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)
The Festival of Our Lord’s Ascension – Vicar Lehne exordium & sermon
Festival exordium:
“It is finished.” These are the words that Jesus spoke on the cross after he had completed everything that was necessary to save us from our sins. But just because Jesus’ work to save us was finished didn’t mean that he was done with us. There is still so much that he does for us from the position of authority that he has in heaven. He ascended to the right hand of his Father in order to be our Prophet, High Priest, and King. As our Prophet, Jesus sends out believers to spread the good news about what he has done for us and works through the good news of Scripture to bring the unbelieving world to faith. As our High Priest, Jesus intercedes for us on our behalf to the Father. And as our King, Jesus rules over not just heaven, which is his kingdom of glory, and earth, which is his kingdom of power, but also over his Holy Church, which is his kingdom of grace.
This is what Jesus ascended on high to do for you. He was seated at the right hand of the Father in glory in order to share the finished work of redemption with you. He is not done with you. He continues to give you these gifts. As your Prophet, he tells you the good news that he has finished the work to save you. As your High Priest, he reminds the Father of his sacrifice that he made on your behalf, and the Father sees your sins no more. And as your King, he rules over all things for your good so that you can be safely led by him to heaven to be with him forever. For these wonderful gifts, we praise and glorify his name by rising to sing “O Wondrous Conqueror and Great,” as it is printed in your service folders.
O wondrous Conqueror and great,
Scorned by the world You did create,
Your work is all completed!
Your toilsome course is at an end;
You to the Father do ascend,
In royal glory seated,
Lowly,
Holy,
Now victorious,
High and glorious:
Earth and heaven
To Your rule, O Christ, are given.
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Sermon text: Acts 1:1-11
In Christ Jesus, who did not leave us but continues to be with us always, dear fellow redeemed:
The disciples didn’t want Jesus to leave them. They had spent three years of their lives following Jesus and getting to know him well. During that time, they heard his words and saw his miraculous power. Because of these things that they saw and heard, they were hoping that Jesus would use his power to establish a kingdom on earth. But then, Jesus “began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised” (Matthew 16:21). This was not what the disciples wanted. Peter even “took [Jesus] aside and began to rebuke him, saying, ‘Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you’” (Matthew 16:22). But, even though it wasn’t what the disciples wanted, Jesus did suffer and die, just as he said he would, and his disciples were left alone and afraid.
Thankfully, that wasn’t the end. Jesus had also told his disciples that he would rise again on the third day, and that’s just what he did. When the disciples heard that he had risen, they didn’t believe it at first, but when Jesus appeared before them, they could no longer deny it. Jesus had risen, just as he said! He hadn’t left them after all. Now, the disciples were sure that Jesus would establish a kingdom on earth, and they would get to be with him as he ruled. But that’s not what happened. Instead, Jesus told them to “[g]o into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation” (Mark 16:15). As they did, they were to baptize all nations “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit [and teach] them to observe all that [Jesus had] commanded [them]” (Matthew 28:19–20). Then, after telling them this, Jesus was taken up into the sky before their very eyes, until he was hidden from their sight by a cloud. Jesus had just told his disciples, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20), but now, the disciples appeared to be alone once again, this time for good.
Do we ever feel like Jesus has left us? While we would certainly love to say that we’ve never felt this way, all we have to do is look at the sinful world around us, and it becomes extremely difficult not to feel alone. Sinful lifestyles that we know are wrong are regularly practiced and encouraged by those around us. Even though the world claims to be a tolerant one, it seems to be tolerant of everything except Christianity, making it harder and harder for us to live as Christians. Like the disciples, we want Jesus to be visible and establish a kingdom on earth that is free from trouble, but we look around for him and can’t seem to find him anywhere. During times like these, it can be very easy for us to say, “Jesus, where are you? Why have you left us all alone?”
But Jesus has not left us all alone, just as he hadn’t left his disciples alone. As our gospel reading for today says, “[the disciples] went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs” (Mark 16:20). Jesus wasn’t visibly with his disciples, but he was still with them. He was with his disciples as they carried out the mission he had given them by preaching the Word and administering the Sacraments. In the same way, Jesus is with us as the Word is preached to us and the Sacraments are administered to us.
