Texts: 1 Pt. 5 and Luke 15.1-10

Note: William Henry Theodore Naumann was baptized during the Trinity 3 Divine Service.

The discipline of the shepherd had gotten rather stifling. “Why did he put me with these sheep? They smell. They are noisy. They are most certainly not good traveling companions. If only I had some other sheep to be with; we could eat from a different pasture, go see different places, have a different life. I know, I know, it’s terrible to think it. It’s wrong. I’ll just go over here, just a little beyond the boundary the shepherd marked out for me. It can’t hurt to have a little look.”

When he returned, the shepherd asked him, “Did you know you went beyond my border?” “Oh, did I? It was an accident.” The shepherd looked at him for a long while, concerned.

And the next day, that brief trespass across the border became a little longer. The sheep lied to himself as he lingered beyond the border. “I’m drinking a little too much from the well the shepherd warned me about. But it tastes good, and I can handle it. I’ll make it back in time.”

Off in the distance, the sheep spied others. They were beautiful, more exotic; the wind masked their stench while exacerbating the odors of the familiar flock. He heard the voice of the shepherd calling, and for a moment he struggled, knowing he should turn back. “I’m a member of that flock. But I’m growing tired of it. And yet … can’t I do both? Besides, they really haven’t been all that nice to me lately. It’s their fault that I’m out here. I yearn to run, to be free! I’ve always made it back before. I can handle it.”

And he did make it back, just at dusk. The shepherd called to him, but the sheep avoided his gaze. All that night, he rolled over and over. Every bleat and grunt annoyed him, and the stench was growing intolerable. He couldn’t get the image of the other flock out of his mind.

The next afternoon, he went farther than he ever had before. So far that he couldn’t hear the shepherd anymore, or see the flock. As the sun began to set, a low menacing growl terrified him. “I need to get home,” he said in a panic. He ran this way and that, but the more he searched for the path home, the more disoriented he became. He was terrified and exhausted. He heard the sounds of another sheep, bleating in terror. Then there was a roar, and the sound of tearing flesh, and the bleating went silent. He heard the sheep being dragged away, and he knew it wouldn’t be long before the same thing happened to him. For the first time since he was little, he cried. He hid. And he hated himself.

Eventually, the lion saw him. Closing in, the lion licked his chops. The sheep knew he had mere seconds left.

With astounding ferocity, a man leapt into the space between the lion and the sheep. It was the shepherd! He had come for him! The lion roared with fury, and said to the shepherd, “Fool! Why do you care for this sheep? He didn’t listen to you. He doesn’t love you. He went beyond the border. You know the rules. The ones that go beyond the border are mine!”

“Yes, they are,” said the shepherd. “But I want this one back all the same.” “It will cost you,” said the lion. “I know,” said the shepherd, and quietly lay down.

Well, that’s not quite the way that the parable Jesus tells ends. But that is, in fact, the way it ends. Or at least, appears for awhile to end, on Good Friday. For Jesus is the shepherd. And the Good Shepherd gives His life for the sheep.

But the problem with the audience is that they do not realize they are lost sheep. They imagine they are among the ninety-nine sheep who have not wandered away. In their delusion, they imagine they have no need of repentance. They have forgotten the words of their own prophet, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”

Have you been pretending that you are have no need of repentance? Or that the sham you have gone through suffices? I’ve been reading a book by the little-known German reformer Urbanus Rhegius, who wrote this admonition to true repentance: “Pay attention, therefore, pious Christian: Those who do not first acknowledge their own manifold sin and recognize and believe the pure grace of God in Christ our Lord, without any pretending at all, remain stuck in their sins.” Did you catch that? “Without any pretending at all.” Isn’t that what we do? We pretend to others, we pretend to the pastor, we pretend to God, we pretend to ourselves: that our problem is not all that serious, that our sin is not so bad, that our death is a long way off, that moral and spiritual disaster cannot come to us.

Jesus’ call to the Pharisees in today’s Gospel was, “Stop pretending and repent!” And that is His call to you today as well: “Stop pretending and repent!”

When the Holy Spirit was poured out on the Gentiles, the first Christians glorified God and said, “God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life” (Acts 11.18). This shows us that repentance is a gift, given by God, and not an an emotion or experience we create for ourselves. Take comfort in that, for God Himself gives even the repentance He requires.

For this reason God has been patient with you, and tolerant beyond measure with your sins. Do you not know, St. Paul writes, “that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?” (Rom. 2.4).

Baptism is repentance. And yet it is not a singular act of repentance, but a life-long pattern. That is the pattern to which William was joined this morning. That is the pattern to which we were all called in our baptism. When we witness the baptism of another person, be it a child or an adult, we are witnessing what our own life is to be: a drowning and emerging, the death of the old Adam (the sinful nature) and a rising to live a new life, all in Christ.

What still needs to die in you? Are you pretending to be a Christian? Have you been holding back on true repentance?

