7 April 2024 - Easter 2 - John 20:19-31

Many people today believe in life after death, and in ghosts. The increasing number of popular ghost-story and ghost-hunting shows on television testifies to this - as does the common notion that the souls of dead loved ones remain with their family members, and watch over them.

Many people find comfort in this belief. Is this, in essence, what the story of Easter is about?

After Jesus’ suffering and death, were his disciples comforted by the idea that their Master, though physically gone, was still with them in spirit, and was watching over them? Well, no. That is not what this is about.

The story of Easter is not a sanctified version of ghost hunting. And the events recorded in today’s Gospel from St. John, with Jesus communicating and interacting with his disciples, were not seances.

The story of Easter is, rather, the first-hand, inspired account of the risen Christ, appearing bodily to his disciples, showing them the nail marks in his hands, and even eating with them.

The resurrection of Jesus is not just a story about life after death. It is a story about life - God’s life, and God’s power in life - overcoming death, and conquering death.

Many or most people in Jesus’ time believed in ghosts, or “phantasms.”

St. Matthew reports that when the disciples, on one occasion, saw Jesus walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.”

And that is very similar to what Jesus said when he appeared to his disciples after his resurrection. We read in St. Luke’s Gospel that

“Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, ‘Peace to you!’ But they were startled and frightened, and thought they saw a spirit. And he said to them, ‘Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.’ And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.”

Jesus was not a spirit, or a ghost. And Jesus is still not a ghost. He is still, in every sense of the term, alive.

As God and man - the eternal Son of the Father and also our brother according to the flesh - Jesus is alive. In soul and body, in spirit and in the flesh, he is fully alive.

He is alive in the universe, filling all things. He is alive in the world, governing the forces of nature and the affairs of men for the benefit of his kingdom.

He is alive in his church: speaking and teaching through his called ministers; judging sin and forgiving the penitent in law and gospel; nurturing and sustaining his people through the means of grace.

And, if you are a Christian, he is alive in you, mystically united to your spirit, filling your life with his love and grace.

During the time of his earthly ministry, when Jesus was in “the form of a servant,” those who knew him interacted with him as someone who was physically in only one place at a time. But the resurrection of Jesus, and the exaltation of Christ that has come along with it, have now opened up to him a vast array of options for how and where he appears, to and among his people.

Today’s Gospel reports two of our Lord’s bodily appearances. The Book of Acts tells us of the time when Stephen the deacon, just before his death, “gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.”

We are also told in the Book of Acts of the appearance of Jesus to Saul of Tarsus, on the road to Damascus, when Jesus was surrounded by a brilliant light, and spoke to Saul from within that light.

And the Book of Revelation describes what John saw and heard, in the extraordinary encounter with Christ that he had while he was on the Island of Patmos. John saw

“One like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white like wool, as white as snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. ... His face was like the sun shining in full strength. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, ‘Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore...’”

It is not impossible for the risen and glorified Christ to appear bodily in these various extraordinary kinds of ways also today. This doesn’t mean that we would automatically believe every claim that such a thing has happened.

The dubious accounts of Joseph Smith in the nineteenth century, and of Oral Roberts in the twentieth, come most readily to mind as claims that we would be inclined to reject.

In any case, we know that on the last day - when we will all be raised from our graves - yet another bodily appearance of Christ definitely will happen.

On that fearsome day, “every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him.” That’s also from the Book of Revelation.

But usually, as we await the end of this world, the risen Christ comes among us in ways that are very real, but that are also very invisible. There’s an example of that also in today’s Gospel.

Jesus was invisibly present and listening, when Thomas was first told by his friends that they had seen the Lord, and that Jesus was alive. Thomas responded by saying:

“Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.”

Now, Jesus heard him say that, even though Jesus was not visibly present in the room when he said that. We know this, because when Jesus appeared again - to Thomas - a week later, the first thing he said to him was,

“Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.”

Jesus basically ran down the checklist of the things Thomas had said would be necessary, for him to be willing to believe. But in his encounter with the risen Christ, Thomas - instead of doing all those empirical things - immediately forgot about his checklist, and exclaimed, “My Lord and my God!”

At that moment, Thomas knew that Jesus was alive. He knew that Jesus was divine. He knew these things on Jesus’ terms. And, he knew that Jesus knew a whole lot more about him, than he had ever realized.

