Author: Bethlehem Lutheran

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Maundy Thursday (Matthew 26:17-30)

Normally, Maundy Thursday is a night I look forward to as a pastor—imagine that, a holiday in the Church year dedicated to the Lord’s Supper! I love the hymn, “Soul, Adorn Yourself with Gladness.” It brings me to tears as we sing, “Jesus, bread of life, I pray You, Let me gladly here obey You. By Your love I am invited, Be Your love with love requited; By this Supper let me measure, Lord, how vast and deep love’s treasure. Through the gift of grace You give me As Your guest in heav’n receive me.” (LSB 636:8)

But this year, that joy is covered over by the health restrictions, and threats to all those who disregard the directives—both legal and to our health. This year, we will not be observing the Supper Jesus founded “On the night in which He was betrayed.” And that hurts—both as a Christian, and as your pastor.

Everything about the Gospel text reminds us that Jesus was with His disciples, and that they were taking part in an ancient tradition—the Passover—which had been celebrated year in and year out since when Moses led the sons of Israel through the Red Sea on dry ground.

It’s that way for us too, because this Eucharist (the ancient name for this meal from Jesus giving thanks) has been revered as the Passover fulfilled by Jesus’ disciples for centuries! In house churches, catacombs, through times of war and peace, this meal has been a constant source of grace, strength, and hope. But always together. This is a strange year indeed.

But do our present circumstances overturn what we commemorate on this night?

26 Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” 27 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, 28 for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 29 I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”

Our Lord explained what He was doing that night, with this meal: He breaks bread and says it is His Body. He takes a cup of wine, and says “This is my Blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” So we will look at these two things: the Body of Christ, and the New Covenant in His Blood.

What is the Body of Christ? “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.” (1 Cor. 12:12-13) The one Body of Christ is what we confess when we say, “I believe in…the holy Christian Church, the communion of saints.” (Apostles’ Creed) It is the assembly of believers which spans space and time—from every century and from all tribes, nations, and languages. This is the mystical Body of Christ, the Church.

There is also the Body of Christ in, with, and under the bread of the Lord’s Supper. Through what we call for short the sacramental union, Jesus feeds the members of His Body, the Church. For some, it’s easier to conceive of the Body of Christ, the Church, more than the Body of Christ in the bread of the Eucharist.

But is either one affected by this new virus and restrictions? We learned from Jesus raising Lazarus that even death cannot separate a member from the mystical Body of Christ—“Whoever believes in me, though He die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” (John 11:25-26). Neither will circumstance change the bread which we break, which is the Body of Christ. Though we are made to fast from it for a time, Christ remains our life as He promises, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven, if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.” (John 6:51)

Our Lord also says, “This is My Blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” He says this in connection with the sacrifices offered under the previous covenant with Moses, and in connection with the covenants He made before with Abraham. Covenants which God makes are sure.

With Abraham in Genesis 15, He made a covenant promise that Abraham would be the father of a multitude. In the custom of “cutting” covenants, Abraham cut the animals in two, and normally the two parties passed through together, solemnly promising that if either broke the covenant they would be rendered as the slain animal. In this case, God is the only one who passed through, in a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch (Gen. 15:17). God made a unilateral covenant, that not even death, famine, oppression, war, unfaithfulness, or any other upheaval could overturn. Over 2,500 years, God kept His covenant so that Abraham’s Offspring was born, was sacrificed instead of Isaac, and made a blessing for all the families of the earth.

So, when Jesus says that in this Supper is the blood of the covenant, poured out for many, this is God’s unilateral covenant—full of God’s faithfulness and rich with the forgiveness of sins. Whether the outbreak continues for a few weeks more or extends much further, this covenant in Jesus Blood will not be moved. We still have its benefits by virtue of the blood which Jesus shed upon the cross, the Word of the Cross which has been preached and received by us in faith, and our being crucified and risen with Him in Baptism.

This doesn’t change our longing for what Jesus has given for our good. We feel the weight of our sins as we are pressed hard with isolation, altered schedules, scarcity of certain needs, and close quarters. The threat of death is very present, and we do nobody any favors by disregarding the restriction guidelines.

But in our hungering for the Sacrament in these strange times is not an emergency of our faith. Jesus has eaten this anew with us, because He has brought us into the Kingdom of His Father, through His Body offered on the cross and the blood of the covenant he poured out. Confident in His promise and power to keep us, we will patiently wait to celebrate the feast, and we will humbly submit to the current conditions. Casting our cares on the Lord, He will sustain us through this point in time. COVID-19 will pass away. All of these measures and their impact will pass away and be recorded in history books. But the Body of Christ will go on as it does eternally—both the Church and the Bread we break. His Covenant will endure through every season until the earth remains no more (Gen. 8:22).

We pray:

Abide with us, Lord, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. Abide with us and with Your whole Church. Abide with us at the end of the day, at the end of our life, at the end of the world. Abide with us with Your grace and goodness, with Your holy Word and Sacrament, with Your strength and blessing. Abide with us when the night of affliction and temptation comes upon us, the night of fear and despair, the night when death draws near. Abide with us and with all the faithful, now and forever.

(LSB p. 257)
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Palm Sunday (Passion According to St. Matthew)

Matthew 26:1-35

Jesus is surrounded by failures. The woman who anoints him does a beautiful work, Judas who betrays him, the eleven other disciples who claim to be faithful but later abandon him.

And this is nothing unique to this moment in time. Among people, we are a mixed bag. We have good intentions at times, evil at others. We do some good things, but other times we’d rather just look out for ourselves. We show good judgment and self-control, but we also can be incredibly stupid. If we’re judging the success of Jesus’ passion, it best not be by looking at those around Him.

The one constant in all of this is where this mixed bag of men and women have hope, where the Church in every age is built on the rock. It’s on Jesus and the covenant He makes: “Take eat; this is My Body” “Drink of it, all of you, for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” The covenant is the unbreakable promise of God to men with all of our failures. Jesus’ Body broken on your behalf; Jesus blood poured out for the remission of sins.

With the rabble around Jesus in His Passion, He is one constant. When we thrive in the Holy Spirit or foolishly yield to our flesh, Jesus is our one constant. It is to Him that we return, and in Him we are saved. Amen.

Matthew 26:36-56

In a script for a play, everything is determined. The actors follow the stage directions, they say the lines assigned to them, they react the way they are supposed to. This is a bit like how it was with the Scriptures.

Jesus, the Son of Man, knew the part that He had to play. It was laid out before Him, and everything had been going according to the prescribed events. He had taught the people what He needed to teach, performed the great signs which signaled the Messiah’s arrival. Now was the most difficult part—that of the “Man of sorrows, acquainted with grief…one from whom men hid their faces, despised, and rejected.” (Isa 53:3). He pleaded with the Author that, “if it be possible, let this cup pass from me” But He was willing to play His part: “Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” Jesus submitted Himself to the definite plan of God, the Script-ures.

The others played their part, too. The disciples grew sleepy keeping watch because of the weakness of their flesh. Judas and his crew came out to arrest Jesus with a kiss. Peter, thinking he would creatively turn the tide, attacked the servant of the high priest. But no matter what the desire of sinful actors, whether it be to seemingly save Jesus or have Him destroyed, the Scriptures of the prophets must be fulfilled.

