Doubt doubt [St. Thomas]

 READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Ephesians 2:19-22

• St. John 20:24-29

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Cor 1)

 

Jesus speaks from Ephesians, saying:

“In Him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”

 As the Advent season comes to a head, we begin to get excited. We have many things that the Church has given us to celebrate to intensify these feelings in Church. Such as today along with upcoming children’s programs of the Christmas story, reminding us of Who is coming. We are currently in the midst of the 7 days of the great O Antiphons prayed before the Magnificat at Vespers. And this evening, lowly St. Thomas knocks on the door.

 The greatest lesson that St. Thomas teaches us this Advent, is to doubt our senses and doubt our doubts, as we sang in our hymn this evening. Doubt your senses that only see commercialism and a manger. Doubt your doubts about what your church can do and who that child in a manger is.

 Doubt your doubts about whether or not this child, Whose essence none can touch,

is bound in swaddling clothes. Doubt your doubts about God Who, in the beginning, established the heavens, lies in a manger and whether or not He Who rained manna on His people in the wilderness is fed on milk from His mother’s breast.

 This is the Christ Who Himself builds you into a dwelling place for God. this dwelling place being none other than the true Temple, the Body of Christ. This is the King of the Nations, their desire and Cornerstone Who makes both, one. It is this King Who will bring our sad divisions to a final end, fulfilling His Word in Haggai 2:9, “This last Temple will be more beautiful than the first one, says the Lord of hosts, and in this place I will give peace”

 It is the King Who secures the wounded out of battle and into the peace of His Church. It is the King Who formed us all out of clay, yet saves us in that very clay.

The Lord speaks of this Desire of Nations in Haggai 2:4-8, “Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, saith the Lord; and be strong, O Joshua, son of Josedech, the high priest; and be strong, all ye people of the land, saith the Lord, and work: for I am with you, saith the Lord of hosts: 

According to the word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt, so my spirit remaineth among you: fear ye not.

For thus saith the Lord of hosts; Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land;

And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts.”

 And the King of Saints in Revelation 15:3, “And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints.”

 This is about Jesus. This is crucifixion. The thorny crown loaded on the head of Christ is the cross and His marvellous work that shakes the cosmos is His suffering, death, and resurrection which St. Thomas preaches to us with his eyes and his fingers. 

 For the King of Desire, the King of Saints suffers. He is a King Who comes to serve, not be served. His kingship is that of securing salvation and peace for His people for eternity. He does not lead into a battle that has no end, but leads to an End already readied and waiting. 

 And He reigns over us. Yet again, not in the sense of earthly kings, though that is included. His reign is one of service, Divine Service. His reign is humility. Humility in the manger, humility on the cross. Humility in flesh that still bears those glorious scars!

 And He reigns over us. He takes in the sinner and the tax collector, the stranger and the alien and hands out amnesty, creating citizens and saints. Through His Body and Blood, on the foundation of Apostle and Prophet, our Cornerstone and Temple, baptizes us into Himself, such that we are grafted in and have no choice but to be found in His Temple still praising Him.

  Doubt your doubts. This earthly, dying place we call the Church is where St. Thomas led countless numbers of people to receive the Christ child in bread and wine. St. John Evangelical Lutheran is the revealed Church on earth where the O Antiphons lead trillions in prayer to repent of their sins and receive absolution.

 Doubt your senses. This water; these words; this bread and wine are not just presented here in their simple forms, but are offered with the Word of God to give exactly what they promise: salvation, faith, and forgiveness.

 This is where Jesus is reigning over you and everyone else, have no doubt about that, for it is only in His Church where the forgiveness of sins is handed out for free to all who believe and are baptized. The King of all nations rules the House of God and unbars the gate of heaven, locked by sin and death, unlocked by nail and spear, thorn and scourge which Jesus presents to you in Bread and Wine.

 

 

Bethany [Advent 4]

/ / / LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE \ \ \

 READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Deuteronomy 18:15-19

• Philippians 4:4-7

• St. John 1:19-28

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Cor 1)

 

Jesus speaks to us today, through His Gospel and says,

“These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.”

 

As is ever the case, we find the people of God causing trouble and affliction wherever they go, similar to the Gospel we heard. For it is at the place of John’s baptism that many centuries beforehand, Israel crossed that same river, led by Joshua (the Hebrew name for Jesus btw), to oust the people populating Israel at that time, causing them no end of grief.

 

There is ever action, both Good and Bad, wherever the Lord is. It is peace in the world that you should be afraid of, not affliction in the Lord’s House. It is not because the Lord cannot handle His house properly that there is affliction, it is because He must carry out His work of salvation while being burdened with all of us. 

 

This is why Bethany means “house of affliction” and this is why John is proclaiming the Messiah and baptizing there. Because Jesus will come to be baptized at this afflicted spot and in doing so, will remove all affliction in His righteousness.

