Sermon preached at Concordia University Chicago, January 20, 2015

Text: 1 Samuel 3:1-10, the Old Testament reading for Epiphany 2B

            Beloved in Christ, I know the sort of sermon you are expecting to hear today, for I have heard countless people expound on this particular passage. The sermon should go something like this: “Are you living in obedience to the voice of God? What are you doing to recognize His voice so that you can then follow His instructions? If you need help, here are three sure-fire ways for you to discern God’s will.” And then the sermon would go on to outline the plan. The preacher might recommend such things as blocking out all external stimuli and hushing all thoughts until you finally hear the voice of God speaking to you.

            Mystics and other legalists have a field day with this passage. Those who live by the law rather than by the gospel are quick to use this passage as proof positive that we must strive toward God so that we can have this wonderful, intimate experience as Samuel did. But, as always, the mystics and other legalists miss the point. This is not about Samuel shaping up and getting his life together. It is about God coming to His people.

            His people were a total mess at the time. The active priests were vile and corrupt. They stole from the sacrifices and seduced women who came to worship. The retired high priest, Eli, was too old and tired to do anything about it. The judges, who should have stepped in, had offered only limited help. Each judge seemed to be a tad weaker and less devout than his predecessor. Most of the people, consequently, lived in ignorance and idolatry. There were some godly people, to be sure, such as Samuel’s parents, but even they suffered under the horrible spiritual conditions of that day. But worst of all was the fact that God was silent. God had nothing to say to wicked people who had spurned His repeated call to repentance. And so “the word of the Lord was rare in those days.”

           But who broke the silence? God or Samuel? Who breaks the silence today? Does God or do we? The answer from 1 Samuel is clear: it is God who speaks first. He searches us out when we do not even know how to look for Him. He speaks even though we do not know how to respond to His words, even when we confuse His voice with the clamor of the world around us. But He keeps speaking, because that is what He has been doing since the dawn of time, ever since He called the world into existence by His voice.

            By Samuel’s day God had already spoken through Moses and ordered the first five books of the Bible to be written down. Other than that, there was little in the way of divine revelation. But, oh, how God has spoken to us! “In these last days He has spoken to us by His Son.” The Word did not remain a mere whisper from heaven, but took on our flesh and dwelt among us. He was God’s full revelation to us, not just when He preached lofty words on a mountain, but when He took on our frailties, was wrongly condemned, was crucified, and rose on the third day from the dead. And He is still present with us, “even to the end of the age.”

            Consequently we cannot say that “the Word of the Lord” is “rare” in our days, for our Lord has given us an abundance of His words in the Scriptures. We do not have to do what the mystics do and try to find God through some effort of ours. No, He is near us, as near as near can be, wherever His words (the Scriptures) are read and proclaimed. Therefore, let us learn from Samuel what to do whenever we hear the words of the Scripture. In other words, let us join Samuel in saying, "Speak, for Your servant hears." In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Sermon on the Confession of Saint Peter, January 18, 2015

Texts: Acts 4:8-13; 2 Peter 1:1-15; and Mark 8:27-35.

            Beloved in Christ, we love reading the first paragraph of today’s gospel. Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ and is commended for his confession. And then Jesus says that Peter can keep mum about our Lord’s real identity. We love that approach. We too confessed our faith in Jesus when we were confirmed. The pastor praised us as good students and allowed us to take communion for the first time. And now that is all over with. We can sit down, relax, and enjoy a nice retirement from having to learn the faith and confess it. Because we confessed our faith once, we can now keep mum.

            But if you read the entire New Testament, you see that that is not the case. Yes, there were a number of times when Jesus ordered people to keep quiet, but that was because He had not yet completed His ministry and people were bound to misunderstand it. Once He had been crucified and raised from the dead, then people would see the totality of His ministry and then it would be appropriate to talk openly about His being the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One sent by God. But until then our Lord asked people to keep quiet, since He knew that a little knowledge could be more dangerous than ignorance. But once His earthly ministry was over with, it was no longer time to keep mum. He poured out the Holy Spirit upon the church on Pentecost, and since the church is not to be silent. No, we are to confess Jesus as the Christ again and again.

            Today I would like to look at three aspects of confessing the Christian faith, as described in today’s readings. First of all, if we take our task seriously, we will have to deepen our confession of faith. It isn’t that we set aside what we have confessed before. No, we underscore what we have said previously and we go even deeper into those matters than we had done previously.

            Consider Peter’s confession in the first paragraph. It was spot on. Jesus wasn’t John the Baptist. How could He be, since John had baptized Him? He wasn’t Elijah come down in a fiery chariot. He wasn’t an ordinary prophet. No, He was the Christ, the one especially sent by God. As far as who Jesus was, you couldn’t beat Peter’s confession. But just because Peter knew who Jesus was, it didn’t follow that he knew what Jesus was supposed to do. Jesus tried to explain God’s plan for Himself, but it all sounded as nonsense to Peter. He didn’t want to embarrass Jesus and so he tried to correct Him privately. In return, Jesus rebuked Peter and said that he had a satanic understanding of what the Messiah would do. He told him to get with the program, to stop thinking the way most people do and to start seeing things the way that God does.

            You, like Peter, need to go deeper. Do you believe in God and confess that there is only one God? Good. Deepen your knowledge by learning to confess that there are three Persons in one Godhead. Do you believe that Jesus Christ is true God and true man in one person? Good. Deepen your knowledge by learning why He came as the true God-man, namely, to be your Savior and the atoning sacrifice for your sin. Do you believe that He came two thousand years ago, died, and rose from the dead? Good. Deepen your knowledge and learn of His glorious return some day in the future. Do you believe that God forgives your sins? Good. Deepen your knowledge and learn of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, both of which were instituted to convey that forgiveness.

