Seeing Jesus [Good Friday]

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Hosea 6:1-6

• Exodus 12:1-11

• St. John 18-19

Grace, mercy, and peace [are yours] from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. (1 Tim 1)
 
Jesus speaks to you on this Good Friday from His suffering heard, saying:
“But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”
 
On Pastor’s “wish list”, so to speak, is a little metal plaque that could fit in the pulpit here. On it, would quote the disciples in St John 12:21, “Sir we would see Jesus.” This, then, becomes the Church’s plea to our heavenly Father and it also becomes the Church’s demand of her pastors and basically the only thing that the pastor is good for: showing Jesus.
 
But this becomes hard to do as Jesus has ascended to the Right Hand of the Father. There is no Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world, as St. John the Baptist got to point to. Neither is there the Man, Jesus Christ, that Pilate says to behold. And neither is there a man to which Phillip may lead us, as I just mentioned in St. John 12.
 
So it becomes very interesting, when Jesus goes back in time, and says things like, “Abraham saw my Day and was glad” (Jn 8:56) and from John 12:41, “These things Isaiah said, because he saw His glory, and he spoke of Him.”
 
It is interesting, because just as it appears we cannot point to Jesus in our time, neither should it have been possible for Abraham and Isaiah to see Him. But, we hear that Abraham only saw Christ’s “day” and Isaiah only saw Christ’s glory. The super-spiritual will then try to convince you that that proves they did not see Jesus before He was born and even that the Apostles did not see His glory until after the Resurrection.
 
They quote St. John 12:26, “but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written of him, and that they had done these things to him.” This is nothing else except a sloughing off of the cross. God’s glory is not on the cross. My God got off that cross. And we sinfully agree.
 
If we tell the truth, we don’t actually want to see Jesus, because of that cross. We want a fake Jesus, Who we can control, because if we were to see the real Jesus, the suffering, serving God, then we would have to admit our sins are real and the world and everything we hold dear is fake.
 
But don’t worry! The crucifixion of Jesus is just an unfortunate circumstance, they tell us, where Jesus was at the wrong place, at the wrong time. We need to move on to glory.  No one would interpret “God’s Glory” as suffering and death and He’d never expect that of us, even if He didn’t even spare His own Son. Glory is resurrection. Glory is exaltation. Glory is power!
 
That’s the God I worship. Power. Eh uh I mean, powerFUL. In fact my God is so powerful, He can make His Word suspicious and probably not true so that every religion can be right and truth is relative to each and every body. Isn’t that a powerful God??
 
Sigh.
 
St. John continues his own explanation of his words in chapter 12, for us. The men who want “to see Jesus” (12:21) get a seemingly cryptic answer from Jesus, that if they want to see Him they must understand that “the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (12:23) and that’s when they will see Him.  
 
Jesus tells them about the need for a grain of wheat to fall into the ground and die before it can bring forth much fruit (12:24).   Jesus clearly explains that the path to glory and salvation will also be the way of sacrifice and denial (12:25-26).
 
Jesus is also clearly asking for this sacrifice and denial from the Father as He prays, “Father, glorify Thy name” (12:28).  The Father answers that His Name will be glorified through Jesus’ death.   Jesus then says that it will be in the process of His being “lifted up from the earth”, referring to His Crucifixion, and God’s plans for the world will be secured (12:28, 32-33) through His suffering and death.
 
So we see that the glory of God is directly related to the Crucifixion of Jesus. More than that, Christ “is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Heb. 1:3). The Glory of the Father is the Son. 
 
“Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” , Jesus says in St. John 14:9. 
 
In this, we now have a direct line of transmission from the Father to our eyeballs. The Father’s glory is found only in the Son. The Son’s glory is found in His suffering and death on the cross. The cross is kept among us in three ways: first, by faith we hear the Word and believe it, second, we keep the body of Jesus on our crosses, and third, we also bear our own cross of suffering in this world.
 
It was necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into His glory (Luke 24:26). It was necessary for our sakes, so that we could also see His glory. Isaiah saw the glory of the Lord, in Isaiah 6, meaning, He saw Jesus. Abraham rejoiced to see “Jesus’s Day”, meaning he saw Jesus. 
 
We proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes by eating and drinking, says 1 Cor 11:26, and thereby see Jesus. We literally feed on His flesh and drink His blood, gaining eternal life, and the solemn promise to be raised up on the last day (John 6:54).
 
We baptize in His Name and at His Command, sealing the Promise of salvation to ourselves, meaning in baptism we see Jesus. We keep His Word close and treasure it that we might hear it over and over again and whenever we want.
 
The hour that the Father glorifies the Son so that the Son my glorify the Father is the Son’s crucifixion. The way we see Jesus is not through pretend emotions or visions, but in His Word and His Sacraments.
 
 

 

God remembers [Maundy Thursday]

 

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Exodus 12:1-14

• 1 Corinthians 11:23-32

• St. John 13:1-15

Grace, mercy, and peace [are yours] from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. (1 Tim 1)
 
Who speaks from 1 Corinthians saying:
“In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’”
 
Yesterday, we were doing the remembering, because in our sin the first thing we forget is Jesus Christ and His great work of salvation accomplished completely for us. Today, we will once again contemplate “remembrance”, but this time discover that it is God Who remembers.
 
