SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA
SERMONS - NOVEMBER 2021
SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA
SERMONS - NOVEMBER 2021
7 November 2021 - All Saints - Romans 14:8-9
“For all the saints, Who from their labors rest,
Who Thee, by faith, Before the world confessed,
Thy name, O Jesus, Be forever blessed.”“O blest communion, fellowship divine,
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
Yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine.”Today we are observing All Saints’ Sunday. Among the things we ponder today, as reflected in these stanzas from today’s first hymn, is the heavenly life which those who have gone before us in the faith now enjoy. We also consider the deep, mystic cords of Christian unity which cause us still to be “one body” with them.
On this day in particular, but truly on all days in which God’s Word is at work among us, we are renewed by the gospel in our faith: in our one Savior Jesus Christ; and in the one holy church of this Savior - the unity of which transcends even the divisions between earth and heaven, between bodily life and bodily death.
As Christians, we reject the notion that the dead are no more. Rather, their souls live on, awaiting their resurrection on the last day, even after their bodies are laid to rest in the earth. In the book of Ecclesiastes we read that at death “the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.”
Regarding his own life and ministry, and his desire to be of service to the church, St. Paul writes to the Philippians:
“My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account.”
When the apostle’s mantle was finally laid down, he did then depart to be with Christ. And he is with him still.
We need to remember these things, especially in view of the fact that the continuing, conscious existence of the souls of the departed is often denied today, even by groups that understand themselves to be Christian.
In general, such groups do believe in what they call a “resurrection” on the last day. But what they think will happen then, is that God will, in effect, recreate the dead person on the basis of his own perfect divine memory of all of that person’s characteristics, thoughts, and memories.
At best, though, this would be only a copy of the dead person. It would not be that person himself, in continuity with his previous existence.
No. Our Lord spoke truthfully when he said in St. John’s Gospel: “everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” The dead still live. Their bodies return to the elements of the earth for a time - until the day of resurrection - but their immortal spirits live on.
As Jesus and the penitent thief were facing their deaths together on Calvary, the Savior spoke these words to his forgiven child, as recorded by St. Luke: “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
Sometimes, however, people may misapply the Biblical truth of the continuing existence of the saints in heaven, in ways that are not condoned by the Bible. A common practice among many is the invocation of the dead.
People pray to the saints, asking them for protection, for miracles, for spiritual strength, and in general for a whole lot of things for which they should actually be asking God. In Psalm 50 the Lord himself assures us:
“Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”
There’s nothing that God in his mercy is unable or unwilling to do for a troubled Christian, according to his true needs as God knows and understands those needs. There would therefore never be any valid reason to ask a saint for the kind of blessings that Holy Scripture tells us are to be sought from the hand of God alone.
The Biblical truth of the continuing existence of the souls of the dead can be similarly misapplied in the mistaken notion that the spirits of our departed loved ones become “guardian angels,” who actively watch over us in the affairs of our life; and who, in unseen ways, prevent bad things from happening to us, or bring successes to us.
There are protecting angels, of course, who are sent from the Lord to guard us from spiritual and temporal dangers. For example, in speaking of small children, and of God’s special love for them, Jesus said in St. Matthew:
“See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.”
But the souls of departed human beings do not become angels. Angels are a distinct kind of spiritual creature. In comparison to the angels, who are very busy, God’s human saints are at rest in the next life. As we read in the book of Revelation:
“‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ ‘Blessed indeed,’ says the Spirit, ‘that they may rest from their labors...’”
Those who have been well catechized in the teachings of Scripture, and of our church, will not likely be tempted to embrace these mistaken beliefs. But there is yet another possible misapplication of the Biblical truth of the continuing existence of the faithful departed that may not be so easy for us to resist.
No doubt one of the greatest trials in life that anyone ever faces is the loss of a devoted husband or wife. The grief that accompanies such a loss can be hard to bear. The loss of a child or parent is similarly trying. For Christians, though, the comfort of God’s Word can and does sustain us in such times.
And one of the things that a grieving widow or widower, parent or child, will cling to in such times, is the Biblical assurance - as we have recounted - that those who die in Christ do in fact live on, and that they are in heaven even now. These are the saints who are dearest to us.
But the Christ-centered faith of a mourning spouse, parent, or child can be tested and strained, if the bereaved Christian begins to yearn for a reunion with the deceased relative in the next world, in a manner that begins to overpower and overshadow the true basis for our heavenly hope. Listen again to St. Paul:
“My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.”
Christ Jesus is our heavenly hope. He alone has saved us from what would otherwise be an eternity of separation from God. He reconciled us, who were by nature children of wrath, to our heavenly Father, so that we are now children of God who know his love.
In his atoning death as our substitute under the judgment of the divine law, Jesus redeemed us, and was the propitiation for our sins. He has forgiven our sins, and still richly forgives them.
In his resurrection, our Savior opened for us the way of everlasting life. Through faith in his gracious promises, we know that in him we will indeed live forever.
Consequently, no one but Christ deserves our highest loyalty. No one but Christ deserves our deepest devotion.
Any loyalty or devotion that puts something or someone in a higher position than Christ - in our hearts, and in our aspirations - is a dangerous idolatry. As recorded in St. Matthew, Jesus soberly declares:
“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”
When you reflect on the joys that you hope to experience in heaven, what, or who, do you think of first? At the emotional level, if not at the intellectual level, for whose companionship do you chiefly yearn?
