Dear friends in Christ. St. Paul writes [Romans 15.4; 1 Cor. 10.11]: For whatever was written in former days [the OT] was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope and elsewhere: Now these things [in the OT] happened to them as an example, but they were written down [in the OT] for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.
The account of David and Goliath is a familiar and favorite account from Scripture. But if we look at this account as only an account of a military victory, it will do us little good and we will have missed its true comfort and blessing. It is not merely the story of a good little man beating the big bad man. The main thing that we will keep in mind is David’s words in our text: the battle is the Lord’s.
1. As we meet David in our text, the Israelite armies are fighting their enemy the Philistines. They had again entered the land and were attacking the Israelites. At their head was a giant, Goliath, who stood over 9 feet tall. His coat of armor weighed about 150 pounds; the head of his spear was about 20 pounds. None of the Israelite warriors dared to fight him they were dismayed and greatly afraid. It seemed that the disgrace of Goliath’s unanswered defiance of Israel and of the Lord would have to remain. Goliath was fighting for the heathen gods; our text: And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. In their way of thinking, if he would win the battle certainly they would be the true gods and not the God of Israel.
Then David comes on the scene. He did not seek this battle through self-will, but he could not stand it that this Philistine was blaspheming the true God and His people with impunity. For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God? David was compelled to act by a deep concern for God’s honor as well as the good name of his people.
David may have had all the best intentions in the world but it would do him no good—humanly speaking. Goliath was seemingly invincible—according to human standards. But David did not rely on himself; instead, he relied on the Lord. He looked back at how the Lord had protected him as a shepherd from lions and bears; and in faith he knew that the true God would not tolerate such defiance and would use him to avenge Himself. With this David convinces the king who lets him fight Goliath. But King Saul has David put on his armor; but David had never worn armor before, and it would only hinder him. –Besides the Lord never intended the battle to be waged and fought by these weapons. So David leaves it behind, taking only five smooth stones and his sling. So yes, humanly speaking David goes into battle seemingly woefully weak and unprepared. And when the Philistine looked about and saw David, he disdained him; for he was only a youth, ruddy and good-looking. So seemingly weak and unarmed, that Goliath almost seems offended as he taunts David: So the Philistine said to David, "Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?"
David’s battle was absolutely vital. The fate of the Israelites rested upon it. The challenge of Goliath and the Philistines was this [v.8, 9]: Choose a man for yourselves, and let him come down to me. If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will be your servants. But if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall be our servants and serve us. David was the representative of the people. If he won then the Israelites would have won the battle but if Goliath won, then the Philistines would have won and the losers would become slaves of the victors.
B. Let us not just see a battle here of antiquity. Instead, let us also see here a picture or a foreshadowing of Christ and His work for us.
In the soon approaching Lenten season we will see Jesus in His deepest humility—although He is the true God, He did not use or show all His divine power and majesty. In Lent we see that although Jesus, as St. Paul, tells us [Ph. 2.6]: being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a servant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of the death, even the death of the cross. There is Jesus in all of His weakness—not only does He not make use of all His divine power and glory but in love and humility takes on all of our sin, He becomes sin for us, loaded down with the sins of the world.
In our text, when we see David, without weaponry, sword or spear, going up against the great enemy of the people, Goliath, let us also see our Lord Jesus, alone, going to fight against our spiritual enemies of sin, death, devil and hell. Jesus does not go into battle against these our spiritual enemies in all of His divine glory and power but in humiliation, suffering and death. Jesus did not come into this battle with sword and spear but in a special way, namely, through suffering and death, He conquered and destroyed our spiritual enemies for us.
Just as David was the representative of the Israelites, one man fighting on behalf of all Israelites, so too Jesus, true God but also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, came as the representative of the whole lost condemned human race. He fought the battle, the One for the many. Like David, Jesus came to the battle weak—a true man born of the virgin in the manger of Bethlehem; He appeared weak and unprepared for the battle—not even having a place to lay His head; He seemed not even worthy for the battle as He was condemned by both God and man.
C. David’s battle against Goliath is also a picture of our Lord’s dear Christian’s battles in this earthly life as the devil and world connive together with our old sinful nature to lead us to reject Jesus and His work; as they seek to destroy faith that receives Jesus’ and His victory. Here our Lord’s dear Christians find themselves to be the Davids—seemingly weak and overwhelmed for the battle.
We see that we are in the world but we are not of the world. Remember from last week that we heard that God called us from the mass of lost condemned humanity to be His dear Christians now and eternally. When He did that the sinful world became our enemy. Just as Goliath was before David cursing him by his gods, so we have the sinful world before us scolding and ridiculing God and all that is sacred. We don’t have the weapons to defeat the world on its terms—reason: we can’t rationally argue a person into the faith; power and influence: our Lord’s Church and His dear Christians aren’t the movers and shakers in the world; we don’t bring people to faith at the point of the sword. Not only do we have the outside, godless world trying to bring us into despair and destruction of faith, but even within us we have our old sinful nature that wants nothing to do with God and His will and His ways, that fights against faith and the Spirit in us. So, yes, like David against Goliath, we appear woefully unprepared to fight our spiritual enemies.
2. That’s why now, before the rigors of Lenten reflection penitence, may we let the account of David and Goliath to strengthen us. Precisely when we are weak, are we strong. Precisely because David trusted in the Lord he made himself weak; that is, he did not trust in weapons or in himself and his strength, but in the Lord.
Then David said to the Philistine, "You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46 This day the LORD will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you and take your head from you. And this day I will give the carcasses of the camp of the Philistines to the birds of the air and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. 47 Then all this assembly shall know that the LORD does not save with sword and spear; for the battle is the LORD'S, and He will give you into our hands."
The Lord was all he needed. That’s why David was strong and able to defeat the enemy—because the battle was the Lord’s. Goliath boasted of his strength but David’s boast and assurance of victory is on God. David knew the holy Triune God in all His love and grace, might and majesty. He experienced and relied on the Lord’s help in the past and this gave him courage for the future to rely on the true God who is the one who mightily protects His people and puts down His enemies.
By faith David knew that the Lord has the battle in His hand and that the Lord did not rely on external mighty weapons to gain the victory. Through that faith there was unlimited power in seemingly insignificant weapons. Our text:
So it was, when the Philistine arose and came and drew near to meet David, that David hastened and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine. 49 Then David put his hand in his bag and took out a stone; and he slung it and struck the Philistine in his forehead, so that the stone sank into his forehead, and he fell on his face to the earth. 50 So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone, and struck the Philistine and killed him. But there was no sword in the hand of David. 51 Therefore David ran and stood over the Philistine, took his sword and drew it out of its sheath and killed him, and cut off his head with it. And when the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they fled.
B. Again remember, that as this account of David and Goliath gives us a picture and foreshadow of Jesus’ work, it is a strengthening for us in our faith. Just as the Lord gave seemingly weak and despised David the victory, so too let us not be offended when in Lent we hear of our weak, despised, suffering Savior, rejected by man and condemned by God as the sinner of the world. As unlikely as it seemed that David would gain the victory, even more unlikely did it seem by His suffering and death that Jesus would destroy our spiritual enemies of sin, death, devil and hell and reconcile sinful humanity to God. But He did! By His lowly and humble but holy and innocent life He rendered for us all the perfect sinlessness, perfect keeping of the law that God demands of us. By His suffering and death on the cross, loaded down with the sins of us all, He paid the price for each and every one of our sins. Jesus destroyed sin and death by His holy, innocent suffering and death on the cross. That’s what Easter proclaims to us and gives us—the fruits and benefits of His victory! Our spiritual enemies are now defeated and in Christ the victory is ours!
As unlikely as it seemed that David would win the victory against Goliath, he did—and that was a picture foreshadowing Christ’s greater victory over our spiritual enemies for us. His victory seemed much more unlikely because of the weapons He used—His humiliation, suffering and death. And now His victory is now ours. Here is our strength in our struggles against our spiritual enemies—they are a defeated enemy. David was weak and insignificant—as we are in our spiritual battles, in our struggles against sin, in our struggles against unbelief and doubt in God. But through faith in the Lord, the Lord gave David that great victory. So, too, us—we have the same Holy Spirit in us who was in David. By that Spirit’s work we, too, rely on the Lord. That’s when, like David, we are our strongest—because our faith, reliance is not in ourselves but in the Lord. We rely on His work in the Word and Sacrament to strengthen and keep us in the faith and keep going to them in our battles against our spiritual enemies. In fact, we defy and conquer our spiritual enemies of sin, death, devil and hell as we in that faith keep receiving Jesus and the blessings and victory He won for us.
As we examine our text today, we are mightily strengthened because precisely, like David did, we turn away from ourselves and put our trust in the Lord. Let our spiritual enemies try their worst—they can do nothing, no matter how great and powerful they may seem to be. Christ won the victory and through faith in Him His victory is ours. Let David’s victory over Goliath remind us of and point us to our victory in Christ over sin, death and hell. Let that be our peace and strength today and in the upcoming Lenten season. INJ Amen.

Dear friends in Christ. One of the most basic terms and teachings of the holy Christian faith is grace. The grace of God is rightly defined as God’s good will and favor shown to the sinner who cannot plead any merit or worthiness but only his need; it is God’s mercy and compassion on us sinners who by our sin and rebellion do not deserve God’s favor and good will. This grace of God, then, is at the center of our Christian faith. With the most popular English language hymn reportedly being “Amazing Grace” and with one of the pillars of the Lutheran Reformation being “Grace Alone”, Christians seem revel in God’s grace.
But God’s grace is the complete opposite of how we are “wired”. We seem to have this notion that we have to do something to earn God’s favor; God only gives us anything good because we have first done something to make us worthy. That’s works righteousness, trying to be saved by our works. Some Christians will say that God sees that we try our best so He then gives us grace so that we can do more good and He will reward that. Other Christians say that we have to “make a decision;” that we have to invite Jesus into our hearts. The idea in these: there is still some spark of spiritual life; we aren’t all that bad. Although these Christians claim to revel in God’s grace, in these scenarios and others they are rejecting it. They are really trying to be saved by their works—something they do, something in them. When that’s the case, there is no need for God’s grace—it’s really not up to God but up to me; no need for Christ.
Our text this morning is the most complete discussion on the doctrine of election that we have in the Bible. Election is God from eternity choosing to save people out of the mass of lost humanity and in time carrying it out. Because it is nothing but pure grace it is so misunderstood and misapplied—people think they need to have a hand in their salvation; people try to find a reason in them for God choosing them; they try to figure it out using reason, not calculating in God’s grace. As we examine our text today we will see that this doctrine of election is grace in its purest expression.
1. Our text: Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For He chose us for Himself in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight in love. The first thing we note about election is that it is eternal: before the foundation of the world. God chose us in eternity, even before time began with the creation of the world. He chose us as individual persons and He chose us out of the mass of the lost condemned world.
That’s purest grace! Even before we were, even before the world was, God chose us. That means that there is nothing we could do or could have done to make ourselves pleasing in His sight; to make ourselves stand head and shoulders above the rest. Instead, in eternity God saw us and like everyone else we were poor, miserable sinners with nothing to commend us to God. But in grace! In grace! God chose us. That’s the very nature of God’s grace—to show His favor to us who can only plead our need, not worthiness.
Scripture speaks elsewhere of God’s eternal decree. Jesus tells us that on the Last Day He will say to His dear Christians [Mt. 25.343]: Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. To His disciples, Jesus said [Lk. 10.20]: Rejoice because your names are written in heaven. Even before we or the world ever came to be, God in grace chose us.
Election—the purest expression of God’s grace. But because of our sinful nature, because we want to earn our way to heaven, people try to find a cause in us as to why God chose us. They will say things like: God looked into the future and saw who would come to faith and stay in faith and so God chose/ elected them. Notice, this turns things on its head and destroys grace making it no longer grace. It makes the person, something in them, some work or merit in them that makes God choose them.
Where grace is destroyed, there is no comfort but only despair. This is important because the reason why God revealed the doctrine of His gracious election to us in Scripture is not so that we ask, why some and not others, and try to find some reason in us. Instead, He revealed this doctrine to us to drive us to His grace—especially in time of trial. When we are in times of spiritual struggle and anguish, when it seems that our faith is ever so weakly holding on, we are comforted with this doctrine—in faith, trusting in God’s grace, we say: from eternity God chose me to be His dear Christian, out of pure grace since I certainly did not deserve it; He has brought me to faith and kept me in the faith until now; and because He chose me from all eternity to one day be eternally with Him in heaven, soul and body, He will bring me safely through this trial; because He chose me in eternity for eternal life, no matter how hard Satan will try, Jesus’ word [Jn. 10. 28] applies to me: neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.
What a glorious comfort we then have in every spiritual trial when we go back to God’s grace, His eternal grace in election! Because He chose us in grace before the foundation of the world, because He is the almighty God, nothing can or will annihilate or frustrate God’s decision, decree; it is certain. Each of our Lord’s dear Christians should/must consider him/herself one of the elect and so can say as St. Paul does elsewhere [Ph. 1.6]: being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you [because He choose You] will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.
That’s grace—but think of how uncertain we would forever be if it were not grace and God’s eternal decree but us and our works or worthiness. The doctrine of election is a doctrine of greatest comfort because it has this firmest of foundations—God’s eternal decree. Our text: He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will. This act of God depends on and is founded on God, not on anything outside of Him; therefore there’s nothing in us that makes Him choose us, just His pure grace.
2. Our text: Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For He chose us for Himself in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight in love. Notice, our election is always and only in Christ. Throughout, our text uses the phrases: in Him, through Jesus Christ, in the Beloved, in Christ. Only a Christian can consider him/herself one of the elect; there are no elect in any of the other religions of the world unless a person is later brought to faith in Christ, For He chose us in Him. This blessing has been gained and given to us through Christ and for the sake of His merit. We do not search for the cause of our election and predestination in ourselves and works, but in God’s grace to us in Christ—what He has done for us. God chose us from all eternity to have eternal life with Him in heaven; since we were all condemned sinners, the only way that could happen is if we were forgiven our sins and reconciled to God. That’s why our election is always and only in Him, in Christ. That’s why it is an election of grace.
Our election, God’s choosing us in grace in Christ is an eternal act, a prehistoric act of God. But that decree is carried out in time. For example, God could choose the OT saints to come to faith and work in them a faith in the Savior, Christ Jesus, who would come. Paul writes in our text: 11 In [Christ] we [Jews] were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the intention of His will, 12 in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. God could show His OT saints grace, could elect them in Christ, because Christ’s sacrifice, which would happen in the course of time, of human history, was always before His eternal eyes, as Christ is described as [Rev. 13.8]: The Lamb slain from the foundation of the earth. The election of the OT saints, as well as our election, was made by God before time but as He was eternally looking on the sacrifice of His Son. Although eternally before the Father’s eyes, Jesus’ saving work was carried out in the course of human history.
We read of Christ that [Gal. 4.4]: when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under Law, to redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. Jesus’ coming and work was all for our salvation. In Him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace. 8 That forgiveness [the Father] lavished on us together with all wisdom and understanding. We, dear Christian, are doubly blessed today. Not only are we certain of our eternal election, but Jesus did come and was sacrificed for our sins; He did reconcile us to God. That’s what Easter shows us. That’s what we receive in Holy Communion—the very Body and Blood that brought about our forgiveness and reconciliation. That’s why we run to the altar—to receive those blessings of forgiveness and reconciliation. Now that we are forgiven, now that our sins are removed, we see God as our dear loving heavenly Father. Our text: He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will.
B. Just as Jesus’ life, suffering and death for the salvation of the world took place in time, was carried out in a certain point of human history, so too our election is carried out in time. Again, at the beginning of our text Paul writes: God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ… has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. That’s conversion—the moment the Lord carried out His eternal decree on us to save us from our sins and give us eternal life. For most of us, that moment of conversion happened at holy Baptism when by the water with the Word the Spirit created faith in our hearts, new spiritual life, eternal life. For others that eternal decree was first carried out, like on these Ephesian Christians who as adults first heard the Gospel as Paul preached it: And in Him having heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in which also having believed, you were marked with a seal, the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is a Deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory. Whenever it was, we Christians are certain that we are one of the elect because God’s eternal decree has been carried out on us—we believe; we now have spiritual life; we now have His Holy Spirit. This is all His grace to us. We have the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is a Deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory. Since we have the Holy Spirit we have the certainty that we belong to God from eternity and He will see to it that we remain His. That is pure grace. Our salvation, literally from eternity to eternity, is all the result of God’s grace.
How humbling this is for us—and how joyous we now are! We are saved and are now led by His Holy Spirit to live lives of faith and good works. Paul uses such phrases in our text: that since we love the Lord may we be holy and blameless in His sight; we have all wisdom and understanding, that is, not only are we forgiven but we have a wise and obedient heart that seeks to know the will of God and by the Holy Spirit’s prompting and strengthening leads us to do all sorts of good; and the ultimate goal of our election is the praise of His glory, both now through a life of faith and good works and eternally in heaven.
Dear Christian, comfort yourself with this most glorious and reassuring of doctrines: out of pure grace God in eternity choose you in Christ to eternal life. Reject whatever you hear or read or reason dictates that takes even the slightest bit away from God’s grace. Our salvation is by grace and grace alone. Praise God! INJ Amen.

Dear friends in Christ! The Epiphany season in the Church Year directly follows the Christmas season. At Christmas we see the Baby born of Mary. In the Epiphany season we see and hear from the accounts of our Lord’s life that the Baby that was born grew up and His teaching and miracles indeed confirm what the angel said was correct [Mt. 1.20; Lk. 1.35; 2.11]: that which is conceived in [Mary] is of the Holy Spirit; the Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God; for there is born for you this day…a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. Today, as the Epiphany season comes to a close, we come to its high point: the account of our Lord’s Transfiguration. Hearing the account of our Lord’s transfiguration we are now prepared for the upcoming Lenten season.
In the account of the Transfiguration we read in today’s Gospel, Jesus’ full divine glory and majesty, His divinity, shine through His human nature. Normally, Jesus kept His divine glory concealed under His humanity—so to speak like your winter coat covering you—Jesus only revealed it through His word and work. But here at His transfiguration Jesus showed His majesty and divinity as the eternal Son of the Father; it permeated and shown through His bodily being, His whole form.
With the coming of Moses and Elijah, we have visibly before our eyes the fact that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law, Moses, and the Prophets, Elijah. The One to whom they pointed with all the prophecies, is here—it is Jesus of Nazareth. Through St. Luke [9.31], the Holy Spirit tells us: Moses and Elijah…appeared in glory and were talking about His leaving this world, which was to happen in Jerusalem.
At the Transfiguration we see that the Babe born in Bethlehem truly is the God-man. And here we are strengthened for the upcoming Lenten season with the certainty that Jesus is the God-man and as such, as both true God born of the Father from all eternity and true man born of the virgin Mary, He alone is the only one able to save us from our sins. It is vital that in the upcoming Lenten season that will begin in a few weeks, we keep in mind that Jesus Whom we see suffering is not only true man but also the true God because in Lent we will again travel with our Lord to Jerusalem and ultimately Golgotha and the cross. Looking back on this great Epiphany, revelation, of Christ on the mount of Transfiguration we will again be assured and strengthened in the faith that He who is suffering so greatly in Lent at the hands of man, that He who is there on the cross cursed by God and enduring all of His wrath and punishment, even the utter forsakenness of hell, that He is indeed the very God Himself and our Savior from sin. The Transfiguration shows who Jesus really is—true God and true Man in one person.
1. The facts and events of our Lord’s life are not just some haphazard happenings that are somehow cobbled together. Instead, the OT is rich in proclaiming beforehand who the Messiah would be and what He would do so that His people could recognize and know the Savior when He would come. Not only did the Holy Spirit reveal to the OT saints in clear, direct prophecies about the coming Savior, but the Son of God, before He took on human flesh and blood, also appeared in the OT times. He is called in some of those appearances “the Angel [Messenger] of the Lord”—like He is in our text. Not only does the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Son, make an appearance in our text and call Moses to be a prophet and to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, but by being in the burning bush that doesn’t burn up, we have a picture of the Messiah when He would come, a picture of the mystery of the incarnation: in the course of time the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Son, would take in Himself a true human nature and fill it with the light of His divine majesty and qualities, but that human nature was in no way “burned” or harmed; instead in and with that assumed human nature He would bring about the redemption of the human race.
To put it differently—the burning bush is a picture of the person of Christ. Just as the Son of God, the Angel of the Lord, was in that bush and did not destroy it— the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed— so also the Son of God became also true man, not destroying His human nature with His divine glory and holiness. The disciples seeing Jesus’ face shining like the sun and His clothes becoming as white as the light, was like and foreshadowed by Moses seeing the burning bush.
Our text: Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back of the desert, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 And so he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. 3 Then Moses said, "I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn".
The Angel of the Lord is the Son, the pre-incarnate Christ, as He appears in the OT. We read that the Angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. Then one verse later we read: the Lord saw that [Moses] turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush. The Angel of the Lord is called “the Lord,” and “God” who called to Moses from the midst of the bush. There is no doubt that the Angel of the Lord is the true God. It is fitting that the pre-incarnate Son, the Angel of the Lord, is here a fire. The apostle writes [Heb. 12.29]: Our God is a consuming fire; and Moses would later write [Ex. 24.17]: The sight of the glory of the Lord was like a consuming fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the children of Israel. Like a consuming fire, the Lord is a jealous God who alone is worthy of our praise and who alone is to be worshipped. He is a holy and righteous God who expects and demands all His holy laws be kept and before whom all of our supposed righteous works are worthy only of punishment and condemnation. So yes, fire is a fitting image for the holy God in His glory.
B. He, who in the fullness of time became man, was here revealing His presence via fire in this bush. But then, there’s the bush that’s burning but it isn’t burning up. The fire does not destroy it. How do we understand the bush? That too would be a picture of Christ—not of his divinity, like the fire is—but of His humanity.
Many prophecies in the OT refer to the Messiah as a Branch. We later hear the prophet Isaiah [11.1] telling of the Messiah and describing Him as coming from the defunct line of kings after David: There shall come forth a Shoot from the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots. And through Jeremiah [23.5]: “Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord, “that I will raise for David a righteous Branch; a King shall reign and act wisely and create judgment and righteousness in the earth.
These prophecies that refer to the Messiah as a Branch are always in connection with Him coming from the fallen line of kings from David’s family. Like a tree that is cut down, a shoot grows from the roots—so the Messiah will come from the line of David long after the kingship is destroyed. The Messiah referred to as a Branch is a reference to His humanity, His human nature.
This is a natural fit with what we have in our text of the burning bush. Not only did it literally happen, the burning bush is a spiritual picture that of course was certainly made clearer by the later prophets and by Christ’s coming. With the image of the burning bush we have a picture of Christ—the divine fire in the midst of the bush of His human nature; the Person of Jesus Christ who is both true God and true man. That’s precisely what we see at the Transfiguration: just like the bush was burning and yet was not consumed, burned up, so also in Jesus—there is the divine nature in the midst of the human nature, but the human nature is not harmed; instead Jesus’ divinity, His divine nature shines in and through His human nature. That’s a revelation, an Epiphany, of who Jesus really is. This is already foreshadowed in the OT, here in our text.
Behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. The thing to remember is that since the bush was not consumed, burned up, it remained a bush and the fire remained a fire. At the Transfiguration, divinity was not turned into humanity or humanity into divinity; instead Jesus’ divinity shone in and through His humanity. As the burning bush foreshadows and as we see in the epiphany of Jesus’ Transfiguration, Jesus’ humanity and divinity did not mix together; Jesus’ humanity was not overcome by His divinity. Instead, Jesus is and remains into all eternity both true God and true man—one Person but two distinct natures, just like we have here in our text: both distinct fire and distinct bush; one did not overcome the other, nor was there something else made from fire and bush—like ash and smoke.
Also elsewhere Scripture speaks of these two distinct natures in the one Person of Christ. St. Paul writes [Col. 2.9; 1 Ti. 2.5]: For in [Christ] dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus.
2. Why does the Son of God here appear in the fiery bush to Moses? As we read in the verses following our text, He came to call Moses to lead the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. That’s the glorious thing—when Christ comes He comes to save. He came then to lead the Israelites out of slavery. And just as He foreshadowed with the burning bush, He came later, taking on own flesh and blood from Mary in order to save us from our sins! Whenever Christ comes, He comes to save.
As we spiritually see the burning bush incident pointing us forward to Jesus being true God and man in one Person, as we see in today’s Gospel account of the Transfiguration that Jesus is indeed both true God and true man as His divine glory and majesty shines in and through His humanity, let us remember that the same Christ comes to us today in His holy word and sacraments. He comes to us in grace and calls us and invites us to come to Him, as He did Moses that day: Moses! Moses! Yes, just like during His earthly ministry Jesus did not always display His full divinity, but as a Baby was even wrapped in swaddling cloths, so also today as He comes to us in grace in word and sacrament and calls to us, His full divine glory and majesty is not seen. All that we hear is a few words and all we see is words on a page, water, bread and wine. But the holy God is here—in grace.
We hear Christ’s promise [Mt. 18.20]: For where two or three have been gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them. We sinners are in the presence of the holy God. Although our humble sanctuary may not outwardly look like much, in worship we are in the presence of Christ—just like Moses was in our text, just like the disciples were on the mount of Transfiguration.
What does this mean for us? The same thing it meant for Moses in our text: “Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.” Moreover He said, “I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God.
Christ has promised to meet us in His word and sacrament. He has promised to meet us in church, where His word is purely proclaimed and sacrament rightly administered. Here, like He did to Moses with the burning bush, and like He did at the Transfiguration, He reveals Himself to us—that He is the true God and our Savior and that He now gives us the forgiveness of sin and His perfect righteousness. When we come to church, we are like Moses in our text. We are standing on holy ground, for here the holy God condescends to come to us; we are in His presence.
May we be filled with true fear and reverence each time we gather in worship around our Lord’s word and Sacrament. We are in the presence of God. May we still recognize and reverence His glory. INJ Amen.