 

It is right that we more and more imitate our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Not just in love and peace, but in affliction. For He Whom we are commanded to conform to is He Who is wounded, He Who is afflicted, He Who suffers. When these things approach us in our lives, we count it as all honor and blessing and glory to be like our Master in all ways, not just the nice ones.

 

It is in this way, that the House of Affliction has been passed down to us. At least, we whine about it in that way. We find this affliction most prominently in the place we call “church”. Orthodoxy, is the word I’m going to use. Orthodoxy, remaining on the straight and narrow path, is what is practiced here and because it doesn’t change, it gets old to you.

 

With this reasoning, everything gets old. How you eat doesn’t change. How you dress doesn’t change. How you interact with the world, sight, smell, hear, touch, taste, doesn’t change. Your entire life is boring, a chore, a house of affliction.

 

In this sin, you drag these thoughts and feelings into your worship and prayers, longing for change and excitement, but realizing it is only your own feelings of staleness that you have brought yourself. 

 

Yes, herein lies the true problems you face. You may change preferences, or tastes, or locations, but you bring your demons with you. Your demons that scream and kick at anything that smells of God and yet will constantly lead you around from one fad to the next, draining you and demanding everything from you.

 

Repent. You believe that if you put in the effort and invest in something that you will get out of it exactly what you put in, earning that reward. But that is not how sin works. What you put into it does not come back. Anything that goes into that house of affliction, does not return. 

 

It is this point that God provides you with a demarcation. John the Baptist stands at the border between the wilderness and the Promised Land. The wilderness that takes everything from its inhabitants until their death and the Promised Land which promises every good until its inhabitants live forever.

 

So if you are in a place that demands emotions from you and does not satisfy until you have given your all, you are not in Church. But if you find yourself in a place where God is serving, regardless of your emotional state or energy level, then you just may be in Church.

 

Is John the Baptist unworthy of untying God’s sandal? Are you? In the hopes of finding your own affliction to appease God, you may dare to say so, but that’s the wrong question. The right question is, “Why has God come to untie my sandal?” 

 

Once again, our sin turns us in on ourselves and we miss Christ completely. Our eyes are down on our own feet, but Jesus is lifted up on the cross. Our soul is downcast, but Jesus has risen from the dead. Our humility is manufactured, but God’s humiliation saves us all. In humbling Himself to the point of needing sandals, to the point of death, even death on a cross, Jesus afflicts sin for us.

 

Dear Christians, your God is not a tame God. He does not dress in the soft clothing of king’s houses, pandering to preferences while His people sit in sackcloth. He goes with them saying, “Lo I am with you always” and proves it by wrapping Himself in sackcloth and ashes: swaddling clothes and human flesh.

 

The Lord is not a reed shaken by the wind neither does He hide Himself when the tempest overtakes His people. Though “terror strikes you like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind…distress and anguish come upon you” (Pro 1:27), know that Nahum 1:3 says, “His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.”

 

Therefore, Isaiah 28:2, “Behold, the Lord has one who is mighty and strong; like a storm of hail, a destroying tempest, like a storm of mighty, overflowing waters, he casts down to the earth with his hand.” Jesus being made man.

 

All these struggles and afflictions do happen in the world around us, but the Bible is clear. These events happen where the Lord goes. Deuteronomy 7:21, “..the LORD thy God [is] among you, a mighty God and terrible.”

 

And notice Psalm 68:35, “O God, [thou art] terrible out of thy holy places: the God of Israel [is] he that giveth strength and power unto [his] people. Blessed [be] God.”

 

Life is hard, but Jesus does not refuse the hardest couch. His Way is the obstacle. That obstacle being sin, death, and the devil plaguing His creation to death. That obstacle being our inability to face and meet those obstacles.

 

And where He is, is among us, Immanuel. Where He is, is in death and resurrection. Where He is is where He has trod and where He promises to be today in Word and Sacrament. He stares down nail and spear which pierce Him through. He does not flinch in the face of affliction, for you.

 

Yes, dear child of God. The Lord is terrible, but His terribleness is filtered through His Son. He is our sun and shield by which we may approach God and not be in fear of our lives. Because He only speaks to us through His Son, through His pastor, in Word and Sacrament.

 

The fiery wrath that burns all sin and corruption to oblivion is quenched in the waters of baptism. For Jesus is the one Who has come, baptizing with water and Spirit to life everlasting. He is the Christ Who speaks Himself, not through His prophet’s lips only. He is Elijah’s master and creator Who comes to untie your sandal of sin.

 

All this He does without any merit or worthiness in you, in His House. Yes, we may call it a house of affliction, for it is full of sinners. But in Christ, it is also Bethlehem, the House of Bread. The House of the Promised Land.

