The Twelfth Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. Mark 7:31-37
In Christ Jesus, who came to bring healing not just for bodies but also for souls, not just for this life but for the life to come, dear fellow redeemed:
If you could change one thing about your body, one thing that would make you happier and more content, what would it be? For some of us (maybe many of us), it would be our weight—“I wish I could trim off a few pounds.” Others of us might say, “I wish I were a little bit taller.” “I wish I were stronger.” “I wish I were prettier.” Most of these wishes have to do with how other people see us. We want them to think we look good, because that helps us feel better about ourselves.
Or maybe what you would like to change is not so much your appearance, but your health. “I wish this pain in my joints or my back would go away.” “I wish I could get back the energy and mobility I used to have.” “I wish my heart were more reliable.” “I wish this cancer were gone.” And there is no question that being healed of these things would be a great relief. But how far would it take you? Would you actually be happier and more content if you received exactly what you wanted?
Today we hear about a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment. Those two things often go together. If you grow up being unable to hear, or unable to hear correctly, you won’t know how to control the sounds that you make with your mouth. Communication for this man was certainly difficult, but he had gotten along so far. He did not have a life-threatening illness or demon-possession like other people Jesus had healed. But the people figured that if Jesus could help with those things, He could “lay His hand on” this man and heal him too.
While the people had confidence in Jesus, it isn’t exactly the case that they believed in Him. They believed that He had special powers, and they were really hoping to see Him use them. But they did not believe He was the promised Savior of the world. What they were hoping for was a miracle of physical healing and not much more.
Jesus of course knew this about them. We see how He took the deaf man away from the crowd, because He wasn’t interested in making a spectacle of it. He sighed deeply—even groaned—as He looked toward heaven, saddened by the whole situation. And then after the miracle had been performed, He charged the people not to tell anyone what He had done—an order which they totally ignored.
But why would Jesus order them not to tell? Well what kind of message do you think they shared? Would you guess that they talked more about who He was, or about what He was able to do? “He has done all things well!” they cried. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak!” The message was that Jesus mattered because of the physical healing He could perform.
This message could have led some to wonder, “Who is Jesus anyway? How is He able to do the things He does?” Those are the questions all the people should have been asking. But many just looked at Him as a means to get what they wanted. “If Jesus could take away this problem, or this problem, I would be so free. Then I could do whatever I wanted again.”
You can see how getting healed by Jesus did not guarantee that people would follow Him. We see the same thing today. Our merciful Lord regularly blesses the medical treatment people receive, so that their life is extended. Or He preserves people from greater harm when they could have easily died. Many who have been through these things will even express that they have “a new lease on life.” But their attitude toward God doesn’t change. They don’t give thanks to the One who gives them their daily bread, who gives them everything they have and everything they need for this life.
And the same often goes for us. We might fervently pray for one thing, one physical gift, whether it be healing from an infection or disease, or for improved health. We say that we will dedicate our whole life to God if only He will fix this one thing. But how much changes for us if that healing comes? It usually doesn’t take long before we forget what God has done for us. And then we take up a new petition, a new concern, that would make our lives so much better if only God would help.
There is always another problem. This makes me think of the animated movie Aladdin by Disney. When dirt-poor Aladdin learned he had three wishes to ask for whatever he wanted, he figured he really only needed one and said he would happily use one of the wishes to free the genie. But that first wish didn’t accomplish everything Aladdin wanted. More issues and needs kept coming up. That’s how life is in this sinful world. We cannot have a perfect existence here.
Instead of looking for happiness and contentment through the relief of our physical problems, Jesus wants us to look to Him. That was the message for Paul, who pleaded for the Lord to remove his “thorn in the flesh.” Surely God would grant this request to His loyal servant, who endured tremendous affliction for preaching the Gospel! Paul prayed specifically for this three times, and this was the Lord’s answer, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2Co. 12:9).
The question is not whether God has the power to heal us. Of course He does. The question is whether that healing is the best thing for us. God’s response to Paul was that his thorn in the flesh would be a reminder to Paul of His grace toward him. Paul would have to rely on the Lord’s strength instead of his own, which is what he realized and confessed. Paul said, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me…. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (vv. 9, 10).
What Jesus does for us—that is what matters. Today’s Epistle lesson is about the change brought by our Savior’s coming. It contrasts the ministry of condemnation and death with the ministry of righteousness and life (2Co. 3:4-11). The ministry of condemnation is the work of God’s Law on our hearts which convicts us of our sin, sins like worry and impatience in our suffering, and sins like forgetting the mercy of God toward us. The ministry of righteousness is the Holy Spirit applying the gracious work of Jesus to us sinners.
God sent His Son to infuse life into this world of death. We see this so vividly in Jesus’ healing touch. The man’s ears and tongue which were “broken” because of sin in this world, Jesus touched with His holy hands. Then He spoke His powerful Word. The man didn’t have the physical ability to hear this Word, but Jesus’ Word made its way through the damaged parts of his outer ear, middle ear, or inner ear and into his brain and set all those mechanisms right again.
That’s what Jesus’ Word does, it sets everything right. His Word sets our hearts right and our minds right. His Word sets our homes right and the teaching of our churches right. His Word sets our priorities and our plans and our hopes right. When the man’s tongue was released, we are told that he was now able to speak rightly (Greek: orthos).
The people said, “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak,” as though that were the most he could do or the height of what He could do. But He came to do something much bigger and much better than physical healing. Putting His fingers into the man’s ears was just a small sign of who He is and what He came to do. The Son of God put His whole divine self into our human flesh. “For in [Christ] the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Col. 2:9).
He came to be the Minister of Righteousness, to serve us in His righteousness and to distribute His righteous acts to us. All the good He accomplished according to the holy Law, fulfilling its demands in full, He gives to us. He credits us with His perfect listening which covers over all the times we used our hearing to listen to what is false and wrong. He credits us with His perfect speaking which covers over all the times we used our mouths to speak what is untrue and unkind. The life we have lived in our sin has been wrong in so many ways, and Jesus set us right again with the Father by His perfect life. And the debt we owed to God for breaking all His commands, Jesus paid it by shedding His holy blood on the cross.
So whether or not everything is all right for you or for me in our bodies and in the world, we are right with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. This is our confidence and this is our comfort when we suffer. Our suffering might not quickly go away, and it may be God’s will that it does not go away as long as we live here. But He promises to keep touching us with His mercy and grace in both the good days and the bad ones.
He does not tire of coming to minister to us and serve us with His healing presence in the means of grace. He does not tire of encouraging us in our weakness. He does not tire of speaking His promises to us again and again, opening our ears and filling us with His righteousness and with His enduring peace. The people were right that Jesus “has done all things well,” but they didn’t fully appreciate what “all things” meant.
Jesus “has done all things well,” all things right, because He is Righteousness. He is the Righteousness of God sent down from heaven to free us from our bondage to sin and death, and free us to hear His Word rightly and confess His truth clearly. In Him, we can be happy and content, even if not everything is right with our bodies on the outside or the inside. Jesus, the Minister of Righteousness is the one blessing we truly need.
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 the morning of the annual outdoor service)
The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. Luke 18:9-14
In Christ Jesus, who rewards us not because of what we have done, but because of what He has done, dear fellow redeemed:
The opening words of today’s reading state: “[Jesus] also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt.” Is this parable really for you? Is it for me? Are we people who trust in our own righteousness? Do we treat others with contempt? We find the Pharisee and his praying to be offensive. We admire the humility of the tax collector. So do we really need to hear this parable today?
Let me change the characters a little, make it more personal, and see if it gives us a different angle to consider it. “Two people went up into the temple to pray, one of them was you and the other Jesus.” In that comparison, we know which one is the prideful and arrogant one, and which one is humble. We might not step out and boldly say the things the Pharisee did, but Jesus wants us to examine the pride we have in our hearts and minds.
We can hardly imagine saying the things publicly that the Pharisee said. But we certainly have thought them. We have looked around us at the extortioners, unjust, adulterers, and cheats and stood a little taller—“I’m glad I’m not like them!” On the other hand, we have counted up the good things we have done and thought we were in pretty good shape.
Our natural tendency according to our sinful flesh is to get the object of our love wrong. The Commandments direct us to love the Lord our God with all our being and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Our love should be focused outward, not inward. And yet, what motivates us is often what pleases us, what makes us feel good, what benefits us. That’s the attitude that puts us in the place of the Pharisee.
The Pharisee said the words, “God, I thank You,” but it’s obvious he was really thanking himself. His “prayer” does not read like a humble offering but as a prideful recounting of all the reasons God should be pleased with him. What do our lists look like? “God, I thank You that I’m not lazy and dishonest like my co-workers are—that I’m not mean like my classmates—that I’m so good to my family—that I do so many wonderful things for others.”