That is one aspect of the resurrection of Christ, that the old Adam in you does not want to think about, or acknowledge. We are not unsettled in the days leading up to Christmas, when we hear children sing of Santa Claus:

“He sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake. He knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness’ sake!”

But everything that is said here of Santa Claus, is really true of Jesus.

Former ULCA basketball coach John Wooden used to say: “The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching.”

But Jesus is always watching - and listening.

What does he see in the private moments of your life, when you think no one is watching? What does he hear, when you think no one is listening?

We are told in the Book of Job that God’s eyes “are on the ways of a man, and he sees all his steps. There is no gloom or deep darkness where evildoers may hide themselves.”

God, in Christ, was watching, and listening to, Thomas, when Thomas listed all the physical proofs he would require. And he is watching you, and is listening to you, today.

Jesus is not a ghost who comes and goes, who appears and disappears. He is always where you are, wherever that is. And his eyes and ears are always open.

There is no secret indecency, no personal dishonesty, and no private cruelty that is hidden from him. There is no disgrace, no shame, and no embarrassment that he is not already aware of.

You cannot hide anything from the risen Christ. He is alive, and he is around.

When I was a child, I used to chuckle at the catchphrase of a certain French-Canadian cartoon mouse: “Savoir-Faire eez everywhere.” But Jesus really is everywhere.

For habitual transgressors like us, when we embrace sin and turn away from righteousness, the fact that Jesus knows all about it, is unsettling to us - or at least it should be.

But the presence of the living Christ - with us, and in us - is a matter of rejoicing, to every penitent and believing Christian.

When you let go of your sins, and cling to Christ instead, you have life rather than death, hope rather than despair, direction and purpose rather than aimlessness and meaninglessness, salvation rather than damnation.

A ghost cannot give you any of that, or change your heart and mind in these ways. But a living divine-human Savior can. And a living divine-human Savior does.

When Christ’s inscripturated message of pardon and peace is spoken in his name today, he is speaking. When his words of forgiveness and reconciliation are declared to you by his authority today, he is forgiving you before God, and he is reconciling you to God.

When Jesus appeared visibly to Thomas, he blessed him with a renewed, deepened, and refocused faith. And he said to him:

“Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

You are blessed when you, without seeing, nevertheless believe: when you believe that Jesus is really alive; and that he is really here.

The resurrection does indeed make possible the various ways in which Jesus now comes to people: both the extraordinary ways and the ordinary ways.

But even when we believe that Jesus is with us in one of the ordinary ways - by means of his preached or sacramental Word - the miracle of the resurrection is still very much at the heart and center of what we are believing.

The Lord’s Supper, as Jesus instituted it, simply could not exist for us today, if Jesus had not been raised from the grave after his death. His sacred body was given into death to redeem us from our slavery to sin, and his precious blood was shed to wash away the guilt of sin.

But the body and blood of Jesus are no longer dead - disintegrated at the molecular level into the soil of Jerusalem. His body and blood are alive, because he is alive.

And Jesus’ living and life-giving body and blood are truly present, and are accessible to us, when and where Jesus’ words of institution cause them to be present and accessible.

They are in the consecrated bread and wine of the sacrament. And, they are in us, and bring it about that Jesus is in us, when we, in faith, partake of this mystery.

Dear friends, Jesus is not a ghost. When he warns you about your sins, and reminds you of God’s judgment against those who turn their back on him and rebel against him, he is not a ghost.

When, through the lips of his called servant, he absolves you, and assures you of God’s mercy on account of his saving work, he is not a ghost. And when he comes to you in his sacred Supper, and supernaturally feeds you with his real body and blood, he is not a ghost.

We close with this warm exhortation from Psalm 105:

“Sing to [the Lord], sing praises to him; tell of all his wondrous works! Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice! Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually!” Amen.

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21 April 2024 - Easter 4 - 1 John 3:1-3

“The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.”

With these words the apostle John, in today’s lesson from his First Epistle, describes the situation in which Christians find themselves in this world.

Now, when John speaks of the “world” in this sense, he’s not talking about the physical world: a world which God created, and which God still sustains as a realm of blessing for all people who live in it. He’s talking about the world in terms of the deep and systemic corruption of what God created.

In its spiritual blindness, the world in this sense of the term opposes all that is of God and that honors God. In its perversity and malevolence, the world in this sense is a component of the unholy trinity of the Christian’s enemies: the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Jesus is speaking of the world in this sense when he describes Satan as “the prince of this world.” And this is the world - the fallen world - that does not know us - just as it did not know Jesus when he walked the earth: preaching and healing, loving and serving, living and dying.