 

For it is here, in the wilderness beyond the Jordan which we call the USA, that Christ has built His House of Promise. This House is His own Body and Blood, built by Himself which not even death or the gates of hell can roll over. It is this House of Christ that we are baptized into, yes facing affliction because of our remaining sin, but receiving more than a thousand mercies because of His sacrifice.

 

 

Historic Faith [Advent 3]

= = = } LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE { = = =

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Isaiah 40:1-8

• 1 Corinthians 4:1-5

• St. Matthew 11:2-10

 

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Cor 1)
 
Jesus speaks to us today, through His Gospel and says,

“And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see:”

 
What is going on in our Gospel reading for today? A game of telephone with disciples running hither and thither, getting their lines crossed? No. What you are witnessing in today’s Gospel reading is Historic Faith in action: how it is given and how it is passed down.
 
Jesus tells the Apostles that in following Him, He will make them “fishers of men”. That has so confounded pastors and laymen alike, through the centuries, that we simply take it as a metaphor. Ok, we know what fishing is, but fishing for people with hook and bobber is kind of a strange picture. 
 
But sending out a message and capturing men’s hearts, that is easier to understand. That is what Jesus was doing, anyway, not using hook, line, and sinker. Jesus was preaching and teaching. Changing minds. Spreading ideas and justice. Peace and love. That is why so many followed Him.
 
That is why everyone still follows Him today…or not.
 
Because they don’t. Justice, peace, and love are ideas anyone can have. You don’t need to be Jesus to spread those thoughts and you don’t need to believe in Jesus to champion those ideas either. Jesus says, “Blessed is the man who is not offended by me” not “blessed is the man who is not offended by my ideas”.
 
Couple that with the fact that St. John does not make it out of prison alive, and you have a recipe for something bigger going on than what we first suppose.
 
And there has to be something bigger, because this world has gone mad with hubris. It is all the rage to dismantle history, tear down statues, and rewrite how we are to speak and live our lives. 
 
Repent. You are no better. You also wish to rewrite others’ lives, yet because they’re your ideas you call them “good”. You declare yourself the island of all that is good and right and demand that others think and do as you think and do. You even dare to use God’s holy Word in your quest and throw the book at others, as God’s one, true representative on earth.
 
But this is not what “fishers of men” means. Coercion and tricks have no part to play. There is no hook, line, sinker or any other fishing metaphor that smacks of lies and deceit. There is only the Truth and that Truth comes to us through history, bodily.
 
See what is happening in our Gospel. Jesus is not simply making decrees and giving out some sort of fantasy-like knowledge and insight through dreams or golden plates. He is using Creation. He is using what He has already made because it is good enough. He is using the thoughts and words of men to do His Will on earth as it is in heaven.
 
Though these disciples, who are going back and forth between Jesus and St. John, look like simple go-fers, they are performing a divine task: that of handing over the tradition of God’s Word. This is the “line [that] has gone out to all the earth”, from Psalm 19:4. 
 
The Psalm continues: “Their line has gone out through all the earth, And their words to the end of the world.” Romans 10 quotes this Word saying, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. But I say, have they not heard? Yes indeed: ‘Their line has gone out…’” (v. 17-18).
 
So Faith comes by hearing this “line”, this Word from God. This line, our Lord has attached to the man who is more than a prophet in today’s Gospel, who is the messenger before the Lord’s face and your face. As a loose string on a sweater, if you pull on this line, you find it is attached to something else. 
 
Going down the line, you find Malachi pop up, among the other Minor Prophets. Pull some more and you get to Isaiah and the Major Prophets. Keep on going through these men, and you will eventually find your way to Adam and then to the Lord.
 
The funny part is, if you go back to St. John the Baptist and go past him, you also find the Lord. Keep going that direction and you go through all 12 Apostles and each pastor they ordained, and each pastor those ordained, ordained, and so on and so on. Up until you get to little ole me.
 
And that is the belief behind Ordination and Apostolic Succession. That in God’s man, we find an unbroken line in His Church that reaches through history, with its beginning and ending in the Lord. In order that He might speak to us and all generations.
 
