Proper 29 (Malachi 3:13-18)

“They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him.” Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. The text for our sermon this last Sunday of the Church Year comes from the Old Testament lesson read a few moments ago from the third chapter of the prophet Malachi. Dear friends in Christ: The accusation from God thunders forth from the heavens in the first verse of our text. “‘Your words have been hard against me,’ says the Lord.” The scene is the heavenly courtroom. You and I are sitting in the witness chair, face to face with our God who is at the same time the prosecutor and the judge. Doesn’t seem all that fair, but hey, He’s God. He is always the judge, because who else can the Creator of all things be, and in this case He is the accuser, because our sin is against Him. We stammer, our minds searching for an answer, an explanation, or an excuse that will satisfy our God, but all that comes out of our mouths is a question. “How have we spoken against you?” It’s a good strategy- make God prove His case. Unfortunately, God is ready to do so, and He has all the evidence He will ever need. He will quickly show us that we are on trial for putting Him on trial, for accusing Him of injustice. God wants us to wrestle with Him in prayer, but the prosecution plans to demonstrate that these words go far beyond the prayer of faith to the very edge of unbelief.

God reads the charges, quoting from our own words. “You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God. What is the profit of our keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning before the Lord of hosts? And now we call the arrogant blessed. Evildoers not only prosper but they put God to the test and they escape.’” Wow, we really said all that? It doesn’t seem possible that we would be so bold, so rebellious, so disrespectful. We open our mouths to protest, but God is ready to press this point home. He shows us our thoughts and our words, the thoughts and words that come forth when we see how non-Christians live. Why do non-believers have all the fun? They get to do what they want, live how they want, enjoy life to the fullest. They seem to live such carefree lives, without being burdened with all the rules and responsibilities that come with being a Christian. Do you hear us, God? Your rules are dragging us down! Being a Christian is like going to a funeral each and every day. All we talk about is your rules and our sin, and to be quite frank, God, its ruining my life! There are so many things I want to do, but because I’m a ‘Christian,’ I can’t. And that wouldn’t be so bad if what you offered was exciting, but this Christian life is boring! That pastor stands up and talks about sin and Jesus, sin and Jesus each and every week, and I’m tired of it! Why can’t I have all the fun that my neighbors have, why can’t I live life to the fullest? I mean, look at all those other people- if they are truly breaking your Law each and every day, why do they prosper? Why don’t you just strike them down?

God pauses in His presentation, and the entire courtroom senses that the prosecution has reached a turning point in its argument. It is one thing to say that Christianity is a downer, but what follows is even worse. “And now we call the arrogant blessed. Evildoers not only prosper but they put God to the test and they escape.” This statement calls into question God’s justice. God, if you do not punish those who defy you, I’m going to go all in; I’m going to call those who disobey your commands blessed. That’s what they are, blessed because you have not executed your justice against them. Christians aren’t the blessed ones, because we just suffer, we just walk around in funeral clothes. We don’t prosper, but those who despise you do. They put you to the test and they escape. God, you just sit there and let them defy you, and therefore they are blessed. There is only one conclusion to this line of thought, and that is where the prosecution concludes its case. God calls our attention once again to Exhibit A: “You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God.” He pulls out His Hebrew dictionary and looks up the word translated as ‘vain.’ “Let the court note that this word has the meaning of worthlessness or emptiness.” This is about as bad as it can get. God accuses us of saying that serving Him is pointless, it is worthless. It literally has no meaning at all, it has no benefit, and indeed those who do not serve God seem to have His blessing. This line of accusation toward God has taken us to the very verge of unbelief; now we see exactly what God means when He said to us, “Your words have been hard against me.”

The courtroom sits in stunned silence. What will God do? Will He destroy us, condemn us eternally as we deserve, or will He allow us to put Him on trial, will He provide the evidence that He is indeed a God of justice, that He has not forgotten about us? In the back another prosecutor, the one whose is called by Scripture the ‘accuser,’ Satan, sits with a smirk on his face. He wants us to be isolated complainers, he wants us to be alone, to face the sin of this world by ourselves. When we are Christians in isolation, we are so easily enticed to complain and accuse God, we are so vulnerable to unbelief. But God knows this, and so as the judge deliberates, He tells us, those on trial, to gather together. “Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another.” He calls on us to be the Church, a community of believers that support one another in good times and bad. In this community of faith, we call each other to repentance when we sin, we work to bring back those who have been isolated and come dangerously close to unbelief, we help each other through the difficulties and questions that come from living in a sinful world. But it is not all about us in the Church, it is about Him. God gives His promises in the context of the community, within the Church. And it is within the Church that He gives His verdict.

God’s answer to our complaint, to our hard words against Him is one word, one name, one person: Jesus. “Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name.” The Lord inclined His ear to you in your time of trouble and He sent His Son to deliver you. He heard your complaint, He knew your sin, and He sent Jesus to pay for that sin. Jesus is His answer to our sin, even our sin of complaining and accusing Him, He answers the charge by the prosecution: “Your words have been hard against me.” Jesus took that sin upon Himself and carried it to the cross, where He paid for it with His own blood. But Jesus does not only answer for our sins of hard words against our God, but through Him God in His grace provides an answer to our complaint. God has not forgotten us, He has not abandoned us, but instead He has written our names in the book of remembrance. This is a book written with the blood of Jesus. This is a book of those who have been claimed by our Lord Jesus Christ, who have been baptized into His Name, and therefore bear that Name into eternity. God has not forgotten you, and you know the truth of this because Jesus died and rose again for you, inscribing your name in the book of remembrance. His cross and empty tomb are the seal on God’s promises, the proof that despite all appearances to the contrary, you are loved by God and He has remembered you.

The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ means that God has vindicated Himself, He has shown Himself to be both a God of justice and a God of love. His just wrath was poured out upon Jesus on that cross so that you could be shown love. And on that basis of that sacrifice God will deliver us on the Last Day, He will show things as they truly are. “They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him.” Because Jesus shed His blood on our behalf, we will be God’s treasured possession on the Last Day, we will belong to Him. Listen again to what He says: “They shall be mine.” He looks at each of you today and says, “You will be mine!” Jesus died for you, to make you the Father’s own, to make you His child, to write your names in the book of remembrance. Being a Christian does not mean that we are condemned to a boring life of rules, but instead it is the proclamation each and every day that we have a God who loves us, and who proved it by sending Jesus Christ to die for us, delivering us from all our enemies and bringing us to the joyous halls of the new heavens and the new earth for all eternity, which will be anything but boring.

Jesus’ victorious death and resurrection means that the Last Day is not a day of terror or punishment for us, but is instead the great and glorious day when God makes us His own for the sake of His Son. God said, “I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him.” On these last two Sundays of the Church Year, we hear a lot about the fire and brimstone of the Last Day. Jesus is very graphic when describing the tribulations that will come upon the earth on Judgment Day, as well as the harsh punishment that those who have rejected Him will face. Hell is a reality that we cannot ignore. But as God declares to the court, on that Day you will be spared from eternal punishment for the sake of Jesus Christ. He endured that punishment, the very punishment of hell, for you so that He could spare you from it. On the Last Day, God will make all things clear, as He says in His closing statement: “Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.” On that Day the Lord will spare you and me in His great compassion, His compassion for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. The case is closed, for the judge has satisfied His own accusation against us. He not only has provided forgiveness for whenever we speak hard words against Him, but He in His grace has provided an answer to our complaint. His answer is always Jesus, and it is an answer that is true, that is real, that is founded on the blood that He shed for you and for me. Thanks be to God that He will spare us for the sake of Jesus! In His life-giving name, Amen.