Because, if God does not remember, then our remembrance is less than nothing. And again, we are beginning at the words of our Lord at the institution of His Sacrament of the Altar, “This do in remembrance of me.”
 
And what I am proposing tonight is that we have been misunderstanding and mistranslating these words of Jesus. We do this in many places, because English is a horrible language or to put it kindly, a very young language, but I digress. 
 
Here are some big words, but hang with me for a moment. Our purpose this evening is to hear, what is called, the Possessive Adjective in God’s Word as opposed to an Objective Genitive. As an example of what we are listening for is the Lord’s words of Institution. Using the Objective Genitive, we hear: “this do in remembrance of me”. Using the Possessive Adjective we hear: “this do in My remembering.”
 
This difference may sound insignificant and best left to those language experts of higher pay-grade, however, the doctrine this difference makes is extremely significant. For with the Objective Genitive we are familiar with, the remembrance is our work and depends on us. In the Possessive Adjective, the remembrance depends on Jesus.
 
And in the depths of our sin-sickness induced fatigue, the Good News would be that Jesus remembers. the Bad News would be that remembrance adds another plank of wood to our cross. If remembrance depended on our noggin, we would be lost. Is it only remembrance once a week that is good enough? Would you want God to treat you that way?
 
In St. John’s Gospel, every time Jesus talks this way, He makes the work dependent on Himself. such as in 14:27, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” Our peace, untroubled-ness, and courage is based on Christ’s Peace, not some peace we may happen to find on our own.
 
In 1 Corinthians 9:2-3, St. Paul defends his apostleship saying, “If to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you, for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord. This is my defense to those who would examine me.”
 
 It would take forever to go through the Old Testament examples of this Possessive Adjective usage. Regardless, we can show that it is not our remembering that accomplishes such great things, but God’s.
 
Genesis 9:16, God remembers when the rainbow appears: “When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”
 
Genesis 19:29, “So it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived.”
 
Genesis 30:22, “Then God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened her womb”, giving her Joseph and Benjamin.
 
Exodus 6:5, “Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant.”
 
1 Samuel 1:19, “And Elkanah knew Hannah his wife, and the Lord remembered her” and gave her Samuel, the great prophet, as a son. And on and on.
 
Even in the Magnificat we chant at Vespers from St. Luke 1: “He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever.”
    
Our job of remembrance focuses on remembering that we are sinful. Deuteronomy 15:15, the Lord says, “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you.” 
 
And it is Jesus Who remembers the sinner and opens paradise to him, as we hear in St. Luke 23:42-43, “And [the criminal] said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ And he said to him, ‘Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.’”
 
The Lord’s Supper belongs to Jesus, the Son of God, Who remembers His Church and His suffering for her. He emphasizes that the remembering belongs primarily to our beloved Savior and only secondarily to us. The Lord’s Supper came from Christ and belongs to Christ, St. Paul was simply passing it along to the Church, so the remembering belongs to Christ.
 
Thus St. Paul, as he ministers to the Corinthians, as a steward and servant of God, required to be faithful to God in all that he said and did, is careful to maintain the proper understanding of God’s remembering. For, the Lord of the Church is the possessor of the Word and Sacraments, the Marks of the Church come from, belong to, and lead the Church back to her beloved Savior.
 
When the death of Christ is proclaimed when the Lord’s Supper is instituted, distributed, and consumed, It is God who remembers and preserves His Church thus Baptism, preaching, and the Lord’s Supper continue and will continue till the end of time.
 
 “In My Remembrance (1 Cor. 11:24, 25)” the Apostle writes in our Epistle, and its meaning can be understood in two ways. The vital question is whether it is God who remembers us for Christ’s sake or we who remember God because of His grace in Christ. 
 
 Certainly both are true, but God is the One who first remembers His promises in Christ and Who prompts our response of remembering in faith. 
 
One day, we may change the words “in remembrance of me” back to their original, “This do into My remembering.” For now, it is good enough that we believe in the action of Christ as He preserves His Church and leads her to eternal life, that it is God Who remembers His people, preserving His Church, and leading them to eternal life, and that great comfort is found in knowing and confessing that God preserves and leads His Church despite the worst efforts of sinful mankind.
 
 

You remember [Holy Wednesday]

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Isaiah 53:1-12

• Isaiah 62:11-63:7

• St. Luke 22:1-23:53

 

Grace to you and peace. (1 Thess 1)
 
The Lord speaks, saying:
“And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’”
 
Day Four of Holy Week and what is Jesus doing? On Day 4 of Creation, He was creating the lights in the sky that we might determine day and night, signs, seasons, and days and years. Today, that same light reveals signs for us in our Lord’s Passion and we can note more similarities as our Lord goes through this drastic regeneration, for us.
 
Remember me, O LORD.  Remember me when you come into Your Kingdom.  Remember me when you create the heavens and the earth.  Remember me as you deal with everyone else.  Remember me as You are crucified, alone, paying for the sin of the world.
 
