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April 15th, 2019

4/15/2019

John 12:12-19
April 14, 2019

“Are you the King of the Jews?”, Pilate asks Jesus on Friday morning. Jesus replies, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?” Well, who told Pilate that Jesus was the King of the Jews? Yes, the chief priests and elders of the people accused Jesus of making this claim. This was the charge they hoped would lead to his death. Yet, just six days earlier large crowds were shouting this very thing as Jesus road into Jerusalem on a donkey with palm branches waving in the air and people singing Hosanna! It is possible that Pilate himself heard the crowds shouting, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” If not, it is certain that many ran to inform the governor that a man was entering the city, whom the crowds called, “the King of Israel.” This certainly would be unsettling news to a Roman governor ruling over a proud province, which once was a mighty kingdom.
The crowds declared Jesus the King of Israel. And six days later the inscription above Jesus’ head as he hangs on the cross reads, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” Oh, the irony! Jesus is proclaimed the king of the Jews by the Jewish people themselves, and for this claim Jesus is crucified. The charge that brought Jesus’ death sentence was shouted with joy just a few days earlier by children and adults alike. Now it is written above his bloody head, so all may know why this man died.
The chief priests and Jews complained to Pilate and said, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but rather, ‘This man said, I am King of the Jews.’” But Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.” Now, what Pilate meant by this, one cannot be so sure. Yet, what the Holy Spirit meant by causing Pilate to write these words is clear. Jesus did not die because he said that he was King of the Jews. Jesus died upon the cross, because he is the King of the Jews. Jesus is the King of Israel. And for that, he must die.
The day before Jesus road into Jerusalem on a donkey he was at a dinner given in his honor at Bethany, because Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead there. And as Jesus ate, Mary, the sister of Lazarus anointed Jesus’ feet with expensive ointment made of pure nard. Now, in the Old Testament two types of people are commonly anointed. One is a king. You might remember that the Prophet Samuel anointed David to be king while he was yet a shepherd boy. And of course, the priests were anointed with oil when they were ordained to perform the services of the temple.
Yet, this anointing with aromatic oil just the day before Jesus’ kingly procession into the city of the Great King was not Jesus’ anointing to be king. Jesus had already been anointed by the Holy Spirit to be both King of Israel and High Priest. This happened at his Baptism by John in the Jordan River. Jesus tells us why Mary anoints him, “Leave her alone,” he says when Judas complains, “so that she may keep it for the day of my burial.” The sweet aroma coming from Jesus’ body as he rides into Jerusalem is not the ointment of a newly anointed king, but rather the smell of a body fitly prepared for the grave.
Yet, the shouts of the crowd are not wrong. They are absolutely right when they call Jesus their King. And they are right to shout, “Hosanna,” which means, “Save us now!” Jesus indeed is their king, who comes to save them. But he will not save them in the way many expect. He will not overthrow Herod or Pontious Pilate. He will not unsheathe a sword or draw a bow. Rather, Jesus will go as a lamb to slaughter without complaint. He will die without shedding the blood of anyone else.
The problem for unbelievers, who think that Jesus failed in his death is the confusion that comes from equivocation. Equivocation is when the same words are used for two different meanings. Jesus is the King of Israel. To Pilate this means that Jesus comes to rules an earthly kingdom from Jerusalem. But that is not what those words mean. Jesus is not a king of this world, but he rules a heavenly kingdom. That means that Jesus does not fight against human foes, but against spiritual foes. Jesus comes to conquer Satan and death itself. Jesus overcomes death by laying down his own life. And Christ’s precious life wins for us eternal life. The Israel of which Jesus is King is not the territory on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean between Europe and Africa. Rather, Jesus rules over a heavenly Israel, which has no end. A nation made up of every people and language on earth, all those who believe in Jesus Christ.
Jesus is also the High Priest. But not a high priest, who offers sacrifices first for his own sins and then for the sins of the people, sacrifices of bulls and sheep. Jesus, the great High Priest offers himself up as a sinless sacrifice for all people.
And so, to understand the events from now until Easter, we must look not simply at the physical, but the spiritual. Jesus the King of Israel and High Priest comes to battle and to sacrifice. Without the eyes of faith this looks like an utter failure. Yet, if you believe the words of Scripture, you see how great a victory our King wins for us and how priceless a sacrifice our High Priest offers.
The crowds shout, “Hosanna” to their king. They were absolutely right to do so. Jesus is the King of Israel. Yet, they didn’t really understand what was happening. Even Jesus’ closest disciples “did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him.” Does that mean that when they did not understand these things that they did not have faith? Did those who declared Jesus the King of Israel and the Son of David not have faith? Certainly, they did have faith. Yet, they did not know that in six days their king would be nailed to a tree.