            That is the point Peter is making in his second epistle. It is fine to have faith in Almighty God and in the Christ whom He has sent. But Peter does not envision some kind of lackadaisical faith that is stagnant and immature. No, he wants an excellent faith, and so he urges us to “supplement your faith with excellence”—“excellence” is a better translation than mere “virtue”—and to have that excellent faith grounded in “knowledge.” He goes on to describe other outgrowths of faith: “self-control,” “steadfastness,” “godliness,” “brotherly affection,” and “love.” In each of these instances Peter shows that faith in Christ is not shallow or lazy. Those who refuse to grow in this way show that they are “so nearsighted” so as to be “blind, having forgotten that [they were] cleansed from [their] former sins.” This is how you “make your calling and election sure, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall.”

            However, that faith doesn’t just need to be deepened, but it also needs to be confessed repeatedly, which is the second truth we learn from today’s readings. As we look at Peter’s life, we see that he didn’t just make the confession the one time. Yes, for a while he was told not to repeat that confession until Christ could complete His work. But that would have given him a break for a year or maybe even just a few months. But after Christ completed His work, Peter began confessing the faith again and again.

            We see that in today’s first reading, where Peter confessed who Jesus Christ was. That is Acts chapter 4. But we could go back a couple of chapters and see that Peter made a big confession of faith on Pentecost Sunday. And we could go forward a chapter and see him making another confession of faith in Acts 5. He will go on to give similar confessions of faith in Acts 8, 10, 11, and 15. In other words, wherever we find Peter in the book of Acts, we discover him confessing the faith.

            Peter shows what it means to be a Christian. The Christian Church confesses her faith in Jesus Christ not just once, but as often as she can. Unfortunately, we all have the tendency to rest on our laurels. We praise our forebears for being orthodox and making an excellent confession of faith in difficult times. But sometimes we assume that because we are personally orthodox in our faith that their confession of faith long ago suffices. We don’t have to repeat it aloud again, but just say, “Ditto.” But every generation of Christians is called to confess “the faith once delivered to the saints.”

            It is particularly important now when we live in a post-Christian society. Not everyone believes in Christ or even knows about Him. Even at a Christian university, such as where I teach, not everyone knows some very basic things about Christianity. That was underscored this past week. Early on in my course I show my students how various tools such as concordances and Bible dictionaries can help us understand a passage in the Bible. So I have my students summarize the parable of the prodigal son, since these tools can help us capture some nuances that are commonly overlooked. I choose this parable since most of them (even the non-religious students) are likely to know it. In fact, if someone knows only one parable of Jesus, this is likely to be the one they know. But after one of my students told the parable fairly well, another student raised his hand and asked for some details to be clarified about that parable, since by his own admission he had never heard it before. I’m sure that he was not the first student not to know it, but he was the first to admit as much.

            Well, one of the reasons we are in the situation we are today is that we didn’t confess the faith adequately in decades gone by. People assumed that the young folks would pick up the faith from the culture at large or in school or on their own. There wasn’t a big effort to say exactly what it was that we believed and why. We might have talked about the advantages of joining our church instead of the church down the street, but we assumed that everyone knew the Bible and believed in Christ. But in a post-Christian society like ours, we don’t have that luxury any more. We have to assume that people do not know who Jesus Christ is. We will also have to assume that what little they know about Christianity is probably all distorted, anyway. And so we will need to confess the faith to people inside the church and outside of it. We cannot assume people know the faith or know it well or accurately. We are going to have to be patient and carefully explain the faith. We may have to do so a number of times before it makes sense to someone, which is why we must also cultivate a loving relationship with others, so that we can be heard.

            And now we come to a third consideration. We have already noted that we need to deepen our confession and repeat it often. But as we do so, we acknowledge that confessing our faith will be the death of us. This is a point that Jesus made in the last paragraph of today’s gospel, where He called us to “deny [ourselves] and take up [our] cross and follow [Him].”

            Whenever we confess Jesus Christ to be our Savior, we are denying ourselves in some way. We are crucifying our sinful self, which does not want to admit that we need a Savior. And it is not just death within that we face, but death from without. When we confess that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world and all the articles of faith that flow from that statement, we will be rejected by those around us, at least to some degree. The world doesn’t want a Savior any more than our sinful flesh does. And so confessing the faith may lead to us being rejected at the very least; in some extreme circumstances it may even get us killed, as has happened to many of our brothers and sisters around the globe.

            But if we are hesitant to confess the faith, our Lord assures us that this is actually the best way to save our lives. If we try to keep mum so as to “save” ourselves, it will only harm us in the end. But if are willing to risk even our lives by confessing Christ, we are assured that nothing will separate us from God and His love in Christ. So our confession of faith kills us, but it also gives us life—and that abundantly.

            And so, beloved in Christ, confirmation day cannot be the last time we confess the Christian faith. May we learn from Peter to deepen our faith, confess it often, and embrace the life it gives! In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Sermon for the Baptism of our Lord, January 11, 2015

            Romans 6:1-11: What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

            For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

            Beloved in Christ, everyone is looking for fifteen minutes of fame. We’ve been promised as much. We’ve been told that it is our only hope and consolation in a world crowded with billions of people: the chance of someone seeing us on TV and being recognized as someone special while for the rest of the time we live anonymous, forgettable lives. And yet we know that we may not get fifteen minutes. It may be more like fifteen seconds. We fear that those fifteen seconds will show us clad in our pajamas and with disheveled hair as we scratch our stomach and say to the camera, “Well, I told the officer that I saw someone running through the alley who matched the description.”