Is it the Lord - who purchased and redeemed you with his own blood - who comes to mind first? Or is it someone else?
It’s not wrong to cherish the memory of departed loved ones. It’s not wrong to continue to love them even when they are gone. But it is wrong to love them first, to love them the strongest, to love them the most.
You will not be ready to join your loved ones in heaven until your desire to do so is in its proper perspective - within and under your desire to be with Christ, to know Christ’s embrace, and to experience Christ’s unending fellowship in a realm where sin and death are no more.
“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”
But in our human weakness, how can we muster up within ourselves that kind of undiluted love for God? How can we make ourselves to have a love for him that is as strong and undistracted as it needs to be? This is more than we can do!
Yes, it is more than we can do! Just as we could never save ourselves by our own works, or atone for our sins by our own sacrifices, so too we cannot love Christ, as he deserves to be loved, by our own strength. Our love for him is, rather, his gift to us. St. John says in his First Epistle:
“In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. ... We love because he first loved us.”
You don’t really get yourself ready for heaven, and for the joys that your heavenly fellowship with Christ will bring. Christ gets you ready. He loves you, and he manifests his love whenever he gives himself to you in forgiveness and in his sustaining presence in your life.
He doesn’t demand love from you as a condition for his love, but he creates love in you by loving you first. St. Paul expresses it very well in his epistle to the Romans:
“God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person - though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die - but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
As the Epistle to the Hebrews guides us, we - in humility and in hope - look to Jesus, “the founder and perfecter of our faith.” And the prayer of David, in Psalm 86, is accordingly our prayer:
“Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.”
If your love for Christ has been weak, Christ is answering your prayer, and is strengthening that love here and now, through the restoring grace of his gospel. If your devotion to Christ has been unsteady and wavering, Christ is bringing that devotion back into focus, here and now, through the renewing power of his forgiveness.
If your heart has not been firmly anchored to Christ alone as its one and only hope, Christ is sending his Spirit once again into your heart: to reclaim it, to renew it, and to reinvigorate its faith in his saving promises.
And Christ himself, your divine-human Savior, will come to you most intimately in the Holy Communion of his body and blood: to unite himself to you, and to transform you from the inside.
In all these ways, by God’s grace, “we grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,” as St. Paul writes in his Epistle to the Ephesians.
Now, Christ certainly died for your loved ones, too. Those who trusted in him in this life, and who have passed beyond this world into the next world, are indeed now waiting, with him, for you.
We may and should look forward to seeing them again: but only because they are with Christ, who is their Savior and ours; and only because they belong to the same Lord to whom we belong, who has purchased us all with his own precious blood, and who has joined us together in the eternal fellowship of his holy church.
In the meantime, as we wait for the end of our own earthly pilgrimage, and as we look forward to being with the Lord in his heavenly kingdom, we can ponder these words from St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans:
“If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.”
“For all the saints, Who from their labors rest,
Who Thee, by faith, Before the world confessed,
Thy name, O Jesus, Be forever blessed.”“O blest communion, fellowship divine,
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
Yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine.”
14 Nov 2021 - Pentecost 25 - Hebrews 10:11-25
In the Old Testament, the tabernacle, and later the temple in Jerusalem, were the special gathering place to which the people of Israel were always drawn. God had established the tabernacle as a unique place where his Word and Law were to be taught, and where the sacrifices that he commanded for his people would be offered, by the priests whom he had called to carry out these necessary ministries.
Indeed, God made himself uniquely accessible to his chose nation at his temple. The people of Israel were set apart in faith and in holy living through the Scriptural instruction that they received there. And they were reconciled to God, and to each other, through the sacrifices that were offered there on their behalf.
Especially on the day of atonement, the high priest carried the blood of the sacrifice for that day beyond the temple curtain, and into the holy of holies, as a propitiation for the sins of the nation. He sprinkled some of the blood in that inner sanctuary; and he sprinkled some of the blood upon the people who had gathered there for this sacred ceremony.
They knew that their sins were an offense to God and his holiness. Their sins accordingly needed to be atoned for, according to God’s Law, by the death of a sacrificial substitute. The wrath of God’s judgment against them was poured out, not onto them, but onto that substitute.
Of course, we must never forget that the Scriptures which the priests taught and explained at the temple included, as their chief and primary content, comforting and hope-filled prophecies of the coming Messiah. Likewise, we must never forget that the animal sacrifices which were offered to atone for the sins of the people, did not - in themselves - have an inherent power to bring reconciliation and to confer forgiveness.
No saving merit resided in the blood of those creatures. Rather, these sacrifices had this power, and this effect, only because they were connected, in God’s heart, to the coming ultimate sacrifice of his Son - of which they were types and foreshadowings. Today’s lesson from the Epistle to the Hebrews explains that
“Every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”
Indeed, Jesus - the divine-human Messiah - has now come. The Old Testament has been supplanted by the New Testament.
The animal sacrifices of the Mosaic Law have been brought to an end, since the true and ultimate sacrifice - toward which they pointed, and of which they were a picture - has now been accomplished once and for all time on Calvary’s cross.
God’s people are therefore no longer drawn to the physical temple in Jerusalem, as the special place where they can have a saving encounter with the Lord. There is, in fact, no more physical temple in Jerusalem.
