NOVEMBER 2023
NOVEMBER 2023
5 November 2023 - All Saints - Romans 8:23b-25
Please listen with me to these words from the 8th chapter of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, beginning in the 23rd verse:
“We also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.”
So far our text.
The Chicago Cubs won the World Series in 1908. For the next 108 years, Cubs fans hoped for their team to win another World Series. Those who finally saw and experienced that long-awaited victory in 2016 were very much aware of the fact that their generation was not the only generation that had been waiting for this.
In the days that followed the Cubs’ World Series triumph, thousands of names of long-deceased Cubs fans were written in chalk on the brick walls of the Wrigley Field stadium. Chicagoans were writing the names of their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents on these walls, as a way of connecting their deceased family members to a sports achievement which they had longed to see in life, but which they had not been able to see before their life’s end.
I can remember this well. There appeared to be a feeling among their descendants that this sentimental gesture, in some way, was allowing them to be a part of that victory anyway, even after their deaths.
The most poignant story of this nature that I read at the time, described a 68-year-old man from North Carolina, who grew up in the Chicago area. As a boy and as a young man, he and his father enjoyed many a Cubs game together.
They had made a “pact,” that if the Cubs ever got into the World Series, they would listen to the games together. Their common love for baseball, and for the Cubs, was a bonding agent of sorts, for their own deeper love for each other.
In 1980, when the father was only 53 years old, he died of cancer. An opportunity for father and son to keep that pact had never come, before this Dad was so prematurely wrenched from his boy.
But for the last game of the series, this son drove for ten hours, from his home to the cemetery in Indiana where his father is buried. And at his father’s grave, he listened to the game, and, with his father, heard the Cubs win in the tenth inning.
If the experience of Cubs fans waiting for a World Series victory for more than a century, can stir up these kinds of deep-seated emotions, how much more can the experience of the church, waiting for many centuries for the final fulfillment of Christ’s promises, stir up even deeper feelings?
Of course, the importance of several generations of Cubs fans waiting together for a sports triumph, is as nothing, when compared to the importance of scores and scores of generations of Christians waiting together for the second coming of Christ, and for the resurrection of their bodies on the Last Day. It is therefore to our shame, if we do not long for those things to come to pass, with the level of devotion and seriousness that should characterize such waiting.
Our Lord’s future visible return to this world, and everything that is now preparing the way for that profound event - and preparing us for that event - are of eternal significance. And the thoughts on our minds today, on All Saints Sunday, should be appropriately serious and sober thoughts: as we remember all those who, through the many centuries of Christian history, have waited for these things to unfold, and who with us are still waiting.
One of the verses in the hymn “The Church’s One Foundation” says this, in regard to the church of Jesus Christ:
Yet she on earth hath union with God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion with those whose rest is won.
O happy ones and holy! Lord, give us grace that we
Like them, the meek and lowly, on high may dwell with thee.In 2016, many Cubs fans had a sentimental feeling that they were somehow united with other Cubs fans, even beyond the grave. But for Christians, as we ponder our “mystic sweet communion” with the Saints of God who have come and gone before us, this is not merely a sentimental feeling.
This is reality. It is the reality of Christ, who is our Lord and theirs, our Savior and theirs, our eternal hope and theirs. What it is that made them to be saints, was the saving work of Christ on their behalf.
He took their place on the cross, and suffered for their transgressions. He also rose again for them, and in their stead was justified and vindicated by God the Father - who fully accepted his Son’s sacrifice for their sins, and for the sins of the world.
And while the now-departed saints of God still lived on earth, they, in their humility and penitence, were allowed to take Christ’s place, in their standing before God. Believing the promises of the gospel, they were justified by this faith, and were covered with the holiness of Christ.
All of this is what makes us to be saints, too. This is what gives us the confidence to stand before God, and to pray to God, without the fear that he will condemn us and destroy us. This is what gives us the hope that when we pass from this world, we will join the saints of old in the very presence of Christ.
We do not have a direct link to those who have already departed in the faith, and who are now with Christ on the other side of death. We do not seek to communicate directly with these saints, through prayers, seances, or other clairvoyant means. God’s Word actually forbids us to try to do this.
The connection that we have with them because of Christ, is a connection that is mediated by Christ. We are all mutually connected to him, from both sides of the grave.
Through our participation in the gospel and sacraments of Christ, on this side of the grave, we are united with Christ himself. Christ’s words of grace and pardon do not simply remind us of an absent Lord.
Rather, they are the means by which Jesus himself invisibly comes to us, unites himself to us, and keeps his promise that he will be with his church always, even to the end of the age.
This is also why, when Jesus does return in visible glory on the Last Day, he will not be a stranger to his church - because he has been discreetly visiting us and coming among us, by his Word and Spirit, all along.
