The Thirteen Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: 2 Kings 5:15-27
In Christ Jesus, who by His blood purifies our consciences from dead works to serve the living God (Heb. 9:14), dear fellow redeemed:
When Martin Luther was ordered to recant, to take back, everything he had written up to that time in 1521, he replied, “[M]y conscience is captive to the Word of God… I cannot and will not recant, because it is neither safe nor wise to act against conscience” (quoted in Kittelson’s Luther the Reformer, 161). For Luther, conscience and the Word of God were so bound up together, that to go against one would be to go against the other.
God gave us a conscience which He informs by the moral law written on our hearts. That moral law totally agrees with and is sharpened by the Ten Commandments recorded in the pages of Scripture. When our conscience is operating properly, it will help keep us in line with the Law of God. And if we are living according to the Law of God, we will have a clear conscience. But as you and I well know, living according to God’s Law is not the easiest thing to do.
When we hear about the Good Samaritan, we might think of him as a professional do-gooder, whose heart was filled with an endless supply of love, patience, and compassion to help a person in need. It seems to us that a person like this must have enjoyed a clear conscience. He was just so good. But let’s bring him back into the real world. Let’s imagine he was something like us.
The Samaritan may have had other concerns and responsibilities occupying his mind. He may have been mulling over troubles at work as he traveled. Maybe he was in danger of losing his job. Maybe he was poor and hardly able to provide for his family. Maybe he and his wife hadn’t spoken for days or weeks. Maybe his parents were beginning to need care he wasn’t sure how to provide. Maybe he was stressed and unhappy and didn’t think his life could get any more complicated or any worse. Then there was this man lying by the side of the road. Could he really handle another problem right now? Should he just pass by on the other side? Would anyone know if he did? His conscience compelled him to stop.
You can’t be a Christian without having struggles of conscience. Those struggles, those inner conflicts, are actually a blessing. If you no longer felt conflict inside, the tug and pull of what is right or wrong, then your faith would be in great danger. Life in this fallen world is not meant to be comfortable for those who believe in Jesus. He plainly said, “In the world you will have tribulation” (Jn. 16:33), and “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me” (Mt. 16:24).
Naaman felt this struggle and conflict. As soon as he was converted, he began to be concerned about having a clear conscience. His flesh was cleansed of its leprosy, and he came back to Elisha confessing the name of the true God. But though he was now clean, Naaman was bothered by something new. He would soon be leaving Israel to return to his home. The last thing he wanted was to dishonor the LORD who had miraculously healed him.
He first asked for two loads of soil, so that he could offer sacrifices to the God of the Israelites on Israelite ground. Then he brought up another issue. As the right hand man of the king, he was expected to accompany him into the temple of Rimmon, a false god. Would the LORD pardon him for doing this and even for bowing down—not out of respect for the idol but out of respect for his king? Elisha replied, “Go in peace.”
But Naaman wasn’t the only one whose conscience was troubled. Gehazi, the chief servant of Elisha, couldn’t believe his master had rejected the gifts that Naaman wished to give. Think what good that silver, gold, and fine clothing could do. After all, should the prophets have to scrape by on so little? If nothing else, couldn’t such riches be used to help the poor? This is what Judas Iscariot argued when Mary anointed Jesus’ feet with expensive ointment (Joh. 12:4). But it wasn’t charity that drove Judas or Gehazi to speak up for the generous offerings of others. It was greed.
The love of money caused Gehazi to do great violence to his conscience. He surely reasoned it all out to quiet this inner voice. Perhaps he thought that what Naaman offered probably belonged to Israel anyway. After all, Naaman had attacked the Israelites, taking their goods, and turning them into his slaves. Wouldn’t Gehazi know how to put riches to better use than that wicked man?
Gehazi felt so sure about his purpose that he even took an oath before God that he would handle the situation in a better way than Elisha. “As the LORD lives,” he said, “I will run after him and get something from him.” Then to follow his plan through, he had to lie to Naaman and then to Elisha. Even if Gehazi convinced himself that his cause was right, his conscience was certainly not in line with the Word of God.
The tension of keeping a clear conscience was so great that Gehazi decided he would not listen anymore. We know how that feels. Every day, we are challenged by these tensions. Should I confront my boss about his dishonest business practices, or stay quiet and protect my job? Should I take the shortcuts everyone else is taking, or do what is right? Should I hide my toys so no one else can play with them, or should I share? Should I lie and keep myself out of trouble, or tell the truth?
Sometimes the cost of a clear conscience seems too great, and we make the conscious decision to go ahead with something that we know is wrong. Sure, we reason it all out to keep our conscience from screaming too loudly: “We may not be married, but we are committed.” “Who am I to say what someone else should do with her body?” “It’s not right for me to judge.” “It’s going to happen anyway whether I say something or not.” “I don’t want to be left out.” But even if our conscience is quieted somewhat, we have departed from the Word of God, and the leprosy of the unbelieving world rubs off on us. We think we can just give a little, relieve some of that tension, and still be faithful confessors of Christ.
These compromises can never deliver a clear conscience. They only make our condition worse. No amount of good intentions, compromises, or charitable efforts and good works can earn us a clear conscience. These efforts amount to selling the faith for two talents of silver and two changes of clothing which won’t help us anymore than they helped Gehazi. Then sin continues to cling to us just as leprosy clung to him.
So what can be done to get a clear conscience? If conscience is guided by the Law of God, and we have broken the Law in many, many ways, is a clear conscience even possible?
God knows the cost of a clear conscience. He knows this not because His conscience was ever dirtied or in conflict, but because He knows us sinners. He knows how utterly we failed to keep His holy Law. He knows how what He intended us to be is nothing like what we are since the fall into sin. So He resolved to send His holy Son down to earth to be “born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law” (Gal. 4:4-5).
Being placed under the Law, Jesus could fulfill the Law for every sinner. He could maintain a perfectly clear conscience that never departed from the holy Law of God. He was tempted in every way just as we are, but He never blurred the line between right and wrong. He never deviated from His holy task. He never set aside the Word of God—even in the smallest part—in order to appeal to more people.
He kept His conscience clear all the way through a false verdict, unmerited suffering, and a horrible death. He held fast to the promises of God; He had to follow through with God’s plan in order to redeem souls, your soul. God now declares you to be right with Him because of what Jesus did. You are now freed from the guilt of your sins. By the immeasurable price of His holy body and blood, Jesus made the payment to obtain for you a clear conscience, a conscience that is no longer imprisoned in your former darkness and sin.
So a clear conscience cannot be gotten by something you do. It is obtained by what Jesus did for you. Just as Naaman was cleansed of his leprosy in the waters of the Jordan, your conscience was cleansed in the waters of your Baptism. And that powerful cleansing remains in effect as long as you are a believer in Christ. St. Peter calls Baptism “an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1Pe. 3:21). And the author of the book of Hebrews writes, “[S]ince we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus… let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” (10:19,23).
Baptized into Christ, He is with you to “wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience” (1Ti. 1:18-19). He helps you to resist the temptations of this world, the devil, and your flesh, and to continuously battle to uphold the truth of His Word. You will not perfectly avoid what is wrong and do what is right. Your conscience will be sullied again by the leprosy of sin. But it is always cleansed in Christ.
Bring your troubled conscience to Him in humble repentance; acknowledge where you have fallen short; lay all your guilt before Him. Then wrap yourself up in His righteousness and grace. Know that your sins are all forgiven through the blood of Christ. The Cost of a Clear Conscience was very high, and Jesus met that cost in full for you. You can depart as Naaman did with these words of comfort in your ear: “Go in peace.”
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 – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: 2 Kings 5:1-15
In Christ Jesus, who through His own flesh delivered the eternal cure for our sin and death, dear fellow redeemed:
If you think of the stories of King Arthur’s brave knights or perhaps of the courageous heroes in modern war movies, you can get a sense of Naaman, the commander of the army of the king of Syria. He is described as “a great man with his master and in high favor” and as “a mighty man of valor.” He was a man’s man, bold, and strong. We can suppose that he wasn’t afraid of anyone, that he never backed down from a fight. Wherever the danger was greatest or the odds were most against him, Naaman went forward.
And Naaman won. He was held in high esteem by his master because he was so successful. A ruler cannot be effective without loyal and capable men around him ready to carry out his orders. But neither the king nor Naaman realized where their success came from. We learn in today’s reading that “the LORD had given victory to Syria.” Syria’s strength was part of the LORD’s plan. And so was Naaman’s leprosy. Leprosy was a serious and debilitating skin disease. Naaman had probably prayed to his own gods for relief and healing, but none came. It bothered him enough that even his servants were aware of his struggle.
We don’t expect to see weakness in our heroes. We’re surprised when our nation’s leaders get sidelined by the cold or flu, or when elite athletes pull a muscle and have to take time off. These instances are good reminders that the people we look up to are human also. Because of sin in the world, hardships come on the strong and the weak, the wealthy and the poor, the famous and the obscure. This also teaches us that the people who seem to have it all probably have troubles and pains that we wouldn’t want to touch with a ten foot pole.