            How awful it is to live and die without our lives ever mattering! And so we turn to all sorts of things to prove that we really do matter and that we have value. Think of how much we identify with a particular job or sports team or TV show or author or video game. We want to be known as the number one Doctor Who fan or the person who can rattle off all the statistics for our football team. Or we try to be the wittiest person on Facebook. We try to have some quirk that makes us special and unique. But we soon discover that someone else is quirkier than we are. You’ve collected all the baseball cards of every player for the Cubs or White Sox for the past fifty years, but you discover that someone else has done that and collected all the player’s autographs as well.

            We want to be someone special, but it is not easy. And that is why so often we turn to sin. Every temptation tells us, “Here is a way to make yourself feel loved and special.” Temptation says, “Use God’s name to curse; it will make you feel more important than the chumps who believe in keeping it holy. Or mouth off to people in authority, for that will make you feel all grown up and in control. Or have that little fling because that will make you feel loved for a while. Lie, steal, and cheat your way to the top, because success is the only thing that counts and it doesn’t matter how you come by it.” Now temptation never delivers on its promises, which makes us feel worse than before. We have lost our dignity or broken our heart or alienated others by our behavior. And so sin doesn’t give us the happiness it has promised, but leaves us more miserable than before.

            But how can our lives matter? What if we were part of something so much greater than ourselves? Think of all the people who lived through the Great Depression and served in World War II. They were called “the Greatest Generation” and are held in awe by us who followed. We honor even the lowliest grunt in the army or navy because they were part of something awesome. But, of course, we do not live in such times. (Thank God we don’t have to risk life and limb the way they did!) But it would have been nice to have been part of a momentous event in world history, so as to say, “I was there. I participated in it.”

            Well, we can say that. You see, we have been united with Christ and His baptism, death, burial, and resurrection. We have taken part in the most pivotal events of world history. We are no mere bystanders, but by virtue of our baptism and Christ’s baptism we have died, been buried, and been raised by God along with Christ. You don’t have to become the number one fan of one thing or another to matter. You have been united with the Lord of the universe, the almighty Son of God. The death He died to sin we died too. The resurrection He experienced we experienced too.

            It all began because Christ was baptized. Yes, there had been plenty of people baptized before our Lord was. But they were all baptized so that God could work repentance in them and forgive their sins. John’s baptism was all in anticipation of what Christ would do. John’s baptism meant nothing in itself. Only because Christ would come with the power of the Holy Spirit would any baptism have any meaning.

            And Christ showed that He was the one for whom John was looking. As He left the water, the Holy Spirit came upon Him in the form of a dove, showing that He had been anointed by Almighty God. And then God the Father spoke, “You are my beloved Son; with You I am well pleased.” Together the testimony of the Father and the Holy Spirit showed that Jesus was not being baptized for the same reason other people were. No, Jesus was the Son of God. Jesus entirely pleased His Father. There were no sins for which He needed forgiveness. Instead He had a holy mission now from His Father.

            Everyone previously had been baptized in the hope that someone like Jesus would come. And everyone baptized thereafter has been baptized because He has come. But if Christ was holy, why did He bother getting baptized? Everybody else in world history who has been baptized has done so in the hopes of receiving the forgiveness of sins. But why should a sinless Savior be baptized? The answer is that Christ was marking Himself as our Savior. We are baptized because we need a Savior. Christ was baptized because He is our Savior and wants to take on our burden. In baptism we wash our sins into the water. Our Lord then steps into the waters made filthy by our sin and takes that sludge upon Himself. And then Christ pours forth His righteousness into the waters, making them a holy washing. And we enter the waters of baptism and find His holiness washing onto us.

            But Christ’s baptism was not just a simple action with no greater consequences. The moment He stepped into the Jordan River He was marked for death. Up until that point He had been true God and true Man and He had lived a righteous life. All of that was good, but it didn’t benefit us in any way. He was living as a good God ought to do, but it doesn’t help us that God is righteous if we are not. If anything, it drives home all the more how guilty and culpable we are before Him. There is an unbridgeable chasm between the righteous God and us horrible sinners. But in baptism Christ identified with us. In effect He said that He was signing up for man’s responsibility, even if it meant death.

            Thus, Christ’s baptism guaranteed His death and the glorious resurrection that followed. But here is a twist. Because our baptism is connected with Christ’s baptism, it also means death to us followed by a resurrection. That is the point that Paul makes in today’s epistle. Some people think that we are baptized, forgiven, and that’s that. We can go back to living like utter pigs. But Paul says that that is impossible. We have been baptized. We have died to sin, just as Christ died bearing the guilt of our sin. We have come alive to righteousness, just as Christ rose from the dead to experience a glorious return to life. We cannot live in the old ways or refuse to live in the new ones. Otherwise we would be denying the most important thing that happened to us—our fifteen seconds that actually turned into a lifetime of meaning.

            Let me be careful here. I do not want to give a false impression. There are two errors we can make when we discuss life after baptism. One error is to say that it changes nothing. That is the error that Paul is refuting here. But another error is to say that it changes us so drastically that we can never sin again but instead live completely perfect lives. If that were the case, there would have been no reason for Paul to admonish the Romans not to yield their bodies to sin. Paul understands that sin is a real live possibility for us Christians, even after our baptism. In fact, temptation may start to work overtime. But, of course, Paul is talking here more to people who don’t even try to avoid sin. He reminds them that there is something substantial that has taken place. We have undergone a death-and-life experience and are never the same. Yes, we will reach perfection only when we die and are raised on the Last Day. But still we have begun to live a new life because we have died with Christ and risen with Him.

