Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Kerrville Texas

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

“What must I do to inherit eternal life?” That’s the question. “Go and do likewise” is Jesus’ final answer to that question. It’s obvious that the man shouldn’t be like the robbers in the parable, who fall upon others, strip them of their clothing, wound them, and leave them half dead. To do any of these things would violate the commandments “You shall not murder” and “You shall not steal.” But neither is the lawyer to be like the priest or the Levite in the parable, who knew every line of the law but imagine that it only applies to the outward act. The priest and the Levite think they don’t break the commandment because they weren’t the ones to harm the man, steal his things, wound him, and leave him half dead. Even though they did no harm, they missed wide the mark of the Law which reads: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). Instead, Jesus says if you want to inherit eternal life, be like the Samaritan. He saw his neighbor in need. He went to the man, bandaged him, treated his wounds, set him on his own animal, brought him to the closest inn, cared for him, and then paid all the expense for his recovery. The external acts are good, but the most important thing about the Samarian was his heart. He had compassion on the half dead man. That compassion in his heart is what led him to do what he did. Jesus’ answer’ is simple. If you want to inherit eternal life, be like the Samaritan. But not just once. Not just do people you like. “Go and do likewise” to everyone, in every situation, and you will inherit eternal life.

Jesus gives the man a law answer because that’s where the man is. He’s stuck in the law, imaging that the inheritance is of the law. “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” is his question. Jesus drives him to the law, or rather drives the law into him, to show him the impossibility of inheriting life through the law. “What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?” Jesus asks. The man, stuck in the way of the law, answers correctly. Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Here Jesus runs him through the first time. “You have answered rightly; do this and you will live.” The law is simple. It requires that you love God perfectly at all times. This means He is your highest good. He is the source of all good things in life. To have God is to have everything you need, even if you have nothing. The law requires you to trust God above all things so that you never doubt, not for an instance. It requires you to fear God and His judgment above all things so that you never sin. Then it requires perfect love for neighbor, as we said a moment ago, that loves your neighbor and helps your neighbor in every need. The lawyer feels the sting of the law at this point. He can’t do that. It’s too broad. So, he has to narrow it. By asking, “And who is my neighbor?” he attempts to move the goalposts. But the goalposts can’t be moved. Your neighbor is everyone around you, not just the people you like or can tolerate. It even includes your enemies, for the Jews and the Samaritans were not only friendly terms by any means. The law requires loving outward acts. But more, it always requires genuine compassion and heartfelt love for our neighbor.

This is impossible for the lawyer. It is impossible for any of us because we are sinners, curved in upon ourselves, self-loving, self-trusting, self-fearing creatures. None of us can love our neighbor perfectly as the Law demands all day every day of the week. But love is a debt that is never fully paid because love is more than outward acts. It’s a matter of the heart that is willing to set aside one’s own interests for the sake of the interests of another as often as our neighbor needs. And if we can’t love our neighbor—whom we can see—perfectly, then it is impossible for us to love God—whom we cannot see—perfectly as well. We don’t fear, love, and trust Him above all things. We don’t love Him with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind. We cannot “go and do likewise” and therefore we cannot inherit eternal life by the law, by our works, or by our best efforts. This is Jesus’ point by driving the lawyer back to the law. The lawyer wants to be justified by the law. He wants the law to tell him he’s righteous, that way he can tell himself and God that he’s done it himself. Jesus shows the lawyer just how far he will have to go to inherit eternal life by the law, and it is a distance that no man born in the natural way can traverse, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

The point of the parable is that you can’t inherit eternal life by the law. St. Paul writes to the Galatians in today’s epistle lesson, “For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no longer of promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise.” Even earthly inheritances aren’t of the law. Yes, they are legal documents that require legal recognition, but how one comes into an inheritance is not a matter of law. You cannot do anything to earn an inheritance. You must be an heir to be given the inheritance. So it is with the inheritance promised to Abraham. This inheritance was given to Abraham by grace and Abraham received it by faith. Abraham was not justified before God by his works but because He believed God’s promises. The law was given later, not to change God’s covenant, but for another purpose altogether. “What purpose then does the law serve?” Paul asks. “It was added because of transgressions.” The purpose of the Law is to show everyone their sins so that they look to God for mercy. Paul says, “For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law. But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.” The law’s job it to confine everyone in the prison of sin, to show everyone their sins, so that they look to Christ for mercy and believe His promise as Abraham did.

Once the law confines us under sin and shows us our transgressions, we see Christ’s parable in a different light. It’s no longer about us, or at least us as being the Samaritan. If we hear the parable and think we can inherit eternal life by the law, then we assume we are to be the Samaritan. But if we know we don’t keep the law, then we see ourselves as the wounded man. This is what the sin does to us, after all. It wounds us so that we cannot rise. It strips us of the righteousness with which God originally created us. It leaves us dead on the road. The priest and the Levite, the representatives of the law, pass us by, because the law cannot help up or give us life. They only show us our sins so that we learn our sinful condition even more. But then comes a Samaritan who has compassion. He comes to us. He bandages the wounds of our sin, healing them by pouring the wine of repentance and oil of forgiveness into them. He sets us on His own animal, that is, He bears us as a burden because we are too weak to cooperate with Him in our salvation. He brings us to the inn of His holy church and here He cares for us. He then sets innkeepers over us, His pastors, whom He charges with our spiritual care until He returns on the Last Day and brings with Him the final redemption of all who believe the promise of the gospel, that by His sufferings and death He has atoned for each and every one of our many sins. When we see the law for what it is, we see that the Good Samaritan isn’t us at all. It’s Jesus. He is the Seed of Abraham to whom God made the promises. He is the heir of the everlasting inheritance and promises to share that inheritance with all whom believe in Him. By washing in baptismal water, cleansing us of our sins, He makes us co-heirs with Him, co-inheritors of eternal life, righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.

Being washed, sanctified, and adopted as co-heirs with Christ, justified by faith and not by law, we are able to “go and do likewise.” As those who will inherit eternal life by faith in the promise of the gospel, we become good Samaritans like our elder brother Jesus. We go and begin to do likewise because the inheritance is already ours by faith in God’s promise. Washing our wounds daily by repentance and faith, knowing Christ cares for us in the inn of His holy church, we strive to love our neighbors. No, we will not love our neighbors perfectly because we still live in the sinful flesh, but even that imperfection is covered for Jesus’ sake, so that our good works are pleasing to God because they’re done in faith. As you travel the road from Jerusalem to Jericho—this earthly life—help your neighbor in his bodily need, as God gives you opportunity, as you are able. Go and do likewise, patterning your love for your neighbor after your Good Samaritan’s love and compassion for you. He has made you an heir of eternal life and promised you every eternal blessing. With that in mind, strive to love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, and your neighbor as yourself. Amen.

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

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

Jesus opens the ears of the deaf and looses the tongue of the mute, and He does so in a glorious way. When some people bring a deaf mute to Jesus and beg Him to lay His hands on the man, Jesus takes the man away from the crowd. He puts His fingers in the man’s ears, showing him that He is going to open them so that they can hear. He spits and touches the man’s tongue, showing him that He will moisten his rigid, heavy tongue so that he may speak plainly. He looks up to heaven, showing the man from where His power and authority to heal him comes. Finally, Jesus sighs and says one word: Ephphatha, which means “Be opened.” Immediately his ears were opened, and the impediment of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke plainly. He whose ears had been stopped up so that no word or sound could penetrate, hears. He, whose tongue was heavy and unyielding suddenly begins to speak rightly, correctly, and without any trouble, as if he had been speaking every day of his life. Jesus demonstrates His almighty power, which He possesses as the eternal Son of God. He demonstrates that He is the Messiah who, in whose day “the deaf shall hear the words of the book” (Is 29:18) and in by whose ministry the eyes of the blind shall be opened, And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped (Is 35:5). By opening deaf ears and loosening an unyielding tongue, Jesus shows His ministry—the ministry of the New Covenant—far outshines the glory of the Old Covenant given through Moses.

