Encore Post: As we get to know God and the Christian faith, we run into many things that are not easy, even downright impossible to understand. Of course, God knows this and reveals himself to us in the Holy Scriptures. But sometimes even the Bible Is difficult to figure out. One thing that is certain. If we want to get to know God, we can get to know Jesus. In a way, all of theology, the study of God and His word, is Christology — the study of Jesus.
God’s law contains many commandments, yet these can be summed up in two. In the same way, there are many teachings in the Bible, divided into many subjects, yet all of Scripture speaks about Jesus. (Luke 24:25-27, John 5:39, Acts 10:43) No one has seen the Father, but the Son reveals him. (John 1:18, John 14:9) No one truly knows the Father except the Son and those to whom he shows the Father. (Matthew 11:27) In Jesus, God lives in bodily form.
With the Father and the Holy Spirit, Jesus created the world. (John 1:1-3, Colossians 1:16) In the form of the Angel of the Lord, He stayed the hand of Abraham as he was about to sacrifice Isaac (Genesis 22:11-19), spoke to Moses from the burning bush (Exodus 3) and in many other times and places throughout the history of Israel. He is the promised Messiah who, at just the right time (Galatians 4:4) was born to save us from our sins. (Matthew 1:21-22) He is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. By his suffering, death, resurrection and ascension, he has paid the penalty for all our sins, satisfied the demands of the law for us and won for us the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation.
And that is not all, Jesus is with us today when we gather in his name and he gives to us his body and blood with bread and wine for the forgiveness of sins. He understands our struggles, because he is in every way like us, except he did not sin. He prays to the father for us and prepares a place for us with him where we will live forever. On the last day, he will raise us from the dead and we will live with him forever. This is when we want to know God, we get to know Jesus, his Son, our Lord, Savior and brother.
Encore Post: When the Holy Spirit uses his gifts to create faith in our heart, he does more than just change our minds. He creates a whole new person within us. (2 Corinthians 4:6, 5:17) Our new self, our new Adam or Eve, loves God, is thankful for the salvation he won for us when Jesus died on the cross and desires to do good works, serving God and our neighbors. Our new person produces truly good works, deeds done because we love God. The Holy Spirit makes us more and more holy through these things we do for him and produces his fruits: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23)
Yet, in this life, even though our old self, sometimes called by St. Paul the flesh, is drowned in the waters of Holy Baptism (Romans 6:3-4), it is not quite dead yet. Our old self seeks to serve ourselves and looks out for our own interests, to satisfy our bodily hungers and appetites rather than channel them to serve the way God made them. It seeks praise from the world and fills our hearts and minds with evil thoughts and desires. Every day in this life is a battle between our Old Adam and our New Adam, our Old Eve and our New Eve.
The Holy Spirit does not abandon us to fight this battle alone. He uses God’s law to remind us of our sin, the Gospel to forgive that sin, reminds us of our baptism and its power, feeds us with Christ’s Body and Blood in the Lord’s Supper and uses the ears and the voice of the pastors he calls to care for us to hear our confessions of sin and forgive them with the sure promise of our Lord Jesus.
We are never alone, then. Our Counselor stays by our side, prays for us and calls to our mind and heart all that Jesus promised us. With him, we will grow holier until the day death finally kills the Old Person in us and we go with him to be with Jesus until the day the resurrection of all flesh.