We have been cleansed and renewed by his washing of regeneration all along. We have been sacramentally nurtured in our resurrection hope by his now-living body, and forgiven through the application of his shed blood, all along.
In this way we have an ongoing fellowship with Christ while still in this world. The departed saints - who on earth had likewise believed in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins, and who had trusted in his Word for eternal life - are enjoying their fellowship with Christ in the next world.
For them, this fellowship is no longer mediated to them through the earthly elements of water, bread, and wine. It is direct, because their sin is now gone. The Book of Revelation describes this as their being clothed in white robes - all the time.
The saints in heaven do still look forward to the ultimate conclusion of all things. They are, at present, lacking their physical bodies. But they know that someday they will get their bodies back, in the general resurrection.
They are waiting for this. We are waiting for this. We are all waiting for this together, in and through Christ. And someday, we will all receive what we are waiting for.
There will be new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness dwells. The dwelling place of God will be with men forever. The lion will lay down with the lamb, forever.
Cubs fans had to wait patiently for 108 years, for a World Series victory. In the context of baseball history, that was a long time. But what they waited for, happened.
The church has been waiting patiently for the Lord’s return for about 1,990 years. That seems to be a very long time. And that wait is not yet over.
But from God’s perspective, it is not long. And when all things do finally come to their fulfillment and culmination, it will have been worth the wait.
The saints of yesterday, the saints of today, and the saints of tomorrow, will be fully one in Christ, rejoicing in eternity with each other, and rejoicing together with Christ. What we are all waiting for - on both sides of the grave - will have come. What we are all hoping for - in this world and in the next world - will have been fulfilled.
“We also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.”
Amen.
12 November 2023 - Trinity 23 - Matthew 22:15-22
“Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
These words of our Lord, in today’s text from the Gospel according to St. Matthew, have always been seen as one of the chief proof passages in Scripture for the distinction we make as Christians - and as Lutherans - between the spiritual and the civil kingdoms; and for our belief that a Christian is a citizen not only of God’s realm, but also of the civil realm in which he lives, with an obligation to respect and obey the civil authorities.
Just yesterday, on our civil calendar, we remembered an important aspect of the duty to their earthly nation that many have understood themselves to have, in their service in the armed forces. Others have served sacrificially in other ways, likewise out of a sense of duty to their country and to its government in this world.
Christian moral teaching has, of course, always qualified our obligation to obey our earthly government, on the basis of what the apostles told the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem, when they were ordered by them to stop preaching. They replied: “We must obey God rather than men.”
So, when the civil authorities would presume to command something that God’s Word forbids, or to forbid something that God’s Word commands, a Christian will not obey.
But otherwise - such as in the matter of paying or not paying taxes - a believer will comply with the legal mandates of the earthly government under which he lives. Our citizenship in heaven is a higher citizenship, but it is not our only citizenship.
It is no doubt easier for people to obey their government when the structure of that government is built on the principle of “government by the consent of the governed.”
When a country’s lawmakers are in power by virtue having won fair and free elections, there would be few if any excuses for disobeying the laws that they pass - except, of course, if those laws are inherently sinful. It’s interesting to see that in the sixteenth century - long before the time of Thomas Jefferson or James Madison - Martin Luther already saw this.
During the time of the Exodus, when Moses felt overwhelmed by all the responsibilities that were placed upon him as the leader of the people of Israel, he arranged for the election of elders in every tribe, to carry out some of the governmental duties that he had been carrying out by himself. Luther commented on this:
“Beasts are managed by power and skill. Men should be ruled by wisdom and understanding, since man thrives on reason... Here you see that the magistrates should be chosen by the votes of the people, as reason also demands. ... For to thrust government upon a people against its will is dangerous or destructive.”
It is a great blessing for us in America to be able to live under a government that receives its authorization to rule through the democratic system that we have. But this democratic system - which involves all of us - also lays a great responsibility upon all of us.
The citizens of the United States are themselves ultimately responsible for the actions - or inactions - of the government of the United States. Each of us has the ongoing opportunity - and duty - to work toward making our government to be more efficient, and making our laws to be more just: by what we advocate, and by how we vote.
For us, this is also a part of what we are to render to Caesar. But even when the government of a country lacks this kind of direct accountability to those who are governed, and even when a government is deeply flawed in many ways, its authority is still to be respected, and its laws are still to be obeyed.
The Jews of Palestine had certainly not elected the pagan Tiberius Caesar to be their emperor. Still, Jesus told them to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.
And in his Epistle to the Romans, St. Paul went so far as to say that, for law-abiding people, the one in authority is “God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.”
But all of this represents only half of Jesus’ teaching today. Some men who had been sent from the Pharisees, and some Herodians, had asked him this question: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?”
In response, Jesus did not only tell his listeners to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, but he also told them to render to God the things that are God’s.
