Isaiah 55:10-13; 2 Corinthians 11:19—12:9; St. Luke 8:4-15

It is a happy coincidence that today’s OT reading begins by mentioning the snow that comes down from heaven. When we have a heavy snowfall like this, it forces everything to slow down, and makes the world quiet for a time. A prayer for the end of the day makes reference to the end of our life, when the fever of life is over and the busy world is hushed. When everything (except Divine Service, of course!) is cancelled, it gives us a taste of that hushing of the busy world. When that final hushing comes, only one thing will matter, holding on to the Word. And only one division will be made: those who put their trust in the Word’s promises, and those who put their trust instead in the empty promises of devil, world, and flesh.

Isaiah compares the snowfall to the Word of God which comes down. The snow comes down from heaven to moisten the earth so that when spring comes, the earth may grow; and the Word comes down from heaven to likewise give growth. The Word comes to call us to repentance for our sins, to forgive us those sins, to create in us saving faith, i.e., trust in Jesus as our Redeemer, to bring forth the fruit of good works in us, and finally to keep us steadfast in the faith until our life’s end and bring us to the resurrection of the body and life in God’s kingdom.

And arrayed against this are the things alluded to in the Parable of the Sower: the devil; testing and affliction; and cares and riches and pleasures. The first challenge is the crafts and assaults of the devil. The devil seeks to prevent man’s salvation by “lifting up the Word from the heart,” as a bird snatches seed from the ground. The devil’s main object of attack is always the Word of God, because man is saved by believing the Word, i.e., believing the threats and promises of God. The devil’s aim is to prevent that: “So that not believing, they are not saved.”

The second challenge is in testing, trials. This is likened to the seed that feel on rocky soil. It didn’t have roots, so it died from lack of moisture. Trials test our roots – are we rooted in the promises of God? Our English translation calls this a “time of temptation,” implying the devil’s work of seeking to lead a person into sin. However, it can also mean God’s work of testing to reveal our true quality, and to improve and perfect the believer. Coming through the test, the believer develops a stronger trust in God.

The Lord tests His servants, or allows them to endure afflictions, in order to assess our quality. When we are tested, we find out whether or faith is sincere. It is also a means to spiritual improvement, as the hoped-for outcome is that we would emerge from the trial purified and more convinced than ever to serve our Lord. In a pre-New Testament writing, the believer is urged to give thanks to the Lord for allowing us to be put to test like our fathers. It is a paradox: if He allows us to be tested, it must mean He cares about us. The Hebrew book of Wisdom says that those whom “God has put to the test, he has found worthy of himself” (Wis 3:5). The Jewish wisdom writings say that God takes His sons on difficult paths, so that they learn through experience what is good or bad for their souls (Sir 37:27; 39:4). Hopefully this is the conclusion that life is drawing us all to: we once thought we could find happiness in the joys of this world, but now we recognize that those pleasures are empty (Eccl 2:1).

This is why St. James says, “Always reckon it as joy, brethren, to be exposed to trials of all sorts, knowing that the trial of your faith produces patience” (1.2). Amazingly, James continues, “Happy is the person who endures trial, for after being proved he will receive the crown of life that [God] has promised to those who love him” (Jas 1:12).

A profound example of testing is recorded in today’s Epistle. St. Paul says, “A thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’”

Paul’s example helps answer the question, Why do afflictions come to us? He was given a “thorn,” a messenger of Satan to keep him weak. He longed for it to be taken away, he prayed repeatedly for his affliction to be removed. But Paul was given a direct Word from God that is meant also for us: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” When the Lord allows us to be weakened, then we have nothing left but God’s grace. Emptied of our own strength, we have God’s strength. And that alone is the strength, grace, and power that will make us able to keep the Word with patience and bring forth the pleasing fruit of good works.

The third challenge to keeping the Word and enduring to the end is found in the seed that feel among thorns. Our Lord likens this to being choked by the cares, riches, and pleasures of this life. Cares, riches, and pleasures all pertain to the sinful lusts for the things of this world. It deals especially with the Ninth and Tenth Commandments, the failure to be content, the desire for another man’s house, another person’s spouse, the idea that by a new gadget, a new job, new people around you, then you will find happiness. These things come in and choke out the Word of God, the Word that tells you to be content with what you have, the Word that commands you to love the people God has given you to love. When we are overwhelmed with cares and anxieties, the desire for riches and pleasures, we no longer trust God to do for us what is best; instead, we have determined to seize for ourselves what we want.

