Immanuel Lutheran Church of Frankentrost
Saginaw, Michigan
First Sunday in Advent (November 30, 2008)
Text: Romans 13:11-14

MP3 Audio

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

This morning’s sermon is drawn from the word of God caused to be written down by inspiration of the Holy Spirit by the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans, chapter 13, as just read.

We pray,

Prepare my heart, Lord Jesus,  Turn not from me aside,

And grant that I receive Thee  This blessed Advent-tide.

From stall and manger low  Come Thou to dwell within me;

Loud praises will I sing Thee  And forth Thy glory show. Amen.

Today is the First Sunday in Advent. It is also the first Sunday of the Church Year.

The just completed Church Year has brought to each of us the blessings of the life, death, and resurrection of our Savior, Jesus. And the new Church Year which begins today will be no different.

With Advent telling of Christ’s coming; Christmas proclaiming His birth; Epiphany manifesting God in human flesh; Lent and Holy Week recounting His suffering and death on the cross; Easter announcing that Christ is arisen and is our ascended and ever-living Lord.

During the Church Year we learn of the giving of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost; we confess our Triune God; and during Trinity’s many Sundays we grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ; we close each Church Year with the sure and certain hope that Christ will come again someday in glory at the last judgment and take us to be with Him in heaven.

How different the Church Year is from the secular year! Most of the world probably doesn’t even know the Church is marking the start of a new year today. The people of God do not make a spectacle of themselves with wild celebrating like you see at Times Square.

At the close of the calendar year on December 31, people become nostalgic for the things of the past, while at the same time try and be hopeful about the future. Each New Year’s Eve the events of the past year are recounted over and over again—especially the tragedies and the triumphs—while all sorts of predictions are made about the new year.

For God’s people, the beginning of a new Church Year is more like the marking of a person’s birthday. The first day of a person’s forty-sixth year does not seem much different than the preceding last day of his forty-fifth year. There’s really not much difference between one day and the next. For the Church Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever!

But time does pass. The Church looks back over two thousand years and she remembers her faithful witnesses and her martyrs. She grieves her schisms and heretics. Great periods of time—by human measure—have passed.

The Early Church—the time after the apostles and the period of persecution, when the blood of the martyrs became the seed of the church, when the great creeds were confessed such as the Nicene Creed by faithful men such as Athanasius,

The Middle Ages—a time that opened with great mission zeal to convert pagan Europe for Christ and closed with the Gospel being taken to the new World.

The Reformation—when the grace of God alone restored the light of the Gospel for millions so that they—and we are included among them—were turned from superstition and false and misleading teachings, and on the basis of Scripture alone, and by faith alone, trust in Christ alone as our Savior from sin. God has graciously brought His Church through countless ages.

The Apostle Paul reminds us,

“Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.  The night is far gone; the day is at hand.” Romans 13:11-12a (ESV)

On these dark mornings when we are experiencing the shortening of daylight until the start of winter, every morning it takes more effort to crawl out of bed in the darkness and less effort to climb back in earlier each evening. We know that the days are no shorter: only the amount of sunlight is less. Yet how quickly the days end now!

We see this shortening of daylight as a reminder of the passing of time and of this world. We light the Advent wreath and decorate with candles and lights to remind us with their ever increasing light that Christ is the Light who has come into the World and has overcome the darkness.

At Advent we recall Christ’s first coming in Bethlehem as a baby; we look forward to the fact that He will someday come in glory for us when He returns; and we see that He comes to each of us now in Word and Sacrament.

It is a sobering thought to think that we are closer to Christ’s return on the Last Day than the Christians before us!

The time in which the first readers of this Epistle of St. Paul’s to the Romans lived sounds like ours. What Paul describes as “works of darkness” sound pretty much like twenty-first century living. Orgies and drunkenness, sexual immorality and sensuality, quarreling and jealousy.

How shocked we are to see the way in which people started out the Time of Christmas by trampling one another to get to a sale! Gun fights in a toy store leave two men dead! Talk about “making provision for the flesh,” and “gratifying its desires.” The world marks this time of year with a day they call “Black Friday.” The greed that has brought our nation into this economic mess I believe will now be followed by an even more profound time of greed, as people become desperate and turn to robbing and murdering.

First Century Rome wasn’t the “wild, wild west” of the ancient world, like our large discount and toy stores have apparently become. What the Apostle Paul addresses here in particular are the sins in connection with the religion of that age. Idolatry led to all kinds of terrible sins. The civil religion, including emperor worship and the entertainment of the masses, were all closely intertwined.

It was a no small thing to give up the pagan religion and lifestyle into which one was born. It often times meant forsaking father and mother, sister and brother, friends and fellow Romans. Although converted, many had a hard time remaining faithful to Christ and lapsed back into the former ways.

The Apostle Paul is not writing here to the Roman on the street. He is writing to the Christians at Rome. Those called to be saints. He is encouraging them to remain faithful, and to realize where they have lapsed and to turn again to Christ.

We too, have been called to be saints. And we need this warning just as much as the Roman Christians did two thousand years ago. By nature, we too, have no room for Christ—at least according to the sinful age we live in and our own sinful flesh. There is within each of us the sinful desire that fights for just one more good time. Just one more go around. To acquire just one more thing. To have one more chance at vengeance and getting back.

But someday, just when the soul least expects it and has given in and willingly turned itself over to former ways…Christ will surely appear. Oh that you will be found having cast off the works of darkness my friend when Christ appears to you!

Wear the armor of light, which is faith and can only protect you in the day that is surely coming. I pray that you walk properly as in the daytime; that you have put on the Lord Jesus Christ. That way you will be saved when Christ returns.

With the beginning of Advent the people of God long even more for their salvation. What we heard during the last Sundays of the church year we hear again today at the start of a new. For God is gracious and we are still in His Kingdom of Grace, but only for a while. The passing of time might strike fear in the hearts of the unbelieving, but for the child of God the cry is, “O Lord, how shall I meet you, how welcome you aright?” Amen.

Immanuel Lutheran Church of Frankentrost
Saginaw, Michigan
National Day of Thanksgiving (November 27, 2008)
Text: Psalm 116:12-14

MP3 Audio

 In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 The Word of God for our Thanksgiving Day meditation is from Psalm 116, verses 12-14.

What shall I render to the LORD for all his benefits to me?  I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the LORD,  I will pay my vows to the LORD in the presence of all his people. (ESV)

 We pray: Gracious God, our Heavenly Father, we thank and praise You for the constant goodness You have poured out on us through the ministry of Your Holy Spirit on account of the sacrifice of Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Without any merit or worthiness in us, You have abundantly provided for us in body and soul. Enable us to receive Your daily gifts with thanksgiving. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

 Our National Day of Thanksgiving is traditionally the time when as a nation we recognize the blessings of God upon our land. Whether before the altars in countless houses of worship or at the tables in individual homes, what makes Thanksgiving one of the great holidays on our nation’s calendar is the fact that it is set aside as a time to give thanks to God.

