For those who are curious, here are the top twenty-five What Does This Mean? posts, going back to the first one in January of 2018. If you’re favorite isn’t high enough on the list, you can “vote” for it. Go to: http://whatdoesthismean.blog, copy the title of the post, paste it into the search box and search for it. Be sure to read it, though. We get an average time on the post reports as well.
1 About Accepting Jesus as your Personal Savior 2 The Harvest is Plentiful 3 The Four Ways of Interpreting Scripture 4 Elijah’s Mantle on Elisha Cast 5 Tropological Interpretation 6 Sermon on the Pandemic 7 Material Principle 8 The Four Ways of Interpreting Scripture 9 That Rebellious House 10 Ten Commandments–First Table 11 Happy birthday, Lutheran Church! 12 The Three Ways God Cares for Us 13 Pastors are Called by God 14 Formal Principle 15 You’re No Angel: Things Angels are Not 16 A Walk Through the Liturgy: The Sign of the Cross 17 Baptism Saves You 18 The Zeal of the Lord of Hosts will Do This 19 The Church has Always Baptized Infants 20 Martin Luther, the Sacraments and Faith 21 Baptism Saves You 22 The Church has Always Baptized Infants 23 More About Accepting Jesus as Your Personal Savior 24 Christ’s Sabbath Rest in the Tomb 25 Church Word #6: Lutheran
Dear saints, last week we heard about what will happen as the end draws near. Next week will bring a parable about our Lord’s return. This morning we hear a parable that wraps up our Lord’s final discourse on the End Times. Last week’s lesson was a warning for us to be prepared. Today, we hear of the Day of Judgment. More precisely, we heard the Lord’s announcement of the judgment that has already taken place.
Jesus comes in glory and sits upon his throne. All the nations are gathered before him. And the people are separated from one another. Sheep go to the right; goats go to the left. The sheep are welcomed into heaven and the goats are cast into hell. After hearing this parable, many will ask the question, “Have I been good enough to be a sheep?”
There is only one problem with that. It is the wrong question. But for a moment, let us try to answer it anyway. Jesus describes what sheep do: They feed the hungry. They give the thirsty something to drink. They welcome the stranger. They clothe the naked. They visit the sick and go to the prisoner.
And so, have you done that? Any of it? Some of it? All of it? How much do you have to do to be considered a sheep? What if you have not even had the opportunity to do some of those things? Are you even able to be a sheep? Remember the standard under God’s Law. He is perfect and commands that we also be perfect. So, even if we assume you are exempt from fulfilling the things you have not had the opportunity to do, have you served the listed people perfectly every opportunity you have had to serve them? Have you slipped up even once? Then no. You have not done enough to be a sheep.
To answer the question, “Have I been good enough to be a sheep?” can and will only bring anxiety or conceit. You will either realize you are not good enough and bring upon anxiety and despair, or you will deceive yourself and become boastful and conceited in thinking you are better than you are.
The only good thing I can think of when considering this wrong question is that it reminds us that none of us are good enough to be called sheep. None of us have loved our neighbors good enough to be a sheep. By failing to help your fellow brother or sister, you find you fit the description of a goat instead.
So let us consider the words of our Lord in the parable and see how we may know that we are, indeed, sheep: Jesus says to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.”
The sheep are confused. They do not seem to understand. They answer and say, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?” Notice that there is no surprise that they are sheep. The surprise is what our Lord tells them they have done. They do not recall doing any of these things. And Jesus responds, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”
Our Lord’s attention then turns to the goats. “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.” Like the sheep, the goats do not seem to understand: “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?” And he answers them, “Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.”
If the lesson this morning is not about doing good works and showing yourself worthy as a sheep, then what is it about? First, I want to look at how the sheep and the goats are addressed. The sheep are called blessed by the Father and the goats are cursed. The sheep are those declared righteous. They are the ones who trust in Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Because they are blessed and declared righteous, they inherit the kingdom which was prepared for them. This is why the sheep are surprised at what they hear next. They know they put their faith in Jesus, and not their works, for their salvation.