It is not the good works that are the problem, but where we think the credit belongs for those good works. Why are you a hard worker? Why are you nice? Why are you good to your family? Why have you done so many wonderful things for others? If you think it is because you are such a good person and better than most, then you are most certainly the Pharisee. But if you humbly confess that the good you do is not really from you but is a gift of God, then you are the tax collector.
Now the tax collector was undoubtedly sinful. Tax collectors had the reputation of charging more taxes than required. We get a sense of this from Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector whom Jesus spotted up in a sycamore tree. When Jesus went to Zacchaeus’ home for a meal, all the people grumbled that He had “gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner” (Luk. 19:7). But Zacchaeus’ heart had changed. He stood up and vowed to Jesus, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold” (v. 8).
The tax collector in the temple was also troubled by his sins. He stood way off to the side. He didn’t want to draw any attention to himself. He kept his eyes downcast. It’s as though no one were there except him and God. He struck his chest and said, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” Notice what he did not do. He did not put on airs, as though he were too important to show any weakness. He did not point out the Pharisee’s pride or exchange words with him: “Oh yeah, well what about when you did this and this!” All he could see was his own sins and God’s faithfulness.
That is the model for humility and repentance that Jesus sets before us. But we never do this perfectly. I have mentioned before the lesson my classmates and I learned from a college professor, who asked if we thought we were more like the Pharisee or the tax collector in this parable. Of course, we identified with the tax collector. “If you think you are more like the tax collector,” he said, “you are probably the Pharisee.” Yes, we can be proud even of our humility.
Jesus says, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” We are humbled not by our own doing, as though it were a good quality in us. We are humbled by the Holy Spirit working on us through the Law of God. We are humbled by being shown we are not as good as we want to think. We are humbled by having our self-focused love exposed. We need the Holy Spirit to continue to do this humbling work, because the old Adam in us always thinks he knows best. But that fruit is still rotten to the taste.
The second Adam never tasted that fruit. He never sinned. He humbled Himself completely, perfectly. The apostle Paul writes that God’s Son, Christ Jesus, “made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phi. 2:7-8). Jesus humbled Himself all the way. He did not maintain any dignity or honor for Himself. He never put Himself first. He put Himself right in our place and accepted all our sins as His own. He was no sinner, but He appealed to His heavenly Father to consider Him the sinner.
And the Father did. “For our sake [God] made him to be sin who knew no sin” (2Co. 5:21). Jesus was cast outside the city, ridiculed by self-righteous men, and forsaken by God. There would be no mercy. He had to be the object of the Father’s wrath, so we sinners would not be. He had to make the payment, because we had nothing to offer. He had to atone for all sin with His holy blood.
His perfect humility, His perfect sacrifice, means that God no longer condemns us. Jesus did the work in our place that we could not do. He fulfilled God’s holy Law of love for us, and He cancelled the whole debt of our sins that we could never pay. Because of these works of Jesus, we are justified before God, pronounced righteous, declared innocent of any wrongdoing.
Comparing the results of Adam’s sin and Jesus’ righteousness, Paul declares, “Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous” (Rom. 5:18-19). What Adam did, Jesus undid. What Adam ruined, Jesus restored. You are just as guilty as Adam because of your sin, and you are just as righteous as Jesus because He credits His righteousness to you.
There is no need to boast in your own works like a Pharisee. Far better works are yours by faith in Jesus. Everything He obtained by His humble work, He shares with you. He even shares His glory with you. That glory is hidden now while the world seems to be king and the members of Christ’s Church seem so lowly and powerless. But that glory will be revealed when Jesus returns with a shout and the sound of a trumpet on the last day.
Then we who are justified by the grace of God will also be glorified. We who are humbled will be exalted. We walk in our Lord’s footsteps. We live the life He has laid out for us. We take up our cross and follow after Him. It may not be a life that seems very impressive. We may be looked down on as those whom no one would desire to be. Accusing fingers identifying our faults will be pointed our way.
We don’t have to play the world’s game, a game in which everyone loses. It is not for us to sling mud with the self-righteous Pharisees. We carry out our humble callings, off to the side, eyes looking down with compassion on our neighbors in need, always with a prayer for God’s mercy on our lips. He hears these prayers. He does have mercy on us. He sends us to our homes and to our work justified.
Knowing that we are right with God makes us joyful in our work and eager to serve. We don’t need to prove our worth to God, to others, or even to ourselves. Our worth is firmly established in God’s Son, who took on our flesh, suffered and died for us, so that we would have life and purpose and fulfillment in Him.
Let us pray: God, we thank You that though we are just like all others in our sin and have not lived the life of love You commanded, yet You have had mercy on us poor sinners. You have judged us righteous by faith in Your Son, who humbly gave Himself in our place and is now exalted above all things. To You alone be the glory.
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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(woodcut from “The Pharisee and the Tax Collector” by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1794-1872)
The Tenth Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. Luke 19:41-48
In Christ Jesus, who opens wide the door to His beautiful home, so that sinners have a place of refuge and rest, dear fellow redeemed:
“Close the door behind you!” “Take off your shoes before you walk on the carpet!” “Clean up after yourself!” These are some common “house rules,” and I imagine all of us have other rules that are unique to our own homes. We have these rules because we want to preserve our homes and make them comfortable places to live.
In today’s reading, Jesus highlights some “house rules” of His own. We see how concerned He is to keep the temple in Jerusalem clean. When He was a twelve-year-old, and Mary and Joseph found Him with the teachers in the temple, He asked them, “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Luk. 2:49). And now, just a few days before His death on the cross, Jesus quoted from Isaiah 56, “my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples” (v. 7).
He quoted this passage because of what the temple wasn’t at that moment. It wasn’t “a house of prayer”; instead it had become a marketplace. This was not something new. Three years earlier when Jesus was first beginning His public work, He found the same thing—people selling oxen, sheep, and pigeons, while others dealt in money exchange. With righteous zeal, He overturned tables and drove out the sheep and oxen with a whip of cords. “Take these things away,” He cried; “do not make my Father’s house a house of trade” (Joh. 2:16).
His message hadn’t changed three years later when He overturned the tables again and “drove out all who sold and bought in the temple” (Mat. 21:12). The evangelist Mark describes how He not only cleared the space but also guarded it: “he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple” (Mar. 11:16). This is an instructive account for anyone who likes to turn Jesus into an effeminate pushover, a loving teacher who just wants everyone to feel good about themselves.
No, Jesus was a Man of sharp conviction, of resolute purpose, of perfect focus. His clearing of the temple those two times is not an example of Him momentarily “losing His cool,” or acting outside of His character. It is an insight into His character, and it is instruction about what matters to our Lord.
“My house shall be a house of prayer,” said Jesus, “but you have made it a den of robbers.” What Jesus wanted was humble sacrifice. What He saw was total selfishness. What He wanted was godly devotion. What He saw was a den of robbers, totally secure in their sin in the very place that was consecrated for holiness.
The fact that the temple had gotten just as bad as it had been three years before makes it seem like Jesus was fighting a losing battle. And besides that, Jesus knew that this was the week when He would complete His mission of salvation in obedience to His Father’s will. Why bother with the temple at this moment when seemingly more important things were about to take place?
For Jesus, this was the most important thing at the moment. This was no regular old building. This was the place of God’s presence, where He descended in all holiness to bless His chosen people. If this space was not sacred, then no space was sacred. And if no space was sacred, then the people had no communion with God. “My house shall be a house of prayer.”
“A house of prayer,” though, sounds like work. Is that all the people did there—come and offer their prayers to God in silence? Not at all. God directed the temple to be built for what He could give His people, not for what He could get from them. That is what our churches are for too. They were built many years ago as sacred places set apart for God to meet us sinners with His gifts through the preaching of His Word and the administration of His Sacraments.
We expend a good amount of time and money to maintain these places. We do this because we think our churches are beautiful, and we want to keep them in good shape. But if that was our only motivation, we might as well turn our churches into museums and get them listed on the register of historic places. The reason our churches exist, the purpose for which they were dedicated, is because God is at work here.
As beautiful as we might think our churches are, they are nowhere near beautiful enough to welcome the Almighty God of heaven and earth. Even if we gathered together all the riches of the world and adorned one church with all of it, it would not be a good enough space for the God of glory. And yet, He still meets us here. He comes not only into our buildings, humble as they are, but He even comes into our hearts.
Is your heart a more or less fitting space than your church? The beginning of our reading speaks about Jesus looking out over the city of Jerusalem and weeping. The city was beautiful enough, perched impressively on Mount Zion with the temple occupying the prime location. But Jesus wept because the people of the city did not know Him. They did not believe His Word. They did not believe that He was the Messiah who had come to save them. “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.”
He predicted the destruction of this beautiful city, which happened about forty years later in 70 A. D. just as He described. At that time, the magnificent temple which Jesus took such care to cleanse, was burned to the ground. It happened on August 10, which is why this reading always falls in the month of August. All these things are given as a warning to us.
