Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Kerrville Texas

John 20.19-31

Christ is Risen! He is Risen, Indeed! Alleluia!

The women did their job. They told the disciples that Jesus was not in the tomb, that He had risen. Peter and John raced there to find it just as the women had told them. John stoops down to look inside the tomb. Peter goes inside sees the linen cloths lying there, and the handkerchief that had been around His head, not lying with the linen cloths, but folded together in a place by itself (John 20:6-7), left as a sign that this was not theft or grave robbery. They leave the tomb and later that evening they are with the other disciples—except Thomas. John tells the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews. The Jews knew that Jesus’ body wasn’t in the tomb. Their guards, who had seen the angel roll the stone away and became like dead mean at the sight, related all this to the Sanhedrin, who in turn, paid them handsomely to dishonor themselves and tell people Jesus’ disciples came at night, while they were sleeping, and stole Jesus’ body. Who knew what the Jews would do next to cover the lie. Would they come after Jesus’ disciples next? The disciples, fearing the Jews and what they could do to them, gather together and shut the doors.

Shut doors may deter the Jews. They won’t deter Jesus. Passing through a door is no issue for Him now that He has laid aside the form of a servant—His humility—and already that same day passed through the stone which shut Him in the tomb. He stands in the midst of the disciples, doors still shut, using His divine power freely—yet still for the purpose of encouraging His disciples. He stands in the midst of the ten disciples—one whom publicly denied even knowing Him three times—all of them having deserted Him in the Garden of Gethsemane when they saw He wasn’t going to defend Himself. We aren’t told why Thomas isn’t with them. Judas isn’t there because he’s dead, having hanged himself in despair, unwilling to believe God could forgive Him for betraying Christ. This band of men are roughed up by their sins, by their doubts, and by their fear of the Jews. Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

Peace was what they needed. Peace is what Jesus gave them. Though all of them had deserted Jesus in the Garden, He speaks peace to them, not hold their weakness against them, but forgiving their cowardice and lack of faith. Though Peter had publicly denied Him three times, He announces peace to Peter, for having wept bitterly in repentance for His public denial, Jesus wants to him to understand that Jesus lives to forgive sins and justify believers—even him. Though they fear what the Jews might do to them, He speaks peace to them, for by living Jesus proves the Jews’ story to be a lie, so that whatever the Jews rage and plot against them, it’s all in vain. Even if the Jews—or anyone else for that matter—do manage to harm them, even kill them—they have peace that comes from knowing that if Jesus lives, they too, will live with Jesus. Jesus lives to forgive sins, beginning with His disciples. Christ—the Son of the living God—has no wrath against them, but forgives them freely and willingly, for He stands in their midst and tells them, “Peace be with you.” He shows them His hands and His side as proof that it is Him and not some phantasm or apparition, but more so, His wounds are the reason He can speak peace to them. “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed” (Is. 53:5). Seeing His hands and feet, that it is really Him, and that He is really alive, they rejoice.

But Jesus gives them more. He tells them again, “Peace to you,” but now adds, “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you. And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” With these words Jesus institutes the Holy Ministry—an office which has the duties of forgiving the sins. What Jesus gave to the penitent, fearful disciples, He wants given to all people, because He died for the sins of all mankind. He earned perfect forgiveness by His sufferings and death and the cross and wants all people to enjoy the righteousness, innocence and blessedness He eared for them. So He institutes an office whose duty is it to give out this gift.

But the apostles aren’t to give the gift earned to just anyone. They are to forgive the penitent. The Lord said in Isaiah 66:2, “But on this one will I look: On him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, And who trembles at My word.” He says in Psalm 147:3, “He heals the brokenhearted And binds up their wounds.” In Luke 24:27, at another of His appearances to the disciples between His resurrection and ascension, He will tell them, “Repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” Just as Christ Himself had preached, “Repent, and believe in the gospel” (Mk 1:15), so His apostles and those who follow them in this holy office, are to preach repentance of sin and then pronounce forgiveness on the penitent. When they speak, it will be Christ who is speaking through them, for He had promised them in Luke 10:16, “He who hears you hears Me.” And what do they hear? Forgiveness of every sin and peace with God.

But the office which He gives the apostles also includes the duty of retaining sins of those who do not repent, or whose repentance is hypocritical. Those who aren’t sorry for their sin, those who intend to continue in their sin, those who want to coddle their sin and enjoy both it and the benefits of Christ are to be told, “Your sins are not forgiven, but the wrath of God remains on you until you repent and desire to amend your sinful life. Here there can be no peace spoken because there is still hostility and enmity towards God’s will. Jesus only speaks to peace to those who are sorry they have disrupted that peace, admit it, and want to do better. Even the retaining of sins serves the purpose of showing people the severity of their sins and the need for repentance, so that they might understand this and repent.  It is as the Lord tells the exiles in Babylon through the prophet Ezekiel, “Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,” says the Lord GOD. Therefore turn and live!” (Ezek 18:31-32).

This office, which forgives and retains sins, continues on in the church and will continue until Christ returns. For having ascended, He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers (Eph. 4:11) to do the work of the ministry. He gives some to His church as ministers so that all people mighty hear the living voice of the gospel in their ears. Jesus wants to unburden those who are burdened with the guilt of their sin, frustrated at their human weakness, and want to be free of sin and its guilt. Jesus wants the forgiveness of sins—which He earned by His sufferings and death on the cross—to be give to all people. But it is only given to those who hear His gospel, repent of their sins, and believe His promise to forgive the sins of all who flee to Him for mercy and take refuge in His holy wounds. Jesus wants you to hear the living voice of the gospel, so He gives His word of gospel to living men to speak it, so that you do not doubt that by those words, although spoken by a mere man, your sins are forgiven by Christ who sent that man.

But we haven’t talked about Thomas yet. Thomas doesn’t hear this but receives this same office the next week. Jesus overcomes His unbelief by appearing to the disciples once again and showing Thomas His hands and feet, so that He stop unbelieving and believe He is risen instead. Even this is for the encouragement of our faith. Thomas—and all the disciples—needed to see Jesus in order to believe His resurrection. But Jesus pronounces those who believe without seeing to be blessed. Blessed are those who will hear these men’s testimony, their living voice, and the living voice of those whom God gives to the church after them. Blessed are you when you hear and believe that Christ is risen from the dead. Blessed are you when you hear and believe that your sins are forgiven before God in heaven, for the two words are related. Jesus lives, and He lives to reign, and justify believers. Blessed are you, for Christ is alive evermore to speak the peace of forgiveness to you through His ministry. Amen.  

May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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1 Corinthians 5.6-8 & Mark 16.1-8

Grace to you and peace from God and Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome go to Jesus’ tomb early on the day after the Sabbath—spices in hand—because they have work to do. On Friday afternoon after Jesus’ crucifixion, Joseph and Nicodemus had bound Jesus’ body in strips of linen with a mixture of myrrh and aloes, as was the custom of the Jews. These women—women who had followed Jesus and ministered to Him when He was in Galilee (Mark 15:41)—want to anoint Jesus’ body with spices as well, in one final act of devotion and service to their Lord. Because preparing a body for burial is work, they could not have done it on the Sabbath, Friday evening through sundown on Saturday, and it couldn’t be done after Sunday, So, on the first day after the Sabbath, Sunday morning, they go to the tomb to get to work.

When they arrive, they find things different than the way they left them on Friday afternoon. When they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away — for it was very large. The enter the tomb and see a young man clothed in a long white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. Of course they were alarmed. People don’t just sit in tombs, especially tombs that should have a corpse laying in it. The young man clothed in a long white robe isn’t alarmed by the situation, however, or by seeing the women enter the tomb. He speaks to them as if He had been expecting them. “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid Him.” These women see with their own eyes that Jesus is not there. Their ears hear the angel’s words, “He is risen.” In seeing where Christ should have laid, and hearing the angel’s words, the risen Lord bestows upon these women the honor of being the first witnesses of His resurrection from the dead. The angel goes on, “But go, tell His disciples — and Peter — that He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him, as He said to you.”

