MARCH 2023
MARCH 2023
5 March 2023 - Lent 2 - Matthew 15:21-28
We think of Jesus as a Savior who loves us and accepts us, and who takes a very personal interest in each one of us. And we think of him as a Savior who treats everyone in this way - without the bigotries that so often taint us, and the way we feel about and treat others.
It might surprise us, then, to hear what we hear in today’s Gospel from St. Matthew. Jesus seems to be treating the woman who approached him in an uncaring and unkind manner - not as we would expect from a loving and compassionate Savior. We read:
“Then Jesus went out from there and departed to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to Him, saying, ‘Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely demon-possessed.’ But He answered her not a word. ”
“And His disciples came and urged Him, saying, ‘Send her away, for she cries out after us.’ But He answered and said, ‘I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ Then she came and worshiped Him, saying, ‘Lord, help me!’ But He answered and said, ‘It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.’”
What are we to make of this? Well, Jesus does explain why he hesitated to involve himself in this woman’s problem. He told her: “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
What we see here is his recognition of what his unique calling was, at this time in his life. Our calling, or our vocation, is the duty or set of duties that God has entrusted to us, for a specific period of time, within certain parameters, and for the fulfilling of certain purposes.
We are often tempted to overstep the lines of our vocation, and in so doing not to pay adequate attention to what God has actually called us to do. Jesus shows here that he was not prepared to do that.
During the time of our Lord’s earthly ministry, while he was living in the land of Israel - under the law of God and in the form of a servant - certain parameters had been established for his work, by the heavenly Father who had sent him to do this work.
Jesus was a Jew. He was, in fact, the epitome of what it meant, or should have meant, to be a Jew. And as the Jewish Messiah, he embodied the fulfillment of all the dreams and hopes of all the faithful men and women of Israel, of all preceding generations.
He was the true teacher and spokesman for God, toward whom Moses and all the prophets had pointed. He was the true Lamb of God, toward whom all of the temple sacrifices had pointed.
He was the true King of God’s people, toward whom David and all of his royal progeny had pointed. Jesus was, quite simply, the apex and the culmination of all of Hebrew history.
Everything that had gone before was a preparation for him. All that had transpired among God’s Old Testament people through the centuries, now found its true meaning and ultimate purpose in him.
This was the context in which those who knew Jesus according to the flesh did in fact know him. He walked the earth, preached to the crowds, performed his miracles, and did everything that he did, precisely as Israel’s Messiah: the true successor of Moses, the great high priest, and the ultimate royal son of David.
Before his death and resurrection, Jesus did not have a calling from his Father to be anything else, or to do anything else. It was therefore important for him not to be distracted from the singular pathway that the Hebrew Scriptures had laid out for him to follow.
He was a part of that one special nation on earth to which the oracles of God had been entrusted. For the Jews, therefore, what Jesus did and said would have made sense - or at least it was supposed to make sense. But within the unbelieving pagan nations of the world, nothing about Jesus would have made sense.
At best, he would have intrigued them as a mysterious wonder-worker. At worst, he would have frightened them - which is in fact what happened on another occasion when Jesus paid a visit to a largely Gentile area.
In the country of the Gergesenes, after a dramatic exorcism - when Jesus sent a legion of demons into a herd of pigs that then stampeded off a cliff - we are told that “the whole city came out to meet Jesus. And when they saw Him, they begged Him to depart from their region.”
The Gentile nations were, quite simply, not ready for Jesus. And Jesus, during the time of his earthly ministry, was not sent to them.
This doesn’t mean that he had no concern for people who were not a part of Israel. He knew that the time would come when his calling would in fact bring him into regular contact with all the nations of the earth.
But that time had not yet come. That was not yet his calling. And this, my friends, is the meaning of the point he is making in today’s text, when he tells the Canaanite woman: “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
Jesus was not pleased that this woman’s daughter was oppressed by a demon. He was not happy to think about how the whole Canaanite nation was under the domination of the devil - the “ruler of this world” - in any number of ways.
And someday he was going to do something about that. But not yet.
Some of us are no doubt troubled also by the comment that Jesus made in this text, describing Gentiles such as the Canaanite woman as the equivalent of little dogs - to whom a father will not throw his children’s bread. This seemingly disparaging remark would suggest that even the long-term benefits of Jesus’ ministry were intended exclusively for the people of Israel - the children of God - and not for the Canaanites or any other un-chosen nation.
But let’s not take too much offense at his use of the word “dogs” to describe the non-Jewish peoples. He uses the diminutive form of the word, which is indeed more precisely translate as “little dogs.” The word he uses could also refer to puppies.
The image that would be conjured up in his listeners’ minds would not be of large, threatening and growling dogs. Instead, their thoughts would be directed to cute yappy dogs - the kind that we wouldn’t mind having around the house, and that we might in fact be tempted to feed from the table.