Even in these days of economic uncertainty, no one will disagree that God has showered our nation with great blessings, beginning with the freedoms we enjoy. And among those freedoms, the greatest and dearest is the freedom to worship God. This singular freedom sets our nation apart from all others. Here, in America, the Gospel has prospered, and true faith is found among us. Thanks be to God!

 The riches of this land also set us apart as a nation blessed by God. Natural resources, the productivity of our workers, the advances in human causes such as knowledge, medicine, the arts  and leisure—all are enjoyed by the citizens of this land in ways unlike any other nation or people on earth.

 And these blessings are shared with others. Whether growing food for the world, manufacturing useful things for export, or even defending other peoples from tyranny in foreign wars, America has always realized that she is blessed and has willingly shared the blessings given to her by Almighty God.

 Our National Day of Thanksgiving is traced back to the Pilgrims who settled Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts. They came to America for many of the same reasons that our ancestors eventually came here over two centuries later. Chief among these was to worship God freely and to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

 A year after their arrival, the Pilgrims gathered in the fall of 1621 to give thanks to God for safety and protection, for a successful harvest, and for surviving in the harsh New England environment that was wilderness at that time. And they shared what little they had. The Pilgrim’s treatment and friendship with the Native Indians was further evidence of their Christian love and thankfulness.

 Thanksgiving as we know it comes to us in the proclamations that came about during our nation’s greatest difficulties: at its founding by President Washington at the close of the Revolutionary War, and by President Lincoln in the midst of the Civil War.

 In 1789 Washington stated in his Proclamation for a Day of Thanksgiving, “It is the Duty of all Nations to acknowledge the Providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his Benefits, and humbly to implore his Protection and Favor.”

 Some seventy years later, Lincoln wrote about our nation’s blessings, “No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God.”

 And in 1863, during the worst year of the Civil War, he set apart the last Thursday of November as, “A day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.”

God’s Word calls each of us to give thanks today. The Psalmist in many places offers up words of thanks. Many of us conclude each meal with the words of Psalm 118: “O give thanks unto the LORD; for He is good: because His mercy endureth for ever.” (KJV)

 And in Psalm 116 the Psalmist asks a question and then answers it for us.

“What shall I render to the LORD for all his benefits to me?  I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the LORD,  I will pay my vows to the LORD in the presence of all his people.” Psalm 116: 12-14 (ESV)

We recognize these words as the offertory of the First Setting of the Divine Service in our Lutheran Service Book.

Here we are told that the Lord wants to be thanked in the presence of all people. In the midst of the congregation. It is appropriate for us to be gathered here today to receive His Word and offer Him our thanks and praise. But what about the Sundays Services? What about the lifting of the cup of Salvation at the Lord’s Supper? What about the fulfilling of the confirmation vow?

 Coming to church because you don’t want to disappoint Grandma on Thanksgiving Day, or because your spouse or parents dragged you here, is hardly sufficient evidence of a thankful heart. Wanting a name on the rolls of the church also means that someday there will be accountability for the support of the Ministry of Gospel. We need to repent and do better as a congregation, and do as the Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 9, and “make up our minds,” and, “have contentment.”

 Certainly in addition to our shared citizenship in this great land, there are many more wonderful blessings that we share, such as this church and community. 162 years is a long time to remain unmoved in the Word of God and its pure and faithful preaching and teaching.

The Means of Grace, which are the marks of the true Church, abound in this place by the mercy of Almighty God. Jesus is taught to us from infancy. The dying are comforted with the hope of eternal life in heaven. Sinners are called to repentance. The repentant are forgiven.

 Then there are our families and friends. Husbands and wives, parents and children especially, serve the Lord in bonds of love. Where read about the terrible things that happen to people today within houses—which can hardly be called homes (and not far from this very place), we may be thankful that Christ’s forgiveness freely flows through our homes.

 And as we look out at the fall landscape around us—and see the truth of the words we just sang, “Ere’ the winter storms begin,”—we praise God for the bounty He has provided in the harvest. Although we are not all farmers, we pray for the success of all who provide the food for our homes. And we are truly thankful for a safe harvest this year. We know that the success and safety of our farming friends means immeasurable blessings to us all. God feeds us through them.

 We also know that there are others who need patience, peace, and perseverance during these times. Many in our state seek work—with the highest unemployment rate in the nation nearing 10 percent. We can not forget those who suffer from want because of storm, economic downturn, or other troubles. Our offerings today will help in a small way.

 Health, and healing from sickness; peace of mind and release from anxious thoughts; certainty in an uncertain future: all are blessings of God, along with the food we enjoy, and the things we have, and our homes, and jobs, and what savings we count.

 But greatest and chief is the salvation we have in our Lord Jesus Christ. It is not dependent on economic forces, a secure job, a full bank account, or even a bountiful table. Our salvation has been bought and paid for by Jesus Christ. His death on the cross has forgiven our sins. Our baptism has secured our future as children of God. Faith holds on to Christ, trusts His promise and looks forward to heaven.

 Thanks be to God for His inexpressible gift! Amen.

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DO you remember what it was like when you were little and your parents would go out for the evening and leave you at home? I know when my parents did that, they didn’t want to come home to a big mess. They would usually give us some things to do: have dinner, maybe do some laundry or take out the trash, get ready for bed, and most of all, they didn’t want us getting into any sort of trouble! Boy, I remember the feeling I’d get in the pit of my stomach if my brothers and I hadn’t done what we were supposed to do-we might have been playing some computer game or something instead of doing what we were supposed to do-and then we’d hear the dreaded sound of the garage door opening. We knew we were in for it.

When Jesus comes again, we won’t hear a garage door opening, we’ll hear a trumpet blast so loud that it’s heard by everyone in the world, and a lot of people are going to be “in for it,” but they won’t just get a spanking and be sent to bed early. They’ll be cast into everlasting hellfire, suffering God’s never-ending punishment against sin. That’s why

WE ALWAYS HAVE TO BE READY FOR GOD’S JUDGMENT.

I. We don’t know when it will come, but
II. When it does, God’s Word will have us well prepared.

I.

Nobody knows when Jesus will come again to judge the world. That’s important. Remember it. Nobody knows when Jesus will come again, and nobody ever will know until it actually happens. St. Paul writes to us in our Epistle Lesson, “the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.” Jesus will come just when the world least expects it.

