Epiphany 3 of Series A (Matthew 4:12-25)

“The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.” 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 fourth chapter of the Gospel according to Saint Matthew. Dear friends in Christ, two weeks ago, we watched our Lord submit to the baptism of John, the baptism of sinners. We watched as the heavens were opened, the Father spoke, and the Spirit descended as a dove. The triumph, the beauty, the glory of that day was only magnified last week when we heard John cry, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” Jesus travels from the river to the wilderness, and there He does battle with Satan, emerging victorious. But the path of the Messiah is not to be filled with triumph and victory. “Now when [Jesus] heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee.” This should shock us—after all this triumph, after all this glory, John—John!—is arrested, and he will not leave that prison alive. Jesus withdraws to the backwoods, and He begins His ministry far from His dangerous enemies in Jerusalem. The darkness is still deep, it lies thick over our fallen world. But our text also holds a promise: “The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.”

The darkness is overwhelming in this world of sin, it surrounds us, it fills every nook and cranny, it smothers us like a heavy blanket. There is no light in a world where people commit acts of incredibly cruelty against others, where children are bullied until they take their own lives, where people suffer from poverty of their own making or inflicted by others, where families are shattered by adultery and divorce. Two weeks ago, I stood with many others on the steps of the Iowa capitol, and we declared together that the horror of abortion must end. How deep must the darkness be when the most vulnerable are put to death in the name of ‘choice?’ No deeper than the darkness that dwells in your own heart. The mistake we often make is that we think because our sins don’t make the news, that we are somehow better off than others, that the darkness isn’t nearly as deep. But that’s a deception. Your will never understand the depth of your sin until you see that the darkness in your own heart is as deep as the darkness outside. That is what Scripture teaches us: every sin offends God, each is deserving of death, yes, even eternal death.
“The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.” Into the darkness that surrounds you, into the darkness that dwells within you, Jesus shines the Light. “From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” Jesus calls on this world, He calls on you, to repent. The Light of the Law shines in the darkness of human hearts, illuminating sin, pointing out transgressions, revealing the deeds of darkness for what they are, and calling on us to abandon them. That is His cry to a world of abuse and cruelty, where every person simply looks out for his or her own interest: Repent! Turn away from your sin, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand! That is His cry to you and me today, who self-righteously believe that we aren’t as bad as everyone else, who hide the darkness deep in our own heart: Repent! Repent, sinner! Cast the works of darkness far from you! There is an urgency to His cry: today is the day of salvation, do not tarry, do not cling to the darkness for one more moment. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near!”

The call to repentance echoes in the darkness. The world has been called to account, its darkness has been exposed by the powerful preaching of the Law. But few listen. The shadow of unbelief lies heavy upon our world. Some is militant unbelief, exemplified by the hardcore atheists, who spend much time and ink attacking the Scriptures. In addition, more and more people are becoming ‘agnostic,’ meaning that they claim to know nothing for certain about spiritual matters, except, of course, that Christianity is wrong. More insidious, however, is a deep apathy that infects so many. They may say that they believe in God if Gallup calls them up, but their life in this world gives the opposite answer. These are all simply different forms of the same spiritual blindness, the darkness that fills our world. But even if a person heeds the Law, there is not yet any salvation. In your spiritual blindness, you may be able to see the Law, but you cannot see any solution, you are blind to any promises, you dwell in darkness too thick to see a Savior.

“The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.” Into the darkness of spiritual blindness that fills this world, into the darkness of spiritual blindness that afflicts you, Jesus shines the Light. “While walking by the Sea of Galilee, [Jesus] saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And He said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.’” The darkness that afflicts us cannot be broken by any effort of our own, any more than a blind man can make himself see. We need the intervention of another, someone with the power to shine the Light in our darkness and restore our spiritual sight. Only the power of Jesus’ call can destroy darkness in sinful human hearts and bring in the Light. Most first-century rabbis waited for disciples to join them; Jesus seeks out disciples, He calls on people to believe in Him as the Savior of the world. His call creates faith, His call overwhelms the darkness and brings forth children of light. “Immediately they left their nets and followed him.”

The darkness of sin is driven away by the call to repentance; the darkness of unbelief is driven away by the call to faith—we would expect as believers, as the redeemed, to dwell in the beauty of light. But still the darkness surrounds us. Four fishermen were called by Jesus to follow Him; only one would die a natural death. The followers of Jesus still get cancer, they still have heart attacks, they still get injured. The effects of sin do not spare those who are called by Christ; if anything, it seems that we are afflicted more than those who dwell in darkness. That is just as Christ promised us: “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.” And everyone, believer and non-believer alike, will eventually die. Death will claim you whether you spend Sunday mornings in worship or at home. John the fisherman turned apostle was not killed for his faith, but he still died. You are a believer, but darkness still surrounds you, choking, thick, and heavy, snuffing out life itself.

“The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.” Into the darkness of disease and death, filling our loved ones and we ourselves, which will one day claim each and every person on the face of this planet, Jesus shines the Light. “[Jesus] went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought Him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and He healed them.” Jesus entered this world to drive back the effects of sin; to heal the sick, to restore the infirm, even to raise the dead. The power of His Light shines in the darkness of diseased lives, paralyzed limbs, and demon-possessed flesh. Jesus came as the Light of the world not only to illuminate darkened souls, but to shine upon bodies dwelling in the shadow of death. His salvation is spiritual and physical.

His Light heals all the effects of sin, in you, in me, in this entire creation. He may heal you today through the work of a surgeon or doctor, He may save you from death using the instruments He has placed in this world for that very purpose, but even if He doesn’t save your physical body today, you still have the victory for eternity. The healings in our text are the proof and guarantee that one day you will be healed, His resurrection is the proof and guarantee that Jesus has come to destroy all the effects of sin in this world, even death itself. “The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.” The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. The shadow lay thick and heavy upon us; the darkness of sin, the darkness of unbelief, the darkness of disease and death, but Christ has come to defeat them all. He is the One who shines His Light in the midst of the darkness, lifting the shadow of death, all through the power of His cross.