When Jesus’ Word is preached to you, or when you read his Word on your own, Jesus is present as he tells you everything that he did to save you from your sins. You were unable to follow God’s command to live a perfect life, but Jesus says through his Word, “I lived a perfect life for you, and that perfect life is now yours.” Your sins needed to be paid for with blood, and Jesus says through his Word, “My blood was shed on the cross for you. I have paid the price for your sins.” There are times when you may fear death, not wanting to leave your loved ones behind, but Jesus says through his Word, “I have risen from the dead, which means that you too will one day rise from the dead when I return in the same way that I was taken up into heaven.” You may wonder if the work to save you has truly been finished, but Jesus says through his Word, “My ascension into heaven is proof that everything that was necessary to save you was completed by me.”
How comforting it is to know that you can see Jesus whenever you want by simply opening up and reading your Bible. And because Jesus is present in his Word, that means that he is also present in the Sacraments, since they get their power from the Word. One of those Sacraments is baptism. When the water was applied in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit at your baptism, all of your sins were washed away. At that moment, Jesus gave you the forgiveness of sins that he won for you by his death on the cross. He clothed you in the white garments of his perfect life, the perfect life that he lived for you. And he sent his Holy Spirit into your heart to create faith, a faith that trusts in him.
So, Jesus is with us in the preaching of his Word and in the waters of baptism, which are connected with his Word, even though we can’t see him, but he isn’t bodily present with us, right? After all, at his ascension, he was bodily taken up into heaven, which means that his body must be stuck in heaven. But this simply isn’t true. Jesus’s body and blood are present in the Sacrament of Holy Communion. Whenever we come to his table to receive the bread and the wine, which have been connected with his Word, we are receiving Jesus’ true body and blood. Even though we can’t see him, Jesus is with us in his meal to personally give us the forgiveness of sins that he won for us with the shedding of his blood.
You may not feel worthy of receiving the forgiveness of sins from Jesus in his supper. When you look at your sins, you are burdened with guilt. You don’t feel like Jesus is with you, and so, you think that he must have left you because your sins are too great to be forgiven. But Jesus didn’t come to save the worthy. He came to save the unworthy. He invites you to join him at his table so that he can freely offer you the forgiveness of sins. He freely forgives your sins not because you deserve it, but because he loves you. And you can leave his table knowing that the forgiveness that he just personally gave to you through his true body and blood was for you.
From his throne in heaven, our ascended Lord works through these means of grace, which he has promised to be present in, for our good, for the good of his church. This may not be how we expect Jesus to work things for our good. Like the disciples, who asked Jesus if he was going to restore the kingdom of Israel, we may want Jesus to give us a heaven on earth. But Jesus didn’t come to establish an earthly kingdom, nor does he rule over all things from his position of authority to make our lives a heaven on earth. He came to give us something far better: a perfect life of endless joy in heaven. The doors to heaven were opened to us when Jesus died on the cross, and then, he ascended into heaven after his resurrection to “prepare a place” for us (John 14:3). Until that time comes when Jesus returns “in the same way as [his disciples] saw him go into heaven” (verse 11), he comes to us in his means of grace, his Word and Sacraments, to prepare us for the day when we will leave this world and enter heaven to be with him forever. We are only strangers here. “Our citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20). And everything that our ascended Lord is doing for us here on earth is preparing us to come home to heaven.
When Jesus was taken up into heaven and hidden from the disciples, they were no longer able to see him. But that didn’t mean that Jesus had left them. He continued to be with them throughout the rest of their earthly lives, and when their time on earth was over, Jesus led them safely to his side in heaven. In the same way, even if you can’t see him or feel him, you know that Jesus is with you, because he gives you the same promise that he gave to his disciples “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). He speaks to you through his Word. He washes you in the waters of baptism. And he personally feeds you at his supper. Your ascended Lord may not be present in the ways that you want him to be, but he is present in the ways that he promised to be and in the ways that you need him to be. Jesus hasn’t left you. He is with you always and will continue to be with you throughout your life, until he takes you up into heaven to be with him forever.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from painting by John Singleton Copley, 1775)
The Festival of the Resurrection of Our Lord – Pr. Faugstad exordium & sermon
Festival exordium:
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! That was not the disciples’ reaction on Easter Sunday. “Christ is risen!” said the angel (Mar. 16:6). “Christ is risen!” said the women (Luk. 24:9). “Christ is risen!” said the Emmaus disciples (Mar. 16:13; Luk. 24:34). But this shocking message, this wonderful news, was met with questions and doubt. “Is Christ risen?” they wondered. “We won’t believe it until we see it with our own eyes.”