So Naaman, who knew military strategy, who knew his way around a battlefield, had been outflanked by a skin disease. He had no answer for it; he couldn’t beat it. It was going to kill him. And now we see the LORD’s strategy in play. Through a little girl who was carried away from Israel and made a slave in Naaman’s house, the LORD made Naaman aware of a prophet in Israel. The little girl confidently told Naaman’s wife that this prophet “would cure him of his leprosy.”
If Naaman’s skin disease did not bother him very much, he would have ignored what the little girl said. What would a Syrian commander want with an Israelite prophet! But that was not his response. He took the message to his king—as farfetched as it sounded—, and the king sent Naaman to Israel with a letter and a load of gifts. Naaman was willing to try even this if it meant he could be healed.
When he was sent to the house of the prophet Elisha, what Naaman expected was that he would have the opportunity to make the case for why he should be healed. Or perhaps he thought he would flatter the prophet and impress him with the gifts he had brought. Certainly it wasn’t every day that Elisha had such esteemed visitors come to his door with all their horses and chariots.
But Elisha was not impressed by these things. He was nobody’s tool but the LORD’s. When Naaman arrived, Elisha didn’t even come out of his house to greet him. He sent a messenger with simple instructions: “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean.” This is not at all what Naaman expected. In fact, he found it very offensive. The prophet wouldn’t even speak to him directly?!? He was supposed to wash himself in the dirty waters of the Jordan River?!? No thanks.
Many people make the same judgment about the Christian Church. “If Christianity were true,” they think, “and if the Christian God is supposedly a God of love, then why wouldn’t He come and make the problems in the world go away? Or if He truly cares about His people, why wouldn’t He at least make their troubles go away?” When told about the basics of the Christian faith, they say, “How can regular water make me a child of God? How can eating bread and drinking wine be a Communion with the body and blood of Jesus? How can these simple things bring salvation?”
Looked at from the unbeliever’s perspective, we can see how strange this all seems. We don’t have anything like Naaman expected—someone waving his hands and saying the magic words and all our troubles disappear. How could washing in the Jordan River seven times do anything good? People expect that salvation should be harder to come by. Shouldn’t we have to do something to be saved? “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
Initially, Naaman rejected the Word. He drove away in his chariot angry, perhaps thinking thoughts of war against Israel for treating him like this. Then his servants meekly approached and said, “Did you not hear what the prophet said? Has he actually said to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” So Naaman consented. He went down to the Jordan and dipped himself “according to the word of the man of God” once, twice, up to seven times—the number for perfection, holiness. And what happened? The flesh that was infected with leprosy “was restored like the flesh of a little child.” He was clean.
Now bold Naaman, mighty Naaman, Naaman the conqueror returned to Elisha’s house and said, “Behold, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel.” What had changed him? Was it the water? Did it have some special quality that when applied resulted in healing? No, it was the Word of the Most High God. The Word attached to the water brought healing to Naaman. The Word brought faith to his heart.
Naaman had been conquered by the LORD’s Word, and he didn’t even see it coming! Many other enemies of the LORD have also been conquered by Him and brought into His kingdom in the same way. You were one of them. Like Naaman, you had something like a disease clinging to and afflicting you, a disease for which you had no cure. It was worse than leprosy; it was sin.
People try all sorts of remedies for this: trying to do enough good to cancel out their bad, pointing to the worse failures of others to make themselves look better, even arguing that what used to be considered sinful isn’t really sinful anymore. But we can’t escape it. The sin of Adam has been passed along to us, and this sin has captured our hearts. Ignoring this infection doesn’t make it go away; it only makes our condition worse. So what can we do to make our condition better?
Jesus says, “There is nothing that you can do. But there is something that I can do.” The Son of God took on our weak human flesh, so that He could reverse the fortunes of Adam’s line. He came to bring salvation to us who were sick, and life to us who were dying. For the official beginning of His public work, Jesus stepped down into that same dirty river as Naaman had some eight hundred years before, and He was baptized by John “to fulfill all righteousness” (Mat. 3:15).
At His Baptism, your sin was poured over Him, and He carried that sin all the way to His death on the cross. His death on the cross was the cure for your sinful condition. It was the remedy for the Fall of all mankind. The perfect Son of God made full satisfaction for all your sins against the holy God. By His death and resurrection, He declares you righteous and pure in God’s sight.
To make sure that you know this righteousness is for you, He has sent messengers to tell you. Your parents brought you to the baptismal font, where you received “the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit” (Ti. 3:5), so that like Naaman, you were made new, “like the flesh of a little child”—born again by water and the Word. It was a perfect cleansing, removing all your sin from you, and placing Jesus’ righteousness over you. At your Baptism, God gave you a tremendous gift. And since that time, your parents and sponsors and fellow believers and pastors have reminded you about this gift.
The humble appearance of Baptism makes some think it is powerless. It’s like Naaman stating that there must be better options for bathing than the Jordan River. But where Jesus’ Word is spoken according to His promise, there is power—life-giving, heart-changing power, the power to heal and save. Today’s Holy Gospel presents an excellent example of the power of His Word (Mar. 7:31-37). Jesus said, “Ephphatha—Be opened,” and the deaf and mute man was healed.
The Word attached to the water of Baptism is what brought you healing and salvation from the LORD. You return to these waters every time you repent of your sins and cast off the things that hinder your faith in Him. Like mighty Naaman humbly obeying the Word and dipping his leprous skin in the water, you and I bring our sins to God, but not only our sins. We bring our weaknesses and strengths, our past and our present, our worries, struggles, and pain, our abilities, our dreams, and our plans, our imperfect hearts and minds. We bring them all to the cleansing waters of Christ and drown them all in faith.
We want everything we do to be washed in Him, to flow from Him, to be sanctified through Him. We need Him to guide our thoughts, words, and actions. We need Him to carry us and keep us true to Him, so that we are not misled by other gods that cannot save. His method for keeping us faithful is not what we expect—the proclamation of His Word and the administration of water, bread, and wine with His promise. These are the powerful means that bring us His forgiveness and salvation, that conquer and cleanse our sinful hearts.
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 Saude Lutheran Church stained glass)
The Festival of the Resurrection of Our Lord – Pr. Faugstad exordium & sermon
Festival exordium:
It feels like Easter. Green grass is popping up everywhere, trees are budding, the temperature is going up, and April showers are in the forecast. But perhaps the most recognizable sign that Easter is here is the lilies. They are often the first flowers to show up in the spring. Even after the lifeless brown of fall and the biting cold of winter, new life has sprouted again.
That is why lilies are a symbol for Jesus’ resurrection. Adam and Eve brought sin and death to God’s perfect creation. Now the ground produced thorns and thistles. Now there was pain and suffering. But God planted hope in their hearts. He would send a Savior to redeem them. He would bring life to the world of death.
Everything looked so dark on Friday. Jesus struggled to breathe on the cross while His enemies mocked Him. Then He gave one last cry, and He was gone. They laid His body in a tomb and sealed it shut. His disciples despaired. They went into hiding.
But then on Sunday morning new life sprang forth. An angel rolled the stone away from the tomb and declared, “He is not here, for he has risen, as he said” (Mat. 28:6). Then Jesus began to show Himself: to the women, to two disciples on the road to Emmaus, to Peter, to ten of the disciples gathered together. He was not dead, and He was no ghost. He had risen indeed!
St. Paul called Him “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1Co. 15:20). He was the first to rise bodily from the dead, the first flower of a New Spring. This is why we plant flowers on graves. Just as the flowers come forth and flourish, so will the bodies of all the faithful when Jesus returns on the last day with a shout and “with the sound of the trumpet of God” (1Th. 4:16).
The trumpet-shaped lilies anticipate His coming. Our cemeteries might look lifeless and bleak now, but they will fill with new life when our Lord Jesus comes in His glory. The winter is past. Death is dead. Spring breaks forth. And together with all who live in Him, we join our voices in saying: “Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!”
Let us sing our festival hymn #348, “He Is Arisen! Glorious Word!”
He is arisen! Glorious Word!
Now reconciled is God, my Lord;
The gates of heaven are open.
My Jesus died triumphantly,
And Satan’s arrows broken lie,
Destroyed hell’s direst weapon.
O hear
What cheer!
Christ victorious
Riseth glorious,
Life He giveth—
He was dead, but see, He liveth!
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Sermon text: Joshua 3:5-17
In Christ Jesus, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (Joh. 14:6), dear fellow redeemed:
There aren’t many people who end up doing what they think they will as children. After all, there are only so many spots open for professional athletes, famous singers, or the President of the United States. Typically a person’s path through life is less definite than they think it will be as a child. We learn as we go that dreams often do not become reality. The person we thought was perfect for us turns out not to be. We move from job to job. Plans change. So the way our life plays out is not so much a “point A to point B,” but a zig-zagging, forward and backward, wandering around sort of path that leads to a different point than we ever imagined.