The women went to the tomb originally because there was work to be done. There is work, but not the work they imagined. The odor of interment isn’t there. There is no person to perfume, no corpse to cover over in spices. Jesus lives! David prophesied of Him in the forty-fifth psalm, “All Your garments are scented with myrrh and aloes and cassia, Out of the ivory palaces, by which they have made You glad.” Solomon’s bride—the church—said of Him, “His cheeks are like a bed of spices, Banks of scented herbs. His lips are lilies, Dripping liquid myrrh” (Song 5:13). There is no body to prepare for burial because Jesus is risen from the dead. He is alive, never to die again. Christ has no need of their spices, for He smells like life because He is the resurrection and the life.

The spices in their hands are now worthless, at least for the task they originally planned. Now they have a different task. Instead of preparing a dead body for burial in the grave, they will proclaim that the one who was dead now lives! Instead of anointing Jesus’ body with aromatic spices, their task is to diffuse the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ’s resurrection to the disciples. To Peter—who had wept bitterly over his public denial of Christ—these women were to be the aroma of life leading to life (2 Cor. 2:16), for they had the privilege of telling Peter that His Lord was alive to raise Peter to new life through the forgiveness of his sins. The women flee the tomb, trembling and astonished, saying nothing to anyone on their way to the disciples. For Christ is risen and there is work to be done. The sweet-smelling fragrance of His life and victory over death must be diffused throughout the world beginning with the downcast disciples and penitent Peter.

That diffusion—the work the angel gave the women to do—continues to this very day. The women’s testimony which they received from the angel, fills your ears once again. Christ sent His apostles into the world to teach the gospel that “Christ has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma” as Paul calls it in Ephesians 5:2. He offered Himself upon the altar of the cross as the once-for-all sacrifice for all mankind, making propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world (1 Jn 2:2), so that “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life,” the life to which Jesus was raised on the third day, while “He who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him” (Jn 3:36).

And as this gospel is preached—as the work of the ministry continues—the fragrance of life continues to waft through this sinful world, some smelling it for what it is, others turning up their noses at it. St. Paul told the Corinthians, “Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, and to the other the aroma of life leading to life.” (2 Cor. 2:14-16). Paul’s ministry gives off an aroma, figuratively speaking. To those who believe the gospel, his ministry is aroma of life because the gospel gives life to those dead in trespasses and sins. His ministry is the aroma of death, however, to those who do not believe, because through it Christ wants to put our sinful natures to death through repentance so that He might raise us to new life—His life—which is a life dead to sin and world’s ways of thinking, but alive to God and His will.

It isn’t just faithful ministry that is the fragrance of Christ. It is believers. Having Christ’s righteousness and innocence imputed to them by faith, believers smell like Christ to God the Father. We smell like life because Christ—the risen One—dwells in us by faith. Not only do we smell like Christ to God the Father, so do our good works. Works of love done for God and neighbor are a sweet-smelling aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God (Phil 4:18). Our works please Him because they are the fruits of our faith in Christ which believes His gospel and trusts that for His sake we have a merciful God. Pursuing good works, being zealous for them, pleases God and also helps tamp down the Old Adam—our sinful nature with its lusts—each day. The Corinthians had not done this. In fact, they celebrated sin in their midst. They gloried in one parishioner’s public sexual immorality, which is why the epistle for Easter Day opens with the word, “Your glorying is not good.” Sin is like yeast. It never stops at its starting point. This immorality would grow in the man, but it would also spread throughout the congregation, with others following his example, as his sin is accepted and even praised, as we sadly see happen in so many churches in our day. The yeast of malice and wickedness, if allowed to spread, becomes stale and sours the lump, killing the life Christ gives by pushing Christ from the heart.

Paul tells the Corinthians in today’s epistle, “Purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened.” Don’t let sin reign in you and among you. Sin brings spiritual death and its decay. Purge it, remove it from among you as the Jews were to remove leaven during the Feast of Unleavened Bread which followed Passover. “For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.” And if our Passover lamb has been sacrificed—and if we enjoy the benefits of His sacrifice like the forgiveness of sins, the promise of everlasting life, and His living in our hearts by faith—then purge the leaven of sin from you, individually and corporately. Keep the feast—Christ’s Passover—not with the old leaven of Judaism, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Purge out the old leaven of sin as often as you discover any of it in your heart. Do not give it opportunity to spread into your thoughts, words, and actions. Purge it lest it sour your faith into bitterness and spoil the aroma of life that is yours by faith in Christ.

To women who had followed Jesus and ministered to Him when He was in Galilee, He gave the work—and honor—of being the first witnesses of His resurrection, and they faithfully diffused the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ’s resurrection to the disciples and, through the apostles’ writing, all the world. To you, He gives the work of purging the old leaven of sin from the home of your heart, since that is where Christ dwells by faith. This is your work of loving devotion to your Lord, who gives His innocence, His righteousness, His blessedness, and His sweet-smelling aroma before God the Father, so that you may be the aroma of life leading to life (2 Cor. 2:16). Smelling like Christ and His life by faith in the gospel, live in such a way that you confess with your lips and your deeds that Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed for our sins, and that He lives to reign, to justify and sanctify all who believe in Him. Amen.

May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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1 Corinthians 11.23-32 & John 13.1-15

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

On the Thursday of Holy Week, Christ leaves His disciples with a commandment. Jesus tells them in John 13:34, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” This is more than likely the reason the day has been known as “Maundy Thursday,” maundy being a corruption of the Latin word “mandati,” which means commandment. Jesus gives them this commandment, but before He does, He gives them an example of how He loves them, so that they might love one another in the same way. He rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded. To wash the dust and grime from others’ feet is the stuff of servants and slaves. But that is the nature of love. Love is service which puts the needs of the other ahead of one’s own. We tend to make love into all sorts of things it isn’t just so we can avoid what it actually is: willing, self-sacrificial giving to another. Jesus told these same men in Matthew 20:28, “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve.” By washing and wiping the disciples’ feet, Jesus proves He means it.

When He gets to Peter, Peter will have none of it: “Lord, are Your washing my feet?” When Jesus tells him that He’s teaching them something, Peter exclaims, “You shall never wash my feet!” Look how Peter loves and honors Christ! Christ is his teacher and Lord. He shouldn’t be doing the work of a servant. He should be receiving honor and service. Peter loves Jesus, but still in such a way that he can’t allow Jesus to be what He has come to be. He did the same thing when Jesus said Matthew 16[:21] when Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day. Peter takes Christ aside and rebukes Him, “Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!” (Mt. 16:22). Peter thinks the world of Jesus. He loves and honors Jesus as the Son of the living God, which is why he cannot allow Him to talk like this. Suffering, being killed—even if it is followed by rising from the dead—does not compute with what Peter imagines love, glory, and honor to be. Neither does washing the road off of the feet of twelve men who will one day sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Mt 19:28). But as Peter, in Matthew 16, was unwittingly in league with Satan, not being mindful of the things of God, but the things of men (Mt. 16:23), so on this evening when the same sufferings Jesus had prophesied would begin, Peter is not mindful of the things of God. He is mindful only of the things of men. He thinks the world of Jesus. But he thinks Jesus and His kingdom should be of the world.

Jesus prevails upon him in words reminiscent of baptism, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.” As soon as Peter understands that whatever this is that Jesus is doing, it connects one to Jesus, He’s all in. “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!” he exclaims. But Peter is already clean, having been baptized and living daily in repentance and faith. This is why Judas isn’t clean, for although he, too, would have been baptized, he had exchanged living in repentance and faith for living in willful sin, agreeing to, and now looking for, opportunity to betray Jesus. Though even with these words, “You are not all clean,” Jesus works to recall Judas to repentance.

