Word of God – Page 4 – What Does This Mean?

What Has the Lord Done for Us Lately?

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

We are just a few weeks past the biggest event in the world, the day of our Lord’s Resurrection, where you and all the world were reconciled to God on behalf the Crucified Lord Jesus Christ. Sin is forgiven in Christ. You have new life in Christ. You are being led by the Lord Your God. But our hearts and our minds are easily led astray. Our minds easily turn elsewhere and instead of being of one heart and mind focused on the Words and Deeds of our Lord. The church, much like the ancient Israelites a mere month after their own salvific event of the Exodus and the cross of the Red Sea where the Egyptians were thrown into the sea, is easy to complain and mumble and grumble asking what the heck the Lord is doing. What has the Lord done for us lately.

We fail to remember and do the things by which we receive the very victory and life Jesus won for us by His death and resurrection from the dead.

John in his beautiful Epistle does not want you to forget what the Lord has done for you. In the first verse, John commands you to Look and See. That is an imperative command. He is telling you look and behold for yourselves this Love of the Father. And you know this Love. This Love is not a feeling or an emotion. This Love is a person. The Love the Father has given us is His only begotten Son, and Love was given to us in this way, that He offered Himself up for us at the cross. And He continues to offer Himself to you in His Flesh and Blood by His coming to you now in Word and Sacrament. Jesus is still in Flesh and He still here for you and your salvation building you up in Him who is Love.

And by this Son, Jesus, you are called and gathered to be children of God. What Jesus has done for you at the cross, where sins are dealt with once and for all, where sins are paid for by His blood, you now receive in Holy Baptism. You are washed and purified from sins by Baptism. And you are made a child of the Heavenly Father. Behold, the Love of the Father. See Love as the Person of the Lord Jesus displaying His marks of His cross. John says elsewhere in the Epistle that God is Love. If God is Love, then the Incarnate Lord Jesus is Love in the Flesh for you. And He is still in the Flesh for you, and in Baptism you are then united to the Resurrected God-Man Jesus who is Love. Then then in Christ are being built up in love.

You have been washed in the water and Word. You have been given God’s Love, Jesus. But that was a long time ago for many of you. I mean my baptism was October 9^th 1988. Long time ago. The events of Easter were even longer before that. What has the Lord done for us lately? Often, we are no different than Israel who grumbled not a month after the great event of the Red Sea where the Lord destroyed the Egyptian army that chased after Israel on the Exodus. We too are a sinful and rebellious people and we murmur against the Lord. Have we forgotten all that He has done already and spurn what He gives us now? Do we really think that God saved us from Egypt to bring us to die in the wilderness? Or are we failing to believe and trust in His promise?

We are prone to think that Jesus is gone, that Jesus is not here with us. It’s easier to rationalize that Jesus is gone than to believe His promise that upon His ascension He in his human body can be everywhere at one time and the specific promises to His Church by which people who are dead in trespasses and sins are made alive in Him. That by those specific things, He unites Himself with us and we with him? And in so doing he offers us His love, mercy, and forgiveness? What is Jesus doing now? Is He gone or what?

Would you, who are married, tell your wife on the day of your wedding that you love her and you will continue to love her the rest of her life, but never tell her again that you love her? Would you never kiss her again after kissing her on your wedding day? Would you expect her to remember your love that you pledged to her on that day if you never displayed that love again toward her? You should express love and gratitude, constantly reminding her of the love you have for her. You would do nice things for her, buying her or picking a bouquet of spring flowers, sweeping the kitchen floor, carrying laundry, rinsing the dishes. Things that display your love for her. And likely you do these all the time.

So, it is with the Lord. For Christ is here for you in love and devotion. Why do doubts arise in your hearts? See his hands and his feet. Pierced for your salvation. And he actively gives you that salvation. He continually cleanses you from your sins. He is your advocate with the Father, the propitiation for your sins. He is constantly showering you with his love and His devotion, like a husband making sure that his wife knows his love for her.

What has Christ done for you lately? He purifies you as He Himself is pure. Now the hard part, we don’t see this much on this side of heaven. More often than not we see ourselves as dirty and unclean in our sins. We are continually shown our sins and our failings. We are told according to the Law we deserve temporal and eternal punishment, that is we deserve the consequences for our sins. So, are you pure? If you only look to yourself, you know the answer. This is the curse of Law. We would be like the one who is lawless. We would be children in the dark.

But our Lord who loves us, who has made called and gathered us to the heavenly Father by the cross, has called us children of God. This is a promise to be believed. Yes, it beyond all our understanding, but why would God speak a promise like this if He did not mean it for our good? Yeah, we may not understand, but we know His Word is true, so we are called to believe.

And by His sacrifice at the cross, by His hands and feet, we are God’s children. And we are loved, loved so much that He constantly calls us back from sin and he works to purify us. This is the call to remember our baptism, the promise that we are indeed called children of God.

Our Lord is active right this minute purifying our hearts and our minds by the preaching of His Word, the proclamation of the Gospel. Jesus is delivered to you. Love in a Person is given to you. And you have Love placed onto your very lips when you eat and drink His body and blood for the forgiveness of your sins. Hence the prayer we pray is answered immediately when we pray that with fervent love we reach out to one another. We are infused with the very Love of Jesus.

There is only man who was pure from sin. The very Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. He was pure for you that he might give Himself up for you at the cross. And the Crucified and Risen Lord now purifies you from the inside out. For His resurrection to be ours on the Last Day, the actual flesh and blood of Jesus as the new mankind must come to us. And He does come in Flesh and Blood. And He does what He promises. He saves you and gives eternal life by His Body and Blood. He first washes you and calls you his brother and sister, children of His Father in baptism, and then puts Himself into you by the Sacrament of the Altar.

In Christ there is no sin, and now He comes into you. You are pure because of Christ. “No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.” You are in Christ my dear friends in Christ. You are children of God! Believe the promise from God, and hold Him to it.

When God looks at you for the sake of Christ, you have no sin, that is the promise. He has cleansed you. He has washed you in His blood. You are in incorporated and find your home in Him, and He likewise finds a home in you via the Sacrament of His body and blood. Think about how awesome this truly is: When you receive the Lord’s Supper, Christ, by creative power of His promise, is physically choosing to abide in you. His love abides in you because God is Love.

Will you sin in this after baptism? Yes, you will because you still live in this sin filled world in your sinful flesh. But you have a Love given to you that appeared to take away sin. Confess your sins, repent, and believe the promise of Christ. You have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, who is the propitiation for your sin. And this Love, the God-Man Jesus, is given to you here every week. You receive Jesus, Love in the Flesh, for you that you might not forget, but always rejoice in the Gospel. What has God done for us lately? Well, everything that you might be like Him when He appears. Little Children, let no one deceive you and lead you otherwise.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

A Life of Washing Feet

Note: The following is greatly indebted to the edifying sermon from the Rev. Dr. Robert Preus, preached at Concordia Theological Seminary on Maundy Thursday, 1988. Find it here.