Be afraid, O child of Adam, for your sins are great, you have sought to deceive others about who you really are, and imagined that God Himself would be fooled as well. Be afraid, for God has decreed that man must die.

And in your fear, look at the crucifix, and see what your Shepherd has done for you. He stepped before the lion, and felt his vicious teeth, like nails driving through skin and bone. But the lion’s teeth bit into a man and found God. He who would devour was himself torn apart; his belly burst from what he could not consume. The Shepherd, JESUS, is the God-Man, whom Satan could not defeat, whom sin could not capture, whom death could not hold.

What Jesus is accused of is true: He receives sinners and eats with them. The accusation, whispered in a sneer against JESUS, is the very heart of the Gospel. Jesus receives sinners and eats with them. That is what today, and every Lord’s Day, is about. It’s why we gather here. Jesus receives us sinners and eats with us.

We have wandered. We have lied. We have pretended. We have resisted. Still He welcomes us.

Listen to Him. The things He says are designed for your good, that you might live and not die. The cross the shepherd has laid on you has been designed for you, and He who has borne the heaviest cross will sustain you as you follow Him.

January 13 is the traditional date for the observance of the Baptism of Our Lord. The following is the sermon preached at Immanuel’s Divine Service for the Feast. The Gospel reading is Matthew 3:13-17.

One of the first things to go when pastors start tinkering with the church’s liturgy is the absolution. Some pastors are uncomfortable with what’s called the “indicative-operative” formula of absolution: “I forgive you all your sins, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” And it’s one of the common complaints a pastor hears: “Who do you think you are, forgiving sins?!”

The Gospel for today’s feast, the Baptism of Our Lord, starts with a man uncomfortable with administering baptism for the remission of sins. This is the one time in the Scriptures we find John the Baptist uncertain. He was never uncertain about anything! Eating bugs is not for the timid.

But John was uncertain, because for the first time, a Man presented Himself for baptism who did not need it. This baptism John with which John was washing the people was fitting for everyone except Jesus. But Jesus insists that it is fitting. By this, all righteousness would be fulfilled.

Here we learn who Jesus is and what He has come to do. Jesus is not just a teacher. Not just an example. He has come to be our substitute, the One who does everything we neglected to do, the One who makes good on everything we have violated. It is fitting for Him to be baptized so He could identify Himself with guilt-ridden humanity. He steps up for judgment. He who knew no sin comes repenting.

So Jesus is baptized by John. But there is something different. The Holy Spirit descends on Jesus – not because Jesus did not possess the Spirit before this, but to show that Jesus was the Christ, the One anointed with the Holy Spirit. And the Father’s voice from heaven proclaims Jesus the beloved Son, the One man in whom and through whom the Father is pleased, satisfied, propitiated.

This baptism foreshadows two other baptisms, then. There is another baptism that Jesus will have to endure: the baptism of death – not just any death, but the death of enduring God’s full-on wrath. Jesus will ask His disciples, “Can you be baptized with My baptism?” They boast, “Yes,” but the answer is, “No.”

But there is a baptism of Jesus that we receive – the Trinitarian Baptism that this foreshadows. When we are baptized with water in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, as Jesus instituted it, we get all the righteousness that Jesus fulfilled. Sins forgiven, Holy Spirit given, new birth.

When Luther was troubled by his sins, he comforted himself with this simple statement: “I am baptized!” Let that be all your comfort as well, when hell threatens you, when the devil reminds you that you are not worthy to even be called a Christian, when the world mocks you, and finally when your body utterly fails you; say, sing, shout, confess: “I am baptized!”+INJ+

Portions freely adapted from Bo Giertz, “To Live with Christ”

Trinity 23 texts: Proverbs 8:11-22; Philippians 3:17-21; Matthew 22:15-22

Bianca Ehling was baptized at this Divine Service.

It’s early in the week – just a day after Palm Sunday, the day Jesus rode into Jerusalem. The crowds hail Jesus as their king. All Jerusalem is abuzz. “Messiah has come!” It is time, the Pharisees decide, to solve this Jesus problem once and for all. So the Pharisees conspire with the Herodians to lay a trap for Jesus. The Herodians were a Jewish political party that was loyal to King Herod; a key part of their platform was submission to Roman rule. Together with the Pharisees, they try to put Jesus in a no-win situation. They ask, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” If Jesus says, “Don’t pay the taxes,” the Herodians will report these words of rebellion, and Jesus will be arrested. But if He says that people should pay the taxes, this (they suppose) will turn the people against Him; they’ll lose confidence that Jesus is the Messiah, because – they imagined – the Messiah will free the Jews from their Roman overlords.

They have sprung the trap – but Jesus cannot be trapped. His answer allows Him to escape their trap, but even more, it reveals to us the important teaching of the two kingdoms: the worldly kingdom of power, and the heavenly kingdom of grace.