Asking God to remember us seems so selfish when Jesus is dying, but the Crucifixion of Jesus is how we are to remember.  The cross is where the Life of the world is poured out abundantly and God places that Sign smack dab in front of our faces.  God tells us, “Don’t forget!” and “Don’t turn away”.  For this is where the glory of God is manifesting.  It is here, at the cross, that we will find a washing of rebirth, the Water of Life, a wedding feast, the Bread of Life, the Word of God, and true Peace.
 
Remember that on the second day of earth and time itself God created Heaven in the form of water.  There was water on the earth and there was water in the firmament.  In and with water, God was preparing a place for you in the Waters of Everlasting Life from the start.  Water is significant and God uses it all the time to accomplish His work, if we only remember.  This constant use is noted because of the Sacrament Jesus gave us.
 
Baptism is life saving and faith giving.  Jesus was baptized, He baptized, His Apostles baptized, and His Bride, the Church, continues to baptize even today.  By offering faith and salvation in baptism, Jesus has raised its level of importance.  Not so that every time Jesus steps into a puddle we call it baptism, but that every time we hear water mentioned by God we think, “Oh!  I was baptized in that stuff.  Is that what God is talking about here?”
 
Remember. Remember the Baptism you were baptized with.  It is effective and affective your entire life.  Remember and rely on this means of Grace and you receive exactly what it says: the forgiveness of sins.  It points your trust outside of yourself to His cross and to the water and Blood spilled on the cross for you.  Yes, there was water at the cross. 
 
Remember, after the Palm Sunday procession, Jesus enacts a baptizing of His own in cleansing the Temple of the thieves and robbers.  God was coming home , the place needed to be cleaned up, and He was the only One able to do it.
 
This was the insult that incited Jesus to anger and so He swept through His Temple, His house, as a tidal wave of righteousness, clearing the way for proper prayer and liturgy.  No more will the things of the world clutter His Temple, for it is His Body and He himself is the Head, and He will be cleansed of our sin on the cross, though He had none of His own.
 
Remember, on the second day, heaven, the Temple, was washed for us so that we could come to the spotless sacrifice.  The Lamb of God let loose a Tsunami of His own Blood, cleaning to the tiniest corner, having been found innocent and righteous by the Father.
 
Remember, on the third day of Creation, the LORD caused earth, the dry land to appear.  This was now the solid ground that was not turbulent or subject to the change in the weather, as the seas were.  This rock would not toss about nor would it be moved as easily as the seas.  On it could be built solid things, like a mighty fortress.  On it could stand that which would never be moved.  On it, the Son of Man would be lifted up, a light to lighten the nations drawing all men to Himself.
 
While man had not yet been brought onto the scene, the Word of the LORD had us in mind. This was the point of all of this creating in the first place: that we could be there and that we could bear fruit and multiply, also. 
 
For also on this day third of Creation, vegetation was brought forth from the earth.  All the green stuff that was supposed to bear fruit was created.  And in a moment of uncreation, Jesus caused a fig tree to whither in Jerusalem to prove to us that Creation had been turned against its original purpose.
 
For God’s Temple, even His very people, had turned against Him in sin, doing the things they were not created to do.  A good tree bears good fruit and cannot help but do so.  This fig tree, this Jerusalem, this sinner had ceased to produce the fruit of repentance and therefore produced bad fruit.  The people had become fruitless trees, despising preaching and God’s Word.  The tree needed to be cut down and a new one planted. 
 
And a new tree was planted at Golgotha and the Word of God hung there, paying for the sin of fruitlessness, dying, and yielding a hundred fold fruitfulness in His Blood.
 
Remember, on the evening and morning of the Fourth Day, God created the lesser lights: sun, moon, and all stars.  These were to be markers for seasons and for signs, as we said.  Signs such as the Epiphany star guiding the Magi to the Infant Priest, Jesus.  They were to be heralds, not idols.  The days and the nights were not supposed to be held up as mystical or magical, as if they had powers of their own, such as the Sabbath.  Neither were the lights to be worshipped as if the sun creates life. 
 
Jesus is the Light of the World.  The Light that lightens all other lights.  Not only that, but He is the Wisdom of God, enlightening our hearts and our minds, turning them to repentance that we might be forgiven.  For what does God say in Genesis 1? The Light rules over the day and the night.  The Light rules over the lesser lights and the night.  There is nothing that the Light does not touch or bring in the open.
 
Truly the curse of sin and death is drying up the tree of mankind.  We find ourselves fighting a stronger and stronger enemy, though it is us growing weaker and weaker.  One that not only attacks our bodies and possessions, but that would attack and question the very thoughts in our head calling that which is right, wrong and that which is wrong, right.  For if Jesus, God of God and Light of Light, is crucified when we are supposedly so enlightened, what will happen if time continues?
 
Remember, all of this and more do we poor miserable sinners deserve and more woe is coming.  Gone are the days when the next generation had it better than the previous for the world daily plots their demise. 
 