And the analogy from the animal world that he uses to describe his own people wasn’t really much of a compliment to them, either. Not only does he refer to the nation of Israel, as a whole, as “sheep” - animals well-known for their lack of intelligence - but he calls the ones that he is particularly concerned about, “lost sheep.”
Sheep who are lost are the least intelligent sheep of all! Even with their general lack of intelligence, most sheep usually do at least know how to stay in the flock where they belong, heeding and following the voice of their shepherd.
In contrast, many of the people of Israel at this time in history didn’t know where they belonged. In their hearts they had wandered away from God and from the true meaning of his Word.
One of the tasks that Jesus was fulfilling during his earthly ministry was to call this nation to repentance, and to a renewed faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And he certainly had enough work to do in that respect, in the three years that elapsed between his baptism and his crucifixion.
Of course, we can’t fail to notice that in the end, Jesus did decide to help the woman in today’s story. She was a Canaanite - a descendant of the historic enemies of Jesus’ human ancestors. She certainly was not one of his “parishioners,” as it were.
But even so, in his compassion he finally did address her need, and by his power brought deliverance to her daughter. In mercy he made an exception for her - similar to the exception he also made for another Gentile, the Roman centurion, when he healed his servant.
The woman in today’s text said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered and said to her, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.
I mentioned Christ’s crucifixion a minute ago. His crucifixion - and the resurrection that followed - certainly were pivotal events. In dying, he destroyed the power of death; and in rising again on the third day, he opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.
The preaching and miracle-working that Jesus did during his earthly ministry, were not intended for everyone in every nation. These pastoral activities were directed to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
But, the atoning sacrifice that Jesus offered on the cross, at the end of his earthly ministry, was offered not only for the sins of Israel, but for the sins of the whole world.
As Jesus died, his forgiving and redeeming love embraced all people of all nations: Israelites and Canaanites, Africans and Europeans, Asians and Americans. In that time of agony, as he bore the weight of all human sin on behalf of all humanity, he was beginning the fulfillment of this pledge and promise, which Jesus had made in another time and place, as recorded in St. John’s Gospel:
“Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.” This He said, signifying by what death He would die.
The death of Christ brought to an end the specific and limited calling that God the Father had given him for the time of his earthly ministry. And the death of Christ ushered in the beginning of a new calling - a calling that had, and still has, all the peoples of the world in view.
The resurrected and ascended Lord will now never bypass a Gentile simply because she is a Gentile. In his Word and sacraments - to which he has mystically united himself - he now makes himself available to everyone.
And Jesus fulfills his new calling through the instrumentality of his church, and through the instrumentality of the ministers of his church, as he sends them - as he sends us - to people like the Canaanite woman.
Previously, under his former calling, Jesus had said this to the Canaanite woman: “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Now, under his new calling, he says this to us:
“All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
All nations are now the “lost sheep” that Jesus seeks. All nations are now the “little dogs” to which he is willing to give the children’s bread.
Those of us who are of non-Jewish, Gentile ancestry, need to realize that if Jesus had had occasion to meet any of us during the time of his earthly ministry, it is extremely unlikely that he would have been willing to have very much to do with us. He certainly would not have been willing to take us into the circle of his disciples.
If you want to have the assurance that Jesus does in fact want to be a part of your life, and to embrace you with his saving grace, you should not imagine yourself sentimentally to be transported back in time to the days when Jesus was visibly walking this earth. If you could somehow go to him, in the first century, by means of some kind of time machine, the Christ you would find would be the Christ that the Canaanite woman found.
Instead, the focus of your faith - especially if your faith is a struggling and doubting faith - needs to be on Christ as he comes to you now: in the gospel that is preached in our midst, and in the sacraments that are administered in our midst.
Just before his ascension, the risen Christ promised his disciples that he would be with them always, even to the end of the age, as they bring his Word and sacraments to the nations. That’s a promise to which the Canaanite woman could later cling. That’s a promise to which we can cling.
The Biblical revelation of the many things that Jesus said and did during his earthly ministry, as recorded in the Four Gospels, is certainly intended for us, and for the strengthening of our Christian hope. But this revelation, and the blessings of Christ to which it testifies, are funneled to us - across time - through the means of grace.
We were not, and could not have been, among Jesus’ original audience, on the hillsides and seashore of first-century Galilee, or in the upper rooms and gardens of first-century Jerusalem.
We encounter this revelation - and are impacted by the love and acceptance of Christ through this revelation - in the fellowship of his church, where Jesus has promised to be present for us whenever two or three are gathered together in his name.