But God’s people - of all nations now - are drawn to a new temple; a living, spiritual temple; a temple that is not limited to one geographical location. In this temple, they are drawn to a new and fuller teaching - concerning Messianic fulfillments and not only Messianic prophecies.
And they are drawn to another sacrifice - not a recurring sacrifice that is still being offered over and over again, but a finished sacrifice.
From this finished sacrifice blessings do, however, continue to flow: the blessings of an enduring reconciliation with God, and of a cleansing forgiveness before God; the blessings of a new kind of membership in a new kind of nation, and of a new kind of citizenship in a new kind of kingdom.
Today’s lesson from Hebrews explains this to us as well:
“Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”
“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”
If you see allusions here to what goes on in a worship service, that is not a coincidence. This is, in fact, what the author of this epistle wants you to see.
The inspired author speaks of the importance of not neglecting our meeting together as a church. But before that, he sets forth what it is that pushes us, and pulls us, to these gatherings.
He reminds us that our hearts have been sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and that our bodies have been washed with pure water. That’s what baptism is and does, according to Christ’s institution, through the power of his Word.
Everything that you as God’s child think, say, and do in God’s house - from beginning to end - is built on the foundation that was laid for your life of faith by your baptismal union with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
That’s why the preparatory service of confession and absolution always begins with the repetition of the Trinitarian divine words that were spoken over you on the day of your regeneration and adoption into God’s family; and that brought to your soul and conscience God’s gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation.
In your baptism God started you out on a lifelong journey, on a roadway of daily repentance and faith. And along this roadway, according to the Third Commandment, there is also a weekly “rest stop,” on the Lord’s Day, at the Lord’s House.
You are, as it were, pushed by your baptism to the regular gatherings of your fellow-baptized. And, you are at the same time pulled to those gatherings by the invitation and the command of the Lord’s Supper, where Jesus says not only “This is,” but also “This do.”
In today’s text we are reminded that “we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh.”
We are also reminded that “we have a great priest over the house of God” - namely Jesus, who sacrificed his body and shed his blood, to atone for our sins; and who, as the resurrected Savior, gives us his body and his blood in his Holy Sacrament here and now, to apply that atonement to each of us in forgiveness.
In and through the Christian gospel in general, and the Sacrament of the Altar in particular, the holiness of Christ is credited to us, and our fear of God’s holiness is thereby taken away.
Without this imputation, and without Christ’s forgiveness, we in our fallen and corrupt condition could not endure God’s holiness. And if we were still clothed and covered in the filth of our sins, God in his righteousness could not endure us.
But his Son Jesus Christ, whose flesh and blood were offered in sacrifice on Calvary’s cross, earns justification for us, and pulls back the curtain, granting us access into God’s own presence.
When you come to Holy Communion, you are coming to the holy of holies of God’s new temple. And through the mercy of Christ - who is your eternal high priest, your redeemer, and your intercessor - God lets you in!
These stupendous things - which we confess to be true on the basis of Holy Scripture - are not happening everywhere. These encounters with God, these washings from God, and these reconciliations with God, take place when and where the means of grace, which Jesus left for his church, are in use.
In other words, for you - as members and worshipers at Redeemer Lutheran Church - these extraordinary and marvelous things, which are of eternal significance, happen here, in this sanctuary, on every Lord’s Day and festival.
And this is why today’s Epistle calls upon Christians like you always to remember where your spiritual home is, and where the ordinary portal to the heavenly holy of holies, for you, is to be found:
“Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another...”
Good works in God’s eyes are works which are the fruit of faith. And faith is birthed and nurtured by the Word and sacraments of Christ, even as the promises which Christ makes in his Word and sacraments are the object of faith.
It’s a circular thing. And that ongoing back-and-forth - between the means of grace and faith - is what happens in the liturgy: as God’s Word of law convicts us, and as God’s Word of gospel comforts us; as Christ speaks to us in the Scriptures and through the lips of his called servants, and as we speak and sing back to him in joyful thanksgiving for the saving truth of what he tells us.
God wants you to be here for this. He knows that you need this, in view of what St. Peter writes in his First Epistle, when he says that
“You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
It doesn’t harm God when you are absent, except in the way that all things which bring harm to his beloved children harm and grieve his Fatherly heart. And being disconnected from the means of grace, and from public worship, does harm you.
The requirements of your vocation, legitimate concerns for your health and safety or for the health and safety of others, or other circumstances that are beyond your control, may occasionally result in your needing to be absent from these gatherings. At the same time, God’s mandate, “You shall keep the day of rest holy,” is not silenced.
You will need to be persuaded in your own conscience that such an absence can be justified before God, as you weigh and balance the obligation that the Third Commandment places upon you, over against the other obligations that God has placed upon you in your workplace or in your family.
Ultimately, no other human being can sit in judgment on your conscience, as God’s Word molds and shapes your conscience. But God can judge you; and your conscience can and will bear witness within you, testifying through that inner voice either of God’s approval, or of God’s disapproval.
If your absence from his house is not due to a real necessity, but is a matter of negligence or a bad habit, then the divine admonition of the Epistle to the Hebrews is directed to you: Do not neglect to meet together, as is the habit of some.
As you ponder these things, and consider your obligations to God and to your own soul, think also of your obligation to your fellow church members. They value the encouragement to their faith that your presence brings, as you sing and pray, confess and commune, with them, and with all who are here gathered.