There’s no denying Moses’ ministry was glorious. When the Lord called Moses to bring the children of Israel out of Egypt, Moses excused himself, saying, “O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue” (Ex 4:10). Literally he says he is heavy of mouth and heavy tongue. The Lord responded to Moses’ excuse by asking, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Havenot I, the LORD? Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say” (Ex 4:11-12). That the Lord was with Moses throughout His ministry was evident by the miracles Moses performed. He afflicted the entire land of Egypt with ten destructive plagues. He led Israel out of Egypt, through the Red Sea on dry ground, and gave them God’s law from Mt. Sinai. As a result of speaking with God face to face, Moses’ face shown with brightness, so that when he came down from the mountain, the Israelites were afraid to come near him. After He spoke to them so that they knew it was him, he gave them as commandments all that the LORD had spoken with him on Mount Sinai. And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face (Ex 34:32-33). Moses’ ministry was glorious. His face was radiant with heavenly glory. His words were the very words of God’s law. His ministry—the ministry of the Old Covenant—was truly glorious.

But for all its glory, Moses’ ministry was a ministry of condemnation and death. It was the ministry of condemnation because the Commandments showed Israel—and all mankind—just how far short of God’s glory we fall. Paul says in Romans 3:20 that by the law is the knowledge of sin. And not just the knowledge of outward sins, but of inward, hidden sins of the heart. Paul says in Romans 7:7 when he says, “I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, “You shall not covet.” No one knows if we covet someone else’s possessions, house, spouse, or life. But God who searches the heart knows and condemns all who covet and lust for that which He has not given them. So it is for all the commandments. Each one touches not only the outward man, but the heart, demanding perfect fear, love, and trust in God above all things so that we do His will joyfully and willingly from the heart.  Just as Moses’ mouth and tongue were heavy, so the Law God gave through Moses was heavy, a weighty burden which no one can bear perfectly. By the law is the knowledge of sin and the wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23). This is what makes the ministry of the Old Covenant the ministry of death. Paul calls Moses’ ministry, that of the Old Covenant, the ministry of death, not to denigrate it, not to say it wasn’t of God, or that the law Moses gave wasn’t God’s law. St. Paul calls it the ministry of death because Moses’ ministry—the law—brings death upon not just Israel, but all mankind, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23).

The ministry of Moses, for all its glory, shows us our sin and condemns us to eternal death. It shows us how much we have in common with the deaf mute who is brought to Jesus, not physically, but spiritually. Our ears may hear, but by nature, they are stopped up to God’s word. Our sinful flesh prefers to hear its own words which rationalize our sinful desires, justify our covetous eyes, and excuse our selfish behavior. Our ears cannot hear God’s word because they are stopped up with the world’s words which normalize sin, lust, dishonesty, worry, and a host of other sins. Moses tells us to hold God’s Word sacred so that so that we gladly hear and learn it. David tells us, “The words of the LORD are pure words, Like silver tried in a furnace of earth, Purified seven times” (Ps 12:6). Yet the sinful flesh is deaf to God’s Word—to hearing it with understanding—because it prefers the corrupting speech of the world.  We are like the deaf mute in that we cannot use our tongues as God intended, either. Our tongues are loose so that we can physically speak, but by nature we speak ill of others and boast of ourselves. God wants us to use our tongues to speak truth to our neighbor and speak it lovingly. He gave man his tongue to praise Him, pray to Him, and confess Him. But how often do we use our tongues in the way that James 3:6 describes? He says, “The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell.”

Apart from God’s law—the ministry of condemnation and death—we would see none of this in ourselves. God desires that we see our sins, that we acknowledge that we deserve God’s wrath and punishment for our sins, and that we lament them. He uses the ministry of condemnation and death to bring us to the point of confessing, as David did in the thirty-eighth psalm, “But I, like a deaf man, do not hear; And I am like a mute who does not open his mouth. Thus I am like a man who does not hear, And in whose mouth is no response” (Ps 38:13-14). Confessing that we are deaf and mute before God readies us for the ministry of the Spirit which does not kill, as the letter of the law does, but vivifies and enlivens those who acknowledge their deafness and muteness. What does Jesus do for the deaf mute? He heals Him. He unstops deaf ears. He loosens the rigid tongue so that the man from then on hears, not only other’s words, but God’s word, and speaks, not only to others, but to God in prayer and praise! This is what the ministry of the New Covenant, the ministry of the Spirit and righteousness, does. Where Moses reveals our deafness and muteness and condemns it, Jesus opens our ears so that we do not despise His word but gladly hear and learn it. He opens our lips so that our mouths declare His praise. Just as the ministry of death was glorious, with miracles and a bright-shining Moses, so the ministry of the New Covenant is more glorious, for Christ attested to His ministry with gracious miracles and a bright-shining face, not on loan as Moses’ was, but because He is the eternal Son of God, the brightness of God’s glory. For even what was made glorious—the ministry of the law—had no glory in this respect, because of the glory that excels. Once the law has fulfilled its purpose and worked repentance, it’s glory fades in light of the glory that excels, the glory of the gospel, which forgives sins, declares us righteous in God’s sight, and gives new life to all who believe, new life with new ears and new togues.

What do we do with the new ears which we receive again today? Stop up our ears with the words of the world; words that tempt, entice, and corrupt; words that expect and excuse sin? What do we do with the new tongue we receive by hearing Christ’s word of absolution? Speak lies to others and ourselves, tear down others and puff up ourselves? May this not be so among us. No, the Lord Jesus has healed our deaf muteness once again, let us not go back to it willingly. Instead, let us use our ears to hear God’s Word, saying with the Psalmist, “Your word is very pure; Therefore Your servant loves it” (Ps 119:140). Loving it, we hear it as often as we have opportunity so that we may hold it in our hearts each day, living our lives according to it. We use our tongues to speak His word, to ourselves, to others to build them up, as well as back to God in prayer, praise, and thanksgiving. The fruit of our lips is the sacrifice of praise we offer to God, thanksgiving that He has opened our ears and loosed our tongues by His glorious ministry of righteousness, forgiveness, and life. Amen.

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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

The Pharisee in today’s parable is a pretty good guy. He is not like other men. He’s not an extortioner.  He hasn’t gotten his neighbor’s goods by force or threat. Nor is he unjust. He’s fair and equitable to others, he gives them what is due to them. Nor is he an adulterer. He is faithful to his wife. Nor is he like the tax collector praying in the corner. He doesn’t cheat others out of money as tax collectors often did, enriching themselves in ways that only appear to be right. The Pharisee is a pretty good guy. He knows it and is thankful for that. “God, I thank You that I am not like other men,” he prays. Not only is he a good, upstanding person, he goes above and beyond what is required of him. Regular fasting was not mandatory for the Israelites. Yet this man fasts twice a week. The law required tithes of the first fruits of their harvests. But this man gives tithes of all he possesses. This guy is good. The tax collector, though, not so much. First, he’s in a disreputable profession. Tax collectors worked for Rome, who ruled Judea at the time. They were also given a good amount of latitude as far as how much they could collect, a latitude many of them seemed to use quite freely. Tax collectors were so despised that they were half of a byword among the Jews. No one wanted to be considered a friend of tax collectors and sinners. No wonder the Pharisee thanked God that he was not like this tax collector.

