Sermon for Ash Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Texts: Joel 2:12-19; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

            Beloved in Christ, from time to time we need an attitude adjustment. We settle into routines, which become habits, which lead to a settled frame of mind. And that settled frame of mind produces new vices, so that one sin in the end compounds another. Lent is a time to examine our attitudes and get them more in line with God’s way of thinking.

            But what exactly is wrong with our way of thinking? Well, there may be several things, but let us focus on two things this evening. First, there is the attitude that doesn’t recognize any problem at all. Life is good. Sin is either non-existent or a trivial problem. We are too prosperous, too smart, and too socially well-adjusted to think otherwise.

            What allows this attitude to take root is that we live in a land that is always Christmas and never winter. You may recognize that I have inverted a phrase from C.S. Lewis’s book, The Chronicles of Narnia. There the land had been put under the spell of a wicked queen, who had made it always winter, but never Christmas. For us who live in northern climes, we bear the onset of winter in early November or so, with its cruel winds and frigid temperatures, with the thought that Christmas will come near the harshest time of winter and bring us a bit of joy to remove the bitterness of winter. But it would be awful, thought Lewis, if there would be one cold, dreary day after another, with no Christmas to alleviate the gloom.

            But Lewis couldn’t have imagined a land like ours, where it is always Christmas and never winter. He had served in one world war and lived through another, with a depression between the two. Rationing had been normal for vast stretches of his life. The idea that anybody could go to a store and buy anything they pleased because society was prosperous enough to offer everything at all times—well, he couldn’t have imagined such a thing. But we in our affluent country begin celebrating Christmas sometime in September or so, long before the leaves have turned colors or fall chills have entered the air.

            Such luxury can deaden our senses to the reality of sin. We see that money can buy food for the hungry, clothes for the naked, and homes for the homeless. And then we make the illogical leap that our affluence will solve all our problems—our broken friendships, our troubled marriages, our strained relationships at work, our negligence of God and prayer. But it is when we begin to think this way that God calls us to fast, weep, and repent. He calls us to put aside the joys of Christmas for a while and feel the biting winter wind. It is not that He will cruelly deprive us of Christmas in the future, but rather that we need to feel that wind in order to appreciate the gift of Christmas.

            That is why Joel called his affluent society to take a break from their overindulgence and instead to put on sackcloth and ashes and to fast and mourn. That is why the church for centuries has found it useful to set aside the forty days before Easter as a time of fasting and intensified prayer. Now the Scriptures do not mandate a particular way that this time must be observed, and we Christians have some freedom in exactly how we observe this season of Lent. But let me encourage you not just to do the same old things that you normally would. Instead, let this be a time when you deprive yourself of some of your usual joys so that instead you can focus on God and His kingdom.

            But at the same time we ought to recognize that there is another attitude that might need to be adjusted. And this is an attitude that most affects religious people, the sort of people who would tend to make a big deal out of Lent. While the world overindulges, we make a big deal out of the fact that we don’t.

            For us, Lent poses a hidden, but deadly danger, for we are tempted to show off our fasting, our intensified prayers, and our good works. It is bad when we give nary a thought to righteousness, but it is equally bad when we pursue righteousness only so that we can count ourselves superior to the vast majority who are less spiritually-minded than we are. In fact, the latter action may be more dangerous than the former, for those who are altogether worldly might one day be brought to repentance, but those who deem themselves spiritual think themselves to be in no need of change.

            That is why we need to hear our Lord’s words today. They do not forbid us to pray, fast, and give alms, but remind us to do these things in a truly spiritual way. These things cannot merely be an act where we look more pious than the people around us. Instead, they should be true spiritual disciplines whereby we repent of our sins and draw closer to God. When we do these things, we will not be looking around to compare ourselves with others. We will fast because we are disgusted with the way we have filled ourselves with everything in life to the point of bursting and realize we need to take a break from stuffing ourselves. We will pray because we know that we have serious issues we need to talk over with God, issues that others have no need to be privy to. We will give alms and do other charitable deeds because we want to get over our selfishness and let God’s love shape our own.