It is on the cross that Jesus is revealed as the Light of the world, for it is on the cross that Jesus pays for sin, conquers unbelief, and overcomes death itself. It is the bright beams of the cross that shine the light of forgiveness into your heart when you fall into sin, it is the message of the cross that you are called by Jesus Himself to believe in, and it is only through the cross that we have the guarantee that no disease, and not even death itself, has a hold upon us or any of Christ’s called saints. At the foot of the cross, the people who are dwelling in darkness see a great Light; before its sacred beams the shadow of death is chased away. With the cross, darkness has no more power over you, me, or a creation which cowered so long under its shadow. There is your light, O people of God, there is the Light of the world. In the Name of Jesus, “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God,” Amen.

The Baptism of our Lord (Romans 6:1-11)

“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 on this Baptism of our Lord is from the Epistle lesson read a few moments ago from the sixth chapter Romans. Dear friends in Christ, the Son of Man, the Messiah, Jesus, who was called the Christ, stood in the midst of Jordan’s stream. He came to this river where the people of Judea were washing away their sins and there He submitted to the baptism of sinners. He who had no sin was baptized in the place of all sinners, in your place and mine. The Father’s voice pointed us to our Savior: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” The Spirit descended to anoint Him for His work, and from that river, Jesus traveled a long, winding road which led to the cross. At the Jordan that day, Jesus, declared to be the Son of God, was also declared as the One who stood in our place, the bearer of our sin. Every sin. There is no sin that you have ever committed or will ever commit that Jesus did not bear to the cross. God’s grace, shown through the death of the sin-bearer, is greater than your sin. Every sin. All sin. His grace, His forgiveness is so abundant that Saint Paul will say immediately before our text, “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Christ’s blood-bought forgiveness is always more abundant than our transgressions; the grace of God shines from the cross more powerfully than all the darkness of our corruption. You cannot outsin God’s grace, although we certainly try. We pray “deliver us from evil,” and we think first about those things that are outside of us; we think of terrorists and criminals, we think of injury or death, we think of Satan. But this petition is prayed first against ourselves, against our own heart. We are the evil ones, corrupted through and through. We are a “body of sin” as Saint Paul tells us, a body corrupted by sin, a body infected with evil. And nowhere is this more manifest than in how we treat God’s grace.

Paul asks the question: “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?” The answer is obvious: ‘Yes!’ God likes to forgive, I like to sin; what better relationship could there be? You all know the grace of God; you hear it from the pulpit, from the altar, each and every week. We’re Lutherans, after all; that’s what we preach, more clearly than anyone else. You hear that you can’t outsin God’s grace, that His forgiveness is so abundant it covers every single sin, and you can’t help but take Him up on His offer. And so you turn the absolution into a license to sin, an excuse to sin. I’m going to get clean on Sunday morning, so I might as well get good and filthy on Monday through Saturday. As long as I’m a ‘good church person’ on Sunday morning, I can live my ‘other life’ the rest of the week. What a great deal! God likes to forgive, I like to sin—what more could I ask for? I can get drunk and make a fool of myself on Friday night as long as I ask for forgiveness on Sunday morning. Treating others like dirt, bullying, abusing, and speaking harsh words isn’t a big deal, because I know about God’s grace, and it’s available whenever I want it. I can sleep around and use filthy language as long as I remember to ask for forgiveness afterward. It really doesn’t matter what shows I watch, what I look up on the internet, or what magazines I read, as long as I’m in that pew once a week, looking good, hearing of forgiveness. Or, better yet, I can avoid the worship life of the Church altogether for the majority of my life, as long as I call in the pastor when I’m on my deathbed. Then I’ll square the accounts and cash in on this grace.

Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? We answer with a resounding ‘Yes!’ Paul’s answer is a bit different: “By no means!” ‘Why?’ we ask. Paul, don’t you get it, we’ve got everything going for us! I like to sin, and so I keep sinning. God likes to forgive, and so He keeps forgiving. I’m doing what I want, and so is God. What’s the big problem? Paul’s answer is simple: “How can we who died to sin still live in it?” You have died. I have died. Not a physical death, not the death that affects all creatures in a fallen world, but a different kind of death. We died to sin. We died in our Baptism. “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore 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.”

At the font, you were put to death, you were killed. Not to destroy you, but to save you. We pray “deliver us from evil,” and at the font, God answered that prayer. That’s why we pray the Lord’s Prayer before every baptism, because the Lord’s Prayer, and especially that seventh petition, finds its answer in those blessed waters. He delivered you from Satan’s rule, from sin’s bondage, from death’s domination. He delivered you from the evil that dwells within you. “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.” The old man, that old sinful Adam, was crucified with Christ in the font; He was put to death, for Christ, our sin-bearer, took him to the cross and left him nailed there. His day is done, His reign is over. Should we continue to sin that grace may abound? By no means! We have died to sin, we are no longer under its slavery. “One who has died has been set free from sin.”

We are justified, made righteous in God’s sight, for Christ has linked together His death on the cross with our death in the font; at the cross He won salvation, in your Baptism He applies it to you. His death becomes your death, and as His death was followed by a resurrection, so too is yours. “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him.” In Baptism, we are joined with the most important events in history; in the time that it takes to apply water saying “I baptize you in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” you are connected with the arrest and trial, the scourge and the whip, the cross and death, the rest in the tomb and the glorious resurrection of Jesus Christ. All that happened in those three days comes to you in a matter of moments, it is made your own. His death is now your death, and the old man is crucified. His resurrection is now your resurrection, and you are raised to newness of life.

