The Second Sunday after the Epiphany – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Romans 12:6-16
In Christ Jesus, from whom all blessings flow to His holy bride, the Church of all believers, dear fellow redeemed:
I was surprised to learn that there are twelve couples in our parish who will celebrate fifty or more years of marriage this year. Thanks be to God for this! It is an example and an encouragement to the rest of us, as we live in a culture that places less and less value on marriage. I wish I had compiled these anniversary lists sooner, since there would have been more couples to recognize in years past.
When married couples reach their seventieth or seventy-fifth anniversary, that seems to be high enough for an article in the local newspaper. And the question is always asked, “How did you make it work for this long?” Or, “What advice do you have for other married couples?” The advice is often something like: “Never go to bed angry.” “Communicate with one another.” “Compliment each other every day.” And that is all good advice.
The couples among us who have been married a long time would agree that marriage takes work—and sometimes very hard work. But I think they would also acknowledge that it wasn’t so much their “being good at marriage” that got them through. It was the grace of God covering over their faults and forgiving their sins that brought them to this point.
This is what we emphasize at our marriage ceremonies, an emphasis that you won’t hear in many other places. We keep the focus on Jesus, and the love He has for us. For many others, the focus is only on the love the married couple has for one another. In some cases this mutual love is treated as the foundation of the marriage, and the vows are accordingly changed from “until death parts us,” to “as long as we both love each other.” That’s a problem, because the love one might have for another is not a constant. It is changeable, and it often does change in a marriage.
The Epistle lesson before us today is not specifically a marriage reading. It is instruction and encouragement to be who we already are in Christ. The reason we need the instruction is because sin clings to us, and we continue to think, say, and do things that are not right. We need to be taught what is right before God. We need to learn how He wants us to be as His people.
Marriage and family are wonderful ways to put these teachings into practice. What marriage wouldn’t benefit from outdoing “one another in showing honor,” or being “patient in tribulation,” or never being “wise in your own sight”? And think of how peaceful a home would be where siblings “love one another with brotherly affection,” where they “live in harmony with one another,” where none are “haughty, but associate with the lowly.”
The home is the testing place to see whether we will succeed outside the home. If a child does not respect his parents, what other authority will he respect? If siblings do not learn to get along, who else will they get along with? If Mom and Dad don’t model love and sacrifice in their marriage, how likely will their children learn these things for future relationships outside the home? So much depends on the home!
But the home is not perfect—no home is. I expect there is much you are thankful for about the home you grew up in, especially if it was a Christian home. But you also remember hard times, arguments, fights, impatience, anger. And you probably weren’t an innocent bystander in all of that. You remember the part you played in that discord. You remember your sins.
The home Jesus grew up in was no different. Probably Joseph and Mary worried about money like most couples do. I’m sure their tempers got short. You can imagine how Mary fretted when they lost track of their twelve-year-old Son in Jerusalem. When they finally found Him in the temple, Mary blurted out, “Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress” (Luk. 2:48). We see more worrying from Mary in today’s Holy Gospel when she brought the problem of a wine shortage to Jesus at a wedding they attended.
But one thing was different about the home of Mary and Joseph that made it like no other home. Jesus was different. He actually was an innocent bystander. He did not contribute in any way to the sin of the household. He was perfect. He submitted to the authority of Mary and Joseph (Luk. 2:51). He showed perfect love toward them and the neighbors around Him, and they noticed. The evangelist Luke writes that “Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man” (2:52).
That perfect life was for you, to cover over all your transgressions and unkindnesses toward the people God placed in your life to love. Everything in today’s reading that you fall short of time and again, Jesus fulfilled. He was genuine in His love. He held fast to what was good. He loved and honored all the people around Him. He was not slothful in zeal; He was fervent in spirit; He perfectly served the Lord God. He rejoiced in hope; He was patient in tribulation; He was constant in prayer. He was humble, kind, gracious, and helpful in the best possible ways.
This perfect life that Jesus lived, He freely hands over to you. Like a husband and wife who agree to share everything with each other, Jesus says, “Everything that is Mine is yours.” In fact, marriage is exactly the picture God uses to explain what His Son did for you. But it is not like our marriages, which we enter into by mutual consent as equals. The union between Jesus and His bride the Church was totally by His prerogative, and it was nowhere near balanced like we expect the marriage relationship to be.
Jesus, the perfect Bridegroom, chose for His bride the world of sinners. The only-begotten Son of God, God from all eternity, chose to join Himself to our human flesh and become a Man, so that He could make everything that is ours His, and everything that is His ours. He accepted our pride, our anger, our bitterness, and our self-centeredness. He accepted our unkind words, our manipulative actions, our unfaithfulness, and our lies. He let all of our sins be placed on Himself as though He were the straying spouse, as though all the stains of our wrong-doing belonged on Him.