Dear friends in Christ. In the Epiphany season we remember that the glory of God shines in the life of Jesus showing that He is the true God. That Baby born in Bethlehem is a true human being and at the same time He is the eternally only- begotten Son of the Father. That He is the true God reveals itself in all the miracles He does, like, for example what we read in today’s Gospel: all those who had any that were sick with various diseases brought them to [Jesus]; and He laid His hands on every one of them and healed them. And demons also came out of many… In these miracles Jesus shows who He really is—true man and true God. But today’s Gospel also tells us another way Jesus showed who He really is—by preaching: I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also, because for this purpose I have been sent. By His preaching, Jesus reveals, makes known who He really is—true Man but also the eternal Son of God and the Savior of the world; and by His miracles He confirms that His preaching is true.
Today Christ continues to reveal Himself to people by that same word of Holy Scripture. He comes to us in the word of Scripture and proclaims and reveals Himself to us that He is the Son of God; that He is the God-man; that He is the Savior of the world. In that Word, by the work of His Holy Spirit, He works faith in our hearts to recognize this and to trust in Him as our Savior and to rely upon Him and His work for us. This Word that Christ had His Holy Spirit record in Scripture is His power to salvation; His words are spirit; they are life [Rm. 1.16; Jn. 6. 63].
Now, dear Christian, Christ has come to us and revealed Himself to us in His Word, be it the written word of Scripture that we heard or read or be it the word with the water of holy Baptism. By His Holy Spirit, He has worked true and saving faith in Him in our hearts, and so now we are truly a new creation. We are a divine work. God Himself has worked on our spiritually dead hearts and brought us new spiritual life. Paul puts it this way [2 Cor. 5.17]: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
1. We are Christians solely because of God’s work on us in word and sacrament. He revealed Himself to us telling us who He is and what He has done for us; He created faith in our hearts to welcome and receive Him and His work. Our lives now will be different than they were before we were brought into the Church; they will be different from the rest of the world that doesn’t know or rejects Him—because God has worked in/on us. We’ll discover as we study our text: we glorify God as we confess our faith and as we live out that faith.
In our text and see God’s working on Daniel. Daniel was an Israelite brought to Babylon as a youth. He rose in rank in the Babylonian government. Now, an old man, the Babylonian empire is taken over by the Medes and Persians but Daniel not only retained his position but was “promoted”. The king, Darius, divided the kingdom into 120 regions, each with a governor and over them were 3 governors—one of which was Daniel. Daniel faithfully carried out his tasks and this incurred the jealousy and wrath of the other governors, who tried to find a way to disgrace Daniel and eliminate him. They hatched a plan in which they would get the king to proclaim a law that for the next 30 days no one would request anything from any God or man except from the king, under penalty of being thrown into the lions’ den. Our text: Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went home. And in his upper room, with his windows open toward Jerusalem, he knelt down on his knees three times that day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as was his custom since early days. 11 Then these men assembled and found Daniel praying and making supplication before his God.
Daniel prays. True prayer is the Christian’s heart to heart talk with God. God had first spoken to Daniel in the word, revealed Himself, worked true faith in Him in his heart. Now Daniel speaks to God in prayer, and in full trust and confidence asks Him for what he needs and gives God praise and thanks.
On top of that, Daniel prays facing toward Jerusalem. That’s where the temple had stood, where the sacrifices were offered that pointed forward to the coming Savior who by His perfect once for all sacrifice would pay for the sins of the world and reconcile sinful humanity with the holy God. Praying facing Jerusalem was a confession of faith and a reminder and reassurance to Daniel that he was praying to a reconciled God who was eager to forgive the penitent and ready to hear his prayer. It was God who in His word worked this faith in Daniel.
B. And it was God who made Daniel bold both to pray and to confess that faith boldly by continuing to go about his daily life of prayer in spite of the law. In fact, the very reason why Daniel’s enemies knew they could get him by this law was that they knew he would continue to confess and not give up his faith.
Remember: faith, that’s a divine working in us. Because God has worked it in us, it has divine power and strength. David says in psalm [116.10]: I believed, therefore I spoke. The prophet Jeremiah says [20.9]: Then I said, “I will not make mention of Him, nor speak anymore in His name.” But His Word was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I was weary of holding it back, and I could not. The apostles say [Ac 4.20]: For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard. Our Christian faith, what God has worked in us by His word, is a very bold thing. That’s why Daniel did not change in the least his praying; he did not even try to hide it but opened his windows, lest he give his enemies the impression that he had stopped. Even changing his ways to hide or to seemingly accommodate to the new law would amount to denying God and would dull his testimony to the heathen around him.
The simple fact of the matter is that everything we do is a confession of our faith—be it good or bad. Here is where we must daily examine our own hearts and lives and repent of the times we give a bad confession. Yes, faith is a bold thing; it is a divine working in us; but it is in us, that is, it is in us who are still weak, sinful, human beings. It is in us who are weakened by our old sinful nature. When we squelch the working and impulse and leading of the Holy Spirit in us, that’s when we give a bad confession of our faith. The reality is, is that because of our old sinful nature, it is so easy to be gutless, to go along with everything around us. Living a life of faith, following the promptings of the Holy Spirit to do the will of the Lord, to give a good confession like Daniel did even in the face of death is a bold thing.
Let us then look at our lives and the confession we give by our actions. Do we go along, lest we stand out for our faith? May we repent. Do we not speak when we should? Let us repent. Would any of us remember Daniel, would this account even be in the Bible if Daniel simply yielded to the law? How then would God be glorified? How can God be glorified in our lives if we keep that divine working in us, faith, from doing what it wants to do, namely, keep it from bold confession? It can certainly be understood more easily if one were in Daniel’s situation literally facing death for the faith and then to fail to confess. But in reality, what do we face today? Certainly nothing of the sort—just perhaps some talk, ridicule, a spot on the team, raised eyebrows, etc. But by giving a good confession, a bold confession, God is glorified; and perhaps, just perhaps, by our letting our faith do what it’s supposed to do and can do when unhampered by our cowardly, weak sinful nature, God will be glorified when He can work through our confession and bring someone to the true faith—a most glorious Epiphany, like the king who came to know the true God, the Triune God, calling Him [v.20]: the living God.
2. The Christian’s bold life of faith glorifies God as we not only confess that faith in word and deed but also as we live out that faith in our everyday lives. That means that that faith is the foundation and part and parcel of who we are and what we do. Again, that’s why faith is a bold thing and glorifies God. Instead of looking at the mere outward circumstance, just looking at what may be easiest and most practical, the Christian boldly places his/her trust in the Lord’s will. It would have been very easy for Daniel to lay low for those 30 days. But the boldness of faith compelled him to fear God more than man, not to be frightened by the world’s wrath and scared away from true worship by some threat.
Precisely this living out that faith and placing trust in the Lord’s will is not an easy thing and that’s what causes the conflict within us—the new self, the Christian in us vs. our old weak sinful human nature—but that’s why faith is a bold thing. It trusts the Lord’s will even though it may not be what we, according to our old sinful nature, want. Even when literally facing death, we find Daniel prayed and gave thanks before his God. Even for this difficult situation in his life Daniel was thanking God. Just as he was thanking God, so he was also certainly praying for strength to remain faithful, to keep giving the good confession. May our bold faith do the same thing in us—give God thanks in and for every trial and pray for and rely upon Him for His strength. He will certainly hear our prayer for strength [Mk. 9.24]: Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. By His Spirit in His holy Word and Sacrament the Lord will work to strengthen our faith so that we may give a good confession.
We need the Lord’s strengthening us in His word and Sacrament because He may not “reward” us for doing the right thing. Perhaps by following the Lord’s will and being bold in our steadfastness and confession we will receive even greater hardship—just like Daniel. Then these men stormed in to the king, and said to the king, "Know, O king, that it is the law of the Medes and Persians that no decree or statute which the king establishes may be changed." 16 So the king gave the command, and they brought Daniel and cast him into the den of lions… Then a stone was brought and laid on the mouth of the den, and the king sealed it with his own signet ring and with the signets of his lords, that the purpose concerning Daniel might not be changed. But in that faith that the Lord created and now strengthened in Daniel, Daniel lived out that faith. He didn’t try to delay or get out of this execution. He simply placed the outcome into God’s hands. In true faith he rested upon God’s will—no matter what the outcome. He knew that God’s ways are always good and right and that He works all things for the good of His dear Christian. That is a bold faith that says “yea and amen” to God’s will whatever it may be—even if and especially when it doesn’t seem to be rewarded; that is living out that faith. In Daniel’s case, he was finally rewarded but not until faith had been exercised and made more bold and the true God glorified before the king. Then the king was exceedingly glad for him, and commanded that they should take Daniel up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no injury whatever was found on him, because he believed in his God.
When in times of trial, when our faith is not seemingly being rewarded but punished, it is precisely then that the boldness of our faith glorifies God. Then we are relying on Him to be gracious to us and either turn our troubles away from us or make them serve the eternal welfare of us or others. A bold faith trusts the grace of God; it trusts the work of Jesus who reconciled us to Him; it trusts His promise to forgive us our sin. A bold faith simply trusts the promises of God to us in Christ and so we live our lives in light of that. Precisely this is the Christian faith that is bold and glorifies God. It is a faith that He gives us and preserves us in by His Word and Sacrament. May we look on Daniel and be comforted—as the Lord worked in and through him, so He wants to do the same with us. INJ Amen.

Dear friends in Christ. You can tell a lot by looking at something. If you buy something in the store you pick it up and look at how it’s made, whether it’s sturdily made or cheap and flimsy; you look at whether it will be practical for your purposes or not, etc. Also by looking at something you can tell a lot about who made it. If you see it poorly made, slipshod construction, you conclude that the person making it really didn’t care; if you see something well thought out and well made, you can conclude that the person making it takes pride in their work.
In a way it’s like “Epiphany.” The person reveals something about him/herself by the product they make. It’s that way also about God. He reveals something about Himself in the creation, in what He made. The creation is all around us, so all around us we have God revealing Himself to us—Epiphany if you will.
David writes in the Psalm [19.1]: The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. By its very existence, the creation with an eloquent voice testifies not only to the fact that there is a God, a Creator who made all this, but also to the greatness and honor of God. By seeing the Creation, it implies/ proclaims that there is a Creator who was before the creation and who must, then, be greater than the creation. Both day with its sun to warm the earth and to have plants grow for us and the night with the moving of the stars like the well running gears of a fine watch testify of God’s wisdom, loving kindness towards and His watchful care of His creation. Every thinking person understands the testimony of the sky around us in both day and night for God’s existence and glory. Only a fool says there is no God.
1. What creation reveals about God is an epiphany; God reveals Himself in nature. Paul writes [Rm. 1.20]: What can be known about God is clear to them because God has made it clear to them. Ever since He made the world, they have seen the unseen things of God—from the things He made they can tell He has everlasting power and is God. Then they have no excuse. By earnestly looking at and pondering the world around us we not only see that there is a God but that He is glorious, powerful, wise, good, etc. With the psalmist in our text we, too, exclaim: O Lord, how many are Your works! With Wisdom You have made them all. The earth is full of Your possessions—this great and wide sea, in which are innumerable teeming things, living things both small and great. There the ships sail about; and there is that Leviathan which You have made to play there.
Again, God reveals Himself in creation. That’s Epiphany! Our text picks up this psalm toward the end as throughout the psalmist has been praising the Lord in light of each of the days of creation. Our verses pick up his praise of the Lord in connection with the Fifth Day of creation with the teeming of the waters with all sorts of life. The entire work of creation shows how great God is—His glory. He shows His magnificence and His great and immeasurable strength as here He creates and brings forth the wonders from the sea.
Now, though, the creation has been marred by sin. It has come in and ruined of what scripture records [Gn. 1.31]: Then God saw everything that He had made and indeed it was very good. Even though corrupted by sin, enough of creation’s “very goodness” remains to be able to still testify to the existence of God and of His glory. Any honest and thinking look at the creation will still cause us to exclaim with the psalmist: O Lord, how many are Your works!
B. The created world around us testifies so clearly that there is a God. It so clearly proclaims His eternity, wisdom, almighty power, goodness, etc. but it cannot tell us everything about God. In fact, all it can tell us is that yes, there is a God but not Who that God is. That’s why no matter how much and how long people look at the creation, hear day and night as creation proclaims the Lord’s glory to us, they will never come to know the true God, that He is the holy Triune God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. What the creation reveals about God is incomplete. Just like, no matter how hard and long you look at something in the store and perhaps can tell it was made by someone who took pride in their work or not you will never know who the person is who made it, unless somehow, someway that person let you know.
The creation tells us God is and it reveals to us some of His characteristics but not Who He really is. That’s why there are so many different religions—people trying to name that Creator, trying to imagine who/ what He is.
Because humanity can never come to know God rightly by sitting down and trying to figure it out from the creation, God had to reveal Himself to us. He did it as He revealed Himself to the OT saints, to the prophets who then proclaimed His word; and He revealed Himself most fully as He Himself, the Son, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, became also true Man. That’s Christmas that we just celebrated! There in the Son is revealed the one true God most fully and completely—who and what He is as He told us all about God—who He is, namely Triune, that is one God but three Persons—and that He is a God who saves us by grace through faith in Him; that He is our Savior.
In the pages of Holy Scripture which God, by His Holy Spirit had the prophets and apostles write, He reveals Himself to us. Scripture is all about God’s great revelation of Himself in the Person of Jesus Christ—the OT foreshadowing and prophesying His coming and the NT all about the Person, work and word of Jesus. But even in the OT passages like our text, we have a glorious Epiphany—a glorious revelation of the holy Triune God, that the true God who made heaven and earth is the Triune God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. By the Holy Spirit, the psalmist writes: O Lord, how many are Your works! With Wisdom You have made them all. The “Wisdom” that the psalmist refers to is not just merely that God is smart, but it is the “Person” of Wisdom, namely the Son, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Elsewhere in the OT, this Wisdom, the Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, is recorded by Solomon [Pr. 8.22 ff., 30] saying: The Lord [that is, the Father] begat me, the beginning of His way…. I have been established from everlasting…from the beginning, before there ever was an earth….Then I was beside Him, as a master craftsman. With Wisdom, that is, with the Son, the Father made the world.
All of Scripture here is in a glorious harmony. This Person of Wisdom who is wonderfully revealed in the OT as Creator together with the Father is identified in the NT as the Son, Jesus Christ [Jn 1.3; Col. 1.16, 17]: He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him and without Him nothing was made that was made; and: [Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation. For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible or invisible.
With Scripture in hand, we can see the Triune God revealing Himself to us in the creation. Not only have we seen the Father [the Lord] and the Son [Wisdom] in our text which praises God for the Creation, but our text also reveals the work of the Holy Spirit in the creation. We read: You send forth Your Spirit, they are created. We read earlier in the psalms [33.6]: By the Word of the Lord [this is the Son] the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the Spirit of His mouth. The Holy Spirit was there at the creation, creating with the Father and the Son. That’s exactly what we see at the account of the original creation [Gn. 1.2]: The Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. The Creation reveals God’s characteristics of might, eternity, goodness, etc. But with Scripture in hand, as God reveals Himself to us there, then we see that the God of Creation is the Holy Triune God.
2. But, dear Christian, let us not just stop here with this glorious revelation of the Triune God with the creation of the world. Instead, let’s take it a step further—like our psalmist does. With that verse we just heard, the psalmist is leading us into a further thought—the thought of our new creation, that by baptism, that in Christ, we are now a new creation. From lost and condemned sinner, slave to sin and devil, seeking only to serve self, from one spiritually dead in sin we have been brought to new spiritual life, made our Lord’s dear Christian who loves Him and seeks to do His will, who is covered with that perfect righteousness of Christ.
Let us then lift up our eyes beyond the Creation and see God’s work in and on us. Our text points us to the work of the Holy Spirit in the creation and the preservation of that creation, but precisely there our psalmist directs our eyes to our new life in Christ, in His Church: You send forth Your Spirit, they are created; and You renew the face of the earth. These are the exact same verbs—“create” and “renew”–that we find in David’s psalm of repentance which we sing in our liturgy [51.10]: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
When we look at God’s original creation, which proclaims Him, let it then serve to reveal His glorious work in saving us and bringing us to faith and new life, in our new creation. Just as the original creation was a tremendous, monumental work, so too is our new creation as we are brought to spiritual life. The Holy Spirit hovers over the waters of Holy Baptism making them a life giving water; here we are brought to faith by the word spoken. Just as at the original creation there was nothing and God had to create everything, so too now new believing hearts are created by the gracious working of God in the water and word.
Just as the gracious Triune God did not just create the world and then leave it on its own but still preserves it: These all wait for You, that You may give them their food in due season. What You give them, they gather in; You open Your hand, they are filled with good, so also He doesn’t just bring us to faith and then leave us. Instead, by His Spirit He renews the face of the earth, that is, here He keeps working on us calling us to repentance and faith. Our text: He looks on the earth, and it trembles; He touches the hills and they smoke. Just as sin had entered that original creation which had been created perfect, once we are Christians we will still sin. But just as God did not glorify His power in destroying His creation but sent His Son to restore that creation, to destroy, undo the work of the devil, so too God, in grace, calls us to repent—by His holy Law shows us our sin and wretchedness and condemns us but by His holy Gospel announces and gives us the grace, forgiveness, reconciliation and righteousness Jesus brought about for us by His life, suffering and death.
After the original creation in six days, God rested on the Seventh. For us the wonderful thing is that we, the new creation in Christ, now have rest and joy. Our text: The glory of the Lord endures forever; the Lord rejoices in His works. That’s our blessed state of grace now—the Lord rejoicing in us, His work. We are now His dear Christian and His glory is seen in that He showed us mercy and that He is preserving us in the faith. That means for us, we have true spiritual rest and joy. We are certain, in Christ, of our forgiveness and reconciliation. We are certain that God is gracious to us and working all things for our spiritual good as He leads us to Himself one day in heaven. Our text: I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have my being. My meditation upon Him will be sweet; I will be glad in the Lord. What a joyous life we now have as our Lord’s Christians.
As we see His creation and that His creation reveals the God who made it, we meditate upon the miracles of His power. As we look at the creation which points us to and reminds us of our new creation in Christ, we marvel as we meditate on the miracle of His mercy. As we see what the creation reveals we are filled with nothing but love and joy in the Lord for all He has revealed to us in it and by it. That makes for a truly blessed Epiphany season. INJ Amen.

Dear friends in Christ! The 12 days of Christmas ended this past Thursday and on Friday we began the season of Epiphany. “Epiphany” is when something that is essentially invisible displays its reality and power. When we speak about Christ’s Epiphany, we are recognizing and confessing that in the Person of Christ the heavenly has broken into the earthly, that God has appeared now “in the flesh.”
The glory of the Lord shines in and through Jesus, the God-man. The Epiphany season focuses on the glory, the divinity, of this God-man.
Because the Babe who was born in Bethlehem is the Savior of all people—as the coming of the Gentile Wise Men shows—the season of Epiphany also has a “missions” theme. Mission work, telling others the Good News about Jesus, is nothing else than revealing Jesus to people. As we tell others about Jesus, He reveals Himself to them in His Word. Mission work, then, is Jesus’ work today in gathering His Church, in rescuing people out of the mass of lost, condemned humanity and bringing them into His Church. It is Christ at work today!
That’s precisely what we have in our text today—Jesus through His word and preacher of that Word, revealing Himself to a man to bring him to faith. Here the risen and ascended Christ is guiding and directing the course of His Church.
As we examine our text today we will see that Jesus reveals Himself to people today in His word and by preachers who proclaim that word; in doing so He rescues them and brings them into safety in His Church. As He does this, we will see Epiphany “run around”: that is, Holy Scripture points us to the Church and the Church points us to Holy Scripture.
1. Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, “Arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is desert. So he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to worship, was returning. And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet. Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go near and overtake this chariot.” So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him.
The Lord directs Philip—not the Apostle but the deacon—to go along this desert road where he met this Ethiopian treasurer. This man was richly blessed in so many ways. He was obviously wealthy as he was in a high position of government; he was certainly wealthy enough to have a scroll of Isaiah. Somehow the Lord had previously worked on his heart and given him the greatest blessing-- this Gentile recognized the God of Israel as the true and living God and served Him, coming to Jerusalem to worship Him.
Yet, as richly blessed as he was, he was still stumbling: “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” This richly blessed Ethiopian on a wilderness road seems also to describe his spiritual condition. All his rich blessing seems to do him no good because he does not understand the word of God that he is reading. He certainly got no help from the priests in the temple who were more concerned about a superficial outward keeping of the law, a works-righteousness, than they were about the Savior from sin. Spiritually, this richly blessed man is alone, floundering in a spiritual wilderness.
That’s the same state, the condition, of those who want to “do their faith” all by themselves; it’s the state of the so-called lone ranger Christians, those who think they have no need of the Church. They are alone, unattached, in a spiritual desert. The difference, though, between them and this Ethiopian treasurer, is that he did not want to be there; they though want to be in their own spiritual desert. They take pride in not being a part of the Church, thinking they have no need of her.
This is a trap, a snare of the devil. In the Church, in communion with our fellow Christians, we have the word of God and the holy Sacraments in our midst. Through these the Lord works to create and strengthen faith. If the devil can get us to actually believe that there is a “do-it-yourself” Christianity, that we don’t need our fellow Christians, that we need not be part of a congregation where God’s word is rightly proclaimed and His holy sacraments rightly administered then he was won the battle and soon faith will wither in that spiritual desert.
This is why here and elsewhere Holy Scripture points us to the Church.
Again, this Ethiopian treasurer is in this spiritual desert not by choice but by circumstance. He had just been in the temple. He had just seen the sacrifices offered up; the very sacrifices that pointed forward to the Savior. He had seen that sheep led to the slaughter of the sacrifice—but that was it. There was no connection made by the priests to the Savior sent by God to take away the sins of the world. The religion of the Jews had devolved into a religion of the Law—not of the promises. The Jews instilled in the people a works-righteous mindset in which they went through the motions of the sacrifices but thought that by it God owed them. Because they did all these “good things” they felt no need for grace.
This Ethiopian was upright and godly. The Lord was certainly working on His heart. He surely sensed something was wrong so he was reading/ studying Scripture. This man was no lone ranger believer by choice—unlike so many today who think they can be Christians without going to church or having any connection with the Church. Such people are really proud and arrogant: I don’t need the Church. They think they on their own can figure out Scripture and all its saving doctrine. Many will even pick and choose what they want to believe.
Instead this Ethiopian treasurer was humble. “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” He didn’t think he knew it all or could figure it out; he was not ashamed of his ignorance but implored Philip to teach him. This is key for us today: let us hear God’s word with fear—it is the word of God—and let us study it in humility. By God’s grace, this man knew something was not quite right in what he was hearing in Jerusalem; he studied Scripture but in his godly humility realized by his own he could not rightly figure it out so he said to Philip: How can I understand it unless someone guides me?
Holy Scripture points us to the Church. Christ has entrusted His word and Sacraments to His Church. It is the blessed duty of the Church to preach God’s word in all its truth and purity and to administer the holy sacraments as He instituted them. Precisely through this work of the Church Christ is gathering people from all over the world into His Church; He does this through the preaching/teaching and administering the sacraments.
Does that mean every single denomination and congregation teaches rightly? Does it mean that it doesn’t matter to what congregation one belongs? Hardly! But let the Ethiopian was studying Scripture be our example: so let us always compare what we hear in church to the Scripture. Is what we hear in accord with Scripture throughout? Then let us believe it and take it to heart. If it is contrary to the clear word of Scripture, let us then reject it and flee that congregation.
From His Church God sends us preachers and teachers to bring us the Word. This is God’s grace. Again look at the Ethiopian. He was just one man on a desert road. It seemed a waste of Philip who should have been preaching before many people. But in His love for him God does not leave this Ethiopian in that spiritual desert—He sends him Philip to teach him on that desert road, free from distraction.
In grace He sends him Philip. Notice what Philip does: Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, told Him the Good News about Jesus. Like this Ethiopian, each one of us, too, needs an explanation of what Scripture says which is taken from Scripture itself, so that we can grasp a proper, pure understanding of what is necessary for us to believe to be saved. Then we read that when they came to some water, the eunuch said, “See here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?” …And [Philip] baptized him. God sends us preachers with the word and baptism.
2. Here we come to Epiphany’s run around: Holy Scripture points us to the Church and the Church now points us back to Scripture. The Church’s proclamation is Christ Jesus, our Savior; that we are saved by God’s grace through faith in Him. All of Scripture leads into that or flows from it: Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, told Him the Good News about Jesus. That section that the Ethiopian was reading was a prophecy of the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus. Philip showed this man that Jesus was the fulfillment of this and all of the OT prophecies. By showing prophecy and fulfillment, Philip was clearly teaching this man that Jesus is the Savior; He came to be our righteousness; He came to pay for our sins by enduring God’s wrath over our sin; He came to reconcile us sinners to the holy God; He came to die for us but also to rise again and open heaven to us. Jesus is the center and object of the Church’s preaching—and like Philip, the Church preaches Christ by going back to the Scripture, the very word of God that proclaims this exact thing.
Just like it was a humble thing for the treasurer to ask Philip to guide him in the teaching of Scripture, so is it a humble thing for the Church to proclaim Jesus alone. The Church’s message is not about human wisdom but the simple message of the foolishness of the cross. The Church does not develop, formulate, its own teachings but like St. Paul simply passes on what she has received. And that’s why the Church points back to Scripture: it is the sole source of all our teachings and doctrines. If any Christian goes beyond what the Scriptures teach or take away from what Scripture says, they are to be rejected.
The Church points us back to Scripture alone because the word of God is God’s power unto salvation. In and through the word alone, the Holy Spirit is at work. That’s why the word of God is the power of God—His Holy Spirit is at work. Again we hear the Ethiopian’s question: “How can I [understand] unless someone guides me?” Left to us Scripture—the prophecies and their fulfillment in Christ, the teachings of Christ—are all a closed book to us, unintelligible, nonsense. That’s why the Church points us back to Scripture. By the work of Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, He opens our understanding so that we might comprehend the Scriptures [Lk. 24.45].
Here we come full circle because us understanding Scripture, coming to know Christ as our Savior—like this Treasurer did that day—is an Epiphany. Christ is revealed to us. By His grace we now know Him rightly and have a blessed grasp of the saving truth. In Scripture Christ is revealed to us and by the Spirit’s work we have the Epiphany and in faith cling to Jesus and His saving work.
Just as our Ethiopian treasurer then desired baptism, so too are we baptized. Baptism is the word made visible and by it is the outward, concrete act that we are now connected with Christ and His death and resurrection and also to our fellow Christians in the Body of Christ, the Church.
Our text gives us the blessed Epiphany runaround—Holy Scripture points us to the Church—to the preaching of the word, the gathering around the holy Supper and to fellowship with our fellow Christians; and the Church points us back to Holy Scripture, the Word through which the Spirit creates and nurtures saving faith. INJ