And even though the Scripture prescribed that He would be betrayed and rejected, they also announce that, “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (Isa 53:4-6) Amen.

Matthew 26:57-75

There are some times when telling the truth will get you into more trouble. Other times, you might tell a white lie and think it will save you from worse consequences. From experience, we know that it’s right to tell the truth, if nothing else than the quote attributed to Mark Twain: “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” But we inevitably make things complicated by lying or telling a selective truth. Many broken marriages and conscience-stricken addicts can show the foreboding consequences of lying.

Here we see both. Telling the unedited truth winds up getting Jesus the sentence of death, while Peter weasels his way out of trouble with a thrice-told bald-faced lie. And what does Peter’s false testimony gain him, but a selfish benefit of being spared ridicule. Trying to save his own hide, he does nothing. But it was right that Jesus told the truth, because that telling of the truth, though it cost Him His life, was the very testimony that must be said. In His confession, He received the just consequences for us, for the Psalmist says with alarm, “all mankind are liars” (Ps. 116:11).

His testimony also gained for us what no mere man’s truth could. In confessing that He was the Christ, the Son of Man, His Word was that of the “mediator of a new covenant…the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.” (Hebrews 12:24) It is now His testimony that He gives before the Father, where He speaks on our behalf and we are declared innocent and righteous. Amen.

Matthew 27:1-31

The last words that Jesus spoke before being nailed to the cross were, “From now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.” (26:64) There was no more for Him to say, because He had preached the Kingdom of God, He had confirmed it with signs. Now it was left to others how they would respond and what they would do.

Judas said, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood” but without faith, he carried out sentence on himself. Pilate asked, “Are you the King of the Jews?” and marveled at how Jesus made no answer to defend himself. The crowds cried for Barabbas instead of Jesus, cried out for His death, so confident of their rejection of this King that they said, “His blood be on us and on our children.” The soldiers dressed Jesus up in mock royal robes and said, “Hail, King of the Jews” as they abused Him. This is how they all responded—Jew and Gentile—to the Word of the Lord and His Christ.

This was all as it had to be, for God to save sinful man. In order to save those who rejected the Lord, the Lord’s Servant had to be rejected. Even though Jesus was silent then, He had been spoken of before, “He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth…Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush Him; He has put Him to grief…the will of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.” (Isa. 53:7, 10) This is how God saved them because that was is His gracious will—to save His enemies and account them righteous. This is God’s will: to save you. Amen.

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Fifth Sunday in Lent (John 11:1-45)

The Lord had an existing relationship with the family. He loved them. He cared about Lazarus in his illness, the suffering he was enduring. (v. 5) We should keep this in mind, first of all, as we see what He does.

Because of this love, he stayed two days longer, to the point at which Lazarus died, and two more days passed. Jesus wasn’t at his deathbed, and didn’t arrive until Lazarus had been dead four days. This is unthinkable. It hurts Martha and Mary that Jesus wasn’t there. Martha breaks out in anger mixed with sorrow, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” (v. 21) How could the Lord appear so heartless as to not offer the common human comfort in their grief? In their time of need, the Lord was separated from them.

Separation is hard for us, as we well know right now. Those bonds that we have are built on being together: good times around a meal, trips we take together, sharing celebrations, and being there in times of sadness and fear.

This separation though, isn’t as hard as it could be. It has the promise of ending in the near future. We can still call the people we miss on the phone, video chat with them. But, we often have to reassure each other and ourselves, “This is only for a time. I can make it a few more weeks, a month or two… I’m looking forward to when we can be together again.”

Even the President hopes it will be over by Easter. It probably won’t be, and that will make it the most memorable Easter celebration in any of our lives. Separated on a major holiday, unable to gather together for all the regular festivities—breakfast, egg hunts, church, dinner with family.

But death is separation of a much greater degree. No phone calls, no Skype, not even a letter. No hope of it coming to an end in a matter of months or even years. They won’t be coming back for their things, so you’re left to pack up boxes for Goodwill.

And that’s what hurt Martha and Mary so badly. So why, if Jesus loved Lazarus and his sisters, would the Lord allow him to die? “Lazarus has died, and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” Jesus is glad that He was not there so that they may believe. He loved them as friends, close friends, and because He loved them, He wanted them to believe in Him not just as a devoted peer, but as their God and Savior. This begs the question, What’s the real evil in Lazarus’ illness and death? Being separated by death, or not believing? And what’s this about “Let us go to him”?

Jesus arrives at Bethany in the midst of their grieving. He is hurting too, because death has robbed His friends, torn a brother from two sisters. This is a painful time for the Lord, and it really isn’t realistic to see Him as above it all, just because He knows the end of the story.

He is like us in every way—mortal and bound to time—and yet He is also God in the flesh, come to deliver us from the power of death.

And here at Bethany, our Lord Jesus teaches us how to face separation and lament it, but to face it with confidence and hope. He weeps and His tears sting. He is deeply moved and His heart aches inside His chest. He does not talk in euphemisms, or gloss over the very present pain. He acknowledges it, and doesn’t try tricks to make it easier to bear.

That’s something we see a bit of happening during this separation, trying so hard to make it not as bad as it is. Don’t worry about the fact you’re unemployed, because now you’re free to binge watch on Netflix. It’s no big deal that we can’t be with our family; we can just spend more time on webcam. No need to be sad about longing for the house of God, you can just set up a substitute in your living room.

As well-intentioned as these attempts are to “always look on the bright side of death” (Monty Python), they don’t allow the pain to be felt. Losing someone to death is wretched. The upheaval this time has caused in people’s lives is immense. This has done enormous damage to our country, and it’s going to take a long time—if ever—to pay back $2 trillion. There is no substitute for being able to gather in the actual house of God in the flesh with fellow members of Christ. To deny the graveness of our situation shows how little we believe God is able to do. It betrays our unwillingness to fully commit ourselves into His keeping.

The lesson from our Lord here is to not shy away from calling a thing what it is: death is a curse, grief can’t be sidestepped. We pass through the “valley of the shadow of death” (Ps. 23:4) because there isn’t another way around, and it may be a shadow, but the darkness is felt.

The other lesson our Lord teaches us is how to face dismalness with hope intact. I said earlier that the Lord does not talk in euphemisms, and you may think He was sugar-coating death when He said, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.” (v. 11). No, what He’s expressing is what death has become for the people of God. Being separated even by death is an easy thing for God, and the Lord shows them it is so.

On many a funeral bulletin, these words have reminded us of that: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” (vv. 25-26) It’s beyond all current human experience to acknowledge that as true. But the Lord shows Mary and Martha that in the flesh by going to Lazarus’ four-day-old tomb, praying to His Father (the Maker of heaven and earth), and calling Lazarus out from the tomb. “Nothing is impossible with God,” Gabriel told the young virgin who would conceive by the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:37) When Jesus said, “Let us go to him,” as simply as, “I go to awaken him.” He was speaking as plain as the nose on your face.

It sounds simple for God, but it was not. It cost Him everything to say those words to call Lazarus from the tomb, because it would mean Him going into it. It would take His

innocent suffering and death, His being forsaken and made sin for us all. God in no way diminished how serious our sin is, but He is also the God who raised Jesus from the dead.