“We were buried therefore 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.” Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! Why walk in the paths of death, in bondage to the evil that dwells within us, when we have been raised to newness of life? God’s grace isn’t license to sin, it isn’t an excuse to sin, it’s forgiveness for when we sin. You have been given a new life—why dwell in the ways of death, the paths of your old life, living among the dry bones of sin, which can only deliver you into death? You have been set free! You have died to sin, why live in it any longer? You are the baptized, who have the inheritance of eternal life, not the unbelieving world, which without Christ is destined only for eternal death. You have died and been raised again—do not live in death, but in life!

That is easier said than done. We have died to sin, but that old man still dwells within us, and he continues to speak his enticing words. Baptism inaugurates a battle, a battle that continues throughout the life of every Christian. “Deliver us from evil” we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, starting with the evil that dwells within our own heart. Once again it is Baptism that answers this fervent prayer. At the font we died to sin and were raised with Christ; we return to that death and resurrection daily in our battle with sin, as Luther teaches us 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.” The Christian life is a life of returning to the font and remembering the death we died to sin. Whatever commands the old man of sin gives us, we obey them as much as a corpse; we have died to sin, how can we live in it any longer? Baptism shapes our lives: we daily die to sin in repentance, and we rise to Christ recalling what was given to us in our Baptism: forgiveness, life, and salvation.

We drown that old man in repentance and forgiveness each and every day, but he is a strong swimmer, he continues to entice us. We fall into sin, we walk in the paths of death. Here’s where the overflowing, blood-bought grace of God is so necessary. “If we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.” God’s abundant grace isn’t license to sin, it is forgiveness for when we sin. It’s the promise that through Christ we have forgiveness, we have eternal life, for through our baptism, we were connected with Christ’s death and His resurrection. “We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has any dominion over Him. For the death He died He died to sin, once for all, but the life He lives He lives to God.” Christ died once for all; once for all sin, once for all sinners. What is true of Christ is true of us: we are not only dead to the life of sin, we are dead to sin’s penalty; we are dead to death. We are alive to God today and we are alive to God forever, for we died and rose again in the blessed waters of Baptism. “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” We are alive! Death cannot hold us, for we have died already, and the resurrection of our Baptism is the guarantee of our resurrection on the Last Day. “I am baptized into Christ; I’m a child of paradise!” Amen.

Christmas 2 of Series A (1 Kings 3:4-15)

“Behold, I give you a wise and discerning mind, so that none like you has been before you and none like you shall arise after you.” 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 second Sunday after Christmas comes from the Old Testament lesson read a few moments ago from the third chapter of the book of First Kings. Dear friends in Christ: we Americans are a very practical, pragmatic people. We do things because we can see the results, we can see the tangible outcomes, often measured in dollars and cents. Our education system is, in many ways, set up for the primary and all-encompassing purpose of equipping someone for a job. The old liberal arts model of higher education, where the goal was to shape the mind of young people so that they will be wise and informed citizens, has been largely replaced by specialized trade schools and university departments, which teach skills for one profession or another. Why? The answer is money—we Americans are, after all, practical, pragmatic people. Learning for the sake of learning isn’t really all that practical, because unless you are going to teach in a university for a living, wisdom and understanding aren’t going to put food on the table or (more importantly) pay taxes.

Solomon’s request is therefore impractical to the extreme. God Himself comes to the king in the night and gives him an extraordinary offer: “Ask what I shall give you.” Like King Ahaz, Solomon is given a blank check from God, the opportunity to ask for anything. And as a king, Solomon certainly had many practical needs. He had just removed the immediate threats to his throne, but he still had enemies—should he ask for victory in battle? David his father had given him a well-off kingdom, but can a person ever have enough—should he ask for great wealth? Or what about the most important thing in the eyes of most people, next to money, of course—should he ask for a long life?

But Solomon asks for none of these things. He is given the opportunity to ask for anything for himself, but he refuses to focus upon himself. What he asks is for a gift to serve others. “Your servant is in the midst of your people whom you have chosen, a great people, too many to be numbered or counted for multitude. Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people?” Solomon refuses to ask for wealth, for military victory, or for a long life. Instead, he asks for wisdom. Not for himself, because what can wisdom really give you that wealth, victory, or many years cannot? If you are thinking of bettering yourself, you’ll choose the others over wisdom any day of the week. But Solomon was thinking of serving others, he was in humility seeking the good of his neighbor, and so he sought wisdom and understanding. He sought the wisdom and understanding that comes only from God, for it characterizes God.

God is wisdom, He is understanding. His wisdom is an open ear, hearing the pleas and understanding the great needs of those whom He loves. And His understanding provides for those needs, perhaps not in the way that we wanted or expected, but in His wisdom God always gives what is best for those whom He loves. In wisdom, God heard the cries of humanity for salvation from sin and death, He heard your cries even before you uttered them. And in wisdom, God set forth a marvelous plan of salvation. Saint Paul teaches us in our Epistle lesson that God is “making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth.” God in His infinite wisdom ordered all things in history toward your salvation, so that Paul can say, “He chose us in [Jesus] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will.”

God exercises His wisdom to serve you, fulfilling your greatest needs. In wisdom, God sent His Son into our creation in the fullness of time to bring forth the salvation long planned and prepared. His plan came to pass in a manger, for His wisdom is shown in the child Jesus, the fulfillment of all the promises. Jesus is God’s wisdom, as He demonstrates even as a youth, to the amazement of the teachers in the temple. When Solomon asks for wisdom, he is asking for what belongs to God Himself, what characterizes His interactions with sinful humanity, the wisdom that will lead to a little baby and a manger outside of Bethlehem. He is asking for the wisdom that serves.

True wisdom always serves, but not ourselves. Godly wisdom serves others. Godly wisdom won’t put more money in your account, it won’t lengthen your life, it won’t rid you of your enemies (in fact, it might give you more!), but it will help you serve your neighbor’s true needs. That’s why God praised it so highly when He heard Solomon’s request: “Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches or the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right, behold, I now do according to your word.”