There have been all sorts of attempts to predict when Jesus would come again. In the days of the Apostles, people were actually claiming that Jesus had already come again, and that all the Christians who were left were out of luck! St. Paul put a stop to that, but all through the history of the Christian Church, people have come along claiming to have found the essential clue to tell them when Jesus would come again. But then that special date comes and goes, and so they have to adjust their calculations and come up with a new date. So far, none of them has been right. After all, we’re still here!

You may have heard of the Left Behind series that was popular a few years ago. These were novels all about what some people call “the Rapture,” when all the faithful Christians are supposed to disappear from off the face of the earth, and only unbelievers will be left. There’s mass chaos because cars are suddenly driverless, loved ones have vanished, and a period of tribulation has come. Those who are left behind now have a chance to change their ways and become Christians before Jesus comes.
That doesn’t sound much like the “thief in the night” that St. Paul talks about, or that Jesus tells about in our parables. No, according to the Bible, there’s only one great end-of-the-world event, and that’s the arrival of our Lord Jesus Christ in glory and splendor. It could happen ten thousand years from now. It could happen before this sermon is over. We don’t know, and nobody will know until Jesus actually comes. That’s why we have to be ready-because the Last Day will come at a time when no one expects it.

There’s another reason to be ready, too. It’s possible that none of us here today will live to see Jesus come again-we may all have to be raised from the grave at that time. Even if Jesus’ Second Coming doesn’t catch us by surprise while we’re still alive, death could come at any minute. Not everyone has the luxury of planning for death. It could be a sudden traffic accident, a heart attack that nobody saw coming, a stroke from out of nowhere… I know that there are people here who’ve lost loved ones to tragedies like that. It happens every day, and once death comes, the time for repentance is over. Your eternal destiny is settled. You’re either going to Jesus in blessedness forever, or to hell, to suffer under the everlasting wrath of God.

That’s why we have to be ready for God’s judgment. Either Jesus will come again from the heavens, or death will come and your body will go down to the grave. Either way, you have to be found ready then. Thankfully, that’s not up to us to do. God has prepared us. God has made us ready. And He’s done so through His Word.

II.

God’s Word keeps us well prepared for standing before the judgment seat of God. That’s all you need. You don’t have to scramble to get your life in order. You don’t have to worry about how productive or fulfilling your life has been. You don’t even have to search your soul to see if you have enough faith or not. All you need is God’s Word.

But wait a minute. This is a Lutheran sermon, isn’t it? I thought Lutherans were famous for talking about “Faith alone!” Don’t we need faith to be found ready when God calls us to account? Isn’t it specifically unbelievers, and only unbelievers, who will be condemned to hell? Yes, that’s all true. We need faith. Only a lack of faith can condemn you before God. But faith only comes through God’s Word.

After all, what is faith? It’s not a feeling I drum up in my heart. It’s not a commitment I make to follow Jesus as the Lord of my life. It’s nothing I do at all. Faith is a gift, a gift given to us by the Holy Spirit. And what makes faith so special isn’t the faith itself. It’s what faith believes in. You don’t have faith for faith’s sake. Faith believes in something. Faith believes in Jesus. Faith believes in what Jesus has done for us. Faith believes in the grace of God. In other words, faith believes in the Word of God.

Yes, the Word of God is where we find Jesus. It’s in the Word of God that we learn about what Jesus did for us. It’s through the Word of God that God shows us His grace, the smile of favor that He bestows on us all because His Son has reconciled us all to Him. Faith believes what the Word of God says. It trusts that God’s not lying when He says, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”

If faith, in order to be faith, has to have something to believe in, then the object of faith-what faith believes in-has to come first. As St. Paul says in Romans 10, “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ.” This Word of Christ is both the Word spoken about Christ and the Word spoken by Christ. It’s the Bible, in which Jesus tells us everything we need to know about Himself. It’s the sermon, in which Jesus speaks through His faithful pastors and preaches the good news about Himself and what He’s done for you. It’s the absolution, the forgiveness of sins spoken by Jesus’ pastors telling about what His death on your behalf has won for you.

But the Word of Christ is even more than that. It’s not just words about Jesus. It’s words that actually do things. When the pastor says, “I forgive you all of your sins,” he’s not just announcing to you what Jesus has done. Jesus is actually using those words to do it! He’s actually forgiving your sins right then and there, and faith believes it. The Word of God means the words that go, “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” And we know what that does. St. Peter tells us, “Baptism now saves you.” It rescues you from everything that threatens you, from death and Satan and hell. This same St. Peter preached at the first Pentecost, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.” Baptism forgives your sins, and Baptism is nothing more than the Word of Christ working through water. And this Word, this promise, is for everyone. St. Peter says in the same sermon, “The promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off,” (that’s you!), “everyone whom the Lord our God calls to Himself.” No one is excluded from this. It’s for everyone. It’s for children, it’s for tiny infants who can’t even talk yet, it’s for those who suffer from dementia and can no longer communicate, it’s for everyone.

I believe that when Jesus preached our Gospel lesson for today, He had just that in mind. He knew that some people would get a wrong idea of what faith is, that people would worry about whether or not they had true faith if they weren’t constantly focused on living their lives for Jesus. Listen again to what Jesus says about the ten virgins in this parable: “As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept.” That’s all of them. Even the five wise virgins fell asleep, and even though Jesus warns us to “watch,” to stay awake lest we be excluded from the heavenly kingdom, those five sleepy virgins got to enter into the wedding feast! That’s because the faith that saves, the faith that simply believes what Jesus says and trusts in Him, isn’t always conscious. It isn’t always “awake.” When you go to sleep at night, you don’t cease to be a believer until you wake up in the morning and start thinking about Jesus again! The same goes for someone whose mind has deteriorated over the years. He may not be able to talk to you like he used to, he may not even recognize you, he may just seem to be lying there existing and waiting for the end, but he still believes. He still trusts in Jesus. Even if he’s not aware of it, the Holy Spirit is there keeping the precious treasure of faith in Christ alive.

That’s all because of the Word of God. It’s because Jesus washed away your sins when you were baptized. It’s because Jesus blessed you with the peace of God every Sunday morning, the peace that comes from no longer being enemies with an avenging God, because thanks to Jesus, the vengeance of God against your sin has been spent on the cross. It’s because of the Word that Jesus speaks, the Word that speaks about Jesus, and the Word that does what it says-the Word that creates faith just by giving us something to believe, something real to trust in for our salvation.