Then, when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He teaches the meaning of this act of loving service. “You call me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you.” Christ, their teacher and Lord, wants them to follow His example. This is how they are to love one another as Christ has loved them. They are to willfully serve one another. They are to sacrifice themselves for the good of their neighbor. They are to bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ (Gal. 6:2). The washing of their feet is but one example of how He loved His own who were in the world and loved them to the end. After they leave this place and go to the Gethsemane Garden, Jesus would begin His passion and serve them—and all mankind—in a far greater way.

He will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death, and deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock and to scourge and to crucify Him (Mt. 20:18-19). He will lay aside the garment of His flesh in death and pour out His divine blood to make perfect payment the sins of the world. This is how He chiefly serves mankind, by giving His life as a ransom for many. He dies for all—sheds His precious, innocent blood for all people—so that He might cleanse those who believe in His promise and place their trust in His all-sufficient sacrifice for their sins.

As a memorial of this passion, He gives His very body—the body of the eternal Son of God—which will be beaten, scourged, crucified, and pierced, to you. He gives you His very blood—the blood of the eternal Son of God—which will be shed by whips and nails, by spear and thorns, to you. “On the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, ‘Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’ In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the New Testament in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.’” The foot washing was an example of the commandment, “Love one another; as I have loved you (Jn 13:34). We wash one another’s feet daily without ever touching their feet when we forgive their sins against us, when we help them in their need, when we bear their burdens. When Christ says, “Do this in remembrance of me,” He gives us the second commandment of Maundy Thursday. There is latitude in how we love our neighbors as Christ has loves us. But in the Sacrament, He commands us to it as He instituted it.

And what does He institute? Not symbols of His body and blood. Not tokens of His absent body and blood which cause our souls to ascend into heaven where His body is locked away. He gives bread which is His body and blood which is His blood. He can make His body and blood present in, with, and under bread and wine because His body is the body united with the eternal Son of God, and as God He has more ways to be present than we do. He gives us His very body and His very blood to eat and drink, in remembrance of Him. This isn’t remembering like having a moment of silence or a memorial stone that only reminds us that a thing once happened some time ago. To do this in remembrance of Christ is “to remember the benefits of Christ and receive them by faith, so as to be quickened by them” (Ap XXIV.72). As we eat and drink this bread which is Christ’s body and drink this wine which is Christ’s true blood, we remember His suffering and death and we receive the benefits He earned for us in His passion: forgiveness of every sin, new life by the power of the Holy Spirit, and the promise of eternal salvation.

But there is danger involved. There always is when dealing with the things of God. This is why Paul bids us examine ourselves. That cannot take place first without being taught to examine oneself, which is why we permit only those who have been “examined in Christian doctrine, in the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments” (Ap XV.40). If we judge ourselves, acknowledging our sin, and the desire to be rid of it, both in our conscience and our life so that we want to amend our sinful life, then we partake worthily and receive the benefits Christ has promised to give along with His body and blood. To commune unworthily is to commune without knowledge of Christ’s presence in the Sacrament, without acknowledging one’s sins, and without any intention to amend one’s sinful life. To partake unworthily is to still receive Christ’s very body and blood, but do so to one’s judgment, because they make a mockery of Christ’s death for the forgiveness and abolition of their sin.

And so, we have two commandments that make give this Thursday the name by which we know it, and both commandments flow from the gospel. Our love for our neighbor is to be a memorial and done in remembrance of and thanksgiving for Christ’s selfless, sacrificial love for us on the cross. Our celebration of His sacrament is a memorial and remembrance of that same passion and death, but a remembrance which receives the benefits He earned there for us. In this we see the words of the apostle are quite true: “His commandments are not burdensome” (1 Jn 5:3). They are a joy. Amen.

May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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Philippians 2.5-11 and Matthew 21:1-9

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

On Palm Sunday Jesus rode into Jerusalem riding a colt. The prophet Zechariah had foretold that Zion’s king would enter Jerusalem this way. “Tell the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your King is coming to you, lowly, and sitting on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.’” John records that when the people see Jesus coming to Jerusalem in this way, they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet Him, and cried out: “Hosanna! ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’ The King of Israel!” (Jn 12:13). Although He did not arrive in Jerusalem like a king, they received Him with palm branches waving and garments paving a royal road for Him, because the prophet had foretold that the king would arrive this way. Jesus’ lowliness did not offend them. That was part of the prophecy. The one riding the beast of burden into Jerusalem would be the King of Israel, the Son of David, the One who comes in the name of the Lord, so they cry out “Hosanna”, “Save us!”

This lowliness and humility were not only how Jesus entered Jerusalem. It characterized His entire life. He was mother was of lowly state (Lk 1:48). His first bed was a manger. When he was barely a month old his parents took him to Egypt because Herod sought to kill him. During the days of His ministry He told a would-be disciple, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head” (Mt 8:20), and describes Himself in Matthew 11[:29] as gentle and lowly in heart. This lowliness would mark the days of this week—Holy Week. On Thursday evening, after celebrating the Passover with His disciples, He will be betrayed by one of His disciples. Judas will arrive in Gethsemane with a detachment of troops, and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, came there with lanterns, torches, and weapons (Jn 18:3). Jesus will be arrested, deserted by His disciples, and convicted as a blasphemer and condemned as a criminal. He will be scourged, mocked, emaciated, and then crucified. Lowliness and humility characterized His life. They characterized His innocent, bitter sufferings and death.

St. Paul describes the humility and lowliness of Jesus in today’s epistle. Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.” What does this mean? To be in the form of God is to possess divine power, divine majesty, and divine glory. Christ possessed all these from eternity, but when He became man, He still possess them all and shared them with His human nature which received from the Virgin Mary, so that Paul can say in Colossians 2:9, “In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” This is why he not consider it robbery to be equal with God. He is equal with God the Father. He is in the form of God, possessing divine power, majesty, and glory.

But Christ Jesus made Himself of no reputation—literally, He emptied Himself. He doesn’t lay aside His divine power, majesty, and glory, so that they’re detached from Him, placed in storage or on reserve somewhere else. He refuses to use His divine power, majesty, and glory. He shows glimpses of it at times in miracles, but even those are for the sake of serving others in their weaknesses and infirmities. He empties Himself by taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. The form of a bondservant—or slave—is humility, lowliness, and obedience. This is how He empties Himself. He comes in the likeness of men. He assumes human flesh so that He can also assume human weakness and frailty, because in all things He had to be made like His brethren (Heb. 2:17), so that He might be in all points tempted as we are (Heb. 4:15). He is humbled “as if he were a sinner.” He empties Himself by assuming the place of sinners. God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). Christ not only suffered under the curse of the law, He became a curse for us (Gal. 3:13). He emptied Himself of His divine prerogative, clothes Himself with lowliness and humility so that He might be obedient to God the Father throughout His entire earthly life, to the point of death, even the death of the cross—the death reserved for criminals and slaves, the most humbling death that sinful man can concoct for another. The emptying is His humble obedience.

“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” Paul sets forth Christ’s self-emptying humility as an example for us to follow. Christ Jesus set aside His prerogative as God to serve others. Christ Jesus refused to demand what He was rightly owed as God so that He might do what was in the best interest of our sinful race. Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many (Matt 20:28). Christ endured everything—the physical pain, the spiritual torment, the wrath of God against sin—in obedience to God the Father and love for those He came to serve. This is the mind which Paul exhorts us to have. He wants us to lay aside whatever prerogatives we possess to serve others. He wants us to refuse to invoke whatever rights we have in order to do what is the best interest of our neighbors. Our attitude should not be one of looking to be served by others, but to serve others. Paul explains what this looks like in the verses immediately before today’s epistle. “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others” (Phil. 2:3-4).

Christ gives the example. The apostle directs us to follow it. We pray to do just that in the Collect, “Almighty and Everlasting God, Who hast sent Thy Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, to take upon Him our flesh and to suffer death upon the cross that all mankind should follow the example of His great humility, mercifully grant that we may both follow the example of His patience and also be made partakers of His Resurrection.” God the Father’s will is that we follow Christ’s example, and we pray for His mercy that He would grant that to us, so that we may follow Christ’s example more and more each day in our friendships, marriages, jobs, and all our vocations, being patient and loving with others, in all lowliness and gentleness, looking out for the interests of others in everything we do.

