Proper 17 of Series A (Jeremiah 15:15-21)

“I will make you to this people a fortified wall of bronze; they will fight against you, but they shall not prevail over you, for I am with you to save you and deliver you, declares the Lord.” 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 Old Testament lesson read a few moments ago from the fifteenth chapter of the prophet Jeremiah. Dear friends in Christ, Jeremiah’s life stunk. He was called upon to be a prophet of the Lord in one of the most difficult times in Israel’s history; he would live to see Judah carted off into exile and Jerusalem burned and utterly destroyed. He stood as an island in the midst of a sea of idolatry, ungodliness, and rebellion. He had words to preach that no one wanted to hear, and they blamed the messenger for his terrible message. Before our text, Jeremiah had pleaded with God for mercy upon His people, but God refused. He instead responded with an even stronger declaration of judgment. God will not relent. And so Jeremiah does what he often did when confronted with a message too terrible to bear: he offers up a complaint to his Lord, a plea for aid. “O Lord, you know; remember me and visit me, and take vengeance for me on my persecutors. In your forbearance take me not away; know that for your sake I bear reproach.” He needs deliverance, he needs God’s vengeance on his enemies, for the Word of God has become a terrible burden, a source of indignation, isolation, and reproach.

It was not always this way. In the beginning, Jeremiah found God’s Word to be the most wonderful thing in the world. “Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name, O Lord, God of hosts.” The Word of God is truly an amazing gift! It declares to you the One who created you, who lovingly formed man from the dust of the earth, who similarly formed you in the womb of your mother. The Word declares to you Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Word made flesh, who came into this world for your salvation. The Word speaks to you of the cross and the empty tomb, it tells you of the deliverance that Christ won, the forgiveness of sins and the promise of eternal life with Him in the new heavens and the new earth. But the Word of God does much more than simply tell you about salvation. Jeremiah declared with joy, “I am called by your name.” The Word of God calls you by God’s name when it is joined with the waters of Holy Baptism. There at the font you were called by God’s name, the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The Word has given to you nothing less than eternal salvation through Jesus Christ. Every Christian can therefore say with Jeremiah, “Your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart.”

Jeremiah says that he ate the Word of God; in the book of Revelation, Saint John has a similar experience, he is invited to eat a scroll. “And I took the little scroll from the hand of the angel and ate it. It was sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it my stomach was made bitter.” Jeremiah quickly learned what John discovered that day: the Word of God may taste sweet to the mouth, but when we take it in, the Word becomes a burden, it very often makes our lives bitter. “I did not sit in the company of revelers, nor did I rejoice; I sat alone, because your hand was upon me, for you had filled me with indignation.” The Word calls on you to live differently from the world, it calls on you to summon this world to repentance. The people around you don’t like it when others refuse to join in their life of sin, they don’t appreciate being told God’s Law. Bearing the Word means reproach, it means indignation, it means isolation. The world despises Christians; it pokes fun at you, it persecutes you by word and by deed. Jeremiah felt alone, isolated from his family and friends. They had abandoned him, for He bore the Word of God, a Word that condemns sin, and people like living in their sin. Jesus declared, “Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” We cannot fully understand those words unless we realize what Jeremiah teaches us, that the Word of God is a cross, it is a burden. Bearing the Word of God means that you will lose your life in this world for the sake of Christ, you will give up everything for His sake.

Jeremiah is weary of bearing this burden, and so he cries out to God: “Why is my pain unceasing, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed? Will you be to me like a deceitful brook, like waters that fail?” God’s Word initially brought such joy, but in Jeremiah’s mind, it was like a stream that promised refreshment and delivered only mud. This burden and cross has cost so much that he is ready to give up. When faced with that same burden, Peter declared, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you!” He didn’t want Jesus to bear that burden, because I think Peter realized that if Jesus bore the cross, he would have to as well. It seems so much easier to give in to the world and cast off the burden of the Word. Why should I continue to suffer the reproach and indignation of my friends, family, and neighbors? Why should I go to church while they sleep in? Why should I try so hard to follow God’s law? All it’s earned me is scorn, dirty looks, and the cold shoulder. How often are you, like Jeremiah, at the very edge of giving up, of casting off that cross and abandoning that burden? Maybe you crossed that line a long time ago, maybe you have already decided that the cost of following Christ is too high. Maybe you are only a Christian when it’s safe, and the rest of the time follow the ways of the world. Maybe your complaint has already led you over the edge.

God wants us to pour out our complaint to Him; He invites us to cry out even with words as harsh as Jeremiah’s. But now that we have spoken, it’s time for us to sit down and listen, for God has an answer. “Therefore thus says the Lord: ‘If you return, I will restore you, and you shall stand before me. If you utter what is precious, and not what is worthless, you shall be as my mouth. They shall turn to you, but you shall not turn to them.’” In other words, ‘Repent!’ Repent of your desire to cast off the burden of the Word, repent of your desire to join in the ways of the world! Return to me, God declares; come back from the edge! Do not utter the worthless words of this world, but instead the precious Word of God, whatever the cost. As Jesus says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

Christ has called on us to take up our cross, but although we may feel like Jeremiah that we bear this burden in isolation, we are not alone. “And I will make you to this people a fortified wall of bronze; they will fight against you, but they shall not prevail over you, for I am with you to save you and deliver you, declares the Lord.” This world will fight against you, for it hates you and everything that you stand for exactly as it hated Jesus and all that He stood for. But the world will not prevail against you. For with you stands our God, who gives you the most wonderful promise that we find in the Scriptures, “I am with you to save you and deliver you, declares the Lord.” You are not alone, for God boldly declares, ‘I am with you!’ No matter how isolated you feel in this world of sin, the Lord is with you. He is with you to save and defend you; the world will not overcome you, no matter how hard it tries. That is your confidence, your support as you bear the burden of the Word in this world of sin: ‘I am with you!’