To call the church of Jesus “international,” is not to say enough. The church absorbs and transcends all nations of this earth. It is itself a new, holy nation. Within this church there is no room for the ethnic bigotries and racial prejudices that so often afflict people in this fallen world.
And, we have been made a part of this new nation, and this new people of God, by the new birth that God’s Spirit has worked in us. Baptized and instructed believers from all nations are now invited to sit at the Lord’s eucharistic table, where we are fed with God’s grace and life as full members of his household, and not merely as pets within his household.
When we plead for Jesus’ help, we will receive it. When we trust in him, he will comfort and heal us - not because he is making an exception, but because we have become heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, through faith in his gospel.
Jesus loved the Canaanite woman, her daughter, and her whole nation. Even when he hesitated to overstep the boundaries of his calling at that time of his life, and to provide the miracle that had been asked of him, it was not because of a lack of love.
God’s plan of redemption for the Canaanites - and for all the benighted pagan nations - was a plan conceived in nothing but love. God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son.
And since the Day of Pentecost, that loving divine plan is now fully operative: among us, and among every people to whom the message of repentance and the forgiveness of sins is being preached. The resurrected and ascended Jesus is in that preaching. He is in his church. He is in us.
When the message of Christ crucified is proclaimed now, we do not, in that proclamation, hear Jesus mutter softly that he was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. That limitation no longer applies to the calling under which he now operates.
Instead, we hear him say boldly and loudly, that when he is lifted up on the cross - and when the message of the cross is lifted up before men - he will draw all people to himself. He will draw the Canaanite woman, and those like her.
And whoever you are - regardless of where you come from, or who your ancestors were - he will draw you. Amen.
12 March 2023 - Lent 3 - Ephesians 4:17–5:9
Our text is from St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, including today’s second lesson, but also including several verses that immediately precede that section of the epistle. And so we read, beginning with verse 17 of the fourth chapter of Ephesians:
This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.
Nuclear fission occurs in nuclear power plants. Nuclear fission also occurs in nuclear bombs. What’s the difference?
In the case of nuclear power, we have a situation where a power plant is first constructed, so that it can safely contain, harness, and channel a nuclear fission reaction, for the positive purpose of providing electricity to a region. Only after the plant has been carefully built, is a controlled nuclear reaction allowed to happen.
In the case of a nuclear bomb, the nuclear fission reaction is not contained. That reaction, and its destructive power, are released in all directions from the point of explosion.
There is nuclear fission going on in both processes. The difference is whether that reaction is preceded by the erection of a containment structure, to keep it safe and beneficial, or is allowed to happen without any restraints, explosively and destructively.
In today’s text from the Epistle to the Ephesians, St. Paul teaches us:
“You should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.”
This is not a complimentary description of the worldview and lifestyle of the unbelieving gentiles. This critical description culminates in the observation that they “have given themselves over to lewdness.”
The Greek word translated as “lewdness” is “aselgeia.” It can also be translated as licentiousness, wantonness, or sensuality.
When Paul says that the unbelieving gentiles have given themselves over to this, what that means is that they do what they feel like doing, when they feel like doing it. This does often play out in the area of sexual license, but it is a broader concept than that.
It refers more generally to a whole lifestyle that is lacking in moral reflection and restraint, where someone immediately surrenders to the unbridled impulses and cravings of the moment, so as “to work all uncleanness with greediness.”
Indecency. Intoxication. Violence. Greed. If the thought enters the mind, the action follows.
People who consistently live this way in a society that still does have at least some sense of law and order, will usually end up as derelicts, as jailbirds, or in an early grave. That does not prevent a lot of people from living this way, however.
But what St. Paul tells us today, is that we, as disciples of Christ, cannot be among them. He writes: “But you have not so learned Christ.”
The Greek term translated here as “learned” is based on the same root word that the term “disciple” is based on. A disciple is someone who has learned a certain way of thinking, of believing, and of living.
Disciples of Christ are those who have learned from Christ - and who are still learning from Christ - his way of thinking, of believing, and of living. Disciples of Christ are therefore not among those who “have given themselves over to lewdness.”
In our day, many have said: “Kids are growing up too fast.” I think it is more accurate to say: “Kids are getting pulled down too fast.”
The increasingly lewd lifestyle of our age - with people doing what they feel like doing, when they feel like doing it - is bleeding over into the lives of the children of our nation. And I intentionally use the metaphor “bleeding,” because nothing but pain and suffering for our kids is the result.
The sexualization of children in our society is especially insidious. Kids listen to music with sexual themes that they should not be listening to, and they watch TV shows with sexual themes that they should not be watching.
And it’s not just that issue. Kids are getting drawn into the drug culture and the drinking culture at ever younger ages. And deadly violence among teens and children is also increasing, at ever younger ages.
Their childhood is being stolen from them. They are not being protected, as they need to be.
