus Who absolves you. It is about you believing in the words and promises of God. And these words and promises, found in baptism, the Gospel, and the Lord’s Supper, are how God works in this world.

Jesus will only reveal His Glory to His Church, for she is His beloved bride. So, it is only with her and in her Divine Service that He truly wants His glory to be known. In the Sacraments, our Lord shows His glory in sacrificing Himself completely and giving it freely.

For whoever believes these words: “given and shed for the forgiveness of sins” along with bodily eating and drinking, has exactly what they say: “forgiveness of sins.” In this light we say, glory be to God, for in offering His Son and baptizing us into His Son, He has done all things well.

To Christ alone be the Glory.

Home is where the Church is [Trinity 3; St. Luke 15:1-10]

Jesus speaks to you today, saying,

“And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’”

Notice that the Shepherd neither returned to the 99 sheep nor did he go to the pen or the barn. He dashed off after the one, scooped him up, and ran home to the Feast. Same thing with the woman and same thing with the Prodigal son.

The father, heedless of his looking and acting like a fool; heedless of the day’s work, runs towards his wayward, unworthy son, embraces him, and lays out a great feast at his home.

When you talk about your church, it is never “home” for you, is it? We have our own houses. We each have worked hard in order to provide a house for our family and, as the 9^th and 10^th Commandments tell us, house and home are important.

So when we hear about this house being returned to, in the Gospel, we can relate. You wouldn’t go anywhere else to celebrate something so important and you wouldn’t have it any other way. Neither would Jesus.

The home you have worked hard for and built a family, or a life in, is no small thing to you. You invest time and money in building or buying, because you want what you what and how you want it. You then continue this forever, because there is always something that needs doing, in your house.

Last month we talked about how the Church is our mother, but if we weren’t able to find her, what good would she do us? Thus, the Shepherd knows His home and returns to it. Once the lost, probably dead, lamb is found, He returns for with this single sheep, all is completed.

He returns to where the promise of house and home is kept and heard. He returns to the place where there is celebration over this found sheep. And, as verse 7 tells us, that place is heaven.

Jesus completes the flock with just this one sheep and just this one coin. Celebration begins over one and when brought to the visible home, all is finished. When you see the promise fulfilled, you know that the house is full, the home is complete, and the Feast is set.

How can you fill a house with just one? No one is big enough to fill an entire house. You can do it metaphorically, by filling it with things that represent you, but that is not the same level of ownership and comfort. True ownership is being there in all places at all times.

Repent. There is no way you can own house, home, or anything completely, much less build a proper house and home. We raise families, if we’re lucky to have children, but they leave. We accumulate stuff and it deteriorates or gets destroyed by floods. The things you hope in for eternity are not made by your hands.

Dear Christians, the Good Shepherd is the Lord. The one, lost Sheep is Jesus. Jesus has left His heavenly fold, become a man, and suffered and died in order to fill His Father’s House. Jesus alone is able to accomplish this.

Jesus alone can make a House and home that is eternal. Jesus alone is able to make promises and keep them. Jesus alone is able to be lost in our sin, die because of it, and be found again in new life. Jesus alone is able to accomplish all this and yet keep His promises and make it so they are available, with no question, mystery, or trickery.

The Church is the household of God. The place where you are called by the Gospel, not as sinners, failures, or backsliders, but as members of the Body of Christ.

“¹² For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. ¹³ For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.” (1 Cor.12)

The Father returns with His Son, Who was dead, but is now alive, to this House. For it is only in the Son that any and all promises of God have anything to do with us. Us who are baptized into the Body of Jesus now are not a part of the 99, but of the one; the one who is rejoiced over. “Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.” (Eph.5:23)

The one Whose sin was not His own and yet He became sin for us. In Jesus suffering and dying on the cross, He has sanctified His Church, making it holy. He Himself, being the Lord of all that is holy, gives His holiness to His Church for free. It is His gift, thus we call the Church, ourselves, holy.

This holy Church is Christian, because she would not exist without Christ and finds all her substance and being in Him. For it is no longer we who live, work, or contribute, but Christ. In this holy, Christian Church the Gospel is preached and the Sacraments are administered for salvation and forgiveness, as the words and promises of God declare.