“Show Me the coin,” Jesus says. “Whose picture is this? What name is written here?” And just like money today has the name of the government and a picture of a ruler, the Roman coin had Caesar’s picture and name on it. After they acknowledge this, Jesus tells them, “Since the coin has Caesar’s picture and name on it, then it belongs to him. Give it to him.” But then, the kicker: “But you must give to God what belongs to Him.”

So we must pay our taxes, and give the government its due – but even more important, we must give God what is owed Him. And there are punishments attached to these laws: The government threatens you with prison, but God threatens with hell.

Now it’s very easy to become dissatisfied with our government. We all probably imagine that we could do a much better job. Today, Christians are sometimes smitten with the idea that we need to help our poor, weak God out by “taking back the country” for Him. It’s not really a new thought. Dr. Luther put it this way:

Even real Christians are sometimes tempted [in] this way[:] They see that the world at large, and particularly their own government, is being so poorly managed that they feel like jumping in and taking over. But this is wrong. No one should suppose that God wants to have us govern and rule this way with the law and punishment of the world. The Christians’ way is altogether different. They neither deal with such things nor care about them. They are perfectly content to leave these things to the care of those who are authorized to distribute property, to do business, to punish, and to protect. As Christ teaches: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” For we have been transferred to another and a higher existence, a divine and an eternal kingdom, where the things that belong to the world are unnecessary and where in Christ everyone is a lord for himself over both the devil and the world, as we have said elsewhere.

So our goal as Christians is not to take over the government, or impose a theocracy. We must stand up for basic human rights, including the most fundamental right, the right to life for every human person, whether born or unborn. But we must ever remember that the Church is not a political action committee. We gather as the people of God under no earthly banner; our standard is the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. When you despair about the state of the world, the condition of our government, the future of our nation, or when you are tempted to boast in earthly power and glory, remember the words of St. Paul we heard today:  “Our citizenship is in heaven.”

For now, we walk in two worlds, two kingdoms: we are citizens in this earthly realm, most of us under the government of the United States. It is not wrong, but can even be honorable, to go to court, hold public office, serve as a soldier. God has established these worldly offices, too, to protect us and to help us serve our neighbors. Are you a soldier? Do not act maliciously, or abuse your power. Are you in government? Work for the people, and not yourself. Are you a judge? Take no bribes, and judge impartially. Are you a citizen? Pay your taxes, show honor to the rulers, and pray for those whom God has placed over you.

All this is rendering to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. But then, the far weightier obligation: “Render to God the things that are God’s.” Who can say he has done this? For what belongs to God? As the engraving on the coin shows its governing authority, so has God stamped His image on the things belonging to Him. The first man, our father Adam, was made in the image of God. That image was renewed and stamped on you in the Sacrament of Baptism. When the pastor traces the sign of the cross on the person being baptized, as with Bianca today, he says, “Receive the sign of the holy cross on both your forehead and your heart, to mark you as one redeemed by Christ the crucified.” The Scripture describes those written in the Book of Life as having the name of God written on their foreheads.

So as the name of the government is written on our money, and thus we must render to that government its due, even so is the name of God written on us, and we must offer to God what is His, what belongs to Him – everything we are, everything we have, placed at His disposal, doing His will with joy.

Have you done this? No. Our “minds [are] set on earthly things” (Epistle) – we are far more interested in pursuing the things that belong to Caesar, i.e., the coins, the money. That is why our Old Testament reading is given to us today, to remind us that there are things far more significant than money: “For wisdom is better than jewels, and all that you may desire cannot compare with her.” In the same book, Proverbs, it is written, “Wisdom is the principal thing; Therefore get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding” (4.7).

So where is the Gospel, the Good News, in the words of Jesus today? The Good News is where it always is: in Jesus Himself. God the Son took on our human nature so that, as a man, He could render to God the things that are God’s. Christ is the very image of the invisible God, and He rendered Himself, gave Himself up to God for us. He paid the tax that we owe; or in the language of last Sunday’s parable, He stepped in and paid that enormous debt that we by our sins have incurred.

The result of His obedience is this great promise – these words from today’s Epistle that we always read at the graveside of a Christian, as earth is poured on the coffin in the shape of a cross. “We now commit [this person's] body to the ground: earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly bodies that they may be like His glorious body, by the power that enables Him to subdue all things to Himself.” That is the funeral sermon in brief: man returns to dust, as God declared to our first father Adam after he rebelled; but by the resurrection of Jesus, God will raise us up from the same dust to a new and glorified body.

And that is why we can pay our taxes and not despair over the problems in our world and government – because that’s not the citizenship that ultimately matters. Our citizenship is in heaven, from which we await a Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ.

So to sum everything up today: pay your taxes and show honor to the government, but remember you have a higher, eternal citizenship in the kingdom of God. So don’t let your pursuit be in earthly things; don’t have your belly – your lusts and desires – for your God; but pursue Wisdom by fixing your eyes on Jesus. He is coming to transform your lowly body to be like His glorious body, and in His kingdom shall you ever abide.

Text: Matthew 18:21-35

Note: There was a Baptism at this Divine Service.