The Book of Concord puts it this way:
1] If the bishops would be true bishops [would rightly discharge their office], and would devote themselves to the Church and the Gospel, it might be granted to them for the sake of love and unity, but not from necessity, to ordain and confirm us and our preachers; omitting, however, all comedies and spectacular display [deceptions, absurdities, and appearances] of unchristian [heathenish] parade and pomp. 2] But because they neither are, nor wish to be, true bishops, but worldly lords and princes, who will neither preach, nor teach, nor baptize, nor administer the Lord’s Supper, nor perform any work or office of the Church, and, moreover, persecute and condemn those who discharge these functions, having been called to do so, the Church ought not on their account to remain without ministers.
3] Therefore, as the ancient examples of the Church and the Fathers teach us, we ourselves will and ought to ordain suitable persons to this office; and, even according to their own laws, they have not the right to forbid or prevent us. For their laws say that those ordained even by heretics should be declared [truly] ordained and stay ordained [and that such ordination must not be changed], as St. Jerome writes of the Church at Alexandria, that at first it was governed in common by priests and preachers, without bishops. (Smalcald III:X:1-3)
 
Long story short: the Church Calls and Ordains pastors to speak God’s Word. In Acts 13 we hear, “While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off” (v. 2-3)
 
And also Acts 6 where the Apostles specifically call for the ordaining of men other than themselves to work as they work. “And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty…These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them” (v. 2-3, 6).
 
And St. Paul teaches in Titus 1:5, “This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you.”
 
Jesus, our Example, is sent by His Father and He also ordains. In Luke 24, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things. Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you” (v. 46-49).
 
He is sent by His Father and your Father to cleanse the world of sin. He opens the eyes of the blind to see their sin and see their Savior. He heals the lame that they might follow Him to where His Gospel is preached in its purity. He purifies the diseased of their death, opens the ears of the sin-filled, and raises the dead from the grasp of the devil.
 
John the Baptist and his disciples call on this “line”, this Gospel of the God Who is made man, Who speaks to His creation face to face, and Who serves them with the powerful words of salvation, allowing them to speak it and do His will of redeeming sinful man.
 
This is the laying on of hands, we heard of in Acts 13. In the case of today’s Gospel, John the Baptist laid on hands, ordained his disciples to speak his message, which is God’s message of repentance and the coming Messiah.
 
He then sends his disciples to Jesus, not to simply confirm His Messiah status, but to receive from Jesus true Ordination, true authority to preach the Gospel and Administer His sacraments. John sends them to Jesus, and Jesus then authorizes them to go back to John and preach the pure Gospel.
 
The Gospel that the Messiah has come and He has come with great power and might. Not to kill, but to make alive. To preach that the war is over and iniquity has been pardoned. That the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world has been sacrificed and peace with God once more is made. 
 
Such that, His Word, that Almighty power that creates all things and sustains all things, might be placed into the hearts and mouths of men in order that they be made more like Him and that they gather more for Him, just as He gathers all men to Himself, having been lifted up upon the cross.
 
So it is that God Himself calls men to the ministry and qualifies them with His gifts (Acts 20:28; Ephesians 4:11). The Church recognizes God’s clear leading by His Word and embraces it. With prayer and fasting, the Church lays hands on these men, through Her pastors, to prove their commission (cf. Acts 6:6; 1 Timothy 5:22). 
 
Ultimately showing that God works through His Church, gives such wonderful gifts to men, and through both the Church and the Spirit, utilizes that “fishing line” to capture men alive in order to receive the Kingdom.
 
For there is not just a “now” to our faith. There is a now, there is a then, and there is a will be. There is a long line, a great cloud of witnesses, that now we see increased with each Baptism, with each “yes, yes it shall be so”, and with each “amen”. 
 
This is because the mystery of faith is that the Word, the Line, has been made flesh and must be handed over to the gentiles, suffer, die, and rise again. And this Line must then be handed down to all generations through pastors, by His Word and Sacrament.
 
 

Historic Comfort [Advent 2]

- - - - > LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE < - - - -

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Malachi 4:1-6

• Romans 15:4-13

• St. Luke 21:25-36

 

"Son, remember you received Good things" (St. Luke 16:25)

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Cor 1)
 
Jesus speaks to us today, through His Gospel and says,

“So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near.”

 
We began last week, to learn a little bit about the importance of learning history so that we are not fooled by the tyrant of the day. But there is a softer side to history that is often overlooked because it is the humble side. It is the side of history that is like walking into your own house, with your own family, with all of your favorite things laid out just waiting for your return.
 
One of the ways this comfort comes out is in language. One example would be the use of “thee” “thy” and “thou”. Or I should say, disuse. Though our new hymnal leaves traces of them here and there, with a “Holy Ghost” thrown in now and then, we have changed our language.
 
But there is some part of us that keeps those memories alive. Sunday after Sunday of singing and chanting and reciting our Lord’s Word does something to a person. But we shouldn’t be surprised. God’s Word is just doing what God’s Word does: changing you.
 
The story goes this way: there was an older lady who was sick and there was a new pastor at the church. She and the old pastor did not get along, so she ended up away for awhile. The new pastor forgave her sins and she found her way back to the Divine Service.
 
During the Confession of Sins and the Creed, however, she would not speak like the rest. It was then that her “Thee”s and “Thou”s came out and she spoke them loudly and did not change. Why? Because those were the words given to her by her Church, Her Lord’s Bride, given to her by her Pastor. Those were the words she came into Service with like a well worn shoe.
 