True wisdom serves others, therefore we don’t want much to do with it. Deep down, we’re selfish, or we think that we can handle things on our own. We put a tremendous amount of energy into seeking after many things, most of which fall into the three categories that God gives: long life, riches, and triumph over our enemies, but we expend much less effort in seeking after godly wisdom. We Americans are practical, pragmatic people, and wisdom, especially godly wisdom, doesn’t pay the bills. In fact, godly wisdom doesn’t really benefit me at all! As a result, it is no secret that our churches have failed to teach the faith adequately for decades now, and blame lies on all sides. We clergy have botched our God-given task to teach all ages, to expect more from our students. And laity have played their part by not coming to bible classes and demanding less of themselves and their children. Now we have several generations of Christians that want little to do with wisdom, who don’t know their own faith, and therefore are swayed by every wind of false doctrine, who are ill-equipped to speak God’s Word in the world.

Now, don’t get me wrong. This sermon isn’t simply an advertisement for bible class and adult catechesis (held Mondays at 11am, 6pm and 7:15pm). True, godly wisdom doesn’t only come from being in a class, it’s more than studying Scripture, although the thirst for knowledge about God is vital. True wisdom isn’t just knowing facts. Godly wisdom is cultivated in the weekly Divine Service, it is taught through a devotional life of prayer and meditation upon God’s Word. You don’t have to be a pastor or a seminary professor to have godly wisdom, you don’t even need to have as much knowledge as the person sitting next to you today. Every Christian should cultivate godly wisdom as God has gifted them, not for our own benefit, but to serve others.

Solomon set the pattern. He asked God for an “understanding mind.” The Hebrew text says that Solomon asked for a “hearing soul.” True wisdom imitates God by listening to the needs of others. True wisdom is an open ear, seeking to understand our neighbor’s situation—spiritually and physically. Listening cannot be taught in a class, but only through prayer and meditation, by listening first to God Himself. Solomon also asked for the ability to “discern between good and evil.” This is where our study of the Scriptures comes in. If we want to help our neighbor, we must be able to distinguish between good and evil, truth and falsehood according to the Scriptures. We must be able to call a thing what it is, pointing out sin and falsehood and praising good and truth. And then, true, godly wisdom must discern how to help. If the need is physical, godly wisdom helps us to see how our vocations and the vocations of others can be used to serve the needs of his body. If the need is spiritual, godly wisdom applies God’s Word to our neighbor. Godly wisdom speaks the Law to condemn sin when a person is caught in unrepentance, and the Gospel to forgive sin when the neighbor is in desperate need of grace.

For God’s wisdom is ultimately shown in the Gospel. It is the plan of salvation set forth before time began, and when the fullness of time came, it bore fruit in seeming foolishness. True wisdom is found in Jesus; true wisdom is found in the foolishness of the manger, in the foolishness of the cross. Jesus demonstrated His wisdom when He befuddled the teachers in the temple; His wisdom would stump them again when He hung upon the cross. In the foolishness of the cross, God would show forth His wisdom, for in Christ’s humiliating suffering and death, all creation would be delivered from bondage. His wisdom forgives you for your foolish seeking after the things of this world: long life, riches, and triumph over others.

The one with godly wisdom is then the one who believes, who clings to the foolishness of the cross for forgiveness, life, and salvation. Godly wisdom is despairing of your own ability to save yourself, and therefore relying solely upon Christ. Godly wisdom is realizing your humility; like Solomon, you admit before your God that “I am but a little child. I do not know how to go out or come in.” Godly wisdom confesses that you don’t know it all, that you can’t do it on your own, and so like Solomon you ask for the wisdom that only comes as a gift: “Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people?” God answers this prayer, and more than that, He gives you everything. “I give you also what you have not asked, both riches and honor, so that no other king shall compare with you, all your days.” You have riches, the very treasure of heaven. You have a long life, life forever in heaven. And you have victory over your enemies: sin, death, and Satan are crushed by the foolishness of the cross—the world’s foolishness, God’s wisdom, your salvation. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Christmas Midnight (Luke 2:8-12)

“And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, ‘Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.’” 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 Christmas Eve is the verses just read, Luke 2, verses eight to twelve. Dear friends in Christ: Where do you encounter God? Some say that they encounter God in the quiet of the forest, others in the beauty of a sunrise. Some people claim to encounter God in those they meet as they journey through this life, seeing God in their friends, their families, their neighbors. The more religious types may find God in the quiet times in their day, when they meditate silently. For still others, God is to be found in the wonderful blessings they have received: good health, resources to live on, and the happiness that comes from being well-provided for. Where is God? Most people, including most Christians, quite righty believe that God is everywhere, and so they seek to encounter Him anywhere.

That seems to make a lot of sense—if God is everywhere, then you surely must be able to find Him anywhere—but there is a big problem with that line of thinking: it isn’t taught by the Bible! The Scriptures, Old and New Testaments, clearly teach that God is everywhere, but they do not draw the conclusion that we are to seek Him anywhere. In fact, the teaching of the Bible is quite the opposite: God is everywhere, but we are to seek Him only where He has promised to be found. For the Scriptures a God who is everywhere is as useless as a God who is nowhere—they describe a God who locates Himself. In the Old Testament, He located Himself in the tabernacle, in the temple, in the words of the prophets. If you asked an Old Testament believer where God was, they would point to the Holy of Holies, to the Ark of the Covenant, where God had promised to be. But this was only setting the stage for the mystery that John tells us about in the first chapter of his Gospel: “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.” Take everything you think about God and throw it out the window; God became flesh, He has located Himself in a human frame—when we see the man Jesus, we are to boldly declare, “There is God!” Every idea you have of what a God should be is shattered and destroyed by John’s bold declaration, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

God located Himself in a human frame; God is an embryo, a zygote, a developing child, and then, on this night, a baby, born of a virgin mother, laying in a manger. God is everywhere, but on this night God is somewhere, He has located Himself in the manger as He once located Himself in the temple. The manger is the new temple, and it is to that temple that the shepherds are sent. “And the angel said to them, ‘Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.’” The shepherds aren’t sent to seek for their Savior anywhere they might want to look; they aren’t to look for Him in the peace of the forest, the beauty of a sunset, or the quiet of meditation. They are to look for their Savior, their God, in a manger. God is to be found not in power and pomp and glory, but in humility. God is located in a baby born far away from home, wrapped in rags, born to a dirt-poor peasant girl.