            In short, we will do these pious activities with the understanding that they are not really about us or the way we appear before others, but are about God. We will see that it isn’t our righteousness that will get us into heaven, but rather Christ’s righteousness will accomplish that. Because Christ has suffered and died to atone for our sins and has risen from the dead in order to forgive us, everything has been done to reconcile us to God. Our holiest deeds won’t make us more beloved to Him. All they can do is show that we take seriously what Christ has done for us.

            And so, beloved in Christ, we are freed from the awful burdens we place upon ourselves. We are freed from the burden of self-indulgence, which makes us responsible for our own happiness and which teaches us that that happiness is found only by ever-increasing pampering of our desires. And we are freed from the burden of justifying ourselves, of trying to prove to ourselves and others that we are really superior to others in our morality and thus ought to be accepted by God. Instead, we receive Christ’s righteousness and we acknowledge that true happiness comes from knowing our creator rather than piling up created goods.

            With that in mind, let us keep the Lenten discipline of fasting, prayer, and alms. Let us put aside the things that encumber us and devote greater attention to God, for He is always attentive to us. Let the next several weeks be a time when you come to understand Christ at a deeper level and take more to heart all that He has done for you. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Sermon for Advent 2, December 6, 2015

Text: Luke 3:1-14

            Beloved in Christ, last week we heard that Christ came two thousand years ago and will come in great glory sometime in the future. We also heard that He comes to us today through His Word, so that we can rejoice in His past coming and look forward to His return. And so we are not surprised to hear today that repenting has always been the primary way to prepare for His coming, then and now. John the Baptist called His fellow Jews to repent before Christ began His ministry. And we read John’s call to repentance today because we need to repent before Christ returns in glory.

            But “repent” and “repentance” are tricky words. We use them all the time in the church, and we can sort of figure out what they must mean from the context. But whenever we guess a word’s meaning, there is always the danger we might overlook some important nuance it has. That is why we are often told to look up an unfamiliar word in a dictionary to make sure that we fully understand it. In the same way, we ought to make sure that when we come across a word in the Scriptures that we are using it in the same sense that the Scriptures do.

            If you talk with most people, they will say that repenting means “feeling bad about something” or, to be more specific, “feeling sorry for some wrong thing you have done.” They have a point. Repentance does involve those sorts of things, but it also involves a lot more. Plenty of people are very, very sorry for what they have done, but they don’t know much about real Christian repentance. It might be helpful to know that the Greek word for “repentance” literally means “a change of thought.” Now part of genuine repentance involves changing your attitude from thinking that sin is okay to thinking that it is wrong. But there is much more that we need to change our minds about.

            You could say that “repentance” means “rethinking” something that we had thought was already a settled matter. And so today I invite you to rethink the matter of repentance. Instead of putting repentance into a tiny little box and saying it applies only if you have done some big, stupid mistake, I urge you to think of it as a big part of a Christian’s life. A Christian ought to realize that their sinful nature not only gets them to misbehave, but also to think wrongly about who God is and whether He can be trusted, what determines the standards of right and wrong, what counts as progress, what the good life looks like, where hope is truly to be found, and a thousand other matters. We are born with a selfish attitude, and that in and of itself would be enough to distort the way we look at things. But then the errors in our minds are compounded by the way that other people get us to look at things wrongly. We are taught such things as “God doesn’t intervene in people’s lives” or “prayer doesn’t work” or “you can do anything, if you put your mind to it”—and thousands of other foolish sentiments. We have to unlearn such things and instead learn the wisdom that comes from and is the holy, Christian faith. Therefore, the chief part of repentance is turning from unbelief to trust in God. Knowing oneself as a sinner is, to be sure, an aspect of repentance, but knowing God as our Savior is an even more important aspect.