Repent! We fall off both sides of the horse in this one. First we take our words too seriously and end up making idols of them, refusing to say things differently or even refusing to use a different language, saying things like, “that's not how God wants it”. Second, we take our words not seriously enough, constantly compromising and whittling down what words we say which changes our doctrine.
 
“see, I have told you all things beforehand” (Mk 13:23). 
Dear Christians, this is the point of the gift of tongues and prophesy. Not that you get to be popular because you can predict things, speak in whatever language, and get lots of money, but so that you can hear the Word of God and repeat it back to Him (which is His favorite) from your heart.
 
As we hear in Exodus 4:12, “Now then go, and I Myself will be with your mouth, and instruct you in what you are to say.”
and 
St. Luke 12:12, “For the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what ye ought to say.”
 
Language is only the half of it. What you see, what you hear, what position your body is in, and what you taste all contribute to the development of comfort in God’s Church. Yes, Jesus gives comfort for when we need it. He also gives us comfort when we don’t need it. Rather, He gives whether we like it or not. 
 
It all comes from remembering, as Jesus says in St. John 14:26, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.”
 
What is it we remember? Yes, we remember “the law of my Servant Moses” as our Old Testament told us today. We remember Elijah, his story, and that the Lord will send him to us before the great and awesome day of the Lord. Of whom Jesus then tells us is John the Baptist.
 
We remember Jesus’s birth, His life, His crucifixion, and His resurrection. 
 
Well, no. We don’t remember any of that. We weren’t there for any of those events and we don’t pull memories out of thin air, much less any teaching or learning that we need. We only remember what we’ve been taught. Christians should be taught.
 
Remember your Epistle reading: “whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope” (Rom 15:4). You are what you repeatedly do, Aristotle said. 
 
And it just so happens that God’s Word and God’s Church are filled with repetition. It just so happens that every time we turn to St. Luke 21, we hear of the return of our Lord and the fig tree. Every time we turn to Luke 2 we hear Linus in our heads and “Behold I bring glad tidings of great joy”.
 
Every time we turn our hearts to God we hear “We should fear and love God so that…”, and “this is most certainly true”. And “even without our prayers” and “A mighty fortress is our…” and on and on it goes. That which we remember from the Lord has been uploaded into our brains by those who teach.
 
But not just our brains, our hearts as well. Such that when we walk into a church, or any other place in our lives, and hear those familiar words and phrases and hymns, we say oh yes I am in the right place. Contrarywise, when we don’t, we turn and walk out.
 
Word, Hymn, and Liturgy is what our Savior has told us beforehand. Yes, we know about the bad stuff He predicted. Everybody loves the bad stuff. They are addicted to the bad stuff, to fear. But on the comforting side of remembrance and history is the strength we have prayed for to stand before the Son of Man. Especially when He sits down to serve His Supper to us.
 
What we repeatedly do is read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest all that Christ has handed down to us. “Heaven and earth will pass away”, He says, “but My words will by no means pass away” (Lk 21:33) so we remember those words and teach it to the next generation.
 
For the Lord does not change His language any more than the sun changes its course. We hear the Confession, the Creed, the Gospel, and the bells and the hymn “For all the saints” comes to remembrance, where we sing, “…steals on the ear the distant triumph song and hearts are brave again, and arms are strong” (LSB 677).
 
The Christian does not need to wait for comfort. Her Lord brings comfort with Him as sure as the fig tree comes out in leaf. Purchased and won, our comfort is found in Christ, Who laid down His life, once for all, that Peace, comfort and joy, comfort and joy, be found every single time we look for it.
 
 
 

Historic Salvation [Advent 1]

`~` LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE `~`

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Jeremiah 23:5-8

• Romans 13:11-14

• St. Matthew 21:1-9

 

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Cor 1)

 

Jesus speaks to us on this first Sunday of the Church Year, through His Gospel and says,

“And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting,

‘Hosanna to the Son of David!

Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!’”

 

Who’s afraid of the big, bad Alphabet Soup? LGBT, BLM, N-T-Fa, CRT, MSM, IRS. So many acronyms and so little time to be afraid. And yet these are the very things that keep us up at night. They are thrown at us and we cower in fear because they appear to have such great power behind them. 

 

Such that, once they are brought into the conversation or debate, we immediately back down and concede. And who knows why? Maybe we really don’t like liberty. Maybe we are ashamed. Most likely it is because you don’t want to cause trouble. 

 

Whatever it is, if you don’t want to be afraid, learn history. It really is as simple as that, because the real power behind this Alphabet Soup is “I know more than you do, nah nah na-nah nah”. It is the claim that history is not what we think it is, and it usually isn’t, or at least it usually isn’t what we were taught.