If it’s the Word that creates faith, then the only way to snuff out faith is to take away the Word, to take away faith’s object, what faith believes in. That can happen. It can happen when someone is like the foolish virgins and neglects the Word. But we want to be like the wise virgins, don’t we? Now the wise virgins weren’t wise in the sense that they had deep understanding. The word for “wise” here doesn’t mean that they’re highly educated, it doesn’t mean that they’re especially clever, it just means that they have good common sense. They know that if they don’t bring extra oil for their lamps, they’ll run out! You know that if you don’t have God’s Word to believe in, your faith will go out. If you’re hearing me right now, then you’re like the wise virgins. Here at God’s service you’re getting oil for your lamp, God’s promises for you to believe in, and that will keep you prepared to the end, whether death overcomes your body or Jesus comes again in your lifetime.

So you don’t have to worry like a naughty kid waiting for his parents to get home. You’re ready. God has made you ready. Yes, Jesus is coming. Sooner or later you’ll hear the garage door opening. Sooner or later you’ll hear the awesome trumpet blast of the Lord. It may be a thousand years from now, or it may be right around the corner. And even if you don’t live to see Jesus come again, He could claim you in death at any time. But you’re ready. You’re prepared. God has fed your lamp of faith with His Word, with His forgiveness, with His salvation. Do not let your hearts be troubled. Amen.

 MP3 Audio

YOU know the hymn, “I Am Jesus’ Little Lamb.” That’s a nice image, isn’t it? We like being compared to lambs. They’re gentle, pure, innocent, even cute. But what would you think of this: “I Am Jesus’ Big Ugly Vulture”? That’s not quite as flattering, but it gets across an important point: just as carrion birds know where to find their next meal,

GOD’S ELECT KNOW WHERE TO FIND THEIR SAVIOR.

I. The devil is always trying to deceive them, but

II. In the end, Jesus gathers God’s chosen ones to Himself.

I.

The devil is always trying to deceive God’s elect. He’s always trying to trick them with false Christs, as Jesus warns us this morning. So what is a false Christ? When you hear this you might immediately think of some of those crazy people who come along every now and then and claim to be the Second Coming of Christ, but they don’t usually make much of an impression beyond their own little circle of followers, and Jesus warns in our Gospel lesson that false Christs will perform great signs and wonders and, if possible, deceive even the elect, God’s chosen people.

So again, what is a false Christ? I think we can best understand that if we first understand what the true Christ really is. The name “Christ” is a Greek word. It means “Anointed,” just like the Hebrew title “Messiah.” So God’s Christ is God’s Anointed. Someone who’s been anointed has been set apart for some holy purpose. The prophets of old would anoint priests and kings with oil and set them apart to fulfill their God-given offices. In the New Testament, God anointed Jesus, not with oil, but with the divine nature of God Himself. From the moment of His conception in Mary’s womb, this anointing set Jesus apart into His holy office. And what was that office? Jesus was anointed King, to rule the universe. He was anointed Prophet, to preach the good news of salvation to all people. He was anointed Priest. A priest offers sacrifices. Jesus offered Himself as the perfectly sufficient Sacrifice for the sin of the world. So to be Christ is to be anointed to rule, to preach, and to make satisfaction for human sin. It is only through God’s own Christ, our Prophet, Priest, and King, that we receive the forgiveness of our sins and the salvation of our souls.

A false Christ, on the other hand, is anyone or anything that usurps the office of the true Christ. It’s anyone or anything that presumes to rule as king in place of the true Christ. It’s anyone or anything that presumes to preach anything contrary to the preaching of the true Christ. It’s anyone or anything that presumes to make satisfaction for sins in place of the true Christ. False Christs such as these have multiplied and spread over the face of the earth since the days of Jesus, and with the help of spectacular signs and wonders, they have deceived billions of people. These are the false Christs that Jesus warns us about today.

In fact Jesus gives us even more specific warnings about false Christs. Not only will they usurp the office of the true Christ and deceive many with their signs and wonders, they’ll appear in the wilderness and in the inner rooms. And this has come true. We have had usurpers of Christ’s office appear in the wilderness. From as early as the fourth century A.D., certain Christians began to flee into the deserts of Egypt to escape the persecutions and temptations of this world. It may be that their intentions were good. They wanted to follow St. Paul’s injunction to mortify their sinful flesh, and they used all sorts of bodily discipline to try and get their bodies under control, a practice called “asceticism.” Before long, the deserts were full of Christian ascetics, who went to all sorts of elaborate lengths to deny themselves the comforts of this bodily life. One of them spent some thirty years living at the top of a pillar, and he survived by having people send food up to him in a basket.

Eccentric hermits like this came to be known as the desert fathers. These desert fathers were highly revered for their strict bodily discipline. Unfortunately, it was easy for their asceticism to become more than just a form of discipline. It became a way of making payment for sin, of acquiring God’s favor. A lot of people felt like their salvation would be more sure if they could follow the ascetic practices of the desert fathers. And if they were too weak to engage in the same degree of asceticism themselves, they would get spiritual help from the holier and more righteous hermits. And this tendency to seek salvation in asceticism rather than in Jesus was made worse by the fact that the desert fathers performed all sorts of signs and wonders. One of them is supposed to have made sea-water drinkable. This same hermit also caused the sun to stand still, and he even walked on water! Sound familiar? If the desert fathers could do the same miraculous things that Jesus could do, then surely God must have been pleased with their ascetic practices. At least, that’s what most people thought in those days. Whether they meant to do it or not, by encouraging people to seek the assurance of their salvation in fasting and bodily disciplines instead of in the pure Gospel of the true Christ, the desert fathers turned into false Christs, and as false Christs they still deceive a lot of people even today.

Then there are the false Christs in what Jesus calls the inner rooms. These are the monks of the Middle Ages, who shut themselves up in cloisters. These monks followed many of the same ascetic practices as the desert fathers, and they were even worse in leading people away from forgiveness in Christ and into their own extreme works of bodily discipline. By Luther’s day, the “inner rooms” of the monastic cloisters was where you could find your best chance of salvation. Your best bet was to forsake the world and enter the monastery yourself. If you couldn’t do that, you still had hope, because the monks were supposed to be so good that they had more than enough good works to achieve their own salvation. So they could give their extra good works to other Christians. A lot of people believed that if they were dying, they could be more certain of going to heaven if they had placed on them the cowl of an exceptionally righteous monk. Now that’s a false Christ if I ever heard of one! And of course the medieval monks performed all sorts of signs and wonders. Some of them were even supposed to have been able to raise people from the dead!