They miss you when you are not here. They miss your companionship on the road to heaven on which we are all traveling.
They miss the ways in which your unique gifts, talents, and abilities, under God, would have enriched them and others. St. Paul writes to the Corinthians, and to us:
“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”
And I will be honest in saying that it is personally disappointing to me, as pastor, when only a few people come to participate in the worship service that I have gone to some effort to plan; and when only a few people come to listen to the sermon that I have gone to even more effort to prepare. Elsewhere in the Epistle to the Hebrews - in speaking of the church’s ministers - the inspired author writes:
“They watch out for your souls, as those who must give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you.”
Let us all pray that what St. Paul writes to the Thessalonians, will touch our hearts, re-calibrate our priorities, renew our commitments, and draw all of us close to him, and close to each other, within the fellowship of Christ’s body:
“For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that...we might live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.”
“We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.”
And so we pray in the words of Psalm 84:
“O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer; give ear, O God of Jacob! ...look on the face of your anointed! For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.”
We also pray in the words of Psalm 26:
“O Lord, I love the habitation of your house, and the place where your glory dwells. Do not sweep my soul away with sinners, nor my life with bloodthirsty men... ...as for me, I shall walk in my integrity; redeem me, and be gracious to me. My foot stands on level ground; in the great assembly I will bless the Lord.”
For us, the “great assembly” of the church to which we are called, is indeed “great,” because our great and wonderful Savior is there - in the glory of his compassionate and patient love. He is beckoning us to come, and embracing us when we do come.
And we will bless the Lord in this assembly, because in this assembly the Lord blesses us. He blesses us with forgiveness yet again: forgiveness for our repented-of negligence and our regretted bad habits, our misplaced priorities and our misguided decisions.
He forgives all of it, and washes it away. And he lets us start over again, taught afresh by the Scriptures, and led anew by his Spirit in a reinvigorated eagerness to draw near to him, as he draws near to us; and to please him, to love him, and to love one another, as he has commanded.
“Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”
“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” Amen.
21 November 2021 - Last Sunday of the Church Year - Mark 13:24-37
Jesus says: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”
Back in the 1990s I lived in Massachusetts, where it snows in the winter. I didn’t own a snow blower. So, whenever snow needed to be removed, I used my snow shovel.
One year there was a particularly significant snowfall. And when the snowplow came through, to clear the street, it threw a huge amount of snow off to the side of the roadway. This extra concentration of snow blocked my driveway and my mailbox.
When it stopped snowing, I went outside with my modest shovel, and went to work clearing the entrance of my driveway, and clearing the area around my mailbox so that the mail could be delivered. A lot of snow had been piled up by the snow plow, so it took me a lot of time and effort to do this.
But finally, after perhaps a couple hours of work, I was done. With fatigue, but also with some measure of satisfaction, I began to walk up the driveway toward my garage, to put the shovel away.
But just then, another snowplow came around the corner. In an instant that truck undid all the effort I had expended in clearing away all that piled-up snow.
It filled in all the cleared-away areas with fresh piles of snow, just as high as they had been before. All my work had been for nothing.
In this life, we expend a lot of time and energy trying to accomplish what we believe to be important things. We invest ourselves in family businesses and family farms.
We go to a lot of effort in establishing and maintaining a house for ourselves and our family to live in. We build monuments, in our city squares and on our battlefields, to the honor of noble people and noble ideas.
We help to endow libraries, museums, universities, and other institutions that we think serve a worthwhile purpose in this world. And for Christians, that would include ecclesiastical institutions: church buildings, church-related colleges, or mission centers.
On a smaller scale, we also sometimes spend money building up our collections of things in which we have a great interest. Maybe a display case full of ceramic figurines; shelves full of books; or an assortment of paintings and sculptures.
All of these things, insofar as they are comprised of the materials of this world, are a part of this world.
I don’t mean the “world” as in the evil and sinful influences that surround us in this life, because none of the things I have mentioned are evil or sinful things, in and of themselves. I mean the world simply in its physical existence.
All of us, in one way or another, invest ourselves in these kinds of things, and expend effort in building up these kinds of things.
When people approach the end of their bodily life, and look back on their efforts in this respect, they may take a certain amount of pride in what they have built. They may have a sense of satisfaction in their earthly accomplishments, and in the things that will endure in this world beyond their lifetime.
But what will eventually happen to these things - these material, earthly things? What will be the ultimate fate of the buildings, the institutions, and the monuments we have erected in this physical world, and as a part of this physical world? In his Second Epistle, St. Peter tells us:
“By the word of God...the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. ...the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.”
On the last day, in an instant, when God’s ultimate judgment against sin and its corruption is poured out, all the material things on earth that we have constructed, built up, and established, will also be dissolved - assuming, of course, that these things have not already crumbled by then.
At the end, everything that is still a part of the earth will be destroyed together with the earth, by fire. It will all be gone. It will be as if we had done nothing, as if we had expended our effort for nothing, and as if we had invested ourselves in nothing.
St. Peter then goes on to ask: “Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be, in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!”
This is a sobering question.
Now, does this mean that we should therefore not expend ourselves in providing a nice home for our family, or a nice church building for our congregation? Does this mean that we should not endow universities, museums, and libraries?
Does this mean that we should not go to the effort of shoveling out the driveways and mailboxes of life? No, it does not mean this.