Proper 28 of Series C (Luke 21:5-28)

“Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. The text for our sermon this morning comes from the Gospel lesson read a few moments ago from the twenty-first chapter of the Gospel according to Saint Luke. Dear friends in Christ: Mohamed Gurhan was born and raised as a faithful Muslim in the country of Somalia. It was not until he was in his twenties that he began to question the faith he had been raised in, and soon he embarked on a religious journey that finally ended when a friend gave him a Bible. As he read about Jesus, the Holy Spirit created faith within him, and he was baptized. What joy there was for him to finally know his Savior! But if he had any illusions that the life of a Christian is easy, they were soon shattered. Being a Christian in Somalia brings dire consequences. He was arrested, fired from his job, twice lost his home and worldly possessions, and had his children kidnapped multiple times by Muslim relatives. But the worst was yet to come. When he began to work as a translator with Lutheran Heritage Foundation, the government issued an order for his death, and he and his family were forced to flee into hiding, where they remain to this very day.

Jesus was thinking about people like Mohamed Gurhan and his family when He spoke the words of our text for today. “You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death. You will be hated by all for my name’s sake.” Martin Luther liked to say that when we baptize a child, as Samantha was this morning, we do them no favors. Now, obviously Baptism has wonderful benefits, but what Luther emphasizes with such a statement is that being a Christian means having enemies, those who want to harm us spiritually or perhaps even physically. It’s easy for us to simply shrug off this story or the others I will tell this morning, because we live in a country where no one is going to issue an order for our death because we confess Christ- at least not yet. But that would be a mistake, for we still have determined enemies, and while persecution is much more subtle among us, it is no less real. Baptism has made you and me enemies of Satan and this sinful world, and they will stop at nothing to attempt to tear us away from our Savior. Jesus has told us that this will happen, and history tells us the truth of His words.

The year was 1523. Only a few years earlier, Martin Luther had started the Reformation, and it was already spreading throughout Europe. With great joy at the rediscovery of the Gospel, two Augustinian monks from the town of Luther’s birth traveled north to the Netherlands. These two men, Johann von Essen and Heinrich Vos, then proceeded to preach the doctrines of Martin Luther, that man is made right with God not through any work of his own, but only through the grace of Christ alone, which is grasped through faith alone. But such preaching and teaching could not be tolerated in an already troubled country. They were brought before the rulers and told to repent of their errors and reject the teachings of Luther. They refused, and on July 1st, 1523, Johann von Essen and Heinrich Vos became the first men to die for the sake of the Reformation. They were burned at the stake, an act that demonstrated to people on both sides how serious this religious conflict really was. They were the first Lutherans to give their lives, but would hardly be the last.

Jesus declared to the disciples, as well as to you and me, that persecution would come not only from friends and family, but from the political and religious leadership as well. “But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake.” Persecution is a public thing, and throughout history it has often been official government policy. But as I’ve said before, this often happens in a more subtle way. Religious freedom is slowly eroded away, and Christians are restricted in how and where they can express their faith. Secular atheism is pushed on our students in high school and especially in college, as our children have their faith attacked by those whom we trust to educate them. The word Jesus uses here for ‘persecute’ means to run after someone, to harass them, and when we understand this definition, we can see persecution all around us. It is difficult for us to see this as a good thing. Facing persecution from our friends and family is one thing; how can we stand up against the power of rulers and governments if they choose to persecute us? But Jesus resolves to use the persecution of His saints before kings and governors to serve the cause of the Gospel.

Polycarp of Smyrna, besides having a funny name, was one of Christianity’s earliest bishops. So early, in fact, that he probably knew the apostle John personally. He fled from persecution several times, but finally gave himself up, saying, “The will of God be done.” His Roman captors drug him to the arena, where they demanded that he reject Christ and offer incense to the emperor. The local ruler wanted to let this elderly man go, and said to him, “Swear the oath, and I will release you; revile the Christ.” Polycarp replied, “Eighty-six years have I been His servant, and He has done me no wrong. How then can I blaspheme my King who saved me?” Having made this bold confession of his faith and trust in his Lord Jesus Christ he was condemned to be burned alive. There in the arena, before kings and governors, Polycarp of Smyrna gave his life for the sake of Christ.

Jesus warned us about persecution, he even warned us that we may, like Polycarp, be called upon to stand before rulers and authorities for the sake of His Name. But even this tragedy, that someone should be persecuted or even killed simply for confessing the truth, can be used by Jesus for the good. He says, “This will be your opportunity to bear witness. Settle it therefore beforehand how to answer, for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict.” Persecution is an opportunity to witness, to confess the faith that has been delivered to us. The martyrs of Christian history went to their deaths confessing Jesus, and many people were converted as they died. We may perhaps never receive a greater chance to stand up and confess the hope that is within us than when someone is persecuting us for our faith. Jesus uses persecution, He uses the deaths of His saints to spread the Gospel, the proclamation of His own martyrdom.

The year was 33 AD. Only a few years earlier Jesus of Nazareth had emerged, claiming to be a prophet of God, claiming to be the promised messiah, but more than that, declaring Himself to be the Son of God. For this He is persecuted, they drag Him before the Sanhedrin and the Roman governor. There He gives the good confession: “so they all said, ‘Are you the Son of God, then?’ And He said to them, ‘You say that I am.’” He is condemned for that confession, for daring to identify Himself as God in the flesh come to bring salvation. His own family, the Jewish people, hand Him over to the Romans to be crucified, and there He gives His life, He sheds His blood. But there is an important difference between the martyrdom of Jesus and the other accounts I have told you about today. Mohamed was persecuted and Johann, Heinrich, and Polycarp gave their lives for Jesus, but Jesus gave up His life for you. He gave up His life to defeat your enemies, those who persecute you, those who attempt to tear you away from Him. On the cross that day He crushed Satan’s head, meaning that while your enemy can rage and roar, even stirring up persecution against you, he does not have the final victory. Christ has defeated him and delivered you. He paid for all of your sins so that Satan has nothing to accuse you with. And with His resurrection on the third day, even death has no victory. Persecution can even take the lives of God’s saints, but as Johann, Heinrich, Polycarp, and countless other Christians throughout history knew, death has no final victory, but instead the victory remains with Christ. They triumph even as their lives are taken because Jesus has paid for their sins, just as He paid for your sins and my sins. We are reconciled with God, and so we can face persecution with confidence that the victory has already been won.

Jesus teaches us in our text for today that persecution is a sign of His return again in glory. It is a characteristic of living in the last days, the time between Christ’s Ascension into heaven and His coming back as He has promised. On that Day, the persecution of Christians which has characterized human history since the cross will end. “And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” All of creation will quake in anticipation of Christ’s long awaited return, and then He will appear. “Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with great glory.” For those who trust in Jesus Christ, those who have been claimed by His blood, those who have been baptized into His death and resurrection, this is a sight of rejoicing. We will look and see the crucified one returning to bring us from this valley of the shadow of death into His new creation, where there will be no more sorrow, no more sin, no more persecution. Our enemies will be trampled under, and victory will be given to those sinners, you and me, who have been covered in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore, while on this earth we languish, suffering under sin and persecution, we know that our Lord has not abandoned us. We know that the persecution and even the death of Christ’s saints are simply the signs that Christ’s return is coming ever nearer. Because we have been delivered by Jesus, because He holds the victory, He says to us: “Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” Our redemption is indeed drawing near, and so we cry this day and every day: “Come, Lord Jesus!” In the name of our returning Lord, Amen.