And in return, He gave us what is His. He gave us His perfect obedience to His Father, His kind actions, His gracious words, His righteous thoughts. He gave us His eternal life, His everlasting peace, His heavenly kingdom. All that He accomplished by His holy life and His sacrificial death on the cross, He poured over us in Baptism (Eph. 5:26).
He joined His life to yours at your Baptism. There He promised to remain faithful to you at all times and in all situations—“for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health; to love and to cherish.” But not until death parts you, because death cannot part you from your Bridegroom who rose in victory over your death and lives forevermore. By faith, you cling to Him. You trust that He will not break His baptismal vow to you no matter what you have to face in your marriage, in your home, or in your life.
Jesus our Bridegroom is perfectly true. Our side of things is the side that is less certain. Like a discontent spouse, sometimes we try to blame Jesus for not doing more for us, for not addressing our wants and needs, for not making us happier. But Jesus hasn’t changed toward us. It is we who change toward Him. It is our love for Him that falters. It is our confidence and trust in Him that are lacking.
When things get bad for us it is because we get this verse backward. Instead of “Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good,” we often abhor what is good and hold fast to what is evil. That’s when we have problems with Jesus. We ignore His powerful Word, while giving way to our own bitter thoughts and sinful actions. We forget His love, while wallowing in self-pity.
But if we are going to “Hold Fast to What Is Good,” there is no other way to do this than to hold fast to Jesus, because it is Jesus who is good, whose mercy endures forever. The word for “holding fast” is the same word that Jesus used when quoting from Genesis 2: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh” (Mat. 19:5). Or if you prefer the old translation, “a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife.”
We “hold fast” to Jesus, we “cleave” to Him, by gladly hearing and learning His Word, and trusting that He is here to bless us through the means of grace He instituted for His Church. We should have no doubts about what His Word can do. If it could turn water into wine and bring gladness to a wedding at Cana long ago, it can change bitterness to love, curses into blessings, and sorrows into joys in our hearts and in our homes.
So whether you are married or single, whether you are looking forward with excitement to unknown joys and challenges, or looking back with sober reflection and contentment, remember that Jesus’ vow toward you has not changed. He joined Himself to you and will never leave you. He is your salvation, your comfort, your strength.
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.
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(picture from Redeemer Lutheran Church stained glass)
The Epiphany of Our Lord – Vicar Lehne sermon
Text: St. Matthew 2:1-12
In Christ Jesus, who is the Light of the whole world, dear fellow redeemed:
There is always excitement when a child is born, whether it’s your own child or the child of someone you know. However, the excitement is usually limited to only the friends and family of the ones who had the child. Outside of them, the birth of a child doesn’t get much fanfare at all. But now imagine that, sometime after one of your own children was born and the excitement had died down, an airplane landed in the nearby airport, and a parade of important-looking vehicles drove through town and over to your house. Surely, there must be some mistake, right? After all, there’s no way such important-looking vehicles would stop by your house. Then, suddenly, the doors to the vehicles open, and who should exit them and approach your front door but the royal family from England? You must be imagining things at this point. Why would anyone important show up at your house, let alone the royal family? But you soon realize that you’re not imagining it as they enter your house, greet you, and then, after asking where your new child is, approach him, bow down to him, and present him with gifts. But these are not just any gifts; they are some of the crown jewels. Then, before you can even process what is going on, the royal family says their goodbyes, exits your house, gets back into their vehicles, returns to the airport, and flies back to England. No doubt there would be quite a lot going through your head after all that, and among those thoughts would probably be two questions: “How did the royal family find out about the birth of my child?” and “Why did they travel all the way here just to do this for my child?” The arrival of the wise men to worship Jesus and present him with expensive and valuable gifts raises similar questions.
Even though the birth of Jesus was a big deal, since it was when God, the Light of the world, came down in the flesh to begin his saving work of delivering us from our sins, it was an event that didn’t get widespread fanfare. True, there was a multitude of angels that appeared to a group of shepherds to announce his birth, which was certainly a spectacular event, but those angels didn’t appear to anyone else. Then, after the shepherds saw the Christ Child with their own eyes, they “made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child” (Luke 2:17). But even though “all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them” (Luke 2:18), the news doesn’t appear to have spread very far. When the wise men arrived in Jerusalem and asked the Jews who were in the city, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?” (verse 2), they didn’t get an answer until King Herod assembled “all the chief priests and scribes of the people” (verse 4) and “inquired of them where the Christ was to be born” (verse 4).
So, if there weren’t even many Jews who knew that the promised Messiah had been born, how did the wise men, who were foreigners from a faraway country, find out that he had been born? We know they saw a special star in the sky, but they must have also heard the prophecies about the Christ, that he would come to save all people from their sins.
Without this promise and the faith that God the Holy Spirit worked in their hearts, the wise men would have remained in the darkness of their sin. But, through his Word, God revealed to the wise men that there was hope for them. One day, a Savior would be born, who would be God in the flesh, and that Savior would be a light that dispels their darkness and saves them from their sins. The promise of that Savior gave the wise men hope that, when they died, they were not doomed to enter into the eternal darkness of hell, but would instead be welcomed into the eternal light radiating from the Savior in heaven.