How do we know this, how can we truly have confidence that God is with us? He proved it, God made this promise a concrete reality by taking our human flesh and becoming man. Jesus truly is God with us, Emmanuel come to save. It is only because of Him that this world cannot overcome you, for He has overcome the world. “I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked, and redeem you from the grasp of the ruthless.” He does this by walking the path that you are called upon the walk, the path of the cross. Jesus suffered reproach, indignation, and isolation; He suffered everything that you face in this sinful, hostile world, and He faced it for you. He bore the reproach and indignation of His very own people as they spit in His face, as they cried out ‘Crucify, crucify!’ He was isolated, separated from all people, indeed He was abandoned by God Himself as He hung upon the cross. Jesus took on Jeremiah’s cry as His own: “I sat alone, because your hand was upon me, for you had filled me with indignation.” Jesus faced the reproach and indignation of God and the world for our sin. He suffered all for your redemption, He endured all for your salvation, He delivered Himself into the hand of the wicked so that you may be rescued from their grasp. The world can rage against you all it wants, it can even take your life, but the empty tomb means that nothing in this world can prevail over you. Even death itself has been defeated; this world has no weapon that can destroy God’s saints, those claimed by the blood of Jesus. You are redeemed, delivered, saved, by God with us, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

That was God’s promise to Jeremiah as he bore the burden of God’s Word in a world of sin, the same promise that He gives to you again this very day. “I am with you to save you and deliver you, declares the Lord.” This promise stands as firm today as you bear your cross as it did for Jeremiah as he bore his. Jesus is with us, to comfort us, to strengthen us, to provide for us as we carry the burden of His Word. He came to you once again in His Word today to forgive your sins; He will come to you again next week as He did last week in His Body and Blood, providing food for the journey, nourishment as you bear the cross. And He promises you that one day you will lay down that cross and receive the promised rest, the eternal salvation that He won for you when He bore His cross for your salvation. In the Name of Emmanuel, God with us for our salvation, Amen.

Proper 16 of Series A (Matthew 16:13-20)

“Simon Peter replied, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’” 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 sixteenth chapter of the Gospel according to Saint Matthew. Dear friends in Christ, even though November of 2012 is still more than a year away, we are in election season. As you know, I grew up in Nebraska, and the thing about living in Nebraska is that the presidential elections often seem like a far off phenomenon. For a variety of reasons- small population, electoral votes that haven’t changed hands in decades- no one campaigns in Nebraska, it really seems like no one cares whether we vote for them or not. But in Iowa, they do care. And they show that they care by calling your house at least seven times a night. If you accidently answer the phone one evening, you may hear a campaign advertisement, but it is just as likely that you will have the opportunity to participate in a survey. This survey will ask you about yourself, about what you want in a candidate, and most importantly, who you would vote for. After asking hundreds or thousands of people the same questions, the campaign organization or news outlet can analyze the numbers, statistics that can make or break a campaign. Surveys are vitally important, because they tell the candidate and the world what people are thinking.

In our text for today, Jesus gives His disciples a survey: “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” In a sense, Jesus wants the same thing that a presidential candidate calling your house wants; He wants to know what the general idea about Him is, what kinds of opinions are floating around. What are the people thinking? “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” Everyone seems in agreement that this Jesus guy is special, a prophet of some sort, but they can’t quite put their finger on exactly who He is. The results of this survey aren’t encouraging, but it’s much better than what we would encounter today. Who do people in Deloit and Kiron say that the Son of Man is? Some would say a good teacher, some would say a fraud, some would say a basically nice guy, and others would say that we can’t really know. This is tragic, because this survey question is the most important question that a person will ever answer in their life, and it is a question we cannot escape.

“He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’” Jesus turns the tables; the disciples are not just commenting on what everyone else thinks, they are now to answer the question for themselves. They are now part of the survey, a survey much more vital than any campaign phone call. The answer to this question determines eternal one’s eternal destiny: answer correctly, and you have salvation; answer incorrectly, and you have eternal condemnation. This question is about heaven or hell. It is posed to all people- no one can escape it. We all have to take a stand one way or another. Jesus demands confession, He demands that we tell Him who we think He is. This seems strange to our world, and indeed it seems strange to many in the Church. Creeds and confessions are not much in favor these days. People find them divisive and strict, not allowing any wiggle room. And that’s the point; Jesus wants us to clearly declare before and against the world what we believe about Him. The answer to this question will be divisive, because it divides those who answer correctly from those who answer incorrectly. A good confession divides truth from error, and that is what Jesus calls us to do: confess the truth about His person and work.

This question comes to us each and every day, in every situation we find ourselves in. Who do you say that Jesus is when you are here at worship? Is it the same answer as the rest of the week? Who do you say that Jesus is when you are at work? Who do you say that Jesus is when you are at school? Who do you say that Jesus is when you speak with your friends, your families, your neighbors? Most of the time, our problem is that we don’t say anything at all; we too often fail to confess Jesus before the world, we fail to boldly declare before others the person and work of Christ. Our words and actions instead give the answer that Jesus is someone who doesn’t matter that much to my life, that He’s a guy who doesn’t care what I do the other six days of the week. It’s easy to boldly confess within the walls of this Church; where we fall short is in bringing that confession out into the world. This survey question comes up much more often than we realize; each and every day we have opportunities to confess Jesus before others, and even if we do not give a wrong answer, it’s often only because we have failed to give an answer at all. But Jesus won’t let us get away with that: He demands confession, He demands an answer.

“Simon Peter replied, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” In contrast to all of the other false opinions of Jesus floating around, the wrong answers people were giving to the survey; in contrast to the silence of the other eleven disciples, silence that we too often share, Peter confesses. “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Peter heard the question that Jesus poses to each and every person on this planet, and he answers, he confesses with power, he confesses with boldness. Jesus is the Christ, the anointed one, the Messiah promised from of old. He is the Savior, the One sent by God to deliver us from sin, death and hell. He is the Son of the living God; the One who created all things has sent His Son to redeem all things. Peter doesn’t quite yet understand the consequences of His confession; in next Sunday’s Gospel lesson we will learn how Jesus will do this, what He has been anointed to do. Jesus is anointed to suffer and die, to rise again in victory over the grave. He is the sin-bearer, He is the Christ because He has been anointed to take our sin to the cross and pay the price for it there. Even though Peter may not fully understand it yet, Christ’s person and work is contained in just ten words: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!”

Peter has stepped forward, boldly answering the most important question ever posed, and he doesn’t have to wait long to see whether he has answered correctly. “Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” In other words, yes, Peter, you’re right, but don’t stick out your chest; you didn’t come up with this confession on your own, instead it came straight from God. The Greek word for confession means ‘to say the same thing.’ That is what confession is: God reveals Jesus to us and we speak back to Him and to the world the same thing He has told us. Confession has its source in God Himself and what He has said to us. We cannot confess on our own power, but only through the very power of God Himself; as Saint Paul declares, “No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit.” Jesus demands confession, and it is a demand that we cannot fulfill on our own. Only through the power of the Holy Spirit, working faith within us, can we confess who Jesus is and what He came to do.