Remember, the Lord does not. Remember this Body and Blood shed for you. Remember this water and Word poured over you and this Gospel preached to you.  God has truly caused the dry land to appear in the midst of the Red Sea of sin and He names it the Body of Christ.
 
This Body is the Light that reveals salvation in the crucified God-man. This Body is the dry, firm foundation upon which Faith is built. This Body is the fruitful tree, taking in filth, sin, and death, feeding on our sin, digesting it upon the cross, and spitting out Saints. 
 
Yes, producing abundant life that overflows into the entire world.  For what comes out of THIS Man, hanging on the cross, shows that He is clean. For the uncleanness that goes into Jesus is our sin, not His, but what comes out is a baptismal flood of salvation.
 
Remember, dear Saints.  Remember the LORD’s death until He comes again. Proclaim His death until He returns, taking and eating and drinking as often as you can, in remembrance of Him.  Proclaim His Gospel to all nations by Baptism.
 
For this is the exact moment Jesus came for.  The moment when He places Himself into your ear, on your head, in your heart, and on your lips and tongue in order to forgive you.  The time has come. The season is at hand. The Sign of the Salvation of the LORD is in front of us and upon us and He gives it and sheds it and pours it out for you. Remember and believe.
 
 

Why the palms? [Palm Sunday]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Zechariah 9:9-12

• Philippians 2:5-11

• St. Matthew 26:1-27:66

 

Grace to you and peace. (1 Thess 1)
 
Jesus speaks to you on this day from His Gospel heard, saying:

“But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

 
Traditionally, this Sunday of palms is day of confirmation and baptism. Where catechumens have spent the extra time in Lent intensely studying and memorizing God’s Will in Scripture and catechism. And so as not to overshadow the Great Day of Resurrection, our celebration for that would happen today.
 
For today, we may be dealing with a trail of palm branches, but later this week, we will be following a trail of blood. If you could’ve looked closely at those palms strewn in Jesus’s way, you may have seen tinges of red here and there, for in Jesus’s human nature, He sweats drops of blood in anticipation of His crucifixion.
 
Now we all assume that it was palm branches thrown about on that Palm Sunday, but the only Evangelist that tells us this is St. John, who’s account we did not hear today. And palms are what we’ll focus on today, because first, we want to know what all these palm branches are doing in our church this morning, and second, what all these palm branches have to do with me and my faith.
 
In trying to determine how to celebrate Palm Sunday, we may think that the best idea is just to imitate and ape what we hear in the Bible, in a nice, sanitized way of course: a children’s play or musical.
 
We hear St. John say “palm branches” and immediately run to the flower shop and buy some. This makes sense to a point, but where are your cloaks? Where are your Apostles? Where are your persecutors?
 
The Church has not lasted thousands of years by merely copying biblical actions, just because they’re in there. There is more to the palms than you think, and it begins with a celebration of freedom and victory. 
 
The Feast of Booths is one of three proscribed festivals that required a pilgrimage to the Temple. The people were commanded by the Lord in Leviticus 23 to celebrate this feast for 7 days, by living in booths, topped with branches from different trees, which included palms. All in order “that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt” (v. 43).
 
So important was this festival that it not only included no working and a pilgrimage of varying distances, but this is the first festival of the Lord where He commands His people to rejoice (Lev 23:40). Now, you must remember that, at this time, Jesus was also in a Booth, though the Bible calls it a tabernacle, and even when the Jews took Israel, He didn’t get His own house until Solomon became king, 480 years after the Exodus and 400-some years after everyone got their own home in the Promised Land, first.
 
So we have a decorated booth with palm branches and no house for God. Yet when God’s House is finally built (smaller than the palace, I might add), Solomon is directed to decorate it in this way:
“For the entrance to the inner sanctuary he made doors of olivewood; the lintel and the doorposts were five-sided. He covered the two doors of olivewood with carvings of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers. He overlaid them with gold and spread gold on the cherubim and on the palm trees.
So also he made for the entrance to the nave doorposts of olivewood, in the form of a square, and two doors of cypress wood. The two leaves of the one door were folding, and the two leaves of the other door were folding. On them he carved cherubim and palm trees and open flowers, and he overlaid them with gold evenly applied on the carved work” (1 Kings 6:31-35).
 
He also decorated the baptismal fonts the same way (1 Ki 7:36). All of this to say that the Temple will be decorated, and it will be decorated with palms. Even True Jerusalem, which Ezekiel describes in chapters 40 and 41 of his book, has palm trees all over the place.
 
Thus, when we get to Palm Sunday and Holy Week, we find Jesus’s way littered with Palm branches. But this is still not enough, because the palms are supposed to be in or on the Temple and in the progression of this week, that happens.
 
Jesus is the true Temple, as He says, and He is decorated with palms, too, but these palms are the rods and reeds of sinners, which pile upon Him violent wounds. They inscribe upon Him the wounds of our salvation. From St. Matthew 27:30 “And they spat upon him, and took the reed and smote him on the head.”
 
The palms that decorate for victory on Sunday, continue to decorate the true Temple with wounds as He prepares to accomplish eternal victory and freedom upon the cross. Just as Israel and the Lord dwelt in the booths of the wilderness, so does God make His own tabernacle in being made man, decorating it with the sins of the world, razing Him to the ground, to the tomb, and rising again to eternal life, never to perish again.
 