That is Evangelism. So this holy, Christian, evangelical Church declares God’s Word. That is orthodoxy or aligning and conforming to what God has said. Also, she is a part of eternity, containing all baptized believers of all time; universal or catholic.

In this holy, Christian, evangelical, orthodox, catholic Church Christ comes among His gathered Body to teach and feed them publicly. We do not accept this work nor do we obey; we simply receive. All is made ready, all is accomplished, and all is perfected. Jesus worked His holy and Good work in order that He give it to us, for free.

By the miracle of washing, rebirth, and hearing, God brings us into and keeps us as His Church. The holy Church is called by God and given many glorious names and standing. She is called by God to receive and give His Love, Who is Jesus.

Nothing is more important than house and home, because nothing is more important than Christ’s House and Home. But your house and home need not be worshiped or a model for all. You do have an example to follow, but far more importantly you have perfection to receive at Jesus’ hand.

You already have a House, here that does not fail. You are already part of a Home that does not fade or fall apart. You are God’s people because you have received mercy from Him, regardless of how much we gain or lose. Jesus has purchased and won the Church with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death.

The holy Christian Church preaches this Gospel in its purity, for salvation, and administers these sacraments according to the Gospel, for the forgiveness of sins. The Word of God is here, this must be Church. Christ has come among us, rejoicing, this must be heaven.

Trinity 1 [St. Luke 16:19-31]

Jesus says,

“And [the rich man] called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’”

Here, Jesus removes your free will and says that there will be a judgment, even without your approval. That some will go to hell and some will go to heaven. That hell is made up of pain and torment, as fiery flames and heaven is like cool water.

This is how it is and, just as the rich man suggests, only water can be of relief. In the next chapter of Genesis, from our OT reading, Abraham allows Sarah to throw out Hagar, because Hagar is pregnant with Ishmael.

Cast out into the desert, Hagar and her son find small refuge by a spring of water and there are found by the Lord and He has mercy on her. Not because of who she is or what was done to her, but because of Who God is. He is the Savior and save He does.

Although the spring of water quenches Hagar’s thirst and may save her from dying, it is the Promise of the Lord that gives her a mighty son, to which the great nation of Islam claims heritage. The Lord took a small, unborn child, and made of him a great nation.

Likewise, the rich man asks for water. He asks that Abraham command Lazarus to baptize his finger and apply this heavenly, rich water to his inflamed tongue. This only so that the rich man may remain where he is, yet be comforted: a sinful request in attempting to drag heavenly things into hell.

What is baptism for you all? In the same vein, we may ask, who do you all say that St. Luke Evangelical is? Is baptism simply a symbol; a tool you choose to use when and where you desire? A nice thing that grandma and grandpa did so we should too? Or is it a part of who you tell others you are?

Likewise, what do you say about your church to others?

Repent. You and the rich man are fed up with Church. You are in it for social and familial status. You treat it like a sumptuous buffet table, only taking those things which you think you need and discarding everything else. You dress up in nice clothes and think, God has blessed me, but I don’t know about these others, especially that guy up front.

In your own zeal for what you think the Church is and Who Jesus is, you have completely ignored Moses and the Prophets. You have forgotten that the prophets call for a complete repentance for all your works, bad AND good. You have forgotten that your catechism has judged you and found you lacking.

Lazarus is Jesus. Jesus is not handsome. Jesus is not charismatic or lovey-dovey. He has no form that we should hold Him of any account. He is cast aside by our sinful will and left for the dogs who, instead of eating what is falling from their master’s table, lick Lazarus instead.

Jesus does not do what we want Him to, neither does He act the way we want Him to. He does not save everyone and He does so in His own way: through baptism. For, unlike Lazarus who could not save the rich man from torment with water, Jesus can.

Jesus is greater than Lazarus, for although both are stricken, smitten, and afflicted and left by their friends, Jesus exalts Himself for our benefit. Jesus has come specifically and only to cross that chasm and come back. Jesus has gone to those who are tormented in hell. He has preached His gospel, but they reject it even then.

Moreover, Jesus does rise from the dead, yet there is still unrepentance among even us. Jesus defeats death, rises again to new life, and we can hardly bring ourselves to Sunday morning, much less any other activity in Church.