The griefs we now bear, can and will be turned around with a Word from the Lord. We go into tragedy and calamity unwillingly, not knowing what the outcome will be. Nevertheless, we go in believing in our God and we know with confidence that He will hold onto us in body and soul. He will keep us, so that “we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea” (Ps. 46:2) Whatever may come, the Holy Spirit convinces us of what He has spoken: that He will never leave nor forsake us (Josh. 1:9), that nothing in all of creation will be able to separate us from His love in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:31-39). Temporal sufferings of living without our spouse, having our celebrations and plans fall to pieces, of loneliness—we bear not because they’re in any way enjoyable, but because we, like Martha and Mary, have come to believe the great things which our God can do.

That’s because He almighty and He loves us, too. Let us pray:

Lord God, You have called Your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go but only that Your hand is leading us and Your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

(LSB, p. 311)
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Fourth Sunday in Lent (John 9:1-41)

Times of disaster often bring out the theologian in people. We want to know why bad things happen. This is called “theodicy.” It comes from the Greek words for God and justify, and it cuts two ways. First, it serves to justify God’s right to send suffering, and this is what happens when we try to explain God’s reasoning for a bad thing that’s happened.

In 2010, Pat Robertson of the 700 Club attributed the earthquake in Haiti to making a pact with the devil to be freed from being a colony of France.1 In Hinduism, karma is the explanation given for why things happen to you, but in case the answer isn’t immediately apparent, you can pin the blame on what you did in a so-called “past life.”

Maybe it comes from a fear that secretly God has ulterior, evil motives for how He rules the universe. Or it could come from the idea that God will only do good to those who are good enough, and just maybe you don’t make the cut.

The other side of theodicy is when we demand that God answer us why He done something that causes pain. Why, God, are mothers robbed of their children? Why, God, do you allow a gunman to open fire in a shopping mall? Why, God, is calamity piled upon calamity in some people’s lives, while others go carefree? Why, God, would you let the shameful and unjust things happen which fuel our loved one’s addiction?

This kind of theodicy is what Job dabbled in when his life was overturned by a test from Satan.

2 I will say to God, Do not condemn me;

let me know why you contend against me.

3 Does it seem good to you to oppress,

to despise the work of your hands

and favor the designs of the wicked?

4 Have you eyes of flesh?

Do you see as man sees?

5 Are your days as the days of man,

or your years as a man’s years,

6 that you seek out my iniquity

and search for my sin,

7 although you know that I am not guilty,

and there is none to deliver out of your hand?

8 Your hands fashioned and made me,

and now you have destroyed me altogether. (Job 10:2-8)

Theodicy is what the disciples were delving into when they came upon this blind man:

As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

Under the Pharisees, they had been taught a very simplistic view of sin and its consequences, based on the Lord’s Word: “I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me.” (Exodus 20:5) They were simply using inductive reasoning—this man has a malady. Malady is a result of sin. God says he punishes the children for the sins of the fathers, so this man must be under some kind of family curse.

There’s something sadistically comforting about understanding why someone else is suffering. You might call it Schadenfreude, taking pleasure in seeing another person’s pain. But I think it really comes down to a vulnerability in each of us. If this man was born blind because of sin, what might befall me? How can I steer clear of having that happen to me or those close to me?

Theodicy is ultimately a dead-end, because it stems from a desire to be master over our life. If anything is teaching us this, it’s the coronavirus pandemic. If not only the fact that it spreads so easily, the steps taken to slow its advance has turned all of our lives upside down. Pointing fingers won’t change it. Yelling about it won’t stop it. It’s here. It’s made an unprecedented impact on the world.

You can acknowledge it as God’s judgment, as all disasters are. But judgment for what, we don’t have a definite answer. It’s impacted people from nearly every country, regardless of religion, occupation, or economic status. If anything it’s a stark reminder that we are all under the power of death.

But the Lord’s response to His disciples’ question can teach us in this matter: “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.” Firstly, it’s not for us to know the inner workings of why God allows or sends evil, why circumstances happen the way they do. That is hidden from us, as it was when Job questioned God’s justice and motives for his suffering (Job 38-41) What Jesus shows in this blind man is God using all things, even the evil of blindness, to arrive at a good purpose: His salvation.

Secondly, so long as we remain in judgments and blame, sin and just rewards, we will never behold Jesus Christ. The focus is not on this man or his parent’s particular sins; it’s on the works of God displayed in Him. What is that work of God? Jesus already answered that in John 6:29: “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom He has sent.” For what has He sent Him? To be the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Why do you, man, bother yourself to track down particular sins, when God has given His Son to take sin away from the world.

It would be easy to understand if, at the point the man was healed everything started going better for him. But it doesn’t. It gets worse. He loses his place in the synagogue. He loses His parents. Yet, notice what happens at each of these “turns for the worse”: After he is interrogated by the Pharisees, he says Jesus is a prophet. When he’s forsaken by his parents, and questioned again, he confesses that Jesus is from God and greater than all the prophets before. Finally, after he has gained his sight, but lost his community and his family, he worships Jesus.

This is the work of God, that he believes in Jesus in spite of trials. While we may not be able to ascertain whose sin or what caused this pandemic, this is a time where the work of God will be manifest. In Romans 5, Paul touches on this miracle of faith: “Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” (Rom. 5:2-5) Not only is God fully in control to provide during necessity and able to rebuild from the ashes, but He is also mighty to keep us in the one true faith and so display His mighty work.

Jesus says next, “We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work.” This is what Jesus and those who follow Him are about: the work of God which is displaying that, “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.” (2 Cor. 5:19)

Our Lord says the night is coming, when no one can work. Times of pestilence and economic turmoil make it hard to ignore that these are the last days. St. Paul’s words to Timothy ring all too true:

“Understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God…” (2 Tim. 3:1-5)

This is not a time for the Church to only preach the Law, as if people cleaning their act up would save them. We must be ready to preach the Gospel to people, to sinners, just like us who are under the same judgment, whose livelihoods crumble before their eyes, who are scared about the future.

The Lord Jesus says, “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” He is still in the world because His people are in the world. There is still hope for those who feel their sin. Until the very last, Jesus is the light of the world, and He makes His faithful, forgiven people, to shine. That’s the kind of light of the world that He is talking about when He urges us not to put that lamp under a basket (Matt. 5:14-16). This is the Word which has saved us: that we deserve the judgements that have come on the world (and worse),

but God in His mercy came to us, opened our blind eyes to recognize Him in His Son, our Savior.

Jesus anointed this man’s eyes and sent him to the Pool of Siloam, which means Sent. Just as Jesus was sent by the Father, as the Light of the World, so He sends us in the world, in the midst of sin, to point to Jesus and announce His grace. May He enable us so to do! Amen.

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Third Sunday in Lent (Text: John 4:5-26)

Ignorance about God is a serious problem. Now, very few people would actually say they don’t know much about God. More common is the idea that we know enough about God to get by. You know, as much as country music songs teach us about God and Jesus and the importance of saying prayers. But this view of God can’t get you that far. You end up with a speckled view of the Law and an unclear idea of the Gospel. The country music Jesus considers sins to be mere blemishes on an otherwise angelic person. And the reason you get into heaven is because he overlooked your sins because he loves you…“forever and ever amen.” This vague view of God also doesn’t tell you where to find His grace where He offers it, and when you really need it.