            And so part of being a Christian is to rethink everything in light of God’s Word. Now, that rethinking process often starts with morality, and so repentance usually begins with being sorry for some recent sin we’ve done. If we are going to be led into a different way of thinking, it is usually because we discovered something that the old way of thinking just couldn’t explain. Now our selfish nature has tried to convince that we are perfect and that there is nothing seriously wrong with us. But when we have clear evidence to the contrary—when we see that we have done something that we would be angry about if it had been done against us—then we don’t know what to think or say. We are saddened by the situation and are open to rethinking our whole life.

            Now both John the Baptist and Jesus encountered many people who were at a crossroads because they had seen their entire life fall apart. They hadn’t aspired as children to become the town drunk, the village prostitute, the hated turncoat who collaborated with the Roman enemies. But each and every one of them realized that they had sinned in these flagrant ways and nobody in their town liked them. So they assumed that God did not love them, either. There are many people today who are in the same situation. They have hit rock bottom. A serious addiction, a broken marriage, trouble with the law, or some other serious problem has shown them reality and they are ready at last to acknowledge it. Maybe that is you today. It is right that you are sorry for those sins and that you look to God for forgiveness. But, come, let me show you and all people an even deeper repentance, an even deeper way of rethinking your life.

            You see, repentance isn’t just for the convicted criminals or the social outcasts. It is for everyone. There were many respectable people who went to see what John was doing. They thought that it would be good to see all the evildoers get a good tongue lashing for their misdeeds. But instead John turned on them and said, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits in keeping with repentance.” In other words, if you think that you have to be a convicted felon before you are called to repent, think again! Sure, some people may sin flagrantly, but don’t forget that you are cut out of the same cloth as the rest of humanity. If they have sins to repent of, so do you. Just because your sins are more socially acceptable or more easily hidden doesn’t mean that you have nothing to repent of, too.

            Now you might think that all this rethinking about our lives means that ethics is horribly complicated. Not at all. When John was asked about what people should do, he said to share with those in need. He told people to do their work honestly and not for greedy gain. He didn’t tell people to quit their work and hole up in a monastery, but rather to do their work and not abuse their office. It was as simple as that. And yet sin prevents us from doing what is rather simple.

            That is why we need to rethink something else: what makes people God’s people. We naturally assume that being good makes us dear to God and so our good behavior makes us His people. Or maybe we need to come from a long line of godly people. But John warns us to rethink. “Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.” Now we usually hear this as a warning: shape up because the right ancestry doesn’t make you right with God! And that is true. But there is a deeper truth as well: God turns stones like you and me into His beloved children.

            Yes, we were stones. Even the children of Abraham were stones. The Old Testament reveals that idols are made of useless stone. As Psalm 115 tells us, “They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat.” Okay. We understand that. Idols are senseless hunks of stone. But there is one more thing the psalmist wants us to know about these idols: “Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.” And so we are not surprised to hear God tell Isaiah that the Israelites “keep on hearing, but do not understand; [they] keep on seeing, but do not perceive.” They have become as senseless as blocks of stone. Worshipping stone has turned them to stone, so much so that the prophet Ezekiel refers to their heart as no longer being made of flesh but of stone.

            But Ezekiel foretold that Christ would come and remove our hearts of stone and put hearts of flesh in us. We cannot take our stone-cold hearts and make them living and warm. But God can change stones and the stone-hearted into children of Abraham, indeed into God’s own beloved children. That is because while we were becoming more and more like the idols we worshipped, that is, more stone-like, Christ (the true Son of God) became like one of us. He became a full human being, albeit without sin.

            More than that, He lived a holy life, died in our place, and rose again. And He poured out His Holy Spirit into us so that we might be transformed from stone images of the idols we worshipped into a living temple of the true God. Consequently, when we think about ourselves and what it means to be a human being or when we think about God and how we stand in relation to Him, we no longer think from our own vantage point, but from the perspective that comes from knowing Christ.