In this way, the Church does not simply have a new party favor or church art in the palms. what we hold in our hands today are one of the very means our Savior used to pay for your sins and secure your position at His side for all eternity. What you hold in your hand was one of the instruments that it pleased almighty God to use for His own torture and humiliation, and His own exaltation.
 
In fact, in the Greek word for palm is the word for victory. So it is that once again, what we find in God’s Church is more than meets the eye and much more than the world could even imagine. For, even though there is not magical quality to these palm branches, yet they still are able to convey to us the Gospel of Jesus Christ fairly clearly.
 
Not only that, but they are also able to transport us to that Palm Sunday with Jesus. Though we were not there and though the same thing does not happen today, we still have in our midst the path of palms, the “Hosannas”, and the ever-living, resurrected King, come to commune with His people in His Body and Blood.
 
See how our Old Testament makes sense now! Our King is humble. He humiliates Himself with palm branches which He created, and allows them to strike Him, unleashing His Blood which sets the prisoners free.
 
So also our Epistle. Our humble King is highly exalted by His humiliation. The suffering and death of God made man, Jesus Christ, is the reason His Name is above every name. Though the palms should be bowing to Him, He bows to their blows. Though we should be serving Him, He comes to serve and give Himself as a ransom for many.
 
When the palms appear in our hands, our sin is revealed to us. We are the ones who struck the blow to God, humiliating Him on the cross. But it please our Lord to do just such a thing in order that we believe and confess His great love in accomplishing all things for us. Even death on a cross, that we would be brought into the true Temple, Body and Blood, by His Baptism.
 

Jesus and the Malakh YHWH [Wednesday in Lent 5]

 LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Zechariah 3:1-10

• St. John 19:16-22

Grace to you and peace. (1 Thess 1)

 

Jesus speaks to you on this evening from His book of Zechariah heard, saying:

“For behold, on the stone that I have set before Joshua, on a single stone with seven eyes, I will engrave its inscription, declares the Lord of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day.”

This evening, we encounter our Malakh YHWH, or Angel of the Lord, for the final time in history and in Lent, for us, and it is a doozy. For I have spent this Lententide attempting to convince you that in a prophetic way, the Malakh YHWH is closely related to the pre-incarnate Christ.

This evening’s reading, however, seems to put the kibosh on that thought, because in Zechariah’s vision, we see the Malakh YHWH next to Jesus, or Joshua as our English translation poorly translates.

Yes, the Malakh YHWH and Jesus face off and are seen in the same room together, so we must have to conclude that Jesus is not the Malakh YHWH. However, when it comes to prophesy, we don’t always need a one-to-one correspondence to be a true picture of Christ.

For example, this past Sunday we heard of Abraham and the near sacrifice of Isaac. Isaac is a prophesy or picture of Christ, what He will do and how He will act when Jesus shows up. However, where Jesus actually dies, Isaac does not. Does that mean that Isaac cant be seen as a picture of Christ? No. 

What we look for when we “search the scriptures” (St. John 5:39) for Christ, are the ways all the people acted like Jesus. As Isaac was the son to be sacrificed by the father, he gets to show us that Jesus will die for others.

In our Zechariah 3 reading, what we see in Jesus and the Malakh YHWH are the two natures of Christ. Notice how He is wearing filthy clothes in verse 3 and they were taken away in verse 4 and He was given priestly clothes, the same assigned to Arron and the Levites for pure service in God’s House in Exodus 28:4.

Jesus, in His human nature, is able to take on our filthiness and, as Transfiguration showed, He is able to take up “pure vestments” again on Easter. He is also our great High Priest, as Hebrews 4:14 tells us, “Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.”

Continuing on in Zechariah: that satan is at the “right hand” may seem disconcerting, as the right hand of God is reserved for Christ and the right hand of Christ is reserved for His sheep, from St. Matthew 25. In the case of this vision, satan takes on the role of God’s Law which always accuses as Romans 4:15 says, “For the law brings wrath” and yet remains holy, i.e. at God's Right Hand.

So it is that satan’s evidence and testimony which he brought to stand against Jesus is rebuked, thrown out. This happens because Jesus is being judged for another’s sins, our sins, for which He took the blame. Isaiah 53:12 says, “Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.”

When we come to Jesus’s exaltation, in verses 4-5, it is not the Lord Who clothes and forgives, it is the Malakh YHWH! We know only God can forgive (St. Mark 2:7), so again, we are seeing this vision and it is blurring the lines, but only to those without faith.

So the Malakh YHWH gives Jesus the clothes of Aaron, of purification, of resurrection from the dead, where He is now dead to the Law (Gal 2:19) which accused Him mightily, and lives never to die again (Rom. 6:9) in order that He now sit at the right hand of God and, as He told us on Easter, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (St. Matthew 28:19) just as in v.7 of Zechariah 3.

