God’s kingdom is not a meritocracy

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Sermon for Septuagesima

1 Corinthians 9:24-10:5  +  Matthew 20:1-16

Even before Jesus went to the cross, He foresaw a challenge in His Church going forward, a sinful tendency, common to all men, that sometimes showed itself even among His chosen apostles, and would be a recurring problem in His Church, because the members of the Church of Christ are still sinful people. Always have been, always will be, until we’re finally rescued from this sinful world. Jesus tells the parable in today’s Gospel in order to get ahead of the problem, as it were.

The problem would initially center on the Jewish Christian Church as it started to incorporate more and more Gentiles into the Church—non-Jews, who hadn’t grown up under the Law of Moses, as all the Jewish believers had, people who had engaged in every form of idolatry and wickedness for their whole lives. It was really not very different from the problem of the Jewish tax collectors and sinners who had spent much of their lives living very poorly under the Law of Moses, not doing many of the things they were supposed to do under the Law. And it’s a problem that still comes up repeatedly in the Church today. The problem, or the question, is, Is God’s kingdom a meritocracy?

What is a meritocracy? It’s a word that gets tossed around quite a bit these days. It’s what many people rightly want for our country. It means you get ahead, you get rewarded, by merit, by what you’ve earned, by how qualified you are, not by any other factor. The most deserving get the job, or the scholarship, or the prize. Your pay scale should reflect how hard you work, how many hours you work, how good you are at your job, without considering any other factors, like race or gender. Everyone gets treated equally, based on their performance alone. That’s the definition of fairness—in the affairs of the world.

But God’s kingdom is not of this world, and it doesn’t work like the kingdoms of the world. It’s not a meritocracy. There is fairness in it, a certain kind of equality, but it’s a God-centered fairness instead of a man-centered fairness. In other words, it’s a fairness that’s not based on man’s performance or man’s qualifications, but on God’s free choice to give an equal reward to all who are in His kingdom—His “vineyard,” as Jesus describes it in today’s Gospel.

And what is the reward? Forgiveness of all sins. A clean slate that stays clean as long as you’re in the vineyard. Adoption into God’s family. Rescue from this dying world. Eternal life, eternal joy, eternal peace with God in Paradise. That’s the promised reward, the “denarius” that’s promised at the end of the day.

And who gets it? All who are “hired” to work in the vineyard, everyone who comes into God’s kingdom, which, again, is His holy Christian Church. How does a person come into it? By hearing God’s call to repent of our sins, and by hearing God’s gracious invitation to come into His kingdom through faith in Jesus Christ, which includes the renouncing of sin and the determination to lead a godly life, a holy life, according to God’s commandments.

So, everyone in the kingdom gets the same reward, no matter what their ancestry is? Yes. No matter the color of their skin? Yes. No matter how long they’ve been a member of the Church? Yes. No matter how wickedly they lived before they came into the Church? Yes.

“But, that’s not fair, not fair to the Jews who spent their whole lives trying to meticulously obey the Law of Moses, not fair to those who have worked hard to lead a holy life, who have dutifully avoided sin, who have suffered much for the name of Christ!” Of course it’s fair! Didn’t God tell you, when He invited you into His kingdom, what the reward would be? Of course He told you! Will He fail to give you that reward? Of course He won’t! You’ll receive exactly what God promised. And so will the one who was only in the kingdom for one hour, for a much shorter stretch of his life than you. God, in His wisdom, God in His generosity, has decided to apply His Son’s sacrifice equally to everyone who is baptized into His Church family, to all who continue to live in repentance and faith.

And, see, that’s why God can give equally to everyone. Because the basis for the reward is not your work at all. It’s the work—the righteous life and the innocent death—of Jesus Christ that earned the reward for everyone, so that all who are attached to Jesus by faith receive everything that He earned.

And that’s also why it’s a terrible, dangerous thing to start thinking that you deserve eternal life, even a little bit, because of all the good you’ve done in your life, or because of how long you’ve been a member of the Church. Equally terrible and dangerous is the notion that creeps into a person’s thinking that he deserves a better reward than what God has promised, something more than just His forgiveness and adoption and eternal life and Paradise. “No, all Christians get that. You’ve worked longer and harder than most. You’ve been such a good person! You deserve extra credit!”

No, no. If you ever find yourself starting to think that way, wake up! Remember the parable of the workers in the vineyard! Remember how annoyed the owner was with the first workers, who grumbled that they were receiving the same as the rest, even though they had worked harder and longer. Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me on a denarius? Take what is yours and go. I want to give this last man the same as I give you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I want with what is mine? Or is your eye evil, because I am good?

The early Christian Jews began falling into this sin. They had worked so hard to keep the Law of Moses, being circumcised, eating the right foods, following the right rituals. They were brought into God’s kingdom from infancy. Then the Gospel goes out to the Gentiles, and the Gentiles don’t even need to be circumcised? Don’t need to eat Kosher? Don’t need to follow any of the rituals of the Mosaic Law? It’s not fair! So some of them tried to insist for a time that the Gentiles did need to be circumcised and follow the Law of Moses. But God, through Peter, and Paul, and James of Jerusalem, through this parable that Jesus Himself had taught, made it clear that He wanted to give the Gentiles the same reward He gave to the Jews, without requiring them to go back and do more work under the ceremonial Law. And, in the end, the Christian Jews did welcome the Gentiles, and they became one Church under the New Testament of Christ.

On the other hand, Paul, in the Epistle you heard today, would later write to the Corinthian Christians, most of whom were Gentiles, that they shouldn’t become haughty, either, as they watched many of the Jews rejecting the Gospel and being rejected by God because of it. Because just as many of the Jews perished at the time of Moses when they fell away from the faith, so the Gentiles, too, would perish, if they didn’t remain humble and steadfast in the faith.

So, in God’s vineyard, in God’s kingdom, no one gets to boast or take pride in his work. No one ought to look back fondly or proudly at his own works, or compare his works with those of another, except to recognize on a daily basis that our own works, even the good ones, are tainted with sin, and, therefore, they do not make us the least bit deserving of God’s grace, or of the reward He has promised to believers. We are all directed away from our own merit, to the immeasurable grace of God, who prepared this vineyard for us to work in, and who brings each one into it when and where He wills.

Once you’re in it, be diligent at the work God gives you. Hear His Word faithfully, regularly. And don’t just hear it, but ponder it, and learn it. Receive His Sacraments. Live as the saints God has called you to be, avoiding what is evil and pursuing what is good and right. As Paul wrote in the Epistle, run this race of the Christian life in such a way as to win the prize!

But always remember, at the same time, that, unlike a race, you don’t win the prize because of how fast you ran. You don’t win the prize because you earned it or “merited” it. You win the prize in the end because of your connection to Christ Jesus, who has merited every prize and every conceivable good gift for you, that He might share His merit with you, and give you every reason not to eye God’s grace and generosity with disgust but with eternal gratefulness and appreciation, knowing that you have been freely given a place in God’s kingdom, not by your merit, but by God’s grace alone. Treasure God’s free grace! Live in it! And toil away in God’s kingdom, not to gain God’s favor, but because, in Christ Jesus, you already have it. Amen.

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We preach a Gospel of light

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Sermon for midweek of Transfiguration

Matthew 11:25-27  +  2 Corinthians 4:5-6

This week of the Transfiguration, we’re still focused on the glory of Christ that is real, but that is hidden from the world. It’s hidden from our eyes, too, so that we can’t see it. But our joy as Christians is that God the Holy Spirit has revealed Christ’s glory to us, so that we believe it is real, so that we see it with the eyes of faith. He has enlightened us with the Gospel so that we believe that Jesus is true God and true Man, and also believe in Jesus, the God-Man, as the One who speaks the truth to us and saves us from wrath and condemnation by the power of His blood shed on the cross.

Tonight, with Jesus and with the Apostle Paul, we have to take a step back and simply say a prayer of thanks to God for giving us this light, and by light I mean knowledge, and by knowledge, I mean both the knowledge of Christ and the confidence that goes with it, which we call faith. And not just to us here, but to all true Christians who hear the preaching of the Gospel and believe in Christ Jesus as a result. Because that faith-knowledge is and always has been hidden from most—hidden, as Jesus says, from the wise and the prudent. Hidden, or “veiled,” as St. Paul writes just a few verses before the ones you heard tonight, veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.