Faith does not mean that you understand everything. We usually explain faith as what you believe, and that is what the word means. Yet, saving faith is not simply believing in facts. Saving faith is trusting in Jesus. When you believe that your sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake, then your sins are truly forgiven. That is saving faith. These people did not know all the facts. They didn’t understand what Jesus knew as he entered Jerusalem. Yet, they had saving faith in their Savior, to whom they shouted, “Save us now!”
Today, two young persons were baptized; one, only a baby, who can’t even talk. Neither of them knows all the facts about Jesus. They have a lot to learn. But do they have saving faith? Does their Baptism do them any good? In our Small Catechism we learn that Baptism “works forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this, as the words and promises of God declare.” And these words and promises of God are revealed to us in Mark chapter 16, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”
Baptism does not save apart from faith. But this should not trouble those who are baptized as little children. Because baptism is not our work, but God’s work in which he washes away our sins by virtue of Christ’s death and resurrection. Baptism simply joins you to Christ’s work on the cross. And faith is not our work either. Faith is a gift from God. No one can believe in Jesus Christ unless it is given to him from God. And Jesus makes clear that the gift of faith is given even to little children.
No, these young children do not know all that they should know about Jesus. But they still have faith in Christ. Baptism itself, which is powered by God’s Word, can give faith even to infants. So, we should believe that Gracie and even little Lane, who have been taught God’s Word and who have been Baptized into the name of the Holy Trinity, indeed have saving faith, because they trust in their Savior Jesus Christ, even as baby Lane trusts in his mother without knowing anything about her except that he trusts in her.
Saving faith does not mean that you know everything about Jesus. But this does not mean that it is not important for you to learn the teaching of Jesus. Jesus’ disciples didn’t understand what was going on that Sunday so long ago. Yet, they eventually did learn it. And had the crowds who declared Jesus the King of Israel not learned how Jesus would reign even from the cross, their faith would have been lost when they saw him die. But they learned that Jesus’ death was for their sake. And many even witnessed the resurrection of Jesus and testified of it to their friends.
Saving faith involves learning the truth of Jesus. Saving faith does not refuse to learn. Gracie and Lane are going to continue to learn more about Jesus as long as they have saving faith. And so, it is for all of you who trust in Jesus. If you do not continue to hear God’s word and to learn from Jesus, then your faith will die. You cannot keep your saving faith by your own strength. Saving faith is given to you as a gift through the word of God.
St. Paul teaches us to share in the same mind of Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God took the form of a slave and humbled himself to die on the cross for us. You can only share in this mind if you have saving faith. This humility, which Jesus teaches us involves humility toward both God and our neighbor. In humility toward God, we are to repent of our sins and receive forgiveness as a free gift. The Psalmist says, “I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,’ and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.” Only in humility can you receive forgiveness from God. If you do not acknowledge your sin as sin and repent of the wrong you have done, then you cannot receive forgiveness from Christ. Saving faith includes having a humble and repentant heart.
Christ teaches us to be humble to our neighbors. Jesus is God. He never stopped being God for a moment, even as he suffered like a criminal. And he did so in service to you. This means that there is no service below you. It is good for us to humble ourselves and serve one another. The simplest way to do this is to forgive one another. Christ never sinned against us, yet he willingly covers up our sins with his blood. So, should we, who do sin against one another, willingly cover up each other’s sins. Not by ignoring sin, but through gentle correction and forgiveness for the sake of Christ.
Jesus told Pilate that his kingdom was not of this world. That means that the faithful who called Jesus the King of Israel in the streets of Jerusalem were citizens of a heavenly kingdom. And so are we! We are citizens of a kingdom not of this world today. And so, we behave as citizens of that heavenly kingdom even as we live here on earth. Christ rules us with his Gospel, forgiving our sins and strengthening our faith. And we repent and believe in Christ and serve one another in love.
There were two crowds who met to greet Jesus with praise. The one crowd, which followed Jesus were those who witnessed Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead. The second crowd, which came to meet Jesus from Jerusalem, were those who heard the report of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead from these witnesses. And so, this procession into Jerusalem foreshadows our entrance into the heavenly Jerusalem on the Last Day. We have heard the report of Jesus’ death and resurrection from those, who witnessed it in real life. And we are going to meet those witnesses one day in the heavenly Jerusalem and sing praises to Jesus our King. On that day, we who live as citizens of Christ’s kingdom through faith will see this kingdom with our own eyes. And we, who have believed on Christ because of his words spoken to us will see him in the flesh. Our king, who once reigned from the cross will reign over us in heaven. And we will all fully understand the words we speak when we sing, “Behold, the King of Israel.” Amen.