How the city and the temple looked on the outside isn’t what mattered to God. Scribes and Pharisees who mechanically did what the Law required is not what He wanted. He wanted humble hearts of faith that trusted His promises. King David wrote by inspiration, “For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Psa. 51:16-17).
Jesus wanted a clean temple, so it could be a sacred place for prayer and for hearing His teaching. He wants your heart to be clean for the same purpose, for hearing His Word and responding in prayer. So is your heart clean? If it were perfectly clean, we would not have to join David in saying, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” (Psa. 51:10).
Our hearts are like the temple. It does get cleaned from time to time, but then it gets cluttered again. It gets cluttered with worries, with doubts, and especially with our sins. We are no different than the “den of robbers” that Jesus found doing business in the temple. Like them, we are often on the lookout for what is best for us, even if that is not beneficial to our neighbor. Or like them, we become secure in our sins, and we stop seeing how bad they are or what damage they do to our faith.
This is why Jesus calls us regularly to hear His Word in His holy house. Through the Law, He needs to confront the sin that we have allowed to creep into our hearts, first along the shadowy edges and then right out in the open, like those merchants in the temple. He exposes that darkness to the light, so that we stop trying to hide our sins away but instead own them and confess them.
A repentant heart is a heart that is ready to receive the eternal gifts of God. Our Lord does not despise a broken and contrite heart, no matter what sin you have committed. He supplied on your behalf the life of godly devotion and humble sacrifice that God required. He creates in you a clean heart, washed clean by His holy blood and filled up with His perfect holiness. He gives you a heart that hangs on His every Word and loves to help the neighbors He has given you to serve.
His “house rules” of repentance and faith do not apply just to that temple in Jerusalem or just to our church buildings today. These “house rules” apply everywhere we are and in everything we do. Jesus did not cleanse the temple—and He does not cleanse our hearts—because He wanted to do something for Himself. He does these things for our good, for our blessing. He wants to preserve us in the saving faith and give us the comfort of His forgiveness and peace.
Even though we have many times sold out to the ways of the world and bought into the devil’s temptations, Jesus has not given up on us. He forgives us just as He forgave the men who conspired to kill Him and who nailed Him to the cross. We know that some of them later came to faith by the gracious working of the Holy Spirit.
Our God is patient with us. This is why Jesus wept over Jerusalem and cleansed its temple. Our merciful Lord does not wish “that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2Pe. 3:9). He promises to do His gracious work among us as long as we are guests in this world of His creation. He will continue to beautify our places of worship with His holy presence, teaching us, forgiving us, and comforting us through His Word until the day of His joyful return.
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 “Reconstruction of Jerusalem and the Temple of Herod” by James Tissot, 1836-1902)
The Ninth Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. Luke 16:1-9
In Christ Jesus, who is at the right hand of God dispensing all the treasures of His grace to us, dear fellow redeemed:
The manager’s time had run out. The jig was up. He got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. The charges were true, or the manager would not have acted the way he did. He was guilty. Now what to do? If owning the sin and apologizing ever crossed the manager’s mind, Jesus does not tell us. What this man decided was to do what he did best—manipulate things to his own advantage.
Taking on manual labor was out of the question—he didn’t want to do anything too taxing or risk getting blisters on his tender hands. And he was too proud to ask anyone for help—he wouldn’t lower himself so far. So he decided to cheat his master one final time. He quickly called in others who were indebted to his master, and he reduced the amounts they owed. By unilaterally reducing their debt, he was putting them in debt to him, so that when he was booted out by his master, he would almost certainly find a soft landing somewhere else.
What could the master say? He had been taken twice, shame on him. He “commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness.” But he still fired him. That’s how the world works. It’s one person trying to get leverage against another. It’s: “I’ll do you a favor, so you have to do me a favor.” “I’ll file away this mistake or this transgression and publicize it when the time is right.” “I’ll step on you if it will boost me up and give me a better position.”
This is ugly. It is hurtful. It gets people focused on what they can take from one another instead of what they can give. That is not what we are called to do as Christians. Jesus makes this clear in today’s reading. “[M]ake friends for yourselves,” He says. And how are we to do this? “[B]y means of unrighteous wealth.” What does that mean? It does not mean paying people off to get what you want. It does not mean obligating them to something because of your gifts. What it means is the exact opposite of those things.
“Making friends by means of unrighteous wealth,” or earthly wealth, means giving and giving and giving some more. That’s what disciples of Jesus are called to do, to give as He gave, love as He loved, help as He helped. Listen to how Jesus describes the love we should have for those around us, even for those who mistreat us. He says, “I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back” (Luk. 6:27-30).
That is a truly uncomfortable love! It is a rare love. Most of us would be on the phone with a lawyer before we would let happen what Jesus says we should let happen. But why does He ask this of us? Does He really want us to be everyone’s doormat, getting walked all over? He asks this of us, in order to keep our focus on the major thing and not the minor things.
Minor things are the things of this world, temporal things, things that last only for a little while. That includes our money, our possessions, our work, our reputation and honor. All these things are gifts from God, but they are not the major thing. The major thing is what Jesus accomplished for us through His perfect life, death, and resurrection, which He richly and abundantly imparts to us through His Word and Sacraments.
Our reliance on the major thing changes our view of the minor things. We appreciate the good things we have. We use them and enjoy them. But we don’t cling to them. We know that everything we have on earth could be gone in an instant. The author to the Hebrews says, “For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Heb. 13:14). This puts our involvement in things like politics in their proper place. We are active as citizens, and we exercise our rights, but we keep our hope in God.
This also changes our perspective about possessions. We have what God has given us, nothing more and nothing less. What we have is ours to manage, but not ours to keep. We are stewards of what ultimately belongs to God. In the order of Matins, we sing these words of the inspired Psalm: “In His hand are the deep places of the earth; the strength of the hills is His also. The sea is His, for He made it; and His hands formed the dry land. Oh come, let us worship and bow down” (95:4-6). Everything is His, including your home, your possessions, and your bank account.
He has given these things to you because He loves you, and He wants you to use them both for your own needs and for the needs of your neighbor. You do this by feeding and clothing yourself and your family. You do this by helping a neighbor who is struggling. You do this by giving offerings here at church, your firstfruits for the work of His kingdom. All of this contributes to “making friends” who “may receive you into the eternal dwellings.”
If you do not feed and clothe the members of your family, they will despise you. If you ignore the troubles of your neighbors while you prosper, they will hate you. If you fail to support the work of God’s Church when you have the means to do so, the pure Gospel will no longer be heard in your community. These sins are even more offensive when committed by those who call themselves followers of Christ—Christians (1Ti. 5:8).
Jesus’ indictment in today’s reading is that we do not use what we have been given as “shrewdly” as the “sons of this world” do. He calls us “the sons of light,” and the sons of light are the ones who let their “light shine before others, so that they may see [our] good works and give glory to [our] Father who is in heaven” (Mat. 5:16). But often our good works are not clearly seen. Instead of using the good gifts of good shrewdly and wisely, we often behave like the selfish sons of this world. We are just as wasteful of the good gifts God has given us. We are just as greedy. We hold what is ours with an iron grip and find it difficult to pry open our hands to give to others.
Not one of us has as much as we want, and yet every one of us has more than we need. We worry about money while our cupboards are full of food, our closets are full of clothes, and we carry around expensive smartphones in our pockets. We have plenty to give, and yet we tell ourselves that there is so much more we need to receive before we can give.
God would have every right to call in the bill for all the services He has provided us and all the goods He has given. He could rightly say, “What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.” We deserve to be booted out of His house, banished from His kingdom, and lose all that He has given.
But the Lord’s Manager, His only Son, calls us to His side. “How much do you owe My Master?” He asks. But instead of fudging the numbers or sweeping our debt under the rug, He accepts it as His own. “I will pay your penalty,” He says. “I will satisfy your debt. I will atone for your transgressions.” He went to the cross to do just that, shedding His holy blood and dying to take away all your sins. He made the payment for your lack of generosity, for your coldness toward others, for your self-centered thinking about what will be best for you.
Through His Word and Sacraments which you are privileged to receive each week, Jesus comes to you, and He says, “Take the bill of this week’s debts, all the sins you committed against your heavenly Father in your thoughts, words, and actions, and write this: Paid. Forgiven. Dismissed.” That’s what Jesus does for you. He cancels the debt that you keep accruing. He distributes His gifts to you in abundance and doesn’t worry about getting a fair return. He just gives.
Through these rich gifts, the Holy Spirit puts the same loving purpose in you. He turns your focus away from yourself and toward others. The Holy Spirit teaches us to Leverage the Temporal for the Eternal, to “make Christian friends for ourselves” by sacrificial love and by supporting the preaching of the Gospel here in our congregation and through the mission and work of our synod. We are listening to God’s Word here today, because others have done this giving before us. We are the friends they have made “by means of unrighteous wealth,” by means of their sacrificial gifts and offerings.