It is precisely the divine origin of our confession that gives it great power. Jesus declares, “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” Peter and the other disciples will take this bold confession out into the world, and Christ will establish His Church upon that foundation. Saint Paul tells us, “You are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone.” The confession of the apostles is our solid foundation because it is the confession of Jesus Christ; it declares who He is and what He has come to do. The Son of the living God has taken on human flesh and is anointed to die for our sins and to rise again to conquer death. Jesus died for you, bearing your sin, winning forgiveness for every time that you fail to make the bold confession, and indeed for every one of your sins. This confession stands firm against the very gates of Hell because it is declares victory over Hell’s power. The Church is built on that foundation, the confession that will never fall. What an amazing promise! Congregations will close, denominations will decline, steeples will fall, but the holy Christian Church will endure, for it has an eternal confession to proclaim. The Church will never die, for it confesses the One who has defeated sin, death, and Satan for us.

Because of that victory, this confession has the power to unlock heaven. “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Peter and the apostles, along with all who have followed them in the Office of the Holy Ministry, exercise the keys, binding and loosing by means of the confession of Jesus Christ, declaring the verdict that has already been made in heaven. To those who reject this confession, they declare the verdict that heaven is closed to them, they are still bound to their sins. But to those who make the bold confession through the power of the Holy Spirit, they declare the verdict that heaven is open to them, their sins have been loosed. As Saint Paul declares, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Thanks be to God that He has opened heaven to you by working faith within you that boldly confesses, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!” In the Name of Jesus, whose bold confession is the foundation of the Church, who alone protects that Church from the very gates of hell, the One who unlocks heaven for you through His death and resurrection, the Christ, the Son of the living God, Amen.

Proper 15 of Series A (Matthew 15:21-28)

“Yes Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” 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 fifteenth chapter of the Gospel according to Saint Matthew. Dear friends in Christ: the year was 1546. Martin Luther had spent the last three decades serving Jesus and the Church as a reformer, as one whom God raised up to proclaim the Gospel freely again to all people. His former life as a monk had ruined his body, and a career spent in high pressure situations, confessing the faith before priests and kings, hadn’t helped; now it seemed like the Lord was ready to call him home. He would die on February 18th, but shortly before that time he would scribble a short phrase on a scrap of paper, a phrase that epitomized his own life, and in his opinion, the life of every Christian: “We are beggars, it is true.” In those simple words, Luther wasn’t trying to make a social or economic statement, but instead, he wanted at death’s door to define the Christian’s relationship with God. “We are beggars, it is true.” Our human sense of pride revolts at those words. A beggar has nothing to give, he can place no demand on anyone else, but instead stands openhanded, simply receiving whatever is given to him. A beggar asks for aid, but has no right to expect any response, much less a positive one.

“And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, ‘Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.’ But he did not answer her a word.” If we are beggars, then that means that we have nothing that we can give God, it means that God doesn’t owe us anything. We don’t deserve an answer to our prayers, we don’t deserve help, healing, or even salvation. The Canaanite woman called upon Jesus to help her, and all she found was silence. And why should she expect any different? Why should we expect any different from God? Does God owe us anything? What have we done to merit an answer to prayer, to earn help or healing? Nothing; and indeed we have all done much to discourage such mercy. We are unclean, corrupted completely by the filth of sin. We live as if we mattered most, and as if God or our neighbors mattered little at all. God doesn’t owe us anything. We are not entitled to grace, nothing we do can answer for the sin that fills our lives. We are beggars, it is true, beggars with no reason to expect bread.

“And [Jesus’] disciples came and begged Him, saying, ‘Send her away, for she is crying out after us.’ He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’” Strike two. Not only are we sinful, corrupted from birth, but we are not even part of the covenant people of Israel. Now the Jews were hardly perfect (just read the Old Testament), but Jesus was sent through them and to them, to find the lost sheep and bring them back to their God. As Gentiles, we are even less entitled to God’s grace and mercy than the lost sheep of Israel were. The woman in our text was a Canaanite, part of that ancient, idolatrous people that inhabited the Promised Land when Joshua crossed the Jordan. She lived in the region of Tyre and Sidon, two cities that were the epitome of pagan debauchery in the Old Testament. She was in the same boat as you and me; unless I am mistaken, we don’t have any Jews here, and so we are all Gentiles, separated by birth from the covenant people of God. The Messiah came through Israel; the Messiah came to Israel. Gentiles deserve nothing from God but destruction. If anyone deserved salvation less than the lost sheep of Israel, it is the Gentiles, you and me. We are beggars, Gentile beggars with no claim on a Messiah that wasn’t sent to us.

The Canaanite woman is persistent; she has two strikes but she is ready to chance a third. “But she came and knelt before Him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’ And He answered, ‘It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.’” Calling someone a ‘dog’ isn’t a complement today, and if anything, it was even worse in biblical times. The bread belongs to the children, to the people of Israel, not to the unclean, sinful, corrupted dogs that lie beneath the table. The children are given the bread, even if many refuse to eat, not the Gentile dogs, you and I, who have no claim on God, no right to even ask for this bread. We are beggars, it is true, beggars who seem doomed to die of hunger.

But then something remarkable happens. The Canaanite woman has struck out; she has asked for help and has been called a dog, told in no uncertain terms that the bread is not for her. In the face of all that she doesn’t storm off, she doesn’t start arguing, she agrees! “She said, ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.’” This Canaanite woman, far from believing herself to be entitled to anything from God, instead agrees with Jesus that she is a dog. In great humility she confesses herself as a sinner, as one to whom God owes nothing. She declares and understands what we say at the beginning of every service, “I, a poor miserable sinner…” She doesn’t just say the words; Jesus has made sure that she comprehends them, that she has completely understood that her standing before God has nothing to do with her own merits. She is a beggar, it is true, and she admits it here. But she doesn’t wallow in despair; instead she confesses another, even greater truth. She confesses that remarkably, the mercy of Israel’s Messiah overflows even to the Gentiles.

Jesus Christ came first to the lost sheep of Israel; it is only right, for they brought forth the Messiah, they were God’s people chosen from of old. Saint Paul declares in our Epistle lesson, “I ask then, has God rejected His people? By no means… God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew.” The Gospel first came to Israel, for Jesus is Israel’s Messiah. He preached to them, He healed their sick, He called His followers from among them. But even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table. Jesus doesn’t owe Gentiles anything, but yet He still delivered us, He won salvation not only for Israel, but for all people. Isaiah prophesied this in our Old Testament lesson: “The Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares, I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered.’” God loves His rebellious people, though they abandoned Him again and again, and that same love is extended even to the Gentiles, even to you and me. We have even less of a claim on God’s grace and mercy than the lost sheep of Israel, but the redemption of Christ flows even into our lives. We eat from beneath the table, a table overflowing with grace and favor.