All Saints' Day (Revelation 7:9-17)

“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.” Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. The text for our sermon this All Saints’ Day comes from the first lesson read a few moments ago from the seventh chapter of Revelation. Dear friends in Christ: In chapter thirteen of Genesis, God gives to the patriarch Abraham a great promise. “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them… So shall your offspring be.” In chapter twenty-eight of that same book, God says to Abraham’s grandson Jacob, “Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” God promised these two men an abundance of offspring, a multitude that would be difficult, if not impossible, to count. In our reading for today from the book of Revelation, the apostle John saw the fulfillment of that great promise, a promise that spans the entire Bible: “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.”

The elder who is showing John around this great vision asks the obvious question: “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” Can you really blame John for deferring to his angelic tour guide? “I said to him, ‘Sir, you know.’” The answer of the elder is striking and beautiful. “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.” These are the saints, all the saints who from their labors rest, they are the unnumbered multitude of spiritual children promised to the patriarchs of old. These are those who have gone through great tribulation. They have faced the evil and sin of this corrupt world and they overcame- not by themselves, but because of the gracious deliverance of the God of Abraham and Jacob. Many of them shed their blood for the sake of Jesus Christ, dying horrible deaths because they refused to forsake Him. In giving up their lives they followed the pattern of Jesus, the Lamb who shed His blood to atone for our sin, who shed His blood to make us clean. These are all the saints, they are you and I, all those who have been washed in the blood of the Lamb, those who bear the white robes of purity before God forever.

What do saints do? They worship. More specifically, they worship the One who brought them salvation, the Triune God. “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” Both the Father and the Lamb, Jesus Christ, are given heavenly worship because they are together with the Holy Spirit the one God of heaven and earth, but they are especially worshipped because they have brought salvation through the death and resurrection of the Son of God. They are worshipped without ceasing, they are worshipped with great joy, they are worshipped in the great heavenly throne room, the Divine Service of the Lamb in His Kingdom. Their white robes show the cleansing of the blood of Jesus Christ, which has wiped away their sin, and the palm branches are a sign of victory, the victory of the Lamb over sin, death, and Satan. It is because of His victory that they stand there, that they have no part of the condemnation of hell, that they have been delivered from the great tribulation, and for that they give Him joyous worship. “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

Why do they worship? They worship because “He who sits on the throne will shelter them with His presence.” They worship because God has protected them, He has brought them through the great tribulation by the blood of the Lamb, and now He protects them from all evil for eternity. “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat.” The fires of judgment over sin will not touch the saints, for God’s wrath was poured out on the Lamb, and therefore will not be unleashed against them. They are protected by the shelter of the Lord for all eternity. “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.”

That is the picture of heavenly worship, that is the picture of your destination and your future in the presence of the Lamb who shed His blood for you. But what about earthly worship, what about today? Like the elder in our text, this morning we ask, “Who are these, sitting before this pulpit, and from where have they come?” You are those in the midst of the great tribulation, living in a world full of sin. You are those who see the effects of this sin each and every day, in your own life and that of others. You live in the midst of the great tribulation well aware of your own sin, and your need for a Savior from that sin. You are among those who bear the name of Christ, and therefore may be called upon to shed your blood for His sake, following the pattern that He set like the saints of old and your brothers and sisters in Christ throughout the world. You wear ordinary clothes, yet those clothes say nothing at all about your status before God. For you are indeed those who have been washed clean by the blood of the Lamb, those cleansed by Baptism, which incorporated you into Christ’s death and resurrection. In Him you died to sin, and in Him you were raised up as His child. Even though you cannot see it with your own eyes, you truly are one of God’s saints, one of those purchased with His blood.

What do saints do? They worship. We offer praise to the Triune God for His great deliverance, we worship God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit as one God who acted to deliver us. We give praise to the Triune God as we sing the Sanctus: “Holy, holy, holy Lord God of power and might: Heaven and earth are full of your glory.” We worship the Son as the Lamb who was slain for our sin by singing the Agnus Dei just before we receive His Body and Blood: “Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world; have mercy on us.” On Sunday morning we are doing what the saints are doing in heaven, our worship mirrors their worship in every way, with one exception: our earthly worship is faltering, it is often weak, it can even be nonexistent. We need God’s gifts so desperately, for we are dwelling in the midst of the great tribulation and we ourselves are sinful, but sometimes we cannot even bring ourselves to where those great gifts are offered. When we do come, we can often go through the motions, following the words on the page, but forgetting the significance of those words. We are here in body, but perhaps not in mind or spirit. The saints in heaven worship God with great joy and enthusiasm, remembering His great deeds of salvation, while the saints on earth worship Him too often thinking only about lunch or the NFL. The Divine Service is a weekly proclamation of what Jesus Christ has done for us in the midst of this great tribulation, but it can become simply something we do to check off our list. Why is this? Our worship can become faltering because Satan, the world, and our sinful nature know that we need it. If they can cut us off from contact with God’s great gifts, then they can much more easily entice us away from our loving God.

Satan can roar and accuse, he can attempt to entice us away from the gifts of God. The world can encourage us to find something better to do with our time on Sunday morning. Our sinful nature can distract us from focusing on the Lamb as we worship. But that unholy trinity has no answer for the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. The Lamb shed His blood to forgive your sins of faltering and weak worship. He redeems you, He forgives you, He loves you not because He has decided to ignore your sins, but because He paid for them. We come here to receive the forgiveness of Christ even for our failing to worship Him properly, we come here unable to please God on our own, but instead depending on another, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. All the saints that went before us were also sinners, and so they all needed the forgiveness of Christ. They have passed through the great tribulation while we still remain in it, but we are linked together as those redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. That is one of the reasons why in many churches the communion rail is a half circle. As we gather here on earth receiving the forgiveness of Jesus Christ in His Body and Blood, we can imagine the other half of the rail populated with those who have gone before us. Their worship is our worship; heaven joins earth wherever Christians gather to receive God’s gifts and give Him thanks and praise. When we come here to this place, we stand at the border between earth and heaven, and we join all the saints in the great praise they give to God: “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”

Death takes us over that border, it brings us from earthly worship to heavenly worship. It is the last enemy, but it has already been triumphed over by the empty tomb of Jesus Christ, and therefore is simply the gate to heavenly glory. On the day that the Lord brings us to be with Himself and all the saints in eternity, we will look toward the throne of God and see “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and people and languages.” The words of the elder to Saint John at the end of our text will then describe you and me as well: “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.” In the name of the Lamb who was slain, Amen.