We want to do the same for others. We know that everything we have needed in our lives has been richly supplied by our merciful Lord, starting with our salvation through His Son. When His Word is our most precious Treasure, everything else falls into place. Jesus assures us, “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys” (Luk. 12:32-33).
By the grace of God, our treasure in heaven is secure. And we look forward to the day when our good friends, the faithful saints who have gone before us, will joyfully welcome us to God’s “eternal dwellings,” where we will sing His praises forever.
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 “Parable of the Unjust Steward” by Jan Luyken, 1649-1712)
The Eighth Sunday after Trinity – Vicar Lehne sermon
Text: St. Matthew 7:15-23
In Christ Jesus, in whom we can always put our trust, dear fellow redeemed:
The last few years of my life were spent in the classroom learning how to be a pastor. Throughout those years, there were many times when the professors would have me, along with my fellow classmates, read commentaries on the books of the Bible. Because the people who wrote these commentaries were much smarter than me, I tended to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that what they said in their commentaries was accurate. However, when it came time for us to discuss in class what we learned from the commentaries, there were times when I felt like I was the only one who assumed that the writers were right, as my classmates seemed to be much more willing to question the writers on points that they made than I was. It was then that I realized that, going forward, I should be more critical when reading commentaries on the books of the Bible and should not assume that they are right just because they are smarter than me.
There are times when all of us can assume that someone knows more than us in a particular field because they studied in that field more than us. We trust plumbers who come to fix the pipes in our houses. We trust doctors who tell us if we are sick and what we should do to get better. We trust pastors who tell us what the Bible says and how we should apply what the Bible says to our daily lives. However, while there can certainly be consequences in this life if the plumbers and doctors we trust are wrong, our eternal life can be at risk if the pastors we trust are wrong. So, when it comes to pastors and preachers, who can you trust? (1) Trusting solely in people leads to destruction, while (2) trusting in Jesus leads to heaven.
In our text for today, Jesus warns us to not trust every preacher who comes to us. After all, just because a preacher comes to us does not mean that he was sent to us by God. Jesus called these preachers “false prophets” and says in verse 15 that they “come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” They look like true prophets on the outside, but in reality, they are false prophets who, if followed, will lead us off of the path to eternal life and down the path to eternal destruction. And it’s no mistake that they appear to be like a fellow sheep either. It’s important to false prophets that they appear to be innocent and harmless, because if they let their true nature show, then the true sheep who follow the true Shepherd would recognize that these so called “prophets” are trying to lead them astray and would turn from them.
These false prophets come in many different forms. Some false prophets rely on miraculous signs and wonders to win people over to them. They have no intention of actually preaching the gospel. They just want to make better lives for themselves by using their lying wonders.
Sometimes they don’t have any miraculous powers at all and only stage their miracles in order to fool us, kind of like a magician doing magic tricks. It may seem real, but there is actually some really clever slight of hand that very few people recognize. Sometimes they actually are using real powers. However, these powers do not come from God. In reality, they are demonic powers. The devil and his angels do have limited powers, and they use those powers to lead people astray.
In our text for today, we do not see Jesus deny that the false prophets were performing miraculous signs. When he says in verse 22 that many false prophets will say to him on the Last Day, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?”, he says in verse 23 that he will respond to them by saying, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” These false prophets may be able to fool people, but they aren’t able to fool God. God did not give them these powers, and even if they are claiming to do these miracles in his name, they actually had no intention of honoring anyone but themselves.
Another form that false prophets come in is one that distorts God’s Word, intentionally lying about what the Bible says. These false prophets will often try to win us over by using kernels of truth, such as saying that Jesus preached that we should love one another, as he told his disciples on Maundy Thursday in John 13:34–35. However, they will then preach a lie to go along with it, such as saying that, because Jesus told us to love one another, therefore we should never judge anyone for living a different way than we do, and we should support every kind of lifestyle that exists out there, even though the Bible condemns some of those lifestyles.
Some of these lies can be more convincing than others, and often times the lies are slowly introduced, so that we don’t realize that we are being lied to until it’s too late. This is why we have to be on alert and not trust everyone who claims to be from God. But if false prophets can be so convincing at times that we aren’t aware that they are lying to us, then who can we trust? While trusting solely in people leads to destruction, there is one man in whom we can put our trust: the God-man Jesus. Trusting in Jesus leads to heaven.
Unlike false prophets, who lie in order to win us over and lead us astray, Jesus never lied. Everything that he said during his time on Earth came true. When a centurion demonstrated the great faith that he had after asking Jesus to heal his servant, Jesus said, “Go, let it be done for you as you have believed” (Matthew 8:13). After Jesus said this, the verse continues by saying, “And the servant was healed at that very moment.” After Peter told Jesus that he would never fall away, even if everyone else did, Jesus said to him, “Truly I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times” (Mark 14:30), which ended up happening exactly as Jesus had said. And after Jesus cleansed the temple when it was being used as a house of trade, the Jews asked him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things” (John 2:18)? And Jesus responded, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19). The Jews thought that Jesus was talking about the temple that they were currently standing in, but Jesus was actually talking about his body. So, the account continued by saying, “When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken” (John 2:22).
Therefore, when Jesus says things such as, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:25–26), and “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31–32), we know that we can trust that he is speaking the truth and can confess, as Peter did, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).
But while we would certainly like to think that we will always believe what Jesus says, in reality, we go through doubts all throughout our lives. We often find ourselves turning to what false prophets say, because what they say sounds better to our sinful nature than what Jesus says. There are times when we don’t think that the Bible makes sense the way that the true prophets of God explain it, so we turn to the false prophets that explain the Bible in a way that does make sense to our rational but sinful minds. There are times when we don’t like to be told that we are wrong or that we need to change, so when we hear false prophets telling us that we are perfect the way we are and that we don’t need to change, we want to listen to them.
We may not sit and listen to a false prophet each week like we listen to our pastor in church, but our sinful nature is always whispering in our ears, urging us to do the things we know are wrong and to neglect the loving things we know we should do. In a way, our sinful nature is the biggest false prophet of them all, and we follow it all the time.
While these false prophets often tell us what we want to hear, Jesus tells us what we need to hear, and what we need to hear is not only that we are poor and wretched sinners who deserve God’s wrath and punishment for turning away from him, but also that Jesus has paid the price for all of our sins so that eternal life is ours. Jesus accomplished this for us by his perfect life and innocent death. During his life, Jesus did not turn away from the Father, like the devil kept tempting him to do, but perfectly followed his Father’s will, which led him all the way to the cross to die for our sins of turning from the Father and following false prophets. And because Jesus perfectly listened to his Father in heaven, that perfect listening is credited to us as righteousness.
The salvation that Jesus won for you is a free gift. This is another way that he sets himself apart from the false prophets. You don’t have to give money in order to receive blessings from God, like some false prophets tell you to do. You don’t have to follow a program that false prophets plan out for you. Salvation is already yours, freely given to you by God through his Word and Sacraments.
Therefore, knowing that Jesus speaks to you truthfully though his Word, you can use his Word to test your pastors. Jesus says in verse 16 that “[y]ou will recognize [false prophets] by their fruits.” Your pastors are called to preach God’s Word. Therefore, follow the example of the Bereans, who “examin[ed] the Scriptures daily to see if these things [that Paul and Silas were saying in the synagogue] were so” (Acts 17:11). If your pastors are not preaching the sound doctrine that is found in God’s Word, you will know that they are false prophets, but if they are preaching the sound doctrine that is found in God’s Word, you will know that they are true prophets who have been sent by God.
While you may at times not know who you can trust, you know that you can always trust Jesus. He became flesh to live a perfect life and die an innocent death on the cross in order to save you from your sins. He never failed to keep his promises, and he still comes to you to bless you through his holy Word. He truly is the one you can trust.
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 “The Sermon on the Mount” by Carl Bloch, 1877)
The Seventh Sunday after Trinity – Vicar Lehne sermon
Text: Genesis 50:15-21
In Christ Jesus, who works all things out for our good, dear fellow redeemed:
Everyone loves a good revenge story. It is a popular genre for a reason. There is just something so satisfying about a villain getting what’s coming to him, and it never feels quite right if the villain gets off easy. However, while we can easily sympathize with the hero of these stories, have we ever considered what it is like to be in the villain’s shoes?
It’s very hard to ever see ourselves as the villain in the narrative of our lives. Perhaps we convinced ourselves our villainy was for the greater good. We may like to think that we are not deserving of the revenge people want to dish out against us, but the unfortunate truth is that we have all sinned against other people. Therefore, knowing that we are all sinners, and knowing that everyone loves revenge, it only makes sense that there are times when we become scared of what others might do to us to get even when we sin against them. Even when we are repentant of the sins we have committed, it makes sense that we fear what others may do since we don’t always know if they are willing to forgive us. However, in situations like those, we remember the words that Joseph said to his brothers: “Do not fear. . . . (1) You meant evil against me, (2) but God meant it for good.”