            This new perspective does not come easily. That is why we gather again and again to hear God’s Word and deepen our knowledge of it. Even things we have heard dozens of times need to be heard again, since it is difficult to rethink everything in accordance with His Word and it may take several times before it sinks in. Therefore, beloved in Christ, let your life be one of continual repentance—of rethinking of what you had known of sin and grace and coming to know those things from God’s perspective. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Sermon for Easter 2B, April 12, 2015

Text: John 20:19-31

            Beloved in Christ, we spent several weeks in Lent considering the way of the cross. We saw that we are redeemed by Christ’s death on the cross. We also learned that Christ’s cross sets the pattern for our lives, for we too are called to serve rather than to be served. But we live in the days after Easter. We wouldn’t for a second deny the death of Jesus Christ or say that it was unimportant. But we know how the story ends. It ends with Christ rising from the dead on the third day, vanquishing death for Himself and for us. And so we cannot live as if Christ remains dead and our joys have all been vanquished. What are we to do?

            Today’s Gospel gives us the answer. Here we meet some of the first people to learn that Jesus had risen from the dead. More importantly, Jesus Himself directs them so that they would do what the church would do ever since, at least until He returns in glory. Christ appeared to the disciples twice in today’s Gospel, and we learn something important from each visit.

            First, we see that Christ commissioned the church to deal with sins—forgiving repentant sinners and withholding forgiveness from the unrepentant. In fact, that is why the church exists at all. If we ignore sin or if we ignore the atonement for sin, we really have no reason for existing at all. We would be just another club or social organization. But we exist because sin is a serious matter. Sin is a problem for every human being, for the pious as well as the ungodly, for the enforcers of the law as well as the outlaws. Sin is a problem that we cannot extricate ourselves from. The more we struggle, the deeper we fall into the quicksand and mire of sin. It is for that reason Jesus Christ had to die on the cross in our place and rise to give us new life.

            You don’t believe that sin is that much of a problem? Just ask your spouse, who can fill you on some details you may have overlooked. Or, if you are single, ask any neighbor who knows you well; or consider that you have a number of ex-girlfriends or ex-boyfriends who are more than willing to say why you weren’t perfect. But I would hope that you wouldn’t have to look that far. Instead, I would hope that you would see that the same problems that we complain about as prevailing in the world also exist in you, although on a smaller scale. The same rage that leads nations to war is in you. You may never harm another person physically, but that doesn’t mean that you are exempt from that rage. Maybe overall you are overall a fairly calm individual, but don’t tell me that there haven’t been moments when your anger just bubbled up to the surface and you vented it. We could say the same about all the other attitudes that lie behind open rebellion, sexual misconduct, thievery and robbery, and every other vice that we don’t like on the grand scale.

            Nearly two thousand years of life after Easter hasn’t brought evil to an end, inside or outside of the Christian church. We continue to stand in need of God’s forgiveness. We continue to need the words spoken by Jesus, “Peace be with you.” We continue to need the wounds of Jesus on “His hands and His side.” Yes, we continue to meditate on them, to poke and to prod, for “by His wounds have we been made whole.” Easter does not end our need for a Savior. Instead, Easter proclaims that our Savior has triumphed.

            But Christ does more than forgive us. He commissions the church, especially her pastors, to forgive sins wherever Christ Himself would forgive our sins. Thus, Christ sends the church on a mission, just as He Himself was sent by the Father. The Father sent Him to make atonement for the sins of the world. Christ now commissions us to bring the benefits of that atonement to wherever it is needed and to proclaim His Word so that people can come to faith in Him and so be saved.

            It is with that mission in mind that our Lord imparts the Holy Spirit. Note why our Lord says that He is doing this. It isn’t so that we can roll around in the pews or do other crazy antics. It is all about forgiveness and withholding forgiveness. Let me start with the latter. There are times when the church (and her pastors) must withhold forgiveness. Given that this is mentioned last, you would (rightly) assume that this is less common than imparting forgiveness. But there are still times when we must withhold forgiveness. It has nothing to do with us adopting a peevish attitude or bearing a grudge toward someone. Rather, when people are unrepentant, we cannot give them God’s forgiveness. They don’t want it, anyway, and it would be pointless to give it to them. Instead, they would come to think that God’s forgiveness is a meaningless phrase, rather than something won at great cost—the cost of our Lord’s life.

