Repent! [Ash Wednesday]

TO LISTEN TO THE AUDIO CLICK HERE. 

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE
        - Jonah 3:1-10
        - 2 Peter 1:2-11
        - St. Matthew 6:16-21

May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

 

Who speaks to us today, saying,

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”

I call for this day to be a day of repentance. For God calls all to repentance. We need it as a lost and condemned creature, as an holder of a holy vocation, and as a citizen. In fact, our entire country should be called upon to repent, for there is wickedness everywhere.

What sins does the great US of A have to repent of, you ask? There are the red sins of stealing the election and race shaming white people. There are the blue sins of greed and poor stewardship. There are the bipartisan sins of non-compliance and overspending. But those are just red herrings.

The real sins of our country, on top of those already mentioned, is its continuous wars, its thievery and plunder of the people, and its enslavement of those in poverty to its debt-based system. Among other things such as fostered division, lies, corruption, and breaking of its own laws. Is this really a government given by God and worthy of obedience?

You would not think, that at the peak of prosperity, the depth of sins would be so deep. But what a dark time to be alive. Repent or God may not relent of the disaster that is about to befall us. Do not think you are exempt from God’s Word just because you won the lottery and are alive in the greatest country in history.

This Word from Joel is for you: “’Yet even now,’ declares the Lord, ‘return to me with all your heart,

with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning’”. There is no time to lose. Now is the time, for today salvation is nearer to us than it eve has been. Our Lord returns, will you be ready?

Make no mistake. We do not live in God’s country. We dwell in Babylon. The Book of Revelation gives us nice, concrete announcements that this is so. 14:8 says, “Another angel, a second, followed, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who made all nations drink the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality.”

In chapter 18, Babylon falls by God’s hand and yet everyone on earth weeps for her and even, how Ash Wednesday of them, “…threw dust on their heads as they wept and mourned, crying out,

‘Alas, alas, for the great city!’” (v. 19). And in v. 4, Jesus must call out His elect from among Babylon’s ranks, saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues; for her sins are heaped high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.”

Babylon is our home, ashes are our lot, and repentance should be the way of life, as Dr. Luther taught in his 95 Theses. Not only that, but it is our Lord’s words to us in His first sermon, the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 5, in which He begins by preaching “Repent, for the Kingdom of the heavens is at hand, from the chapter before (4:17).

This is not penance, as the monks and Romans teach it, for penance is simply an outward work. Yet we should be as specific as Dr. Luther. He says it doesn’t mean inward or outward only, but both, for there is no inward repentance which does not outwardly work diverse mortifications of the flesh. (LW 31:25)

So it is that the prophet Joel already told us today to repent, but to rend our hearts and not our garments. How do you rend a heart? Well, you could follow Jesus’s example and have a Roman spear shoved into your side for the sins of the world. Or, you could let the Church of the Holy Spirit guide you.

The hard part about repenting is agonizing over sins as the monks and super-spiritual do. It is easy work to be alone, when no one is watching, and weep on our beds over the horrible sins we both commit and acquiesce to and then to tell everyone about how repentant we are. 

What is hard is admitting those same, agonizing sins to someone other than a spirit. In the days of Jonah, everyone was so repentant that they were having a whale of a time. Partying, marrying and giving in marriage, and enjoying how great their blessed nation was. 

Little to their delight, someone stepping in front of them and said, “Repent”. Of course, they thought they were repenting. They thought they were doing everything right. God was blessing their nation, was He not?

Of course He was. God blesses everyone in this Age of Grace through the Body and Blood of Jesus. However, God’s blessing is on more than seedtime and harvest. God’s blessing also reveals how much we need a Savior, I would say even moreso, because of the words of Jesus to repent.

Job repents in dust and ashes, after the Lord chastises him in chapter 42. Nineveh repents at Jonah’s words, in sackcloth and ashes, Jonah 3:5-9. Daniel gave his “attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes” (9:3). And our practice of not sitting in dust, but putting it on our heads comes from Lamentations 2:10, “The elders of the daughter of Zion Sit on the ground, they are silent. They have thrown dust on their heads; They have girded themselves with sackcloth.”

Just as we are body and soul in one person, so does our inward reflect on the outward and the outward influences the inward. What we practice on the outside is what our soul looks like on  the inside. Likewise, what look like on the inside reveals itself on the outside. 

So we repent. Not just anywhere, but in Church. For it is God’s Church that gives us an easy, straight-forward, biblical, godly way of Confession. Not Ash Wednesday every day, but Confession and Absolution any and every time we need it. 

In this way, God allows us a place to approach Him on bended knee, not just on the inside, but on the outside as well. How daunting is it coming into church, indeed, coming in for the first time? That is the presence of God, ready to either retain your sins or forgive them. Which will He do?

that answer lies on the cross. Fro everyone who has been bitten by the Serpent, if he looks to His God on the cross, he will live (Num 21:8-9). Everyone who feels the blessing of God, convicting him of his sins, may sit and contemplate the dust and ashes upon His savior and receive forgiveness in body and blood.

for that is the true meaning of ashes upon the forehead and the rending of hearts. that God and man, in Christ, sat in the ashes of our humanity, was covered by the dust of the tomb of our sins, and repented towards the Father on our behalf. 