The account of Joseph is perfectly set up to be a good revenge story. Because Joseph was the favorite son and had dreams about his brothers and parents bowing down to him, Joseph’s brothers became jealous of him. This, plus the fact that Joseph may have been a bit of a pain to live with, eventually ended with Joseph’s brothers selling him into slavery in Egypt. His life was full of ups and downs in Egypt, but everything turned around for him when, after interpreting Pharaoh’s dreams, he was not just put in charge of helping Egypt through a seven-year-long famine but was also made second in command of all Egypt.
Then, during the seven years of famine, who should show up to get grain from Egypt but Joseph’s brothers? Joseph suddenly had the perfect opportunity to get his revenge against his brothers, and at first, it looked like he was going to. He tested his brothers in several different ways, culminating in him accusing their youngest brother, Benjamin, of stealing from him after planting his silver cup in his bag. In this moment, Joseph’s brothers showed that they were repentant for what they had done to Joseph and had changed by saying that they would not go home without Benjamin. In addition, Judah offered to take Benjamin’s place.
Joseph then revealed himself to his brothers and didn’t get his revenge on them after all. However, when their father, Jacob (now called Israel), died, Joseph’s brothers suddenly became sacred of what Joseph might do to them. True, Joseph hadn’t done anything to them so far, but they feared that the only reason why he hadn’t was for the sake of their father. And now that their father was dead, there was no longer anything stopping Joseph from getting his revenge.
So, in order to prevent this potential outcome from happening, Joseph’s brothers sent a message to him that said their father wanted Joseph to be told to forgive their sin, no doubt hoping that, if Joseph did only withhold his hand so far for the sake of their father, he would forgive them if it was their father’s dying wish. In addition, they offered themselves up as slaves to Joseph. Since they sold him into slavery, maybe being his slaves would make up for what they did to him.
Now, put yourself in Joseph’s shoes. If your family or friends had sold you into slavery for any reason, even something such as being a pain to live with, would you be willing to forgive them? If they showed that they were truly sorry for what they had done to you, would you be willing to let it go? Also, keep in mind that Joseph was second in command of all of Egypt. If you had power like Joseph had, would you withhold your hand from those who wronged you, or would you use it to get revenge on them? And if they willingly offered themselves up to be your servants, would you accept their offer or not?
When we think of how we would answer these questions, we must also keep in mind how often we want to get revenge for much less. All it takes is a broken promise, someone breaking something important to us, or someone treating us poorly. These are not necessarily small things, but compared to being sold into slavery, they are not as bad. Besides, many of us know what it is like to be stabbed in the back by someone. Can we honestly say that we never wanted to get back at them for what they did to us?
Now put yourself in the shoes of Joseph’s brothers. We have all done things at the expense of others that we knew were wrong, and we were genuinely sorry for what we had done. When our friends told us a secret and asked us to keep it, we went and told others anyway. When we were in school, and we had an opportunity to climb the social ladder at the cost of disowning some of our friends, we did. When we were at work and we had an opportunity to get a raise or reach a better position in the company by playing dirty and bringing down our coworkers, we did.
But now imagine that these people we wronged basically had the power to do whatever they wanted without consequences. Would you expect them to forgive you? Would you live in terror of what they could do to you? Would you be willing to do whatever it takes to get them to not enact their revenge against you, even if it meant lowering yourself to the lowest position there is as punishment for what you did? Whether it’s at school, at work, or anywhere else, in moments like those, we often find ourselves fearing for our future and being willing to do whatever is necessary to prevent those outcomes.
We must face the facts: we have forgotten how to forgive. Sure, we may forgive our family or close friends when we think they deserve it, but isn’t holding grudges and getting revenge against those who wronged us the “new” virtue of the world today? When was the last time we watched a movie about forgiveness?
Therefore, it made sense that Joseph’s brothers had the fear that they did, and we would completely understand Joseph if he chose to get revenge on his brothers in this moment. In fact, we would probably find it to be a satisfying end to the account of Joseph’s life. But what does Joseph do instead? He says to his brothers, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.”
There are two parts of Joseph’s response that are particularly interesting. The first is: “Am I in the place of God?” While it is extremely appealing to get revenge on all those who wrong us, Joseph realized something important: it was not his place to get revenge, even if his brothers were not repentant. As Paul says in Romans 12:19, “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’” Even though God could have chosen to unleash his wrath upon Joseph’s brothers, he didn’t. Instead, he chose to show mercy.
The second is: “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” Does this mean that it was the will of God that Joseph’s brothers did evil? No, for God never wills evil. However, God is able to use even the evil that we do to bring about good. In this instance, he used the sin that Joseph’s brothers committed, selling Joseph into slavery, in order to save the world from the seven years of famine and preserve the line of the Savior.
These two points point to something far more significant. While most men have to confess like Joseph that they are not in the place of God, and therefore, cannot carry out revenge, there was one man who was in the place of God: The God-man Jesus. After all, Jesus is God, so he alone could carry out revenge, and he certainly could have and would have been completely justified in doing so. But he didn’t. Instead, he came to grant us forgiveness for all our sins. This ended up being the ultimate example of how God uses evil for good: God used the innocent death of his only begotten Son to bring about the forgiveness of sins for the whole world. On the cross, Jesus suffered the punishment that we deserved. Now, God no longer holds our sins against us, for they have all been paid for by his Son.
We therefore have no reason to fear. We do not have to fear people trying to get revenge against us, nor do we have to fear God getting against us and sending us into the fires of hell for all eternity. As Paul says in Romans 8:28, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” No matter what we encounter in this life, God will work it out for our ultimate good, that ultimate good being granting us spiritual blessings and giving us eternal life in heaven.
Joseph’s second part is no less significant. In addition to forgiving us for the ways that we wronged others, God promises to even work good from sins we have committed. Perhaps you are suffering today because you did something terrible in your life. You know God has forgiven you, but you can’t forgive yourself. Know that you can take solace in this: While God does not will the evil that you do, he can work good through it, just as God worked good through the evil of Joseph’s brothers. To put it another way: God takes the lemons that we send out into the world and makes lemonade.
With all this in mind, let us follow Joseph’s example. He did not get revenge on his brothers even though he had the power to do so, but rather, he forgave them, just like how God did not condemn us to the fires of hell but forgave us for the sake of his Son. It will not always be easy for us to do this, and if it were completely up to us, it would be impossible. It is only with God’s help that we are able to resist our sinful desires for revenge, even though revenge is such an appealing thing. For this desire for revenge is only appealing to our sinful nature, which God has put to death through the waters of our baptism. To our new self, which God has raised up, it is appealing to reflect God and show forgiveness to all those who wrong us.
The account of Joseph does not make a good revenge story. Even though it had the perfect set up and everything seemed to come together to give Joseph the sweet taste of revenge, instead Joseph forgave his brothers, who showed that they were truly repentant for their sins. While this does not seem satisfying, it is the best possible ending. It shows us that no matter what we’ve done, we do not need to fear, for we have been forgiven by God, and he will work all things out for our good until the day comes when we enter into the gates of heaven where we will praise God for all eternity. Therefore, in the end, forgiveness proves to be far more heroic than revenge.
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 of the Judean mountains in Israel)
The Sixth Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. Matthew 5:20-26
In Christ Jesus, who came not to abolish the Law of God but to fulfill it for our righteousness, dear fellow redeemed:
The words of Jesus for today come from the early part of His “Sermon on the Mount.” In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus describes what a righteous life before God looks like. A righteous life is a life that matches up with what God says in His Commandments. It is to be just, right with God, blameless. Two times in His sermon, Jesus tells us to desire such a life. He says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” and “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Mat. 5:6, 6:33).
In both of these passages, He describes a righteousness that is outside us. What we are to hunger and thirst for and seek first is God’s righteousness. That’s because our own personal righteousness is not enough. “For I tell you,” says Jesus, “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” The scribes and Pharisees were seen as the holiest people there were, and Jesus said their righteousness still fell short.
Then He illustrated the ways our righteousness falls short by explaining that the Commandments of God are about more than outward actions, outward conformity. You haven’t kept the Fifth Commandment simply by refraining from murder. Jesus explains that this Commandment is also broken in the mind and the heart when you hold grudges, when you have anger toward another, or when you insult someone. The Fifth Commandment, along with all of the other Commandments, is fulfilled by love. If you have anger or want revenge against others, you have no love for them.
But if you think right now about the people who have been mean to you, who have been unkind to you, who have hurt you, it is easy to justify the anger or even the hatred that you feel. You gave them the benefit of the doubt, but they abused your trust. You tried to be nice, but they only got worse. So you are going to treat them how they have treated you. You are going to give them what they deserve—and it isn’t love.
Imagine if Jesus took this approach. If Jesus took this approach, I would have no good word to share with you today, no comfort to impart. If Jesus treated us like we deserved, He would never have come down to make peace between us and God. He would never have suffered the wrath of man and of God and let Himself be nailed to the cross in our place. If Jesus treated us like we deserved, He would condemn us for our sins and send us to eternal suffering in hell.