The “right access” that Zechariah declares is none other than the High Priest’s authority to not only go in and out of the Holy of Holies, but now from life to death, heaven to hell. Hebrews 9:12 says, “through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption” and Hebrews 10:19-20, “we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh.”

As we get to this eye-balled stone in v.9, we come to the reason our Gospel reading was paired with Zechariah tonight. It is the stone the builders rejected, the cornerstone. The seven eyes are explained a little, by Zechariah 4:10, “These seven are the eyes of the Lord, which range through the whole earth.”

Thus, we simply state that this is the stone that Jesus described Himself as in St. Matthew 21:42. So now Jesus is not a man or an angel, but a stone. A stone with an inscription which apparently “will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day” (Zech 3:9).

What sort of inscription could possibly accomplish such a thing? Only the inscription of the Passion of our Lord. The marks of scourge, nail, and thorn inscribe upon the Body of Jesus Christ these words: “This is the King of the Jews” and in those wounds we are healed.

Pilate and the Jews believe it is words that hurt them, making offense and taking offense at the title plate that hangs above Jesus’s head while He hangs on the cross. But they are both mistaken. It is the Word made Flesh that both makes offense and takes offense. 

He is a “A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense” says 1 Peter 2:8 and “the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him” (St. Matt 21:44). 

So it is that the “single day” that takes away iniquity is the day when our High Priest, the Lord’s Branch, the True Vine was crucified and offered up as a ransom for the whole world. This is the prophesy and purpose of the Malakh YHWH, to show us Jesus, how He will live, how He will act, and how He will die for us. 

You can ask Jesus when you get to His side about all of this, but for now, we have the depths of God’s Wisdom revealed to us in His Word in every verse of Holy Scripture and our brother, the Malakh YHWH, the Angel of the Lord is no exception.

The works Abraham did [Lent 5]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Genesis 22:1-14

• Hebrews 9:11-15

• St. John 8:49-59

 

Grace to you and peace. (1 Thess 1)

 

Jesus speaks to you on this day from His Gospel heard, saying:

“Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad”

 

Who is Abraham? Why did he rejoice to see a Jesus Who had not been born in his lifetime? Jesus says earlier in St. John 8:

“If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works Abraham did, but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did” (v. 39-40).

 

So it will be beneficial to us today, to focus on these words of our Lord and determine for ourselves just what the “works Abraham did” are and how “father Abraham” is really “father Abraham”.

 

Though we are going to treat Abraham harshly, I do not want to tear him down. It is in our modern thinking that we rewrite the past and label everyone who used to be taught to us as “great”, as bigots and cowards. This is popular thinking. God’s thinking is that He used much time and ink on Abraham and we need to honor this great patriarch of the faith.

 

However, we think that Abraham’s first work was believing God. Most others, those that call themselves churches even, believe and teach that Abraham is great because he had blind, child-like faith. God said “go” and he picked up and went. Or that because of him, all the nations on the earth are blessed (Gen 12:3) so bless modern-day Israel or else!

 

But that is not how Abraham is introduced to us in the Bible, neither are these his first “works”. Before all this, before God calls Abraham, Abraham works three things: 1) he gets married, 2) he has no children, and 3) he lives in Babylon, in other words, he is an idolatrous sinner who hates God. I told you it would be rough…

 

Joshua 24:2 is even rougher. The Lord says to His people: “Long ago, your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abraham and of Nahor; and they served other gods.” So it is that the first of these works that Abraham did was to be faithless. Kinda puts a big hamper on the blessing-through-him thing, huh?

 

Abraham then continues his life of faithlessness. In fact, he may have moved to Canaan (modern day Israel) as told by God, in Genesis 12, but he encounters a famine there. So much so that, like his grandson Jacob will do, he goes to Egypt to find food. He tells his wife to lie to Pharaoh and say that she is his sister, because he’s afraid to die over her beauty.

 

Turns out, Pharaoh is more righteous than Abraham. At the end of chapter 12, Pharaoh chastises Abraham telling him not to lie about his wife and kicks them out. Did Abraham learn his lesson? No. He did this same thing a couple times.

 

And this is just one example. Leviticus 18 and 20 go through in detail what the idolaters in the area were doing and its not a good list. There are some who want to sugar coat these incidents and make excuses for Abraham, attempting to preserve his honor as a hero, but God’s Word just won’t let us. 

 

Repent. Here is our first lesson on heroes of the faith: they are sinners in need of a Savior. What, do we think? God came down to earth saying, “I’m gonna find the most idolatrous, too-old, adulterer with a barren wife and through this guy’s works I’ll bless everyone”?!

 

Good heavens. The first sign of a cult is that there is a single man that has been “super-blessed” by God. The Quran asserts that Muhammad was a man who possessed the highest moral excellence, and that God made him a good example or a "goodly model" for Muslims to follow (Sura 68:4, 33:21). 

 

In a competing revelation, the Latter Day Saints’ god says, “Verily, thus saith the lord unto you, my servant Joseph Smith, I am well pleased with your offering and acknowledgments, which you have made; for unto this end have I raised you up, that I might show forth my wisdom through the weak things of the earth. Your prayers are acceptable before me.” (D and C 124:1–2)

 

Abraham is no exception to this idolization rule. This is why calling Abraham your father is not good enough. Jesus directly says this by chastising Abraham’s “children” telling them flat out that they don’t do what Abraham did, regardless of parentage.