Dear friends in Christ. Perhaps you were a little disappointed with this morning’s Gospel reading. Here we are the on eighth day of Christmas, here we are on the first day of a brand new year, and all we get to hear is one simple verse of Scripture! It is not even a seemingly very exciting verse. An angel is mentioned, but there are no choirs of angels; nothing outwardly exciting is mentioned; there’s no great miracle; there are no verses that are remembered or quoted or held up in football stadiums. All that we have is, as Walther mentions, an act that is disgraceful in the eyes of human reason. All that we have is a simple couple in faith doing what God commanded all Israelite parents to do. Is perhaps Christmas with its miracles and wonder perhaps already petering out on only the eighth day?
Dear Christian, just looking at our text superficially, yes, it does seem rather like a letdown following Christmas. But that is not the way to look at this text. Instead, let us closely examine this one verse Gospel account and there we will see that even if this were the only Gospel account we would hear this year, it would teach us all that we need to know about the Person and work of Jesus, all that we need to know for our salvation.
1. Our text begins simply enough: And when eight days were completed for the circumcision of the Child… Here we again meet the Baby that was born in the manger in Bethlehem. He is now eight days old and it was the divine law that on the eighth day male Israelite babies were to be circumcised. This is again drives home to us the point that Jesus is indeed a true man, a true human being like you and me. Jesus did not merely drop down from heaven, but He lived every stage of human life from conception and birth, which we celebrated at Christmas, and now is eight days old.
On top of that Jesus was not just a generic person but He was born just as God had promised and had planned—an Israelite, a physical descendant of real people: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, David, and even Rahab and Ruth. As a true Israelite, one whose mother was an Israelite; as one born among the people of Israel, Jesus was subject to the law of circumcision. That act of circumcision formally, officially declared Him to be a member of the Jewish Church.
God had promised Abraham and his descendants that He would be their God and give them His word and would finally have the Savior of the world to be born one of them. Whoever received this promise in faith, that person’s faith was counted as righteousness, that is, he would have the forgiveness of sins for the sake of the future Savior Whom he then receives through faith.
God made a covenant with Abraham and his descendants over this promise. And the sign of this covenant would be that every baby boy would be circumcised on the eighth day after birth. Through circumcision God was continually offering His people His covenant and grace and sealing it to them; and through circumcision the believers entered into that covenant with God and seized the promised grace.
The simple words: And when eight days were completed for the circumcision of the Child… preach to us once again this 8th day of Christmas the great Christmas mystery that Jesus is the God-man.
We still have the angel’s Christmas announcement ringing in our ears [Lk. 2.11]: For there is born for you this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord. The very Child that was born is Christ, that is, the Messiah, who is the Lord, that is, the very God of the Old Testament. That means that the One who was born, that One who is now eight days old, is also the eternal God. Here in our text, Jesus is according to His human nature, eight days old, even though according to His divine nature He is eternal, just as St. John says of Jesus, calling Him the Word [Jn. 1.1,2]: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. A close look at our text reinforces to us the Christmas miracle of who Jesus is so that we may rightly know Him: Jesus, the true God, is also true man. The true God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Son, who is eternal, can, according to His human nature, also be a mere eight days old.
2. Not only do we see Who Jesus is—both true God and true man—but from our text we also come to see His work, His obedience. What we see here in Jesus’ circumcision is a picture of His entire life and work—He did not use His divine power and glory all for the sake of His saving work so that He could save us, the lost, condemned human race. Even though He is God, Jesus did not always make use of and show His divine power, glory and majesty: Jesus was born in a stable, laid in a manger with swaddling clothes. Now already for eight days He did not use His divine power and now on the 8th day He so humbled Himself to experience the pain and bloodshed of circumcision. His circumcision and the blood that He shed is a picture of what His entire life and work among us would involve.
Circumcision was for sinners—to bring them into God’s covenant of grace; it was a sign of God’s grace to them; it was instituted so that those conceived and born in sin could be received in God’s covenant and grace. But here Jesus is circumcised—why? He wasn’t a sinner in need of God’s grace. He is God; the Holy One who gave the Law. Even as man He is sinless as the Holy Spirit formed His human nature from the flesh of the Virgin in a miraculous, supernatural way. But here remember the prophecy [Is. 9.6]: For us a Child is born; for us a Son is given. That means that everything Jesus did, He did for us—that’s why He was born for us and given to us. Jesus’ circumcision is a picture of His work for us and our salvation: even though Jesus had no sin of His own, He took upon Himself the sin of all people; it was all laid on Him; He was the representative of the whole world. So here when Jesus, or representative, was circumcised, God offered the whole world His grace, to be brought under His covenant of grace. By the blood that He shed here, Jesus gave the down payment for redeeming, for saving the whole human race. St. Augustine used this explanation: The Lord Jesus follows a merchant’s practice. He came into the world so that He could buy us free from eternal damnation, not with gold or silver but with His own precious blood. Today he gives the first drops to the purchase of our souls; thereafter on the cross he paid the full price [HASSSO I 158].
What is it that we see today? We see the first glimmer of Good Friday; we see Jesus’ entire work of bringing about the salvation of the world foreshadowed as He was traveling for us that path of obedience and suffering. That’s the Gospel—Christ Jesus taking all our sins upon Himself and suffering God’s wrath and punishment over them for us. That’s the Gospel, as St. Paul puts it this way [2 Cor. 5.21]: For [God] made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Hearing of our Lord’s circumcision today points us forward to His shedding His blood for us on Good Friday and reconciling us to God; it points us forward to our salvation.
This is what is called Jesus’ passive obedience; it is all that He endured for us, all of His suffering for our sin that He willingly suffered, His Passion, that is, His suffering and death. Our text today not only shows us Good Friday as here Jesus allowed Himself to suffer, to endure the circumcision, to shed His blood, but we also see foreshadowed in our text all of Jesus’ work for us leading up to Good Friday, that is, our text also teaches us Jesus’ active obedience. That means that Jesus went about actively seeking to fulfill every one of God’s commandments and so keep all of God’s Holy Law, in our place just as God demands of us.
With His circumcision here on the eighth day, for Jesus to be circumcised, means that He placed Himself under all of God’s Law. That’s what Paul writes in the Epistle [Gal. 5.3]: And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. That’s the work of Jesus that we see here with His circumcision—He placed Himself under God’s holy Law in order to keep it for us so that God’s holiness might be satisfied and that we might be saved. Jesus, the true eternal God, is above the Law; He’s the one who gave it. But here by His circumcision He places Himself under the Law to keep it for us.
Jesus came not only to suffer and die for our sins and so reconcile us to God but also to keep God’s holy Law for us because God, as a holy and righteous God, demands both that sin/ sinner the punished and that His holy Law to be kept. By placing Himself under the act of circumcision, Jesus is clearly showing us here already on the eighth day out of the womb that He is going about actively fulfilling God’s holy Law for us. Later Jesus would preach [Mt. 5.17]: Do not think I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. Everything that God demands of us, Jesus has fulfilled for us! That’s what His circumcision on the eighth day of His life already shows us! And that’s precisely why He came—to be born under the Law and so do for us what we can’t do ourselves—keep the Law of God and have righteousness. For us Jesus kept every bit of God’s holy Law.
Now that Jesus has come and has obeyed the holy Law of God it has been fulfilled—by Him for us. That means that we are free from the curse of the Law. Does the Law accuse you by your conscience? Know that the Law that you sinned against has been kept by Christ for you. The Law can accuse you all it wants—and rightly so because you sin against it all the time—but all the accusations amount to nothing because the Law has been kept—by Jesus, for you— and Jesus’ perfect keeping of it is credited to you; Jesus gives you and covers you with His perfect righteousness and through faith in Him and His work you grab ahold of it and make it your very own. Yes, you sin; yes, you rightly feel the Law’s condemnation; but do not let it bring you into despair. Jesus is your righteousness; in Jesus is the forgiveness of your sin.
By His passive obedience, what He suffered, the blood He shed, that paid for the price of your sin. By His active obedience, what He willingly took upon Himself to do and actively set out and accomplished, He gave the obedience God demands and rendered the righteousness by which heaven is now open to us. Both these things we see in this account of Jesus’ circumcision. That’s why it is the most glorious word to hear this first day of 2012.
Our text of this simple act of our Lord’s circumcision is a rich comfort for us and sets the tone for us this new year as it contains in a nutshell both the Person of Jesus—that He is the eternal God who also became also a true man who on the 8th day of life was circumcised; that He is the God man—and the work of Jesus, the God-man, to be our Savior, namely that He willingly placed Himself under the Law of God to keep it for us; and that He is the perfect once for all sacrifice for all our sins. Here is what we need to know and believe to be saved.
As we enter the new year, we hear once again the glorious Gospel in all its truth, mystery, simplicity and comfort so that if we are burdened by our sin that we carried over from last year or that we will commit in the new year, we look to our Gospel today and there take comfort that Jesus is always and forever the true God who saves us. The first blood that He shed here on this day is our certainty of it. INJ Amen.

How would we know what God’s intentions are toward us poor sinful beings unless He revealed it to us in Holy Scripture, or here demonstrated so clearly that first Christmas by sending His Son? We’d forever be in doubt and we would be like all the rest of the religions of the world trying to appease God with all sorts of self-chosen works. Today let us look into the manger and see the Baby Jesus, and so come to know the Father who in His grace, kindness and love sent His Son. We can be assured that there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus and nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord [Rm. 8.1, 39].
Looking at the newborn Babe in the manger, we see that this kindness and love of God is not some sort after-thought, but here revealed is the eternal plan of the Father to send the Son to save us sinners. Not only does the angel tell Joseph in our text: you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins, but through the Evangelist he adds: Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.”
Dear Christian, seeing the Son, the Second Person of the Trinity who also became true man, lying in the manger and recognizing Him as such, namely as the Son of God and the Savior of the world, that too points us to the Father.
The fact that you are here today in true faith in Christ Jesus who was born that first Christmas, that points to the Father because it shows that the Father has worked on you, revealing to you Who exactly it was Who was born.
After Peter gave the confession of faith of a Christian as to who Jesus is, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God, Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you…for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but My Father who is in heaven”. What a great grace; here is the greatest of Christmas gifts—by God’s grace He revealed to us what we could never on our own know—that Jesus is the true God, the Son, and our Savior. When you this day celebrate the birth of your Savior, you are also celebrating the Father’s love for you since He revealed this great mystery to you.
3. However, Christmas not only reveals the Son, who was born of Mary, and the Father, who sent the Son, but Christmas also reveals to us the Holy Spirit.
How? When we see the Baby Jesus lying the manger we see that God has become man. But then that raises the question: how could the holy God become also a true man? After all we are sinners who inherit that sinful corruption from our parents. The whole chapter up to our text traces Jesus’ human ancestry, His ancestry from sinners. Wouldn’t, then, He also be a sinner, since every one of His human forefathers was a sinner? But let us look deeply into the manger where Christ points us to the Holy Spirit; here’s where Christmas reveals the Holy Spirit.
Our text: After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit… and then later the angel tells Joseph: Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. God becoming man points us to/ reveals to us the Holy Spirit and His work. By the special, supernatural power and working of the Holy Spirit, without any human assistance, Mary was found with Child from the Holy Spirit. In the womb of the Virgin, the Holy Spirit formed from Mary the human nature of Jesus in a wonderful, supernatural way so that what was conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; He did a miracle; the human nature that Jesus assumed was a special creation of the Holy Spirit. This is what we confess in the Creed: Jesus was conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of the virgin Mary.
That’s precisely the way it had to be. For Jesus to be our Savior He had to be from conception on holy and sinless so that by His holy and pure conception and birth He could heal and purify our sinful conception. Jesus was the only person conceived and born without the taint and stain of original sin, that sinfulness, corruption and depravity we are all born with. With the birth of Jesus that first Christmas, the Holy Spirit is revealed because He prepared a perfect and sinless human nature for Him. The manger and the Baby Jesus reveal the Holy Spirit. Since there can be no Christmas without the work of the Holy Spirit, Christmas, reveals the Holy Spirit to us.
The Christmas account also reveals the Holy Spirit in another way. Our text: Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took to him his wife, and did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn Son. And He called His name Jesus. Through the word that the angel had spoken, the Holy Spirit brought Joseph to faith so that he believed the angel’s word that Mary was still indeed a virgin, and that the Son in her womb is the promised Savior and true God doing what only God can do—saving people from their sins. Through the Holy Spirit’s work Joseph believed that the Child is Mary’s womb is Immanuel, the God who is with us, who is one of us.
It is just as difficult and contrary to reason today to believe that Jesus is both true God and true man and our Savior. The very fact that we are here today and recognize and confess that Jesus is the Immanuel, the God with us, the God in our flesh and blood, who is also true man and like us in every way except sin; that He is our Savior; that is all the work of the Holy Spirit. When you look into the manger and there see your Savior, the Holy Spirit and His work for you and in you is also revealed.
Christmas is a glorious revelation of the Triune God for our salvation. Let us look into the manger and there see Jesus, the Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, who became also true man and was born to be our Savior. But let the Christ-child point us also to the Father, who in grace sent Him to be our Savior; let Him also point us to the Holy Spirit who prepared that sinless human nature for Him and who now brings us to faith. Only in Christ Jesus, whose birth we celebrate today, do we know God aright. To the Holy Triune God this day and always be all praise, glory, honor and worship for His glorious saving work for us.
Merry Christmas!

Dear friends in Christ. It is always interesting to hear how the secular world—that wants to make Christmas some sort of non-descript early winter holiday—tries to explain the “why,” the “what it’s all about.” There’s the usual talk about family, friends and togetherness; there’s the talk of sharing and kindness; there’s the talk about it being a time of love and joy; there’s the thought that it’s a time of wonder for children. Some see Christmas’ theme as being peace and hope—a worldly sense. Even some Christians fall into one or more these ways of thinking.
But these secular thoughts about Christmas are counteracted by Christians who respond in word, card, bumper sticker, etc. with: Jesus is the reason for the season. And that is precisely right—Christmas is all about Jesus; it’s the celebration of His birth. But to get at the real significance and comfort of Christmas, it’s important to go one step beyond and to ask the question—why is Jesus the reason for the season? That is, why was Jesus born? Why was there that first Christmas? We answer that and we find our true joy and cause for celebrating Christmas, and for making that joy last all throughout the year.
As we examine our text this evening, we will discover that the only reason there was that first Christmas was so that we might have the forgiveness of sins and eternal life; there is no other reason for Christmas than our salvation. We will see as we study our text that we need Christmas; that we need Jesus who was born that first Christmas to be our Savior, for He is true God and true man.
1. Our text from St. John begins simply enough: In this was revealed the love of God in connection with us, that God has sent His Son, the Only-begotten, into the world, that we might live through Him. As we ponder these words, we see the Holy Spirit telling us through St. John what our true spiritual condition is, that condition that made Christmas necessary: that we might live through Him. This means what? That on our own, our true spiritual condition is one of spiritual death. In and of ourselves we do not and cannot be alive spiritually. If we are spiritually dead now, that spiritual death will lead into eternal death. Without Christmas, then, we all would remain in spiritual death, in slavery to sin, oppressed by the devil and with nothing awaiting us but an eternity in hell. But then there was that first Christmas, Jesus came so that we might live, have full spiritual and eternal life. What a glorious significance there is to Christmas—it now means for us life, both now spiritually and eternally in heaven.
Looking at that first Christmas we get a picture of what the true spiritual reality of the world is. We read of the shepherds: watching over their flocks by night [Lk 2.8]. How fitting that it seems that Jesus was born at night. There, all around our Lord, we have the picture of the world sitting in the darkness of sin and death under the tyranny of slavery to Satan. That’s the picture we have that the prophet Isaiah [60.2] first proclaimed: For behold, the darkness covers the earth, and deep darkness the people; and he [9.2] describes humanity as those who walked in darkness… and who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death. This dark world of sin and death, in Satan’s clutches, is the world into which Christ was born. That’s why we need Christmas—into this world of spiritual death, of sin and slavery to Satan, the Christ-Child is born.
That’s precisely the Christmas gospel—into this world of sin and darkness, Christ came to bring us light and life—salvation; to rescue us out of Satan’s tyranny; to open to us the way back to God and to heaven. It is just as Isaiah said of Christ’s birth [Is 60.2]: But the Lord will arise over you and His glory will be seen upon you.
Here is our true Christmas joy! The Savior, our Savior, the one in whom and through whom we may have true, full, abundant spiritual and heavenly life was born to be our, my, Savior. Christmas’ true joy and blessing will never be understood until we recognize the simple fact that there was no other reason for the incarnation, for the Son of God to become also true man, no other reason Christmas, than that we may have life, be brought from spiritual death to spiritual life and be reconciled to God. Remember the starting point—why God had to become man and be born and then there will be nothing but pure rejoicing when we hear [Lk. 2.11]: For there is born for you this day…a Savior who is Christ the Lord.
B. Yes, Christmas is a time for recognizing our great spiritual need—our need for a Savior from sin; but it is also a time for recognizing and rejoicing that that Savior from sin has come born that first Christmas.
But let’s take it a step further and see a further reason for our rejoicing this Christmas—Jesus is the reason for the season—ok—and He only came because of our sin and to save us from our sin. But then comes the question: What prompted that first Christmas? That is, what caused the true God to become also true man to be born to be our Savior, to destroy sin, death, devil and hell? That, too, we see in our text: In this is the love, not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the satisfaction for our sins. There is a Christmas only because of God’s love for us sinners. Christmas again drives home the point that our salvation is alone the work of God for us. Again remember our starting point: we born spiritually dead, sinners and enemies of God; by our sins we earn nothing but God’s wrath and eternal punishment. But in spite of who/ what we are, God loved us and wanted to save us from our sin, save us from His wrath and condemnation. Because of God’s love for us sinners, there was that first Christmas.
Christmas, then, is grounded in God’s love for us sinners; and in that love He wants to save us from the well-deserved punishment for our sin and give us life, spiritual life now and eternal life in heaven. Precisely Christmas proclaims God’s love and since it is God who loves, our Christmas joy is certain.
Our text: In this was revealed the love of God in connection with us, that God has sent His Son, the Only-begotten, into the world, that we might live through Him. Our great comfort here is in God’s love. He is the almighty God after all. His love is not just some emotional mood, not just some sentiment hidden in His heart that He would like to act upon if He could. His love is not an empty emotion but love is a characteristic of God. He loves us and He acts in that love; nothing can stop the almighty God from showing/ carrying out His love toward us.
His love is in connection with us; it is directed toward us; His does not merely approach us and deal with us in love at a distance, but His love rests upon us. That divine love is the mercy of God. Not only does He not reject and turn sinful humanity away from Himself in His wrath but He instead has mercy on us as He sees us in the misery of our sin and wants to help us out of our misery, bring us from spiritual death to spiritual life, bring us finally to Himself in heaven. That’s why there was that first Christmas—we needed Christmas, that is, we needed God to be our Savior from sin and to bring us life. That first Christmas happened because God is merciful and able to carry out that love.
Precisely here—because of God’s love, which He can and does carry out no matter what, like He did that first Christmas—we can rejoice this Christmas 2011 and have hope! Just think if Christmas depended on our love of God first—first we love God, then He would love us and save us. If we first had to love God before He would love us, that would make God owe us; it would make Christmas a result of something good in us; it would make our salvation dependent upon us. But if that were the case, we could have no hope, no comfort, no joy at Christmas because how would we ever know we loved enough for God to love us in return? But the simple established fact remains: Christmas! Christmas is the sign; it is the actual appearing, demonstration of God’s love directed toward us poor miserable sinners. Do you wonder what God thinks of you? How He is disposed toward you? Then look to the manger in Bethlehem: In this was revealed the love of God in connection with us, that God has sent His Son, the Only-begotten, into the world, that we might live through Him…He loved us and sent His Son to be the satisfaction for our sins. Here is our Christmas and every day joy.
2. The only reason there was that first Christmas was because we needed to be rescued from sin, from Satan and from spiritual and eternal death; and only God in His love for us could bring it about. He brought it about in a very miraculous way—in the person of Jesus Christ. Christmas is all about the sending of that very special One who would be our Savior.
Our text is clear: Jesus, the Babe of Bethlehem, is the true God Himself, the Son, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. God has sent His Son, the Only-begotten, into the world. Jesus is called, and is, the Son. Here we see Jesus’ divinity, that He is true eternal God. Although distinct Persons, the Son, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit are one God. So close is the Father and the Son—He was united with the Father in the Godhead—yet, in love for us sinners the Father sent His Son to take on human flesh and blood, to be also true man, in order to become the Savior of the world; and the Son, in love of His Father and in love of lost humanity, came. What a contrast between the Sender and the One sent and the place where He is sent! What a great Christmas mystery and miracle we behold in Bethlehem—the eternal God is born of the Virgin to save sinful humanity. The Son of God was sent as on a mission—to reconcile the whole of lost, sinful, condemned humanity to the true, holy God.
This was a work only He could do. He didn’t come to live His life as an example of what God wants and expects us to do; He didn’t come to be a new Lawgiver or teacher of ethics—God had already given His law quite clearly enough. He came as Savior! He came to reconcile sinful humankind with the holy God. How wonderfully Jesus was equipped and prepared to do that. As true man, Jesus placed Himself under the Law of God to obey it perfectly for us. As true God, Jesus is holy and righteous, free from and unable to sin. Thus from the moment of His conception unto His death, Jesus was keeping God’s Law for us—that very Law we in no way can keep, fulfilling for us the righteousness God expects from us.
Although Jesus, the God-man, never sinned, He became sin; all of our sins were charged to Him and He took them to the cross where He suffered for us all of God’s wrath and punishment. Because Jesus is true man, He had blood to shed and could die; because Jesus is true God, His suffering and death had enough value to pay for the sins of all. Since our sins have been taken out of the way, we are now reconciled to God. Our text: He loved us and sent His Son to be the satisfaction [the payment] for our sins. That’s the ultimate reason for, and results of, Christmas. Those very sins that separate us from God and condemn us have been dealt with, taken away, covered, and now no longer stand. The only way back to God is in Jesus Christ, the God-Man.
Jesus still comes and gives us the blessings and result of His work—the forgiveness of sins and peace and reconciliation with God. He does this in His holy Word and Sacrament. In fact, what a glorious proclamation of Jesus’ Person work we have in Holy Communion. There, together with the bread and wine we eat the very body born of Mary and drink the very blood that was shed that reconciled us to God. Because Jesus is the God-man He can and does give His Church in all times and places His body and blood together with the forgiveness of sins that we may live.
Because we are sinners who need spiritual life and reconciliation with God, we needed Christmas. Because Jesus is the true God who became also true man to bring us forgiveness of sins, there was that first Christmas. The only reason for Christmas was so that we may have salvation. There was Christmas. Merry Christmas! INJ Amen.