But, by the grace of God, Jesus never misses a Service. Jesus never misses an opportunity to prove that He has saved you and that your sins are forgiven. Jesus constantly and consistently combines His Word with water to produce new Christians. Jesus inexorably, time and time again, calls you by His Gospel and enlightens you with His Sacraments.

This is how Abraham knows Lazarus; this is how the rich man knew Lazarus and this is how Jesus knows Lazarus. In his own baptism, Lazarus wasn’t just Lazarus anymore. He had a new name engraved on his forehead. It reads, “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”

Your name is not to be found on your birth certificate, but on your re-birth certificate. You are a Christian. That is how you answer any who ask. You are also Lutheran, which is the same thing, but in our day and age a necessary addition. That is to say, you believe that Jesus is the Christ and that He still works among us in His Word.

And that Word is, “Go and make disciples of all nations by baptizing them in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” So, when people ask, or even when they don’t; or when Satan asks, you say, I am baptized into Christ. That is who you are.

What does such baptizing with water indicate? I mean, if Jesus is Lazarus and we would just as soon pass Him by like any other person strewn by the wayside, then what makes you think a baptism done by Him, is so great?

It is the Word of God written so that you may believe. So that you may believe, not only that Jesus gives you all you need for this life in this Divine Service, but so that you might also believe that you were buried with Jesus into death.

That the Old Adam, your dead, blind, and deaf self, is daily drowned; drowned by daily contrition and repentance. So that, you should daily emerge and arise to live before God in everlasting righteousness and purity, before God. For, just as Christ was raised from the dead, you too may live a new life.

A new life of love, excitement, and forgiveness. Even though Lazarus suffered and died, he was carried by the angels, because His Savior gave him the kingdom. As we are and as we will be, we are royalty because the King of kings has baptized and redeemed us.

Even if we die, we will yet live. Death’s flood has lost its chill since Jesus crossed the river. He has loved our souls and delivered them out of all our ills and woes.

Jesus willingly and joyfully takes up the cross on our behalf and He joyfully hands all that He won there, over to us. Jesus is excited to be in Church today in order to save you from the death of your sin.

It's always been Pentecost w/confirmation [St. John 14:23-31]

Jesus speaks to you all today saying that in order for the world to know that He loves the Father, He must speak His Word, send the Comforter, give us Peace, go away, and tell us all ahead of time. Thus the Father commands Jesus and thusly does Jesus act.

And when has this changed? This promise has been handed down since the beginning of time. At the Easter Vigil, we recount all the deed the Lord has done since Creation, to work salvation out for you.

Pentecost is no different. You may think that today is a Christian novelty; some pagan festival that was taken over by the power-hungry Church, in order to make more money and gain more control.

Pentecost is a divine institution and, before the Tongues of Fire incident, it was already a holy day in the same way Good Friday and Easter were also already holy days. They were all religious holy days of resting and feasting, marked pointedly by purification and redemption by God.

Troy and Amy will act out this reminder for us, confessing that it is only in the purification of their baptism that the Holy Spirit has given them the words to speak and the right spirit to believe those words, as St. Peter reminds us, “Repent and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far away, as many as the Lord our God will call.”(Acts 2:38-39)

Pentecost or the Feast of Weeks was the second major festival of the Israelite liturgical calendar. The “feast of Weeks” is more exactly the feast of seven weeks, for beginning on the day after Passover (Good Friday), the Israelites counted forty-nine days, then commenced the celebration of the feast of Weeks on the following day (Lev 23:15-16; Deut 16:9-10).

Because it fell on the fiftieth day after Passover, Weeks was also called “Pentecost”, that is, “fiftieth” (e.g., Acts 2:1; 20:16; 1 Cor 16:8). It is an agricultural festival, in which believers presented to the Lord two loaves of bread, made from fine flour, and baked with leaven, as the first-fruits of the wheat harvest. In addition to the grain offering, they offered one bull, two rams, seven lambs, along with a sin offering of a male goat, and two male lambs for a peace offering (Lev 23:15-19; Num 28:26-31). Since the first sheaf of the barley harvest was presented to YHWH on the day after Passover (Lev 23:11), and the first sheaf of the wheat harvest was offered fifty days later (23:15), Passover and Pentecost marked the beginning and end of the grain harvest.

