FEBRUARY 2024
FEBRUARY 2024
4 February 2024 - Sexagesima - Luke 8:26-37
Please listen with me to a reading from the eighth chapter of the Gospel according to St. Luke, beginning at the twenty-sixth verse:
Then [Jesus and his disciples] sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.” For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many a time it had seized him. He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert.) Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Legion,” for many demons had entered him. And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. Now a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and drowned. When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they fled and told it in the city and in the country. Then people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. And those who had seen it told them how the demon-possessed man had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked him to depart from them, for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned.
So far our text.
Christians throughout the centuries - in their yearning for a strong and resilient faith - have often felt that if they just could have been there when Jesus walked the earth, and if they could have seen his miracles with their own eyes, their faith would be stronger.
All of us occasionally wonder what it would have been like to have been with Jesus physically when these things happened. We want to believe in these things - and in him - with all our hearts.
In the face of our doubts, we want to have a sure and certain conviction that these extraordinary miracles really did happen; and that the man who demonstrated his power over both natural and supernatural forces by performing these miracles, really is the Son of God and our Savior.
But, unfortunately, we are far, far removed in time from these events. And time machines have not yet been invented. It would seem, therefore, that we are at a great disadvantage, compared to the people who knew Jesus in the flesh, and who saw the wondrous things that he did during his earthly ministry.
We envy them, and we envy the certainty of faith that we assume they had: since they personally experienced those faith-building events that we have not experienced, and cannot experience.
But should we be so sure that the people who were with Jesus during those days really did have a stronger faith than we have - due to their having been there to see these things firsthand? Should we be so sure that if we had been there, to experience his miracles for ourselves, that our faith would necessarily be stronger than it is now?
Let’s take a few moments to consider the events described in the text from St. Luke that I just read. This is the story of a man in the region of the Gerasenes who was possessed by many demons.
The region of the Gerasenes was obviously not a Jewish area. The presence of a large herd of pigs demonstrates that. There were not very many believers in the true God in this region.
But the people there certainly did recognize the power of the devil and his minions. In particular, they saw the kind of misery that a host of demons was putting that possessed man through on a daily basis.
But there was nothing they could do about it. These were supernatural forces - evil and dark supernatural forces - that no mortal man could withstand.
But when Jesus came to this place, the evil spirits in that man knew immediately who he was. And they knew that they were in trouble.
They did not want to be sent to the abyss, as they called it. And so Jesus gave them permission to enter into the pigs. In an instant the demons had left the man whom they had possessed, and he was free of their torments.
Imagine what it would have been like, to be one of the people of that region who had witnessed this. You would have seen with your own eyes a man of Israel - Jesus - who was filled with a heavenly power that was stronger than the hellish power of the demons.
You would have heard with your own ears the conversation that took place between this man, with his powerful yet kindly voice, and the evil spirits, with their gravelly and sinister voices.
Do you think that seeing and hearing these things would have certainly caused you to believe in Jesus? Do you think that your faith in him and in his divine mission would without any doubt have been strengthened considerably through these experiences? Think again!
For the people who did see and hear these things, they were not drawn to Jesus in faith, but they were repelled from Jesus in fear. They asked him to leave their region.
They did not want to put their trust in him or to learn God’s Word from him. They wanted him to go as far away from them as possible! Why is this? Well, for the simple reason that being an eyewitness to a miracle, in itself, does not create or strengthen a true, saving faith.
In regard to the things of this world, the saying, “Seeing is believing,” is usually true. But in regard to the things of God - the regeneration of corrupted hearts, the enlightenment of darkened minds, and the saving of lost souls - seeing, with the physical eyes, is not believing.
The Gerasenes saw. They saw a lot. They did not believe. God does not use miracles to cause people to believe in Christ. Such faith comes only through the word of Christ.
The miracles of Jesus did get people’s attention. But what we actually see in the New Testament, is that those people who witnessed a miracle of Jesus, were more likely than not to misconstrue its meaning; or to project their own preconceived interpretations onto it; or to accuse Jesus of sorcery because of it; or, as with the Gerasenes, to become afraid of Jesus, so that they just didn’t want to deal with him at all.
St. Paul tells us in his Epistle to the Romans that “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” That’s how the people who knew Jesus in person during his earthly ministry were brought to a true and living faith in him - specifically as they listened to him preach and teach. And that’s how we today are likewise brought to a true and living faith in him.