While Jesus was smothered by the ashes, we bear a tiny cross on our heads to remind us that from dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return. But the dust is no longer an eternal dust, but a peaceful sleep. For we sleep in the dust of our Lord, baptized into His death, and we will be raised without ashes, baptized into His resurrection.

In these last days, we grieve over our sin and the sins around us. knowing that both continue to threaten to drag us into hell and destroy the peaceful times we enjoy. However, it is the blessing to recognize sins and faith to believe in forgiveness, that lets us walk around with our heavy cross, following Jesus. 

Because Jesus doesn’t stop at sin or death. He doesn’t stop at the confessional booth nor the penance we think we need to do in payment. Jesus continues on to His suffering, death, and resurrection. Jesus continues on to the Eternal Eighth Day of Easter, that never ends.

This is part of the reason we begin counting down towards Easter, even before we get to Lent, because we want to make it to Easter that much quicker. Our sins destroy us and weigh us down. We are tired and we beg for rest from the Crucified and Risen Lord Who promises both in eternity and even today in Word and Sacrament.

Ah, love [Quinquagesima]

 READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• 1 Samuel 16:1-13

• 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

• St. Luke 18:31-43

To all of you who are loved by God and called to be saints:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
 

Who speaks to us today, saying,

“And Jesus said to him, ‘Recover your sight; your faith has saved you.’”
 

In fact, when we talk about faith, hope, and love, heard in the Epistle reading, we don’t really mention hope or love at all. This is because when Jesus does His miracles, it is always faith that saves, as He said today, and it is always faith that justifies the sinner. 

 

Love does not save or justify, but it is always a command, it is always the bare minimum of work for the Christian: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mt 23:39), “Love your enemies” (Mt 5:44), “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me…” (Mt 10:37), and the like. 

 

This is because God is love and true love is not found outside of God nor is it found apart from God, though we try hard to make it so. Even Christian love is incomplete at best(What Luther says). For as we hear today in the Epistle, things in this world are only done in part (1 Cor 13:12) and we cannot help but be in this world.

 

In fact, when you say and speak about “true love”, that’s not what you actually say. You say “to blave” which means to bluff. As in, you tell someone you love them, but you are just bluffing and are only in it for the benefits you get. Hence, the nasty emotions of jealousy and betrayal and the skyrocketing numbers of divorce and children born outside of wedlock..

 

Case and point: you say you “love your neighbor”, but when you take away his job and his means of providing for his family, is that love?

 

In the world of Hollywood, however, true love always seems to win. Of course it is all make-believe and nonsense, you rarely get truth from movies, but only because they miss the real reason that true love conquers all. That is, because there is strength to support and defend it.

 

Love, as we have been programmed to believe it, cannot stand on its own. It is yielding. It is hypocritical. It is self-serving. And at most, we can only truly love one person and forget about the rest of them. At least, the one we’re with in that moment. Because we can love many people, but only one at a time. Otherwise, that’s called cheating.

 

In these last days, “because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold”, as Jesus says in Mt 24:12. This Word has come to pass in front of you. Because your love is the opposite of everything St. Paul describes today, your love for God and others has failed. At a very basic level, humanity cannot function without interaction, without close physical community, without love.

 

In Faith, these things take place. Faith is the virtue that is unyielding and unchanging. In love, we should permit the robbing of our goods, reputation, life, and everything we have; but we should not bear to have the Gospel, faith, Christ, or the Sacraments taken from us; and accursed be the humility that here shows itself compliant.” (Luther, Weimar 40:I:181ff)

 

Faith is the immovable champion that secures a safe space for true love and hope is the binding agent that allows community and interaction to take place, because hope seeks the greater good in both faith and love. “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb 11:1), “I hope for your salvation” (Ps 119:166), and “love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Pet 4:8) in the crucifixion of Christ Jesus (Rom 5:8).

 

The key to understanding true love is not found on your TV or internet, but it is found in Christ on the Cross. What this means is that in order to understand the love of God in Christ on the cross, you must believe that the love of God does not first discover what is pleasing to it, but it creates it.

 

Strip away all the bluffing and false veneer of human love in the world and all that is left is sin and death. Get rid of that, even, and what is left but God’s almighty, creative love alone. God speaks, and whatever He says is brought into existence. The Word of God created all things and His love is no different. In a world of “love gone cold”, God’s love creates out of nothing, that which it will love.

 

Man is different. Man needs an already existing object that pleases him in order to love. He must search to find his object and will more than likely toss it aside when he tires of it. There is no danger of this happening with God, for He will create what He loves and can not possibly un-love it afterwards. 

 

God’s love even goes a step further and loves the unlovable. For God loves sinners, evil people, fools, and weaklings in order that He make them righteous, good, wise, and strong. God does not wait for a special person to show up to deserve His love, instead He gives His love at the start, making the sinner loved. 

 

Sinners are not loved because they are appealing or attractive or paragons of character. In fact man avoids such sinners and evil people for that reason. 