Encore Post: A child is born in ancient Rome. The baby is carefully cleaned and tenderly wrapped. She is brought to the father of the family (pater familias) and set at his feet. The household watches to see what the father will do. If he picks up the child and says, “this is my son,” the baby will be an heir in the family, even if the mother is a slave. If he turns and walks a way, the child will be set outside in the street, exposed to the fates and not a part of the family. By this and similar legal proceedings, a free Roman could adopt anyone he wishes and grant all the rights and privileges due to his children to that person. In Greek, the word is υἱοθεσία (huiothesia, the placing as a son, the adoption as a son)
Because he loves us, God arranged for us to be adopted as his sons (Ephesians 1:4-5). At just the right time, the Father sent his Son, to be born of the Virgin Mary, to redeem us by his sinless life, suffering, death on the cross and resurrection, so that we might be adopted as his sons in our baptism. He then sent his Holy Spirit into our hearts, so that now we can call him “Abba” — “Daddy.” (Galatians 4:4-7) The Holy Spirit testified to all of this. Now, since we are God’s heirs — heirs with Christ, we share in his sufferings in order to share in his glory. (Romans 8:15-17) We await the final adoption decree, the resurrection of our bodies at the end of time. (Romans 8:23)
Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
If you recall last week’s reading from the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus makes the bold statement to give to Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s. The main point of it all boiled down to that you are made in the image of the God. You belong to Him, and by being redeemed from your sins by the Lord Jesus Christ who came in our flesh and in our likeness, we are made new in His image via Holy Baptism and thus are indeed able to our thanks and praise to Him by loving him and loving our neighbor as our stations in life bring our way.
So, brothers and sisters in our Lord Jesus Christ, it should come to no surprise to you that God would speak such words as He spoke to his people in Leviticus 19. You shall be holy, just as I, the Lord your God, am holy. And that holiness is shown by how we love our neighbors and deal justly with them in all circumstances. I imagine some of you are humming the hymn: “They will know we are Christians by our love.”
But herein lies the problem. You are not holy like the Lord. At least your actions do not testify to your holiness. You are not kind and gentle with one another. You show partiality. You show hate towards one another and disdain. You hold grudges against one another for the way a farm deal went down years ago and can barely say one word to your own brother. You speak lies about one another behind one another’s back. We all have been part of the gossip chain. It’s not hard to do at all.
Like James said in his epistle we would rather associate ourselves with the better off families than with those who are poor. James accused the church of committing this sin of partiality. And we have our own sins of partiality to deal with today, perhaps it’s the same kind perhaps not. Perhaps we are partial to like minded individuals and would rather spend our time with them rather than try to walk a mile with someone who is different than us. Partiality comes in all shapes and sizes. And we all have fallen prey in some form or another. It is our human nature to do the very opposite of what God commands. We are sinners and it is our nature to fight against and to rebel against the Lord and His Law. You shall be Holy? It sounds more like a joke rather than an indicative statement concerning your state of being before God. Because we are all far from standard of God’s holiness.
God says that He is concerned about us incurring sin upon ourselves. This shows that He knows we will mess it all up. And He knows that we will not be able to live up to the demands He has made of His chosen.
Why else would the prophets of the Lord speak about the One who is to come. Hear the prophet Isaiah in the 11th chapter of his book: “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jess, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins.”
Did you hear that? The shoot from the stump of Jesse would do all these things. God knows we certainly couldn’t do it but the one who is called the Son of David but also David’s Lord would. Our Gospel lesson for the day gets to the heart of the confession of God and Man being in one person: Jesus Christ. Jesus is both God and Man at the same time. And He is perfect for you. And perfect for me.
He is the one that perfectly loved the Lord His God with all His heart and with all His soul and with all His mind. And also loved his neighbor as himself. It was the Father’s will for His Son to be born of the Virgin and to serve the world as the perfect example and substitute. Jesus the God Man stood up and did what you could not. He was indeed holy. He did not judge folks according to their standing, but in all things He dealt with all in righteousness and equity.
Jesus sought out the poor and lost, he called out the hypocrites like the Pharisees who were supposed to care for the widows and others but were only concerned about themselves and their standing in the eyes of others. And Jesus calling out their hypocrisy ultimately gets killed for speaking out. He was literally fulfilling Leviticus 19 and all the law of God not to gain himself glory but to give this righteousness and holiness to you.
You shall be holy. You are not holy because of what you have done. Absolutely not. But because of Christ, the Son of David yet David’s Lord, you have been made Holy. For He is the Lord and He has not only declared it to be so, but He has in fact acted to make it so.