It’s not that we have some secret knowledge that we’re unwilling to share with “certain people,” like the lodges or the secret societies of the world claim to have. No, as Paul writes to the Corinthians, our preaching is like a bright light, unmistakable, not hidden at all. And we don’t shine that light on ourselves. We do not preach ourselves, Paul says. Ministers—true ministers of Christ—don’t highlight their own accomplishments. No, Paul writes, we preach Jesus Christ as Lord. We preach about Christ Jesus plainly and openly—that He is the Lord, the Son of God and the same God proclaimed in the Old Testament who came into the world and took on human flesh to take away the sin that we have done.

Our sin is exposed by a different kind of light, the light of God’s holy Law, that is, His commandments, which tell us what is right and wrong in His sight, commanding us to do the right and avoid the wrong, but also accusing us of doing just the opposite in many cases. Now, whatever the details are of your disobedience to God’s commandments, the Law reveals that you are sinful, and, therefore, unable to escape from the Law’s just condemnation. You’ve earned God’s wrath for yourself, and a place in hell. All people have. That’s what the Law preaches.

But the light of the Gospel is also revealed through preaching. It shines forth from a God who is good and merciful, who gave His Son to be punished for the evil you have done. The light of the Gospel shines from Christ, who is good and merciful, and who bore your sins in His body. The light of the Gospel lights up the mercy of God in the face of Christ and shows you where to find the mercy and the forgiveness that you so desperately need: in the ministry of the Word of Christ and the Sacraments of Christ. God the Holy Spirit is active in the preaching of the Gospel, shining the light of Christ Jesus out into this room, where He is being preached, out into the world wherever His Gospel is preached, and penetrating the darkness of men’s hearts with that light, just as He once penetrated the darkness of the universe with His command, “Let there be light!” So He has shone in our hearts, Paul says about himself and his fellow ministers, that we, in turn, might shine forth the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Not everyone sees it. To them the Gospel is veiled. Their minds are blinded by Satan, the god of this age. They don’t believe in this merciful God. They pretend that Jesus doesn’t even exist, or they twist the real Jesus into someone else, someone who “gets us,” as the ad campaign falsely portrays him, instead of portraying Him rightly, as the God who died for our sins and rose again, and calls us to repentance, that we may sin no more.

So what should we do? Is it a matter of saying just the right words in order to convince them, in order to lift the veil from their hearts and to cure the blindness of their minds? Not at all. Jesus and His apostles spoke all the right words. The Gospel shone forth brightly from their mouths. And most still didn’t believe.

What we do, all that we’ve been given to do, is, we preach Christ Jesus the Lord. Ministers preach Him, and you laymen speak openly about Him and show by how you speak and how you live that Jesus is, indeed, your Lord. And God the Holy Spirit will enlighten whom He will enlighten. Through His Spirit, Jesus, the Son of God, will reveal the Father to whom He wills to reveal Him, as He said in the Gospel. As for you, to whom the Holy Spirit has revealed the light of Christ so that you believe in Him and confess Him, rejoice in God’s gracious election, and in God’s mercy to you, that you should hear the Gospel rightly preached and have the Sacraments rightly administered, and that you should believe the voice of the Gospel and see the light of the Gospel unveiled. And we ministers will continue to preach Christ Jesus the Lord, even as you Christians continue to live in the world as children of God, as children of light, and as the very lights that God has strategically placed into this dark world, that Christ may be honored, that the faithful may be preserved, and that your neighbor may be helped, and even eternally saved. Amen.

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A brief vision of life after death

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Sermon for the Transfiguration of Our Lord

2 Peter 1:16-21  +  Matthew 17:1-9

If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works. Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.

Only six days had passed since Jesus had spoken those words to His disciples, and they were still ringing in His disciples’ ears as Peter, James, and John—some of those who were standing there when Jesus spoke those words—accompanied Jesus up onto the mountain of Transfiguration. And before Jesus spoke those words about the death—and the life!—that awaited His disciples, He had begun to tell them about the death, and the life, that awaited Him in the near future—death on a cross, followed by resurrection on the third day. They didn’t understand yet what Jesus meant about dying on a cross, or rising from the dead, and so the image of taking up their own crosses must have been especially confusing. Why did Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, have to suffer and die? Why did they? And what is this about finding one’s life after losing one’s life for Jesus’ sake? All these questions were buzzing in the disciples’ heads, but rather than explaining everything in detail at this point, Jesus decided that what they needed to see—and what we would need to hear about—was a brief vision of life after death.

Only three of the twelve disciples were allowed to see it. That was enough. They didn’t all need to see Christ’s glory and the life that Moses and Elijah were now living. Peter, who would become a prominent leader in the Church; James, who would be the first apostle to be martyred; and John, who would be the last living apostle to oversee the founding of the Church. Jesus determined that it would be especially helpful for these three to witness the transfiguration, which Peter himself would later write about in his second Epistle, as you heard this morning.

What did they see? Jesus was transfigured before them: his face shone like the sun, and his clothing became white like the light. They saw the Son of Man “coming in His glory,” even though this visible glory wouldn’t last. It would soon be hidden from sight again until Jesus’ coming at the end of the age. But for a moment, they saw Him as He really is. They saw Him as we will see Him after this life, the glorious, almighty Son of God.

What else did they see? They saw Moses and Elijah talking with Him. Somehow (we don’t know how) they were enabled to recognize these two Old Testament prophets. A saint who had died, and a saint who had never died but had been transported to heaven alive. Key figures among the OT prophets. Why these two? Jesus could have appeared with Adam and Eve, or with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Instead He chose Moses and Elijah, both of whom bore the cross Jesus had told His disciples about six days earlier. Moses bore the cross, trudging through the desert for 40 years, putting up with the Israelites’ complaining the whole time. And then he died without being able to enter the Promised Land himself, a wholly sacrificial ministry. Elijah bore the cross, too, being hated and persecuted by most in Israel, including its wicked king and queen. He began to despair. He wanted to be done with it, done with the ministry, done with this earthly life. But God comforted him, sustained him, and finally took him into glory in a chariot of fire. Both Moses and Elijah bore the cross, served God faithfully, gave up their earthly life (that is, earthly comfort, personal gain, selfish pursuits), and now—now, look! They’re doing just fine! They’re here talking with Jesus in glory. They know Him already, because they’ve been with Him in glory since the moment they left this earth. They gave up their earthly life, and yet they’re still very much alive.

Peter, James, and John were stunned, afraid, confused. Peter offered to set up three tents, for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. It was a foolish thought, but it shows how much they wanted this vision to last, how eager they were to remain up here on the mountain in that glorious state. But, no. Moses and Elijah had already stayed long enough here on earth. They have a far, far better place to live in now. They’re only here to talk with Jesus for a moment, because Jesus still has to finish the path they already finished. He has work to do at the bottom of the mountain, a cross to bear, a death to die. And so do Peter, James, and John. The glory comes after the cross, not before.

What did they see next? A bright cloud, the same kind of cloud the Israelites in the Old Testament saw on many occasions. They called it, “The glory of the Lord.” It’s how God communicated visibly that He was present in their midst. The Almighty Father of heaven and earth was there with them, with His Son, the ultimate, visible, stamp of approval on Jesus by the Father—a stamp of approval, not only on Jesus Himself but on everything Jesus had said, and would say.

The Father spoke from the cloud, This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Hear him! Listen to Him! That includes every word that comes out of His mouth. It includes the word calling sinners to repentance, and the word calling the penitent to come to Him for healing and forgiveness, and the word about His impending death, and the word about His resurrection, and the word about the necessity for those who would follow Jesus to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him, the call to abandon our earthly life and the invitation to find our true life with God, and with Jesus, His beloved Son, with whom He is well pleased. Yes, you must lose your life in order to gain a far better life. You must let go of your earthly life in order to gain the heavenly one. That’s what Jesus says. So, Hear Him, Peter, James, and John! And know that there is life after death.

