The Twentieth Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Ephesians 5:15-21

In Christ Jesus, our Bridegroom, who serenades His bride with sweet words of His love and forgiveness, and whose bride responds with songs of praise from her smitten heart, dear fellow redeemed:

In the year 231 while Christians were under persecution in the Roman Empire, a baby named Agatha was born to a wealthy Christian couple. When Agatha was in her early 20s, a government official pursued her both for her beauty and for her family’s wealth. Agatha refused him; she had made a vow to remain unmarried out of devotion to Christ. The government official resolved to break her will. He ordered her to be sent to a brothel where she was abused for a month. But when she returned, Agatha still refused him.

So the official gave her the option: sacrifice to idols or receive torture and death. As they led her to her prison cell that night, she went with rejoicing as though she was preparing for her wedding. The next day after boldly confessing her faith in Christ, she was convicted, brutally tortured, and killed. And her soul was ushered into the bright kingdom of her Bridegroom and Savior Jesus (summarized from And Take They Our Life by Bryan Wolfmueller, pp. 36-41).

This account is a clear illustration of what St. Paul writes in today’s reading. Agatha was careful about how she walked. She made the best use of her time in those evil days. She did not join the foolish official and his friends who rejected the Lord. She was filled with the Spirit and made melody to the Lord with her heart, even while enduring intense and terrible suffering. She was a faithful Christian who has received the crown of eternal life.

We do not face the same trials and torments as Agatha did, but the days are still evil. The days are evil because we live in a fallen world. We see all around us how people prioritize money and power over the Word of God and prayer. We see how they violate the Ten Commandments openly and boastfully. We see how people lie and cheat and manipulate to get what they want. We see how pride, hatred, and selfishness are encouraged. In his Letter to the Philippians, Paul wrote, “For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things” (3:18-19).

We must look carefully how we walk in the world because it is easy for us to fall into these same traps. It is easy to go along with the ungodly—to speak as they speak, to do as they do, to think as they think. Our sinful flesh wants the riches and glories and pleasures that the world offers. We don’t want to miss out on things that could satisfy us. We don’t want to be singled out like Agatha was or suffer like she did.

But if we go the way of our sinful flesh, we will be walking away from Jesus. His way is not the way of personal comfort or worldly success. Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mat. 16:24). We must “deny ourselves”—deny our natural impulses, deny our own plans, deny the temptations and promises of the devil and the world.

That is very difficult to do. Because it is so difficult, God has given us fellow Christians to help and encourage us along the way. This is how God has designed His Church. He has called us to support one another and serve one another. He has called us to join together in His worship. So many Christians today talk about their “personal faith,” and how they don’t need to be connected to any religious institution or group. They can worship and pray to God on their own, they say. But God doesn’t want them to be on their own.

Without the community of fellow Christians, we are at greater danger of temptations and attacks on our faith. Hebrews 10:24 says, “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.” How should we do this? The next verse tells us: “not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” Jesus promises that when we join with one another to hear His Word, He is present with His blessings. He says, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” (Mat. 18:20).

We need to help keep each other alert and watchful, ready for the devil’s attacks. Today’s reading specifically mentions drinking too much alcohol—“do not get drunk with wine.” Paul warned about sexual immorality earlier in the same chapter—“sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you” (Eph. 5:3). Christians are not to do these things, no matter how widely accepted they may be, or how uncomfortable it might be to say “no.” We do not serve the accepted norms in society. We do not serve ourselves. We serve the living God who made us and who has rescued us from the works of darkness.

This is the whole point. What Paul is emphasizing is that we should live like the Son of God actually took on our flesh to die for our sins. We should live like He rose from the dead in victory over our death. If He had to die for all my sins, why would I want to keep sinning? If He triumphed over my death, why should I have any concern about the promises or the threats of the world? Those promises and threats are empty as long as our King, Jesus Christ, reigns. And He reigns forever.

This message of Christ’s victory over sin and death for us is what brings us together and keeps us together. That is what you have called me to preach and teach every week and to distribute to you through Jesus’ Word of absolution and His holy Supper. This is the message we sing to one another in the words of the liturgy and in our great Lutheran hymns. This good news is sprinkled in our conversations and in the consolation and comfort we extend to each other.

We remind one another that Jesus has redeemed us from “the present evil age” (Gal. 1:4). He freed us from the devil who would have dragged us with him into hell. He freed us from the vain pursuits of this world which will all crumble and fall. He freed us from our own sinful flesh, so that we are destined not for death but for eternal life.

Jesus did all this freely, for you. He is the Son for whom the Father gave a wedding feast, and you are one of the honored guests who is invited to attend (Mat. 22:1-14). In fact, as a member of Christ’s holy Church, you and all believers are His bride. You join the wedding celebration by faith in Him, wearing the beautiful wedding garment of your Bridegroom’s righteousness. He cleansed you of your sin in Holy Baptism, “so that he might present the church—so that he might present you—to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that [you] might be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:27).

This message of cleansing and forgiveness in Christ is what causes us to rejoice. We breathe in the promise of God’s grace, and we breathe out His praise. Romans 10 says, “For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved” (v. 10). Or as we sing in Matins and Vespers, “O Lord, open my lips. And my mouth shall show forth Your praise” (Psa. 51:15). Through the Word, the Holy Spirit prepares us to confess God’s grace and mercy even in evil days.

This is what the apostles did after they were beaten for proclaiming the death and resurrection of Jesus. They rejoiced “that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for [his] name” (Act. 5:41). Paul and Silas did the same after they had been beaten up and unlawfully thrown in prison. At the dark of midnight with their feet in the stocks, they were “praying and singing hymns to God.”

In the same way, we also who are “filled with the Spirit, [address] one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” We sing in good days and evil days. We sing when we are happy and when we are hurting. We sing in our gladness and in our grief. We sing the promises of Jesus to one another. We remind each other that He loves us, that He gave His life for us, and that He will not leave or forsake us no matter what trials we must face.

We sing of our trouble, “The world is very evil, / The times are waxing late” (ELH 534), and we sing of our strength, “A mighty Fortress is our God” (ELH 250). We confess, “I pass through trials all the way, / With sin and ills contending,” and we sing of our comfort, “I walk with Jesus all the way; / His guidance never fails me” (ELH 252). Like Agatha rejoicing on the way to her torment and death, we press on with joy for the glories that await us.

The devil cannot stop our Lord from bringing us this cheer through His Word and Sacraments. And he cannot stop the Bridegroom from returning for His bride on the last day. This is why we sing, and why we will keep on singing. We will sing to encourage each other, to strengthen one another, and to give thanks “always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.

+  +  +

(picture from “Parable of the Great Banquet” by the Brunswick Monogrammist, 16th century)