They are being taught to do what they feel like doing, when they feel like doing it. But this is a destructive idea - for everybody, but especially for the youngest and most vulnerable members of our society.
And our young people are being destroyed by this - together with the adults who are teaching it to them, and who are, as it were, setting off these “nuclear explosions” in their lives. The astronomical rise in the rate of suicide in recent years - including teen suicide - bears sad witness to this fact.
But God’s way, for his people, is different. St. Paul writes elsewhere in his Epistle to the Ephesians: “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”
And the Book of Proverbs gives us this encouragement: “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”
Teaching the way of the Lord to our children, in Christian homes and in Christian churches, is God’s way of preparing them for the adult thoughts and feelings that they will someday have. Instilling in kids, over time, a proper understanding of how they fit into their family, into their church, and into their society, is like the construction of a nuclear power plant.
A proper sense of order and discipline, combined with a valuing of the virtues of honor, responsibility, accountability, and self-control, will get young people ready for the time when the “nuclear fission” of their adult feelings will be introduced and inaugurated within them.
If a proper moral and ethical structure has been built around them by God’s Word, those feelings, when they do arise, will be controlled and channeled in good and positive directions: faithfulness and devotion within marriage rather than wasting oneself in fornication; concern for one’s duty to family and country, rather than a constant seeking after pleasure; and a desire to know and follow the holy callings that God gives to all of us, in church, home, and society.
An honorable way of thinking and living does not arise from a lifestyle of doing what you feel like doing, when you feel like doing it. But it does arise from a lifestyle that has been supernaturally molded and shaped by the gospel of Jesus Christ, with its transforming power.
An honorable way of thinking and living is indeed filled with genuine human feelings. But human feelings are not the basis of an honorable way of thinking and living.
The basis is the instruction that we, as disciples of Christ, have received from him and his apostles: concerning who he is, as our Savior from sin and from its destructive passions; and concerning who we now are in him.
We are new creatures in Christ: forgiven through his blood, born again of his Spirit, set free in his grace, animated by his love. Again, St. Paul writes:
“You have heard [Christ] and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.”
What a difference this makes! What a joy it is to be lovingly built up by God and his Word, to be someone who is now able to learn from Christ how to think in this way, and how to live in this way.
But some might say: That’s well and good for people who were properly raised in the faith, and who always stuck to what they were taught. But what about those who were not brought up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord?
And what about those who have fallen away from their Christian upbringing, and who have been sucked into a life of sensuality - living rashly and impetuously according to feelings and impulses, explosively and without restraint?
Is there hope for such people? Is there hope for me, if I am such a person?
God says yes. Jesus says yes. St. Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, says yes. He writes:
“Be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.”
All of us fail to love others, to honor others, and to show respect for others - and for ourselves - as purely as we are called to do. None of us imitates God as fully as our discipleship under Christ would teach us.
But Jesus did think and live as all men should think and live. He had true human feelings. But his feelings were not tainted by sin and evil.
All of them were pure. And all of them were directed always to the welfare of others, and to the fulfillment of his responsibilities toward others.
Sometimes this meant that he absolutely did not do what he felt like doing, when he felt like doing it. Remember his agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, and the agonized prayers he spoke then?
“My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”
There was a part of Jesus, according to his human nature, that did not “feel” like submitting himself to be tortured to death by the Romans. There was a part of Jesus, in his state of humiliation, that did not “feel” like undergoing the pains of hell itself on the cross, as the substitute for sinful humanity.
But he went through with it anyway. He did not follow his feelings at that moment, and run away from his mission, and his destiny, as the divine-human Savior of the world.
Jesus, in his life on earth, did not give himself over to lewdness. Not ever. He was faithful and pure. He was faithful and pure for you.
And, his faithfulness and his purity cover over all your unfaithfulness and impurity. If need be, they will cover over an entire lifetime of rebellion and callousness, lust and gluttony, drunkenness and greed.
His perfect life was and is a perfect sacrifice for you and me - a fragrant offering that turns God’s wrath away from the offense of our sin, and that removes from God’s nostrils the stench of our sin.
To every humbled and penitent heart, Christ himself comes. And when he comes, in his gospel and sacrament, all things become new.
Your sins are forgiven. Your standing with God changes. And you change. In Christ, and by the wisdom and strength of Christ, you are rescued and set free from a lifestyle of doing what you feel like doing, when you feel like doing it.
You are saved from spiritual destruction and eternal death. You are saved for the hope and joy that come from fellowship with Christ and his people. And you are taught new things, concerning the new life that Jesus has given you:
“Therefore, putting away lying, ‘Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor,’ for we are members of one another. ‘Be angry, and do not sin’: do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil.”
Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need. Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.”
“And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.”