There are a lot more people in this world who pay their taxes, than who honor and trust in God as they should. So, this second aspect of what Jesus teaches should certainly be noted, and listened to.
The specific coin that was being talked about in today’s account was a denarius. It was the most common Roman coin of that time.
On one side was the portrait of the Emperor. And on the other side was a Latin inscription, which translates as: “Tiberius Caesar Augustus, son of the divine Augustus.”
This coin was a testimony to the idolatry of the Romans, and was itself an idol. On the coin was an image of a mere man, who was insolently declared to be a divine son of a divine father.
The Herodians - who openly collaborated with the Romans - did not mind this. Their answer to the question that was posed to Jesus - Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar? - would have been an unqualified Yes.
The Pharisees, on the other hand, certainly did mind the idolatry that was concretely embodied in the coin. They would no doubt have preferred never to have to use such a coin - for paying taxes, or for any other purpose.
So, their honest answer to the question would have been No - it is not in keeping with God’s law - especially the First Commandment - to associate yourself with Roman idolatry, and to make personal use of a Roman idol - which is what handling such a coin would be in their minds.
But, the Pharisees generally kept this scruple to themselves, and did not openly criticize the Romans in this respect. They knew that if they expressed this conviction, they would get in big trouble with the Romans.
Most Jews agreed with the Pharisees on this point. They really did not like having to use these coins.
But, most Jews also agreed with the Pharisees that being open and honest about their views was not worth the grief that would come as a result. Yet there was an attempt on this day to force Jesus to be open and honest about it.
The Pharisees and the Herodians generally had very little in common with each other. But in their temporary collaboration, in trying to trick Jesus into saying something that would get him in trouble - either with the authorities, or with the crowd - they told Jesus this:
“Teacher, we know that You are true and teach the way of God truthfully.”
They were hypocrites in saying this. They were not expressing their honest convictions. But because what they said about Jesus was accurate, they were - with their own words - condemning their actual refusal to believe what Jesus was teaching.
The First Commandment, with its “You shall have no other gods before me” prohibition, does indeed condemn idolatry - whether it is the flagrant idolatry of the Romans, or the hidden idolatry that resides in the hearts of all sinful people. But implicit in this prohibition, is also a positive requirement: “You shall have me as your only God.”
The denarius that Jesus and the others were discussing, falsely claimed that Tiberius was divine. But the true Son of God - through whom the God of the Old Testament could be truly known - was right there, speaking to them, and inviting them to faith.
And according to their own words, the Pharisees and the Herodians should have been willing to heed that invitation. If they really did think that Jesus was “true,” they would have accepted his teaching, when he later said:
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
If they really did think that Jesus taught “the way of God truthfully,” they would have accepted the validity of his assurance - spoken elsewhere - that “heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”
And they would have staked everything - in time and in eternity - on his words. But is that what happened? This is what we are told:
“So they brought Him a denarius. And He said to them, ‘Whose image and inscription is this?’ They said to Him, ‘Caesar’s.’ And He said to them, ‘Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ When they had heard these words, they marveled, and left Him and went their way.”
They marveled. But they didn’t marvel, and then stay to hear more. They marveled, and then they left him, and went away.
I suppose it can be assumed that all of us are here - in this Christian sanctuary - because we “marvel” at Jesus and his words. And we might say to someone who asks why we come to church, that it is because we know that Jesus is “true,” and teaches “the way of God truthfully.”
But does this translate into a life of rendering to God the things that are God’s - all the things that are God’s - once we leave this place of worship? We sing in a familiar hymn:
“Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were a tribute far too small; Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all.”
But is that what God gets from us? Is that even a fraction of what he gets? Hear again what our Lord’s inquisitors said to him:
“Teacher, we know that You are true and teach the way of God truthfully.”
Now, they were not sincere when they said this. But they were right. They should have listened to themselves, and so listened to Jesus.
And as you listen today to their correct description of Jesus and of his teaching, God will help you to listen to your Savior.
When I am tempted to leave Christ, and go away from him, he pulls me in. And if I have left, he calls me back. Jesus teaches me: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
I often feel polluted and contaminated by my sins. I know myself to be spiritually sick. And I fear that God is disgusted with me, and may want to isolate me from himself. But Jesus teaches me:
“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”
I sometimes feel overwhelmed by the presence and power of sin in my life. I sometimes feel trapped, like there is no escape from the devil’s clutches. Is there a way for me to be liberated from this? Jesus teaches me:
“If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
I know that there is forgiveness for people in general, in the cross, and in God. But can I be assured that God is willing to forgive me personally?
Is Jesus really here, for me? In his Holy Supper, Jesus teaches me: “this cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins.”
But it is sometimes hard to believe this. In my weakness, I struggle to trust in something that I cannot see with my own eyes.