The Israelites also celebrated the Jubilee Year during the fiftieth year following every “seven Sabbaths of years” or forty-nine years (Lev 25:8-55; 27:16-25; Num 36:4). During this year, any ancestral land that Israelites families had sold was given back to them. Also, any Israelite who, induced by poverty, had sold himself (or been sold) into slavery to a fellow Israelite regained his liberty.

Not only the people, but the land itself was “freed” from being worked, for no planting or sowing, harvesting or reaping took place during the fiftieth year. Like every seventh year, the jubilee year was a great Sabbath or rest for the people of YHWH and the land that belonged to him.

Therefore, because of the Jubilee Year, the number fifty is closely associated with the remission of debts, emancipation of slaves, and rest within God’s protective care. Like the festival held every fifty years, so the festival held every year on the fiftieth day proclaimed the following:

(1) God had freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt;

(2) He had fulfilled his promise to give them the Holy Land, and;

(3) He provided rest for them from their labors.

Dear Christians, you now celebrate this Pentecost fully completed and fulfilled in Christ. Our own 50 days of Easter celebrating is symbolic of Israel being released from sinful Egypt to offer their own first-fruits in the holy land, promised by the Lord. The days between the Resurrection of Jesus and the giving of the first-fruits of the Holy Ghost directly correspond to what the Lord was doing in the OT.

These first-fruits, then, were what you used to offer. Now, that you have been baptized into the true Body of Christ, God offers His first-fruits to you. On this New Pentecost, Jesus places His Spirit on the baptized believer pledging that the whole person, body and soul, belongs to Him. These will then be present in you until the day of full harvest.

The Gospel has been preached to you and the fire of the Lord has descended upon this place. Where Jesus appeared in thick smoke of a furnace, giving the Law, He still appears in the fire of suffering God’s wrath in our place, on the cross. Instead of the fire consuming us, Christ has sent His fiery Spirit through water and the Word to proclaim this salvation.

For where the Law was placed on us because of our sin and where Pentecost used to be a celebration of this first covenant; the new covenant, prophesied by St. Jeremiah and established by Jesus at the Last Supper (Lk. 22:20) fulfills the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms in Himself.

Now is the time of Jubilee, where Jesus gives freedom from bondage, the gift of the holy land, and rest from labor. The Father, Who sends the Spirit, Who anoints Jesus to work these deeds is the same Spirit who came upon the apostles at Pentecost to preach freedom from sin, the gift of the kingdom of God, and rest in the atoning work of Jesus Christ. And is the same Spirit that is given to you in Baptism.

Baptism into Jesus Christ is a washing into the ongoing Jubilee of grace. The debt of sin is forgiven. Man is restored to the image of God. Those in bondage to death are emancipated. All this the Spirit gives to “you and your children and [to] all who are far away,”; all who are united with Jesus via the washing of water with the word of God.

As with Passover, so also with Pentecost, the Lord ordained this festival to be celebrated as a foreshadowing of what he was yet to accomplish for his people. The final “Amen” in the liturgy of the Feast of Weeks would not be sounded until that momentous day in Jerusalem when the Spirit came in wind and fire to announce the new covenant of grace to every nation under heaven.

Because Jesus proved His love for the Father by continuing and completing all these Festivals, the Church sees fit to continue the celebration of this OT festival, only now in its perfected, messianic form.

So yet today, in Christian churches around the world, fifty days after Easter, the faithful gather not to offer first-fruits to God, but to receive the first-fruits of the Spirit—and with that gift, all the blessings of him who perfected the law for us, emancipated us, and made us citizens of the kingdom of God.

Spirit's Song [Cantate; St. John 16:5-15]

Jesus speaks to us today, saying,

“He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

The Holy Ghost’s job is to tell of Jesus. If the Holy Ghost is speaking, He is speaking of Jesus. If the Holy Ghost is working, He is pointing to Jesus. Thus, when it comes to anything that happens, in the Church, especially singing, we know what is going on and what is supposed to go on.

Just what IS supposed to go on? What does it mean that the Church is a singing Church?