But the Pharisee has a big problem, perhaps the worst problem a person could have. It’s the kind of problem that is nearly impossible to self-diagnose. He trusts in himself that he is righteous, meaning he is self-righteous. To any onlooker or passerby, he’s a righteous, holy man. But inwardly the opposite is true. He sees himself and all his works and puffs himself up at the thought of them. He lives the way he lives—in such an outwardly holy way—because he thinks that his actions are what make him righteous. And become he thinks of himself as righteous because of his deeds and sensibilities, he despises others. Having turned up his nose at those who appear less righteous than he, he thinks little of them. And so, these two things go together: If someone trusts in himself that he is righteous, he will despise others. Self-righteousness can’t exist by itself. It needs others around to feed itself with their unrighteousness and deplorableness. That’s because at its root, self-righteousness is a theology of comparison. As long as there is someone worse—and the worse the better—I look good and have a reason to continue looking good. It doesn’t take another actual person, either to be self-righteous. If a class of people exist that are viewed negatively, self-righteousness has the nourishment necessary for its life. Even if this tax collector hadn’t been within earshot of the Pharisee, the fact that tax collectors exist would be enough for him to say, “At least I’m not like those people.”  What makes self-righteousness so difficult, if not impossible, to see in oneself is it hides under the good that one does.

This tax collector, on the other hand, is not self-righteous. He’s the opposite. He’s humble and self-effacing. He doesn’t raise his eyes to heaven as he prays but beats his breast and prays, “‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!” He knows his sins. He feels them in his heart. He knows that he is unrighteous and that in his flesh there is nothing good. Jesus doesn’t put any specific sins in the tax collector’s mouth. He may very well have extorted money from his neighbor. He may very well have behaved unjustly. He may very well have adulterated his marriage. But Jesus has him go deeper.  The tax collector confesses himself to be a sinner because even if he’s been good outwardly, his heart is still the sinful heart, and out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, and blasphemies (Matt 15:19). There is no self-righteousness here, no self-justification, no excuses, no blame shifting. There is only honest self-appraisal under God’s law that demands perfect love for God and selfless love for neighbor. Seeing that he is unrighteous in and of himself, he asks God to be merciful to him. Because he has nothing to offer God to make atonement for himself, he asks God to provide atonement for him. Why would he do that? Because he believed that God would be merciful to sinners. He believed that God had promised to provide atonement and be merciful to those who humbly acknowledge their sin and truly regret it. He prays as Asaph does in Psalm 79:9, “Help us, O God of our salvation, For the glory of Your name; And deliver us, and provide atonement for our sins, For Your name’s sake!” Provide atonement for my sins, not on account of any righteousness I have, but because You have promised to be merciful.

Then Jesus explains, “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other.” This man—the tax collector—goes home justified, not the Pharisee. To be justified is to be declared righteous and free from sins and to be absolved from the eternal punishment for the sake of Christ’s righteousness, which is imputed by God to faith. God forgave the sins of the tax collector because he was humble, contrite, and because he trusted God’s promise to be merciful and provide atonement for sinners. The other—the Pharisee—goes home unjustified. God did not declare him righteous. God did not free him from his sins. God did not absolve him from eternal punishment because he wasn’t humble, contrite, or trusting God’s promise to be merciful and provide atonement for sinners.  The Pharisee didn’t even ask God for anything in his prayer! He exalted himself and despised his fellow man. The Pharisee couldn’t see past how good he thought he was to see the truth that he, too, was a sinner in need of God’s mercy. He, too, was a sinner out of whose heart proceeded evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, and blasphemies like the blasphemy of self-righteousness. Because he couldn’t see himself as God saw him, he saw no reason to confess anything to God, and no reason to ask for mercy and forgiveness. He went down his house, still in his sins, still under God’s wrath and condemnation. “Still,” because apart from faith in God’s promise to forgive sin, there is no justification. Apart from faith in the atonement God provided upon the cross, no one is declared righteous in God’s sight.

This parable is so simple, but its application runs deep. Self-righteousness is a pervasive part of the sinful nature. The sinful flesh which the tax collector had, which the Pharisee had, and which you and I have, will think, say, and do anything to prove to itself and others that it is righteous. Like the Pharisee, the sinful flesh will play the comparison game, “Thank You that I am not like other men.” The sinful flesh will even tempt us to compare ourselves to our previous selves, so that we see how much more sanctified we are today and say, “Thank you, that I am not that bad anymore!” The sinful flesh is a master at playing the comparison game, with the goal that we think more highly of ourselves than we ought, which often means we look down on others. But God does not compare us to other people. Nor does he compare us to our former selves. He compares us to His law, which means that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23), for in God’s sight no one living is righteous (Ps 143:2). We are to realize this, to know this about ourselves, and to do what the tax collector does. No comparison. No excuses. No self-justification. Just confession of sin and faith in the gospel, for faith in the gospel that Paul received and delivered: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. Faith in that gospel is only thing that God counts for righteousness.

Having been justified, declared righteous, free from sins, and to be absolved from the eternal punishment by faith in Christ’s righteousness, we think of ourselves as we ought. We call ourselves sinners and this is most certainly true. But God calls us righteous because we believe in His Son, and for this justification we rejoice! In that joy we begin to do righteous things. We love God from the heart so that we trust Him to give us every good thing we need. We begin to love our neighbor from the heart as well, so that we do not seek our own good but the good of our neighbor. We say with St. Paul, “By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.” We are justified, declared righteous, and set free from eternal punishment by God’s grace alone. Even the good we do now is done by His grace which is with us, not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God (2 Cor 3:5). Having been justified freely by God’s grace for Christ’s sake, and this through faith, we labor. We don’t labor to pile up works to boast in, like the Pharisee. We labor in service to the Lord and our neighbor, out of thanksgiving and joy that God is merciful and provides atonement for sinners. Believing this promise, go down to your house justified by God, declared righteous, free from sins, and absolved from the eternal punishment, and labor in love God and for others by the grace with you. Amen.

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

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

On Palm Sunday Jesus rides toward Jerusalem on a colt, the foal of a donkey. He began in Bethany and Bethphage on the Mount of Olives and processes nearly two miles to Jerusalem. As He drew near the city He sees and weeps over it. What brings Jesus to tears? He says, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.” Jesus foresees the destruction of Jerusalem. Nearly forty years after this, in 70 A.D., around the time of Passover, the Roman general Titus will besiege Jerusalem. They will surround it, cut off supplies to the city, and drive the Jews to starvation. In August of that year the Romans will have breached the city, massacred the Jews who hadn’t starved in the siege, and destroy the second temple. This would have been around the same time when, six hundred and fifty years earlier, Nebuchadnezzar entered Jerusalem in a similar fashion, burned Solomon’s temple to the ground, and carried away captive those who remained in the city. For these reasons the church hears Jesus’ prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem every year on the Tenth Sunday after Trinity, because this Sunday typically falls mid-August. We hear of Jesus’ tears and His prophecy so that we may heed the warning the Jews of Jesus’ day failed to heed.