But no one is saved is following this example. True humility, true self-emptying, and true obedience only flow from the heart which receives what Christ earned for all by His humility, self-emptying, and obedience has won. Christ was obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross, to pay for our sins, all of which are disobedience and transgressions of God’s will. His obedience makes perfect payment for our disobedience, so that all who believe in Him have complete forgiveness. Christ endured the wrath of God against sin and sinners on the cross, crying out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Ps. 22:1), so that those who take refuge in Him are no longer under God’s wrath but possess the blessings of a good conscience, peace, and the promise of everlasting life. Only by humbly confessing our sins and disobedience to God, acknowledging that our sins deserve His wrath, and asking forgiveness for the sake of Jesus’ innocent, bitter sufferings and death, and trusting the promise of the gospel are our hearts made new, changed, and recreated so that we have the mind of Christ in us. We are not saved by imitating Christ’s example. We are saved by placing our trust in his death on the cross for our sins, and our following His example is a fruit of our faith in Christ.

One more thing. There is a “Therefore.” Because Jesus was obedient to the point of the death of the cross, “Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Following Christ’s example of humility, He will, one day, call us to follow Him in His exaltation. Christ Jesus laid aside the form of a servant at His resurrection, fully manifesting His divine glory by ascending to the right hand of the Father, where now all things are present to Him and subject to Him. As Christ humbled Himself and God the Father glorified Him, so too God will exalt those who trust in His Son and follow His example of humility, obedience, and self-emptying for others. He may do this in this life to some extent, but He will most certainly exalt His faithful people in the life of the world to come. With this in mind, do not seek worldly glory and earthly exaltation, but seek to glorify and confess Christ in all we do, trusting that whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted (Mt 23:12). Amen.

May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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Luke 11:1-13
Lord’s Prayer: Doxology & Amen

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Before we say “Amen” to all we have asked, we typically praise our Father who art in heaven with the doxology: “For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever” (Matt. 6:13). These words are in Matthew’s version of the Lord’s Prayer. They are not in Luke’s version. Luther doesn’t include the doxology in his Small Catechism because it wasn’t in the Latin translation used at the time. The modern textual critics don’t think it was original to Matthew. Versions of the Lord’s prayer from the early church have different doxologies. The Didache [8:2], a church order from the late first/early second century, concludes the Lord’s prayer with the doxology, “For Thine is the power and the glory for ever” (ANF 7:379). The Apostolic Constitutions [7.2], church legislation that dates from 4th century Syria, concludes the Lord’s prayer with the doxology, “For Thine is the kingdom for ever. Amen” (ANF 7:470).

Even if the critics are correct and these words aren’t given to us by Christ, it is still appropriate that we close our prayer with this word of praise. In this we follow the example of David who blessed the Lord in 1 Chronicles 29:11, saying, “Yours, O LORD, is the greatness, The power and the glory, The victory and the majesty; For all that is in heaven and in earth is Yours; Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, And You are exalted as head over all.”

But the doxology is more than praise—it is encouragement to our faith. John Chrysostom, a fourth century church father, said Christ gave this doxology immediately after reminding us of temptation and the evil one, to raise our spirits and encourage us. He said to his fourth century congregation:

Doth it not then follow, that if His be the kingdom, we should fear no one, since there can be none to withstand, and divide the empire with him. For when He saith, “Thine is the kingdom,” He sets before us even [the evil one], who is warring against us, brought into subjection, though he seem to oppose, God for a while permitting it. For in truth he too is among God’s servants, though of the degraded class, and those guilty of offense; and he would not dare set upon any of his fellow servants, had he not first received license from above. And why say I, “his fellow servants?” Not even against swine did he venture any outrage, until He Himself allowed him; nor against flocks, nor herds, until he had received permission from above.  

“And the power,” saith He. Therefore, manifold as thy weakness may be, thou mayest of right be confident, having such a one to reign over thee, who is able fully to accomplish all, and that with ease, even by thee.

“And the glory, for ever. Amen.” Thus He not only frees thee from the dangers that are approaching thee, but can make thee also glorious and illustrious. For as His power is great, so also is His glory unspeakable, and they are all boundless, and no end of them. Seest thou how He hath by every means anointed His Champion, and hath framed Him to be full of confidence? (Homily XIX on Matthew, NPNF¹ 10:137)

Confidence. Not in oneself. Not in one’s own strength. Not in one’s own powers. Confidence in the in the One to whom we pray. His is the kingdom, and everything, even the devil, still operates only to the extent the Lord allows, therefore He cannot harm us if the Lord reigns in our hearts. His is the power, so that we trust His power will be made perfect in our every weakness. His is the glory, so that we trust His promise to give us everything we need and that He will bring us into heavenly glory. The One to whom we pray, the One to whom belong the kingdom, the power, and glory, is our Father, and we are His dear children.

And we all know how fathers are with their children. Jesus says, “If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” I love the picture. Bread, fish, and eggs satisfy hunger so that a child can grow and become strong. A stone is indigestible and will harm a child if eaten. A serpent and scorpion are dangerous, and while they could perhaps be eaten, both are symbols of the devil and his angels in Scripture. Jesus’ point is that your Father in heaven does not give you anything that harms you. Loving earthly fathers give good things—and only good things— to their children so that their children grow and become strong to live safely in the world.

Your heavenly Father is no different. And what do you need most of all to grow, to become strong, so that you remain safe from temptation, safe from the evil one, and endure in the faith unto the end? The Holy Spirit.  Every petition Christ has given us to pray in the Lord’s Prayer is a petition for the Holy Spirit so that we may hallow His name, live under His reign, in His will, receive our daily bread with thanksgiving, confess our sins, forgive others, be victorious in temptation and finally, when our last our comes, die in the faith. For all this we need the Holy Spirit. He is precisely what God your Father wants to give you. “How much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”

Why are we confident that our Father in heaven hears these petitions and that they’re acceptable to Him? Because He has told us to pray for the and promised to pray for them. This is why we say, “Amen.” It’s a Hebrew word which means “verily, truly,” or as Luther renders it, “Yes, yes, it shall be so.” It is the word of confidence. It’s the word Jesus often uses when wants to confidently believe something which we cannot see with our eyes. He said it twice in Sunday’s gospel, although our translation renders it, “Most assuredly.” He promised, “Amen, Amen, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death;” and He testified to His divinity, “Amen, Amen, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM” (Jn 8:51, 58). As Christ uses it to draw out attention to the truth and verity of His word, we use it to confess our confidence that God hears our prayer and will grant it. Luther says in the Large Catechism that “Amen” is “nothing else than the word of undoubting faith, which does not pray at a venture, but knows that God does not lie to him, since He has promised to grant it (LC III.119). All our prayers should be prayed with and end in such confidence.

The word is also a reminder that we should not pray frivolously or lightly, doubting whether God hears us or will answer our prayer. He will not give you an inedible stone. He will not give you a serpent or scorpion. He wants to give you good things—and only good things. How did Paul say it? “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Rom. 8:31-32). He wants to give you good things so that you can grow and become strong to live safely in the world. The chief good thing He wants to give you is His Holy Spirit.

He commands you to pray. He promises to hear you and answer. And His is the kingdom, the power, and glory forever and ever. The kingdom, because there is none who can withstand Him. The power, because He is fully able to accomplish everything for which you pray. The glory, because He does all things well and makes you glorious through His strength. Hearing how all these are His, do you see how He has, by every means, anointed you, His champion, and framed you to be full of confidence? Since He commands us to pray; since He promises to hear our prayers and answer; and since all things are under His reign, power, and glory, what else can we say but “Amen?”