Does the Lord notice me in this struggle? Will he help me in my weakness? Jesus teaches me:
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
Jesus - who literally, word-for-word, said all these things - is indeed “true.” Jesus, who says all these things to you, is to be believed, because he teaches “the way of God truthfully.”
And as Jesus teaches the way of God truthfully to you, you learn from him how to render to Caesar, and to God, what is due to them.
All of these things are now possible for us, because Jesus himself - in the profoundest of ways - truly did render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s, on our behalf, and for our salvation.
He paid his taxes, to be sure. But he also obeyed the Jewish and Roman civil authorities, even to the point of paying with his own blood, for his “crime” of being the Son of God, and the ruler of God’s kingdom.
And in the process, he was - at a deeper level - obeying his Father in heaven, who had actually set all this in motion, so that the sins of the world would thereby be atoned for.
In the sermon that St. Peter preached to the people of Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost, he explained to them that “this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.”
Under the decree both of Caesar’s court and of God’s, Jesus “humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” He died for you, to save you, and to give you the hope of eternal life.
Therefore, as a grateful citizen of your country, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. And, as a grateful child of God, and a citizen of his kingdom under Christ - to whom you now belong - render to God the things that are God’s: with his help doing what he commands; but even more so, believing what he promises, and by faith receiving what he gives. Amen.
19 November 2023 - Second-last Sunday in the Church Year - Matthew 25:31-46
“And He shall come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead.”
With these words, or words like them, we regularly confess in the Creed our expectation that the momentous and sobering events described in today’s Gospel from St. Matthew, will indeed happen. Christ will visibly descend to the earth in judgment, and all will stand humbly before him.
The Augsburg Confession reiterates this conviction in the following words:
“Our churches teach that at the end of the world Christ will appear for judgment and will raise all the dead. He will give the godly and elect eternal life and everlasting joys, but he will condemn ungodly people and the devils to be tormented without end.”
At the present time, Jesus is not visibly present on the earth. This does not mean, however, that Jesus is currently absent from us.
Jesus is present, even though it is in ways that are not visible to our physical eyes. For the duration of this age, Jesus will continue to come to us to teach us, to forgive us, and to renew us in our faith in him.
But he will do so - as he has done so for his church since his ascension - hidden within human language in its spoken and written forms; hidden within a washing of simple water; hidden within the eating and drinking of common bread and wine.
Jesus covers his brilliant glory with these simple and unthreatening things, so that we, in our frail and sinful condition, will not be overwhelmed by that glory. In our weak and mortal state, we could not stand to be in the presence of Christ’s uncloaked divine majesty.
So, he doesn’t force this upon us. But, he does still make himself available to us whenever we need him.
When our conscience has been stirred by the warnings of God’s law, and the Holy Spirit has given us a yearning for the forgiveness and saving grace of Christ, we always know where to go to find him.
We can always locate our hidden but truly present Savior in the preaching of his gospel and in the administration of his sacraments. We see him there with the eyes of faith, because he has told us in his faith-creating Word that this is where he is.
In the text from St. Matthew that we heard a few minutes ago, Jesus tells us about another way in which he is already present among us - now - even as we still wait for his visible appearance on judgment day. Listen again to the words that Jesus says will be spoken to the resurrected righteous ones as they stand before his throne on that day:
“Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’”
“Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’”
In many passages of Scripture, Christ has revealed that he is truly present for us, and is ready to be the giver of his salvation to us, in his Word and sacraments. We don’t physically see him there, but we know that he is there because he has told us that he is there.
In today’s Gospel, Christ has also revealed that he is truly present for us, and is ready to be the recipient of our love, in, with, and under our needy brothers and sisters. We don’t physically see him there, either, but we know that he is there because he has told us that he is there.
Now, when your conscience tells you that have sinned, that you need God’s forgiveness, and that you need to get right with God once again, do not look to the good works that you might be able to do for the needy, as the place where you can find what you need at such a time. Jesus, as the forgiver of sins, does not come to us through the poor and needy, but through the means of grace.
But when you already have God’s forgiveness, and by faith are at peace with God because of that forgiveness; and when, as the fruit of a living faith, you want to demonstrate to Jesus your gratitude for his saving mercy toward you, then, at such a time, and for such a purpose, your struggling brother’s need, and your afflicted sister’s need, are precisely where you should look, in order to find the place where your love for Christ can best be expressed.
Jesus is there. He is hidden, but he is truly there, as his Word says, waiting for you to seek him out in love. He is there waiting for you to show to him your compassion and generosity.
He is there waiting for you to share with him of the material blessings that have been bestowed on you in this life. Again, he tells us: “I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.”
When is the last time you fed Jesus, or gave him something to drink? When is the last time you showed your Lord some needed hospitality, or clothed him? When is the last time you cared for your Savior in his sickness, or visited him in his loneliness?