 

So they get us on two fronts: our wish that we knew more and could be nice and our admission that we haven’t done our homework. And this is inexcusable, for, as many complaints as we have of the internet, it is the most access to information anyone has had in the history of the earth. You have access to information that rivals doctorate degrees and, by studying, can make yourself just as knowledgeable.

 

So who gave the first ground? Well, it wasn’t liberals or democrats or anyone else regularly demonized on our idiot box. 

 

It was the churches! Yes, it was God’s own churches that first threw in the towel to these history-deniers and anti-historians. It came from God’s own people attempting to appease the apparent scholarship of the day and they called it Historical Criticism. historical-critical method, or higher criticism later.

 

Not only did this come from churches, but it came out of Lutheran churches in the 17th century, so soon after the Reformation. The goal was to get at the meaning behind the words of the Bible. In other words, scholars wanted to interpret the Bible (history) according to the time, place, and people they think it was written to. 

 

At first this doesn’t sound too bad, but this was not the end goal of this method. Proponents of this Biblical hermeneutic wanted to then interpret the Bible on the basis of their findings. They thought that their studies were getting at the real meaning of God’s Word.

 

But by “real meaning” they don’t mean “what God wants us to hear”. By “real meaning” they want to cast great doubt upon the Source of God’s Word, they want to reduce God’s Word to simple literary devices, and they want to redact God’s Word into what they think is the community and mindset of the time it was written in.

 

What this implies is hubris of the utmost level. Since we have attained this new enlightenment, we must now undertake the thankless task of rooting out the truth for future generations. The only thing to have been gleaned from this method is doubt about whether or not God’s Word is God’s Word and whether or not Jesus is God.

 

In this light, all the acronyms mentioned before are attempting the same thing, to rewrite history, only now that they think the church has been thoroughly shot through, they have moved onto everyday life, trying their hardest to reinterpret history as they see fit, in order to keep you divided from your fellow man and to keep their jobs by pretending to have accomplished something.

 

So, is the Church a lost cause? No. 1 John 2:19 says, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.”

 

This is what Jesus meant when He said, “You will know them by their fruits” (Mt 7:16). Not only are the fruits of historical criticism discord and strife, but an abandoning of what God gave. First His Word, then His faith. 

 

“For both prophet and priest are profane; Yes, in My house I have found their wickedness,” says the Lord.” (Jer 23:11). 

 

Dear Christians, yes the devil, the world, and your sinful nature divide and conquer and come to us in pleasing forms, as we discussed last week. But the Lord continues in Jeremiah 23: “I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran. I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. But if they had stood in My counsel, And had caused My people to hear My words then they would have turned them from their evil way and from the evil of their doings.” (v. 21-22)

 

What is our recourse except the Word of God. It is God’s Word that is to be heard and it is God’s Word that turns from evil. No new thinking or new idea or new elected official is going to fix anything. Only History will do that.

 

Yes history, because it is in history that the Lord God has spoken and it is in history that the Son of God has done His work. God speaks this way when He says things like, “Come near to Me, hear this: I have not spoken in secret from the beginning” (Isa 48:16). The beginning as in the beginning of history.

 

And Jesus too says, “The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach” through St. Luke, the Evangelist (Acts 1:1). Meaning all the things that the people had seen and heard as a result of Jesus acting, were seen and heard in a very real and provable past.

 

Your God also dwells in history, not just in your heart. A history that He allows to confine Him to His Word. A history that is then passed on to be heard and scrutinized, and doubted. Christ hides from nothing, even this. 

 

He welcomes the critics. He tells us to go talk to His eyewitnesses of which there were so many more than just the 4 Gospels. 1 Corinthians 15 says, “He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present” (v. 5-6). Remain to the present, as in, were still around to criticize the story.

 

And their criticism only proved the truth of God’s Work and Word. No matter how many times the stories were told and retold, God’s history was true history.

 

And now it has become our true history, as we begin Advent. The stories, the facts, the hymns, and even the liturgy. All have been used and approved of by generations of those who heard their history, learned their history, and kept their history.

 

The time between the End of the Church Year and the Beginning of a new one is only a week (Sundays), but the topic for both remains the same. At the End of the Year we are awaiting Christ’s Coming and at the beginning of the Year we are awaiting Christ’s coming. 

 

The slight difference is that last week, we were focused on waiting for God to fulfill His Promise to Come Again. This week, we remember how God has always kept His promises He made to come among us. And what tells us this is history.

 

The History of God saving His people from their sins, as both God and man, Jesus making His preparations in order to bring us along. The history of our Old Testament reading; the Righteous Branch hanging on a tree, gathering, and giving His righteousness to all who believe in Him.