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

The day we know as Maundy Thursday was a very full day for our Lord. The day began with His disciples asking him where He wished to have what would be the last Passover meal. He likely taught in and around the Temple, as was his custom when He was in the holy city. And then in the upper room, our Lord institutes what we know as the Sacrament of the Altar, where our Lord gives us His body and blood to eat and to drink for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. In so doing, He ushers in the New Covenant in His blood. Even later that same day Jesus then went to the Garden of Gethsemane as was His custom to pray there. While there He would be betrayed by one of his own into the hands of sinners. He was tried before the chief priests, scribes, and elders. And He looked on in love when Peter denied him those three times. A very long day in deed.

But particular to this service for Maundy Thursday, we will recall the events in the upper room recorded for us in St. John. Jesus gave himself over to His disciples in love and service. As John aptly states, He loved His own to the end. Not just Thursday or at the beginning, but that He loved them to the very end. And I suggest He still is in the process of loving His own until the end of the age.

What does Jesus’ act of washing His disciples’ feet on the night he was betrayed and instituted His Supper mean? What should we take away from this act that John records for us? It certainly teaches us his love for his own. He displays divine love, a love that is humble, a love that is unlike any love known to man in the world. A love not of this world. It is a love that motivates the incarnate God to go to the cross for his fallen creation. The love he displays in the act of washing his disciples’ feet is made even more manifest and apparent when he is nailed to the cross for our sins.

Washing feet is an act of humility. And Christ our Lord calls His disciples to imitate this act of humility. But people do not understand humility. The act of Jesus washing feet and any other act of humility is more often than not understood as a sign of weakness rather than a virtue that should be emulated. Peter, speaking for all of the disciples, gives this vibe when he says that he will not be washed by Jesus. “It’s below my master to do this thing.” It’s eerily similar to the event when Jesus told Peter and the disciples what the Christ must do, suffer, die, and then rise. There Peter thought it all beneath his Master to suffer in that way. But like there, Jesus rebukes Peter, “If I do not wash your feet, you have no part in me.” Peter takes the rebuke and gets the hint that what Jesus is doing is at least signifying something very important. So, he goes whole hog the other direction, “not just my feet but also my head.” He wants it all. But then Jesus teaches him that its only his feet which are dirty and need washing.

So, it is with us. What does it mean then that Jesus is washing his disciples’ feet? He does this to show that his love is perpetual and ongoing. His love does not come and go but remains. It becomes our refuge, our home. It does not fade away, but it continues on. But the disciples of Jesus fail to understand it most of the time. As do we. He’s trying to prepare his disciples for the events that will take place the next day, when He will go to the cross. For there the very nature of God’s love is on display. God loved the world in this way, that He gave His only begotten son that whoever believe in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. He gave His son to offer Himself as a propitiation for the sin of the world. He was given a body and offered himself as a sacrifice for our salvation. That is God’s love. He humbles himself to the point of going to death, death on a cross. This is how we are won salvation. And when a person understands that the Son of God humiliated and humbled himself in this way for our salvation, then we know and understand God. And we glory in it. We cannot help but say in great wonder, “My God, How Great Thou Art.”

Another lesson that we receive from our Lord’s washing of his disciples’ feet is not so different than our first lesson. But now we see that Jesus teaches that his forgiveness is also perpetual. Sometimes we are led to believe that I have to do something first before I get forgiveness. That forgiveness is dependent upon me rather than dependent upon the work of Jesus at the cross. But this night Christ our Lord teaches again that the forgiveness of sins is His to give, and He gives it abundantly.

Think about the times that Jesus walked the earth. There were no sneakers or boots like we have nowadays. The roads were dusty, people wore sandals if they wore shoes at all. People did not drive cars, some rode on the backs of various animals, but more often than not people walked. If people were walking around, even after a bath, their feet were always dirty. And it was custom that servants would come and watch the feet of anyone sitting at the table. They would wash the part of the body most susceptible to being dirty from the day, feet. So it is with the spiritual life.

You are clean, You are justified, sanctified, forgiven, through the life-giving word of Jesus. Remember what Peter confesses, ‘You have the words of eternal life.” Jesus words are life giving, and his words speak of his love and his words match his action of going to the cross for you and your salvation. You are pardoned for your sins. But until the day of your death, when your soul and body are separated, your feet will get dirty in this world (see stanzas 5 and 6 in particular). You will continue to sin, for you are still in your sinful flesh and you will be tempted to fall. We need the forgiveness of Christ Jesus every day. And you have it every single day. Remember your baptism! Luther would say when being tempted by Satan, “I am baptized.” There is no greater comfort than returning to the promise made by Christ in your baptism. And you can do that whenever you want. Luther encourages us each day to begin the day in Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is in accordance with what Luther writes in the 4^th part in the confession about baptism: “What does such baptizing with water indicate? It indicates that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.” See the effects of baptism is daily. We are returning each day to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We can go and confess our sins to God daily in the Prayer He has taught us to pray, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” You can confess your sins to your brother and sister in Christ and receive the mutual consolation. Or you can speak to your pastor and hear the absolution spoken over you individually. But the point is that God’s forgiveness for you in the Gospel is a continuous thing for you to receive and rejoice in constantly. That is why Christ gives you that forgiveness via different means: baptism, Lord’s Supper, the Word. Rejoice and be glad in them and have your feet washed by your willing Lord and Savior. It is difficult for us to believe this good news of our Lord’s love and forgiveness being continuous and perpetual unto the end, but that is what Scripture says and so we believe.

One final lesson which our Lord clearly wants to teach his disciples on the night before His death is that his disciples follow in his example. So, does that mean we should have had a ceremony to begin the service where we all washed each other’s feet? Not exactly, so what does it mean that Jesus washed his disciples’ feet and what does it mean for us to follow in his example? Washing feet is not something that we do just one day a year but it is a command. That is why we call this Thursday Maundy Thursday. Maundy comes from the Latin word Mandatum. This is where we get the word mandate. Jesus gives his disciples a new command. Its Command Thursday. And feet washing is the command. To wash feet means to humble ourselves as our Lord humbled himself.

That means we are to look at ourselves in our various stations in our life, as a husband, wife, son, daughter, worker, boss, student, and take stock of our God given talents and assess how we can use God’s gifts that he has given us not for ourselves but for our neighbors. We aren’t to use our talents for our own gratification but God’s glory. We are to serve them not despise them. Even though they might deserve it because they are sinful and have wronged us in the past. It means we are not to take offense at people when they wrong us and sin against us.

This is what feet washing looks like. And it is hard! It is hard because you are commanded to wash the feet of not just your friends but your enemies! And you are called to do this daily. Humble yourselves before your enemies? Daily you will meet people with dirty feet need to be encouraged, who need to hear the good news that Jesus died for their sins and that they are forgiven. These people will not always be nice people even though they are Christians. They come in all shapes and sizes. Some are gloomy, others proud, arrogant, mean.

