Readings for St. John’s Day: Rev. 1:1-6; 1 Jn 1:1—2:2; Jn. 21:20-25

Beloved, today is St. John’s Day, the beloved disciple of Jesus and the man inspired by the Holy Spirit to write the Fourth Gospel, as well as three epistles in our New Testament and the Book of Revelation. On Christmas Day, we heard the majestic prologue of John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Today, on St. John’s Day, the author of those great words testifies to this great truth: “That One who already was in the beginning, who existed from all eternity, and who was made flesh – that is the One whom we have heard, whom we have seen, whom we looked on and have touched with our hands.” The next time you hear the horrible idea that Jesus and the Bible is a collection of fables or falsehoods, remember John’s testimony: He and the other Apostles heard, saw, and touched Jesus. And in hearing, seeing, and touching Jesus, they touched God, God in the flesh.

That is the historical fact. But it is not just history. Now, he says, we who were with Him, we who heard Him, saw Him, touched Him – we are proclaiming Him to you, so you can be with us, so you can have fellowship, communion, with us, so you can be part of the Church that Jesus established.

What does it mean to have fellowship, communion, with the apostles? What does it mean to be a true Christian, to be a true member of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church? St. John teaches us two important things about this:

1) We must not think of ourselves as holy people, good people, perfect people, people without sin. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

2) But then, we also are to dedicate our lives as Christians to turning away from sin and living a new life. “My little children,” John writes, “I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.”

He goes on to emphasize in all his writings how important it is that we make every effort to be holy: to not sin, and to keep the commandments of Jesus. Again and again he hammers this home:

John’s writings are replete with sayings like these. Note well that word “practice” – he speaks of ongoing, habitual, and intentional sins. You know what the commandments of God are: [list 10 Commandments]

All the Commandments summed up in one word: “love” – love God, and love your neighbor.

St. John calls us to holiness of living – and thus constant repentance as we feel and experience our own unholiness – but at the same time John assures of the forgiveness and salvation found only in Jesus. “If we confess our sins, [God] is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness…. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” We have an attorney who will go to court for us. And the case He argues is based on the iron-clad fact that our penalty has been paid: “He is the propitiation for our sins.”

That is why you who through Baptism have become followers of Jesus can know that He ever loves you. St. John is called the “disciple whom Jesus loved,” and I suspect John records that not to boast, but to say, “Jesus loved even such a one as me.” And John says of this same Jesus in our first reading, “To him who loves us.”

As we follow Jesus, there is one thing alone that is our authority, our guide, our light: the words of Holy Scripture. And today, in those sacred writings, we heard about “the things that must soon take place…. for the time is near.” The Bible gives us a different view of time – a view that sees this life as short, where Christ’s coming is always “soon.” It does not matter if it is another two thousand years, or a mere two minutes from now; we are always to be prepared.

All this is lived out in different ways for each of us. After Jesus had prophesied Peter’s martyrdom, Peter asked the question recorded in today’s Gospel: “What about him? What about John?” Jesus replied, “How does that concern you? You, follow Me!” St. John and St. Peter had different kinds of endings to their lives – Peter was crucified, while John suffered in a different way, being exiled to an island called Patmos. Peter and John had different particular callings in life, but the same overarching calling to be disciples of Jesus: “Follow Me.” That is also our calling. Whether you are an engineer, housewife, secretary or soldier, in every place you go, the words of Jesus go with you: “Follow Me.”

Those words are not burdensome. For you follow the One who at Christmas took on your flesh and bone, your human nature, and who proceeded to live perfectly in your flesh, to suffer every temptation you suffer in your flesh, to endure every pain and humiliation you endure, and finally to die your death, and to rise again in your human nature, now glorified, and to bring that human nature into the presence of God the Father. That is the One you now follow, the One who is coming again for you, soon, for the time is near.

This day we give honor for the ministry and testimony of St. John the Apostle and Evangelist, who so faithfully recorded these glorious truths for us. May God pour out on us His Holy Spirit, that we may always heed John’s Words as a light in a dark place.

If any one, therefore, reads the Scriptures with attention, he will find in them an account of Christ, and a foreshadowing of the new calling.

-Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book IV, Chapter XXVI

When Jesus takes aside the man who is deaf and has an impediment in his speech, He takes aside all of humanity. Which means, when Jesus confronts the man who is deaf and has an impediment in his speech, Jesus confronts us. For you and I have several problems: like the man in today’s Gospel, our bodies don’t work right – not the way they were created to work. Medicine helps – but it only puts off the inevitable. We are all terminally ill. We are born that way.

But the physical problems are symptoms of the deeper problem. The wages of sin is death, and our dying, broken bodies are symptoms of our broken souls and wounded psyches. When we heard the prophet Isaiah talking about the coming day of the LORD, he didn’t just say that the deaf would hear. He said, “In that day the deaf shall hear the words of a book,” meaning, Holy Scripture, the Word of God.

Some of you have problems hearing, and need a hearing aid. But every one of us has a problem listening to the Word of God, listening and hearing what it says about us. And we have an impediment of speech. We say things we should not, and we fail to say the things we ought. We say cruel things, hurtful things, betray confidences. And we tell lies, flatter others to get ahead, tell people what they want to hear.

What is terrifying is that Jesus says we will be judged for every one of those words. “By your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” Is it surprising then that when the disciples of Jesus heard the Law from Jesus, the real meaning of the Commandments, they said, “Who then can be saved?”

Sometimes, upon reflection, we want to take back our words. We would like to take a mulligan, press the reset button and start over. My favorite command on the computer is “undo” – but we cannot undo our words. Our words reflect what is really in our hearts: “Out of the abundance of the heart,” Jesus says, “the mouth speaks.” Even the hastily spoken words, the words blurted out without thinking, will be judged. “I tell you,” says our Lord, “on the day of judgment men will render account for every careless word they utter.”

That is why St. Paul today calls the Ten Commandments, the words “carved in letters on stone,” the “ministry of death.” The Commandments show us our sin, they reveal to us how we have not loved God with our whole heart, how we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. God’s Law is a ministry of death, declaring to us that we deserve nothing but hell, everlasting damnation.

But God saw this wretched state that we are in. He sees our dying bodies and has compassion. He sees our twisted souls, the addictions and depression and vanities and emptiness – He sees the entire mess mankind has made of the world and says, “I will enter into it and take it upon Myself. I will die man’s death in his place. By a tree mankind was tempted and fell; so by a tree, by the cross, I will restore mankind.” And so Jesus takes this man who cannot hear and cannot speak rightly, He takes him aside and with him takes us, and He sighs, He groans. Showing what? That He is sad for us. He knows what man was meant to be, He knows more than we can fathom how far we have fallen, how corrupt we are, how inhuman we have become.

How long did this man have to suffer before Jesus came to him? Most likely a long time – perhaps all his life. God allows us to suffer for reasons we often do not understand. But we know that He is working even our suffering for our good, and that through it we are to learn to call upon God and rely solely upon Him. He is training us to say, “Make haste, O God, to deliver me!”, and look no where else for our help and deliverance.

This story today is given for our comfort – that Jesus has compassion on you and hurts with you even if your suffering has gone on your whole life. That love and compassion God has for you and for all mankind is what is meant when Jesus groans and sighs when He takes this suffering man aside. And then, He who fashioned man from the earth in the beginning, touches this man’s ears and tongue and makes them whole again, with a Word. The Word of God does what it says. So when Jesus says in Aramaic, “Ephphatha,” “Be opened,” the man’s ears are opened, and his tongue loosed. Because He says, “This is My body,” it is His body. Because He says, “I forgive you all your sins,” they are forgiven. Because He says, “On the last day I will raise up your body from the grave,” it shall be raised up. That is the power of God’s Word.

It is a power that undoes all the damage we have done with our words. Our words have torn down, but His Word restores. Our words merit death, but His Word brings life. Our words bring pain to others and ourselves, but His Words bring healing. So the Word we cling to now is His Word of promise, and we spend the rest of our days in this broken world repeating again and again, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

So rejoice, my friends. The Lord JESUS has done all things well, and He will do all things well for you, in His own time.

The two largest Lutheran church bodies in the United States are the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) with 4.8 million members and The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) with 2.4 million members.

On Friday, Aug. 21, the Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America voted to open the ministry of the ELCA to gay and lesbian pastors and other professional workers living in “committed relationships.”  In an earlier action, the assembly approved a resolution that commits the ELCA “to finding ways to allow congregations that choose to do so to recognize, support, and hold publicly accountable life-long, monogamous, same-gender relationships.”