 

But Christ came to call sinners, not the righteous (Matt 9:13). Instead of turning towards something already righteous and beautiful, Jesus turns towards the direction where He does not find good that He may enjoy, says Dr. Luther, but turns where He may confer good upon the bad and needy person. “It is more blessed to give than to receive” after all, says Acts 20:35.

 

From our Old Testament reading, David is the leftover son, the unlovable. In the Gospel, the blind man is so unlovable that he is left to fend for himself, begging on the streets. In all of history, God is the most unloved. For when He shows up to give His love to a thousand generations, “he [is] delivered over to the Gentiles and [is] mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging him, they killed him” (Lk 18:32-33).

 

Yet this unloved and unlovable Son was going to rise again, three days later. In His ascension, He was not only going to heal all diseases, but He is granting the state of “Beloved of God” to those who believe in Him. In Christ’s operation to save all sinners by His Body and Blood, He pleases His Father by making creation loveable again.

 

And this state is granted in Word and Sacrament. Jesus operates in His own reasonable body and soul, as both man and God. In His work He unites the physical and the spiritual. He takes up man’s false love and turns it into God’s love. Christ must first be a sacrament, before He is an example. So we receive His work sacramentally, as pure gift, just as He offers it.

 

We need human interaction. So much so, that God gave Eve to Adam, even though Adam already had God. We need human interaction, face to face. If you want to love God you must face Him regularly, weekly even. But you cannot face God without Him having a face. You cannot love God without Him first showing love. You cannot have faith or hope…you get the idea.

 

So now we return to our Epistle with this new light of understanding and read:

“Jesus is patient and kind; Jesus does not envy or boast; He is not arrogant or rude. He does not insist on His own way; He is not irritable or resentful; He does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Jesus bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” “So now faith, hope, and Jesus abide, these three; but the greatest of these is Jesus.

 

The hope of a [sinful, faithless] man is false says Job 41:9. 

“Give thanks to the Lord because he is good, because his faithful love endures forever.” (1 Chron 16:34)

“Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity, overlooking the sin of the few remaining for his inheritance? He doesn’t hold on to his anger forever; he delights in faithful love.” (Micah 7:18)

nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord…(Romans 8:38-39)

But God shows his love for us, because while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

 

God’s love trumps the hatred of sin, death and the devil. God’s love is given to us, in faith, as we go about our lives. God’s love is set down for us into death on a cross and God sets His love in front of us on a silver platter, inviting us to take and eat.

 

 

Boasting [Sexagesima]

 READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Isaiah 55:10-13

• 2 Corinthians 11:19-12:9

• St. Luke 8:4-15

To all of you who are loved by God and called to be saints:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Who speaks to us today, saying,

“To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’”

It would appear that knowing the secrets of the kingdom of God would be something to boast about. Not everyone has that knowledge and I would think you pretty much corner the market. In the greek, however, its not necessarily secrets that Jesus is peddling, but mysteries. And the Church has always understood these mysteries to be the weekly Sacraments she communes in. Not much of a market for those, though.

In these Church mysteries that Jesus gives each week, boasting is allowed, as we ponder Jesus’s words in the epistle reading today. For there are two kinds of boasting, human and divine. In the mysteries of the Church, we can only boast in the Lord for He is the only One acting and serving in them, making them worth something in the first place. St. Paul tells us that if we are to boast, boast in the Lord (1 Cor 1:31).

Human boasting we hear of from Jeremiah 9, let no one boast in his wisdom, strength, or riches (v. 23). This same human boasting is also outlined by St. Paul in the Epistle today in all its glorious foolishness, as he says himself. Dr. Luther describes it in a sermon from the 2nd Sunday before Lent: 

“Here we are shown what is the ground of the false apostles' boasting: their outward respectability--being of Abraham's seed, children of Israel, Christ's preachers, [etc.]. Therein they think to far excel the Corinthians, claiming their doctrine and works to be of greater weight because they have Moses and the prophets for their teachers. But they failed to perceive that their boast is of mere externals” (Luther, Second Sunday before Lent, “PAUL'S GLORY IN HIS LABOUR AND SUFFERING”, Church Postils).

Thus, human boasting is a façade; perishable and depreciates with the owner and is therefore not something to be dependent on, just as Wall Street is not to be depended on for a correct indication of a healthy economy. They are lies, falsehoods, masks that can be touched up only until the make-up runs out. The pigs can only rear up on their hind legs for so long until they have to rest.

In the parable from today’s Gospel, who has the right to boast and of what would they boast? Would the path boast in its hardness, or the rocks in their dryness, or the thorns in their violence? Is the good soil even able to boast? None can boast. None can because the One doing all the work is not the soils, but the Seed, and the Seed is the Word of God (Lk 8:11) made flesh, dwelling among us “and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (Jn 1:14).

This then is the first of three things that the Christian can, and should, boast in: that the Word has come to do His work. His work of enlivening even the most stubborn of soils and hearts. For the Word made flesh has brought godly light and life into humanity, by offering His most holy, precious, innocent Blood upon the cross as payment for us.

The Word made flesh, or the Seed made flesh, has been planted in the corrupt ground of our sins, suffered, died, and rose again from the dead. Our boasting is in the goodness and mercy shown to our race by our Heavenly Father Who, out of fatherly divine goodness and mercy and without any merit or worthiness within me, has received us as His children and called us to eternal life.