There are lots of things that we make use of in our daily life that do not have the illusion of permanence attached to them. We spend our money on newspapers and magazines that we read, and from which we learn, but which we then throw away.
We work hard in pulling out the weeds from our garden, knowing that they will grow back and will need to be pulled out again. We vacuum the floors of our home, knowing that the dust and dirt will continue to accumulate, and will need to be vacuumed up again.
We use many disposable items every day. We have no grief or regret when we throw away a burned-out light bulb, discard an empty soft drink bottle, or replace a worn-out pair of shoes.
And in general terms, this is the way we should also think about all the other things in this material world that we have, make use of, and value - even the big and expensive things.
It’s not wrong, in and of itself, to go to the effort of building up these things, and investing yourself in them, so that they can exist and serve their proper purpose while the world does endure. As we follow our callings in life - serving others according to the abilities and opportunities that God gives us - we should keep ourselves busy with godly projects and wholesome efforts, for as long as we can.
Jesus speaks to this in today’s Gospel from St. Mark, when he says that his ascension, and his future visible return, are “like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to stay awake. Therefore stay awake - for you do not know when the master of the house will come.”
But just make sure you don’t think that you are, in these ways, building up something that will last forever. Don’t let your heart become attached to these physical things with the feeling that they are permanent, and that they will be an eternal monument to your efforts.
Don’t focus your deepest devotion, and strongest commitment, on these ultimately temporary and transient things. Your deepest devotion, and your strongest commitment, are to be focused instead on that one thing that we have in this life that will never be destroyed, and that will in fact last forever.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells us what that is: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”
On judgment day, every object in this world that you built, or endowed, or collected - if it still exists - will pass away. But the words of Jesus will not pass away. The Word of the Lord endures forever.
If you have truly invested yourself in God’s Word, by faith, and if you have invested God’s Word into the lives of other people by sharing the gospel with them - so that they too would know their Savior, and the eternal life that their Savior gives - that investment will not be for nothing.
When the world melts away, the Word of the Lord will remain, strong and invincible. And those who dwell in God’s Word, and in whom God’s Word dwells, likewise will remain strong and invincible.
In St. John’s Gospel, Jesus says: “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”
Indeed, the words of Jesus bring life to those who otherwise would know only death and separation from God. The words of Jesus bestow peace on those who otherwise would know only confusion and turmoil.
The words of Jesus infuse love into those who otherwise would know only fear. The words of Jesus establish reconciliation for those who otherwise would know only hostility and anger toward God, and judgment from God.
And the words of Jesus create faith in those who otherwise would know only doubt and darkness. The words of Jesus, and everything they touch, will never pass away.
And that’s because the words of Jesus are filled with Jesus himself. Jesus - our resurrected Lord - lives in his word, invisibly comes to us by means of his word, and saves us through the power of his word.
Again, Jesus says in John’s Gospel: “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”
His words truly are the means by which he mystically abides with us in the fellowship of his church. His words are the outstretched arms by which he draws near to us in love and forgiveness, and by which he gently beckons us to draw near to him in repentance and trust.
His words regenerate us, and make us to be new creatures: filled with an eternal hope, and destined for an eternal fellowship with God, our Creator and Redeemer. And as St. Paul teaches in his Epistle to the Galatians, we receive the Spirit by hearing - that is, hearing the words of Christ - with faith.
Think of this, my friends, when you consider the relative importance of those things that you are trying to build up and establish in this world, as compared to the supreme importance of that one thing which is eternal.
For example, your house, and all the objects that are in it, will pass away. But the words of Jesus, which you share with your family members inside that house - at times of family devotion and prayer - will never pass away.
The family business or family farm on which you expend so much energy, and in which you work so hard, will pass away. But the words of Jesus, which motivate you in your work, and which fill your work with joy and godly satisfaction, will never pass away.
The church sanctuary in which we are seated now, in which we take so much pride, will pass away when the end of the world comes - if not before. But the words of Jesus that are spoken here - for our forgiveness before God, for our comfort in life, and for our confidence in death - will never pass away.
The words of Jesus - which are spoken over God’s people in Holy Baptism, and which are spoken to God’s people in Christ’s Holy Supper - will endure forever.
That’s the reason why Christians build churches: not so that there can be a permanent monument to their piety, but so that there can be a suitable place, here and now, where the words of Jesus can be spoken, sung, and heard; and where God’s people can gather around those words, in sermon and in sacrament, for the revitalization of their faith toward God, and for the renewal of their love toward one another.
Of course, if the words of Jesus have ceased to be spoken and heard in a particular church building, that’s a place where God’s people no longer have a reason to go - regardless of the name that may still be on the sign outside that church.
It’s always a tragedy when the genuine words of Christ are silenced by unbelief or by a false faith, because we all need his words, in life and in death. For the sake of our souls we therefore need to be in a place where his pure and saving words are still present and active.
The salvation from sin, death, and the devil, of which these words speak - and which these words actually deliver to us - will likewise endure forever. As you cling to the words of Jesus in all these ways, and as those words cling to you by the mercy of God, you, too, will endure forever.
Because of Jesus’ words, which you have believed, you will not die, but live, and be raised to life everlasting. You will enjoy a place in God’s family forever, in the new heavens and the new earth, where righteousness dwells.