If the wise men did not believe this, then they would have had no reason to follow the star when it appeared in the sky. If the star was leading them to someone who was just a man, or to someone who would just be a king for the Jews, what reason would they have to make that long journey, carrying expensive and valuable gifts with them, and worship that person? The wise men knew that the light of the star was leading them to the true Light, and they knew that he was not just a light to the Jews, but a light to the whole world. As Jesus says, “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12).
Your situation was similar to that of the wise men. You were conceived in the darkness of sin, just like they were. And that sin only becomes more apparent to you the older you get. You know that there is no way for you to escape from the darkness of your sin, and that you rightfully deserve to enter into the eternal darkness of hell when you die to be punished for your sin. But you also know that there is hope for you, and unlike the wise men, who did not yet know everything that Jesus would do for them, God has revealed to you in his Word how the light of Jesus dispels the darkness of your sin and saved you from it, opening the doors of eternal life to you.
Jesus was born, just like all of you were born, yet he was born without sin. He grew up like all children do, yet he did not give in to the temptations that you all face even once. He healed the sick and raised the dead during his earthly ministry, showing his power over death. Then, though he was without sin, he became sin for you by taking all your sin on himself and putting your sin to death with him on the cross. And, just when it looked like death had won by swallowing him up in its darkness, Jesus’ light shone again when he rose from the dead, putting an end to the power that death had over you and ensuring that everyone who believes in him would one day also rise from the dead to be with him, in his glorious light, forever.
Jesus, the Light of the world, now lives in each of you, but the darkness of sin wants you back. It is always there, trying to work its way back into your heart so that it can swallow you up once again. And, if you do not take sin seriously and live in your sin without repentance, the darkness of sin would prevail against you. But Jesus continues to work in you through his Word to move you to repentance and to dispel your darkness. As Jesus says, “Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). With Jesus continually at work in your hearts, the darkness of sin can never prevail against you. This good news causes you to rejoice “exceedingly with great joy” (verse 10) and to worship Jesus, just like the wise men did.
You make a journey to worship Jesus whenever you gather around his Word and Sacraments. Your journey may not look like that of the wise men, who followed the light of the star over a vast distance so that they could worship Jesus, the true Light, and offer him gifts. But it is a journey that is just as significant as theirs. For when you do gather together to worship our Savior and offer him your gifts, you are bathed in his glorious light. This light comes through the preaching of his Word and the administering of his Sacraments and dispels the darkness of sin that constantly tries to swallow you up again. You may not offer up the same gifts that the wise men did, nor may they have the same material value, but the gifts that you do offer Jesus show your faith in him and your love for him just as much as the gifts of the wise men did.
Try as it might, the darkness of sin cannot have us, because the light of Jesus lives within us. As the apostle John says, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). This is good news for us, but the darkness of sin still has its hold on most of the world. They are without hope, but they are continually searching for hope and meaning in everything except for God’s Word. But we do have God’s Word, and we know that God’s Word is not just for a select few, but for the whole world. That is why we want to tell others the good news that Jesus, the Light of the world, has saved them from the darkness of their sin. As the apostle Peter says, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).
Proclaiming God’s Word is an honor that God has given to all Christians, including you. Now, some of you may think that you are not qualified to proclaim the good news to others because you aren’t properly trained, like pastors are. But, while pastors do get special training, that doesn’t mean that they are the only ones who are qualified to tell the good news about Jesus, nor does it mean that they have learned how to convince someone to come to faith in Jesus. Only God can create faith. All we can do is point others to the Light.
We are like the star that led the wise men to Jesus, the true Light. When we proclaim the good news about Jesus to others, the light of his grace shines into their darkened hearts, and we pray that the Holy Spirit works saving faith in their hearts. God truly can use any Christian to accomplish this, no matter how unqualified they may feel they are. And often, the people who have the most success sharing the good news and getting others engaged with the Word are not pastors, but Christians like you, who reach out to their friends and family.
One of the reasons why it can be hard to spread the good news of Jesus to others is because we may not always be sure if the light of Jesus’ grace and forgiveness is for us. This is especially something we can wonder when we are faced with the true darkness of some of our sins. But Jesus tells us that he is not just the Light of a select few, but the Light of the whole world. No matter how bad our sin is, he shines through the darkness of our sin and gives us hope that the eternal life in heaven that he won on the cross is for all of us. And, until we enter the gates of heaven, where we will be bathed in his glorious light for all eternity, his light will continue to live in us and cut through our darkness so that we don’t need to fear it ever again.
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.