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Judica (Lent 5): Who can convict me of sin?

4/8/2019

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John 8:46-59

Pastor James Preus
Trinity Lutheran Church
April 7, 2019

“Which one of you convicts me of sin?”, Jesus asks his crowd of antagonists. And of course, they cannot convict Jesus of any wrong doing. Jesus has only taught the truth. And he only does good. What, are they going to condemn him for healing the sick and feeding the hungry? Yet, it is important for you to believe that Jesus does not say these words for himself alone. He speaks these words for your benefit.
Jesus is without sin. He has done nothing wrong. He is perfect and therefore impervious to condemnation. But the eternal Son of God did not become a perfect human being for his own sake. St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 1, “And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification, so that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’” (vs. 30-31) Jesus’ righteous is for us. He proves to his antagonists that they cannot convict him of sin and so he proves to us, who trust in Jesus, that no one can convict us of sin either. Because, Jesus says in John 16, The Holy Spirit “will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” (vss. 14-15)
What Jesus has is righteousness and glory from his Father. The Holy Spirit takes this righteousness and declares it to you. This is why St. Paul says in Philippians chapter 3, “For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ, and be found in him not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.” The Jews cannot convict Jesus of sin. And because Jesus gives us his righteousness, neither can anyone convict us of sin.
Again, this is why St. Paul says in Romans 8, “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.” Who can convict Jesus of sin? No one. Who, then can bring a charge against you, who trust in Jesus? No one. Jesus is our perfect High Priest, who offered himself without blemish to God and purified our consciences with his blood. Jesus gives his righteousness to us through faith. And so, with great joy do we hear Jesus say, “Which one of you convicts me of sin?”, knowing that no one can find a single fault with Christ and Christ is our righteousness.
Think what this means! It is not just these charlatans, who cannot find guilt in Jesus, but neither can the angels in heaven nor the devils in hell, not even God the Father himself. No one can convict Jesus of sin. Therefore, no one can convict you of sin. Through faith in Jesus you have a special relationship with him, which gives you great benefits beyond what you can imagine. The Prophet Isaiah says, “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.” (Isaiah 61:10) This is the relationship faith gives you. Jesus freely gives you all his riches, his status, his name, his innocence. Through faith, Jesus declares you more beautiful than any crown in heaven, as the Bridegroom says to his Bride in Song of Solomon chapter 4, “You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you.”
Jesus’ words are comforting to those who believe them. They mean that God finds no fault in you; that he finds you righteous and beautiful as he does Christ. But listen to how Jesus’ opponents respond to Jesus. “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?” This is how the opponents to the truth argue. Since they cannot appeal to the truth to prove Jesus wrong, they demonize him.
God put enmity between the woman and the serpent and between the woman’s seed and the serpent’s seed. The woman’s seed is Jesus. The serpent’s seed are all those who follow after Satan by rejecting God’s word. Yet, Jesus is not alone in the battle. Everyone, who belongs to Christ is Satan’s enemy. Which means that all those who follow after Satan are at enmity with Jesus’ Christians. “If they called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household.” (Matthew 10:25) If you share in Christ’s righteousness, then you will be hated by Satan and all who are on his side.
All the saints in the Bible were attacked by followers of Satan. Abel was killed by Cain. Israel was afflicted by Egypt. Saul persecuted David. And the apostles were all persecuted along with all who followed in their train.
So, pay careful attention to how Jesus argues with these antagonists. They demonize him, because they cannot appeal to the truth. But Jesus does not defend himself. He doesn’t glorify himself. He lets the Father glorify him. Jesus teaches us to cling to God’s word and let God glorify us. Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord, who declares you righteous for Jesus’ sake.
You will not win by demonizing your opponent. The two commands on which hinge all Scripture always apply, “Love the Lord God with all your heart, soul, and mind and love your neighbor as yourself.” You will never win by demonizing your neighbor. Now, you will be demonized. You will be accused of hatred, blasphemy, stupidity, and so forth. If they did it to Jesus, they will certainly do it to you. But Jesus teaches you not to hate your neighbor, but to cling to the truth. Do not call evil good, even if the whole world insists upon it. Do not forsake the truth of God’s word to accommodate lies. Repent of your sins and trust in the forgiveness Jesus earned for you on the cross. Believe that God finds you righteous for Jesus’ sake. And no one in heaven or hell or on this earth can take God’s glory away from you.
Jesus’ opponents demonized him, because they could not appeal to the truth. They do the same thing today. Assassinate a man’s reputation, destroy his name, make him the devil himself and it doesn’t matter what he says or does, he will remain the bad guy. And it works. Many righteous men and women, who held firm on the truth have been hated by all as a result of this tactic. Jesus teaches us not to behave this way. But there is an important distinction to make. God does not want you to demonize your neighbor. That does not mean that you should not call evil, evil. To keep God’s word means that you confess that God’s word is true and that which contradicts God’s word is false. Jesus plainly tells his opponents that they are not of God, because they do not follow his word. He even says that they are of their father, the devil, because they desire to kill him for speaking the truth. This is not needlessly polemical speech on the part of Christ. Jesus is speaking the truth in love, even as he did when he said to his disciple Peter, “Get behind me Satan,” when Peter would have prevented him from dying on the cross for the sins of the world.
Keeping the word of God is done not only by the heart, but in word and action. To keep the word of God means to defend those who are being mistreated, to repent when you sin against God by living contrary to God’s word, to forgive those who sin against you, to confess Christ, and to reject everything that is contrary to God’s word; this includes idolatry, sexual immorality, slander, and covetousness. If you do such things without repenting and turning to Christ for forgiveness, then you cannot say that you are of God.
You are either of God or you are of Satan. Those who are not of God do not listen to the words of God. Those who are of God do listen to the words of God. Jesus makes this very clear. Jesus’ opponents are not of God. They will not listen to Jesus’ words. They go so far as to deny the resurrection, a teaching their father Abraham trusted in. Jesus knows that they are not of God, because they will not listen to God’s word.
This means that if you are to be of God, if you are to be God’s children and to share in Christ’s righteousness, then you must keep Jesus’ words. You must hear them, believe them, and cherish them. Hold on tight to the promises God makes to you even if the world crumbles down around you.
This is how you know whether you are of God or whether you are of the devil: do you keep Jesus’ words? Do you renounce what Jesus tells you to renounce? Do you believe the promises Jesus gives you in the Gospel, the promises of life and forgiveness? Or, do you ignore what God’s word says about how you should live your life? Do you demonize others in order to justify yourself? Do you form the convictions of your heart apart from consulting God’s word?
You will not know whether you are of God or whether you are of Satan based on how strongly you believe what you believe. Satan’s followers have strong faith too. You will know that you are of God if what you believe is grounded in God’s word. This means you must renounce yourself, kill your pride, and take solace in God’s word. Let God’s word be your teacher and source of truth, even if it means that you must admit that you were wrong.
Keeping God’s word sounds like it is law, because it sounds like something that we must work at. But keeping God’s word really means to treasure it and hold it as a precious gift, which can only be done through faith. And faith is a gift from God. When you keep God’s word you are holding precious the gift of eternal life, which God gives you through Jesus Christ. You hold to the promise that just as Jesus cannot be convicted of any sin, so too are you innocent of all sin, because God has forgiven you for Christ’s sake. God has removed your sins from you and placed Christ’s righteousness on you as a gift, like a new garment washed clean, which God intends for you to wear for the rest of eternity. And you wear this clean garment only through faith in God’s promise to forgive you for Christ’s sake.
When you keep God’s word you rejoice in the same day as Abraham rejoiced in. Abraham looked forward to the promised Seed, we look back through Scripture. But we rejoice in the same day and cling to the same promise.
Jesus’ antagonists picked up stones to throw at him, because he said, “Before Abraham was, I am.” They hated Jesus for claiming to be God. Yet, we who hold to God’s word rejoice in these words of Jesus. “Before Abraham was, I am.”, means that Jesus is not just any man, but he is the eternal God. Which means that his words are trustworthy enough to die for. Jesus indeed died for these words, yet, he lives forever. And Jesus promises you that if you keep these same words, you too will live forever, even if you die.
Amen.