St. Peter knew this, and he speaks on behalf of all of us when he declares to his Lord and to ours, in John’s Gospel: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”
And Jesus says: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” Amen.
24 November 2021 - Thanksgiving Eve
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day. A larger and fuller description of this holiday is that it is our National Day of Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving Day, as a national holiday, is one of those many indications that our American society has always recognized that an acknowledgment of God’s existence, and of the nation’s reliance upon God and his guidance, are essential for the stability and moral order of our country.
This began at the beginning, with the Declaration of Independence stating: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
When we pledge allegiance to our country, we state that this republic is one nation “under God.” The national motto is “In God we trust,” which is reflected also in the fourth stanza of the national anthem. That stanza - which unfortunately is seldom sung - includes these lines:
Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land
Praise the Power that has made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto, “In God is our trust.”When Martin Luther King led our country to a deeper appreciation for the human dignity of all people, and to a deeper commitment to the equality of all citizens under the law, he drew on the nation’s heritage of openness to God’s influence in being willing to become a better and more just society. In one of his more famous speeches, he said:
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. ... I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. ...”
“This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning: My country, ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrims’ pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”
The reference to the Pilgrims, in the patriotic song from which King quoted, is especially significant this year, when we are marking the 400th anniversary of what is commonly called the “first thanksgiving.”
Of course, that event in Plymouth, in the autumn of 1621, was not the first time in history when people gathered together, with gratitude to God, for a harvest festival. But what the survivors of the voyage of the Mayflower set in motion 400 years ago, did in fact evolve over time into the national celebration we have today in the United States.
And so we do gather for a day of Thanksgiving, with thanksgiving to God for the blessings of the past year. And this is something that everyone in the country is encouraged to do.
Now, it is sadly obvious that many people in America no longer have a clearly-defined religious faith. And those who do, often do not confess and worship the Triune God whom we acknowledge as the God who has revealed himself in Scripture as our creator, redeemer, and sanctifier.
So, how can a day dedicated to acknowledging and thanking God, be a national holiday, in which everyone is expected to participate? Well, it’s because our national and political recognition of God is not based on a particular religious system or book of revelation, but is based on the natural knowledge of God, which resides in the reason and conscience of all human beings.
The Declaration of Independence speaks of “the laws of nature and of nature’s God” - to which the founders of our republic wished to conform. And St. Paul likewise speaks in this way in his Epistle to the Romans. He writes that
“What can be known about God is plain to [men], because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.”
Again, Paul writes that
“When Gentiles, who do not have the [written] law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them...”
This natural knowledge of God reveals nothing to us about the historical events of the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of God’s Son.
It is able to impress on our conscience that God is righteous, and that we have sinned against him, but it can tell us nothing about the forgiveness of sins, and the comfort to troubled consciences, that is available to the penitent through faith in God’s Son.
The natural knowledge of God is not an adequate foundation on which anyone can build a heavenly hope. But, it is an adequate foundation on which people can build an earthly society.
The natural knowledge of God does not inform us of God’s spiritual gifts in Jesus. Those who have only a natural knowledge of God, and who have not heard and believed the Christian gospel, are therefore not able to offer thanks to God for such spiritual gifts. They are not aware of them, and have not received them.
But the natural knowledge of God - limited though it may be - does allow people to recognize God’s provision and benevolence in external, earthly affairs.
And so, all people can offer thanks to God for such temporal blessings: even if they have no deeper understanding of the eternal blessings that God offers, and of the way to heaven that God shows us, by means of his fuller Biblical revelation.
Together will all people of good will, we therefore can thank God for the beauty and fruitfulness of the earth, for his providential protection from physical danger, and for the material prosperity and bodily health that he has allowed us to enjoy in the past year. We can indeed have a national day of Thanksgiving.
We wish that more people in our nation were thankful in this way, and that more people were listening to the voice of God in their conscience, so that they would know the difference between right and wrong in civil affairs and public behavior, and would try to put that knowledge into practice.
Certainly our deeper wish would be that everyone hear and heed the full Biblical revelation of God’s holiness and mercy, of God’s sending of his Son to the world, and of his sending of his Spirit to our hearts.
But if some people with whom we share this country won’t believe that, at the very least we would wish that they would believe that a civil society should be governed by God’s moral law, as discerned by human reason and the human conscience. We would hope that they would refrain from rioting, stealing, and killing.
And we would encourage them, on this our national day of Thanksgiving, to be thankful, in humility, to the God who has given them life and breath.
If they do not know Christ and his gospel, this God, to them, will still be a mostly unknown god. But it is still possible to know some things about an otherwise unknown god. In the Book of Acts, St. Paul said to the Athenian philosophers:
“God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, ...gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. ...he is actually not far from each one of us, for ‘In him we live and move and have our being,’ as even some of your own poets have said...”
There is much for everyone to be thankful for, in these simple, universal truths.
Our nation is troubled by many things at the present time. But I would venture to say that at the root of much of this turmoil, is the loss of the natural knowledge of God on the part of many.
Too many of our fellow citizens have been brainwashed into thinking that there is no objective moral standard, which the human conscience can discern; and that there is no supernatural realm at all, inhabited by a personal God or by anyone else, but only physical matter in a strictly natural universe.
They are not truly joining us in our national day of Thanksgiving. Maybe they’re eating turkey and cranberry sauce, but they are not acknowledging a divine force and a divine influence over them and around them.