In the book and class called Love and Respect, there’s a lesson about the different cycles. One is called the crazy cycle. In the crazy cycle, the wife won’t show respect until she is shown love and the husband won’t show love until he is shown some respect. You see how that makes the cycle a continual spiral downward. But we find a connection here. It would be easy to serve those who were nice and appreciative. It takes someone to be mature to break the cycle. To get over the fact of being disrespected or unloved. To show love and respect when it isn’t deserved.

Christ our Lord did that. He came to His own and they did not understand. He came and died while we were still His enemies. He washed the feet of those men who would run away from him when he was arrested. He showed love and forgiveness to His enemies, and He commands us to do this as well. We are commanded to wash feet.

Have in your own mind the mind of Christ Jesus our Lord. Receive His life blood and His body into yourself and be enlivened to live in righteousness and purity before him. Receive the washing which Christ has given to you in Holy Baptism. Return to the promise of the Gospel often. Receive the forgiveness of sins. Go wash your neighbors’ feet. Love them as Christ loved. Humble yourself before them. And the love and the forgiveness He has goes until the end.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

Held Captive by the King Who Comes in Hope

Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

When we think of Palm Sunday there is a lot going just with the reading from John that began our service. But then throw in the other lessons and the entire reading of our Lord’s Passion and it’s a whole different animal. But what we see when we hear the words of our Lord’s passion is the fulfillment of the word of hope that Zechariah that obscure post exilic prophet spoke of in our Old Testament lesson for the day.

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O Daughter of Jerusalem! Behold your king is coming to you, righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall speak peace to the nations; his rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth. As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double.”

The people who first heard Zechariah preach this had a very hard question before them. Would God do what He promised and give them a king from the line of David who would sit on the throne forever? They had no king; the line of David already then was in shambles and near obscurity. Had God gone back on his promise? Are you also questioning God about something? Does God really love me? Has God forgotten about me and my pains in this life? Am I going to receive relief in my time of languishing?

But rejoice! Yes, shout aloud! Rejoice for the Lord has not forgotten you but brings you this word of hope. Your king comes! He is righteous. And has salvation for you. A word of great hope. God has not forgotten you, but He is working in his time to bring about your salvation. And the son of David, Jesus Christ would come fulfilling the prophesy proclaimed.

But the king would not be like the kings anyone was used to. This king would not come in riding on a war horse but rather a donkey, a beast of burden. He is not wearing armor for war, nor is war what he is about. But rather its all about removing the weapons of war, the chariot, the war horse and bow. Peace and reconciliation is His Word to His people. He does not coerce submission and obedience by force, but rather He showers you with mercy and love. He comes with salvation. He comes to fix the broken relationship between His Father and us. He comes also to fix our broken relationships on earth. Christ’s Forgiveness and mercy rule the day. What a great promise of hope!

And this word of the Lord spoken by the prophet captivated the hearts of his hearers. Just like Jesus captivated those whom He healed and cared for during his earthly ministry. There was hope, and this hope held their listeners captive.

What about you? As we enter into Holy Week, we as Christians celebrate and revel in the Lord’s grace, mercy, and love for us. May the proclamation of hope in Christ Jesus be made your own! We hear again the passion accounts of our Lord. We recall the words of our Lord at the cross, “Forgive them Father”. We remember his crown of thorns. We recall his title: “King of the Jews“. We know why He does it all. He does it all out of love. He does it so that we would have forgiveness of sins and life everlasting. He has come to you and grants you salvation, having received salvation from Him in Holy Baptism. You have everlasting life for the sake of your Lord Christ Jesus who died in your place on that cross and rose again on the third day.

But what now? Are we not like the people of Zechariah’s day? Are we not waiting for the return of the King? Are we not all wondering why He hasn’t come already? When everything will be made right? When the relationships on this earth will be reconciled, when the spears will be beaten into plowshares? When His peace shall reign from the river to the ends of the earth. It has been a long time. But we, like the Israelites of Zechariah’s day, have been granted a word of peace and hope to trust in. Christ our Lord and King who has come now promises to be with us and give us his peace. He is with us always even to the end of the age. And we have his signs and tokens of love in the means of Grace: Baptism and His Supper. They are the ways by which His love, mercy, and grace shown at the cross are delivered and made yours. Your hope is anchored in the one who has come, and He has promised to come again to take us to where He is.

We know the end of the story. We know how this week of our Lord’s passion ends. We see the King of Glory, the King of Peace go to a cross for the sin of the world. Christ the King, battles against Satan, He sizes him up, and beats him at his own game. He rises from the grace on the third day, defeating death once and for all. He swallows up death forever so that you are brought out of the waterless pit and be given new life in Him.

You are living the new life promised to you by Christ now by your baptism. You are a child of the kingdom of peace. Do not forget that, hold on to the promise of your Lord who has bled out for you and gave up his life for you. Be at peace and hope in him. Look to the covenant which he spoke and now gives to you, “the new covenant in my blood,” He says. That is a token and pledge of the forgiveness won as well as the reconciliation between God and us in a vertical direction, and that same meal also promises and reconciles us to one another. Be forgiven by the Lord and forgive one another for the sins committed against each other.

Return to your stronghold. The stronghold is your Lord and Your God, who goes to his throne of the cross to win for you salvation over sin, death, and devil. Be held captive by His Word of Hope and Peace.

Rejoice and Hope in the one who has come, who brings righteousness and salvation to you, now and always, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

St. Matthias

Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

When you confess your faith in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and when you confess that the Word of Scripture is God’s Word, do you realize you also then must confess the fact that Satan exists? That Hell and Evil exist?

They most assuredly do, otherwise why would have the Father sent the Son? Surely, the Son was sent for the purpose of saving you from the clutches of Satan, his evil devices, and Hell itself. That is what Scripture says after all. But do you really believe it, or are you one of those people like many people in American Christianity that speak of hell and Satan as imaginary. Or if its real, Hell is empty. It is much easier these days to talk about the presence of evil. But the source of that evil?

It was not hard for the apostles to speak about all of this. They saw evil up-close and personal. The story of Matthias is not necessarily a happy one. Matthias only becomes an apostle, because of the evil that Judas committed against the Lord Jesus Christ, betraying Him into the hands of sinners.

For St. Matthias Day, we find the eleven apostles along with other disciples in the upper room during the days between Christ’s ascension and the day of Pentecost. They were up there in the room awaiting the promise of Jesus, the power from on high, the Holy Spirit. But there’s a problem. There are only 11 apostles when there should be 12.

Evil is real, and the apostles knew it to be real. They had seen Satan and his evil plans go into action. Luke tells us on the night that Jesus was betrayed that Satan entered into Judas. And a little later Jesus was talking to the remaining disciples that Satan desired to sift them like wheat, of whom Peter would be the first. Peter would deny Christ three times that night. Satan would sift them all, as they ran away from Jesus when He was arrested.