We should not think that the people who were around Jesus in the first century, and who saw the things he did with their own eyes, had any advantage over us in regard to the strength or durability of their faith.
The sinful human nature never wants to believe in God, regardless of how many physical miracles may take place. These miracles can always be explained away, or ignored, by the unbelieving heart.
St. Paul says in his Epistle to the Colossians that, in regard to the true God, unbelievers are by nature “alienated and hostile in mind.” An outward miracle, even a spectacular one, will not change that. You might think it will, but it will not.
This inborn alienation and hostility toward God, with which we all come into this world, can, however, be changed by the Word of God. The message of God’s grace in Christ has within it the power to convert and save those who hear it. Through Isaiah the Prophet - as we heard in today’s Old Testament lesson - God himself tells us:
“For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.”
God’s powerful word comes to you from the pages of the Bible, and through biblical preaching. God’s powerful word comes to you also in Holy Baptism, which according to St. Paul is “the washing of water with the word.” And God’s powerful word comes to you in the Supper that Jesus instituted for his church, which is constituted, and made present for us here and now, through the consecrating word of God’s Son.
What God intends to accomplish in the sending of his word to us, in these various ways, is the bestowing of faith on unbelievers, and the renewing of faith in believers; bringing Christ to his people, and filling and refilling his people with Christ.
When your faith is challenged by the distractions and deceptions of the twenty-first century world in which you live, you are not lacking in access to the means that God has always used to help and comfort his people in their struggles, and to bolster their faith.
The people who lived during the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry did have access to his word. But so do you!
The preaching of Jesus rings forth from the pages of Holy Scripture with just as much power as it had when it was first uttered by his lips. He himself still speaks through his ministers - the called and ordained servants of his Word - when they proclaim his gospel and administer his sacraments in his stead.
We have everything we need for our salvation, and for the strengthening of our faith, in the ministry of Word and Sacrament that is carried out in our midst by the Lord’s command.
Were you there when Jesus healed the sick and the lame, when he fed thousands of people with a few loaves and fishes, or when he raised the dead? Were you there when Jesus cast a legion of demons out of the Gerasene man? No, you were not.
But as far as the certainty of your faith is concerned, it doesn’t matter that you were not there. Those who were there had no advantage over you.
The people of the first century who did believe in Jesus, and who faced life and death with the confidence of an unswerving faith, did not get that confidence from the extraordinary events that they saw. They got it from the preaching of the gospel and the administration of the sacraments.
And that’s where Jesus wants to give you the same confidence. That’s where he wants to work a hidden miracle for you, whenever you are afflicted by doubt or temptation; whenever your faith becomes weak and uncertain.
In the message of the gospel, and in the promise of Baptism - which remains as an enduring power in your life - your Father in heaven takes care of you and preserves you. He assures you that Jesus is indeed your Redeemer from sin and death, who came into this world to seek and to save the lost, the fearful, and the hopeless.
In the message of the gospel, and in the Lord’s Holy Supper - where Jesus speaks divine words of invitation and remission of sins to each communicant - God’s Spirit impresses upon you the certain truth that Jesus did die for your sins, and was raised again for your justification.
And you are in these ways, and through these means, given an opportunity to cling here and now to the living Christ, so that you can face even the deepest challenges of life and death with an unswerving confidence in your Savior, and in your salvation.
Sometimes it’s not easy to believe. Sometimes we stumble in our faith. Sometimes we might wonder if all that we have been taught in church is really true.
When such times of doubt and uncertainty come upon us, listen attentively to the Lord’s message. In humility remember your Baptism. In repentance receive his Holy Supper. Read and meditate on the Scriptures.
And as you do, you will know - by the grace of the God who therein speaks to you - that you belong to Christ, in life and in death. God’s Spirit will bear witness with your spirit that you are his child.
You will be sure that Jesus rose from the dead for you, and that you will live forever with him. God’s word will accomplish the purpose for which he sends it - for which he sends it to you.
You may not be able to touch Jesus bodily with your hands, or hear Jesus audibly with your ears. But that doesn’t matter.
Jesus comes to you in the means of grace in ways that are more potent and beneficial than the physical interactions he had with the Gerasenes, or with anyone else who knew him only in a physical way. Jesus comes to you in his means of grace to give to you, and to preserve within you, a real and enduring faith.
Speak, O Lord, Thy servant heareth, To Thy Word I now give heed;
Life and spirit Thy Word beareth, All Thy Word is true indeed.