Jesus says that the Jews did know in their day the things that make their peace—that is, the things that would bring them peace—nor did they know the day of their visitation. Jesus is describing not only His coming to Jerusalem, but His entire ministry, as God’s visiting His people for mercy. It’s language that recalls God’s gracious visitation of Israel at the exodus. At the end of His life, the patriarch Joseph told His brothers, “I am about to die, but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob” (Gen 50:24). He confirmed that prophecy by an oath, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here” (Gen 50:25). They embalmed Joseph and put his remains in a coffin as a reminder of God’s promise to visit Israel in grace. The bones of Joseph, long preserved, served as a testimony to God’s promise that He would visit them in mercy and bring them into the land He had promised to the Patriarchs. When Israel left Egypt, Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for he had placed the children of Israel under solemn oath, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here with you” (Ex 13:19). God visited His people just as Joseph had foretold. He rescued them from Pharoah and their bitter slavery. He fed them in the wilderness with manna. He gave Israel His law and the divine service of the tabernacle. Those gifts not only separated Israel from the other nations to that they could be the Lord’s special possession. Those gifts continually directed their faith towards God’s promise of a future visitation when the Lord would fulfill the law and the sacrifices, bringing perfect righteousness and complete forgiveness for all who believe.

Jesus’ public ministry, especially this final week of His public ministry, is that visitation to which all previous divine visitations directed the Jews. Yet they do not know the things that make for their peace. They don’t recognize God’s gracious visitation. God gave the law to show the need for a Savior. They turned into an instrument for imagining they needed no Savior because they thought they fulfilled it. The sacrifices were given to point to the sacrifice of the Messiah and the peace He would bring between God and penitent sinners. They turned the sacrifices into a mechanism of making peace with God, imagining that faith in the only true atoning sacrifice to come was unnecessary. God had given them the Tabernacle for these sacrifices. He had given them the Temple so that His Word might be taught there. He had given them His house as a place of prayer. They turned it into a den of thieves, setting up shop for their sinfulness in the very place where sinners were to hear God’s Word and present their requests to God. They blinded themselves to their great need for God’s grace, thinking they needed no mercy. They shielded themselves with self-righteousness so that they could not see in Jesus God’s gracious visitation.

Jesus weeps for Jerusalem, because if God’s gracious visitation is rejected and despised, the only visitation that is left is condemnation and wrath.  He doesn’t harbor an absolute hatred for anyone so that He doesn’t desire their salvation. He weeps because He desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim 2:4). His tears show that He is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance (2 Pt 3:9). This is why He goes straight to the temple upon arriving in Jerusalem. He went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in it, saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house is a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’” Although Jerusalem’s judgment draws near, He cleanses the temple so that in the final days of His earthly ministry it may be what He intended it to be. He teaches daily in the temple about the very things that the chief priests and scribes despised and rejected so that more would hear the gospel and believe, and by believing, avoid the wrath to come, both temporal and eternal. The chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people seek to eliminate Him, so recalcitrant they have made themselves against God’s gracious visitation. But they were unable to do anything; for all the people were very attentive to hear Him. The people hung on His words because they wanted the things that made for their peace with God.

Jerusalem was destroyed—along with everyone within her walls—because she did not know the time of her visitation. Jesus’ prophecy is written for our warning. God continues to graciously visit people through the preaching about His Son. He offers them the atonement Jesus acquired on the cross and the perfect righteousness He earned by His perfect life. St. Paul’s words to the Corinthians are for everyone when He says, “We then, as workers together with Him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For He says: ‘In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you. Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation’ (2 Cor 6:1-2). Every day that God gives us is the day of salvation, the day for us hear God’s Word, read it, and meditate on it, because that’s how He visits us in mercy. We must repent of those times when we put off meditating on God’s word, thinking we’ll do it tomorrow, for today is the day of salvation, not tomorrow which may not come. Nor are we to receive the grace of God in vain, imagining that we can keep on sinning, that we can repent and amend our ways tomorrow because tomorrow is not the day of salvation. If we receive God’s grace in vain, we do what the Jews did and heap more judgment upon ourselves. No, we let Christ cleanse the temple of our thoughts and the house that is our heart, so that He may teach us His Word and conform our thoughts and our hearts to the things that make for our peace. For in His Word, He teaches us the things that make for our peace with God: the forgiveness of sins and the righteousness not of our works but of faith.

Along with the things that make for our peace, Christ gives us His Holy Spirit. He gives gifts to each of us which we are to use for the profit of all. Among the Corinthians He gave the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, gifts of healings, the working of miracles, prophecy, that is, preaching the Word, discerning of spirits, different languages, and the interpretation of languages. Although He gave a diversity of gifts, it was the same Spirit who gave them all according to His will. The Corinthians had received God’s gracious visitation in the gospel and God had graciously given them these gifts for the sake of the church and for the sake of others. They were not to use them, as the Jews had used God’s gifts, for self-righteousness and self-conceit. They were to use them to point themselves and others to Christ. So is with all who believe. The gifts differ from person to person. The gifts differ for the time and need of the church. They DO differ, for the Spirit stopped giving many of those gifts once the church had been planted and the gospel preached throughout the world. No matter what gifts the Spirt gives to you individually, we are to use them to serve the church, to serve our neighbor in love, and built one another up in Christ Jesus and the new life He gives us.  But the chief gift the Holy Spirit gives is that of faith, so that receive Christ’s gracious visitation each day in His word, so that we remain steadfast in the things that make for our peace with God, so that each day we confess, “Jesus is Lord,” who has visited His people with salvation and mercy. Amen.

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

Grace and Peace be unto you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

All of Jesus’ parables invite us to think about ourselves in light of His word and kingdom. A sower sows seed that falls on four different types of soil, inviting us to ask, “What kind of soil am I? Do I receive God’s word in faith, or do temptations and persecutions make me reluctant to let the word bear fruit in me?” A man hires workers for his vineyard throughout the workday but at the end of the day each laborer, regardless of how long they worked, get the same wage, causing the labors who were hired first to grumble and be sent away. This invites us to ask, “Do I think I deserve more from God that the person who is new to the faith, or am I grateful for God’s graciousness to me and my fellow workers? Ten virgins wait for the Bridegroom, five are prepared with oil, five are foolish and unprepared, inviting us to ask, “Am I prepared for Christ’s return? Do I replenish the oil of faith in my lamp each day?” A widow brings her cause to a wicked judge who refuses it for a while, but she doesn’t lose heart, she continually brings her petition before him, and he eventually gives her justice, inviting us to ask ourselves, “Do I continue to pray confidently even when it seems my heavenly Father doesn’t answer immediately, or do I lose heart and give up praying?” Then there’s today’s parable. A wealthy man’s steward is caught wasting his master’s possessions on serving himself, but before he gives up the ledger, he rips off his master even more so that he can be welcomed into the homes of the people he helped in his final day as the rich man’s steward. This invites us to ask . . .. What does this parable invite us to ask of ourselves?

This may be the strangest parable Jesus tells in the gospels. Here is this steward. He is in charge of the rich man’s entire estate. He’s to use His master’s possessions for His master’s benefit. Instead, he squanders them, he scatters them about on whatever he pleases. When his master fires him, he doesn’t repent and ask forgiveness so that Jesus can teach us about the gospel. Since there’s no repentance on his part there are no fruits of repentance. Instead of turning away from his wasteful use of his master’s goods, he doubles down on his dishonesty in the final moments of his stewardship. He called every one of his master’s debtors to him, and said to the first, “How much do you owe my master?” And he said, “A hundred measures of oil.” So he said to him, “Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.” Then he said to another, “And how much do you owe?” So he said, “A hundred measures of wheat.” And he said to him, “Take your bill, and write eighty.” These men owed the steward’s master the full amount. But the steward misuses his master’s goods for his own benefit one last time, so that when he is relieved of the stewardship, these men he’s helped at his master’s expense will welcome him into their homes. Jesus doesn’t have the master condemn the unjust steward for this deceit and theft. Jesus says, “The master commended the unjust steward because he had dealt shrewdly, circumspectly, prudently, thinkingly.