The God who has always located Himself in specific places has promised to be found in one specific place: in the manger, wrapped in swaddling cloths. The shepherds come to Mary and Joseph and see God’s most incredible and unexpected locating of Himself, the mystery John expressed in unforgettable words: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” A God who is everywhere is as useless as a God who is nowhere, for there is no promise that we can find Him in grace, in love, in salvation. We could spend an eternity searching creation trying to find a place where this God reveals Himself in love. But our God, the God proclaimed by the Scriptures, doesn’t send us on such a wild goose chase. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” “You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” We are not to look for God anywhere, but somewhere, in a specific place, wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. For there, only there, has He promised to be for our salvation.

The angel declared, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Where is God? He is the baby in the manger, the child Jesus. He is the man Jesus, grown up and preaching the Word, healing the sick, and raising the dead. Where is God? He is hanging upon the cross, dying as the required price for our sin, dying so that we will live. He is greeting the disciples on Easter evening, showing them the wounds in the hands and side of His resurrected flesh. God is everywhere, but He is present for our salvation only in the flesh of Jesus.

And nothing has changed in the nearly two thousand years since He ascended into heaven. God is still present among us in specific places, the means Christ has established to bring us His blood-bought forgiveness, life, and salvation. We aren’t to go looking everywhere for forgiveness, but to Baptism, where we are made God’s child, to the Lord’s Supper, where we are fed Christ’s very Body and Blood, the price of our salvation, and to the Word, which proclaims to us the salvation won through the cross and empty tomb. And where are these all found? They are given in the Church, on Sunday morning! That is where Christ has promised to be for our salvation, no matter how humble the building or even if there is no building at all. Where Christ’s people are gathered around the Word and the blessed Sacraments, there Christ has promised to be for our salvation.       

Saying that I can worship God just as well at home, or a fishing boat, or a tree stand, or anywhere else for that matter, then makes no sense. It’s as if you were to stop the shepherds as they are running to the manger and say to them, “Don’t you know that God is everywhere? You can worship Him just as well in your fields or in your homes as at the manger.” They would probably give you a strange look and say: “God promised to be at the manger. There are no promises of grace and forgiveness attached to our fields or our homes, but in the manger, we have the promise of a Savior.” Our God is everywhere, but we are to look for Him where He has promised to be found for our salvation: in the flesh of Jesus, in the waters of Baptism, in the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper, in His Word read and proclaimed. Humble means, to be sure, much less majestic than sunrises and forests, but our God has been wrapped in humble clothing before. “You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”

Spending time in quiet forests meditating upon beautiful sunrises is certainly good for your blood pressure. But while God is everywhere, He is only found for our good, for our salvation, where He has promised to be. He is specific, He has located Himself in certain places, and only there has He promised to give us forgiveness, life, salvation. Rejoice, for you don’t have to search creation to find a gracious God—He comes to you here in this very place, right where He has told you He would be. His manger is water, bread and wine, words spoken or printed on a page. In those humble means, your God is there for your good, for your salvation. He has located Himself specifically, so there will be no doubt that here, through these means, your sins are forgiven and life everlasting is given to you. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” He who is everywhere located Himself somewhere: in the manger, on the cross, in the Word and the Sacraments. In the Name of Jesus, the Word made flesh for our salvation, Amen.

Advent Midweek (Third Article of the Nicene Creed)

“And the angel answered her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.” Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. Tonight we reflect upon the third article of the Nicene Creed, in which we confess: “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets. And I believe in one holy Christian and apostolic Church, I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins, and I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.” Dear friends in Christ, how do you talk about someone that doesn’t want to talk about himself? Do you speculate, making guesses as to what he’s all about? Do you mold him into your own image of what you think he should be? Or do you simply say what there is to say, no matter how little there is, and leave it at that?

Christians get into trouble when they try to say more than the Scriptures do on any topic, but especially when talking about the Holy Spirit. Much mischief has been done throughout history because Scripture says very little about the Spirit, and we humans just can’t resist filling the gaps with our own guesswork and speculation, our ideas of what a ‘holy spirit’ should be. Who is the Holy Spirit? Is He simply a power, an emanation from God? Or is He a person, like the Father and the Son, distinct from the other two persons, yet together with them one God? Who is the Holy Spirit? Is He the mover and shaker in the Church, constantly bringing new revelations, some contrary to the Bible, and causing people to speak in tongues or do miracles? Or does He simply bring us Jesus through the Word and Sacraments, working the miracle of faith in stubborn human hearts?

Who is the Holy Spirit? We confess in the Nicene Creed: “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets.” The Holy Spirit is the One who proceeds, He is given as a gift by the Father and the Son. He comes to us in this world of sin and death, just as Jesus promised. “I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send Him to you.” He comes to us not as some vague ‘power’ or ‘emanation’ of God, but as a distinct person, as the Nicene Creed makes clear. The Holy Spirit is a ‘He,’ not an ‘it.’ He is coequal with the Father and the Son, together with them He is one God, together with them He is worshipped and glorified. He doesn’t deserve equal worship unless He is equally God, and so with her worship the Church confesses that the Holy Spirit is true God, a distinct person, but yet one God in unity with the Father and the Son.