These are loving directives from a loving God, addressed to us as beloved members of his family and as beloved citizens of his kingdom.
They describe not merely a few incidental “good turns” that we might perform on a day that is otherwise cluttered up with worldly pride and carnal greed. Rather, these loving directives describe a whole culture of life - God’s life - which we embrace even while still surrounded by a devilish and destructive culture of death.
St. Paul writes: “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.”
In our society, within our vocations from the Lord, we in these ways do light a candle in this darkness. And we light a candle also in the words of life that we speak to friends and neighbors who are still stuck in the muck and mire of doing what they feel like doing, when they feel like doing it.
As disciples of Christ we confess Christ to them, as we warn them of where their pathway is taking them. We echo the warning that St. Paul gives when he writes that
“No fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.”
But as disciples of Christ, we confess Christ to them also as we invite them to receive the forgiveness and liberation that only Christ can give, and that Christ is giving to them by his grace.
Just as Jesus is able to cast out literal demons when people are bodily possessed - as we saw in today’s Gospel - so too can he, by the power of his words of pardon and peace, deliver us from our spiritual captivity to the world, the flesh, and the devil; and with his Spirit seal us for the day of redemption.
Who trusts in God, a strong abode In heaven and earth, possesses;
Who looks in love to Christ above, No fear his heart oppresses.
In Thee alone, dear Lord, we own Sweet hope and consolation,
Our Shield from foes, our Balm for woes, Our great and sure Salvation.Tho’ Satan’s wrath beset our path And worldly scorn assail us,
While Thou art near, we will not fear; Thy strength shall never fail us.
Thy rod and staff shall keep us safe And guide our steps forever;
Not shades of death, nor hell beneath, Our souls from Thee shall sever. Amen.
19 March 2023 - Lent 4 - John 6:26-69
After the miraculous feeding of the multitude, which today’s Gospel reading from St. John recounts, Jesus and his disciples left the place where this had happened and went to Capernaum. The next day, when the people had figured out where Jesus had gone, they followed him. It would seem that they wanted an ongoing supply of free food to fill their stomachs.
Jesus then began a long conversation with this crowd, about the heavenly bread which they should actually be seeking. Please listen with me to a portion of that conversation, often called the “Bread of Life” discourse, from the sixth chapter of St. John, beginning at verse 26. Jesus said:
In his teaching on this occasion, Jesus uses the imagery of bread, both to describe who he is, and to describe what he gives. First, he says, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven.”
Always pay close attention whenever Jesus says, “I am.” “I am” is God’s own testamental name. The Old Testament refers to God as the great “I am” - that is, as Yahweh or Jehovah - on those occasions when he is being described as the Divine Helper of Israel, who makes and keeps promises to his people.
And the ultimate promise that God made and kept, was his promise to come among men as a man, to save us from sin and death in person. Jesus is Immanuel - God with us. Jesus is the Child who was born, and the Son who was given - who is called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
And now, as Jesus says, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven,” he is deepening our understanding of God’s character, and of God’s work for our salvation, in the person of his incarnate Son.
The launchpad for this discourse was a question that the Jewish crowd asked Jesus, about why they should be willing to believe what he was saying, and to put their trust in him. They compared Jesus’ claims to the claims of Moses, and wondered if he would prove himself to them, in a way comparable to how Moses had proved himself to their ancestors - in particular through providing manna for them to eat.
The manna that God had miraculously provided for the daily sustenance of the Israelites, in the time of Moses, was a foreshadowing, and a picture, of what would someday happen, when God himself would come down from heaven, and give himself to a spiritually starved humanity.
The image of a person eating and swallowing a piece of bread, is an image of a deep internalization of that bread on the part of the one who is eating it. And so, just as literal bread is received into the inner digestive system of the body, so too does Jesus want to be received into the heart and soul of the one who believes in him.
Believing in Jesus, in the true sense, is not merely an intellectual exercise. It is a deep and intimate receiving of Jesus into oneself. And that’s why it is so frightening to so many of us, to receive Jesus into our life on his terms, and not on our own terms.
In our sin and selfishness, we would no doubt prefer to keep Jesus at arm’s length. According to our sinful nature, we would prefer that he not be allowed to get too close, since we fear that he would judge us, and change us into something quite different from what we are now.
And that threatens us, because we are comfortable with what we are now. And you know what? All those suspicions are essentially correct - although the reality is actually worse than what you suspect.
You can’t be physically nourished by a piece of literal bread that you keep at arm’s length. And you also can’t have a fulfilling and meaningful relationship with God, without taking Jesus deeply inside of you.
But once he is on the inside, he does not just change you. He kills you. As far as your old sinful nature is concerned, the bread of life is poison. Jesus, from the inside, suppresses and drowns the old nature - together with all its wicked desires, and all its destructive passions.
