Promises, not covenants [Trinity 13]

 LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE.

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• 2 Chronicles 28:8-15

• Galatians 3:15-22

• St. Luke 10:23-37

To you all who are in Accident, beloved of God, called to be saints:

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

 

Who speaks you this morning saying,

"He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him."

 

Along with hearing the Good Samaritan, we are also remembering the martyrdom of St. John the Baptist and have been singing of the great and invincible faith given to him and to all of us, to stand up straight and face this world of death.

 

In that light, we are going to focus on God’s Word that was presented to us twice today in our Introit and in our Gradual. The words, “Have respect unto Thy covenant, O Lord” from Psalm 74 play a significant role in how we understand the Bible, because God makes covenants. And as we remember the martyrdom of St. John the Baptist today, being his feast day, we will come to understand that it is not the covenant itself that is important, but the Promise made by the Covenant Maker.

 

Yes, God makes covenants and many Christian denominations have taken this idea of covenants and have held this up as “how to read scripture” or “the only way God interacts with people”. So for them, God is a God Who “cuts deals”.

 

So what kind of deals is God cutting? According to these teachers, there are as many as 8 different covenants. But don’t worry, not all of them are in effect anymore, so we can look at them with open eyes. The first is the conditional covenant of works, made with Adam, in which he was supposed to obey all God’s commands to earn the right to eat from the tree of life and merit eternal life. Well that didn’t work.

 

So, next was the unconditional Covenant of Grace where God promised a savior to crush the serpent’s head. That one doesn’t end because it is unconditional. Third was the unconditional covenant with Noah, to never flood the earth again. Fourth was with Abraham, where the Lord said, “I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3; 15:5–6).

 

Fifth was with Moses and the Ten Commands, also called the “tablets of the covenant” (Ex 34:27). Also called a temporary covenant, convenient, because Israel couldn’t follow it nor could they stay in the land, as God promised. Thus it is labelled “temporary by men in order to save face for God. They are making excuses for what they see as God’s incompetence, at this point.

 

Sixth was unconditional from 2 Samuel 7. There God made a promise that he would raise up David’s offspring and “establish the throne of his kingdom forever” (7:12–13). Seventh is the new covenant, which you would think would be last, but there’s one more. they say that while the old covenant required national obedience, the new covenant requires faith in Christ, the perfectly obedient Son of Israel. Sounds conditional to me.

 

Finally, in the covenant of redemption, the Father cuts a deal with the Son to give Him glory, an everlasting kingdom, and some people in it, but who knows who that will be. 

 

Repent. Any and every deal you try to cut with God is conditional, because you think you have something God wants, but you don’t. All and any covenant talk assumes that you have something that God doesn’t and that you can keep your end of the bargain, whatever it is, because God wouldn’t give you more than you can handle, right?. Well let me tell you that our might-as-well-be-dead man in today’s Gospel has something to say about that.

 

He was a man that had a covenant with God, being from Jerusalem. All the covenants. He had the “obey all things” covenant, “and I’ll bless you”. He had the serpent’s head to be crushed one, the never destroy the earth one, the blessings of Abraham one, the “follow my commands” one, and the Messiah one. It seems he was missing one.

 

It is in this beaten, half-dead, child of God’s covenant which we see all this nonsense about covenants come crashing to the ground. Where was the covenant that protected him from harm and danger? Where was the covenant that earned him the right to priest and Levite to aid him? Where was the covenant of justice?

 

Have respect unto Thy covenant O lord! Psalm 106:45 says that the Lord remembers His covenant (only one!), not because of ends of the bargain kept, but because of His Mercy. The same mercy Jesus preaches about in the Gospel today.

 

And what kind of mercy is that? The kind of mercy that raises the dead to new life! 

 

First things first. God is the one Who establishes covenants. Genesis 17:7 says, “And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant”. Notice He says “everlasting”. Men cannot do everlasting. Only God can.

 

Next, God says, “I will take you as My people, and I will be your God. Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians” (Ex 6:7). Of course we are not under the burdens of Egypt today, but we are under the burdens of sin. Thus, our burdens from which we need rescue all stem from sin and reflect exactly the slavery Israel was under when in Egypt.

 

And our Lord expands on this saying in Genesis 15:13, “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them.” This now is the same plight as our half-dead Jerusalemite. He leaves a place where he is living, to a place where he dies. The Christian lives in a foreign land of sin and is afflicted because of it.

 

But what is the purpose of these seemingly ineffective covenants that fail to help? Leviticus 11:45, “I am the Lord who brings you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy” and “This shall be a continual burnt offering throughout your generations at the door of the tabernacle of meeting before the Lord, where I will meet you to speak with you. And there I will meet with the children of Israel, and the tabernacle shall be sanctified by My glory. So I will consecrate the tabernacle of meeting and the altar” (Ex 29:42-44).

 

In Egypt, the Lord spoke through Moses and said, “Let my people go”, as we all know from our Sunday school songs, but that was not all. The Lord wanted His people set free, but set free to go to Church! Exodus 3:18 says, “Then they will heed your voice; and you shall come, you and the elders of Israel, to the king of Egypt; and you shall say to him, ‘The Lord God of the Hebrews has met with us; and now, please, let us go three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.’”