If the parable weren’t strange enough to our ears, Jesus tells us exactly how to interpret it: “For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light. And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home.” The sons of this world are the unbelievers, the heathen. They don’t think the things of this life like land, possessions, money, and the like, are their master’s goods because they don’t acknowledge the Triune God is their master who has set them as stewards over the things of this life. How do they use these goods? They waste them on selfish pleasures. They scatter those goods to pursue happiness and ease and comfort. They use unrighteous mammon to make friends for themselves, people who will defend them, support them, and encourage them in their wasteful stewardship. Like the unjust steward, they are generous with someone else’s money, using it to get every advantage for themselves. The sons of this world are shrewd, circumspect, prudent, and thinking when it comes to using the things of this life for their advancement, their pleasure, and their betterment. The sons of light—those who walk in the light of Christ by faith—aren’t near as shrewd, circumspect, prudent, and thinking when it comes to using the things of this life. But that’s exactly what Jesus wants the children of light to be. The difference is the steward and the sons of the world he represents are wise but unjust. Jesus wants us to be wise but just.

Jesus explains, “Make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home.” Mammon is whatever anyone owns over and above what his needs require. Mammon isn’t unrighteous in and of itself. What makes it unrighteous is the unrighteous use of it. The sons of the world misuse mammon, squandering it on their own comfort, honor, pleasure, glory, and the like. Jesus wants the sons of light to use unrighteous mammon, not for unrighteousness like the sons of the world, but to make friends. How do you make friends for yourself with unrighteous mammon? Look at the unjust steward. He used master’s goods to make friends for himself. He thoughtfully used his master’s goods to benefit and help his neighbors so that when he failed—when he was given the boot—those whom he had helped would welcome him into their homes. Jesus wants the sons of light to use their master’s goods for the sake of their neighbors. He doesn’t justify injustice. He’s not sanctioning sin. He’s saying, “Look at how wise the world is with its money for selfish purpose. You be just as wise with temporal goods, not for selfish purposes, but for your neighbor’s good.” All that we have is a gift from God. He gives us mammon so that we might be stewards over it, using it as He wills. St. Paul says in Galatians 6:10, “As we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.” Doing good to others as we have opportunity is how we make friends using unrighteous mammon.

Those friends will then, on the day we fail, run out, and expire, receive us into an everlasting home. Consider the parable of the sheep and the goats. Jesus says, “I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me” (Matt 25:35-36). He will praise the good works of the sheep because good works are witnesses to the faith in one’s heart, the faith that makes one a son of light. Those whom you help in this life will give public testimony to your faith on that Day. That’s how they will receive you into an everlasting home. St. Paul tells Timothy, “Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy. Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life” (1 Tim 6:17-19).  The good foundation we are to lay up for ourselves is good works of love that proceed from faith. Everyone knows the phrase “You can’t take it with you.” And it’s true. But the good we do for our neighbor’s welfare will go with us, ahead of us, even, as testimonies to our God-given faith working through love (Gal 5:6), waiting to receive us into our everlasting home.

Jesus’ wants us to use unrighteous mammon to serve our neighbor in love. He wants us to be shrewd, circumspect, prudent, and thinking about how we use want God gives us so that it might benefit others. By commending the unjust steward Jesus invites us to ask ourselves, “How am I using unrighteous mammon? Am I using it wisely or foolishly? Am I using it for my own interests only, or am I using it for my neighbor’s welfare, as well?” Too often, the sons of light live as the sons of this world, thinking that our Master’s goods are really our goods to use however we want. We may find that we have enjoyed God’s gifts to the point of misusing mammon and scattering our Master’s goods on selfish and sinful pursuits. There are times when the Holy Spirit convicts us that have not been rich in good works. There are times when we find that we have set our hearts on riches so that we expect all good things as long as have wealth. The Holy Spirit convicts us of these sins so that we repent of that unjust stewardship and receive the Master’s forgiveness which He has promised to all who repent. Forgiving our sins, and giving us His Holy Spirit and new hearts, our Lord sends us back to our stewardships as faithful, just, and shrewd stewards of His goods. The unjust steward lived as a son of this world, asking “What do I want?” and “How can I use my master’s goods for my pleasure.” The son of light, who walks in the light of the Lord by faith in Christ and loves his neighbor asks, “What does my neighbor need? What has God given me that I can use to help my neighbor in that need?” The son of light can treat the things of this world like this because His heart is not set on them, but on Christ, so that as long as He has Christ and His word, he has all he needs. Amen.

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

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

In our age it is generally accepted that all Christians basically believe the same thing and all ministers basically teach the same thing as well. The assumption is that anything with the name “Christian” is actually Christian and anything calling itself “Biblical” is just that. Many assume that if someone is prophesying, that is, preaching, in Jesus’ name, casting out demons in Jesus’ name, and working miracles in Jesus’ name, then they’re a true prophet and preacher of God. In today’s gospel lesson Jesus demolishes the assumptions of our age. There are false prophets and they are ravenous wolves, leading people away from the will of God the Father, leading them to hell by their false teaching, and they do with a smile on their face the entire time. It is because false teachers are such a threat to the Christian that Jesus tells us, commands us even, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.” What is the sheep’s clothing with which they disguise themselves? It’s scripture. False prophets use the scripture, they cite the scripture, but they don’t teach the whole counsel of God. They may leave out inconvenient parts of God’s word that are likely to offend. More often they mutilate the scriptures, twisting Scripture until it fits their unscriptural assumptions and beliefs.

Irenaeus of Lyon, who lived in the second century, that false prophets “endeavour to adapt with an air of probability to their own peculiar assertions the parables of the Lord, the sayings of the prophets, and the words of the apostles, in order that their scheme may not seem altogether without support. In doing so, however, they disregard the order and the connection of the Scriptures, and so far as in them lies, dismember and destroy the truth. By transferring passages, and dressing them up anew, and making one thing out of another, they succeed in deluding many through their wicked art in adapting the oracles of the Lord to their opinions” (ANF 1:326). Irenaeus hits the nail squarely on the head. False prophets disregard the order and connection of Scripture. They separate things that God has joined together and join together things that God has kept separate, making a different teaching that God’s teaching by rearranging the different parts. We see this in those who separate faith from justification and insert human works into justification, disjointing God’s order that “a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ” (Gal 2:16). Others separate faith from Christ’s death and merits and teach men to place their faith in a universal declaration of justification which absolves all men apart from faith. Others separate baptism from God’s grace and reimagine it as an act of obedience, a good work. Others spiritualize the Lord’s Body and Blood in His Sacrament so that it is no longer true body and true blood, but a memorial of a historical event only or a springboard for us so that our thoughts ascend to heaven. The list could go on. The point is that the false prophets wear scripture as their covering. Many wear it well.

So how do you recognize false prophets? “You will know them by their fruits.” If you approach what you think is a grapevine and see thorns, or you go to a what you think is a fig tree and see thistles, you know what kind of plant it truly is, and you will avoid it. So it is with preachers. Every preacher says He teaches scripture, but what does he teach about scripture? Every preacher says he teaches the Christian faith, but does he teach it as it is presented in scripture? It’s a copout to claim that we can’t know false teachers, or that there aren’t really any false teachers, because its all a matter of interpretation. Jesus tells us we will know them by their fruits. If we say we can’t know false prophets because its all a matter of interpretation, we make Jesus into a liar and align ourselves with Pontius Pilate, who asked, “What is truth?” (John 18:38). Go back to Jesus’ parable. “Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles?” Men know what grapes and figs look like, which is how they know the different between them and thornbushes and thistles. So it is with the fruit of a prophet. You must know the good fruit.  St. Paul writes in Romans 12:7, “If a person has the gift of prophecy, let him use it in conformity with the faith,” or “in conformity with the analogy of faith,” which is the overall teaching of scripture: that penitent sinners are justified freely by God for the sake of Jesus’ death and merits by faith alone, and that God gives that forgiveness and righteousness through His Word, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper received in faith.