The Greek word translated here as “know” does not refer to a simple acquaintance or external familiarity with something or someone, but it means a deep and experiential understanding of something or someone.

The sinful world does not understand Christians. The corrupt world does not get us.

Christians, and the way they try to live, don’t make any sense. The fallen world says: “Follow your heart; do whatever seems best to you in the moment.” But Christians try to follow the directives of the Proverbs:

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.”

The fallen world usually says, “Look out for number one”: that is, live for yourself, for your own pleasure and comfort. But Christians try to follow the exhortations of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians:

“Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.”

Those in the world with a slightly higher morality are not completely self-oriented, but would think that loyalty to family is more important than anything else. But Christians soberly heed the words of Jesus, when he says:

“He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.”

The fallen world says: “Don’t get mad, get even.” But Christians know that Jesus has called them to something else:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. ... You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven...”

The fallen world loves money. Even those who don’t have it, strive to get as much of it as they can. But Christians try to live by St. Paul’s words in his First Epistle to Timothy:

“We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil...”

Christians understand the world much better than the world understands Christians. And that’s because each of us was completely enmeshed in the world ourselves, before we knew Christ.

Whether it was for a few days after birth, before we were brought to the baptismal font, or was for several years, before an adult conversion, each of us in the past was “without Christ, ... having no hope and without God in the world” - to quote from the Epistle to the Ephesians.

And traces of the world - and of its deceptive allurements and destructive passions - remain in us, thereby reminding us of what we have been rescued from, and of what we should never want to return to.

Indeed, we were washed, we were sanctified, we were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. We were bought at a price - the price of the blood of atonement which Jesus shed for us on the cross.

Therefore, with God’s help, we seek to glorify God in our bodies and in our spirits, which are God’s. And St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Colossians, furthermore comforts and emboldens us with the assurance that God

“has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.”

So, we understand the fallen world, because we used to be a part of it. And as far as our lingering sinful nature is concerned, the fallen world’s tempting tentacles still reach into us, and always need to be pushed out again through daily repentance, and daily faith in Christ’s forgiveness.

But, according to the new nature that God’s Spirit has birthed within us, and in which Christ now dwells, we are free of this. Our eyes now look up from the mundane and the material, to the horizons of hope, and to the eternal life that Christ’s resurrection has opened for us.

We have this hope in God, because we have God’s Word: his inspired written Word in Holy Scripture, and his preached and sacramental Word drawn from Scripture.

We therefore understand what Paul is talking about in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, when he writes:

These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

Indeed, the fallen world does not get this. The fallen world, and those within it whose minds are still cloaked with a devilish darkness regarding the things of God, do not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to them.

In comparison to this, we are certainly not boasting. It is only because of God’s grace that our eyes and minds have been opened.

It is only because of God’s Word that we know what we are now in Christ, and what we will be in Christ. As St. John writes in today’s text:

“Beloved, we are now children of God, and what we will be has not yet been revealed.” But, “We know that when Christ appears, we will be like Him...”

But the world does not know these things. The world does not know Christ. The world does not know us. And the world responds in two different ways, as it evaluates us and tries to make sense of us.

The first response corresponds to the fact that the world thinks that the things that have been revealed, and that we believe, are foolishness. And so we are seen as foolish, and are treated as such: with mockery, insults, patronizing attitudes, and derisive comments. We are objects of curiosity, not to be taken seriously.

But the second response, which is becoming the more common response, is that we are taken seriously: as serious and dangerous threats. Totalitarian governments never like having Christians under their authority, because Christians will always recognize God as a higher authority.

And people who are imbued with a totalitarian spirit - who demand submission to their will and to their ideas - likewise never like having to deal with Christians, because Christians - true Christians - will always recognize God’s Word as a higher judge of what is real, and as a higher witness to what is true.

In St. John’s Gospel, Jesus warns:

“If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. ... But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me.”

So, because of our love for hurting people who are confused about who and what God has made them to be, we are called haters - by those who hate us. Because of our compassion for unborn children and their frightened mothers, we are called oppressors. Because of our respect for the rule of law - since civil government is an institution of God - we are called racists.