But the Son of God did not become man to give us what we deserved. He came to show God’s mercy and grace toward the world of sinners. Look at what love and compassion He had for the sick and hurting! So many came to Him for healing, that He often went without meals and without sleep. And He did this fully knowing where this was all going, knowing the suffering and anguish that the collective sin of humanity would cause Him.
He loved perfectly. He didn’t work with an angle in mind. He didn’t serve with conditions. He constantly focused on the needs of His neighbors and how He could bless them. His life is what the righteous life that God requires looks like. It is not the way our lives look. But Jesus does not look down on us or flaunt His righteousness in front of us. He lived a life of perfect righteousness for us.
His righteous keeping of God’s Commandments counted for you. Because He is true God and true Man, whatever He did in the flesh was done on behalf of all people. This means that all who deny their own self-righteousness and trust in Him are credited with His righteousness. You will find no peace in running over and over again the wrongs done to you by others or in trying to convince yourself that you have a right to your bitterness and anger.
You will find peace in Jesus. He died for all sin—both your sin and the sin of those who have wronged you. His blood cleanses you of all of it (1Jo. 1:7). And His righteous life, His life of perfect love, covers you completely. You are a holy one by faith in Him. God is not angry with you for your many sins. He poured out His wrath against His Son, who fully atoned for all your sins. By faith in Him, your righteousness does exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, because you have His righteousness. That means you will enter the kingdom of heaven.
Everything God required of you, He supplied you. There is nothing keeping you out of heaven. Eternal life is yours—this is most certainly true! But it is not time for heaven yet. As long as you are here, God has important work for you to do. It isn’t that He needs anything from you; after all, everything on earth is His, because He made all things. But the people around you do have needs, and God has called you to love and serve them. He calls you to share with others what you have received from Him.
This is where our identity as His “righteous ones” is tested. We are glad to hear that He forgives our sins and declares us righteous, but we find it difficult to treat other people how He treats us. We can be “good with God” but not so good with others. But look at how Jesus takes the beam of love we have toward God and trains it on our neighbors. He says, “if you are offering your gift at the altar—dedicating your prayers, thanksgivings, and offerings to God—and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”
First things first, says Jesus. Do what you can to amend your wrong toward someone, so that you can offer your gifts to God with a cheerful heart and a clear conscience. Now there are some interpersonal issues that are difficult for us to fix. Someone might have something against us because they choose too and not because we are guilty of wronging them. These are people we show love and kindness to and pray for God to soften their hearts.
But here, Jesus is speaking about people that we have wronged by something we did to them, something we said to them, or some other way we caused offense. This applies to everyone whom we have hurt, and especially to our brothers—our fellow believers. It is always troubling and sad when there is a division within the family of faith, within the body of Christ.
But taking that first step toward reconciliation is a difficult one. As we said before, it is easy to justify the reasons we have treated others like we have. “They started it!” “What he did was worse than anything I ever did!” “I was only giving her what she gave to me!” Those responses are self-righteousness. What we are concerned about is Jesus-righteousness. We are willing to humble ourselves and serve and suffer just as He did for us.
Jesus is the prime example of how we are to interact with our neighbors. He never stopped loving, even when all He received was hatred. Think of His first words after being violently nailed to the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luk. 23:34). But Jesus is far more than our example. He is our righteousness, our forgiveness, our power source for stepping outside what we want and stepping toward a neighbor in need.
All our neighbors have to deal with our sins, so we also want to deal out Jesus’ gifts to them. It is with Jesus’ love and sacrifice in mind that we can have courage and strength to say those three difficult words, “I am sorry.” And it is with His love and sacrifice in mind that we can respond to those who have hurt us with those other three difficult words, “I forgive you.”
“[B]e reconciled to your brother,” said Jesus, “and then come and offer your gift.” It may even happen, by the grace of God, that when you return to offer your gift, the brother with whom you had been at odds will be kneeling right beside you, offering his gift of praise and thanksgiving to God. This is what we are privileged to do each week as we receive Holy Communion. Husbands and wives who have hurt each other with unkind words come to receive Jesus’ powerful healing through His body and blood, given and shed for the remission of their sins. The same goes for parents and children who have been fighting, or for any others in the congregation whom Satan has tried to divide.
We all come forward, not trusting in our own righteousness, but humbly trusting in Jesus’ righteousness. We know how lacking our love for our neighbors has been, but we firmly believe that Jesus still forgives us and that He will strengthen us to do better. This is a beautiful pattern that repeats each week. We come weak and stained by our sin to the Divine Service, and Jesus meets us here to serve us and fill us up with His gifts.
Then He sends us back to our homes and jobs and activities with plenty of grace and forgiveness to share with others. If He never runs out of these gifts, then we won’t either, and we will continuously learn what a blessing it is to love as He has loved us.
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 “The Sermon on the Mount” by Rudolf Yelin the Older, 1912)
The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity – Vicar Cody Anderson sermon
Text: Hebrew 12:1-2
In Christ Jesus, who has ran the race to completion and his victory counts as ours, dear fellow redeemed:
When I was growing up, I loved to play games that involved running. Tag, basketball, dodgeball, football, and many others. There was nothing better as a kid and being able to burn off that energy. Now as I mentioned games that I loved to play and be competitive at, there is one thing that I didn’t mention. I despise running. Yes, I get that I ran around in all of those games, but to run on a track, to be timed on how long it took, what an exhausting affair and I had no fun doing it. My siblings were 4 year varsity track and cross country runners in high school. You know what I did, I golfed! There is a question when it comes to running in these long distance races for me and that question is, Why should I run a race that I can’t win? Don’t we find ourselves asking the same question when it comes to the race we are currently in. The race of life. Is that not what the writer to the Hebrews calls it? When it comes to this race, we are going to have a lack of training in certain spots. What we need to do is to fix our eyes on Jesus as those who have gone before us have done, for in Christ, this will be a race to completion.
Unfortunately for me, track is one of the oldest sports around. The Greeks and the Romans loved the races and games. The Olympics would take place starting around early 8th century BC. More famous than that is the great Colosseum that was built in Rome in 70AD. At the Colosseum they had many games. It was so well known that many wealthy people would come and watch the games. Like today at a professional sporting event, they even had a seating chart. If you were wealthier, you were up front. The nosebleed tickets still put you up in the nose bleeds. Interestingly when the Colosseum is built, it happens to coincide with early Christianity. Why is this significant? Well, I have not told you what kind of games they played. They had track, but they also had battles there. It was an arena. Gladiators would fight. They would fight people; they would fight exotic animals. Lots of Christians attended these games. Instead of in the stands however, they were in the arena. They were being executed.
Like the Christians before us, running the race for Christ comes with its challenges. Jerusalem was sacked in 70 AD by Rome. The Jews had been displaced for their insurrection. The early Christians were considered a sect at that point. They were calling them “Followers of the Way”. Sects have a hard time belonging in the world. When you are considered as such, people try to remove you. Rome at this time believed in emperor worship. Anything other than that was unlawful. Besides this, Rome would also use rumors to try and stop the spread of Christianity. It is now 2022, and our race still has challenges like these.
Our race here on this earth, our race here in this life, requires lots of training. We have to race against the world as it tries to trap us in sin. The world is a very tough opponent. It flaunts so many things, like the junk food you are not supposed to eat to get in shape for a race. Those habitual sins that we crave most dear are like our sweets. Drinking to much, not caring about the language that comes out of our mouths, finding out the latest gossip, diving onto the pornography site for self-indulgence. See the world plants these traps because once we are caught in them, we don’t look like Christians anymore do we? The world can label us hypocrites. We look no better than anyone else. They do not see Christians who fail at times. We have to overcome the attacks that we face for running the race for Christ. This comes with the territory. Jesus told us that this was not going to be easy. Luke 9:23-25 says, “If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. 24. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. 25. After all, what will it benefit a man if he gains the whole world, but destroys himself or is lost?
Without constantly training, we can lose sight of the fact that Christ won the race. Going to church on Sunday’s, reading devotions, and going to God in prayer are the ways that Christians train. How often do we read our Bible? Once a day? Once a week? Once a month? Maybe a couple times a year? Being engaged with God’s word allows us to stay focused of the race. We hear Jesus telling us how the race is won. If we get out of our training, if we slow down even for a moment, then we have a problem. We can be overcome with fear in what is to come, we lose patience, and we run the risk of dropping out forever. We have no reason to worry about what the future will bring. We have no reason to lose patience with God, but that is what we do. If we get too far into the future, we worry about the problems to come. When the world attacks, we scream at God where are you. Why aren’t you helping me in my time of need! Too long out of our training, and we can start to think, God you must not be there, I don’t hear you.