And Peter, who was restored by the risen Christ, now stands up and speaks of the great evil deed of Judas. “Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus. For he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry.” Luke adds, “This man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out.” This is not a pretty sight at all. Judas was so overcome by the evil that he committed that he had no hope of being forgiven, and he killed himself. Peter goes on interpreting the events in light of the Psalms of David, “May his camp become desolate, and let there be no one to dwell in it”; and “Let another take his office.”

Enter Matthias, a man who had accompanied Jesus and the other apostles during all the time that the Lord went in and out among them, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when He was taken up from them. There was another man also who fit this description, but the lot fell to Matthias. And He was numbered with the 11, making 12 apostles once again.

Satan and evil exist, this we know. And Matthias and the rest of the 11 now are to go out to preach the truth that evil has been overcome in the one Jesus Christ, who died and rose again from the dead, beating Satan at his own game. The apostles are to declare war on the old Satanic foe just like their Lord did when He came into hostile territory, becoming man, and then going out into the wilderness and ultimately all the way to the cross to defeat Satan for all humanity. Now Matthias and the apostles preach the victory of Christ over Satan and Evil. And one little word of Christ crucified makes Satan fall.

Matthias is barely mentioned (if ever) again in any of the books of the New Testament. The extra-biblical materials we have concerning Matthias are few, and what we do have are quite late. But isn’t that the way of many of the pastors placed into office of the Holy Ministry? Matthias was placed into the office not to make a name for himself but to proclaim Christ and Him crucified to the nations. He was placed into the Office to confront the very evil of Satan that he knew well with the triumphant word of Christ Jesus. That Christ Jesus has overcome Satan and thus has made us His own. That our own acts of evil have been forgiven for the sake of Christ Jesus. That Christ holds the keys of death and hades now and forevermore, and He gives eternal life to us.

Pastors now, are also called to confront the evils that are amongst us and even within us. They are called to preach the truth of God’s Word of the realities of hell and Satan, and evil. And they too are to confront evil with the truth of Christ Jesus. They are called to preach repentance for the forgiveness of sins, that we be saved from everlasting death.

Jesus when teaching, called many people evil. He even called his disciples evil because of their sinful hearts. We too have sinful hearts. It’s our natural heart’s state, another way to say it is it’s the Old Adam in us. We are by nature sinful and unclean. Jesus confronts evil head on and deals with it in a way only He could. He destroys evil by his death on the cross, whereby He swallows up death, sin, and Satan, the source of evil forever, and rises victorious over it all. And He forgives. All the evil of your own heart, Christ has covered with His Blood.

And while Judas spilled his own guts over his evil and wicked deeds, your Lord pours out his blood for you in love that you might be forgiven and be at peace in the forgiveness of sins. In effect being changed from inside out, your heart of evil removed, and a living heart in its place. A new creation for the sake of Christ.

This is what those men placed into the Office of the Holy Ministry are called to confess and to preach, that you might be saved, and not be overcome by the Evil One. Satan and his evil devices are real as Scripture says, but so is their Conqueror, our Savior Jesus Christ. Trust him in just as Matthias did, that you be numbered in great multitude that no one can number singing the praise of the Lamb forever and ever. Amen.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

A Sermon for the Purification of Mary and Presentation of our Lord

Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel, saying, “If a woman conceives and bears a male child, then she shall be unclean seven days. As at the of her menstruation, she shall be unclean. And on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. Then shall continue for thirty-three days in the blood of her purifying. She shall not touch anything holy, nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying are completed … And when the days of her purifying are completed, whether for a son or a daughter, she shall bring to the priest at the entrance of the tent of meeting a lamb a year old for a burnt offering, and a pigeon or a turtledove … and if she cannot afford a lamb, then she shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering. And the priest shall make atonement for her, and she shall be clean. (Various verses from Leviticus 12)

These words come straight out of the Law of the Lord preached to the people of Israel by Moses. This is why we find Mary, Joseph, and Jesus at the temple forty days after our Lord’s birth. It was to be in accordance of the Law. Also, as part of this day Jesus was being presented back to the Lord as the Lord had spoken in Exodus 13 that every firstborn belongs to the Lord. Mary is following in the train of Hannah, giving back to God the gift He had given to her. While Mary might have been at the Temple for her own purification, the events surrounding Jesus take a bit more of a center stage. With this day we see the faithfulness of both the Lord and his people. The Lord was and remains faithful to His promise of sending the world’s redemption, and in thanksgiving His people happily keep the Law. And they rejoice over the redemption so given. And in the words of our Epistle lesson, we see Jesus begin His service as a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God by the act of Mary presenting Him to the Lord, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. Being the firstborn son of Mary, he is holy to the Lord, and at the same time He is the only begotten Son of God ready to be the perfect and once for all sacrifice for the sins of the world, saving the offspring of Abraham from everlasting death.

No one is happier or more joyful to see His redemption face to face than Simeon who was a righteous and devout man, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And He had been told by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before He had seen the Lord’s Christ. This promise affirms the Incarnation of the Son of God. Salvation only comes from the Lord, and in Jesus, Simeon sees salvation in that little child. It’s Christmas all over again!

The very tangible peace of God is shown to Simeon. He sees Jesus and in Him He has peace, the very peace for all the earth which was proclaimed at Jesus birth is made Simeon’s. It was a promise worth waiting for, worth being in the temple, the very image which testifies to the greater reality that God would dwell in the midst of His people forever, only now the temple of God is the body of Jesus Christ, which is why Simeon takes the child into his own arms and probably didn’t take his eyes off of the child when he began blessing God singing his song. God was there as a Man, a 40 day old baby. Simeon saw his salvation with his own eyes. And in that child, the very Son of God in the flesh, he has his peace.

We should note that the mission of Jesus to be the redeemer of the world is not something placed upon him at his baptism or some other time. No, this mission of the Son of God to be the redeemer of the world was given to him from the very beginning. Jesus does not assume this position or take it up, but He always had it. The angels confess Jesus to be the Savior just minutes after his birth, and here Simeon confesses Him to be His redemption 40 days out of the womb.

Something else that we should praise God over is the fact that Simeon explicitly confesses the mystery that the gentiles also are made a part of God’s redemption. We are brought and welcomed to the table! God’s salvation will be made known to us Gentiles. For you and I have heard the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, that He came to save from sin, to bring consolation to us poor, miserable sinners who were sitting in the darkness of sin and death. He, himself likewise partook of the same things (flesh and blood), that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

So on the day of his mother’s own atonement offering, that she might be cleansed and re-enter the temple and join in the worship of the Lord God, Jesus is given back to God that he might enter into His Father’s service and be the atoning sacrifice for all the world. Jesus still is working in service to His Father for your salvation now. He has gone to the cross for you. He dies for your rebellion against the Laws of God. He consoles you with His words of forgiveness, speaking kindly to you in gentleness and love, showing his great mercy and love for you, calling you to believe in this Gospel. He has pulled you out of the great slavery, has cut the shackles of sin around your ankles and gives you freedom in Him. You are free from sin, rejoice and live in Christ Jesus. Be at peace in your salvation just as Simeon was.

