At His coming all people will rise again with their bodies and give an account concerning their own deeds. And those who have done good will enter into eternal life, and those who have done evil into eternal fire. (Athanasian Creed; lines: 38-39)
That sounds pretty severe, doesn’t it? It’s not the just sound, but the reality. Jesus warns us again and again that there is a reckoning in store for humanity. Sheep and goats, wheat and tares, wedding guests with and without a wedding garment, good trees and bad trees; some will receive salvation and some will not. Some will receive eternal fire.
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, …he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats… Then the King will say to [the sheep], ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world…” Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? … “Then he will say to [the goats], ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels… Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty … and did not minister to you?’ … And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:31-32b, 34, 37, 41, 44, 46)
One very significant thing about Jesus’ description of the final judgement is that neither the sheep nor the goats recognize themselves in their deeds. The goats do not see their wickedness. The sheep do not see their righteousness.
Unbelief and faith are the mitigating issues at play here.
As with Judas, unbelief produces wickedness. Out of hatred of God, those who choose to deny Christ are bad trees producing bad fruit. The road to hell is paved not in good intentions, but in unbelief.
As with Abraham, our faith is credited to us as righteousness. Our faith, which is a gift given in our baptism, produces good works. Good trees produce good fruit. And, God makes good trees out of us sinners.
Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. (Revelation 7:13-14)
In baptism we find our identity. We are children of God, called, named, and saved by the blood of Jesus. We are saved by this washing of regeneration. Through it, God only sees us a righteous people, sheep, wheat, wedding guests clothed in Jesus’ righteousness, good trees producing good fruit. At the accounting of our deeds, we will all still be surprised that God finds us righteous. Now, we can only see our sin. There, He only sees us in Christ.
Rev. Jason M. Kaspar Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool La Grange, TX
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.
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
The Prayer of the Church is the last item for the Service of the Word before the Service of the sacrament begins. Formalized prayers are referenced often in the writings of 2nd (100s) and 3rd (200s) century Christians. But, we don’t see examples until 4th (300s) century, AD.
The prayers appear suddenly in the historic record. Like the fossil explosion, the prayers appear en mas all over the Christian world, sharing common forms. These prayers were much longer in the ancient church than we find today.
These prayers shared some common features. First, prayer addresses God by name and identifies His attributes and worthiness of our prayer and we beg for His mercy. Then, we petition the Lord concerning our needs on Earth. The sequence of our needs goes from great to small: The Church, our government, and ourselves.
Each of these uses a great to small sequence as well. For the church, we pray for the whole church on earth, our synod, our district, our circuit, and our own congregation. For our nations, we pray for Earth, our nation, our state, our county, and other subdivisions. These divisions encourage our prayers to be as brief or as lengthy as we want them to be.
Getting back to the question, we pray for the church first because the kingdom of God is over the kingdoms of this world. Our citizenship in the heavenly kingdom calls for us to submit to God before Caesar. In the same way, we pray for His church before the fiefdoms of kings, princes, or constitutions. These governments are gifts to us from God, but they are also subject to Him.
Rev. Jason M. Kaspar Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool La Grange, TX
Over the two years since he posted the Ninety-Five Theses, Luther frequently preached and wrote about the sacraments, especially Penance, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. The engagement with theological opponents and the encouragement of friends and admirers drove him to study the scriptures to determine what the sacraments were and what God had to say about them. Gradually he began to see that the church had drifted away from the Biblical understanding of the sacraments as gifts that offer grace. Once bull Exsurge Domine was published against him, Luther felt free both to address his opponents and to fully explore the nature of the sacraments according to the Scriptures.
At the time of the Reformation, the Church in the West saw salvation as a balancing act. They believed that when a person sins, he or she adds to the debt of guilt which must be paid if he is to enter God’s presence. When a person receives a sacrament or does a good work, it pays off some of that guilt. If a person sins with some of that guilt left to be paid, he or she must go first to purgatory to pay it off. If a person died with more grace than sins, the merit goes into the treasury of the saints, which the church can give to people through indulgences. The chief means by which grace is given to believers is through sacraments (Latin for “holy things”) which Christ entrusted to the priests of the Church. So, through the seven sacraments, the Church had control over the everyday life of believers. In The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, Luther destroys the whole system.
Luther began work on the Babylonian Captivity in August and completed it on October 6th, 1520, five hundred years ago. It came off the press on October 8th. In it Luther defines a sacrament as God’s Word combined with a physical element, by which God gives his grace and promises the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. Using this definition, he argues there are two, maybe three sacraments, which we call: baptism, confession and absolution and the Lord’s Supper. A Christian who believes the promises of God’s word in the sacrament, receives what its promises. The power, then, resides in God’s word, not in the priest offering it or the work of performing the rite.