A sinful human being cannot be made holy without atonement. Think of Isaiah when he sees the Lord in Isaiah 6. He realizes that he is a man of unclean lips from a people of unclean lips. The Seraph comes flying to him with a burning coal from the fire on the altar and touches Isaiah’s lips with it. The Seraph told him, “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” As I told you last week to be atoned means to covered. To be made holy before the Lord is be atoned for by Jesus, literally to be covered by Jesus who died on the cross to take away your sins and give you everlasting life forever.
The question of how someone became holy was one of the most important questions of the Reformation. How is one deemed holy by God? What must one do? Luther was confused by this for many a year. He always had been taught that one must work and do in order to be saved, to be called holy by God. But for Luther all he saw was his wretchedness. He believed the word of God which said: “I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and forth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.” And being a pious man, Luther was petrified because how could He love God enough? How could Luther keep the commandments perfectly? He was looking at himself and saw only failure. And the burden of the Law of God was great. And it should be because by it we realize that we cannot do enough by the Law to be called holy at least in the sight of God. We are filthy and unclean sinners in thought, word, and deed.
But the real Reformation for Luther came when he heard the words of Romans 1:16-17: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’” The one who is righteous is also holy. Those words the righteous shall live by faith made all the difference in the world.
We are made holy not on account of our works but because of faith in the one was born of the Virgin Mary and suffered and died under Pontius Pilate, descended into hell and on the third day rose from the dead, and thus ascended to the right hand of God the Father to judge both the living and the dead. That is how one is made holy. Becoming holy is not something you do to yourself. No, you are acted upon by the Holy Spirit via the preaching of God’s Word of Christ Jesus.
Those who have ears and hear are declared holy for the sake of Christ, for He has died, was buried, rose and ascended to the right hand of the Father for them. He declares that they are holy just He is holy. You have been declared holy and righteous for the sake of Christ. Because you have been made in His image in your Holy Baptism.
Remember from last week, you are regenerated in Christ’s image. You are the spitting image of Him who has created you, redeemed you, and now says to you, “You are holy.” You are holy not for the sake of your own works but deemed holy by the works of Christ for you. That was what the Reformation was all about. Christ and Him Crucified that is what makes you holy in the sight of God the Father.
Being deemed righteous and holy for the sake of your Lord Jesus Christ transforms you.
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked nor stands in the way of sinners, not sits in the seat of scoffers: but his delight is in the Law, that is the Torah, or Word of the Lord, and on his Torah, he meditates day and night. For by this Word, in which Jesus declares you Holy for His Sake, you are like a tree planted by streams of water, yielding the fruit that is good, and your leaves do not wither. What a thing. Jesus calls himself the vine in John 15 and you are his branches. You are being fed by His Word and Sacraments. By them, you are being made holy so that the works that you do towards your neighbors – as imperfect as they may be due to still living in our sinful flesh and world – are seen as good by the Lord, not because they are perfect works but because you called holy for the sake of Jesus Christ. You are living the life of faith in Christ Jesus, and you will do good works toward your neighbor because that is what the One in whose image you are regenerated did. Should we not walk in His ways? We are called to walk in manner worthy of the Lord for He has called us holy. Just as He is Holy. Let us live with one another and encourage one another in this life to which we all have been called by His Word.
Rev. Jacob Hercamp St. Peter’s Lutheran Church La Grange, MO
Sunday is our annual observation of Reformation Day. In this post, I wanted to look for a few moments at the Hymn of the Day, “A Mighty Fortress.”
A lot was happening between the years 1527 and 1529: A plague came upon Wittenberg. Luther contracted a serious illness. The threat of the Turk was lurking nearby. Catholic armies threatened the Lutheran areas. Catholic and the more radical Reformers were lobbing theological attacks, too. There was danger at every turn. And though the hymn is often known as “The Battle Hymn of the Reformation,” perhaps it is better seen how a 1529 printing characterized it: “A Hymn of Comfort.”
And a hymn of comfort it is!
The 46th Psalm begins, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” It is a comforting phrase. The psalm boasts of the confidence we have in God. But why have that confidence? Because he is with us: “The nations rage, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.” With this confidence in the God who is with us, we know that what he says and does settle any matter: “He makes wars cease to the end of the earth….”