 

the History of our Gospel reading, where the God-man marches on His own city, declaring Himself to be the King of kings Whom everyone has been looking for in order to crucify. And the history of our Epistle, which speaks to us today, in that now we have been brought into this wokeness, this Daylight from on high, baptized into the Branch, baptized into Righteousness, and baptized into history.

 

So we are fed our history, in the crucified Body and Blood of Jesus, in order to stand against these dark times. We are fed that we are not unmoored to be tossed to and fro by the wind and the waves, but we have been planted upon the Ark of the Church, the Dreadnaught of the Seas. No wind can assail Her and no Wave can capsize Her. And with Christ both Captain and Rudder, no false doctrine can steer her wrong. 

 

So, we wait, just as God waits. We wait for the evil of this world to many, even though it may roll over us. But we do not wait as those without hope. For we wait in the sure and certain hope that Christ will come and He will bring us with Him, even if He has to drag us out of the grave.

 

 

Selfish Thanksgiving

~~....LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE....~~

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Deuteronomy 26:1-11

• St. Luke 17:11-19

 

How the End goes down [Trinity 27]

[_ * LISTEN TOTHE AUDIO HERE * _]

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Isaiah 65:17-25

• 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

• St. Matthew 25:1-13

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Cor 1)

 

So, Jesus speaks to us today in His Ultimate Gospel and says,

“And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut.”

 

This is how the Last Day is going down. You will be tempted to your maximum, because the devil doesn’t care if you have a way of escape or not, unlike what God promises in 1 Cor. 10:13. However, they’re not going to be the obvious temptations. There’s not going to be an apparent enemy who is coming to make us all speak a different language with guns. There’s not going to be combat boots knocking on doors. No one is going to force you to do anything. You will have to choose it.

 

The evil of the Last Day will look fair and feel foul, if you catch my meaning. You will be presented with angels of light as described in 2 Cor. 11:14. There will be an offer you can’t refuse, that you won’t want to refuse, and you will be led to darkness. 

 

For this is how the Last Day is going down. You will be holed up in the comfort of your home. You will hear your battle cry and you will hear your “brothers” shouting for you to hold the line and you will rush out to their side. 

 

Your “movement” will send for you pleading that they are in need for you to write papers and give a speech for the cause, because this time we have “them” on the run and you can make all the difference. People just need to know what you know, so get out there and make a difference.

 

All of the loves of your life will come and beg for attention and will appeal to every fiber of your being. And you will go to them, because they are your loves and love makes the world go round. Your sins and your lusts will be on display as you’ve never experienced them before, because they will have such power “as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Mt 24:21).

 

But they will not be your “brothers”, your “comrades”, or anything Good. They will be demons, demons of light pretending to be the things you love and the people you love. They will be pulling you away with lies, because during all this there will be another pull: the Church’s bells will also be ringing.

 

This is the temptation that the five “foolish” virgins place upon the five wise. We hear it and pass it off as just a weird thing. Why couldn’t they spare some oil? What is the big deal? That’s not very Christian of them.

 

You also say things like: Adam and Eve just ate some fruit, so what? Moses only hit a Rock, why not let him into the Promised Land. All the inhabitants of the land of Israel just want Israel wiped off the earth. At this point, what difference does it make?

 

Well, it makes a difference to God. Why? Because its not about fruit, or domination, or oil. Its about fear, love, and trust. Yes the Church bells will be ringing and the choice will be yours. To stay or to leave. The virgins faced the same choice. To stay or to leave. 5 stayed. 5 left. 

 

What I have so far been describing is the havoc your sins wreak upon the Faith God has given you. This is the danger you are in, not just on the Last Day which is coming soon, but each day until then. Everyday God’s Church bells are ringing. Everyday your false idols and secret sins turn you against God and place you on the wrong side of the “shut door”. 

 

For there is a false church on that wrong side, of which your sins and idols are a part. It calls out, has its own service times, and its own bells. It is a church of unthinking and adultery (Pro 7, 9:13-18). It is an exact mirror of God’s Church, just as your temptations seem to be harmless, so too do the doctrines of this Anti-church.

 

She calls out. She has a “gospel”. She has her “sacraments”. You hear and see and are tempted. In your sin, your “falling away from the faith” is nearer to you now than when you first believed. Romans 13:11

 

But because the Bridegroom is coming and not delaying, “now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed” (Rom 13:11). We have fallen asleep. All ten virgins fell asleep. The cry that wakes everyone up, the trumpet call, is the proclamation of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

 

Sin and death put us to sleep, both spiritually and physically. They so corrupt and wear out our bodies that they finally succumb to sickness and death. Physically, you have lost the battle against your sin and your death will be proof of that. 

 

On the spiritual side, there should be no question of your loss, for that fight is “against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph 6:12). All things we not only can’t see, but can’t reach as well.