But, the bread of life is indeed a source of life. And so, from the inside, Jesus also re-creates you. By his Spirit, he implants, brings forth, and nourishes a new nature, made in his image.
When you, by means of a penitent yet expectant faith, “eat” the bread that comes down from heaven - and when you continually eat it by continually embracing Christ - you become and remain truly alive before God. You become and remain truly alive in God forever - because in this way, through your mystical union with Christ, God remains truly alive in you.
But Jesus does not use the imagery of bread only to describe himself as the one who comes down from heaven, which is obviously a reference to his divinity. He also uses this imagery to describe what he gives: for us on the cross, and to us in the means of grace.
He says: “And the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.” In speaking of his “flesh,” Christ is referring now to his humanity - which he as the Son of God took to himself in the womb of his virgin mother.
In Christ, God became one of us. He did this, so that he could offer - in our place - a genuinely human sacrifice, to satisfy the judgment of his own divine justice against our human sin.
God does not demand such human sacrifices from us. In fact, they are forbidden most stringently.
And they wouldn’t work anyway, because all human beings - other than Jesus - are corrupted by sin. Instead, in the incarnate person of his Son, God offers and gives himself as the one and only pure and perfect sacrifice for human sin that will ever be necessary.
What Jesus gives in sacrifice to his Father, on the cross of his death, he gives for the life of the world. By his death, he delivers us from the death of sin. And by his resurrection from the dead, he unites us to his life.
The now-glorified Jesus - who fills all the heavens, but who is also still in human flesh - still comes to us as our divine-human Savior. He makes himself accessible to us in his Word and Sacraments. Most intimately, and most meaningfully, he comes to us, and makes himself accessible to us, in the Sacrament of the Altar.
We would not say that our Lord’s bread of life discourse is only about the Lord’s Supper. But there are obvious allusions to this sacrament in the terms that Jesus uses.
The events that John describes in his Gospel happened before the institution of the Lord’s Supper. But John’s writing and publishing of his Gospel took place several decades later, when the regular observance of the Lord’s Supper in Christian congregations was already firmly in place.
Imagine, then, what the original audience of John’s Gospel would have thought when they heard these words of their Lord, which John quoted; and what connections they would automatically have made between these words and their current sacramental experience as a Christian community:
“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.”
There is no way in which this cannot in some way be about the Lord’s Supper. At the very least, these words necessarily apply themselves most naturally to the Lord’s Supper, and to the blessings that we in faith receive in the Lord’s Supper, even if that is not their only application.
But more broadly, the bread of life discourse, and all the many things that Jesus says in this discourse, are about Jesus himself: his coming to earth, his past saving work on earth, and his present giving of himself to his people on earth.
According to the point of comparison that is made in this larger discourse, the “eating” by which we receive Christ as the bread of life - in all the many ways in which we do receive him - is faith.
But even with that being the case, there certainly is a clear application to be made for us in the Lord’s Supper. Any passage of Scripture that is about Jesus, is, in the final analysis, about the Lord’s Supper - and can be applied to the Lord’s Supper - because Jesus is the content of the Lord’s Supper.
This sacrament is called the Supper of the Lord, not just because he owns it, but because he is it. It is the true body and blood of Christ, under the forms of bread and wine, for us Christians to eat and to drink.
This sacrament is, of course, not properly received, unless it is received in faith. This is a faith that acknowledges that what God’s law says about the offensiveness of our sin, and about our need for forgiveness, is true.
This is a faith that acknowledges that what God’s gospel says about our Savior from sin, and about his atoning and reconciling sacrifice for us, is also true. And this is a faith that clings to Christ’s very specific words - and that receives Christ himself in his body and blood, for forgiveness and strength - in the sacrament that he instituted on the night in which he was betrayed.
The Lord who comes to us in this Supper of the Lord, is the One who said:
“I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.” Faith discerns Jesus, and the flesh of Jesus, to be savingly present in the sacrament. And faith receives his flesh and blood for salvation, as the bread and wine are received with the mouth.
Receiving Christ in Holy Communion can be scary. There is an apostolic warning that those who receive this sacrament in an unworthy manner - without true repentance, and without true faith - sin against the body and blood of the Lord, and thereby receive his body and blood to their judgment.
If you are a communicant, examine yourself, therefore, before you come forward. Explore your conscience, and test your faith. Take this seriously, because it is serious.
But a humble faith - which admits the reality and danger of sin and turns from sin, and even more so which knows and recognizes humanity’s Savior from sin - is not afraid of this Supper. Such a genuine faith - even if it is a weak and struggling faith - yearns for a closer connection with Jesus, and yearns to be fed by Jesus.
Such a faith rejoices to hear Jesus say:
“He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me.”