            It is interesting that both these errors encourage people to live their lives on autopilot. Those who say baptism changes nothing say that there is nothing that needs to change. Those who say baptism changes them into perfect people say that there is no need to take the call of the Christian life seriously since they believe that they’re already doing it automatically. And that is why Christians have to hear the Law of God again and again. We have to be reminded of what is right and what is wrong because we are prone to get lazy and forget such things over time. Yes, we even have to be rebuked by the Law because we are just as apt to choose evil as good. And so we dare not think that we have reached perfection or soon will.

            At the same time, though, we need to take the gospel promises of baptism even more seriously. Here is real forgiveness and new life. Here we have been united with Christ so much so that “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” We will fail many times in many ways as we try to follow Christ, but God will forgive us our sins, for we have been baptized into Christ and given His forgiveness.

            But what does this mean for our daily lives? First, we can face life boldly, for we are in Christ. We are not haunted by our failures or our sins. We are righteous before God. What confidence and joy that thought gives! Moreover, we are part of history, indeed the biggest event of history. That means we have more than just fifteen seconds or fifteen minutes or even fifteen years allotted to us that really count. No, our whole being counts, for we have been united with Christ. Our life-story is part of the greatest story ever told, the heart of world history. And so my prayer, beloved in Christ, is that you will enjoy this gift of salvation that imparts meaning to your life. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Sermon for the Feast of the Holy Innocents, Martyrs, December 28, 2014

            Matthew 2:13-18: When [the wise men] had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

            Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah: “A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.”

  

          Beloved in Christ: You can tell a lot about a society by the way that it treats its children. Are children allowed to play for long hours and even go to school year after year? They probably live in a wealthier country that can afford to keep children out of the labor force for a while. Are children compelled to start working at a young age? They probably live in a society where starvation always looms on the horizon and every hand is needed to take care of the crops, if there will be enough food for every mouth.

            What, then, are we going to say about the society where Herod was king? He murders all the children under two in a small village. Granted, there were probably only a couple hundred people living in Bethlehem, and his soldiers may have murdered at most only half a dozen or ten boys in the whole village. But it is the ruthlessness of Herod that shocks us, not the numbers slain. We can understand that a king would try to kill an adult rival. We wouldn’t approve, to be sure, but we can at least understand such an action. But why should an old man like Herod murder children? Even if one of these children would grow up to be a threat to the throne, Herod would have been dead by that time.

            Of course, Herod didn’t even value the children in his own family. He had two of his sons put to death because he feared they were plotting a coup against him. (In all fairness to Herod, they probably were.) This prompted people to say that it was safer to be Herod’s swine than his son. You see, he wouldn’t ever kill his swine because he wouldn’t eat pork, but he did kill two of his own children. Herod’s killing of children, therefore, showed what he was all about: he loved power and would hurt anyone, I mean anyone, who got in his way.

            What can we say about our society? How do we treat children today? It may seem that we are a very loving society because we give our children every sort of gift imaginable. But that may merely indicate that we have mistaken indulgence for love, or that we are so incredibly rich that we don’t know what to do with our wealth. Moreover, there are several facts that indicate that we may not be so loving to our children, after all, despite our lavish gifts. For example, we suffer far more profoundly from addictive behavior than much poorer nations that give their children far less. Addictions are not a sign that one feels very loved. And we see again and again that parents who are disappointed with their own failures pushing their children to excel in areas that the kids really do not want to.

            And then there are the grimmer facts: the children who are abused, abducted, and/or murdered; the children who are forced into prostitution; the children who are harassed or enticed into joining gangs; and the children who are murdered while still in the womb because they would be an inconvenience. Every so often we are tempted to shake our heads in dismay at the way children are exploited in far off countries. But don’t some of the same things happen here? We are troubled by child soldiers fighting half a world away. We know that young adults recruit ten to twelve year olds because they are easily manipulated and can be turned into effective killing machines. But shouldn’t we be equally troubled by the children being recruited into the armies of our streets known as gangs? We are troubled by child prostitutes in such places as Thailand. But don’t we recognize that Western tourists are their chief clients? And don’t we understand that many runaways, male and female alike, are forced into prostitution in our own land? Herod would be at home wherever he went in the world today.

            So what do we do in a world where children such as the Holy Innocents suffer at the hands of Herod? The only hope for the world—children and adults like—is found in the Christ child who escaped the clutches of Herod. He is the Wholly (W-H-O-L-L-Y) Innocent who redeems us and makes us the beloved children of God, His Holy (H-O-L-Y) Innocents.

            Christ, the Wholly Innocent One, was subjected to the same perils that children too often are. He experienced the shame of being thought to be the illegitimate child of Mary and Joseph. He was forced to flee from those who would kill him. He endured profound poverty. He was a refugee and an exile. But He did more than endure these hardships. He atoned for those who perpetrate these wicked acts. He died on the cross for murderous Herod and for all who have been cruel to children. He took upon Himself all the vileness of humanity that so often appears most cruelly in its actions toward children.

            We are people who have come to know about that redemption. We know that God forgives our sins and that God has given us a new life in Christ. We also know that God heals all our hurts from childhood. But what should we do now? If we take the message seriously, we should protect those who are the most vulnerable, especially children. Our Lord Himself has warned that it would be better for people to go swimming with a giant millstone around their neck than to harm the little ones.