But we will pray for them, today and every day. We will pray that they come to their senses, acknowledge the benevolence of God and admit their reliance upon him, and join in thanking God for his earthly gifts for their bodily life.
But then we will continue to pray, today and every day. We will pray for them, and for all who know not the eternal gifts of God, that God’s Spirit would open their eyes and minds to the deeper truth of what God, in the person of his Son, has done for them and for all men, for the deliverance of their souls from spiritual death and darkness.
We will pray - we do pray - that the preaching of the gospel will go forth in our land, and that by the power of his Word God will persuade many to be faithful, and to be grateful, on this day and on all days.
With deep gratitude, we thank the Lord for the civic order and outward peace that do exist in our society, to the extent that they do still exist. And we pray that our Father in heaven would bring about even more civic order and outward peace, for the temporal welfare of our nation, by impressing his existence on more and more people.
With an even deeper gratitude, we also thank the Lord for the redemption from sin and death, and the inner peace, that God’s church knows, and that we know in our own hearts.
And we pray that our Father in heaven would extend and strengthen his church - within our nation and beyond, to all nations - for the eternal benefit of those who have been redeemed by Christ, by impressing his grace on more and more people.
Today, we pause in this sanctuary dedicated to the distribution of God’s spiritual and supernatural gifts to God’s people, and thank him for those gifts. We thank God for the gospel of Jesus Christ, which has enlightened our darkened minds, and softened our hardened hearts. We thank God for the miracle of absolution, by which Jesus himself speaks to us from the right hand of God through the lips of his called servant.
We thank God for the even greater miracle of the Sacrament of the Altar, in which Christ is truly present - for us, and in us - through the power of his Word and institution. Indeed, today is a good day to remember that one of the historic terms used to describe this sacred Supper, “Eucharist,” means, literally, “thanksgiving.”
We do indeed thank God for the forgiveness, life, and salvation that are continually renewed to us, bestowed upon us, and placed within us, through these means of grace.
And we thank God for the Holy Scriptures, by which the inspired voices of the prophets and apostles can still be heard, as they teach us, correct us, encourage us, and assure us that the gospel and sacraments of Christ are real, and that they are powerful.
We close with these words from St. Paul’s First Epistle to Timothy:
“I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.”
“This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all...” Amen.
28 November 2021 - Advent 1 - Jeremiah 33:14-16
The Eighth Commandment says: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” One of the important applications of this commandment is that a broken promise is a form of false witness.
And when you think of it, a broken promise is probably one of the more egregious and severe violations of God’s law against speaking falsely. When you look back on your life, it is likely that the most distressing disappointments you have experienced over the years, have been occasions when someone you cared about broke a promise that had been made to you.
And among the sins of your own past that you most deeply regret, your breaking of promises that you had made to people who were counting on you, are no doubt among those sins that weight most heavily on your conscience.
On the occasion of the Babylonian invasion of the kingdom of Judah, and the capture of Jerusalem in the year 586 B.C., it seemed to many people that God had broken his promise - to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; to Moses; and to David - about the preservation of the people whom he had chosen to be his own.
The northern kingdom of Israel, which had been separated from the southern kingdom of Judah for a long time, had already been destroyed by the Assyrians. Its inhabitants - who had been polluted by much idolatry; and who had, for the most part, turned their backs on the God of their fathers - were basically absorbed into the larger pagan world of the Assyrian empire.
But Judah - the tribe of David, and the bearer of the royal lineage - had remained as a nation. Therefore, the godly heritage of the patriarchs and prophets had remained. It was, however, a heritage that too few people in Judah appreciated, so that their sins, too, were now inviting the Lord’s chastisement upon them.
When the Babylonians did finally invade the southern kingdom, wreaking havoc and destruction - including the destruction of Jerusalem, and of the Lord’s sacred temple - and when, in their victory, the Babylonians began their preparations to take the survivors of the now-desolate kingdom of Judah away into captivity, the faithful remnant wondered about the Lord’s promise.
Would the nation survive? Would the temple someday be restored? The events of the time gave every outward indication that these things would not happen. The events of the time gave every outward indication that the Lord’s ancient promise would not be kept.
Imagine the grief, the despair, and the hopelessness of those who contemplated such things about God, and about their own future, on this occasion. The physical suffering was bad enough. It was compounded by a deep spiritual anguish, and by doubts about everything they had always believed about God.
But the Prophet Jeremiah, who spoke for God, assured the people that their Lord would keep his promise. In the verses that precede the section of the Book of Jeremiah that was read as today’s first lesson, we read as follows:
“Thus says the Lord: In this place of which you say, ‘It is a waste without man or beast,’ in the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem that are desolate, without man or inhabitant or beast, there shall be heard again the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voices of those who sing, as they bring thank offerings to the house of the Lord: ‘Give thanks to the Lord of hosts, for the Lord is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!’”
“For I will restore the fortunes of the land as at first, says the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts: In this place that is waste, without man or beast, and in all of its cities, there shall again be habitations of shepherds resting their flocks.”
The exiles would return. The temple would be rebuilt. The promised land would once again be the home of God’s people.
But then, as the prophet continued to speak the divine words that the Lord gave him to say, he went on to describe mysteries, fulfillments, and blessings that went far beyond the more immediate concerns that were on the minds of most of the people at that time.