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(picture from “Adoration of the Magi,” a late 1800s mural in Conception, Missouri basilica)
The Transfiguration of Our Lord – Vicar Anderson sermon
Text: St. Matthew 17:1-9
In Christ Jesus, who with three witnesses transfigured in all His glory, showing the World that He is the Christ, the Son of God, dear fellow redeemed:
We are currently in the last two games to see who will be playing in the Superbowl. I have had fun with the banter of talking with everyone as we cheered on our favorite teams and saw them lose out before the big game or didn’t make it to the playoffs at all. Now each one of these playoff games, especially the two that will play today are just a foretaste of what is to come. It’s good to win these playoff games, but not as good as tasting the ultimate win of that Superbowl. It’s an event like this that we see in our text today. Jesus reveals himself as the Messiah and He does it in an extraordinary way. Jesus takes three disciples with Him to witness this event. They don’t even realize what they see with their eyes. There are some key points to take away from this event. This is a high point in Jesus’ life before He continues to follow the will of His Father and heads to the cross for our salvation.
Peter, James, and John witness something beyond all human comprehension. Upon going up the mountain, Jesus shows His divine glory. Scripture has a hard time saying what this scene looked like, it is indescribable. Matthew’s account keeps it the simplest. Jesus became as bright as the sun and His clothes became as bright as a light. Two of the greatest figures of the Old Testament arrive and talk with Jesus. We see the Old Testament affirming that it is pointing at Jesus as the Messiah. Moses is representing the law. Elijah is representing the prophets. The topic that they are discussing is how Jesus is going to die. Just after this, a bright cloud overshadowed them. Not only has the Son of Man shown himself that He is truly the Son of God with His divine glory, The Father has also come upon the mountain confirming what is taking place. That Jesus is His beloved Son, and the Son is going to carry out His plan to save the world. The disciples fell on their faces in fear.
As God the Father envelops them in a cloud, what are the disciples thinking? This is not the first time that the glory of the LORD has been witnessed in a cloud. We see God appearing in a cloud in the Old Testament. It is recorded that, “On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled… Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the LORD had descended on it in fire” (Exodus 19:16, 18). The disciples have a big reason to fear. They grew up learning these accounts and here is the LORD Almighty coming down on their mountain. The LORD who delivered Israel out of Egypt. This is a glory that cannot be looked upon. When the LORD came down on Mount Sinai, the people were told they could not look upon him. The Israelites couldn’t even touch the base of the mountain. This is a glory that reminds people of their sin. They see how mighty and how holy the LORD is. We see how tiny we are.
Let’s put it into perspective. What if the cloud of the LORD filled this church right now? You see His glory around you. What sins begin to come to mind as the bright presence of God fills the church? You would squirm in your seat. Like the Old Testament Israelites and these three disciples, you would fall down in fear at the glorious presence of God. You would want to hide. In that cloud we see God’s omnipotence. God knows everything that we do. We cannot hide from his presence. Our sins are laid bare in front of God the Almighty. This is happening now—we just can’t see it. God is present right here in this church. He does see everything. God is here and knows every single sin that has been committed against Him. You can’t hide from God. You have to come clean. As the presence of God can overwhelm us, Jesus’ transfiguration did not happen to scare us.
Before the transfiguration, Peter made his great confession. Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ. Jesus shows Peter, James, and John that Peter’s great confession is true as they get a foretaste of Jesus’ glory. He is the Christ. Everything that His disciple’s thought is true. Moses and Elijah talk with Jesus confirming that he will die for the sins of the world. This was the plan that He was sent into the world to complete. We see that Jesus is able to complete it because He is not just a man. The disciples see his glory. They see His glory shining like the Sun. God the Father confirms that what Jesus is doing is pleasing to Him. This plan has been set in stone since the beginning of time. God is keeping His promise. He is watching His Son willingly follow His plan to perfection. The fear of the cloud is gone as Jesus is the one who takes on the weight of the wrath of God. That is where Jesus is heading after leaving this mountain. He is heading to the cross, bearing the weight of the sins that have us in fear, and He is taking the wrath that we deserved.
Now as the disciples were laying down in fear, the scene ends. They hear the voice of their Savior. Jesus comforts his disciples that they don’t need to fear as he is still with them. He comforts you as well. He hides His glory from you as He comes to meet you in His Word and Sacraments. His Word brings you comfort as it tells you what He has done. You hear Jesus’ Words of comfort as He is with you in your struggles and hardships. He clothes you with the waters of Baptism marking you as God’s child. The forgiveness of sins is given to you on your tongue in Holy Communion. Your Savior knows that you can’t endure Him in all His glory because of your sins. So, He comes to you in the simplest yet majestic way. You don’t have to search for a way out of the problems that you are in. Jesus comes to you and says do not be afraid as He is the one who takes on the punishment. The ways in which Jesus comes to you are also a foretaste of what is to come, and you can look forward to what the disciples witnessed.
Jesus’ transfiguration is the foretaste of being with Him forever in all His glory. Jesus never lost His power as God. He always had it, but He did not always make full use of it. We see in our text how much He gave up for you. The disciples see what Christ’s resurrection, earthly appearance, ascension, and what heaven will look like. This is what will happen after He dies. Jesus rises from the dead glorified, making full use of His divine power. Peter writes in his letter that they were witnesses to what took place. Peter says, “For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty” (2 Peter 1:16). The Bible is not a book of made-up fairy tales.