 

This is the purpose of any and all covenants, fake or real, with God: that He may present Himself before His people to forgive their sins. Egypt, in other words: sin , death, and the devil, do not want you to hallow God’s Name on the Sabbath Day when the Gospel is preached in its purity and the Sacraments administered according to it.  The satanic twist of the covenants is that they are taught as “God did something for you, now what are you doing for Him”.

 

God is not slow to act. He doesn’t reveal a bit of His mercy here, in one way, only to scrap that plan and try a new way with later generations. God gave all of His redemptive plan from the beginning. All of it. And He did not change the plan or change His mind. This would be true if we were to read the Bible through the lens of covenants.

 

But, we do not read Holy Scripture through the lens of Covenants, but of Promises. Therefore, the promise of the Son to crush the Serpent’s head is The Only Covenant, and in the light of promises, all covenants become one, pointing to the coming Messiah.

 

Look at the Gospel reading again. The good Samaritan is the one who keeps this covenant of mercy that Jesus demands from the lawyer. Mercy is needed because the man in need of mercy has nothing to offer in return for his rescue. He cannot speak to make a vow, he cannot reach for his wallet, even if he still had it, and he can not even make gestures to give his consent. He is dead.

 

And yet the Good Samaritan makes a covenant with him. It doesn’t matter that the man has nothing of value. All that matters is the mercy and love shown to someone in need. Especially since that person is dead, as St. Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:1, “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins”.

 

Life in sin is not something you can cut a deal in, because any deal you cut with God or any other existence would be done in that same sin. Instead God comes to meet with you and bring you His terms and conditions. And His terms and conditions are all on Him. He will seek you out and find you. He will dwell with you and open Himself up to you. He will forgive you and raise you from the dead, all for the sake of His Son.

 

The very Son, Who is Christ the Lord, Who steps out of Jerusalem and goes to the whole world, preaching His Gospel of the forgiveness of sins. Who is waylaid by the very sinners He has come to redeem. These sinners proceed to strip Him of clothes, honor, and friends. They beat Him, scourge Him, and crucify Him. They leave Him, Apostles, friends, family, enemies. They leave Him to His death and to the tomb.

 

And the day after next, He came back. Jesus did not need a Good Samaritan. He is The Good Samaritan. He revives Himself and takes His own life back, for it is His. In His rising again from the dead He does not give thanks neither does He seek revenge, but He gives mercy. The same mercy He cried out for, upon the cross: “Father forgive them”.

 

Jesus went down from Jerusalem, the same Jerusalem mentioned in God’s covenant where He would cause His Name to dwell forever; He went down from there to be placed on the cross of the Jericho of sin and death. Not to condemn, but to save. In His death and resurrection, Jericho’s walls come crashing down and can no longer hold the dead in their sins.

 

The robbers who murdered Him have had their hearts turned by the preaching of His Gospel of forgiveness. The New covenant, or Testament, that Christ speaks about is not a contract but a declaration, a promise. From St. Matthew 26:28, “For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.”

 

Not a covenant of works. Not a covenant of grace, or even of redemption, but a declaration of Justification. A promise made in the Blood of God that no longer will our sins count against us. For if the ministry of covenants had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory (2 Cor 3:9). That is that the Law, the conditional deals, had glory and indeed still retain their glory. But now that Christ is raised from the dead and regenerates us all to new life, His Life, we are declared righteous for His sake. That is, that Jesus gives us credit for his fulfilling the deal.

 

“For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith” (Rom 4:13). Not a covenant, but faith. For “a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ; we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ” (Gal 2:16).

 

The faith of Christ makes covenants, yes. But He makes them in the presence of others. It is not done in secret. It is not done with a counter list of “Do your best and God will do the rest”. It is done by Him, for His Name’s sake, and fulfilled by Him and His Name’s sake. Christ alone.

 

Do you have things to do? Yes. God has prepared good works for you. Do you have your end of the bargain to uphold? No. The New Covenant is made in the Body and Blood of Christ Crucified, not “sinner crucified”. Its terms and conditions have all been met on the Cross of Christ. Your response in faith is to receive the gifts that come with the completion and fulfillment of this covenant.

 

That is that how you are now holy, because your God is holy. You have been brought out of the Egypt of your sin to the Divine Service in the wilderness. You have been brought to the Tent of Meeting to receive the blessing that lasts forever. It is not written on tablets of stone, neither is it held off until you perfectly hold up your end of the deal. 

 

It is poured over you in Baptism. It is fed to you in the Lord’s Supper and it is declared to you in the Gospel. You are righteous. You are holy. You have been given the mercy of Christ Himself, Who is both God and man. And in the declaration of justification made to you by Christ Himself, in faith you do show mercy, by virtue of His mercy.

 

For if we are truthful, the question we really have is whether or not God will keep His covenant with us. This is one of the lessons of the martyrdom of John the Baptist. The same as the dead Jerusalem man, is St. John’s imprisonment and beheading. Was God going to uphold his covenant in the face of all that?

 

Thankfully, Jesus is our Good Samaritan Who was also all dead. He is the Good Samaritan Who can walk into the halls of death and bring back the prisoners there to new life. He can reach into St. John’s prison and bring him to His side alive and with his head, not just so he can die again in this life, but to never die again in the next.

 

 

Shame and spitting [Trinity 12]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE.