We even have false Christs in our own day. Some of them, like the modern apparitions of the Virgin Mary, are like the desert fathers and the medieval monks: they deceive people with miraculous signs, and they encourage false worship of saints and dependence on good works. But we have false Christs closer to home. Even in our own circles we have pastors who teach false doctrine in the name of Christ. They teach us to base the hope of our salvation on our own decision to accept Jesus into our hearts. They deny that God grants us the forgiveness of sins through His means of grace, and they teach us to find God in our own experiences and feelings rather than in His Word. And they even have signs and wonders to confirm their false teachings. It’s called church growth. Some of the biggest and fastest-growing churches in the world suffer under false teachers. Rick Warren’s congregation of Saddleback Church boasts over 20,000 members, and Joel Osteen is pastor of Lakewood Church, the largest congregation in the United States at some 40,000 members. These false teachers view the exponential growth of their churches as a great “sign” and “wonder” proving that their teachings are true. Meanwhile, those churches that remain faithful to the teaching they have received from Jesus through the Apostles are ridiculed because they don’t often grow very quickly. Church growth is the false sign and wonder of our day. Of course there’s nothing wrong with church growth in itself-if you teach God’s Word and your church grows, thanks be to God! There are such things as true signs and real divine wonders. But too often signs and wonders are used to promote false teachings instead of the true, precious, pure Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Satan is always hard at work using false Christs, false means of salvation, to tempt Christians away from their Lord, the true Christ. But despite the devil’s best efforts…

II.

In the end, Jesus gathers God’s elect to Himself. Those whom God has chosen from before the foundations of the earth will come to know Jesus and His work on their behalf, and no power on earth, not even the power of the devil, can rob them of the salvation that Jesus won. That’s true in this life, and it’s true of the Last Day, which we eagerly await.

Even in this life the true teaching of Christ draws God’s elect into the fold of His Church. Hear the words of our Lord in the tenth chapter of John’s Gospel: “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are One.” You who have heard the call of Jesus, your Good Shepherd, who have heard the forgiveness preached to you in His name, you need never doubt that God our Father has given you to His Son Jesus for all time. You need never fear the devil and the forces of this present world, and you need never fear even your own sins, which are powerless before the might and mercy and grace of the Father who loved you, and His Son who died for you, even while you were still dead in your sins. You are Jesus’, you always have been, and you always will be. You need never doubt this, because His Word of forgiveness has been given to you. You have the forgiveness given by the true Christ, by God’s true Anointed.

In our Gospel lesson, Jesus points us forward, from our hearing His voice now in this life, to our gathering to Him on the Last Day. The final verses of our Gospel refer to Jesus’ Second Coming. Now to avoid any confusion I’d like to point out that the first half of our Gospel is talking about something that would happen within the lifetime of most of His immediate hearers: the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. When the Christians of Jerusalem saw the armies of Rome gathered at Mount Zion, at the walls of Jerusalem, they knew that they were looking at the Abomination of Desolation spoken of by the Prophet Daniel, and they fled the city just in time. Ever since then, false Christs have been drawing people away to false means of salvation, but God has kept His chosen sheep from falling away. He keeps His chosen ones, His elect, until the Last Day, when His Christ will return like a flash of lightning, instant, overwhelming, and lighting up the whole sky from horizon to horizon. At that time the elect that God has preserved, both those who are still alive at the time and those who have been raised from the dead, will be gathered together with Jesus. As St. Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians, “The Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.” As Jesus says in the last verse of our text, the vultures will gather round the corpse. Actually, the original sense of Jesus’ words don’t sound as negative in Greek as they do in our translation here. The word for “corpse” is more like “fallen body,” someone who’s been recently slain in battle, for instance. And then the “vultures” are really “eagles,” somewhat more noble birds. Jesus is talking about carrion birds gathering for a feast, but the language He uses isn’t intended to evoke images of disgust. It’s actually a noble picture that He presents to us today. He is the “fallen body,” the One who was slain as the Sacrifice for our sin. We are the eagles, who gather round to participate in that Sacrifice. Like eagles gathered round the body of a fallen hero, we elect on the Last Day will gather round our Savior, God’s Anointed, to feast eternally on the salvation that He won for us.

So it’s true, we are not only Jesus’ little lambs, the sheep who hear His voice, we’re also Jesus’ vultures, or rather Jesus’ eagles. Despite the wiles of our old evil foe the devil, we know where to find our Savior. When false Christs arise to draw us away from the salvation prepared for us by God, He always calls us back to the true and life-giving teaching of His Son, the true Christ, Jesus our Lord. There is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved. Amen.

The 2008 Living Nativity is presented the following evenings:

Friday, December 5, 7:00 pm- 9:00
Saturday, December 6, 6:00 pm - 8:00
Sunday, December 7, 6:00 pm - 8:00

MP3 Audio

Text: “So also My heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

OF all the sins that beset us in this earthly life, stubborn pride may be the hardest to root out of our sinful hearts. If someone insults you or takes what’s rightfully yours, if someone puts down a good idea you had or suggests that someone else might be better at a given task than you are, if someone gets away with something for which you’ve been punished or just plain gets on your nerves-it can be nearly impossible to forgive and forget. Once that righteous anger builds up inside it just wants to keep going and going. It takes on a life of its own and you can’t let it go. You feel like you’d rather cut off your right arm than give up a grudge against a neighbor.

But giving up our grudges is just what God expects us to do. It’s what He requires of us. He will not tolerate those grudges we hold. That’s the thrust of today’s text: it’s a warning for us Christians that

IF WE REFUSE TO FORGIVE ONE ANOTHER, GOD WILL REFUSE TO FORGIVE US.

Why is this? Because

I. Our forgiveness flows from God’s forgiveness, and so

II. Whoever refuses to forgive his brother shows that he disbelieves God’s forgiveness.

I.

Our forgiveness flows from God’s forgiveness. Everything begins with God’s gracious actions toward us. Jesus shows that clearly in our text. The king in the parable first forgives his servant. Then he expects that servant to forgive his fellow servants. The king’s forgiveness isn’t based on whether or not the servant forgives other people. It comes from the king’s mercy and graciousness. He sees the plight of his servant, he sees his pathetic condition, and he’s moved to compassion. The king’s forgiveness is purely by grace, completely freely given.

Such is God’s forgiveness of us. God does not first consider whether we are kind, merciful people who are likely to forgive our neighbors. No, He sees that we are just the opposite, poor sinners bound in sin, unable to free ourselves, incapable of real mercy from the heart. Through the preaching of His Law God reveals to us the gravity of our condition, the enormity of our debt to Him, the impossibility of our ever paying Him for the guilt of our sin. This terrifies us. It brings us to our knees, as it did the servant in our parable, and it leads us to dread the consequences of our sins, to beg Him for mercy. And He does show mercy. He forgives our debt. In fact He takes the loss Himself. God paid our debt Himself when He poured out His own blood on the cross. To those who are terrified of their sins, who are humbled by God’s demand of perfect righteousness and their own failure to meet that demand, God bestows the forgiveness of sins, the remission of all debts, through the preaching of the Gospel, the good news that our sins have been paid for, that our debt has been canceled in Christ. This is God’s forgiveness, freely given, with no conditions attached, dependent on His mercy and grace alone.