Jeremiah’s audience was certainly glad to know that the physical nation of Israel would be restored, which did in fact happen after seventy years. But now his listeners were made to know that the Lord’s promise would find its ultimate fulfillment in something - in someone - beyond this political restoration.
There would be a new David, who would rule forever; and a new Jerusalem, which would endure forever as the dwelling place of the Lord’s holy nation. Listen to what he says:
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.”
A literal rendering of the phrase translated here as “promise” would be “good word.” In Hebrew, a “promise” is a “good word.”
Of course, in reaction to the sins of his people over the centuries, the Lord had often been compelled - by the requirements of his own holiness - to speak a bad word to them: a word of judgment; a word of punishment.
In fact, Judah’s captivity in Babylon for seventy years was the result of a bad word - a chastening word - that the Lord had previously spoken to Judah because of its idolatry and lack of faithfulness.
And the Lord will speak a bad word to us too, whenever we need to hear it. God is not a God who only makes promises. He is also a God who makes threats.
He threatens to punish those who are ungodly, unjust, unfaithful, and uncaring about the needs of others. And his threats are never idle. They are always to be taken seriously. His chastisements are real, and they sting.
The people of the southern kingdom, once they had been wrenched away from their land, were given seventy years in exile to think about this, before God gave them another chance as a nation. And we have been given time to think about this too, since the time allotted for our repentance has not yet expired - although someday it will.
And yet, God makes it clear that he does not enjoy speaking a bad word to those who despise him, but would much prefer to speak a good word to those who turn to him and call upon him. We read in the book of Ezekiel:
“As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?”
God had often spoken a good word - he had made a recurring promise - about the coming Savior. He first made this promise to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. He repeated it to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; to Judah; to Moses; to David; to Solomon; to the prophets; and to many others, who clung to that promise by faith.
And God was going to keep that promise, because his promises are never empty or unreliable. Jesus would emerge from the royal house of David, as a part of the nation of Israel, in the land of Judah.
But unlike David of old - who fell into notorious and shameful sins during his lifetime, and who sometimes neglected to do his duty in his family and in his kingdom - Jesus would, in all things, and at all times, “execute justice and righteousness in the land.” Jesus would be the “righteous Branch” of David’s royal tree - perfect in all his thoughts, words, and deeds.
And Jesus would be righteous, not only in his behavior, but also in his person. Indeed, David prophetically addressed him as his own Lord - as God in human, Davidic flesh. He was to be David’s son, yet he would also be one greater than David: David’s Creator, and David’s Redeemer.
Another aspect of the Messianic promise that God was ultimately going to keep, pertained to “Jerusalem,” where the Lord’s temple was located. Here was the Lord’s own dwelling place, and here too was the special abode of the Lord’s people.
When the Messiah would come, he would transform and exalt these sacred realities. The living temple, and the new spiritual Jerusalem, are now among us in the fellowship of the church. In his First Letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul writes:
“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? ... God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.”
Again, hear what the Lord says through Jeremiah:
“In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will dwell securely. And this is the name by which it will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’”
Jesus in his divine-human person is righteous. Jesus in his thoughts, words, and deeds is righteous. And Jesus, in the midst of his people, bestows his righteousness upon them, and credits it to them.
This is the greatest aspect of the promise that God has made, and that God will keep. This is the greatest aspect of the promise that God has kept for you.
Christ, in obedience to his Father’s gracious will, died under the curse of the law in our place; so that we, who by faith are a part of his church - inhabitants of the spiritual Jerusalem - are now included under God’s acquittal, and God’s lifting of this curse, through his Son.
In Christ, God forgives all your sins. In the fulfilling of his promise through Christ, God forgives all your broken promises.
We are righteous before God, not because of what we are in our person, but because of who Christ is in his person. We are righteous before God, not because of our obedient life, but because of Christ’s obedient life.
When the Spirit of Christ dwells in us, and makes us to be living stones in his living temple, he does make us more experientially righteous than we used to be. He does sanctify us, and cause our thoughts, words, and deeds to be better, and more Christ-like, than they used to be.
If this sanctification process is not happening, and if no inner changes are taking place, then we are not really living in the heavenly security of the new Jerusalem, but are instead unbelieving hypocrites.
But for those who do cling in faith to Christ, and to the unbroken promises of God, it is not the process that causes us to be righteous before God. Rather, the fact that we are righteous before God - by being cloaked with the perfect righteousness of Christ - is what causes and energizes the process.
As the Holy Spirit makes us ever more righteous in our daily Christian life, we are not becoming what we are destined to be, as much as we are becoming what we already are.
We are citizens of the holy city of God. And as such, we are included under the name by which that city is called: “the Lord is our righteousness.” The Lord is our righteousness. The Lord is your righteousness.
God does not always do what we would like him to do, but he does always do what he has said he will do. He keeps all the promises he makes. Even when it may seem that he will not be able to keep a promise, he finds a way to do so. He is God, after all.
And his keeping of his promises often turns out to be greater and more wonderful than the best that we ever could have expected, even from God.
God doesn’t promise us the moon - although if he did, we would eventually have it. But he has promised something much better, and much bigger.
God has promised us the saving and cleansing righteousness of his Son: the Messiah of Israel, and the Savior of all nations, who came into this world just as God had promised that he would.
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.”
“In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will dwell securely. And this is the name by which it will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’” Amen.