Dear friends in Christ. The season of Advent is a season of waiting. There are those who just can’t wait for Christmas to come, but before it does there’s the long days and weeks before. There’s all the preparations—the planning, the shopping, the decorating, the baking, etc.—to be done before the big day.
All these outward, external things serve us as a good reminder of the spiritual preparations that should be going on in our hearts as we hear Advent’s call [Is. 40.3]: Prepare the way of the Lord. Our right and proper preparation during the Advent season—and especially now during the last week—is to use Advent as a time to examine our hearts and lives for sin, to recognize and sorrow over that sin and to look for and rejoice in that Savior whose birth we celebrate on Christmas. All of the external, worldly preparations for Christmas can, and often do, drown out this proper use of the weeks before Christmas.
Especially now, at least, during this final week of Advent if you haven’t already been doing so, take a break from all the busyness of this time of year and rightly prepare the way of the Lord, rightly prepare for Christmas by gathering around the word of God—both His holy Law, which shows you your sin and His precious Gospel which announces to you His grace and proclaims to you that Savior from sin, so that come Christmas you can say in joy from the bottom of your heart: Joy to the world, the Lord has come! That’s the right celebration of Christmas.
A vital and unavoidable part of this right preparation for Christmas is prayer. Prayer is the Christian’s heart to heart talk with God. He first speaks to us in His word of His grace and love, of His work to save us from our sin; He gives us the faith to hear His command and promise [Ps. 50.15]: Call upon Me in the day of trouble and I will deliver you and actually to do it. We now know God as our dear loving heavenly Father who wants to and does hear and answer our prayer in the best possible way for us. When God speaks to us in His Word and reveals Himself in it to us so wonderfully, how can we not speak to Him our love and praise of Him; how can we then not go to Him in all trust, confidence and love?
Our prayers, though, are not merely focused on ourselves but they are all- encompassing. In sections around our text, St. Paul is talking about the public worship services. And in our text he speaks specifically about prayer in the public worship service: Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all people, 2 for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.
Our lives of prayer at home flow into the prayer of the church; the prayer of the church flows into our personal prayers at home. With his full authority as apostle, Paul urges, insists, that we pray not just for our own personal needs but that we pray for all people. In fact he calls this: first of all, that is, it is first in order of importance that we pray for others, for all people. When we pray in church The Prayer of the Church, note how all-encompassing it really is. Prayer raises our attention and awareness far beyond ourselves. We pray on behalf of/ for all people. That means that we pray for them as if we were praying for ourselves. That also means that we pray for our enemies, as Christ Himself says [Mt. 5. 44]: Pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you. The point is clear, it may not be easy to pray for those whom we do but this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior.
Our preparations during Advent, the examining of our own heart and mind, humble us and lead us to see God’s great grace toward us. We recognize that we are poor miserable sinners who deserve none of it, but God has been gracious and merciful to us in Christ. Since we ourselves are the unworthy recipients of God’s grace and mercy, we then want others to have the same joy and peace in Christ, the forgiveness of sins He brings us.
We pray for all people in their needs, especially for them in their spiritual needs that they, too, come to faith and receive the forgiveness of sins in Christ; we pray that the Lord continue to work on them and strengthen and purify their faith; we pray that they remain steadfast in the faith until the end and so be saved.
We especially pray for this now because during the Advent season, we are not only reminded to prepare ourselves for the celebration of Jesus’ first coming, but we are also reminded that He will come again on the Last Day—this time as judge. Our prayer is [Rev. 22.20]: Come, Lord Jesus! But since Jesus is coming in all of His glory as judge on that Day, we want all people to be found ready and longing for His coming, that is, to be found as Christians, in the faith that Jesus might bring them with us soul and body into heaven. That’s why our Advent prayer is for in their needs—especially their greatest need: that they come to and remain in the holy Christian faith.
Paul then goes on and gives a concrete example: 2 for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. In Paul’s day, he and the Christians would pray for, among others, the Roman emperor Nero, the very emperor who persecuted Christians and under whom Paul himself was killed. Our lives as Christians, as we live them out in this world in that Advent faith awaiting our Lord’s return, as we live out our lives in prayer it is not that we are so heavenly minded that we are no earthly good. Instead, by our prayers for all and especially all in authority, we are doing the greatest possible good. Not only are we asking God’s blessings on those in authority, but we ourselves are affected by our prayers as by our prayer we are recognizing that those in authority over us are there by God’s will and that they are His representatives. We cannot help but honor in our hearts those for whom we pray.
As we pray for all people, especially those in authority, and as God grants that prayer, we enjoy the blessings of lead[ing] a quiet and peaceable life that we live in all godliness and reverence. That is, as we pray for all people, our hearts and minds are directed toward the holy Triune God whose grace and mercy we enjoy and whom we love; we live our lives in godliness. As we pray for all people, we are lead all the more to love and honor them and so live our lives in reverence and nobly toward all.
2. Praying for all people according to their needs—especially for their conversion and preservation in the faith—and praying for those in authority over us, that’s a bold thing that faith works. But we have the promise from God in our text: this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior. Our prayer for all people—especially their conversion—has an absolutely firm foundation: God our Savior, 4 who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. It is God’s will that we pray for the spread of the Gospel, that people be brought into His Church because He truly desires the salvation of all people.
In fact, it is rightly said that God desires our salvation more than we do. Because we are all born in sin and dead to the things of God, there’s no way we could seek the true God and His salvation. Like Adam and Eve did after the fall into sin—they hid from God, ran away from Him—so too do all people if left to themselves. There’s no spark of spiritual life in any of us as we come into this world. But God desired our salvation; He wanted to save us from sin, death, devil and hell. He wanted to give us life and peace. The very fact that we are Christians, that any of us are saved is because God wanted our salvation. Our salvation from start to finish is God’s willing and working it. That’s His grace. And that’s why there was that first Christmas and that’s why we still celebrate Christmas: God so desiring to save us that He Himself became also a true man to be our Savior.
God our Savior, desires all people to be saved, that is He wants to give them eternal life, and to come to the knowledge of the truth—that’s the way, the only way they come to salvation and eternal life. That knowledge of the truth is trust in, reliance upon Christ Jesus, true God and true man, and His work for us and our salvation.
Why is it important to come to the knowledge of the truth? --Because there is only one true God and one divine will to salvation. Our text: For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus. This here is the preaching of Christmas, of the Incarnation—God, the Son, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity becoming also true man. And here is the why of Christmas—so that that the sinful human race could be reconciled to the holy God and so be saved. In the Person of Jesus Christ we sinners are now reconciled with the holy God.
As the angel told Joseph [Mt. 1.20]: That which is conceived in [Mary your wife] is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins. Through God—namely the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit— and through the Virgin Mary, Jesus became the one and only Mediator between sinful humanity and the Holy God. In Jesus, true God and true Man, what has been alienated has been joined together forever. From the moment of the Incarnation, when in the womb of Mary the Son of God took on human flesh and blood, and into all eternity God and man are united in Christ. Here is our salvation; here is why we can pray and work for all to be saved.
Later this week we will celebrate the birth of that one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus. We celebrate God becoming man because of what He would do: the Man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave Himself a ransom for all. Because Jesus is true Man His offering, His sacrifice, His ransom was for humanity. Humankind was given God’s holy law; humankind rebels and sins against it; humankind has earned for itself God’s wrath and condemnation. But now, in Christ Jesus, a true man has kept God’s holy law for us all; a true man has taken on Himself the sins of all and a true man has suffered God’s wrath in place of us all. Because this true Man is also true God, He could perfectly obey God’s Law without once sinning; because this true Man is also true God, He could give Himself as a sacrifice, as a ransom for all.
Because the true God has become true man, we poor sinners now have a claim on His work of redemption. We can rightly say: Jesus, who is true God, who in Himself cannot die, has died on the cross to pay for my sin. Because this Man who died and gave Himself as a ransom is also the true God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, His sacrifice, His ransom, has enough worth to pay the price for the sins of all people and to reconcile the sinner with the holy God. Here is that one way back to God—through Jesus, the one Mediator between God and man. The way back to God for us sinners is not by what we do—our works—but by what Christ Jesus, true God and true man has done for us as our Mediator. Faith clings to Jesus and His work and applies His blessings and promises to us personally. Through that faith we partake of that salvation earned by Jesus’ ransom.
In the quiet of Advent let us pray in peace confidently and for all people. Because God is gracious to us He reconciled us sinners to Him; now we can approach Him boldly in prayer for ourselves and others—especially for their conversion. Let us daily rejoice in and fully make use of that grace that became visible that first Christmas. INJ Amen

Dear friends in Christ. Today we meet one of the great figures of Advent—St. John the Baptizer. From Scripture we know that he was the son of Zechariah and Elisabeth, a relative of Mary. We know that John was about six months older than Jesus. And we know that John was the one sent to prepare the way of the Messiah, as the angel told Zacharias, John’s father [Lk. 1.16]: And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah…to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. And Zacharias confessed this when John was born, saying of him [Lk. 1.76]: And you child, will be called the prophet of the Highest; for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways, to give knowledge of salvation to His people by the remission of their sins.
John was one sent to prepare the way the way for Jesus, the Savior, first by proclaiming a message of Law, that is, he was to preach to the people that they are sinners in need of a Savior; that left to themselves they earn nothing for themselves but God’s wrath and condemnation; that they must recognize their sin and sorrow over their sin. But announcing to the people their sin, leading them to recognize how lost and hopeless they are, was only part of John’s work in preparing the way for the Messiah, Christ Jesus. The main part of John’s work was to point to the work of the Savior, to give knowledge of salvation to [the Lord’s people] by the remission of their sins. Later, John could actually point to Jesus and say: Look! The Lamb of God who takes the world’s sin away.
John is a prominent figure in Advent because Advent serves us as a season of preparation. We once again are reminded of our sin; how we have earned nothing but God’s wrath and condemnation; we are called once again to examine our hearts and lives in light of God’s holy law. This is a proper preparation for Christmas. When we truly feel and recognize our sin, we will then truly rejoice at the Christmas Gospel: For you is born this night a Savior; and we will all the more heartily sing out: Joy to the world, the Lord is come.
In our Gospel today the Holy Spirit gives us a summary of John’s message: Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near. Obviously that’s not all that John said, as if went about merely saying that phrase; but that is the sum and substance of his preaching. Today as we focus on the phrase the Kingdom of heaven, we will see that the kingdom of heaven is a heavenly kingdom because it comes to us from God in heaven, through heavenly means, and gives us heavenly gifts.
1. The kingdom of heaven is God calling all people to Himself in Christ. Since the kingdom of heaven is God calling us to Himself in Christ, it means that it originates with God in heaven. This again shows so clearly that our salvation is all God’s work from start to finish—God calls us to Himself in Christ; it doesn’t start with us, our work, and our action. Indeed, it cannot because as we come into this world, as we are conceived and born, we are spiritually dead and enemies of God. We cannot take the first step toward God; it must be God’s initiative toward us, God’s work.
Our text begins: In those days [that is before Jesus had publicly entered His office as Messiah; when He was still in “seclusion”]John the Baptizer came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, 2 and saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near!" John did not come on his own. God so moved and led him; at God’s command John comes and enters his office as the last of the Old Testament prophets but the forerunner who would announce the Messiah’s appearance—something all the OT prophets had longed to do. On top of that, not only, as we heard, was John’s work as the one who would prepare the Messiah’s way announced to John’s father, but John had already been prophesied by the OT prophets. Here St. Matthew records: For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, saying: "The voice of one crying in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the LORD; Make His paths straight.'". This drives home the point that the kingdom of heaven—God calling all people to Himself in Christ—is the kingdom of heaven. That is, God had to take the action because we can’t.
This is God’s work that He had long planned on doing for us sinners even though and precisely because we can’t. This is the grace of God toward us sinners. This is what our text shows us with the Israelites. It’s not that somehow the people had shown themselves worthy or deserving of God. Just the opposite! The people were dead in sin; they only had the appearance and the name of the people of God. Their religious leaders were the Pharisees who were merely satisfied with outward keeping of man-made laws; and the Sadducees who were rationalists and lived only for this world. But in grace, God came and through the preaching of John called them to repent of their sin and to put their trust, their faith, in the coming Savior, the Messiah. Left to themselves, the people would still be burdened with guilt and live lives of a sham, worthless righteousness which would shut heaven to them and condemn them.
In grace God sent John to preach His holy Law, showing the people that they sorely lacked the holiness God demands and that they need forgiveness and another righteousness, the righteousness that the Messiah would give them.
Here is the call of Advent for us. Let us take the mirror of God’s holy Law and hold it up to ourselves. There we will see all of our sin and wretchedness. There we will see that no matter how hard we try, or think we have succeeded, we are far from the perfect righteousness God demands of us. There we will see that we cannot enter God’s kingdom on our own terms but instead how much we need His grace, His forgiveness, His Savior—Christ Jesus. Precisely this is the beautiful thing! Then our hearts are ready and prepared to welcome the Savior. Then we hear God in grace calling us to Himself in Christ Jesus. Then we rejoice anew and again at the announcement of the birth of our Savior at Christmas; then Christmas truly brings us good tidings of great joy.
Let’s also not forget the obvious. The kingdom of heaven is the kingdom of heaven because it originates with God. He sent John, but He also sent His dear Son from heaven to be our Savior. There can only be a kingdom of heaven because God the Father sent the Son, the Second Person of the holy Trinity from heaven to earth to become also a true man in order to be our Savior. Because Jesus is the sinless God, He could perfectly obey God’s holy Law for us and so render that absolute sinlessness that God demands of us. Because Jesus is true God, the sacrifice He made on the cross as He took all our sins upon Him and suffered all of God’s wrath and punishment for them, was enough to be the one perfect sacrifice for the sins of us all and so reconcile us sinners with the holy God.
2. The kingdom of heaven is the kingdom of heaven not only because it originates with God in heaven, but it comes to us through the heavenly means, instruments, of word and sacrament. Through His holy Word and Sacrament God calls us to Himself, to be part of His kingdom, His holy Church. On the surface, it is just seemingly simple words. The voice of one crying in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the LORD; Make His paths straight’. But this word points to Christ, proclaims Christ and His work for us. Because it is a heavenly word, a word from heaven, the Holy Spirit is there in/with it. He works through that word of the Law to lead us to recognize our sin and sorrow over it and to long for a Savior from sin. That’s preparing the way of the Lord. That’s what John did and may that be what we do this Advent season. And through the word of the Gospel, that word that proclaims Christ and offers all of His gifts, the Holy Spirit is also at work to create faith so that we say “yea and amen” to Jesus and His work and blessings, so that our hearts are opened wide to receive Christ as He comes to set up His reign, His kingdom in our hearts.
We also read in our text: 5 Then Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the region around the Jordan went out to him 6 and were baptized by him in the Jordan, because they were confessing their sins. And John himself also says: 11 I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance. Through the heavenly means of the water with the word, namely holy baptism, we are brought into, made part and parcel of the kingdom of heaven. That was John’s preaching [Mk. 1.4]: repenting and being baptized for the forgiveness of sins. That’s what the washing with the water showed—they needed the washing, the cleansing from sin.
The same applies to us. Through the heavenly means of baptism our sins are washed away and we are now connected with Jesus and His death and resurrection. Our sins that Jesus took upon Himself lay dead and buried in His tomb; the forgiveness and reconciliation that His resurrection proclaim is now ours. We now have new spiritual life as Christ, the King of Glory is now living and reigning in our hearts; the kingdom of heaven has now come to us.
3. Dear Christian, rejoice that God has in Christ called you to Himself in the word and the word and water of holy Baptism. You are now in the kingdom of heaven, the Church. The holy Triune God is reigning in your heart. He is also now giving you, as part of His heavenly kingdom, heavenly gifts.
The very fact that you are a Christian shows that He has given you the ultimate heavenly gift: the gift of faith and the Holy Spirit. Without this, there is no way you could be a believer, part of His heavenly kingdom because, remember, left to ourselves we are spiritually dead, unable in the least to do anything to save ourselves. Our salvation is all God’s work and gift from start to finish. In the word He has called you to Himself and by His Spirit’s work in the word, He has given you the gift of faith to welcome the Savior and receive the heavenly gifts of forgiveness, life, salvation that He brings.
Now that we daily and earnestly examine our hearts and lives, recognizing and sorrowing over our sin and look to Christ for the forgiveness of those sins, that we daily, and especially now this Advent season, anew prepare the way of the Lord to our hearts, that we truly repent—that is the work of the Holy Spirit in us; that too is a heavenly gift. Like those religious leaders in John’s day who offered a false, a sham, repentance: But when [John] saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, "Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, so there are those today who offer a false repentance. But that we now recognize our sin and trust Jesus for forgiveness, that we make a start in living a life more and more in accord with God’s will, a life of good works, that is a great gift from heaven that God gives us because that is the Holy Spirit at work in our hearts and lives; that’s God ruling us.
The kingdom of heaven is a heavenly kingdom because one day God will lead us into heaven. His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn. He will protect us and keep us in that saving faith throughout our earthly lives as He strengthens our faith by His word and sacrament and purifies it through the various trials we endure that throw us back to cling to His word and promises.
Rejoice this Advent season as we again hear the proclamation that the kingdom of God has come near. It is a heavenly kingdom that by grace comes to us from God in heaven, through the heavenly means of word and sacrament and gives us heavenly gifts. INJ Amen.

Dear friends in Christ! Although it seems that everybody else is already in the Christmas season, we in the Church are in the pre-Christmas season of Advent. Instead of jumping right into Christmas like the rest, the Church sets aside the season of Advent to prepare ourselves, our hearts and minds, for our celebration of Christmas. Advent means “coming” and in the Advent season we hear—as we did last week—that Jesus still comes to us today in His holy Word and Sacrament. As we hear from our Lord’s own lips in this morning’s Gospel, He will come again on the Last Day. Of course, how can we forget Christmas and that we now prepare ourselves for the celebration of our Lord’s first coming?
As we remember our Lord’s coming to us, how can we not use Advent as a time of introspection and repentance? The very fact that Jesus had to come that first Christmas was for no other reason than to be our Savior from sin. It was our sin that caused Him to come. That’s a call to examine ourselves and to repent.
The very fact that He now comes in grace in His word and sacrament is to give us the forgiveness of sin that we so desperately need and every other heavenly blessing. So that we welcome Him rightly when He comes to us now in Word and Sacrament, let us again use Advent as a time to examine our hearts and lives in light of God’s holy Law, to recognize our sin, and our need for a Savior and the gifts and blessings He brings us. Again—Advent’s call of repentance.
In our text this morning, we also hear Advent’s call to repent. This time it’s in connection with Jesus’ Second Coming, this time in glory to judge the living and the dead. By repentance that we are ready for His coming—whenever it might be. As we examine our text, we will heed our Lord’s words: Remember Lot’s wife. As we do so, we are reminded of the suddenness of Christ’s coming and the judgment; and we are reminded to have our heart set on heaven.
1. Jesus begins our text: And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: 27 They were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying wives, they were being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. 28 Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building; 29 but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom [the Lord] rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. 30 Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.
These judgments of God recorded in Scripture are all foreshadows of Jesus’ Second Coming and the final judgment. Even every disaster that we face today is a reminder to us that this created world, this world that God had created perfect but which now has been contaminated by sin, is to pass away. Paul describes it [Rm. 8.22] this way: the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Luther described it as a rickety old house that is about to collapse. Each disaster—be it an earthquake, flood, tornado, etc.—is another creek and groan of that house about to collapse.
The flood was God’s judgment for the sin of the world. When He rained fire and brimstone on Sodom, was His judgment on the especially wicked city less than 400 years after the flood. These destructions not only foreshadow the great and final judgment on the last day but also show that God is capable of such judgment and destruction—even of the entire world. The point that Jesus makes loud and clear here is that we are to learn and take these judgments to heart because the Final Judgment is coming. These are preludes to it. So, yes, the final judgment on the Last Day, Jesus’ return to judge, it is not a surprise: we not only have the very word of God saying so, but we also have these preludes or forerunners.
The simple fact is that even though Christ’s return and the judgment are to be expected, they come unexpectedly on a world that has chosen to ignore the Lord and His word. It comes unexpectedly upon the worldly minded—those who care only about the here and now. The description that Jesus gives of Noah’s and Lot’s time does not reveal the gross sin that was going on. It simply shows people engaged in every life, doing the things that any normal person and society does—eat, drink, marry, buy, sell, plant, build. These are necessary things but what made it wrong is the picture that Christ paints of them: they had totally forgotten the Lord and His Word and His will and way. Because the people had become worldly minded and rejected the Lord and His will and word, that’s why they grew more and more sinful and corrupt. That’s why they filled to overflowing the cup of their guilt and sin.
That’s why we have before us today the Scripture of Christ’s coming and judgment on the Last Day—it’s a wakeup call; a call to repent. Christ’s coming will come quickly. Let us be aware of it and live our lives in light of it. That is, let us not live merely for the here and now and push the Lord to the background of our hearts and lives; let us not drive out from our hearts our Lord, His word and His will. Let us today heed Advent’s call to repent and look at our hearts and lives in the mirror of God’s holy law and root out any living merely for the here and now, and any neglect, indifference or rejection of the Lord’s word and will. Christ’s coming is expected but will come unexpectedly to many, to those who do not heed Advent’s gentle call of repentance.
B. But we are our Lord’s Christians. We are here today in church, listening to His word. Certainly this call of Advent to repent really doesn’t apply to us. But precisely here we have our Lord’s word of warning to His Christians: Remember Lot’s wife.
With the Lord’s judgment on the world and on Sodom, there was not just judgment and destruction, there was also rescue. There are always those who in the Lord’s grace heed His call and repent. There was Noah and his family—8 total; and there was Lot, who was the nephew of Abraham, his wife and two daughters—4 total that escaped Sodom. Through Noah’s building the ark and by that preaching, the Lord was calling people to repent—none repented. Through the life and witness of Lot, the Lord was calling people to repent—none repented. Our comfort this day is that come that Last Day, the day of the great and terrible judgment, there is rescue and deliverance. That rescue comes through faith in Christ. Yes, we repent of our sin, sorrow over the wrong we have done when we see how much and how grievously we have sinned against the Lord and His will, even when we see how worldly-minded we have become—that’s Advent’s call to recognize and sorrow over sin; but our rescue comes when we in faith grab ahold of Jesus and His saving work; grab ahold of the forgiveness of sins and reconciliation we have with God in Him; as we give Him our sins in repentance and receive His perfect holiness in the absolution.
In short, there is rescue as we listen to the Lord and take to heart His word. That’s what Noah and family did. That’s what Lot and family eventually did. The Lord provided the way of escape. Where there is the judgment on the Last Day, we have peace, safety and rescue in Christ, who calls us to cast our sins upon Him and to receive forgiveness from Him.
2. Let us take to heart, though, this Advent season, our Lord’s words: Remember Lot’s wife. The Lord knows how to save/ deliver His own [2 Pt. 2.9]. Although due to great weakness Lot and family at first were reluctant to leave Sodom, the Lord was patient, helping and sparing them in their weakness as His angels had to lead them out by force. But when they were safe and the Lord rained fire and brimstone down upon the city of Sodom and those surrounding it, contrary to the Lord’s word, Lot’s wife looked back. Although she was safe from the destruction, graciously spared from it, she looked back in regret at what was left behind and was turned into a pillar of salt.
The warning here, Remember Lot’s wife, is clear: through faith in Christ, we have been rescued from the destruction and damnation that will come upon the unbelievers come Judgment Day. We are already now, like Lot’s wife was, in a safe place—standing in the grace of the Lord, in faith receiving every heavenly and spiritual blessing. But there is the danger for us now as we wait for our Lord’s coming, as we live our lives as Christians in this sinful world: because we must daily do the day in, day out things—eat, drink, buy, sell, plant, build, etc.; because we still have our old weak sinful nature still with us—we all too easily lose sight of heaven and like Lot’s wife, contrary to the Lord’s word, look back longingly to the things of the world, look back at what we have forsaken.
Yes, it is a long wait—almost 2000 years—since Jesus has promised to return. Many Christians have become like Lot’s wife—they were safe in Christ, in the Church—but they lost their focus on heaven; they no longer set their heart on the things of the Lord but on what they see and so by this expel the Holy Spirit and faith in Christ from their hearts. But, let us not be one of them, dear Christian! Let us instead turn to hear Advent’s call to repent because Christ is coming—not only in His word so that we in faith rightly welcome Him and receive His word together with the blessings He brings; but also because He is coming in judgment on the Last Day so that we may be found prepared, ready, waiting and longing for His coming. The glorious thing is that now is the time of grace—the time that the Lord calls us to repent, forgives us and works and preserves faith in Him in our hearts.
Here is where the suddenness of Christ’s return comes into play and we have come full circle. Our text: Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed. 31 In that day, he who is on the housetop, and his goods are in the house, let him not come down to take them away. And likewise the one who is in the field, let him not turn back. 32 Remember Lot's wife. Because Jesus’ coming will come suddenly upon the world—even though it is expected—many will be caught unawares and unprepared to meet Him as Savior and will be forced to meet Him as judge. Now let us use the time we have for what it is—a time of grace to prepare ourselves for the Last Day, which could be today before the end of Divine Service. When Jesus returns it will be too late to get ready. That moment He returns, we need to be ready with that new heart.
The image Jesus here uses is of a fast approaching enemy army: The only way of escape is haste. Don’t worry about the goods in the house; run fast before they catch up with you. If you worry about your possessions and try to save some, you will be destroyed. The warning for us is clear: let us not be loaded down with care and concern for earthly things so that the Day comes upon us unawares. Lot’s wife looked back at what she had lost, rejected her rescue and was turned into a pillar of salt, receiving the punishment of the ungodly. For us, there is no hope of salvation if our minds are still attached to the things of the world, if we are living securely without care about our eternal future; being utterly oblivious to things of God and His judgment. The Last Day will come. And on that day will be a great separation: 33 Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it. 34 I tell you, in that night there will be two men in one bed: the one will be taken and the other will be left. 35 Two women will be grinding together: the one will be taken and the other left. 36 Two men will be in the field: the one will be taken and the other left."
Just as Noah and Lot were taken to safety from the place of destruction at the same time as those who were left met destruction, so too will the Last Day be a day of separation. Now the godless and Christians are closely connected but come that day is a sudden and eternal separation, all earthly bonds severed and divided. Remember Lot’s wife.
Let us listen to Advent’s call: Repent! The Judge is at the door. But let us also listen to Advent’s other call: Behold! Your King and Savior comes for you. By believing and holding fast these Advent proclamations, both of which are true, we are ready for Jesus’ coming be it today in His word and sacrament, be it on the Last Day, or be it in celebration of His first coming. INJ Amen.