As His children, He places us in His home, which He has furnished for us. If we are to boast in the Lord continuously, then we must have things to boast in. We boast in our salvation purchased and won by Jesus Christ. We also get to boast in the means of the Spirit, in which He places that salvation in our hands. Our bosting is also in the Baptism and Communion of God, taking place at this church. If we are to boast, let us spiritually and physically boast in the Lord as often as we can.

The second place the Christian should boast in is in the cross, or in suffering beneath the cross. Galatians 6 tells us, “But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal 6:14). 

This is not to say that we bow down to a piece of wood, used for capitol punishment, with a man on it. This is to say that we bow towards the remembrance of a piece of wood that once held our dying God fast, until He died and paid for our sins. In that remembrance, we place our own suffering and death and count it all glory to suffer for the faith, as St. James says, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness” (James 1:2-3).

Boasting in the cross is boasting in the work of God’s salvation through His only Son. It is also a boasting in the unity with God that He gives us in Christ. 

Dr. Luther puts it this way:

One of the incomparable benefits “of faith is that it unites the soul with Christ as a bride is united with her bridegroom. By this mystery, as the Apostle teaches, Christ and the soul become one flesh [Eph. 5:31--32]. And if they are one flesh and there is between them a true marriage -- indeed the most perfect of all marriages, since human marriages are but poor examples of this one true marriage -- it follows that everything they have they hold in common, the good as well as the evil. Accordingly the believing soul can boast of and glory in whatever Christ has as though it were its own, and whatever the soul has Christ claims as his own. Let us compare these and we shall see inestimable benefits. Christ is full of grace, life, and salvation. The soul is full of sins, death, and damnation. Now let faith come between them and sins, death, and damnation will be Christ's, while grace, life, and salvation will be the soul's; for if Christ is a bridegroom, he must take upon himself the things which are his bride's and bestow upon her the things that are his. If he gives her his body and very self, how shall he not give her all that is his? And if he takes the body of the bride, how shall he not take all that is hers?” (Luther, On Christian Liberty, para. 10)

It is in this union that the Christian will boast in a third thing, that is our vocation, our office, our weakness, as we heard in our Epistle reading. Life is for living, and now being purchased by Christ and unified with Him in Baptism, we then live our lives in the jobs that God puts in front of us: father, mother, son, daughter, husband, wife, or worker. We boast that God has given us work on His great earth and gives us all that we need to support this body and life.

This then is all of life. There is no room for human boasting. It is excluded, as Romans 3 tells us. By what kind of law is it excluded? By a law of human works? “No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law” (Rom 3:27-28). By faith we are saved, by faith we endure suffering, and by faith we live as a temple of the Holy Spirit.

It is very human to boast. What you boast in is what gives you confidence to go out and face the day. It is the thing of which you say: I am a somebody because I have that. I can beat what comes against me today because I am this. What you boast in is what fundamentally defines you; it is where you draw your identity and self-worth from.

And in this upside-down world, that confidence and strength is taken as a sign from God. But St. Paul concludes the Lord’s Epistle differently. He preaches that in order to keep him from becoming too boastful, a thorn was given to him in the flesh, a messenger of satan to harass him, to strike him with fists (2 Cor 12:7). Three times St. Paul begged for this to be removed from him and it was not.

Instead, the Lord said be content in your weakness. Be content that God is strong and works on your behalf. Be content that you have been called “beloved of God” and have found favor with God, in Christ. 

Here we see what tribulations are good for, namely that they cause us to call on God for help. Neither Christ nor His Word and faith would be strong in us when our bodies are not held captive in tribulation and weakness. God does not remove human power and creaturely comforts from us, but instead adds to this and on top of this. (Spangenberg, the Christian year of grace, p.95)

We boast in weakness, because the weakness of the Seed of God produces 100-fold fruit. We boast, because the death of a single seed defeats death. Boasting seeks glory. do not glorify yourself, but rather let God glorify you. For, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God’” (Jn 8:54).

Heavenly boasting is where its at, so we wait for heaven to boast in us. There is always someone on earth who is stronger, more boastful, and better than we are. In Christ, there is no boasting, indeed there can’t be, for all the Father’s glory is given to Jesus. All glory, dominion, honor, might, and blessing are His and, in order to please His Father, He desires to give you that glory.

In this, our weakness becomes eternal strength, our life eternal joy, and our temporal death eternal life, in Christ. From Psalm 8: “what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor” (v. 4-5).

The Seventy [Septuagesima]

 READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Exodus 17:1-7

• 1 Corinthians 9:24-10:5

• St. Matthew 20:1-16

In the Name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

To all of you who are loved by God and called to be saints:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Who speaks to us today, saying,

“I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you.”

“For twenty-three years…to this day, the word of the Lord has come to me, and I have spoken persistently to you, but you have not listened…therefore…This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years” thus spoke the Lord through St. Jeremiah in chapters 25 and 29.