Death's dread power in me is rife; Jesus, may Thy Word of Life
Fill my soul with love's strong fervor That I cling to Thee forever. Amen.
11 February 2024 - Quinquagesima - 1 Samuel 16:1-13
Today’s lesson from the First Book of Samuel includes this very significant statement:
“For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
Samuel had been told by God that he had chosen one of the sons of Jesse of Bethlehem to be the next king of Israel. But Samuel hadn’t initially been told which one.
Samuel assumed that one of Jesse’s older, stronger, and seemingly more accomplished sons would have been the Lord’s natural choice. To Samuel, they looked like good “king” material.
But God had chosen their youngest brother David instead. God could see things in David that Samuel could not see - things which made him preeminently qualified to be King Saul’s future successor on the throne, according to God’s standards.
Samuel was reminded on this occasion that he should never presume that he knows what God is doing or thinking, apart from God’s revelation of what he is doing and thinking. Samuel was reminded on this occasion that God’s will is always to be trusted and not second-guessed, and that God’s actions are always to be accepted and not criticized, because God knows more than we do.
Of course, God knows more than we do about everything. But in this case, the focus was on the fact that God knows more than other people know regarding what is really going on in someone’s heart and mind.
God alone knows what someone’s inner beliefs and convictions really are. God alone knows what someone’s motives and intentions really are. And God alone knows what someone’s inner temptations and personal struggles really are.
“For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
We should always be wary of judging someone’s motives, or of drawing conclusions about the sincerity of someone’s faith, based only on subjective factors.
Certainly we can make judgments and draw conclusions regarding such things on the basis of someone’s outward statements and outward actions. But otherwise, we are admonished by the Eighth Commandment - especially as our Small Catechism explains it - always to put the best interpretation on questionable things.
So, if someone says he believes in Jesus, then we accept that he believes in Jesus - even if we may have our doubts - unless he gives clear and incontrovertible evidence that he is not actually a Christian.
Also, the members of a congregation may be aware of a fellow-member’s spiritual weaknesses, and may observe that person’s occasional failures or frequent lapses in regard to some specific sin.
But others would probably not be aware of his just-as-frequent expressions of repentance in private confession with the pastor, or of his being absolved and confidentially counseled regularly by the pastor: as he daily struggles against his weaknesses with the Lord’s help, and as he daily calls upon the Lord for forgiveness - perhaps doing so even seventy times seven times.
So, the members generally may not know as much as the pastor knows. And of course the pastor in such a case does not know as much as God knows, about what is really going on in somebody else’s heart.
The pastor knows what another person says he believes, and he responds accordingly. But the pastor does not - with absolute certainty - know what another person actually does believe.
“For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
When the Lord looks at your heart - when he probes and examines the tangled and confused thoughts and feelings that reside, all jumbled up, inside of you - what does he see?
You might be able to hide and cover up your religious hypocrisies, your wicked thoughts, your selfish motives, or your greedy desires, so that other people don’t know about them. But don’t ever think that God does not know about them.
In Matthew’s Gospel, we hear Jesus say this:
“For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man.”
Such defilements proceed from the human heart, because - according to the sinful nature that we have inherited from Adam, and with which we are all born - these defilements are in the human heart. And God sees them.
He sees all of them. According to the old Adam that is in you, and in his fiery holiness, God sees all of them in you. And he doesn’t like what he sees.
King David speaks these sober and sobering words in Psalm 53:
“God looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek God. Every one of them has turned aside; they have together become corrupt; there is none who does good, no, not one.”
There are consequences to what our holy God sees, and to the righteous judgments that he makes based on what he sees. Through the Prophet Jeremiah, the Lord himself declares:
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.”
A human being - even an unregenerated and unbelieving human being - can hide the more shameful and repulsive aspects of his sinful heart from other people. He can suppress the more overtly harmful impulses that arise from within himself, and not outwardly act on them.
He can be a respectable person in this world. According to the standards of civil righteousness he may indeed be respectable, and may be successful in restraining himself from committing crimes and publicly disgracing himself.
But what is in his heart - in his mind, in his soul and spirit, and in his will - is not hidden from God. It does not escape God’s notice. And unless something extraordinary intervenes - something gracious and something divine - it will not escape God’s punishment on the Day of Judgment.
“For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
What people need - what all people need - is a new heart: a heart that does not anger God when he sees it, and when he sees what is in it. And so we pray regularly, in the words of Psalm 51,
“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”
And that is what God does in the gospel of his Son Jesus Christ.
