Take up your cross [Lent 2]

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Genesis 32:22-32

• 1 Thessalonians 4:1-7

• St. Matthew 15:21-28

 

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

 

Who speaks to us today, saying,

“Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table.”

In all three Lectionary readings today, we hear of the cross placed upon our backs and not even the atheists get to throw theirs down. For Jacob must wring a blessing out of God, St. Paul sets a high bar for purity of life, and the Canaanite woman has a really bad day. For the cross that Jesus tells us to pick up, in Matthew 16:24, is many things to the sinner and the Canaanite woman reveals this to us today.

The cross given to everyone is injury, humiliation, and suffering. It is atonement, glory, and salvation. But the primary example the cross gives us is the first one overlooked. That is that the cross is how God tells us Who He is and how He acts towards His creation.

In the creation of all things, the Ten Commandments, and other godly acts, we get to know the one, true God as He desires to be known. Dr. Luther says, “It does [a person] no good to recognize God in his glory and majesty, unless he recognizes him in the humility and shame of the cross.” (LW 31:52-53). 

You can not be a true theologian if you do not comprehend what you see happening around you as acts of God through suffering and the cross. What this means is that if you are looking at the outside world for signs of God’s grace and blessing, you will end up in the wrong place. You will end up at Wall Street or DC, where the rich get richer. You will end up in tyrant’s and dictator’s houses. You will end up in places that seem to have all they could ever wish for or pray for.

You will climb the mountain of God, reach the heights, and when you peep in to catch God, you will find the devil laughing at you. Earthly greatness and blessings are not signs of God’s favor and grace. Though they can be, there is only the certain word from Jesus that His kingdom is not of this world (Jn 18:36).

As is the case of the Canaanite woman today, for though she is commended in the end, for her faith, she is seen carrying her cross. The cross of having to leave her child while she seeks help. The cross of God remaining silent through her afflictions. The cross of being rejected and the cross of humiliation.

Neither does Jacob does not get out of bearing his cross without physical injury. St. Paul, the author of our Epistle reading, likewise does not get out of bearing his cross without a thorn in his side. Is this suffering something they chose themselves to prove their loyalty to God? Did they brag about being willing to even die for God, if He would just give them a chance to prove themselves?

No. True “cross bearing” is not something we choose or even get a say in. In fact, it is usually the kind of suffering which, if it were possible, we would gladly be rid of, not accept as some kind of challenge. Competitions you can train for, study for, and prepare for. Bearing a cross you can not.

Even Jesus was made unaware of His future, in His humanity. As a man, He could not see into His future, but only knew that suffering was going to take place. So much so, that He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane for it to passover Him. That God’s will of placing the cross upon His only Begotten Son would not take place.

As we know all too well, our Lord bears the cross. Not just suffering and shame, but gash and wound. Jesus does not only suffer the psychological onslaught of being kicked out of His own world through capitol punishment, but also had to endure that same onslaught in His flesh.

In the case of Jesus, for though He is commended on Easter and in the end, for His faith, He is seen carrying His cross. The cross of having to leave His heavenly home while He seeks His rebellious, possessed creation. The cross of God remaining silent through His afflictions. The cross of being rejected and the cross of humiliation, in His suffering and death.

All this He must bear, because He has our sins with Him and sin cannot stand in front of God. Jesus does not get out of bearing the cross without injury. Injured to death. Where St. Paul gets away with a stitch in his side and St. Jacob gets out with a limp, Jesus does not.

Where the Canaanite woman gains relief, on account of her faith, Jesus’s cup does not pass from Him. Who God is, as seen through the cross, is the God of lovingkindness and patience the Old Testament tried to tell us about. It took the cross to prove it to us, because He can be pretty omnipotent and far off.

In the cross, God is the God Who is selfless and Who cares. He accomplishes the regeneration of the world and the sinner at the loss of His own life. For it is only in the cross of Christ that there is the power of salvation (1 Cor. 1:18). This means that is it in Jesus dying for us, not His death, not His resurrection, that saves us. It is Jesus in the process of dying that He faces His final humiliation and pays all the debt we owe in full.