This is what God’s Word said to those false prophets who were preaching, “Peace, peace” when there was no peace in Israel. The king was evil. The government had soured. Taxes were high. Mandates and totalitarianism were the orders of the day. And all this was happening to God’s “free” people and Babylon was coming for them, ready or not.

Here and now, we commune with the people of Israel. For today is 70 days before Easter, hence the name Septuagesima. With the weight of our sins, more like 70 years until we make it to Easter. Did we even have Easter last year? 

In that light, these 70 days of exile, mirroring Israel’s 70 years, are even more anxious for us for, since Easter did not happen last year, will it even happen this year? Will our exile in the Babylon of our sin ever come to an end? Will the rulers stop telling us how to do church and leave it to the Lord of the Church?

“The years of our life are seventy” says Psalm 90, “…yet their span is but toil and trouble” (v.10). Hopefully we can see that in the clown world around us. So what do we do? We practice what we preach. We begin our sorrowing for our sin with Israel starting with seventy days and also with 40 days of Lent. 

Though we have put away our Alleluias and Gloria, just as the Israelites hung their lyres on the willows beside the waters of Babylon (Ps. 137), we have not yet entered Lent. The true difference between these 3 Sundays before Lent and Lent itself is not in colors or sharp divisions, as we have been trained by other Lectionaries.

The difference comes in texts and practices. The texts of Lent differ from the Gesimas in that they focus on Jesus suffering for our sins and the historic practices have been to have Mass every day of the week; communion every day of the week. Each day of Lent has its own readings and propers for a full Divine Service, because how you celebrate Jesus is with Communion. 

All this on top of regular fasting. Talk about intense.

Confronting this intensity of God’s judgment against our sin, we do the only thing we can: repent. In the face of a world gone mad, we repent. In the face of out of control government we flee to confession and absolution. We look at the world around us and admit that we deserve it, since all things come from God. 

We have forgotten what Lent is and so we can’t distinguish it from the three Gesima Sundays. We have forgotten that we are in exile. That we are barred from heaven. That God turns His discipline upon us. We think that simplification of Service, cutting back a little, changing colors, not saying a few words, or giving up chocolate for a month is exile.

It was a bit more than chocolate that the Israelites gave up in exile. It was freedom. It was rights. It was the Temple and all the Services there to provide forgiveness and they chose that way. They chose to live in their sin. Everything that was Church was taken from them and they said, “…our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors, mirth, saying, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’ How shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land” (Ps 137:3-4).

How? As we hear in the book of Daniel, most of the rulers of Babylon made executive orders to criminalize anything to do with Church, such as singing or worshipping. You’d get thrown into a burning furnace alive or into the lion’s den. Would you risk federal prison or death for the faith?

In Israel’s tribulation, you see your own. In sin, you are in exile and you cannot get into heaven. Your own sin leads you into shame and great vice and unbelief. So much so that no one is left to sing in Church, regardless of mandates, because they are all dead in their sins.

This is the scene that Jesus enters upon in today’s Gospel. He creates a vineyard full to bursting with ripe fruit, still waters, and green pasture and yet, there is no one running to work in it. This is because He has erected His paradise in the middle of a desert. To be more precise, the middle of a cemetery full of dead sinners.

Where there is no work, there is no action. Where there is no action, there is idleness. Where there is idleness, there is the devil’s playground. And the devil’s playground is hell and death. Our Gospel reading calls it the “marketplace”. Jesus goes to this non-working world, in this non-working marketplace, and calls out, “Here is work”. 

And here is the Gospel: that there is work, that there is a vineyard, that there is the Lord of Work and Vineyard, even in exile. Jesus calls out from the streets just as Wisdom does in Proverbs 9 after He builds His House and sets His Table, and says, “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed.  Leave your simple ways, and live, and walk in the way of insight” (v. 5-6). 

In other words, “Here is Church. Attend and live the life of faith that is given freely in Christ.”  

Listen to what God tells St. Jeremiah to say to those going to Babylon in chapter 29:

“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon:

Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (Jer 29:4-7)

Egypt. Babylon. Modern America. The command is the same: be fruitful and multiply. What does it matter where you live or how many laws are against you or how much they hate you on account of the Name of Jesus? They do not prevent you from following God’s commands or following God’s Son, which is exactly what St. Jeremiah is proclaiming. The Exodus was all about God securing this right of worship. 

It took the Son of God going into exile, to win and purchase work for us. Not just everyday work, mind you, but the title of Worker. In other words, believer. And we must be hired, we must be made into workers before we start working. We must be found and called, before we can rejoice and follow. We must be born from above, before we can rise from the dead.

“I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you.”

In other words, Jesus chooses to give to those suffering great tribulation the same things He gives to those living in peace in Word and Sacrament. Jesus doesn’t change and neither does His gifts. His birth stays the same, cemented in history. His growing up, His words, His miracles, His sacrifice, His resurrection. Nothing changes with the changing of this world.

With or without harps, the Divines Service moves on. With or without the temple in Jerusalem, God’s Service carries on. With or without our prayers, God’s will is done and His kingdom comes, one baptized communicant at a time. 

Back to Jeremiah 29:

“For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. ¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. ¹² Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. ¹³ You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. ¹⁴ I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile” (Jer 29:10-14)

This means that remaining in weekly communion with God, we can sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land that is hostile to the Church. We can even watch the kingdom around us crumble, because the Church will never crumble.  