Hopefully we are eager and willing to go to Christ for help, when we sense our need for his help. Hopefully we are eager and willing to seek him out in the means of grace, in order to receive spiritual blessings from him.
But how eager are we to go to Christ in order to help him, and show him our love and gratitude? How eager are we to seek him out in the needs of those who are poor or disadvantaged, who are the victims of injustice or cruelty, or who are hurting in any number of other ways? Maybe not as often.
We can find plenty of opportunities to do this, if we keep our eyes, and our hearts, open.
For example, through our church body we can help orphans in India to continue to have a place to live and food to eat - and also to receive a Christian education. In our own community, our generosity is always appreciated by the Princeton Pantry Food Shelf, and by the Life Choices pro-life counseling center.
And there are no doubt people you know personally who struggle with a difficult circumstance. Maybe they need a little money. But more often than not, what they really need is a kind and encouraging word, and just your showing interest in them, and compassion for them.
Jesus is in all these situations. Jesus is in all these people.
“I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’
That’s what Jesus will say. That’s what Jesus says to you, now.
As we think this morning particularly of judgment day, and of what the Lord will at that time tell those who are destined for eternal fire - that is, those who are without faith, and consequently also without the fruits of faith - it gives us pause:
“Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’ ... Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.”
Isn’t it a wonderful thing, therefore, that Jesus himself has done everything that is necessary for our salvation? It’s a wonderful thing that our lack of showing love for him - of which we repent, and which we deeply regret - is forgiven today through his great and perfect love for us.
When we were hungry with the emptiness of spiritual death, he filled us with himself, and gave us the bread of life to eat. When we were parched with the thirst of a dead and dry unbelief, he gave us the water of life which flows as an endless fountain.
When we were aliens and strangers, he made us to be a part of his holy people and his beloved nation, and built us into the living temple which is his church. When we were morally naked before God, unable to cover the shame and filth of our own unrighteousness, he clothed us with himself in baptism and put his own righteousness upon us.
When we were sick in our sinfulness, he bestowed on us the medicine of immortality - his own life-giving body and precious blood, given and shed for the remission of sins. When we were slaves and captives of Satan, he set us free with the glorious liberty of the children of God - in whose mansions we have an eternal home, which he has prepared for us.
Our loving works for Christ, which we perform in faith, are necessary and natural, but they are nevertheless always imperfect. Our compassion for the poor and needy, while sincere, is always incomplete and impure.
But Christ’s loving work for us and for our redemption - in his life, death, and resurrection - was perfect. His compassion for us now, and his desire to bestow upon us his forgiveness, life, and salvation, is genuine and pure.
Because of his great love for us, we who cling to him in faith, who are clothed in his righteousness, and who then depart from this world in this faith and with this righteousness, will stand before Christ on judgment day without fear.
He has already justified us, acquitted us, and pronounced us to be not guilty in his Holy Absolution. With all our hearts we have believed his words of pardon and hope.
And because he cannot lie, but is - in his person - the Way, the Truth, and the Life, through whom we come to the Father, he will not change his mind on the last day. St. Paul comforts us in this regard in his epistle to the Romans:
“Jesus our Lord...was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand...”
As we humbly yet eagerly await the day of Christ’s visible return, we known that Christ is already invisibly present in the means of grace, to which he continually draws us, to forgive our sins and to preserve and strengthen us in our faith in him.
And we know that he is also already present, invisibly, in the hardships and trials of our needy brothers and sisters, to which he also continually draws us, guiding and prompting us to those works of mercy through which we exercise our love for him.
Jesus warns that on judgment day the unrighteous and wicked “will go away to eternal punishment.” But he also promises - to you and to me - that those who are righteous - righteous in the righteousness of Christ - will go “to eternal life.” Amen.
22 November 2023 - Thanksgiving Eve
“Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever.”
Tomorrow is our country’s national Day of Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving became a national holiday in 1863, during the American Civil War, but the roots of this observance go back much further in American history.
What is often referred to as the “first Thanksgiving” was the autumn harvest festival that was observed in the Plymouth colony in 1621, by the surviving Mayflower Pilgrims. They were joined for this observance by the Wampanoag chief Massasoit, and by others from that neighboring American Indian tribe.
About half of the passengers on the Mayflower had died during the first winter, but those who survived, did survive, largely due to the help that was rendered to them by the Indians - especially Tisquantum, also known as Squanto, who was described by Governor William Bradford as “a special instrument sent of God.”
The Pilgrims’ faith in God’s providence was not shaken by the loss of so many of their party, because their certainty of God’s goodness and love was based on other things. They also knew that Jesus had told his church - as recorded in St. John’s Gospel:
“In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”
So, when they had passed their first year in the new world, and had brought in a bountiful harvest, it was only to be expected that the settlers would, in faith and with gratitude to God, pause to mark the occasion with a special feast. And it was only fitting that their native friends and neighbors would participate with them.