But there is another fruit by which you will know the false prophet: His life and how He teaches others to live. Doctrine is lived, after all. If a preacher preaches one way but lives another way, his fruit is no good. St. Paul says in 1 Timothy 3:2 that a bishop—that is, a pastor—is to be blameless. This means preachers must live godly lives so that no one can bring a just charge against them. The apostle tells Timothy in the same epistle, “Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity” (1 Tim 4:12). Next to false teaching, nothing destroys the preaching of God’s word like preachers who do not live according to God’s word. Such hypocrisy destroys the preacher and offends his hearers so that they grow to doubt the Christian truth and even abandon it. Yes, the preacher is a sinner who daily prays, “Forgive us our trespasses” along with all Christians. But the preacher must live what He preaches, otherwise he tears down with his life what He builds with His words. If he doesn’t live according to God’s Word, he shows that he doesn’t really believe it himself or apply it himself. He may still prophesy, cast out demons, and work miracles in Christ’s name—that is, perform the public ministry—but in his heart, he lives in sin, practices lawlessness, and will hear a terrible verdict from Christ on the Last Day, “‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!”

This also comes out in how the prophet teaches others to live. If the preacher excuses sin in his parishioners, ignores it so that he refuses to confront them, or he allows them or expects them to keep living in their sins, then he shows his fruit is rotten. Many preachers today preach this very thing, that Christ forgives sins but does not expect anyone to fight against their sins and stop them by the power of His Holy Spirit. They say, “We’re all rotten sinners, and thank God for the gospel that forgives us rotten sinners. See you next week, rotten sinners!” They cringe at the idea of preaching sanctification, afraid that preaching the new life of the Spirit and the use of the law as guide to this life will make them a preacher of works rather than grace. But Christ, the prophets, and apostles have no qualms about preaching sanctification.  Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 7:1, “Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” Any teaching that preaches Christ’s forgiveness by faith but does not teach that the Holy Spirit transforms us out of the old Adan into men, so that we daily die to sin and live to righteousness, is a tree that bears putrid fruit. St. Paul writes in today’s epistle, “Therefore, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if, through the Spirit, you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” If preachers fail to teach the new life of sanctification, they lead their hearers away from the true Christ who gives not only gives forgiveness and salvation but the Holy Spirit so that we begin to live a new life, which will grow throughout this life, and finally be perfected in the life of the world to come.

Why is all this so important? Your eternal life depends on it. “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” Calling yourself a Christian isn’t enough. Nor is it enough for a preacher to call Himself a Christian preacher, to prophesy, cast out demons, and work miracles in Jesus’ name. One must do the will of the Father. The will of God the Father is first that we believe in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the promise of the gospel for our forgiveness and salvation each day. The will of the Father is also our sanctification, that we lead holy lives according to God’s holy word because He has forgiven our sins and given us His Holy Spirit. As Paul said, “If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” As Christians we strive to do the Father’s will each day, repenting of our sins as the Holy Spirit convicts us of them, fleeing to the gospel for full forgiveness and perfect remission of our sins, and, in the joy the gospel brings, perfecting holiness in the fear of God by ordering our thoughts, our works, our deeds, —our entire lives—according to God’s Word. Living by the Spirit, putting to death the deeds of the body, the Spirit himself testifies together with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together with him. Amen.

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

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

For three days this multitude—about four thousand—listened to Jesus’ teaching. For three days they heard Christ’s teaching about who He is, true God and true man. They heard Christ teach about the law’s requirements, how the law condemns everyone because no one can keep the law perfectly from the heart. But they also heard the blessings He brought to those who confess their sins and acknowledge that they have incurred God’s wrath because of them. He taught them of God’s grace, the forgiveness of sins, the righteousness of faith the new life, and eternal life. For three days they received Jesus’ doctrine in faith, believing it and applying it to themselves so that they were fully confident that for His sake they had a gracious God and eternal salvation. For three days they heard God’s word and applied it to themselves so that, filled with the Holy Spirit, they would go from that place, no longer as slaves of sin to do its bidding, but as slaves of righteousness to holiness. For three days they heard and learn God’s word. But while they feast on Christ, the Bread of Life, they have nothing with which to fill their stomachs. That was how much they wanted to heard Christ’s teaching. Jesus calls His disciples to Him and tells them, “I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with Me three days and have nothing to eat. And if I send them away hungry to their own houses, they will faint on the way; for some of them have come from afar.” Jesus has compassion on this multitude because they have continued with Him, heard Him. They forsook the needs of the body so that they might attend to the need of their souls, and this to the point that many of them would faint on the way home.

The disciples ask, “How can one satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness?” to which Jesus responds by asking how much they have, which amounts to seven loaves of bread and a few small fish. He has the multitude sit down. He takes the seven loaves, gives thanks, breaks them, and gives the pieces to His disciples who are to set them before the multitude. He does the same with the two small fish. And then the miracle happens. Not only does Jesus feed this multitude of about four thousand, He satisfies their hunger. He fills about four thousand stomachs with seven loaves and a few small fish and He provides seven large baskets of leftover fragments to prove that everyone had had enough. The disciples had asked how one could satisfy these people in the wilderness. Jesus shows them that He could do just that by His almighty power. And He did so, not because this multitude sought a sign from Jesus, as the crowd of six thousand did. He does this out of compassion for the multitude since they have continued with Him three days. They sought first the kingdom of heaven and His righteousness, and because they did, Christ cared for them, gave them their daily bread, completely satisfying their hunger so that they would not faint on the way home.

From this we learn that Christ has compassion on those who continue to with Him. How do we continue with Christ? We do what this multitude did. We don’t despise preaching and His Word; but hold it sacred, and gladly hear and learn it. We set aside time on Sundays to hear His preaching, and by that I mean not just listening to the scripture read, sung, and preached, and letting it go in one ear and out the other, but hearing it so that we apply it to ourselves. Hopefully we set aside time each day to read His word and apply it to ourselves. Like the multitude, we hear the law’s requirements and how the law condemns everyone because no one can keep the law perfectly from the heart. Applying the law’s strict demands we must confess that we have sinned in thought, word, and deed by what we have done and by what we have left undone, and by our sins we deserve nothing but God’s wrath and eternal punishment. But, like the multitude, we also hear about God’s grace in sending His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to atone for the sins of the world; God’s promise to forgive the sins of all who are truly penitent and believing; God’s promise to declare those who believe righteous with Christ’s perfect righteousness, and the promise of eternal life for all who endure in this faith unto the end, no longer living as slaves of sin, to do its bidding, but as slaves of righteousness to holiness.

This is an earthly way of describing the new life of faith. Paul says uses human terms like this because of the weakness of our flesh. And although we don’t typically think in terms of freedom or slavery, the terminology is useful to help us understand how it is that we continue with Christ. A slave presents his members—body, mind, and will—to his or her master to do what they will and command. Paul explains that formerly, before we believed the gospel, we presented our members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness. The devil, the world, or our sinful flesh would tempt us to unclean and sinful thoughts, words, or deeds, and as dutiful slaves, we would willingly think, speak, and do as our master desired. Our lawlessness—which is just another word for sin—could only lead to more and more sin, because sin is never satisfied. We didn’t do anything righteous because we didn’t serve righteousness. But Christ redeemed us from this slavery. He set us free from sin by the gospel so that sin is no longer our master. But He did not set us free to ourselves. Since we still live in the sinful flesh, if we were freed to ourselves we only go right back to our former master, something that sadly we see too often in this life in those people who imagine the gospel sets them free so that they can boldly continue in their sin under the cloak of Christ’s forgiveness. But this is nothing but the old slavery to sin.