Louis Armstrong once said, “If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.” The question Peter asks shows that he doesn’t know what forgiveness is. Forgiveness doesn’t ask, “How many times do I forgive?” Love keeps no record of wrongs. Jesus explains this by means of a parable – a parable about a debt.

The national debt of the United States is currently $11,998,822,698,024 – give or take a few billion. It goes up close to $4 billion per day. Maybe it’s just me, but that seems like a lot of money. I’ve never studied economics, but I wonder how we’ll ever pay that debt. So I try not to think about it. Too depressing!

The man in today’s parable had been trying not to think about his debt. But the day of reckoning had come. The king was settling his books. The man owes 10,000 talents. A talent was worth about 6,000 denarii, and each denarius was about a day’s wage. So to pay a debt of 10,000 talents would take about 60 million days of work. Every time I read this story I become more and more curious – just how do you get that far into debt?

His pathetic groveling is laughable. Have patience with me? Right. I’m sure you’ll have it next month. As astonishing as the debt is, even more astonishing is the king’s response to this groveling. He doesn’t have patience. He simply forgives the debt! Wipes it away. “Go in peace.”

And that man turns around and shows absolutely no mercy, not even patience, with his fellow slave. Jesus emphasizes that term – “Fellow slave” – showing us that all of us sinners are in the same position before God. The person you have a hard time forgiving is your fellow slave – a sinner like yourself.

At the end of the Gospel, Jesus directs us to forgive our fellow slaves their trespasses. It’s not the usual word for sin. It means a fault, a mistake. Forgive your neighbor his failings, his stumblings. St. Paul uses it as a reference to the fall of Adam; we must forgive our fellow fallen humans their fallenness.

But the man in the parable does not. And the merciful King, the merciful God, became a God of wrath to him. That King – so merciful – can also be terrible in His anger. It should make us tremble, and fear. “So My heavenly Father also will do to you,” Jesus says, “if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespass.” The slave who showed no mercy is turned over to the torturers, with no hope of release. This is a picture of the second Advent – the return of Christ. We are called to live in anticipation of that Advent, of the final judgment. Fear His terrible judgment! Repent.

You have heard that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. That word is forgiveness. If you will not live by it, than you shall die by it.

So the hard, fearful lesson today is that we must stand ready to forgive. Perhaps you have someone who has harmed you, wronged you – someone that you would prefer never to see or deal with again. The thought of forgiving that person is difficult. But however badly they have wronged you, it is nothing compared to the forgiveness God has shown to our whole human race, and to you specifically. We who have been forgiven must also forgive. It is not easy. This is why the petition is given us to pray, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” It is as though we are praying, “Please forgive me my many sins, dear Father, and also give me the strength to forgive my enemies, and the people who have harmed me.”

Catherine Magdalena entered into that life of forgiveness this morning. That’s what it means to be baptized. Forgiven. But also, forgiving. “Depart, unclean spirit, and make way for the Holy Spirit.” How we need to make way for the Holy Spirit still in our hearts and lives! For we stand in danger, when we are sinned against, to make way instead for the unclean spirit’s return, to become hard of heart, callous, ready to grab our neighbor by the throat and scream, “You owe me!” This is why the Lord has not only given us forgiveness in Holy Baptism, but keeps on dishing out forgiveness in Holy Absolution and in the Eucharist.  We have a hard time forgiving because we do not understand our own forgiveness. So meditate on these words as you receive this wonderful Sacrament: “Bathe me, Jesu Lord, in what thy bosom ran– Blood whereof a single drop has power to win All the world forgiveness of its world of sin.”

Help us, dear Lord, to forgive as we have been forgiven, and spare us Your great wrath, which we so justly deserve.

Sermon from last Sunday, November 1, 2009. Text: Matthew 5:1-12

Death puts everything into perspective. Death reveals that all of our accumulated treasures on earth are worthless, all of our medicine cannot heal, everything done outside of God’s Word and will was a waste.

All Saints Day is about the dead. It is about the dead in Christ, and especially the martyrs, those who were put to death because they confessed the Christian Faith. Some martyrs, like St. Matthew or St. Stephen, have their own day for remembrance. All Saints Day is for the rest, all those martyrs who don’t have their own day. And we also think about all faithful Christians who have gone before us.

But as we think about the dead, we cannot help but think about our own death. What kind of death will we have? Will we die a blessed death, a Christian death, the death of a saint?

A saint dies in the same way a saint lives; a saint dies in the same way a saint goes to sleep. The words we sang in the Introit should be our evening prayer and our dying prayer, just as our Lord JESUS spoke them on the cross: “Into Your hand I commit My spirit; You have redeemed Me, O LORD, faithful God.”

On All Saints Day, we remember why it is that anyone is a saint: it is because they have been joined to that death of Jesus, and to His resurrection. And so, while we refer to certain Christians of the past as saints because the grace of God and the work of the Holy Spirit shone through them in a profound way, we must never forget that the Bible calls all Christians “saints.” In 1 Corinthians, St. Paul writes, “To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Cor. 1.2).