For the plans that the Lord has for welfare, a future, and hope is the Resurrection. And the plans the Lord has to gather you back to the place from which He exiled us is for us to be at Jesus’ side in His Church.  

In the light of the suffering, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus, the Exile is over. This is why there is a vineyard and not an office space, because there is to be a party, not just work. There is celebration in Church and rejoicing, even in the very midst of death. 

Because Life reigns as a result of the work of God’s only begotten Son. The water and the Blood rushing from the Savior’s side does not dry up. We all drink from the Rock, baptized and communing with the imperishable Christ. 

Who, this day, stands in your presence saying, “Behold, I stand before you, once stricken smitten and afflicted, but no more.” “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price” (Isa 55:1).

 There was weeping and tears, but no more. “…for there is a reward for your work, declares the Lord”, in Jeremiah 31, “and they shall come back from the land of the enemy. There is hope for your future, declares the Lord”, for your future is full of life, not death, from everlasting to everlasting.

 

 

Transparent God [Transfiguration]

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Exodus 34:29-35

• 2 Peter 1:16-21

• St. Matthew 17:1-9

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

To all of you who are loved by God and called to be saints:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Who speaks to us today, saying,

“And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only”

 Transparency is the key to dissolving criticism, for if every move you made is out in the open, then there are no secrets. If something was wrong it will show up. If something was right it will be on display for all to see, as Jesus is today in His Transfiguration. 

 Transparency leads to accountability. As in, if everything is known, you are also taking responsibility for it, for everyone can then see what you did. This is why transparency is a campaign promise and nothing more. It is a great buzz word, because transparency produces trust. But since it also means responsibility, the promise dies on the campaign trail and never gets to the office.

 Jesus is the city on a hill, not any earthly institution. Jesus alone is covered in lights, transparent as can be in His Transfiguration. He is not see-through, but His purpose, intent, and identity are all on display today, out in the open. He is true God and true man. He has shone in the darkness. He has shown Himself to be as a flashlight in the darkness making both heaven and earth transparent and He is turned off when He points out what He was looking for, for you: Himself only.

 As it turns out, the whole of our Christmas and Epiphany season has been about the transparency of God. In fact, the word epiphany means “to be visible”, “to appear”, in other words to be able to be seen and known. God begins His transparency in creating the world, then giving the Commandments, and finally being made man to prove that true transparency in only found in God, not man.

From the historic Introit, Psalm 77, “Thy lightnings lightened the world”. Literally, thy “lightnings”, thy “glare of light” has epiphanied, become visible to the houses or dwelling places: the world. Which you could call “the world” as it is the only habitable realm in all of creation. This is what these words mean.

 This world of habitability, this household, is the Lord’s, says Psalm 24, and He has circumscribed His Word to it (Isa 10:23) in order to preserve it and rescue it. He has sent His Word out unto all lands (Ps 18:5) through men He chose. And yet even though His Word permeates all, He inhabits, or “dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see” (1 Tim 6:16). 

 Some have portrayed God as hiding Himself or keeping secrets, because He is hidden and because He is infinite and we are not. Some have even accused Him of not existing simply because all they see is God’s opaqueness. And as we have just heard from 1 Timothy, He is unapproachable.

 Regardless, this Light shines on the world and graces us with His Law and lightens even the darkest mind with His wisdom, such that He will judge this world, this dwelling place, according to His wisdom and with the light of His righteousness (Ps. 9:8). And in a bit more of God’s transparency, it turns out that you are a dwelling place as well.

 A dwelling place that is supposed to house the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 3:16). A shining city on a hill, not a light under a bushel. “Let your light shine before men” and “you are the light of the world” says Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:14-15. 

 And yet here we are, opaque with sin, doubting, unbelieving. Here we sit in the world that satan was hurled to as lightning (Lk 10:18). Jesus continues in Luke 11, “Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is [transparent], your whole body is full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness. Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness” (v. 34-35).

 Be careful, He says. Too late. Romans 7 tells us that what inhabits us is sin, darkness (v. 17). Sin that causes God’s transparency to become thick darkness, and lightning, and fire, as on Sinai (Ex. 19:16). Darkness that causes us to be lumped in with Lucifer and only appears right.

 But therein lies the epiphany, the lightning of Transfiguration. You see, when Jesus shines His light upon the world, His glare is pointed at us and the darkness scatters, leaving only Him standing as righteous and holy, because sin and corruption are destroyed by it. But, that sin-destroying, wrath-filled light is redirected to the image we see today. 

 Like a high-powered lazer set to “kill”, the light of God’s judging Law is focused upon Jesus. Jesus is illuminated. Jesus is captured by the prison-guard light of justice. Jesus alone is seared by the flames of God’s wrath in judgement upon this world. And Jesus alone takes the wrath-filled light, and changes it into Easter light.

 1 John 2:8 says, “…the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.” “The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people”; “the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior” (Titus 2:11, 3:4). Salvation means that your darkness is passing away. Indeed, in the goodness and loving kindness of our Savior, it has already passed. For this salvation is for all the living, the whole world that this light has enlightened.

