Trinity 10 (Luke 19:41-48)

A bride stands upon a hill, radiant and beautiful. She is adorned with gold, with costly jewelry, with clothing white as the driven snow. She is the picture of youthful exuberance, of joyful expectation, of long years of waiting. She has been patiently prepared for this moment, for this time, the hour that is now upon her. Ever since she was a girl, her Father has been protecting her, keeping her safe, training her for the time when her Bridegroom would come for her. There were times when it seemed that she would not survive, that her Bridegroom would find clothes of mourning instead of wedding garments, but at each turn, her Father delivered her. She fell into bondage, and He saved her, with His mighty outstretched hand. She was threatened by enemies again and again, and He delivered her from their clutches. At times she rebelled against her Father, as many daughters do; she spurned Him, and then felt the penalty, dwelling in exile far from home. But He still loved her, and He brought her back again, taking her from the land of exile as He had taken her from the land of slavery. In His love He restored her to her home, and gave her glory and beauty once again. At every moment, every time of trial and of joy, He repeated the promise to her, the promise He uttered to her when she was still young: your Bridegroom is coming, He is coming soon. Be patient, wait for Him, and He will give you joy that you have never known. Look for Him, keep watch, for He will come when you do not expect, but He will come, that is my promise to you.

Now the time has come, the promise of her Father has been fulfilled; the moment long prepared has arrived, the event that every second of patient waiting was pointing toward. Her Bridegroom has arrived. His visitation has come. He visits to claim His bride as His own, to take her to Himself in love. The Father’s plan has come to fruition, the time prepared by everything that happened to her, every word of promise that was spoken, has come to pass. The Bridegroom visits His bride to fulfill all the promises, the Bridegroom visits His bride to give her joy, the Bridegroom visits His bride to give her a wedding feast that will never end. Every other wedding in all of history has simply been pointing to this one, the big one, the union of this bride with her long-awaited Bridegroom.

He visits to bring an end to her strife, to speak words of comfort, to give peace to a bride who only knows of tragedy and conflict. He comes speaking words of peace, telling her, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” He will defeat all of her enemies, once and for all, He will deliver her from the clutches of those who have tried to destroy her from her birth. Her Father protected her all these many years so that the Bridegroom could one day come and put an end to her enemies. “Take heart,” He tells her, “I have overcome the world.” He comes to tell her that her warfare is over, her iniquity is pardoned, that He will give her peace, true peace, peace that will endure though all else pass away. She has waited for Him so long, and now it is with joy that He tells her He is here, He has come, as her Father always promised. What greater gift could be given to the radiant bride than her long-awaited bridegroom?

But at this moment, the moment she has long been waiting for, with her Bridegroom standing before her in joy, she scoffs and turns her head. Who is this man, claiming to be her Bridegroom? He stands before her in the clothing of a peasant, a sharp contrast to the radiant robes that she wears. His words of peace, His claims to be what she has been looking for these many years, fail to move her. For the truth is, she has found her own peace in this world. Her Father and His promises have become little different than the air she breathes. His protection is essential to her life, and deep down she knows it, but she rarely thinks of Him. Most days she doesn’t think of Him at all. She goes through the motions, honoring Him with empty words, while her heart is far away. 

She thinks she has it made; that she can have peace with her Father and peace with the world. As long as she does what is required, as long as she gives her Father the honor He is due on the day it is due, she can live however she wants the rest of the week. She has found many other lovers to occupy her attention, and when she does what they ask, she has peace, peace and comfort to go with the pleasures they offer. Her clothing is radiant, she has all the jewelry she could want, and while her lips say that she awaits her Bridegroom, in her heart, she is happy with the status quo. She is comfortable with her sin because she assumes her Father’s favor, she takes it for granted. She can do what she wants because she is His daughter, because she honors Him with her lips. Now this man, claiming to be her Bridegroom, has come to disturb that peace, to disrupt her carefully constructed alliance with the world. She rejects Him almost out of hand, almost casually; she has strayed so far from the Father’s promises that she cannot even imagine them coming true.

The Bridegroom came to her with joy, but that joy quickly turns to weeping. He, who wished to speak words of comfort and love, who visited her to bring her salvation, now instead utters words of woe. “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.” He came to give her peace, but she did not recognize the One she had waited so long to welcome, and rejected Him instead. She chose the fleeting peace that her lovers offered over the eternal peace brought by her Bridegroom. And her Bridegroom is sorrowful beyond measure; He weeps over His callous, rebellious bride, prophesying her destruction. Only He can save her, but she has rejected Him. “They will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”

He goes into her Father’s house, not welcomed as the expected Bridegroom but condemned as an invader, and He cries out against her, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers.” Too long has she dwelt in self-confidence within its walls; too long has she arrogantly pursued her lovers while paying lip service to her Father. In desperation He tries to call her to her senses. “Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before [your Father] in this house, which is called by [His] name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’ —only to go on doing all these abominations?” But these words of condemnation do not move her to repentance; if anything they incite her. The bride has her Bridegroom arrested and condemned to death by her lovers; rejection of her Bridegroom is only the start—she will not stop until everything He predicted against her happens to Him. His words become a prophecy of His own death. “The days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children with you.” The Bridegroom was surround on every side by His enemies, with His bride looking on and giving approval, even calling for His death; the Bridegroom who came in joy to greet His bride on Sunday was torn down to the ground by being lifted high upon a tree on Friday.

The Bridegroom wept when He encountered the rejection of His bride; He wept because she would one day weep. For she continued in her sin, eating and drinking, buying and selling, until she arrogantly rebelled against her lovers and found her Bridegroom’s words proved true. Barricades were set up, she was hemmed in on every side. There would be no deliverance this time; what she did to her Bridegroom was visited upon her own head, with one difference; her house, the temple she called her home, was razed to the ground, never to rise again. But her Bridegroom, Jesus Christ, who called Himself the temple, was rebuilt, in only three short days. Her Bridegroom rose to replace the bride who had rejected Him with a new bride, a faithful bride. This bride recognizes her Bridegroom, she receives Him in faith; where Jerusalem rejected her Bridegroom in stubborn unrepentance, the Church recognizes Him with humility, confessing her sin and clinging to His mercy and peace. “No one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says ‘Jesus is accursed!’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit.” Jerusalem revealed that she did not have the Spirit when she cursed her Bridegroom, condemning Him to death; the Church reveals that she has the Spirit when she confesses her Bridegroom as her Lord.