How can the Bible call ordinary Christians saints? Not because of our sanctification, our perfect behavior. The LORD calls us saints, holy ones, because we have been joined to Christ in holy Baptism. We participate in and share Christ’s holiness. We are saints not because of our sinlessness, but because of our sin-forgivenness. That is why the Bible can call sinners saints; we are at the same time saints and sinners.

On All Saints Day, we remember that the Holy Spirit has called us into not just Immanuel Lutheran Church, or the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, but the Church of All Saints, from the beginning of the world until the end of the world. The Church is one, and she is holy, because she is the body of Jesus Christ. She gets her holiness, her saintliness, from Him, from His holiness. The Lord JESUS is the true Saint, the true Holy One, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

So you are a saint, because you believe in Jesus, trust in Him for your life, your salvation, your deliverance from death. Now if we are this kind of saint – i.e., a believer in Jesus – then that also means that it is our earnest desire, our greatest wish, to no longer be a sinner. A saint is weak in this life, but nevertheless wishes to become different. He hungers and thirsts for righteousness.

That hunger and thirst is always meek, always poor in spirit – humble. Pride is the enemy of the saint. Notice how in our first reading, the saints in heaven cannot stop talking and singing about how God has saved them. The salvation of the saints was not in their good works, but in the good work of the Lamb, the Lord Jesus: “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

That was their faith – but the saints of old were also rich in good works, even if they were not saved by them. Good works are the fruit of faith, and so our prayer today is to follow the saints in all virtuous and godly living. How do we know what real virtuous and godly living is? Where do we find it described? We find it in the Ten Commandments; and the Commandments have their counterpart in the Beatitudes.

The statements of Jesus in today’s Gospel all begin with the word “Blessed”: “Blessed are the poor in spirit…. Blessed are those who mourn…. Blessed are the meek,” etc. They are called the Beatitudes from the Latin word for blessing, Beatus. The Beatitudes are like the Ten Commandments – they show us our sin, and also show us the godly life.

Like the Commandments, the Beatitudes reveal the weakness, the corruption, the depravity of our heart. Outwardly we may appear to be very good, but we must learn to see our heart as God sees it. His Word says (Jer. 17.9), “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?”

Jesus calls blessed the one who is pure in heart, showing that it is not just the one who outwardly does the commandments, but the one who keeps their inner meaning: helping the neighbor in every physical need; harboring no dislike or grudges; never looking with lust anywhere outside of marriage; always putting your spouse’s needs before your own; having a heart free from the desire for money; having a mouth that always speaks what is true, helpful, and edifying; keeping a heart that is absolutely content with what God gives. All this is what it means to be pure in heart – and it should reveal to us that we do not have the purity of heart God desires.

Our good works, our sanctification is very weak in us – but still, the saint hungers and thirsts for righteousness. So just as with the Ten Commandments, we can and should understand these Beatitudes not only as showing to us our sin, but also serving as a guide to our Christian life, a guide to being the saint we are. The great theologian Martin Chemnitz said about the words of Jesus, “Blessed are the poor … those who mourn,… the merciful,… the pure in heart”: “Christ here is not speaking of the cause of this blessedness but He is showing who they are who possess this blessedness.”

God wants you to have that blessedness, the blessing that He gives, and this is why He allows you to suffer in this life. “God puts His saints to work” (AP V) and brings us through suffering so that we don’t become proud or boastful, and learn to trust only in Him. That’s why the last Beatitude, the last word of blessing, is about persecution and the loss of honor and reputation: “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven.”

All Saints Day is about death, and for that reason it is also about life – the life of the resurrection, the life of the world to come. The death of those we love who have gone before us, and our own coming death, should teach us to fix our eyes not on the kingdoms and possessions of this world, but on that world to come. The Collect, or Prayer, for All Saints Day ends by asking God to brings us with the saints “to the unspeakable joys [He has] prepared for those who love [Him].”

You are children loved by God, you are saints, you are holy because you were joined to that Holy One, the Lord Jesus, when you were baptized, when your robe was washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb. Follow the saints who have gone before you in virtuous and godly living, and rejoice that you will soon come to the unspeakable joys God has prepared for those who love Him!

This sermon is from Oct. 11. We had a Baptism on this day. The Gospel was Matthew 22:34-46.

I saw a bumper sticker that said, “Try Jesus.” The Lutheran in me immediately thinks of the Catechism question, “What does this mean?” But let’s just make it simpler. “Try Jesus”? Why? Why should I?

To “try Jesus” is the language of marketing, or advice. It’s pragmatic. And worst, it’s subjective. It worked for me, maybe it’ll work for you. There’s no one truth – just whatever feels right to you. Oh, you’re using the Schick razor? Try Gillette! Coffee too hard on your stomach? Try tea.

Jesus isn’t a product that you “try.” We must not be Christians, or even Lutherans, because it’s what most comfortable to us, what we’re used to, or what seems to be working. We should be Christians because it’s true. We should be disciples of Jesus because He is the truth.