Paul says, “Having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life.” Christ sets us free from sin by forgiving our sins and covering us with His perfect righteousness, but in doing so He makes us slaves of God. This doesn’t mean we aren’t children of God by faith in Christ and baptism. As Paul uses it, slavery doesn’t contradict sonship as Jesus uses the image in John 8:35, “A slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever.” The Holy Spirit employs the human language of slavery to press one specific point, and that is, that, having been set free from sin, having been made sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, we present our members—our bodies, minds, and wills—to God so that we strive to do the will of our heavenly Father. Just like sin doesn’t have to coerce the unbeliever to do its bidding because he is a slave to sin, God does not coerce His slaves, either. He gives them new hearts with new wills, motivations, and movements, so that we want to do His will, for His glory and for our good. Since His will is our sanctification, Paul calls us slaves of righteousness for holiness. We are not, like so many, to go back to our former way of life, conforming our minds to the world’s thinking. The slavery of sin only earns the wage of death, spiritual death in this life that culminates in the second death, what St. John calls “the lake which burns with fire and brimstone (Rev 21:8). But the gift of God—which He freely bestows on His slaves who serve Him in love—is eternal life. Part of continuing with Christ is to present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness, because that is the reason He has set us free from sin in the first place.

And our Lord Jesus Christ is still compassionate to those who continue with Him during the three days of this earthly life. Though we may have to go into the wilderness to hear God’s word, traveling further than others; though we may have to go without or with less of the comforts of this life so that we can hear His word; though we may have to forsake the things of this life in order to to faithfully confess Christ and His doctrine, He promises that “everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life” (Matt 19:29). Christ sees all this and has compassion on all who continue with Him. He will give you your daily bread, all you need for this body and life, and He will give it you when you need it. He will satisfy the weary soul and replenish every sorrowful soul (Is 31:25) with righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom 14:17). He does this out of compassion for you, He will not see His beloved child, a slave of God to righteousness, faint on the way to their heavenly home. Amen.

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

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

If you want to enter the kingdom of heaven, you must be more righteous than the scribes and the Pharisees. Jesus seems to set the bar for entering the kingdom of heaven pretty high. The scribes and Pharisees were good, upstanding folk. They lived by the Ten Commandments. They didn’t murder. They didn’t commit adultery. They didn’t steal. Many of them voluntarily fasted twice a week and gave tithes of all their possessions, down to the spices in their cabinets. They were aggressive about resting on the Sabbath. This is the righteousness that you have to exceed if you want to enter the kingdom of heaven. And if Jesus’ hearers heard that and thought that was difficult to attain, Jesus raises the bar even higher.

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’” The law forbids murdering one’s neighbor and oneself and strictly punishes the one who would take the life of another. The Lord said in Leviticus 24:17, “Whoever kills any man shall surely be put to death.” Most people manage enough outward discipline so that they don’t murder others. But for those who are tempted to murder, the death penalty hunger over their head as a deterrent, coercing compliance with the law. The scribes and Pharisees thought they had fulfilled this commandment as long as they refrained from killing anyone, either because they didn’t want to in the first place or because they wanted to and didn’t. But Jesus takes this understanding of the commandment and shows how shallow it is. “But I say to you,” says Jesus, “that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire.” There’s more to murder than killing someone. “You shall not murder” is for the whole person, not just their hands. It applies to the lips. Calling someone ‘Raca’ and “You fool”—insulting and reviling them, is to murder with the tongue and deserves the same punishment as if you had killed them in their body. Not only is the hand and tongue to not murder, but the entire person, so that even the malicious anger that leads reviling thoughts, words, and gestures, that holds a grudge, or that burns for revenge, is condemned by this commandment and deserves the same punishment as murder with the hands: death.

After showing us what the commandment forbids, Jesus gives shows us what the commandment requires of us from the heart. “Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” It’s not enough to refrain from murder with the hand, the tongue, and the heart. The heart must be favorably disposed toward one’s brother. If your brother has something against you, the law tells you to go be reconciled to him. It doesn’t say, “Wait until they make the first move because its their problem.” The law commands the disposition of the heart that wants to be reconciled with one’s brother if they have something against us. That’s why if we bring our gift to the altar and realize this, we hit the pause button on our sacrifice, because we understand that the God who wants our worship also wants us to, as much as depends on us, to live peaceable with all men. He also says, “Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are on the way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny.” When someone has something against you and it isn’t dealt with properly it can only fester and rot until they deliver you the judge. The truly righteous man does not want his brother to have anything against him and goes to his brother to be reconciled. What this commandment requires, in a word, is love, the same thing all the commandments—and the entire law—requires. St. Paul writes in Romans 13:9-10 , “The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ ‘You shall not murder,’ ‘You shall not steal,’ ‘You shall not bear false witness,’ ‘You shall not covet,’ and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”

This is the righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, because their righteousness isn’t a righteousness of the heart. It’s an external righteousness that is about checking the box—“I didn’t kill anyone today”—rather than heartfelt love for the neighbor. Jesus says as much in Luke 11[:39], “Now you Pharisees make the outside of the cup and dish clean, but your inward part is full of greed and wickedness.” Externally appear good but their hearts are full of sinful desires and wicked thoughts. It’s sinful human nature to judge our outward actions and leave the heart as it is. We may not murder anyone, but how often do we hold a grudge. We may not end someone’s life, but how often do we speak belligerently towards others, mock them, and insult them. How often do we say to someone we’re “fine” but inwardly our heart is full of anger and resentment toward them. How often do we know our brother has something against us yet we do not leave our gift at the altar, go to them, and seek to be reconciled to them? As often as we do these things the law prohibits and fail to do those things the law requires, we are in danger of being thrown into the prison of hell fire, where we will by no means get out of there till we have paid the last penny of what we owe to the Righteous Judge.

The righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees isn’t without our reach. We can’t be that righteous because of our sinful nature. But the Lord Jesus is that righteous. He was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin (Heb 4:15). Not just external sins like the Pharisees imagined they were. Jesus is sinless outwardly and inwardly. He lived perfectly righteous outwardly in His words and actions. He lived perfectly righteous, loving God and His neighbor from the heart. He was never angry maliciously, without cause, but when He was angry it was at sin, which He rebuked out of love for the sinner. He never spoke maliciously to others. His harsh rebukes were for the self-righteous and for the repentance. Jesus knew no sin, internally or externally, but thought, spoke, and acted out of true, heartfelt love for His neighbor. St. Peter says He “’committed no sin, Nor was deceit found in His mouth’; who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously” (1 Peter 2:22-23). He “bore our sins in His own body on the tree (1 Peter 2:24), dying in our place, under the judgment of the Righteous Judge, He paid for all our sins, down to the last penny of the debt that we, by our sins, have incurred. Jesus’ righteousness is the only righteousness by which anyone may enter the kingdom of heaven, for it is the only righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes, pharisees, and any of us of by ourselves.