            Therefore, we explain God’s Law carefully so that everyone will know how holy God is and what sort of things He expects out of us. When we hear this Law, we should be moved to see ourselves as sinners who need forgiveness or else we will be doomed forever. When we see ourselves for who we are—a microcosm of the world’s problems, as I mentioned before—then the good news of the forgiveness of sins makes sense. More than that, we desperately want it and greatly appreciate it when it is offered.

            Moreover, we will see that the thing that most radically transforms people and entire societies is understanding that they have been forgiven by God for Christ’s sake. Don’t accept any substitute for that wonderful gift. Don’t substitute self-forgiveness for God’s forgiveness. You hear people saying, “You’ve got to learn to forgive yourself.” Poppycock. Only a self-centered, self-indulgent egomaniac would have the gall to forgive himself or herself. Such forgiveness would actually be a grave sin. But God’s forgiveness—that’s what we really want. We want none other than the Creator of the universe to say that our sins have been dealt with once and for all, and we are now innocent before Him. And when He forgives our sins, we can look forward to the future. We are no longer bound by our past sins. Instead we are marked with the new life that He gives us. We are free to walk in new paths of righteousness rather than in the well-worn trails of evil. We can strive to live as children of God, not because we have achieved perfection or soon will, but because we live with God’s favor and good will.

            The church exists, therefore, as something distinct from all other entities in society. We are not about educating, networking, creating technology, organizing activities, providing entertainment, or doing any of 1001 other such activities. Individual Christians may have callings to do those things, but that is not the church’s mission. Instead, we provide the forgiveness of sins. It is as simple as that—and as radical as that.

            So far I have talked about what the church and especially her pastors do. But how are individual Christians supposed to respond? Here we look at the second time that our risen Lord appeared to the disciples. From that incident we learn that we are to live by faith, not by sight.

            When our Lord rose from the dead, He did not continuously stay with His disciples. He appeared to them now and then until forty days after His resurrection, when He removed Himself entirely from their sight for good. He had a good reason for doing this. For the previous three years they had shared all their waking moments with Him. They had eaten their meals together, wandered from town to town together, stayed in the same homes together—in short, done everything together. But our Lord wanted them to know that He would still be with them, although they would not see Him as before. And so He popped in and out several times. When He came, He reminded them that He would always be with them and would leave His peace with them. When He disappeared, He was getting them used to living by faith, not by sight.

            Unfortunately, Thomas did not understand this truth. He was used to the old way of “seeing is believing.” He had to see Jesus before he would believe in Him. More than that, he demanded the right to poke and prod to see that it really was Jesus. The Greek is rather blunt about what Thomas was asking. He didn’t just ask to “place [his] finger into the mark of the nails.” More accurately, you might translate it that he wanted to “thrust” it there.

            Jesus warned Thomas—and us—not to put aside God’s Word in order to demand something “better” or “more trustworthy.” The Word is all that we have. Few people in world history would be privileged to see the wounds of Christ. Instead most of humanity would have to rely on His Word as it was preached by His pastors throughout the centuries. But Jesus said that that Word was sufficient. As Jesus noted elsewhere, people really don’t believe even when they see something miraculous. Yes, even if someone were to come back from the dead, it wouldn’t mean that people would get over their skepticism. Either people believe that Word or they don’t. That is the way it has to be until Christ returns in glory.