            If you have children, love them deeply and profoundly. I’m not asking you to indulge them or make yourself broke by getting them the most expensive toys. Love them instead. Seek what is in their best interest rather than in yours. Protect them from those who would hurt them, both physically and spiritually. Give of yourself to them and do so freely. Don’t always expect your children to turn out a certain way since God gives a variety of temperaments, personalities and abilities to people.

            And let us ignore the best thing we can do for children, and that is to guide them to Jesus. We did this earlier this morning when we baptized Joseph and Savannah. We didn’t wait until they might start asking about Jesus. No, we brought them to Christ as early as possible, for God’s love and mercy extends even to the little ones. Just as they shared in humanity’s sin, for we are all born selfish, so through the holy baptism they share in our salvation. Of course, this is just the beginning of their life with God. They will be instructed further about Christ throughout their lifetime. But we should love our children enough so that they begin this rich life with Jesus as early as possible.

            Now what about us who do not have small children? Well, we can still speak up for the children around us. We should be good uncles and aunts, grandparents and neighbors. When our culture neglects or harms its children, we have to speak up. Because we are devoted to the Wholly Innocent One, we look at our young brothers and sisters in the faith, the Holy Innocents, as ones needing special care and protection.

            Moreover, let us not despise the testimony of these small children. It is common nowadays to say that we might be going overboard in calling the children slaughtered by Herod “martyrs.” After all, weren’t the martyrs those who proclaimed in loud voices their faith in Christ even as the government ordered them to be devoured by lions or burned at the stake or killed in some other gruesome way? How could a child profess their faith in God when they could not say much if anything? But Scripture teaches us that “blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.” Even though they could not speak, their life and death testified that there is someone greater than death and that even those who die helplessly still belong to the God in whom they believed. In the same way, we may die equally helplessly. We may become so weak that we will be unable to speak or express with our mouths the intense faith in Christ our Savior that we have in our hearts. But our witness is heard even then, just as that of the Holy Innocents was.

            Do not neglect these little ones, for their angels always behold the face of the Father in heaven. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Advent, December 21, 2014

            Luke 1:26-38: In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

            And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”

            And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

            Beloved in Christ, you will hardly ever find a better example of a Christian than in Mary. No, she was not without sin. No, she is not our intercessor or a co-redeemer. She, like us, needed Christ to be her Savior. And yet there is something special about her. She was given the honor of being the mother of God. Her piety should shape our own, for she sought to be nothing more than a faithful child of God. By being humble and faithful, she was greatly exalted, and the same is true for us.

            When we first meet Mary, we see an angel appearing to her and greeting her: “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” She was greeted as one who had received the Lord’s favor. What is more, the Lord was with her. But she is not the only one to be greeted in this way. We too have received God’s favor and the Lord is with us. But just hearing that greeting does not mean that we will appreciate or understand it.

            You see, God has been greeting humanity for thousands of years, but that doesn’t mean that we have welcomed Him. It all began when Adam and Eve heard the voice of God in the Garden of Eden and immediately ran and hid themselves. God spoke loving, gentle words: “Adam, where are you?” They were loving, for God wanted to have a tender conversation with Adam and Eve. But Adam and Eve knew that they had sinned against God by eating the forbidden fruit. They knew that they deserved nothing but death, for death had been the penalty fixed by God for their action and they had been warned in advance. All they could think of doing was hiding. It was rather foolish when you think about, for how can one hide from God? But they tried to, and we have been doing so ever since.

            We, their children, have much to fear before God. We have been given God’s holy law, and we (at least in our saner moments) recognize it as good. We know that God intends only the best when He demands that we worship Him alone and not any other gods, for everything else will disappoint us in the end, just as the forbidden fruit ended up disappointing Adam and Eve. We know that life is better if we are not cursing, rebelling against our parents, murdering, committing adultery, stealing, and lying. In fact, we know that it isn’t just these actions, but the thoughts that lie behind them that bring us great misery. God has warned us dozens of times, but we refuse to listen. We should have learned from sad experience, but we haven’t. There is no fool like an old fool—and that is what humanity is.

            And so to hear a greeting from God troubles us. It troubled Mary. She didn’t know “what sort of greeting this might be.” But the angel elaborated upon his greeting. First, he said, “Do not be afraid.” Now it is appropriate to have a healthy fear of God, for that means we take His commandments and our sin seriously. But God loves us and He wants us to take that love seriously. And so the angel told Mary, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.” God loved her so much that He didn’t want her to be afraid. Now when we come to the phrase, “You have found favor with God,” we could easily misunderstand it. We could assume that Mary had done something great—perhaps lived an exemplary life—and so deserved a special standing with God. But that would be contrary to everything that the Scriptures teach. A better translation would be, “You have received grace from God.” In other words, God wanted to show His good loving kindness to Mary, purely out of the fact that He is a good God and loves to give gifts, especially to people who cannot claim any merit.

            Think of what Mary could have done up until this point in her life. She was a lowly teenage girl. She was no apostle or some other leader among God’s people. She had no money to be a major donor to the temple or a local charity. I am sure that she was not a wild and unruly teenager, but she was probably like hundreds of young women then and now, who live quiet, anonymous lives. But God loved her and wanted to do something good for and through her. He gave her the privilege of being the mother of Christ.