Luther’s hymn, however, is not a simple translation of the psalm. Instead, we have an expansion of the Psalm with New Testament themes. For example, nowhere in the 46th Psalm is the devil mentioned. But when we look at “A Mighty Fortress,” he is mentioned in the first stanza. As we declare that our God is a mighty fortress who frees us from every need, we also immediately set our sights on the one who would direct us away from our God. That Old Evil Foe who desires to shipwreck our faith and see us abandon that mighty fortress.
We also note the power of this foe: Deep guile and great might are he dread arms in fight; On earth is not his equal. The devil is abundantly clever and is extraordinarily strong. He can deceive the brightest among us. Jesus even calls him the strong man. Indeed, on earth, there is no matching him. At the end of the first verse of this hymn of comfort, it seems that the devil might just be winning this battle.
No matter how hard we try and how focused we are, there is nothing we can do to defeat the devil. This is the point of the second verse. We cannot win. In fact, we are already defeated. Think of a battlefield where you are outnumbered, outflanked, out skilled, and overmatched. You are considering the pros and cons of running away or surrendering. Neither solution is a good one.
But then, just before you enter full despair, you see something just over the crest of a hill. A rescuer! The one who can defeat your enemy and preserve you. This is the imagery of the second stanza. Realizing we are helpless and will soon be defeated by the devil, our valiant One, the One whom God Himself elected, arrives. Ask ye, Who is this? Jesus Christ it is, Of Sabaoth Lord, And there’s none other God; He holds the field forever.
he third stanza comes with some stunning imagery: Devils fill the world. They are hungry to grab and devour. And yet, despite their fierceness “We tremble not, we fear no ill; They shall not overpow’r us. Yes, the devil may be the prince of this world, but over our souls, he is utterly powerless. As our Lord says in Matthew, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” The fact is the devil is judged, condemned, and defeated. One little word, Jesus, sends him a flight and fleeing.
The final stanza’s first part is the most difficult to understand. Essentially, the enemies of God must let the Word remain. They have no choice; they are powerless to overcome it. Even if, even when they wish it were not true and would go away, there it is.
ut even though that may mean strife for us, it is still good news for us. He’s by our side upon the plain With His good gifts and Spirit. Those good gifts are the Word and Sacraments. We can literally lose everything, Goods, fame, child, and wife, these spiritual enemies of ours do not gain what they truly desire. They do not obtain our souls. The kingdom of God remains outside their grasp. Even if all we have is stripped away, Though these all be gone, Our vict’ty has been won; The Kingdom ours remaineth.
Here we are, nearly 500 years after A Mighty Fortress is penned, and we face uncertain times. Our nation is in distress. The culture is more and more intolerant of Christians and our beliefs. There is a pandemic that has frightened many to their core. But what the world has lost, we have: hope and comfort.
Whatever Satan throws our way, the worst he can do is harm our bodies. You are bought with the shed blood of Christ. You are redeemed by him. Washed clean in Holy Baptism. He feeds you his very Body and Blood. He promises to always be with you and never forsake you. What is there to truly fear?
Rev. Brent Keller Peace Lutheran Church Alcester, SD
Encore Post: Soon after the death and resurrection of Jesus, as the gospel spread throughout the Roman world, the Gentiles Christians met had no problem with the truth that Jesus was God. They were accustomed to thinking of great leaders, like the Caesars, as sons of the gods. The chief obstacle was the belief that the spiritual world was good, but the physical world bad. No god worth his deity would want to be a man and no man in his right mind would want to rise from the dead bodily.
In fact, a popular religious movement, known as Gnosticism, was very popular during the early years of the church. Gnostics liked to adapt existing religious systems to their own worldview. To them, the spiritual world is good, perfect, ideal and pure. The physical world is bad, evil, imperfect changing and polluted. The body, they believed, was a prison, in which pieces of the true God are trapped. These pieces, known as immortal souls are deceived and ignorant of their true identity. Unless someone gives them the secret knowledge (the word Gnosis, from which the movement is named, means knowledge) that they are one with God. That is where gnostic teachers came in — to give new Gnostics the knowledge they need to escape the physical world. Το Gnostics, the desires of the body were either evil, because they convinced you this world was real, or didn’t matter, because they are an illusion.