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Isaiah 29:17-24

• 2 Corinthians 3:4-11

• St. Mark 7:31-37

 

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

 

Who speaks you this morning saying,

“And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue.”

 

I apologize to those of sensitive constitutions, for today we are going to talk about spitting, because Jesus is spitting today. And up until this point in history, spitting has always been considered negatively. Its always been an insult to spit at someone. 

 

Indeed, the Old Testament thinks so as well. In Numbers 12, Miriam and Aaron are insulting Moses saying that anyone can be a pastor. God gives leprosy to Miriam in response, but Moses prays for her healing. God says “no”. She must be exiled for 7 days in her uncleanness. The Lord says in v.14, “If her father had but spit in her face, would she not be shamed seven days? Let her be shut out of the camp seven days, and afterward she may be received again.”

 

Miriam had not only spat in Moses’ face, but in God’s face. For, to the people, Moses stood in the stead and by the command of God, as God (Ex 4:16). To insult Moses was to insult God. Miriam should have had enough respect for her heavenly Father, through Moses, to feel shame for her actions, but she didn’t.

 

In Deuteronomy 25, the man who will not take his brother’s widow as his wife and give her children in his dead brother’s stead is a man who spits in the face of his brother. The Lord says, “But if he stands firm and says, ‘I do not want to take her,’ ⁹ then his brother’s wife shall come to him in the presence of the elders, remove his sandal from his foot, spit in his face, and answer and say, ‘So shall it be done to the man who will not build up his brother’s house.’ ¹⁰ And his name shall be called in Israel, ‘The house of him who had his sandal removed’” (v.8-10).

 

This same idea has bled into our own culture. Spitting has famously and constantly been a horrible thing. In fact, the U.S. 9th Circuit court of Appeals wrote in 2004 that, “Intentionally spitting on another person is an offensive touching that rises to the level of simple assault.” The key word there is “rises”, as in comes close but not quite. Even Maryland law allegedly says that spitting may satisfy the elements of a crime, but probably not. So, maybe spitting isn’t so bad?

 

Even in our modern hysteria, the question is: is spitting biological warfare? You know, cuz plandemic and stuff. Turns out, you can’t get sick by someone spitting on you, your mouth is pretty clean on its own, after all. As usual, the science is not absolutely conclusive, but there is support for the proposition that spitting on someone may not be the type of physical contact necessary to transmit disease. A lesson we should have learned from the AIDS virus.

 

Regardless, Jesus is spitting today and we know it is not Him engaging in aggravated assault. Or is He? Not assault against the deaf and dumb man, but against the demons and the sin holding this man in prison and preventing his hearing the Gospel and confessing it correctly.

 

And it is not about impurity either. In fact, Leviticus agrees with the alleged state law by saying that even if someone is sick and they spit on you, all you need do to become clean again is to launder your clothes and take a bath and you’re purified, able to come back to church in a day (Lev 15:8).

 

And that’s it. That is the extent that spitting goes in the Bible, in regards to us. For this we repent. We have discovered nothing useful so far in hearing God’s Word, which could be seen as spitting on God, which is an abomination. For all of God’s Word speaks the Gospel and brings faith to the hearer. So what are we missing? The usual.

 

That is the extent of spitting as regards us. But that is not the end of God’s Word on the subject. Indeed, the very first thing that should come out of the Christian’s mouth, when talking or thinking about spitting, is the Passion of our Lord.

 

Listen to the other half of the Old Testament verses talking about spitting:

Job uses the word after he calls his friends “miserable comforters” (16:1) and wonders out loud where his hope will come from, as he is “a man before whom men spit” (17:6) and towards the end of his argument in chapter 30, “They do not hesitate to spit in my face” (v.10).

 

Jeremiah, in 51:34, says “the king of Babylon

Has devoured me, he has crushed me;

He has made me an empty vessel,

He has swallowed me up like a monster;

He has filled his stomach with my delicacies,

He has spit me out”.

 

And of course, everyone’s favorite from Handel’s Messiah:

“I gave My back to those who struck Me,

And My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard;

I did not hide My face from shame and spitting” (Isa 50:6)

 

In all of these instances, we hear of man spitting on man, and since God was made man, now man spits on God.

 

It is not for nothing that Jesus predicts His suffering and death 3 times and the third time says, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death and deliver Him to the Gentiles; and they will mock Him, and scourge Him, and spit on Him, and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again” (St. Mark 10:33-34).

 

And spit they did. The priests (Mk 14:65), the Romans (Mk 15:19), and possibly everyone that saw Jesus, as Psalm 22 says, “all they that see Him, laugh Him to scorn; they shoot out the lip saying, ‘He trusted in God that He would deliver Him let Him deliver Him if He delight in Him.” “Shoot out the lip” could mean “spitting”. 

 

In any case, the spitting that is done is done by the sinner towards God. And when 1 John 3:2 says “we will be like Him”, the deaf and dumb man in today’s Gospel is getting a physical picture of what is to happen to his Savior and is spat upon. This man is getting the picture book version of just how much the opening of ears and loosening of tongue costs. 

 

It is not right that people cannot speak. It is not ok that people cannot hear. It is not right for people to spit in the face of their God and laugh while He is crucified. In sin, out of one mouth comes blessing and curses, as Sirach 28:12 says, “If you blow the spark, it shall burn: if you spit on it, it shall be quenched: and both come out of your mouth.”