When the Israelite people left Egypt, they expected to journey to the land of Canaan which the LORD had promised to give them. But they didn’t march straight east and then north right into the land. God led them into the wilderness, through the Red Sea, and to Mount Sinai to receive His Law. Finally He brought them to the Promised Land, where spies were sent to survey the land. But the spies brought back a bad report. “[T]he cities are fortified and very large,” they said. “The people are too strong. They are like giants, and we seemed like grasshoppers in comparison. We could never defeat them” (Num. 13:28,31-32).
Because they did not trust the LORD, He told them they would wander for forty years in the wilderness, and everyone above the age of twenty with the exception of Joshua and Caleb would die in the wilderness (Num. 32:11-12). If you were five or ten years old when the LORD delivered this judgment, the next forty years would have seemed a long time. As you traveled around from one wilderness place to another, you couldn’t help but wonder, “Are we ever going to get somewhere?”
That question was answered in today’s account. The time had come for the people to cross over the Jordan River and enter the land of Canaan. But how would they get across? The Jordan River was estimated to be one hundred feet wide and up to ten feet deep. Besides that, it was springtime when snowmelt from a nearby mountain and new rainfall caused the river to overflow its banks. There was no way the great multitude of Israelites would be able to wade across.
Just before today’s reading, we are told that the Israelites camped near the Jordan for three days (Jos. 3:1-2). For three days, they looked at the churning waters in front of them. Perhaps they scouted up and down the river looking for a suitable place to cross. There was none. Their eyes were also drawn past the waters to the lush, green landscape of Canaan. How good it would be to get there! That’s where they wanted to go! But when? How?
They had no answers. They could not accomplish it. They had to wait for the LORD to make a way. He brought them this far; He would have to bring them across. Through Joshua, the LORD told the people to consecrate themselves, to prepare in repentance for what He would do for them. Joshua told the priests to carry the ark of the covenant toward the river, and when their feet touched the water’s edge, the water from the north stopped flowing. It stood up in a heap like the waters of the Red Sea had done, so that all the people could cross over on dry ground. The impossible was made possible by the mighty LORD.
We have gathered to celebrate another impossible event today, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. None of His disciples expected it to happen. As they waited those three days, they wept together and hid themselves in fear of what might happen to them. All they could see before them and behind them were dark, churning waters of trouble which threatened to engulf them at any moment. Where could they go? What would they do?
Then reports started to trickle in: “The stone was rolled away… the tomb was empty… angels spoke to us… we saw Jesus… He told us what we should do….” The impossible was made possible. Jesus rose from the dead, which means He was not just a man. He is true God who completed the work He came to do—redeem the whole world from sin and death by His death and resurrection. By the Sunday after Easter, He had shown Himself to His chosen disciples, and soon afterward, He appeared to more than five hundred of His followers at once (1Co. 15:6).
Then on the fortieth day after His resurrection, His disciples watched Him ascend into heaven, and angels appeared and said, “This Jesus… will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven” (Act. 1:11). So there is a direct line between the resurrection of Jesus from the dead and His return on the last day to judge the living and the dead. Because He predicted His resurrection on the third day and then rose, it is just as certain that He will return visibly on the last day as He said He would. So if His resurrection is “point A,” and His return in glory is “point B,” then every day is another day down the line closer to His return.
But just as the Israelites wondered if they would ever get to the Promised Land as they wandered through the wilderness, so we wonder if we will ever reach the Promised Land of heaven. We haven’t seen heaven. All we know is the wilderness of this world. And often it seems to us that the sinful plans and pleasures of the moment are better than the promise of future blessings. Is the Promised Land really waiting at the end of the line? Is it really all it is made out to be?
So like the Israelites who had doubts about God’s care for them and His promises to them, we have doubts. Like the Israelites who grumbled and complained when they faced hardships, we grumble and complain. Like the Israelites who wanted to stop aiming for the Promised Land and instead return to Egypt, we are tempted to turn away from God’s promise, go along with the world, and pursue what is wrong.
But there is no life in going back to where we started or choosing a different path than God’s. Those paths are all dead ends. They all lead away from God and back into the slavery of sin. Only through Jesus can we see our way forward to blessings in this life and beyond. But how can we know we are walking on His path? How can we be certain that the way we are going is the way we are supposed to go?
Actually that responsibility does not rest with us, which is a good thing because we have a terrible sense of direction! If our reaching the Promised Land depended on our figuring out the way and on our strength to get there, we would never come close. The only way to get on that straight line stretching from Jesus’ resurrection to His return, is if He puts us on the line and keeps us on it.
It starts with Baptism. At your Baptism, Jesus joined Himself to you. He tied you to His burial and His resurrection, so that your sin was buried with Him and you now walk with Him “in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4). Baptism is the beginning of your journey to the Promised Land of heaven, just as the Israelites’ passing through the water of the Red Sea was the beginning of their journey to the Promised Land of Canaan.
Baptism gives you a clear future. It means that where Jesus is going, you are going—point A to point B. In your sin, you might deviate from that path—and sometimes significantly. But Jesus by His grace is constantly calling you back, constantly forgiving your sins, and guiding you in the right direction through His Word and Sacraments. He says, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (Joh. 8:31-32). And, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life” (Joh. 10:27-28a).
By His holy Word, Jesus leads you through this life toward eternal life with Him. When you die, your immortal soul will leave your body and be carried to the Lord. Your body will be buried for a time. Then on the day of His return, the heaven you have strained to see over the dark, churning waters of this life, will finally become clear. Jesus, your Joshua, will call you from the grave, clothe you in His glory, and lead you to a blessed place, a bright new beginning. He will bring you safely across the Jordan To the Promised Land.
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 Empty Tomb” by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1794-1872)
The First Sunday in Lent – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Exodus 14:5-31
In Christ Jesus, our Refuge and Strength, a very present help in trouble, so that we have no need to fear (Psa. 46:1-2), dear fellow redeemed:
By all appearances, the Israelites were in big trouble. They had just marched out of Egypt carrying the wealth of the land with them after the Egyptians freely gave them whatever they asked for (Exo. 12:35-36). Egypt’s economy was in a shambles after the ten plagues the LORD sent. Every firstborn Egyptian son was dead. And the Pharaoh realized that the slaves who might rebuild the economy were kicking up dust on their way out of town. In great wrath (and because the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart), he and his army quickly set off in hot pursuit of the Israelites.
What could the Israelites do without proper weapons, without military training, and with so many vulnerable people in the company? Pharaoh and his charioteers were getting closer and closer. Soon they would be overtaken! In this moment of tremendous fear, they took out their anxiety on Moses. Why had he brought them out to die in the wilderness? Why couldn’t he have just left them in Egypt? It would be better to be slaves in Egypt than to die out here!
We can understand their reaction. They were thinking logically. Pharaoh’s army was much more powerful than they were. They could not stand against him or try to fight him. They had no chance. All very logical. But they were forgetting something. It wasn’t Pharaoh and his army against them. It was Pharaoh and his army against God! The LORD had already shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that He was far superior to Pharaoh. He had brought ten plagues on the land of Egypt, and there was nothing Pharaoh could do about it. The LORD could have sent a hundred plagues, and no one could have stopped Him.
We fall into the same kind of thinking as the Israelites. We imagine that when we face challenges, it’s up to us to find the strength inside ourselves to stand firm. It could be relationship problems with a family member or friend. It could be a health issue like a cancer diagnosis. It could be trouble at school or work or in the community. “Somehow, someway,” we think, “I have to dig deep and find a way out of this mess. I can’t count on anyone but myself.”
We try the same approach with strong temptations to sin. We might be tempted to take someone else’s work or possessions and pass them off as our own. We might be tempted to lie to avoid having to answer for our wrongs. We might be tempted to consume drinks or drugs that we know will harm us. We might be tempted to view images and videos online that we know we shouldn’t.
When those temptations come, how well does it work to grit your teeth, clench your fists, and shout your defiance into the darkness? “Take your best shot! I’m too strong for you! You can’t beat me! You picked the wrong target!” As soon as you are done shouting, the desire to sin will still be in your mind. The tug o’ war will keep happening. The devil will keep trying to draw you toward your destruction. He will tell you that you will never have rest until you do whatever it is you desire to do. But when you give in, you don’t find relief, you don’t find satisfaction. You find guilt, a gnawing, bitter guilt.
Guilt is a heavy burden. It’s so heavy, we look for ways to get rid of it. One of those ways is trying to pass the blame for the sin we committed. Moses became the target for the people of Israel. “It’s your fault! You led us out in the wilderness. You led us right into this trap. There’s nowhere to go!” Repentance never crossed their minds or their lips. And so we might blame a bad boss as the reason our stealing was justified, or another person’s bad deed as the reason we were compelled to lie, or an uncaring spouse for why we looked elsewhere to fulfill our needs.