So think about how all of this fits in with today’s prayer. We asked our Lord that we would be defended against all adversity. The adversity from which we seek protection is not chiefly the adversity of everyday life, but the kind of adversity that would cause us to not be the good soil, to fail to keep the Word and bear fruit with patience. We need to be defended from the adversity of the devil, who would snatch away the Word from us. We need to be defended from the adversity of testing, which would cause us to lose hope. We pray for this every day in the Lord’s Prayer: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” And we need to be defended from letting our cares and anxieties, the covetous desire for riches, choke out the Word and prevent us from keeping the Word to the end.

So what does it mean to “keep the Word”? To keep the Word and bear fruit with patience is to put one’s trust in God. The essence of patience in the New Testament is waiting, specifically, waiting upon God. “They shall not be ashamed who wait for Me” (Is. 49.23), says the LORD. “Wait on the LORD; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; wait, I say on the LORD!” (Ps. 27.14). Don’t look for the world’s adulation. “You will be hated by all for My name’s sake,” says our Lord Jesus. “But he who endures to the end will be saved” (Mt. 10.22).

The ultimate show of patience, of waiting on the LORD and enduring, is Christ Jesus, “who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12.2). He was patient with us and for us, which is what now enables us to begin to be patient likewise in our trials and anxieties and temptations.

So the conclusion of the parable is not a moralistic command to be better about reading the Bible and coming to church, although those are very good things. The conclusion of the parable is to abide in Jesus and never let go of what He has promised you. Remember that all the promises of this world are empty. The pleasures of this life will not really make you happy. The worries that you have are not worth comparing to the joys of the Lord’s kingdom. The trials and testing you endure are not greater than you can bear; the Lord who allows them to come upon you will also provide a way of escape. And the way of escape is this Eucharist, by which all your sins are absolved and everything you need is given to you.

C.F.W. Walther on the Epiphany (which we celebrate this day):

Even more wonderful than the circumstances of this account [of the Wise Men searching for the newborn King] is the fact that God chose to lead the Wise Men to Bethlehem, not exclusively by the star, but also via a detour. The Jewish king, with his chief priests and scribes, first had to show them from God’s Word that Bethlehem was the place where Christ could be found. We cannot imagine that the all-wise God would have done this without a most important reason. God wanted to show all future generations that He did not lead the Gentiles to His dear Son by miracles, by stars, by angels, or by some other extraordinary heavenly appearance. Instead, He directed them by means of men, His already existing church. We see from this that the mission to the Gentiles is a duty of the Church.

-God Grant It, pp99f

The story of Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath is very familiar, as it occurs in the lectionary every year (Trinity 15 and 16). Today’s OT reading in the TDP (1 Kings 16:29–17:24) cast a different light on that story for me this morning. Before Elijah goes to the Widow of Zarephath and asks her for water and bread, Elijah had been in hiding by the brook Cherith. During the divinely-imposed drought, Elijah received his water from the brook, and food was brought to him by ravens each morning and evening. As the ancient Israelites received their manna at the appointed time, so Elijah received his food. In all of this, they were learning through experience the petition, “Give us this day our daily bread.”

And now, the water from the brook has dried up. When Elijah goes to the Widow of Zarephath, she is not the only one who exercises the obedience of faith. So does Elijah. Neither he nor she can see where their next meal or drink is coming from. The only thing they have is the Word of God – she mediately, he immediately. And day by day the LORD supplied what they needed for today.

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.

Luther on the objectivity of the Holy Spirit’s testimony:

No one in need of comfort, therefore, should wait until the Holy spirit in all his majesty speaks to him personally from heaven. For the Holy Spirit carries out his witness publicly in the sermon. That is where you must seek and await him, till the word which you hear with your ears witness inwardly of Christ in your heart. But such inward witness does not come about until the externally spoken witness of the Word is heard which tells that Christ became man, was crucified, died, and rose again for our sakes.

House Postils, II:149

In the political realm, there is a term many of you have probably heard: RINO’s – Republicans in Name Only. Faithful Lutherans sometimes refer to  church bodies that have given up on Lutheran doctrine as LINO: Lutheran in Name Only. Today’s Gospel demands that we answer this question: What kind of a Christian are you? Are you a Christian in Name Only?

There can be no neutrality with respect to Jesus. “He who is not with Me is against Me.” Yet there are those who try to have it both ways. They do not want to openly reject Christ, but neither do they wish to make a real break from the Old Adam, the sinful nature. C.F.W. Walther calls these “half-Christians”:

“They are straddling the fence, and thus do not belong in Christ’s kingdom but in the kingdom of the devil. Such half-Christians are among the most accursed subjects of the devil. They think that, going down the middle of the road, they are on firm footing as members of Christ’s kingdom. But their faith is imaginary, and they are, in the end, traveling the road to hell” (God Grant It, p279).