The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod has repeatedly affirmed as its own position the historical understanding of the Christian church that the Bible condemns homosexual behavior as “intrinsically sinful.” It is therefore contrary to the will of the Creator and constitutes sin against the commandments of God (Lev. 18:22, 24,20:13; 1 Cor. 6:9-20; 1 Tim 1:9-10; and Rom. 1:26, 27).

Addressing the ELCA assembly on Saturday, Aug. 22, I responded to their aforementioned actions, stating: “The decisions by this assembly to grant non-celibate homosexual ministers the privilege of serving as rostered leaders in the ELCA and the affirmation of same-gender unions as pleasing to God will undoubtedly cause additional stress and disharmony within the ELCA. It will also negatively affect the relationships between our two church bodies. The current division between our churches threatens to become a chasm. This grieves my heart and the hearts of all in the ELCA, the LCMS, and other Christian church bodies throughout the world who do not see these decisions as compatible with the Word of God, or in agreement with the consensus of 2,000 years of Christian theological affirmation regarding what Scripture teaches about human sexuality. Simply stated, this matter is fundamentally related to significant differences in how we [our two church bodies] understand the authority of Holy Scripture and the interpretation of God’s revealed and infallible Word.”

Doctrinal decisions adopted already in 2001 led the LCMS, in sincere humility and love, to declare that we could no longer consider the ELCA “to be an orthodox Lutheran church body” (2001 Res 3-21A). Sadly, the decisions of this past week to ignore biblical teaching on human sexuality have reinforced that conclusion. We respect the desire to follow conscience in moral decision making, but conscience may not overrule the Word of God.

We recognize that many brothers and sisters within the ELCA, both clergy and lay, are committed to remaining faithful to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, are committed to the authority of Holy Scripture, and strongly oppose these actions. To them we offer our assurance of loving encouragement together with our willingness to provide appropriate support in their efforts to remain faithful to the Word of God and the historic teachings of the Lutheran church and all other Christian churches for the past 2,000 years.

Dr. Gerald B. Kieschnick, President
The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod

Source: LCMS Web site

I’m posting this rather late; Transfiguration this year was on February 1.

Myth. Fable. Fraud. Such is the verdict that so-called intellectuals issue regarding the birth, miracles, and resurrection of Jesus. Certainly the Transfiguration would fall under the same condemnation. Jesus’ face shining like the sun? His clothes as white as the light? Moses and Elijah, characters out of some ancient Jewish storybook, talking with Jesus on a mountaintop? A thundering voice from a brilliant cloud of glory? It’s all too fantastical, isn’t it?

Myth. Fable. Fraud. Why would Peter, James, and John even invent such a crazy story? Who would believe it? Well, according to the so-called scholars, Peter, James, and John didn’t invent such a story. It came decades, even centuries later, by people who never knew Jesus, in an attempt to make a wandering Hebrew rabbi into something more; to make a carpenter from Nazareth into a god. Why would they do that? Power and control, say these “scholars.” Power-hungry bishops invented the stories of the virgin birth, miracles, the transfiguration, and the resurrection for the purpose of setting themselves up as the only source of salvation. Today’s popular fiction presents wise, truth-seeking professors, scholars, archeologists, and other scientists fighting to bring this so-called truth to light, but they are hindered by violent priests and religious zealots who are lurking in the shadows with guns and knives, killing anyone who opposes them. In these books, the authors interrupt their narrative with long lectures by wise, noble, persecuted scholars, who explain that the Bible is a work of fiction, that there are no eyewitness records of the birth, miracles, or resurrection of Jesus, and that the Christian Church perpetuates lies and mass delusion in order to maintain control over people.

The sad truth is that these so-called scholars are themselves promoting falsehoods, myths and fables, by taking 2nd-century religious writings by people who believed in something called Gnosticism and equating them with the Gospels and the letters of the Apostles. The Gnostics, who never knew Jesus, used pseudonyms, pen names, for their writings, calling them such things as “The Gospel of Thomas,” “The Gospel of Judas,” or “The Gospel of Mary Magdalene.” 