From this forgiveness which God graciously bestows upon us flows our forgiveness which we heartily and readily give to our brethren. When we have been struck down by the Law, faced with the terrifying prospect of eternal death fully deserved by our sin, and then when we’ve been released from that death by the Gospel of God’s gracious forgiveness in Christ, God changes our hearts. We have a new lease on life, and we live as those who have barely escaped a terrible death. In fact we live as those who have died but have been restored to life. In light of all this, our Christian brethren’s sins against us come to seem insignificant. So what if my brother tells people he doesn’t like my baking? I’ve been rescued from eternal damnation! So what if my brother has publicly disagreed with me at a voters’ meeting? God has raised me from the dead! We who have been shown such unimaginable mercy cannot help but show mercy to others. When we’re aware of God’s great gift of forgiveness, when our hearts abound with thankfulness toward Him and with the joy of those who have been rescued from hell, grudges against our brethren become unthinkable.

Now there’s a point I’d like to make here that I think we often forget. Forgiveness is for the penitent. It’s for those who recognize their sin and who wish to do better. That’s true between God and us, and it’s true between us and our brethren. God does not forgive those who stubbornly persist in their sin. Yes, He’s won forgiveness for the impenitent, just as He has for the penitent, but He commands His called and ordained servants not to forgive the sins of the impenitent. That’s what we call the binding key. In the verses just before today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus gives His Church the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and there are two of them: the binding key and the loosing key. “Whatever you bind on earth,” He says, “shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” The loosing key is given so that pastors can forgive the sins of those who repent, “loosing” them from the guilt of their sin and opening the gates of heaven to them. The binding key is given so that pastors can retain the sins of the impenitent as long as they do not repent. It “binds” sinners to the guilt of their sin, and it closes the gates of heaven to them. The purpose of the binding key is first and foremost to show stubborn sinners the seriousness of their refusal to repent, the hope being that they will realize what they’re doing and turn from their sin and live. But the fact remains that forgiveness is to be withheld from those who refuse to repent.

The same is true when it comes to you and your neighbor. You are not called to forgive those who sin against you and refuse to repent. Whew! So we’re off the hook. All those grudges we hold are okay, because those people that we just can’t stand are obviously impenitent. Well, not exactly. Jesus doesn’t call us to leave our brethren in their sin. He calls us to confront them with their sin. If you don’t really believe that your brother has sinned against you, then let it go. There’s no room for a grudge if there’s nothing to forgive. Sometimes our personalities just don’t match up too well, and that’s no reason for us to be enemies. But if you really believe that your brother has sinned against you and that he’s stubbornly persisting in that sin, then it’s your duty out of Christian love to confront him with that sin. Jesus says in Matthew 18:15, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault.” If you’re bearing a grudge against someone and you really believe it’s because of sin on the part of the other person, go and talk to him about it! Intentional, persistent sin is a serious matter. It leads to damnation. If you leave your brother in his sin without warning him about it, his blood is on your head. But your confrontation with your erring brother should be in a spirit of love and hope that he’ll repent and be restored to life.

That’s not the spirit in which the servant in our parable approaches his fellow servant. He’s obviously not bringing up the debt between them in hopes that he can then forgive the debt. No, he grabs his fellow servant and starts choking him! And then when his fellow servant begs for mercy, he throws him into jail. It’s as if we should refuse to forgive the sin of a penitent sinner. It’s using the binding key when we should be using the loosing key.

This cruel act on the part of the forgiven servant shows how he really thinks about the forgiveness that the king has mercifully granted him. He really doesn’t care. It hasn’t impressed him at all. He may have been relieved at the moment when he realized that he and his family wouldn’t be sold into slavery, when he realized that he was no longer responsible for that unimaginably huge debt, but the relief is short lived. It turns quickly into contempt and disregard. It may even be that he doesn’t really believe that he’s forgiven after all. Otherwise, why would he be so intent on getting the money owed him by his fellow servant? He must still be trying to pay back the king. By refusing to forgive the very manageable debt owed to him, the wicked servant shows that he doesn’t trust in the king’s forgiveness of his own impossible debt.

II.

Like the unforgiving servant in our parable, whoever refuses to forgive his brother shows that he does not believe in God’s forgiveness. There are two ways that we can refuse to forgive our brethren. The most obvious way is to be unmerciful when our brethren come to us to beg our forgiveness. The other way, and by far the most common way, is never to talk to our brethren at all, to let them go on in their sin, giving them no opportunity to repent and ask our forgiveness. Both of these behaviors reveal a heart that disbelieves the mercy of God.

And it’s the heart that really matters here. It’s no accident that Jesus says in our text, “if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” What Jesus requires in our text isn’t a superhuman effort of the will. He doesn’t ask that we “grin and bear it,” reluctantly forgiving our brethren while knowing that we’d be much happier if we could see them go to perdition. No, Jesus expects forgiveness and mercy from the heart. He expects our forgiveness to happen automatically, without our even thinking about it, the fruit of a heart that joyfully and confidently believes in the forgiveness of sins from a gracious God. Such a forgiveness as Jesus demands can never come from a heart lost in sin and unbelief. It can only flow out of a heart that has been created anew by the Holy Spirit, a heart converted by the Gospel of Christ.

I said before that our forgiveness flows from God’s forgiveness. It stands to reason, then, that if our forgiveness is lacking, the problem must be with the source, with God’s forgiveness. Not as if God’s forgiveness is ever deficient or incomplete or ineffective-it’s certainly none of those things-but someone who disbelieves the forgiveness given him by God has stopped up the flow of God’s grace, has denied the Gospel and removed himself from the body of Christ.

So a refusal to forgive is a fruit of unbelief, just as a readiness to forgive is a fruit of belief, a fruit of the Spirit. When we start talking about fruits, though, we have to be careful. Your assurance of salvation isn’t in your fruits, in your ability to forgive, it’s in Christ and Him crucified. Only by belief in Him and in His blood, poured out in payment of your debt of sin, can it become possible for you to forgive your brethren from the heart. So if you find yourself holding a grudge, or being stuck in any other sin for that matter, don’t despair over your salvation. Don’t focus on the bad fruit. Focus on the cross. Focus on the myriad ways that God has given you the salvation won on the cross. Focus on your baptism, when God washed you in the waters of rebirth for the forgiveness of your sins. Focus on your pastor’s absolution, where God openly and clearly forgives you all of your sins. Focus on the Sacrament of the Altar, where God places into your very mouth the body and blood that were offered to Him as the payment to purchase and win you from the powers of sin, death, and the devil. Then let the fruits come. Only by God’s means of grace, by the things He’s appointed as the instruments by which He gives you the forgiveness of your sins, can it become possible for you to do any good from the heart-including heartily forgiving, and readily doing good to, your neighbor.