For the abundance of the Gospel is far beyond our comprehension. Christ died for the lost sheep of Israel, and He also died for Gentile dogs. He died for you and me, those who had no right, no entitlement, no reason to deserve such grace. While we were still sinners, while we were still dogs, Christ died for us. He faced the wrath of God in your place, He suffered the very punishment of hell so that you will never have to. He took on your sin, your impurity, your corruption, all that kept you away from God, and He paid for it on Calvary’s cross. His death was your death, and His resurrection is yours as well. Jesus didn’t owe you anything, but He gave you everything. He gave you His own outpoured blood, the life He offered up into death and then took up again on Easter morning. You are a beggar, and He pours into your empty hands forgiveness, life and salvation. He died for sheep that love to wander, for dogs that deserved nothing but punishment. That shed blood, that redemption, fills the Lord’s Table in abundance, and the crumbs that fall from that table are enough to satisfy our deepest needs. Think about it: the crumbs of God more deeply satisfy than any other feast on earth. We satisfy our greatest need, the need for salvation, the need for deliverance, the need for forgiveness, from the overflowing bounty of the Lord’s Table. Yes, we are beggars, beggars who have been given all things in abundance.

“Then Jesus answered her, ‘O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for your as your desire.’ And her daughter was healed instantly.” Christ’s grace and mercy poured into her life, for God had worked faith in her heart. This corrupted, sinful woman, unclean in every respect to people like the Pharisees, demonstrated with her words that she clung to Israel’s Messiah. She had inner purity through faith that meant so much more than her outward uncleanliness. It is the same way with you and me. We appear unclean, corrupted with sin, but through faith in Christ, we are clean. We are covered with the robe of Christ’s righteousness; the Gospel has overflowed from the Lord’s Table into our lives and has cleansed us, purifying us to stand before our Father for eternity. God doesn’t owe us anything, but He gives us everything through the redemption of Jesus Christ. He pours His grace out in abundance to those who by no means deserve it, but instead have been claimed in mercy by the blood of His Son. We are beggars, it is true; beggars redeemed through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We never stop being beggars. All people are beggars from the moment they are conceived to the moment the leave this earth, but the difference is that Christians acknowledge that fact and confess it. We confess, like the Canaanite woman, that we have no claims upon God, that we stand empty-handed before Him, with nothing to give Him but our sin. And He takes our sin and forgives it, giving in its place forgiveness, life, and salvation. Though to the world we wear the rags of sin, to our Father in heaven, we are clothed with Christ’s own righteousness. We are beggars, it is true; beggars who eat the crumbs from the table, who feast on the abundance of Christ’s redemption. In the name of the one who fills the beggar’s empty hands with the overflowing abundance of His table, Israel’s Messiah who redeemed the Gentiles, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, Amen.

Proper 14 of Series A (Matthew 14:22-33)

“And those in the boat worshiped Him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God!’” 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 fourteenth chapter of the Gospel according to Saint Matthew. Dear friends in Christ, the disciples didn’t want to get into the boat. Listen to the first verse of our text again: “Immediately He made the disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side, while He dismissed the crowds.” He made them, He forced them, He compelled them to get into that boat, because they simply didn’t want to go. It wasn’t fear that held them back, nor was it even fatigue; no, instead it was a thirst for glory that made them want to stay. They had just watched as Jesus used five loaves and two fish to feed thousands of people; what else was possible for a man who could multiply food without breaking a sweat! They wanted to bask in the glory of that great miracle, perhaps some even wanted to make Jesus their ‘bread king,’ the one who could provide for all their physical needs in abundance. When you fill hungry stomachs, you have a captive audience, but perhaps for the wrong reasons.

Jesus doesn’t want any part of this, and so He acts, ‘immediately,’ to get the disciples going one direction, and the crowds in another. His followers have received a taste of the glory, but now they must go out onto the lake. And the lake is hardly a place of glory. Instead, it is a place of danger, of struggles, of opposition. “The boat by this time was a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them.” The day that you became a child of God was a glorious day. The Lord poured water upon your head, claiming you as His own, delivering to you the very gifts of salvation. Each and every Sunday is a glorious day, for we come to this place to receive the great gifts of God; forgiveness, life, salvation. We receive His very Body, His true Blood, on this day for the forgiveness of all our sins. You are given here today in the Divine Service the very benefits that Christ won on Calvary’s cross! But yet, just like the disciples, at the end of this service you must go out onto the lake. Jesus compels you, He makes you get into the boat. He sent you out from the font on your baptism day, He sends you out from this altar today, and like the disciples in our text, you are sent into dangerous waters, where the wind is against you. Each and every day you encounter those who oppose your Christian faith, who try to lead you into sin and unbelief. Some are at work, some at school, and some uncomfortably close to home. The wind is against you as you struggle to pay the bills, as expenses continue to mount. In our current economy, you know what it is like to fight against the wind and the waves, trying to keep your family afloat. The wind blows hard as you sit in the doctor’s office, hearing discouraging news about yourself or a loved one; it gusts in your face whenever death invades your life. You are struggling at the oars, but it seems too often like you aren’t getting anywhere.

The disciples thought that they had to face the wind alone. “And after [Jesus] had dismissed the crowds, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray. When evening came, He was there alone, but the boat by this time was a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them.” It seems like Jesus has simply abandoned them to face the wind and the waves by themselves, on their own efforts. He doesn’t seem to care, or if He does, He isn’t anywhere close. He’s simply watching from far off, observing as His people struggle with sin and death in a dangerous world. This is the classic idea of the absent God, something believed by many in this world, even Christians. And you can hardly deny that you have thought the same thing; you too have felt abandoned by God, left alone to fight against the wind. You have wondered if God even cares, if He even listens to your desperate prayers.

However, appearances are deceiving: our God isn’t absent, He has not left you alone; our God is the God who comes to us. “And in the fourth watch of the night He came to them, walking on the sea.” Our God is Jesus Christ, who came to us in our own human flesh for our salvation. The same Jesus who became man, born of the Virgin Mary, comes to you and me in our distress, just as He came to the disciples as they struggled with the wind. The problem is that we often don’t identify our Lord. “But when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, ‘It is a ghost!’ and they cried out in fear.” The disciples thought He was a ghost; we often fail to see Jesus in the work of a doctor, the comfort of a friend, the support of our spouse. Jesus works through means to help us in the midst of the storm, He uses people as His chosen instruments of comfort and assistance when we struggle against the wind. But as important as those instruments are, He has not left us without His own comfort. The disciples thought that Jesus was a ghost; we often fail to see Jesus in the Words of Scripture, in the Absolution of a pastor. Jesus addresses our needs with the power of His Word. “But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘Take heart, it is I. Do not be afraid.’”