These fake writings took some of the sayings of Jesus found in the real Gospels, but used them out of their context to promote their belief that material things, the body, and creation are intrinsically bad. They say Jesus was not divine but just an enlightened man with special “gnosis” or knowledge. This fake Jesus helped people discover the divinity that is within each of us, and how we can ascend and escape the prison of the body so that we live on a strictly spiritual plane. In the Gospel of Judas, for example, Judas Iscariot is actually the hero; Judas doesn’t betray Jesus; by arranging for Jesus’ crucifixion, he is helping Jesus to escape the body and ascend to the spirit-realm. These gnostic writings use words to describe their teachings such as “secret” and “hidden” to sell the idea that there’s been a cover-up, and only they have the real truth.

Imagine if today someone all of the sudden presented a book entitled “The Secret Political Teachings of Thomas Jefferson” that said he thought the British monarchy was wonderful; or “The Secret Speeches of Abraham Lincoln” that said slavery is actually a really good idea? These Gnostic writings are just as preposterous.

But unfortunately, we live in an age where anything sensational, anything against Christian orthodoxy, gets all the press; and books with “secret books” or “lost teachings” sell like hotcakes. What happens to people when they hear these things? At best, they are left in doubt. They think, “Who can know the truth?” And we all love a good conspiracy story. I’m surprised Oliver Stone hasn’t made a movie out of all this – the wicked church covering up contradicting writings, banning books and consolidating power in an authoritarian structure, which then leads to wars and violence. All the ills of the world can then be blamed on Christians.

The truth is at once far more boring—there was no cover-up—but also far more wonderful than these pseudo-scholars and hack novelists are telling you. In fact, there were eyewitnesses who recorded what they heard Jesus say and what they saw Him do. One of those eyewitnesses was St. Peter, who says today, “We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.” That is a statement everyone of us must wrestle with: Is he telling the truth? Were Peter, and Matthew, and John writing cleverly devised myths? Did Paul give up his career as a rising star among the Pharisees for a lifetime of poverty, being hated, stoned, whipped? Their lives were turned upside-down by their encounters with Jesus, and they shed their blood as testimony that their writings were true, and not cleverly devised myths. Having read that testimony, and compared it with the other writings and competing claims, I am convinced that Peter is telling the truth, that he really was on the mountain with Jesus, that he heard the voice of the Majestic Glory, that he saw something  so extraordinary that he could only come to one conclusion, no matter how amazing it seems: Jesus of Nazareth was in fact the Lord, God in the Flesh, the Son of the Living God. “For we were with Him on the holy mountain.”

And what they saw in Jesus could only be likened to something that Moses saw: a bush that burned but was not consumed. As the bush burned but was not consumed, so the divinity dwelt in the humanity but did not destroy it. You and I are both mortal and sinful; if we come into contact with the divinity, with God, we would be instantly destroyed. But the divinity, the Godhead, dwelt in Jesus, and He was not destroyed. The fire burned in Him but He was not consumed. 

So why does this happen now, before Jesus is crucified? When they go down from the mountain, they are going to begin the journey to Jerusalem for the last time. Jesus will be handed over into the hands of the chief priests, and will be executed. By showing Peter, James, and John His divinity, Jesus is showing them that His divinity is not something that comes later, a reward for His crucifixion, but something He always had. They will understand then who died for them: not just a man, but God, who not only was made man for them, but as the God-man suffered for them and went into the grave for them.

And that is why they cannot stay on the mountain. Peter wants to build three tabernacles; but it is Jesus who is building a new tabernacle, the resurrected body and the new creation, of which He Himself is the firstfruits. That won’t happen on the mountain; it will happen on another hill, the Hill of the Skull, Golgotha.

So why are Moses and Elijah there? Moses and Elijah are there to show that all their writings, everything recorded in the Hebrew Bible, is pointing to Jesus. They cannot remain on the mountain, as Simon would like, for who then would fulfill the words, “They have pierced My hands and My feet”? Who would fulfill the words, “They divided My garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots”? And who would accomplish these, that “They gave Me gall for My food, and in My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink”? What other servant could be stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted, bearing the sin of many and making intercession for the transgressors?

It’s an amazing story that Matthew tells today, and that Peter affirms. But is it a myth? Fable? Fraud? No. Still, wouldn’t it be nice if we could see and hear it for ourselves? If only there had been a video camera! I am prone to thinking that if I could have been on the mountain, if I could have seen the transfiguration, if I could have seen the cloud and heard the voice declaring Jesus to be the beloved Son, that would help my faith. But St. Peter tells us that we have something more sure – the prophetic Word. We have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention.” Peter, who was there on the mountain, tells us we have something better, more reliable: the prophetic Word, i.e., Holy Scripture. That is the one sure thing, the one thing we can rely upon, the one thing that is certain in a world of uncertainty, chaos, and death.