And then it was over. The cloud disappeared. Moses and Elijah disappeared. Jesus was back to looking like just a man again. And Jesus told these three disciples not to tell anyone about the vision until after He rose from the dead. This vision wasn’t meant for all the apostles, to get them through the coming months. It wasn’t even much of a help to these three, because they still didn’t understand that Jesus was literally going to suffer and die and rise again. But after the resurrection, when the Holy Spirit brought all these things to their minds, then this other-worldly experience on the mountain would come back to them, and it would all make sense. And it would constantly serve to remind them of what they had seen and heard. It would prepare them to follow Jesus to the cross, and to take up their own cross, because they had seen a glimpse of the life that awaits on the other side.

Jesus gave three disciples this vision. But God the Holy Spirit almost never does anything for our faith by things that we can see. He uses His Word to bolster our faith. He uses His Word to give us the strength to face the cross, to hold on very loosely to our earthly life so that we’re ready to let it go, if need be, in order to follow Jesus. So the Word of God that you’re hearing today is just as good as being there with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration, and even better, because the Word of God is even more dependable than your sight. As Peter wrote in today’s Epistle, Yes, we have the prophetic word as something entirely sure, and you do well to pay attention to it as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. You don’t need the light of Jesus’ glorious face right now. You need the light of His Word. And you have it! So, as Peter says, pay attention to it! You may not understand the road ahead of you any more than Peter, James, and John understood the road ahead of them. But you have been given this brief vision of life after death, the life that awaits all of you who remain faithful, who daily bear your cross as you trust in the One who bore His own cross in order to atone for your sins. By His cross, He has reconciled you with God. By His cross, He has shown you the way to glory, the way to eternal life with all the saints, the way to life after death. Hear Him! And follow Him! Amen.

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Focused faith for sinking saints

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Sermon for Midweek of Epiphany 4

Matthew 14:22-33

This evening we pick up Sunday’s theme of miracles on the water. In that Gospel, we saw Jesus calming a storm at sea. In this evening’s reading, He does something similar, but only after performing two other miracles. Your Bible probably has a heading for this reading like, “Jesus walks on the water.” And yet, for as amazing as that was, the greater miracle was the second one, the fact that Peter walks on the water, at least for a few steps, before he begins to sink. The message in this Gospel is very similar to Sunday’s message. Even the winds and the sea obey Him. But this text is here to teach us an even more important lesson than that. God the Holy Spirit gave us this text to teach us how to stay afloat when the winds of life are at hurricane force and the waves of doubt threaten to sweep us away. Jesus knew long ago that his people here on earth would face one crisis after another on our journey toward heaven. He knew how quickly faith can turn into doubt as a result, how easily his saints can begin to sink. So He engineered this miracle, this walking on water event, and made sure you and I would hear about it so that our faith may always stay afloat. Here in today’s Gospel, Jesus offers A Focused Faith for a Sinking Saint.

It had been a very long day. Jesus had healed many, had taught the multitudes, had provided food for 5,000 people using just five loaves of bread and two fish. At the end of the day, He made His disciples get in a boat and go ahead of Him to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, and they spent most of the night rowing, but the boat was tossed by the waves because the wind was against it. Then, in the hours just before dawn, they looked back over the waters and saw what they could only figure was a ghost, because it was walking toward them on top of the water. They were afraid, but Jesus called out to them, Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid.

Peter wanted to make sure he wasn’t just hearing things. “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to You on the water.” “Come,” Jesus said. So Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. It’s one thing for the All-powerful Son of God to defy gravity, but it’s another thing when a simple human being does it. And notice where the power was. Peter didn’t just hop out of the boat as soon as he saw Jesus walking toward him. He didn’t just believe he could defy gravity. He very wisely waited for Jesus’ command, for Jesus’ Word telling him he could come out and walk on the water, and then he had something to put his faith in.

That’s an important lesson about faith, as we also heard on Sunday. Real faith is always based on a specific word or promise of God. If God hasn’t said it, you have no right or reason to believe it. That would be an empty faith, a self-created faith with no power in it. But if God has said it, you can bet your life on it, even if it defies all logic, even if it defies the laws of gravity.

Peter was doing well for a while. His faith was focused on Jesus’ power, and on Jesus’ command to him, which gave him the power to walk on the water. A focused faith, a Word-based faith, will stay afloat. But when faith loses its focus, it sinks. When Peter saw the wind, he was afraid and began to sink. Peter looked at the wind, and faith took backseat to his logic. “The wind is so strong! How can I possibly stand against it? How can I possibly stay on top of the water? Oh, look. Now I’m sinking. It’s getting worse. I’m going to drown!”

Peter took his eyes off Jesus. He looked away. But the problem wasn’t with his eyes. Jesus’ power wasn’t attached to Peter’s eyes, but to his heart, and Peter’s heart looked away. It looked away and focused on the problem, on the crisis of wind and waves. That’s the definition of doubt: to stop trusting in what Jesus says, and to start trusting in something or someone else. In this case, Peter stopped trusting in Jesus’ word and started trusting his own senses and his own experience with wind and waves and gravity. That’s a formula for a sinking saint.

Crises are bound to come into every believer’s life. There’s a right way and a wrong way to handle them, and God used this extraordinary event on the Sea of Galilee to show you the wrong way: Take your eyes off Jesus. Look at the problem, focus on the problem, see the wind and the waves as bigger than Jesus, more powerful than Jesus, more real than Jesus’ Word. Turn the volume down on Jesus’ Word, and turn up the volume on the wind. And that’s when you start sinking down, further and further.

That almost happened to the writer of Psalm 73, part of which we sang this evening. He looked around and saw the righteous—including himself!—suffering in this world. Meanwhile, he saw the wicked prospering all around him, and it didn’t make sense. As for me, my feet had almost stumbled; my steps had nearly slipped. For I was envious of the boastful when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. The Psalmist was slipping, sinking down, too, when he took his focus off of God’s Word and looked at his suffering, and at the prosperity of those who don’t believe in God. But God corrected his vision and refocused his faith, just as He did for Peter on the sea.

Peter, when he began to sink, looked away from the wind, back to Jesus to save him. “Lord, save me!” he cried out. He may have doubted Jesus’ word enabling him to walk on the water, but Peter didn’t doubt Jesus’ ability and willingness to save him from going all the way under.

And Jesus did save him, in more ways than one. Immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him. He didn’t let Peter drown. He didn’t make him splash around in the water for a while, gasping for air until he had learned his lesson. Immediately, He saved His sinking saint.

And then he refocused Peter’s faith. “You of little faith,” He said, “why did you doubt?”  “Don’t you know by now, Peter, that if I say something, it will always be the truth? That if I promise something, it will always come to pass? Don’t you know that My Word is more reliable than the laws of physics themselves?”

On Sunday, we attributed this kind of doubt among believers to our sinful flesh. What specific promise of Jesus gets obscured in your heart when your flesh gets the better of you? That He really is working all things together for your good? That He won’t allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear? That He promises to provide all you need, so that you can seek first His kingdom and His righteousness? That He will be there on the other side of death to receive you into His heavenly kingdom?

The Holy Spirit had all of us in mind when He inspired this event to be recorded in Matthew’s Gospel. It all happened for a reason, to teach us how easily our faith can lose its focus on Jesus and start to sink, so that we know what to do when we do start to sink, to refocus on Jesus and His Word and call upon Him to save us, and, with the Lord’s help, so that maybe we can weather some of these storms without sinking at all! So that we can say, with the Psalmist, Whom have I in heaven but You? And I desire nothing on earth besides You. My flesh and my heart may fail. But God is the rock of my heart and my portion forever. Amen.

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Even the winds and the sea obey Him

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Sermon for Epiphany 4

Romans 13:8-10  +  Matthew 8:23-27

We spend much of the Epiphany season focusing on Jesus’ almighty power, whereby He revealed His divinity during His earthly ministry: power to transform earthly elements, like water, into something else, like fine wine; power to heal diseases with nothing more than a word. Today’s Gospel reveals a third kind of power: power over the forces of nature. As His disciples realized with awe, “Even the winds and the sea obey Him!” And if that’s true, then it has some very real-life implications, both for those who don’t believe in Him, and for those who do.

Let’s set the stage for our short Gospel reading, which is in the same chapter as last week’s reading about the healing of the leper and the centurion’s servant. It’s still early in Jesus’ ministry, and He’s just spent the entire day teaching the multitudes with a series of parables. After a long day of preaching, Jesus is tired, and, as Mark and Luke tell us, He was the one who instigated this boat trip across the lake, saying, “Let’s cross over to the other side.”