 

Why is spitting on someone an insult? Because God was made man and every time you spit on someone or do harm to another, you are seeing their face and it is the face of your Crucified, Creator God Who was made just like them in everyway, except without sin.

 

Yet, even this, Jesus endures. Even the shame of being scourged, of being forsaken, of being falsely condemned, and of being spat upon by you. The God-man Christ, carries it all upon His back, carries it all in His wounds, and carries it all to hell, for those transgressions never to resurface again.

 

In the suffering and resurrection of Christ, God spits in the face of sin, death, and the devil. He does not spit back at you for revenge. He spits, in today’s Gospel, assaulting and battering the demons and sin that hold the deaf and dumb man captive and allowing us to spit on His Christ, Who then harbors all that evil on His way to the cross. 

 

Instead for us, Jesus regenerates this man’s ears and tongue, that He created, in order that this man…what?…speak plainly? No. The word there is orthodoxy. In other words, Jesus frees from sin, death, and the devil in order that we speak correct doctrine. What doctrine is that, you ask? The doctrine of the shamed Son of God Who raises you to His seat of Honor and opens the entire kingdom of heaven for those who spat upon Him.

 

If we only operate and read holy Scripture with the hygienic and social notions of purity, we will never understand what God is doing. When dealing with sickness, or spit, or things filled with “germs” we are not just dealing with the physical and biological, but the spiritual. 

 

Therefore, these impurities are eternal matters. Your Lord treats them as a ritual, theological problem. They are not to be seen as some sort of supernatural substance that either banishes you from the realm or exalts you to a state of nirvana. There is no super-spit. There is only the spat-upon God who suffers, dies, and reveals Himself in His Holy Supper for the forgiveness of your sins.

Organic Repentance [Trinity 11]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE.

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Genesis 4:1-15

• 1 Corinthians 15:1-10

• St. Luke 18:9-14

 

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Rom 1)
 
Today, we once again hear Christ speak to us, saying,
“But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’”
 
The Tax Collector today stands far away from His God, Who has descended into His Temple on Earth, because the Tax Collector is afraid. He is afraid to be heard, afraid to be healed, and afraid all of this God stuff is actually real. Though he is looking for spiritual and physical healing of all his woes from the God Who promises it to him, he none the less remains afraid.
 
And this is the world in its sinfulness: the people are in an endless cat and mouse with a panacea. Panacea comes from the Greek and means “all healing”. Such a wonderful word of course becomes a Greek goddess, the granddaughter of Apollo even, who is a mixed bag himself, either destroying or purifying, which may be the same thing. Anyways, Panacea was said to have a potion with which she healed everyone.
 
This Greek myth still lives today, as we invest trillions into Healthcare and this elusive panacea for ourselves. Everyday we may get closer, but our wallets will not keep up. Though some good comes from the research, most of what’s invested serves to line corporate pockets, especially the killing they made this last year!
 
When the world doesn’t find its panacea, it looks to the super-spiritual, creating the scientism religion, idolizing medical practitioners and placing a burden on their human shoulders that should not be there. Some are happy to take up the cause for the good in a show of courage, but they come to realize that the natural world with natural cures cannot heal what needs healing. Others prolong the problems for cash and call their religion “medical science”, when it is not.
 
In fact, real science will not deny signs from heaven, though they will not call it that. They will say that there is a spiritual side to healing and without it, 90% of the time or so, all the natural and pharmaceutical remedies in the world will not heal a person. 
 
So contrary to their own statements of unbelief, the world does look to the supernatural. They look to heaven for a sign. Everyone came to Jesus for the same thing, seeking after a sign (Mt. 16:1). They wanted miracles, signs, military accomplishments for Israel. They wanted heaven to do something supernatural, say they will believe if it happens, but then go right back to grumbling.
 
Repent. We seek signs from heaven. We worship signs from heaven. We idolize signs from heaven and they are most always figments of our own imagination. While God is in the business of signs from heaven, He is not in the business of breaking His own rules (nature, science, etc.) to do so. Things work the way He made them and they will work well, by His decree.
 
In fact, we look up to heaven in sin as the disciples did on Ascension Day and got chewed out by the Angels then, just as Jesus chews out everyone of us in Matthew 16 saying, “When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red’; and in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times. A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah” (v. 2-4).
 
Notice how Jesus, the God-man, answers here. He answers the super-spiritual question about signs from heaven with things on earth, organic things if you will. And this is exactly where our sin lies. We look up into heaven, but God is working His wonders on earth. We ask from spectacular signs, but what God gives is the sign of repentance.
 
Yes, the signs that heaven gives are those able to be comprehended by humans. Not just comprehended, but understood and digested and useful for everyday life, not just extreme, once-in-a-lifetime, life. 
 
Look at the Pharisee from today’s Gospel. He is also just as afraid as the Tax Collector, though his is a fear of wasting his time. He also fears that this religious stuff could be real, but he is looking for the showy and flashy especially if it means he gets to participate in it. 
 
He overlooks God’s true work of earth: repentance, even being disgusted by the man who is repenting, the Tax Collector, who also has too small of faith. As Jesus says of both of them, “if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you”, in St. Matthew 17:20. It doesn’t move for them and it doesn’t move for us. 
 