            Beloved in Christ, our Lord has spoken through the apostles this word of forgiveness. May you take it to heart and believe and so be blessed. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Sermon for Lent 1B, February 22, 2015

Text: Mark 1:9-15

            Beloved in Christ, today’s Gospel may disappoint us if we are familiar with what Matthew and Luke tell of the same incident. Mark simply tells us that Jesus was tempted for forty days in the wilderness. He doesn’t bother to tell us what those temptations were. Matthew and Luke fill in the details. They tell us that Jesus was tempted to change stones into bread, to jump from the pinnacle of the temple, and to bow down to Satan. In each temptation Jesus was challenged to do these things to prove that He truly was God’s beloved Son. And in each instance Jesus quoted the Scriptures to refute Satan.

            Yes, Matthew and Luke have much more to say than does Mark. And yet today’s Gospel offers us a rich feast to digest, if we are but open to hear it. We see three vignettes: before, during, and after our Lord’s temptation. Let us look at what is happening in each situation.

            First of all, we see that before His temptation our Lord was given a Word by His Father. God said to Him, “You are My beloved Son; with You I am well pleased.” Before there can be any temptation, God must have spoken. Either God must have commanded us to do or not do something or He must have promised that He would do something for us. But if we have not received either a word of His law or of His gospel, there is not any way for us to be tempted. Brute animals have neither God’s commandments nor His promises. They cannot be tempted in the way we are. But every human being has the law of God written in their hearts, and this law is loudly proclaimed by our conscience. Therefore, every human being can be tempted, for we have that word of law, if nothing else, from God. But Christ knew more than just God’s law. He had this clear promise that He was God’s beloved Son, in whom His Father delighted.

            Now often when God speaks His Word to us, we feel spiritually strong and are overjoyed to hear that Word. This is the moment of glory before we enter into the wilderness to be tested. When Christ heard the good words spoken by His Father and saw the Holy Spirit descend upon Him, He must have been filled with joy. At last, His ministry was under way. He felt close to God, as close as He had ever been, and He was surely willing to march through any wilderness. He was unbeatable. But all this would be sorely tested when He was banished to a desolate place. In the same way we too delight to hear God’s Word in this church. We leave here, having been forgiven all of last week’s sins, and we are eager to take on the challenges that lie ahead of us. There is no foe that can stand before us, or so we think. This is the pattern of the saints throughout history. Abraham heard God promise that He would give him a child through his wife Sarah. And “Abraham believed God.” It was as simple as that. But in the moment of testing, that word seems to be taken from us. God seems to be not as reliable as He had appeared initially to be.

            And so it is not going to be here that we face our greatest temptations. Instead we face them when we leave this oasis and return to the wilderness of the world. There the sweet promises of God seem to be absent and His commandments seem to be irrelevant to daily living in a modern world. And so the Word of God we had just heard is directly challenged. If we truly are God’s beloved children, then why has He given such archaic rules to follow? Well, okay, maybe His law is good, but surely we have to admit that the times require us to take certain shortcuts, right? Maybe we can make up for the damage we’ve done later. And if we are God’s beloved children, why does He not fulfill all His promises quickly? Why do we suffer? Why do we grieve? Why are we lonely?

            Our Lord faced a similar challenge, but an even deeper one. You see, we are sinners and we have to admit that we have brought much of our grief upon ourselves. But Christ was the holy Son of God. Why then was He driven into the wilderness, by the Holy Spirit no less? He was the Lord of creation. Why then were the wild animals all around Him, possibly roaring or threatening Him somehow? Why wasn’t “the desert [blossoming] like the crocus” and showing all “the glory of Lebanon,” as Scripture had foretold? Was it fair for Him to be treated worse than a slave when He was the Son of God?

            But if you look more carefully, you see that all is not as it appears. Yes, Christ was in the wilderness, but He did not die there. Yes, He was surrounded by the wild animals, but He was not harmed by them. And He was not alone. The holy angels were there. They did not just stand from a distance and watch. They “were ministering to Him.” And so the wilderness was not as horrible as it might have seemed. He was still with God. He still had His Father’s promises. And our Lord clung to them.