 Just as you have already passed from death to life in baptism, so has your darkness passed away. Though you retain your sin, it has passed away with Christ’s passing on the cross. Where Christ was raised, never to die again, sin has been razed, never to rise again. 

 You “outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness” (Mt 23:28). This is the opaqueness of sin that God’s light settles upon. In the transparency of God, “you are God's temple and…God's Spirit dwells in you” (1 Cor 3:16) for, “light [has been given] to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide [your] feet into the way of peace” (Lk. 1:79).

 In Baptism, the evil spirit is cast out and room for the Holy Spirit is made within you. AS you commune with your Lord, the injuries and wounds from sin and death are patched up in light. In the Word and Sacraments, you are daily being built up into a holy temple, a royal priesthood for God.

 The Lightning from God has made the world transparent. That is, in His Light we can see the sins of the world and our own sins. It is apparent that God’s holy Light will scatter the darkness, even the darkness that is a part of us, leaving only light. Not such a pleasant experience, especially for those who love the darkness and love to throw around the word transparency, but mean the opposite.

 It has also been brought to light that God’s Holy Light will fall upon the Son, indeed is the Son Himself, Who sacrifices Himself and instead shines the light of forgiveness upon those who believe in Him. In complete transparency, God offers Himself, in order to reveal the true nature of the world and His true work of salvation.

 In this world, we will not find transparency, no matter how many times someone uses that word. With God alone is all transparency. There is no shadow, or darkness, or scheming with Him. He will not trick you, fleece you, or pull the rug out from under you. There is no secret code, or handshake, or password. There is no permit, paper work, or application. No interest, hidden fees, or penalties.

 There is only Jesus. Jesus Who saves Whom He wills and has mercy on Whom He will have mercy. How this is done and who these people are is also no secret. We clearly see His salvation for all people in baptism and weekly communion. 

 The Word and Sacrament are the transparentest things on this planet. There is no hiding water, anyone can find some. There is no hoarding of bread or wine. These means of the Spirit are so abundant, that no one can withhold or keep them from anyone. Secrets are hoarded on earth, but the way to heaven is open as the wounds Christ bore for you on the cross.

 In this world we deal darkly and with shadows. In the world of the Gospel all are known, even God Himself. For as He told us, after the lightning had passed, after the terrible light made known the darkness, after all the world had witnessed it, we lifted up our eyes and saw no one but Jesus only.

 

Surrounding God [Epiphany 2]

 Readings from Holy Scripture

    Exodus 33:12-23

    Romans 12:6-16

    St. John 2:1-11

Surrounding the Lamb

Only God can save you. Only God will save you. Not a mask. Not a syringe. Not a civil war. God has a plan to save you and He lays it out today how He is going to do so. There will be a party, a wedding even. There will be a Groom and a Bride. There will be wine. There will be belief.

There will be no masks as holy Scripture never mentions them. Well, it does, but its in the negative. Moses wore a mask so that the people couldn’t see God’s shining glory streaming out of his face, Exodus 34 (v. 30ff): “Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, and behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him…And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face.”

But we are not like Moses who proclaimed a ministry of death, written on stone, by his mask, says 2 Corinthians 3 (v.7), because the Holy Ghost has more glory than stone, death, and a mask. Our mask is instead over our hearts and the mask on our face reflects that “whenever Moses is read” to us, continues 2 Corinthians 3, “a [mask] lies over [our] hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, the [mask] is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with [unmasked] face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (v.15-18).

Thus we hear today in our Gospel the unmasked glory of the Lord’s Wedding Feast, which is His plan for us and His solution to all our woes and fears. This unregulated, unmitigated, anti-social distancing nightmare is what God has planned for your life, not just in the future, but today. For today God shows you what His back can accomplish and what you receive by being behind Him, as we heard from our OT reading.

Not like our political handlers, who within minutes of fearing for their lives and being harried in a chaotic retreat out of the Capitol building a week and a half ago, our duty-bound millionaires bravely took their rightful place in front of camera and microphone immediately to deliver a carefully written, and long-thought out speech. Funny.

In this miraculously prepared speech, the deeds and accomplishments of a great temple were listed off in order to be worshiped. We are told to rally around democracy, whatever that is, and the party. If we just follow these millionaires, we will be alright. If we just get behind their idea of life, we will be healed. If we just bow down…

But really, they are just fleecing us. They do not want us behind them, they want us in front of them. They want us to go along with their idea and, instead of going with us they will leave us out in front to face the consequences. However, they will be behind us using us as a meat shield.

This is the lie that Satan told to Adam and Eve. If you just eat this fruit first, you will be like God. Go ahead of me, Eve. You bite the bullet first.

In fact, satan was also saying to go ahead of God, for God’s Word to them was not to eat. Satan was saying that if you take the next step in faith, eating, what God really wants you to do is step out on your own two feet and then you will have it. As we found out, there is only death ahead of, or in front of, God.

Jesus also takes a hold of and claims the idea of “getting behind” Him, not in front of Him. And we are considering just what He means, because Moses is shown God’s back today. So we must find out what God means by revealing His back, because what sinful man always means when he says “get behind me” is “you take the fall instead of me”.