Take our great hero of faith, Moses. God did what he asked all the time. Why? Because Moses asked for forgiveness for God’s people (Num 14:9-20). “God, be merciful to sinners”, he prayed. And God would relent and His people would repent. Not because of any lightning strike, but because the Holy Spirit worked repentance in them.
 
St. Mary is overlooked, the least likely candidate for what was done to her, yet she possessed, quite bodily, The Sign from Heaven. And what happened to that? He was made man.
 
Yes, the sign that was begged for from heaven has appeared as a newborn child. God is dwelling with and working with and alongside men. And proof of that; proof that the Holy Spirit is working, healing, and handing out the panacea of heaven is repentance in a life lived with Word and Sacrament.
 
The world overlooks Jesus because He is supposed to be, and makes Himself out to be, the one, true God. He has the ability to heal miraculously. He has the power to make the sun stand still, calm the storms, and transfigure as lightning is seen from the east to the west. In other words, the world says that if Jesus has the ability to do those things and doesn’t, then He is not God.
 
To this Jesus replies, “Many good works have I shown you from My Father. For which of those works do ye stone Me?” (Jn 10:32) and “If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why do you strike Me?” (Jn 18:23). But also says, “Wisdom is justified by her children” (Mt 11:19).
 
Which means He did nothing wrong and taught nothing evil. There is not one charge of lying or coercion, or anything a worldly court could convict Him of, even to this day. Yet His divinity and humanity remains and He did not change His work methods.
 
All panaceas today are merely snake oils, not working or only working if you take them 3 times with boosters later. Certainly a crime, but not Jesus’s crime. Jesus’s crime was making things too easy. Jesus crime was saying the natural could contain the supernatural. Jesus’ continued crime is that of making something out of nothing. Of making baptism out of water. Of making The Holy Supper out of bread and wine. Of making Saints out of sinners.
 
For Jesus is our overlooked third man in today’s parable. He is the man Who, better than the Pharisee, follows the laws and despises the sins of the unrighteous and their feigned repentance. He is the man Who begs for the mercy that is sacrificed in place of sinners. He is also the God-man Who can demand a sacrifice for sin, be the sacrifice for sin, and accomplish both completely.
 
And God does all this as a man. Not an angel in flaming armor. Not a super shiny, enlightened goddess. But as a man Whom you would pass by on the street. He does the extraordinary using ordinary means.
 
So when He tells you to repent of your sins, He is asking you to do a miracle. For not only do you not believe you need repentance, in your sin, but you are not thinking about it at all. When He tells you to be baptized, He is telling you to tear open heaven and loot its treasures. When He tells you to eat and drink the flesh and blood of the Son of God, He is demanding that you kill the Son and take over the inheritance.
 
As Gabriel says to St. Mary and as Jesus says to His Apostles: with man, this is impossible. But with God, all of His words are possible. It is possible to be forgiven, by His cry for repentance. It is possible to be saved, by His Word in and with the water. It is possible to find perfect healing, by His presence in Bread and Wine.
 

In our sinfulness, we despise our dull, ordinary God Who chooses to use immune systems, food from a grocery store, and words to accomplish His wonderful works of salvation. Could Jesus do things differently? Of course. But He doesn’t. He doesn’t because this is His best Way to show His love for you. 
 
Christian apologist and author, G. K. Chesterton puts it this way:

It might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life. The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again’; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore.

 
Jesus has come Himself, God’s Word, that we might not only know what repentance is, but also know that after it we find a forgiving Father in heaven. And He continues to do the same thing every day, not because He is uncreative, but because we are in such dire need of physical and spiritual healing that He doesn’t want us to miss out on a single day of it.
 
He doesn’t want some gate-keeper or charlatan keeping things scarce or increasing the chaos here to such an extent that somehow you miss your chance to board His Ark. For the Panacea from heaven is free, is perfected in the resurrection, but is handed out now in front of you. 
 
His perfect life He gives to you. The life that is pleasing to God, because it is His. the life that is holy, that fasts, and gives tithes. The life of humble repentance and the life of demanding mercy. The life of Faith, hearing the Gospel, believing it, and being fed immortality through the sacraments. The ordinary performing the extraordinary.
 
 

Bowing down [Trinity 9]

 LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE.

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• 2 Samuel 22:26-34

• 1 Corinthians 10:6-13

• St. Luke 16:1-9

Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you all from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. (2 Jn 1)

 

Who speaks to you saying,

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

 

As we ponder the lengths that the Dishonest Manager went to appease his Lord that he had so wronged with his dishonesty, we consider what bowing down to the Lord actually means. You could say that after his Lord’s proclamation, the Dishonest manager bowed to the Lord’s will and created a business or world where mercy was the order of the day, instead of wastefulness and dishonesty.

In like allegory, you, in faith, bow towards God’s will, as He commands, “Oh come let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD our maker”  (Psalm 95:6) or everyone's favorite in Philippians 2:10-11, “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow…and…every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” Not that you think it means “bow to the Lord”, but instead “bow to my political opinions”.

But at least you attempt to bow, right? While the Bible is very specific as to what it means to “bow down”, you take a more wishy-washy approach saying that you “bow down” in different ways, such as singing to Him, seeking Him, remembering His wonders, or giving an offering. 