Verse 2 reads, Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, who is the author of our faith and the one who brings it to its goal. In view of the joy set before him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of God’s throne. Christ has indeed ran the race ahead of us and he won it. He began it just like us. He began as a lowly child. He lived a life like the one that we are living now, except he lived his perfectly. He overcame the trials and temptations of the world. The Devil tried every which way to stop his race. He offered Jesus way’s out. He tried to show Jesus how it was in his power that he didn’t have to finish the race. Jesus fought off the Devil and willingly lived out our hard earthly life. He became under the Law for us living a perfect life in our place which the Father counts as our life by faith in the Savior.
He became a curse for us and overcame it. He kept his eye on the prize. God couldn’t even look at Jesus when he was on the cross. At that point Jesus once again could have said enough. Yet, he carried on, he carried on until the finish line had come. When he saw the finish line, he said, “It is finished”. With the earthly world being defeated and Satan’s schemes be thwarted, he had the last competitor to beat and that was death itself. He reversed the outcome of death with his death on the tree. Three days later death would be defeated. Jesus would rise on the third day crushing death and crossing the finish line for our redemption.
We have the ultimate plan when it comes to making sure we have the endurance to run this race. To start off, we need to train. That training starts off with daily contrition and repentance. Daily contrition and repentance allow us to start every day fresh and a new in the grace of God. Strengthening us for our challenges ahead. The food or nourishment for the race comes from the Means of Grace. Remembering our baptism with our daily contrition and repentance and we drown our Old Adam. Then our New Adam will rise. Holy Communion gives us the strength and knowledge that Christ death and resurrection paid for our sins. Jesus wants us to fix our eyes on him as he is our example as well as the Saints that have gone before us.
The saints of old show us how to run the race. We see those in Scripture. Moses, Joshua, David, the prophets, the disciples. Here are our examples and they are nicely recorded right in Scripture with their detailed accounts. They show us how to live Christ like lives in persecution and how to pick ourselves up again, as they all were not all perfect. In our gospel text Jesus encounters the 10 lepers. They ask Jesus for mercy and he has it. The Samaritan comes back to worship Jesus realizing he has been cured. He shows his faith as Jesus confirms it made him well. How about the saints that have gone before us that we know personally? A mom, a dad, a grandparent. I will always remember my Grandma Homann as the person who I looked up to, who let her faith shine. We tend to forget about them don’t we. We don’t think of them as finishing the race, yet that is what they did. They crossed the finish line! The faith of those ahead of us are shining examples which envelope us like a bright cloud in this dark world.
We want to put our faith into practice by helping others and doing works of service. As we struggle with our race, we don’t want to forget about our neighbor who also struggles. Some of our neighbors don’t even have the training or the nourishment that we have. They don’t even have the good news that we have. Therefore, we want to remember what the saints of old did. They left an imprint on us for a reason. They were our example so that we can be an example for others. We can give our time and our efforts. Lots of the time people are looking for help, and like us, we all are stubborn, we all want help, yet we don’t ask for it. We want to concentrate on Christ, he is both the start and end of the race, he is the ultimate witness who ran the race and overcame it. He already won the race for us. We must remember that we aren’t winning it for ourselves. When we fail, which we will, a lot, he gives us the strength as he already won it.
Running the race can be hard. Over time it can feel that exhaustion will just take over. We do have the training, we do have the strength. We will overcome the persecutions, the trials of this life. The saints that have gone before us give us hope. They finished their legs of the race and we know for certain that it was not in vain. We will continue and forge on. This race can seem daunting, but it is a race worth running. Christ has already run it for us, and with that knowledge knowing that the race is won, we know for certain we will hoist the gold. We are running the race, but thanks be to God that Jesus has already won it for us. We will cross the finish line, and we will be reunited with the saints and with Christ forever and ever. 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 “The Christian Martyrs’ Last Prayer” by Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1883)
The Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. Luke 10:23-37
In Christ Jesus, whose “go and do” was perfectly fulfilled for you by His own life of love toward God and neighbor, dear fellow redeemed:
Who are the bad guys in Jesus’ account of the Good Samaritan? There are several bad guys, but they aren’t bad for the same reasons. The robbers sinned by beating up a man, taking his things, and leaving him for dead. The priest and the Levite sinned by not helping him when they saw him on the side of the road. But who was it that sinned the most?
The robbers sinned by their actions. The priest and the Levite sinned by their inaction. In our Catechism, we classify the sin of the robbers as sins of commission. They actively sinned against the Fifth and Seventh Commandments. They committed wrongs. The sins of the temple workers were sins of omission. They did not help their neighbor as the Fifth Commandment requires. They omitted to do what they should have.
Still it seems to us that the sins committed by the robbers were worse than the sins of the temple workers. After all, the robbers went looking for trouble; the priest and the Levite just happened on the scene. Let’s put ourselves in the sandals of these passers-by for a moment. We presume that the priest and the Levite were on their way to serve in the temple in Jerusalem. This service required that they be ceremonially clean. Touching the body of a dead man would disqualify them for that important work, and it looked like this man might not make it. And besides, they weren’t doctors—what could they even do for him? It was best to hurry on their way and pray that someone else would come along to help.
Sins of omission (inaction) almost always seem less serious than sins of commission (action). It is easier to justify why we did not do something good to help our neighbor than it is to justify something we did to hurt our neighbor. This is why the lawyer speaking to Jesus felt confident in his own righteousness. He thought that he had kept the Law of God. He hadn’t killed anyone, he hadn’t cheated on his wife, he hadn’t taken someone else’s things, and so on. He had avoided sins of commission—at least in his opinion.
But refraining from bad behavior is only half of what God requires in His Law. He also requires that we show love to Him and our neighbors. So for example, honoring God’s name doesn’t just mean keeping ourselves from cursing, swearing, and lying by His name. It also means praying to Him, praising Him, and giving Him thanks. Protecting our neighbor’s life does not just mean holding back from physical harm. It also means helping him and showing kindness whenever he has a need. Protecting our neighbor’s things is more than just not stealing. It is also helping him to do better and improve what he has.
Keeping the Commandments is not just some cold exercise in avoiding wrongdoing. We might think we could accomplish that by never leaving our home or our bedroom, never speaking to or interacting with others. Then we could sit all alone with hearts full of pride thinking about how we are not as bad as all the people “out there.” But then what good have we actually done for our neighbors? This is why Martin Luther and many others renounced the monastic life—they realized that by hiding away, they were serving only themselves and not their neighbors.
But there is a problem with opening ourselves up to the needs and concerns of others: we might have to do some hard things. We might have to change the plans we had. We might have to get our hands dirty as we serve the hurting and the helpless.
I recently read a beautiful little book called Bright Valley of Love (Edna Hong). It detailed the life of a severely crippled boy who was treated little better than an animal by his parents and grandmother. They thought of him as a nobody, a nothing, who would never contribute to society in a worthwhile way. When he was six, they decided they had had enough and dropped him off at a center called Bethel, a Christian place where the physically and mentally disabled were cared for. There he learned to speak and walk and carry out numerous tasks for others in the community. It was a wonderful institution that focused on the needs of both body and soul.
Then World War II began, and Hitler gave the order that any people in Germany like the ones at this center, people who required full-time care—the mentally ill, disabled, paralyzed, infirm—that these should be “mercifully” killed. It’s terrible, isn’t it? Assigning greater value to one life than another. But we still do it—we all do it. Maybe we have something against a certain group of people because of how they look or where they come from. Maybe we wish harm on those who hold different views about culture and politics than we do. Maybe we look at a portion of the population as nothing more than a drain on our valuable resources.
Until we have nothing but love in our hearts and our minds toward our neighbors, including the ones we look down on or the ones who look down on us, we have not loved as God requires us to do. The man from Samaria spent his time, energy, and money on a man from Judea. Generally speaking, the Jews and the Samaritans despised each other. They wouldn’t think of lifting a finger to help one another. But God moved the Samaritan’s heart to compassion, and friends were made out of enemies.
God calls us to make friends like the Samaritan did, by making sacrifices and serving our neighbors around us. It is not possible for us to solve all the problems in the world. We can’t help everyone who is hurting. But we can help the people we come in contact with. The same book I read made the point that the neighbor who most needs your attention is the person near you who is suffering the most. That might be your parent or sibling, your spouse or child, a co-worker, someone you hardly know, or someone you don’t know yet.
Instead of looking at others with eyes of evil and disdain like the robbers, or with eyes of distraction or disinterest like the priest and Levite, we want to look at one another with eyes of compassion. That’s how the Samaritan looked upon the man whom he assisted and cared for. That’s how Jesus looks upon us.
You see, we’re not so different from the man who was robbed and beaten up. But it isn’t our enemies that have done this work. It is the Law of God. The perfect commands of God’s Law rob us of any notion that we have lived the kind of life that He requires. The lawyer wanted to justify himself, but Jesus made it clear that he had not loved his neighbor as he loved himself, and so he had not perfectly loved God.