It seems like we learn something new about the Father or the Son on every page of the Scriptures, but information on the Spirit is comparatively sparse. There is a reason for that, a very important reason. Jesus tells us that the coming Spirit has no interest in speaking about Himself: “When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak, and He will declare to you the things that are to come.” The Holy Spirit’s joy and delight isn’t to point to Himself, but to Jesus. Like John the Baptist, the Spirit boldly declares, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” How did Simeon know that the little baby boy being brought into the temple was the Messiah? Only through the Spirit. “And [Simeon] came in the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for Him according to the custom of the Law, he took Him up in his arms and blessed God.” The Spirit pointed Simeon to Jesus, and Simeon made the good confession, telling all who would hear that through this child the Lord was bringing salvation. As Jesus promised us, “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness about me.”

The Holy Spirit has never stopped bringing Jesus to people; that is what He does, the task He delights in. Jesus won salvation, shedding His blood on Calvary’s cross, breathing His last breath declaring, “It is finished.” The Son suffered and died, not the Father or the Holy Spirit, and He suffered and died in your place, bearing all of your sin. He won salvation that day, forgiveness of all your sins and deliverance from death. At the cross, your salvation was won and accomplished, it’s a done deal. But Jesus doesn’t give salvation to you there. You don’t have to fly to Jerusalem to receive the salvation He won; you didn’t have to be present that day. No, instead the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son to bring salvation to you. The Holy Spirit runs the distribution network to bring the salvation accomplished by Christ through the cross and empty tomb to individual humans. He is like FedEx. Now, FedEx doesn’t make the products, instead its task is to deliver them to people. In the same way, the Holy Spirit, while intimately involved in salvation, didn’t shed His blood on the cross to win forgiveness. Jesus did that, and now it is the Spirit’s task to bring that forgiveness to you.

How does FedEx get a package to you? It takes the product from the warehouse, loads it on a truck, and hauls it to your front door. How does the Holy Spirit bring forgiveness to you? He works through the Church. We confess in the Nicene Creed: “I believe in one holy Christian and apostolic Church, I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins, and I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.” The Church is the Holy Spirit’s distribution network, and every congregation is a delivery truck, spread throughout this world to bring forgiveness into every place. Who drives the truck? A pastor, whose only job is to bring that package to you. And those packages are familiar: the Word, read and proclaimed, Holy Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper. Each package contains Jesus, His forgiveness, His salvation. They are opened, and you are given eternal life. The Holy Spirit rejoices to give these gifts; that is why we call Him, “the Lord and giver of life.”

Each and every FedEx warehouse bears their logo; so does every truck, every driver, and every package. In the same way, the Holy Spirit is never absent from the distribution of salvation; He is involved wherever the Word is proclaimed and the Sacraments administered. He has bound Himself to those means, and through them alone will He create faith, forgive sins, and deliver us from everlasting death. Don’t trust a ‘spirit’ that comes apart from those means; any ‘spirit’ that comes apart from the Word and the Holy Sacraments, or contrary to them, isn’t the Holy Spirit, but instead comes from the devil. Without doubt miracles still happen, we know the Spirit has worked through dreams before, and can do so now, but we never place our trust in such things above or against the Word of God. The Holy Spirit will certainly never lead the Church to speak in opposition to God’s revealed Word. That is where the Spirit has promised to work, and that is where He will work, until Christ comes again.

For the Holy Spirit is as involved with Christ’s Second Coming as He was with His first—through the Word. “The angel answered her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.’” As those words were spoken, the Holy Spirit was doing the work, and the plan of our salvation was put into motion. Christmas is the Holy Spirit’s work; He proceeded from the Father to bring the Son into human flesh. And on the Last Day, it will be His great and joyful task to raise us up from the dead. The Holy Spirit worked to bring Christ into the world, He worked to bring Christ to you, and on the Last Day, He will work to bring you to Christ. Together the Trinity, our one God in three persons, planned, accomplished, and delivered salvation to us. In the Name of our loving, merciful, and saving God, the Triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Advent Midweek (Second Article of the Nicene Creed)

“You shall call His Name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. Tonight we reflect upon the second article of the Nicene Creed, in which we confess: “I believe…in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried. And the third day He rose again according to the Scriptures and ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father. And He will come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead, whose kingdom will have no end.” Dear friends in Christ: C.S. Lewis, one of the most significant Christian laypeople of the twentieth century, always became very frustrated when people told him that they thought of Jesus as some kind of great teacher, but nothing more. He thought such a perspective refused to take seriously what the New Testament actually says about Jesus. In the four Gospels (not to mention the Epistles), Jesus is quite clearly identified as God in the flesh, by Himself and by others. Lewis believed that there were only three ways to explain these claims: either Jesus is a lunatic, a liar, or He is the Lord. He either thinks He is God, when He isn’t, or He knows He isn’t God, and still claims the title to deceive the masses, or else there is the tantalizing possibility that Jesus is actually telling the truth, and He’s right.

What kind of Jesus do you follow? Do you follow the Jesus that gives good advice, who can help you get along with your kids, be successful at your job, and have a happy marriage? Do you follow the Jesus who is an ancient Dr. Phil, full of tips and pointers, who gives you the tools you need to have your best life now? If you are simply following a Jesus who is a ‘good teacher’ but nothing more, who isn’t really God as He claimed, then you are following the advice of a crazy person at best, and the world’s most successful con-man at worst. What kind of Jesus do you follow? He had better be the Jesus of the Nicene Creed, or else you’re really just wasting your time. You can find good advice anywhere, but salvation is found in no one other than the Jesus of the Scriptures, the Jesus of the Nicene Creed, the Jesus who is neither lunatic nor liar, but Lord.

We confess together that we worship “one Lord Jesus Christ.” This world tries to fit Jesus into almost any mold, but there are not many Jesus’s, there is only one Jesus, the Jesus who is “the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds.” This means that Jesus is the Son of the Father from eternity, He is eternally the Son. The phrases that follow unpack that reality, describing the Son in terms that are hard to mistake: “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father.” All these words boil down to one truth: the Son is true God. He is of one substance with the Father, begotten, not made. He was not created, there was never a time that He didn’t exist; He is God, of “one substance with the Father.” That phrase says it all. A Mormon cannot confess that, nor can a Jehovah’s Witness or the followers of a whole host of ancient heresies. The Son is of one substance with the Father; together with the Holy Spirit, the Father and the Son are together one God. 