There are those who think singing is of the devil. Maybe because there is too much baggage that goes with singing. In today’s modern, enlightened world, we have songs about one thing: lust.

Songs today are about lust; the lust of a woman, sure, but also the lust for money, the lust for drinking, smoking, doing drugs, or even hurting people. There are also songs about the lust for the good old days, for partying, for just being left alone, and there are even songs about the lust for family.

So now we have this feel-good, catchy music that turns our wants and desires into idols. Effectively, music is all about us. It is about our wants, our desires, and our feelings. We are our own idols and this is evident by the fact that we have favorite types of music and that we listen to music we like.

How many times a day do you think to yourself, “I need to listen to music that is good for me”? If we ever turn to music, it is always with a selfish heart: what will get me through this, what will get me through this day, or what will appeal to me.

Music is very subjective and is why it is a multi-billion dollar industry. Because it is a buffet-style restaurant in which you only go and return to whatever you choose and maybe, all the while, despising the other choices.

Music and melody also carry meaning. You can’t tell me that a fast beat and loud noises induce a low heart rate. Certain melodies are used in certain situations. This is why, in our lifetimes, Jazz was so taboo.

So what is the Church to do? It would be impossible to borrow from culture and not drag the baggage along with it. It is also impossible to create a new genre of music, although it is tempting.

The Church does what it has always done. Singing originated in the Church. I say that there is nothing to sing about except God and His promises to men. In fact, each and every song may just be a tribute or a longing to just such a truth from God.

So the Church creates song and what does she sing about? Jesus tells us. The Holy Spirit guides us into all truth and all truth is nothing but Jesus, because the Holy Spirit will take what is Jesus’ and give it to you.

Well, everything is Jesus’ so your musical history dates back to the dawn of time. The songs you sing today, yes are dated earlier than that, but they carry with them the same Spirit that created the world, for nothing is sung in Church, if it is not from the Holy Spirit.

Even Jesus sings. What do you think went on at the Temple or all those synagogues He visited: dreary readings and discussions?

Repent. The temptation to please ourselves with our own songs is too great. The appeal of saturating the Church with our preferences and styles, at the expense of the Gospel is overpowering.

Jesus sings. Through the minor prophet, Zephaniah (3:17; Hebrew), Jesus says, “[The Lord] will rejoice over you all with singing as in a day of feasting”

The Lord sings. The Lord sings Church songs. The Lord rejoices by singing and He sings at His Divine Service. He creates the Service as a location in time and space for you to commune with Him; physically and spiritually.

This all for your benefit. Jesus sings and will not allow anything else except songs about Him, His glory, and how it is given to you. Jesus will not sing about anything except His sacrifice upon the cross and your baptism into His suffering, death, and resurrection.

When was the last time you really read a hymn or paid attention to the words? If you can’t sing, speak the words, for in them you find Jesus. You find and hear about Jesus dying, rising again, and singing about you!

The Church has always been full of songs proclaiming the Gospel. They are not just for inducing emotion, though they may. They are not just set to personal preference, though you may enjoy them. Their only purpose is to proclaim the faith that you might believe.

When you sing the Gloria in Excelsis, you are singing exactly what the angels are singing in heaven right now. When you sing the Sanctus (Holy holy holy) you are singing yet another song of heaven. You do not sing alone and you do not have to make up the words. Jesus gives you more than enough to sing and pray by.

Thus, they are sung sermons and even prayers. Try praying a hymn once, I bet you’ll love it. They are not just quotes from the Bible, they are Christ-centered. They declare that Jesus convicts us of sin, but forgives it all; that Jesus is righteous, ascending to the Father, yet gives us His righteousness that we too, might also ascend; that Jesus has been judged in your place so that you would not be judged.

Sure, the heavens declare the glory of God, but the Word declares His Son. Even in hymns, the Gospel is proclaimed. Faith desires pure doctrine and pure hymns, if only for their value in being the words of the Holy Spirit. For the Holy Spirit only takes of Jesus.

Hear what's written [The Annunciation of our Lord; Isaiah 7:10-14]

On each and every day of the Church year, the readings assigned are so rich, that it is impossible to talk about it all in one sitting, let alone one sermon. Quite a few days are more guilty of this than others. The Annunciation of our Lord is one of the more guilty.