May the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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Hebrews 9.11-15 & John 8.46-59

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen

“Most assuredly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death.” This is Jesus’ promise. All those who keep His word—that is, anyone who receives it true, believes it, and places their trust in it—will never see death. Jesus said in John 5[:24], “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.” Jesus had told the crowd in John 6 the same, “The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life,” and after that crowd rejected Jesus’ word Peter confessed the very thing the crowd could not: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (Jn 6:63, 68). Jesus has come to bring life to those whose lot is death. This is everyone of the line of Adam and Eve born in the natural way. “Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Rom. 5:12). Since all have sinned—and “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23)—Jesus says, “If anyone keeps My word he shall never see death,” so that none who are liable for death are excluded.

Unless they exclude themselves. The Jews with whom Jesus is speaking in today’s gospel lesson do just that. They don’t keep Jesus’ word—receive it as true, believe it, and place their trust in it. They attack it. They attack Him. They accuse Him of being a Samaritan—not a true, full-blooded descendant of Abraham—and of having a demon—an evil spirit of the same lying, murdering mind as the devil. They lash out at Jesus with such vitriol because they believe they already have life. They are children of Abraham. They are followers of Moses. They search the scriptures, believing life to come from obeying all that God commanded through Moses, even though they’re far from the perfect obedience of the heart Moses actually required. They believe their own merits are true merits and place their trust in themselves. They think they have life by their own identity as Abraham’s sons and disciples of Moses, and that these are what make them “of God.”

Imagining themselves to be “of God” by their blood and by their obedience, they can’t hear Christ’s word of promise for what is. They can only hear it with fleshly ears and twist it with devilish intent. “Now we know that You have a demon,”they say. “Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and You say, ‘If anyone keeps My word he shall never taste death.’  Are You greater than our father Abraham, who is dead? And the prophets are dead. Whom do You make Yourself out to be?” But Jesus did not say that He anyone who keeps His word shall never taste death—physical death. He promises eternal life that begins now by faith and continues into eternity. He tells Martha the same thing before He raises Lazarus from the dead: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.  And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die” (Jn 11:25-26). Jesus never promised earthly health, though He restored it to some. Jesus never promised a death-free entrance into eternal life as Enoch or Elijah were given. All the saints, with those to ancient exceptions, entered eternal life through death, just as we also must, unless Christ returns in glory first. They mock Jesus, saying that if keeping His word prevented physical death, He would be greater than Abraham and the prophets who spoke God’s word. “Are You greater than our father Abraham, who is dead? And the prophets are dead.”

They expect a negative answer. No one would claim to be greater than Abraham, the father of the nation, the one with whom God spoke, the one who was called the friend of God (James 2:23)? No would claim to be greater than the prophets, those with whom God spoke and showed Himself in visions? No one would claim such an honor for themselves. But Jesus will not honor Himself. He will let His Father do that, and He will glorify Him in His human flesh soon. So, Jesus tells them, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.” It’s as if He were saying, “Your father Abraham saw My day—the work which I would accomplish—by faith and rejoiced. Your father Abraham did keep My word, which is why Abraham and all the patriarchs continue to live t this very day, for all live to Him (Luke 20:38). When God the Father said to Abraham, “In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed,” I am the promised blessing.”

They still don’t get it, though. Just as they imagine the “not seeing death” to mean “not physically dying,” so they imagine “Abraham saw My day” to mean that Jesus knew Abraham. Being children of the devil, they can only malign Jesus words and hear what He’s not saying. So Jesus tells them bluntly: “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” Not, “I was,” so that He simply predated Abraham. That’s what the Jews seemed to have thought when they said, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?” No, “Before Abraham was, I AM,” as in Exodus 3:14, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” The one who tells John in Revelation 1:8, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,” says the Lord, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” There are those who say Jesus never said He was God. Like the Jews in today’s gospel, those who teach that do not hear Christ’s words because they are not of God. The Jews, however, have one thing over those who make such a claim today—the understood perfectly that Jesus, in that moment, claimed to be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

They pick up stones to throw at Him and show themselves to be true children of the devil. Jesus had said in John 8:44, just a two verses before today’s gospel began, “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.” They have demonstrated that they will not hear Jesus’ word but deceitfully and maliciously twist it. Now they prove themselves sons of hell by following in their father’s murderous footsteps by preparing to murder the One who has come to bring men eternal life, the One who is, Himself, the light and light of men “(Jn 1:4).

But Jesus eludes them. Using His divine power, hid Himself and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by. The Jews would succeed in murdering Him, but not today. He will be a victim, not because they get the upper hand, but because He, as High Priest of the New Testament, will offer Himself to God as the spotless sacrificial victim. He will be killed by them, but not in this temple built by hands. He will enter the Most Holy Place of God’s presence, once for all, and obtain eternal redemption for all mankind. In order for Jesus to give life to anyone who keeps His word, He must die, for He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance” as the author of Hebrews teaches us in the epistle. By His death He makes full satisfaction for sins under the first covenant—the Law.  His suffering and death pay for all of our sins of thought, word, and deed because it is the eternal Son of God, who suffers and dies in the flesh. His blood, shed once-for-all on the altar of the cross, is the blood of the New Testament, which cleanses us from all sins as often as we repent of them and flee to Christ. He dies in the flesh so that all who die in the flesh who keep His word, we never see eternal death. The life His gives begins now through faith in in His Word and extends past the moment of our bodily death into all eternity.

Christ wants to give these gifts to you—forgiveness of sins, new life, and salvation—through His word, and promises you, “Most assuredly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death.” He wants you to keep Jos word by hearing it, reading it, and by meditating on it, contemplating it, and applying it to yourself, so that you live each day in repentance and faith: Repentance that acknowledges your sinful nature and the times you have given in to it; Faith that trusts Christ’s promise to cleanse the  conscience from dead works of sin and selfishness, to serve the living God with living works of love for Him and neighbor. Those who are not “of God” do not keep His word. They ignore it, attack it, and Christ hides Himself from them. They remain in spiritual death now and into eternity. But all who are “of God” and keep His word, and to them Christ reveals Himself as the Mediator of the New Testament who gives new life that begins now by faith, and extends into all eternity. “If anyone keeps My word he shall never see death.” Grant this Lord, to us all. Amen.

May the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.

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John 17:1-17
Lord’s Prayer 6^th & 7^th Petitions

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

There are three great enemies which want to prevent all that you have prayed for in the first five petitions of the Lord’s Prayer. They do not want you to hallow God’s name so that you hear God’s word purely taught or for you to live holy lives according to it. These three do not want God’s kingdom to come among you, so that you receive the Holy Spirit. They want to reign in your heart. These enemies do not want God’s will to be done in you. They want their will to be done in you and by you. They don’t want you to recognize God as the giver of your daily bread and give Him thanks. They want you to think you are your provider. If you still cling to the notion that God gives daily bread, these adversaries will do all they can to make you discontent with what God gives, so that you grumble, complain, and doubt that God only gives good things. These three enemies do not want you to confess your trespasses to God, believe the gospel, and forgive others. They want you to excuse your sins while simultaneously holding grudges against those who sin against you and repent. You know them. You know them well. They are the devil, the world, and your own flesh.

The apostle Paul says in Romans 7:18, “I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells.” This is true for every person born in the natural way—that is, from the union of a man and a woman. Lest anyone imagine that the Old Adam can be reformed or rehabilitated, Paul says in Romans 8:7, “The carnal—that is, fleshly—mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.” The sinful flesh clings us to us and daily incites us to sin. Luther wrote in his Large Catechism, “For in the flesh we dwell and carry the old Adam about our neck, who exerts himself and incites us daily to inchastity, laziness, gluttony and drunkenness, avarice and deception, to defraud our neighbor and to overcharge him, and, in short, to all manner of evil lusts which cleave to us by nature” (LC III:102). In short, our very selves, body and minds, tempt us to sin daily.