Now Jesus tells us to follow Him in many places in holy Scripture, so we can assume that He is going to stand in front of us, which He does. But when He does so, He says to “follow” Him, in other words, get behind Him.

But what is behind Jesus? what exactly is this back that Moses is seeing in Exodus 33?

Jesus says, “Get behind me satan” in Matthew 4 (v.10), then says to St. Peter, “get behind me satan” in chapter 16 (v.23). He tells the Apostles to come behind Him and He will make them fishers of men, Matthew 4 (v.19) and whoever does not pick up his cross and get behind Him is not worthy of Him in Matthew 10 (v.38).

Quite the motley crew gathering behind Jesus, at God’s back. The sinners are there. Both believers and unbelievers. For, according to St. John, who’s Gospel we heard today, those disciples that could not stand the practice of eating and drinking the Body and Blood of our Lord, also went behind Jesus, but did not follow Him any more (6:66).

In fact, the whole word goes after Jesus, as the Pharisees prophesy in John 12:19. That is to say, that when God reveals His plan, those who hate it and those who love it will be behind Jesus, following to see what He will do.

Also in St. John’s gospel, Jesus is the one Who “gets behind”. He is the one “behind” or coming after John the Baptist in 1:30 and the One behind St. Mary at the Empty Tomb on Easter (20:14).

Now Jesus is not only before us, but behind us as well, where our social managers are only behind us hiding as Adam and Eve did hoping to avoid all divine attention. Psalm 139:5 says, “You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.”

Jesus is in front of us in every aspect. In creating all things, He was first in the universe and first on earth and first to see everything in it. In becoming incarnate, He was first to be miraculously conceived and born of a virgin, first to mature and live as man perfectly united with God. In being crucified, He was the first to endure the sum total of all sin and in the resurrection, He is the first to leave all that behind and take a human body and soul to eternal paradise, ruling all things.

This is what Moses sees at God’s back. He sees a savior Who stands in front. He sees a God Who sacrifices Himself and lays down His life so that his could be redeemed. He sees a back strong enough to bear the weight of suffering and the cross caused by all sin of all time and yet still rise again for the fight.

To get behind Jesus is to see Him do all these things. To see Him do all these things on your behalf is to believe, as the disciples did today at the Feast of Cana. Notice how careful the Lord is with Moses. He places him in a safe, secure spot. He covers Moses to protect him. He tells Moses exactly what’s going to happen and exactly what he’s going to see. The Lord stands behind Moses, supporting him.

Jesus is behind us, in every respect. Not only is He our support and strength in times of trouble, but He has also placed Himself lower than us, becoming the chief of sinners on the cross. He the servant, I a lord. He gives us the glory, the crown, and the honor. All that He has from His Father, He gives away, to you.

To be in front of Jesus is to see everything that He has purchased and won on the cross. Life, light, salvation. To be in front of Jesus is to be received into the Lord’s presence with the merits and worthiness of Christ. To be in front of Jesus is to be pushed into death, only to be led right back out again by Jesus in front.

Psalm 17:9 laments that my deadly enemies surround me. They have “surrounded our steps;

    they set their eyes to cast us to the ground” (v.11) in death, as Daniel was surrounded by the lions. 

• Psalm 32:10 Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord.

• Psalm 125:2 As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people, from this time forth and forevermore.

And

• Psalm 32:7 You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance. The shouts of deliverance that echo in this church. 

If God wants you to get this virus you are getting this virus. But God doesn’t want to give you this virus, He wants to give you His Body and Blood. You may still get the virus to produce repentance in you and for you to do better, but only to lead you to His forgiveness that you can eat and drink. This is the reason why we should want Communion every chance we get and offer it every Sunday, at least.

Because God’s plan is to have you surround Him, now. God’s plan is for you to hem Him in on all sides. God’s plan is for you to approach His back, which is Jesus, in Body and Blood for the medicating of both body and soul and vaccination against death and sin. 

The whole world does follow Jesus, as the Pharisees prophesied, along with death, disease, and tragedy. But those baptized into the faith follow to the wedding hall, where not only is water turned to wine, but wine turned to Blood for the forgiveness of your sins.

The whole of Christendom follows behind Jesus and is spurned onward by Jesus, to His Holy Supper. Where we fail, God is trustworthy. Where we are placed in difficult and impossible situations, God is faithful. He hems you in. There is nowhere you can go where He will not follow you, not even to hell.

Psalm 139:8 says, “If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!”

Only God can save you and He does. He saved you through the past, the death and resurrection of His only begotten Son. He saved you “…by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on [you] richly through Jesus Christ our Savior” (Titus 3:5-6).

And He saves you now, from all things, by His means of His Spirit, the Word and Sacrament, which you surround. Dear Christian, you are already saved. In faith, you have already won the race, you have made it and no matter what this world does to you it can not take that away. In faith, you will be saved. You will awaken from death and arise to a final, eternal life next to your Savior. 

Today, you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, alive. Today you eat and drink and make merry, because tomorrow you live. God spreads His wedding feast in jars of clay and offers this spot at the table next to Himself, just for you.