When Gnostics decided to make Christianity their own, they saw Jesus as the λόγος — Logos — The Word, who pretended to be a man or adopted the man Jesus as a vehicle, to give us this secret knowledge. To them, there was nothing more offensive than the incarnation or that God would suffer and die. So they found ways to explain them away. The church rejected this movement very vigorously. Yet in the process of trying to make the faith attractive to Gnostics, they adopted the philosophy that the body and its passions were bad.
Yet there is nothing further than the truth. God made us, body and soul. He made us male and female. He created the emotions and drives that bring a man and woman together in marriage. He called it all very good. Sin and death corrupt these drives, seasoning them with self-interest. Yet, in their place, these things are great blessings. One day, spirit and body will be severed violently and unnaturally. They were never meant to be a part.
That is why God the Son became a man, suffered and died for us on the cross and rose from the dead. The seal of the grave broken, he will call us back from our graves, restore our bodies and bring us — body and soul together again to the marriage feast of the Lamb. So, it’s not Body vs. Spirit. It is Body and Soul together in Christ forever.
Encore Post: Our body matters. At first, that might seem to be obvious. Especially in America, we see endless advertisements calling attention to our bodies. We sell products with beautiful people, barely dressed, trying to convince us to buy a car or other products. We are told we need to lose weight, grow hair — or remove it, have surgery to improve our looks or make us look forever young.
Yet increasingly, we are urged to follow our feelings wherever they lead. If we are male, but feel female, we should use modern medicine to change that. If we are female, but feel male, we should change that too. If we feel attracted to someone not of our own sex, we should remain true to that too.
It seems that our body really matters to our society, but, in fact, it is the opposite. We our told what matters is what is inside of us — we should be true to our feelings, wherever they lead. If our body disagrees — no problem! We just change that, ironically, claiming we are born that way. We are, in effect, told to ignore our body and follow our souls. The result is we never seem to be satisfied and the pursuit of happiness ends in loneliness. Except for brief moments, happiness is beyond our reach. If anything, the quest for fulfillment ends with us empty and alone.
King Solomon discovered these things to his sorrow. At the end of his life, filled with every conceivable blessing, after following his passions, he discovered that the pursuit of happiness was an empty exercise. It was “chasing the wind.” What he did discover, however, was the secret of happiness. He explains it all in his book, Ecclesiastes. “Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot. Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil—this is the gift of God.For he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart.” (Ecclesiastes 5:18-20)
Our bodies and souls are gifts from God. Instead of focusing on feelings and what they desire, we do better to enjoy what he has given us. So precious are we — body and soul — that he became one of us in his Son Jesus Christ. He lived, suffered, died and rose again to redeem us. On the last day, he will raise our body from the dust, restore us to the image of his Son and remove sin and death forever. So, yes, our body matters.
Encore Post: When Martin Luther wrote his hymns, one of his aims was to make singing accessible to everyday people. He wrote hymns that not only praised God but taught the faith. Many of his hymns paraphrased Scripture, especially Old Testament passages and pieces from the liturgy. Often he brought Jesus into Old Testament texts. Lutherans followed his lead, beginning a rich tradition of music and the arts that continue today. John Calvin and his followers took a different tack. Nothing was to be sung in worship, they believed, that was not a Psalm or a close translation.
Nearly two hundred year later, the young son of a Calvinist minister, Isaac Watts, could not stand how dull and unfeeling the singing of the Psalms were in their worship. When he complained to his father, the elder Watts said, “if you don’t like it, try to do better.” And he did. His hymns became very popular. His work inspired many other hymn writers so that he became known as the father of English hymnody.