Long ago, through the Prophet Ezekiel, God had promised to do this for his chosen people: and through them for the disciples of his Son who would be taken from all nations; and be baptized into the new spiritual Israel, destined in Christ for an eternal, heavenly promised land. The Lord says:
“For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you... I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes...”
This is what happens when God’s message of forgiveness and renewal in Christ comes to you, touches you, and creates and restores faith within you.
This is what God the Father does in you by his Spirit. And this is what God the Father now sees in you in his Son: who died and rose again for you, to reconcile you to God; and who now lives in you, to enlighten your mind, to liberate your will, and mystically to live out his life of love for humanity through you.
In his Epistle to the Ephesians, St. Paul offers a prayer for the Ephesians, and for all Christians both strong and weak; and he offers encouragement to the Ephesians, and to all Christians in all times and places. He writes:
“I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, ...that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height - to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
We continually need this kind of prayer, and this kind of encouragement: from St. Paul on the sacred page of Scripture, and from each other in the fellowship of the church. We continually need God’s pardon and help, which he does graciously offer in the means of grace: whenever his forgiveness is verbally announced into our ears, and sacramentally placed into our mouths.
We always need these things from God and from God’s people, because we always vacillate between our old sinful nature, which is still inside of us, and our new godly nature, which God has birthed within us.
The old nature is filled with death and corruption, while the new nature is filled with God’s grace and life. But the power of life is stronger than the power of death. The grace of God is stronger than the corruption of sin.
And, the righteousness of Christ covers all who repent and truly believe in him: justifying them before God; and making them acceptable and pleasing to God, in time and in eternity. In his Epistle to the Romans - quoting also from Psalm 32 - Paul writes that for one who believes in the gracious God who justifies the ungodly,
“his faith is accounted for righteousness, just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works: ‘Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin.”
So, when we come before God in Christ - redeemed by his atoning sacrifice, and washed in his blood - God does not see the death and the corruption. When he looks inside of us - not in his fiery holiness but in his grace, through the lens of his Son’s righteousness - he doesn’t see evil and decay.
He sees the wondrous, saving work of his own hands. He sees Christ, who dwells in our hearts through faith.
Even if we often falter and fail - and if our faith is weak - we have a right standing before God, as long as the one to whom we cling with that faith is Christ.
Even if we experience our own existence as a life that is full of inconsistencies - and if other people see us in that way, too - God, in Christ, does not see us in that way. He sees us, and counts us, as beloved children in his family, and as full citizens of his kingdom: from whom all sin has been lifted and cast away in Christ as far as the east is from the west.
“For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” Amen.
14 February 2024 - Ash Wednesday - Job 4:14-20
A well-known African-American spiritual includes these poignant words:
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.Were you there when God raised him from the tomb?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.The song repeatedly asks the rhetorical question, “Were you there?” When these momentous events, so important for human salvation, occurred, were you there?
Of course, no one who has ever sung this song or heard it sung, was there when Jesus was crucified, buried, and raised from the dead. But just the thought of these events can indeed cause those who ponder them to tremble: to tremble with awe, to tremble with grief, to tremble with a whole array of emotions.
And maybe there is some comfort in the distance that does exist between those who sing this song today, and the extraordinary events of the past that the song recalls. What comes through in the song is the implication that if we had been there to see these things happen, we would probably have been overwhelmed by what we saw.
If pondering these events from a distance causes us to tremble, can you imagine what the reaction would have been if we were actually there, seeing, hearing, smelling, and feeling everything, up-close and personally?
But there’s something else that makes us tremble when we ponder it - or at least that should make us tremble - something that is up-close and personal and not at a safe distance. What also causes us to tremble - to shudder profoundly and to be shaken to our core - is God’s wrath against human sin.
If God punished Lucifer and the angels who fell away from him, he will certainly also punish humans who fall away: who rebel against his righteousness, who defy his authority, who ignore his commandments, and who in their wickedness defile and corrupt themselves.
What Job in ancient times knew, we also know. What made Job tremble, makes us tremble:
“Fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones shake. ... Then I heard a voice saying: ‘Can a mortal be more righteous than God? Can a man be more pure than his Maker? If [God] puts no trust in His servants, if He charges His angels with error, how much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed before a moth? They are broken in pieces from morning till evening; they perish forever, with no one regarding.’”