What follows is a very short and simple story. Let’s take a moment and review it. Jesus lay down on a pillow in the back of the boat and fell asleep. Meanwhile, a great storm suddenly arose, and the waves started crashing into the boat and filling it up with water. The disciples panic, even though they’re experienced fishermen, and they go to Jesus, who’s just lying there asleep, and they wake Him up with their urgent plea, “Lord, save us! We’re perishing!” That’s how Matthew relates it. Mark puts it another way: “Teacher, don’t You care that we’re perishing?”

So Jesus got up and said to them, Why are you so fearful, O you of little faith? “Fearful” can also be translated, “timid” or even “cowardly.” Why are you so timid? Why are you so cowardly, O you of little faith? And then He told the winds and the sea, “Quiet! Be still” And the winds and the sea immediately obeyed Him and became completely calm, as if someone had simply turned off a switch for the storm. And then all three Evangelists tell us how the disciples responded: What kind of man can this be? Even the winds and the sea obey Him!

On the one hand, we can understand their question. Every miracle Jesus did was amazing, but when the storm is raging loudly all around you, when it seems like your very life is about to be snuffed out by the billowing waves, it’s a whole new level of amazing to watch a man stand up, speak two words into the air (two words in Greek), and watch the waves disappear and see the clouds evaporate before your very eyes, and suddenly the boat that was rocking back and forth and crashing into the water is still, and calm, and quiet. Who can do such a thing? Only almighty God.

On the other hand, the disciples had already seen a lot of miracles by this time. They had even witnessed Jesus raising a man from the dead. One of them had already confessed Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of God, the King of Israel. But in the face of the storm, afraid they were about to die, everything they knew and believed about Jesus was banished from their thoughts. It’s as if they had “turned off” the switch to their faith.

Is it so different with us? Most of you have confessed Jesus as both Lord and Christ for your entire lives. Many of you have confessed Luther’s Small Catechism since your childhood years, “I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true Man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord.” You know this Bible story in which Jesus spoke to the winds and the sea and they obeyed Him. And yet, when trouble comes, it’s as if you say to yourself, “I’m going to set all that aside for now and put it out of my mind, because I have a crisis to deal with. I have a problem to solve. God can’t help me. I’m going to just turn off my faith for a while.” If Jesus’ own disciples did it, while He was with them in the boat, it’s no great surprise that you and I do it, too.

Their faith, in the moment of trouble, in the moment of crisis, shrank to the point of imperceptibility. “You of little faith,” Jesus said to them. And His question reaches across the millennia to us as well: “Why are you so fearful? Why are you so timid? Why are you so cowardly?” Don’t you know the One in whom you have believed? Don’t you know that Jesus commands, not only the winds and the sea, but the entire world, the entire universe? And the universe obeys Him! If that’s true, and you say you believe it to be true, why on earth would you be timid or cowardly in the face of trouble?

Now, we should be clear about what it is we’re supposed to believe. Let’s take Jesus’ disciples first, on this voyage across the Sea of Galilee. What did they have to believe in? What special reason did they have not to be timid or fearful during that particular voyage? Well, they had Jesus’ own words, “Let’s cross over to the other side of the lake.” Clearly implied in Jesus’ words was the fact that they would actually reach the other side of the lake. What else did they have? They had Jesus’ word to them all that He would make them “fishers of men,” preachers of His Gospel. But they hadn’t begun their ministry yet. So those men actually had Jesus’ assurance ahead of time that they wouldn’t perish at sea. And for that reason, even in the midst of the storm, they should have had faith that they would not, in fact, perish, as they wrongly believed they would.

You and I have no word of God like that to cling to. We have God’s promise to deliver us in the day of trouble, to “deliver us from evil,” as we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, but we also have His word that teaches us, throughout the Scriptures, not to understand that “deliverance” as a guarantee of bodily safety in every situation. In that terrible plane crash on Wednesday night, and in the other terrible plane crash on Friday, no one was given any promise from God that He would bring those flights safely to their landing. And if God hasn’t promised something, we have no right and no reason to believe it. Whereas, if He has promised something, we have no right or reason to doubt it!

So why do we? People who don’t believe in the true God (the God of Bible) at all, who don’t accept His Word as true in the first place, don’t believe God’s promises because they can’t. They’re still dead in their trespasses and sins, still hostile to God with every fiber of their being, still under God’s sentence of eternal condemnation. They blasphemously blame God for every tragedy, for every bad thing that happens in the world. They don’t trust in their heavenly Father because He isn’t—yet—their Father. He hasn’t yet given them the right to become children of God, because they haven’t yet received the Son of God in faith. To them, God doesn’t say, “You should trust Me to take care of you in times of trouble.” To them, God says, “Repent of your idolatry and turn to Me, the true God, and to My Son Jesus Christ, that I may heal you of your wickedness and bring you to life!”

But for those who do believe in the true God, who have come to know that He is good, who have repented of their sinfulness, who have been baptized in His name, who have been made children of God and heirs of eternal life, like Jesus’ disciples in the boat with Him in our Gospel, like all of us here today, why is it so easy for us to “turn off” our faith in the midst of a storm, in a moment of crisis?

You know why. It’s part of the weakness, part of the frailty of our sinful nature. The Christian usually rules over his or her Old Self, usually keeps it in check as we walk according to the New Man, the new, spiritual person God created in us when He brought us to faith in the Lord Jesus. According to the New Man, we trust in God to care for us, to do what’s right, to deliver us in the way that He knows is best, whether it’s keeping us physically safe from danger, which He often does, or whether it’s allowing troubles to come into our life while preventing those same troubles from doing any real damage to our souls. But the devil takes advantage of troubles and crises. He uses them to get the attention of our sinful flesh, like a red cape being waved in front of a bull. And in those moments, the flesh sometimes gets the better of us. It shouldn’t, but it does.

And so the Holy Spirit holds this Gospel before our eyes today, to fortify your New Man, to build you up, to make you see again how foolish it is to forget that even the winds and the sea obey the One whom you call Lord, the one who calls you a beloved member of His own body. Even the winds and the sea obey Him. And so does everything else, down to the very molecules that make up the world around you. So you have no reason to be cowardly in the face of danger. You have no reason to be timid or fearful. The next time you find yourself in danger, in trouble, in crisis, your flesh may cause you to forget about the power of the Lord Jesus for a moment. But let today’s Gospel serve to shorten the amount of time between panic and a return to trust. “Call upon Me,” God says, “in the day of trouble. I will deliver you, and you will glorify Me.” Amen.

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The certainty of faith

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Sermon for Midweek of Epiphany 3

Hebrews 11:1-16

We were shown two shining examples of faith in Sunday’s Gospel of the healing of the leper and of the centurion’s servant. Do you remember the qualities of their faith that we highlighted? Humble, bold, matter-of-fact trust in Jesus’ goodness and in His authority over human bodies. The centurion’s faith seemed to have come out of nowhere, and yet it was so great that Jesus praised it. This evening we continue that focus on faith with the “faith chapter” of the Bible, Hebrews 11, where the author gives us a working definition of faith, as well as a litany of believers in the Old Testament who exhibited such faith.

What is faith? Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Now, that definition works for any kind of faith. You can be assured in your heart that your team is going to win the Super Bowl, because that’s what you hope for, and you hope for it so strongly that you’re convinced it’s going to happen. It has to happen! That’s a kind of faith. But no matter how sure you are, you may still be wrong. You may be assured that a person you trust in will keep his or her promise to you. And you may be right! But you may also be wrong.

Biblical faith, on the other hand, can never be wrong, because it’s always based on a word or promise of God, who can never fail, who can never change, and who can never lie. You heard such a word and promise of God in the first lesson this evening from Jeremiah 33, where God promised the people of Jerusalem, who were already being besieged by the Babylonians and who had already seen their city destroyed, that He would heal their land, rebuild it and restore it, and forgive them for their sins against Him. There wasn’t a single outward indication that such a thing could ever happen, as the Babylonians prepared to haul them off into captivity. But God promised it, and so faith had something to cling to.

Hebrews 11 gives us many examples of faith, this assurance of things hoped for, this conviction of things not seen—not seen, but spoken by God, either as something that He had already done when they weren’t there to see it, or, in most cases, as something He would do, although they did not yet see it.