May we be at peace even when temptations come because they will come as we still are in our sinful flesh and sinful world. May we not lose our heads and our way but call out to Him who is able to help us who are being tempted for He Himself suffered when tempted. Only when we are in Christ Jesus do we prevail over temptation, otherwise we will fall back into sinful shame, and vice. May our Lord keep us from entering back into the shackles he has broken us out of by his bitter sufferings and death! And if we have done just that, repent, confess your sins to God. For the Lord is gracious and merciful and does indeed forgive our sins for He has died for them and has atoned for them by his own blood.

Come. Hear, and see your salvation. See your Savior at the font where He made you God’s own. There He cleansed you with Water and His Word. And at the Altar he now feeds you His own body and blood. You see your salvation just as Simeon did. And that is why we sing His song right after the distribution of the Sacrament. We have beheld with our own eyes our salvation. We have received the very body and blood that paid our ransom at the cross into our very mouths that we might have the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. And where those things are there is peace for us. This is no peace which the world can give, but a peace which surpasses all understanding. A peace which only God can give. A peace which is confessed by the faithful: “Yes, Lord, I am ready to go. Ready to go and sleep unto the day of the resurrection knowing that I have seen your salvation, salvation which you have made mine for the sake your Son my brother, Jesus Christ, my faithful high priest.”

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

The Thread of God’s Love

Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen!

I love the service of Lessons and Carols because of how many readings we are able to hear. The story of God’s love for his fallen creation is evident all the way through the readings. I would recommend you to read your Bible with this in the back of your mind. Because really, that is what this is all about: How God loves His fallen sinful creation so much that He would dare to send His Son into the world to save it.

What joy and peace one has when that is known and believed! Adam and Eve had fallen from paradise. They had been kicked out. Yet, God’s love for them did not change. His demeanor did not change. They were the ones who changed. They were the ones who tried to hide and cover their shame with fig leaves. It was God who called out to them, found them, and had them come clean about what took place. Yes, they sinned against God and had fallen into and under the curse of the Law, yet God promised that He would act by giving the woman an offspring who would vanquish the serpent by crushing his head. And in this promise did Adam and Eve hope. They hoped and longed for that child to come.

Even in the midst of sin, God was loving his fallen creation, working to bring it back to Himself. But it was not going to come to right away. He was going to show throughout the rest of the Old Testament how He was going to work to bring about His people’s redemption. We learn from Abraham and Isaac that the Lord God would send the Son to be a substitute, like the ram was for Isaac in the end.

When the Son would come, He would show love to those sitting in the darkness of their own sins and sufferings, by shining His light upon them that they be saved. And this for all peoples. And the zeal of the Lord of hosts would make this occur. And his rule would bring peace which only the Lord could bring. This child would bring about peace only known in Eden. Why does God do this? Because He loves us, and desires us to be reconciled to Him. His Son would be the one through whom they would come. So, he sends His Son for you and your salvation.

And with Matthew 1 and Luke 2, we learn who this child is, and how God will continue to show us His Love for us. For He is none other than God in the Flesh, Emmanuel, God with Us. And the God who is us is also the God who saves from sins: Jesus. And we with the Heavenly Host should rejoice and sing Glory to God in the Highest! For by sending us His Son, God and man are reconciled. Sins of all kinds will be taken care by Him because of His great love for his creation.

God is love says John the apostle in his 1^st letter. It is His nature to love. And We know his love in this way: He did what He promised! The love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. The birth of Christ is indeed joyful, God is with us! But that is not the end of God’s love in action. No, not by a long shot. God’s love comes to full manifestation a few decades later on a cross outside the city of Jerusalem where the Son given would give himself up for you and for the world. There He would die, and speak words of love: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

And what His love still shines. For Christ overcame death by his resurrection. And we live in His Resurrection. You have been brought into the resurrected life by the waters of Holy Baptism, where you are an heir of everlasting. You now live by the light of Christ! So, live in that light. This is the light that is the true life of men. The Light has come and the darkness cannot overcome it. Live in Christ, who loves you to death, and love one another just as Christ has loved you.

That means speaking to one another and asking for forgiveness and given forgiveness to one another because that is the living in the Light of Christ. Act as children of God, for that is what you are, you are his baptized children. Show mercy to one another for you have been shown mercy and love by God.

The Christ Candle is aptly called the Christ candle for it is lit and prominently displayed during the Christmas season and then again in the season of Easter. You would not be celebrating Christmas if Easter didn’t happen. For why would we celebrate and remember the birth of a God-Man who died but did not rise triumphantly over the grave? And also, we would not be celebrating Easter if the miracle of God becoming Man did not happen, for only the blood of God would suffice to pay our ransom from sin and death. There would be no salvation given to all humanity without the death and resurrection of the Word made flesh.

Remember the loving work of Christ as you look at the Christ candle. Know the Lord’s great love for you, promising to come and save you, and fulfilling His promise by being born of the virgin. And remember that this day is just the beginning of the acts of love that our Lord does for us in His flesh. For He goes to the cross for you. He rises for you in His flesh. He ascends in His Flesh to the right hand of God, and still in love for you now gives you His body and blood in the blessed Sacrament of the Altar. Look at the Christ Candle and know Christ is here in love for you and for your salvation from sin and death. Rejoice with the angels of the heavenly host. Glory to God in the Highest and Peace to His People on Earth! For the Light has shined on us who were in darkness. The very light of the only begotten. And by Him we have everlasting life!

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

(Re)Building a House

Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen!

David had a fine desire. He, who was building his own house in Jerusalem, desired for the Lord to have such a house as well. A temple to dwell in the midst of His people. For no longer were the people wandering in the wilderness, but had finally been brought into the promised land and had taken over Jerusalem and made it their own. It was time for the ark to stop dwelling in a tent, a more permanent structure ought to be built on Mt. Zion. And David had the blessing of the prophet Nathan to go and pursue it.

But then we hear God’s own words about the situation. God did not ask for such a house in all of the time of the people’s wanderings. And in fact, God tells David it will not be you who builds me a house, but rather I am going to build you a house. A house that will not fall. That one of your own offspring will sit upon the throne forever. It’s the continuation of the promise made to Adam and Eve, Seth, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, David, and the list goes on. The house of David, which the Lord promised to establish comes all the way down to a virgin named Mary, who was betrothed to Joseph who was of the house and line of David. Joseph was a nobody. David and his house were just a stump, a nub, a memory of better days for Israel.