Ever since the so-called “Enlightenment” emerged as an intellectual and cultural movement in the eighteenth century, our civilization has moved ever further away from its previous abhorrence of sin - as God’s law defines sin - and ever further away from its previous fear of God’s punishment of sin.
Man is now the measure of all things. And man’s will is now the standard of what is right.
Of course, people have always sinned. What is new and different now is that sin is called righteousness, and evil is called good. People in general no longer tremble at sin, and at the knowledge that God will punish sin both in time and in eternity.
But we do tremble. With God’s help we tremble, because with God’s help we are defying a society that defies God.
We are gathered here in this place on this evening to begin our observance of a special season of humility and repentance, and a special season of pleading for God’s much-needed forgiveness.
And as we repent, and as we plead for divine pardon on account of our offenses, we take a second look at the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. And maybe we don’t tremble as much as before.
Consider what the prophet Isaiah said about the sufferings of the Messiah who was to come. He described him as “a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” That makes us tremble.
But Isaiah also says that “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.” And we stop trembling, because we now know that we have a true and faithful friend in Jesus.
Isaiah also tells us that this suffering servant was wounded and bruised; and that he was chastised and punished, with many painful stripes from a whip laid upon his back. That makes us tremble. Yet Isaiah also tells us:
“But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.”
The trembling stops. We are at peace now, knowing that the wounds and bruises that should have been upon us, were upon our Substitute before God instead; and that the chastisement and publishment from God that we deserve has been absorbed - according to God’s loving and gracious will - by God himself, in the person of his Son.
Indeed, according to Isaiah, this Savior was “cut off from the land of the living.” His suffering was full and complete, and unto death: sufficient to pay the penalty of all sins committed by all people over all time. We might tremble a bit once again.
But death is not the final chapter in this man’s story. He shall live again, and his saving work shall continue in the spreading of his gospel. Isaiah tells us that
“He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many.”
So now we really do cease from our shuddering and our shaking. In this moment - with these comforting thoughts, and with these confident God-given convictions - we stand before God without fear.
God has allowed us, by faith, to have a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. And that truly does change everything.
In knowing our risen Lord by faith - and in knowing the forgiveness, life, and salvation that he gives and gives again to those who cling to him - we are justified before his Father in heaven. Jesus spreads his righteousness over us, and lays it upon us: to cover all our sins, and to extinguish God’s wrath against our sins.
During this penitential season we may still tremble, at those times when we ponder the deep and profound mysteries of our faith, and when we ponder our own frailness and weakness before the holiness and power of almighty God.
But also during this penitential season, at those times when the soothing grace of God’s pardon and peace is one again delivered to us in Word and Sacrament - and as the nail-scarred hands of our risen Savior embrace us in love - the trembling will stop.
And we will know that in the eternal home that Jesus is preparing for us, and to which he will welcome us, the trembling will stop forever.
We were not there when they crucified our Lord. We were not there when they nailed him to the tree. We were not there when they laid him in the tomb. And we were not there when God raised him from the tomb.
But certain people were there when those things happened, and these people witnessed those momentous events first-hand. In the sermons that will be preached during the midweek services that will be held during this Lenten season, over the next five Wednesdays, we will present vignettes and character studies of some of these people.
Hopefully we will be able to learn a few things about them, and in the process will also be able to learn a few things about ourselves. Please join us! Amen.
18 February 2024 - Lent 1 - Genesis 3:1-21
“Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, ‘Where are you?’”
Through the Prophet Isaiah, as God there addresses Israel and the human race, he describes himself in this way:
“My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
In comparison to the limitations of human knowledge, God knows everything. He is not spatially limited, either. He is everywhere.
But in his interactions with humanity, God often reveals himself, and expresses his thoughts, in very human-like ways. He wants to be understood by us, and so he makes himself known to us in ways that can be understood.
That’s the way he interacted with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Today’s Old Testament text from the Book of Genesis tells us that “they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.”
It would seem that God had been accustomed to interacting with Adam and Eve, and demonstrating his love for them, by “hanging out” with them in a human-like form.
God, in his divine existence, does not have a physical body. He does not have feet. But in the Garden of Eden, after he had created Adam and Eve, God on occasion seems to have assumed a temporary bodily form, in order to be as inviting and as accessible to them as he could be.
From time to time he manifested himself to them: “walking” toward them; and presumably then also walking with them - enjoying their company, and letting them enjoy his company - in the lush beauty of the garden.