She does this with great joy, for she knows what her Bridegroom has done for her. His death at the hands of the Romans, incited by Jerusalem’s jealousy, was not simply a miscarriage of justice, but the very means by which the Bridegroom would win all that He had promised. True peace comes from the violence that was inflicted upon Him. On the tree, He ended her warfare, on the tree, He pardoned her iniquity, on the tree He gave to His bride as a dowry double grace for all her sins. Forgiveness, life, and salvation are the wedding gifts to His bride, won by His shed blood, and when He rose on the third day, He invited her to a wedding banquet that will have no end. By His stripes His bride is healed, and she is given the gift of peace. Jesus lamented over Jerusalem, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that made for peace!” The difference between Jerusalem and the Church is not that one bride is sinless and the other sinful, but that one repents while the other refuses to do so. The Church, His bride, you and I, know what makes for peace: our Bridegroom, Jesus Christ. His death, His resurrection, make for peace, for His shed blood covers every sin, reconciling a rebellious people to His Father and presenting us as a radiant bride, more radiant than the earthly Jerusalem ever was. “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” Blessed indeed is the bride, cleansed by Christ, who will celebrate with Him on the day of His final visitation. In His Name, Amen.

Trinity 9 (Luke 16:1-9)

“I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.” 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 evening is the Gospel lesson read a few moments ago from the sixteenth chapter of the Gospel according to Saint Luke. Dear friends in Christ, there are several principles that I teach the children of our congregation to consider when dealing with parables. You are to find out who the audience is, and what prompted the telling of the parable in the first place. It is of first importance to locate Jesus in the parable, then to look for yourself or Jesus’ opponents. But the most important key to understanding a parable is finding the ‘that’s crazy!’ moment. You know, the point in the parable where everyone who first heard it would be shaking their heads, saying, ‘Things don’t work that way in the real world, Jesus! Come on—that’s crazy!’ Like a shepherd leaving all his other sheep to find one that was lost, or a woman who finds a misplaced coin, then spends it in celebration, or a father who receives back his wasteful, rebellious son in joy. When you find the ‘that’s crazy!’ moment, you have probably found what Jesus wants to teach you about the Kingdom of God. Now, most people agree that the parable before us tonight is one of the most difficult in all of Scripture, but the key to understanding it comes from finding the ‘that’s crazy!’ moment. Have you found it yet? Let me give you a clue: What would you do with a wasteful servant?

Imagine if you were an employer (and some of you are, or have been) and you discovered that one of your employees had been wasting your money, cheating you out of your company’s profit, making you look bad through malice or incompetence. What would you do? What do wasteful managers deserve? A just master would see that such a servant received exactly what he deserved. At the very least, he deserves to lose his job, and depending on the extent of his transgressions, he may deserve jail. You don’t send him to get his books, you send someone else to get them, and when you see his sins in black and white, you prepare to give justice. If you are first-century landowner, you will ready your whip for a good flogging, sending him out the door with a painful reminder of his crimes. Wasteful managers should feel the whip, wasteful managers should be cast down from their high position, wasteful managers should dig and beg. That is all that they deserve, and that is what justice gives them. A just master sees that justice is done, and justice demands that the one who does the crime does the time.

It’s the same way that a just master deals with his renters. Imagine that you own rental property (and some of you do, or have in the past), and your renters owe you the agreed-upon price. What does justice demand? What do such renters deserve? They deserve no reductions, no grace periods; justice calls on them to pay what they owe, to uphold their obligations. Rent is due? It must be paid. The master is owed his portion of the crop? Bring it forth. Debtors must pay their debt—that is what justice demands. If people owe you money or goods, they should pay up. If managers are wasteful, they should be digging ditches or standing on street corners in rags. That is simply the way this world works, and if it didn’t, the consequences would be disastrous. Imagine if a master ran a business where debtors didn’t pay what they owe, where wasteful managers escaped punishment. The man who did that would soon find himself destitute. He would be called ridiculous—even crazy!—by those around him.
But that is exactly how this master operates. He hears of his manager’s sin and thunders forth the law, uttering a sentence of condemnation: “What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.” The manager stands condemned, and he knows it. He squirms under the law, seeing no way out on his own ability; he has been caught, he knows it, and he stands under the master’s justice. The day of reckoning has come; his last day, Judgment Day. “What shall I do, since my master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg.” He may not be strong enough to dig and he may be ashamed to beg, but that is the least he deserves. Then he realizes something about his master, another quality that is perhaps even more important than his master’s identity as a man of justice. He realizes that his master is also a man of mercy. The only solution for this manager, the only means of salvation, is to bank on that mercy, and indeed to show forth that mercy to others. “‘I have decided what to do, so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses.’ So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’”

In the eyes of the world, the manager has cheated his master again. Not only did he waste his property in the first place, now he has given the renters an unauthorized discount, robbing his master of even more money. A rich man who allows wasteful managers to give debtors discounts won’t remain a rich man for much longer. We expect justice, as the master looks at the books; this time swift and terrible. ‘String him up!’ we cry. But the response of the master catches us completely off guard. “The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness.” He doesn’t cancel the discounts, he doesn’t give the manager a beating he will never forget. No, he commends the manager because he wisely acted in mercy. The manager had showed forth his master as a man of mercy in forgiving debt, and that is exactly how this master wants to be seen. He is a man of mercy, mercy that even overcomes his justice. So he will forgive the debts owed him, he will even forgive his unrighteous steward, no matter what it costs him. It is at this point that we protest, as Jesus’ disciples surely did: ‘That’s crazy, Jesus—ridiculous! No master would act this way!’
We’re right; no earthly master in his right mind would tolerate such a thing. But there is one Master who would, and does. What does God do with wasteful managers and delinquent debtors? The answer to this question is quite important to you and me, because we fit in both categories. Since when have you managed your material resources for the good of your neighbor and the Kingdom of God? Jesus Himself says, “The sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light.” The sons of this world are very shrewd in managing their money and other resources to turn a profit, to enrich their own bank account and investment portfolio, to buy bigger houses and faster cars. Christians should be just as shrewd, but for the good of the kingdom, using this corrosive and corruptive substance—money—for the good of our neighbor, to make friends with the poor and infirm, so that when this wealth fails, and it will, “they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.” But are we as shrewd? No, we are wasteful managers, prodigal managers, who cook the books for our own advantage. And so we are debtors of our master, God Himself. We owe Him the penalty for our sin, all our sin.