We know the truth that Jesus certainly died and certainly rose again on the third day. We know it, because the disciples did see Jesus after His resurrection, and they reported exactly what they saw and heard from Him. His resurrection is a fact. Christ is risen indeed!
But where our doubt comes in is here: “Is Christ risen for me? How can I be sure? How can I know that when I die, I will rise again? Or that my loved ones will rise again?” We can understand the disciples’ doubts—when had anyone ever risen from the dead? Our doubts seem reasonable too—when have we ever seen someone rise from the dead? But experience only goes so far.
The two disciples walking on the road to Emmaus on Easter afternoon were experiencing sadness. Jesus joined them on the road, but they didn’t know it was Him. They told Him everything they had witnessed and heard over the last few days, including the report of Jesus’ resurrection.
And Jesus said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” (Luk. 24:25-26). Then what did He do? “[B]eginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (v. 27).
We may not have seen anyone rise from the dead. But we do have the Scriptures, God’s own Word. Jesus’ life and works match perfectly with all the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah. And everything that He told His disciples would happen during Holy Week, including His resurrection on the third day, did happen exactly as He predicted.
So we do not need to doubt His promise to return on the last day to raise up the dead, or His promise that He has gone to prepare a place for all believers in heaven, or His promise to be present with us now through His Word and Sacraments to strengthen our faith. His resurrection verifies that what He promises, He does.
We rejoice in these promises by rising to sing 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: 1 Corinthians 5:6-8
In Christ Jesus, through whom you are a new creation, a new lump, filled no longer with the leaven of sin, but with the sincerity and truth that come from Him alone, dear fellow redeemed:
God sent nine terrible plagues on Egypt, but still Pharaoh would not let the enslaved people of Israel go into the wilderness to offer sacrifices to the LORD. God promised to send one more plague, after which Pharaoh would let the people go. In preparation for this plague, the LORD instructed each Israelite household to take a male lamb without blemish and kill it at twilight. Then they were to put the blood of the lamb on their doorposts and eat the flesh of the lamb roasted over fire.
They were also instructed to eat unleavened bread. All leaven had to be removed from their houses, and they would eat unleavened bread for seven days. The penalty for eating leavened bread during this time was severe. The LORD said, “if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel” (Exo. 12:15). He repeated the same warning a few verses later that anyone who disobeyed “will be cut off from the congregation of Israel” (v. 19).
In today’s Epistle lesson, the apostle Paul draws on this account of the Passover. He tells the Christian congregation in Corinth to “cleanse out the old leaven.” But he is not talking about their bread. He is talking about the congregation. The Christians there were puffed up. They were boasting, puffed up with pride, and they were not boasting about what their Savior Jesus had done for them. They were boasting about their open-mindedness and their willingness to tolerate what was clearly sinful. In this case, they were boasting about a clear violation of the Sixth Commandment—one of the members of the congregation living in open sin.
This is the kind of approach that is cheered by our culture today. The churches that are willing to compromise the Word of God, change their teachings with the times, and stop calling out sin are praised. These churches probably don’t say much about the Ten Commandments anymore, or they might explain them in such a way that no one in the congregation is really challenged or convicted by them. “Oh, the Ten Commandments are for the bad people,” they say, “and for the people who just want to judge others. But we are doing just fine.”
Paul writes, “Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?” Then he tells us what that leaven is, it is “the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil.” It is the sin that characterized us before we became unleavened, before we were born again in Christ through Holy Baptism. It is the sin that Jesus died to free us from, we who were formerly enslaved to sin and death.
We are freed from this sin, because “Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed.” Here, God’s stunning plan of salvation becomes clear, a plan that was illustrated by the Passover lamb. Right after Jesus’ public revealing as the Messiah at His Baptism, John pointed to Him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (Joh. 1:29). He could take the world’s sin, because He had no sin of His own to carry. He was “a lamb without blemish or spot” (1Pe. 1:19).
The blood of this spotless Lamb was poured out for you on Good Friday just before the Passover was celebrated in Jerusalem. This holy blood cleanses you from all sin (1Jo. 1:7). We just sang a verse about this in Martin Luther’s great Easter hymn: “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 [the door of our heart!]; / Faith points to it [to His blood], death passes o’er, / And Satan cannot harm us. / Alleluia!” (Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary #343, v. 5).