            Christ knew that the Holy Spirit wanted Him there so that He could obediently cling to God’s Word in a way that all other human beings had failed to do. It doesn’t take much of a wilderness experience for us to succumb to sin. But Christ “was in the wilderness forty days.” He was not tested by his peers or by a demon of a lower rank, but by Satan himself. He endured this testing and clung to God’s Word because He was learning obedience. He had always been the holy Son of God from eternity. But now He was experiencing this profound testing in His body, indeed, a fiercer test than you or I or anyone else has ever undergone. Because He passed this test, He was then able to go on and suffer and die on the cross, so that our sins could be forgiven. If He had not been perfectly holy, including during this time of intense temptation, He would not have been qualified to be our Savior. Sinners cannot save other sinners. Only someone completely holy can save us. And just as gold cannot be discerned as true gold until it has gone through the fire and been tested, so He could not save us until He had shown that He was who He said He was: the eternal, righteous Son of God in human flesh.

            Christ learned to trust His Father in all things as He was driven into the wilderness to be tested. Let us also learn to trust God in all things as we find ourselves tested in our wildernesses. Yes, the Word seems to be absent there, but it is not. For Christ has gone into our wildernesses and He is with us as we are being tested. He has won the victory over sin. He has atoned for our guilt. He has reconciled us with His Father. Therefore, He bids us open our eyes and see what is really happening. Angels are with us, ministering to us. The wild animals are being held at bay and kept from devouring us. It may not be a pleasant place to be in the wilderness, but it is still a place where God is. And if we remember that and cling to God’s promises, we will be victorious.

            Today’s gospel doesn’t end there, though. Not only did our Lord win the victory when He was in the wilderness, He was empowered by the experience to begin His ministry and to do so with great vigor. It didn’t matter that John the Baptist had been arrested. Nobody could stop our Lord now. He proclaimed that God’s kingdom was at hand; this was the time that everybody had been looking forward to during the days of the Old Testament.

            Our Lord added the words, “Repent and believe in the gospel.” Above all else, this is what He wanted people to know after His wilderness experience. He had resisted temptation, not just to give us an example, but to make up for all that we had done wrong. We learn the wrong lesson from today’s Gospel if all we learn is to handle temptation better. Of course, I want you to learn how to handle temptation better. I don’t want you falling for the devil’s lies again and again. I want you to learn from your past mistakes, and I want you to vow to cling to God’s Word better and really strive to do so. But that in and of itself won’t make you a Christian. Christians know that they have not been perfect. They have yielded to temptation far too often. They cannot make up for their sins. Instead, they trust in Christ as their Savior from all their sins.

            You see, the real strength comes not when we turn away from the tempter, but when turn to Jesus Christ. Only then do we truly enter God’s kingdom and experience all that He has prepared for us.

            Beloved in Christ, may you cling to your Savior whether you are here in this church or stuck out in the wilderness of life. For Christ in due time will bring you through the wilderness into the Promised Land that He has prepared for you by His holy life, death, and resurrection. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Sermon for Ash Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Text: Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

            Beloved in Christ, something has gone wrong. That is why we are here. We are not the sort of people God would have us be. We are cold in our love toward God and toward our neighbors. If we are religious, it is often because we want to “be praised by others.” If we are going to do any good works, we want to “receive” the full credit of our “reward.” We are wicked all too often, and when we are not, we are often hypocrites. And so let no trumpet be sounded today. For we have “[laid] up…treasures on earth,” and “moth and rust [have destroyed]” them.

            But how do we get out of ourselves? It is tempting to look for new laws and new rules and new disciplines that will free us from sin and wickedness. We in America are particularly prone to this temptation. We have self-help books, life coaches, and the like, all of which claim to be able to set us free from ingrained vices. And the law and various rules and disciplines are not without their value. Our Lord spent the chapter before today’s Gospel exploring most of the Ten Commandments. Furthermore, our Lord commends the disciplines of almsgiving and fasting in today’s gospel. And so our Lord does not reject the law as useless, nor does He reject spiritual disciplines as something useless for Christians. But our Lord knows that more is required than just the law.