Christians aren’t any of those things. But an angry and threatened world will throw at us, any mud that is within reach, hoping that something will stick - and hoping that we will be scared off, and will be quiet.

Don’t let it concern you that you are not understood, that you are mocked, and that you are hated, by the world. And don’t try to win the world over by embracing worldliness. In his Epistle to the Galatians, St. Paul asks this rhetorical question:

“Am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.”

And Paul writes in his First Epistle to the Thessalonians:

“Just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts.”

You might think that the world will love you once again, if you just make a few compromises: sacrificing some of your convictions, but not all of them; or engaging in some shadowy behavior, but not too much.

But this fallen world, and Satan as the prince of this world, will not be satisfied until they have sucked all of your faith out of you; and have pulled you into total darkness, and into the works of darkness. As St. Paul reminds us in his Epistle to the Romans, the children of the fallen world are

“filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil- mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful...”

They won’t be satisfied until they have made you to be just like them. Don’t go down this pathway. But unbelieving individuals in the fallen world can come to understand us, when they become one of us.

With God’s help we should resists going down the pathway that takes us to where they are. But also with God’s help, we can lead at least some of them on that pathway, in the opposite direction: away from the despair and death of sin, and into the hope and life of Christ; away from the overwhelming weight of the guilt of sin, into the freedom of forgiveness in Christ.

Don’t let them lead you away from the good place where you are, but ask God to show you how you can lead some of them away from the bad place where they are. Show them a better way. Show them Christ’s way.

Speak to them of Christ’s way. St. Peter writes in his First Epistle:

“Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul, having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles...”

And why does he beg us in this way? He tells us. It is because

“You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.”

And therefore Peter also says:

“Even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you are blessed. ‘And do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled.’ But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed.”

They might make fun of you and laugh at you - initially. They might even get angry - at first. But if you have put God’s message of law and gospel into their ears, the Holy Spirit may thereby have planted a seed of repentance and faith in their minds and hearts - a seed that may someday sprout and grow.

And if that happens - when that happened - they will know Jesus. And they will then, finally, know us. Amen.

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28 April 2024 - Easter 5 - James 1:16-21

If you want to spend the whole day outside, but if you also want to be in the shade all day long, you will probably not be able to stay in one place.

Throughout the day, as the sun continually moves across the sky, the shadow that it casts is also going to move. And you are going to have move with it, if you don’t want the sun to start shining directly on your head or into your eyes.

We know, of course, that the sun is actually standing still, and that it is the earth that is rotating as it orbits the sun. But from our vantage point on the earth, the sun is moving, even as the moon also moves across the nighttime sky.

During the course of a year, the stars and constellations also move - or seem to, from our vantage point. The heavenly lights are always moving.

From day to day, as the seasons come and go; and from hour to hour, as daytime and nighttime run their course, the lights in the sky also run their course. They are never in the same place.

The shadows that are cast by the sun, and to a limited extent also by the moon, likewise are always moving, and are never in the same place.

Is this the way God is? Is he always changing, always moving, never in the same place either literally or figuratively?

There are some theological theories out there that assert that God is in fact always changing, and always evolving.

Those who hold to these views reject the omniscience of God, and the immutability of God. They believe instead that God is always learning and growing, and as he learns and grows, he changes.

God not only affects the various temporal processes that are going on in the earth, but he is also affected by those processes. So, in the Old Testament era, he was mostly a God of judgment and violence. Now, in the New Testament era, he has changed to be mostly a God of love and mercy.

In the days of the ancient Hebrews, God punished sin. Now, as he makes himself known in the teachings and character of Christ, he forgives sin.

And what is considered to be sin is also always changing. God is becoming more indulgent, more tolerant, and more accepting, as the centuries pass.

God is, as it were, on his own journey, with the human race, into an unknown future. As the human race is ever evolving, so too is God ever evolving. As we are becoming something different from what we used to be, so too is God.

Revising your doctrine of God in this way is a relatively sophisticated way to accomplish what most people accomplish just by deciding that they think the Bible, or the Christian religion, are too old-fashioned and behind the times.

They don’t try to justify this through a complicated new theology. They just stop going to church. And they just stop trying to live according to what they were taught in Sunday School or catechism classes.

The old rules about sex being only for marriage are too restrictive. The old claims about Jesus as the only way to God are too exclusive. And so people simply stop believing those things.

They don’t think it through very deeply, but what this really means is that they, too, have concluded that God changes. God is more relaxed and less demanding than he used to be.