 

But aren’t they sinners too? Shouldn’t Jesus have said that you ARE doing the work of Abraham in your sinning?

 

Absolutely not. This is because of God’s Call. God is not responding to great life of faith or holy works that He found in Abraham, in order to make him and everyone else around him greater. God is doing His proper work of taking from nothing and making it something good.

 

The works of Abraham that Jesus praises are not active works, but passive works. Abraham is not a godly example to be placed on a pedestal, but a man who shows God’s glory of calling men from their idolatry into His Light of Truth.

 

It is in Abraham’s rejoicing that we find the true works of Abraham. Because what did he rejoice in? He rejoiced to see Jesus’ day. What is Jesus’ Day? His Passion and Resurrection.

 

Jesus is the Hero of heroes. He is without sin, and yet still like us in every way except that one. Jesus speaks the words of God. They come directly from His mouth, because He is God. Jesus honors and glorifies the Father as the only-begotten Son, not simply aping His Law but perfecting it and completing it to its proper end.

 

He picks up His cross and follows the Father’s Will to be bruised on the heel while crushing the serpent’s head. Jesus is greater than the prophets and patriarchs in that He is the prophesies made flesh, bringing them to their perfect conclusion. And He is the patriarch that leads perfectly, speaks perfectly, and finally does not die, abandoning His people as the other patriarchs did in their deaths.

 

Jesus was made man in this world that held nothing worth saving. Sodom and Gomorrah had less than ten righteous men in them, and they were still wiped off the map. The earth only had 8 righteous, when God flooded the whole place. Surely no one is righteous, not one, says Psalm 14:3 and Romans 3:10.

 

In the beginning there was only God and in the middle there was only God and in the end there will only be God. He is the only one righteous. But in Christ, we see that His will is not to keep His righteousness to Himself, but to hand it out liberally and freely.

 

This is why we look up to Abraham, because he believed the Lord (passive) and the Lord counted it to him (active) as righteousness, Genesis 15:6. It is belief, not works. It is faith given that makes the man. Abraham is a hero of faith, because the faith of Jesus was placed in him that he would believe.

 

Faith that places a knife at your only son’s throat, fully believing that God will raise him back from the dead. Faith that keeps the Word close and Faith that looks to Jesus, the Author and Perfector of our faith, sees Him go to the cross and die, but knows Easter comes in the morning.

 

What would these Jews be doing if they were to do the works of Abraham? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. They would be utterly passive in the reception of God’s righteousness, because God is the only One handing it out, in His own way, through His Son. They would be sitting in the pew, sitting at Jesus’s feet, listening to the Lord’s teaching, as Mary did in St. Luke 10:39.

 

What would these Jews be doing if they were doing the work of God? What active role does God give us in faith? Believing in the God-man He has sent. In St. John 6 we hear: “Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent” (v. 28-29).

 

And how do we know Whom God has sent? Jesus concludes in St. John 6:32-35: “Jesus then said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.’ They said to him, ‘Sir, give us this bread always.’

Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread.’”

 

Jesus says to Abraham in Genesis 12:3, “…in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed”, and then just after our Old Testament reading, in verse 18, Jesus clarifies His statement saying, “…in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.”

 

“Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ”, from Galatians 3:16. God has made Abraham heroic by making him a child of promise, instead of a child of the flesh. Can Abraham be his own child, his own father, in order to be saved?

 

That question is as ridiculous as it sounds. It is not through Abraham’s flesh, but through God’s Promise to Abraham that Abraham is both father and child. In the Word Made Flesh, Jesus Christ, Abraham is both the father of the offspring Who is both God and man, and he is the baptized child of God, clothed with the blood of the Lamb.

 

Abraham does not shoulder the burden of blessing all nations any more than Isaac shoulders being the “offspring that is more than stars and grains of sand” (Gen 22:17). That cross is placed squarely on the shoulders of The Offspring, The Seed, as Psalm 22 says, “A seed shall serve Him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation” (v. 30), and the Seed is the Word of God, Jesus Christ (Luke 8:11).

 

The works Abraham did were those of receiving what God was handing out. He is our “father Abraham” because he kept the faith and was passively made the Patriarch of the God-man Jesus Christ, Who was born of the Virgin, and did His work by paying for the blessing of the whole world with His Body and Blood, given and shed for the forgiveness of your sins.

 

And Abraham rejoiced to see Jesus’s Day, because now in Christ, even though our father Abraham died, even though the Prophets died, even though our loved ones die, and even though we will die, Jesus’s Day is Resurrection Day.

The Malakh YHWH serves [Wednesday in Lent 4]

 LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• 1 Kings 19:1-8

• Ephesians 3:1-12

Grace to you and peace. (1 Thess 1)
 
Jesus speaks to you on this evening from His book of 1 Kings heard, saying:

“And the angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched him and said, “Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you.” And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God.”