What happens then is that true knowledge of God is filled in with contrived thoughts about who God is. Phrase like these crop up: “God helps those who help themselves.” You’ve also probably heard something along the lines of, “God is love, therefore he couldn’t possibly hate your sin.” Another popular idea is, “If I have a good feeling after church then I must have gotten something out of it.” You won’t find any of these ideas in the Bible.

In today’s Gospel reading, we meet a woman from Samaria, and the Samaritans had a similar problem. It dated back to the time when the Kingdom of Israel split. Jerusalem, where the Temple was, was in the Southern Kingdom. Without the Temple, you can’t be a faithful to the Lord’s decrees. One of the kings of the Northern Kingdom built Samaria to rival Jerusalem. Since the Samaritans were excluded from the Temple, they started adopting pagan practices to supplement their former temple worship. The resulting religion of the Samaritans was a hodgepodge between Israelite worship and whatever other religious notions came along. That’s why the Evangelist notes, “Jews have no dealings with Samaritans” (v. 9). Strangely, despite this confused theology, the Samaritans still considered themselves faithful Israelites.

That’s where you come to the Samaritan woman who met Jesus. She has a very vague understanding of the Scriptures, and an even vaguer idea of the Messiah. She’s not like Nicodemus, who was an expert at the Scriptures and recognized Jesus’ signs. But just like Nicodemus, she doesn’t recognize the Messiah, even in broad daylight.

With her patchy knowledge of God, she also faces a dilemma in her personal life. John paints the picture: Near the town of Sychar, close to where the patriarch Jacob lived for many years (Gen. 33:18-20), this is a place where the rich history of God’s people is remembered fondly. Now comes a woman to draw water from this historic well, “given by our father Jacob.” But she comes by herself. Why? Because it’s the middle of the day, when nobody is around [Gen. 24:11]. She’s not trying to beat the dinner rush; there’s something more. It’s the accusing glances she’s bound to receive if she comes in the cool of evening.

But what she finds is Jesus—a man, but even less expected, a Jewish man. Oh, he’s probably going to condemn me for my half-breed ancestry. But, Jesus is very different.

When He speaks with her, He doesn’t address her ancestry or just her behavior; Jesus addresses the condition of her heart: “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” You’re thirsty, dear woman. Not just in the bodily way; your soul is parched.

He diagnoses her by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, and He knows what is in her heart. Her coming to this well day after day was an analogy for what living without the true God was doing to her. She is aware of what she’s done wrong, knows she shouldn’t be living this way. She’s ashamed of it, because her conscience accuses her. Yet, she can find no peace. Instead, her vague religion leaves her with Band-Aid fixes for her sin, like coming to the well when nobody is around. Workarounds and excuses lead to more of them, until you’re tangled in this knot you can’t untie. It’s like having to draw water from a well day after day: the task will never be finished and she will never have her thirst for peace quenched.

Jesus diagnoses her real problem, which is her need for repentance, to return to the Lord. So, He says, “Go, call your husband and come here.” If she wants to be done with Band-Aid fixes, she will need to confess her sin. And she does. “I have no husband.” The God of Jacob had confronted her, and the Spirit had led her to make a true confession. Thus, Jesus says, “What you have said is true.”

Imagine what this woman’s life looked like. She’s been divorced 5 times, probably labelled a hussy by her community. Maybe she seeks something to numb the pain of those fractured relationships; she’s given up on getting married again at all. She’s desparate for something to numb the pain, silence the conscience. Her picture of the Messiah, the ideal of what life with God could be, is postponed. Just like when we make excuses—I’ll get back to going to church when this crisis is over, or when I get back from vacation.

Likewise, the Spirit leads you to a true confession of your sins. At the beginning of the service in the Confession and Absolution, we said, ”If You, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? But with You there is forgiveness; therefore You are feared.” (Ps. 130:3) That is not your self-diagnosis. Your self diagnosis is usually that you’re not that bad, at least compared to others. Sure you’ve made some mistakes this week, but nothing major, nothing too big to handle. Apart from God’s Word, our own self diagnosis leads us to think we can take care of ourselves on our terms.

The words of Jesus have brought the Samaritan woman to repentance. It doesn’t stop there, though. The Spirit does not just lead you to a true knowledge of your sins; He also leads you to truly know that God is gracious and merciful toward sinners. The Samaritans, with their confused theology had also lost where to seek God’s grace. On the one hand, the Scriptures state that God is to be found in His Temple, but on the other hand the Samaritans didn’t have the Temple. The woman had confessed her sin to God, and now her question is, How can I seek God, whom I have offended? As a Samaritan, she doesn’t have access to the Temple. What hope is there for her?

Where is God to be found? The answer is good news for the Samaritan woman: The hour is coming where it’s no longer a matter of mountains, temples, or animal sacrifices. In the past, these things were important because they formerly were where God was found. However, the hour has come for those things to be fulfilled. Those things were a shadow, but the substance belongs to the One who is standing before her. And it is the Messiah whom the Spirit points to. All who would worship the Father in Spirit and truth worship in Christ. He is the temple where fullness of deity dwells bodily. All the animal sacrifices end in the one sacrifice made on the cross. God is no longer found in a building, but He is found in the flesh—Jesus.

That is the good news for you, also! In Christ, you are able to approach God, whom you have offended by your sins, and with all boldness pray, “Almighty God, have mercy upon us, forgive us our sins, and lead us to everlasting life.” Every day of your baptized life in Christ, your Heavenly Father gives you His Holy Spirit. The Spirit calls you by the Gospel, to repent of your sins and believe in your Savior.

Jesus approached this woman, who was wandering like a sheep without a shepherd, with compassion. He holds up the gifts of living in the Kingdom—He is the gift of God, the One who gives water that springs up to eternal life. “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk

without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live” (Isa. 55:1-3a) He holds these gifts up so that she can compare what she has now with what God has prepared for those who love Him [1 Cor. 2:9].

Learn from the compassion of the Lord. He tells her what He has to give and the Holy Spirit works a spiritual thirst in her. This teaches us how to share our faith, especially with those who have wandered or have serious doubts. It starts with meeting her where she’s at—she understands shame and guilt, but with a hazy knowledge of God’s will it just festers inside her.

The Law of God came and cut her to the heart. Yet, Jesus’ words are not just more “should-and-didn’t” pangs of guilt toward which we eventually become callous. They’re aimed at honing in on a specific sickness in her life. That sickness can’t be treated by avoiding others. It can’t be fixed by her own solutions. This much to tell us when we talk to people who have neglected their faith, and not come to church in quite a while. They know they should. Guilt. They get busy with other things, which at times can be overwhelming and lead to more trouble. More guilt. In most cases, what you’re meeting is someone who has plenty of guilt already, but it’s become unclear what direction that guilt is coming from, and like the Samaritan woman, they need guidance back to the living waters which Jesus gives. What Jesus offers them in Word and Sacrament is what they aren’t getting out there. They’re not stupid; they’re starving. They’re withering away without God.

And that’s what has brought us here…both here in person and online, to quench that thirst which the world cannot:

“As a deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
My tears have been my food
day and night,
while they say to me all the day long,
“Where is your God?”
These things I remember,
as I pour out my soul:
how I would go with the throng
and lead them in procession to the house of God
with glad shouts and songs of praise,
a multitude keeping festival.
Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God.”