Perhaps in some way, these justifications might make our conscience less sharp and therefore the burden of guilt less heavy. But however we came to the sin, we are the ones who did it. We are the ones who chose to do or say or think what God said we should not. In the big picture, in the grand accounting of it all, it is obvious that we have fallen far short of the righteousness that God has called us to. In our weakness, we have given in to many temptations. We have committed many sins.
If the Israelites were afraid of Pharaoh’s army on one side and the Red Sea on the other, we are in even worse shape. We have the devil, the world, and our own flesh facing us on one side with weapons poised to strike, and on the other side we look behind us into the deep pit of death. “Fear not,” Moses said to the people, “stand firm, and see the salvation of the LORD, which He will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.”
“The Lord Will Fight for You.” That’s the key! We are stuck in the middle of a battle, a battle which on our own, we can’t win. We don’t have all the answers. We are not equal to the seasoned fighters who oppose us. But the LORD, our LORD, is more than their equal. Like David facing Goliath, He may have appeared overmatched in His state of humiliation on earth. But like David overcoming Goliath, Jesus won a complete victory.
Even in the Holy Gospel for today, it looked like Jesus was vulnerable. He was very hungry after forty days and nights of fasting. The devil seemed to make a good case from Scripture why Jesus should throw Himself down from the temple. The devil flexed his muscles by offering Jesus “all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.” All Jesus had to do was bow down and worship him. He could bypass all the suffering, all the pain, all the trouble for saving sinners. He would have instant rest and relief if only He would acknowledge the devil’s authority (Mat. 4:1-11).
Jesus stood firm against these temptations. He wouldn’t budge. Where we would have easily caved to the pressure, He did not. Hebrews 4:15 says that “in every respect [He] has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” He stayed strong for you. He resisted every temptation for you. He maintained a perfectly clear conscience, so He could credit you with His righteousness and holiness.
He gave this gift to you when He called you to the waters of Baptism. He brought you freedom from sin and eternal life and salvation through those waters. He baptized you into Him through those waters. The Israelites passing through the Red Sea is a picture of your Baptism. Just as a new people emerged from the sea no longer enslaved, with their captors destroyed, so the new man of faith was raised up in you through holy Baptism, and your old Adam was drowned.
If the Israelites doubted God’s commitment to them before, they could hardly doubt it now as they walked over dry land with walls of water on either side of them. This was their Baptism, as 1 Corinthians 10 says, “our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (vv. 1-2). But they did doubt God’s commitment again, many times. This is why St. Paul adds, “with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness” (v. 5).
Just because you are baptized does not mean that you will always remember what Baptism means and take comfort in it. Baptism means that the Almighty God of heaven and earth has claimed you for His own. He committed Himself to your care and salvation. He promised to guide you and comfort you and strengthen you through His Word and Sacraments. He promised to fight your battles for you, stand against all your enemies, and deliver you from every evil.
Going your own way and relying on your own strength is to step away from these baptismal protections. It is like picking up a little stick and charging at the whole Egyptian army by yourself. Or loading up your pockets with bars of gold and silver before jumping into the Red Sea in an attempt to swim to safety. Moses told the self-centered Israelites that the LORD would fight for them. All he asked of them was this: “you have only to be silent.”
The same goes for you. “The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.” Being silent means not shouting boastful words into the darkness. Being silent means stopping your words of self-justification. Being silent means quietly repenting of your sins each and every day. Being silent means listening to the LORD’s strong word, hearing His promises, and trusting that He can take on any enemy that threatens you.
He certainly can. It appeared that the Israelites were doomed. But by the end of the day, they were singing and dancing while the Egyptians washed up dead on the seashore. You may feel at times like you are without hope, but the LORD makes a way through the trouble just as He opened a path for His people through the Red Sea. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For Thou art with me” (Psa. 23:4).
The LORD is with you. When the devil attacks you and fires temptations at you, that is your reminder that you need the LORD to guard and protect you. You need to hear Him speak His powerful Word into the darkness that threatens you. He will not back down from the devil. He will never abandon you. He will fight for you.
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 woodcut by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1794-1872)
The Baptism of Our Lord – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Exodus 11:1, 12:21-30
In Christ Jesus, whose blood cleansed us from all our sins and reconciled us to God, so that we would be saved from destruction, dear fellow redeemed:
God turned all of Egypt’s water to blood, but Pharaoh wouldn’t let the people of Israel go. Then God sent frogs and gnats and flies, but Pharaoh wouldn’t budge. Then He sent a disease on Egypt’s livestock, boils on Egypt’s people, and destructive hail throughout the land. Still, Pharaoh said no. God sent locusts that devoured every green plant, and then caused a deep darkness to fall on the land for three days. Through each of these nine plagues, the book of Exodus says first that Pharaoh hardened his heart, and then that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. He did this to show Egypt and all other nations that He was the LORD (Exo. 10:2). He would free His people, the Israelites, from slavery.
They weren’t always slaves. You remember that Joseph brought his father and brothers to Egypt during a time of famine. When they came with their families, there were seventy of them. But over a period of several hundred years, the people had multiplied greatly, and the Pharaohs in power no longer knew about Joseph. They saw the Israelite people as a threat, so they enslaved them. When the people continued to expand, the Pharaoh ordered all Israelite baby boys to be killed. It was a horrible time for God’s people.
But the LORD heard their groaning. He saw their suffering. He hadn’t forgotten them (Exo. 2:24-25). He raised up an unlikely deliverer, eighty-year-old Moses, to lead them out of Egypt to the Promised Land. Moses and his brother Aaron delivered the message to Pharaoh that he was to let the Israelites go to worship the LORD in the wilderness. When Pharaoh refused, the plagues commenced and continued.
That brings us to the final and decisive plague which today’s reading describes. Before He sent the plague, God gave instructions for how His people were to be protected. He didn’t give them armor or put a force field around them. He didn’t give them supernatural powers to defend themselves. He told them that their salvation would come through a lamb.
Each household was to select a lamb “without blemish, a male a year old” (Exo. 12:5). They were to wait four days and then kill the lamb at twilight. They were directed to put some of the lamb’s blood on the lintels and doorposts of their homes, eat the meat roasted over a fire with unleavened bread on the side, and prepare to march into the wilderness. The Israelites did this. They killed the lambs, painted the blood outside their doors, ate the meat, and waited with belts fastened, sandals on, and staffs in hand.
At midnight, the LORD did what He said. He struck down all the firstborn sons in Egypt in all the homes that had no blood on the doorposts. The LORD had told His people, “The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt” (Exo. 12:13). This is where the term “Passover” comes from—the LORD passed over the homes marked by the blood of the lamb. In this way, the people of Israel were saved and set apart from all other nations. They were purchased by God from their slavery in Egypt with blood.
This purchasing with the blood of the lamb was a “type” or a shadow of what God promised to do for all sinners through His Son. 1 Peter 1 says, “you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” (vv. 18-19). This is why John, after seeing the Holy Spirit descend on Him and hearing the words of the Father about Him, pointed to Jesus and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (Joh. 1:29).
Jesus’ Baptism marked Him as the Christ, the anointed Son of God. It was the beginning of His public work. No more quiet service to His parents in Nazareth, where probably no one pegged Him as the next great rabbi or a great prophet. Now He began to teach, preach, and heal. He gathered His disciples. He traveled from place to place. And finally He set His face to go to Jerusalem, where this spotless Lamb would be bound, nailed to a cross, and die before the setting of the sun on that Passover day.
Just as the blood of the Passover lamb saved the people of Israel from death and delivered them from slavery, so the blood of Jesus has done the same for you. His blood set you free from the grip of the devil; he can no longer accuse and torment you for your sins because your sins were all atoned for by Jesus. You are not a slave to sin because you have been purchased and won by Jesus’ blood. Eternal punishment and death in hell must pass over you because Jesus saved you.
But how can you be sure about this? Doubts always creep in. What if the sins you have committed, either for their frequency or for their repulsiveness, disqualify you from receiving God’s grace? What if your faith is not true enough? What if your heart is not pure enough? The Israelites could point to the blood on their doorposts: “That made the difference! That’s why we are saved!” What can you point to?
Some people try to point to their good works, but those cannot save them. Some point to their good intentions – “My life may not look great, but God knows I tried”—that won’t save anyone either. If you point to anything you do, you will always have doubts. Your thoughts, words, and actions have never been perfectly pure, and as long as you live in this fallen world, they never will be.
And that is why you take comfort, not in what you have done, but in what God has done for you. God the Father sent His Son to be your Passover Lamb, to wash you clean of all your sin by shedding His precious blood. Jesus willingly went to the cross for you. He suffered and died there for you. And to make sure you know that He did this for you, He has given you a visible sign, the holy Sacrament of water and the Word.
Your Baptism is like the Israelites’ blood on the doorposts. The blood marked them as God’s own children. Baptism marks you as a child of God. When you were baptized “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” God put His name on you and claimed you as His own. He made you holy and set you apart from the world. He made you His heir, joining you to the eternal inheritance won for you by your Savior.