When the Pilgrims’ spiritual leader, Elder William Brewster, prayed over the food that was set before them that day, he and the other Plymouth settlers knew exactly to whom they were praying. Their Indian guests may not have, but the settlers all did.
Most of them were members of an independent Christian congregation in Leiden, Holland. Some of them were members of the Church of England.
All of them professed faith in the triune God of the Bible, and in Jesus Christ as the divine-human Lord and Savior of mankind. And the Pilgrims were very much aware of an oft-repeated statement in the Bible that is familiar also to us:
“Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever.”
Their gratitude to God for his protection and bounty was colored by an explicitly Biblical understanding of what God is like, and of why God is kind toward us. God is, in his essence, good, and is in fact the standard and measure of all goodness. God is not capricious and untrustworthy.
Their gratitude to God was also colored by an awareness of the fact that God’s benevolence flows from his mercy, and not from a duty to do for us whatever we want. So, when God allows a trial to come upon us, or when he chastises us for our transgressions, that’s something that he, as a good God, has the right to do.
Following the example of this 1621 festival, Thanksgiving became a New England tradition. Before the Civil War, the observance of Thanksgiving could be found also in places west of New England, where New Englanders had moved and settled.
And it continued to be a tradition among New Englanders - both inside and beyond New England itself - even when many of them became Unitarians, and ceased to believe in the triune God of Holy Scripture.
I imagine that in the early years of Princeton’s existence, in the 1850s, Thanksgiving was observed here, since Princeton was originally settled by people with roots in New England. Abraham Lincoln, while born in Kentucky and raised in Indiana and Illinois, also had family roots in New England. And it was through him that Thanksgiving first became a national holiday.
As Thanksgiving became more national, it became - in itself - less explicitly Christian. But there was still a general awareness among all the Americans who did observe it - whether they were Christians or Jews, Congregationalists or Unitarians - that there is a powerful God in heaven who makes himself known through nature, and who blesses people through the bounty of nature.
Today, though, even this natural knowledge of God is being lost by many. The United States is becoming a post-Christian and secular society at a rapid pace. And Americans who have lost their faith in any kind of God don’t quite know what to do with Thanksgiving.
I remember an episode of the old “All in the Family” TV show, when Archie’s atheist son-in-law Michael sat down at the Thanksgiving table and said, “Let’s eat!” Archie, while never a very devout practitioner of his professed Protestant religion, did raise a protest to that, and insisted on a prayer to God being said first.
More recently, I saw, on another TV show, a totally secular family sitting down at their Thanksgiving table, and pausing - before they ate - not to thank God for his blessings, but to express thanks to each other for various kindnesses of the past year.
This was done in such a way as to suggest that they thought that this was always what Thanksgiving was supposed to be about. This television family - which sadly represents many real families of our day - seemed to have a total lack of awareness of what they had lost, in a life without God, and without thankful hearts directed toward God.
For us who are Christians, however, we observe Thanksgiving from within the parameters of our revealed Biblical faith - or at least we should. But do we?
Liturgically, we often repeat that well-known verse:
“Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever.”
This statement can be found in First Chronicles 16, in Psalm 106, in Psalm 107, and in two places in Psalm 118. I think God wants us to be fully aware of the sentiments that are expressed in that verse! But are we?
God no doubt wants the sentiments of that verse to be deeply ingrained is us. But are they?
“Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!”
I suppose everyone would agree with those words, on their face. But how should the term “good” be defined and applied?
Does the goodness of God mean that he will never judge and punish sin and wickedness? Does it mean that he will never chastise us, on account of our sins?
Does it means that he will overlook and silently tolerate all acts of defiance against his law, and all acts of disrespect against his honor? Does it mean that he will ignore those who ignore him?
According to the whole counsel of God in Holy Scripture, the goodness of God doesn’t mean any of those things.
You will never have the right to shake your fist or your finger at God: demanding that he bless you as you want to be blessed, yet without your having to listen to him, believe as he teaches, or do as he says.
Because God is good, he is opposed to everything that is not good, in the world in general, and in your own life - in your attitudes and your actions. Because he is good, he wants you also to be good - as he defines goodness - and he will do what is necessary to cause you to become and to be good.
St. Paul writes in his Epistle to the Romans:
“Consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off.”
And in Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians, in his description of the fruit of the Spirit that properly characterizes the lives of God’s people, we read:
“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”
Being reminded of these things does help us to understand what that well-known verse is teaching us when it then goes on to say:
“For His mercy endures forever.”
On Thanksgiving, we are indeed grateful to God for his mercies. He doesn’t owe us or our country anything.