Reformation Day (John 8:31-36)

“If you abide in my Word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. The text for our sermon this Reformation Day comes from the Gospel lesson read a few moments ago from the eighth chapter of the Gospel according to Saint John. Dear friends in Christ, Martin Luther was in trouble. This monk had sparked the Reformation just four years earlier by speaking out against the Roman Church’s selling of indulgences. Railing against abuses and false teaching seemed a lot easier when he was safe and sound in Wittenberg. But now he was in Worms, standing before the pope’s representatives and the Emperor himself. Things had suddenly become much more serious. But Luther could take comfort from what God’s Word said in passages such as our Introit for today: “I will speak of your testimonies before kings, O Lord, and shall not be put to shame.” Therefore with boldness, but yet also with humility and with the knowledge of what this confession meant before God, Luther declared: “Unless I am convinced by the teachings of Holy Scripture or by plain reason- not by popes or councils alone, since they have so often erred and contradicted themselves- my consciences is bound to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything. Here I stand- I can do no other. God help me. Amen.” Luther took his stand that day on the Word of God, he took his stand on the truth.

Jesus has some pretty amazing things to say about that Word and about that truth in our text for today. After hearing Jesus speak about His intimate connection with the Father throughout chapter eight of John’s Gospel, many people believe in Him. With joy our Lord proceeded to give them a message of encouragement, a message of strengthening, a message of Gospel. “So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in Him, ‘If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’” What is that Word? What would be so important that Jesus would encourage us to abide in it, that Luther would take his stand upon it? Sure, it is the Bible, it is the teachings of Jesus, but it is so much more than that. It is a performative Word, a Word that does what it says. It is a Word that declares to you, “Your sins are forgiven,” “You are God’s child,” or even “This is my Body, this is my Blood.” This Word conveys to us the promises of Jesus, for this Word is Jesus Himself. He is the Word of God Incarnate, come to sinful man to give them the Truth.

Luther took His stand on the Word of God because He believed that it proclaimed to Him the truth. This is nothing other than what Jesus promised in our text. “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” This is not merely intellectual knowledge, but instead knowing the identity of Jesus and knowing what He has come to do. Knowing the truth means knowing that only Jesus can save us, that He has come as God’s Messiah to set us free. Knowing the truth means knowing that we have a God who loves us for the sake of His Son. Knowing the truth means trusting Jesus and Him alone, depending on no one else for our salvation. And when we know this Truth, Jesus promises that we will have what we so desperately need: freedom.

It is on that point that Jesus’ hearers object. “They answered Him, ‘We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, “You will become free.”’” You can imagine the shoulders of Jesus slumping at this statement. He has just given them a beautiful message of encouragement, the promise of freedom thorough Him, and they object to this!? The hearers cannot just receive with joy this wonderful proclamation of the Gospel, but instead complain, “Why do we need freedom? We’re not slaves!” Human beings, not just those who argued with Jesus that day, but you, me, and all people have a certain blind spot when it comes to seeing our own slavery. In America this is especially common, because we drink the sweet nectar of freedom and liberty each and every day, making it almost impossible to see ourselves as anywhere close to slaves. Why would I need freedom? I’m already free, free to do what I want- nothing has a hold on me!

Martin Luther knew that those objections were at best misguided, at worst, outright lies. He knew that we are all slaves to sin, because it was his own crushing awareness of sin that drove him to the Reformation in the first place. He knew that he was a poor, miserable sinner, and all he saw when he went to church was an angry God that wanted to punish him for that sin. The more he tried to amend his life by himself, the more sin wrapped its chains around him. That, my friends, is how sin works. Jesus says, “Truly, truly I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.” Sin enslaves us, it binds us and refuses to let us go. We can see this especially with addictive sins like drugs, alcohol, or adultery, but the truth is, all sin works this way. All sin is addictive, from lying, to hurtful thoughts, to anger and gossip. We know from our own experience that this is true, we know that when we indulge in a sin we cannot just stop, but we are dragged deeper and deeper into it until we are truly slaves. This slavery does not end well, as Jesus tells us: “The slave does not remain in the house forever.” Because of our slavery, we have no permanent place in the Father’s house, we will be excluded forever. As Saint Paul teaches: “The wages of sin is death.”

That is what Luther realized- that we were all slaves to sin and that slavery excluded us from the Father’s house for eternity. His search for a merciful God seemed to hit one dead end after another, leaving him nearly in despair. But, as Luther thankfully discovered, this word of condemnation was not the final word on the subject. God had spoken another Word, in fact the Word incarnate, Jesus Christ. This same Jesus said in our text for today, “The son remains forever.” The slaves could not dwell in the Father’s house, but the Son could, and because He had the authority of sonship, He could set the slaves free. “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” And thanks be to God that the Son did exactly that! Jesus Christ came to proclaim freedom to the captives, but not just to speak of freedom, He came to actually break our bonds, to remove the death grip of sin from us and make us ‘free indeed.’ His cross broke our bonds wide open, defeating the power of sin to hold us captive. He suffered there for your release, He shed His blood for your redemption, He allowed Himself to be bound for your freedom. The Son came and put Himself in the place of the slaves, paying for their bondage. Paul declared that “the wages of sin is death,” and on Good Friday Jesus paid that price in full for each and every one of us. Having paid that price, Jesus defeated our last enemy and slavemaster, death, by triumphing over it on Easter Sunday. Death could not hold Him captive, and it will not hold you captive either, for His victory is your victory.

The Son stood in your place, wearing your bonds so that He could break them, and therefore He gives to you the status that He has had from all eternity. Jesus declared, “The slave does not remain in the house forever; the Son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” We are truly set free by the triumph of Christ, just as He is truly the Son of God, as the centurion cried on Good Friday, just as He is truly risen, as the disciples exclaimed on Easter evening. The Word incarnate came to us to proclaim the truth, that God has sent His Son to deliver the world from bondage. And the Son continues to set captives free through the truth of His Word each and every day, and especially when the body of Christ gathers here to receive His gifts. For when a pastor stands before you and says, “As a called and ordained servant of Christ, and by His authority, I forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” you are being set free from sin by the powerful Truth of God’s Word. That is how Jesus fights slavery- with forgiveness. We have been released from the eternal bondage of sin and exclusion from God’s house, but as long as we remain in this body and life we still fall into the slavery of sin. That is why Christ continues to work to break bonds each and every day with His Words of forgiveness and release. We live in the forgiveness of Christ, because without it we would easily fall back into bondage. That forgiveness testifies to us our new identity: we are no longer slaves to sin, but instead we are truly freed children of God. And it is the children who dwell in their Father’s house for all eternity.

That is the message that saved Luther, and that is the message that Luther dedicated his life to proclaiming. The entire Reformation was all about proclaiming clearly again the beautiful Gospel of the freedom from sin that Christ won for us. Luther looked around him and saw a Church that refused to proclaim that freedom, instead placing people back under the yoke of slavery. People were pointed to their works for a right relationship with God, and as he found out during his time at the monastery, such a focus on ourselves only has the effect of enmeshing us deeper and deeper in the slavery of sin. We needed a merciful God, and this merciful God came to us in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Luther probably wouldn’t have much joy in seeing his name on church signs, for he would rather not have the focus on himself. Instead, he would find his joy in going inside of those churches and hearing the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ proclaimed clearly to sinners. That is what the Reformation was about, that is why he took his stand before the Emperor, so that sinners could hear the proclamation of the Gospel again. His goal wasn’t to make something new, but instead to proclaim once again to all people the good news: Jesus Christ died to break your chains, and for His sake you will dwell in the Father’s house for all eternity. Thanks be to Jesus for His work of setting us free! In His name, Amen.