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Laetare (Lent 4): Jesus Teaches Us What Kind of God to Seek

4/1/2019

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John 6:1-15
March 31, 2019

What kind of god do you want? That might sound like a ridiculous question, but it is exactly what people are thinking when they decide which church to go to or when they ponder what they believe about God. “What kind of god do I want?” This is how we choose which political candidate to support or which house to buy or what movie to watch, so why not ask this question about what type of god you want to worship? This is what the crowd did to Jesus. They wanted to make him their king, because he stuffed their bellies with bread and fish. They wanted a king to feed them, heal their illnesses, and basically make their lives comfortable. And that is basically what people look for in a god. And with the rise of biblical criticism, which is a way of studying the bible with the assumption that the bible contains many errors and contradictions, people can claim to be Christians and to worship the one true God while eliminating anything that Scripture says about God which makes them uncomfortable. So, religious people end up doing exactly what the scoffing atheists accuse them of: they create a god in their own image.
But it is important not to seek the god that you want, but rather to seek the God, who is. Jesus shows us the God who actually exists. Jesus himself is God, the Second Person in the Holy Trinity, apart from whom neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit work anything. By feeding the great multitude, Jesus demonstrates to us what we first learn about God in the Small Catechism:
I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. What does this mean?
I believe that God has made me and all creatures; that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason and all my senses, and still takes care of them.
He also gives me clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home, wife and children, land, animals, and all I have. He richly and daily provides me with all that I need to support this body and life. ...
The God who is, is the God who created the universe and who still causes it to function in order to sustain life. God provides for every living creature. He controls the weather and climate. He causes seeds to grow, animals to reproduce. Every heartbeat in your chest and every hair that grows on your body is controlled by God. With this miracle in our Gospel lesson, Jesus is teaching his disciples to trust in God, who is always in control.
To teach this lesson, Jesus does what God often does to strengthen our faith: he tests them. It was Jesus, who chose this desolate place where there was no food to gather or buy. The large crowd followed Jesus up this mountain. And then Jesus asks Philip, a native of this region, “Where can we buy bread for all these people to eat.” Jesus knew the answer to this question. Jesus led a crowd of 5,000 men, not including women and children, which means that this crowd was likely much greater than 10,000 hungry individuals, to a desolate place where there was no food to buy even if someone could muster the money to buy it. Jesus sets up an impossible situation in order to show his disciples that God accomplishes the impossible every day.
Toward the end of the 18th century an economist named Thomas Malthus proposed a theory that the human population would grow at a faster rate than the supply of food could, meaning, unless the human population were put in check there would be mass starvation throughout the world, especially among the poor. Many countries even adopted methods to limit population growth in humans; methods, which caused great suffering to millions of people. However, Malthus was wrong. Around the time of his death in 1834 the world human population was around 1 billion. Now there are well more than 7 billion people in the world and although there is still and always has been hunger in the world, we produce more than enough food to feed the world. And in America we throw away an astonishing percentage of the food we buy.
Jesus fed well more than 10,000 individuals in the wilderness at a moment’s notice using only five loaves of bread and a couple fish. This was a miracle. Yet, God feeds billions of people every day. Despite major flooding in some areas, farmers are beginning to prepare their fields for planting. In just a few months tremendous amounts of food will come out of the ground, much more than was planted into the ground. God will create food quite literally out of thin air along with using water and sunlight. Farming is a lot of work, but no one can deny that it is God who causes the growth.
God cursed man in the garden when he said:
Cursed is the ground because of you;
In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
And you shall eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your face you shall bring forth bread,
Till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken;
For you are dust, and to dust you shall return. (Genesis 3:17b-19)
Yet when God cursed man, he did not take away his blessing. God still feeds us. He just makes us work for it. But that does not mean that our labor is the reason why we eat. God is the source of every physical blessing.
Because we are forced to work for our food, we convince ourselves that what we labor for is most important. But what does Jesus say? “Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you.” (John 6:27) We are a very short-sighted people. We can’t think beyond our current problems. These people labored for bread. Here comes a man, who gives them bread without labor. So, they want him to be their god, so that they no longer need to labor. But Jesus doesn’t feed them, so that they will no longer need to labor for bread. Jesus feeds them to teach them where their bread comes from. It comes from God. Rather, they should seek a much greater gift from God, one, which leads to eternal life.