If you look through your bulletin, you find allusions to the beginning of time, the Fall, the Promise of a son, Christmass, Epiphany, Lent, Good Friday, Easter, and even the Last Day. All of these are wrapped in swaddling clothes on Christmass and burial shrouds on Good Friday.

The Past, the Present, and the Future all come to a climax in the person and work of Jesus. Thus we can have Gabriel speaking to Mary and we can picture both Eve and Mary together and see them both believing in the Promise of the Messiah Who will trample sin, death, and the devil underfoot.

Suffice it for this evening, we will focus on King Ahaz and his false piety toward God as he says,

“I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test.”

You will not ask? Who are you? God has told you to ask for a sign. You better listen to God, even though He says that only a wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign. Ask, even though you are the wicked and adulterous generation. Ask even though you think you are only testing God. Ask.

Ask and listen. Say your prayers, then hear God. But hear what? What are we to listen for? A still, small voice? A rush of wind and flame? An angel to appear? Then when you do hear, how do you know God has spoken or rather, how do you know its not satan?

Look to St. Mary! She was visited, she didn’t argue, she didn’t hold conversation, but simply said, “I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”

She did not break out in the Magnificat here. It was only until after the word of Gabriel came to pass that she sang in praise and thanksgiving. She told Gabriel that she was a servant of the Lord, not of him, and that if it is the Word of the Lord, then let it come to be.

See it was not just a revelation from God that St. Mary trusted in. It was not every angel or bright shining person that was trusted. They needed authority behind them. They needed precedent. Gabriel’s word is ok, but if God hasn’t spoken, then it is the devil’s work.

St. Mary was not trusting in the angel until the Word proved true, for she and everyone else were waiting for the Messiah. They were waiting for the virgin to conceive and bare a son and I’m sure more than a few zealous mothers faked it.

Repent. King Ahaz did not trust in the Word, which had been written down for him. He did not trust in the fact that God can say whatever He wants, but what He wants to say, to you, is in His Word. All King Ahaz had to do was ask for the Messiah as promised. He did not have to think of something on his own.

St. Mary had prayed for the Lord’s Christ to come. St. Joseph also prayed for this sign from God and it came to pass. All believers pray for the sign that is deeper than Sheol and higher than heaven and the Lord speaks and answers.

Jesus is born of the Virgin Mary and foster fathered by Joseph, because the Word has said it. O evil and wicked generation that asks for signs, the Lord has given the sign and Immanuel has been crucified, died, and was risen from the grave never to die again.

The sign, the answer to all your prayers, and the Hope of Eve and all people is the Lord Jesus Christ dying for the sin of the world. Hearing God is none other than listening to His Son, for in these gray and latter days, God has spoken only through His Son.

Hearing Jesus is nothing else except listening to the Gospel preached in its purity and the Sacraments administered according to it. There is no fooling around with existential spirituality, transcendental meditation, or ethereal dreams. God simply cuts through it all, takes on a body and soul, and speaks to you with His own two, physical lips.

Thus He speaks to you. He tells you He has come, He does come, and He is coming again. He tells you that you are washed and fed. He tells you that in 9 months, you will have a savior born to the nations and He will be fully God and now, fully Creator and creation. God has joined Himself to us in order that we may be assumed in to Him, bodily.

For there is but one Christ, God and man; one, however, not by the conversion of the divinity into flesh, but by the assumption of the humanity into God. We know this, because we have the Word of God as Authority. We are sure and certain these promises are for us, because God’s Word is trustworthy.

You can believe God’s Word even though reason, emotion, and culture scream against it, because the Word was made flesh, dwelt among us, and rose from the dead.

Humiliation [Lent 5; St. John 8:46-59]

By Divine Providence, Faith will be Confirmed in the Faith on the same Sunday of the Church Year that she was baptized on. That would be the Sunday of the Passion of our Lord; the Sunday in which we hear the silencing of the Gloria Patri. The Sunday in which we hear of Jesus being dishonored in unbelief

And what we believe of Jesus being dishonored is that this is a part of His humiliation/suffering, or Passion. It is a distinction that is made in the Creeds and one that is very important to what the Truth is. For, one part of the Christ’s life was His humiliation and the other, His exultation.