Four Hundred and one years ago, Isaac Watts, then a leading Calvinist minister, set out to replace the Psalm singing that distressed him so with Psalm paraphrases, following similar principles as Luther used. He published a hymn book of paraphrases of nearly every Psalm he thought he could baptize. This book is titled: Psalms of David Imitated. These include some of the most beloved English hymns. You know some of them: nine of them are in Lutheran Service Book. They are:
705 – The man is ever blessed (Psalm 1)
832 – Jesus shall reign where’er the sun (Psalm 72:8–19)
867 – Let children hear the mighty deeds (stanzas 1–3, 5) (Psalm 78:1–8)
733 – O[ur] God, our help in ages past (Psalm 90:1–5)
387 – Joy to the world, the Lord is come (Psalm 98:4–9)
814 – O bless the Lord, my soul (Psalm 103:1–7)
816 – From all that dwell below the skies (stanzas 1–2) (Psalm 117)
903 – This is the day the Lord has made (Psalm 118:24–26)
707 – Oh, that the Lord would guide my ways (Psalm 119, selected verses)
Dear saints, most of what we know about St. Luke we find from outside of the Sacred Scripture. Eusebius tells us he was born in Antioch in Syria. It was in Syrian Antioch that the Holy Spirit called Barnabas and Saul to begin what became the first of three missionary journeys for St. Paul. Nowhere in the Gospel of Luke or in the book of Acts does he mention himself by name. In the introduction of both books he uses the first person describing the method by which he wrote. In the second missionary journey, he uses ‘we’ to describe what the party was doing and experiencing. He does this again in the third missionary journey and through the rest of the book.
Luke was not a Jew and was likely an educated slave, something not uncommon in those days. He was likely emancipated, which was also not uncommon. He may have stayed at Philippi as pastor as Paul and Silas continued their second missionary journey.
St. Luke is commonly remembered as a physician. But today, his commemoration, he is called the Evangelist. In fact, the only mention of him being a physician is when St. Paul calls him one in the Epistle to the Colossians. His role as evangelist was made clear in our Collect as we pray, “Your blessed Son called Luke the physician to be an evangelist and physician of the soul.” And as we ask that “the healing medicine of the Gospel and the Sacraments may put to flight the diseases of our souls that with willing hearts we may ever love and serve You”
When Luke writes his account of our Lord’s Gospel, the church only has the Gospel written by St. Matthew. That account was written by a Jew to a Jewish church with Jewish converts. Those who heard it would automatically understand the nuances that Gentiles would not. Gentiles would not understand the significance of the genealogy in chapter one. They would not understand the various feasts and laws and observances without additional instruction.
But more and more, the church was becoming more Gentile and less Jewish. This makes sense: as the Gospel spread throughout the world, more Gentiles heard it. Because there were more of them, more of them believed. And so, St. Luke did what continues to happen today: He takes the work and testimony of someone else and uses it. He adapts it to his audience. What St. Luke writes is not original, but he uses it in an original way. In the books of Luke and Acts, we find not a pious layman, but a serious and studied theologian. And guided by the Holy Spirit, he writes a magnificent two volume set.
Think about it: Had the Holy Spirit not used Luke, what would Christmas be without, “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed….” With only Matthew’s account, we would only hear of an angelic visitation followed by a man trying to figure out how to get rid of his betrothed without causing too much strife.
St. Luke shows us our Lord rebuking a demon and commanding it to come out and be silent. It does. We have Jesus telling the lame man to take up his pallet and walk. He does so. Telling the dead man at Nain to get up. He does and speaks. Luke tells of the sinful woman invading a Sabbath meal and having her sin forgiven by Jesus. Without St. Luke, we would not have many masterful narratives or miracles. We would not have the road to Emmaus. “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road?” We would not know about the parable of the Prodigal Son.
This is why we remember and thank God for St. Luke today. Not because he was a physician of the flesh, but because his Gospel was centered on Christ, the True Physician of our souls. St. Luke focuses us on the Creator coming to his creation to release it from its disease of soul, making it a new creation. Jesus heals his creation by casting out demons, raising the dead, forgiving sin, and healing the sick. And all this he does by the power of his word, which creates and does what it says.
Our Lord’s miracles testify that God had invaded his creation and blessed it by releasing it from its bondage brought on by its fall. Jesus brings freedom to all the captives of sin and death. In him, all creation undergoes a healing. He brings mercy to and for all. But the world rejected all this by rejecting him.