So yes, it is hard to forgive our brethren when they sin against us. In fact with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. Thanks be to God for making it possible for us to do good to our neighbors. Thanks be to God for visiting us when we were lost and condemned sinners, for graciously forgiving us all of our sins. Thanks be to Jesus for paying our debt to His heavenly Father. To God alone be all glory. Amen.

MP3 Audio

LET’S say you have some friends who invite you to their wedding. In fact they want you to be in the wedding party. They have fine tuxedos all ready for the groomsmen, and tastefully elegant dresses for the bridesmaids. But on the wedding day, you decide to mow your lawn before the ceremony. By the time you’ve finished, you don’t have time to change into the fancy clothes provided for the wedding, so you show up at the last minute in your old jeans and sweaty T-shirt. You look pretty out of place in the beautiful sanctuary with the marble altar and hand-carved furnishings, especially with everyone else dressed so beautifully. So how would you respond if the bride and groom asked you why you weren’t wearing the clothes they’d provided for you? I’ll bet you’d be speechless, and I doubt they’d let you appear in the wedding. Your friendship with the newlyweds would probably be strained, if not broken altogether.

Our heavenly Father has invited you to the wedding of His Son, and He’s provided beautiful clothing for the occasion.

GOD CLOTHES US IN THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF HIS SON.

I. These wedding clothes are provided for us completely free of charge, and
II. We dare not approach Jesus’ wedding feast wearing our own clothes instead.

I.

So how do I get this idea of the righteousness of Christ, freely provided to all people, from today’s Gospel lesson? It comes from the interpretation of the parable that Jesus tells. You’re familiar with the story. The king sends his servants to invite the guests to his son’s wedding feast, and they’re met with rejection, insult, and even violence. So the king destroys the wedding guests and their city, and he proclaims an invitation to the whole world, and people from all walks of life show up. The interpretation of this part of the parable is pretty straightforward. Jesus has just spent the last chapter in Matthew talking about how Israel through the years has sinfully rejected God’s invitation, issued through the Prophets. If you look through the last books of your Old Testament, from Isaiah through Malachi, you’ll find the names of some fifteen prophets. Most of them died violent deaths, and they were killed by their own people, by Israel. And then finally Jesus comes, the fulfillment of the entire prophetic ministry, and He invites Israel to share in the salvation prepared for them by God, and how do they respond? Crucify Him! They treat Him worse than they did the Prophets before Him.

God is patient, but His patience lasts for only so long. In A.D. 70, God sent the armies of the Roman Empire to destroy Jerusalem. They burnt the city to the ground, and they leveled the Temple completely. That was the end of Israel as a state. The Temple has never been rebuilt, and with no Temple, there are no sacrifices, and with no sacrifices, Judaism as it was established by God has come to an end. It’s been replaced with Christianity, with the Gentiles whom God has invited to share in the salvation that Israel rejected. That’s us! We’re the ones that the servants in the parable went out to invite to the wedding feast. We’re the replacements for the guests that the king destroyed.

So far so good. But what about that wedding garment that we read about in our Gospel lesson? The king has sent out his invitation to everyone, and people have shown up from the highways and byways, rich and poor, good and bad. So the king comes into the wedding hall to look over his new guests, and he sees one who’s not wearing a wedding garment. His reaction is kind of harsh, don’t you think? Just because the man isn’t wearing the right clothes, he gets bound hand and foot and thrown out. What if he’s really poor? What if he can’t afford wedding clothes? Isn’t that unfair of the king? It sounds like he must not have meant his invitation very seriously. And if the guest in the parable can be thrown out for not having a wedding garment, what does that say about us? Are we supposed to be dressed in a certain way to get to heaven? What good does it do us to be invited to share in God’s salvation if we still have to supply ourselves with the right clothes? It seems like we started with the sweetest Gospel, a free and unconditional invitation to salvation, but now it’s been snatched out of our grasp, and we find that we’re not invited after all. Or even if we are invited, what guarantee do we have that we won’t be kicked out for not wearing a wedding garment?

Thankfully, Holy Scripture gives us more to go on than just this parable. The Bible is full of images of clothing, especially in the Prophets. Isaiah talks about clothing in chapter 64 when he says, “all our righteous deeds are like filthy rags.” This dirty clothing shows up again in Zechariah chapter 3, when angels remove someone’s “filthy garments,” which is interpreted as taking away iniquity. So the Old Testament recognizes our works, our attempts at good deeds, as being nothing but filthy rags. But to turn again to Zechariah 3, the angels now clothe the man with “pure vestments,” the righteousness provided by God. So the biblical image has God providing clean garments to replace filthy ones, divine righteousness to replace human sin.

This is the image that Jesus is building on in our parable. This is about God’s righteousness replacing our sin. The poor people invited to the wedding feast aren’t expected to provide their own wedding garments, especially on such short notice. Just as God provides His own righteousness to replace our works, so also the king in this parable provides beautiful clothing, suited to the occasion, to replace the rags worn by the beggars invited to the wedding.

That’s what it’s like at the feast to which we’re invited. Our clothes are waiting for us. They’re expensive, all right. They’re more than we could ever hope to pay for, even with a lifetime of hard work. But God has taken care of the cost. He’s suffered and died to win this beautiful clothing for us. And now He gives it to us free of charge. So how do we get this complimentary wedding garment? God gives it to us through Baptism. Jesus says in John 3 that Baptism is the way to enter the kingdom of heaven: “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit,” He says, unless one is baptized, “one cannot enter the kingdom of God.” Well, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ,” as St. Paul says in Galatians 3. It was in your baptism, at the entrance to the kingdom of heaven, at the entrance to the wedding feast, that God clothed you with His Son and the righteousness that He won for you. So you needn’t worry-God has already given you the wedding garment. He’s given you all you need to remain in His wedding feast.

II.