Take the creation of the world, for example. No human being was there to see it. Even Adam and Eve could only take God’s word for how they and the world got there. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. By faith we believe the words of the Psalm we sang earlier this evening: By the Word of the LORD the heavens were made; and all the host of them by the Spirit of his mouth. Unbelievers have come up with their own explanation of the origin of the universe, and they, too, have to take it by faith, because they weren’t there to see it. But when the question is whether to believe the fallible science of fallible men or the infallible word of the infallible God, faith will always take the side of God and His Word.

God’s word had proved reliable to Adam and Eve, and so Abel, although He didn’t interact directly with God as his parents had before the fall into sin, gladly and willingly offered to God, by faith, a better sacrifice than his brother Cain offered, trusting not only in the fact that God existed, but that God was good and worthy of his worship, whereas Cain lacked such faith. And through his faith, though he died, Abel still speaks. In other words, the example of Abel urges us to trust in God, as he did, and urges us to believe that even if we lose our life on this earth as he did, God is still worth trusting in, because He has something even in greater in store for us after we die.

Then we’re given the example of Enoch, the 7th generation from Adam. By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. How do we know that faith had anything to do with it? The next verses are important: Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God. And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. In other words, faith holds that God is good, that God is merciful, and that God is worthy of our worship. Abel’s faith teaches us that God is worthy of our worship, even if we die for it. While Enoch’s faith teaches us that, for those who believe in God, there is a way to escape death.

Noah comes next. By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. God told Noah that a cataclysmic flood was coming. There were no outward signs of it, not even rain clouds gathering in the sky. But because God said it, Noah believed it and acted on it and was considered righteous by God, not because he was sinless, but because he believed in God’s promise to save him and his family.

Abraham’s faith is our next example. God told him to move his whole family to an unknown, unseen land, where God promised to bless him and take care of him. Isn’t it remarkable that Abraham simply took God at His word and did it? How could he do that? How could he willingly become a foreigner in the land of the Canaanites, giving up his permanent residence for a life of moving his tent from here to there, for the rest of his life, living in a land that would never be his? As it says, He was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. By faith he looked beyond this world, beyond this life, to the permanent life with God in heaven. Now, there is zero evidence for such a place, for such a life. But faith itself serves as the evidence, concluding that, because God has promised it, it must be true.

Sarah is the final example given in the verses before us. By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore. It wasn’t faith that gave Sarah the ability to conceive in her old age and sterility. It was faith in God’s promise that connected her to God’s ability to carry out His promise.

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but, having seen them afar off, were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. They desired a better country, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.

These examples of faith are recorded for us in Holy Scripture, both in the Old Testament and in the book of Hebrews, to show us what true faith looks like, how it behaves, and how it enables a person to do remarkable things, even things that defy human reason, not because of how wonderful faith is, but because of how reliable and dependable God’s word and promises are.

So when God says that Jesus truly took your sins to the cross, died for them, and rose again, even though you weren’t there, even though you won’t find any scientific evidence to prove it, you should believe it. And when God says that the waters of Baptism washed you clean of sin in His sight and made you His beloved child, you should believe it, even though it appears to be just water. When Jesus says that bread and wine are His body and blood, you should simply believe that, too. And when He says that He reigns over all things for your good, that your loved ones who died in the faith are alive with Him, and that you will be, too, after you die, accept it by faith, not because you can prove it, or because you can see it, but because God says so. Seek God with that kind of faith—the faith of the leper, of the centurion, of the Old Testament saints, and, for that matter, which is the faith of a little child—and one day, in the next life, in the city that God is preparing for you, you will see with your eyes that your faith in God’s word was never in vain. Amen.

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The authority of Christ and the power of His Word

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Sermon for Epiphany 3

Romans 12:6-16  +  Matthew 8:1-13

What do we learn about Jesus in today’s Gospel? Let’s consider His two encounters, with the leper and with the centurion, and see what the Holy Spirit has to teach us.

Jesus has just finished preaching the famous Sermon on the Mount. He’s coming down from the mountain, and as He’s coming down, a man is waiting for Him there, a man suffering from leprosy.

I think you know what leprosy was, but just in case, let me explain it briefly. Leprosy was a skin disease, one that the Law of Moses specifically addressed. If someone in Israel was found to have leprosy and was officially diagnosed with it by the priests, according to the descriptions given in the Law of Moses, that person had to live apart from the rest of Israel. According to the Law, they were to be considered perpetually unclean, ceremonially contaminated, until such time as their skin cleared up, and the priest certified their healing, and they performed the rituals prescribed by the Law to be declared “clean” again. Leprosy was not a spiritual problem. It was a physical, social, and ceremonial problem. But God used that particular outward uncleanness in some to reveal the spiritual uncleanness and contamination that’s present in all.

Well, this man with leprosy has heard the word about Jesus, how good and kind He is, that He has been preaching the good news of God’s promise to restore sinners through faith alone in Christ Jesus, and that He has been healing people’s diseases, one after another. And now the leprous man has, incredibly, become convinced that, Jesus has the power to cleanse him of his leprosy. And, just as incredibly, he believes so strongly in Jesus’ compassion and mercy that He is willing to approach Jesus, which was a bold move for a leper, because it was forbidden for an unclean leper to approach a clean person. Not only that, but he is completely humble before Jesus, not demanding, not even asking to be healed, but leaving the matter entirely up to Jesus. Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.

And Jesus was willing. I am willing. Be cleansed! He spoke a word, and the man’s leprosy disappeared. But before healing him, Jesus reached out His hand and touched the man. That seems like a small thing. But there’s something to it that we should note. Normally, if a person who was ceremonially clean touched a person or a thing that was unclean, the clean person became unclean for a time. The Jews tried very hard to avoid becoming unclean, because it kept them away from the temple and the worship of God. But ceremonial uncleanness was only there in the first place to teach the people of Israel that you have to be sinless and holy in order to approach God, according to the Law, and it was impossible for anyone to remain clean, because it was impossible for them—for any of us—to be sinless, according to the Law. So Jesus, the Holy One, the sinless One, cannot be made unclean. Instead, when Jesus, the sinless One, comes into contact with an unclean person, that person becomes clean in God’s sight! That’s what the Gospel is all about.

We need to remember that, just as the physical uncleanness of leprosy pointed to the spiritual uncleanness of sin, so Jesus’ willingness and ability to cleanse outward uncleanness is really intended to reveal His willingness and ability to make us clean on the inside, through the forgiveness of our sins, through our “contact” with Him, which happens by Baptism and by faith. So learn from this account of the healing of the leper. Learn to approach God through Jesus, to approach Him humbly but boldly, acknowledging your sins and your sinfulness and your need for His healing, and then trusting in Him to make you clean before God. He is willing! And He will do it. And if you’re clean before God through the forgiveness of sins, then you can worship Him rightly. Then you can trust in His promises to help you through all the troubles of this life, because His willingness to help never goes away.

In the second part of our Gospel, we see Jesus’ interaction with the Roman centurion, where we see Jesus perform another healing miracle. But this time, He doesn’t do it by touching the sick man. He does it from afar. Because Jesus’ healing isn’t a matter of proximity. It’s a matter of authority.

The centurion came to Jesus, asking Him to heal his servant, who was suffering terribly. And immediately Jesus, knowing the centurion’s faith, says, “I’ll come and heal him!” Notice how different this is from another time, when a Jewish nobleman came to Jesus and begged Him to come heal his son. On that occasion, Jesus, knowing the nobleman’s weak faith, refused to go, in spite of the nobleman begging Him repeatedly. In that case, Jesus wanted to stretch the nobleman’s faith, so that he would be content with only a word from Jesus, with a healing from afar. And, eventually, the Jewish nobleman got to that point and believed the word Jesus spoke.

But in this case, the Roman centurion’s faith is already right where it needs to be. It doesn’t need any stretching or testing. Jesus offers to go to his house and heal his servant, and this time, it’s the centurion who “refuses.” He says, Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof. Just like the man with leprosy, the centurion shows great humility before Jesus. But unlike the leper, the centurion has many fewer earthly reasons to be humble! The leper was sick and seen by everyone as lowly and despised. But a Roman officer was a man with power, prestige, a man who was used to giving orders and being obeyed. The Romans generally considered themselves far superior to the Jewish people. But not in this case. The centurion doesn’t consider himself worthy to have the Lord Jesus enter his house. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed.