(Psalm 42:1-6)

Your salvation is here in Jesus Christ. Amen.

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Second Sunday in Lent (John 3:1-17)

This Lent, we have the privilege to walk through several stories in the Gospel of John, which demonstrate to us the power of God for salvation to all who believe. We’ll stop in John 3 today, where we meet Nicodemus who learns the grace of the Kingdom of God. Next Sunday, we’ll hear about how important forgiveness of sins is for entrance into the Kingdom. Then we’ll ponder the nature of sin with the man who was born blind. Finally before Palm Sunday, the Lord will bring us down to the very grave before raising us up with Lazarus, whom He calls forth from the tomb. That brings us to the Palm Sunday procession in John 12, which was largely populated by people who had seen Lazarus rise.

Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night, because he thinks he can identify the things of God. After all, he’s a trained expert in them. It stands to reason if you want to know about God, you study the Scriptures and that makes you well-qualified to know what God is doing. But Jesus points out the fatal flaw in man-knowing-God. Human understanding doesn’t recognize the fullness of God’s work of salvation. It can behold the miracles, but not the fuller reality behind them. “You must be born again.”

Without being born again, people profane God’s Name. Without being born again, they just go through the motions of religion because its what their family does, or it’s to get their spouse off their case, but they are only inspired by the order and the moral example the Bible gives. Likewise, without being born again, people shun religion and say it’s nothing but judgmental people. They turn away from God because they either view Him as an angry judge or as something that people in the dark ages made up in the name of social control.

“You must be born again” says that we are born incapable of recognizing God’s work, rightly knowing how God thinks, or even understanding how to read His Word (even if it’s in plain English). By the Holy Spirit we see the fullness of God’s heart. He doesn’t just love the people who meet certain criteria. He loves these people of the flesh—sinners with real lives that have real doubts, guilt, fear, etc. He loves the world, and if you are in the world, He loves you.

His love, though, doesn’t come to us merely on human terms; it come on God’s terms. If it were on human terms, it would be subject to our biases—who we think is worthy of His kingdom. The recognition of God’s love in Christ is wider than human expectation, and it is better.

Unfortunately for us, hearing these words in 2020, “love” has been mutated into a strange version of its original intent. Love is a strong feeling, love is permissiveness, love is…altogether human. But we heard this in last week’s Epistle reading, “God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) Human love takes that to mean a blank check, that between the Old and New Testaments, God had a change of heart and decided to not be so hard on people. Instead what it really

means is that God loved us enough that, in spite of our wretchedness, our rejecting Him, that He still gave the sacrifice of His only-begotten Son. That was what we truly needed to be saved.

Our salvation being the result of God’s work alone is called monergism—meaning God alone has the power to save. And this makes us uncomfortable. It makes us uncomfortable to be out of control of something so important. The Spirit moves where He wills. “He creates faith when and where it pleases God in those who believe” (Augsburg Confession V).

Because God doesn’t hold out on His salvation based on what we’ve done, we can take confidence that He forgives the sins of all who have been born again. But how do we know when we’re born again?

“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.” This refers back to the incident with the fiery serpents in Numbers 21, when God sent serpents to bite the people who grumbled against the Lord so that they died.

It means that all who feel the pangs of death and acknowledge that they have offended not just social standards or their own expectations for themselves, but have sinned against God. All who believe this—not only that He exists and He saves theoretical sinners, but that He has saved you, a sinner, have eternal life.

Today it’s all too common to over-simplify this message, and cheapen the Gospel into Good news for bad situations, regardless of sin. But how much this harms people, because if sin is not serious, then why was Christ condemned? If sin doesn’t actually lead to us perishing, then why was God’s Son treated so cruelly?

Today the Church is challenged two-fold: one that God receives sinners, and two that God calls sinners to repent. If you lose either of those points, you miss out on the Gospel. This is why the cross remains such an enduring and powerful symbol for God’s Church. It’s more than two lines to form the lower-case ‘t’ on “co-exist” bumper stickers. The cross shows the darkness in all people, and what God did to bring us back to Himself. Every human attempt to do this has resulted in disillusionment or delusion. Some get “burned out on religion” because all they hear is a demand to do more, be better, and stop sinning. Others will want a message that says God just wants us to accept each other as we are.

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

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Lent 1 – Midweek Series “Denying Eyes” (Mark 14:26-31; 66-72)

He was so sure that he would succeed where others failed. He could feel the zeal welling up within him. “Even though they all fall away, I will not.” Lord, how could you say that we will all fall away? What an awful thing to happen! “Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.” But Peter said all the more, “If I must die with you, I will not deny you.”

What did Peter think of his own dedication versus that of others? He was sure that he would succeed where others had failed. That kind of optimism comes from an underestimated view of his own strength. If you’re older or have chronic illness, you understand this. At the start of the day, you are sure that you can take on the world, like you did before. You have 10 things on your list and you’re going to get them all done. By the time dinner rolls around, you realize that you only got a few things done and had to take a nap. But for Peter, more than anything, he was sure that he could rise above the Word of God speaking about the plan of God and the failure of His people. It seemed so obvious to him, so simple. Those who came before just didn’t try hard enough, or they lacked conviction. But Jesus was quoting the prophet Zechariah, “Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who stands next to me,” declares the Lord of hosts. ‘Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered’” (Zech. 13:7) That’s quite a tide to think you can stand against. It happened just as the Lord said it would:

And as Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the servant girls of the high priest came, and seeing Peter warming himself, she looked at him and said, “You also were with the Nazarene, Jesus.” But he denied it, saying, “I neither know nor understand what you mean.” And he went out into the gateway and the rooster crowed. And the servant girl saw him and began again to say to the bystanders, “This man is one of them.” But again he denied it. And after a little while the bystanders again said to Peter, “Certainly you are one of them, for you are a Galilean.” But he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, “I do not know this man of whom you speak.” And immediately the rooster crowed a second time. And Peter remembered how Jesus had said to him, “Before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.” And he broke down and wept.

Peter wouldn’t be the last to deny His Lord under the threat of persecution. During the first centuries of the Church, the Roman rulers found various times to blame the Christains for their crumbling Empire—Nero, Domitian, Trajan, Valerian, Diocletian, and so on. Some bravely went to the lions or the pyre. Ignatius of Antioch wrote letters to strengthen the churches as he was brought to his execution under Hadrian. Later persecutions were not as noble. Under one in the 250’s AD, under the Emperor Decius, all Christians were compelled to prove their loyalty to the empire by offering incense to the pagan gods of the Empire. If you did, you would receive a libellus, a short note, which allowed you to escape arrest. Some Christians consented, others like Pope Fabian refused and were killed. Still others, desiring to save their life or that of their family, bought the libellus. Novatian of

Rome took great offense, and believed that such deniers should never be readmitted to the Church. It’s easy to look at others and judge their denials and see their faults.

What makes Peter’s denial that much more shameful is who it’s before. Not a powerful kings, nor a soldier threatening his children at knife-point. No, a lowly servant girl who has no more power over him than any other bystander. While Jesus is in the court, confessing under oath that He is the Christ, the Son of the Blessed (Mark 14:61-62), Peter is outside taking an oath on the lie that he does not know Jesus.