Dear friends in Christ. Our midweek Advent service this year falls on the day that the Church remembers our Lord’s Apostle, St. Andrew. It is rather fitting, since one way of figuring out when Advent, the new Church year, begins is that it begins on the Sunday closest to the feast of St. Andrew. Andrew is one of the first, if not the first [Jn. 1.35], of those who followed Jesus. Thus it is fitting that the day the Church remembers him is right near the beginning of the Church Year. At first Andrew was a disciple of John but John pointed him to Jesus. As we read in our text, Andrew was a fisherman by the Sea of Galilee and his brother was Simon Peter. In fact, as St. John [1.40] tells us, it was Andrew who found his own brother Simon, and said to him, “We have found the Messiah”…and he brought him to Jesus. It was Andrew who noticed a boy in the crowd with “five barley loaves and two fish” which led to Jesus’ miracle of the feeding of the 5000. When some Greeks wanted to see Jesus, they first approach Andrew and Philip, both of whom had Greek names.
According to tradition, after Pentecost Andrew preached in areas like northern Greece, southern Russia. He was probably crucified at Patras in Greece around the year 70 on 30 November. But the tradition that he was crucified on an x-shaped cross seems to be no older than the 14th Century. He is held in particular honor in Greece, Russia and Scotland.
In our text we meet Andrew as Jesus calls him to be a “full time” disciple and apostle: Follow Me. And it does us well as we hear our text today, to remember that in this newly begun Church Year, Jesus is again calling to each of us, Follow Me, as in the new Church year He again comes to us seeking fellowship with us.
1. Our text: Now Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. And He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men”. Nothing is by chance or coincidence with our Lord. Here He is walking by the Sea of Galilee specifically for the purpose of calling these men to be His select group of disciples.
The same thing happens to us in this new Church Year. Jesus comes to us to seek us out. Some time ago, some past Church Year ago, Jesus specifically came to you and said to you, Follow Me. That was the Church Year in which He came to you in the waters of Holy Baptism to claim you; or that was the Church Year in which He came to you in His Word and by His Holy Spirit created faith in your heart. But that doesn’t mean that He came once and that was it. No, He keeps coming to you, also now in this new Church Year. With Andrew in our text, yes, it seemed coincidental. He was merely doing the work of his calling as a fisherman. It was not a planned meeting that they had set up.
With us in the new Church Year, certainly there will be these “chance” meetings like Jesus had with Andrew. For example: we are talking with a fellow Christian and we end up talking about the Lord and we are strengthened or encouraged in our faith through the word that was spoken; but it is really not by chance but by our Lord’s design that He comes to speak to us His word through these unlikely/ coincidental instruments.
But, in our Lord’s grace, we don’t have to wait for these “chance” meetings. Instead, Jesus tells us precisely where He is and where He is waiting for us—in His holy Word and Sacrament. There, as we gather around His word and Sacrament, Jesus is there calling us and strengthening our faith and guiding us. We can be sure that He will be there because He promised to be. Do you want to be where our Lord is—daily read and study His word; join us for Bible study; be here in church where He is in His Word and Sacrament. Christ again comes to you in this newly begun Church Year and again and anew says: Come, follow Me.
Our text once again shows us the grace of our Lord: Now Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. And He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men”. Notice here, Jesus comes to Andrew where he is—casting a net to catch fish. He doesn’t make all sorts demands and requirements of him; He doesn’t demand a certain level of “holiness” before He comes to him. Instead Jesus comes to him and calls him to be His disciple. Jesus shows us the same grace as He comes to us where we are and calls us.
Are we great sinners? Jesus calls to us in our sin and says follow Me, that is repent of that sin and receive the forgiveness I brought you and want to give you. He doesn’t demand a certain level of holiness first—merely sorrow over sin and faith in Him and His work; faith that receives His forgiveness and holiness.
Are we weak in our faith? Jesus calls to us in our weakness and says follow Me, that is, hear My word and there I will give you a strengthening of faith as My Holy Spirit works in that word; look back to your baptism and what I have given you in it and know that I am in you and you in Me; come to My holy altar and there I will give you My very Body and Blood for the forgiveness of sin and to strengthen your faith in it. In/ by His word and sacrament Jesus comes to us where we are, not just if our faith is strong; but especially when it is weak so that He may strengthen that faith and bless us in it.
Our text so clearly drives home the point that now Christ comes to us in grace. What made Andrew, a fisherman, an average working man, so precious and dear to Jesus that Jesus says to him, follow Me? Nothing according to the world’s standards. He wasn’t royalty; he wasn’t famous or rich. Spiritually? Andrew was like all of us are—a poor, miserable sinner deserving only of God’s temporal and eternal wrath. But in grace Jesus came to him to give him every blessing.
Long story, short: Jesus called Andrew not because Andrew was so good and deserving but because Jesus is so gracious. The same thing applies to us. We are now Christians not because of anything we have done, not because we’re somehow better than the rest of lost humanity but because God is gracious to us.
Again, also look at the action in our text: Now Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. And He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men”. Andrew did not choose Jesus, but Jesus came to them and chose them. That’s exactly what happened to us at our baptism, or through the Word if Jesus brought us to faith later in life. Jesus chose us; He came to us; He worked faith in Him in our hearts. Later on Jesus plainly says [Jn 15.16]: You did not choose Me but I chose you. And we see that so clearly as Jesus physically that day came to Andrew—Andrew didn’t come to Him; and that Jesus chooses us—not that we choose Him—we see so clearly because Jesus comes to us in His Word and Sacrament.
B. So, then, in this new Church Year Jesus comes to us, His dear Christians, in order to teach us and have us grow in our faith. And He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men”. Andrew, together with Peter his brother, James, John and the rest of the 12 literally followed Jesus during the three years of His earthly ministry. During those years, Jesus taught them. They heard Jesus preach; they saw the miracles confirming His preaching; they saw Him crucified; they saw the risen Christ; they watched Him ascend into heaven. Through all this, the Holy Spirit was working mightily strengthening and confirming their faith so that they would then go out into the world preaching the Gospel, being fishers of men; and seal their faith and confession with their very lives—as Andrew and the rest did.
Today Jesus says to us at the beginning of the new Church Year: “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men”. We now follow Jesus throughout the new Church Year that will again trace the events of His life and proclaim once again what He taught. As we gather here in church and follow Jesus’ life and teaching week after week, the Holy Spirit will be mightily at work in our hearts and lives, like He did with Andrew, strengthening and confirming our faith. We follow our Lord this year in church, for the same reason John [20.31] tells us he wrote his Gospel: that [we] may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing [we] may have life in His name.
But we do not merely follow our Lord at a distance. Instead, as we gather around His holy table He gives us with the bread and wine His very body and blood. There we receive in our mouths the very body of Christ that took our sins, was punished for our sins, that died for our sins; there we receive in our mouths the very blood that was shed to pay for our sins and reconcile us sinners to the holy God. In the holy Supper, Jesus and the blessings and benefit of His work are a present reality.
On top of that, as we confess our sins and receive the absolution, that is, as we live out our baptism, we are again reminded of what our baptism has done—it has connected us with Jesus’ death and resurrection. The barriers of time and space are gone. We are in Christ and He is in us; He gives us the blessings and benefits of His work.
2. As we follow Christ into the Church Year, as we are regularly and faithfully around His holy Word and Sacrament, we have fellowship with Him. Our text: Then they immediately left their nets and followed Him. Andrew had a new life, one of an apostle. The Lord was continually working on him, preparing him to be an apostle, a fisher of men, that is, one who would catch souls for the kingdom of heaven by preaching the Word.
That’s the glorious fellowship we, too, now have with Christ! Not only is Christ in us and we are in Him, but He is also working on us and with us. Through His Word and Sacrament He is working to strengthen and keep us in the faith; through all the experiences we will go through in this new Church Year, Jesus is working at purifying and honing our faith. This too is a tremendous comfort—as we go through various trials and hardship this new Church Year, let us remember: we are following Jesus. That means that not only is He leading the way, but He is also there with us. As He is with us, He can’t leave us alone but will comfort us with His rod and staff: His Word and sacrament; though we go through the valley of the shadow of death, we need not fear because Christ is with us. And, in fact, not only is Christ with us but even the worst thing, death, He has destroyed so that it is only a shadow. Death may try to do its worst to us, but for the Christian, all it can do is serve as the instrument through which Jesus leads our soul to heaven.
This new Church Year, let us, with Andrew, again hear the call of Jesus, Follow Me, and may we then follow Jesus boldly and joyfully into this new Church Year. Yes, we don’t know all that will happen to us, but we know only that Jesus is going on ahead of us and we are following Him. We rejoice that He comes to us and calls to us once again this new Church Year Follow Me. This is His grace to us. As we, like Andrew did, immediately leave our nets and follow Him, that is, as we take on His light, gentle, yoke of repentance and faith, we know and are assured of a glorious fellowship with Him and so look for His continued gracious working on us and His blessings to us. INJ Amen.

Dear friends in Christ! On that first Palm Sunday in which Jesus went into Jerusalem to offer up His life as the once for all sacrifice for sin, many in the crowds recognized and confessed Jesus to be the Messiah, the long-promised Savior as they welcomed Him saying [Mt. 21.9]: Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!
That very Jesus still comes to us today in His holy word and Sacrament. That’s why in the communion liturgy, in the Sanctus, we, too, use the same words of the Palm Sunday crowd and welcome and confess Jesus as He comes to us with His body and blood in Holy Communion. Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!
Today, the First Sunday in Advent, we begin a new Church Year. As we begin this new Church Year, we have the glorious comfort knowing that Jesus will again come to us in it, just as He has in all the other Church Years we have experienced.
“Advent” is a fitting name for the first season of the Church Year. Although beginnings—like the beginning of the year—can always be a bit scary because we don’t know what exactly to expect, it’s not that way with the Church Year. We know exactly what to expect: another year of Christ coming to us and giving us every heavenly and spiritual blessing, another year of God’s grace. Just as Jesus came that first Palm Sunday for us, riding the simple humble donkey, so too all throughout this new Church Year Jesus will continue to come to us “riding” the simple, humble bread and wine of the sacrament; He will come “riding” His simple humble Gospel Word to bring us salvation and righteousness, just as the prophet writes [Zch. 9.9]: Behold your King is coming to you; He is righteous and having salvation.
1. This is a glorious proclamation that sounds the tone for the entire Church Year. It is vital that we remember just that: precisely in that simple, humble Gospel Word Jesus comes to us and gives us every spiritual blessing. Although it is a holy Word, it is easily despised and overlooked because that Gospel word is so simple. That’s why we do well to hear St. Paul in our text: For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes… The Gospel is that gracious proclamation that tells us what Jesus has done and is doing to save us from sin, from God’s wrath, from hell; and it gives us what Jesus has done. It does not demand works from us—Jesus has done the work—but faith to receive its promises and blessings; and it creates that faith. The Gospel does not condemn us for our sins but assures us sinners of grace, peace and salvation.
Although the Word, that Gospel of Christ, that word by which Christ comes to us is simple and humble, Paul is not ashamed of it. Yes, the Word is seemingly humble but it is glorious because it is the power of God to salvation. This Word, this Gospel not only proclaims Christ, but by it Christ comes to us. It is the means, the instrument, Jesus uses to come to us and give us the heavenly blessings that He does. How does Christ come to us? –By His Word! How does Christ give us the blessings of forgiveness of sin, life, salvation, righteousness? –By His Word!
Yes, the Gospel Word seems humble, simple, but it does what no other thing on the face of the world can do; it does what no amount of human speculation or philosophy can do; it does what no human work can do. The Word is the power of God to salvation. That is, through the Gospel Word we are brought from death to life; we are delivered from damnation and given salvation; we are rescued from hell and promised and made heirs of heaven.
The Gospel Word is seemingly just words and powerless but it is God’s word and thus the power of God. Elsewhere [1 Cor. 1. 18] St. Paul says: For the message of the cross [that’s the Gospel!] is foolishness to those who are perishing… But, in fact, God chooses to work precisely through the simple seemingly powerless Word. We cannot come to know God fully and rightly except in the Gospel word, that Gospel of Christ. In it God fully reveals to us Who He is, His fatherly love, that He is our Savior. It is a divine word and by His Holy Spirit in that Gospel Word, He brings us to faith and strengthens us in that faith.
All people need that Gospel of Christ, God’s saving word which proclaims Christ and by which Christ comes to us giving us the blessings He won for us by His holy life and innocent suffering and death. Listen again to our text: for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes for the Jew first and also for the Greek. The Jew, those to whom God had revealed His holy will in the Law, they could not be saved by their keeping of the Law, because like you and me they were sinners; they disobeyed that holy Law of God day in and day out; they lacked that perfect righteousness God demanded.
The Greeks were known for their worldly wisdom and study. They were the bloom of natural man’s development, but they too were separated from God. All their wisdom got them nowhere when it came to God; when it came to being right with the Lord. Neither by the works of the Law, nor by worldly wisdom can we be saved, rescued from sin, death, devil and hell.
Salvation is only by the Word of God, the Gospel of Christ. Salvation is never by what we do—the Jew with his Law and the Greek with his wisdom. Instead, salvation is always by God’s grace. Since salvation is by God’s grace alone, that’s why He has given us His divine Word, the Gospel of Christ, to bring us His grace, that is, to work faith in our hearts to receive and welcome His grace, to receive and welcome Christ coming to us in the word, coming with blessing of forgiveness of sin, life, salvation, peace and joy.
Why then is the Gospel of Christ—the Good News that in Jesus our sins are forgiven and we are reconciled with God, the Good News that we are covered with the righteousness of Christ, the Good News that because of Jesus heaven is opened to us—why is it the power of God that results in salvation? Because it tells us who Jesus is and what He has done. On our own, we would/ could never know anything about God’s way of salvation in Christ; we would/ could never know anything about the coming and work of Jesus; we would/ could never know anything about the reason for His coming and work unless God reveals it to us in His word. Through the work of the Holy Spirit in the word we come to know Who Jesus is and what He has done to save us from our sins. Not only does God reveal all this to us but by that very proclamation He creates faith in our hearts to receive the gifts and blessings that Jesus, the God-Man, has brought about for us.
This is the grace of God that we enjoyed the past Church Years and this is the grace of God that we will again enjoy this new Church Year that begins today: as we gather around our Lord’s Word and Sacrament, His means, His instruments of grace—He brings and delivers His grace to us. Dear Christian, rejoice! Christ again comes to you to bring you again and again His salvation.
2. The Gospel of Christ not only reveals who Jesus is and that He is the One who brings us salvation but it also presents, gives, us Jesus’ righteousness. Through the faith that the Holy Spirit working in the word creates in our hearts, we grab ahold and make our very own the Jesus’ perfect righteousness. That’s why Jesus comes to us today in His word: to bring us His righteousness so that He can save us.
What shuts people out of heaven is sin, that lack of the absolute holiness and perfection the one true holy God demands. Because we sin, because we come far short of that absolute glory and perfection, heaven is shut and hell opened to us. Nothing we do can or will open heaven to us. That’s why Jesus has to come to us, reveal Himself to us in His word; and through that word the Holy Spirit creates faith in our heart.
Faith isn’t just mere knowledge; instead faith is trust, confidence in Jesus and His work. The Gospel of Christ reveals Him and presents, holds before us Jesus and His perfect keeping of the Law, Jesus and His holy, innocent suffering and death. In other words, Jesus comes to us today in His Word to bring us His righteousness; because by our sin we lack righteousness, but He gives us His righteousness, a righteousness that is valid before the throne of God; a perfect righteousness that shuts hell to us and opens heaven to us. Jesus comes to us in His Word to bring us righteousness. Our text: For in [the Gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, The just shall live by faith.
The Gospel announces, reveals, a present reality; it reveals that in Christ God has a favorable judgment on us; through faith in Christ, we are covered with Jesus’ perfect holiness. The Gospel reveals to us that we who are not righteousness have a righteousness, a righteousness that comes from God. It is Jesus’ perfect righteousness that God credits to us. Paul is clear in our text that we need that righteousness. God’s holy Law reveals to us our sin and lack of righteousness. That’s what we daily confess; that’s what we come to church for to receive absolution/ forgiveness from the pastor as from God Himself. Our text:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.
We desperately need the righteousness of God and that’s precisely why the Law is preached—so that we realize our sin and damnation; so that we realize that without Christ’s righteousness we are hopelessly lost. Because of our sin, we don’t realize how lost from God we are; how sinful we really are. That’s why in the Law God reveals than not one of us is holy/ righteous, but that we are all godless, sinners, unjust, children of wrath.
Just as the Lord has done this by His holy Law in all the past Church Years that we have experienced, it is only to drive us to seek and welcome Jesus coming to us this new Church Year in His holy word and to seek His righteousness. That’s why Jesus will again come to us this new Church Year—to save us from our sin by forgiving us our sin and covering us with His righteousness. That’s why we will be in our Lord’s house around His Word and Sacrament this new Church Year—to welcome Jesus as He comes to us in His Gospel presenting us with the gifts He brought about and won for us; that’s why we’ll be around the word daily this new Church Year, reading and studying it. Just as the Palm Sunday crowds were not ashamed of their Savior coming to them riding a humble donkey, neither are we ashamed of the simple water, bread, wine and word by which Jesus comes to us today.
This is nothing but God’s grace toward us sinners once again this new Church Year. For in [the Gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, The just shall live by faith. Both the righteousness that God gives us, that perfect righteousness of Christ, and the faith to receive it are gifts of God. From faith to faith: from beginning to end, it’s all faith, not our works. This faith that receives the forgiveness of sins and the righteousness of Jesus quiets the guilty accusing conscience and truly makes us spiritually alive.
What a blessed new Church Year awaits us—a year in which Christ comes to us again to bring us salvation and righteousness. We rejoice at the prophet’s word: Behold your King is coming to you; He is righteous and having salvation. INJ Amen.

Dear friends in Christ. St. Paul tells us: For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures we might have hope (Rm. 15.4). How blessed we are! We have the example always before our eyes of how our gracious Triune God dealt with the OT Israelites. We have the advantage of looking back at them and seeing how the Lord blessed them with grace upon grace. We have the advantage of seeing how our lives as Christians mirror that of the OT believers. From that we can take great comfort.
Especially now on this Last Sunday of the Church Year as our eyes are directed once again to our Lord’s return and His taking us soul and body into heaven, we take great comfort from the Lord’s dealings with His OT people. For about 4000 years they had the promise that the Savior, the promised Messiah, was coming. They waited, relying on the Lord’s promise and they waited some more until, finally, Jesus did come, that Baby born in Bethlehem. Just as they waited for the promise of Jesus’ first coming, so also now we wait for Jesus’ second coming in all of His glory—just as He promised. At this time of the Church Year as we look ahead to Jesus’ return on the Last Day, we are also looking back to His OT people. Their wait then is a picture of our wait today. From them, we can learn patience, being certain that the Lord is faithful to His Word and promise. Just as He came the first time, so too will he be faithful and come again. Just as we see our lives mirrored in their lives and experiences, just as their lives and experiences foreshadow our own as Christians, we can be sure that the Lord will act toward us in faithfulness and love and will bring us to heaven.
1. Our text today is a prophecy that the Lord would bring His people back to Palestine, the land He had promised them, the land in which the Messiah would be born, after a period of time of exile, captivity, in the far off land of Babylon. It is a prophecy, that is, it hadn’t happened yet; it was the Lord’s promise. When the Lord will bring back the captivity of Zion, we will be like those who dream. The OT Israelites were the Lord’s special people, people to whom He had revealed Himself in the word and temple; people to whom He had spoken through His prophets. Yet, they were also a people who fell away from Him, took His word lightly and worshipped false gods. In short, they were a people who enjoyed every grace and blessing of God, but yet had rejected Him. In wrath and punishment, but also for their own spiritual good, to cleanse and purify their faith from all unbelief and wrong belief, the Lord had their enemies, the Babylonians, come in and destroy Jerusalem and the temple and bring the people away into captivity in a foreign land for 70 years.
It was precisely then, when it all looked hopeless, that He gave them the prophecy that He would bring them back from captivity and restore their fortunes. What did the faithful OT believers do? They held to that word and promise of God—He would bring them back to their homes. For the faithful, God’s Word and promise was as certain as if He had already brought it about. When the Lord brings back…we will be like those who dream. Already in exile they could have joy because the Lord’s word and promise is certain.
Here is a picture, a foreshadow, of our longing to be in the perfect joy of heaven, of our longing for Jesus to return to bring us to heaven, our true home. Yes, we look ahead to heaven, to being with our Lord in heaven in both soul and body, free from all the sin and trials and sufferings that now afflict us, but let us also remember: the Lord has promised both His return and that He will take us soul and body into heaven. That means that it is absolutely certain. The Lord has promised it Like the OT Israelites trusted in the Lord’s promise, so also we trust His word and promise to us. The joy of heaven is certain; the Lord has so promised. Therefore, in all certainty, we too can say: When the Lord brings us to heaven, we will be like those who dream, when He does bring it about, it will seem too good to be true but it will be true!
2. The Lord has a perfect track record. When He promised the OT Israelites rescue and deliverance, they could and did have every reason to believe it. They just had to look over their history and see how often the Lord had rescued them from their enemies. The greatest example was when the Lord brought them out of slavery in Egypt. That, if you will, was the down payment, the assurance that He could and would do the same and keep His promise of bringing them out of captivity in Babylon. That’s why they could be certain of the Lord’s rescue and that He would keep His word.
We too have a “down payment,” an assurance that the Lord will return in glory one day and bring us, soul and body, with Him into heaven. We are already rescued. In Holy Baptism the Lord has come to us and claimed us as His own. He has made us His dear children and heirs of heaven. He has given us His Holy Spirit. St. Paul says: You were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance (Eph. 1.14). And God…has given us the Spirit as a guarantee (2 Cor. 5.5). And Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee (2 Cor. 1.22). The point? God has claimed us and given us His Holy Spirit. Thus we can be certain of heaven. That God gave us His Holy Spirit is His pledge to us that He will continue to work in us and bring us one day to Himself in heaven. That’s why we can rejoice; that’s why we can be certain of heaven’s joy. God promises and He is sincere in His promises.
But yet there is a warning here for us as well. We have the “down payment,” the guarantee, but what do we do with it? The Israelites, after they were delivered from slavery in Egypt, then fell into sin and ingratitude. After the Israelites returned from captivity in Babylon and made a good start, most of their descendants rejected the Messiah when He came 600 years later.
We have been given the Holy Spirit in baptism; He is the guarantee of our heavenly inheritance, that when Jesus returns in glory He will bring us soul and body to the glories of heaven. But yet, by continually rejecting the work of the Holy Spirit and willfully remaining in a life of sin, willfully rejecting what He is leading us to do, willfully rejecting the Word, willfully forsaking gathering around the Word and the Sacrament, a person can grieve the Holy Spirit and expel Him from the heart. Then the guarantee of our heavenly inheritance is gone. Therefore, dear Christian, treasure your Baptism and hold on to it in joy as that time that the Holy Spirit was given to you. Treasure and hold on to the Holy Spirit. Follow as He leads you into a life more and more free of sin and a life more and more grounded and centered in God’s Holy Word and Sacrament. From God’s end, heaven’s joy is certain and guaranteed us. Therefore we can say: When the Lord will bring [us] back we will be like those who dream.
3. What great joy we now have! We have the assurance of heavenly joy for all eternity. Just as the Lord rescued His OT people from slavery in Egypt, just as He brought them back out of captivity in Babylon, so will He bring us safely through our earthly life to Himself in heaven. The Lord has promised this to us and He has claimed us in holy Baptism and given us the guarantee of our heavenly inheritance—the Holy Spirit. Not only in heaven, but also now we have joy—Then will our mouth be filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing. We have great, in fact, excess jubilation. We have the Gospel joy—that promise of God that for Christ’s sake all our sin is forgiven; that Jesus defeated sin, death, devil and hell; that heaven is now opened to us. Not only is our laughter that of joy but it is also a laughing at our spiritual enemies. Sin cannot condemn us; Jesus already kept that holy Law of God perfectly for me and was already condemned for that sin and appeased God’s wrath over that sin. The devil cannot drag me down to hell; Jesus reconciled me to God. The devil can do the worst to me and even kill me, but even that does no harm because for us, because of Jesus’ work, death now becomes the door for life eternal. We can laugh in derision at our spiritual enemies. If we can do that now, think of the joy that will be ours when we, soul and body, are finally enjoying full heavenly bliss after the day of Jesus’ return! Although the Israelites had joy in the promise of the return to their home, how much greater their joy when they were actually there! How much more so will that be the case when we are actually in heaven?
There is no way we can possibly imagine the joy of that day when we will be ushered into heaven, into the presence of the holy God Himself, where we can behold Him with our glorified eyes in our glorified bodies, free from all sin, from all sickness, weakness, defects of sin; where we will be safe from all our spiritual enemies. That’s what the psalmist describes as being like in a dream; we will realize that we aren’t dreaming, that the glory is real!
Then they will say among the nations, “The Lord has done great things for them.” The Lord has done great things for us whereof we are glad. Just as the Israelites’ return from captivity made God’s loving-kindness clear to all, so also in heaven as all the saved walk in the sweet light of God’s presence, they will point at the other people and say, “The Lord has done a great thing for them.” The saved will respond, “Yes, the Lord has done a great thing for me and that’s why I am now and for all eternity rejoicing in.” The Lord delivered from captivity the OT Israelites without any merit or worthiness on their part. Like with the OT people, the very fact that we will one day be in heaven enjoying its indescribable joys is not because we are so good and holy and righteous, instead, it is all by God’s grace to us poor sinners.
As we think about the joys that await us in heaven on the day of Christ’s return, we cannot but long and yearn for that day. The OT saints certain of the Lord’s promise, prayed for it with fervent longing—they wanted to experience it: Bring back our captivity, O Lord, as the streams in the south. The streams in the south were those channels, watercourses, in the desert that dried up, but as the rainy season came, they were suddenly filled up with rainwater moving in them like a might river. This is a picture of quick action. The people were praying: return us quickly! We, now, too, thinking about heaven and its joys, pray that the Last Day, the day of Jesus’ return come quickly. The Church’s prayer is: Come, Lord Jesus! Come quickly! We want to be rid of our life of sin, trial, temptation, sorrow and death.
Our text: Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy. He who continually goes forth weeping, bearing seed for sowing, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. The OT saints were assured of return and joy, but in the meantime there was much toil and trouble. There is much toil between planting and harvesting, much work before they are finally restored. In the same way with us Christians today: we are certain of heaven, of one day being there in soul and glorified body, but in the meantime, until Christ comes we continue the bitter struggle against sin, we endure trials and sorrow, we suffer because of sin. But certain of heaven, we do not give up; we do not grow weary. We live our lives, laboring in the sure and certain hope, which is ours through faith in Christ. On the day of His return, He crowns us with every heavenly and spiritual blessing in Christ for all eternity. INJ Amen.