No matter what the devil and the world plot against you, no matter what harm they might do to you, you belong to the LORD. He loves you perfectly. He knows your struggles and suffering. He gives you His strength and courage through His Word and Sacraments. And He promises ultimate deliverance—safe passage to the Promised Land. In his great Easter hymn, Martin Luther puts these thoughts together:
Here the true Paschal Lamb we see, / Whom God so freely gave us;
He died on the accursed tree— / So strong His love—to save us.
See, His blood doth mark our door; / Faith points to it, death passes o’er,
And Satan cannot harm us. / Alleluia! (ELH 343, v. 5)
Your Baptism was the beginning of your new life in Christ. It set you on a different path than you were on before. Baptism lets you put behind you the desires and sins that enslaved you. It points you forward in hope to a better place, a better day, a better home. That’s exactly what the Passover was for the people of Israel. In fact, God made their deliverance from slavery in Egypt the beginning of a new calendar (Exo. 12:2). They were to celebrate the Passover at the beginning of this new year every year, in order to remember and rejoice in the grace of God they continued to receive.
This is why it is good for you to remember the date of your Baptism and give thanks for it each year—and not just annually, but even daily. The Catechism teaches that you return to your Baptism by daily contrition and repentance, and that a new man daily comes forth and arises to live before God in righteousness and purity (“The Meaning of Baptism”). You are baptized into Christ. It is your enduring identity before God. It is the eternal mark He put on you that He can see just as clearly as He saw the blood on the doorposts.
The Israelites could not see what the future held after they had made their Passover preparations. We also at Baptism cannot see all the burdens and blessings that will come along the way in our journey. But we know who is with us—the LORD who made heaven and earth and everything in them, the LORD who delivered His people Israel from slavery, the LORD who conquered sin, devil, and death for every sinner!
As we go forward, He speaks His comforting promises to us. He reminds us who we are in Him, who He made us to be through Holy Baptism. And in the new Supper instituted with the unleavened bread and wine of the Passover meal, He feeds us with His holy body and blood. The Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world, including your sin and mine. We are saved by His blood.
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 Sacrificial Lamb” by Josefa de Ayala, 1630-1684)
The Second Sunday in Advent – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Genesis 6:9-22
In Christ Jesus, whom we will see “coming in a cloud with power and great glory” (Luk. 21:27) on the day of judgment, dear fellow redeemed:
When things are not going so well in the nation or in the church, we might find ourselves dreaming about how it would be if certain individuals were still with us. What would George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln say and do about our current challenges on the local and national levels? And in the church, what difference would Martin Luther, C. F. W. Walther, and U. V. Koren make if they were still here preaching and teaching?
For us, these men have been gone a long time. But if we lived in Noah’s day, presumably all these men would still be with us. Genesis 5 gives the ages of Adam and his descendants. Adam lived to be 930 years old. His son Seth lived 912 years. Methuselah, the oldest man named in the Bible and Noah’s grandfather, lived 969 years. So when you overlap the lifetimes of these men, you find that Adam and Methuselah lived concurrently for 243 years.[1] Methuselah’s son Lamech overlapped 56 years with Adam. Now Lamech was Noah’s father! So even though Noah was unable to speak directly with Adam about what happened in the Garden of Eden and the promise God made to crush Satan’s head, Noah’s father certainly could have.
This makes it all the more surprising that the behavior of mankind had degenerated to the point that it had. The reason this had happened is because the people of the promise, the believers, began to intermarry with unbelievers. Why did the believing men do this? We are told it was because the unbelieving women were attractive (Gen. 6:2). Examples like this are why we teach our children to seek out spouses who share the same faith in Christ. A believing spouse can have a beneficial effect on an unbelieving spouse. But the opposite can also be true and often happens, that the faith of a believer is weakened or lost when the unbelieving spouse does not encourage it.
Because of these intermarriages in that early period of history, the community of believers got smaller and smaller, until “the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (v. 5). The first man and first preacher Adam had only recently died, and yet so few cared about God’s promise of salvation. In Genesis 6 just before today’s reading, we are told that “the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth” (v. 6). He decided that He would destroy mankind and all the land animals. Only one man found favor in God’s sight—only Noah.
Noah was described in glowing terms—he was “a righteous man, blameless in his generation”; he “walked with God.” In short, Noah was a believer. He knew that he deserved nothing but damnation for his sins, but he believed God’s promise that a Savior was coming. It broke Noah’s heart to see all the ungodliness around him. How could so many have forgotten their Creator? How could he alone be left? No doubt, the devil attacked Noah with terrible trials and persecutions. Noah was an outcast, despised by everyone. Did he think he was so perfect? What made him so sure that his truth was the right one?
Then God gave Noah an even harder task: build a boat, a great big ark, out in the middle of a field. The ark had to be big enough to hold Noah and his family and two of every kind of animal on the earth with seven pairs of all clean animals. God told him what the dimensions of the ark needed to be: 300 cubits long or about the length of a football field and a half, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits tall which would be all of the height of our church steeple. In Iowa, we have the nice story of the Field of Dreams, but making a baseball field in the country does not seem quite as crazy as building a massive boat! And yet Noah did not question God; “he did all that God commanded him.”
Noah is one of the great fathers in the faith. He is an excellent example for us who are also surrounded by all sorts of violence and godlessness. Noah believed God’s warning even when everyone else ridiculed it. They attacked his family and probably tried to sabotage his work, but Noah kept building. Day after day, he encouraged his family by the Word of God and led them in prayer. Day after day, he did the work God gave him to do. And after a period of perhaps 100 years, the massive ark was ready.
Noah’s neighbors spent no time reflecting on their actions. They felt no remorse. Jesus said that “in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark” (Mat. 24:38). They cared nothing about crazy Noah and his boat, and even less about Noah’s preaching of repentance. But what about when animals started climbing into the ark two by two? “Must be some kind of coincidence” or “witchcraft,” they thought. Then the rain started to fall, and Noah was nowhere to be seen. Then they noticed that the door in the side of the ark was shut….
What happened next is almost too terrible to imagine. The waters rose higher and higher. People desperately looked for higher ground, young and old, rich and poor, but age, health, and position meant nothing. Could Noah and his family hear the screaming? Did anyone try to pry open the door from the outside? The rain poured down, the boat came free of its scaffolding, and then there was no sound but rain on the roof.
The same waters that destroyed all living people and land animals outside the ark saved the people and animals inside the ark. They were waters of destruction and salvation. That’s the same way we think about the waters of Baptism—they are waters of destruction and salvation. Baptism drowned your old Adam and washed away the filth of your sin—everything in you that rebelled against your Creator and separated you from Him. At the same time, Baptism gave you a living faith and raised you up to new life in Christ.
1 Peter 3 ties the Flood and Baptism together: “God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (20-21). You were baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection and made a member of His holy body. Your Baptism is when you stepped out of the world of darkness and destruction and into the ark of the Church.
You might think of the time we are in as the time when the ark was nearly finished and the rain was about to fall. Jesus tells us to stay ready. The day of judgment is fast approaching. But then we wonder, “How soon?” Perhaps we can eat and drink with the attractive people of the world a little longer, or at least avoid some uncomfortable interactions by keeping our beliefs quiet. And besides, being in the ark of the Church is not always the most pleasant thing. We may grow tired of the personalities around us, the little annoyances and disagreements, the criticisms and occasional coldness we feel from others. Being cooped up in the Church makes the air seem a little stale. We want to be outside! We want to breathe deeply and live fully!
Some say they don’t need the Church at all because they can worship God just fine on their own. That may be so, but when the wind blows and the waves roll, would you rather be in the large ark in good company or alone in a little fishing boat? God calls us as Christians to hear His Word together, to confess our faith together, to kneel together at His Table, to encourage one another. If we remove ourselves from all Christian fellowship, we can’t do these things.
Being together helps to keep us accountable. In love, your fellow Christians can call you to repentance when you have faltered and fallen into sin. In love, they can also point you to your forgiveness and salvation through Jesus who has redeemed you from sin and death. In love, they can help you stay alert and prepared for the Lord’s return. Jesus says that just as the people in Noah’s day paid no attention to the preaching of the truth and were caught unprepared when the Flood came, “so will be the coming of the Son of Man” (Mat. 24:37,39).
In the ark of Christ’s Church, you are kept ready for His coming on the last day. Here in this ark, there are ample supplies—His Word of absolution that frees you from your guilt and comforts you, and the rich food of His body and blood that nourishes and strengthens you and draws you closer together with your fellow believers. With these good supplies, you can weather the storms of temptation and persecution in this world. You can endure suffering because you know that your Lord Jesus Christ is with you, increasing your faith, hope, and love.
You cannot see Him now, and you cannot see how it will be for you on the other side of the storm, but you know He will carry you to safety. That is your certainty. That is your hope. Noah and his family faithfully followed the Word of the Lord and were preserved from the perils of the Flood until they set foot again on a renewed earth. You have the same promise, that your Lord will preserve you until the day of His glorious return when the heavens and the earth will be made new. When that day comes, says Jesus, “straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (Luk. 21:28).