We have something better, because we have the advantage of knowing the entire conclusion. Peter, James, and John saw the transfiguration, but did not yet understand how the cross and the resurrection fit into that; they could not know of the Ascension and the giving of the Holy Spirit, and they could not yet see that Baptism and Holy Communion would make disciples and join them to Jesus’ death and resurrection.

So we know the end of this story, where the Transfiguration is leading: The Jesus who is revealed on the mountaintop to three disciples as God in the flesh, the approved Son of the Father, will die for us willingly. No man could destroy Him; no army could seize Him; no prison could hold Him; but that He is seized, imprisoned, scourged, nailed, pierced, shows us that He suffers all this willingly, laying aside the exercise of His divinity, laying aside the benefits of His glory to endure the shame, the spitting, the mockery for us. Think of it! He endured your punishment, so that He might give to you His glory! It’s not a myth. Not a fable. Not a fraud.

And neither is this: when you die, you shall be like Jesus; for you shall see Him as He is. The apostles, prophets, martyrs, and saints all testify this to you, and we on this glorious day join them in singing our thanks and praise to the God who loved us so deeply.

N.b. – The recurring theme, “Myth. Fable. Fraud.” was inspired by Pr. Weedon’s wonderful sermon for the Conversion of St. Paul.

For many reasons, I love and admire Pastor Weedon from afar. His quotations from patristic and Lutheran fathers are daily spiritual nourishment for me, and his sermons are faithful works of pastoral wisdom.

His writing here, however, sums up for me why I have remained, and Deo volente will remain, a Lutheran.

Sometimes living 10 miles from church really stinks. It would be nice to skateboard over there and check out Just’s Luke commentary, see what Fr. Brown has to say, and look at the CPH lectionary book. I think that the Luke 2 gospel for Christmas Eve gives Luke 2.2 as saying something like, “This registration took place before Quirinius was governor of Syria.” At least, I think I remember seeing that when I was proofreading the bulletin. [Update: It turns out I was wrong. I just know I saw it somewhere, though.] However, the version of ESV in my Accordance program has, “This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria,” with a footnote for reading it the way I’ve rendered it the first time, above. The NKJ has, “This census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria.” The big problem is that Quirinius isn’t governor of Syria, according to Josephus, until A.D. 6. The Anchor Bible Dictionary essentially says that Luke is wrong, and there’s no way to reconcile it with history. That answer is not entirely satisfactory for me.

Another nice thing would be to check out a Greek grammar. Maybe some seminary student can explain this to me. In the Greek, the adjective prote comes immediately after apographe; wouldn’t that mean that it’s the “first registration”? I would like to translate this passage, “This first registration happened [when] Quirinius was governing Syria.” 

I’m no expert in this, but if Luke wanted to say that the registration happened before Quirinius was governor, wouldn’t he have used a different word than prote? And another thing: Could it be that prote here refers to what follows, so that it would read, “This registration happened the first [time] Quirinius was governing Syria.” That would square with what I found here. It also fits with with the Tiburtine Inscription found in 1746 (see here under “Nineteenth Century”), which mentions a Roman ruler who ruled in Syria two times.

In order to believe in Biblical inerrancy, it seems to me that Jesus has to be born nearly a year before the reign of Herod the Great ends (4 B.C., to square it with Mt. 2), but also at a time when Quirinius had some sort of rule in Syria.

So, these are my yet-unanswered questions:

• Did CPH/COW change the ESV text of Luke 2.2? [Update: No]
• If so, who authorized that, and on what grounds? [Update: Now I wish they had!]
• What is the best translation?
• Is it possible to harmonize Luke with the historical data that we have?
• Is it possible to harmonize Luke with Matthew?

I really want the last two answers to be “Yes,” but I’m not sure how to get there. It’s 10:30 at night, and I just took a bunch of drugs for this blasted cold, otherwise I’d drive over to church and try to track this down right now. It’s really bugging me, when I should be writing a sermon.