This goes to show that it’s easier to sit in a comfortable pew among another Christians and sing “Onward, Christian soldiers, marching off to war!” than to live it.

Today, how we deny Him is by failing to speak about Him when it could save someone’s soul. When someone says to us that they think all religions are about the same, we don’t say anything because we say we’re afraid of “ruining” the relationship. When someone says they’re joining a church body like the ELCA, which openly promotes ungodly living and says that people are saved apart from faith in Christ,1 we feel more comfortable to say “God bless you there” and leave them to the wolves.

We don’t defend His name when it’s blasphemed and tossed around like a dirty rag. Perhaps we are afraid of becoming a byword along with Him. Maybe they’ll think you’re a religious nut; maybe you don’t care because you’re already nuts!

If we have died with him, we will also live with him;

12 if we endure, we will also reign with him;

if we deny him, he also will deny us;

13 if we are faithless, he remains faithful—

for he cannot deny himself.

So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, 33 but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven. (Matt. 10:26-28)

Gospel:

Jesus was denied by the Father, counted the greatest sinner. Even for the most first-class denier. With the Lord is plentiful redemption, and He will redeem Israel from all his iniquities (Ps. 130). For Peter there was plentiful redemption, when on Easter he heard the general absolution (John 20)

19 On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 20 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.

, but one morning on the shore of Galilee, he had a personal reconciliation with the Lord (John 21:15-18).

“15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” 16 He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” 17 He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. 18 Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” 19 (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.””

After that were many times where timid Peter boldly confessed Christ, on Pentecost, before the Sanhedrin, before strangers in Cornelius’ house.

You are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:10). He is able to put His Word in your mouth, give you boldness and confidence, and love for your neighbor. Love Him who has showed you unwavering faithfulness, even to the point of His death upon a cross. May He sanctify your hearts, minds, and lips to confess Him in all that you do in this life. Amen.

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First Sunday in Lent (Matthew 4:1-11)

Jesus’ ministry begins not in a lush garden in the presence of God as it was in the beginning, but in the wilderness of a world that is under the curse of sin and death. His ministry after being baptized in the Jordan and declared to be the Son of God, goes immediately into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil for forty days. Forty for the days for the flood of Noah by which God judged the wickedness of men (Genesis 6-8), forty for the years during which God bore with the stiff-necked generation before bringing their children into the Promised Land and the whole time fed them with bread from heaven (Psalm 95:8-11, Exodus 16). Forty days for the time in which Moses was on the mountain receiving the Word of God (Exodus 34:27-28). Forty for the days Goliath came and taunted Israel and defied the Living God (1 Samuel 17). Forty days for God showing forbearance to a twisted generation, that they might be saved.

This was the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, the capstone of all of God’s dealings with the sons of men since Adam and Eve brought sin into the world. It was the beginning of a new creation, “As one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.” (Rom. 5:18-19) The Son of God, Jesus, stands in the wilderness as the New Adam to work righteousness and bring salvation where the First Adam and his children were cursed. It’s quite appropriate that Genesis 3 and Matthew 4 are read together.

Jesus stands in for all humanity when He is tempted by the devil, and listen to the temptations He faced, because each time He is tempted to forsake the Word of God for temporal, selfish gain: “If you are the Son of God…” does not mean that the devil wasn’t listening at His Baptism, when the Father declared from heaven, “This is my beloved Son.” It means that Satan is up to His old tricks of lying and murdering (John 8:44), attempting to pry God and man apart. In fact this is what the Greek name for the devil, diabolos, means—he who divides, casts apart.

2 And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”

The first temptation casts doubt on God as Creator of heaven and earth. Will He indeed do good for His creatures? Can a man truly turn His life over to the care of God and not have to be ready to grab the proverbial wheel at any moment? Command these stones to become loaves of bread—take your life in your own hands, because how could it be God’s will for you to hunger? Not only “if you are the son of God,” but If this God really loved, He wouldn’t let you suffer with sweat and hunger, thorns and thistles, and after all your labor to return to the dust.

It had worked on the Israelites before (we’ll hear this two Sundays from now): [They said to Moses] “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” (Ex. 17:3) It works on us, too, because as soon as the money runs short, we’re convinced it must be the end. We lock down and go into survival mode, believing only in what we can measure and touch, relying only on our reason and strength to see us through.

What does God say to that? 4 But he answered, “It is written, “ ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ” Yes, you are dust and flesh, fragile and at the breath of the Lord you whither (Isaiah 40:6-8). When He hides His face, you die and return to the ground (Ps. 104:27-30). But what of it? Did He not create you from the dust by a Word? Are you afraid that He cannot sustain you? Or are you more in love with this present life than the God who gives and who takes away? Do you not remember that apart from Him there is no God, no life, no resurrection?

The second temptation follows this:

Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and “ ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’ ”

If God truly claims you as Son, He won’t let anything bad happen to you. If He is truly Almighty, then no matter what choice you make, His will is done. This questions God’s care for His children, with the implication that if something harm does come, He must not be as almighty as all that. If you further dissect Psalm 91 by this man-centered approach, you will read “For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence… A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.” Then, where is the justice in the cancer which separates loving spouses from each other, the SIDS which takes a sweet child from his parents, or viruses indiscriminately sickening droves of people? Why won’t you help, God? Don’t you see us languishing?

God, what do you have to say to that? 7 Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ” That is, you have seen the life you have as something that belongs to you, as if you were king or queen over your own domain. We demand that God justify His actions to us. How dare God not serve me, but we have it backwards. He is the Lord, we are the servants. He the Benefactor, we the beneficiaries. He the Protector, we are guarded and kept by Him from eternity.

The devil’s final temptation:

“Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”

Here the devil promises Jesus His supposed heart’s desire. Don’t you want all nations to honor you, all to hail the name of Jesus? I can it to you that thing you desire most, the Liar claims. All you have to do is worship me, trust in my power, celebrate my works and walk in my ways. Better than that, I can give it to you with all that nasty, painful suffering and death.

We understand this temptation not necessarily as worshipping the devil, but bargaining with God. Our heart’s desire, the thing we would do anything to have, we can achieve by other means. This is the draw of witchcraft, palm reading, psychics, and Ouija boards. You can have the help you want, the ultimate good you see for your life. But it comes at a price. “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36) The devil’s lie is that “where there’s a will there’s a way” and where God doesn’t satisfy, there are other options. If the Words of Jesus are not to your liking, devote yourself to the teachings of demons—whether in bald-faced paganism, or in a guise of Christianity by picking a church that won’t judge what you don’t want to repent of.

What does God say to this? 10 Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’ ”

Jesus remained steadfast, when we are flighty. He remained strong where we are weak. He remained true, when we’ve been duped. “Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: ‘I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god…Is there a God besides me? There is no Rock; I know not any.” (Isa. 44:6, 8)

If you have been tempted, if you think sometimes God is too far removed to help, behold Him “who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). He was tempted in the flesh so that He can help us in our weakness. Where we fall, He has the power and willingness to save—to forgive, renew, and rescue.

And if you are so afflicted, He gives you a pledge of His help by giving you His own Body and Blood to eat and drink. This very Body and Blood is the one which felt hunger, felt Satan’s temptations and lies, felt the sting of allegiance sworn but then broken, the humiliation of being jeered at, who felt bodily agony and breathed His last.