Jesus doesn’t calm the storm for the disciples, nor does He always calm the storms in your life. Instead, He calms trembling hearts. “Take heart, it is I. Do not be afraid.” He gives the assurance of His presence, the promise that He has not abandoned you, but is at your side as the wind blows. He promises that He will deliver you from evil when He takes you to be with Himself, that He came to die so that the storm would not triumph, but instead you would reach the other side in safety. “Take heart, it is I. Do not be afraid.” You hear these words in the midst of the storm when a pastor declares: “In the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ, I forgive you all your sins in the Name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Christ’s blood-bought forgiveness is yours; sin, Satan, and death have no hold upon you. Christ died to defeat the storm, to silence the wind. His Word proclaims to you the comfort of His victory, and His Word is enough. It is enough to know that the Lord of heaven and earth, who has authority over the wind and the waves, who shed His blood for your sin, cares for you and stands with you as the storm rages, promising to bring you ultimate deliverance when He takes you to be with Himself.

But is this assurance really enough? For many of us, this is a bit disappointing. We want more than mere words, we want miracles, we want glory! We want Jesus to end the storm, or else we aren’t going to believe that He’s really with us. That was Peter’s problem. “And Peter answered Him, ‘Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.’” It is hard to imagine how Peter could have the gall to say this to Jesus. Christ had just walked on the water, declared “Take heart, it is I. Do not be afraid,” and now Peter says, “If it is you.” If it is you. If is a word of doubt, a challenge to Jesus. Peter is putting our Lord to the test, challenging Jesus to perform some great miracle. He remembers the feeding of the five thousand, and now he wants to see more glory. It is easy to condemn Peter here, but Christians, including you and me, do this all the time. “If you really exist, you will heal me of my cancer.” “If you get me through this, I will start taking my faith seriously.” “If you are truly with me, nothing bad should happen to me.” If, if, if. Words are not enough, we demand miracles! We don’t want comfort in the storm, we want the storm to end! We, like Peter, are searching for glory, for a God that fulfills my needs when I want them fulfilled, a ‘bread king’ that gives us what we want.

Peter wants to travel on the glory road; He wants Jesus to do something even more amazing before he will believe in Him. And remarkably, Jesus agrees to Peter’s suggestion. “He said, ‘Come.’ So Peter got out of the boat and waked on the water and came to Jesus.” So far, so good. Yes, miracles do happen; they happen each and every day. Our Lord does choose to act in the lives of people with great power and glory, healing disease, delivering from distress, stilling storms. Many of you have seen this in your lives or the lives of others. Jesus invites us to boldly pray to Him for deliverance from every storm, to pray for healing, to pray for miracles. But do we make miracles the condition of our faith in Jesus? Do we put our Lord to the test? Can the glory road sustain us in the storm? “But when [Peter] saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’” If we stand in the storm demanding a miracle of our God as a condition of belief, our faith will fail; we will sink. And if there was ever a man that didn’t deserve rescue from drowning, it was Peter. He put Jesus to the test and mocked His words of comfort. But yet, Jesus does save him. “Jesus immediately reached out His hand and took hold of him, saying to him, ‘O you of little faith, why did you doubt?’ And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased.” We demonstrate our little faith, we doubt our Lord in the midst of the storm, like Peter we don’t deserve any sort of rescue, but in His grace Christ provides it. He rescued us from sin and from death by giving up His own life into death for us. The storm raged against Him, indeed it killed Him, but in doing so the storm itself was defeated. Jesus died for you, to take you to a new heavens and a new earth where the wind will not rage against you, where you will live in peace forever.

And so we daily cry out for deliverance from the storms of this life, knowing full well that this deliverance may only come on the day Christ takes us home. We pray knowing that Christ has already won the victory, that His shed blood covers each and every one of our sins. We pray knowing that He has promised His presence and comfort even in the midst of the storm: “Take heart, it is I. Do not be afraid.” In the Name of the One who has authority over the wind and the waves, the Creator who came to His creation to deliver it, who provides comfort in the midst of the storm, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

Proper 10 of Series A (Isaiah 55:10-13)

“So shall my Word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing which I sent it.” 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 Old Testament lesson read a few moments ago from the fifty-fifth chapter of the prophet Isaiah. Dear friends in Christ, in the beginning, God planted a garden. It was full of beautiful plants, bringing forth a bountiful harvest continually, feeding both animals and man. But man ruined this garden, he spoiled this wonderful gift that had been established for his good. By succumbing to Satan’s temptation, the man didn’t just condemn himself to death, but he condemned the garden to corruption. Now, weeds grew up, thorns and thistles that choked out the good plants. It was no longer a pleasure to tend that garden, but instead it only gave up its fruit through back-breaking labor. You have seen the effects of this. You have pulled those thistles, you have worked the ground, or watched your neighbors and relatives struggle to bring in a crop. Gardening is enjoyable, but every thistle, every weed, every drought or flood is a reminder that we live in a corrupted world, a world broken by sin. The thorns and thistles that rise from even the best-kept field show us what we are inside- fully corrupted by sin. But despite this corruption, God in His grace continues to pour out His great gifts.

“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my Word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” The Lord has not abandoned His corrupted garden, but He continues to provide for it. You know the benefit of a timely rain; we are seeing that in the beauty of our fields this season. I’ve lived through a drought; I know what a ‘million dollar rain’ is, when Nebraska farmers can turn off their wells for a few days. Each timely rain is a gift from God’s bountiful goodness. The water doesn’t return empty, but accomplishes what He sent it to do: it waters the earth and makes things grow and flourish. God provides for His thirsty, corrupted garden with rain, and in the same way He provides for His thirsty, corrupted people by raining down the Word. “So shall my Word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”

The rain we can see, we can understand. We know exactly how it provides for the Lord’s garden. We know the power of the rain; power to make alive, power to renew and strengthen. But the Word’s effects we cannot always see and so we don’t understand its power. For if you truly understood the power of the Word, you would thirst for it even more than the dry ground thirsts for water. Someone would have to physically restrain you to keep you away from the Sunday morning Divine Service. You would drink in every bible class, and be pestering me to offer more. If you truly understood the power of the Word, you would begin every day in that Word, drinking deeply of the living water that the Lord gives you there. That Word would be on your lips in your various vocations, as you sought out opportunities to give to others the great gift you have been given. As corrupted and sinful as this earth is, it still has the good sense not to reject the rain that the Lord gives it, but instead it drinks deeply of His gifts. Not you, not me. We cut ourselves off from the life giving rain of the Word; we choose to dehydrate ourselves while God pours out His gifts in abundance. God states that His Word will not return to Him empty, but we treat it as empty, we treat it as if it were worthless.