Whatever good we have from him, we have because he is merciful, not because we deserve it. And this is true for everyone in the nation. In St. Matthew, Jesus teaches that
“Your Father in heaven...makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”
In addition, the Small Catechism teaches us, regarding the petition in the Lord’s Prayer for daily bread, that
“God certainly gives daily bread without our prayer, even to all the wicked; but we pray in this petition that He would lead us to acknowledge this and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving.
What the Christian Pilgrims understood in 1621, we also understand. The greatest gift for which we are thankful - on this Thanksgiving Day and on all days - is the gift of Jesus Christ.
More precisely, it is the gift of his perfect life, lived in obedience to the law, for us; the gift of his atoning death, offered in sacrifice according to the demands of the law, for us; the gift of his victorious resurrection, opening the way of eternal life, for us; and the gift here and now of the gospel, preached and applied through Word and Sacrament, in which all these other saving gifts are packaged and delivered to us, for our forgiveness and justification.
“God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”
These words, from St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, have a profound meaning for us whenever we hear them. But today - as we ponder with thanksgiving God’s many gifts to us - these words mean even more to us than usual.
Our Salvation in Christ is the ultimate gift of God - the gift that puts all other gifts in their proper perspective.
On this Thanksgiving Day we certainly do know whom we are thanking. We are not thanking a nebulous and mostly unknown God, discerned by human reason from the observations of nature.
We are not thanking a God who is obligated to bless us as we determine, and whom we can scold when he doesn’t give us what we want. And while there is a time and a place for it, right now, we are not thanking each other, either.
We are thanking the triune God as revealed in Scripture, who created the heavens and the earth, who sent his Son to be the Redeemer of the world, and whose Spirit dwells within us, sustaining our faith, and sanctifying us.
Insofar as Thanksgiving Day is a national holiday, we do join with all our neighbors - both Christians and non-Christians - in observing it.
But insofar as we are indeed Christians - who know God as he has revealed himself; and who are saved by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ - we observe Thanksgiving in a fuller and deeper way; in a more humble and a more joyful way; and in a way that more closely resembles the way the Pilgrims observed it in 1621.
“Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever.” Amen.
26 November 2023 - Last Sunday of the Church Year - 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
In an episode of the T.V. show M*A*S*H from many years ago, the Frank Burns character was talking with the Hawkeye and Trapper John characters about fear of the dark. He told them that he was not afraid of the dark, because there’s nothing there in the dark that is not there in the light.
I suppose there’s some validity to that, as far as inanimate objects are concerned. But there are also living beings in this world, who think, plan, and scheme.
And these living beings - whether it is a cockroach crawling onto your kitchen counter, a mouse crawling into your pantry, or a thief crawling through your window - quite often use the cover of darkness to do things that they would not do in the daylight.
They choose to act in the dark, so that you will not see them coming, not know what they are up to, and not be able to prevent them from doing what they want to do, and going where they want to go.
In today’s lesson from his First Epistle to the Thessalonians, St. Paul uses the illustration of a thief in the darkness to describe the great shock and surprise that will come upon the unbelieving world when the Day of the Lord arrives. Do notice, though, that it is not Jesus himself who is being described as a thief.
When Jesus returns visibly to raise the dead and judge the world, he is not going to be stealing anything that does not rightfully belong to him. All things were created through him.
And he has redeemed all men by the shedding of his blood. We therefore do not belong to ourselves. We were bought with a price.
Jesus is the rightful Lord over all people: both those who acknowledge him, and those who resist in unbelief until the end, and enter into judgment. But they will enter into judgment because of the hardness of their own hearts, in spite of the fact that Jesus was their Creator and Redeemer.
And so, according to Paul’s imagery, It is not Jesus who is a thief, but it is the Day of the Lord that comes like a thief. In other words, that day sneaks up on people who are not expecting it, and who cannot see that it is coming, because of the darkness of their minds.
“For when they say, ‘Peace and safety!,’ then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape.”
As Paul goes more deeply into the metaphor of darkness and nighttime, He expands on the reasons why those who are in the dark do not notice what is approaching.
Not only is the darkness itself like a curtain or pall that hides the approach of a nighttime intruder; but the person who is being intruded upon is also distracted from his watchfulness, by those things in which he is engaged, in the darkness. The apostle writes that “those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night.”
When my son was a baby, he was a very sound sleeper. He could sleep through anything.
One time, when he was just a couple months old, he was napping directly below the smoke alarm in the apartment where we were then living. Something on the stove, in the adjacent kitchen, started to burn, which set off the smoke alarm.
As it was blaring with its loud and shrill tone, my baby son did not stir at all. He just kept on sleeping, the whole time the alarm was sounding.
Today, while the world still awaits the return of God’s Son, God is giving us every opportunity to become ready for his coming.