And the more we look in judgment upon others and turn our backs on them, the more pride we feel because of how good we are, the more the Law takes us to task and treats us roughly. Unless you have perfectly loved God with your heart, soul, strength, and mind, unless you have perfectly loved your neighbor as yourself, you have nothing to boast about. The inspired letter to the Galatians states it clearly, “You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace” (5:4).
But you, dear friends in Christ, have not fallen away from grace. Even though you have failed your neighbors by the harm you have done and by the help you have not done, Jesus has not failed you. He saw you wounded by your own sin, helpless, dying. And He came to join Himself to you and make your situation His situation.
Looking upon you with compassion, He said, “I will take the punishment of the Law that you deserve. I will be condemned and beaten in your place. I will bear your wounds. I will be forsaken by everyone who passes by. I will be robbed of My life.” And because He suffered and died for you, the filth of your sins is washed away. Your wounds are treated. You are wrapped in His righteousness. And for your ongoing spiritual health and strength, He calls you to the inn of His Church when you hear His Word of grace and kneel before Him at His altar to receive the best medicine there is—His holy body and blood “given and shed for you.”
You are not justified before God because of anything you have done, and you are not condemned because of what you have failed to do or done wrongly. You are justified—declared righteous and innocent in God’s sight—because of what Jesus has done on your behalf. Your neighbor does need your love and care and compassion. But you do not do these things to earn something from God or to receive recognition and glory from the world. You do these things because Jesus did them for you. “We love because he first loved us” (1Jo. 4:19).
With your eyes on Jesus, you know what love looks like. He has let you in on the secret and inspires it in you. He says to you just as He said to His disciples, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.” You see Jesus’ love for you in the Samaritan’s love for the dying Jewish man, and so you see how to love your neighbor. Jesus gave all He had to save you. He put you first. He suffered for you and sacrificed Himself for your eternal good. Blessed are you, and Blessed Are All Whom Jesus Justifies.
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 “Parable of the Good Samaritan” by Jan Wijnants, 1632-1684)
The Twelfth Sunday after Trinity – Vicar Cody Anderson sermon
Text: St. Mark 7:31-37
In Christ Jesus, who has done all things well, making the deaf hear and the mute speak, dear fellow redeemed:
As a student, you probably remember the days when people came to test your vision and hearing. For the hearing test, you have to put on headphones. Once they were on, they gave you a buzzer that you would push when you heard the tone that they played, or maybe they had you raise your hand when you heard a sound in each ear. Now this tone would start out loud, but as it got softer and softer, and as you were concentrating, it would come to a point that you didn’t know if you could hear it at all. I had to take this text before starting my factory job. When the test was over, the lady who was administering the test told me that I had perfect hearing. I responded, “I can’t wait to get home and tell my mother that.” To which she responded, “I can’t control when you decide to listen.” The problem that we have isn’t that we choose when we want to listen. Spiritually the problem is much worse than that. Our sins have made it so that we can’t hear and are not able to speak. The text makes it clear that Jesus is the one who opens ears and loosens tongues.
Jesus shows that he did not only come to save the Jews but the Gentiles as well. The Jews were hoping that the Messiah would liberate them from the Roman government. But that is not what he came to do. Throughout the Old Testament God made it known that he would send a Savior for the whole world. That is who Jesus is. He didn’t come to save one race, or one group. He came to save the entire world. In Jesus ministry, we see that he continues to travel. He moves from Galilee, goes down to Jerusalem for the feasts and festivals, and then he goes back north. We see in our text that Jesus had left the area that was home, and he traveled with his disciples in the lands of the Gentiles. Jesus has come into the Decapolis which is an area of 10 gentile cities.
Now he performed a miracle in this area already. One of the well-known one is when he drove the demons out of the men and he sent them into a heard of pigs. This miracle created quite a stir in this area. Right before our text Jesus encounters the woman who had great faith. As Jesus told her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and feed it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Yes, Lord; yet; even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs” (Mark 7:27-28). The news of Jesus is starting to gain traction since more know about him. Now here in our text yet another man has come to receive help from Jesus.
The people are beginning to have a wrong idea about what Jesus is doing. The people upon watching Jesus perform his miracles have had other thoughts about the Messiah. They want Jesus to be their king. It’s recorded in John, “Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself” (John 6:15). The people are not really paying attention to Jesus’ message any more. They see the miracles that he is performing and they are starting to only see his power. What is Jesus to do? He wants people to hear and listen to the message of the kingdom of God. As Jesus has a man brought to him and he can’t hear or speak, Jesus continues to have compassion. He has a plan.
Jesus takes the man away, not to show off his powers. When Jesus performs his miracles in front of the crowds, he has a message that he wants the people to know. With this miracle Jesus doesn’t want the crowd to see. So, he pulls the man away from the crowd. The people want to tell all about the signs and wonders they are seeing; they are in awe. But Jesus tells them not to say anything. As Jesus is trying to get them to stop, they continue to tell others about it. The crowd isn’t looking for a message anymore.
Like the crowd that Jesus is trying to hush, like the man who was healed, our ears and tongues are also out of function. Jesus is telling us a message of repentance, that he is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We as Christians, we know his message and we want to hear it. But the world is so noisy. We want to listen to what the world has to offer. It’s like our favorite music drowning our cares away. When we are living in our sins, we are deaf to God’s Word. Our sinful nature sees how hard it is to follow God’s commands. Why should we listen to them? They are so hard to follow and the sins are so easy to commit. The sin that we most want to commit is like the crowd. We don’t want to listen to Jesus’ message and we want Jesus to listen to us and to do what we tell him to. Jesus is still trying to communicate to us yet often we don’t want to listen. We want our tongues to stay mute at times. That is our bodies wanting to stay in our sins. But as the crowds continue to not listen, as we fall into our weaknesses, Jesus continues to heal and he did not give up on his mission.
Jesus restores the man of his ailments, showing that he is the one who hears and speaks what his Father wants. Ephphatha, be opened. Jesus shows how powerful his Word is. He is able to restore the man to full health. Adam was created knowing language and hearing God, but then he closed his ears to God’s Word. Jesus restores what was lost in the fall. This major reversal reveals how much mercy God has. He wants the world to hear the precious message of the gospel. His son lived a perfect life, listening to everything that the Father had told him. Only listening and doing his will. He then fulfilled God’s Word to the letter. Jesus continued to listen to his Father, and he took his cup and drank it, going to the cross. How awesome that we have a Savior who willingly listened to his Father and died for us. Jesus removes our deafness and loosens our tongues by perfectly hearing and speaking for us and forgiving us our sins.
Isaiah foretold that Jesus would come and do this. Jesus would come and cause a stir. Isaiah’s prophecy is our Old Testament lesson for today, “In that day the deaf shall hear the words of a book, and out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see. The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the LORD, and the poor among mankind shall exult in the Holy One of Israel” (Isaiah 29:18-19). The people of Jesus day were in great need of help. We also are in great need of help. The Holy One of Israel continues to come to open our ears and loosen our tongues. He brings us out of the darkness and into his marvelous light.
We see how God’s Word continues to perform miracles when the gospel is spread. The gospel is alive and active. It does not stay silent. It is meant for human ears to hear and Jesus commands us to go and share it. The gospel heals souls as it tells people about how God kept his promise and sent a Savior. When sinners hear the comfort of the gospel, they will exult the Holy One also. This is not a message for only some to hear. This is a message for everyone. Jesus says “Ephphatha, be opened”, so that all ears can hear the wonderful news that he has done. Fulfilling God’s promise of dying for our sins and taking them all away.
Jesus gives us comfort daily that our ears are opened, and our tongues are loosened. There may come a time where we have given into temptation and we think, “How can I share God’s Word with others?” We think that we should give up because we failed God and closed our ears to his Word in weakness. But the power to change hearts and reach souls is not ours. The power is in the Word, God calls sinners to speak it. God knows that we are sinful. He sees us here in this world. That is why he sent his son. It is Jesus who says “Ephphatha, be opened.” It’s not us saying those words. The Holy Spirit uses us as messengers to bring the sweet gospel to people’s ears. We can have confidence that is not our actions, and when we fail, Jesus still tells our ears to be opened. He knows the weaknesses that we go through. He is there with us in our temptations. He knows that we need to hear the word “Ephphatha” more than once in our lives. It is that comfort that allows us to continue to carry on and tell others about Jesus because we know how sweet it is to hear the gospel words of comfort.
This is how awesome our God is. As we used our selective hearing ever since the time of the fall, this has now been restored. God shows His power. He sent his Son to heal the deaf ears of the human race, all of us who were lost in our sins and deaf to God’s Word. The Holy Spirit opens our ears so that we can know that saving gospel. Our tongues are loosed so we can share it. We hear Christ loud and clear as he says, “Ephphatha,” “Be Opened.” So now that we have had our hearing tested and see that on our own it doesn’t exist, Jesus did have perfect hearing. That perfect hearing is now ours. Jesus makes it possible to hear and share his Word. To God be the glory that we hear “Ephphatha, be opened.” 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 stained-glass window at Saude)