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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[1] For more details about this, see “From Creation to Jacob: Communicating the Promise” by Pr. Joseph Abrahamson: https://steadfastlutherans.org/blog/2016/06/from-creation-to-jacob-communicating-the-promise/.
(picture from stained glass at Redeemer Lutheran Church)
The Festival of All Saints – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Revelation 7:2-12
In Christ Jesus, through whom we are sealed with righteousness and salvation, so that we are prepared to join the great company of saints in His eternal kingdom, dear fellow redeemed:
You can tell a lot about people by looking at their eyes. You can tell if they are happy or sad, angry or frustrated, surprised or scared. Eyes can indicate if people are telling the truth or lying, or if they have personalities that are more extroverted or more introverted. Eyes can also reveal health problems like stress, sleeplessness, allergies, even liver issues. The expressiveness of eyes is why they are often referred to as “windows to the soul”—windows to the innermost parts of who we are. But of course, what our brains are thinking behind our eyes is far more complex than what our eyes reveal.
Today’s reading from the Book of Revelation talks about a “seal” on the foreheads of believers that only God and the angels can see. Imagine if that seal were also visible to our eyes. You would know who was a believer in Jesus and who wasn’t, not by what they say but by what you see. Maybe the forehead would glow somehow. And what if the forehead would be brighter when a Christian’s faith is strong and dimmer when a Christian’s faith is weak? I think we would all be more focused on the means that God has given to make faith stronger!
I’m sure we would also be surprised to learn who is truly a Christian and who is not. Some who we thought were Christians would be exposed as hypocrites, and some would be shown to have faith who we would not expect. How would you feel about having a very visible seal of God on your forehead for everyone around you to see? Would it make you more aware of the things you say and do? Are there times you would rather keep your faith more hidden, so that you could fit in easier in the world?
It is clear from our reading that although the seal of God is not visible to our eyes, it does set us apart from the world. The seal on our foreheads marks us as “servants of God.” Just as God chose His people Israel to be separate from the nations around them, He calls us to be separate as well. We are part of the 144,000 who are sealed “from every tribe of the sons of Israel.” This is a symbolic number, as the numbers generally are in the Book of Revelation. For example, seven is the number for perfection, and twelve is the number for completeness.
The number 144,000 is gotten by multiplying the twelve tribes of Israel with 12,000 from each tribe. This number expresses the completeness of God’s elect, the holy members of Christ’s Church. You might have heard that the Jehovah’s Witnesses teach something different about this. They teach that 144,000 is the literal number of people chosen by God to be in heaven. Jehovah’s Witnesses who are not part of that select group are told that they will not be in heaven in eternity, but they will reign on a new earth. To improve their chances of a higher status after this life, they are urged to be more active witnesses to their church’s teachings. It is a man-made, works-based religion.
But the sealing spoken of in Revelation is clearly not the work of man. A number of passages speak about how God seals us to protect us from the attacks of the devil. Jesus says that “God the Father has set his seal” on believers (Joh. 6:27). Through the work that Jesus accomplished, the Father “has anointed us” and “has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee” (2Co. 1:21,22).
The Holy Spirit works through the Word to bring about this sealing. St. Paul writes that “when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, [you] were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit” (Eph. 1:13). And in another place, “God’s firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: ‘The Lord knows those who are his’” (2Ti. 2:19). You are sealed by the Holy Spirit with the righteousness of Jesus that He worked for you (Rom. 4:11). You are sealed with the forgiveness He obtained for you on the cross. You are sealed in faith as you eagerly wait “for the day of redemption” (Eph. 4:30).
God first applied this seal to many of you at your Baptism when you were called “out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1Pe. 1:29). At your Baptism, water was applied to your forehead, and the sign of the cross was made over your head and over your heart. The opening hymn referred to Baptism when we sang, “Each newborn soldier”—born again by water and the Word—“Each newborn soldier of the Crucified / Bears on his brow the seal of Him who died” (Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary #194, v. 2).
Thinking about this connection to Baptism, could it be that the seal of God on our foreheads is in the shape of a cross? Two passages in Revelation speak about the seal in a different way. In chapters 14 and 22, what the 144,000 are said to have written on their foreheads is the name of the Lamb and the Father’s name (14:1, 22:4).
Through Baptism, God claimed you as His own. He put His name on you, sealed it to you, so that you are identified both as His child and His heir. You might have doubts about yourself, such as how strong your faith is or how God could love a sinner like you. But God says that nothing has changed from His view. The commitment He made to you when He brought you to faith still stands.
It was no mistake that He set His seal on you. He wants to keep you in the faith until He brings you to the great celebration of heaven. This is why He continues to send the Holy Spirit through the Word and Sacraments to strengthen you. As the Holy Spirit works through the Word, we are reminded again who we are. Yes, we are sinners who continue to struggle and break God’s Commandments. For that, we repent, and we need to keep repenting. But the Holy Spirit also assures us that we are saints, sealed with righteousness, forgiveness, and life.
We did nothing to earn this; Jesus earned it for us. This is what the great uncountable multitude in heaven cries out in thanksgiving and praise: “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” The saints in heaven give glory where glory is due, and we do the same here on earth. In our liturgy, we join the angels in their Christmas song, “Glory be to God in the highest / And on earth peace, good will toward men” (ELH p. 44). We join them later in the service in their heavenly song of praise, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth; / Heav’n and earth are full of Your glory” (ELH pp. 51-52).
That is the beauty of the historic liturgy. It recounts God’s gifts and teaches us how to give thanks for them. It joins our voices spiritually with the saints and angels around God’s throne, even while this fellowship is hidden from our eyes. And it prepares us to join the heavenly liturgy with the saints, angels, elders, and living creatures around the throne of God.
As you sing the liturgy and hymns in our worship here in church, you might sometimes think about where members used to sit whose souls are now in heaven. Today we especially think of Nadine, Swede, and Derwin from Redeemer and Don from Jerico who were called out of this life within the last year. Those of you who are older have seen many saints of our congregations go on ahead of you. Perhaps you think more and more about how you will join them soon, and what it will be like when you do.
Today’s reading gives us a glimpse of what is coming. The elect who were sealed by the Holy Spirit in this life through Word and Sacrament now enjoy the bliss of heaven. They stand “before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands.” Their focus, the object of all their love and praise, is the Triune God. They are glad to be with their fellow saints, but their attention is on God.
They are clothed in white robes. An angel explained to John what made their robes so white: “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev. 7:14). In heaven, we won’t remember any sins, not the ones we have done or the ones others have done to us. We won’t remember any of the things that caused us grief or pain. Jesus’ blood washes all that away. We will stand in the presence of the holy God, and we will be holy. By faith, we are holy now—we are saints now—but the glory is hidden from our eyes. In heaven, we will be perfect saints in body and soul.
This is what you have to look forward to. This is what you are sealed for. You Are Sealed for Eternal Salvation. This is not something to try to hide, so that you can fit in better with the world. Both the troubles and the triumphs of this life are short-lived. Your merciful Lord has something much better and more glorious planned for you. He had it planned for you before you were even born. In fact, He chose you in Christ “before the foundation of the world, that [you] should be holy and blameless before him” (Eph. 1:4).
This is how we stand by faith in Him, and this is how we will stand before Him in heaven. As St. John writes: “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure” (1Jo. 3:2-3)—saints forevermore.
“Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
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(picture from “Seventh Seal and 144,000 Sealed” by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1794-1872)
The Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Ephesians 4:22-28
In Christ Jesus, who gives us a purpose bigger than ourselves, who has a plan and a glorious future for us that stretches from this life to eternity, dear fellow redeemed:
“Stick to this diet plan and watch the pounds melt away!”
“Use this face cream, and your wrinkles will disappear!”
“Do these exercises and get the body you always wanted!”
“Follow these easy steps, and you will be rich!”
The promises made by advertisements like these are often exaggerations. But we don’t really care. We want to believe there are solutions out there to make us healthier, stronger, and better than we are right now. But even if these products delivered on their promises, how much would we have actually changed? Would the changes be significant and impactful long-term, or would they be surface-level changes, only temporary, only skin-deep?
Looking around us, we can’t help but see that many people are discontent. They complain about how they look, their aches and pains, their lack of time and money, their inability to maintain a good diet and a good exercise regimen. They see the people who seem so beautiful and handsome, so strong and fit, so rich and famous, and they envy them. “If only we could look like they look and have what they have,” they say, “then we would be happy.”
Others are working on ways to further integrate technology with humanity, so that they can figure out how to mitigate or even reverse the effects of aging. They are asking questions like these: “How can we live longer? Suffer less? Function better? Have a higher quality of life?” For some called “transhumanists,” the answer is somehow to plug a computer-enhanced brain into a technological environment, so that our consciousness and cognitive ability are not limited by our weak bodies.