And what does justice demand of us? It demands that we pay up. The wages of sin is death, eternal death, and it is only right, only just, that we pay what we owe. And God demands that justice be done; His justice must be satisfied, or He is not a holy and just God. But our God is also a God of mercy, and in His wisdom He appointed the speaker of this parable, Jesus Christ, to satisfy the demands of His justice by giving Himself into death upon the cross. There Jesus paid the debt we owed, there justice was done upon Him for us, there the innocent suffered and died under God’s wrath in place of the guilty. And to demonstrate that the debt was paid, that justice was satisfied, God raised Him up in victory over the grave, gaining for us eternal dwellings. Like the wasteful manager, we have no recourse to our own efforts to pay the debt we owe; we must depend, solely and completely, upon God’s rich mercy shown in the death and resurrection of Christ. And He shows forth His mercy in forgiving us, in not giving us what justice demands. He is a God of mercy, mercy shown to us for the sake of His crucified and risen Son.

And God delights in being shown to the world as a God of mercy; that is what we are doing when we make friends by using our material resources for the good of our neighbor. When we feed the homeless, provide for victims of disaster, or even pay for a roof over the heads of our children, we are showing to the world God’s mercy. And He delights to be praised as a God of mercy, for that is what He gives to this sinful world for the sake of Christ: mercy in place of justice, for justice was done upon His Son. Jesus received what we deserved, so that we would join all those who have been shown His mercy in the eternal dwellings. There we will have no need of unrighteous wealth, for we will have a treasure that will never end: perfect righteousness and eternal life in the very mansions of heaven. Thanks be to God that He does not give us what we deserve but what we need: mercy—mercy for the sake of His Son. In His Name, Amen.

Trinity 6 (Romans 6:3-11)

“So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” 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 evening is the Epistle lesson read a few moments ago from the sixth chapter of Paul’s letter to the church of Christ in Rome. Dear friends in Christ: I watched many movies growing up, and I especially enjoyed watching the old movies that Grandma and Grandpa had: old westerns and cartoons. But there was one old movie in particular that I, like many others, probably watched only once: Old Yeller. Very few people watch this movie today, but for several generations of children, watching it was almost a rite of passage, and its story, especially the ending, is so well known that it’s almost proverbial. The beloved dog saves the family from a rabid wolf, but in the process is himself bitten. They lock him in the corncrib and watch to see what will happen. Just as the boy Travis and all the viewers feared, in a few weeks Old Yeller confronts his beloved owner with snarls and deadly teeth. He has rabies. There is only one thing to do with a rabid animal. You cannot reform it to cease from violence, as desperately as you want to. You cannot train it to be better; rabies has so damaged its brain so that it cannot even recognize loved ones. It will not stop doing evil or start doing good. Only one solution will suffice; and I, along with generations of other children, shed my tears with Travis as he pointed the gun at his beloved friend. Old Yeller needed to die.

Travis knew reality; part of him growing up was realizing what had to be done for his friend’s good and the good of the family. A death needed to occur; nothing short of that would suffice. It was wishful thinking, a denial of reality, to think that a rabid dog could be reformed or trained to be better. But we engage in the same sort of wishful thinking every day regarding our sinful nature, denying reality and thinking that reformation or training can suffice instead of death. We are corrupted with sin, filled with its stain, infected with a disease that is far worse than rabies. It controls our actions, inclining us toward violence and hatred, polluting our thoughts and poisoning our words. And if left untreated, this disease of sin will not lead simply to depravity and death, but ultimately to eternal judgment and the very wrath of the living God. We know that our problem is sin—that the good we want to do we do not do, and the evil that we wish to avoid we cannot elude—but we, unlike the boy Travis, cannot grasp the solution. We think that we can reform our sinful nature, teaching it to avoid evil, or train it to seek after the good; we think we can handle it ourselves.

Our intentions are good; they truly are. We want to be rid of sin, because we see just how much damage it can do to us and to those around us. We sincerely want to live a better life, and cease from letting our friends and family down, or hurting them in thought, word, and deed. So we try to reform our sinful nature, putting it into submission through our own brute strength. We punish ourselves for evil thoughts, sometimes quite violently, like the monks and their whips, but most often more subtly, by denying ourselves some pleasure. We get angry with our sinful flesh, we give it a stern talking to, we catalogue every wrong and bring it forth to shame ourselves. Or, on the positive side, we put our flesh into training, seeking to inculcate the habits that lead toward the good. We read the great moral philosophers and we try to emulate them, we look at ‘good’ people and attempt to copy their habits. We try, on the strength of our own will, to think good thoughts and seek after good actions. But every attempt fails. The more we fight against sin on our own strength, the more we find. Our sinful nature is a multi-headed monster; and with each head we lop off, it seems that four more emerge, each stronger than the last. We may achieve some sort of outward obedience through strenuous effort, but we know that seething beneath the surface is a cesspool of sin, just waiting to bubble up again.

The solution doesn’t lie in our power; it is sheer foolishness to attempt to reform or train something that simply needs to die. And only Jesus Christ has the ability to do the job, not with a pioneer’s rifle, but with a font. His weapon is water and the Word. “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” Our sinful nature cannot be reformed or trained, any more than you can reform or train a rabid dog. It must be put to death, and Christ does the work, because we have neither the will nor the ability to do it ourselves. Only He has the will, because He submitted to the Father’s will for our salvation, and freely gave Himself up into death. Only He has the ability, because as true man He stood in our place, even unto death, and as true God He offered the sacrifice sufficient for the sin of the world. “For the death He died He died to sin, once for all, but the life He lives He lives to God.” 

Christian baptism has an unbreakable connection with the cross and empty tomb of Jesus. Notice how often the word ‘with’ is used in our text. “We were buried therefore with Him;” “If we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His;” “Our old self was crucified with Him;” “If we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him.” Baptism unites us with Christ’s death and resurrection, and thus it is a real drowning, and a real rising again to life. In Baptism, Christ’s death and resurrection become our own, with all that He won for us there. Christ puts us to death in His death, and He raises us to new life in His resurrection.