We scorn the Word because we it doesn’t seem very successful at all. Unlike the rain, which makes the corn grown taller and yields a harvest we can literally bring to the bank, the effects of the Word are much less visible. Think about the Parable of the Sower that Jesus told in our Gospel lesson. Three quarters of the seed produces no harvest at all! I don’t think any farmer or gardener would be satisfied with that! That is why so many churches and so many Christians think that something has to be added to the Word for it to have any effect. There has to be something else, right? The Word by itself can’t have any kind of power, because it seems to be so ordinary and seems to cause such little success. Surely a book or some words spoken by a sinful pastor doesn’t look like much. But success in God’s eyes is something different. He sends His Word to accomplish what He desires. And what does God desire? He tells us in the book of Ezekiel: “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?” God desires that no person should die in their sin. He has no pleasure in the death of any wicked person, whether it is you or me or Osama bin Laden. His definition of success is sinners turned from their wickedness in repentance and faith, and His Word is successful because it accomplishes just that.

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” God’s Word was sent to this corrupted earth to accomplish God’s desire by taking on human flesh and walking among us as a man, God and man in one person, Jesus Christ. God desired that no person should die in their sin, but that all should be turned in repentance and faith to Him in a restored relationship. God sent out His powerful Word to cleanse this earth of its corruption, to restore the garden to the way it was in the beginning. “So shall my Word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” His Word did not return to Him void, but instead it accomplished all that God sent it to do. Jesus, the Word, succeeded in the task for which God sent Him. But once again, this success was not the success of the world. In fact, it looked like anything but. For the success of God is a man hanging upon a cross, suffering and dying. Such humiliation is success for the Word hung there bearing your sin, your corruption, His blood was poured out upon the ground to renew it, to cleanse and restore it. The success that God sought was that sin would be paid for, that you would be delivered from the corruption that has filled you since conception. Jesus accomplished all of that for you; the Word did not return void, but accomplished your salvation. The resurrection was the kind of victory that the world would expect, but it only came after the triumph of the cross. The Lord poured out His Word upon His garden, and it succeeded in the thing for which God sent it.

For the success and victory of God is a dead Jesus upon the cross, a sinful man preaching from a pulpit, infants being baptized. The success of God is sinners being forgiven, transformed through repentance and faith. His powerful Word does that work within you. His Word even today transforms you from a sinner under the condemnation of eternal death to a child of God, cleansed and forgiven from your sin and corruption. His Word was sent out to turn you from your sin in repentance and faith, and it has not returned void. It forgives your sin, it gives you faith in Christ as it has done this very day. The Word restores you to your God. Only the power of the Word can do that, only it could transform enemies of God into His beloved children. The Word comes to us in such humble means: in a book, through the lips of a pastor, joined with ordinary water, bread and wine. But in those means it has power, the power to make all things new.

For God doesn’t stop with transformed people. The Word has gone forth to transform the entire creation, to renew and restore His garden. “Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle.” On the Last Day, the garden will emerge once again, and the thorns will be no more. All corruption will be erased, for the Word gave His life to cleanse this world of sin and death. The new heavens and the new earth is the new garden, established by the power of the Word of God. All creation will rejoice in that day, for our bonds have been loosed, we have been redeemed and restored, all things have been transformed by the Word of the Lord. “For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.” The very creation will rejoice, for God’s Word did not return empty, but accomplished all He sent it to do. His Word will pour out upon the new creation, God’s garden, for eternity, nourishing it forever. That is your destination, your eternal dwelling place, for the power of the Lord’s Word has transforms you from death to life.

Transformed people along with the transformed creation point to the One who acted to restore it. “Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall make a name for the Lord, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.” For eternity, the new heavens and the new earth will declare God’s character, that He is a God of love who delivered creation from its bondage through the power of His Word. It will stand as a memorial to God’s goodness, declaring that His Word did not return empty, but accomplished that for which it was sent. The success of the Word, hidden until that day, will then be clearly shown forth in a new creation that will never be corrupted again. But until that day, you and I also stand as signs in a world of sin, demonstrating God’s gracious character. We are living, breathing examples of the power of the Word; we are living, breathing examples that we have a God of love. For He has redeemed us, forgiven our sins through the power of the Word, and has given us the promise of a life forever with Him. In that promise we live each day, sustained by the power of His Word. In the Name of that powerful Word made flesh, our Lord, our Savior Jesus Christ, whose blood sets all creation free from the bondage of sin, Amen.

Proper 9 of Series A (Zechariah 9:9-12)

“As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double.” 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 Old Testament lesson read a few moments ago from the ninth chapter of the prophet Zechariah. Dear friends in Christ, even if you have never stepped foot in a prison, you can imagine what it is like to be a prisoner. Prisons are a far cry from a five-star hotel; they are imposing structures, built to look powerful and impregnable. You can see in your mind the high fences, with the razor wire on top; you can imagine the guard towers, filled with men holding guns. And you can imagine the people inside of those fences. Most people spend time in prison to pay for their own crimes, but think also of prisoners of war. We’ve heard their harrowing stories from time spent in German or North Vietnamese camps. Prisoners have no freedom, they spend their days being told by others what to do. They eat when they’re told to eat, they go outside when they’re told to, they have little or no time to themselves. Those in wartime prison camps were subjected to various measures intended to crush the spirits of the soldiers, to drive away any hope, and it often worked. I think I can safely say that being a prisoner is never something we would choose for ourselves.

But yet we are all prisoners. Keep the imagery that I have just described in mind as you hear again the words of Saint Paul in our Epistle lesson. “I delight in the law of God in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.” As Paul tries to serve God in this world, he finds that he has been taken captive by the law of sin. “I do not do the good that I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” St. Paul, the greatest of Christ’s apostles, finds himself chained to sin. He is imprisoned by his sin, it has him captive, in bonds that he cannot break. And he is hardly alone. You and I are also chained to sin, imprisoned by the corruption that fills us. No matter how much we want to serve God, no matter how much we want to do the right thing, sin has us in its grasp. “I do not do the good that I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” Sin holds us captive, and it refuses to let us go. We are utterly unable to do any good; each and every one of our actions is stained with sin. You know the truth of Paul’s words; no matter how hard you work to cast off your sin, it keeps coming back, it has you in bondage, and escape is impossible.