The impact of this work was felt immediately. Humanists distanced themselves from Luther. Others were moved by the clear, simple and Biblical presentation to join the Reformation movement. The outlines of Lutheran theology were now in place and the breach with Rome unrepairable.
Dear saints, this morning’s Gospel text contains two of the four events that occur at a Sabbath dinner and a ruling Pharisee’s house. Though we are not explicitly told everything he does this day, Jesus would have begun his Sabbath like he begins every Sabbath: by attending a service at the Temple or the Synagogue. Afterward, he is invited to a dinner and accepts the invitation, even though he surely knows the invitation is intended to trap him.
Our Lord arrives and is being watched carefully. The religious leaders are hoping that he does something they can accuse him of breaking the Law for. And behold, there was a man there with dropsy. We are not told if he was there to trap Jesus or if he showed up hoping that Jesus would heal him. Today the man’s affliction is more commonly called edema. His body was holding water. He may have been suffering from congestive heart disease. His body would enlarge; he would gain weight. He would be seen as cursed or as having committed some sin to warrant such punishment. And while we have drugs to alleviate the condition today, there was no man-made cure or relief at the time.
Jesus sees the man and loves the man. He intends to heal him, but first tests those invited to the dinner. “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” Those present remain silent. Perhaps because they are unsure if Jesus means according to the Mosaic Law or the rabbinical law. The answer would be different. As they remain silent, Jesus takes the man and heals him of his disease.
But before any of them object and claim the Lord has broken the Sabbath, he poses another question: “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?” Our lesson says they could not reply to him. They were silenced because Jesus has just made their hypocrisy clear. Of course, they would pull out their son. None would be willing to lose an animal. They would rescue man or beast and call it justified work. Nor would they rebuke the priest serving, that is, working in the Temple on the Sabbath as breaking it.
This reminds me of when Jesus says, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” The Sabbath is a day of rest rather than a day of burden. It was given to us that we would rest, relax, and worship. That we would be filled with the Word of God and receive his gifts. It was so we would receive mercy and compassion. Like a man with dropsy or who had fallen into a well.
You and I are those who need mercy. Our condition is worse than a man with dropsy or in a pit. And God is kind to you. He is merciful to you. He provides for you and grants a place to gather and receive all your spiritual needs.
This we consider as we look at the other half of our lesson. Jesus heals the man and silences the others invited. Those who invited pretend to keep the Sabbath by attending worship, but then work to trap Jesus. They worship God with their lips, but their hearts are far from them. But Jesus still does, knowing they are trying to trap him. He loves them enough to come into a hostile house for dinner. He silences them and observes how they seat themselves. How they honor themselves and promote themselves by choosing the choice spots. Thus, we have our parable. Jesus says that, when invited to a wedding feast, you should choose the lowest seat rather than the highest. Rather than assuming you are a distinguished guest and being wrong, you should assume you are not so you will be lifted up.
This is not advice. This parable is mocking the Pharisees. They were so covetous of honor, Jesus was effectively telling them: “Since you want honor so much, don’t do something that would dishonor you. Instead, feign humility so you will be seen and lifted up to the place of honor you so desperately seek.”
But the parable hits us as well. Who of us does not want to be recognized? Does not want to be honored? Sure, we know not to sit at the bridal party’s table. But we are tempted to seek glory in honor in other places. And to feign humility hoping that we are exalted is still evil.
While it is important for us not to be prideful, that is not the point being made in this parable. The point is the One who should take the highest spot at the first table has been humbled. He has been taken from his seat of glory, taking on our flesh, and was born of the virgin. He walked under his Law. He was rejected by his own. He was crucified like the worst of criminals were.
And the reason was so that you, who are not even worthy of the least of seats, would be lifted up. That you, who deserve nothing but evil and condemnation, would be forgiven, cleansed, and saved. That you would be made worthy to sit at the table in the Wedding Feast.
Jesus goes to the Sabbath dinner because he has come even for those who oppose him. He goes to show them what mercy looks like. What humbleness looks like. He perfectly keeps the Sabbath day and shows mercy at the same time. He demonstrates true humility. Jesus does what the religious leaders did not and refused to do.
Having taken the lowest seat, the Lord Jesus has now taken the highest seat through his death, burial, and resurrection. And in doing so, he invites all who are humble of heart to his own Wedding Feast. All who repent and believe in his sacrifice are called to it. This sacrifice is applied to you by water and the Word. Through the Body and Blood of the sacrificed Lamb. You are no ox; you are the beloved of God.
But your invitation to this Feast is not as a guest. Rather, you are elevated as Jesus’ holy and pure bride and he gives you the seat of honor. He has healed your own case of dropsy. He has healed your soul and softened your heart. He works in you and through you. You are given the ability and desire to love and serve Him and your neighbor. He prepares your feast. Your Bridegroom and Lord has had mercy. Amen.
Rev. Brent Keller Peace Lutheran Church Alcester, SD