Jesus’ resurrection on the third day is the irrefutable proof that all sin was atoned for by His sacrifice. Now is the time to “celebrate the festival,” writes Paul. Now is the time to celebrate the Lamb’s victory. Now is the time to celebrate the forgiveness of sins. Now is the time to celebrate the eternal life that is ours because Jesus rose triumphant over death.
But how are we to “celebrate the festival”? Today’s reading says, “not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil”—not by returning to the sin that Jesus has freed us from, not by confirming others in their sin and boasting about how charitable and accommodating we are of them. Remember that the Israelites were told to get rid of every trace of leaven from their homes. In the same way, we are called to get rid of every trace of sin in our own hearts and to recognize that our sins not only affect us—they affect the congregation to which we belong and the whole body of Christ. “A little leaven” in just one area of a batch of dough “leavens the whole lump.”
The way we “cleanse out the old leaven,” both individually and as a congregation is through repentance. We own up to our weaknesses. We admit our sinful actions, words, and thoughts that we have tried to justify or pass off as being “not so bad.” We even pry the lid off old sins that we have done our best to cover up but that continue to trouble our conscience.
We repent of our sins, because they have already been paid for. Jesus carried them to the cross, and when He came out of the tomb, our sins were left buried for now and forever. The payment of His death and the triumph of His resurrection are applied to us in Holy Baptism. Romans 6 tells us that just as Jesus was raised from the dead, so through Baptism “we too might walk in newness of life” (v. 4). “We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him” (v. 9). Because that is true for Jesus, “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (v. 11). His victory over sin and death is your victory.
You are not dead in your sins; you are alive in Jesus. You are no longer a slave to sin; you are free from it. You are free from the “leaven of malice and evil” that used to permeate you and rule you. You are free to “celebrate the festival” of Jesus’ victory “with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”
Paul explained more in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians what this “sincerity” means. He wrote, “we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God” (2Co. 1:12). And again, “we are not like many, peddling the word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God (2:17, NASB).
“[T]he unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” is the faithful confession of God’s Word, no matter what cultural winds are blowing, and no matter what pressure is applied against the church. We have nothing to be ashamed of before God, when we believe and teach the Word of God with “sincerity and truth.”
But what if you haven’t spoken His Word faithfully, but instead compromised what He says? Or what if you haven’t done such a good job of “[cleansing] out the old leaven,” so that you are often still puffed up with sin and pride, or you are full of bitterness or anger toward others? Then repent of these sins and listen to these words: “Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed” for you. God the Father sent His Son to atone for all your sins.
And He has called me to proclaim it to you. I can stand here today and tell you with no hesitation that your sins are forgiven, because Jesus won your freedom from them through His death and resurrection. Because He lives, you will live also (Joh. 14:19). That is what He promises all people who put their trust in Him. They are no longer full of “the old leaven,” they “really are unleavened.”
“You Really Are Unleavened.” That is how you are in Jesus. You are baptized into Him. You trust in Him. You know that He will return again on the last day to raise up and glorify you and all believers. He really has risen! He has risen for you, indeed! Alleluia!
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture of Easter morning sunrise taken by Redeemer member, 3/31/24)
Midweek Lent 5 – Pr. Abraham Faugstad homily
Texts: Genesis 3:7,21, St. John 19:23-24
In Christ, who for our sakes was stripped in shame that we might be clothed with the garments of salvation, dear fellow redeemed.
Why do we wear clothes? While we might be inclined to attribute clothing to modest Norwegian sensibilities, we know that isn’t quite true. People all around the world wear clothes. Clothing does not just have to do with the climate either. In both hot and cold climates people wear clothes. It’s rather interesting that humans are the only creatures in the world that wear clothes. So why do we wear clothes?
To understand why we wear clothes we have to go all the way back to the garden of Eden. The serpent tempted Eve by saying that by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they would become like God. Adam and Eve saw that the forbidden fruit was pleasant to the eyes, and they ate. They thought that they knew what was better for them than God did. As a result, they brought sin, death, and destruction to the entire human race. As soon as they sinned, Scripture tells us that their eyes were opened, “and they knew that they were naked” (Genesis 3:7).
Immediately, they felt their shame and nakedness. They were now afraid of God. They knew they had no right to stand in the presence of a holy and just God. They tried to hide themselves among the trees of the Garden and they made themselves loincloths of leaves to cover their sinfulness. Humanity made the first clothes to try to cover their sin. Every suit of clothes, every clothing store, and every clothing display is a witness of the fall into sin.