The disciples watched as their teacher dropped the veil, giving them a glimpse of His divine glory. They witnessed Jesus staying on course to complete the Father’s will. Moses and Elijah assure Jesus of the plan for Him to suffer and die. This was God’s plan since the beginning of time. That Christ would come into the world to suffer and die for you. He would humbly live the life of a servant, live a perfect life obeying everything that the Father commanded for you.
This account speaks about the future as well. When our final hour comes and we are called to our heavenly home, we not only will see Christ in all his glory, we will also be transfigured. We will see the glory of Christ, and we will have no fear. The apostle John who was a witness to these things explains how this will look. He records in one of his letters the joy that we will have in our heavenly home. That we will be comforted by Christ in His full glory. He writes, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). Amen.
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.
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(picture from painting by Carl Bloch, c. 1865)
The Third Sunday after the Epiphany – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. Matthew 8:1-13
In Christ Jesus, through whom we are Abraham’s offspring, heirs not by blood but by faith in our Lord’s promises, dear fellow redeemed:
It’s about time for church to start. You hear the door open and turn to look. Who would you most like to see walk through that door? Maybe it’s someone you haven’t seen in a while—a member of your family, a childhood friend, a co-worker, a neighbor. You make room next to you and motion them over. What a great surprise!
But is there anyone you would not want to see walk through that door? That’s a tough question. In general, we say that everyone is welcome at our churches. We want everyone to hear the truth and learn what Jesus has done for them. But some people have hurt us, sometimes very deeply. Even seeing them can bring back all the pain. We might think in our hearts that people like that do not belong in our churches. They can go somewhere else, but not here.
This shows how our love has limits. It is an imperfect love because our sin is mixed in with it. We keep inside ourselves a certain amount of bitterness, a certain amount of prejudice, against individuals or groups of people because of experiences we have had with them. We might say that we could never respect a person who supports a cause or a candidate that we totally disagree with. Or we might condemn all the members of a social class or people of a different nationality that we think only care about themselves. Or we justify our lack of love toward someone because of the wrongs he or she has done to us.
All of these things come not from a strong sense of righteousness and justice, but from our own pride. Our pride keeps us from the self-sacrificing, generous life that God calls us to live. When we read about Jesus in the Gospels, we see the contrast so clearly between how we should be and how we actually are.
In today’s Gospel reading, a man with a terrible, contagious skin disease knelt before Jesus begging Him to cleanse him. Lepers like this man were outcasts, banished to live in their own colonies. They had to announce their status—“unclean!”—whenever they came near people without leprosy. Probably quite a few people looked down on these lepers. They pitied their condition maybe, but they still stayed as far away as they could. I’m sure we would have too.
But when the man came up to Jesus, Jesus did not keep His distance. He could have just spoken a word and healed the man like He did with the centurion’s servant. But in this case, Jesus stretched out His hand and touched the man! No one could have seen that coming. It was something that non-leprous people simply didn’t and wouldn’t do. Why risk being infected with the same disease?
When Jesus reached across that great divide toward His suffering neighbor, it could be that the man shied away. He was not used to a compassionate action like this. He didn’t want Jesus to get what He had. And then suddenly his leprosy wasn’t there anymore. His skin was clean! Jesus directed this outsider to come back in, to show himself to the priest and return to his home and family.
Going on a little further, Jesus was met by the friends of a centurion who appealed for help for the centurion’s servant who had been paralyzed. This request was surprising. Why would any Roman military commander ask a Jewish man like Jesus for help? The Jews resented the Romans for their occupation of Judea and Galilee, and the Romans acted like a ruling party acts. But this centurion was different. The evangelist Luke tells us that he treated the people with kindness and supplied the funds they needed to build a synagogue in Capernaum (7:5).
Even so, Jesus was under no obligation to help the centurion’s servant. The centurion was a Gentile, and Jesus had come for “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Mat. 15:24). But just as He had compassion on the leprous man, He had compassion here too. After the centurion expressed his confidence that Jesus could heal his servant without even coming into the house where the servant was, Jesus said, “Go; let it be done for you as you have believed.”
And Jesus said something else, something that applies directly to you and me today, thousands of years after that miracle in Capernaum. Jesus said, “I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness.” Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are those patriarchs through whom the promise came. The LORD told them, “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3; 28:14).
“All the families of the earth” is all-inclusive. The many who “will come from east and west” means people from around the world. It is not just the blood descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is all those who share the faith of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who believe as they did in a Savior who takes away the sins of the world.
Jesus emphasized this again after His resurrection. He told His disciples, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Mat. 28:19-20). Jesus wants all the people of the world to know that His saving work was done for them. He was anointed at His Baptism to be their Savior. He was driven to the cross and shed His blood for their sins. He rose from the dead in triumph over their death.