This is what He gives to you, who falter under the weight of your sins, who groan at the onset of death, and whose hearts are rent asunder by loss. He gives it to you to comfort and strengthen you, because His Body did not remain in the grave. He rose again to life free of sin, death, and devil. He rose, never to die again (Rom. 6:9), and so will you.

So, come to the altar now, with all your weakness, that you may put on Christ’s strength, in the forgiveness of your sins and the promise of eternal rest. Amen.

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Ash Wednesday (Mark 14:1-9)

Passion Reading: Mark 14:1–9

1It was now two days before the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest him by stealth and kill him, 2for they said, “Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar from the people.” 3And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head. 4There were some who said to themselves indignantly, “Why was the ointment wasted like that? 5For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor.” And they scolded her. 6But Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. 7For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them. But you will not always have me. 8She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for burial. 9And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”

If you were to get ashes in your eyes, you wouldn’t be able to see clearly. Similarly, what sin has done to us is damage our vision of what is good in God’s sight. We look at what is good and distort its purpose, or we look upon what is beautiful and misjudge its value. As Isaiah says, we are those who “call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness” (Isa. 5:20).

Jesus says in the Gospel, “When you give to the needy” (Matthew 6:2). He assumes that Christians will do this and that giving to the needy must be a good thing to do. Jesus also says in the Passion Reading, “You always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them” (Mark 14:7). But sinners misjudge the purpose of such good deeds.

Jesus criticized the hypocrites “in the synagogues and in the streets” for conspicuously giving to the needy in order to “be praised by others” (Matthew 6:2). Likewise, they prayed long-winded prayers and made a show of fasting in order to “be seen by others” (Matthew 6:5, 16). In being praised and seen by others, they received the rewards they were seeking: to be thought of as good people by others. This is an entirely self-serving and evil approach to good works, because it only uses God’s Name for selfish gain.

On the other hand, those who come to the Father through faith in His Son view good works as opportunities to serve the neighbor and please God [2 Corinthians 5:9]. In fact, these works pleasing in God’s sight aren’t even done seeking a reward. Jesus never says that rewards are why Christians do what they do. He promises that the Father will reward the almsgiving, prayer, and fasting of His children, but reward is not their motivation.

But our old Adam misjudges this point. Sin’s deep delusion is that our work must have a commensurate reward. That is the worst misjudgment we can make, and it’s the tragic error of all man-made attempts at religion. Thanks be to God that His Word, echoed in the liturgy and hymns, makes it painfully clear our utter wretchedness and desperate need for the forgiveness of our sins. What we need of first importance is the Lamb of God who takes away our sins. And St. Mark takes us to Him in our Passion Reading when he begins, “It was now two days before the Passover. . .” (Mark 14:1).

The Passover and Passion were just a couple of days away. Jesus knew this and had repeatedly told His disciples that His death was drawing near. But unlike Jesus, the guests at Simon the Leper’s house didn’t have their mind on the cross when an uninvited woman came in. She cracked open an expensive jar of pure nard, which was a luxury item, and anointed Jesus. It was no small thing, because her act, no matter how out of place it seemed to the guests, proclaimed that Jesus was the anointed offering, a pleasing aroma about to be presented to God.

Then there’s the value of the nard itself. If it really could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, that would have been nearly a year’s wages for a day laborer. Before the Feeding of the Five Thousand, the disciples estimated that two hundred denarii worth of bread would fill the crowd’s bellies (Mark 6:37). Just imagine how many people you could feed with three hundred denarii! That’s what the guests at Simon’s dinner were saying among themselves, outraged at the woman’s wastefulness, indignant that so many would go hungry because of her impulsiveness. “What’s wrong with you, woman? Are you out of your mind? You should have sold that perfume and given the money to the poor!” But they had misjudging eyes. It’s worth noting that John’s Gospel, chapter 12, comments that Judas raised this objection, “not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it.” (John 12:6)

Jesus, however, sees clearly and He comes to the woman’s defense and tells her critics to back off. Jesus recognizes her action as a beautiful work, as preparation for the most beautiful, noble, good deed in human history: His own suffering, death, and burial.

As Jesus Himself says, it’s good to give to the needy, to do good to the poor. But when the incarnate Son of God is sitting at your dinner table preparing to suffer and die for the sin of the world, then be hastily entombed without proper anointing at His burial, then even three hundred denarii worth of ointment is no waste, but is rightly devoted to His service. What the dinner guests could not see was the sheer uniqueness, the tremendous weight, of the moment they were witnessing. For God’s Anointed One was soon to give His body and shed His blood, to give His life as a ransom for the world, to be the once-for-all Passover Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). This moment was not business as usual. As the generous provider for all Creation, it’s certain that God the Father gave what was necessary to feed the poor of Bethany and Jerusalem on that day, even as He was about to pour out the priceless blood of His Son as a saving balm for sinners. St. Paul echoes the anointed Jesus, “Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:2). The smell of Christ’s holy life and atoning work turned away the wrath of God against us, with our misjudgment and evil thoughts and selfish plans, once and for all.

In Holy Baptism, you have been washed in the blood of the Lamb and anointed with the Holy Spirit to sanctify you and make you pleasing to the Father. The beautiful robe of Christ’s righteousness has become yours, so that you need no longer fear eternal damnation in hell. The power of sin, death, and Satan has been shattered like that broken alabaster flask, and you have been liberated from the realm of darkness to live forever in the Kingdom of Life, and for the rest of your earthly lives to love God with all your heart and to love your neighbor as yourself.

There was another time Jesus was anointed by a woman, earlier in His ministry, at the house of a different Simon, a Pharisee (Luke 7:36–50). St. Luke reports that that woman was known around town as a sinner, and she anointed and wiped the feet of Jesus with her hair. Jesus concludes the story by saying that her loving action toward Him was evidence that she had been forgiven much, for the one who has been forgiven much, loves much.

Why doesn’t Mark give us this woman’s name? Because at that moment, she was not the point; Jesus and His saving work were. Her anonymity also teaches us how to approach good works. Our good works are marred with our own vanity when we make them about us. Beautiful works do not come as a result of human cleverness or guilt-tripping. They cannot be forced from the outside, or quantified so that they match a certain expectation. What happens when sinners do this, is they turn the Christian faith into a human enterprise, the result of our planning and our doing. The measure of success is in the eyes of men, and the rewards are not in heaven. They’re right here on earth where we can see how much or how little we’ve “gotten done.”

This is the pitfall of dictating acts of devotion, too. It’s hard to get away from the idea that you’re supposed to “give up something for Lent.” Where this tradition started may have been commendable, but what it’s become is a practice of righteousness before men and a pointless burden. Whether it’s fasting, praying, or giving alms, it needs to all be about Jesus. Whatever is about you needs to decrease until it’s nothing. That’s what the Lord means when He says, “Rend your hearts and not your garments.” (Joel 2:13) Squeeze out all that is you, all that is full of uncleanness, malice, and evil; so that you can be filled with Christ’s righteousness, His holiness, His life.