He sets us free from the bondage of our sin; what we could never do through our own efforts or strength He does in the drowning and resurrecting waters. “We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin.” You who have died in those waters have been justified, declared righteous by God almighty because Jesus paid the price you deserved in your place. He didn’t come to give you a better method to reform and train your sinful nature; He came to put it to death, to crucify it with Him, thus justifying you and setting you free from your sin. 

This fact, this present and abiding reality in our lives, thus changes completely how we deal with sin. We do not attempt to reform or train our sinful nature, but we put it to death, daily, in a return to our baptism. There we died, and each and every day we push the old self back beneath those killing waters in repentance. In one of his great insights, Martin Luther teaches us to confess in the Small Catechism: “[Baptism] 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.” That is what we do with the old self, the Old Adam in us, our sinful nature: we drown it, day by day, by repentance and faith in a return to the waters of drowning. Only there did Christ bring about the death we need.

This font doesn’t look much like a place of execution, but that is what it is; here we are put to death and laid in the tomb, crucified with Christ. But if the font is a place of death, a burial chamber, then it is also an empty tomb, the place of resurrection. Many baptismal fonts look like mausoleums, especially those with covers; but when the cover is removed, they look much like an empty tomb, for that is what they are, our empty tomb, preaching to the entire world that our graves will one day look the same. “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over Him.” Death has no lordship over Christ, it does not rule over Him. He died once, and He will never die again. There is nothing else to die for. And it is the same with you. Because you died with Christ, you will live with Him; death has no lordship over you. Having died in the font, there is nothing else to die for, and thus your natural death is simply the final destruction of your sinful flesh in anticipation of resurrection to new life; death does not rule over you. You belong to Christ. As He rose, so you too will rise. “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” In the Name of Jesus, Amen.

Trinity 6 (Matthew 5:20-26)

“For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” 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 fifth chapter of the Gospel according to Saint Matthew. Dear friends in Christ: there are two kinds of righteousness in this world, self-righteousness and Christ’s righteousness. Self-righteousness is outward; Christ’s righteousness is inward. Self-righteousness it is concerned with show, with making certain everyone knows just how righteous it is. Everything is picture-perfect; like a well-manicured lawn and newly painted house, self-righteousness makes sure everyone can see how clean it is. No violation of the commandments here; the whitewashed walls reveal no imperfection. “All these I have kept since my youth.” No murder, no adultery, no stealing here, and self-righteousness makes sure that everyone knows it. “I thank God that I am not like other men.” Self-righteousness is loud, always pointing to itself, always making sure that others see just how righteous it is; how pious, how ‘religious,’ how charitable. If self-righteousness can afford it, it gets its name on plaques and buildings; if not, it just makes sure everyone around it sees how holy, morally upright, and certain of God’s favor it is.

Self-righteousness feeds on pride; pride in its own achievements and holiness. Self-righteousness is driven by competition; comparing itself with others, showing off its own beautiful lawn and whitewashed walls next to its dingy neighbors. Pride and competition lead to anger at every perceived slight, they lead to insults toward those who are not nearly so righteous, they lead to thoughts of revenge when others sin against them. Self-righteousness exalts itself over others, and it despises those who are beneath it. And not only toward strangers, but against brothers and sisters, those who have the same Father, God Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth. Self-righteousness divides itself from others, from its spouse, from its children, from its parents, from pastors, and from fellow Church members. Every sin by others is magnified by self-righteousness; each is a reason to rage in anger or to break off the relationship, to seek revenge instead of reconciliation.

Self-righteousness refuses to be reconciled; it has too much pride to admit wrong and repent. Self-righteousness holds onto each and every perceived slight; it is much too concerned with what others have done to it to examine itself for any sin. Every situation of division between brothers and sisters in the Church is the fault of someone else. When brought to the table to reconcile, the tone is not humble repentance but wounded pride. There is a demand for its own rights, for the respect that its outward righteousness should’ve earned. Self-righteousness is so consumed with itself that it cannot imagine ever being in the wrong. Every request for reconciliation is then an opportunity for everyone else to repent, for everyone else to acknowledge what should be obvious: the holiness, the piety, the impeachable moral character of self-righteousness.

Jesus exposes self-righteousness; that is why He came. He sees past the beautiful landscaping to see the corruption within; in fact, He calls self-righteousness “white-washed tombs,” structures that have the appearance of good, but are full of death. Self-righteousness is outward; Jesus points inward, to the heart. He takes the commandments and He sharpens them, so that they slice through the white-washed walls and expose the death that dwells inside. “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be liable to the judgment.’” Self-righteousness nods its head smugly; no judgment here, one can dig as deep as they want and they will find no deaths on my record. But Jesus doesn’t stop there. “I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment, whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.” The Fifth Commandment will not be avoided so easily, the Law will not be deceived—self-righteousness stands condemned.

Self-righteousness cannot tame the Law, it cannot control it, and it cannot fulfill it; it can keep from taking another life (usually), but it cannot keep from anger and insults, it cannot keep from causing division. Through pride and competition, self-righteousness tears apart every relationship in the horizontal realm, especially between it and its brothers and sisters in the Church. And Jesus declares that the destruction of horizontal relationships destroys the vertical relationship. Those who hate their brothers and sisters will be judged by the Father, they will be held accountable by the One whose wrath burns against sin; self-righteousness stands guilty before God Almighty.

Self-righteousness has nowhere to go, no place of escape. Jesus has exposed it, he has cut to the heart of the outward show of piety and revealed the damnable corruption that dwells therein. This work is necessary, because stubborn self-righteousness must be broken by the Law to drive it to repentance. But Jesus did not come only to reveal the darkness; He came to overcome it. Jesus did not come only to condemn self-righteousness, He came to destroy it, putting it to death and raising up His own righteousness in its place. Jesus did not come only to show the sin that lies behind the façade of self-righteousness, He came to die for that sin and rise to forgive it. Jesus did not come only to show that self-righteousness is liable to judgment, He came to make Himself liable to judgment, accountable before God for the sin of the world.

Jesus came to place Himself under the judgment deserved for the sins of self-righteousness. He was not angry with His brothers, even though they condemned Him to death, but yet He was liable to judgment. He did not insult His brothers, even though they insulted Him, but yet He was liable to the council. He did not say ‘You fool!’ even though they called His preaching foolishness, but yet He was liable to the hell of fire. He was liable in the place of self-righteousness, to restore the self-righteous to the Father. He was perfectly righteous, outwardly righteous and inwardly righteous, and He died in the place of the self-righteous, to give to them a righteousness that is not their own, but His. The vertical relationship, destroyed by the sins of self-righteousness, is restored; God is reconciled with the self-righteous, for Christ gives His righteousness to all who in humility repent of their self-righteousness and cling to Him in faith.