He wants everyone from east to west to know that He has removed their transgressions from them “as far as the east is from the west” (Psa. 103:12). The apostle Paul brings it right home to you and me. Like the leper and the centurion, we were outcasts, outsiders. Most of us have no family line running back through Israel. We are part of the great mass of Gentiles, a bunch of nobodies whom very few will remember after we are gone.
But we matter to God. We are not strangers to Jesus. When He went to the cross, He was carrying your sins. He had your bitterness and prejudice slapping Him in the face. He was pierced by your pride. He felt all the world’s anger and hatred and animosity directed toward Him. And yet He still said, “Father, forgive them. I love them. I will die for them, to save their souls.”
Paul writes, “[I]n Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Eph. 2:13). His blood reconciled you with the holy God. His blood cleansed you at your Baptism and cleanses you through His Supper. It makes and keeps you His blood brother. You were an outsider, but you aren’t one anymore. “[F]or in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal. 3:26-27).
You are a member of the body of Christ, wearing the clothes of His righteousness, no more stained by your sin. And there is room for more sinners like you. There is room for murderers, adulterers, robbers, and liars—sins that all of us have committed in our hearts if not by our actions. There is room in Christ’s body for northerners, southerners, easterners, and westerners. There is room for your closest friends. There is room for your fiercest enemies.
As soon as we have understood that our salvation comes only by the grace of God, we can’t begrudge that salvation to anyone else. We don’t deserve it any more than they do. If in our pride we think that we belong in Christ’s kingdom more than others do, then we need to hear Jesus’ warning that “the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness.” He was speaking about the Israelites who thought their connection to Abraham’s family tree was the most important thing. What they ignored was Abraham’s humble faith.
We, too, will lose our salvation if we trust in our connection to other faithful people in our church or in our family, instead of daily repenting of our sin and trusting in Jesus alone for forgiveness and life. Like that leper, we must admit that by nature we are unclean, sinful in our thoughts, words, and actions. Like the centurion’s servant, we are paralyzed if left to ourselves, suffering terribly.
We are not worthy to have Jesus love us. Our welcome gift for Him when He took on our flesh was anguish and cross. We sent Him to His death because of our sin. And He went forward willingly. He had mercy upon us. We were His enemies, but He called us friends. We were outsiders, and He welcomed us in.
He shows us the way we should be toward those who have hurt us and those who are nothing like us. We look upon them not with hatred but with love, not in judgment but with compassion. As Jesus meets us in His Word and Sacraments to heal us from past hurts, He also helps us to set aside our anger and grow in love toward those around us.
Then we begin to see others as He sees us, as poor sinners in need of forgiveness, as hurting souls in need of grace and mercy. Jesus did not give up on us, and He doesn’t want us to give up on others. Jesus Welcomes the Outsiders, outsiders like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, outsiders like you and me, and more outsiders from east and west—even many we would not expect.
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.
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(picture from a portion of a Byzantine mosaic in Sicily)
The Second Sunday after Epiphany – Vicar Anderson sermon
Text: St. John 2:1-11
In Christ Jesus, who with His power turns water into wine, who speaks to you and comes directly to you in the means of grace, providing you with comfort, dear fellow redeemed:
Over the last few years, my wife and I have had our share of weddings that we have attended. Not long ago, we had our wedding to plan. As we get ready for a summer that has more wedding invites, we have found weddings much more enjoyable since we are done with the planning part. Our wedding was awesome don’t get me wrong, but the planning was stressful and it was only one day. In the text for today, a wedding is taking place, and they have run out of something important. Could you imagine the horror of a great celebration and then you ran out of wine? In the stress of the moment, we see how cooler heads prevail. There is only one person who can help out this situation. While there might be times where we think that no more could go wrong, Jesus is the one who is our help. The hour has come and Jesus performs His first miracle to reveal who He really is!
Jesus has been invited to a wedding. Just seeing this in our text, Scripture teaches that Jesus was like us. We don’t know who was getting married. We do know where it is happening, in a small town not far from Jesus’ home. His mother was there which means she may have known or was related to the couple. With His mother’s invitation, Jesus would have also been a guest. He also brought His disciples as well. Now this wedding has a serious problem, that they are running out of wine. This is not good! A wedding during this time period could take as much time as a week. This type of blunder would be very noticeable. The family would be a laughingstock and disgraced because of this. Thankfully, they have a special guest in attendance. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.”
How could this have happened? Did the management have the wrong numbers? If this is how weddings took place, then they should have known how much wine they were going to need. Even today when you make an invite list for a wedding, you take it to the catering company and you estimate how much you will need. The servants had to have trust in a man who they did not know. Jesus’ mother tells them that they should listen to Him. She trusts that Jesus can help. The servants do not know who He is. Since this is His first public miracle, no one knows how great Jesus is. Then when Jesus says, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast,” how do you decide who is the one to do this job? Who wants to bring the master a cup of water?