Thy Strong Word Radio Broadcast

Once again, I am up for the daily morning radio broadcast at KDSN in Denison, Iowa. What follows is a transcript of each day's devotion, which focused on the upcoming celebration of the Reformation.

Program number 1 for October 25th

Good morning! This is Rev. Christopher Maronde, pastor of St. John Lutheran Church in Kiron and Faith Lutheran Church in Deloit. As some of you may know, October 31st is Reformation Day. On that day the Lutheran Church celebrates the work of Martin Luther, a monk who God used mightily to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Most of the various churches that we see in our communities are various offshoots of the Reformation that Luther sparked. This week, I wanted to talk about Luther and the Reformation as we look toward Reformation Day on Sunday. Today we will set the stage by looking at Luther’s own struggle with sin, a struggle that led him to the four ‘alones’ of the Reformation, which we will talk about in the days to come, ‘Scripture alone,’ ‘grace alone,’ ‘faith alone,’ and ‘Christ alone.’

Luther’s life was filled with spiritual struggle and conflict. He was fully aware of his own sin and God’s punishment for that sin. Luther knew only of a God who judges, a God who condemns, and His condemnation is terrible, it is unavoidable, it is final. I think that we today have much to learn from Luther’s struggles. We are in a culture that dismisses sin- we are not conditioned to look at ourselves as sinners. But that is what you and I are. We can fight it all we want, you can tell our pastors to quit proclaiming it, but the simple fact is that we are poor, miserable sinners. And as we read in Romans, “The wages of sin is death.” Luther’s awareness of his own sin is something that we can all learn from, as it is only from an awareness of sin that we have any need for a merciful God. Those without sin have no need of a Savior.

This acute awareness of his own sin drove Luther to find salvation for himself. It drove him to the monestary, where he was an exemplary monk, and he followed each and every regulation and instruction to the letter. But he could not find peace. As he said himself: “Though I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt that I was a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience… I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners.” The more he worked toward his own salvation, the more he was aware that he was reaching for an impossible goal. All he deserved was death, eternal death. He needed a Savior from sin, and thanks be to God he was turned to God’s holy Word, which shows us our sin, but much more importantly shows us our Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, who shed His blood to pay for that sin. Much more on that great Gospel that was revealed through the Scriptures to Luther tomorrow!

Let us pray: Almighty, everlasting God, for our many sins we justly deserve eternal condemnation. In Your mercy You sent Your dear Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who won for us forgiveness of sins and everlasting salvation. Grant us true confession that, dead to sin, we may be raised up by Your life-giving absolution. Grant us Your Holy Spirit that we may be ever watchful and live a true and godly life in your service; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen. God’s blessings on your day!

Program number 2 for October 26th

Good morning! This is Rev. Christopher Maronde, pastor of St. John Lutheran Church in Kiron and Faith Lutheran Church in Deloit. Yesterday we spoke of Luther’s awareness of his own sin. Luther knew that he was a sinner, and all he could see was an angry God ready to crush him for that sin. Luther was nearly driven to despair, but by the grace of God, he was delivered.

It was Scripture that saved Luther, and that is no surprise. God has a habit of changing hearts through His Word- He has been doing it since the Creation, and he has not stopped since. Luther was led through his struggles and anguish to Romans chapter one, verse seventeen: “For in [the Gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’” These words tortured him, as they gave a picture of a righteous God who condemned all those who did not live up to His righteousness. God, however, continued to work through His Word. Finally, Luther realized that the righteousness demanded here was the righteousness of Christ given to us as a gift by faith. It was at that point that the Scriptures opened up for him, and for us! He said, “There I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith. And this is the meaning: the righteousness of God is revealed by the Gospel, namely… the righteousness with which God clothes us when He justifies us.”

Jesus Christ was the one who fulfilled the requirements of the Law by becoming man, by taking on our human flesh. He was the one who faced the wrath of a just God over your sin, the one who died on the cross to fulfill all righteousness. On that Good Friday, Jesus hung upon that cross in your place, taking on the punishment that you deserved, and when He said ‘It is finished’ your salvation was completed. He shed His blood for you! He defeated your enemies- sin, death, and Satan. He dealt them a blow from which they will never recover when He stepped forth from the tomb on Easter morning. This same Jesus Christ then bestows on you His righteousness won on that cross through faith. This righteousness covers you like a robe so that when God looks at you from the judgment seat, He only sees Jesus. Righteousness is no longer an unattainable goal- in fact, it is not a goal at all, but a gift, a gift given to you through His shed blood. You are a poor, miserable sinner, but because of what Christ did for you, you are now saved from your sins, you do not have to fear the wrath of God. What wonderful news! The Scriptures all opened up for Luther to reveal the glorious narrative of God saving His fallen creation through the sacrifice of His Son. Therefore, the first great pillar of the Reformation is ‘Scripture alone.’ We’ll look at the next pillar, ‘grace alone,’ tomorrow morning.

Let us pray: Blessed lord, who has caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning, grant that we may hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of your holy Word we may embrace, and ever hold fast, the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever, Amen. God’s blessings on your day!

Program number 3 for October 27th

Good morning! This is Rev. Christopher Maronde, pastor of St. John Lutheran Church in Kiron and Faith Lutheran Church in Deloit. Yesterday we heard about how Luther was turned from the crushing awareness of his sin to the pages of the Scriptures. Listen again to what he read in Romans chapter one: “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.’” This week we do not celebrate a man or even a movement, but instead we commemorate the Gospel, and God’s chosen instruments used to proclaim that Gospel clearly. God chose a simple Augustinian monk from Germany to reform the Church, to create a movement that would result in the Gospel once again being clearly proclaimed. This should be no surprise to any of us. God has a certain habit of using means, whether it is water, bread and wine, or the sinful lips of a pastor. He takes hold of those means and uses them to create and strengthen faith, He connects them with His Word in order to give life. But because He likes to use sinful human beings, you, me, and many others throughout history as His means, the proclamation of the Gospel rarely occurs without trial or stumbling. Even Martin Luther, a figure that seems to tower over history, was a sinful human, and it would be his struggle with sin that would define the rediscovery of the Gospel.

Luther needed a God of grace because there was simply no way that he could achieve anything on his own. Grace alone was what was required, God’s free grace for the sake of His Son Jesus Christ. Saint Paul wrote in Ephesians chapter two: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Grace is not truly grace unless it is a gift. It is something freely given to us by God, given to us when we could do nothing to earn it. In fact, it was given to us when we were completely opposed to God, in open rebellion against Him. That’s what makes God’s grace so amazing. Saint Paul says in Romans chapter five, “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Jesus Christ died for you, for me, for all people, even those who nailed Him to the cross. What amazing love! What wondrous grace! This leads Luther to what I think is one of his more profound observations. He said that “we are beggars,” that is, we come before God empty-handed, with nothing to give Him but our sins, and yet He takes those sins and pays for them in His overwhelming grace. That is the kind of God we have. Thanks be to Him for His abundant grace!

Let us pray: Lord God, heavenly Father, from Your hand we receive all good gifts and by your grace we are guarded from all evil. Grant us Your Holy Spirit that, acknowledging with our whole heart Your boundless goodness, we may now and evermore thank and praise You for Your loving-kindness and tender mercy; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen. God’s blessings on your day!