But as much as we would like to have better health, more agility and strength, better cognitive function, and more wealth—and as good as these things can be—there is an important question we should be asking. That question is: Who is this for? Who is my physical health, my mental ability, and my individual talents for? The answer that our society typically gives to this question is: “These things are for me.” Is it any wonder that people are so discontent? As long as their personal improvement is only for themselves, they will find that they will never get as far or have as much as they want.
Today’s reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians helps us aim higher. The focus of this reading is not first of all on our physical health or on our earthly success. It is primarily about our spiritual health and how that affects the people around us. Just as physical health is about avoiding what is bad while also pursuing what is good, the same is true for our spiritual health. Paul writes that we were taught in Christ both to put off our old self and to put on our new self.
Our old self is our sinful nature, the nature we inherited from Adam. His sinful likeness, his image, is imprinted on us (Gen. 5:3). It is clear that we have come from him because we are sinners like he was. Sin is the common family trait that we can see in every human being that has ever lived (except for One). This corruption inside us is what causes us to do and say things that are harmful to ourselves and others.
These are the things that we are to put off or lay aside. Paul gives a few examples. He writes that we should “put away falsehood.” We should “not let the sun go down on [our] anger.” We should “no longer steal.” These are things that come from the old self. These are things that invite the devil in to attack our faith. If we want to be spiritually healthy, we will avoid these things. And if we have fallen into these sins, we must be ready to repent of them.
While avoiding what is harmful to our faith, we also want to pursue what is good. If we must “put away falsehood,” we should also “speak the truth” with one another. If we must “not let the sun go down on [our] anger,” we should seek to be kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving toward others (Eph. 4:32). If we must “no longer steal,” we should be ready to do “honest work with [our] own hands, so that [we] may have something to share with anyone in need.”
But like the paralyzed man in today’s Gospel account (Mat. 9:1-8), we don’t have the power to get up and do this on our own. That power must come from God. We see this power in Jesus’ words to the paralytic, “Take heart, My son; your sins are forgiven.” It didn’t initially look like these words had done anything. The paralytic kept on lying there on his bed. What good were those words if he couldn’t walk?
But we have no indication that the man was disappointed. What if he had been blaming himself for his paralysis? What if he thought God was punishing him for past wrongs? What if he was terrified of dying apart from God’s grace? Then he heard those sweet words from Jesus, “Take heart, My son; your sins are forgiven.” If that was the gift the man wanted most, then being able to walk again was just icing on the cake.
In the same way, no one can see the power of God at work in Baptism. When water is applied while Jesus’ words are spoken, nothing seems to happen. A sleeping baby might keep on sleeping. A crying baby might keep on crying, or even cry harder! But God’s power is at work in Baptism because He promises it is. Baptism is where your old Adam was drowned and where your new life of faith began.
At your Baptism, the Triune God claimed you as His own. He cleansed your heart of its old corruption and renewed your mind for better pursuits, for a higher purpose. He created you after His likeness and applied His “true righteousness and holiness” to you. This is your new self, your life of faith in the living God. There is no room here for pride or selfishness or discontent or despair. With the new self, there is only love, only good, only opportunities to serve God and neighbor.
But bad habits are hard to break. We know that with our lack of exercise, our preference for unhealthy foods, and our pursuit of unhealthy behaviors. Our sinful flesh wants to be indulged. It wants to be fed more and more. It wants us to pursue what feels right in the moment. It wants us to fill up on anything our eyes can see, our ears can hear, or our hands can take hold of. We don’t know what has prevailed more often—our old self or new self—but we do know we are not where we want to be.
This is why our struggle against our sinful flesh is and must be a daily struggle. We know what the devil, the unbelieving world, and our sinful flesh want. They want our faith to be snuffed out. They want us to forget what Jesus has done for us. They want us to choose and pursue and do whatever seems best for ourselves.
And what does Jesus want for us? He wants us to know that He has not rejected us for our past indiscretions, for our failures toward others, for our lies, our anger, our dishonesty, or our greed. He wants us to know that each and every one of our sins is forgiven, that our guilty conscience has been washed clean in His precious blood. He still has important work for us to do.
No matter how much you fell short yesterday, God has given you the gift of today. Your works of yesterday, both bad and good, are cleansed and sanctified in Christ. Today is a fresh start, a day for truth, for kindness, and for charity. The same will be true for tomorrow. You might only see your weaknesses. You might feel incapable of doing anything that really matters. You might feel like a failure.
God sees His own beloved child. He sees a light shining in this world of darkness. He sees a saint bathed in His righteousness and holiness. He sees someone capable of great things, great things like a gentle word that turns away wrath, like a hand ready to help a person in need, like a patient ear that listens to the anguish and pain of another. God sees those great things in you because that is what He made you for.
He created you and cleansed you and called you for His holy service. He rescued you from the futility of life in this world and the unbelief that leads to hell. He calls you to be more and do more, and He gives you the power to do it. The faith you have is His gift planted in your heart. The love you show and give flows from Him to you. He is the One who moves you to keep putting off your old self in repentance and to keep putting on the new self in faith.
You are one of the blessed ones whom Jesus has called to be His disciple. As His disciple, you follow Him and continuously learn from Him. You get to carry out the work He has prepared for you to do each day, for the benefit of others and for His glory alone. “This is the day the LORD has made; We will rejoice and be glad in it” (Psa. 118:24).
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 woodcut by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1794-1872)
The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Galatians 5:16-24
In Christ Jesus, who went to the cross to free us from our sin and free us for a life of service in His name, dear fellow redeemed:
Why do parents tell their young children they have to take a bath? “I don’t care if I’m clean,” a child might say. “But I care,” says the parent. “But why do I have to?” “Because you don’t smell very good right now. Don’t you want to smell nice?” Baths are good for a child’s own cleanliness and for the people in his general vicinity. That’s the main reason any of us wash ourselves. We want to look and feel clean, and we don’t want to be offensive to others.
That is something like the spiritual cleansing we have received through the Holy Spirit. We have been cleansed so that we stand righteous before God, and so that we can be a blessing to those around us. In today’s reading, St. Paul contrasts “the works of the flesh” which dirty us and the people near us, with “the fruit of the Spirit” which benefits our neighbors.
He says “the works of the flesh are evident”; they are obvious, easy to identify. He begins his list with sexual sin—“sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality.” The people to whom Paul was writing lived in a culture much like ours, a sexually permissive culture, where sexual sin was widely practiced and accepted.
Then he listed “idolatry” which could include the worship of images, objects, or people, and “sorcery,” the practice of magic through dark powers. The next eight sins are behaviors that disrupt unity and goodwill: “enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy.” Then he added the sins of “drunkenness” and “orgies” and showed that this list could go on much longer by attaching the phrase “and things like these.”
There are countless sins that violate the holy Law of God. These are all “works of the flesh,” they all come from the original sin that we inherited from our first parents the moment we started to be. They all represent our rebellion against our God who made us to be holy and to do holy things. All the sinful things that Paul lists come from our desire to be served and not to serve, from our selfishness, pettiness, and pride and not from a self-sacrificing love.
When we try to justify our sins, we don’t sound much better than little children: “But what if I don’t care if I’m dirty?” “I can do what I want!” “She started it!” “Everyone else is doing it!” Even if 99% of the population thinks something is fine but God says it is sin, then we must pray for the courage to stand with the 1%. It is no overstatement to say that our eternal salvation is at stake. Paul wrote, “I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
You and I have done these things, but they are not counted against us, and heaven is not closed to us. How come? Because the Holy Spirit has rescued us from “the works of the flesh.” He did this by opening our eyes through the Law to see ourselves as we really are—separated from God, unable to please Him, full of darkness. He moved us to repent of our sins, to set them before God and beg for His mercy.
Then the Holy Spirit shined the light of Jesus’ forgiveness into our darkened hearts. He washed us clean with the holy blood of Jesus. He covered us in the perfect robes of Jesus’ righteousness. He did all these things for us in a simple ceremony involving water and the Word—Holy Baptism.
At your Baptism, you were rescued from the works of your flesh. Your sin was washed out of you at those waters, and you were filled with holiness. Everything Jesus did for you through His holy life, His atoning death, and His resurrection was applied to you, so you became what you were not before. You became a new creation of God (2Co. 5:17). Paul points to the effect of your Baptism with the words, “And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”
That was done to the sinful “passions and desires” of your flesh at your Baptism, and that’s what must continue to be done. Our sinful passions and desires must be crucified, destroyed. If they are not resisted and repented of, then we are saying that Christ was crucified for nothing, or that other bad people might have needed to be saved but not me.
We have an example of the temptation to get complacent, to forget who our Savior is, in the Holy Gospel for today (Luk. 17:11-19). Ten lepers cried out to Jesus from a distance, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” It sounds like they all had faith; they all believed Jesus could help them. But as soon as they received what they begged for, nine of them went on their way with hardly a look back. Only one “when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice.” Only one showed his faith by his actions.