Then he goes on to explain why he believes this. As a military officer, the centurion understands very well how authority works. The one with greater authority gives commands to those who are under him, and they must obey. They have no choice. Once a commander has given a command to those under him, he doesn’t have to go and do the job himself. He speaks, and what he has spoken is done, because he speaks with authority.

It’s absolutely incredible that a Roman army officer, stationed in the land of Israel, would just matter-of-factly believe that this man, Jesus of Nazareth, had such authority over humanity that He could simply give a command to a sick body, anywhere on earth, to be healed, and have that command obeyed. But he does believe it. And he acts on his faith. Incredible!

Even Jesus thought it was incredible. It says that He “marveled” and said to those who followed, “Truly I tell you, I have not found such great faith, no, not even in Israel.” Now, if the Lord Jesus, who has all knowledge at His disposal, marvels at something, then you and I should certainly also marvel at it. How could a centurion have such a solid faith in Jesus? That’s the power of God’s Word. It was God’s Word about Jesus that the centurion had heard and that had broken through all his inborn skepticism and hostility to God to turn the centurion into a marvelous believer in the authority of Jesus, who looked like just an ordinary man, but whom the centurion recognized to be the Commander in Chief of all things.

Note the contrast here between the unquestioning faith of the Roman centurion and most of the Jews whom Jesus encountered during His ministry. The Holy Spirit wants us to see that contrast. He wants us to see that, it’s not necessarily the people you would expect who end up coming to faith in Jesus and clinging to His Word. Often those who should have a strong faith—lifelong Christians, religious leaders, pastors, theologians, those who have no excuse for doubting God or His Word—are the very ones who doubt it the most. While children, or grown-ups with a childlike, simple faith, are the ones who so readily say, “I believe it, because God says so.” That’s the faith that Jesus praises here in the Gospel.

And He informs His Jewish followers, even now, early on in His ministry, that their place in heaven wasn’t secure just because of who their ancestors were or because they belonged to the “right” race. No, He says, I tell you that many will come from the East and the West and will sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. A place in heaven, a place in God’s favor, isn’t achieved by being a member of the right race, or by being born into a religion. It’s given as a gift to those who believe in the Lord Jesus.

We see in today’s Gospel, God is working, even now, to create a faith in you like the faith of the leper, like the faith of the centurion, a faith that seeks deliverance from no other but Christ, a faith that demands nothing, and knows that it deserves nothing, but that is bold to seek help from the Lord Jesus, no matter who you are, no matter what you’ve done, and to trust in His power, in His authority, and in His willingness to help, because God the Father has actually given Him all authority in heaven and on earth. And He wants to use that authority, above all, to speak to you the word of cleansing, that is, the word of forgiveness, and eventually, the word that will heal all your ills and raise your body from the dead, and bring you safely and forever into the presence of the Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the saints in the kingdom of heaven. Amen.

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Converted from persecutor to devout believer

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Sermon for the Conversion of Paul (observed)

Acts 9:1-22  +  Matthew 19:27-30

Imagine witnessing a public execution, the execution of a peaceful man against whom the only charge was encouraging people to turn to the Lord Jesus for the forgiveness of sins, telling people about the love of God in sending His Son to save those very people from their sins, and about God’s judgment against those who reject their Savior. The man’s name is Stephen, and he’s being put to death by having people throw rocks at him until they cause enough bruises and break enough bones to kill the peaceful man, who is praying for his executioners even as the stones are flying. And you’re not witnessing it from afar, with horror or with sadness. You’re standing right there in the midst of the angry stone-throwers, giving your nod of approval to their actions. And not only do you approve of their actions, but you’re already planning how you will find other people, fellow Jews, both men and women, who are just like this peaceful man, so that you can arrest them, tie their filthy hands together, and have them tried and executed in a similar way. Imagine being that angry at these Christians, that vengeful, that violently determined to snuff out their religion by snuffing out their lives. Why? Because they have dared to confess out loud the name of Jesus of Nazareth as the King of the Jews, the Son of David, the crucified and risen Messiah. And why are you so determined? Because you are absolutely convinced that the Jesus whom they confess is a charlatan and an enemy of your God and of His holy Law.

That was Saul. Saul the Pharisee. Saul, the Roman citizen, or Paul according to his Roman name, born in Tarsus, but brought up in Jerusalem at the feet of the famous rabbi Gamaliel, taught according to the strictness of Jewish law, and as zealous toward God as anyone has ever been. Zealous, but not according to knowledge. Zealous for the truth, while being ignorant of the truth. In other words, he thought he knew God rightly. He thought that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob supported his endeavors to snuff out these Christians. But, of course, he thought wrong. And so his zeal, and his religion, were worthless.

Now, God could have justly struck Saul dead for his crimes against God’s beloved Christians, which, as Jesus Himself says in our text, were actually crimes committed against Him. Why do you persecute Me?, Jesus demanded. I strongly suspect that many of those early Jewish Christians were praying imprecatory Psalms against Saul, that is, those Psalms where the believers plead with God to rain judgment down on their enemies and His. But it’s as Jesus said in the second lesson you heard tonight: Many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first. Judas Iscariot, one of the first and most prominent of Jesus’ followers, ended up last—cast into outer darkness—for his betrayal and unbelief. While Saul, who began, not as a follower but as a persecutor of Jesus, Saul, who considered himself the least of the apostles because he had persecuted the Church of God—Saul became among the first in God’s kingdom, perhaps the most famous of the apostles and by far the most prolific writer of the New Testament Scriptures. Saul the last, Saul the least, Saul the persecutor became Paul the first, Paul the believer, Paul the bold confessor of Christ, and, as a result, also Paul the persecuted, suffering the same kind of persecution for Christ that he had once carried out against Christ.

What a story! A story, first and foremost, of grace, of God’s free favor toward a man who by no means deserved it, of grace that burned through Saul’s unbelief and stubborn resistance as he went from “kicking against the goads,” that is, resisting the Holy Spirit who had been urging him, “goading” him, through the Word of Christ preached by Stephen, for example, to the message of the cross, to seek to be justified by faith instead of by works of the Law, to no longer resist, but to give in to grace, to repent and believe that Jesus was the Christ, that even his sins had been atoned for by Jesus, that the Gospel promise was meant even for him, that God would forgive even a persecutor of Christ. The word of Christ, spoken directly by Christ in Paul’s vision, and the word of Christ, spoken by Christ’s servant Ananias, brought about the miracle we call conversion.

And someone will ask, why did God give Saul a special vision of Jesus to bring about his conversion? Should we all expect such a vision in connection with our conversion? Should anyone? Absolutely not! Unless that person is called to be a founding apostle of the Christian Church. The truth is, Saul had to see the risen Lord Jesus, not for his conversion, not to become a believer, but for the witness he would have to give to the world. Paul would go on to be an apostle in the truest sense, an eyewitness of Jesus’ resurrection, called and later taught directly by Jesus just as the Eleven had been. Paul would be one of the chosen apostles who, together with the Old Testament prophets, would form the very foundation on which the Church of Christ was to be built.

Now, Saul didn’t cooperate with God the Holy Spirit in His conversion; he didn’t use any natural power that he had to choose Jesus. But after he was converted by the preaching of Ananias, Saul the believer did work together with the Holy Spirit. He was immediately baptized. Then, he stopped persecuting the Christians and instead began to preach the crucified and risen Christ in the synagogues, knowing that most of the Jews would turn against him, knowing that many of the Christians would struggle to accept him, knowing that some of the very Gentiles to whom he was being sent would imprison him, torture him, and eventually kill him. As the Lord told Ananias, I will show him how much he must suffer for my name’s sake.

But it didn’t matter. From that moment on, Saul’s life had a new purpose, a new direction, and for the next 25 years or so, for the rest of his earthly life, he would willingly and gladly work harder than the other apostles, and suffer more. He would rely, not on himself and his strength, but on God and His strength, whose grace was sufficient for Him, so that, spurred on by God’s grace, Paul would pour out his life as a drink offering, until there was nothing left. Because, while he was still God’s enemy, Christ died for him. And then He took him and goaded him until he gave in. The Lord forgave and justified him by faith alone and took him into His kingdom and even made him into a minister of the New Testament.