 

Thus, the Bridegroom comes. But He comes in darkness, because we are in darkness. He comes in the night because we are asleep. He comes to a cemetery as the life of the party and the lamps follow Him. Why? Because He is the Lamp and the Light.

 

He must come, because we cannot. He must set up, He must hand out, and He must give Light because we are dead on arrival. We cannot choose to wake up. We cannot choose to hear. We cannot choose to have lamps, full or empty.

 

The Anti-Church  and the one, true Church cry out “Whoever is simple, let him turn in here” (Pro 9:4, 16). The Church calls them not simple as in stupid, but simple as in can not think, as in something is jamming your brain signals, such that you are unable to choose the good you want to do and instead choose the bad you don’t want to do (Rom 7:19).

 

The Anti-Church means it as one who practices the evil and premeditates it. “Whoever numbers himself with those who can not think and loves it and embraces it”. Such that the difference between the two becomes glaring. For when the one, true Church speaks, she says with Her Lord, “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Forsake foolishness and live, And go in the way of  understanding” (Pro 9:5-6).

 

But the Anti-Church says “Stolen water is sweet, And bread eaten in secret is pleasant” (Pro 9:17).

 

Christ’s one true religion, found in His Church, offers everything to the Hearer of the Gospel. It is already purchased, already prepared. there is no “line to hold”, no “scathing review to write”, and no “what if”. 

 

The Lamps that were handed out needed no refills and no maintenance. They were good enough for the job at hand, which was to sit and wait. In other words, stay and see what the Lord God will accomplish.

 

Sin, death, and the devil have nothing original or prepared to offer. You must bring it on your own. You must pull yourself up by your bootstraps and do your best. Everything in the false church camp has been stolen and corrupted to suit the needs and lies of him who was a liar from the beginning.

 

In the one, true Church, God has promised! Christ prepares it! there on high our welcome waits (LSB 671). It does not wait for us to choose it, but it waits for us to get there. It is kept and preserved so that no matter which path our life takes us, that heavenly welcome remains fixed.

 

We are saved the last trip to the dealers to prepare for the coming disaster. Our food is purchased in Body and Blood. Our garments are purchased in water and Word. Our lamps are fully furnished for our Lamb is our Lamp (Rev 21:23).

 

Jesus is the Lamp that shines in the darkness among those who dwell in the darkness of sin’s graveyard. The Lamp was never in danger of going out, but satan has so tricked us that we think it will, because everything of this world goes out, and if Jesus has a Body then it too will wear out on us, so he lies.

 

But this is not so. this is the importance of the trumpet call being a resurrection call. For it is in the Resurrection that we see just what a body from God can do. It can not only bear all the suffering of the world, paying for sin and death for all time, but it can rise again to new life, in Christ.

 

Christ’s is a Lamp, a Body that does not wear out, does not need soldiers to fight for it, and does not need a movement to advance it. God’s Kingdom comes without our prayers. God’s will is done without our prayers. God’s Name is hallowed without us. Not because we are worthless, but because we are dead in sin.

 

So the resurrection trumpet raises, not just the Bridegroom, but all flesh as well. it blows such a note that all flesh obeys and those who were asleep awake again. And the note it blows is not B-flat, but “Christ Crucified for sinners”.

 

Come, the Crucified Bridegroom says, come all who are unable to think because of sin corrupting you to death and I will give you the Truth and the Light. Come all who dwell in darkness and in the shadow of death and I will give you the Way of Life. For free. Already prepared. Already installed. No payments or subscription required, standard rules apply, see terms of service for details.

 

No, not that. None of that. that is the lie. The lie that you have your end of the deal to uphold. That you have one last push to give, so dig deep. 

 

The Truth is that salvation is not only nearer to you now than it was yesterday, but it is at your ear drums, at your fingertips, on the tip of your nose, the tip of your tongue, right in front of your face. This is how easy the Last Day will be for the Christian. He has only to come to Church, as usual, wait for God in his seat, as usual, and believe that Christ is here to serve him His salvation.

 

That’s it. That is how carefully and fully and wonderfully prepared your Crucified God has made you (Ps 139:14). He has paid for front row seats, not to the darkness, but to His glorious light of the forgiveness of sins. And that is the point of Faith. That you believe your sins are forgiven. Both what you have done and what you have left undone.

 

For the Christian with the Wisdom of God, the world has nothing to offer beyond what God places in front of him. And at the end, what God places in front of you will be the same thing He puts in front of you this day: the Body and Blood of His Son, given and shed for you. There is no other place to be and no other party to attend.

 

The Table and the Stage is set. Jesus is coming soon. Christ has been raised from the dead. You have been baptized into His death and resurrection, such that you may consider yourself dead to sin, the Law, and any unfinished business and alive towards God in Christ Jesus, present and accounted for today, for you.