The world works together in perfect synergy with the sinful flesh. The world consists of the people that populate it. If the people of the world live according to the sinful flesh, it’s no wonder that the world offers easy ways of fulfilling every desire and gratifying every lust of the flesh. We are tempted by the example of others around us. We are tempted by what we see on the myriad screens we watch each day. The world does all it can to influence us—not simply to buy this or that product—but to sin, to like it, and to live in it. After all, “Everybody’s doing it.” The world plays to the sinful nature’s pride, as well. No one wants to be “the least,” the low man on the totem pole, or the last in line. No one wants to serve. They want to be served. And so that world tempts with a way of life, that puts oneself first: hatred, envy contentions, backstabbing, gossip, ambition, and the like.

Then there’s devil, the ancient serpent. Jesus says he was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth (Jn 8:44). The devil tempts us to all sins, but Luther thought the devil especially tempts us in matters of the conscience and spiritual matters. The devil especially wants to agitate us “to despise and disregard both the Word and works of God, to tear us away from faith, hope, and love, and bring us into misbelief, false security, and obduracy, or, on the other hand, to despair, denial of God, blasphemy, and innumerable other shocking things. These are indeed snares and nets, yea, real fiery darts which are shot most venomously into the heart, not by flesh and blood, but by the devil” (LC III:104). The devil wants us to doubt God word. He wants to destroy your faith, drain you of the Christian hope, and suffocate your love for God and others. He does this by leading Christians into false security, so that they say, “I know the gospel, I can live as I please!” To those sorrowing over over their sin, He tempts with despair, so that they say, “I know the gospel, and I know it isn’t for me.” He works to bring evil of body, soul, property, and honor upon us, so that we cast aside God’s name, God’s kingdom, and God’s will, and die the only truly evil death—death without true faith in Christ.

How do we stand against such lethal, well-armed enemies? We pray, “Lead us not into temptation.” That doesn’t mean, “Lead us in such a way that we avoid all temptation.” No one can avoid every temptation. The monks of the early church discovered this for themselves. Fleeing the world’s wickedness, their sinful flesh tempted them in the solitude of the desert. No, you cannot escape world, because you cannot escape the devil or your own flesh. “Lead us not into temptation” means we ask God to “guard and keep us so that the devil, the world and our flesh may not deceive us, nor mislead us into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice.” “Lead us not into temptation” means, “Guard us against temptation. Establish our faith in the midst of every temptation so that we are victorious over the temptation. Provide the way of escape which You promised, and Your Holy Spirit so that I take that way of escape.” We must not expect God to take away temptations of the devil, the world, and our flesh. The words of Sirach are true: “My son, if thou come to serve the Lord, prepare thy soul for temptation” (Sirach 2:1). You will be troubled, you are troubled by these things, but we pray in this petition that God would keep us in the midst of every temptation and give us victory.

And take hear, dear children of the heavenly Father, for this is His will for you. In the gospel lesson we heard this evening, Jesus prayed to His father and our father who art in heaven, “Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are.” Jesus prepares to depart this world through death. But He prays for His disciples that the Father would keep them in His name, the name they prayed would be hallowed among them. Jesus says, “I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one.  They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.” This is written for you encouragement, dear saints. You are not of this world, which is why the world hates you, persecutes you, and fights against you with temptation the way it does. You are not of the world in the same way that Christ is not of this world. You are of citizens of heaven. God reigns in your hearts by His Holy Spirit. You are sanctified by God’s word—His promise to forgive your sins as often as you repent; His promise to gives you His Holy Spirit to lead holy lives; His promise that Christ will return to take you from this evil world and make for you a new heaven and new earth where righteousness dwells.

Christ prays for you. He wants you to persevere in the faith unto the end. He wants to give the blessed end—a death died firmly believing that your sins are forgiven, and you are righteous in God’s sight for Jesus’ sake. For now, He leaves you in the world, though. And while you are still in the world, the devil, the world, and your own sinful flesh will do everything they can to bring you back to their name, their kingdom, and their will. How will you stand? By God’s word, for that is how He has sanctified you and continues to sanctify you so that while you are in this world you are not of this world. His word, preached, taught, read, contemplated. That is the means of grace the Holy Spirit wants you to use to fight every temptation. That’s how Christ Himself fought temptation in the wilderness. Every fiery dart of the devil was extinguished against the shield of faith, trusting in the “It is written” of Holy Scripture. You have God’s word, and He wants to imprint His word more and more on your hearts and minds so that He may call it to mind in the moment of temptation.

You also have Christ’s visible words—His promise which He attaches to external elements. You have your baptism, your greatest treasure on earth, for it in you can find the daily forgiveness of sins but also you can use it to fight temptation. In the moment of temptation, “I am baptized! I am the new man in Christ! I have the Holy Spirit! Therefore, I will not fall to this temptation, but walk in God’s commandment instead.” Though that baptismal remembrance, you drown the old Adam, the sinful flesh. Through that baptismal remembrance, you remind yourself that you are not of this world just as Christ is not of this world. By remembering God’s work done upon you when He baptized you, you tell the devil that you are no longer His, but a child of God the Father. This is the escape God promises you in every temptation: His sanctifying truth. His Word is truth and by faith in His word we overcome and stand victorious in the end. Amen.

May the peace of God which surpasses understaning guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen

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John 6:1-15

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

When Jesus sees the great multitude of five thousand men in the wilderness, He asks His disciple, Philip, “Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat?” The evangelist adds, “But this He said to test him, for He Himself knew what He would do.” The word John uses, πειράζω, is also translated “to tempt.” How it’s understood depends upon who is doing the verb. If the devil is doing this, then it’s understood to be temptation. When the Devil approaches Jesus in the wilderness, he does to tempt Jesus to sin, to tempt Him to forsake His identity as God’s Son and live for Himself. When Satan approaches any of Christ’s Christians, he does the same. He tempts us to false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice. The devil tempts because he wants to destroy our faith by doubt, disbelief, and willful sinning.

But this isn’t what Christ has in mind when He asked Philip, “Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat?” Christ does not want to introduce doubt and disbelief in His promises and power. James writes in his epistle, “God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone” (Jam 1:13). When someone is tempted he is tempted to sin, to disbelieve God’s Word, and to trust in himself and follow his own desires. God never tempts anyone to sin, to doubt Him, or to disbelieve His Word, for He is not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness, nor does any evil dwell with Him (Psalm 5:4). When God is doing this verb, He is testing one’s faith, exercising it by giving it a specific opportunity to look to Him to save. Through this exercise He wants to prove Philip’s faith, strengthen it, and purify it from vain imaginations and false beliefs about His power to save to and His desire to do so. Through this exercise, Jesus wants Philip to use his God-given faith to trust in Him, that although he can’t see a way out of this problem, he might believe all the more firmly and confidently that Jesus already knows what He is going to do, how and when He is going to save.

When Jesus asked, “Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat,” Jesus was looking for faith. His question wasn’t all that different from what He asked the prophet Ezekiel when He showed him a valley of dry, lifeless bones. He asked, “Son of man, can these bones live?” The prophet answered in faith, ““O Lord GOD, You know” (Ez 37:3). Ezekiel saw a situation that we beyond human power, strength, and will, but nevertheless, a situation over which the Lord God had perfect power. Philip looks out upon a situation that was also beyond human power, strength, and will, but only saw human inadequacy.  “Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may have a little,” he answers. His eyes can only see their lack and the huge sums it would take to accomplish this feat. Andrew offers lamely, “There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two small fish, but what are they among so many?” Andrew sees what they do have at their disposal, which is incredibly small and inadequate compared to the number of mouths they must feed. It is only at the moment when they realize their inadequacy that Jesus acts. For when we have nothing, Jesus has all He needs. Their faith tested, Jesus shows them precisely what He already knew He would do, so that their faith in His ability to save in any situation might be strengthened.