            Now God doesn’t just love Mary or the apostles or the great saints we always talk about. You too have found favor with God. Just as Mary had nothing to boast about before the Lord, neither do you. But that is all right. God comes to sinners who have no righteousness to boast about. He brings His forgiveness and mercy. Indeed, He has been doing this since the beginning of time. Adam and Eve ran away from God, but God pursued them nonetheless. Yes, He chastised them for eating the forbidden fruit. The curse of death was not set aside, but was confirmed. Nor did God gloss over the troubles they had brought upon themselves by their disobedience, for life would be full of toil and pain. But God also pursued them because He wanted them to know some good news: He would defeat Satan, who had tempted us, and He would reverse the curse upon mankind. Ever since then God has come to His people with the word of forgiveness made possible through Jesus Christ’s birth, death, and resurrection.

            The words spoken to Mary remind us that God has more than a vague plan to be nice to us. There was only one way to reconcile us to Himself, namely, by God taking on human flesh and dealing with our life and its problems while in the flesh. A mere wave of the hand from a distance wouldn’t do the trick. No, God had to send His Son into human flesh. Yes, at one time the Son of God was a simple zygote, a one-cell human being in whom all the fullness of the deity dwelt, despite His weakness and smallness. And yet this tiny child growing in Mary’s womb was none other than Jesus, “the Lord saves,” “the Son of the Most High.” To Him by right belonged “the throne of His Father David,” for His is an eternal kingdom that encompasses the entire universe.

            This is something that we cannot entirely fathom. Mary rightly understood the angel to be saying that she was going to become pregnant very soon, not in the distant future. She understood that these words would be fulfilled as soon as they had been spoken, and not after she and Joseph had settled down and were well into their marriage. But she was a chaste virgin. She had taken God’s law seriously about matters of sex and she knew that she was to abstain from sex before marriage and to be faithful within marriage. She didn’t use the excuse that we might use today that at least she was engaged to Joseph and that made it all right. And Mary wasn’t stupid when it came to biology. People back then may not have known all we know about biology, but they did know how babies came to be. You can’t have a baby unless a man and a woman come together.

            The angel revealed that God would do something miraculous. “The Holy Spirit [would] come upon [her], and the power of the Most High [would] overshadow [her]” so that she would conceive a child. Only twice previously in human history had a human being come into existence in an extraordinary way, in a manner other than the normal mode of procreation: Adam had been created from the earth, and Eve had been fashioned from one of his ribs. Now God would do something as miraculous and astonishing as He had done in Eden, so that He could restore the lost world and bring us back to Paradise.

            And so this child was no ordinary child. Adam and Eve had been formed in an unusual manner, but they were ordinary human beings, nonetheless. But Christ was “the Son of God,” for He was conceived by the Holy Spirit in such a way that Mary remained a virgin. He was holy to a degree that even Adam and Eve in their state of bliss had never been. He didn’t grow up to become the Son of God. No, He was already the Son of God, even in His mother’s womb. He was the eternal Son of God already when He was conceived. He was the Son of God when a few weeks later John the Baptist leaped in his mother’s womb when he knew that the unborn Christ was present. And thus we rightly call Mary the Mother of God. (She is not God, but is the Mother of God, for Christ is God.) What a marvelous thing! She is an ordinary human being, just like you and me, and yet the child she bore was truly God, yes, even when He was still in her womb.

            As I said, we cannot complete fathom this truth. Mary couldn’t. Instead she simply said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” That should be our attitude too. God has drawn near to us. He has done all the hard work of redeeming us. What can we say or do? All we can do is to say, “Lord, You have spoken the truth. You have given me the gift I never deserved. You wish to continue to reveal that gift through the words you speak. Let it be to me according to Your word.” In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Sermon for the First Sunday in Advent

            Mark 11:1-10:  Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.’” And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street, and they untied it. And some of those standing there said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go. And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it. And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!”

            Beloved in Christ, our worship service so far has shown that we Christians are all mixed up. The holidays are upon us—with only 25 more shopping days left. But we want to have a little parade. Well, that might be fine, says the world, but not if it is with donkeys and palm branches, as we read earlier. If we are going to parade, we’re going to have marching bands, giant balloons, reindeer and mistletoe—and at the end Santa proclaiming the coming of all our winter holidays.

            But, beloved in Christ, what does the world really know? It has a story, and it wants to make sure that everyone in the world knows the story. That story says that we are simply material beings meant to enjoy material pleasures. Is it too dark and dreary out? Turn on the lights to cheer yourself up. Do you feel unloved? Enjoy a nice feast or two or buy yourself the latest gadget and you’ll feel so much better. You are what you own. Now maybe you have to do some nice favors for other people so that they’ll get you some good stuff, but in the end it’s all about the swag you can pile up in this life. And while you’re indulging yourself in every kind of food and enjoying every last creature comfort, go ahead and indulge your entire body in every pleasure you want. Never say “no” to your wants. After all, life is only about feeling good.

            Now that might sound a little bit crass, but that is really what the world is peddling, once you remove all the tinsel and glitter. Sometimes it does acknowledge that we have a “spiritual” side and says that we need to foster it too, but it never wants us to go deep. The world teaches us to be “spiritual” by finding the balance within and by affirming all our desires as always good. It may teach us to do some nice deeds that help other people, but it doesn’t want us to look too deeply into what God may really demand of us. “Spirituality” never wants us to see what a cesspool of gossip, envy, pettiness, and anger we are. In short, “spirituality” quickly becomes just another “feel good” project. Maybe it isn’t as crass as accumulating a bunch of junk, but it is still quite self-centered.

            That’s the world’s story. That’s the world’s philosophy. And that outlooks determines the way holidays get celebrated. It guarantees that the holidays will be about sugar and shopping—and occasionally a little sharing, at least for the more spiritually minded. The holidays are all about us trying to make ourselves feel a little bit better at a time when we might naturally feel a little glum. So crank out those holiday tunes in early November, light up the lights, and do everything to cheer yourself up. So says the world.