From an earthly view point, the house of David had fallen on extremely hard times. The earthly kingdom and rule of the Davidic Dynasty did not last very long at least as one united kingdom. David united the 12 tribes; Jerusalem was the capitol. But already, David’s house was filled with strife. Just a few chapters later in 2 Samuel we learn of David’s sin with Bathsheba, the attempt to cover up of a sexual indiscretion, then ultimately having Bathsheba’s husband killed in battle. The same prophet Nathan who gives approval of David’s desire to build the Lord a house is the man who comes and calls David to repentance and speaks to him the consequences of his sin. David’s sons would fight over the throne, Solomon would become king and remain king over the 12 tribes, but with his son Rehoboam, the country unraveled. Split in two. And the kings that followed in David’s line were pretty awful more often than not. Only a few actually had a desire to follow in the ways of their father David, having a living faith and trust in the Lord. And then the kingdom was taken from them. Babylon came and carried off their king. They carried off the nobles and the rest of the people is subsequent years as the Lord has warned for years by the mouths of his prophets. In the day that Gabriel visited Mary, the people of Israel are no longer free, but under Roman occupation. They don’t really have their own place any more. And violent men still afflict them. The house of David was full of violent men, the sword would not leave that house. The promise of the David’s house remaining forever? Not even close.

But God does not work according the ways of the world. As Paul says, the world considers God’s actions and ways foolish. Consider the cross of the Christ. “The Word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. ”

Here is the folly of the Lord now. He sends his Angel Gabriel to Mary to speak to her that she who is a virgin will bear a son. And its not just any son, but the very Son of God. The Son of the Most High. That house of David, in all its shambles? Yep, its being rebuilt. A shoot is coming from Jesse’s stump. The throne upon which this Son will sit forever? It’s not a kingdom of this world. It is the throne of heaven. And even in the womb of Mary, God would be there sitting on His throne. And He would be coming to establish the house of David forever. But it’s a crazy promise. How can this be? Mary is still a virgin. Gabriel speaks the truth, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.”

It must be this way otherwise the Son would not be holy. This is a confession of Original Sin. We pass that original sin from Adam and Eve is transmitted through carnal conception and birth from father and mother. But in Christ’s birth? No seed from the father, no original sin. Christ is born without sin and is the perfect man for you. Yet He is also true God come to save and remove from you and all people the sins and the ultimate consequence of your sins: death.

And Mary believed the words of Gabriel, the messenger of the Lord. And like her Father Abraham many generations before, it was credited to her as righteousness. Mary is called the favored one. We sang it today: Most highly favored Lady. She is the Mother of God and rightfully should be remembered. And yet at the same time, she is not a perfect person either. She was a sinner just like you and me. By nature, sinful and unclean. Hence why she goes on to sing her song: “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” She knew she also needed a savior. The human house and line she was a part of needed to be redeemed.

You all know the song, Mary Did You Know?, And you probably have seen the facebook memes floating around with that question to the Virgin Mary and words in the mouth of Mary, “Yes, Gabriel told me.” She was told her son would be called the Son of God, but I doubt that she had any idea of when He would be called the Son of God. The Disciples would call Jesus the Son of God, when in the boat after watching Jesus walk on the water. But other than that, only Satan, the demons use that title of Jesus. It’s used very seldomly. But it’s used most prominently during the time of Christ’s passion. And it’s a Roman Centurion who says, “Surely, this was the Son of God” upon seeing what all took place at the time of his death.

Jesus would be known as the Son of God in his act of love for his people. The King would come into the holy city, to much and great fanfare but his crown would first be one of thorns. He would take his position as King at His cross. “Nails, spear, shall pierce him through, the cross he borne for me, for you. Hail, Hail the word made flesh, the babe the Son of Mary” (LSB 370 What Child is This, stanza 2).

And by his birth, life, death and resurrection, He establishes a house. And it’s a house that lasts forever. It’s a house which you have been brought into, like Mary by the hearing and trusting of the Word. “Behold I am a servant, let it be to me according to you word.” And Christ speaks to you words of comfort and joy. You who were once in the darkness of sin and death, know that Christ has come to carry your burden of sin and death to the cross. You are forgiven for Christ’s sake and welcomed into the house prepared for you.

God speaks wonderful promises. He spoke to David of establishing a house, and now he speaks to you promising that you are part of that house. You are welcomed into that house as His child by the waters of holy baptism. The world says its foolish and weird. How can water do such great things? Its not just water but rather its water with the Word of God along with the faith that trusts this word of God that makes Holy Baptism what it is, a lavish washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior. Nothing is impossible with God. Why doubt the Lord’s promises made to you now if he kept even a bigger promise in the past? He sent His Son, born of the Virgin, as He promised David and those before Him. Jesus came and dealt with sin and death by the cross, and rose from the dead. Just as He said He would. Why we sit back and doubt the promises made by God to us in Holy Baptism and the Lord’s Supper now is beyond me. But we all do from time to time. Repent. The Lord is faithful and true. Do not spurn His Word and His promises but take them to heart and trust them.

If we cannot be like Mary and say, “Let it be to me according to you word, may we be like the Father of the demon possessed son. “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief!” Because we will have times of forget the Lord and doubt his promise to show us mercy and steadfast love. Even Mary seemed to have forgotten who Jesus was when they searched frantically for Jesus in Jerusalem. He had to be in His Father’s house doing His Father’s business. But that is the reason to run to the altar and to receive the body and blood of your Lord all the more. It is the meal of those of the house. Christ welcomes you with open arms to His table. “Come, you who are weak and heavy laden and I will give you rest.” “Come, taste and see that the Lord is good.” Be strengthened in your faith, trusting the words of promise spoken to you: This is my body, This is my blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. What grand promises made to you.

God’s promise to David was kept. The throne of David was established forever, through the sending of His only begotten Son into the flesh via the womb of Mary. And God continues to keep His promises He has made to you. You are part of that house that Christ has established. Let it be. Amen, Lord. Yes, Lord, let it be me to according to your Word.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

Who are You, John the Baptist?

“Who are you?” That was the question the Jews had when John came on the scene. John confessed and did not deny but confessed emphatically that he was not the Christ. Okay, makes sense. He must be Elijah then, for Elijah was said to return according the prophet Malachi. But John’s answer to that question had to leave the Jews scratching their heads. He said he wasn’t Elijah either, at least not Elijah returned from Heaven. Perhaps he was the Prophet which was to come, the Prophet like Moses. Nope that either. So, John was a perplexing figure to say the least.

They couldn’t figure Him out. They seem to be on the right track to some extent but just can’t seem to connect the dots. Especially when John speaks of himself as the voice crying in the wilderness, “Make straight the way of the Lord.” While the Pharisees wanted to know more about John, John didn’t seem to care much about making himself known. He had one job. And he was set on doing it well. He was proclaiming the One who was to come. That’s the message that John was to proclaim, not preach himself but Christ.