It’s not easy. From our experiences in this life, it might not seem to be working at all. Being a faithful Christian might cost you a friendship, a job, your marriage. Can you imagine interviewing the martyrs throughout Christian history just before they were burned, beheaded, or thrown to wild beasts, and asking them, “Why should I be a Christian?” Do you think they would answer, “Because you’ll have your best life now!”? When the fire is lit, when the lions are released, it might seem that Christianity doesn’t “work.” Who wants to try something that might get you killed?

If Jesus was selling a product, He was a terrible pitchman. He fed 5,000 men, plus women and children, and attracted an enormous following. And then He said, “But wait, there’s more!” “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” This, it turns out, was not savvy marketing. “Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can understand it?” And the large crowd dispersed. They went away. St. John tells us, “They walked with Him no more.”

But Twelve stayed. The thousands were gone. The people who wanted to make Jesus king had turned on Him. It must have seemed a completely failed effort. Only Twelve left.

I heard a mission guru speak recently. He said we can’t start a new church unless there will be at least 200 in attendance at the first service. Anything less, statistics supposedly show, is doomed to failure.

What would the mission gurus have thought about Jesus’ sermon about eating His body and drinking His blood? Highly impractical. And when His following drops to Twelve, it’s certainly time to withdraw funding. Bring in an entrepreneur, someone who knows how to draw a crowd and keep them happy.

So Jesus turns to that ragtag band of former tax collectors and fishermen, and says, “Do you also want to go away?” And Simon Peter responds with stunning words, one of the most important utterances in the history of the world: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also, we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” [Jn. 6:68-69].

Note what Peter’s words are based on: He needs someone to go to. Someone who can help. Someone who can save. Save from death. From hell. It’s not a matter of trying Jesus to improve your life now; it’s a matter of clinging to the One who has “the words of eternal life.”

Jesus is that One because, as Peter confesses, Jesus is the Christ. Christ means Messiah, Anointed One. This morning Seth was anointed, christened, “Christ-ened.” Baptism joined Seth to the Christ.

That’s why the question Jesus asks the Pharisees in today’s Gospel is so vitally important: “What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?” If the Christ is just the Son of David, then he is just a man. The son of a great man, to be sure – a king, a musician, a poet, a general, a giant-slayer – but still, just a man.

But David, the Scriptures say, also prophetically called the Christ his Lord – God in the flesh. The Christ who would come from David’s line would be both David’s son and David’s LORD; both the Son of Man and the Son of God; true man, born of the virgin Mary, and also true God, begotten of the Father from all eternity.

We need that kind of Christ, that kind of Messiah, because neither we, nor any man, could ever do what God demands in the Law. We cannot love the Lord with all our heart, soul, strength, mind; we love ourselves far too much, we give in to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life far too easily. We do not love our neighbors as ourselves, for again, we put ourselves first, look out for our self-interest above all.

That’s why we bring a child like Seth to the font straightway when he is born. He needs the Christ now, just as much – no, more than he needs food and drink, clothing and parents. Most things parents give their children are for this life only; but by Rob and Kathy bringing Seth to be baptized, they are saying in essence, “Dear Father in heaven, there is something we cannot give our child, something he needs most of all – he needs to be accepted and embraced by You; he needs the salvation found only in Your Son, Jesus the Christ. Lord, to whom shall we go? Only in your Son is eternal life, and this we ask that you give our son, all by your grace.”

So how do you answer the question, “What do you think about the Christ?” How do you answer the question, “To whom shall we go?” How do you answer the question of Jesus, when things get tough, “Do you also want to go away?”

There is only one thing to say. “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. You are the Christ, true man and true God. I have not loved You with my whole heart. I have not loved my neighbor as myself. But You died on the cross and rose from the grave for me. In Baptism You forgave my sins and joined me to Yourself. You give me Your body to eat and Your blood to drink, and so You will raise me up at the last day. There is nothing else I need, nothing else to try. There is nothing else to be done, for You have done everything already.”

The actual sermon preached on Ps. 31 ended up being quite a bit different from this, but here was my manuscript for the sermon at last night’s Evening Prayer:

The center of tonight’s Psalm is found in the words, “Into Your hand I commit my spirit.” In Luke’s Gospel, these are the final words of Jesus, and that helps us understand not only the Psalm but the meaning of our Lord’s death. Only the Lord JESUS could be confident in commending His spirit to God; for only He had nothing to be ashamed of. No sin could be counted against Him. No deeds done in secret to trouble His conscience; no words He needed to take back. Nothing left undone. Into the Father’s hand He committed His spirit, knowing that the Father would bring Him through death to the resurrection.

It is entirely in Christ that we pray this Psalm and make it our own. For if we sinners, as we are, were committed to the Father’s judgment, there would be hell to pay. Literally. But Christ is our mediator. In Him and through Him, God has mercy on us. So living and dying we can commend our spirits into the hand of the Father, confident that He will not give us what we deserve, but what He has promised in Christ.