Everyone who ate the bread in the wilderness with Moses died. Every one. Everyone who ate the bread from Jesus on the mountain died. Every one. Everyone who eats by the sweat of his face returns to the dust. This is the curse of sin. But Jesus offers a bread that if you eat it you will live forever.
Jesus himself is this bread of life. Whoever comes to him will never hunger and whoever believes in him will never thirst. Jesus teaches us that we must feed on him spiritually, that is, we must believe that he gives us eternal life through his death for our sins. Jesus says to some of the same people, who ate the bread on the mountain, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:53-54)
Here Jesus teaches us that he is the fulfillment of the sacrifices of the Old Testament. In the sacrifices of the Old Testament, the blood was separated from the flesh of the animal. The priests would then eat the flesh of the animal and God would accept them. Jesus teaches that he is the sacrifice to end all sacrifices and that his blood would be poured out of his body for our sins. Jesus also teaches that he will rise from the dead. God forbids in the Old Testament anyone to eat blood. The blood of sacrifices had to be used to make atonement on the altar. But Jesus’ blood, after making atonement for the sins of the whole world is made to live again. Jesus is alive. And he invites us to drink his living blood, so that we can receive life from him.
We eat Jesus’ flesh and drink his blood in two ways. The first is spiritually. The second is orally. Spiritually you feast on Christ through faith. That is when you believe that Jesus’ sacrifice for your sins makes you whole, forgives your sins, and gives you eternal life. When Jesus speaks of eating his flesh and blood, he is speaking primarily about having faith in him. He wants you to desire his words as more important for you than the food you eat.
The second way to eat Christ’s flesh and drink his blood is orally, that is, with your mouth, physically. This is done in the Lord’s Supper where Christ feeds us his body and blood under the bread and wine. Only those, who feast on Christ Spiritually should eat the Lord’s Supper, otherwise they will eat and drink to their own judgment. But, if one truly believes the words of Christ and repents of his sins, then the Lord’s Supper is a wonderful meal that forgives sins, strengthens faith, and increases your love for your fellow Christian.
Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. If you can truly believe these words, then you truly know the God, who is. God feeds you. He clothes you. He gives you shelter. He does everything you need for your body and life, millions of things you haven’t ever thought of, but God takes care of them. And God wants you to trust in his word more than the food you sweat for. God wants you to hunger for his words more than food. God will take care of your body. And he desires to save your soul as well.
But material goods continue to block our ears from God’s word. We strive after things that lead to the grave instead of that which leads to heaven. God makes some rich and they in turn trust in their riches and ignore God’s word. God makes others poor and they in turn lust after other people’s money and keep their eyes on what God has not given them instead on what God willingly offers, Christ Jesus, the bread of life. But, this true hunger for that which gives eternal life can only be had as a gift of the Holy Spirit. We hunger for something greater than bread or gold when we see the cost of our sins. When God’s word reveals to you that you indeed deserve to die and go to hell, your hunger turns from food to something spiritual. And when the Holy Spirit reveals to you that Jesus is the only one, who takes your sins away, then you hunger for the true bread of heaven. And God will not stop feeding you until you are satisfied.
Jesus told his disciples to gather up the fragments so that nothing may be lost. This has both a physical and a spiritual meaning. God does not want us to waste the goods he gives us. He gives us more than enough food to feed the world, but we throw food away while others hunger. God indeed feeds and clothes the poor, but he may very well use you to do so. St. Paul in encouraging the Corinthians to give generously to the needy in Jerusalem tells them that God is willing and able to supply whatever they lose by their generosity. This applies also to giving to the church. All your goods come from God. You won’t lose anything by giving to support the ministry of the word. God will make sure that you are fully supplied.
Spiritually, Jesus does not want us to waste the living bread either. Jesus pours himself out generously to us. He doesn’t want us letting it go to waste. He wants you to hear his word, consume his bread with your heart continually throughout your life. And share it. Share the heavenly bread he gives you, which gives eternal life to whoever eats it.
The life-giving bread from heaven does not run out. Even as Jesus was able to feed 5,000 men plus women and children and still have more left over, so does Jesus feed the souls of millions and millions through his body nailed to the cross and his blood poured out for our forgiveness. His body will never run out. Neither will his blood. Jesus’ forgiveness and life, which he gives to his church will never stop flowing and satisfying sinners until the end of the world. And Jesus bids us not to put it to waste, but come and take generously. Have your sins forgiven. Hear and believe his comforting words. Receive eternal life. Here is true food, which if one eats of it, will never die, given to you the God who actually exists. Amen.