The first wedding that took place also had to worry about management. Adam and Eve were given a job to manage the Garden of Eden. God gave them an instruction to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When Adam and Eve sinned, their sin affected everything. We see that today, weddings are not perfect, marriages are not perfect, and families are not perfect.
When Mary went to Jesus telling Him the problem, Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” This seems like such a devastating thing to hear. It seems like Jesus isn’t going to help, and so many times we take what He says here and we apply it to ourselves. We think that Jesus isn’t going to help us. We face many trials in this life. Children do not want to listen to our instructions. Children burning with anger that their parents are so strict because they won’t let us do what we want. Husbands not listening to wives to lend a helping hand, lacking leadership, and being lazy. Wives taking husbands to task and taking over his duties. It also may happen where we believe and dwell on that we are all alone in the world.
If our salvation was on us, we would run out of time. Our wedding would run out of wine. People will look and make fun of us. We can feel disgraced when we see the problems that happen in our homes. On our own we can find ourselves helpless. How can we fix the situations that we are in? How can we get more wine? Jesus’ mother knew who could help the situation. She tells the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.
Jesus’ hour has come, not because Mary said so, but because He chose this time. Jesus did not attack His mother when He responded that His time had not yet come. She had faith that He could help the situation. He did not tell her no. He told her not yet. Only God knows when the hour is. Jesus is also speaking about when His hour would come to die. His mother, not giving up, told the servants to listen to Him. Jesus brings blessings to this marriage with His miracle. He shows not just little Cana, but He shows you and me that He is the Son of God. He has the power to do all things. He turns water into wine. He fixes our situation, here on earth and forever in heaven.
The hour at hand is also that He would come into the world and die for your sins. There is joy in the world because the Son of God has come. The world sees this with his first public miracle. You see the comfort that Jesus brings to you. Your sins are forgiven. He is with you in your lowest points bringing you peace and joy. He takes your troubles, puts them on His back, and goes to the cross willingly for you. He rose from the dead, showing you that His Word is true and real. He came for your salvation. Jesus shows his mercy. He was not ignoring the problem at hand. He helped the wedding by turning the water into wine.
Our text teaches us how amazing this miracle is. “Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, ‘Fill the jars with water.’ And they filled them up to the brim.” The Jewish people had many laws and rituals. For the Jews, stone is an element that is pure. Jesus shows that He has the power to purify and that He is the great provider. This wedding now had an abundance of very good wine. At the command of Jesus, the servants take the water that was turned into wine to the master of the feast. This man can’t refute this account because He did not know that Jesus was performing a miracle. When he tastes the wine, he then exclaims how the bridegroom had saved the best wine for last. Jesus gives a wonderful gift to the wedding.
This first miracle highlights where the wedding had happened. This was not the governor’s or the emperor’s wedding. It was a couple who we don’t know their names in a little town of Cana. Why is this highlighted? Jesus doesn’t find anything that you do as insignificant. He is not embarrassed to grace you with his presence. The reputation of the wedding is kept safe with the miracle. Your reputation has also been kept safe through Jesus’ cleansing blood. Your reputation was condemning you to hell. It is now safe as Jesus takes away your sins. Moses was right that another prophet would be raised up like him. This prophet would not only speak the commands of God, but He would live them out perfectly for you. Jesus’ presence is a joy for you right here and now. In the means of grace, we see and hear Him all the time! He speaks to you through His Word. He comes directly to you forgiving your sins at the altar in Holy Communion. Through the means of grace, the Hour has come for each one of us.
As the bridegroom is given credit, Jesus reveals himself as the ultimate bridegroom who lays down His life for His bride. His bride is you and me and all believers. Jesus is an example of what a Christian marriage should look like. How He laid down his life for the church. He also shows children how to obey their loving father. He followed His willingly. Jesus shows us how He provided for a wedding on earth. He provided for it with great abundance. He provides for us a wedding banquet that is even greater. It is a banquet that will be celebrated for all eternity.
Since this was His first public miracle, the servants witness the miracle and the disciples believe in Him. How great it would have been to witness this miracle. To see the joy on everyone’s faces. We do have that joy. Jesus has provided us with many blessings. He has provided us with blessings here on earth, and He has provided us with the blessing of heaven that we couldn’t earn on our own.
As stressful as planning weddings can be, they are very special moments. When the hour is here and the wedding takes place, everyone is happy. Jesus reminds us how He is there with us in the stressful times and in the happy moments. We are not alone and He saves us. Our text teaches us who we want to put all of our hope in. He knew the plan that was needed for winning our salvation and He completed it willingly. We can rejoice and give thanks to God because the bridegroom has come, given His life, risen from the dead, and we will be present at the heavenly banquet forever. Amen.
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.