Dear friends in Christ. We often hear that all people are God’s children and then one of the wrong conclusions drawn from that is that all people, all religions worship the one and the same God or that in the end He will save all people no matter what. To be sure, all people are the children of God because He created us all and provides for us all; He loves us all; He even provided the way for all people to be eternally saved. The familiar verse of the Bible puts it all so well in the proper perspective: God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. Yes, God loves all; in Christ He saved all; but only those who trust in Jesus, the only-begotten Son, true God and true man, and His work are saved and properly “children of God.”
The Holy Spirit puts it this way through the Evangelist [John 1.12]: But as many as received [Christ], who believe in His name, to them He gave the right to become children of God; and again through the Apostle [Gal. 3.26]: for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ.
By the gracious working of the holy Triune God, we, dear Christian, are now, in Christ, through faith His own special dear child and heir of heaven. That’s what baptism has done for us and is the seal of. Because the Lord has done this for us, because we are now His as He claimed us and made us His own in holy Baptism, we can now have a quiet, peaceful life knowing that He loves us and is working everything for our spiritual good.
1. In our text, we meet the OT Israelites. Of all the peoples of the earth, they were the ones the Lord had singled out, claimed and blessed in a wonderful way—they had the promise that the coming Messiah would be one of them; they had the whole sacrificial system and divinely prescribed worship that all pointed forward to that coming Savior; they had the prophets that proclaimed to them the Lord’s word and pointed them to Him, His work, the Lord’s grace and promises.
The Lord dealt with them in a wonderful way. They were under pressure from the mighty enemy army that was conquering land after land and they were clearly in their cross hairs. But the Lord told them through the prophet: In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength. They were to do nothing but simply trust in the Lord to protect them; they were to do nothing but let faith do its thing—rely on the Lord, His word and promises.
But they did not want that quiet, peaceful life. Instead, they felt that they just had to do something; they relied on their own selves, their own scheming, on alliances. The haunting words of our text, the words in response to the Lord’s promise: But you would not and so they had no rest and quietness.
With His promise, what was the Lord calling on the Israelites to do? Simply to let faith do its thing; simply to be an OT Christian and recognize God for Who He really is: the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel and trust Him to work and protect.
Dear Christian, we are through faith, God’s dear children and have the same promise when we face our own every day trials and enemies that seek to overwhelm us: In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength. When in the face of all our various trials and hardships, we recognize God as God; that we are His dear children and He made this sure to us in our baptism; that He has promised us this same rest and quietness as we wait for His help and deliverance; we are doing nothing else but letting God be God.
Because we are the Lord’s and recognize Him as the almighty God who loves us and is working all things for our spiritual and eternal good, we have a great peace in the midst of every trial—the one, holy almighty God is in control, and He is the God who is for me, His dear Christian, His dear child and heir.
In fact, in the midst of whatever trial we are going through it is sin if we do not have rest, quietness, confidence. Why? --Because either despair or presumptuous trust in human help is idolatry.
Idolatry is something other than trusting the Lord above all things. If we despair of all hope and rescue, then we are saying that God is unable to help; that there is something other than Him that we should put our confidence and trust in.
If we place our trust in human help then that is what we have our trust and confidence in, not the true God. Human help, or whatever else it is that we look towards for help, that becomes our god. We expect help and every blessing or rescue from it, not from the true God. That’s idolatry! Instead of relying on the invisible God, we rely on things we can see or touch. So both extremes are sin—either despair or smugness, bold trust in human help.
In reality, we can only have true peace, a quiet, peaceful life when we fulfill the First Commandment of fearing, loving and trusting in the holy Triune God above all things and so in faith take to heart God’s promise: In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength.
The simple fact of the matter is: the Israelites would discover that all their alliances in which they felt strong and invincible, all of their scheming and workings, would ruin them. In short, all trust that is not in the Lord will ultimately result in defeat. Instead of relying on the invisible Lord, the Israelites relied on their own power and the visible presence of horses, military might:
And you said, "No, for we will flee on horses"-- Therefore you shall flee! And, "We will ride on swift horses"-- Therefore those who pursue you shall be swift! 17 One thousand shall flee at the threat of one, At the threat of five you shall flee, Till you are left as a pole on top of a mountain And as a banner on a hill.
But what happened when they turned away from the Lord and trusted in other things? With their swift horses they hoped either to attack the enemy and crush him with overwhelming military might or to be able to run away. But the Lord was still in control and would give the victory to their enemy. All of their working and scheming, all of their restlessness, all of their trust, all of their rejecting the Lord’s promises gets them nothing, just utter defeat as the Lord gave swift victory to their enemies.
2. Does this mean that the rest and strength the Lord promises the Israelites then and His dear Christians today, is irresponsible inaction, or in their case unrealistic pacifism? Hardly! It is faith in action. They had that direct promise from the Lord for their particular situation. Today, we, our Lord’s dear Christians, His children, have His glorious promise and assurance that He is working all things for our spiritual good. That means we can have a glorious, certain peace of mind knowing that whatever we begin with the Lord, in prayer; anything planned and carried out in the fear, love and trust of the Lord cannot go wrong. We can have that perfect peace and quietness because having begun whatever we do, or entrusting the new circumstance/ condition we find ourselves in to the Lord, we leave it alone and let the Lord guide and direct. What a glorious joy and confidence we have in the Lord! What a glorious peace and rest of soul that we have!
To be sure, it may seem outwardly that everything is going horribly wrong, that there is nothing but one set back after another. But in faith we are certain that our gracious Triune God, the almighty God of heaven and earth is working everything to His glory and the spiritual good of His Christian. Even when it looks as if everything is going wrong, it’s not—our Lord’s good and gracious will is always done. That’s why even when everything is seemingly crumbling down around us we can have perfect peace and quietness; we can be in the calm of the eye of the storm.
This rest and peace is part and parcel of our Christian life. Isn’t the Christian life all about faith—first and foremost faith in Christ and His work? What does faith in Christ mean? It means that we trust in Him for the forgiveness of our sin. It means that we look at His perfect life lived under the law of God and recognize that He obeyed for me God’s holy law; that He is my righteousness. That righteousness that I lack, day in and day out, Jesus gives to me and in faith I receive it and make it my very own. Now in the eyes of God, before His holy throne of judgment, God does not see all my sin but only the perfect, holy perfection of Jesus. Things are now right between me and God.
On top of that, those very sins I commit day in and day out, that separate me from God, that earn me His eternal wrath and damnation, Jesus has taken upon Himself and suffered and died for, paying their penalty, enduring the wrath of God. They now are forgiven me! In Christ God declares me forgiven and righteous and in faith I receive this verdict.
That’s why spiritually we have great rest and quietness. Jesus is our salvation. He brought about my forgiveness. We don’t have to do all sorts of supposed good works to appease and reconcile God—Jesus already did that for us! That’s why our strength is quietness and confidence; that is, our strength is simply receiving from God the gifts and blessings Christ Jesus won and brought about for us.
In the strength of quietly receiving by faith Jesus and His work we are receiving His victory for us over sin, death, devil and hell. By His holy, sinless life Jesus defeated sin and His righteousness is now ours; He defeated the devil who can no longer now accuse us of sin and claim us as his own and drag us down to hell. With His Easter morning resurrection, Jesus defeated death; now at Jesus’ command at the Last Day, death will have to surrender all its victims and then our Lord’s dear Christians will in both soul and glorified body be eternally in heaven.
Precisely this peaceful, quiet life we live as our Lord’s dear Christians now by faith—receiving all His work and blessings, living under His grace, now as His dear children, with perfect peace of conscience in the certainty that in Christ I am forgiven my sin and reconciled to God who is now my dear heavenly Father—reflects itself in our everyday lives.
There is no disconnect between our spiritual life and our life lived day in and day out in this world. The same God who loves us and gave up His Son, Jesus, to save us from sin, death, devil and hell—and therefore we have peace of mind and conscience—is the same gracious loving heavenly Father who is in control of all things and working all things in this world for our spiritual good. He is the same God we turn to ask His guidance and blessing as we begin whatever we begin or comes upon us and trust Him to guide and direct in the best way for us.
This does not in any way mean that it will be nothing but health and wealth for us. But it does mean that whatever trial will come upon us, the Lord is using for our good; it means that even in that trial we can have perfect peace, entrusting the matter to Him—it is not up to us. And what’s a blessing upon a blessing, is that He is a God of grace! Our text: 18 Therefore the LORD will wait, that He may be gracious to you; And therefore He will be exalted, that He may have mercy on you. For the LORD is a God of justice; Blessed are all those who wait for Him. 19 For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem; You shall weep no more. He will be very gracious to you at the sound of your cry; When He hears it, He will answer you.
That is our peace and strength in our life. We are our Lord’s own dear children. He claimed us as His own at our baptism; He saved us; He now strengthens us and assures us who He is as He continues to come to us in His Word and Sacrament so that come what may, we may have peace in every area of life as we take to heart and are comforted by our Lord’s most gracious promise: In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength. INJ Amen.

Dear friends in Christ. Today we celebrate All Saints’ Sunday. The Church has always remembered the saints who have gone on before us. By the 3rd Century some 400,000 Christians had been killed on account of their faith under Roman persecution; they were the martyrs. In the 9th century, days for individual martyrs gave way to a single All Saints Day on 01 November. Today, on All Saints’ Sunday, we remember all the faithful who have gone on before us, be they martyrs or not, be they “big name saints” or not. We remember especially those dear to us who have left the Church here on earth and entered the Church in heaven.
St. John [Rev. 7.9] got a glimpse of the Church in heaven. He describes it this way in our Epistle: Behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, saying, "Salvation comes from our God who sits on the throne, and from the Lamb!"…Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, "Who are these arrayed in white robes, and where did they come from?" And I said to him, "Sir, you know." So he said to me, "These are the ones who are coming out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
That’s what we remember today—those who are coming out of the great tribulation of this earthly life, where they and their faith are attacked by the devil and all his allies. On this day, we give our praise and thanks to the Lord who has safely brought them through this earthly life, in the faith, and brought them before His holy throne. Until the time that Jesus returns, the time in which we now live, that is the great tribulation. But, in grace, God brings the souls of His dear Christians out of the great tribulation to Himself in heaven.
On this All Saints’ Sunday, we remember God’s gracious dealings with those who have gone before us in the faith. And we are certain he’ll do the same for us.
All Saints’ Sunday reminds us of another point, which we confess in the Creed, namely that the Church is the communion of saints. All of our Lord’s dear Christians are part of His holy Church. That’s why we’re never really apart from those dear to us who died in the faith—both they and we are still in Christ’s Church; we are all part and parcel of the communion of saints. All Saints’ Sunday is a day that we especially remember and give God thanks for all He did to bring our fellow Christians—especially those dear to us—to faith, to full spiritual life that began here on earth and continues into all eternity with Him in heaven.
That brings home another point—the saints in heaven, their souls, are alive; they are fully using and enjoying eternal life. It means that just because a Christian dies, his/her life does not cease. Yes, our bodies will rest in the ground, but our soul will be with Jesus—as John describes seeing—and will await the resurrection of the body on the Last Day. Then into all eternity the Christian will be soul and glorified body in heaven with the holy Triune God, the angels and all the saints, all Christians.
1. But already in this life, the Christian begins enjoying eternal life. Hear Christ in our text: Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. Eternal life begins the moment that we are brought to faith! Jesus says that the one who hears and believes has—that’s present tense; it’s a present possession—eternal life; at conversion the Christian has gone from death into life.
That means that if we have passed from death to life, the starting point is death. Scripture is clear about that—we are conceived and born in sin, dead in our trespasses and sin. That’s how we would all have stayed unless we were brought to, given, life. That’s grace—God’s undeserved love toward us sinners. Even though we didn’t deserve it, even though we were spiritually His enemies, even though we were spiritually dead, Christ came and gave us life, eternal life, a new spiritual life that will endure into all eternity.
Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life. On their own while on earth, the saints now in heaven wouldn’t have heard and believed, wouldn’t have life; on our own we can’t; but Christ’s holy Word is full of power and life. It creates life in dead sinners so that they did, so that we now, hear with the heart and believe, that is, trust in the holy Triune God for forgiveness of sin and eternal life. This life Christ gives us through His Word gives us true spiritual life not only for now but for eternity. That’s what He did for the saints, the Church in heaven; and that’s what He does for us His Christians, His saints, His Church here on earth.
Jesus says the same thing again in the next verse of our text: Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live. The dead? Those are the spiritually dead—like all of us as we are born into the world. But by His grace He enables the spiritually dead to hear and He works that faith to believe. For most of us, we first heard the voice of the Son of God in holy Baptism. There in the word of holy baptism Christ spoke and brought us to faith, to spiritual life. Perhaps for others among us, it was later in life when through the spoken or read word, Christ first spoke and brought us to faith and spiritual life. But whenever it was, Christ was working through His word calling to us and enabling us to hear and working faith in our hearts so that we believe it. We now have eternal life—that is, we became a dear child of God and one day will be with Him forever in heaven. The saints in heaven are proof of that. In reality, as soon as we are brought to faith, we no longer belong to the world but to heaven. A decisive change has happened: Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life… and has passed from death into life. As Christians, as part of the Church on earth, that decisive act has happened to/ on us; it is an accomplished fact and it has an effect on us now. Now in that new spiritual life, as citizens/ heirs of heaven, we fight against sin and continually drown and put to death that old sinful nature by daily contrition and repentance and by the power of the Holy Spirit strive to live a life more and more in accord with the Lord’s will. That decisive act of us having passed from spiritual death to spiritual life daily shows itself in our hatred of and fight against sin.
But it does not mean that we will be sinless—try as hard as we might. Yet, even in the midst of our sin, that we heartily regret and repent of, we have the comfort of the forgiveness of sins and that we stand in a state of grace. Our text: Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment. In that new spiritual life that we now have and enjoy, our divinely worked faith is always receiving the forgiveness of sins and the righteousness of Christ. We do not come into the judgment because as Paul writes [Rm. 8.1]: There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. We are in Christ and Christ is in us. How can we be condemned? –Christ’s righteousness covers all our sin; our sin stands forgiven; we are declared holy.
That’s why All Saints’ Sunday is such a glorious day. It once again drives home to us the fact that all of our dearly departed Christian loved ones are in heaven because of Jesus and His work for them. Yes, like us, they were sinners—and the closer we were to them, the more we know that, but they did not come into judgment because their sins were forgiven; in that new spiritual life, as we read in Revelation, [They] are the ones… who washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. In other words, as John writes elsewhere [1 1.7]: The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. Since their sin is forgiven, since they have nothing but Christ’s righteousness covering them, heaven is opened to them.
2. Perhaps on All Saints’ Sunday, the elephant in the room is: Yes, but the saints are dead! But our comfort here is that earthly death does not annul or destroy eternal life. That’s why the Christian rejoices today—there will be a joyous reunion with our fellow Christians who are now in heaven. That’s why we can laugh to scorn death and the grave—they can do their worst but Jesus destroyed death by His suffering, death and resurrection. Only because of Jesus and His work; only because of Easter is there an All Saints’ Day.
Nor can the new eternal life that Christ gives us in His Word and Sacrament be stopped or interrupted by death because Christ Jesus, the Son, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity Himself gives it to us! Our text: For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself. Jesus, the Son, like the Father is the source of life and gives life out of His fullness as God and Savior. Remember: the eternal life that Christ Jesus Himself gives, means that we become a dear child of God and will forever be with God in heaven. Yes, death, the wage of sin, will separate soul from body, but while the body rests in the ground the soul of our Lord’s dear Christian will come out of the great tribulation of this earthly life and rest safely with our Lord in the glories of heaven. That’s where the souls of the millions of Christians down through the ages are—with our Lord, safe and blessed. That’s why today is a day of great rejoicing—although in death they suffered the wages of their sin, they live eternally with the Lord; He brought them safely through their earthly lives; He protected them from the worst that the devil and his allies could throw their way; He kept forgiving them their sin and covering them with His holiness and righteousness. In short, All Saints’ Sunday is a day of great rejoicing because our gracious Triune God is faithful to His promises!
Jesus concludes our text this way: Stop marveling at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice 29 and come forth--those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done worthless things, to the resurrection of condemnation. The bodies of our dearly departed Christians are resting, awaiting the resurrection of the body on the Last Day. That’s a glorious promise the fulfillment of which the saints on earth and in heaven await—the bodily resurrection on the Last Day. Then, for all eternity, all of our Lord’s dear Christians, His Church, will be in heaven in both soul—as our departed Christians now already are—and also in the same body we have now only glorified and perfected, free from all the stain and taint of sin.
Here too is certainty and comfort. We can never doubt that Jesus will call us forth from our graves on the Last Day, as impossible as it may seem. Why? Because He has already brought us from spiritual death to spiritual life. The same Voice that called us and gave us spiritual life, will call all people from their graves, and to His dear Christians—their faith in Christ in the heart being shown by their outward works, the fact that Christ was in them leading them into every good work—to them He gives the blessed grace of reuniting soul, which has been in heaven since death, with the body that He called forth from the grave for a glorious eternity in heaven. To the unbeliever, however, whose sin was very much evident as they rejected His forgiveness and righteousness, He gives the resurrection of condemnation—soul and body in hell for all eternity.
On this All Saints’ Sunday, we remember that our Lord’s saints are alive. We His Christians here on earth, His Church, have been brought to spiritual life by Christ in His Word. That life is eternal life. It begins now and continues into all eternity.
The saints in heaven are alive. We rejoice that we are one Church with them, the communion of saints. We rejoice that our Lord has graciously brought them through this earthly life, keeping them in the faith and in that life. We rejoice trusting in the Lord’s mercy and faithfulness to do the same with us. And so we look for a joyful reunion with all of our dearly departed Christians. INJ Amen.