This was written for our learning, as all the Scriptures are. Christ allows us to fall into impossible situations. Often, He leads us into scenarios in which we realize our own resources are woefully inadequate compared to the magnitude of what is before us. Do you worry about the salvation of a member of your family? Does the worry arise in your mind, “What am I going to say to them this time to get through to them?” Jesus allows this to befall you to test you, because He already knows what is necessary in that situation. He wants you to learn all the more to trust Him to give you the right words, but even more so to teach you trust Him to act according to divine wisdom and mercy. Do you worry about how to make ends meet in your home, or about how you will continue to live on your income as the world becomes more unstable? Christ allows this come upon you test you, because He already knows exactly how He is going to provide for you today, tomorrow, and for the rest of your life. He tests your faith to purify it from needless fretting about the future and to strengthen your confidence in His promise, “Therefore do not worry, for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things” (Matt. 6:31-32). Do you see the decay of our culture, our society, and our institutions, then look at the size of Christ’s flock and think, “But what are they among so many?” These are only a few tests the Lord allows to come upon us to make us see our inadequacy and inability, and look in every test to Christ, who already knows precisely when and how He will act on behalf on His faithful people.

What does He say to Philip and the other disciples?  “Make the people sit down.”  He intends to teach about Himself, His person and His office, that is, who He is and what He has come do. He tests and teaches to strengthen the disciple’s faith so their hearts puff up with confidence at the thought of what their Lord is able to do for them. Jesus takes the five barley loves and “when He had given thanks He distributed them to the disciples, and the disciples to those sitting down, and likewise of the fish, as much as they wanted.” Jesus takes their lack and turns it into enough to feed all five thousand. And not just feed them, but satisfy their hunger, and not just satisfy their hunger, but satisfy it with so much that there enough leftovers to fill twelve baskets. That’s one for each disciple, so that as each one picked up bread and placed in into their basket, they would meditate on Jesus’ ability to turn five small barley loaves into all this.

He also shows them—and us—that while He will not use His divine power for His own benefit, He does use it for our benefit. He does today what He refused to do in the wilderness after fasting forty days. In Matthew 4 the devil tempts Jesus to turn stones into bread, to use His divine power to serve Himself. Jesus refuses because “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28). He will not turn stones into bread to serve Himself. But He will multiply five barley loaves and two small fish to serve man. This is the sort of God we have in Christ Jesus. The point of the miracle is far greater than simply, “Jesus can bend the rules of nature and the laws of physics because “in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9). That is most certainly true. This passage does show us this. But it shows us so much more. How does He use His divine power? He uses it not for Himself but for man, just as He will do by suffering on the cross and dying, not for His own sake to be the “propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world” (1 John 2:2), so that all who believe in Him may have forgiveness, new life, and eternal salvation. He teaches them not only that He is able to provide for the needs of man but that that is the reason why He has come. He teaches Philip—and all whom He tests—that “the things which are impossible with men are possible with God” (Luke 18:27).

In the moment of our testing, whatever it may be, Christ has no concern for what is lacking in the situation. He sees no improbability. He knows no impossibility. He desires to strengthen your faith by these moments so that you understand, by faith, not experience or hypothesis, that God is able to do all things. More than that, He wants to gently teach you once again that He will give aid, that He desires to deliver, and that He wants to give good things to those who place their trust in Him. He wants to purify our faith by removing from it the dross of doubt. He wants to strengthen our faith so that it is not a flabby faith, but a lively and active faith which boldly trusts God the Father for all good things, even in the worst of situations. He wants His disciples to rejoice in their adversities because they are opportunities for Him to fortify our faith so that it does not fail. In the moment of testing He desires that you turn to His Word and cling to that Word with all your heart, that His promise is not only true but that it is true for you. He wants you trust all the more firmly not only that God is gracious, but that He is gracious to you in Christ Jesus. This is what Christ seeks to teach Philip, Andrew, and all His disciples as they look out on the impossibilities and hardships of life and says, “Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat?” Amen.

May the peace of God which surpasses human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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John 4:5-26
Lord’s Prayer 4^th & 5^th Petitions

Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Jesus comes to a city of Samaria called Sychar. It’s about the sixth hour, noon. Wearied from His journey, He sits by the well. He sits there, alone, for His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food, daily bread. Although Christ could have turned stones into bread for Him and His disciples to eat, He gives them their daily bread in the ordinary way. They go to the store and buy it from those who sell, who themselves bought it from those who planted and harvested. While they are in town at the market, a woman of the village comes to the well to draw water. She, too, is getting her daily bread. Daily bread, after all, is “Everything that pertains to the needs and necessities of this life, such as food, and drink.” God gives this woman her daily drink in the ordinary way as well. She goes to the well to draw water into her jar, which she’ll then take back to her home to drink. Jesus could have slit open a rock and brought forth water, as He did for the Israelites in the wilderness. Instead, He allows the woman to seek her daily bread through the ordinary means, and He will do the same for Himself. He says to her, “Give me a drink.”

Jesus teaches us that God provides daily bread to all people and He provides it through ordinary means. There are times when God provides daily bread in an extraordinary way. God can miraculously give us our daily bread without our work and labor. He did this for Israel in the wilderness, the widow at Zarephath, and others. On Sunday we’ll hear how Christ feeds about five thousand with five barley loaves and two small fish. But miracles are the extraordinary way that God provides daily bread. The ordinary way is through our work and labor, and through the work and labor of others. By allowing His disciples to go into town to buy food, and by asking the Samaritan woman for a drink of water that she will draw from the well, Jesus blesses the ordinary way God gives daily bread so that we recognize this and receive our daily bread from God with thanksgiving.

 Of course, we know that daily bread isn’t just bread. It’s more than food and drink. Luther teaches that daily bread is “everything that pertains to the needs and necessities of this life, such as food, drink, clothes, shoes, house, yard, land, animals, money, property, a godly spouse, godly children, godly servants, godly and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, discipline, honor, good friends, trustworthy neighbors, and the like.” Christ teaches us to pray for all these things so that, even though we receive them by our labor and the labor of others, we recognize that everything we have in this life is from the hand of God. This also means that if there is daily bread which we don’t have today, then it isn’t God’s will that we have that particular blessing today, and we should keep praying for that blessing and not lose heart. Thus, we give thanks for what God gives and trust that He gives us what we need when it is best for us, our neighbor, and His glory.

But this text isn’t just about daily bread and how God gives it. The answers Jesus’ request with a question, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” John parenthetically adds that Jews have no dealings with Samaritans so that we understand her comment. But Jesus moves the conversation past ethnicity and even past daily bread. Seemingly no longer interested in a drink of water, He tells her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” It isn’t that that drink of water isn’t important. It’s that daily bread is only one thing God provides. The other thing God provides—that which Jesus offers her here, living water—is more important.

The woman doesn’t understand living water, as least not as Jesus means it. She seems to understand it—in the sense that the phrase was used so often in the Old Testament—to mean running water. “You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?” Jesus distinguishes between the water of the well and the living water He gives. “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” The water Jesus gives is life itself, true life, animated by the Holy Spirit, which results in everlasting life, but still the woman cannot understand. “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.” She is stuck in carnal, fleshly thinking. All she can see is her need for daily bread, “everything that pertains to the needs and necessities of this life.”

Jesus promises that God will provide everything that pertains to the needs and necessities of this life, but He has come to bring more than that. He has come to bring living water, water that brings life—life with God, life animated by the Holy Spirit. But living water can only be received by those who acknowledge that they are spiritually dead because of their sins. Before her sits the fountain of living water Himself—the incarnate Son of God—and she cannot even recognize her thirst. So Jesus tells her to call her husband and come back, to which the woman answers that she has no husband. It is this point that Jesus shows her need for living water. “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.” He reveals to her the sin in which she has lived and is still currently living, for God did not ordain the estate of living together without marriage, but the estate of holy marriage, and those who persist in living outside of what God has ordained will inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor 6:10).