This is why the Church keeps Jesus on the cross. This is why we cross ourselves when faced with our own sin, danger, and every evil. This is why the sign of the cross is the first gift the Church gives us in Baptism. For if the God-man, Jesus, carried the cross and rose victorious, so shall we men likewise win in the end.

So the cross is laid upon us as we follow our Savior in faith and belief, for four reasons, Dr. Luther says. 

First, that we be conformed to the image of his dear Son, Christ, so that we may become like him here in suffering and there in that life to come in honor and glory (LW 51:206). “For those whom he foreknew”, says Romans 8, “he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Rom 8:29-30)

And 

“…be imitators of God, as beloved children” (Eph 5:1)

Second, so that when the devil assaults and torments us because he can’t stand the Word, “we may learn from our own experience [from God] that the small, weak, miserable Word is stronger than the devil and the gates of hell (LW 51:207).

Third, “in order that when we are not in trouble and suffering, this excellent treasure which we have may not merely make us sleepy and secure” (LW 51:207). Meaning, now that we know the crafts and assaults of the devil, we can remember Christ’s great rescue and learn to stay vigilant, as Paul says, “this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Cor. 4:17).

And finally, “Christian suffering (bearing the cross) is nobler and precious above all other human suffering because, since Christ himself suffered, He also hallowed the suffering of all His Christians” (LW 51:207). In fact, “when [non-Christians] run into affliction and suffering, they have nothing to comfort them, for they do not have the mighty promises and the confidence in God which Christians have. Therefore they cannot comfort themselves with the assurance that God will help them to bear the affliction, much less can they count on it that he will turn their affliction and suffering to good” (LW 51:201).

This is why there is no hope in an empty cross, because if the cross is empty then there is no promise of help. It is the crucifix that reminds us that Jesus was there and that He is here today, in His Body and Blood, bearing our cross with us and that He will finally remove it forever, just as His was removed.

It is not the cross, but the Body of Christ on the cross as our brother Who is like us in every way except without sin, and our God Who is strong enough to defeat sin, death, and the devil for us, even in death, that gives us hope and comfort. Sharing all the weaknesses and ailments of our body, Jesus shows us what God really thinks about His creation.

That is that He is going to make it worthy of His salvation at no expense to us, but at great expense to Himself. That He is a self-giving and self-donating God, Who does not wait for us to be perfect or worthy to be next to Him, but instead gives us His perfection and worthiness, in Christ. For it is in Christ that God and man are joined together for all eternity and not even death on a cross can tear that asunder.

Such is the revelation of the cross of Christ and bearing it as Christians.

Wednesday in Lent 1 [Feast of St. Matthias]

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE
        - Acts 1:15-26
        - St. Matthew 11:25-30

Shield of St. Matthias, beheaded for the faith

Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father's Son, in truth and love. (2 Jn. 1)

 

This evening, we hear Jesus speak from His Epistle and Gospel as we ponder St. Matthias

 

As with all celebrations of saints, our lessons from them are two-fold. One that we learn from them what great faith Christ gives us, and two, that we follow their examples. In the case of St. Matthias today, his example is that of the loser.

 

Picture our reading from Acts this way: First off, St. Matthias is a replacement. Let another take his place or office, says verse 20. Matthias is second string, at best. Secondly, Matthias is one of two to be chosen, seemingly not special enough to stand out on his own. 

 

Thirdly, he is not even the 13th Apostle (Judas, 12, replacement, 13, etc), for even though St. Matthias is chosen by the Apostles by lot and with God’s direction, God chooses His own 13th man 9 chapters later, in the conversion of St. Paul.

 

With that disappointment, we never hear about St. Matthias again. Or at least holy Scripture does not mention him again. He is not just the one picked last for the dodge-ball game, he is picked last and then not even needed for the game.

 

What a blessing St. Matthias is! In a world full of braggarts, selfies, and self-worship, St. Matthias teaches that behind the scenes is best. Did God reject his apostleship? No. He confirmed it through St. Peter and the 12 as Acts 1:26 says, “…and he was added to the eleven…”

 

This is the lesson of Abel. Who was Abel? What did he accomplish? Who were his wife and children? He was the second son, the leftovers. His name means “vanity”, as his mother named him. Yet, God had regard to his offering of the lamb and Abel’s blood cries out to God, even after he is killed (Gen. 4:4, 10).