Dear friends in Christ. Today is a day of great rejoicing—not just for us Lutherans but it should be also for all of Christendom. On this Reformation Sunday we remember the work of the great Reformer, Martin Luther, and its continuing significance—first and foremost the rediscovery and proclamation of the central truth of all of holy Scripture: we are declared righteous and saved by God’s grace through faith in Jesus alone, apart from any works; we are reminded again of the emphasis on the Word of God, the Bible and our privilege and duty of using it and we are blessed to have the Bible in our own language; we are reminded of the dignity of marriage, of the separate functions of church and state, of the need for Christian education. We also gratefully acknowledge other gifts God gave the Church through Martin Luther such as the Large and Small Catechisms, which in summary fashion present the main doctrines of Holy Scripture; hymns and congregational singing also came renewed through the Reformation.
Yes, today is a day of great joy as we remember and celebrate and praise God for all He has in grace given us through the Reformation. But by thinking of the Reformation as a one-time, past event and then, as it were, going on with our lives would only be half of a Reformation celebration; and it could even be that we would misuse our Reformation celebration. A true celebration of the Reformation is not once a year but continually living it in our daily lives realizing that it has meaning and significance to us today. To put it differently, we best celebrate the Reformation as we daily live it so that our hearts, lives and church do not need another Reformation.
1. Really when it comes down to it, the Reformation was nothing but a call for those claiming to be Christians actually to be Christians—that is, to recognize sin and trust in Christ alone for salvation, to receive in faith the forgiveness of sins He brought about; or, to put it differently—to live a life of confession of sin and faith.
Living a life that has been renewed by the Reformation is nothing else than following in the steps of the psalmist in our text: I thought about my ways, and turned my feet to Your testimonies.
The Reformation began with the knowledge that something was wrong. Luther didn’t just drop out of the sky; he didn’t appear in a vacuum. Instead, for centuries before Luther, the Lord’s faithful knew that something was wrong in the outward, visible church: I thought about my ways. It wasn’t just a few pious men like Savonarola in Italy or Hus in Bohemia that knew something was wrong. Cries went out from entire councils of the Church and by theological faculties at universities. Something was wrong. There was sin and it was to be repented of.
Also for Luther, the Reformation began when he truly recognized his sin and how lost he was. Luther entered the monastery and there tried his hardest to be without sin, to do enough good works to make up for his sin and to appease Christ who would punish him for his sin. Luther describes his condition in the hymn [#387, 3]: My own good works availed me naught, No merit they attaining; free will against God’s judgment fought, dead to all good remaining. My fears increased till sheer despair left naught but death to be my share; the pangs of hell I suffered. But God in grace drove Luther to the Scriptures and there to the verses [Rm. 1.17]: The just shall live by faith; and [Rm. 3.38]: Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith alone apart from the deeds of the Law. Through faithful Christians, God pointed Luther to Christ and to the Bible—to the Gospel promise of forgiveness and righteousness in Him.
By the working of His Holy Spirit, Luther recognized what was wrong—the main theme of Christianity—salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone, what makes Christianity Christianity— was not being taught. Instead, what was being taught was a salvation by Christ plus works.
B. That’s why the Reformation is a call to repentance. Remember that repentance is that we not only rightly see and recognize the sin in our lives and are sorry for it—so was Luther sorry for his sin, as millions of others were for theirs—but, the main thing, that we turn to Christ Jesus for the forgiveness of that sin; that we trust in His life, suffering and death as that one perfect sacrifice that reconciled sinful humanity with the holy God. That’s what the psalmist says in our text: I thought about my ways, and turned my feet to Your testimonies.
This main, central teaching of Christianity was again brought to light at the time of the Reformation and by the Holy Spirit’s work the Church, as it were, recognized the way, the path that it was on was leading away from Christ and His work, Christianity, and leading toward a trust and reliance on our own works, on humanly devised paths of righteousness that led anywhere but to Christ and salvation.
The Reformation showed that people had let it get that bad. The human, fleshly way of thinking, turns toward the world and what it can see and what makes sense to it; it turns to its own law and righteousness. Luther’s 95 Theses he nailed to the church door in Wittenberg, Germany that 31 October 1517, began with a call to repentance: Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said Poenitentiam agite, willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance. What drove Luther to post the theses, which set off the Reformation, was the abuses of the indulgences—paying to have loved ones released from that imagined place called purgatory—when the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs; paying for heaven for oneself or others.
The Reformation was God’s wake-up call to the Church: Look how far you have departed, so that the faithful in the outward, visible church would be awakened by the Holy Spirit and say with the psalmist: I thought about my ways, and turned my feet to Your testimonies.
Reformation Day rightly serves it purpose for us when we heed its call to repent—to recognize our sin and to turn to Christ for forgiveness. It would be a wrong and worthless Reformation Day if we used it merely to look back and say how foolish the people were back then for believing that about works and indulgences; if we used it merely to look to how good and enlightened we think we are; it is a wrong use of Reformation Day to say in all pride and smugness “I have the word. I’m a Lutheran.” But then rest on our laurels and not look at our Bible, study it; without knowing or even caring to know what Lutherans teach and believe. Reformation Day is a reminder for us not to become complacent in faith—because the very fact there had to be a Reformation shows that we can lose the true word and doctrine of Scripture; it serves us as a warning and humbles us. Instead, let us use Reformation Day to say with the psalmist: I thought about my ways, and turned my feet to Your testimonies.
C. Isn’t this a rather killjoy message on what should be a festival day of joy? After all, is having a true knowledge of our own sin, really the right Reformation renewal? Absolutely! Remember that one of the great themes of the Reformation is Grace Alone. As we say with the psalmist: I thought about my ways and see that left to ourselves and our own devices we would be going more and more away from the Lord and His will and ways; as we rightly see that we are sinners, the more we rejoice in “grace alone.” It was God coming in grace to the outward, visible Church, calling it away from the path it was on and turning it back to Him and His Word. The outward, visible church was corrupt; teaching humanly devised doctrine; putting the emphasis on works and away from Christ. It didn’t deserve anything good from God—but in grace God raised up Luther and others to call it to repentance, to call it back to Him.
That’s grace—God’s undeserved love toward us sinners—He doesn’t just leave us in our sin, but calls us to repent, that is, to recognize our sin and to trust in Jesus. That is the way that alone leads to salvation. Let Reformation Day be a reminder to us of how far we sinners can go from the Lord; but let it also be a reminder of His grace to us in Christ. I thought about my ways, and turned my feet to Your testimonies.
2. Another theme of the Reformation was Scripture Alone. So for a proper Reformation renewal in our hearts and lives today, there is not only the true knowledge of our sin, I thought about my ways, but also and turned my feet to Your testimonies, that is, a return to the word and promise of God. That’s precisely what the Reformation was and still is—a return to the true treasure of the Gospel. Luther points this out in another [#63] of the 95 Theses he nailed to the church door that day: The true treasure of the Church is the Most Holy Gospel of the glory and the grace of God. As we recognize and sorrow over our sins, in faith we turn to the testimonies of God in His word, to His word and promise of grace and salvation, of forgiveness of sins in Christ, to an open heaven and to eternal life there.
That’s precisely what Christianity is all about and that’s precisely what the Reformation rediscovered and brought to the forefront—we are saved by God’s grace through faith in Christ. Christ alone! The Reformation was nothing new. In fact, it is something old. It is merely a going back to the teaching/ the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets who taught Christ Jesus and Him alone; who proclaim the Law of God but also the Savior from sin. The Reformation had merely gotten rid of what was added and contrary to that simple word of the Apostles and prophets. We are merely going back to the treasures of the Gospel—the forgiveness of sin and salvation God promises us in Christ.
In faith, we then receive them and make them our very own. We recognize our sin, we are sorry for our sin and going back to the word, returning to His testimonies, we in faith grab the forgiveness God so richly gives us in baptism, the absolution, the word and Blessed Sacrament. This is faith, Reformation faith in action—taking God at His word.
When there is thinking about our ways, our ways of sin, and a turning to the testimonies, to the word of God, and as faith receives this Gospel treasure from the Lord, we hold firmly to this Gospel treasure, we turn our feet to it. We want our feet firmly planted on the word and promises of God, and rejoicing in His word and promise we then want to do His holy will. We care about our lives of good works—not to gain heaven by them, but to give glory to God and to please Him; we care about sin, about avoiding doing it.
We want to know more of and to study His word more. His holy Word inspires and attracts us. His Word is life-giving. It sustains us and gives us everything that makes life meaningful and satisfying. Only in light of God’s word do we recognize His great goodness, His grace and mercy in Christ. That’s why our Reformation prayer is: Lord, teach me Your word; let me always walk in it.
Our Reformation renewal is not something forced on us from the outside, but it is something we now want to do because we have experienced His grace and love the Lord who saved us from sin, death, devil and hell.
May the Reformation continue in our hearts and lives daily as we recognize our sin and return to the Lord, trusting in Christ alone for forgiveness and eternal life. May we daily say with the psalmist in our text: I thought about my ways, and turned my feet to Your testimonies. INJ Amen.

Dear friends in Christ. Today our Lord’s Church remembers a perhaps controversial saint—St. James. He’s not controversial because of what he did—namely being the head of the Church in Jerusalem, if you will, the first Christian bishop there. As we heard in the first reading today, he rendered a decision about the place of the Gentiles, the non-Jews, in the Church. Led by the Holy Spirit, he did so, on the basis of the OT prophets; through the Old Testament prophets, James recognized that the Lord had said that the non-Jews would be saved and become part of the NT Church. We also remember that according to the Church Historian of the Early Church, Eusebius, James was stoned to death in 62 AD by the Jewish High Priest. None of this is what makes James controversial.
What does make James controversial, though, is what we read in our text of what the crowds said about Jesus: This One is the Son of the carpenter, is He not? Is not His mother called Mary? And His brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Jude? James becomes controversial because of who he is. Is he the actual physical half-brother of Jesus, the true first son of both Mary and Joseph, or is James merely some close relative with the term “brother” being used loosely? It is interesting to note that later in his Gospel, at Jesus’ crucifixion, Matthew [27.56] refers to Mary, not as Jesus’ mother but as the mother of James and Joseph. Clearly, to Matthew’s first readers, James and Joseph were well known.
But the “prominence” of James in the early church was soon eclipsed by a rising devotion to Mary in the following centuries, leading to the teaching of her perpetual virginity, meaning that she and Joseph never had relations, let alone any children. Luther himself held to this view. He writes in the Smalcald Articles, which are part of our confessional writing: The Son became man in this manner: He was conceived, without the cooperation of man, by the Holy Spirit and was born of the pure, holy [and always] Virgin Mary. However, the always virgin only appears in the Latin and not the German text. The great Missouri Synod theologian, Franz Pieper writes: If the Christology of a theologian is orthodox in all other respects, he is not to be regarded as a heretic for holding that Mary bore other children in a natural manner after she had given birth to the Son of God [II, 308].
B. Legitimate arguments have been made on both sides of the question. Christendom has lived comfortably with either view. It does not at all pertain to our salvation whether James was the actual son of Mary and Joseph or a merely close relative. But this discussion of whether James was Jesus’ actual physical half-brother or merely some other close relation does drive home the very vital fact that is necessary for our salvation: that Jesus is true man. Jesus is truly the Descendant promised Adam and Eve after the fall into sin who would destroy, undo, the devil’s work. He is truly the descendant of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, David—just as God promised them. He is truly the One prophesied who was to be born of a virgin.
This controversy about James points us to the reality of Jesus’ humanity—that Jesus is the true God, the Son, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity who also became a real, true human being. And this is for us men and for salvation. The only reason that God became also true Man was for our salvation, was to save us from sin, death, devil and hell. Jesus is the God-Man. The one Person of Christ Jesus is both true 100% God and true 100% man.
Because Jesus is true man means that He can place Himself under God’s Holy Law and keep it for us; give that perfect obedience to God that He demands but that we because of our sin cannot give. Every step of the way, already in the womb—beginning with His holy, sinless conception, Jesus was obeying God’s Law perfectly for us. Because He is true man, He can truly be our Substitute. God gave His holy Law for people to keep and because Jesus is truly one of us, true man, He can be our Substitute under God’s Law.
Not only that, but because He is true Man, Jesus can also take our place, as our Substitute, under wrath of God and suffer and die for all our sins. Because Jesus is also true man, He had blood to shed. All of the sins of the world were laid on Him and He endured their punishment. Man had sinned and Man, namely Christ, had endured the wrath of God for those sins. Because this Man, Jesus, was not just any person, any man but the God-Man, the true Man who is also true God—His death His sacrifice has infinite worth and value for all people. That’s why we now have the forgiveness of sins and peace and reconciliation with God.
James is physically closely related to Jesus—be it as a half-brother or some other close relative. That’s what this controversy so wonderfully drives home—Jesus’ humanity, and as true man that means that Jesus is also our brother—though quite distantly; He’s one of us and so He can be our Savior.
C. But there’s also a warning here as well. Because Jesus is true man, not God in all of his unconcealed glory and majesty, but covered with His humanity; because Jesus is James’ brother, Jesus can easily be rejected—like we see in our text: Where did this Man get this wisdom and these mighty works? This One is the carpenter’s Son, is He not? Is not His mother called Mary? And His brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Jude? And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this Man get all these things? And they kept stumbling over Him. The people of Jesus’ hometown were saying: He’s one of us! He’s a common worker with His hands. They saw no reason to believe that He was different than them. Satan worked through this to get the people jealous—what makes Jesus so different special. Satan worked through this contempt of the familiar and the simple and humble. He got them to reject Jesus by leading them to think that a person of such humble origins could not possibly be the Messiah; by having their jealousy and contempt cover over the prophecies that called the coming Savior a Shoot coming from a chopped down tree, or as not having any form or beauty causing people to be attracted to Him [Is. 11.1; 53.2].
Here we see the crux of the matter: who exactly is Jesus? Yes, Jesus is true man. He is physically, biologically, a brother of James. He is true man—an every day man, a carpenter’s son, a common worker with His hands. But Jesus is also much more—He is also the very God Himself, very God of very God. If someone thinks of Jesus as the people in His hometown did—as just one of them, as just a man, as merely the brother of James, then all is lost; then the person has missed the boat on who Jesus is and thus has missed out and rejected the salvation He brings. If someone even looks upon Jesus as a great teacher of truth and righteousness, if someone is merely amazed at His teaching like the Nazareth crowds that day, then all is lost. Again, not only is Jesus the brother of James, but He is also the very God and the Savior of the world; in Him alone is our eternal salvation.
Even for us, it’s easy to think of Jesus as man, as the baby born of Mary. But let us also listen to what He says about Himself and proves beyond a shadow of a doubt with His miracles—He is also the true God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Just as this hometown crowd saw no reason to believe that Jesus was any different from them and took offense, stumbled over Jesus’ lowliness, so let us be on guard lest we stumble over the lowliness of the Gospel—we are saved by God’s grace through faith in Christ, apart from any and all works we do. Because this simple, central teaching of the Bible is so simple, many reject it as “too easy”; “there’s something I have to do” and so they run to all these man-made religions that put the focus on the outward, on what we do.
Jesus—the physical brother of James—is seemingly unspectacular to this crowd. Sadly, basic Christian doctrine/ teaching which we have heard from little on, seems unspectacular to so many raised in the Church and so they look for “something more,” “something new,” and they run off and join some cult or other false religion because, like this crowd in the synagogue, they did not listen, ponder, take to heart what Jesus was saying; they merely looked at the outward.
Like today, so many hucksters can gather an unthinking crowd around them because they think the “new thing” being proclaimed is something worthwhile. May we be warned, lest we merely look on Jesus as the simple brother of James and forget that He is the true God and Savior of the world.
2. As we remember St. James of Jerusalem today, what makes James St. James, and why we even remember him today is not because he is one degree or another a physical brother of Jesus, but because James is twice a brother of Jesus—not just physically but also spiritually. Here is Jesus’ true family. Just a short time before, we read in Matthew’s Gospel [12.48]:
While He was still talking to the multitudes, behold, His mother and brothers stood outside, seeking to speak with Him. 47 Then one said to Him, "Look, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside, seeking to speak with You." 48 But He answered and said to the one who told Him, "Who is My mother and who are My brothers?" 49 And He stretched out His hand toward His disciples and said, "Here are My mother and My brothers! 50 For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother."
Jesus here says that His true family is not the tie of blood, but the tie of faith—those who do the will of the Father, namely, who believe in Jesus as their Savior.
We would not be remembering James today unless Jesus had showed him grace and brought him into His holy family, the Church; unless Jesus was his spiritual brother. During our Lord’s earthly ministry we read [Jn. 7.5]: For even [Jesus’] brothers did not believe in Him. But Jesus showed James grace, a special grace. Although James’ conversion, when the Holy Spirit worked faith in his heart, is not recorded in Scripture, we know that at first this brother of Jesus according to the flesh refused to be Jesus’ brother according to faith, but that after His resurrection Jesus appeared to Him [1 Cor. 15.7] and that after Jesus’ ascension we read [Ac 1.14] that the disciples all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers. From the days of the early Church in Jerusalem, after the Apostles had been forced to flee, to go out into the world to proclaim the Gospel James became head of the Church in Jerusalem, its first bishop. It was James who led by the Holy Spirit spoke the decree about the Gentiles joining the Church we read in our first lesson. And led and empowered by the Holy Spirit, James confessed his faith in Jesus, his physical brother and more importantly his spiritual brother, and his Savior from sin all the way the end and was killed on account of that faith and confession.
We too, dear Christian, have been shown the same great grace. By His Holy Spirit’s work in Word and Sacrament, we have been brought to faith; we, who are born sinners and hostile to Him, have been made Jesus’ spiritual brothers and sisters, brought into His holy family. We don’t have a close bloodline link with Jesus as James did, but we have that link of the water of baptism—for we are baptized into Christ and His death and resurrection; we are brought into His Holy family by the grace of God. The Spirit says through the Apostle [John 1.12]: but as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
St. James was twice a brother of Jesus—physically by birth and spiritually by grace. As we remember James today, let us rejoice that Jesus is our brother—He, the true God became also true man, born of the virgin to be Brother and our Savior; and let us rejoice in His grace that called both James, His earthly brother, and us into His holy family the Church. INJ Amen.

Dear friends in Christ. In our text today we find Jesus in the temple in Jerusalem on Tuesday of Holy Week, the last day He publicly taught there. There Jesus’ religious enemies mounted another assault to discredit Jesus and to show that He is not the long awaited Messiah. First the chief priests and the elders, and then the Pharisees had gone up against Jesus, trying to trick and entrap Him, but they left in shame and disgrace. Now the Sadducees came. The Sadducees were a very interesting group. They were a relatively small group but one that was very influential being made up of the priestly and Roman classes. On the one hand they were very “conservative,” holding only to the first 5 books of the OT as authoritative. But on the other hand, they were like today’s modern so-called theologians and rejected whatever was not “rational” or “reasonable”. Matthew reports that they say there is no resurrection; elsewhere in Scripture [Ac. 23.8] we read that they say: there is no angel or spirit. That means that they were very much earthly centered, living for the here and now, concerning themselves with material things with no inclination for higher, for spiritual things.
Not seeking enlightenment, but in mocking and ridicule instead, they came to Jesus "Teacher, Moses said that if a man dies, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up offspring for his brother. 25 Now there were with us seven brothers. The first died after he had married, and having no offspring, left his wife to his brother. 26 Likewise the second also, and the third, even to the seventh. 27 Last of all the woman died also. 28 Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife of the seven will she be?
With this incredible and impossible hypothetical situation they want to discredit both Jesus and the doctrine of the resurrection. To this Jesus says: You go astray, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God.
1. These are people who should have known better but didn’t. Christ’s haunting words and verdict on them? They went astray because they did not know the Scriptures. They did not know what they had claimed to be experts in. Because they were ignorant of what Scripture taught and was about they went from one error to the other: You go astray, not knowing the Scriptures.
To know the Scriptures and what they teach is the duty and privilege of each Christian. Because a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures and the doctrine it teaches is so vital, Jesus told His Apostles before He ascended not only to go into the world to make disciples but that is to be done by baptizing them and teaching them to observe all things that [He] has commanded. After His resurrection, Jesus told Peter [Jn. 21.15] that the “job” of the Church is to Feed My lambs; tend My sheep; feed My sheep. Teaching the faith, teaching the Scriptures, grounding people in the doctrine, in what the Bible says, is that blessed responsibility of our Lord’s Church.
That’s why we take it seriously here at Faith: We weekly and on holy days gather around our Lord’s word in church to hear what He is saying to us today. We have weekly Bible studies so that we may go in-depth into the Scriptures. That you may daily at home grow in the faith, we encourage and provide devotional books. Hearing our Lord’s invitation [Lk. 18.16] Let the little children come to Me and Feed My lambs we have Sunday School for the children so that from little on they may learn the Scriptures. Today we highlight this area of Christian Education among us as we officially place our Sunday School teachers and superintendent into their positions asking the Lord’s blessing on them in this very vital service.
Today as we hear Jesus speaking to the Sadducees, we hear His verdict: You go astray, not knowing the Scriptures. That causes us to examine our own hearts and lives—could Jesus be speaking these words to me today? Do I know the Scriptures like I should, or am I believing some sort of false doctrine, am I going astray, because I do not know what the Scriptures say? All of us, if we are honest, will have to say, I need to grow in understanding the Scriptures. Yes, the Scriptures and the main doctrines they proclaim are simple and clear enough: we are saved by God’s grace through faith in Jesus. But there is much more as everything we find in Scripture undergirds and supports that. The more we study the Bible, the more that that main teaching shines through so clearly and beautifully. The more our faith is grounded; the harder it will be for Satan to rock that faith and drive us into false belief that destroys faith.
Some will say that the Bible is too hard to understand. That is not the case. Instead, it is a lack of familiarity with it. People often think nothing of reading a magazine at one sitting or reading a thick novel; but reading a page in Scripture, reading it for a mere 15 minutes is regarded as a rare, major accomplishment.
B. As we meet the Sadducees in our text, they are all proud and puffed up. They know this one verse of the OT and think they can disgrace Christ by it. It’s a cliché but here it is true that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Jesus here shows them that although they profess to be experts, they are ignorant of the very books that they claim to hold sacred. You go astray, not knowing the Scriptures.
That’s why the study of Scripture is so vital. So often many professing to be Christians know a verse or two of Scripture and then think they are experts in the faith. They are often bold and brash. But sadly, they are often led astray because there is no mooring; they are not grounded in their faith. In the first trial, in the first attack on their faith, their house of cards they call faith, crashes down.
This supposed faith based on what is essentially ignorance of Scripture is precisely what Satan uses to lull the person before the kill. He gets the person to think that he/she knows all that there is to know about the faith. And either crashes down that house of cards the person calls faith or with that arrogance—I know all about the Bible and what it says—keeps the person from going deeper into the word so that there is no foundation and that person can be led into complacency or into every soul-destroying error.
Dear Christian, this is a very serious situation in our day today. Many calling themselves Christians are biblically illiterate. They have no idea of even basic accounts from the Bible and even less of an idea of what the Bible and the Christian faith is all about. How can there be true Spirit worked faith in the heart where there is no object of faith—Christ and His work— or an incorrect object of faith? How can the Holy Spirit—who works alone through the word—work on a person’s heart creating and preserving faith if there is no word for Him to work in and through? The continuing study of Scripture is vital. Christ’s haunting verdict is a call for each of us to examine our own understanding and use of Scripture: You go astray, not knowing the Scriptures.
C. These Sadducees that Jesus meets do indeed know the words of the Scriptures but not their correct understanding. They judged everything according to reason and interpreted the words of Scripture in light of reason. Their thinking was: I don’t see the dead rising so that means that there is no bodily resurrection; this life is all there is. Or, I don’t see angels or spirits, therefore they do not exist.
Many today do the same thing. Many so-called theologians reject Jesus’ miracles because we don’t see the same thing done today. Many reject the basic teaching of Scripture—that Jesus died for all and reconciled sinful humanity to the holy God—because to them, it doesn’t make sense, it’s a blood theology. Scripture is judged and interpreted according to human reason—in that case the words may be known but not their correct understanding. Here again it is vital that we remain students of the Scriptures so that Scripture molds our reason and understanding instead of the other way around.
The key point in all of this is our attitude. If we approach Scripture with the mindset of being over it, judging it according to our reason—that’s arrogance and we will progress no further in understanding it rightly. But if we humbly approach Scripture as students with an open heart and mind and pray, “Speak, Lord, Your servant is listening,” if we ask the Holy Spirit to bless our reading and hearing then we will come to a right understanding of Scripture, its words and doctrines. Why? Because only by the gift, blessing and work of the Holy Spirit do we come to know the Scriptures aright. The Scriptures are a divine book and only by the gift of the Holy Spirit as we humbly read and study them will we come to know them. And as we continue in our study of them, the Holy Spirit will grant us a deeper understanding and more firmly ground our faith as we see how all the doctrines are all beautifully connected and point to Jesus our Savior. Thus the Holy Spirit preserves us from ignorance of Scripture and error.
2. With His verdict: You go astray, not knowing the Scriptures, Jesus shows us that it is vital to study Scripture. Next He shows us how we are to read Scripture:
You go astray, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God. 30 For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven. 31 But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, 32 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living."
The first thing that we note is the continuity of Scripture. Scripture does not say one thing one place and another thing someplace else. Instead, for example, the resurrection of the dead is taught in both Old and New Testament. Jesus points back to the OT book of Exodus where in the burning bush He calls Moses to lead the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt into the Promised Land. When He called Moses, He identified Himself: 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'. At that time of Moses, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were dead for centuries, their bodies nothing but dust. But God says here: I Am the God of. That’s present tense! Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were not dead and gone, but they were living! Yes, like with our dearly departed, they are gone from us but their personal existence did not stop with death. Their souls are alive and with the Lord. They live before the Lord. God is the God to all who live in Him, even though they died. Here is the assurance that all who die in faith in the Lord will be raised to be with Him, soul and body, eternally come the Last Day.
Jesus here teaches us how to read Scripture—it is one glorious complete whole. Every verse supports and is in harmony with the other verses and doctrine. This verse that seemingly has nothing to do with the resurrection—God identifying Himself to Moses—has everything to do with the resurrection. That’s how Christ wants us to read Scripture: as what was spoken to you by God and as a glorious harmony with each doctrine supporting and strengthening the other. On top of that, but each verse/ word is vital as Jesus here shows by the resurrection being taught even in this one verse, one word even, from Exodus.
By the Holy Spirit’s work, the more we read and study Scripture, the more we will see this; we will see how beautifully Scripture is intertwined; the more we will see the truth of Scripture confirmed in various and different verses; the more we will see Christ Jesus as the center and focus of Scripture, as He Himself says about the Scriptures [John 5.39]: these are they which testify of Me. As we read/hear/study Scripture may we always remember that there is the word of eternal life that proclaims Christ and that word is a glorious word that we can never study enough. As we do so, the Holy Spirit will be at work leading us more deeply into that word, increasing our knowledge, grounding our faith, making us more sure of what and why we believe what we do and keeping us from every faith destroying error that comes from ignorance of Scripture. INJ Amen.