And He offers that righteousness to you in the gospel and holy baptism. The gospel promises the forgiveness of sins for Jesus’ sake and His perfect righteousness to all who repent and believe. By faith—believing that promise—each day we receive the forgiveness of all our sins and Christ’s perfect righteousness. God the Father sees us as righteous because we believe in His Son, who has paid the full debt of our transgressions. Not only are we declared righteous in God’s sight by faith, but in baptism “we were buried with Him into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” In baptism you were connected to Christ’s death. You were also raised to new life because baptism connects you to Christ’s resurrection! Having died to sin you now live to righteousness. Each day you are to count yourselves to be dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. We fight sin in our bodies so we don’t consent to it and let it reign over us. When the flesh wants to be maliciously angry, when it wants to bite back with words, when it wants to murder in the heart, the Holy Spirit reminds us that we died to those things. By daily remembering that we are baptized—forgiven and perfectly righteous in God’s sight—we begin to love our neighbor more and more. We begin to fulfill the commandment, not just not murdering with the hands, the tongue, and the heart, but by loving our brother with our words and deeds because we truly love our brother from the heart. Jesus daily gives us the righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees by faith. Let us so live as ones whom have been declared righteous outwardly and inwardly. Amen.

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

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

Today the church celebrates Mary’s visitation to her cousin Elizabeth. It is not usually worth celebrating a pregnant woman’s visit to another pregnant woman. But this visitation is worth remembering because neither of the pregnancies are usual. Mary, a young virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, had herself just been visited by the angel Gabriel. The angel told her that she would conceive a child in her womb—not in the natural way—but by the power of the Holy Spirit and give birth to a child who would be the Son of God. Gabriel told her, “He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give 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” (Lk 1:32-33). The angel Gabriel also told Mary that her cousin Elizabeth had also conceived a son in her old age and was six months into her pregnancy. Like Sarah and Abraham of old, Zacharias and Elizabeth were quite old and well past the age of bearing children. Yet she conceived in the natural way, but at an unnatural season of life. The angel Gabriel had told Zacharias that his wife would bear him a son, who would be filled with the Holy Spirit even in his mother’s womb. This child would be the forerunner of the Messiah, going before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, ‘to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,’ and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord (Lk 1:17). After hearing of her cousin’s pregnancy and her own by the Holy Spirit, Mary went into the hill country with haste, to a city of Judah, and entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth. This is not just the visitation of two pregnant women. It is the visitation of the mother of God to the mother of the Messiah’s forerunner.

What happens at this visitation is also miraculous and worth remembering. Mary enters the house, greets her cousin, and at her greeting the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. The baby in her womb—far from being a lump of tissue or something lacking personhood—leaps. The angel’s words were true. He was filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb (Lk 1:15) and is already joyfully announcing the Messiah, the Son of God, and he isn’t even born yet. His mother Elizabeth is at that same moment filled with the Holy Spirit so that she confesses, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” She confesses the child in Mary’s womb to be God Himself when she calls Mary “the mother of my Lord.” Mary is blessed—not as a co-redeemer with her son or as one who is to be invoked in prayer as Rome teaches—but as one who believes the word of God and says, “Let it be to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38). ““Blessed,” Elizabeth says, “is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord.” Mary rightly bears the title “Mother of God” because of the union of the divine and human natures in the person of her Son. She is blessed among women since God chose her by grace to bear God in human flesh. Elizabeth, and the babe in her own womb, rejoice that the virgin has conceived and will bear a Son who will be called Immanuel, “God with us,” and that, while in the womb, He graciously visits them.

Then it’s Mary’s turn to speak. She sings first of God’s gracious work specifically to her. Though God chose her of all women to bear His Son and deliver Him into the world, she does not exalt herself. “My soul magnifies the Lord,” she says, “And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.” She exalts the Lord for this great honor He has bestowed on her by grace alone. She rejoices in God who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe (1 Tim 4:10). She includes herself in that number, calling God “my Savior,” for she needs salvation from sin just as much as anyone of Adam and Eve’s fallen race, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23). She praises God that He regarded her low estate and sinfulness all generations will call her blessed. We call her blessed for this reason, that she conceived and bore the Son of God in human flesh, the Seed promised to Adam and Eve after they fell into sin. Irenaeus makes the connection: “The knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. For what the virgin Eve had bound fast through unbelief, this did the virgin Mary set free through faith” (AH 3.22.4). All generations call her Blessed for this reason, nothing less and nothing more.

Then Mary turns her song toward the work of God that we see all throughout the Scripture and human history, His work for all people. “His mercy is on those who fear Him From generation to generation.” Mercy is God’s chief work. He is merciful to all people in that He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust (Matt 5:45). But God has a special mercy for those who fear Him, that is, for those who fear His judgment so they daily repent of their sins and trust His promised mercy. He is merciful to those who, having received the mercy of His forgiveness, fight against temptation and their own flesh, not wanting to sin and incur His wrath any more, and walk in His ways so that they do not sin. This special mercy God has for those who believe in Him is from generation to generation. It is perpetual throughout every generation of this world.

Not so the proud and mighty of this world, those who do not think they need God’s mercy. To them He shows strength with His arm. He opposes them in this life. He lets them succeed in the things of this life, amassing wealth, honor, power, and the like, but only for a time. Since they set their hearts of their wealth, honor, power, and prestige, God will eventually scatter the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He puts down the mighty from their thrones. Pharaoh purses Israel to the Red Sea with all his might. But God scatters the corpses of his army in the Red Sea after His people pass through on dry ground to safety. Assyria puffs itself up against Judah and comes moments away from capturing Jerusalem until “the angel of the LORD went out, and killed in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when people arose early in the morning, there were the corpses — all dead” ( 2 Kings 19:35). And so it happens continually throughout Scripture and human history, that the proud eventually fall to God’s judgment and the mighty are put down from their thrones. In doing so the Lord exalts the lowly—those who are humble before God—and fills the hungry—those who hunger and thirst for righteousness—with good things while the rich are sent away empty. Mary is a microcosm of this. She is poor and lowly, a maidservant, nothing in the eyes of the world. Yet God in His wisdom does not choose a queen or noblewoman to be the mother of God, but exalts her. Her song teaches us to fear God, so that His mercy may be upon us and to remain humble as well, knowing that God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble (1 Peter 5:5).

This part of her song ends as it began—with God’s mercy. “He has helped His servant Israel, In remembrance of His mercy, As He spoke to our fathers, To Abraham and to his seed forever.” God helped Israel by remembering the promise of His mercy. His promised mercy was to send the Christ, for He is the One whom God promised to Abraham and His seed. His promised mercy is the Christ, the Son of God who would die for the sins of the entire world and make perfect atonement for them, so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16). His promised mercy is in the very room in which Mary sings her song. God’s promised mercy is in Mary’s very womb. That is what makes this visitation worth remembering, commemorating, and meditating upon. For we see in Mary an example of faith. She hears God’s word and believes it without wavering. Mary’s faith with which she replied to the angel Gabriel, “Let it be to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38), if faith which hears God’s promise and in spite of everything else says, “This is most certainly true.” In this Mary is an example for us of true blessedness. While it is true that all generations will call her blessed as the Mother of God, and this title only applies to her throughout all human history, we are blessed more than that! In Luke 11 when a woman from the crowd cried out, “Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts which nursed You!” Jesus responds, “More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” (Luke 11:27-28). Mary is blessed among women. But more than that, blessed are you who hear God’s word and keep it as she heard God’s word and kept it. This is true blessedness. Not wealth, honor, power, and prestige, and all the things the proud and mighty pursue. True blessedness is faith in God’s promise, because by faith we receive everything He wants us to have, everything the child in Mary’s womb wins for us, beginning with forgiveness of every sin and the Holy Spirit to live new lives, culminating in the bliss of everlasting life. Remember the visitation of Mary to Elizabeth and the great works of God He does for those women and through the sons they bore by God’s grace. Amen.

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