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Oculi (Lent 3) Whoever is not with me is against me

3/26/2019

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Luke 11:14-28
March 24, 2019

“As Jesus said these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!’” I find it very fitting that this woman shouted out this praise to the Virgin Mary. It fits well, because today is March 24th. Tomorrow is March 25th. In nine months, we will be celebrating Christmas, the birth of our Lord Jesus. Traditionally the Church has observed March 25th as the Feast of the Annunciation of our Lord, when the angel Gabriel announced to the Virgin Mary that she would bear the Christ Child.
It is fitting that this woman mentions the Virgin Mary, because of the stark contrast between the words spoken about Jesus by the angel Gabriel to Mary when he told her she would be the mother of the Lord and the words spoken about Jesus here by these scoffers. Some, who had just witnessed Jesus cast out a demon from a man, said, “He casts out demons by Beelzebul.” Beelzebul means “Lord of the Flies.” It is a title for Satan. Actually, a belittling title for Satan, insinuating that he isn’t all that powerful or dangerous, just a king fly on a dung heap.
Yet, how does Gabriel, the messenger from God, describe Jesus to Mary? He says, “he will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” And, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.” (Luke 1:32-33, 35)
Oh, how wrong these people were about Jesus! Jesus doesn’t work miracles by the help of some fly lord. Jesus is the Most High Son of Heaven. He has a Kingdom that will last forever. He comes to sack Satan’s kingdom and divide his spoil. Jesus works by the very finger of God, the Holy Spirit. This is the same power God showed over Pharoah in Egypt. By mocking Jesus in this way, they are mocking the very God of heaven.
Yet, these mockers were not only wrong about Jesus, they are wrong about Satan too, whom they cutely call Beelzebul. Satan isn’t some fly lord buzzing around causing minor annoyance. Satan is the arch-enemy of God’s kingdom. Satan comes from the Hebrew for Adversary. He is God’s adversary. He caused our first parents to fall into sin, plunging our entire race into death. Jesus calls him a murderer and the father of lies. He should not be underestimated. Rather, St. Peter warns, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8)
Satan hates you. He wants to cause you pain. While God might let you suffer pain for a while for your own good, Satan wants to harm you. He wants to harm your body and your soul. He enjoys suffering. That's why he caused that poor man to suffer muteness. He leads people into sin. He lies. He sees where you are weak and what sinful desires you struggle to keep at bay, and he strikes. He entices you with sweet words, with perfect logic, with forgetful, wrath, lust, laziness, selfishness. And he does this in order to draw you away from Christ.
Satan’s kingdom and Jesus’ kingdom are diametrically opposed to each other. Jesus speaks plainly, “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” You can’t be neutral in the war between Satan and Jesus. You must be opposed to sin or you are against Christ. You must be against false teaching and false worship, or you are against Christ. A person cannot be against Satan, but neutral on Jesus. You are either in Jesus’ camp or in Satan’s camp.
Now, this hurts people’s feelings. Understandably. Who wants to think that they or someone they love is in Satan’s camp? Isn’t that a bit extreme? Well, it is the truth that we must acknowledge about our sinful condition. The Holy Spirit caused St. Paul to write in Ephesians 2, “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” (vss. 1-4)
You see, by nature we are all born in the clutches of Satan, because of our sinful condition inherited by our fathers. We are the spoils guarded so diligently by the strong man, Satan. Yet, when the stronger man comes, he overpowers Satan and divides his spoil. St. Paul continues, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved--and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” (vss. 5-6)
Well, how did Jesus, the strong man, go about plundering Satan and rescuing us from his clutches? You know the story. He became a human being in the womb of the Virgin Mary, he hid his divine glory and submitted to his parents, loved his neighbor, fulfilled God’s law perfectly. And then, bearing the sins of the whole world he died. God crushed him for our sake.
On earth this seemed like a disappointing end. A man, who seemed to be something, turned out to be nothing. Perhaps he was just using tricks from the old dung-heap king. But, no! As women watched with tear-soaked eyes Jesus yield his breath and bow his blood-soaked head in death, a great battle in heaven was being won. Revelation 12 says, “Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world-- he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.”
Satan was cast down and defeated by the blood of Jesus. Now, he who lures us into sin and who accuses us day and night before God has been cast down. He is silenced, because God has washed away our sins in Jesus blood. And Christ having been raised from the dead gives life to us too, whose sins he has washed away.
Yes, Satan is still dangerous. He still prowls around like a ravenous lion. He still can and will lure you into sin. But he cannot accuse you, who are in Christ Jesus, of sin before God. God has forgotten your sins, removed them as far as the east is from the west. When you repent of your sins, God eliminates your guilt with Jesus’ blood.
Knowing all this, it should be well understood that we cannot then enter into league with Satan in any way. We must oppose him. We are not neutral. We are solidly on Jesus’ side. And we want nothing to do with Satan.
We read about the war in heaven, but we do not see it. We’ve all heard and read of the crucifixion of Christ, which conquered Satan for us. Yet, none of us actually witnessed it or know anyone who did. But you have been baptized. And even if you do not remember it, you likely know or have known someone who does. And every time a person is baptized, you remember that that same thing happened to you. Those words of God were spoken to you.
In Baptism, Jesus plunders Satan. God through the power of his word joins you to Christ’s victory in the cross. He pulls you out of Satan’s grasp. He washes away your sins. He makes you alive in Christ Jesus. In Baptism, God saved you, not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 3:21)
In Baptism, God took you out of Satan’s strong hold and placed you into the kingdom of Christ, the kingdom the angel Gabriel tells us will never end. This means, that you are a sworn enemy of Satan.
At your Baptism you were asked, “Do you renounce the devil; do you renounce all his works; do you renounce all his ways?” And to each of these questions you, or your sponsors answered, “Yes, I renounce them.” You are on Jesus’ side. You are Satan’s enemy.
Many are confused by the Gospel, because God freely forgives our sins for Jesus’ sake apart from our works. And even if sin were to increase, grace abounds all the more from our loving God to forgive us. So, people wonder, “Why not just go on sinning?” St. Paul answers this very question in Romans chapter 6, “By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:2-4)
Baptism has changed you. Yes, you will still fall into sin. No one living does not sin, even those baptized into Christ. But Baptism means that you will repent of sin and trust in Christ for forgiveness.
It is possible to reject your Baptism. You do not remain in your Baptism simply by trying to live a good life. You remain in your Baptism by remaining in Jesus. When an evil spirit is cast out of a man, which is more or less what happened to you in your Baptism, the evil spirit passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finding none, he returns to his house. And if he finds it swept clean, put in order, and empty, then it brings seven more spirits even more evil than himself, so that the last state of that person is worse than the first.
That is what happens to those, who are baptized, but do not continue to hear and learn the words of Christ. Being baptized will not save you if you reject the words of Christ and refuse to hear and cherish them. Baptism saves through faith, even as the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ save only those who believe. It is a false notion that you can be saved simply by being baptized without continuing to cling to Christ. There is no neutral ground. Baptism places you on Christ’s side. But if you do not remain on Christ’s side, if your heart is empty of Christ, then you are on Satan’s side again.
The woman blessed Jesus’ mother for being the mother of a great man. I think that was nice. But it wasn’t the Gospel. Jesus says, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” Mary certainly was blessed to be the mother of the Lord. But that’s not her greatest blessing. Mary’s greatest blessing is your greatest blessing: the word of God. The word of God tells you that Jesus fought a mighty battle, shed much blood, and even overcame death to save you. He rescued you from the clutches of Satan’s kingdom and placed you soundly in a kingdom that has no end, where peace and righteousness and love endure. You are blessed if you guard these words as your precious treasure. By guarding these words, the very Gospel, you are guarding eternal life. And by God’s grace, through your Baptism, through the continued hearing of the Gospel, yes, by the very finger of God, you will keep this blessing forever. Amen.