Self-righteousness is put to death at the font; there the relationship with God is restored, and a new righteousness, Christ’s righteousness, is raised up. Christ’s righteousness then seeks reconciliation with those in the horizontal realm. Reconciliation with God comes through humility, the humility of repentance and the humble reception of forgiveness. Reconciliation with man comes through humility, the humility of repentance and the humble reception of forgiveness. Christ’s righteousness does not fix its eyes on what others have done to it, but instead in humility repents of what it has done to others. It freely confesses its sin to God and man. Jesus instructs those clothed with His righteousness: “If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”

Christ’s righteousness seeks harmony, reconciliation; it doesn’t insist on its own rights, it doesn’t demand its due, but on the contrary it admits sin and asks for forgiveness. Its relationship with God in the vertical realm is based on repentance and forgiveness, and so are its relationships with brothers and sisters in Christ. Jesus says explicitly where pride and the refusal to reconcile in humility will lead: “Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. Truly I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.” Pride has no place before God or man; humility instead is the way of Christ’s righteousness: the humble confession of one’s sin, and the humble reception of grace, forgiveness for that sin.
There are two kinds of righteousness in our world, self-righteousness and Christ’s righteousness. Self-righteousness is outward; Christ’s righteousness is inward. And as Christ Himself teaches, one is far superior to the other. “I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Self-righteousness leads only to condemnation and death; Christ’s righteousness brings forgiveness and life. Self-righteousness is your natural condition; Christ’s righteousness is His gift to you, won through the cross and empty tomb and given in the Word and Holy Sacraments. Christ’s righteousness puts self-righteousness to death, drowning it in the font at your baptism and every day since. Your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees because your righteousness is Christ’s righteousness. He stood in your place and received your condemnation, and then rose in your place as the pledge and promise of your resurrection, and now His righteousness is your own, and will be, forever.

It is your connection with Christ that fulfills the Law; both the outer keeping that self-righteousness excels at and the inward keeping that God demands. Because you are connected with Christ, your good works are righteous. The unbeliever does no good works in the eyes of God; self-righteousness is no righteousness at all. And Jesus gives this promise in Matthew chapter thirteen: “To the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance.” Your righteousness exceeds any and all self-righteousness because Christ gives all of His gifts in abundance; He pours His righteousness out on you in His overflowing generosity. The One who multiples loaves and fills boats with fish fulfills all righteousness and He gives all righteousness. In the name of Jesus, Amen.

Trinity 5 (Luke 5:1-11)

“Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” 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 fifth chapter of the Gospel according to Saint Luke. Dear friends in Christ, sinful man despises the Word of God; he always has. It did not begin with five black-robed justices, it began with two naked people, Adam and Eve, listening to the voice of the serpent, “Did God really say?” God has uttered His Word on marriage and the place of sexuality within it, He even wrote it into creation; and just in case we didn’t catch it, when His Son comes in the flesh, He reemphasizes what was written long ago. “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?” Jesus’ definition of marriage is the Father’s definition of marriage, and when Paul comes along, he has the same one, too. Marriage is based on sexual complementarity, one man, one woman, and only once the man leaves father and mother and holds fast to his wife, i.e. gets married, do they become one flesh through the sexual act. But sinful man despises God’s Word, it is not sufficient for him, but is explained away by feelings and the theories of social science.

“Did God really say?” Is the Word of God sufficient for us to order our lives? Can or will we live relying upon the Word? Peter certainly found the Word sufficient. Listen to this confession of faith. “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your Word I will let down the nets.” We should not take this statement in isolation. Peter has been hearing the preaching of Jesus from his own boat. The powerful working of the Word created faith within him, and faith responded with a bold confession. Simply on the Word, the promise of Jesus, this weary fisherman will go out into the deep; “At your Word I will let down the nets.” Christ’s Word, and the Word alone, is sufficient for him; he believes, and he acts accordingly.

You have heard the Word of the Lord on marriage and sexual ethics again this very day, very simple, one verse; the Word spoken by the Father through Moses, the Word spoken by Jesus, the Word made flesh, the Word repeated by Saint Paul. This Word has been despised by our world, it has been rejected by judicial fiat, and many in the Church rightly deplore the consequences of removing the gender requirement for marriage. But I would submit to you today that Christians are as much to blame for what has happened as the five black-robed justices. Because the Word was not sufficient for us as it was for Peter, because we lived in fear of what the world could take away, what we might have to give up, we kept quiet. The Word was not enough; we wanted popularity, we wanted pleasure, we wanted peace, we wanted the amenities that this world offered to us. 

Where were the Christians of courage, who were willing to forgo sexual pleasure until marriage as a confession to the world? Where were the Christians of courage, who were willing to risk family harmony and friendships to speak the truth in love to those around them? Where were the Christians of courage, who were willing to demand shows and movies that didn’t flaunt promiscuity, or who simply turned the television off? Where were the Christians of courage, who were willing to risk the loss of scholarships, varsity sports, and letter jackets to demand that their education or that of their children not undermine the Christian faith? I’ll tell you where they were, because I can tell you where I was: keeping quiet, burying my head in the sand, wanting too much to be liked to take a stand. While many Christian churches stood against the sexual revolution, you only have to look at their actions to see that most Christian people did not; God’s Word on marriage was not sufficient for us, when it was placed next to all that the world offered us.

The Supreme Court’s decision to make marriage genderless, no longer an institution based on sexual complementarity and ordered toward the protection of children, but now simply a relationship of any two people who ‘love each other,’ should call on us to repent. It is the culmination of a decades-long project to undermine biblical morality, and we too often have watched it happen without holding up God’s gift of marriage and calling to repentance those who corrupt this gift. Now there is nothing to do but repent. Simon Peter, in faith, cast out his nets in the midst of the deep, and there, just as Jesus said, he received a catch. And as Jesus often does, He provides in abundance, overflowing abundance, boat-breaking abundance. Luke tells us, “When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, ‘Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!’” Suddenly Peter realizes that standing in his boat is the Creator of the universe, the all-holy God, and his response is terror, it is a confession of his sinfulness.