The Bible and your hymnal take a slightly different approach to bowing in that they take it quite literally. Whether its the passages I already mentioned, or St. Peter on his fishing boat, or the 24 Elders in Revelation 4:10-11, bowing means exactly what it says: face down in the dirt.

The Greek word literally means “as being a dog”, or “towards the knee” as that is where the dog and the knee are: close to the ground. This word also happens to be able to be translated as “worship” as in St. Matthew 2:2, “Where is he who is born King of the Jews? For we saw his star in the east, and have come to worship him.” To worship Him or “bow down in the dust” to Him.

So while it is good to bow down figuratively in hymn and sacrifice, God’s Word demands more than just figures. It is good to bow your spirit and your soul towards God, but “figuratively” is not what was demanded of the Dishonest Manager. The Dishonest Manager knew that something more than “thoughts and prayers” was needed to get him out of his situation.

So, too, us and our sinful, hell-filled situation. But what do we do? Where do we bow? We don’t have a Temple or a Mecca. We don't have a golden calf or a tree. We don’t have a location or object to bow towards. 

Or maybe we do. Dr. Luther says:

• The following tale is told about a coarse and brutal lout.  While the words, “And was made man” were being sung in [the Creed in] church, he remained standing, neither genuflecting nor removing his hat. He showed no reverence, but just stood there like a clod.  All the others dropped to their knees when the Nicene Creed was prayed and chanted devoutly.  Then the devil stepped up to him and hit him so hard it made his head spin.  He cursed him gruesomely and said:  “May hell consume you, you boorish ass!  If God had become an angel like me and the congregation sang: ‘God was made an angel,’ I would bend not only my knees but my whole body to the ground!  Yes, I would crawl ten ells down into the ground.  And you vile human creature, you stand there like a stick or a stone.  You hear that God did not become an angel but a man like you, and you just stand there like a stick of wood!”  Whether this story is true or not, it is nevertheless in accordance with the faith (Rom. 12:6).  With this illustrative story the holy fathers wished to admonish the youth to revere the indescribably great miracle of the incarnation; they wanted us to open our eyes wide and ponder these words as well. (AE 22:105-106)

Jesus does not leave us comfortless and without a way to perform God’s Word, even that of bowing down. He gives us faith. Faith to hear God’s Word and believe it. So that when we hear Rev. 21:3 say, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God”, we don’t have to rely on our imagination or some emotive state to determine God’s presence among us.

For Jesus gives us His very own Bride, the Church. And in that Church, created and sustained by the Holy Ghost, we are gathered around Christ and His Gospel. Instead of finding a nice looking tree, or a spectacular sunset, or a Mirrormere God locates Himself in Word and Sacrament in order that we have a place to fulfill God’s command to “bow down”.

The heavens bow towards God, says Ps 18:9. Angels bow towards God (Rev 7:11). Now, at the Creed, we bow towards God. Not only there, but we also bow at the Name of Jesus, as Philippians 2 already told us. At any mention of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost or just Jesus Christ, in the Divine Service, we are encouraged to make a bow of some sort.

And because the Divine Majesty has made Himself like us poor bags of worms, our hearts thank God, our lips thank God, and our bodies thank God by their position. Thus it is when the Lord comes down to commune with us in His own Body and Blood, we don’t just bow, but genuflect. A more profound bow, if you will, on bended knee.

The Formula of Concord states that, “…no one - unless he is an Arian heretic - can and will deny that Christ Himself, true God and man, is truly and essentially present in the Supper. Christ should be adored in spirit and in truth in the true use of the Sacrament, as He is in all other places, especially where His congregation is assembled” (FC VII:15). As you witness me doing so, after I present to you the bread and wine newly blessed.

Consider the following quotes from the Catalog of Testimonies published in many editions of the Book of Concord:

       Athanasius: "The holy catholic Church condemns anyone who says that the human flesh of our         Lord is not to be worshiped and adored as the flesh of the Lord and God."

        Ambrose: "Angels do not adore only the divinity of Christ, but also His footstool.... the prophet            says that the earth the Lord took upon Himself when He assumed flesh is to be adored.                  Therefore, we understand 'footstool' to mean the earth, that is, the flesh of Christ, which we                today also adore in the Sacraments, and which the apostles adored in the Lord Jesus."

         Augustine: "He gave us this very flesh to eat for salvation. No one who eats this flesh does not            first worship it.... We not only not sin by worshiping it, we sin if we do not worship it."

Repent! We are too afraid of looking and being like someone else, that when it comes to celebration and ceremony in God’s Church, we turn it into a chore and a burden. We strip ourselves of any sort of enjoyment and rejoicing that could be had in the Divine Service, all for the sake of some made up religious purity.

Well guess what? You are the dishonest manager in your sin. You are in debt over your ears. You have only one lifetime to pay back 100 lifetimes worth of debt. You better be sure you are bowing down, genuflecting, and on your knees before God 24/7 if you know what’s good for you. It is time to turn in your account of your mismanagement of your life, for you can no longer be manager.

Where are your Lord’s debtors that you may summon them and have mercy on their debts, that the Lord may commend you for your prudence?

Actually, there is just one debtor. The Debtor Who took all the debts as His own and paid for them on His own.