This Son, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, who is outside of time and space, entered both bearing our human flesh. Saint John puts it this way: “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.” We confess it this way in the Nicene Creed: “Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary and was made man.” In those few words, we express a great mystery; indeed, of all the mysteries of Scripture, the incarnation, the taking on of flesh by the Son of God, is the most amazing. Because of the incarnation, we can say of the man Jesus, ‘This is God;’ we can say of Mary, ‘She is the mother of God.’ The God who created all things has Himself joined His creatures in their flesh and blood. Therefore Saint Matthew say about the events of Christmas: “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: ‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call His Name Immanuel’ (which means, God with us).” Jesus is God with us, God amongst His creatures. The timeless one inserted Himself into time, He who is outside of history placed Himself within it. He who fills all things localized Himself within a human body. What kind of Jesus do you follow? It had better be the Jesus who is true God, “of one substance with the Father,” and also true man, “incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary.” Why? Because apart from that Jesus, you are doomed to eternal destruction.

The eternal Son of God didn’t become man simply to ‘walk a mile in our shoes,’ to experience life on our terms. Certainly a wonderful result of the incarnation is that our God has been ‘one of us,’ and can therefore sympathize with our weaknesses and sufferings, but it is not the reason why He became man in the first place. In fact, the Nicene Creed skips over all of Jesus’ teachings and miracles, taking us to the reason for His taking flesh in the first place. He was “crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried. And the third day He rose again according to the Scriptures.” He came to us in the flesh in order to die, to be crucified ‘for us’ under Pontius Pilate. The Nicene Creed doesn’t tell us at this point what Christ’s death and resurrection did for us; it waits until the third article to speak about things like the “remission of sins” and the “resurrection of the dead.” Here we simply confess that He was crucified also “for us.” But while brief, these two little words say it all. Jesus was crucified for us, bearing our sin, standing in our place; His crucifixion and resurrection was God’s solution to the problem of our sin. The eternal Son of God entered our time and space to give up His life as the price to save us. Only as true God could He offer a price sufficient for the sin of the world; only as true man could He live and die in our place. What kind of Jesus do you follow? Salvation is found only in the Jesus who dies on a cross, true God from eternity, and true man, born of the virgin Mary.

We believe in “one Lord Jesus Christ”—one Jesus, true God and true man, not two. And He remains one Lord for eternity. He never leaves His humanity behind, but instead enthrones it, glorifies it, and exalts it to the right hand of God. We confess in the Nicene Creed that He “ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father. And He will come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead, whose kingdom will have no end.” He assumes our human flesh in the womb of Mary, and having finished His course upon this earth, He takes that human flesh to the very throne of God, from whence He will return on the Last Day as our judge and king, dividing those made righteous by His blood from those who rejected Him, establishing His Kingdom forever. There we will live in our bodies, glorified as His body is glorified, forever.

That is what Advent is all about: waiting for and anticipating that glorious Day. On Christmas, we celebrate that the only-begotten Son of God has taken human flesh, for when God becomes man, it is man that is changed, forever. He sits in the flesh at the right hand of the throne of God, the pledge and guarantee that our flesh will one day stand before God’s throne as well. This was the Father’s plan for our salvation all along; that is why He protected the precious line of the Messiah throughout the generations, removing every obstacle, defeating every attempt to snuff it out. Christmas is the long awaited gift of God’s Son, it is the gift of Jesus, given to you and to me for our salvation. What kind of Jesus do you follow? You follow the Jesus who is true God and yet true man, the Jesus who is God’s gift to you, bringing you forgiveness, life, and salvation. In the Name of God in the flesh, Immanuel, our Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

Advent 3 of Series A (Matthew 11:2-15)

“Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” 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 eleventh chapter of the Gospel according to Saint Matthew. Dear friends in Christ: it was halfway through overtime in Orchard Park, New York, three seasons ago. The hapless Buffalo Bills were playing the perennial Super Bowl contenders from Pittsburgh, the Steelers. Ryan Fitzpatrick, Buffalo quarterback and Harvard graduate, took the snap around the fifty yard line, dropped back, and uncorked a high arching pass toward his endzone. It was a perfect pass, traveling through the air to the exact point where he wanted it- into the hands of his open receiver. Only one problem- the ball went right through the outstretched arms of wide receiver Steve Johnson and dropped harmlessly to the turf. But that wasn’t the end of this day’s drama. Steve Johnson ignited a firestorm when he blamed God, yes God, for his dropped pass. He posted on the internet: “I praise you 24/7 and this is how you do me!? How am I supposed to learn from this!?” Perhaps without even knowing it, Steve Johnson was asking one of the more popular questions in all of history- “If I follow you, Lord, why do bad things happen to me?”

That is what John the Baptist wanted to find out. He was the forerunner, the one prophesied by the Holy Scriptures. He had made the good confession of Jesus many times, he had pointed his own followers and countless others to the one whom he thought was the Messiah. And what does he earn for this work? A stay in prison. This isn’t how it is supposed to work! If John had a website, he probably would’ve written, “I praise you 24/7, and this is how you do me? How am I supposed to learn from this?” Instead, he sent messengers to Jesus to find out exactly what was going on. “Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to Him, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?’” In other words, if you are truly the Messiah, why am I in prison? Are you the one I was told to prepare for, or is there someone else coming? All he received was suffering when he expected glory and triumph. And that’s no surprise, because John is human, and our human nature expects glory. We want the victorious Christian life, we want to have things go well, to receive some sort of benefit for following Jesus. And what do we get? Suffering.