But in today’s account, the Lord’s visit to Eden was not welcomed by our first parents. Something bad had happened - something tragic and horrible - which caused them instead to hide from their Creator.
When the Lord made his appearance in the garden - in a human-like manner - he also called out to Adam - in a human-like manner: “Where are you?” Ponder this for a moment.
What is God expressing in these words? That he literally doesn’t know where Adam is? No, he knows. He is God, and God knows everything.
But in human-like fashion, in order to make a point that can be understood by human beings, he is expressing his divine anguish, and his divine grief, that a breach has occurred between himself and his most beloved creatures.
One time ten years ago, when my then two-year-old grandson John was staying with us for a couple weeks, I took him with me to the church I was then serving, when I went there to print bulletins.
A couple church members were also there when we arrived - although they were just about to leave. When they left the building, I was in the office working with the computer and the printer. I did not see them go.
And I had sort of lost track of John, too. But I knew that he was somewhere in the building. Or at least I thought that I knew this.
After some time had elapsed, I realized that I hadn’t seen or heard my grandson for a while. And so I called out for him. “John, where are you?”
Silence. No answer. My heart skipped a beat.
I called out again, “John, where are you.” Again, no response. My heart skipped two beats.
John was supposed to be with me. We were supposed to be together. And now, it seemed, he was gone. A deeply anguished feeling instantly came over me.
I went from room to room - to the classrooms, to the fellowship room - calling out to him. He didn’t answer.
Of course, my thoughts took me to the fear that John had somehow slipped out of the building when that couple had left - unbeknownst to them. But before I went outside, to look for him there, I looked one more time in the church nave.
And there he was, standing in the shadows, silently smiling at me. All of my fears that something horrible had happened to him, were alleviated in an instant. Life then went on as normal.
There was a happy ending to this story. But there was not the same kind of happy ending to the story in today’s text, when God called out for Adam - as a father, or a grandfather, would call out for a missing child.
Adam was supposed to be with God. They were supposed to be together, where Adam would be safe, loved, and protected.
But they no longer were together. And the reason why, is because something horrible had indeed happened to Adam - and to his wife Eve.
Adam did timidly respond to the distant call of the Lord. He said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.” And the Lord then said to Adam:
“Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?”
That is exactly what had happened. There was now a breach - a tragic separation between God and humanity - caused by the sin of humanity. And this breach, this alienation, was and is profoundly harmful to man.
This breach did not harm God, in the sense that God was diminished in his divinity. He was not less divine than he was before, because of the departure of Adam and Eve from their companionship with him.
But God was grieved. His heart ached. And this divine heartache at the loss of his fellowship with his greatest and most beloved creatures, was expressed in a way that all of us can understand.
“Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, ‘Where are you?’”
Insofar as you were in Adam, and Adam is in you now - in your human sinfulness - this is the anguished call from your Creator that often sounds forth, from a distance, also to you.
This is the grieved and anguished call of the God whom you alienate because of your sins: your proud disobedience, your selfish rebellion, your following after the lies of the devil rather than the promises of your God.
“Where are you?” “Where are you?”
In your sin - when you turn your heart and mind away from the Word of God, and away from the love of God - you, in that moment, are not where you are supposed to be.
When you say “no” to God; and when you say “yes” to the world, the flesh, and the devil, a separation between you and God begins to set in - just as happened in Eden, so many millennia ago. But there is a solution.
There is a way back to God: for Adam, and for you. There is a way back to the place - with God - where we should all be; and to the relationship with God that we should all have.
In the garden - even in the midst of his grief over Adam’s sin - God, in effect, invited Adam and Eve to approach him again, by means of his promise and pledge that someday, the woman’s Seed would bruise the head of the lying serpent - crushing him with a death-blow.
God invited them to put their trust in this promise and pledge.
In God’s own all-knowing mind, what was in the future for Adam, was a present reality for God. In God’s own heart, the forgiveness that would someday be won, by Mary’s Son and his, was already a reality.
And God did forgive Adam and Eve. He covered them with garments of skin - skin that came from animals that had been slain by God for them, and for this purpose.
This covering - which required the shedding of a substitute’s blood - testified to the reconciliation that had taken place between God and man in Eden, because it pointed forward to the ultimate sacrifice that would be offered by the Seed of the woman on the cross, when the blood of Christ would be shed, to redeem humanity. That’s another detail that God’s prophecy covered.
Yes, the woman’s Seed would bruise and crush the serpent’s head. But in the process, the serpent would bruise and wound that Savior Son. Jesus would die. But he would not stay dead.