If you aren’t right now one of these “half-Christians,” you live daily in danger of falling into it. We must not underestimate the power of the devil. He can in a moment “recast and pervert a godly man who has a strong faith, and beguile a pious husband, who today is living chastely in his marriage, to become an adulterer tomorrow” (Luther, HP 1:336). He propels men into fornication, greed, anger, hatred, envy, and holds on to them so tightly that they cannot free themselves. Likewise he drives people into despair, heartache, fear, anxiety, and grief. These things can consume and incapacitate us.

As a result, the experience of the law—God’s just wrath against us—and the power of sin in the world (both our own besetting sins, and suffering from being sinned against) – both these things cause us to feel desolation. That’s the emotional and spiritual condition of the psalmist in today’s antiphon, where he says, “I am desolate and afflicted.” He is lonely in his solitude, and feels he has no one to turn to, no one who will share his suffering. Many of you I know have felt this. The Bible says  it is not good for the man to be alone, but that is what the sin does – it separates us both from God and our neighbor.

But then there is another method the devil uses to turn people away from following Christ and make them “half-Christians” – through “empty words,” as St. Paul mentions in the Epistle: “Let no one deceive you with empty words.” So the Devil seeks to deceive by means of “empty words,” and he does so quite comfortably from pulpits. Those “empty words” are the preaching of forgiveness without genuine contrition and repentance. Empty words are an absolution given to those half-Christians who attend church but are not really “with the Lord,” make no effort at amending their sinful life, and as Luther said in the Large Catechism, leave at the end of the year no different than they were at the beginning. St. Paul gives us a list of identifying markers: those who are do not imitate God, who do not walk in love, who engage in sexual immorality, impurity, covetousness, filthiness. And what about foolish talking, crude joking, or coveting (desiring what God has not given you)? Do not be deceived: those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of Christ and God.

And the truth is, we so easily stumble like drunken fools into this kind of half-Christianity, mouthing prayers and attending services while living a life that is consumed with thoughts and desires for the things of this world.

Today, the Third Sunday in Lent, is called Oculi, meaning “eyes,” from the beginning of the Introit: “My eyes are ever toward the Lord.” If we are going to be kept safe from the devil’s assaults, if we are going to be rescued from our penchant for being “half-Christians,” our eyes need to be constantly directed towards God, constantly praying, constantly listening to His Word, constantly receiving His Sacramental gifts. Otherwise, we will be trapped in the enemy’s net, the snares of sin and false belief, and will perish. The encouragement of this 3rd Sunday in Lent continues last Sunday’s theme: that the Lord hears and answers persistent prayer.

Likewise today’s Gospel, which is a stern warning against allowing the devil to be readmitted to your life, is also written for our encouragement, so that we are comforted by the knowledge that as strong as the devil is, our Lord Jesus Christ is stronger still. He works by the powerful weapons of the Word and the Sacraments, which alone have the potency to drive away the devil and defeat him. Only the Means of Grace, i.e., the gifts of Christ, can free a person from slavery to sin and the devil’s tyranny.

So here is what you should take away from today’s Gospel: Christ has overcome the strong man, the devil. On the cross He is victorious; it was the greatest feint in the history of battle, for by the evil one’s own devices he was overthrown; the moment he thought he had secured victory—the death of Jesus on the cross—was the moment of his defeat. By yourself, you have no power against the devil. But you are not by yourself. You are not desolate and afflicted, solitary and alone. You are in Christ, and so you are never alone in this life’s struggle against the devil, against worldly influences, and against your own sinful flesh. God’s Word has come and turned your eyes toward the LORD, and He shall pluck your feet out of the devil’s net.

It is striking to me–and undoubtedly would horrify the modern antinomians–to see how clearly Luther upholds both salvation by grace alone and the life of good works done by the saved.

Your ways are not My ways.… Here He is speaking of ways by which we are justified. There are two ways. The one, by which we endeavor to prepare righteousness for ourselves and by which we go astray like sheep. The other is the way of God, which John prepared. This way is believing, trusting in God, hearing the Word, doing works prompted by the Spirit. This is the way of God. No one but the godly man can speak of it. The ungodly fall into their own …. Again they raise the objection: “It is true, He is speaking of bad ways, not of good ways.” But here You see Him speak indiscriminately, Your ways, all labors, endeavors, and merits, however solemnly undertaken. But the way of God, the work of God, is to believe in Christ. Thus He proceeds by way of dialog, so that they may not be afraid, that they may hear the Word while it is present, before the darkness comes. It is as if He were saying: “Dear children, there is nothing in you. You need My thoughts and ways. Be sure to observe what My ways and thoughts are.”