 

As we heard 2 Sunday’s ago, David is the eighth son. A leftover, an extra. He is not invited to feasts or special occasions, because someone has to mind the lambs. Samuel asks, “Are these all the sons you have?” And Jesse replies, “Well we have one more, but he’s useless.” (1 Sam 16:11)

 

The entire nation of Israel, likewise, was unwanted in the earth for they are a stubborn and stiff-necked people (Ex. 32:9, Isa 48:4, and others). Who wants those types in their cities? And yet the Lord says in Exodus 4:22, “Israel is my Son”.

 

And it is the Son that reveals this truth, not just in Word and deed, but Body and Blood. Jesus is both first and last in many ways. He is first in line to feel God’s wrath in full, so that we would not even find a place in that line. Jesus is last place for God’s blessing and inheritance, in order that it be used up on us first. Jesus is first to rise again from the dead so that we may follow that train and He will be the last one on earth before it is remade, to get all of us out first.

 

The joke is on those picked first. The joke is on the wise and understanding. For the Gospel, the salvific preaching that God forgives sins for free in the cross of His Son, is for the infant, for the last, and for the simple. 

 

Of what use was St. Joseph? Jesus already had a heavenly Father, what need for an earthly one? Yet in that extreme humility and quietness, St. Joseph raises the Son of God, teaching Him wisdom and what’s necessary to live a life. Though his role was out of the limelight, his part was crucial.

 

Likewise, with St. Matthias. His role is crucial because he is to spread the Message. Not his own, filled with self-promotion and self-aggrandizement, but Christ’s message which is not about St. Matthias at all. Neither is it about St. Joseph, Israel, St. David, or St. Abel. 

 

It is that the Son reveals the Father to the world, for their salvation. It is the light burden and easy yoke of the forgiveness of sins. It is rest from constant slander and administration. It is the grace given to those poor sinners who have the Gospel preached to them and repent.

 

“The first shall be last, and the last shall be first”, Jesus says in St. Matthew 20:16 and elsewhere. Not that we strive to be last, but that we repent that we are last in our sins, we believe that Christ became even more last than us in His crucifixion, and proclaim that death first, in His Supper on the Altar until He returns again (1 Cor 11:26).

 

Christ is the first and the Last. No matter whether we have big parts to play or small parts. Whether we start many churches like St. Paul or “strive to live quietly” (1 Thess 4:11), the Word of God that is more certain (2 Pet 1:19) and is ours in every case.

 

And that Word has taken flesh and dwelt among us. He has given His Body and Blood in a pledge and promise of immortality. You are necessary to proclaim the message of the Apostles, “…beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection”, as our Lord proclaims through St. Peter in Acts 1.

 

The Office now dwells among us in a sure and certain hope, a promise for life and not death. “…a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek” (Heb 6:19-20).

 

In Christ, you are not a replacement, neither is St. Matthias. You are crucial, critical to the Lord’s plans of salvation. In Christ, you are also a replacement, however. For Christ has replaced Himself with you, giving you His crown of honor and glory and justifying you by grace, through faith.

 

You are redeemable [Lent 1]

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Genesis 3:1-21

• 2 Corinthians 6:1-10

• St. Matthew 4:1-11

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

 

Who speaks to us today, saying,

“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil”

 

As we ponder the Temptation of Jesus today, we should remember that God has been building up to this point the last few weeks, in the readings of His Church. Especially with Ash Wednesday fresh in our minds, when we felt the sting of death and sin in our flesh. Not that we won’t today, but now we can look at temptation in its proper light.

 

When we think of temptation, we think of the big things. Take Jesus’ example as an example. He is tempted by kingdoms, glory, and pride. All of which we have been taught to avoid, since we were younger. He was also tempted by bread. A little harder, for those of us who have tried different diets, but still manageable. This temptation of Jesus seems like a gimme.