Now, what would the Lord teach you through the example of His dealings with St. Paul? You (probably) can’t exactly relate to him as a murderer and violent persecutor of the Church. You definitely can’t relate to him as one who was enabled to see the Lord Jesus with his eyes and receive His teaching directly from heaven. But some of you may be able to relate to him as someone who was once zealous for God, but not according to knowledge. Ministers can relate to him as a called preacher of the Gospel, and all of us can relate to him as a wretched sinner upon whom God had mercy, and who then devoted the rest of his life to serving the Lord Jesus.

Your conversion was no less of a miracle than was the conversion of St. Paul. You were God’s enemy, too, when you were born, and part of you, the Old Man that clings to you throughout this earthly life, is still God’s enemy, not zealous for God, not trusting in God, but eager to go his own way, believe his own beliefs, and live for himself and for a good life here in this dying world. But God had mercy on you. Long before you were born, He gave His Son into death on the cross. And long before that, He made the plans for your conversion, before the foundations of the world were laid—how He would find you with the Gospel, how He would goad you to faith through His preached Word, and how He would preserve you in the faith by Word and Sacrament, through all the troubles and trials of this life, how He would change you from a self-serving creature into a person who is driven by God’s love to love both God and your neighbor, to devote your every moment to the service of God and to the building up of His kingdom. Just like He did with the Apostle Paul.

Take comfort in that! And let the mercy God has shown you with regard to your own sins continue to inspire you and spur you on to serve Him gladly, eagerly, and tirelessly, being willing, as Paul was, to become the objects of scorn and shame, and even worse forms of persecution, always rejoicing with Paul that I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. Amen.

Source: Sermons

The kind of Savior who changes water into wine

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Sermon for Epiphany 2

Romans 12:6-16  +  John 2:1-11

Since Christmas, the Scriptures have been introducing Jesus to the world as the Savior, who is Christ the Lord. We saw Him as a baby in the stable, and with the wise men, and in the temple. We saw Him again as a 12-year-old child in the temple. And on Wednesday we saw Him as a 30-year-old man being baptized, and anointed with the Holy Spirit, and acclaimed by God the Father as His beloved Son, in whom the Father is well-pleased. The next event in Jesus’ life was His 40-day fast and temptation in the wilderness, which we’ll talk about during the Lenten season. But the next events after that are recorded in today’s Gospel, which includes the very first miracle Jesus performed. In all these stories, the world is getting to know the Savior whom God has sent, and each account teaches us something important about Him.

As our Gospel begins, Jesus has just been called the Lamb of God by John the Baptist, just a few days earlier. He has just gathered to Himself His first five disciples, still part-time apprentices for the time being, and all of them were from up north, from the region of Galilee, just like Jesus. After teaching them for just a day or two, they headed up to Galilee to a wedding, to which both Jesus and His mother Mary, and these five Galilean disciples, had all been invited. Stop and think about that for a moment. This wedding must have been planned for some time. Those invitations must have gone out months before, probably before Jesus was baptized, certainly before He called these first disciples. It wasn’t by chance that they met Jesus or started following Jesus when they did. It was God’s providence and plan that brought Jesus and these five disciples to the wedding that day, just as these disciples were starting to get to know Jesus.

What’s the first thing we learn about Jesus here? We learn that, as the God-Man sent on the most important mission in all of history, He is happy to attend a common wedding celebration. That says something about how He views marriage, as something good, as something worth celebrating. It says something about how He views human interactions, as necessary and important. It shows something about how He wants to interact with people. For the last six months or more, Israel had been getting to know God through the prophet John the Baptist, who lived an isolated, austere life alone in the wilderness, always serious, never drinking even a drop of wine, much less attending parties or joining in social activities. Jesus would not be like that.

Now, understand. Both John and Jesus were doing exactly what God wanted them each to do. But John’s was a ministry that focused almost entirely on recognizing and repenting of sin, and pointing people away from himself to Jesus, in whom they would find forgiveness and salvation, and so his own ministry was austere, solemn, and not what you would call “friendly,” while Jesus’ ministry was focused on receiving those who recognized their sins into God’s grace and into God’s house. A much friendlier kind of ministry. Both kinds of preaching are essential, and Jesus would do His share of condemning sin in the impenitent, and calling sinners to repentance, sometimes angrily berating the hypocritical religious leaders who were leading people astray from God. But it’s a matter of focus, a matter of goals. The goal of Jesus’ ministry would not be to leave people terrified because of their sins, or pointing them somewhere else for salvation. The goal of His ministry would be to bring sinners to Him, leaving them at peace, blessed, even happy, with a godly sort of happiness. We begin to see that in Jesus’ decision to attend a wedding celebration as the first public act of His ministry.

What’s the next thing we learn about Jesus as we’re “getting to know Him”? We learn that His relationship with His mother has changed from what it was. Up until very recently, Jesus had been living at home with her in Nazareth. Now He has begun His ministry as the Christ. Now He has begun to gather disciples to teach them as their Rabbi. Now He would no longer be consulting her, seeking her advice, or involving her in His decisions. Mary needed to be instructed about that change.

She seemed to think that Jesus ought to do something about the wine running out at the wedding reception, and she seemed to think it was her place to prompt Him to do something about it. When the wine ran out, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no wine.” It wasn’t an order. It was just a bit of information, but it came with an implied suggestion. “Maybe this is Your opportunity to reveal Yourself to the world!”

But we see that Jesus didn’t say, “Yes, mother! You’re right!” or “Thanks for letting me know!”  He used a Hebrew idiom that’s used in a few places in the Old Testament and a couple of times in the New. In every place, the phrase can be translated, “What have I to do with you?” It was a phrase used by the king of Egypt to King Josiah of Judah. It was a phrase used by the prophet Elisha to the wicked king Joram of Israel. It was a phrase used by a demon when talking to Jesus. What have I to do with you? Jesus is putting some distance between Himself and Mary, as having different aims, different goals, different purposes. And He calls her, not “mother,” but “woman,” not a harsh thing to say, but it’s a very direct indication that Jesus’ role as the Christ has nothing to do with His personal relationship with Mary. She will always be His mother, of course, but that motherly role or motherly relationship will have no special influence on Him or on His ministry. If only the generations after the apostles had paid attention to that!

My hour has not yet come, Jesus adds. “My hour” is a reference to the time when Jesus to bring His ministry to its fulfillment in giving Himself up to His enemies and allowing Himself to be put to death on a cross. That was “His hour” to reveal Himself to the world, to complete His God-given mission. Already at the outset of His ministry, Jesus has an eye on the end of it. In other words, He knows the plan. He doesn’t need or want Mary’s help.

Nevertheless, in spite of those words, Mary suspects that Jesus might yet do something about the wine situation, so she tells the servants, Whatever he says to you, do it. And He did use this as an opportunity, not to put on a big show, not to reveal Himself to the world, but to just a handful of people—His new disciples, and, of course, the servants to whom He would give instructions.

He told them to fill up the six stone jars that were standing there with water, and then to draw some out and take it to the master of the feast, the man in charge of inspecting and approving everything for the party. And it says that When the master of the feast had tasted the water that had become wine, not knowing where it was from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone sets out the good wine first, and when the people are drunk, then he sets out the inferior wine. But you have reserved the good wine until now.” And in this simple miracle of changing water into wine, we learn so much about Jesus, and about the kind of Savior, the kind of Christ He is going to be.

First, notice the low-key nature of this miracle. As we already said, it was only known to a handful of people, most importantly, to Jesus’ new disciples, and it had the intended impact on them. As John writes, This was the first of the signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and he revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.

Second, notice the power-of-creation aspect of this miracle. Jesus didn’t perform any magic here. He used the same divine power He had used at the creation of the world to take water molecules and turn them into something else with a word, with a thought. He didn’t have to pray for God the Father to do this, or wait for a word from God, telling Him or enabling Him to do this. He did as He pleased, knowing that it would bring glory to His Father.

Third, notice the high-quality aspect of this miracle. He didn’t make something that could barely pass for wine. He made real wine, and, according to the master of the feast, the best wine.