The works which Jesus calls beautiful are those that magnify Him. Those proclaimed in the Gospel, are the ones which were spontaneous, borne out of a heart that knows God’s grace in Christ, and responds to it. “She has done what she could,” Jesus says. That is, she simply lived out her vocation, and on that day, she was called to do the beautiful work of anointing Jesus before His burial. She did not do it to be praised or seen by others, nor was she seeking a reward, but she had eyes only on Jesus. And now, even though as a sinner she was not worthy of anything from the Father, she has gone on to receive her eternal reward, all for the sake of the Jesus whom she anointed.

You also are called to do what you can in your vocations, in whatever situation the Lord puts you each day. You are set free from the enslaving misjudgment that you should do good works either to be praised by men or to ward off guilty feelings. In Christ, you are free to care for the poor; free to bring to God your sins, your cares and that of others, and your praises; free to offer your acts of devotion in secret—not to bring glory to yourself, but because of the glory that God has made known to you in His Son. Repent and believe the Gospel, which declares your sins are forgiven by the Passover Lamb. Then you are truly freed for good works offered to Him, to give glory to Your Savior and Your God. Amen.

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The Transfiguration of Our Lord (2 Peter 1:16-21)

Transfiguration

“While I was thus in the act of calling upon God, I discovered a light appearing in my room, which continued to increase until the room was lighter than at noonday, when immediately a personage appeared at my bedside, standing in the air, for his feet did not touch the floor.

“He had on a loose robe of most exquisite whiteness. It was a whiteness beyond anything earthly I had ever seen; nor do I believe that any earthly thing could be made to appear so exceedingly white and brilliant…

“Not only was his robe exceedingly white, but his whole person was glorious beyond description, and his countenance truly like lightning. The room was exceedingly light, but not so very bright as immediately around his person. When I first looked upon him, I was afraid; but the fear soon left me.

“He called me by name, and said unto me that he was a messenger sent from the presence of God to me, and that his name was Moroni; that God had a work for me to do; and that my name should be had for good and evil among all nations, kindreds, and tongues, or that it should be both good and evil spoken of among all people.” -Book of Mormon, Testimony of Joseph Smith

Fantastical stories abound, like this encounter of Joseph Smith in the Book of Mormon.  But how do we respond to such a testimony? We could guard against all spurious things, as if they were sighting of Sasquatch.  We could just write them off as the stuff of legend, because seeing is believing, after all, right? On the other hand, what’s to say we shouldn’t believe Joseph Smith?  After all, we weren’t there, so we can neither confirm nor deny what he wrote. Maybe even take the approach of some theologians and say, it doesn’t really matter if it’s true, but it sure brings hope to many people.

Imagine what it was like for the Apostles first sharing the news of crucified Jesus rising from the dead.  It must have seemed a far-fetched tale to some, if not many. Part of that Gospel includes the story of the Transfiguration.  Peter, James, and John are taken up a high mountain by themselves, and they see this incredible sight. Jesus’ clothing becomes like light.  Like ecstatic visions of prophets before them, they were given a view which even Moses was not privy to.

But what’s to say that it’s true or false?  Yes, there were three witnesses (as Deuteronomy 19:15 commanded).  Yet, as the Book of Mormon demonstrates, you can even get three and eight people to agree with you (about the golden plates).

The key to the testimony of Peter, James, and John is in verse 19: “And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place.”  What the three Apostles saw was in accord with what God had said about His Son.  As opposed to Joseph Smith’s testimony, where the message of the alleged angel Moroni told him very different things about God the Father, His Son, and the Holy Spirit.  

In fact, on the holy mountain, it wasn’t just Peter, James, and John who were witnesses, Moses and Elijah were two witnesses confirming what God had said beforehand.  Moses had said, “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. 19 And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.” (Deuteronomy 18:18-19)  Likewise, Elijah, representing all the prophets leading up to (and including) John the Baptist (Matt. 17:10-13), encompassed God’s call to His people to return and hope in the Son of David (2 Samuel 7), the Righteous Branch (Jerimiah 23), the Suffering Servant (Isaiah 52-53), and even the one who overturned death’s reign (1 Kings 17:20-24).

Just like today, people had various ideas about who Jesus was.  Six days prior to the Transfiguration, Jesus had been asking His disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” and Peter had answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” (Matthew 16:13-16) The vision up on the mountain is the visible confirmation of that.

But what good is that for our lives today?  How does this 2,000-year-old Transfiguration story have any bearing on your life?  It has to do with what you think of the prophetic Word. What I mean is what is the Bible?  Is it merely information about God and His Son? If so, then we can absorb it like the classes we took in high school.  When all is said and done, you graduate and move on to the rest of life. Nobody needs to go back to high school once they graduate.  So, if the Bible is information about Jesus, then we graduate from studying it, graduate from our need to sit in church and hear it spoken to us. After all, it’s just the same thing again and again.  It’s reasonable to think if you wanted to be an expert in Jesus, you could study quicker on your own.

But what if it’s more than information?  If it is, as St. Peter says, that “to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, 20 knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. 21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit,” then we’re not just dealing with one more factoid or subject to have expertise in.  It is more than literature to be familiar with; it is the voice of the Living God, the Words of Eternal Life (John 6:68).  More than that, it is the Word by which those who believe have life, and apart from it we have no life in us [John 6:53].

Jesus tells a parable in Matthew 7:

24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

For those who hold to the Word of God, they have a foundation which the inevitable chance and change of life cannot move.  Everything else will pass away—your job, your family, your school sports, your vacations, your health. God has given us with incredibly rich gifts to enjoy in our time and land.  The Lord has given, but what happens when the Lord takes away? [Job 1:21] You can’t guarantee you’ll live into your nineties. Even if you do, what will be the effect if you’ve neglected the life you have from God’s Word?

When it takes a special event to get you to reorder your schedule to come to divine service, that’s not good.  And for parents, what do your children learn when your family only goes to church for Christmas and Easter, or a funeral?   It communicates that there’s a divide between God’s Word and “real life” and most of the time “real life” takes priority. Great will be the fall of such a house.

If this hits close to your house, repent.  Repent before the floods come. Do not deceive yourself by saying “God understands that I’m busy.”  Stop it! God sees right through your excuses. Believe God, that He understands better what we need than our dim self-evaluation.  He earnestly wants for us to have “something more sure,” the firm foundation that will withstand the next election, cancer, poverty, and even the terrors which precede the Last Day.  “Return to the Lord, your God, for He is gracious and merciful.” (Joel 2:13)

At this point in other places, the piano music would start and there would be an invitation for you to ask Jesus back into your heart, and to make Him the Lord of your life.  And it’s true for all who believe in Him, that He does become Lord and center of your life. Yet returning to Him isn’t based on our commitment. What we learn from the mount of Transfiguration is this: “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well-pleased. Listen to Him.”  It doesn’t take an emotional, extraordinary experience to return to the Lord, and you really should stop putting it off because you want a sign that it’s the “right” time.  The power to be saved is in God’s Word—“listen to Him”:

Even though your commitment is flaky at best, His Word to you in Baptism is unbroken: “If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.” (2 Tim. 2:11b-12)  His Word of absolution has the power to loose you from your sins: “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” (John 20:23)  His Word is powerful enough to get through to even the densest among us: “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.” (Isa. 55:11)

We don’t need a mountain top to come to Jesus.  He has already come to you here today, and every time we take Sabbath rest.  Do not refuse Him, for He brings you treasures eternal. Amen.