The condemnation of God’s law continues to blare at us - in the Ten Commandments and in our own consciences - as it warns us of God’s impending judgment against humanity’s sinful rebellion against his word; humanity’s arrogant defiance of his authority; and humanity’s cruelty toward others and exploitation of others.
God’s law is blaring its warnings to you, and against your transgressions. God is graciously working to rouse you from your slumbers of moral and spiritual indifference.
Are you hearing him? Are you waking up? Or are you still asleep in the darkness, unresponsive to his warnings, ignoring his voice?
St. Paul writes elsewhere that persistent drunkards will not inherit the kingdom of God. Literal intoxication is a violation of the fifth commandment, and is an affront to the God who insists that we honor him with our bodies and minds.
“Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit,” the apostle writes.
But drunkenness, in the context of today’s lesson, is also a metaphor for a deeper and more pervasive kind of problem: when people are driven by an inner, destructive compulsion to fill up that place in their lives that is supposed to be filled with the joy of Christ, with a craving for carnal pleasure instead; and when they seek to find in chemicals - or in any other earthly thing - what they should seek to find in God’s Word alone.
Are you filled with the Holy Spirit? Do you know the renewing and cleansing power of the Spirit of Christ in your life?
Or do you, in the darkness, fill your mind and soul with other spirits - with other things: things that do not renew you, but that wear you out, and use you up; things that do not cleanse you, but that pollute you, and poison you?
Those who morally pollute their minds and souls in this way, as a literal drunkard pollutes his body with alcohol, do not know that the day of the Lord is approaching. Those who “tune out” the warnings and admonitions of God, as a physically sleeping person “tunes out” the sounds of the world around him, are totally oblivious to what is coming.
The Day of the Lord is sneaking up on them. When it does come, therefore, they will be unprepared. They will be judged, and condemned.
And if you are in this situation - if you are, on the inside, trapped in the darkness of an unbelief that you do not admit to outwardly; if you are blinded to the truth of God by this darkness - then the day of the Lord will come upon you as a thief in the night.
That day will come. Nothing will change that. But you will not be ready for it. And you will be eternally destroyed by it.
But if you repent of your sins, and turn away from them; if you truly want to rise from your sleep, and be purged of your spiritual drunkenness before it is too late, then know this: Jesus Christ is the light of the world, who dispels all darkness, and who overcomes all the works of darkness. And you, who know him by faith, are not in darkness.
St. Paul says to those who abide in their baptism - who die daily to self, and who rise daily in Christ:
“You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober. ... Let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation.”
As you live in Christ - by faith in his words of pardon and life, and bearing the fruits of faith in a wholesome love for your neighbor - the day of the Lord will not surprise you like a thief. The visible coming of Jesus on the last day will not shock you.
And that’s because those who are children of the day, and who live in the light of Christ, are actually quite used to Christ coming to them all the time. He doesn’t come visibly, of course. That unique mode of his coming is yet to occur.
But invisibly, he comes whenever his words of pardon and life are proclaimed. Jesus said to those ministers whom he sent forth to preach in his name:
“The one who hears you, hears me.”
And this is especially so when Christ speaks these words through his ministers:
“Take, eat; this is my body, which is given for you. Drink of it, all of you; this cup is the New Testament in my blood, which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins.”
In his gospel, Jesus is here among us. As we abide in him, and he in us, we do grow in humility, and in our awareness of how desperately we need him in life and in death.
We also grow in our trust in him, as he remains ever faithful toward us. And we grow in our desire to be like him.
Those who are without the faith that God’s Spirit gives, are blind to the things that Jesus does among us. They are in the dark. They cannot see him, even as they cannot hear him.
But we are in the light. It is always daytime for us, as we walk by the light of Christ. By faith we can see and hear everything that he does and says in his Word and Sacraments.
According to the new nature that his Spirit has birthed within us, we are very comfortable with Jesus, and rejoice to be where he is. He does not frighten us.
And so, on the last day, when Jesus makes the transition from his many invisible comings, to his one, ultimate, visible appearance, we, by faith, will be ready. We will welcome him, and we will rejoice.
In contrast, the children of darkness will be terrified by his appearing: terrified and shocked. We will not be.
In the peace of the gospel we will be calm, as our beloved Savior, and our familiar friend, comes among us once again - and ushers us into something new, something wonderful, something eternal.
And if, in your human weakness, you think that you might still be just a little bit afraid as all of this unfolds, remember the story of Jesus walking on the water in the storm.
St. John tells us that the disciples “saw Jesus walking on the sea and drawing near the boat; and they were afraid. But He said to them, ‘It is I; do not be afraid.’”
So, too, Jesus will tell you on the last day: “It is I; do not be afraid.”
When you know that the one coming to sift and judge men is Jesus - your Savior and friend Jesus - you will not be afraid. You will never be afraid again, forever.
“For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that...we should live together with Him. Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing.” Amen.