Continuing our midweek series on the Psalms…

+  +  + INJ +  +  +

The foolish man says, “I am god, and all the good I have comes from me.” But the wise man is taught by the sixteenth Psalm to say, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from You.”

Men run after other gods – idols of wood and stone, but also idols of gold and flesh. Those men swell with pride when they see success; and those same men despair when the vagaries of the world turn against them. But the wise man is taught by the sixteenth Psalm to say, “The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup; You hold my lot.”

The foolish man looks at his property, his portfolio, his automobiles, and his wife and mistress and says, “Things have gone well for me; I will take my leisure, eat, drink, and be merry, enjoying my prosperity.” But the wise man places no trust in his goods in this world. Instead, He looks to the kingdom of heaven and the coming resurrection, and says on account of the promises of God, “The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.”

The foolish man takes his counsel from the Wall Street Journal, Oprah, and CNN. The wise man receives counsel from the Word of God, and learns from the sixteenth Psalm to say, “I bless the LORD who gives me counsel.”

But far more profound than all of this is to understand what these words mean on the lips of the Lord Jesus Christ. To understand tonight’s Psalm, as with all the others, we must read them through the lens of Jesus’ death and resurrection. The crucified and risen Jesus is the interpretive key to all Scripture.

So St. Peter, in his great sermon on the Day of Pentecost, uses Ps. 16 to demonstrate the resurrection; and thereby he shows us how to read the entire Hebrew Bible. Peter says that David was not speaking about himself, which means he also wasn’t speaking directly about us, either. He spoke, Peter says, “concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption.” Those words, taken from tonight’s Psalm, we cannot pray on our own. Not of ourselves, by ourselves, can we say to God, “You will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption.” The words are spoken about and fulfilled in Jesus. But we who have been buried with Christ through Baptism into death can then say those words as pertaining to ourselves in Christ: “For as You did not abandon Your Son to the grave, dear Father, so You will not abandon me.”

Let’s learn a big word tonight: eschatological. It means “pertaining to the end times [or last things],” and for us Christians, we are to think about and view our lives eschatologically, i.e., not as we are now, but as we shall be. We shall not always have this mortal body, but shall have new and glorified bodies in the resurrection. We shall not always struggle with sin, but in the kingdom of God we shall be freed from the stain of sin, its impulses and compulsions and addictions.

So we pray tonight’s Psalm, especially that 10^th verse, in eschatological hope: knowing that as Christ is risen, we too will rise with Him. For He will not abandon your soul to Sheol (i.e., to hell or to the place of the dead), but will give you an incorruptible, immortal body.

As the Gospels culminate in Jesus’ resurrection, so the rest of the New Testament emphasizes that our union with Christ will culminate in our bodily resurrection. 1 Cor. 6.14, “And God both raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His power.” 2 Cor. 4.14, “He who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus.” And in tonight’s second reading, “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” And from Sunday’s Epistle: “Since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.”

This is why the Psalmist says, “I have set the LORD always before me”; in the same manner we set the Lord, His death and resurrection, always before our eyes. “Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure.” He will not abandon us to Sheol, and though our bodies experience corruption, yet will our change come, and the dead in Christ will rise, and so we shall always be with the Lord.

Text: Matthew 9.9-13

A pastor was out walking one day, and he saw a man named Mohammed sitting at an Al Qaeda recruiting ofice, and he said to Mohammed, “Follow me.” So he arose and followed the pastor. Now it happened, as the pastor was having dinner at Mohammed’s house, that behold, many other members of the Al Qaeda cell came and had dinner with the pastor and some of his favorite church members. And when the Elders and the circuit counselor and the district president saw it, they said to that pastor’s followers, “Why does your pastor keep company with terrorists?”

It is difficult to put into our own context how socially and religiously unacceptable the behavior of Jesus was. Today, we remember that Jesus took a hated man, a man whose occupation was synonymous with corruption, greed, and treason, a man scorned at the synagogue and despised by the clergy – He took that man, and said, “Follow Me!” And Levi the tax collector would become St. Matthew, disciple of Jesus, holy Apostle, and First Evangelist, the writer of the Church’s Gospel.

Jesus did not take His First Evangelist from the ranks of the scribes. When the Son of God came in the flesh, He came to eat with tax collectors, harlots, sinners. He made them saints, to demonstrate to us that sainthood does not come from our accomplishments or achievements or pious acts. Jesus made men like Levi saints to show us that holiness comes only by grace.