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March 18th, 2019

3/18/2019

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Genesis 32:22-32
Matthew 15:22-28
March 17, 2019

Jacob’s anxiety levels are so high, he’s having trouble breathing. His brother Esau is coming to meet him with four hundred men; Esau, who swore that he would kill Jacob. Jacob thinks that he is going to lose everything that God gave him: his flocks and servants, his wives and children. And then a man from God comes to wrestle him all through the night, as if to taunt him saying, “God will not bless you. You will die with your family. Your name will die with you.”
A mother’s overcome with anguish only a mother worried for her child can know. Her daughter is badly oppressed by a demon. St. Matthew doesn’t tell us from what exact ailment this little girl suffers, but from other accounts of demonic oppression from the Gospels, we can come up with a number of likely possibilities: Deafness, muteness, seizers, paralysis, extreme pain, the loss of her mental faculties, torture of the mind. Regardless of the exact nature of this particular demon, her daughter suffers and this mother feels helpless.
She’s a Canaanite, a descendent of pagans, whom God commanded Israel to drive out of the land. Yet, she believes in Jesus. She calls him her Lord. She calls him the Son of David, which means the Christ. She pleads for him to have mercy on her daughter, believing that God is merciful as Scripture promises. But Jesus doesn’t answer. Then he says he was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel, which clearly excludes Canaanites. And finally, Jesus calls her a dog.
This Canaanite woman and Jacob both had faith in the one true God. They heard the promises God made through his word and they believed God. Why then is God so mean to them? Why can’t he just give them a break? Why must he push them away, insult them, and pour salt in their wounds? These two stories sound strange, yet Scripture is filled with examples of God’s people crying out to a seemingly disinterested or even vindictive God.
Psalm 10:1, “Why, O LORD, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” Psalm 13, “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?” Psalm 44, “In God we have boasted continually, and we will give thanks to your name forever. But you have rejected us and disgraced us and have not gone out with our armies. You have made us turn back from the foe, and those who hate us have gotten spoil. … All day long my disgrace is before me, and shame has covered my face at the sound of the taunter and reviler, at the sight of the enemy and the avenger. All this has come upon us, though we have not forgotten you, and we have not been false to your covenant. Our heart has not turned back, nor have our steps departed from your way; yet you have broken us in the place of jackals and covered us with the shadow of death. If we had forgotten the name of our God or spread out our hands to a foreign god, would not God discover this? For he knows the secrets of the heart. Yet for your sake we are killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. Awake! Why are you sleeping, O Lord? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever! Why do you hide your face? Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?”
Why does God let his Christians suffer? He still does, doesn’t he? Don’t we Christians still suffer? And I’m not just talking about physical pain and the anxieties of day to day life, which even the unbelievers must endure. I’m talking about suffering that attacks your very soul; Physical suffering that makes you wonder whether God loves you; Betrayal from those, who you thought loved you. I’m talking about a suffering that certainly includes physical, emotional, and mental pain, but goes much deeper than that; suffering, which assaults your faith in God. Why, oh why does God permit such suffering to happen to his children?
It’s not because God hates his children. God didn’t hate Jacob. Jesus didn’t hate the Canaanite woman or her daughter. And he doesn’t hate you. Rather, God permits his dear Christians to suffer in order to strengthen their faith in him.
Martin Luther explains how this works when he writes on how to become a theologian. A theologian is someone who studies God’s Word. We should all seek to be theologians. Luther says that a theologian must go through three stages: oratio, meditatio, tentatio.
Oratio refers to prayer. Luther teaches that the Holy Scriptures are not like any other book. The Bible is the Word of God. It teaches spiritual things, which cannot be understood by natural man, but only by those who are Spiritual (1 Corinthians 2). That is why you must always begin with prayer. You need the Holy Spirit to understand the words of God. This is also why we pray before we listen to a sermon. God is always the teacher of his word.
Meditatio is what it sounds like, meditation. Yet, the meditation Luther refers to here is not what you might think of with Buddhist monks meditating with their eyes closed, trying to reach a state of nothingness. No, Christian meditation does not happen apart from God’s word. Meditating on God’s Word means to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest God’s Word. This is different than reading any other book. When you read any other book you make constant judgments as to whether what the author says is true, whether it makes sense to you, whether it is acceptable to your school of reasoning. Not so with Scripture. When you read Scripture, you must submit yourself to it. It is God’s Word. God must teach you.
Meditating on God’s word is how your faith in Christ grows. Faith of course comes from hearing the words of Christ. Scripture is the word of Christ. Yet, as you grow in understanding and conviction in the promises found in God’s Word the third stage happens: tentatio.
Tentatio refers to spiritual assault. This is when the devil attacks you. This sounds terrifying and strange, but this is exactly what will happen if you believe the words of Christ. Satan hates Jesus. He doesn’t want anyone to follow him. He wants all Jesus’ Christians to fall away and go to hell. So, he violently attacks Christians, you, me, and little Canaanite girls.