Look at this parable again. Yes, the Dishonest Manager has mismanaged, not his own possessions, but his Lord’s. Point 1, the Lord is the one in debt here, having offered up His possessions to the whims of managers and business, offering up His name and reputation to the scrutiny of outsiders, and finally taking on even more debt when the accounts are not paid in full.'

In our bowing down to the Lord we are begging Him to first bow down to where we are, take on our debts, and forgive them. “Bow down Your ear, O Lord, hear me; For I am poor and needy” (Ps 86:1). “Bow down Your heavens, O Lord, and come down”, Psalm 144:5.

What makes us have the boldness and audacity to ask such a thing? Because that same God promises to “…uphold all who fall, And raise up all who are bowed down” in Psalm 145:14, and “The Lord raises those who are bowed down” from Ps 146:8.

God bows down to us! Jesus says, “I came not to be served, but to serve” (Mt 20:28). He bows His head to heal the sick. He bows His head to feed the hungry. He even bows His head to give up His Spirit for us on the cross. This action is taught most profoundly to us when our Pastor blesses us saying, “The Lord be with you” and then bows down, in the stead and by the command of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we return the blessing saying, “And with thy Spirit”.

The Lord bows down to the Dishonest Manager in order to rescue him from his impossible debt, allowing him to partially undo his wrong. In our Old Testament reading, do you think that the Lord can be merciful in heaven, which we can not reach? Can He be a lamp, or a shield, or a rock, or a strong refuge if He is far away and not a God that is near (Jer 23:23)? 

He must step out of His heavenly paradise in order to do so. He must bend nearer to the earth than angels touching their harps of Gold. The heavens are bowed down as the Lord of all comes to take a spot next to humanity, with His own reasonable Body. The finite contains the infinite as God loves His sinful neighbors, all sinners, more than Himself, by being made man.

The bows you offer to God are not towards His majesty. Meaning, you don’t bow down to God because He can squish you like a fly if you don’t. You bow down to His Mercy which He shows to the world in His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. You bow down because your God takes the bowing position first.

It is in the abundance of this loving kindness that we step foot in this House: His house. It is in the redemption of our debt by the shed Blood of Christ Crucified that we bow towards the Temple pof that Body in reverence to Him (Ps 5:7).

You see, dear Christians, bowing is not your work. You are simply following your Lord’s example. Sometimes the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. So there are bows of the head and bows at the waist, along with bending the knee. Regardless, all of those positions are mimicry.

Mimicry because we believe that our Lord is present, in Service, Communing with us. If this were not true, it would make sense not to bow, as our Reformed and Baptist friends believe. So we exercise our Christian freedom and choose to bow or not. 

But Thanks be to God that He has confined Himself and disciplined Himself to a bowing position in order that He may reach us with His commendation and salvation in Christ, our Lord, truly and bodily present among us, even today, forgiving our debts.

God in suffering [Feast of St. James]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE.

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Acts 11:27-12:5

• 1 Corinthians 4:9-15

• St. Matthew 20:20-23

 

Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you all from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. (2 Jn 1)

 

Who speaks to you all today, saying,

“You will drink my cup…”

 

And as we ponder the mystery of our Lord calling St. James today, and Jesus’s miracles, we see a God and Savior Who takes a personal, intimate interest in the lives of His people. In other words, in the suffering and oppression of His people. For not only does He come to Call, alleviate, and heal, but He takes on all evil, suffers, and dies, in order to rid us of our evil and create eternity with Him and without it.

 

To get to that point, though, is a monumental chore, because in order for that eternal day of bliss to come, we must suffer and die with our Lord Jesus Christ. That brings us in front of many challenges to our faith and our sanity as we have to live through a world that has been so devastated by sin, death, and the devil that hardly anyone believes anymore.

 

In the face of this evil, people despair of God and His promises and become atheists, sometimes. And most times they vent their frustrations about God in a very public way. The most common is the unbelievers question: why bone cancer in a three-year-old child?

 

The question is meant to destroy faith because it is meant to do three things: 1) it presents an evil against, apparently, the most imaginable innocent person, 2) it appeals to all the emotions attached to, caring for, and loving a child, and 3) it is meant to prove that God does nothing about these sorts of things all to conclude that God doesn’t exist.

 

I can even give you an example. I once counseled a man at the death of his wife. She had been fighting cancer for years and the last few years of her life, she was winning. She was back to being able to do things again, instead of being in a bed. She was gardening, walking the dog, and doing laundry. 

 

One day, that clean laundry needed to be brought upstairs, the machines being in the basement. Climbing the stairs, for whatever reason, she fell backwards, hit her head on the concrete, and died. Here is where I coin my phrase, what doesn’t kill you, delays the inevitable. A seemingly senseless death with no rhyme or reason as to why she had to struggle through life only to lose to a basement floor.

 

Or what about the stray bullet from a gang fight that strikes and kills someone completely unrelated to the incident? What about the American bombs that are dropped on women, children, and doctors who have nothing to do with our current foreign policy deficiencies?

 

The 5000 and the 4000 people that Jesus feeds are hungry. Why do they have to be hungry in the first place? Why can’t they be made not to eat and simply live life without having to be hungry? 

 

Life is full of seeming meaninglessness. No one can explain these things. All the unbeliever does is point out biology and spout off some $10,000 college words. There is no point to these sufferings and oppressions, to him.