A little further on in his discourse, Jesus also says: “The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.” Indeed, all the words of pardon and peace that Jesus speaks - to all of us, in all of the means of grace - are spirit and life.
His words of comfort and hope do not apply only to a reception, in faith, of the Sacrament of the Altar. They apply to a reception, in faith, of Christ’s Word in general, whenever and wherever his Word comes to us and touches us: as his Word is spoken and applied to us in Holy Baptism; in Holy Absolution; and in hearing, reading, and meditating on the Scriptures.
And the Word of Christ always delivers Christ - the bread of life from heaven - to our hearts and souls.
We close with these words of prayer from hymnist Bartholomaüs Ringwaldt:
Help us, that we Thy saving Word, in faithful hearts may treasure;
Let ever that Bread of Life afford new grace, in richest measure.
O make us die to every sin, each day create new life within,
That fruits of faith may flourish. Amen.
26 March 2023 - Lent 5 - Genesis 22:1-18
Think about someone right now whom you would consider a friend. You are more than likely thinking about someone with whom you have some significant shared experiences, or whose life experiences are similar to yours.
The closest friends we have tend to be people like this. Those common experiences serves as a bonding agent for the friendship, and for a mutual understanding within the friendship.
This is why friendships are often formed and maintained between those who grew up together in the same town, or who went to college together, or who served together in the military.
Your friends are basically the people who can understand you, because they have gone through the same kind of things you have gone through. Accordingly, they are able to look at the world in a way that is very similar to how you look at it.
What should we think, then, of a statement that St. James makes in his Epistle, about the friendship that existed between God and Abraham? He writes: “The Scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness’ - and he was called a friend of God.”
How could a mortal man like Abraham be a friend of God? God is vastly different from Abraham in the nature of his being.
God is eternal, almighty, and all-knowing. Abraham, by comparison, was limited in every way - in his knowledge, and in his power.
So, Abraham, was not God’s peer, or his equal, in regard to these things. But still, Scripture calls him a friend of God.
What common experience did Abraham and God share, so that their relationship could be described in such terms? Let’s look at today’s Old Testament lesson from the Book of Genesis. There we may find an answer to that question.
Because God is God, and stands above Abraham as Abraham’s creator, the friendship that Abraham had with God was a friendship that God bestowed on Abraham. Their friendship was planned out by God.
It did not take shape in the way that many of our human friendships begin, through the happenstance of two people getting thrown together in the same class at school, or in the same army unit or navy crew. Instead, God is the one who caused Abraham to have the kind of experiences that would give Abraham a certain level of commonality with God, and with God’s own experiences.
When God tested Abraham’s faith by telling him to sacrifice his son Isaac, God was giving Abraham just such an experience. God was enabling Abraham to become his friend. The Lord said:
“Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”
Abraham was certainly surprised by this request. It would no doubt have seemed to him to go against everything he would expect from God. It would have seemed to be going against God’s own nature.
The God of Abraham was not like the false gods of the pagan nations, with their thirst for the blood of human sacrifices. The God who had called Abraham to follow him, and who had promised Abraham that he would give him and his wife Sarah a son, was a God of life, not a God of death.
Any parent - indeed, any decent human being - can understand how difficult it would have been for Abraham to obey such a command. We would certainly not want to be in Abraham’s sandals.
But Abraham’s readiness to obey the Lord demonstrates that he was willing to admit that maybe there were a few things about God, and about God’s plans for the world, that he did not fully understand. So, he trusted in the Lord, believing that the Lord’s will is always good, and he set out to do as God had directed him.
Abraham prepared the wood that would be needed for the sacrifice, and then went with his son to the place that God had designated. We pick up the story there, as the Book of Genesis records it for us:
“So Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife, and the two of them went together. But Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, ‘My father!’ And he said, ‘Here I am, my son.’ Then [Isaac] said, ‘Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?’ And Abraham said, ‘My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering.’ So the two of them went together.”
“Then they came to the place of which God had told him. And Abraham built an altar there and placed the wood in order; and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, upon the wood. And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.”
It’s difficult even to read this story without getting emotional. What a painful experience this must have been for Abraham.
Even if he believed that God was able to raise Isaac from the ashes - which he did believe - slaying his son, and offering his body as a sacrifice to the Lord, would certainly have been the most difficult thing he would ever have to do in his life. The agony he endured, in such a severe test of his faith, is almost incomprehensible.
But Abraham passed the test. He demonstrated his willingness to offer up even his own son in death, according to the inscrutable will of God, and according to the necessity of what God had laid upon him. vBut then, at the last minute, God stopped Abraham from following through with his intention. At the last minute, he spared Isaac. At the last minute, he spared Abraham. We continue reading:
“But the Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ So he said, ‘Here I am.’ And He said, ‘Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.’”