The woman tries to distract, as most, if not all people do when someone points out their sin, by diverting the conversation. In this case, the diversion looks pious because it’s theology, but even this turns that back to the woman so that she may, by faith, draw from the fount of living water that sits right in front of her, receive the forgiveness of her sins and the Holy Spirit to amend her sinful life, worshiping God the Father in spirit and truth. When Jesus confesses Himself to be the Christ, she leaves her water pot there, goes into the city and tells them, and the result is that many believed in Him, and after two days of Jesus staying with them, said to the woman, “Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world” (4:42).

The fourth petition—daily bread—is sometimes the petition we pray the most often and the most fervently. That makes sense because we experience our daily bread physically. Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman reminds us what Luther teaches us in the Small Catechism, that, “God surely gives daily bread to all evil people without our petition; but we ask in this prayer that He would allow us to recognize this, and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving.” But as Jesus moves the Samaritan woman’s concern from physical water to living water—the forgiveness of our sins and the Holy Spirit’s presence and reign in our hearts—He shows how we, too, should not be stuck only on asking for our daily bread, but that we always pray for the water that gives life, His gospel, and faith so that we might daily draw living water from its source and fountain, Christ. We pray that “God would not look up on our sins or deny our petitions because of them, but ask that He would give it all to us by grace; for we daily sin much and surely deserve nothing but punishment.” Since we daily sin much and surely deserve nothing but punishment, we confess our sins—those of which we are aware and those of which we are unaware—and believe that He forgives us and raises us to new life by giving us living water to drink.

And so it works well to think of these two petitions together. God gives daily bread, even to the evil. We daily sin much and deserve nothing but punishment, but—thanks be to God—He gives us daily gospel as we come to the fountain of living waters, Jesus Christ our Lord. Having this living water—the gospel and Holy Spirit by faith—we have all we need, regardless of what God gives us for our daily bread or withholds from us on any given day.  Amen.

May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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Ephesians 5.1-9 & Luke 11.14-28

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Jesus casts a mute demon out of a man. Once the demon is exorcised, the man begins to speak and the multitude marvels. But not everyone. Some say within themselves, “He casts out demons by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons.” Others ask Jesus for a sign from heaven, as if exorcism they just witnessed wasn’t a sign from heaven. Jesus takes on both groups simultaneously. He first points out the absurdity of the thought that He casts out demons by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons. “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and a house divided against a house falls. If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? Because you say I cast out demons by Beelzebub.” Why would Satan drive one of his demons out of a man and lose ground in the war for men’s soul’s? Why would Satan allow one of his servants to cast another one of his servants out of man, and lose that man from his kingdom? No. Satan has a kingdom, and kingdom divided against itself doesn’t stand. A house, a business, a marriage, a family, all of these will fall into ruin if they are divided. Their argument is absurd.

Jesus keeps going, though, because the question of whose work He’s doing is of vital importance. He asks them, “And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges.” Were their sons actually casting out demons? Luke tells us in Acts 19 about itinerant Jewish exorcists who attempted to cast demons out using the name of Jesus. Seven of these men were brothers, the sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest. Luke tells us that when they told a demon, “We exorcise you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches,” the demon responded, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?” then the demoniac proceeded to attack and overpower all seven, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded (Acts 9:13-16). If this is any indication, then there were itinerant Jewish exorcists, but they weren’t very successful. Jesus, however, is casts them out by commanding them directly to leave, and the demons, who so often would overpower other men, willingly submit to Jesus’ word. If their sons could not cast out demons but Jesus could, they would be one more witness that Jesus casts them out by another power.

And the only power is God’s power. So Jesus says, “But if I cast out demons with the finger of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.” Jesus casts out demons, not by Beelzebub, the ruler of demons. He casts them out by finger of God—the Holy Spirit. That phrase alone should have made these Jews think twice about Jesus’ power. In the days of Moses, when Jannes and Jambres couldn’t replicate the plague of lice, they told Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God” (Ex. 8:19). When Moses was on Mt. Sinani, the Lord gave Moses two tablets of the Testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God (Ex. 31:18). Just as the Lord, with His finger, destroyed the gods of Egypt with ten plagues and engraved His will in stone for Israel, Jesus destroys Satan’s reign in this individual, frees him from the devil’s slavery, and shows us His holy will: to break and hinder every evil plan and will of the devil, the world, and the sinful flesh that sets itself against His will.

Jesus comes to bring God’s kingdom to men, to reign in men’s hearts with His word and Spirit. And to that means that men must first be freed from Satan’s kingdom. “When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are in peace. But when a stronger one than he comes upon him and overcomes him, he takes from him all his armor in which he trusted, and divides his spoils.” Jesus is the stronger one. He enters the world, the devil’s palace which he rules, fully armed with deep guile and great might. Jesus overcomes the devil, strips him of his armor which He used to keep humanity imprisoned in his kingdom. Jesus, victorious over the strong man, divides the spoils of Satan’s kingdom, making those He rescues His victory over the devil as well. This is Jesus’ work: to destroy the work of the devil by to earn forgiveness of sins for all mankind, to earn perfect righteousness for all mankind, and to clearly teach us God’s word and will, so that all who believe in Him have the forgiveness He won, the righteousness He earned, and the Holy Spirit so that they, too, might be victorious over the devil’s temptations each and every day.  No, Jesus is not in league with the devil, for “He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters.” It is the devil who scatters. It is the Christ who gathers men into His kingdom and give them freedom from all the devil works and ways.

Jesus still frees sinners from the captivity of the devil using the finger of God. Demon possession is a real threat to those who do not believe in Christ, especially those who play around with demonic instruments masquerading as games and silly outings. But demon possession, for the Christian, is a picture of life apart from faith in Christ. There is no middle, neutral ground between Christ and the devil. One’s heart is either a home for evil spirits or a home for the Holy Spirit. All people are, by birth, enslaved to the devil and captives in his kingdom and the devil is strong. Never doubt that. Jesus calls him a strong man, fully armed. But Jesus is one stronger, and He rescues sinners from Satan’s servitude by baptizing them and by preaching His Holy Spirit into their hearts. He creates faith in our hearts through the means of grace, and that faith receives the forgiveness of sins and justifies us in God’s sight. The faith He creates in us through baptism, preaching, He sustains and grows through baptism, preaching, and the sacrament of His body and blood, strengthening His reign in our hearts, for Jesus says in John 14:23, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.” He dwells in our hearts by faith, reigns over us by His gospel, and give us the Holy Spirit so that He might be victorious over the temptations of the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh by the same power with which He cast out demons.

He does not free us from the devil’s kingdom so that we might then build our own kingdom, reign over our own hearts, and live however we see fit. To receive the gospel and imagine that it frees us from devil but does not put us in God’s kingdom, where we live under His will and rule, is to have Him sweep the house of our heart and garnish it but leave it empty. But houses are built to have an occupant. And the house that is unoccupied will soon find itself occupied by squatters. Jesus warns against receive God’s grace in vain by telling us what happens when an unclean spirit goes out of a man. “He goes through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it swept and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first.” When we imagine God frees us to ourselves and not to His kingdom, the strong man will return with other temptations and sins, and occupy the home of our heart, and the latter end is worse for us than the beginning (2 Ptr 2:20).

This is not Christ’s will for us. He frees us from Satan’s kingdom so that we might live with Him in His kingdom, enjoying the forgiveness of our sins and growing in our love for God and our neighbors. How does He keep us in His kingdom? And how do we keep Him in our hearts? A woman cried out at the end of today’s gospel, “Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts which nursed You!” She is correct. All generations shall call Mary blessed. But Jesus points us to a better blessedness than being the mother of God when He replies, “More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” The one who hears God’s word and keeps it before their eyes, in their hearts, and lives according to it, is truly a blessed one. For the Son of God only dwelt in Mary’s womb for nine months, but He dwells perpetually with His grace and mercy in the hearts of all those who hear the word of God and keep it. Jesus has come to destroy the works of the devil, in His ministry, by His suffering and death, by His resurrection, ascension, so that He might bring you out of the devil’s kingdom into His own and keep you there even as you hear His word and keep it. Amen.

May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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