We heard that prophesy from Isaiah 40 last week. And we heard Mark’s account of what John preached: A baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins and that one was coming who would baptize with the Holy Spirit. The work of making the Lord’s way straight was beginning. It was coming into place. For the Lord was coming soon to the river Jordan and the His ministry was soon beginning. Rejoice!

That should have been the first thought in the head of the Jews. The One longed for, the one who would set everything right would finally come. And many heard the news of John and took it to heart. For they came in droves to be baptized by him, confessing their sins, being made ready for the coming of the Lord. For with his coming, He would bring good news and liberty, proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor, that the warfare between God and man was over, that sins would be dealt with by God once and for all. Rejoice!

But the Jews did not rejoice. No, they played the part of John 1. Jesus came to his own and they received them not. John the Baptist makes it sound like Jesus is actually in the midst of the crowd listening to the conversation that very day, when he says, “I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know, even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.” Jesus was an unknown to these Jews, a face easily forgotten in the sea of people around them out in the wilderness. But to those who heard and believed the preaching of John, they were made sons and daughters of God.

John tries with all his might to make sure once and for all that everyone who hears his voice understands that He is not the Christ. Even though John came in the spirit and power of Elijah, and Jesus in the synoptic Gospels, leads his disciples to understand John to be the fulfillment of Malachi 4, John never says that He is Elijah. That would be too much for the people. They would follow John rather than follow Christ. And in fact, even though John worked hard to confess that he was not the Christ, there is still a small remnant of people who hold to John the Baptist as the Messiah to this day. You can learn of a some of this in the book of Acts where a couple of men who were baptized into John’s baptism but had not understood John’s preaching to trust in the one who was to come after him, Jesus.

John’s purpose is solely to exhort his hearers to trust in the One who is to come, Jesus Christ. “Behold Him, the Lamb of God who comes to take away the sin of the world.”

John was bold and confident. And could be on the basis of God’s Word. John trusted the promises of God, he himself being the fulfillment of the prophesy of Isaiah 40, and also the promise that he would have the spirit and power of Elijah. He certainly has the voice and the appearance down, wearing rough camel hair clothing and eating locusts and honey. And he desires that you trust boldly in the promises that God has made. May we be so bold to hold to every word that comes from the Lord.

Good news would come from the one upon whom the Spirit of God would descend and remain. You have John’s own testimony a few verses later confirming that when Jesus came to be baptized numbering himself with the transgressors that He saw the Spirit of God descend upon him and remain. You have Jesus own words in Luke 4 saying that this prophesy was being fulfilled as the people gathered in the synagogue heard Jesus speak to them. Yet, they acted like the Pharisees and would not believe His Words. And then you have Jesus own work healing the sick, the lame, and forgiving their sins too. What do you do you see and what do you hear? The Lord’s favor was coming and has come in Jesus! Rejoice!

He has come to bring you good news but he brings the word of restoration. He came to rebuild and restore, to reconcile and bring peace. Isaiah 61 looks forward to the time when the exiles will be brought home. Jerusalem would be destroyed, burned to the ground, it would be a devastation. In the return from exile, the Jews would rebuild yes, but it would be shell of its former glory. The real temple would come when Jesus came and dwelt in their midst just as he did, and the temple of his body would be destroyed but in three days it would be raised back up. God would dwell with Humanity for forevermore. That God and man are reconciled to one another by the One John proclaimed would come.

John was not trying to fool the Pharisees and the Jews or anyone else. He was pretty upfront with them. Search the Scriptures test His words against them, see that John is there fulfilling the purpose he was to sent to perform. He is pointing to Christ, not to himself. Don’t worry too much about knowing who John is, but rather worry about knowing Christ!

John says what He says because He is not the main attraction, nor does He want to be! “You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, “I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.’ The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete. He must increase, but I must decrease.”

John rightly testifies of Jesus being the bridegroom, and He bears the gifts of bridegroom for his bride. “Rejoice and be glad for your Bridegroom has come!” says John. And He comes with his robe of righteousness for you! These are your words and John’s words to say, “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God!” Why? For He comes bearing my salvation. He comes to set me free. As the beautiful hymn Wake Awake For Night is Flying says in the 2^nd stanza, “Zion hears the watchmen singing, And all her heart with joy is springing; She wakes and rises from her gloom.” Rejoice!

You heard John’s forthright preaching. How he calls you to account for you sins especially the ones that are stuck to the bottom of the pot that is your heart, but once He has scraped them and agitated your hearts John also points you to the remedy of all your sins. Your bridegroom, Jesus. He comes to you cleansing you from your sins. We look to the font, the place where water and word washed over us, where Christ calls us His own. We look to the white garment given to us then, reminding us of the pure robe of righteousness that Christ has put onto us. And we can continually remember our baptisms throughout all our days, coming to Christ, confessing our sins daily, repenting of them and trusting His promise to forgive our sins. That is the baptismal life in a nut shell. Continually recognizing our failings to do keep God’s laws and to be in alignment with them and receiving from God mercy and forgiveness and trying again. Our life is one of repentance. Our robes don’t always look white and pristine. Most time they are as black as coal. But Rejoice! Yes, Rejoice for Christ comes to cleanse you to raise you up, and bind up your broken hearts, and repeat to you the blessed Good News that He has come and He has come to save you.

And He comes bearing you every good gift. He comes to give you Himself, His own body and blood that is the new covenant, the everlasting covenant. Rejoice! Know and believe the good news of that the Lord Jesus has come to save you from sin and death. You who have been sinned against by your loved ones, who have been put down, those of you ashamed of your sins that have come to light and those that could come to light. Know you have been set free by the Bridegroom who willingly laid down his life for his bride and cleansed her with his own blood. He paid the dowry to take you as His bride with his own blood. You are far more precious to Him than any silver or gold, so he pays with his body and blood. And now he comes to you, giving to you that same body and blood to strengthen your faith in these dreary days, that you might cling ever so more tightly to His promise of His coming again. Eat and Drink believing His Words, receive His peace and comfort that comes with knowing that He comes to you that you might be rescued from the clutches of Satan.

The promise will never be broken. Just like the prophesies that He would come, so He comes know to you in His Word and Sacraments. As John the Baptist says, “Behold Him, Yes here. For Christ is in your midst now. Rejoice O Bride of Christ, for your fortunes have been restored, and He has come and done glorious things in your midst. He has come to save you.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

Advent and Peace

Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Being a hunter, I have been in the woods well before the break of day. It was on one such early morning before the sun broke forth that I heard one of the most awful sounds I have ever heard. As the sun was just beginning to illuminate the hillside, an owl swooped through and picked up a squirrel that had wandered from its resting place. It is what happens. Owls are predators, squirrels are prey. And the Owl hunts them down ruthlessly. You have probably seen this play out elsewhere. Coyotes chasing after deer. Animal Planet shows where the lions lie in wait to pounce on a zebra getting a drink at the local water hole on the savanna. It is what we know. There are some animals who are higher up on the food chain. Wolves eat lambs. Leopards, goats. Lions, calves.