In our Old Testament lesson, Zechariah teaches that we are prisoners in a ‘waterless pit.’ The cisterns in that time were shaped like a bottle, tapering to a narrow opening at the top, making escape impossible on your own. Our jailers, sin and Satan, have cast us into this prison, bound and chained. This is the prison of death. That is where Satan wants us to spend our lives, imprisoned in the pit of death, chained to our sin, estranged from God, until we join him in eternal torment. And we can’t escape. Not only are the guards always awake, the prison is designed to make escape impossible, and even if escape were possible, our sinful nature would prevent it. “I do not do the good that I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” Just try to keep yourself from sinning even one hour. Choose your favorite ‘pet sin,’ the one you indulge in when no one is looking. Try to slip those chains off by yourself, by your own power. “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.” No matter how much you want to be free from sin, you cannot free yourself. Those chains aren’t coming off, and even if you get one chain off for an hour or a day, you will wake up the next morning finding that they are around your ankles again. And no one, I mean no one, is going to scale the wall of that pit; no one can cheat death. Paul summarizes it perfectly: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

The cry echoes along the hollow walls of the pit, our prison. It is a cry of triumph, of victory. “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is He; humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” Who will release us from the pit, our prison? Our king, the Messiah, the coming one. St. Paul gives Him a name: “Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Jesus Christ has come to us in our prison, He has come in righteousness, in humility. He has come not in power and glory, but he comes riding that most humble of beasts. He comes as a helpless baby, He comes as a dusty rabbi, He comes scorned by the world, without wealth or earthly power. But when He arrives, salvation has come. Listen to what your God declares about this humble servant. “I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and He shall speak peace to the nations; His rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.” He leads no armies, yet He will rule over all; through His work, peace will come to all nations. Through His work Israel will be disarmed, not to open it up to attack, but because weapons will be unnecessary in a new creation characterized by peace.

What is this work, this work that establishes His universal rule, a rule defined by peace? Listen to the words of the Messiah: “As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.” Jesus has come to do what we couldn’t; He has come as our king to rescue us in our great need. We cannot break our chains, we cannot scale the wall, we cannot defeat the guards, but Jesus can and He did. He freed us from the waterless pit. How did He do this? Through the blood of His covenant with us. Our King didn’t rescue us with an army, He didn’t rescue us with a show of earthly power, but instead He rescued us in humility. He rescued us by suffering, He rescued us by dying. He rescued us by paying the price of freedom with His own blood. He poured out His blood on the cross, the required price paid in humility to set you and me free. Only His blood shatters our bonds, only His blood avails before God. Only His death defeats and destroys the power of our jailers; sin paid for, death defeated, Satan crushed. Because He walked forth victorious from the pit of His grave, so we too are rescued from the pit of death. He gives us that same blood of the covenant this day in the Lord’s Supper to forgive your sins, to break your bonds. “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is He!”

Having pulled us from the waterless pit, the Messiah then calls to us: “Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double.” We have exchanged the pit for a stronghold; we have left our prison for the fortress which is the Lord Himself. Remember the words of the Introit for today: “I will say to the Lord, ‘My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.’” God is our fortress because of the deliverance of Jesus, the blood of the covenant that He shed for our salvation. We dwell with the Father, we abide in His loving arms because of the work of Jesus, our King. “Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place- the Most High, who is my refuge- no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague come near your tent.” No longer do we dwell in misery, in a prison that could only bring us sin and death, but instead we dwell in safety, in the assurance of God’s favor, grace, and forgiveness for the sake of Christ. In that stronghold, we find rest, we find refreshment, as Jesus promises in the Gospel lesson: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Through Christ’s blood, we have exchanged our prison for the stronghold of God, we have exchanged our jailers for the loving protection of the Father, and we have exchanged the chains of sin for the rest of Christ.

“Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double.” We are no longer prisoners of sin in a waterless pit; we are prisoners of hope in the stronghold of the Lord. We are chained to hope, it holds us even more tightly than sin once held us. This is the hope of final deliverance and freedom, the hope of an eternity spent with our God. This hope holds us captive, affecting every aspect of our lives in this world. It gives us assurance when we see our sin, it declares to us the promise of life when all we see is death. This hope declares to you the forgiveness that Christ won for you, that you have been cleansed from the corruption of sin, that you even now dwell in the stronghold of the Lord. You are chained to hope, the hope of eternal life, and nothing can break those chains.

We who bear the chains of hope for the sake of Christ, because of the blood of His covenant with us, have the Lord as our stronghold for eternity. Though with Saint Paul we still struggle with our sinful flesh in this world, we know that we are truly free, that we are prisoners of hope; sin, Satan, and death have no permanent hold upon us. “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.” We will abide with Him, and He with us, in the new heavens and the new earth, where Jesus will “speak peace to the nations,” the peace of His resurrection. “Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” In the Name of Jesus, who sets the prisoners free by the blood of His covenant with us, Amen.

Proper 8 of Series A (Matthew 10:34-42)

“Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” 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 is the Gospel lesson read a few moments ago from the tenth chapter of the Gospel according to Saint Matthew. Dear friends in Christ, let me introduce you to Jim. Now, Jim is a pretty normal guy. He spent his life working at the meat-packing plant, laboring hard to provide for his wife and two children. He enjoys relaxing with his kids and grandkids, and he looks forward to retirement and many days spent on the lake. If you asked him, however, probably the first thing that he would tell you about himself is that he is a Christian. His faith is very important to him, because he knows what it is like to be without it. In fact, he lived his entire childhood apart from Christ. Looking back, he knows that the Holy Spirit was working every step of the way, drawing him into the arms of Jesus. Though he doesn’t remember who, he knows that people were talking about Jesus to him from an early age. When he reached high school, he had friends that were Christian and eventually dated a Lutheran girl. Following her around, he went to a few youth group activities and met the pastor. She broke up with him when she went to college and he went to the meat-packing plant, but that pastor was persistent. As Jim started to establish life on his own, the Holy Spirit finally brought to fruition the work He had begun so long ago. Two days after his twentieth birthday, Jim was baptized and confirmed.