The goats, on the other hand, are cursed. Rather than being washed and clothed in righteousness, they remained estranged from the Lord. They rejected the call to trust in Christ. And so, when given the opportunity to love and serve Him, they declined. Yet they are still surprised to hear the judgment. They do not recall seeing the Lord in need and failing to care for him. Because they have no faith, they are cast into the eternal fire. But notice that this fire was not created for them. It is not supposed to be where they are sent. It was created for the devil and his angels, but they go there too.
The sheep in the parable are not sheep because of the works they did. The goats are not goats because of the works they did not do. Each are what they are because they do or do not trust in the Lord. Those who are baptized, who believe that Jesus has died for them and has taken away their sins, who try to do good, are Christian. They are righteous. Or, as the parable would speak of them, sheep. But those who do not believe that Jesus is the Messiah, even if they are baptized or try to do good things, are not Christian. They remain unrighteous. They are goats.
The parable is not about works. The parable is about being declared by God what you are. The sheep are made sheep by the power of God and His Holy Spirit. The goats remain goats because they reject God and His Word. The good works that the sheep have done must be put into their proper context, or else we might falsely believe that our works have somehow merited our salvation.
The author of the epistle to the Hebrews says, “without faith it is impossible to please God.” Serving your neighbor is a good work only if you have faith in Christ. Good works are the evidence of faith. They are the indicator that faith is present. It is impossible to have faith but not have good works. Yet these works do not save; rather they are the fruit of faith.
This might make some of you uneasy. Perhaps you are afraid you have not born much fruit. Think about it this way: If you give to the congregation because you support the mission of the Church and want to see the Word preached and the Sacraments administered, you are supporting Christ. If you made a dish for a potluck, you are feeding Christ, for those who eat of it are part of the Body of Christ.
If you have changed a diaper, you have clothed Christ. If you have carried that child to the Baptismal Font, you have carried Christ. The list goes on: If you have fed your children, given them clothes, spoken words of comfort to the sick or mourning, or any of the many other good works that you do because you are God’s child, you have done it to and for Christ Jesus.
Of course, these works are not done perfectly. How many of us have muttered to ourselves changing that blow-out diaper? Or got frustrated that some of your kid’s new clothes have been ruined after a single use? Or been wearied by yet another request from someone in need? Here we see God’s Law instructs us even as it accuses us. We see and do what we know to do because we know we are God’s redeemed. But we see how poorly we do these works and repent of not doing better. Or for thinking that what we have done is ‘good enough.’
Repent, but do not despair. Your status as a sheep does not rest upon you. You are what you are because of the mercy of your Savior, the King who rules over all things. It is He who has taken on your flesh and was born of the Virgin. He is the one who kept the Law perfectly. He is the one who, out of love for you, took on your sins and purchased you with His shed Blood and His death on the cross. And in that love, he rose again that you would enter His eternal kingdom with Him.
Because Jesus is your Savior, it is Jesus who makes you a sheep. He takes your ‘goat nature’ and covers it with his perfect nature as the Lamb of God. He has remade you in His own image. And this extends to the works you do. God sees your works and sees them done for Him. He does not see your sins, for they are hidden from his sight. What you do in weakness and sin, he perfects in himself and his righteousness.
On the cross, Christ Jesus became the sin of all men that all men might be redeemed. Any who are clothed in Christ have been made to be Him in disguise. Thus, the good works of His saints, His sheep, overflow with His glory.
But that does not work for the goats. They may have mighty and noble works that appear to be selfless acts of charity. We can see that throughout the world. But they reject Christ. They do not believe the work done for them in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Thus, they also reject His presence and serve their god, the devil. Their good deeds, lacking faith, are nothing but stained and filthy garments in the eyes of God.
But for you, dear sheep of Christ, your every action shines like the very Light of Christ. God’s Final Judgment is made, and it is for you. You are the righteous ones. You are those whose lives are made perfect in Christ. You are innocent and pure. So, you will be crowned with everlasting honor, bestowed upon you through the merit of Christ. You will enter the Kingdom of Glory, prepared for you by your Father from the foundation of the world. Amen.