Program number 4 for October 28th

Good morning! This is Rev. Christopher Maronde, pastor of St. John Lutheran Church in Kiron and Faith Lutheran Church in Deloit. Earlier this week, we heard of how Martin Luther watched the Scriptures open up to him like a flower in the spring, revealing to him the great treasures that it held for him. Those Scriptures revealed to him a God of grace, who in loving-kindness sent His only begotten Son to die for our sins, to deliver us from death to live before Him forever. The only question that remained was: how do we receive this grace proclaimed by the Scriptures? Luther found the solution in the same passages that pointed him to ‘grace alone.’ We heard Paul say yesterday in Ephesians chapter two: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” For Luther, only faith could appropriate the free grace of Christ Jesus. In addition to ‘Scripture alone’ and ‘grace alone’ we now have ‘faith alone.’

But the thing about faith is that it is never alone. It always has an object, something to put its focus on. Faith does not focus on itself, it does not exist in a vacuum. Faith looks to Jesus Christ and Him alone, focusing on our Lord because He is the One who has delivered us by the shedding of His blood for us on the cross. Faith believes in the promises of God declared in Holy Scripture, the great promises of salvation through Jesus Christ. Faith alone saves us, but faith does not exist apart from the object of that faith, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Where does this faith come from? Luther emphatically denied that it came from anything in us. Instead, he declared in the explanation to the third article of the Apostle’s Creed in his Small Catechism, “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.” Only through the work of the Holy Spirit can we believe in Jesus and take hold of His free gifts. That is the amazing thing: not only is grace a free gift, but the faith which grasps onto that grace is a gift as well! Luther proclaimed the primacy of God-given faith throughout his life. His personal struggle had led him to see the folly of trying to earn his own way to God, and now he trumpeted faith alone as the means by which man is reconciled to God. Scripture alone showed him that grace alone won by Christ alone is the basis of our salvation, and that salvation is only appropriated and applied to us through faith alone.

Let us pray: Almighty God, our heavenly Father, because of Your tender love toward us sinners You have given us You Son that, believing in Him, we might have everlasting life. Continue to grant us Your Holy Spirit that we may remain steadfast in this faith to the end and finally come to life everlasting; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen. God’s blessings on your day!

Program number 5 for October 29th

Good morning! This is Rev. Christopher Maronde, pastor of St. John Lutheran Church in Kiron and Faith Lutheran Church in Deloit. Over the past three days, we have discussed ‘Scripture alone,’ ‘faith alone,’ and ‘grace alone.’ Having heard about those three ‘alones,’ it should be no surprise that the final ‘alone’ is Christ alone. Everything this week has been about Christ, and that makes perfect sense, because all of Luther’s life and work focused on Christ.

From the day when the Lord worked through His Word to bring him Jesus as his righteousness, Luther’s life focused around proclaiming and defending this message, this glorious Gospel of God’s free grace for the sake of Christ. Every sermon and every page that came from his pen dripped with the blood of Jesus, it revolved around Christ and Him alone. This focus on the Gospel also led Luther to highlight the Sacraments, those means by which God comes to sinful man, the means by which He comes to you. In Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, Luther did not see something you do for God, but instead simply another way that God’s overflowing grace comes to you. Baptism encapsulated the Gospel, as the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation are given to you through water joined with the Word. In your baptism, you are clothed with Christ’s righteousness; you are one of those who, in the words of Revelation, are “coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” As Luther says in the Small Catechism: “Certainly not just water, but the Word of God in and with the water does these things… with the Word of God it is a Baptism, that is, a life-giving water, rich in grace, and a washing of the new birth in the Holy Spirit.”

In the Lord’s Supper, the fact that God took human flesh, becomes reality, a reality that you join in each and every time that you receive His Body and Blood. As he states in the Large Catechism: “Here you have both truths, that it is Christ’s body and blood and that these are yours as your treasure and gift. Christ’s body can never be an unfruitful, vain thing, impotent and useless.” When you receive the Lord’s Supper, you receive the very Body and Blood of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the same Body and Blood which was given and shed on the cross for all of your sins, and now it is given to you for the forgiveness of your sins. Luther always taught that salvation was accomplished on the cross, but it is distributed to His people in His Word and Sacraments- and it is distributed to you each and every Sunday in Christian churches throughout the world!

Let us pray: O God the Father, the fountain and source of all goodness, who in loving-kindness sent Your only-begotten Son into the flesh, we thank You that for His sake You have given us pardon and peace in this Sacrament, and we ask You not to forsake Your children but always to rule our hearts and minds by Your Holy Spirit that we may be enabled constantly to serve You; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever, Amen. God’s blessings on your day!

Program number 6 for October 30th

Good morning! This is Rev. Christopher Maronde, pastor of St. John Lutheran Church in Kiron and Faith Lutheran Church in Deloit. This week we have journeyed from Luther’s awareness of his own sin and his desperate searching for a Savior to the pages of Holy Scripture, which revealed the grace of God in His Son Jesus Christ, given to the world and received by faith alone.

Luther’s goal was never reform for the sake of reform, or change simply for the sake of change. His goal was to proclaim the Gospel freely, detached from all had been added to it. He did not introduce anything new, but instead sought to restore what had been lost, to bring the Church back to its Scriptural roots. How do we follow in his footsteps? We do this first of all by defending the Gospel with everything we have, opposing any teaching that adds any ounce of our own effort or striving to the Gospel. This isn’t just a struggle between Christian churches and false teachers, this is first of all an internal struggle. That is what Luther was talking about when He spoke about a daily return to our Baptism. Listen to what he says in the Small Catechism: “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.” What we especially need daily repentance from is our own attempts to please God with our own righteousness, rather than trusting in the righteousness given by Christ alone. We despair of our own abilities to earn anything before God and instead throw ourselves on the mercies of Christ our Savior.

Secondly, we can follow in Luther’s footsteps by proclaiming this same Gospel, freely and clearly, to all whom you come into contact with. That is how the message of God’s free grace through Christ first spread in the earliest days of the Church, and things hardly changed in the days of the Reformation. From hundreds of pulpits and countless mouths came forth the message that God has been reconciled to His rebellious creation through the blood of Jesus Christ. Today things may seem much different than during the Reformation, but one thing hasn’t changed: all people need to hear about Jesus. The victory of Christ rings forth from every Christian, because we cannot help but speak of what God has done for us in Jesus. Thanks be to God for the victory He has given! Thanks be to God for giving us Martin Luther to proclaim to us that truth so clearly!

Let us pray: O God, our refuge and our strength, You raised up Your servant Martin Luther to reform and renew Your Church in the light of Your living Word, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Defend and purify the Church in our own day and grant that we may boldly proclaim Christ’s faithfulness unto death and His vindicating resurrection, which You made known to Your servant Martin through Jesus Christ, our Savior, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever, Amen. God’s blessings on your day!

Proper 25 of Series C (Luke 18:9-17)

“Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. The text for our sermon this morning comes from the Gospel lesson read a few moments ago from the eighteenth chapter of the Gospel according to Saint Luke. Dear friends in Christ, I am not a first-century Jew. I think that is probably obvious. Moreover, I don’t think any of you are first-century Jews either. This simple fact means that in a certain sense we have to work harder to understand Jesus’ parables than His first hearers did. They knew their Old Testament better than most modern Christians, and in addition they knew the Jewish religion inside and out. And that meant that they could fill in the context when they heard one of Jesus’ parables. An important example of this is in our text for today. Jesus tells a parable about two men who go to the temple to pray. For us modern day Christians, that makes sense, because the temple seems like a perfectly reasonable place to pray. But Jesus’ original hearers would’ve known the important fact that public prayers only could occur in the temple twice a day, at 9am and 3pm. Those are the two times that the atonement sacrifices were offered each day. As the people prayed in the courtyard, the priests were killing animals to atone for the sin of the people, for as the author to the Hebrews reminds us, “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.”