Jesus eats with sinners, and if you want to eat with Him, you need to be a sinner. Not that we rejoice in our sins, or continue in them – but Jesus eats with those who know they don’t deserve an invitation. That was the problem with the question the Pharisees asked: “Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” In pointing them back to the Scriptures, Jesus was in effect asking them, “Do you not realize that you also are sinners?” The kingdom of God comes in mercy and repentance, not in a self-made righteousness.

That mercy of God was shown in a concrete way by Jesus calling Matthew. Was there something in Matthew that caused Jesus to call him to discipleship? The text is silent. Or perhaps, the lack of an answer is the answer, namely, that there is nothing in man that causes our salvation. God draws us by His Word; Matthew is called only by God’s mercy.

So Jesus reminds those men questioning His calling of Matthew that, God desires mercy and not sacrifice. Doesn’t that seem contradictory? In the OT, there are chapters and chapters of intricate details of the sacrifices the Israelites were to offer. And in the NT, the LORD makes it clear that you are to sacrifice your money for the support of the Office of the Ministry and for the church’s works of mercy, and you are to offer to God sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving. So, what does the LORD mean, that He desires mercy and not sacrifice? Simply this: Don’t do your religious works—don’t give your money and come to worship—and think that frees you from loving your neighbor, particularly in the way that God loves man – with mercy.

But there is more: Mercy is the sacrifice. In the book of Hebrews these words are shown to be the words of the Son of God: “Sacrifices and offering you have not desired, but a body You have prepared for Me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, ‘See, God, I have come to do Your will, O God’” [10.5-7]. The sacrifices and offerings of the tabernacle, the bulls and goats and lambs and rams, the Day of Atonement, the Passover, everything was pointing towards the Son of God, for whom a human body was prepared, who came to do His Father’s will. Jesus offered Himself as a sacrifice for the sake of mercy – a mercy not just for Pharisees and scribes, but for tax collectors and harlots.

All religious works, all the time volunteered in activities and meetings, all the money given, all the orthodoxy and sound teaching, mean nothing without mercy. So when Jesus called Levi from his tax office, he was calling him to mercy. First, showing him mercy, but flowing from that, calling him to show mercy to others.

You are a disciple of Jesus too. We follow Jesus because He has shown us mercy, and we live as followers of Jesus when we show mercy to our neighbors. St. Jude says, “Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.” 

But notice how that mercy is wrapped up in repentance. The problem with the Pharisees who were questioning Jesus was not that they weren’t good enough; they were too good. They needed to make themselves sinners, not by committing sins, but by seeing that they were sinners – in this case, by refusing to show mercy to others. “I came to call sinners to repentance.” Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees – and to you. You must repent.

Repentance is not just regret. It literally means “to change your mind,” and it entails a change of action as well. For example:

A man who repents of porn stops looking at it. 

A woman who repents of gossiping stops talking about her neighbor. 

A child who repents of disobedience begins seeking ways to honor father and mother.

When a Christian comes to private confession and says, “My worship and prayers have faltered,” he or she seeks to become more diligent in attention in Divine Service and in devotion to daily Bible reading and prayer.

When we are in relationships that are breaking or broken, the Christian who lives in repentance will do everything—everything!—possible to live in peace with that person.

Jesus says, “If you do not repent, you will all perish,” and John the Baptist told his hearers to “Bear fruits worthy of repentance.”

We would like to be in the right. We would like to never give in, and force others to repent, bend others to our will. We want to be the arbiters of our own salvation, and sometimes even “having the correct doctrine” becomes a sinful form of pride. Repent of your stubbornness, your hard heart. For the sweetness of the Gospel is not in being right, but in receiving righteousness from God. Let go of your bitterness, repent, and taste the sweetness of God’s forgiveness.

The desire of God to show mercy – indeed, that He has shown mercy – is the good news that St. Matthew preached. St. Matthew is called an evangelist, because he wrote the first Gospel. In our day, “evangelist” has been redefined to mean tent-revivalists and TV hucksters. But originally, the term evangelist referred to a messenger who came with good news; an evangelist usually came running directly from a battlefield telling the news that the victory was won, the enemy is defeated, and there shall be peace, joy, and safety in the land. That was the term used to describe the preachers and writers of the Gospel – they tell us the story of the battle, that Jesus went into the arena to contend with death; He was harassed and assailed by the devil himself, but through that strife emerged victorious. Death was trampled down by death, Satan was overthrown, and sin is atoned for. Peace once more with God is made.