Praying this Psalm carries us inside the passion of Jesus. In these words, we enter into His experience of suffering. “My life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing.” “My strength fails … my bones waste away…. I have become a reproach … and an object of dread.” We can almost feel the ground pounding with the footsteps of the disciples, fleeing as Jesus is arrested. “I have been forgotten like one who is dead.” We can feel the clubs crashing into his bloodied flesh, and hear Christ say, “I have become like a broken vessel.” The people stare at him, and the priests mock: “I hear the whispering of many – terror on every side!” And the crowd is stirred up to cry out for his death; “They scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life.” And to all of this, how does our Savior respond? “But I trust in you, O LORD; I say, ‘You are my God.’”

How have we responded, how will we respond to trouble? Many things happen to derail the course we had set for ourselves. We’ve experienced that as a church in the last few years, and you’ve probably experienced that as well in your personal life. Events that you had not foreseen ruined an evening or a year; and things you hoped and dreamed would come to pass never did. And time slips swiftly away like a rapidly flowing river, with the current carrying away what you once hoped could be. This Psalm gives us the proper view of time and the events of our lives: “My times are in your hand.”

A disciple is not above his teacher, and so as we seek to live in Jesus, we also will suffer hardship and even persecution. Lying lips will rise up, pride and contempt will try to tear us down and bring our Lord’s church down. Each time this happens, we must confess our own failings first – because unlike our Lord JESUS, we are never without sin. And then, we must learn to respond to all difficulties and strife as our Lord did, praying, “Into your hand I commit my spirit,” and wait with hope for our final deliverance.

The certainty of that deliverance is the content of the psalm’s final exhortation: “Be strong, and let your heart take courage!” This is what we take courage in: just as the Lord Jesus is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity, so shall all those who have been united with Him in His death in the waters of Holy Baptism. +INJ+

Note: Linden Katherine Hemingway was baptized during the Divine Service at which this sermon was preached.

Spirit – it seems impossible to grab hold of what that really is. Spirit is something shapeless and ephemeral, usually synonymous with enthusiasm or excitement: like team spirit or school spirit. Precisely because you can’t nail “spirit” down, it’s become popular to reject “religion” in favor of “spirituality.” What does it mean to be “spiritual”?  It is an embracing of mysticism and experience, while rejecting the certainty of doctrine and revealed truth. Ultimately being “spiritual but not religious” means rejecting the Word of God.

But it was not so from the beginning. In the beginning, God breathed into man the breath of life—the Spirit—and He gave man His Word. The Holy Spirit and the Word always go together, and so the life that God gives likewise is present wherever God’s Spirit and Word are. Our first parents rejected the Word of God, and so lost life – not their own life, but the life of God. For man has no life in himself – he lives by the life that God gives. Rejecting the Word of God, man lost the Spirit of God. So what God began in giving His Spirit, His Word, His life to man, man turned into the worst disaster. He fell. He died.

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent His Word, and the Word was made Man. The Word became flesh, conceived by the Holy Spirit. There, in the God-Man Jesus, the Spirit again dwelled in Man. In Him was life, and He came not only to give His life for mankind but also to mankind. On the cross, when our Lord JESUS breathed His last, He handed over His Spirit to His mother and to the beloved disciple, anticipating the gift of the Spirit to all the Church. And then: Death could not hold Him, for He was and is life. So when He rose, He came into the midst of the disciples, breathed again the breath of life that had once graced our first father Adam, and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” And He charged them to forgive sins.

And so today, Pentecost, is not just another day on the calendar. It gathers together Christmas, the Baptism of Jesus, Good Friday, and Easter, and says, “All that is now for you! The life that is in Jesus; the Holy Spirit; communion with God; forgiveness; the love of God—everything that Christ Jesus was and is and gave to His disciples—all that is now given to you.” And that is what Jesus means by that great comforting word “peace”: “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you.” 

But then we hear those horrible words that bring such shame: Jesus says, “If you loved Me.” Those words told the disciples that they were not loving Jesus as they should. And when you examine your life according to the Ten Commandments, you must realize the same thing. You have not loved Christ, you have not kept His words; you have not loved your neighbor as yourself, but you have measured everything by what pleases you. You have promoted and exulted yourself, and lived as if God’s Word did not apply in every circumstance.

That is precisely the sin we find among the builders of the Tower of Babel. They were disregarding God, seeking to decide their own destiny apart from Him. They wanted to make a name for themselves, and live autonomously. Mankind was united, but it was a united rebellion against their Creator. And so, in order to prevent the horror of a humanity united in will and purpose against Him, God confused their languages.

We suffer for that to this day. It is difficult to learn another language, but it is also difficult simply to communicate clearly in our own tongue. How many arguments arise just from misunderstanding what someone else said or wrote? In politics, in our homes, and certainly in the church, we wage wars over words.