Let’s hear it from the Creed first: “Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day He rose again from the dead.”

Now, when was Jesus being dishonored? When did His humiliation begin and when did it end? This may seem like a nit-picky question, but how you understand the life of Jesus affects the rest of your view, not just of Scripture, but also of Jesus Himself.

If the humiliation of Jesus begins with His conception, then man is not man. For if it is humiliating for God to become one of us, then either we are not God’s creation or God messed up. Both of which are not true.

For our bodies and souls are creations of God. Similar to Adam, we are created and sin does not un-create us into something different. Though completely corrupted by sin, Jesus is able to have His own body and soul and yet be without sin.

If Jesus’ humiliation begins at His suffering and death on the cross, then what is He suffering for, Himself? If He is simply being crucified as an accident or tragic turn of events, then He is not atoning for sin, but showing off His power.

No, Jesus humiliation begins in between and today’s Gospel shows us.

In this interaction between Jesus and His beloved creation; His own people whom He loves, Jesus appeals to them and they reject Him. Jesus tells them, flat out, that He is God. Not just any God, THEIR God; the same one that appeared to Abraham and the Prophets, whom THEY love.

In fact, they love them so much, that they are completely willing to give them up for dead in order to prove Jesus wrong. They are ready to declare God inept and weak by saying that death has taken them and somehow God’s Word of Life was unable to save them.

Thus, the true humiliation of Jesus comes at the point where Jesus encounters our sinful flesh. It comes at the point when Jesus is declared to be both God and man, for the salvation of the world, and is rejected by those He loves.

And where does that happen? Christmas. Even before Jesus is born, there is no party. There is no room. There is no celebration even though all of Judea is waiting for Him and the chief priests and leaders of Israel know to search for Him in Bethlehem.

By divine providence, the very day Christ was made man, was the beginning of His humiliation. Not when He was conceived. Not when He was born and not even when He had a body. It was the time when He took on our sin.

Repent. Believing the doctrine of Original Sin means that the body and soul are simply corrupted beyond repair, not that they are changed into something else. It pleased God to become a part of His own creation and I would even go so far as to say that He planned it from the beginning.

Even if the were no Fall into sin, Jesus would still have been born a man in order to bring about a perfect rest. That is all just fantasy, because we have the humiliation of Jesus for our sins, beginning with His being made man and ending with suffering on the cross.

You heard right. Jesus’ humiliation does not include His death or His decent into hell. Those are victory marches. The life of the world is bought and paid for in His suffering and dying, not His death. Jesus says before His death, “It is finished” and then falls asleep.

This is why Lutherans keep a body on the cross, because it is on the cross, in a body where Christ redeemed the world. In Jesus’ active Passion, He suffers all, even death on a cross, in order to then be exalted, rule over all things once again, and freely give forgiveness.

And this is how the world operates today: under Grace. We find baptism, the Gospel, and Communion on earth, because Christ reigns. We find peaceful countries, kindness, and beauty because Jesus has been lifted up. We also find that the wicked prosper, in order that they have time to repent, because Jesus has died that they may have life.

Under this same grace, Jesus continually gives these gifts to Faith as He does to all of us. For, the greatest gift of the Holy Spirit is belief. Belief that even in the midst of our own evil and corruption, Jesus can work saving faith in His sacraments, so that we may see an infant baptized and know that this, now, is a child of God.

Jesus is not dishonored by having a body and soul just like ours. Jesus is not even necessarily dishonored by blatant sin. Jesus is dishonored by unbelief, for it is there that then He is rejected, scorned, and crucified.

This is your God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. His Passion is for you and our response is being baptized, hearing and confessing the faith, and communing: in other words, when you regularly attend the Divine Service.

It is in the Divine Service that you are immersed in the life of Jesus. It is there that His Faith, His Grace, and His salvation are brought front and center. It is here that Jesus is presented most clearly, so that we may believe Him. It is here where His glory is shown on the cross and it is here that Jesus’ Word is kept.

All so that we might bring it out, again and again, in order to hear, in order to share, and in order to confess the Word of God made flesh; crucified for our sin and raised for our salvation.