 
Last week we saw the Malakh YHWH take on an unexpected role. We do not expect anger or destruction from God what with all His promised mercy and peace. When He is pushed to this role by sin, death, and the devil we call it God’s “alien” work.
 
It is alien, foreign, utterly outside God’s desires to destroy and cause sadness, so we call it such. And we can call it alien, because in Christ Jesus we see the true will of God revealed, that sinners turn from their wicked ways and live, which we call His “proper” work. A holy, sinless God is hostile in the face of sin. Sin wants God’s place and God is not giving it up.
 
This evening, we are not back to God “playing nice”, for tonight we are witnesses of, not alien work, but complete and utter role reversal. With Gideon and Samson’s parents, the Malakh YHWH was accepting meals as offerings. With King David, He was dishing out punishment. But with Elijah, the Lord is now the One handing out the holy meals and covering iniquities.
 
This, the Lord’s “proper” work, is sacrificing Himself in service to His creation. We approach this distinction between “alien” and “proper” by believing this: 1) although the works of man always seem attractive and good, they are nevertheless likely to be mortal sins, and 2) although the works of God are always unattractive and appear evil, they are nevertheless really eternal merits.
 
Concerning “the works of man always seem attractive and good, but are nevertheless likely to be mortal sins”: human works appear attractive outwardly, but within they are filthy, as Christ says in Matt. 23:27. For they appear to the doer and others as good and beautiful, yet God does not judge according to appearances but searches “the minds and hearts” (Ps. 7:9). For without grace and faith it is impossible to have a pure heart. Acts 15:9: “He cleansed their hearts by faith.”
 
If the works of righteous men are sins, this is much more the case concerning the works of those who are not righteous. But the just speak in behalf of their works in the following way: “Do not enter into judgment with thy servant, Lord, for no man living is righteous before thee” (Ps. 143:2). 
 
Likewise in Gal. 3:10, “All who rely on the works of the law are under the curse.” But the works of men are the works of the law, therefore they are mortal sins. In the third place, Rom. 2:21 states, “You who teach others not to steal, do you steal?” This means that men are thieves according to their guilty consciences, even if they publicly judge or reprimand other thieves.
 
Concerning, “the works of God are always unattractive and appear evil, but are nevertheless really eternal merits”, this is clear from what is said in Isa. 53:2, “He had no form or majesty that we should look at him”, and in 1 Sam. 2:6, “The Lord kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up.” This is understood to mean that the Lord humbles and frightens us by means of the law and the sight of our sins so that we seem in the eyes of men, as in our own, as nothing, foolish, and wicked, for that is what we are. 
 
We acknowledge and confess this: that there is “no form or beauty” in us, but our life is hidden in God. In ourselves we find nothing but sin, foolishness, death, and hell, according to 2 Cor. 6:9-10, “As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as dying, and behold we live.” 
 
That is exactly which Isa. 28:21 calls the “alien work” of God “that he may do his work” (that is, He humbles us thoroughly, making us despair, so that He may exalt us in his mercy, giving us hope), just as Hab. 3:2 states, “In wrath remember mercy.” Thus we are displeased with all our works; we see no beauty, but only our depravity. Indeed, we also do those things which appear foolish and disgusting to others, in Christ.
 
This depravity, however, comes into being in us either when God punishes us or when we accuse ourselves, as 1 Cor. 11:31 says, “If we judged ourselves truly, we should not be judged by the Lord”. Deut. 32:36 also states, “The Lord will vindicate his people and have compassion on his servants.” In this way, consequently, the unattractive works which God does in us, that is, those which are humble and devout, are really eternal, for humility and fear of God are our entire merit. (Heidelberg Disputation)
 
Jesus is the God Who serves. As the Malakh YHWH takes the lowest seat tonight, He serves. St. Matthew 20:28 says, “just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” and St. Luke 22:27, “But I am among you as the one who serves.”
 
According to the Law of God, according to our sin, we struggle with God. Not because we don’t understand Him, His thoughts and ways, but because we want to be our own god. We want to gain military victory, we want to grant life to others, we want to be serving the Most High and despise Jesus for doing those things.
 
According to the Gospel, Jesus does those things, not for His own sake, fame, or glory, but for you. He gains victory, gives life in His meal, and serves God perfectly all so that He can give you the credit for doing those things, even though you have not.
 
Elijah marvels at this meal from the Malakh YHWH and the strength it gives. The crowds in St. Matthew 9 also marvel at God’s giving. Jesus has just finished forgiving the sins of a paralytic and proving He can do so by healing him. Because Jesus is a man, the crowds marvel and glorify the God Who Gives such authority to forgive sins to men (v.8).
 
Such forgiveness that gives a seat at the Lord’s Meal. Such forgiveness which gives eternal life after seeing God face to face. Such forgiveness that gives the full mystery of Christ into the hands of sinners.
 
As our second reading for the evening says, the mystery is not that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, from v. 6. The mystery is the access to Christ which we have, from v. 12. Access to the God-man Who is terrible towards sin, death, and the devil, and yet offers Himself in complete submission to sinners; suffering, dying, and rising again in order that they would eat what He gives and live in that strength for 40 eternities.