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(picture from a work by a 10th century monk)
The Childhood of Jesus – Pr. Faugstad homily
Texts: St. Luke 2:22-38, St. Matthew 2:1-12, St. Matthew 2:13-23, St. Luke 2:41-52
In Christ Jesus, who entered this world of temptation and sin to win our righteousness and salvation, dear fellow redeemed:
When we review the accounts of Jesus’ childhood—especially the first three readings for today—Jesus is not depicted as doing anything on His own. When He was forty days old, His parents brought Him to Jerusalem to present Him to the LORD and to offer a sacrifice for Him as Old Testament Law required. Then Simeon took Jesus in his arms, blessing God. A number of months after this, wise men showed up at their house in Bethlehem, worshipping Jesus and giving Him gifts. Then because of Herod’s jealous wrath, an angel of the LORD told Joseph to take Jesus and Mary to Egypt for safety.
We might have expected more out of the Son of God incarnate. When He was presented at the temple, He could have impressed His parents and Simeon and Anna by opening His mouth and speaking a blessing to them. Or He could have made gifts appear for the wise men to help them on their journey home. He could have made His family vanish from Bethlehem and arrive in Egypt with no trouble. He could have stopped the terrible work of Herod’s soldiers.
But we see none of this. There was nothing in His appearance or actions that set Jesus apart from other children His age. He needed to be fed and have His diapers changed. He had to learn to walk and talk. The only difference that might have been perceived is that Jesus never threw a temper tantrum as infants and toddlers occasionally do. He never sinned even at this early age.
God had humbled Himself so completely when He entered our world as a baby, that He required the care of others. He needed the kind of help and assistance that all children need. God has given the responsibility of raising children to every adult, even those who do not have children of their own. Children need our collective care and support. They cannot provide for themselves, or when they are younger, defend themselves.
And the kind of care that God especially requires of us is spiritual care. Deuteronomy 6 says, “You shall teach [the words of God] diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (v. 7)—our conversations about what God has done for us should happen constantly. Proverbs 22 says, “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it” (v. 6).
And Jesus speaks a blessing for those who take this seriously, but He speaks a curse for those who don’t. He said, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea” (Mat. 18:5-6). Parents cause their children to sin by not teaching them the truth of God’s Word. But they give them eternal blessings by constantly pointing them to Jesus and reminding them of the gifts they received from Him at their Baptism.
This is serious business! And serious business can often seem too much for us to handle. But the care of our children is God’s will. And what God wills, He blesses. It is no mistake that the children in our life are in our life. God has given us to serve them, and He has given them to enrich our life. Children are a check on our selfish impulses by giving us a purpose and a focus outside of ourselves. And they are the source of tremendous joy and gladness as we watch their growth and development… and their misadventures.
As children mature, we see them become more and more independent. They still need us, but not for the same things. They start to test boundaries and not always in a sinful way. They want to explore on their own and find out what they are capable of. We see this independence in Jesus as a twelve-year-old. It is clear that His parents were comfortable with this, because they trusted that He was part of the group traveling home after the Passover. They didn’t feel the need to verify it. Jesus was a good boy!
And Jesus for His part was not doing anything sneaky by staying behind at the temple. He wasn’t trying to trouble His parents or make them worry. He was laser-focused on the important task of the moment and tuned out everything else around Him. This happens with our children too. Sometimes they don’t hear us give them some instruction because they don’t want to hear it. That is sinful. But other times, they don’t mean to be disobedient—they are just so focused on what they are doing that everything else gets tuned out. I suppose that happens with adults too!
It is clear that Jesus’ motivations were pure by His response to His mother, when she chided Him for His decision to stay in Jerusalem. Jesus was genuinely surprised at their concern. In His first recorded words in the New Testament, He asked them, “Why were you looking for Me? Did you not know that I must be in My Father’s house?” They didn’t understand this at the time, but it became clear to them later. And so we learn to be patient with our children, even when they do things that are hard to understand.
Raising children is difficult, frustrating, stressful, awesome, enriching, and fun all at the same time. We wish we were better at it. It’s easy for us to list our failures, the times we grew impatient and lost our temper, when we put ourselves first, when we did not model goodness and faithfulness through our words and actions. And we know well the failures of our childhood, when we did not respect our parents and other authorities as we should, when we did things we knew were wrong, when we behaved selfishly and unkindly.
Jesus came to right all these wrongs. We are told that He submitted to His sinful parents and showed love to all the people around Him, even when they did not treat Him like they should have. We probably do the most sinning against those who are closest to us, who are part of our household. But Jesus showed perfect love to all. He did not sin. Even as a baby when it looked like He wasn’t doing anything, Jesus Was Busy Winning Our Righteousness.
His active obedience under the Law was for you, offered to God on your behalf. God does not hold your failures against you. He doesn’t even see them, because Jesus paid for them with His blood, and He covers you with His own holy life. No matter how unqualified you may feel at times to watch over those in your care, you are where you are supposed to be, and God promises to strengthen you for this important work. Even your lowly and imperfect efforts are sanctified by His grace and used for the care and salvation of the little lambs who are His more than they are yours.
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.
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(picture from “Jesus Among the Doctors” by James Tissot, 1836-1902)