Rev. Brent Keller Peace Lutheran Church Alcester, SD
Let’s first consider our creation. We unique, dirt-with-the-breath-of-life critters, created in the image and after the likeness of God, were made for doing things.
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26-27)
Garden-tenders and earth-subduers are we. God made us to have dominion. This is both ruler and caretaker. The dominus (lord) of the household is the one who is responsible for the safety and full bellies of his subjects. Even in our sinful fallenness, the earth is still organized this way.
And to Adam he said, “…cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life… By the sweat of your face you shall eat 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)
Not just us, but all of creation is broken, distorted by sin, death, and the Devil. Before sin entered, the work of tending the garden didn’t break backs, tear muscles, or cause the sweaty putrescence and exhaustion that define our lives of toil under the sun. For the toil with which one toils all the vain days of this life, that breaks down and exhausts this sinful flesh.
But, dear baptized, redeemed by Christ in the resurrection all will be made new. A new heavens and a new earth, a new Jerusalem, and a new temple/garden of which we will be the tenders once more. Refreshed, renewed, resurrected in glory, we will not suffer from our labor.
“Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” (Revelation 7:15-17)
Even more, we will be sheltered by God as a hen gathers her chicks. Hunger, thirst, the heat of toiling under the sun, and sadness itself are all wiped away in the presence of our Savior. Serving in the temple will be an immeasurable joy to us. Quite frankly, I can’t conceive of it at all. But, Jesus puts this vision into our ears to strengthen our trust in the hope He has prepared.
Trust in Jesus, for He has prepared a place for us.
Rev. Jason M. Kaspar Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool La Grange, TX
Justice is a word dangling from the lips of a host of Christians and non-Christians alike these days. But, what of this “justice?” Social justice, economic justice, racial justice, environmental justice; do these ideas jive with the Christian notion of Justice?
In a word, No.
Justice as a concept can only exist in a world where equality is the goal. Justice can only simultaneously be for everyone. It does not defer to the great. It is not partial to the poor.
You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. (Leviticus 19:15)
You can slip any seemingly opposite pairs into this definition and maintain the concept and the principle drawn from it: women and men, military and civilian, urban and rural, native and naturalized, blue collar and white collar, one race and another, skilled and unskilled, uneducated and educated, renters and homeowners, southerners and northerners, Christians and non-Christians, and the like. All are due equality in the application of justice. We shall not defer or be partial.
Sadly, the contemporary civil rights movement wants to abandon God’s standard of impartiality. The claim is that there is racism, for which privileged people as a whole must repent. They insist that justice can only be obtained by abandoning God’s Word in favor of the world’s constantly moving standards. Furthermore, there is a call to repentance for what they claim is systemic or historic racism. In effect, they hold individuals guilty of sins of society. They insist that people atone for sins they didn’t commit. According to this view, Jesus death isn’t enough to forgive sins against racial justice.
This is antithetical to Christianity. First, God’s justice can’t be preferential to anyone. Second, atonement before God can only be through Jesus’ death. Third, sin cannot be conferred upon you by someone else’s deeds. Instead of justice, the social justice crowd are advocates of injustice as God defines it.
This injustice also requires us to break the eighth commandment. We must point to our neighbor and confess their sin for them. Yet, we cannot confess each other’s sins. Neither can we withhold Christ’s forgiveness from those penitents, who seek it.
Ironically, justice is not what we want as Christians anyway. Justice looks like this: all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. God’s justice condemns us all for our sin. We deserve only hell for our failure to keep God’s law. But, instead of meeting out justice on us. God’s wrath and punishment fell upon Jesus. His suffering and death paid for our sins. We, forgiven children of God, have not received the justice we earned.
Justice modified is injustice. But, God’s forbearance saves us from the justice we are due. In Christ, we are all one race, one family, one people. Human injustice is met by Showing mercy to those who are abused, hurt, cast aside, poor and in need.
Rev. Jason M. Kaspar Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool La Grange, TX
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