Therefore, the Pharisee Jesus describes in our text entered the temple courtyard at the very moment when animals were being sacrificed, slaughtered for the sins of the people of Israel, and for his sins. He stands off from the others a bit, not for privacy, but so that everyone can see him, can observe his piety. In the background the gathered multitude can hear cattle bellowing and sheep crying as they are prepared to bear the people’s sin, but his voice rises above the clamor. “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.”

He has appointed himself as judge over his fellow man and over himself, declaring the obvious verdict- ‘I am better than all these other poor slobs!’ In the Christian Church this attitude can be unfortunately all too common. “Lord, I thank you that I am not like that family down the street, or my brothers and sisters (man, they sure screwed up their lives!), or even that person sitting next to me in the pew. I show up at church, I put some money in the offering plate. Thank God I am not like other men!” It is so easy to see the sin in the lives of others, so much so that we can ignore our own sin, or at least explain it away. “I may have screwed up, but I’m not nearly as bad as that family I read about in the paper!” In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus has something to say about this attitude. “Judge not, that you be not judged.” Whenever we set ourselves up as judge over others or ourselves, as the Pharisee did, we are taking the place of God, and that is the textbook definition of idolatry.

The Pharisee quite simply does not get it. At the very moment when animals are being sacrificed for the sins of Israel, for his sins, he goes to the temple and declares that he has no sin. “God, I thank you that I am not like other men.” He has convinced himself that he is righteous, and that seems to be a reasonable assumption to make. At least he isn’t as bad as the other people he unfortunately has to rub shoulders with each and every day. He trusts in what he has done for a right relationship with God. “I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.” His righteousness flows only from himself, because he doesn’t really need God. He is the judge, he is the righteous one, and the only reason there is to talk to God is to brag. Notice what he doesn’t do in his prayer- he doesn’t ask for a thing. And that is no surprise, because he doesn’t really need anything. He has everything he needs, God is simply someone there to affirm him, to tell him ‘good job, that’s the way to do it, you show em!’ For this Pharisee, God is some kind of lazy basketball coach, someone who has no criticisms or corrections to offer, but simply and only affirmation. And that’s the kind of God our human nature wants. ‘Just give me the thumbs up, God, I got this handled!’

That is the kind of God we may want, but it is not the God that we have. We have a God who hates sin, all sin, and in His righteous and just wrath punishes it. That is the kind of God the tax collector prays to. He stands off to the side, not so that men may see him, but because he knows he is unworthy to even be in the temple courtyard. He does not lift up his eyes to heaven, because he knows that he cannot look a righteous God in the eye. He beats his breast, an act of anguish and mourning. And he prays. “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” He doesn’t offer anything to God, not his piety, not his good works, not his decent life. He doesn’t offer anything to God but his sin, because that is all he has. And yet, like the Pharisee, he compares himself to other men. Our translation misses it; the tax collector does not say, “God, be merciful to me a sinner!” but “God, be merciful to me, the sinner!” He considers himself the sinner, the worst of sinners, for the purposes of his prayer, he is the one and only sinner. “Chief of sinners though I be,” as we sang earlier in the service.

The tax collector gets it. He understands what is going on in the temple at that very hour, that cattle, sheep, and goats are shedding their blood for the sins of Israel, for his sin. And so his prayer is one of confession, a prayer asking for atonement. I hate to criticize our translation too much, because I do really like the ESV, but once again, it doesn’t say enough. The tax collector prays, “God, be merciful to me, the sinner,” but it is more accurately, “God be atoned to me, the sinner!” Now, that may not be good English, but that is what he is saying. The tax collector is asking that God would atone for his sin, that the Lord would be reconciled to him, that his great sin would be covered up. That is what ‘atonement’ means, to cover up and do away with sin. He prays for this because he knows that blood is being shed in the temple for that very purpose. But he also prays this looking forward to the final atonement for sin.

Jesus has come to answer the prayers of those who, like the tax collector, have nothing to offer God but their sin. He took that sin upon His shoulders and then offered Himself as the atonement sacrifice for the sin of the entire world. The unique and amazing thing about the biblical concept of atonement is that ultimately God took it upon Himself to provide the sacrifice which would reconcile Him with His people. He did it all, for you and me! He offered up His own Son as our sacrifice, and Jesus willing accepted that charge because of His great love for us. He shed His blood for the sin of all people who ever had or ever will live just as the cattle, sheep, and goats shed their blood for the sins of Israel. And He did so willingly. The animals who gave their lives in the temple as the Pharisee and tax collector prayed probably would’ve passed on being sacrificed if given a choice, but Jesus freely and willingly took on our sin, your sin, my sin, and the sin of the entire world, and faced the wrath of God for it. We have a God who hates sin, all sin, and in His righteous and just wrath punishes it. And that is what He did to Jesus on Calvary’s cross. Jesus shed His blood there to satisfy that wrath, to take on that punishment, to pay for our sin, to answer our prayers for mercy. For we needed mercy, we needed deliverance, we needed forgiveness. And God answered our prayers with His Son Jesus Christ, just as He answered the prayer of the tax collector: “God, be atoned to me, the sinner!” Jesus Himself gives us the outcome of this prayer: “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

The tax collector went home justified because he despaired of himself and instead threw himself on the mercy of God. He was a spiritual infant, unable to give anything to God, but only to receive from Him. And what does Jesus say about infants as our text concludes? “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.” We are not incorporated into the kingly rule of God through self-righteous comparisons with others, or by exalting ourselves, but by being spiritual infants. An infant exists only through the love of another, it lives in a constant state of dependence, unable to do anything for itself. That is how we are before God. We have nothing to offer God but our sin, and He takes that sin upon Himself and pays for it on the cross. We live only through the love of God, in complete dependence on Him for His overflowing gifts of forgiveness. That is why we baptize infants, because they are like each of us, unable to give anything to God, but only able to receive. Each time a baby is received into the Lord’s waiting arms through the washing of the water with the Word, we are reminded of our own status before God. We come to this place week after week to be fed, to eat and drink of the forgiveness of the Lord as He offers it to us freely. Even as we mature and grow in the faith, we still remain spiritual infants, praying daily with the tax collector, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

For we remain beggars, we stand openhanded before God, with nothing to offer Him, not our good life, not our piety, nothing but our sin. We come before God not to brag, but only to receive what He gives in such wonderful abundance. We are bowed down by sin, but the Lord lifts us up. We hunger and thirst for righteousness and He fill us. We are spiritual infants, but as Jesus says, “Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” The new heavens and new earth will be populated by beggars, by infants, by forgiven sinners just like you and me. Thanks be to God that He is merciful to us because of Jesus Christ our Savior! In His precious name, Amen.