New Christians are zealous for the faith, much more so than those of us who have been Christians all our lives. Jim rejoiced in the salvation of Jesus Christ, he reveled in the fact that our Lord had laid down His life to pay for Jim’s sin and the sin of the world. But he soon found out that being a Christian doesn’t make life in this world easier, it often makes it harder. He began to learn the truth of the words of Jesus in our text: “And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” The cross that Jesus is talking about is the same cross that Jim had to bear: the opposition of his family. This began on his baptism day, when the only member of his family to show up was his mother, and she left early so that she could avoid talking to anyone. This was hardly surprising; his parents hadn’t given him any support as the Holy Spirit brought Him to Christ, and they weren’t about to change that now. It was painful, but Jim could handle it. What he couldn’t handle was the ridicule that soon followed.

His father openly mocked his faith, calling Christianity a ‘crutch for the weak.’ “The only ones who need Jesus are the ones who can’t take care of themselves.” He mocked Jim’s fellow church members as a crowd of self-righteous hypocrites. After hearing Jim’s pastor preach a sermon, he exclaimed, “Where does that jerk get off telling me what’s right and wrong?” At every family gathering, he had something new to say against Jim’s faith, and it was wearing Jim down. He began to think that it would be better if he went back to his old life. Surely then there could be peace, the peace he so desperately wanted. He desired the approval of his parents, he needed their support as he raised his kids. He is torn between his family and his faith, and his family is constantly with him, while church is only an hour a week. The pressure was building.

“Why didn’t you tell me it would be this hard?” Jim cried to his Lord. “I did,” Jesus replied, “In the tenth chapter of Matthew: ‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.’ My work of salvation will divide the world between those who cling to me through the power of the Holy Spirit, and those who reject me. There will be many who refuse to see their sin, who refuse to see their need for a Savior, who refuse to see me as that Savior. And this division will reach right into your family, as it has entered into the families of all who are mine. The temptation to cave in is strong, for living as a Christian in a divided family is a cross to bear, a difficult, heavy cross. But take comfort, for ‘Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.’ Real life isn’t found in the ways of this world, but only in losing your life for my sake. And losing your life in this world means placing me above all else in your life, even your family, despite the consequences.”

Jim took comfort in the words of Jesus, and he continued in the faith; not by his own power, but only through the life-giving refreshment of the Divine Service, receiving Christ’s gifts in Word and Sacrament every week. As the years went on, he helped with the youth group, he ushered, he served on boards, and finally he became an elder. He tried his best to raise his children in the faith, to do for them what his parents had not done for him. They were in church every week, they were good students in confirmation, active members of the youth group. But when they left home, it only took a few years for that firm foundation to seemingly fall apart. The first surprise came from his daughter, who attended a state university. Jim feared the parties, the alcohol and promiscuity; what he didn’t expect was for the university to launch a direct attack on his daughter’s faith. Everything from a first year course on religion to her biology classes undermined Christianity as simply a set of myths, stories that may have some moral value, but little else. A six day creation? Come on, evolution explains everything. Jesus’ miracles? Didn’t even happen. Sin? Don’t you know, dad, that anyone can establish his or her own morality? There is no such thing as truth, there is no such thing as right and wrong, just opinions, and you can hold to your opinion if you want to, dad, even though it’s wrong.

While he is absorbing the revelation that his daughter has given up the faith, Jim receives another shock. His son hasn’t left Christianity; he has just found another congregation, one that affirms his new homosexual lifestyle. The local ELCA pastor has explained away every Bible text that speaks against homosexuality, and the congregation celebrates his lifestyle. Jim loves his son, but his son’s definition of love has changed. For him, love means accepting and affirming his lifestyle. Anything less is not truly love. Jim’s son doesn’t want to hear about repentance and forgiveness, because his new pastor refuses to call his behavior sin. In fact, he endorses it, and a church wedding is planned.

Jim has a choice. He can either endorse the behavior of his children or call it sinful. His daughter wants him to leave Christianity entirely, freeing himself from those out-dated myths. His son wants him to leave his ‘stuffy, rigid, and intolerant’ congregation for one that is more open and inclusive. What’s the answer? How can Jesus demand so much, how can he ask us to choose Him over our family? Jesus, once again, answers Jim’s pleas. “What I ask of you I have already done for you. I declared that ‘I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household.’ It was on Good Friday when these words became true. My enemies were the members of my own household. My family, not just the Jewish people, but all people among whom I came as a brother opposed me, they were set against me. They cried out ‘crucify, crucify!’ And so they did. My family nailed me to the cross. ‘Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.’ I could’ve found my life in this world, I could’ve come down from that cross. But I lost my life for your sake, so that you will have life. I placed my Father’s will above all else, and I gave up my life because He willed it. He sent me to be rejected, and in being rejected I won salvation for you, because I died for your sin. Now you have eternal peace, Jim, peace with your Creator. I do not promise peace in this world; indeed the Gospel will cause quite the opposite in your life. But I promise eternal peace, peace that is everlasting. You are called on to love me above your family because following in the sinful and unbelieving ways of those closest to you can only lead to eternal death. Following me may mean hardship in this life, but the destination is the salvation I won for you. ‘Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.’”

“You have found eternal life through the work of the Holy Spirit, you have the reward of heaven because you have received the messengers I sent. They proclaimed the Gospel to you, and you welcomed them, and because you clung to that Gospel in God-given faith, you have an eternal reward. I promised the disciples that ‘Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives Him who sent me.’ Through faith you have received my messengers, and therefore you have received me, and in receiving me you have received my Father. Salvation is yours, not because of anything you have done, but only because of me.” Jim has comfort and assurance, but he has one more question: “Then how do I deal with my family?” Jesus responds, “As my family nailed me to the cross, I cried out ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ I prayed for their salvation, and I proclaimed the Gospel to them. Indeed, I was hanging on the cross for the eternal salvation of those who had nailed me there. You love your family, so you do not abandon them. You pray for their salvation, and you seek every opportunity to proclaim the Gospel to them. The Holy Spirit is surely working on their hard hearts, just as he worked faith in you so long ago. You have a stubborn God, who continually seeks after His lost sheep.”

And so Jim bears the cross, as do we, in a world that has little regard for Christ or His Word. We proclaim the stern word of the Law and the sweet message of the Gospel to all whom we come into contact with, especially those closest to us, knowing that Jesus has not promised peace in this world, but eternal peace, everlasting peace. We cling to this hope as we walk through this world, looking toward the reward that awaits us. Thanks be to Jesus for facing the rejection of men so that He could deliver us from sin and death! In the Name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.