            But today’s gospel reminds us that we Christians live with a different story and thus by a different philosophy and so have a different way of handling life, including the holidays. And so the first thing we need to know is that we have a God who comes into our midst to reign. And we get a glimpse of what that looks like when we see Jesus Christ riding into Jerusalem on a donkey.

            You see, Christ brings the kingdom of God to us in three different ways. He came, first of all, in humility two thousand years ago to establish God’s reign over us by His incarnation, birth, death and resurrection. Now He comes to us in a second way, namely, through His Word; whoever hears that Word and believes it is made a part of God’s kingdom. And, finally, He will come again in great glory; at that time all will have to acknowledge His authority, whether they want to or not.

            We see elements of all three in that triumphal procession into Jerusalem. First of all, we are reminded that this took place as part of Christ’s first coming. He came in humility and poverty. He did not come on a warhorse or chariot. He didn’t even own the donkey He rode, but had to borrow it. And most important of all, He was just a few days away from His death. He was specifically heading into Jerusalem because there He would die for the sins of all people. Just half a dozen verses earlier Jesus had summed up what He was about: “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Jesus elaborated: “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.” Because Jesus was the greatest in the kingdom of God, He took it upon Himself to be the lowliest of all, to serve all, yes, to die for all.

            This is the exact opposite of the world’s story. The world says, “Mortals, turn yourselves into gods and enjoy everything.” But Christ, who is God, made Himself mortal and gave up everything. The world tells us that this is the only life we have and you had better squeeze everything out of it. But Christ gave up that life. And that is because He came to offer us something more than this life and all its pleasures could offer. He came to bring real life, life from its source, life from God. And that is why He didn’t fiddle around with all of the things we fill our lives with. He saw that human beings were caught in the vise of sin and all its selfish manifestations. And so He went down to fight death and the grave, Satan and hell, and every form of evil and wickedness. He didn’t mind going to the cross, that shameful and painful form of death, as long as He could go and throttle our deepest enemies and give us life.

            So Christ came in humility two thousand years ago. But He also comes to us today through His Word. By His Word He brings His kingdom into our midst, yes, that kingdom full of life. We get a picture of that also in today’s gospel. There was a colt that was tied up in the village of Bethany. Jesus spoke the word. The disciples passed on that word faithfully to the owner of the colt. And the donkey was untied. All because Jesus had spoken the word. It didn’t matter that the owner of the colt couldn’t see Jesus that moment. All he had to do was hear that word of our Lord, and the matter was settled. So it is with us today. We do not see Christ, even though He is invisibly present in our midst. But He speaks His Word and things change. When He unties the burden of our sins, the burden is removed for good. When He pronounces us holy in His Father’s sight, then we are. When He proclaims that He reigns and is advancing His kingdom, then it is so.

            We were not there two thousand years ago when He was born in Bethlehem and later died and rose near Jerusalem. We were not there for that triumphant procession. But we can hear His Word no less than the owner of the colt did. What He calls a sin, let us call wicked. What He calls holy, let us call blessed. What He says about forgiveness and new life, let us hear with attentive ears. God has spoken. Reality has changed. His words may not please everyone, but we are not everyone. We are no stubborn mules. If a colt that had never been ridden—never broken in—knew enough to yield to our Lord, should we not listen all the more attentively to what our Savior claims? If an irrational beast of burden submitted to the Lord, why should we buck and kick against His Word? No, let us welcome Him as He comes every week in our midst to proclaim His Word.

            As we do so, let us not forget that He will come in glory. Again, today’s Gospel gives us a sample of the glory that our Lord will have when He returns. The crowd threw their cloaks in front of Him and waved palm branches before Him. They pronounced Him blessed. They called on Him as God to save them. They proclaimed Him king, great David’s greater Son. When He returns in glory—on some day in the future unknown to us—palm branches and cloaks will not suffice. We will offer all the treasures that we can offer, even though there is nothing that we can truly give Him. We will worship Him even more profoundly, falling flat on our faces and acknowledging Him to be the Lord. And it will not just be we who are doing so. No, everyone will do it, including people who had despised Him and rejected Him in this life. To be sure, they will still not have warmed up to Him, but they will do obeisance before Him, for they will have no choice. Even Satan himself will have to bow down before Christ and admit that he has been beaten.

            That is the Christian story. It is quite a different story than that which the world is telling. But if it is true—and it is—then that means we must live differently than the world around us does. Life is not all about accumulating pleasure after pleasure. It’s not that we’re against having a pleasant experience or enjoying the material world; it’s just that life is about so much more than pleasure. Life isn’t even about priding oneself for being so “spiritual.” No, life is what happens when Christ comes. Christ entered this world two thousands year ago, and death has been running scared ever since. Christ comes to us today, condemning our sins and offering forgiveness, changing our hearts and giving us new life. And Christ will come again. At that time the bobbles and trinkets and bright lights of this season won’t have meant a thing. But Christ—well, He is everything.

            Therefore, beloved in Christ, we march on during this Advent season. We say, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” In Jesus’ name. Amen.

When It's Your Turn to Go...

You’ve probably heard people say, “God has already chosen your time of death and when it’s your time to go, it’s your time and there’s nothing you can do about it.” Well, is that right or not? I would argue that the statement is a bit confusing. It might be able to be understood in a proper sense, but it could also be understood in a completely wrong way. That is because it does not make some distinctions that are very necessary when discussing matters like this.