God permits these attacks. Not because he’s cruel or reckless, but in order to strengthen your faith. “No pain, no gain,” is a cliché, but it is true. If you have a traumatic accident and can’t walk and must go through physical therapy, you must learn to work through some pain in order to walk again. This is the same thing with faith in Christ. This is why Jesus says, “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciples.” Your faith comes with a cross. If you are not willing to bear the cross, then you will lose your faith as well.
God uses Satan’s attacks to strengthen your faith; Satan clearly has a different goal. He desires to kill your faith. He does this by trying to make the cross you must bear for Christ too heavy, so that you throw out your faith in order to escape the cross. Satan is in a mad furry to kill your faith, but he is also cleverer than you know and well versed in his craft.
Yet, what foils these attacks of the devil is his own attack. What do Christians do when they are spiritually assaulted? What should you do when Satan attacks you? Pray to God and go to Scripture. Take refuge in the promises of God. This is how you foil the devil’s attacks. And this is how you defeat God in a wrestling match. The devil wants you to despair of God’s promises. God intends you to cling to his promises even if you lose everything else.
This is what Jacob did. Jacob wrestled God himself. Yet, he would not let go until God blessed him. Why did he say this? Because God promised to bless him. Even with a dislocated hip Jacob clung to God’s promise. He would die clinging to it. God said to Jacob in Genesis 28, “I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I promised you.”
God promised Jacob, “in you and in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” Jacob clung to this promise. So did the Canaanite woman. She believed that she would be blessed through Jesus Christ, the offspring of Jacob. When Jesus ignored her, she clung to the promise. When Jesus said he was only sent to the lost sheep of Israel, she clung to the promise. When Jesus took away her pride and humiliated her, she clung to Jesus’ words. She called herself a dog and Jesus raised her up to sit at the table.
“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” We heard Jesus say these words last week when he defeated Satan. So, it seems strange that Jesus would not help this woman, whose daughter is oppressed by a minion of the devil. Yet, Jesus is teaching the woman these very words, which thwarted Satan’s plans. Through this trial Jesus taught this woman to value nothing, not her strength, not her intelligence or pride, nothing, but the word of God. And Jesus teaches us the same thing in our lives.
The trials we face, the suffering we endure, God uses them to teach us to trust solely in him. We sang last week, “Take they our lives, goods, fame, child, and wife, though these all be gone, our vict’ry has been won; the Kingdom ours remaineth.” Let these all be gone. If I have but God’s word, his promise, then I have everything I need.
It is important for our faith to mature to such a trust that we can lose everything and yet still be satisfied with Christ. Because, our lives will change. We will lose what we love. That’s part of life. When you have everything you think you need, you feel like God is with you. But it would be a terrifying thing if God were only with you when you felt that he was with you. Because you will not always feel that way. Things may not always go as you’d like them to. You may feel like God is far away. But if you cling to the promises God makes to you in his word, you know that he is near, with you every day.
It seems brutal that Jesus would permit us to suffer so. But Jesus himself had to wrestle with God. In the garden he suffered anguish on account of God’s word. Yet, he trusted in his heavenly Father even as he gave him the cup of woe to drink, the bitter cup of guilt and condemnation of all people. He trusted in the promise of Scripture that he would be raised from the dead, even as he cried to God in dereliction from the cross. Jesus knows more than any human being in the world what it feels like to have his faith tested by God. And he endured it for our sake. He went to the cross confident that his Father would raise him from the grave.
When Jesus willingly bore the guilt of the whole world and died on the cross for sinners, he confessed his confidence in the word of God. And his resurrection from the dead proved God keeps his promises. God permits you to suffer. And sometimes God himself pushes you. He does this so that you will pray to him even more fervently and so that you will look to his promises in Scripture with even greater hope. Satan would have you escape God’s hand and find solace in some earthly, temporal pleasure. Don’t do that. Rather, when affliction oppresses you turn to God. Cling to his promise and remind God of the promise he made to you. Find your comfort in the fact that God sent Jesus to die for you to save you from your sins. God is pleased with you. He loves you and wants to give you all things as a free gift. Let the trials God sends you be an opportunity to cast off all distractions and rest in God’s grace alone. God accepts you for the sake of Jesus’ suffering and death. He forgives your sins on account of Christ. There is no greater comfort you can find in this life than the comfort of God’s love for you revealed in Scripture. And Scripture promises that the sufferings you now endure are not even worth comparing to the glory to be revealed to you. God loves you. And there is nothing on this earth or in heaven or hell or in your past or future that can change that.   Amen.

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"For faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ." ~ Romans 10:17

April 15th, 2019

Judica (Lent 5): Who can convict me of sin?

Laetare (Lent 4): Jesus Teaches Us What Kind of God to Seek

Oculi (Lent 3) Whoever is not with me is against me

March 18th, 2019

Rev. James Preus

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