He would arise. And as the living Lord - the living bridge between God and man - he would indeed bring us back to God, as his Spirit works within us repentance of our sins, and faith in his gospel.
St. Paul writes in his Epistle to the Romans that “while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” He goes on to explain:
“God shows his love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”
“Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, ‘Where are you?’”
When your disobedience and rebellion, and your distancing of yourself from God, are forgiven and reversed by Christ, know that it is God himself - in the person of his only-begotten Son - who in his Word and sacrament is drawing you back to himself, and is reaching out to embrace you.
In Christ, your impending separation from God is over. As far as God’s thoughts about you are concerned, his grief and anguish are gone. Reconciliation has come, once again.
God no longer calls out to you, “Where are you?” In Christ, you are where you belong: close to God, and safe with God.
Your Lord, as it were, now knows where you are. He is no longer looking for you, or calling out to you from a distance.
And now, in Jesus Christ, there is a different kind of calling, spoken by God to you: but spoken “up close” this time.
Again, through the Prophet Isaiah, the Lord - in this reconciliation and in this peace - declares to his people, and to you:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” Amen.
25 February 2024 - Lent 2 - Romans 5:1-11
We’re all probably familiar with the well-known Groucho Marx gag, where Groucho is a doctor, and a patient comes to him and says, “Doctor, it hurts when I do this.” The doctor replies, “Then don’t do that.”
This is funny as slapstick humor. But we wouldn’t think that it was so funny if our actual doctor were to react in such a way, if we were to tell him about a pain that we had.
Pain is a problem. But we know that pain is also almost always a symptom of a deeper problem. When we go to the doctor, we expect the doctor to try to figure out what that deeper problem is, and not just to deal with the symptom.
There is a virtually universal perception among people, the world over, that the human race has problems. The crime and violence that we see all around us, the deceptions and betrayals that we often experience in our relationships, and the wars and conflicts that continually rage, prevent us from thinking that all is well in this world.
We all have to admit that things are not as they should be. As a consequence of this, we are often unhappy.
Now, being unhappy is indeed a problem. Some people superficially look for a “quick fix,” to solve the problem of their unhappiness. Often, unhappy people will turn to religion.
They feel unhappy. They want to go to a church that will make them feel happy. And there are many religious enterprises that are willing to comply with this desire.
They tailor everything they do to the goal of making people feel happy. Ministers with happy personalities deliver happy messages, and lead people in singing happy songs.
But that’s the religious equivalent of a Groucho Marx doctor’s office routine. Humanity’s unhappiness, such as it is, is not the real problem. It is a symptom of a deeper problem - or of several deeper problems.
Identifying those deeper human problems is a major challenge. Throughout human history, philosophers, educators, social engineers, scientists, and religious thinkers have all made their proposals of what it is - most fundamentally - that makes life in this world to be as stressful, as dangerous, as unfulfilling, and as unhappy as it usually is.
Some have concluded that the reason why things are not as they should be, is because people are ignorant and superstitious, and need a more enlightened and scientific education.
Others point us to the way of spiritual enlightenment and new-age meditation. People need to find the divinity that is within themselves, in order to be at peace within themselves.
Others again are convinced that the most basic human problem is the economic exploitation of the poor by the rich, so that a scheme for redistributing the material wealth of the world is what is needed.
Still others are persuaded that the most basic human problem is that people repress and deny their true feelings and desires. We should not be so inhibited, they say. True happiness will come only when everyone does what he or she wants - when people “follow their hearts,” without caring what others think.
Some of these theories are interesting. But none of them gets to the core of the real problems.
The Christian faith also puts forth a proposal, as to what our common human predicament really is - and what will deliver us from this predicament. And we are bold enough to say that the Christian explanation of humanity’s deepest problems is the right explanation.
We say this, because God himself has given this explanation. And the Christian explanation - the Scriptural explanation - does indeed get to the bottom of everything.
In today’s second lesson from the Epistle to the Romans, St. Paul gives us a list of humanity’s real problems: not just the outward symptoms, but what is wrong at the most fundamental level. And as he gives us this list, he also tells us how God solves each and every one of these problems: in the life, death, and resurrection of his Son Jesus Christ.
Pay attention to St. Paul’s list, because in it he describes the natural condition of all people, not just some. And he identifies for all of us the fundamental human problems that impact everyone, not just a few.