Proper 24 of Series C (Genesis 32:22-30)

“So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, ‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.’” Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. The text for our sermon this morning comes from the Old Testament lesson read a few moments ago from the thirty-second chapter of Genesis. Dear friends in Christ, Jacob was in trouble, trouble of his own making. He had came from the womb clutching his brother’s heel, and that was hardly the last time that he antagonized Esau. Jacob cheated his brother out of his birthright, and then with the help of mom, he stole from Esau the blessing of their father Isaac. That last offense angered Esau so greatly that Jacob fled his murderous wrath. After years spent serving his uncle Laban and raising a family, Jacob is now ready to go back home. He sends messengers on to Esau, hoping for a favorable reception, but all they return with is the ominous report that his brother is coming to meet him, at the head of four hundred men! Now it is the night before he will see his brother again. The questions swirl in his mind: What will happen tomorrow? Has Esau forgiven him, or will his four hundred men simply crush Jacob and his family?

Jacob is rightfully afraid. His past sins have come back to haunt him, and they may perhaps lead the death and destruction of him and his family in the morning. He has learned one of the most difficult lessons that a fallen human has to learn in this world: sin has consequences. Each of us has learned this lesson, we know that our own sin has led to strained relationships, to conflict, to temporal punishment from friends, family, or even the government. So often, the troubles we face in our lives are the consequences of our own sin, not to mention the consequences we face for the sins of others! And while we are often the cause of our own troubles, like Jacob’s family we suffer as well in this life because of the sins of others. Sin surrounds us, and we, like Jacob, are afraid. We do not want to face those consequences, because the results are too terrible to even contemplate. God’s law tells us what our sin deserves before God: the same death and destruction that Jacob’s family faced, but more than that- eternal punishment from a holy God.

Jacob spends that last night at the Jabbok River, a beautiful rushing stream that cuts deep canyons on its way to the Jordan. This river forms the boundary between kingdoms throughout the Old Testament, and on this night it is the very boundary between life and death. He will meet Esau in the morning, and so he spends a sleepless night arranging his possessions and family, trying to do everything he can to prepare for the next day. And he prays. The sin of this world drives him to his knees in prayer. “Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, that he may come and attack me, the mothers with their children.” But will God really answer? Does He even care? What is His answer to the sin that surrounds us, that condemns us to its consequences; that condemns us to face His wrath? We see no end to sin in our world, and so we wonder with Jacob: is God even listening?

In desperation, Jacob cries out to God to remember His promise, protesting: “But you said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.’” God’s answer is a strange one. He does not answer with a word, but instead with an action. “And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day.” Jacob wrestled with God. Let that sink in for a moment. God almighty came to Jacob in human form and allowed this sinful, scared, sleepless man wrestle with Him. That’s pretty amazing, but what is even more amazing is that God allows us all to wrestle with Him too- in prayer. For you see, this wrestling match is not some random event, but is instead the physical embodiment of what Jacob has already been doing as he prayed. He has been persistent, he has held God to his gracious promises, and he has prayed in faith and confidence that God can and will deliver him.

That is what prayer is for each and every one of us. We wrestle with God in prayer by holding him to His promises, His promises to take care of us and preserve us. That is what Jacob did, as he cried out to God to recall His promise to give him many offspring. We hold God to the promises He has given to us, we do not let Him get out of His pledge to deliver us from sin, to protect us from danger and the devil. That is what the psalmist does in our Introit for today. Listen again to what he says: “Remember your congregation, which you have purchased of old, which you have redeemed to be the tribe of your heritage!” That is the very definition of holding God to His promises, and that is how the Bible teaches us to pray. We also wrestle with God when we are persistent in prayer, calling out constantly for deliverance from this world of sin. That is what Jesus teaches in our Gospel lesson. The widow demanded justice, she would not stop until she had received it. Jesus concludes: “And will not God give justice to His elect, who cry to Him day and night? Will He delay long over them? I tell you, He will give justice to them speedily.” Wrestling is not a single action, but a continuous activity, one that fills our lives each and every day, because we are surrounded by sin each and every day. Jesus concludes His parable by saying, “Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth?” This persistent wrestling with God in prayer only comes by faith. We do not wrestle with a God that we do not believe in. We don’t hold God to promises that we do not trust. We wrestle with God because we believe in Him and in His promises, and that is why for a Christian, the highest form of faith is to struggle with God in prayer.

God in His grace does want us to wrestle with Him in prayer, but His will ultimately prevails, as Jacob learned quite painfully. “When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him.” With a divine touch, Jacob is defeated. God has proven that while we can and should wrestle with Him, there is no question who is divine and who is merely human. God’s deliverance may not come when or how we would want it to, but yet it does come, and it comes in the very person who wrestled with Jacob, the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ. This incident is probably one of the places in the Old Testament where we see Jesus appear before His incarnation, and it makes perfect sense, for Jesus is the ultimate answer to every prayer for deliverance. He took on our human flesh thousands of years later to shed His blood, die, and rise again to defeat the sin that surrounds us, the death that condemned us, and the devil that accused us. He came to answer every prayer for deliverance by giving Himself for ultimate deliverance. Now, while sin may torment us in this world, its days are numbered, and we know that sin is a defeated enemy, crushed by the mighty arm of our Savior, who triumphed over it’s corruption on the cross. Christ’s victory over the grave on Easter Sunday gives us the promise that we will overcome death, and this promise is given to us through a new name.

Jacob doesn’t realize until the very end of his wrestling match that his wrestling with God in prayer has taken on physical form, that he is actually wrestling with God Himself, and those two forms of wrestling have the same ultimate request: “But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me.’” And the pre-incarnate Jesus answers Jacob in the same way that He answers you and me. “Then He said, ‘Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.’” You may be familiar with the name that Jesus gives to you and me, because you heard it again at the beginning of the service. At your baptism, you had the Name of the Triune God placed upon you, as you were baptized “In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” We called upon that Name as our service began, reminding you of the day the Lord gave it to you. Because we bear this Name we can wrestle with our Father in prayer, we can depend on His promises, because we are those purchased with the blood of Christ, those who are joined with the Triune God for all eternity. It is only because we bear that new name that we can pray “Our Father, who art in heaven…” holding God to the promises He made in our baptism.

Jacob’s new name transforms him, it gives him a new identity. There on the banks of the Jabbok, that border river, at dawn, the border between darkness and light, Jacob is brought over the border from the darkness of sin into a relationship with God that is characterized by light. Jacob is made a new man, one fit to carry the messianic line and pass it onto his children. We too are given a new identity with our new Name. We are made Christians, those purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ, those belonging to the realm of light. We are conformed to the likeness of Christ, seeking to follow Him by loving our neighbor. We are truly saints, but we are also truly sinners. Jacob is now known as Israel, but he does not perfectly carry this name through the rest of his life. Moses describes him with both his old and new names, reminding us that while Jacob was transformed at the bank of the Jabbok, he never completely leaves his old self behind. It is the same way with us. We have been given a new identity, one that gives us the privilege to wrestle with God in prayer, but yet we remain sinners in constant need of God’s grace. Therefore we live under the forgiveness won by Christ, knowing that He has brought us from darkness to light, and that He will bring us fully into that light on the Last Day, when we will be brought over the border between death and life and will experience life forever.

God kept to His promises, and as Jacob limped toward his brother, assured of God’s grace, Esau ran to him and embraced him. The two brothers were restored by our God who keeps His promises, our God who restores relationships, our God who answers our prayers ultimately with our Savior Jesus Christ. In the name of the One who truly is the answer to our prayers, Amen.