“Then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son.”
Abraham now had his son back. And God now had a friend.
Abraham, through his own experience, now knew what it was going to be like for God, many centuries later, to send his only Son to the cross, to die for sinful humanity.
The story of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac has so many parallels to the story of God’s sacrificing of his own Son, under the just judgment of his own law, in order to redeem us. We notice, for example, the statement that Isaac was the one who carried the wood to the place of sacrifice - just as Jesus set out toward Calvary carrying his own cross.
We notice, too, the Lord’s emphatic description of Isaac as Abraham’s “only son.” This really stands out in the text, because we know that from a strictly biological point of view it is not literally true.
Abraham had another son, Ishmael. But Isaac was the “only son” of Abraham as far as the Lord’s special covenant with him was concerned.
And when we read this, we cannot avoid immediately thinking of what Jesus said about himself, as God’s only Son: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
Before the events of today’s text transpired, Abraham already knew that the God he served was - as he himself had said - “the Judge of all the earth.” But Abraham may not have fully grasped that his God was also the Redeemer of all the earth.
And he almost certainly would not previously have grasped the lengths to which God would be willing to go in order to accomplish that redemption.
But now he knew. Now he had tasted for himself something of the experience that God was going to have, when Jesus would suffer and die for the sins of the world.
Abraham knew that in the fulfillment of God’s will, he could not hold anything back. And God, too, would hold nothing back.
God had allowed Abraham to experience just enough of a commonality with what God himself was someday going to experience, so that Abraham could now be, in a very unique way, his friend.
In the Old Testament, Abraham was God’s only “friend” in this sense, because God never again asked another person to do this. Abraham was the only one.
You and I, and indeed all men, have offended God in so many ways. We have transgressed the boundaries that his good and perfect law has drawn for us. We have fallen short of the goals that his good and perfect law has set for us.
God’s holiness cannot tolerate our rebellion. His holiness requires a punishment for sin. But at the same time, his love for us cannot tolerate the thought that all of us would be eternally lost and condemned because of our sin.
The holiness of God requires him to judge sin - your sin and my sin. But the love of God impels him to find a way to judge our sin without thereby also damning us. A substitute for humanity would be needed:
A substitute who would be a true man, to take the place of sinful man under the judgment of God’s law; a substitute who would be true God, so that his sacrifice would be of infinite value, and would cover, once and for all, the sins of all people for all time.
What was needed was what God did, in the sending of his only begotten Son to become a part of the human race, and from within the human race to be the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the human race.
And God the Father did not, at the last minute, hesitate, or draw back from his purpose and plan. He did not change his mind.
St. Peter describes the sacrifice of his Lord in this way: by the hands of lawless men, Jesus was “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.”
Jesus didn’t walk away from Calvary unscathed, as Isaac walked away from the land of Moriah. Jesus saw it through, all the way to the end: until the sins of the whole world had been atoned for; and he cried out, “It is finished,” and breathed his last.
Abraham learned some very important things about God and his redeeming love for humanity through the experiences that he had in the land of Moriah. More than ever, he learned to trust in God, and to put his faith in him.
And he was justified before God. His own sin was forgiven through his implicit faith in the coming sacrifice of the Son of God - the Lamb of God that the Lord himself would, and ultimately did, provide.
But Abraham is not the only one who can learn something from these experiences. He is not the only one who can benefit from the revelation that God made to Abraham in this way, on this day.
In the lines that come immediately after the verses that constitute our appointed lesson for today, the account continues:
“Then the Angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time out of heaven, and said: ‘By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son – blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.’”
St. Paul makes an important observation about this text in his Epistle to the Galatians: “Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, ‘And to seeds,’ as of many, but as of one, ‘And to your Seed,’ who is Christ.”
The events that we have been considering today, and the promise that God made to Abraham at that time, truly did point forward to the atoning sacrifice of Christ, and to the promise of forgiveness and salvation that is now freely offered to the world for the sake of Christ.
Through the saving realities that the events in today’s text portray, all the nations of the earth will be blessed by the mercy of God. You are blessed by what God has taught you today, through the experiences of Abraham, God’s friend.
God’s only Son has been given into death for your justification. In his gospel and sacraments, God now bestows on you every grace and blessing that his Son won for you by his innocent suffering and death.
In the same way as Abraham believed God, God now invites you also to believe him, when he tells you that he is at peace with you through the sacrifice of his Son, and that in Christ he will be at peace with you forever.
And when you share the faith of Abraham, and thereby know God as Abraham knew God, then you also share something else that previously was unique to Abraham. In the New Testament, Jesus says to his disciples:
“No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.”
“The Scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness’ - and he was called a friend of God.” Amen.