The Law makes us aware that we stand in the presence of a holy God, a God whose holiness is an all-consuming fire. And this day we need to hear the Law, that we have too often taken the bribe money that this world offered, that the Word was not sufficient for us. Repent. A broken and contrite heart God will not despise. Instead, this day He says to you what He said to Peter, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” Do not be afraid; you are cleansed, made righteous and holy to stand in God’s presence. In terror of His sin before God Almighty, Peter heard the Word of the One who would shed His blood to take away all fear. This same Jesus, no longer in a boat, but still speaking through His Word, says to you this day: Do not be afraid, your sins are forgiven. Every one of them, against every commandment. The shed blood of Jesus covers them all. 

For while we, in our lives or in our conversation, didn’t hold up God’s definition of marriage, He did, by sending His Son as the bridegroom to win His bride, the Church. He laid down His life for her, He was faithful to her even to death upon a cross, and now risen from the dead, He takes His rightful place at the marriage feast of the Lamb in His kingdom for all eternity. There Peter will dwell, with you and me, not because we are sinless, but because we are forgiven through the powerful Word of the Lord. The Word gives you everything, all that Jesus won, it is sufficient for us because it gives us what the world cannot give, indeed, gifts that will endure when this world passes away. People come and go; this very creation will be consumed by fire, but the Word of the Lord endures forever, the Word of forgiveness: “Do not be afraid.”

Those who are forgiven are then sent out into this world to proclaim that forgiveness to others. “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” Do you know what the Church’s response to the removal of gender from marriage? Forgiveness. The Church will not stop forgiving those who are caught in sexual sin, or any other sin. That means we must preach the Law to condemn that sin, but we will not stop preaching the Gospel to forgive it. That is what Peter was sent to do: as one who has been forgiven, Jesus sent him to extend forgiveness to other sinners. As Luther says, we are beggars telling other beggars where to find bread. The world is hoping we will stop forgiving; that we will move on to affirmation. But the Christian Church, and Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, will not stop forgiving sinners wherever we find them. We will seek out those who are caught in the devil’s kingdom and catch them with the same Word that caught us, the Word of forgiveness, declaring that Christ died for that sin as He died for all others. Do not be afraid to tell the world that the end to all fear has come.

Do not be afraid to make a stand on the Word of God, the Word which delivered to you forgiveness, life, and salvation. Do not be afraid of what this world will do to you when it finds that you will not submit quietly, that instead of affirmation you speak of forgiveness. Do not be afraid to leave all things behind; the Word is sufficient for you. “And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed Him.” You may lose friends and promotions; you will lose so-called ‘sexual freedom,’ but do not be afraid. Do not be afraid to confess the truth to a world caught in lies, to people caught in lies. Do not respond in hatred, but with the love of Christ; love your neighbor enough to call him from his life of sin. Peter himself teaches us how in our Epistle lesson. “Even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.” Be ready to make a confession in word and action; prepare yourself through the study of God’s Word, and then speak gently but boldly. Have no fear; your crucified Savior has risen to take away all fear. It is no mistake that His first words to His disciples on Easter evening are, “Peace be with you.” He has given you all things; His Word is sufficient for you, and so you say with the psalmist: “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?”

Do you know why all of those companies flaunted the rainbow flag after the Supreme Court decision? They took that gamble because they believed that Christians wouldn’t be upset enough to give up the amenities they offered, to actually boycott stores or change credit cards. They are gambling that we will continue to be too enamored with what the world gives to take a stand, that the Word will not be sufficient for us. Do not be afraid. This world will demand much from you in the years to come because you stand against the tide, but the Word is sufficient for you, because the Word gives you everything: forgiveness, life, and salvation, won by the shed blood of Jesus Christ. He gives in abundance; boat-breaking abundance, and what He gives is far more than you will lose: “And take they our life, goods, fame, child, and wife, though these all be gone, our victory has been won; the Kingdom ours remaineth.” In the name of Jesus, Amen.

Trinity 2 (Luke 14:15-24)

“Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” 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 fourteenth chapter of the Gospel according to Saint Luke. Dear friends in Christ: the table is set, the food is prepared, the feast is ready. The King has left no detail to chance; He has carefully set all things in place. The preparations took time; in fact, Saint Paul tells us that the King has been preparing this feast since before the foundations of the world. With each generation, the time drew nearer, as the King protected His plan from every attack, making ready the way of salvation. And when the time had fully come, the King sent His Son, His only Son, whom He loved, into this world of sin and death; born of woman, born under the Law to redeem those under the Law. Jesus walked this earth in perfect obedience under His Father, the King. He preached the Word, He healed many, but His task, in accordance with all of the King’s preparations, was to die, and die He did. The perfect Son of the King hung upon the cross in the place of the King’s subjects; His sinless blood shed for the sin of the entire world. The King provided life for those in the bonds of death, He gave forgiveness and freedom to those in the shackles of sin by giving His Son into death and raising Him up on the third day.

Before He died, this Son of the King established the feast that had been an eternity in preparation. He took bread and said, “This is my Body, which is given for you,” and then He said as He gave the wine, “This cup is the new testament in my Blood, which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sin.” He established the King’s feast with the words, “This do in remembrance of me.” This supper, the Lord’s Supper, the feast of the King, would be the very means by which everything that the Son had won through His death and resurrection would be given to sinful man. Not the only means, to be sure, but this was the King’s great and culminating gift: the feast of salvation, the medicine of immortality, the price of salvation given to sinners to eat and to drink. And now that the King has raised His Son from the grave, this feast is ready to be given to the world. The preparations, so long in coming, are now complete; the feast is prepared—nothing is left to be done! The table is set, the food is ready, and the gifts to be given in the eating and drinking have been won; all that is needed is guests, and so the messengers are sent forth.

Their message is one of joy: “Come, for everything is now ready!” The invitation should be no surprise; this coming feast had been proclaimed to the world through Moses and the prophets for centuries. None who heard these first invitations knew when the feast would be; they were simply told to be ready as the King made His preparations. Now, the table is set; all that the King promised for thousands of years, from the first man and woman on, has come to pass, and the feast of salvation is open to the world. And so the Church is sent into the world, to bring the invitation to one and all, to invite the vast multitudes that inhabit this earth to come to the King’s feast. ‘Come, for everything is now ready! Come, repent and be baptized into the crucified and risen Christ, be catechized in His Holy Word, be admitted to the Lord’s Table in faith. Eat your Savior’s Body, drink your Savior’s Blood, as the King graciously invites you to do. This is the food that gives eternal life, the only meal that forgives sin and defeats death. Those who eat and drink in faith will never die!’