That is what the Gospels tell us. Every Sunday we hear three kinds of readings from Scripture: In the OT we hear prophetic hopes for salvation; in the Epistles we get exhortation and admonition; but in the Gospels, we have everything that Jesus said and did for us. All of the Bible is the Word of God, but the Holy Gospels are the highest and most important of the books of the Bible. That is why we stand for the reading of the Gospel, and why those four books, and only those four, rest on the altar.

And that has to be the source of what we believe and do. We are not permitted direct revelation. God does not speak to you except by His Word. “In many and various ways, God spoke to His people of old by the prophets; but now, in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son.” Not by our experiences or feelings, not by our reasoning or “doing theology,” not by who we think God is or what we wish Him—or Her!—to be; it is in the Gospels that we hear Christ still speaking to His Church.

And what is He saying to you today?

When you first heard the Gospel, Jesus said to you as He said to Levi the tax collector: “Follow Me!”

When you were baptized, Jesus said to you as He said to Levi the tax collector: “Follow Me!”

When you were bidden to get back on your feet this morning after the confession of sins, Jesus was saying again to you as He said to Levi the tax collector: “Follow Me!”

And when you depart today after receiving the body and blood of Christ, Jesus will again be saying to you, “Follow Me!”

He knows where you are going:

Some of you are going back this week to workplaces resounding with the cacophony of filthy language. 

Some of you are going to doctor’s appointments, with a deepening sense of your own mortality. 

Some of you are going back to homes filled with a loveless chaos. 

Some of you go out to face challenges of pride or despair, spiritual apathy, depression, addictions, greed and envy. 

And some of you are going home alone.

Every one of us leaves the Sanctuary of Christ’s body and blood into a dark and fallen world, with dark thoughts in our minds and fallen bodies that are dying. And in that world will be affliction temptation. And into every dark and loveless place you go, Jesus is saying to you the same words He said to Levi the tax collector: “Follow Me!” And it sounds impossible. We are not St. Matthew. We haven’t left a lucrative, if unpopular, career to follow Jesus into poverty. When Jesus says, “Follow Me!”, we hear the well-known words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and despair: “When Jesus calls a man, He bids him come and die.” And each of us says, “I’m not ready to really be a disciple of Jesus.”

But when Jesus says, “Follow Me!”, the words are filled with grace. We do not lead, but follow. We do not call; we are called, by Jesus. We do not decide, but He has chosen us. We do not speak, but listen. We do what we are given to do, knowing that He has done everything for us already. What did Dr. Luther teach us in the Catechism? “I believe that I cannot, by my own reason or strength, believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Ghost has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.”

We were called by grace—by God’s free gift—and we continue to live and follow Jesus by and in that same grace. He will provide you what you need to forgive, to serve, to resist temptation, to endure suffering, to persevere in faith unto the end. You don’t find it in yourself, and you don’t have to find the way; when Jesus says, “Follow Me!”, He is promising that you will not walk through the valley of the shadow of death alone, you will not endure temptation alone, you will not suffer and die alone, but in all of it, He will lead, guide, and deliver you safely to the end. The One who says, “Follow Me!” is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity. Which is why St. Matthew and all the other martyrs could confidently follow Jesus even to the most horrible deaths – because they knew that they were following Jesus not just to death, but into life.

By St. Matthew alone, the words of Jesus were preserved: “Come unto Me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” So to that altar, on which St. Matthew’s gospel rests, do we come; and there we, with St. Matthew, find in the Sacrament rest in St. Matthew’s Lord. God grant us to follow Jesus to our death as St. Matthew did. +++In the Name of Jesus.+++

Tomorrow is St. Matthew’s day, and one has to rejoice in the delicious sarcasm of my former professor, Dr. David P. Scaer:

Out of deference to critical scholarship, but without accepting all its conclusions, we are compelled to identify two “Matthews”: one, the disciple of Jesus, the apostle; and the other, the evangelist, who they say wrote the gospel forty years later. The second “Matthew” did such a good job in impersonating the first “Matthew,” that no one back then could tell the difference. But, as is customary with scholars, they know more than those closest to the situation.