Fourth, notice the generous nature of this miracle. Jesus didn’t have to help out the bride and groom. It wasn’t His responsibility. But He chose to do it, both out of kindness toward them and to teach His disciples these lessons. And He chose to make, not just a few bottles’ worth of wine, but the equivalent of about 300 bottles of wine.

Finally, notice the celebratory nature of this miracle. It’s not healing a debilitating disease, or casting out fiendish demons. It’s not calming a raging storm, or raising the dead, or even providing sustenance for the hungry—all of which Jesus would do during the course of His three-year ministry, where He fixed a few of the many problems that plague the human race. No, this was a miracle of transformation, for the purpose of enjoyment, for the purpose of celebration. Wine is not necessary. It’s not a need. And it’s not there to fix a problem. It’s for our enjoyment, and for rejoicing together when we celebrate something worth celebrating. (Obviously it has other uses, but that’s what it’s for, from a Biblical perspective.)

When we put together all these lessons, Jesus’ disciples got a good first picture of the kind of Savior Jesus was going to be, and it also helps us to see Him for who He is. He is a Savior who doesn’t seek to impress people, but to teach people about God’s promise to save us from our sins through Him. He is a Savior who is both true God and true Man, both our Brother and our God, and we do well to remember both things. He’s a Savior who didn’t come to help us scrape by, but that we might have the best future, the best inheritance in heaven, to have life and life in abundance. He’s a Savior who is overflowing in generosity toward all who come to Him, and who would have His people be generous to others, as He has been generous to us. And He’s a Savior who gives us something worth celebrating—true happiness in God, in His Word, in the fellowship of His Church, in His salvation, in the love God had for us, that He would send His Son to suffer and die for our sins, that He would bring us to Baptism and call us His children, that He would give us a celebratory meal of His body and blood, joined to enjoyable things like bread and wine, that He would choose to dwell among us forever and celebrate with us forever. That’s the kind of Savior Jesus reveals Himself to be in today’s Gospel, and throughout His life—a Savior who gives us reason to celebrate, a Savior worth celebrating. Amen.

Source: Sermons

A necessary step to fulfill all righteousness

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Sermon for the Baptism of Our Lord

1 Corinthians 1:26-31  +  Matthew 3:13-17

On Sunday we heard about how twelve-year-old Jesus amazed everyone at the temple in the Jerusalem. It’s now about 18 years later. Jesus has spent all that time in Nazareth, growing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men. We know that He learned some carpentry from His earthly father, Joseph, who was a carpenter, by trade, because Jesus Himself is once referred to as “the carpenter.” It appears that, sometime during those 18 years, Joseph died, because he is conspicuously absent from the rest of the story of Jesus’ life. The next thing we hear about Jesus happens when He’s about 30 years old, as Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record how Jesus came down from Galilee to the Jordan river, to be baptized by John, who had started preaching and baptizing several months before this. Why was Jesus baptized? For what purpose? What was the significance of it? What does it matter for us and for our salvation? We’re going to walk through these five verses from Matthew chapter 3 and then answer those questions.

As Jesus approached John to be baptized, John recognized Him immediately. How, we don’t know. We’re not told of any interaction between the two before this. Maybe John knew in the same way that Simeon and Anna recognized Jesus as a baby, by the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

In any case, John knew that Jesus was not at all like other men. He tried to prevent Jesus from being baptized, saying, “I am the one who needs to be baptized by you, and you come to me?” John, as a prophet sent by God, knew a lot about Jesus. He knew that he (John), like everyone else who was coming to be baptized, was sinful and in need of repentance and the forgiveness of sins, and that Jesus had no need of those things, because He was sinless to begin with. John knew that he was just a humble messenger, while Jesus was the divine Messenger to whom John was pointing. He knew that Jesus was far greater than he, far superior to him, as he confessed openly soon after baptizing Jesus. He knew that he needed to be saved by Jesus, and that Jesus certainly didn’t need to be saved by him. And he was right about all those things.

But John didn’t know everything about God’s plan of salvation. Jesus fills him in a little bit. Allow it for now. For thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. John knew he was supposed to be pointing people to Jesus, but he didn’t know, until now, that Jesus’ ministry had to begin with a very special baptism. John knew that Jesus was the Righteous One. But he was just now learning, from Jesus, that baptizing Jesus was part of “fulfilling all righteousness.” We’ll talk about that more in a minute.

Now, to be washed by someone is a humbling experience, even more so when it’s a washing that’s normally connected with spiritual dirt, where everyone else who comes to be baptized is being baptized specifically because he recognizes that he’s a sinner who deserves nothing from God but His wrath and punishment. And so Jesus was humbled by John, and John must have felt awkward doing it. But at Jesus’ word, John consented and baptized the Lord Jesus.

We’re told that, right after Jesus was baptized, three remarkable events occurred. He saw the heavens opened to Him, the Holy Spirit descended like a dove and came upon Jesus, and the Father spoke those incredible works that He would later repeat at Jesus’ transfiguration: This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. This is the second reference in the New Testament to the three Persons of the Holy Trinity. The first was in Gabriel’s announcement to Mary about Jesus being the Son, of God, who would be conceived by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. But here at Jesus’ Baptism, the three Persons are clearly seen. What does it all mean? What was it all for?

First, do you remember, when Jesus was crucified between the two thieves and the Evangelists record that it was to fulfill a prophecy about the Christ? He was numbered with the transgressors. Jesus’ death among sinners was the culmination of that prophecy. But it was really a prophecy that was fulfilled throughout Jesus’ life, and in a very special way at His Baptism. Jesus was numbered with the transgressors. He went to Baptism together with a multitude of people, all of whom were transgressors, sinners. And He allowed Himself to be counted among them, even though He had no sin, just as, one day, He would allow Himself to be crucified among sinners, as if He were a sinner. This is all part of what Paul says about Jesus in 2 Cor. 5: God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. It was part of “fulfilling all righteousness” for Jesus, the Righteous One, to be numbered among the transgressors, so that all who believe in Him might be numbered among the righteous.

Another purpose of Jesus Baptism was that it served as what we might call His “anointing,” His inauguration and ordination into the office of the Christ. Now, Jesus was the Christ from the moment He was conceived and born. As the angel told the shepherds, “Unto you is born a Savior, who is Christ, the Lord.” He was always the Christ with regard to His identity. But it was at His Baptism that Jesus fully entered into the office of the Christ, the ministry of the Christ as Prophet, Priest, and King. And even though He was the Son of God, as the Son of Man He didn’t take that office or that ministry upon Himself. He waited for the Father to open the heavens to Him, and to send down the Holy Spirit upon Him, and to speak the words of approval upon His Son, designating this man Jesus as His chosen Servant for this one-of-a-kind mission to save the fallen human race. The Baptism of Jesus, where the Father spoke and the Spirit came upon Jesus, is the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah that Jesus later applied to Himself: The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me, because the LORD has anointed Me.

Finally, what does Jesus’ Baptism mean for you and me? It means that Jesus is the Savior you should trust in, the only Savior chosen and sent by God the Father, the only one who has the Father’s full approval, in everything, because Jesus never once failed or faltered. He is the Righteous One who was willing to be numbered with the transgressors in order to bring us transgressors to God. He is the Righteous One with whom we believers are now clothed through Holy Baptism, as Paul says, for as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. And having put on Christ through Baptism, you have now become a beloved child of God who is well-pleasing to the Father, because in this strange and wonderful Sacrament of Holy Baptism, God has made a way for you to be connected to His beloved, well-pleasing Son, who was baptized, just as you were—not in the same place, or by the same person, or at the same age, but in the same divinely instituted washing. His was a washing of solidarity with sinners, an anointing of ordination, a reception of the Holy Spirit. Yours was a washing of solidarity with Christ, an anointing of adoption, and, likewise, a reception of the Holy Spirit.

The Baptism of Jesus is the event in which God the Father held forth His beloved Son to the world as wisdom from God, including both righteousness, and holiness, and redemption. Forget the wisdom of the world. Here is My wisdom, the Father says. Forget the righteousness of the world. Here is your righteousness! Forget the holiness of the world. Here is your holiness! Forget the redemption that the world offers. Here is the redemption that God offers! Here, in this Man Jesus, the Christ, the beloved Son of God, who makes you beloved sons of God through faith in Him, and through Baptism. Rejoice in this Sacrament that connects you with Christ! Amen.

Source: Sermons