Dear friends in Christ. For whatever reason, money and Christian giving is one of those topics that few like to hear. One the one hand, many regard it as a very personal matter—it’s no one’s business how much I make or how much I give. In the mind of some, it might be a question of modesty. In the mind of some, who have been burned, snookered before, they see it as another attempt of others to get their hard-earned money. On the other hand, perhaps talking about money and Christian giving hits a little too close to home and becomes uncomfortable as it becomes clear to us that we are putting our trust and confidence and our hope for everything good in it and not in the Lord; in other words perhaps such talk is uncomfortable because we are reminded of our own inner, closet idolatry to that most common god in the world—money and wealth.
Paul, though, certainly talked about money and Christian giving. He does so in the entire chapter before our text and of our text. But he does not do so as some sort of money-grubbing religious huckster. Instead, as we study our text, we’ll see that he puts money and Christian giving in the proper context as he points out, first, that the Christian is blessed for giving and that the Christian is blessed in giving.
The context of our text is this: An offering was being gathered from the Gentile churches for the needy Christians in Jerusalem. The poverty of these Jerusalem Christians was caused by famine; and another cause may also have been persecution as the Jews excluded them and made it hard for them to earn a living. By gathering this offering for the poor believers in Jerusalem from the richer non-Jewish congregations in the empire, Paul was driving home the point of the oneness of the Christian Church; and it was a way of repaying the debt of love the Gentile believers owed the Jewish Christians, who sent out the Gospel.
The congregation in Corinth took up this challenge to help their fellow Christians in Jerusalem. It had begun well but began to falter. Paul writes these Christians to encourage them to finish this offering.
1. One of the greatest hurdles in our Christian giving are the questions: how much money do I need? Can I really afford to give? Those are valid questions because we are first to count the cost; we ourselves by our giving do not want to become charity cases. But as we examine our text we see that God Himself blesses us so that we can give. Our text: 10 Now He who supplies seed to the sower, and bread for food, will supply and will multiply the seed you have sown and will increase the fruits of your righteousness, 11 while you are enriched in everything for all liberality. To be sure God blesses some with greater, some with lesser wealth, but He supplies us with what we need materially so we can share it. The farming imagery is fitting: God provides seed to the sower, the farmer, who then goes out and sows/ plants that seed. At harvest time, not only has God provided grain to make bread so the farmer and others can eat, but also so that there is grain for next year’s seed. That one seed that was planted has led to how many others? The very God who does this and so provides for us, also gives His Christians earthly blessings, supplies us with what we need to do the good and to help others with those blessings.
This concept changes our way of thinking. Normally people think that unless they’re crooks everything they have they earned. But what does Paul here tell us? –God is the One who provides us with our earthly blessings: may He who supplies seed to the sower, and bread for food. What we have isn’t really ultimately ours—it is all the gift of God’s grace. Since everything we have, all our earthly blessings are the Lord’s gifts to us, since He supplies us with what we need, we need not worry; He will continue to provide for us even as and precisely as we give what we have been given. Our text: 8 And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work. God will see to it that we lack nothing so that we may do good with it.
How freeing and liberating it is that God provides for us and blesses us. We can give generously for the Lord and His purposes; we can show great mercy because we don’t have to be over-careful with the nickels and dimes. If we are so moved to give, let us give cheerfully as though we want to scatter abroad freely: As it is written about the generous believer: "He has dispersed abroad, he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever".
Without doubt the Lord blesses us so that we can give, so that through us and the gifts we bring the Gospel, God’s saving word and Sacrament may be preserved here and spread throughout the world; and that through us and our gifts others in need of help and mercy may receive help and mercy. Our gracious Triune God blesses us for giving by giving to us so that we can give it.
B. Not only has our Lord blessed us materially so that we have something to give—He has done the same with many godless and unbelievers—but He has by His Holy Spirit given us the proper Godly attitude toward giving. In this way, too, He has blessed us for giving. Our text: So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of compulsion; for God loves a cheerful giver. When the Christian gives, there is no compulsion but pleasure in giving because by the work of the Holy Spirit we recognize the great gift of God’s grace that we have received and continue to enjoy. The richness of God’s goodness and mercy toward us leads us to do all good works cheerfully and freely.
The true motivation for proper Christian giving is not the idea that by it we so move and influence God and work ourselves into His favor and so weasel a spot into heaven by it. Instead, our motivation is love of the Father for us sinners and the grace of Christ toward us. Earlier Paul writes [8.9]: For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich. Though being the holy God in the eternal glories of heaven, Christ Jesus became also true man and subjected Himself to all the misery of this world, subjected Himself under the holy Law of God to keep it for us, was loaded down with the sins of the world and suffered the wrath of God over them, in short, became the poorest; He did this so that we might enjoy the riches of divine grace, the favor of God and one day the glories of heaven. We who in Christ have experienced such grace and love of God now want to do the will of the Lord who loved us and saved us. Our suffering Savior and the mercy He showed us—that’s our motivation to give joyfully and to do good. We want to do the will, the desire of our gracious Triune God who so loved and saved us.
The Lord doesn’t just bless us for giving by giving us our earthly blessings and working in us a godly attitude; but on top of that, He blesses us in our giving.
2. When it comes to our Christian giving, the question is how much? How much do I give back to the Lord of the earthly blessings He has entrusted to me? In the OT times it was easy—there was the tithe, the giving of the 10% of ones goods; there were the various sacrifices and offerings that were prescribed. But now in the NT times in which we live it is different. An amount is not prescribed. Instead, the Christian is left with the apostles’ inspired words in our text: 7 So let each one give as he has chosen in his heart, not grudgingly or of compulsion; for God loves a cheerful giver. Now we are free from the OT law with all its various prescriptions. But with freedom comes responsibility: how much, then, do I give? The Christian is responsible for planning his/her own giving. What we give is not to be done grudgingly or wrung out of us against our will so that we act only outwardly but not gladly and willingly. Instead, everything depends on our attitude, why we participate in the works of mercy the Lord leads us into, into the good works He would lead us, and in what He would have us give.
When it comes to the question, how much, then, do I give, we must realize that this is a spiritual question and it involves that battle between our old sinful nature and our new self, the Christian in us, which is created in us by the Holy Spirit in baptism, which then works together with the Holy Spirit to lead us into a life of good works. As we plan, decide, choose what we will want to give back to the Lord, let us then keep in mind that the new self, the Christian in us will help us but that our old sinful nature will also be there to obstruct. Let us realize that our old sinful nature is idolatrous, that it doesn’t look to the Lord but to money and goods for refuge and everything good; that it is selfish; that it grieves it to give.
But, in holy Baptism we have been made God’s own dear children. As such, because we now have the image of our heavenly Father—being a cheerful giver. And as His Christians, we according to our new self, find joy and happiness in using every gift God has given us for the benefit of others—just as our dear heavenly Father has shown us every grace and given us every blessing. He did not count the cost too great but gave His only Son to be our Savior.
So when it comes to the question: how much then do I give, as we follow the new self, the Christian in us, let us realize that this is faith at work—just as it is whenever there is that battle in us between our old sinful nature and the new self, the Christian within us. And as we follow the leading and prompting of the Holy Spirit we beat down, put to death our old sinful nature. Even here, in the question of Christian giving, it is a spiritual battle. But precisely as we follow the Lord’s leadings and promptings to give generously, contrary to our old sinful nature, the Lord blesses us in our giving. Here faith exercises itself and places its reliance on the Lord and does not trust in earthly things. As we see that yea verily the Lord does indeed provide for us, so will our faith be strengthened to keep relying on the Lord.
Our text: you are enriched in everything for all liberality, which causes thanksgiving through us to God. The glorious promise here is that the Lord blesses us in our giving by strengthening our new self so that our giving would continue to be cheerful and many good works would follow. Through us and the gifts and offerings we bring, people come to know the Lord and thank Him for His salvation and blessing. Because of God’s bounty and grace, He multiplies and increases in every Christian the fruits of righteousness: their good works and their effects: Now He who supplies seed to the sower, and bread for food, will supply and will multiply the seed you have sown and will increase the fruits of your righteousness.
In our new life of righteousness that our gracious God has given us, we now do as God has done for us. The wonderful promise here is that even though we cannot earn God’s grace, favor, heaven—these are already ours through faith in Christ—God does reward and bless our works and our giving. Nothing—not even one seed of good we sow—is wasted. But this I say: He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. There will be a harvest. A farmer who hopes to skimp and plants fewer seeds will get a smaller harvest than the farmer who plants many seeds. Here too in our life of faith, works, and Christian giving. Our works and deeds, which show and are done in faith and love, will not be forgotten by God. In grace He rewards them both now and in heaven—as John records in the Revelation: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, and their works follow them.”
Our Christian giving is God’s work. He has blessed us with earthly goods so we can give; He has given us a cheerful attitude to give; and in grace He blesses us as we give. He blesses us for giving and in our giving. INJ

Dear friends in Christ. Scripture of full of descriptions of the wonderful ways the Lord works. The only thing, though, is that those ways seem contradictory and confusing to us. The OT saint, Hannah, the mother of the prophet Samuel sings [1 Samuel 2.6]: The Lord kills to make alive; He brings down to hell and brings up. The Lord makes poor and makes rich; He brings low and also lifts up. This is picked up by Mary in her song, the Magnificat [Luke 1.52]: He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty. This is all a wonderful description of the Lord’s work on us spiritually. He kills us with His Law and brings us down to hell—that is, He shows us what our sins have earned us; He shows us what we rightly deserve and His fierce wrath and condemnation. He makes us poor, puts us down from our thrones—that is, He takes from us any pride or boasting in our works, anything from us that we think have earned us God’s favor or makes God obligated to us. All this is His work for us in His Law—painful though it may be, but all for our spiritual good.
But His work doesn’t end there. The Lord with His just and holy Law kills us, brings down to hell, makes poor, takes away any cause for boasting—all so He can do His right and proper work for us by His just and holy Gospel—make us spiritually alive, give us the spiritual riches of Christ, give us poor spiritual beggars every good thing and exalt us and bring us into His kingdom.
In our text is our Lord’s parable: There was a certain creditor who had two debtors. One owed 500 denarii and the other 50. And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both. There we see that although some, to human eyes, are “better” than others; while some may seem to be more “righteous”, nevertheless all of us are sinners before God. His holy Law makes us all spiritual debtors and we cannot repay. That is the Law of God—it shows us our sin and condemns us for our unrighteousness. It is the great equalizer of all people.
But then note again how Jesus ends the parable: And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both. Since all people are sinners, God has had grace on all; and in Christ, on account of His life, suffering and death, He has forgiven the sins of all. Again, the Gospel is the great equalizer of people—freely by God’s grace, for the sake of Jesus, our sins are forgiven. Paul puts it this way [Rm. 11.31]: For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all.
In our text this morning, we have a glorious example of this: there is the works-righteous Pharisee to whom Jesus preaches Law in order to cast him down from his work-righteous throne; and we have the penitent sinner to whom Jesus preaches nothing but the sweetest, most comforting Gospel to raise her up from her despair and give her every blessing.
1. Precisely to cast down the mighty and to exalt the lowly, is why Jesus comes to us today in His holy word of both Law and Gospel—just as He came to the Pharisee’s house and was there for the sinful woman. Our text: Then one of the Pharisees asked [Jesus] to eat with him. And He went to the Pharisee’s house and sat down to eat. We know from Scripture that the Pharisees often watched Jesus and tried to trick Him. Whether this Pharisee was one like that or whether he invited Jesus out of curiosity or interest, we cannot tell from Scripture. But we do know that he did not show Jesus any cordiality, like the typical kiss of friendship and welcome or even typical hospitality like water to wash His feet. Jesus knew the man’s heart; He knew what He was in for and yet He came. We see here that Jesus took every opportunity to rescue souls. And here He came, as we find out in the end, to show this Pharisee, this religious leader of the Jews who should have known better, that he was a sinner who needed a Savior from sin. Jesus came to bring the Pharisee spiritual blessing but for Jesus to do so He had to cast him down from his throne of self-righteousness by the preaching of the holy Law of God. He had to show this man that he was a sinner in need of a Savior.
As Jesus and the other guests are around the table we then read: And behold, a woman in the city who was a sinful, when she had learned that Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil, 38 and stood at His feet behind Him weeping; and she began to wash His feet with her tears, and was wiping them with the hair of her head and she kissing His feet and anointing them with the fragrant oil. Jesus had also come that day not only to proclaim God’s holy Law to the Pharisee but He had also come for this woman to proclaim to her the sweet Gospel of the forgiveness of sins to her who was sorry for her sin. By preaching the Law to the Pharisee Jesus was casting down the seemingly righteous Pharisee from his throne; by announcing the forgiveness of sins, the Gospel, to this penitent woman Jesus was exalting the lowly.
What a glorious grace of Christ! He let this sinful woman come to Him. She must have heard Jesus preach or heard of Him—that He is the friend of sinners, that He is the Savior, the One who brings forgiveness and righteousness and reconciles the sinner with the holy God. And in faith she believed it! She came in faith believing Jesus to be her Savior and Jesus received and welcomed her!
This woman, coming in the correct opinion that the forgiveness of sins should be sought in Jesus, coming in faith, by that recognized and confessed that Jesus is the Savior. Going to Jesus and seeking the forgiveness of sins from Him, that is the highest worship of Jesus! What is that, but taking Jesus at His Word—that He is our Savior and that forgiveness of sins is in Him alone! What is that, but saying “yea and amen” to the promises of God? Precisely that is worship—receiving the gifts and blessings that Jesus wants to give us, that He Himself has earned for us.
That’s what worship here is about every week and why we come here. We don’t come here because we are like the Pharisee—I am so good and holy; coming to church is not a good work we do to please God, a feather in our cap—but believing what Jesus says and promises in His word, trusting in His work, we gather in worship to receive what He wants to give us sinners here in word and sacrament—forgiveness of sin, life, salvation, peace, joy, etc. Coming to church, worship, is for sinners, not the self-proclaimed righteous.
The glorious thing here is that although according to public opinion this woman is sinful, and when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he spoke to himself, saying, "This man, if He were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner"—in spite of that, Jesus accepts this woman’s worship and praise; He graciously received this sign of love and affection. Why? It was done in faith. It was her faith that received the forgiveness of sins; it was her faith that looked to Jesus as her Savior. When she saw her Savior what could she do but give Him all her love and gratitude? Her faith showed itself—her worship both inwardly in her heart and outwardly by her actions.
That’s the picture of each of our Lord’s Christians. We recognize that we are sinners who earn and deserve nothing but God’s wrath both now and eternally in hell. We feel the burdens of our sin, our consciences always telling us—if we are honest enough to listen—that by our sins things are not right between us and God. When we hear the Gospel—that Jesus is our Savior, that in Him is the forgiveness of sin, that in Him we are at peace and reconciled to God, how our hearts overflow with joy and praise of the Lord. That, too, is part of our worship in church as we receive the forgiveness of our sins in the word, the absolution and sacrament: we praise our Lord in song and prayer! The glorious comfort here—Jesus accepted the worship of the sinful woman; He also accepts our praise and worship. No matter how sinful we may be, how many and grievous our sins may be, they are forgiven us! Faith looks to Jesus and receives His perfect righteousness. God does not and cannot reject us and our praise as it flows from faith, as we are forgiven our sin and covered with Christ’s perfect righteousness.
Through faith, the lowly sinner is exalted to the glorious heights of Christ’s perfect righteousness. But without faith, the self-proclaimed righteous with all their supposed righteousness and worship are rejected by the Lord.
2. Through this parable our Lord calls the self-righteous Pharisee to repentance; He proclaims to him a word of Law showing him his sin so that he too may recognize he is a sinner in need of a Savior. 40 And Jesus answered and said to him, "Simon, I have something to say to you." So he said, "Teacher, say it." 41 "There was a certain creditor who had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 And when they had nothing with which to repay, he graciously forgave them both. Tell Me, therefore, which of them will love him more?" 43 Simon answered and said, "I suppose the one whom he forgave more." And He said to him, "You have rightly judged".
Not only did Jesus show He was more than a prophet as He knew what the Pharisee was saying in himself, but He was preaching the powerful message in this parable that all people—no matter how few sins they think they may have—are sinners and need the Savior from sin. That means in the imagery of the parable that all people are debtors to God owing Him a righteousness they cannot pay; they can only be released from that debt by His gracious decree: that debt of righteousness that is required of all people Christ has paid.
It is precisely faith that receives that glorious decree and leads to love and gratitude. Whether there are many sins or few sins, it is an unpayable debt. But whether there are many sins or few sins, they both have been paid for/ forgiven. The one who recognizes and believes that will show Christ great love and worship. In fact, there is no true love of God and worship of God unless there is first the receiving of the forgiveness of sins. Otherwise, what do you have?—An angry God who will condemn you to the depths of hell for sin. Who can love and truly worship such a God?
Jesus showed the Pharisee that what he thought was worship of God—trying to earn God’s favor by all sorts of man-made laws and ritual trying to make God obligated to him—wasn’t worship of God. At best it was a love that had grown cold. That’s no surprise because so little did he regard Christ and forgiveness because he thought he didn’t need it. Then He turned to the woman and said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has washed My feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. 45 You gave Me no kiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss My feet since the time I came in. 46 You did not anoint My head with oil, but this woman has anointed My feet with fragrant oil. 47 Therefore I say to you, her great love proves that her many sins have been forgiven. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little".
The question Christ puts before us as He in grace comes to us in His word is: has your love grown cold, has your interest in church, in worship, in study of Scripture, in prayer, etc. grown cold? It’s because you have lost sight of your sin; you do not think you have great sin; that it is not an unpayable debt. Recognize again anew how great your sin is and that Jesus is your Savior from that sin. Then there will be true fervent love of the Lord, the desire to love and serve Him, to be in His house and hear and study His word.
Do you, like the woman, very much feel your sin but also trust in Jesus as your Savior and love Him and want to be served by Him in church, in word and sacrament, and also then to serve Him? Then to you Jesus says the absolution, as He did that woman that day: Your faith has saved you. Go in peace. Keep relying on the mercy God has promised you in Christ and enjoy His wonderful peace now and forever. He truly exalts the lowly sinner. INJ Amen.

Dear friends in Christ. Go into any bookstore or library and you will see lots of books about Christ. Turn on the television or radio and eventually you are bound to hear someone talking about Christ or Christianity. Talk to many people on the street and they will have some idea, opinion about Christ. Go into churches and you will surely have Christ and Christianity presented. Certainly there is a lot of talk about Christ, but is all this information correct and accurate? Certainly people have an idea of what Christianity is all about, but is it correct? Is it really what Christianity is all about? With all this information about Christ and Christianity floating around, are we really all the better off for it? With so much information and disinformation about, isn’t Satan really muddying the waters in an attempt to destroy faith or hinder people from that one true faith that alone saves?
The one truly vital question is the one that Jesus asked His disciples [Mt. 16.16]: But who do you say that I am? He also asks us that question today and how we answer that question, answered in faith or without faith, determines for us heaven or hell. Yes, Jesus, and what we think of Him, of who He is, is the great divide between true, historic Christianity and every other religion of the world.
As we examine our text this morning, we will see that already in Jesus’ day there were people who thought they knew all about Jesus, all about what the prophets had written about the Messiah—but didn’t. They thought they knew all about who Jesus is. But when it comes to knowing Jesus aright and growing in faith in Him, an attitude of pride and knowing-it-all shut the heart, but an attitude of simplicity and humility open the heart.
1. Our text: Now some of them from Jerusalem said, "This is He whom they seek to kill, is He not? 26 But look! He speaks boldly, and they say nothing to Him. It isn’t possible, is it, that the rulers realize indeed that this One is the Christ? 27 However, we know where this Man is from; but when the Christ comes, no one knows where He is from."
The Jerusalemites had a little bit of knowledge and therefore they were the know-it-alls. Here is an example of the cliché being right: a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. They perhaps toy for a moment with the idea that Jesus really is the Messiah but they quickly again dismiss it because of their little bit of faulty knowledge that when the Messiah comes, no one will know where He’s from. Since they know that Jesus is from Nazareth in Galilee, they figure He cannot possibly be the Messiah.
Precisely here is where a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing for a know-it-all. These know-it-alls had knowledge of some writings outside of Scripture and they perhaps knew bits of a few verses from the prophets. For example from Micah [5.2] they may have heard that the Messiah’s goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting; from the last OT prophet, Malachi [3.1], they heard that the Messiah would suddenly come to His temple. From these verses they may have cobbled together the notion that when the Christ comes, no one knows where He is from.
And here is the sad thing: these people had a few verses about the Messiah they thought they knew and they stopped there; they didn’t try to learn more about the coming Savior. They figured they had enough and that’s all they needed; they were the theological experts and there was nothing more to learn; they knew it all so now they can move on to other things.
The sad thing is, is that this is also a description of many today calling themselves Christians. They know a few bible verses, whip them out when they think the pastor or somebody else should hear them to be convinced they are Christians and that’s the extent of it; they whip out a few bible verses maybe to prove a point. By this they think they’re experts. Very often these are verses of Gospel they use to give comfort to their consciences bothering them over their sin—not that they are sorry for their sin-- but just so they have peace: Let God’s grace abound all the more. But theirs is a false hope and comfort. Such will remember Jesus’ words to the woman caught in adultery and brought before Him [Jn 8.11]: Neither do I condemn you; but they conveniently forget what Jesus says in the very next words: go and sin no more.
As we see with the Jerusalemites in our text, their notions of the Messiah were indistinct and hazy. Yet because they were know it all’s, they rejected Jesus. They could not answer in faith Jesus’ question: But who do you say that I am? At the same time, though, it is not that the prophets were that obscure that no one could figure them out. Just a few verses later, some of them are arguing from the prophets: Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the seed of David and from the town of Bethlehem, where David was? These know it all’s who rejected Jesus on the basis their incomplete and faulty understanding of a few verses are contradicted by others who said that the Messiah’s origins would be known—He would be born as a Descendant of David in Bethlehem. The scribes said the same thing when Herod, prompted by the Wise Men, asked them where the Messiah would be born.
These people’s “knowing it all” and so not delving further into the Scriptures shut their heart to the word and preaching of Jesus. This is nothing but sinful pride—I know all there is to know. But they had been so richly blessed; they had the Scriptures—the OT prophets and Moses whom they heard being read. But since they thought they knew all they needed to know, they did not study and ponder the word they heard. But notice, this is an attitude of law—I just want to know what I have to know, and nothing more! The attitude of the Gospel says—this is the word that tells me about my God, my Savior, and my salvation! I want to know more and delve more deeply into the word of God to learn more. Notice how Satan is working, using sinful human pride—I know all I need to know—to keep people from the true and right knowledge of Christ Jesus our Savior and God by giving them a little of Scripture in order to keep them away from Scripture.
The ultimate result of this pride and knowing it all, even though nothing is really known, is rejection of Christ. Again our text: 30 Therefore they were trying to take Him, seize Jesus by force to kill Him.
So the call for us today is clear: How is it with my heart and life? Do I want to delve deeply into the word of the Lord or am I content and think I know it all because I think I know a few things the Bible says about Christ—which may or may not be right—like this Jerusalem crowd? Am I a theological know- it- all, full of pride? And by this, am I shutting my heart to the word of the Lord and growth in knowledge and love of Him? Always in the background is Christ’s question, the ultimate question: Who do you say that I am?
2. This does not mean, though, that we become some theological, Scriptural basket case, forever unsure what we believe, wringing our limp hands in uncertainty. Doubt is never a virtue in Christianity. The Lord calls us to certainty in matters of faith. And it is precisely by delving all the more deeply into God’s word that we grow in faith and in the certainty that what we believe is true. But this is not know-it-all-ism. If we, in sinful human pride, think we know it all, we shut our heart to the things of God. But true Christian certainty in matters of faith comes as a result of simplicity and humility. These open the heart to delve deeply into the word of God. And the Holy Spirit will always bless our study as He makes us more and more certain of the truth; and this doesn’t end our study and pursuit but merely whets our appetite that we want to learn more and more.
The Christian, from a Spirit-worked Gospel motivation, is and always wants to be a student of the word. We recognize that it is God’s word. With that in mind, how can we ever think that we have fully understood it or ever can? That attitude of simplicity and humility is faith in action that takes and receives what God tells us in His word; in that simplicity and humility we marvel over it, ponder it and are drawn all the more deeply into it. That’s why we want to be in church to hear that Word proclaimed and why we want to study it in Bible Class and read doctrinally pure devotion books at home.
In our text, Christ rebukes the know it all’s while giving encouragement to the simple and humble to open their hearts to receive greater mysteries and blessings: Then Jesus cried out, as He taught in the temple, saying, "You both know Me, and you know where I am from? But I have not come of Myself, but He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know. But I know Him, for I am from Him, and He sent Me". To those who thought they knew it all, Jesus says: you boast that you know where I’m from, but sadly it’s a knowledge that you should and could know better. In other words: you stopped learning of Me and now your knowledge, your faith is wrong! You merely thought I had an earthly origin. But the word/prophets tell you more.
But how blessed is the one who in simplicity and humility continued on delving into the word. Such a person said, Lord, it’s Your word, a word far above my understanding. But I come to you in simple faith asking You to teach me more from Your holy word and so strengthen and confirm what You have already taught me and lead me deeper into Your holy, saving truth.
The know-it-alls in the crowd did not have either knowledge or saving faith although they boasted they did. Their pride and arrogance shut their hearts. With their shallow knowledge they never knew Jesus’ Person, true origin or mission. If they did not know Jesus, the Son, they also then did not know the Father. To know who Jesus is and why He has come is to know God aright, as He revealed Himself. But the hearts of the simple and humble ones were open to the word of God. What glorious things they learned!
Jesus here proclaims the great mysteries of who He is, the mystery of God: I have not come of Myself, but He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know. But I know Him, for I am from Him, and He sent Me. With the simplicity and humility that we are always students of God’s holy word, seeking to know Him and our salvation all the fully, we are blessed to know the deep mysteries of the Person and work of Christ. Not only is Jesus mere man born of the virgin in Bethlehem and raised in Nazareth in fulfillment of prophecy, but He is also true God, eternally begotten of the Father, who at the right time was sent by the Father into the world to be our Savior. Jesus, the Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity who became also true Man, knows God the Father fully, rightly, completely because He together with the Holy Spirit are one God with Him. I know Him, for from Him I AM. He is eternally the Son of God. Not only does Jesus know the Father aright because He is true God, but the [Father] sent [Him]. The Son, Jesus, was originally, eternally with the Father but the Father sent Him, commissioned Him, to become true man, to be born in Bethlehem, to bring about the salvation of the human race by His life, suffering and death and to rise again from the dead and ascend into heaven to give us the blessed fruits of His work—forgiveness of sin, life, salvation. That’s the great mystery of the Person and work of Jesus! That’s the glorious news and proclamation that awaited all but could only come to those who didn’t know it all but in simplicity and humility delved into Scripture; to those whose hearts were opened to the voice of God speaking in Scripture and in Christ. That worked a bold faith—not a prideful, know-it-all-ism—that, as we read in our text: And many of the people believed in Him, and were saying, "When the Christ comes, He will not do more signs than these which this Man has done, will He?"
The same blessing awaits us as we in all humility keep hearing, studying, reading, pondering Scripture. We will be led deeper into the true knowledge of our gracious Lord and His saving work for us, and so into faith and love of Him. The deeper we go, the more Spirit-worked humility and simplicity will open our heart. We can never know too much of our Lord and His love and work for us. INJ Amen.