It is with great joy and enthusiasm that the messengers of the King take this invitation into the world, and why not? They bring the answer to sin and death; the benefits of Christ’s own death and resurrection, given to eat and drink by those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. But there must not be much hunger and thirst, for the messengers who go forth with such joy are quickly discouraged. They bring the greatest invitation the world has ever known, but they are persecuted, they are even put to death, and they meet with those who would rather follow false gods or no god at all. But what is most frustrating to the messengers is the apathy and excuses that they find among so many, including those who will freely tell you they are Christians.

What they hear are the words of people who have many, many other things to do rather than come to the King’s feast. “I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.” “I have too much work to do at home to spend time at church.” “My money is my money, and all the church wants to talk about is getting my money.” “I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.” “I work all week, and it’s just hard for me to get up early on my only morning to sleep in.” “Right now, life is too busy to be involved with the church, and I can be just as spiritual here at home.” “I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.” “My kids are on all of these sports teams, so I’m busy most Sundays.” “My husband won’t go, so it’s easier to stay home than to take the kids by myself.” Excuses are all they hear, one after another. Now, are work, or family, or property evil, sinful things in a person’s life? Certainly not, and each person has God-given responsibilities in those spheres. But what the messengers of the king find all too often is that these good gifts, these vocational responsibilities, keep people from coming to the feast, they become the basis for refusing the invitation. Those who are invited refuse the cost of coming to the feast; they would rather not give up the things of this life for the gifts of eternity.

The Word of God is a passing rain shower; those who make excuses expect that they can go to the King’s feast whenever it is convenient to them. But the King in His anger sends His messengers elsewhere. “Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.” Those who were invited have arrogantly refused to come; they have much better things to do than partake of the feast of salvation, and so the messengers are sent to others. No longer do they invite the healthy, the strong, the rich, those who think much of themselves, but instead the invitation goes to those who are poor, meek, and downtrodden. The invitation goes to those whom good upstanding citizens don’t want to associate with: alcoholics, prostitutes, addicts of every kind. The invitation isn’t for them to remain in the bondage of their sin, but to receive at the feast the freedom of Christ’s victory over sin and death.

But the banquet hall is still not filled, and so the King sends forth His messengers to gather still more. “Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled.” The messengers invite the outcasts to the feast, those outside the city walls, those whom the world has rejected, who are looked down upon by those who make excuses and refuse to come to the feast themselves. The King knows that they will come reluctantly; He tells His messengers to ‘compel’ them. They, like those first invited, are hesitant to come to the feast, but for a much different reason. Those who make excuses refuse to come to the feast because they have other things to do; they arrogantly find many priorities more important than the King’s banquet. The poor and the downtrodden, on the other hand, are reluctant to come because they believe they are unworthy of such a gift; they know who they are, and they know who the king is, and they cannot believe themselves worthy to stand in His presence.

But it is precisely to the humble that the King wishes to show mercy and grace. They come to the feast as beggars, as outcasts, with hands open and empty, having nothing to give to the King but their sin. They come knowing their desperate need for what He gives at the feast of His Son’s Body and Blood. They are unworthy, they know it, and they are hesitant to come to the feast. ‘Will the King really accept me?’ they ask. ‘Doesn’t He know what I’ve done, who I am?’ But the messengers compel them; the feast is only for those who know they are nothing, for the King desires to show grace, love, and mercy to beggars. That is the kind of King that He is; whether you are rich or poor, powerful or weak, healthy or infirm in the eyes of the world, all who come to His feast come in humility, with nothing to give but everything to receive. And it is precisely at the feast that He gives them everything.

This feast was long prepared for sinners, not for the righteous, who have no need of repentance. As the Introit declares, “You save a humble people, but the haughty eyes you bring down.” This is why the messengers must first proclaim the Law, to teach sinners, to teach you and me, that we are nothing before the King, that we deserve none of His grace and mercy. But He gives it anyway, for that was His plan from the beginning. For sinners He sent His Son to suffer and die; for sinners He raised Him up again. For sinners He gives His Son’s Body and Blood in the Supper, bestowing forgiveness, life, and salvation in a miraculous meal. In humility, repent and understand that your greatest need is not more money, or a bigger house, or a trophy for your child, but rescue from sin, death, and the power of the devil. Give up the arrogance of thinking that anything in this life is more important than dining at the Lord’s Table by His gracious invitation.

For at this humble table, standing here in the midst of our sinful world, you partake of the eternal feast. This is the same banquet that we will celebrate in the new heavens and the new earth; when the King invites you to the earthly feast, He is inviting you to the heavenly one, too. At this table, we join with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven. “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” Blessed indeed, for what we could not do the King has done in sending His Son, and He has compelled us through the call of the Gospel to partake of the feast, here in time and there in eternity. This is the Feast of victory for our God, our King, and the party will never end. In the Name of Jesus, the Son of the King, who is both host and meal, Amen.

Holy Trinity (Isaiah 6:1-7)

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!” 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 evening, the continuing festival of the Holy Trinity, comes from the Old Testament lesson read a few moments ago from the sixth chapter of the prophet Isaiah. Dear friends in Christ, Isaiah the priest stood before the altar of God, offering the required sacrifices. To human eyes, it seemed all too ordinary; a man in funny clothes, waving a bowl of incense about in a temple chamber lit by candlelight. Certainly the Scriptures declared that this was the very place where heaven touched earth, where God interacted with man in grace, but none of that was apparent to the human eye—at least not until this day. On this day, God destroyed the division between seen and unseen for a brief moment, showing Isaiah what the human eye cannot see as the sacrifices are offered. “In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon the throne, high and lifted up; and the train of His robe filled the temple.”

He sees the Lord enthroned, high and lifted up, and the angelic host sings a song of praise: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!” Where heaven touches earth, Isaiah sees God, and he hears His identity proclaimed. They say ‘holy,’ not once, lest you should believe that there is but one; not twice, lest you should exclude the Spirit; they say not holies, lest you should imagine that there is plurality, but they repeat themselves three times and say the same word, that even in a hymn you may understand the distinction of Persons and the oneness of the godhead. Isaiah hears a summary of the Athanasian Creed as he sees the Triune God enthroned, and the seraphim declare that the whole earth is full of His glory.