The miraculous event of Pentecost, where the Gospel of Jesus’ death and resurrection was preached in many languages– that was the Holy Spirit’s call to a divided and confused humanity to gather together and unite under the banner of the Crucified One, our Lord Jesus Christ. “In Him,” said that voice ringing out to every nation, “the ancient sin is pardoned; in Him the ancient curse is lifted; you violent world, receive peace from your God!” Every language of man is used so that every race of man, however far off, might know that Christ’s incarnation was for them, Christ’s words and promises were for them, Christ’s death was for them, Christ’s resurrection was for them – and if for them, then for you, every one of you. No one, from the youngest child (such as Mark and Mollie’s daughter Linden) to the person whose life has become a disaster—no one is excluded from that invitation to receive God’s forgiveness.

So now, for Linden and for all the Baptized, we are charged by our Lord JESUS today to keep His Word. What does that mean? It means we guard, treasure, hold onto, meditate upon, pray, believe, seek to live by the words of JESUS. He gave the Apostles a promise that the Holy Spirit would help them remember His words. That special gift means that their writings in the New Testament are true and without error. Those inspired words are the final authority in the Church. 

But the Holy Spirit also works in us to remember the words of Jesus. What kind of remembering do we need? What we need is not just being able to recite Bible passages for a test, but something more: it is in the time of trial when we need the Holy Spirit’s help of remembering, holding onto, keeping and treasuring the Word. When you are tempted to sin—especially those habitual, besetting sins that you struggle against and have trouble stopping—that’s when we need to remember the Word and apply it to our trial. In those moments, we are faced with choices: should I say words that will be hurtful? Should I indulge the desire for sexual immorality? Should I take what does not belong to me? Should I tell a lie or conceal the truth? Should I give in to anger, resentment, the temptation for self-destructive behavior?

And then there is the hour of despair, an hour when we face depression or thoughts of suicide; an hour when we are tempted to throw away our faith; an hour when death visits us – what then will be our trust and hope? In that hour, remember: the Holy Spirit is for good reason called the Helper, which also means Advocate and Comforter. He is your Advocate before the Father: He prays for you, and also inspires you to pray, to call on the name of JESUS for your help. And the Holy Spirit is called the Comforter because He consoles you with the knowledge of pardon for your sins.

Rejoice then, O children of Adam! God has breathed out His Spirit once more! God has brought you, His fallen creatures, back into communion with Himself. In Him is life, and He first breathed that life into you by washing you as He did Linden; and He keeps on giving you that life by forgiving you, by nourishing you at His Table. The Spirit you have breathed in, you breathe out in your prayers and when you live in peace and love and forgiveness with your neighbors. And so that life of being Spirit-filled Christians goes on and on as we grow up in all things into Him who is our Head, Jesus Christ. In Him is your peace. In Him will you live, in Him will you die, and His shall you be forever.

“This is the night” rings out over and over again in the Great Thanksgiving of the Easter Vigil. Tonight it was a great blessing to have Chaplain Richard Townes and Chaplain Jonathan Shaw serve at Immanuel’s Vigil. One of our catechumens, James, was also baptized tonight, filling me with great joy.

This is the night when You brought our fathers, the children of Israel, out of bondage in Egypt and led them through the Red Sea on dry ground. This is the night when all who believe in Christ are delivered from bondage to sin and are restored to life and immortality. This is the night when Christ, the Life, arose from the dead. The seal of the grave is broken and the morning of the new creation breaks forth out of night. Oh, how wonderful and beyond all telling is Your mercy toward us, O God, that to redeem a slave You gave Your Son. How holy is this night when all wickedness is put to flight and sin is washed away. How holy is this night when innocence is restored to the fallen and joy given to the downcast. How blessed is this night when man is reconciled to God in Christ. Holy Father, accept now the evening sacrifices of our thanksgiving and praise. Let Christ, the true light and morning star, shine in our hearts, He who gives light to the whole creation, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

All praise to God, whose mercy truly is wonderful and beyond all telling!

In his commentary on the footwashing account (John 13, Gospel for Holy Thursday), Lightfoot notes that footwashing was the duty of a wife towards her husband:

It was an unusual thing for superiors to wash the feet of inferiors. Amongst the duties required from a wife towards a husband this was one, that she should wash his face, his hands, and his feet.

Christ adopted in the footwashing a servile posture towards His bride, the church (represented by the Twelve). In doing so, He did not make Himself subject to her, for He reiterates that He is “Teacher” and “Lord” (and a good wife, as St. Peter says [1 Pt. 3.6], will be like Sarah, who called Abraham “lord”). But if Christ, Teacher and Lord, washes the feet of His bride, how ought the members of the Bride, the Church, be to one another? And what does this mean for Christian marriage?

I wonder if St. Paul knew of Christ’s washing the feet of His bride (the disciples) and had it in mind when he likens the relationship of a husband toward his wife to be like that of Baptism:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. (Eph. 5.25-27)

The husband does not cease to be manly when he acts as his wife’s slave. He acts like Christ.