First, we are reminded that humanity is without excuse before God. We cannot justify our sinful actions. We stand before God in shame and guilt for all those sins that have disrupted our relationship with him. That’s a major problem.
But when God speaks to us his forgiveness in Christ, and delivers that forgiveness to us in his gospel and sacraments; and, when he invites us to believe that what he tells us is true, that disruption comes to an end.
That gap is breached. We are invited in Christ to stand again in the presence of God, without shame and guilt - because Jesus Christ has removed that shame and guilt from us:
“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, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”
Without Christ, in their natural state, human beings hate God in their hearts. That’s another major problem.
To be sure, we don’t, by nature, hate the idea of God. The old Adam would love for there to be an indulgent and compliant God who served his greed and lust, by giving him everything he wanted: without judging him, and without demanding obedience from him. But the old Adam hates the only God who actually does exist.
However, when we know Christ by faith, we also then know that “the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” We learn, then, to love what God loves, and to desire for ourselves what he desires for us.
In our natural, sinful state, we are also without moral strength. That’s another real problem. We are able to form an idea of right and wrong, but that just increases our guilt: because we are too weak, in ourselves, to live up to the standards that we set for ourselves - not to mention the standards that God sets for us.
And even in our rational deliberation of questions of morality and ethics, our thoughts are not pure and objective. Our sense of right and wrong, such as it is, is always tainted by selfishness.
People seldom conclude on their own that something that they perceive to be bad for them personally, is actually the right thing - even when it is. The morality that we devise for ourselves, apart from God’s revealed law, is almost always self-serving and self-justifying. The “god” that one serves and worships with such a morality, is ultimately oneself.
But the true God didn’t wait for us to pull ourselves out of these self-deceptions, before he reached down to us - in the sending of his Son into the flesh - to save us from these blinding idolatries.
God’s mercy and forgiveness in Christ are not a divine response to anything that we are, or to anything that we did to make ourselves worthy of his love. God forgives us, and loves us in Christ, because of who he is:
“For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
In modern times, it is increasingly foreign to the religious sensibilities even of professing Christians, to believe that God judges sin, and is wrathful against wickedness and rebellion. People don’t fear God’s punishment for their transgressions.
It is assumed instead that God is “nice.” A part of us might want to believe in a “nice” God, too. But the true God is not just a God of “niceness.” God is a God of wrath against sin and evil.
And that, too, is a problem for humanity. It is the biggest and most frightening problem: a problem that is so big, and so frightening, that few people in this world are willing to face up to it, or to think about it.
But the frightening truth that God is a God of wrath against sin, is a problem that we all need to grapple with in our consciences, because by nature we are sinful and unclean. We are, as St. Paul says elsewhere, by nature “children of wrath.”
People in their presumption and arrogance often say, “I could never believe in a God like that.” But what if a God like that is the only God who actually exists?
If and when God does hold back his judgment against us, it is not because he has no wrath against sin. It is because his wrath has been deflected away from us by his Son and our Savior, Jesus Christ - in keeping with his own gracious will and plan.
It was not necessary for Jesus to suffer and die on the cross - to atone for our sins, and to propitiate God - because of the “niceness” of God. He suffered and died for us because of the holiness of God - and because a holy God must judge and punish sin.
He suffered and died because “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins,” as the Epistle to the Hebrews soberly reminds us. But in Christ, as we repent of our sins, and trust in him, we do not fear God’s wrath, because we know by faith that the blood of Christ has in fact been shed for us.
We have not escaped from the wrath of God by wishing it away, or by pretending that it is not there. As our substitute under the judgment of God, Jesus has delivered us from the wrath of God, by absorbing that wrath into himself, for us, on the cross:
“...having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”
Notice that the solution to all these fundamental human problems boils down to one thing - or more precisely, to one person: Jesus Christ.
To solve the problem of our guilt before God, Jesus becomes our righteousness. To take away our inborn hatred for God, Jesus fills us with divine love by the gift of his Spirit.
In our moral weakness, Jesus becomes our strength. And for a sinful human race that is born under the wrath of God, Jesus goes to the cross, and dies as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
And so we rejoice in God. We do not rejoice in God in an abstract, impersonal way. We “rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.”
We rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received, from God, real and deep solutions to our real and deep problems.
Jesus is not like the Groucho Marx doctor character. He doesn’t just treat our symptoms.
As the Great Physician of our souls, he treats, and cures, our fundamental problems - problems that only he can solve; and problems that he has in fact solved, forever. Amen.