But are they telling the truth? Is the whole earth really full of His glory? Heaven may be filled with glory, the glory of the Trinity, the glory that Isaiah sees, but does this same glory fill the earth? Isaiah knows, he sees the apostasy that lies heavy in the land. He sees the idolatry, the empty worship, he sees God’s very own people living in bondage to foreign gods while abandoning the One who delivered them from Egyptian slavery. In Israel, Jerusalem, and the temple itself he sees no glory, but evil, filth, and corruption. The people of God have given up the faith, and the enemies of God are circling, like hungry sharks smelling blood in the water.

Sound familiar? The headlines trumpet the newest findings of the Pew Forum report on the state of religion in America. The conclusion? Christianity in America is on its deathbed. The number of atheists in America has doubled since 2007; there are now more of them than any other non-Christian group in America. There are more unaffiliated Americans than Catholic Americans, and the unaffiliated are getting younger while Christianity gets older, and even the older generation is leaving Christianity behind. I’ll leave the worst for the last: the Pew Forum reports what many of you know from your own bitter experience: the son or daughter your raise as a Christian is increasingly more likely to leave the faith in adulthood. Christianity, with its moral compass, is collapsing, and its enemies are moving in for the kill. The whole earth is full of His glory? Not according to the headlines; there a different kind of glory is trumpeted. Our eyes see evil enthroned, not the Triune God, and what is left but to despair?

And Isaiah does despair; he has lost hope. “The foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.” The sights and sounds declare total exclusion from the presence of God. The entrance to the heavenly throne room trembles, the smoke obscures the view, the cry of the seraphim declare that what God is man decidedly isn’t. The glory of the Triune God is a consuming fire, for the Lord is Holy, Holy, Holy, and the human heart—and everything connected to it—is completely and totally unholy. Isaiah sees the glory and knows that his heart is full of corruption. He doesn’t blame anyone else, he doesn’t accuse a political party or a social movement; He goes to the root of the problem—the human heart, more specifically, his own heart. God is Holy, Holy, Holy, and he is not. If you, I, or Isaiah were the only ones left on this planet, the earth would still stand corrupted by our sin, we would still be unholy. It is not Christianity as a religion that is at stake, but your own soul. “And I said, ‘Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

Isaiah confesses his un-holiness, his complete and total lack of that which defines the Triune God; it is quite appropriate that he be excluded from the temple, but Isaiah expects—and deserves—far worse. Eternal destruction is the penalty for the unholy; it’s easy for us to make light of God’s all-consuming holiness when we do not see His glory revealed with our own eyes, but Isaiah saw, he understood, and he despaired. Immediately God sprung into action. The sights and sounds of the heavenly throne room excluded Isaiah from the presence of God; now the sights and sounds open God’s presence to him. “Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: ‘Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.’” Isaiah is forgiven, cleansed, made holy; the consuming fire of the altar burns away his corruption. He has seen God, and he lives—only by God’s grace.

From now on he will hear from the Lord and speak the Word of God to His rebellious people. His lips have been cleansed, made holy so that he can preach. His eyes will not see God any longer; the vision will soon end. He will now not live by sight, but by faith, trusting, believing, proclaiming, that despite the corruption and evil his eyes see, the Triune God remains enthroned on high. He still preaches today. He fills your ears with the promise of Immanuel, the child who will be ‘God with us,’ born of a virgin to stand in your place as the suffering Servant, laying down His life as a ransom for many. Through this Jesus, not seen by your eyes but heard by your ears, God’s glory fills this fallen creation, it fills unholy human hearts. Your unclean flesh and soul is cleaned by Christ, who responds to your confession, your cry of despair, by bringing what He won on the altar of the cross to your lips. Not a burning coal, but a wafer, filled with His own holiness, for the bread is His Body, and a drink of wine, the Blood shed as Isaiah prophesized for the sin of the world. We trust not our eyes, we trust our ears, which hear Christ’s Word. “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” A splash of water, the words of a pastor; each humble earthly element set aside by Christ makes us holy, able to stand in the heavenly throne room forever. Because Christ died, as Isaiah preached, because Christ lives, as the apostles declare, the song of the seraphim is true: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!”

Centuries after Isaiah peered into the throne room of heaven, John the apostle stood before the altar of God, administering the Lord’s Supper. To human eyes, it seemed all too ordinary; a man standing on an island of exile, holding up bread and wine and speaking over them the words of Christ, as he had done hundreds of times. Certainly the Scriptures declared that in the Supper heaven touched earth, there God interacted with man in grace, but none of that was apparent to the human eye—at least not until this day. On this day, God destroyed the division between seen and unseen for a brief moment, showing John what the human eye cannot see as the Eucharist is celebrated. “At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne.”

He sees the Lord enthroned, high and lifted up, and the angelic host sings a song of praise: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” Where heaven touches earth, John sees God, and he hears His identity proclaimed. They say ‘holy,’ not once, lest you should believe that there is but one; not twice, lest you should exclude the Spirit; they say not holies, lest you should imagine that there is plurality, but they repeat themselves three times and say the same word, that even in a hymn you may understand the distinction of Persons and the oneness of the godhead. John hears a summary of the Athanasian Creed as he sees the Triune God enthroned, and the living creatures declare that the whole earth is full of His glory. 

This is an article of faith, not sight, even for John, even for Isaiah. They received glimpses, but each spent the rest of their days walking in a world that appeared to be filled with evil, not the glory of God. But the vision sustained them, as it does us; it declares that the Triune God is enthroned, that He reigns, despite every appearance to the contrary. It is no wonder that we sing the song of heaven before we receive Christ’s Body and Blood; here, although hidden from human eyes, heaven touches earth; John’s vision shows us what our eyes do not see when we kneel at this altar: Christ enthroned and reigning as the Lamb who was slain. We do not trust our eyes, we trust our ears, and our ears tell us that the whole earth is full of God’s glory, that one day we will see with our own eyes this glory filling the heavens and the earth, the Day when Christ returns to make all things new. Until that day, we live by faith, not by sight, faith in the God who has made us holy, now and forever. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.