But what about the rest of the parable? The part that ends, “Many are called, but few are chosen”? Many are called: the Gospel is to be preached to the entire creation. Jesus paid for the sin of the entire world, with absolutely no exceptions. Everyone’s sins have been paid for, and God calls everyone, without exception, to enjoy the forgiveness of sins for Jesus’ sake. But few are chosen. As generous as God’s promise is, most people reject it. That’s what Jesus is showing us through the guest with no wedding garment. He was given the right clothes, but he wasn’t wearing them. He’s content to enjoy the wedding feast in his own filthy beggars’ clothes. If they’re good enough for me, he thinks, then they’re good enough for the king and his son, no matter how wealthy and generous they may be. The king can keep his fancy clothes! I do just fine with my own, thank you very much.

What nerve. What ingratitude. What an obnoxious sense of self-satisfied arrogance. How dare a wretched sinner expect God to be satisfied with his works! Jesus spent a lifetime living under the burden of the Law so that sinners could be freed from the Law, and now the sinner wants to fulfill the Law himself? Jesus suffered the full fury of the divine wrath against sin so that sinners could escape eternal damnation, and now the sinner wants to pay God for his own sins? How dare you presume to provide for yourself what God has already so richly won for you! How dare you bring anything to God as a basis for Him to receive you into His kingdom, when He has already given up all that He had to win you a place in His house!

Such effrontery is common, though, and it arises within the visible fellowship of the saints, in congregations just like ours. The guest we’re talking about in our parable isn’t someone who’s “out there.” It’s not the immoral celebrity we see on the magazines at the checkout counter, it’s not the politician who openly supports gay rights or abortion on demand, it’s not the atheist neighbor with the anti-God bumper stickers on his car. They’ve already been excluded. They’re like the ones in our parable who ignored the invitation or even persecuted the messengers, and the king has already taken care of them. No, the guest we’re talking about is the upstanding church member, the one who attends faithfully and makes diligent use of the means of grace, the one who generously supports his church and boldly fights for the truth, the one who’s always faithful to his wife and raises good, god-fearing kids. He’s the one who does everything that Christians are supposed to do… and then trusts in his doing to save him. He’s the one who trusts that God will receive him into heaven because he’s such a good person, such a good Christian.

The wedding guest in our parable was actually in the feast. He was eating the meal, he was in there among the other guests. This is someone who’s responded to the invitation and is here to get his free meal, to enjoy the wedding feast of the Lamb, and yet he’s not willing to let the king be as generous as he wants to be. He spurns the clothing offered by the king, and so he’s bound hand and foot and thrown out. That’s the fate of everyone who professes himself to be a Christian and yet expects to get into heaven on the basis of his own works.

Those works can take many forms. They can be the money I give, the prayers I pray. They can be sinful opportunities that I don’t take, the temptations that I successfully resist. They can be the choice that I make, the decision that I make for Christ. No, not one of these is acceptable to God as a way to win His favor. All of them are attempts to replace the good works that His Son has already performed, to replace the righteousness that Jesus offered up on the cross and that God has credited to us. Jesus has given God all the good works He requires. God doesn’t need your good works.

But aren’t we supposed to be good? Yes, of course, but not as a way to get into the wedding feast. There’s a great need for your good works out there in the world, where God calls you to serve your neighbor. Your good deeds are desperately needed in the home, at school, on the farm and in the workplace. The world would cease to function without them. But here, at the wedding feast of the Lamb, there’s no need for good works. Here there is only one Worker, and that is Jesus. Here Jesus serves you, here God richly provides you with all that you need for the life to come. Here you receive the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. There’s no work to be done. Your works can be checked at the door. They don’t apply when God is working to save you.

So when you’ve been invited to a wedding, why wear your grimy, everyday work clothes when there’s a fresh tuxedo waiting for you? Why show up wearing your old sweats when you’ve been provided with a beautiful new dress? Why come to Jesus’ wedding feast dragging along your own works when He’s prepared His own glorious works just for you? What a blessing it is to rest from our labors and simply receive from our Lord, to receive His body, sacrificed for us on the cross, to receive His blood, shed in complete payment for all of our sins. What a blessing it is to receive these gifts from the hands of that same Lord, who though He died for our trespasses, has now risen from the dead, and who lives to celebrate His wedding feast with us. The dinner is prepared, the wedding feast is ready, God is here to clothe you in His Son’s righteousness, and you are invited! Amen.

Immanuel Lutheran Church of Frankentrost
Saginaw, Michigan
Trinity 16 (September 7, 2008)
Text: Trinity Luke 7:11-17
MP3 audio

Luke 7:11-17 (ESV)  11 Soon afterward he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him.  12 As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her.  13 And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.”  14 Then he came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.”  15 And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.  16 Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us!” and “God has visited his people!”  17 And this report about him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country.

Prayer: O Jesus, draw near my dying bed And take me into Thy keeping And say when my spirit hence is fled, “This child is not dead, but sleeping” And leave me not, Savior, till I rise To praise Thee in life eternal. Amen.

 While on earth Jesus’ presence always changed things.

At Cana, at a wedding feast, Jesus’ presence blessed a marriage, and then, at His word, water was changed into wine.

Another time His presence and words at a well changed the whole outlook on life for a woman so that she ran and told her friends, “Come see a man who told me everything I ever did!”

And still another time Jesus appeared at the sea, got into one of the boats and, after teaching the crowds, told the fishermen to let out their nets. And even though it was morning and they had already fished all night without catching a thing, because it was Jesus’ word to them they obeyed. And the catch was so big their boat began to sink.

And the Gospels are full of many more examples like these.

Truly, Jesus’ presence changes things. But especially by his Word Jesus changes things. Which is what today’s Gospel Lesson is all about. For in it we hear how Jesus’ presence and Word cancelled a funeral! Simply by saying, “Young man, I say to you, arise,” a boy, who had been dead, was returned to his mother alive and moving and talking.

Funeral cancelled.

And of all the funerals that ever were, this single one ended with the family going back into the town with their loved one—not dead, but alive—and praising God.

Jesus’ presence and Word changes things.

I have seen a good number of things happen at funerals. In a time of grief anything is possible. Some things are indeed shocking. Like family members quarreling at the funeral home—right in front of the body. And demands made that are inappropriate for the Christian Funeral Service.

Even displays of affection such as flower arrangements and mementos can become so emotionally charged that in their grief people forget what a Christian funeral is all about. It is not all that unusual that the survivors come to the church expecting their wishes to be carried out, rather than coming to the church to hear about Jesus. Which is what a Christian Funeral is all about.

A Christian funeral is about Jesus. It’s not about the dead person. It’s not about human accomplishments—about wealth and success. Neither is it about overcoming suffering and pain and disease, nor extreme courage, nor even patriotism.

Those things are all fine and commendable attributes in a living person, but the fact of the matter is that the dead are dead, and that remains true in spite of the fact they may have been very kind, decent and even brave. The greatest and noblest of human qualities can’t keep you from dying; and are