When you were baptized, you were cleansed by the Holy Spirit of something worse than leprosy—you were cleansed of your sins and rescued from eternal torment in hell. Jesus suffered and died to do this for you, and the Holy Spirit applied His atoning work to you. So you know what He cleansed you from, but what did He cleanse you for? You would be correct if you said, “He cleansed me for salvation and for eternal life in heaven with Him.” But He also cleansed you to do holy works of service in praise and thanks to God while you are here.
Paul urges us in today’s reading, “walk by the Spirit.” Walking by the Spirit means trying to live a pure life in an impure world. It means trusting God to provide all that you need for your body and life. It means helping, encouraging, and serving the people around you. This is not about following God’s Law so that He will reward you for your good behavior. It means falling at Jesus’ feet with thankfulness like the Samaritan who was cleansed and dedicating all your hours, all your energy, and all your abilities to His service.
If you feel like this is nothing more than a “have to,” you will go about it with as much enthusiasm and gladness as a pouting child taking a bath. But if this is a “get to” or a “want to,” you will give thanks for every task, every opportunity, even every trial that the Lord sets before you. Then you will be tasting and distributing “the fruit of the Spirit.” That fruit is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”
What do you notice about that list? It is not self-serving like the works of the flesh, and it does no harm to others. It serves for mutual good. It blesses you and those around you. These works of the Spirit are what you were created, redeemed, and called to faith to do. Delivering this good fruit is your purpose as a Christian in this world, and it is your privilege.
But as clear as this is, and as much as we want to display these fruits in our words and actions, we have to admit that it isn’t all joy with us, it isn’t all peace and patience and kindness, it isn’t all faithfulness and self-control. Paul acknowledged this struggle. He wrote: “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.”
This is a life-long struggle, so it is a daily struggle. When it is no longer a daily struggle, when it is just a once-a-week-on-Sunday-struggle, or an every-now-and-then-struggle, then we are in trouble. By how should we stay diligent about this? How can we keep our focus? This is done day after day by remembering and returning to our Baptism.
The Catechism teaches us how to do this: “Such baptizing with water means that the old Adam in us should, by daily contrition and repentance, be drowned and die with all sins and evil lusts; and that a new man daily come forth and arise, who shall live before God in righteousness and purity forever.”
So every day, we drown the old Adam, our sinful nature, with its passions and desires. We acknowledge our sins with sorrow and repent of them. And every day, we put our confidence and trust in Jesus who died for our sins and credits us with His righteousness. We dedicate ourselves to walking by the Spirit, to honoring and thanking Jesus by everything we do, and to showing love to the people that God puts in our path.
The Holy Spirit gives us the godly desire to do these things. As our reading makes clear, He does not just walk beside us as though we are equal partners in righteousness. He leads us. He leads us through the Word. When the holy Word of God is preached, studied, or called to mind, the Holy Spirit is powerfully at work to increase our faith and the fruit that comes from it.
He has cleansed us, so that we no longer show off the filth of our flesh or carry the stench of sin. Now we pursue a humble life of service and give off the sweet-smelling aroma of salvation which Jesus won for us by His grace. This is what the Holy Spirit has cleansed us to be and do—to be holy children of God who produce the good fruit of righteousness in thankfulness to Him.
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 at Redeemer Lutheran Church)
The Sixth Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Deuteronomy 6:4-15
In Christ Jesus, through whose saving work we have been united with the one true God, dear fellow redeemed:
At various times during His public work, Jesus spoke this phrase: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” That phrase should make our ears perk up. We should be asking the question: what does Jesus want me to learn and keep in mind? In our reading for today, Moses begins with the same message: “Hear, O Israel.” What should they hear? What should they pay attention to and remember? They should hear this: “The LORD our God, the LORD is one.” And then, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”
First of all, “The LORD our God, the LORD is one.” We worship one God, the God called Yahweh—I AM—, the name He told Moses to say to the people of Israel. This God is uncreated, infinite, eternal. He is omnipotent (almighty), omniscient (all-knowing), and omnipresent. This one LORD and God is the only God. There are other made-up gods, other make-believe gods, but there are no other true gods.
This is why Moses warned the people, “You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you.” There were plenty of false gods in Old Testament times, just as there are plenty of false gods today. Humankind has been creating its own gods ever since the fall into sin. In Romans 1, St. Paul writes that fallen mankind “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things…. [They] worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (vv. 23, 25).
The devil and the demons tempt us to do this. These demons are not gods, but they are more powerful than we are. They try to trick us into thinking there are other gods, and that those gods can help us. So some people think “the gods” send them special messages through their dreams, through the stars, through tarot cards or ouija boards, or through certain individuals who claim they can connect with these powers.
Even we Christians who have been chosen by God as His own dear children can be taken in by these things. Maybe we want to find a supernatural way to punish those who have hurt us. We want to connect with the spirits of the dead. We want to know what will happen in our future. We want answers to deep questions or concerns or ways to find out other people’s secrets. The devil is only too willing to encourage this thinking which leads us away from God and His promises.
And if the devil does not succeed in turning us toward other gods, he tries another tactic. He seeks to confuse us about the true God. We are taught in the Bible that God is triune—one God in three Persons. That means God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit have always existed and always will exist—three Persons of the same essence and power. As one God, the three Persons work in perfect unity. The Son is eternally begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.
It is wrong to think of the Triune God in a hierarchical way, as though the Father were the most powerful, followed by the Son, and then the Holy Spirit. Or that the Son of God did not fully exist until creation or until He took on flesh in Mary’s womb. Or that the Holy Spirit is a motion or a force but not really a Person of God. In recent times, we hear people changing the terms for God by teaching that the Holy Spirit is feminine, or that God is not “Father” but “Mother.”
These attacks on God’s unchanging truth will keep happening until the end of time. But we must not be taken in by them. Our fear, love, and trust should be in the LORD our God only. That is the second thing Moses wanted Israel to hear: “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” There is no part of you that should love anything besides God. All your heart should be committed to Him. All your soul should be bound to Him. All your might—every ounce of your power and the force of your will—should be applied to His truth and His service.
But if we are supposed to love God with every part of ourselves, how can we also love our neighbors, including our parents or siblings or spouse or children? Wouldn’t that divide our love? Well God doesn’t tell us to love our neighbors instead of Him. We show love for our neighbors because of our love for God. And He counts the love we show to others as love shown to Him (Mat. 25:40).
We wouldn’t know anything about love if we did not first learn it from God. Love did not begin in the world. It came from outside the world to us. It came from God. The apostle John writes, “for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God…. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him” (1Jo. 4:7,9).
God the Father showed His love for sinners by sending His only-begotten Son to save us. The Son of God became one with us by taking on our flesh. He was “incarnate,” He was made man (Nicene Creed). He did this, so that He could live the life of perfect love on our behalf that God requires of us.
You might think this was easy for Him, since He is God. But Jesus in His state of humiliation did not make full use of His divine powers. He was able to feel weakness and pain. The author to the Hebrews writes that Jesus can certainly sympathize with us, because He “in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (4:15). His righteousness far exceeded that of the scribes and Pharisees (Mat. 5:20). He fulfilled every tiny detail of God’s holy law (Mat. 5:18), so that perfect life of love could be credited to us.
And so it is! You and I have not perfectly used our ears in hearing and learning the Word of God. We have not perfectly honored the true God and loved Him with all our heart, soul, and might. But Jesus perfectly kept the Scriptures and obeyed His Father’s will in our place. He dedicated every part of Himself in love for us sinners. He did nothing out of selfishness and everything for our salvation, including sacrificing Himself on the cross as the payment for all sin.
This victory over sin and death is yours. You don’t have to earn it by being good enough or by proving your love for God and neighbor. It is yours as a gift from God through His Word. For many of you, perhaps all of you, this gift first came to you through the water and the Word of Holy Baptism, “through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit” (Ti. 3:5). At the baptismal font, you were baptized in the name of the Triune God—“in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mat. 28:19).
Through Baptism, the one holy God caused you to be united with Him. Baptism made you a member of the body of Christ. All that is His—His perfect love toward God and neighbor, His perfect life of righteousness—belongs to you and covers over you, so that God does not see your sin or count it against you anymore. St. Paul writes that you who have been baptized into Christ “must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:11).
You live in God and for God. You are one with Him. Jesus prayed for this to His Father, and the Father heard His prayer, just as He hears every prayer in the name of His Son. Jesus said, “The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me” (Joh. 17:22-23). The one true God—the Triune God—loves you. He gives you every good gift from above (Jam. 1:17). No other god can do this for you, because there are no other gods.
So we gladly hear and learn the Word of the true God. We teach it diligently to our children. We talk about it in our homes and while we are out and about (including at camp). We meditate on the Word from morning to evening. We commit it to our memory, we wear it on our clothes, and we put it on our walls. There is nothing better than God’s gracious, life-giving Word. “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from “Jesus in Prison” by James Tissot, 1836-1902)