 

So to the atheist, though I don’t think they really are atheists, to the unbeliever who wants to get God with this question about why He allows 3 year olds to get bone cancer, I have this question: explain to me a world void of meaning. A world where the 3 year old asks you, why he is sick, and you tell him something like, because that’s just how it goes. The unbeliever has nothing better to say than the Christian, in response.

 

To the unbeliever, the world has no meaning, therefore it is survival of the fittest or the luckiest. Whoever is stronger, or more fit, wins, and whoever is unfortunate enough to be struck by the universe is just unlucky. No love. No mercy. No rhyme or reason. Just plain meaninglessness.

 

This is a world of chaos that no one would survive very long in, either physically or mentally.

 

Life under faith and under the cross of Christ does give meaning to these seemingly meaningless things. 

 

First off, through the lens of the cross, we see that the entire world is corrupt and does nothing but kill you. You may eat your vegetables every day, discover a diet that the Bible says is holy, and keep as far from GMO’s as possible, but the world will eventually kill you either at three years of age or 103. No one is getting out of here alive.

 

In this light, we see that of ourselves there is nothing good. That the corruption also lies within us. We do not remain guiltless simply because we are presumed innocent, not in prison, or have a clean rep sheet. We all know our own darkness keenly and that is why the Christian will run to Confession and Absolution as often as he needs and before every Divine Service. 

 

Secondly, God speaks to faith and tells us that it is He Who brings calamity upon us. Not only the story of Job, but all the kings of the Old Testament, when they didn’t listen, God punished them. We hear from Hannah in 1 Samuel 2:6: “The Lord kills and makes alive; He brings down to the grave and brings up.” Hosea 6:1 says, “Come, and let us return to the Lord; For He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up.”

 

Here is the point then: I would rather God be involved in my suffering, than for it to have no meaning. For, just because God is involved does not mean He wishes it upon me. Rather it means that because God is involved, not just allowing it, that it will have an end and not last forever.

 

Listen to God in Hebrews 12, “ For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin. And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons:  

          'My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord,

            Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him;

            For whom the Lord loves He chastens,

           And scourges every son whom He receives.'

If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” (v.3-11)

 

If the world is giving out suffering, there is no end and none of those benefits and no meaning to it. If God is giving suffering, we know and believe His goal is forgiveness and eternal life and this is first and foremost proven in the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ: God Himself.

 

Because God is not just a third party on the scene, He takes physical responsibility and physically participates in the suffering of His Creation. He takes on our flesh. That means that He not only deals with His own Body, but then also deals with everyone else’s. Such that, when He is on the cross, dying, He is suffering multiple times over, with everyone’s sin and everyone’s suffering of all time.

 

“For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor 5:21). He joyfully endured the suffering and shame of His cross, despising its shame (Heb 12:2). In His suffering and dying, our release from all corruption and suffering is purchased and won. God suffering is righteousness for us.

 

He also then unites us to His suffering, death, and resurrection in Baptism so that when we suffer, our suffering ends just as His did: in Glory. The profit of being chastised by our heavenly Father is that you receive everlasting holiness, peacefulness, and righteousness. The benefits of being torn by the Lord in time, is that He will bind us up in eternity.

 

Jesus says that “a disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher” (Luke 6:40). 

 

God, our true Teacher, called you to all His Goodness, even if you suffer because of it (1 Pet 2:20-21). And now since all of life is good, sanctified by Christ in His Body, there will be suffering as default. But, “rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy” (1 Peter 4:13). Not just because it sounds nice, but because now your suffering ends, just as it did for Jesus.

 

And yet, the unbeliever is on the right track. The right track is to confront God and hold Him accountable for all this suffering. The right track is to approach the One responsible for this world and demand an answer from Him. And God answers, not with decrees or commands or college words, but with His very own Body and Blood.

 

The Lord takes responsibility and keeps His own Name holy by offering Himself up in order to rescue and redeem His people. For even though life is suffering by default, the end goal is not suffering, it never was. The end goal was always rest. This is the meaning that God, the Almighty gives to our suffering and the suffering of every 3 year old, and it is tattooed on His hands, feet, and side.

 

The unbeliever does nothing but offer hollow words of higher thinking. The God of all offers up His Body and Blood that in them you may find comfort and true healing of all your woes. 

 

And since we have that same, Crucified and resurrected Body and Blood directly in front of us, we can confidently say that, “having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.  And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope.  Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Rom 5:1-5).

 

In this short, time-constrained life we endure afflictions. Here, in time, we battle the powers and principalities that desire our despair and anguish that they themselves feed on. There in eternity, they have no place. The universe and high, holier-than-thou platitudes have no interest in your sufferings and offer no hope for the future. 

 

The Servant God comes to you as a man, gives you His entire Kingdom and life for all eternity and tells you that you suffer now so that you may reap the benefits of perfect healing. You have pain here, but there with Him it will be as a dream that is past and forgotten. You will be, and are today, held in honor, in Christ as our Epistle reveals to us.

 

Such honor, that the Lord of heaven and earth comes to serve you this medicine of immortality Himself. For from that tree of Jesus’ shame flows life eternal in His Name; for all who trust and will believe, salvation’s living fruit receive. And of this fruit so pure and sweet, the Lord invites the world to eat, to find within this cross of wood the Tree of Life with every good.