 

In fact, most of the temptations we think about from day to day seem to be easier than the Bible suggests they are. Lets go down the list. Don’t be a glutton, everything in moderation. Don’t be too greedy, help the little guy, there’s enough for everyone. Don’t be slothful, others depend on you and you have to work to survive. 

 

Don’t get angry, it just leads to more anger, be happy. Don’t be envious, what you have is good enough. No pride either, a little humility goes a long way. No lust or adultery. These things are easy to do, because not only do they hurt others around you and make you look bad, but they also hurt you. 

 

Because of social pressure, we have an relatively easy way of keeping our public life in check. Since we don’t want to go to jail, cause drama, or end up dead or poor we keep up appearances and if we happen to have a pull towards doing something nefarious, we keep it to ourselves and deal with it.

 

Easy.

 

Something that becomes easy in life, becomes automatic. Something that becomes automatic, becomes forgotten. And something forgotten festers and grows out of sight out of mind.

 

Here we see the danger of “majoring in the minors”, in other words using up all our energy on looking good to others, in stead of using that energy towards a life of faith. For Jesus spent all His energy in order to purchase and win your victory over temptation.

 

Do not spend your energy on what is a temptation or what is testing from God. In your sin, you won’t be able to tell the difference. Each and every test or temptation, your job is to run to confession and God’s job is to be tempted on your behalf and redeem you.

 

Because you are redeemable. And you must be armed with this Redemption and daily expect to be “incessantly attacked, in order that no one may go on in security and heedlessly, as though the devil were far from us, but at all times expect and parry his blows. For though I am now chaste, patient, kind, and in firm faith, the devil will this very hour send such an arrow into my heart that I can scarcely stand. For he is an enemy that never desists nor becomes tired, so that when one temptation ceases, there always arise others and fresh ones”, says Dr. Luther in his Large Catechism (LC:III:109)

 

Life is full of stumbling and we pray, “lead us not into temptation” Lord. Not that we get to avoid it, but we pray that we may not fall and be drowned in it. Instead, in Christ, all these work out for our good. St. James says, “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him” (1:12).

 

Why is a man suffering under trial and temptation to rejoice? Because “…we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces …hope” (Rom 5:3-4). Are you tempted? Your Lord was also tempted. Are you heavily burdened? Your Lord was burdened and carried your griefs and sorrows. You rejoice, because Jesus rejoices in that He has defeated sin, death, and the devil, for you.

 

“…the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials” (2 Pet 2:9). See how He parries every attack from Satan! See how nothing can sway Him from His course! See the strength that the man of God possess. Did He fail? Did He stumble? Did He turn tail?

 

As we sang today, The Valiant One has taken the field and fights for us. The Champion has come. The seed of the woman Who will crush the serpent’s head has now arrived. His sword is His Word, His shield is His true Body and Blood, and His power is His cross.

 

“Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God…If the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?”, says St. Peter in his first epistle, “Therefore let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.” (1 Pet 4:16-19).

 

Do not fear what you are about to suffer, be faithful unto death (Rev. 2:10), for what today is a cross and a crown of thorns, tomorrow is freedom and the victor’s crown. Today we must bear down in patient endurance, tomorrow, the Lord “…will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth” (Rev. 3:10).

 

Today is bread and wine, tomorrow is an eternal feast. Today is dust and ashes, tomorrow is everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness. But now is the favorable time for the salvation of God to appear in front of you and work just as well as it did during the temptation of Jesus. 

 

For Christ’s victory is brought to you, is handed over to you, weekly. He places you upon the victor’s pedestal and drapes the medal over your head. To the victor go the spoils, He says, as He baptizes you and communes you into His death and resurrection; into His victory.

 

Temptation and testing are not easy. But no matter how much you are tempted or tested, nor how much you think yourself unworthy to receive God’s forgiveness and blessing, you are because the Lord commands it.

 

“you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light”, says 1 Peter 2:9.

 

“He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Col 1:13)

 

And Acts 26:18,

“I will deliver you…to open your eyes, so that you may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that you may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me”, a place at the Table, as it were. You are redeemed. The Word makes it so.

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).