We suffer because of our Christian faith, but even more often we just suffer for seemingly no reason at all. We suffer the loss of loved ones, we suffer from illness and injury, we suffer from broken relationships. Sure, our lives do go pretty well most of the time, but there always seems to be another challenge up ahead of us, another opportunity to suffer in this broken world. And there are always the lingering challenges that follow us each and every day: the pain of a lost friendship or a family conflict, or the day to day struggle of making ends meet in an economy that can’t quite seem to get back on its feet. We cry out at the injustice of it all. If Jesus, the one whom we follow, the one we pray to, the one we gather here to worship, is truly the Messiah, is truly God Himself, then why do such things happen to me? Why do I suffer if I have the Lord of the universe on my side? If Jesus is for me, surely my life has to get better, right? And if my life doesn’t get better, then maybe He isn’t who He says He is. Like John and that Buffalo Bills wide receiver, the questions begin to swirl: “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” “I praise you 24/7 and this is how you do me? How am I supposed to learn from this?”

Jesus says in our text that “Blessed is the one who is not offended by me,” but that is much easier said than done. We are offended by our own sufferings, offended that our God, our Lord and Messiah would let such things happen to us. If we expect glory and not suffering, then we may even begin to look for a God that can provide such glory, or at least a Christian congregation who proclaims only a glorious Christ. And there are plenty of congregations out there that proclaim the victorious Christian life, that proclaim only the glories of a Jesus who is so big and so awesome that He can take away all your problems. If you only believe hard enough, they will tell you, then your problems will fade away, and God will grant you success in all that you do. But if we take offense at our own sufferings, then we better stop reading Matthew at this point, for Jesus Christ Himself is headed for suffering. That poses an even more striking question, asked of Jesus Himself at the cross: If you are the Christ, why do you suffer? How can Jesus have an answer for suffering if He Himself suffers? John’s question could’ve been asked at the foot of the cross: “Are you the one who is to come?”

For this reason, many of the congregations that preach the victorious Christian life tend to avoid spending much time talking about Good Friday. And that is tragic, because it is only through His suffering that Jesus provides an answer for our suffering. Jesus has glory up ahead all right, the glory of the one seated at the right hand of the Father, but first He must suffer, first He must give His life. First He must take all of our sufferings, all of our diseases, and all of our corruption upon Himself and carry them to the cross. Every disease, every infirmity, every tragedy in your life has the same root cause- sin. It may be your sin, it may be the sin of others, or it may simply be because we live in a fallen and corrupted world, but every time you suffer, it is because of sin. Jesus also suffered because of sin, but not only because He too lived in a sinful world, He suffered to eliminate sin. He suffered to do away with the cause of all your sufferings. That is why He walked to the cross, to bring all of your burdens, each and every instance of suffering that you are experiencing in your life to the altar of salvation and do away with them there. We often think of Jesus carrying our sins to the cross, but that is only part of the story. He also bears our diseases, our broken relationships, our tragedies, our mourning, all that we suffer in this body and life. His suffering is the solution to your suffering, because He suffers for you.

In our text, we see that the elimination of suffering begins even before the cross. “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.” Jesus demonstrates to John’s disciples that the kingdom of God has truly broken into this world through His person and work. Diseases are being cured, infirmities are taken away, and even the dead are raised; what could be more glorious than that!? But there is something missing. All those whom Jesus has healed and even raised up will eventually die of something else. Death has been dealt a blow, but it will still claim each and every one of them. John is not miraculously released from prison, and in fact very soon his head will be delivered on a platter. The healings of Jesus then don’t seem to accomplish much, and they definitely don’t seem to apply to your life or mine. But it would be a mistake to ignore their importance. Even though they are temporary, even though death seems to still win in each and every case, Jesus is demonstrating through His healings that something new has come. He is pointing to the end of all suffering, to the reversal of all corruption, to the final solution for our sin. He is beginning to restore this fallen creation, proclaiming that He has come to conquer disease and death forever. He heals to declare that because of His suffering and death, your eternity will be filled with glory.

But suffering still comes first. Jesus’ suffering on our behalf provided a final solution for suffering, an eternal solution for suffering, but we still dwell in this veil of tears, where sin still causes suffering. Therefore, the Christian life is not some glory train, living victoriously and getting what we want. Instead the Christian life is the way of the cross, the way of suffering, but it is a path that we do not walk alone. Our Lord is with us each and every step of the way, proclaiming to us the Good News that He has conquered all suffering and death through His own suffering and death. Jesus said to John’s disciples that “the poor have good news preached to them.” That is last in the list because it is the most important. We are those poor who need the good news preached to us in the midst of our suffering. We need to hear of the victory of Jesus Christ over death when we face death in our lives. We need to hear of the glorious bodies we will have in the resurrection when our bodies seems to fail. We need to know that Jesus suffered for us, not just as some act of solidarity, but to actually pay for our sin and remove the cause of suffering. We need to know that Jesus is with us, not absent somewhere in heaven, but beside us in our suffering, speaking words of comfort. We need to know that we have a God who knows suffering, because He endured it Himself for us. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not just spiritual, it has a powerful physical dimension. Jesus will restore our bodies, He will raise them up on the Last Day, never to die again, never to be diseased again, in the new heavens and new earth where no relationship will ever be broken again, especially our relationship with God.
We wait for that day, we anticipate the time when the Lord will eliminate all suffering and bring us to the glory that awaits us. And make no mistake, glory is ahead for all of us, glory that is incomparable with anything we experience in this life. In our Epistle this morning, James exhorts us to wait for this glory in patience. “Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord… As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast.” Just as the prophets of old cried out to God as they suffered, so God wants us to cry to Him in the midst of suffering, He wants us to turn to Him, and His answer to our cries is His Son, our Savior Jesus Christ. Christ’s sufferings mean that our sufferings will end when He renews all creation, bringing to completion what He begun by healing the sick and lame. We look toward that Day with great anticipation this Advent season, for our Lord is coming again, and He is coming to bring you and me deliverance from sin, from suffering, from death. Thanks be to God that He answers our cries with His Son, our coming Savior, Amen.