But what we see in Isaiah 11 is that this is not going to always be the case. Lions will eat straw like the ox. A child will play over the den of the snake and not be bothered. Everything will be at peace with one another.

You look now and there is nothing but conflict, contention, unrest, and strife all around us. That squirrel on the hillside never stood a chance against that owl. And to throw it into our own circumstances, we are at war with one another and even at war with ourselves. We fight and bicker back and forth. Our words towards one another sting just as badly as a yellow jacket in the summer if not worse. Peace is something that just isn’t here, and what we read from Isaiah 11 sounds like a fairy tale more times than not because of the events we keep seeing play out in the world, our nation, state, and even our own streets. Then there is the spiritual war going on as well.

The context in which Isaiah’s prophesy comes is not much different than our own. Judah was in trouble because they had a crummy king in Ahaz and Ahaz was no believer in the Lord. The house of David was in shambles, so much so that the line of David is just a stump, barely alive if not by the grace of the Lord, who would bring about the new shoot, and we know who this shoot is.

But it’s this One whom Isaiah prophesied of that the remnant of believers hoped and longed for. They hoped for the type of peace spoken of in the imagery of Isaiah 11:6–9. A bear lying down next to cow. Wolves dwelling with lambs rather than making them their lunch. They longed for the day when spears would be beaten into plowshears.

The hostility we see in the world even in the realm of animals, reflects the greater hostility that is felt between us and God because of the innumerable sins we have committed against Him. We sinful human beings can only think of God as the big bad wolf who will chomp us to bits. A certain lion who roars seeking someone to devour will get us to believe that it’s not Him we should be worried about, but God who has said the sinner must die. Satan says it is God who we should be afraid of, that we should be afraid of the Lion that came from tribe of Judah. Satan loves to lie to you. But is that what God really wants? Does He desire the death of His people? Not at all.

You see when God created the world in the beginning, he loved the world and all of his creation. He was proud of it. He called it very good, after all. And it was not God’s demeanor towards His creation and creatures that changed in the fall, but Adam and Eve’s. They were the ones who changed. They alienated themselves from God. They hid because they were afraid. Tricked by Satan’s lies. God’s demeanor did not change, nor has it now. Why did he call out to them? Why did He give them the promise of the One to come and give them clothing if His love for them had changed? He never stopped loving, and I argue actually showed even greater love because He has worked to restore us to what we once were so that we might not die eternally. And He still loves his creation and will do everything to bring back in alignment with Him so that everything will be at peace have eternal life.

And that peace comes by the birth of the One prophesied by Isaiah. The Spirit of the Lord did rest upon Him. We have the apostolic witness of this occurring at His Baptism. The Spirit remained on Him says John the Baptist. Jesus himself reads Isaiah 61 in Luke 4 and that the day Isaiah prophesied of there had been fulfilled as the people heard Jesus speak. His birth brings peace to the world. Hence, why the Angelic host sing: “Glory to God in the Highest and on earth peace, good will toward men!” This babe who is Christ, the Lord brings about Peace which only God in the Flesh can bring.

And most importantly He came while we were still sinners. There is nothing that we did to deserve our God coming to save us from our eternal demise, but He did because He loved us and wanted us to be at peace with Him forever. He came and preached peace while we were still far off! Even when we still enemies of God and hostile towards Him, he came bearing peace and good will. Jesus knew what would happen. He knew He would be led like a sheep to the slaughter and even then, not a single word of hostility came out against those whom He came to save. He loved us unto the end. And He still does love us. For look what he does now for you.

He brings you salvation and peace by his blood. He poured it out at the cross that you might be brought near to God, being made His child. And now pours that blood into your very mouths at His Supper. Think of that, you are a member of the household of God for Christ’s sake and welcomed to His Table to eat the finest of foods. Fellowship that lasts forever. The angels rightly proclaim that peace was coming to men. Peace which only Jesus, the Son of God could give. It is a peace which you receive every time you come up to this altar to receive the body and blood which He gave up for you at the cross. And he speaks to you upon receiving this blessed Sacrament: Depart in my peace, knowing with all certainty that your sins are forgiven for my sake.

Knowing and believing that God is not out to get us and catch us like an owl hunting down a squirrel, we can be at peace knowing God’s love for us. And knowing and believing that we are peace with God, let us then be at peace with one another for Christ did not just come for you, but He came also for your neighbor. That you both may be fellow citizens together in God’s Kingdom. Fellow members of the household of God. So, you kneel together at this altar, confessing the same faith in Christ Jesus, trusting in his promises, receiving peace together. Build each other up knowing that you both have the same foundation: Jesus Christ. Do not fight and bicker with one another, but talk gently to one another. Speak kindly. Do not lie to one another. Do not steal one another’s honor or break down each other’s reputation. But rather build up fellow members of the Church of God. Be at peace with one another, for Christ has brought you into the state of peace with His heavenly Father.

The second candle of the advent is associated with the word peace. May we see that true peace, peace with God comes in the gift of God sending His beloved Son to the world that He might shed his blood at that we who were once far off would be brought near and bring an end to the hostility between Man and God once and for all. No longer separated but living in perfect peace for the sake of Christ our Lord.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

Translation is Tradition — Treason?

Encore Post: 1600 years ago, a respected, old monk lived in a cave in Bethlehem said to be the birthplace of Jesus. We know him as Saint Jerome, the father of translation, one of the greatest scholars of church history, standing only in the shadow of his contemporary, St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo. We give thanks for him and all translators on September 30. In medieval times, the church assigned him to the role of patron saint of libraries. His symbol in Christian art is the lion, after the legend that he pulled a thorn out of the paw of a lion cub, who followed him the rest of his life. A large version of the classical painting of him in his study hangs opposite my desk in the Walther Building of the Wayne and Barbara Kroemer Library Complex.

Jerome is said to have written the latin pun: translatio traditio est. It means both: “Translation is Tradition” and “Translation is Treason.” It captures perfectly the two forces that pull at faithful translators. You can either perfectly rewrite the meaning of the text in the new language or reproduce each word with the one or two words in the new language that are closest to the original. If you do the first, the result is more a commentary — what the scholar believes from his or her theological viewpoint. If you do the second, people reading the translation have a very hard time understanding what it means.

Most translations lean towards one or the other, but try to do both. If they succeed — like St. Jerome’s Vulgate, Luther’s German Bible and the King James Version — generations will come to love the language of these version and at the same time hear God’s Word. It passes down the faith to the next generation. When they do not, it distorts God’s word at best and betrays it at worst. So, translation is both tradition and treason. For those of us who speak English, we are blessed with dozens of translations. Taken together, they open to us the treasures of Holy Scripture. For this reason, we thank God for Jerome — and all translators!