Believing, trusting, hearing, and doing good works are all joined together. The works do not save … and yet they follow (cf. Augsburg Confession, article VI).

(Bonus quote, unrelated but just so good: “Many think that they have faith when they have made a specter of faith for themselves, but when they meet danger, they slip. So the Sacramentarians babble with regard to the words of the Lord’s Supper, but they forsake the Word and labor with their own thoughts. ‘In our thoughts and burning love we recall His suffering.” There, having forsaken the Word, they make a work for themselves. This is the true remembrance, to hear the Word of Christ. Thus all Sacramentarians and Anabaptists are Pelagians. Stay here with this text.’ Don’t you love that penultimate sentence?)

I hadn’t realized the anti-Enthusiast thrust of the passage, “My thoughts are not your thoughts” (Is. 55). Here is a gem from Luther (again, from the Isaiah lectures):

The ungodly object, “You are calling us sinners. Do you not see that we are doing well? We are not like other men.” To them He responds thus: ‘My thoughts are not your thoughts.’ This is making a clear-cut division. “Whatever you think with your most holy thought and, as the papists say, prompted by the Holy Spirit, these are not My thoughts.” He has in mind not only the gross thoughts but also the thoughts provided with a most holy appearance, as those of the papists and Enthusiasts, who have covered their own thoughts with the disguise of God. 

From Luther’s Isaiah Lectures, on the Old Testament reading from last Sunday, Isaiah 55:1-9:

1. Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money.

This is an exhortation for Christians in the midst of their trials, lest disgust take control of all of them. This is a most destructive pestilence in the church. We must be acutely on guard and alert, although we dwell in the sluggish flesh, and be militant in the exercise of the Word. No matter how much the secure flesh sleeps, as in the case of those who are seized by the pestilence, we must nevertheless persevere against this temptation and overcome it. Let no one seem to himself to have accomplished much in Scripture and to have heard many things, since in spite of that he loses the knowledge of the Word in forgetfulness day by day. From there let the mind be restored and recleansed as from a fog of ignorance, so that the heat and fervor in the Word may increase against the gates of death. Where people have been especially trained in the Word, there they are most negligent. This is a common complaint of preachers. Such exhortation is therefore especially necessary, lest they fall into contempt and loathing of the Word.

Pastor William Weedon writes words that deserve repeating:

A lot of the angst that seems to afflict folks nowadays is about where final confidence is reposed. I think that those who take their faith seriously are faced with two options: you can rest your final confidence in the outward communion of some Church (and hope that you happened to pick the right one!) or you can rest your final confidence in the promises of God’s Word.

God’s Word says: “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” God’s Word says: “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.” God’s Word says: “This is my body given for you, for the forgiveness of sins.” God’s Word says: “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain them, they are retained.”

Are these promises of God’s Word reliable? Do they mean exactly what they say?, Or is there a hidden clause that runs behind them: PROVIDED you are in the communion of the one and only true Church of Christ, for only there do the promises of God’s Word hold true for you.

To be a Lutheran means fundamentally to say: the promises of God’s Word hold without any hidden clause. They mean exactly what they say and the Church is to proclaim and hold them out for all for the salvation of the world.

It always strikes me as odd how agnostic people become once they run in that hidden clause. Then they don’t know who is not church. Then they don’t know whether the promises of Baptism hold. Then they don’t know whether the Body and Blood of Christ are eaten by those who venture out simply trusting the Words themselves. What I want to know is how do they know that they have chosen correctly about the Church??? Does their own capacity for self-deception not give any angst? I know it would give me a great deal of angst if an ecclesiastical reference had to be run into the promises of God’s Word.

Instead I can with utter and joyful confidence open my mouth to receive the Body and Blood of the Eternal Word made flesh and know that it is given to me for the forgiveness of my sins (not a hoped for, possibly someday forgiveness, but a present and active forgiveness). Instead I can look at the font and recall the Word spoken over the water that promised me an eternal inheritance and gave the gift of union with Christ and daily death to sin. Instead I can confess my sins and feel the weight of the hand on my head and hear the joyful good news that is as certain on earth as it is in heaven: “I forgive you.”

Dr. Nagel put it like this: “the church is at point number 2; it lives from the receiving end of God’s giving.” It’s when the church gets moved to point number 1 that things begin to wobble – to become uncertain and ecclesiastical agnosticism ensues. My suggestion: just trust the promises of God’s Word to you. They are the anchor of the Church. The Church is not THEIR anchor.