What he requires of us is less than what he required of people in the past. And what he does for us is less important than what he did for people in the past.

So, whether this is approached in a sophisticated way or in an unsophisticated way, God is, as it were, understood to be like the sun, the moon, and the stars: always moving, always changing. The shadows that he casts on the world, and on the human race, are always moving and shifting.

But St. James disagrees with all of this. He admonishes us in his Epistle:

“Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.”

Indeed, God is not one of the ever-shifting lights in the sky. He is the Father of those lights - that is, their creator, who stands above them, and above all that he had made: knowing all, never changing, always watching.

In the days of the Old Testament he was also a God of forgiveness. And today he is also a God of wrath.

The Ten Commandments were not only written on paper, parchment, or papyrus, but were chiseled in stone - directly by God. There was no better way for him to make it clear that these laws will not change.

And when God promised Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, David, and all of ancient Israel throughout its history, that he would send a Messiah to redeem sinful man, that was a promise he kept. And he still keeps that promise, as he still sends that Messiah - his Son Jesus Christ - through his Word, to save each of us personally.

God does not change because God cannot change. He remains as a reliable source of all that is good, pure, and righteous. But you can change.

And you need to change. Don’t try to invent a new and innovative theology by which you imagine that you can change God. Instead, let God change you.

I’ll grant that much of what God requires and teaches goes against the grain of modern thinking. But that’s because modern thinking is wrong.

And today’s attitudes are not really all that modern anyway. Fallen man has been rebelling against God immutable law, and has been rejecting God’s gifts, for millennia.

Fallen man has been actively inviting God’s wrath upon himself since the time of Noah. But God has been actively rescuing his people, protecting them, and showing mercy to them, also since the time of Noah.

And God is still doing that now: as he refuses to change, but as he does change us. St. James tells us how God is doing this, and what is happening to us as he is doing this:

“Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures. So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.”

By his Word God has brought us forth. That is, in Baptism, and in his Word generally, he has given us a new birth by his Spirit, a new nature, and a new life. Through the gospel of his only-begotten Son, we have now become his adopted sons and daughters, by faith in Christ.

And the new life of faith is a fruitful life, so that we are not always trying to figure out what we can get away with, but are instead always wanting to know what pleases God, and what is good for us according to God’s will.

God’s Word of truth is also God’s implanted Word. It’s inside of us. And therefore, we are enabled to believe the good promises that he makes to us, to speak the good words that he teaches us, and to perform the good works that he commands for us.

God does not change. And Jesus his Son does not change. The Epistle to the Hebrews reminds us that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, and forever.”

But we are always changing. We don’t just make a big shift, in conversion, and then stay there. Where there is life, there is growth. And in Christ there is life!

In Christ we are no longer spiritually dead, and in Christ we are no longer spiritually blind. St. Paul writes in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians that

“when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

During the entirety of our life on earth, if we know Christ and his forgiveness for the errors of our past, then we also know his transforming grace for the opportunities of our future.

With his help we become ever more swift to hear, and to listen, so that we can better understand situations and people. With his help we become ever more slow to speak, so that when we do speak, we will speak with wisdom.

In the justification that Jesus gives, we are liberated from the fear of God’s righteous and deserved wrath against us, on account of our sins, because we know that Jesus suffered for us and in our place.

And we are increasingly liberated also from our own selfish, human wrath, which resides in our pride, and which we think we have the right to unleash against those who offend us and hurt us.

With God’s help we become ever more slow to wrath, as we are deepened and comforted in our certainty that all things are in his hands, and as we are reminded of what Jesus tells us:

“Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.”

God does not change. God in his holiness and righteousness does not change. God in his revulsion against sin and wickedness does not change.

But also, God in his mercy does not change. God in his patience and faithfulness does not change.

The Lord speaks to the evil world, to his chosen people, and to us, through the Prophet Malachi:

“‘I will come near you for judgment; I will be a swift witness against sorcerers, against adulterers, against perjurers, against those who exploit wage earners and widows and orphans, and against those who turn away an alien - because they do not fear Me,’ Says the Lord of hosts.”

“‘For I am the Lord, I do not change; therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob. Yet from the days of your fathers you have gone away from My ordinances and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you,’ says the Lord of hosts.”

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father;
there is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not;
as Thou hast been, Thou forever wilt be.

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow:
blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside! Amen.