And being rejected, he is nailed to The Tree. And there, on that cross, all sickness and death was put on him. The world shook and grew dark. And in his death, it is recreated through his shed blood. This new creation, our forgiveness of sin and salvation, comes only through the blood of Jesus.
In the Gospel lesson today, our Lord sends the 72 out to do exactly what he has done: heal the sick and proclaim that the kingdom of God has come near. When they return, we find they cast out demons as well. They proclaim the reality of the new creation through Jesus Christ. Proclaim liberation through word and miracle. It is a reality centered in the words of absolution: “Peace be to this house.”
These sent ones demonstrated peace in their presence. Sent with no provisions, they were provided hospitality by those who received them as heralds of this peace. And their peace was the medicine needed for lives broken by sin, sickness, and death. Through their preaching and miracles, it was shown that the kingdom of God was near. They brought to those who received them a foretaste of the feast and the kingdom which was present at the very birth of Christ, and a peace that now reigns in heaven.
Recall again our Collect. The Word and the Sacraments are the healing medicine of the church. St. Ignatius called them the ‘medicine of immortality.’
Just as Jesus and his 72 healed those who heard and believed, so also have you been healed. You have been healed by water and blood. By word and spirit. Like the 72 sent by our Lord, he sends pastors to this day into the harvest fields as lambs among wolves. And they take with them the medicine of Word and Sacrament. They take with them the means for mission and healing. This medicine comes to all places: from sick room to nursing home to church building and cathedral. It comes to the broken hearted and the captive. To sinners like you and me. And that the kingdom of God draws near is proclaimed.
And so, I proclaim to you that the kingdom of God is also near here. The peace of Christ which passes all understanding now rests upon you. And in the presence of the Lamb, we partake and celebrate with all the saints in a foretaste of the Feast which is to come. The table is set. Your Savior invites you to eat and be filled. So, rejoice that your names are written in the heavens. In the Book of Life. Amen.
Rev. Brent Keller Peace Lutheran Church Alcester, SD
That question hides a host of other questions and notions behind it. Can’t I be a Christian without going to church? Doesn’t God love me enough to come to me where I am? And, I don’t much like church. What are the minimum number of times I can attend?
A certain wise Lutheran pastor often says, “is wrong question.” His criticism isn’t looking to invalidate the question. It is looking to redirect us back to how we should speak. If these are the wrong question, what might the right ones be?
Can’t I be a Christian without going to church? A better question here might be: What are the benefits for Christians in attending church services? The divine service is a blessing to us from God. We get to confess the Christian faith together, which uplifts and strengthens us together in the faith. Also, our Lord has promised to deliver His gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation in His word and Sacraments here.
Doesn’t God love me enough to come to me where I am? A better question might be: how can I trust that God does love me? Trust in these words, “Given and shed for you.” Our Lord, Jesus, suffered and died for our sins. Like the thief on the cross, He doesn’t leave you in silence to trust within yourself. “Today, you will be with me in paradise.” He sends pastors to serve you in the Divine Service. There, you will hear His word and receive His communion for the remission of sin.
I don’t much like church. What are the minimum number of times I can attend? That’s kind of the problem, isn’t it? I don’t want to go. That’s the voice of unbelief drawing you away from your baptism and the family of God. Ignore that voice. Go where God promises to be for you.
O Lord, I love the habitation of your house and the place where your glory dwells… But as for me, I shall walk in my integrity; redeem me, and be gracious to me. My foot stands on level ground; in the great assembly I will bless the Lord. (Psalm 26:8, 11-12)
That’s the voice of faith. It can’t be kept away from the Lord’s house.
Do I have to go to church? No, you don’t. You can choose to stay away from the gifts of God and the gathering of the faithful. You can exclude yourself from His gifts to you. But also, you may attend the gathering of the faithful to hear His Word. You will come to hear and receive the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation from the absolution, the hearing of the Word, and the Lord’s Supper. Faith can’t be kept from the house of the Lord.
These gifts and the whole congregation are for you. They are given to lift and build you up in the faith.
Rev. Jason M. Kaspar Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool La Grange, TX