The Three Fates by Francesco Salviati.
In Greco-Roman mythology, the Fates
determined the length of a person's
life. Even the gods could not go
against the Fates.

Making proper distinctions is at the heart of theology. The Bible doesn’t just spout abstract ideas devoid of context, but it teaches us to understand how words, phrases, and sentences are to be understood. Sometimes a phrase may be used in the Scriptures approvingly and other times it might be rejected as a false teaching. It isn’t that the Bible is disagreeing with itself about a particular matter, but rather the apostles and prophets who wrote the Bible knew that the way that even sound language may be pressed into the service of bad theology. Usually every heresy has a half-truth at its core. Rather than being an out and out lie, a heresy has taken a correct idea and oversimplified matters or pressed it into the service of an illegitimate idea.

Obviously, on such a matter as important and mysterious as the day of our death, it is easy to oversimplify in a way that does not teach the whole counsel of God. And so we do well to ask ourselves why we are phrasing things this way, for usually when people oversimplify matters it is to gratify a selfish impulse. Often when people say that God has chosen our time in advance and there’s nothing you can do to speed it up or slow it down, they are excusing the way they neglect their bodies. Those who reject that idea and argue that life is pretty much under our control push God out of the picture, as if He had no say over our lives. But a proper understanding of this matter will both glorify God and keep us from shirking our responsibilities.

On the one hand, Scripture emphasizes God’s role in all things, including matters of life and death. It teaches us that God both knows all things in advance and governs the world so that things turn out according to His will. Let me unpack those statements. First of all, we say that God knows all things, including what will occur before it happens (see Psalm 139:1-4; Romans 11:33-36). He knows the good that people will do as well as the evil. We call this His foreknowledge. By itself God’s foreknowledge doesn’t imply causation. Think of it in this way. I have seen a person clumsily knock a bowl off a table. I know what will happen before the bowl hits the ground. In that sense I have foreknowledge, limited though it may be. But my knowledge that the ceramic bowl will break and the contents spill across the floor doesn’t cause the bowl to break or the person to be clumsy. In the same way God is not the author of evil, even if He knows what evil people will do.

But God does more than simply know the future. He controls it, and we call this His providence. He not only knows such details as the number of hairs on our head, He also controls such details as whether a sparrow will fall to the ground or not (Matthew 10:29-30). To be sure, God is not pleased by everything that happens in the world. He does not approve of people’s evil (Psalm 5:4), even if He permits them to do some evil so that they can show what is in their heart and thus in the end glorify Him for being a just judge on the Last Day. (This is what Proverbs 16:4 is getting at: not that God created certain people with the intention that they do evil, but that evildoers will in the end glorify God by getting their just desserts.) But while He allows some latitude—enough rope for people to hang themselves, you might say—God limits the effects of evil. The plans that evil people make often turn out for the good of God’s people (Genesis 50:20). Evil is not permitted to snatch the elect from God’s hand, leaving them in despair and without faith (Mark 13:20). Evil is not permitted to separate God’s faithful people from His love in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:35-39). And it certainly will not hold sway for very long, let alone permanently (Psalm 1:4-5).

So, according to what we have learned so far, it is appropriate to say that God has numbered our days and knows when they will come to an end (and will Himself make sure that they end at that time). This doctrine is meant to comfort us with the knowledge that our life and our death are no accidents but are guided by His loving hand.

But, given my earlier remarks, you know that there is an “on the other hand” coming. Indeed, there is. God has given us this information so that we would trust in Him, not so that we would use it to become presumptuous. Instead, God has told us not to pry into His hidden purposes or counsels (Job 42:1-6; Psalm 131:1; 139:6). When Job wanted to know all the whys and wherefores of the suffering in his life, God said that Job would have needed to be able to explain all the marvels of creation, including the boundless power of the sea, in order to understand God’s answer (Job 38-41). Instead of urging us to find that hidden knowledge, He gives us our vocations, prudence, and wisdom. Moreover, God does not want us to put Him to the test (Deuteronomy 6:16; Matthew 4:7). He promises to take care of us, but He does not want us deliberately to put ourselves in harm’s way to see if He really will act (cf. Matthew 4:5-6).

Furthermore, God has known the answers from eternity, but we human beings do not live outside of time. We are creatures of time and space, while God is neither a creature nor a being bound by time and space. For that reason He allows our life to unfold before us over time. We see a series of events. Sometimes we see an action followed by its reasonable consequences. Other times God spares us from the bad consequences of our deeds. Still other times we do not see the good consequences we had hoped would result from our diligent work. Through these events we are led to pursue wisdom. We discern that on average it is better to do good than to do evil, even if things do not always turn out the way we might expect. And we also discern that it is wisest to trust in the LORD, even when things are going badly at the moment.

It helps us to distinguish, then, between God’s providence viewed from above and it viewed from below. In the Scriptures we are given enough of a glance “from above” to know that things do not happen merely by chance, but that God is firmly in control. And yet we can look at our lives only “from below,” at least as long as we are in this life (Ecclesiastes 8:16-17). We see a progression of events, one after another. We are called to make wise choices, as much as we are able. We know that even our best efforts may fail, if God has other plans in mind (Psalm 127:1-2). And yet we are called to make the most prudent choices, commending the results to God’s care.

Thus, we will believe firmly in God’s providence without becoming fatalists or irresponsible. We cherish the idea that “precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of His saints” (Psalm 116:15). We are not frightened by the thought that our days are numbered, but ask that God would use that fact to give us the wisdom to live wisely (Psalm 90:12). And that wisdom will teach us to avoid carelessness and presumption so that we may have a blessed end.