A medieval Fastentuch portraying the Passion of our Lord
(Fastentuch is a German word referring to a Lenten
shroud placed over the retable of an altar to indicate
that Lent had begun and it was time for all to fast)

            This is where we tend to go astray. We like to have seven easy principles or five simple laws. We try to reduce things to the minimum and then live our lives based on them. But Christ delved into the Ten Commandments. He didn’t just treat them as simple rules, but wise precepts that bear investigation and meditation. He knew that shallow treatment of each commandment makes shallow disciples.

            Similarly, our Lord knew that His disciples would adopt various spiritual disciplines. The Ten Commandments do not tell us in so many words to give alms or fast. And yet the phrase “You shall not murder” implies caring for our neighbor and the words “You shall have no other gods” implies avoiding gluttony. In that context, it would be natural to embrace such disciplines as almsgiving and fasting. But even these spiritual works are prone to be misused. There is no spiritual discipline that is so good and holy that it cannot be twisted into something wicked by our hypocrisy, love of attention, and other vices.

            The law will never make us perfect Christians. The only thing that can do so is the love of God in Christ Jesus. It is the gospel—the good news that Jesus Christ is God’s Son and our Savior—that sets us free from our vain selves. And so during this Lenten season our goal is not to strive harder to be holier, but rather to steep ourselves in the love of Jesus Christ. We will meditate upon Christ’s holy life and His innocent suffering and death on the cross. And we will prepare to celebrate His glorious resurrection from the dead that imparts His forgiveness to us and guarantees our own resurrection to life and holiness on the Last Day.

            Wherever this good news is proclaimed, the Holy Spirit is at work, creating faith in our hearts that trusts in Christ Jesus and all He has done. And wherever the Holy Spirit creates faith, He also brings other gifts. Just as a healthy tree bears good fruit, so the Holy Spirit’s presence in us bears His fruit. We call it the “fruit of the Spirit.” (This Lent we will be looking at the fruit of the Spirit in our midweek services.) Saint Paul talks about this in Galatians 5, where he warns his readers not to do “the works of the flesh,” but instead to enjoy “the fruit of the Spirit.” Notice the contrast between the two—and I mean more than just that the one is evil and the other good. The phrase “works of the flesh” is plural, but the “fruit of the Spirit” is singular. Wickedness comes in a variety of forms, but goodness is all related. And so when we think of the various items listed as “the fruit of the Spirit,” we should understand them as all facets of the same fruit.

            Furthermore, there is a contrast between “works” and “fruit.” We don’t say that an apple tree works to produce apples. Instead, we know that if an apple tree is healthy and is old enough, it is going to produces apples quite naturally. By the same token, wherever the Holy Spirit is at work bringing people to faith and steeping them in God’s Word, you naturally will see such things as “love, joy, peace, patience,” and the other virtues listed in Galatians 5. Far from being coerced by the law or pummeled out of us by our spiritual disciplines, these virtues flow naturally wherever we take the gospel seriously.

            Tonight, then, let us briefly consider the first aspect of the fruit of the Spirit, namely, “love.” It is the absence of love that creates all our problems. It is why we turn against God and others. It is why we prefer the road of hypocrisy, for we really do not want to love God. Even when we seek the approval of others, we don’t want to love them. No, we just want them to do good things for us without any obligation on our part to them. In fact, we don’t even necessarily want to receive their love, for that might mean we might have to love them in return.

            To break through our loveless attitude, God showed great love to us. He became as involved in humanity as He could be. The Son of God took on our flesh; the Father and the Holy Spirit fully approved of what the Son had done and blessed His ministry all the way. And when Christ had completed His dying and rising for us, God brought us near to Himself by baptism and communion. Lovelessness begets lovelessness; love begets love. And so those who have experienced God’s love in Christ Jesus and know the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit love. Love is the natural fruit of this gospel of love.

            And so, beloved in Christ, as we begin this Lenten journey, do so under the shadow of God’s love. And may that love shape you in the weeks to come to be even more loving. In Jesus’ name. Amen.