Adam and Eve clothed themselves with leaves to cover their shame. Yet, we know what happens when leaves are plucked. They dry up and break into pieces rather quickly. How silly it must have looked for our first parents to attempt to cover themselves up with something that clearly would not last.
But isn’t this what we all try to do? We don’t want others to see our sin, so we try to cover it up. Some try to cover and clothe themselves by blaming others. It’s as old as Adam who blamed Eve and she who in turn blamed the serpent. We see this in our own lives. It’s easy for us to blame our problems or actions on someone else rather than taking personal responsibility.
Yet, perhaps the main way people try to cover up their sin today is through human work righteousness. Our consciences accuse us for what we have done wrong, so people try to make up for it by doing good things. People think God is keeping records of our rights and wrongs, and as long as our rights outweigh the wrongs, we are alright. Ask the average person how he expects to have peace with God in the afterlife and the usual answers you will get is, “I’ve tried to live a good life so I think God will accept me and take me into heaven.”
No matter how we try to cover ourselves and our sin, they are all feeble and foolish attempts. All the leaves of our own righteousness dry up as Adam and Eve’s did before God’s demand, “Be perfect as I the Lord your God am perfect” (Matthew 5:48). God isn’t impressed by our best efforts or good intentions—he demands perfect holiness. When we look at our own lives, we see that we have never perfectly kept God’s Law—our heart is filled with hatred, lust, jealousy, and greed. Scripture tells us that even our righteous works are like filthy rags in the sight of God, which cannot save us (Isaiah 64:6).
God knew that Adam and Eve’s leaf clothing would never work. The leaves would crumble and dry up. Therefore, the Lord made for Adam and Eve tunics of animal skin and clothed them. We could never stand before God with our own man-made clothing; only God can provide the proper clothing for man.
“And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.” By the shedding of blood and death, the Lord covered Adam and Eve. From this we see two important things—first, God must cover us. God provides the proper clothing. We can’t cover our sins and shame. Second, it required sacrifice and death so that God could cover our sins. The covering of sins is pictured in all the Old Testament sacrifices which pointed to the once and for all sacrifice and covering on the cross.
The clothing of Adam and Eve reminded them of the danger of sinning, to repent continually, and to put their hope of forgiveness and life in the promised Seed of the woman. They looked with hope to the one who would crush Satan’s head and free us by the bondage of sin and provide the covering needed to stand before God. The One born of the virgin called Emmanuel, God with us.
Our Lord Jesus provided a garment for us, which alone is pleasing to God, by offering up his life in our place. The Son of God became man, leaving his glory and majesty on high to come to our rescue. Jesus was the only righteous person to ever live, but he humbled himself, by taking on our shame. Ever since God first clothed Adam and Eve, it has been shameful to be disrobed in public. Our dear Lord Jesus was stripped in shame so that we would never have to be.
When we see Jesus mocked, beaten, and stripped in shame, we can feel a sense of anger and sadness over his mistreatment. Yet, we must realize that Jesus was not just there because of Pontius Pilate or the soldiers who mocked and stripped him. Jesus was there because of you. We deserve to be punished, publicly shamed, and abandoned by God. But here Jesus stood in the place of sinners—of Adam and Eve, Abraham and Isaac, and you and me.
“He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed… the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:5–6). God kept his promise. Jesus fulfilled what the Scriptures foretold, even to the most minute detail of the soldiers dividing his garments and casting lots for his tunic, all to assure you that your sin and shame have been covered by his blood. Jesus offered himself up so that we might be holy and righteous before God. “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:19).
Scripture writes, “For He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness” (Isaiah 61:10). Your robe has been made white through the blood of the Lamb. The righteousness of Jesus, God’s own Son, is the only covering that can clothe the nakedness of the sinner. Because of Jesus, God no longer sees your sins—his holiness is counted as your own.
Paul explains how God has clothed you with the beautiful garment of Christ personally, “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:26–27). By faith in Jesus, worked in us and promised to us in the waters of holy Baptism, we are clothed with the garment of Christ. Clothes fit for heaven itself!
Our sinful flesh will always try to cover our sin with man-made coverings, but these cannot save us and will leave us in shame on judgement day. Why do we wear clothes? They remind us of the fall into sin and serve as a reminder of our own sinfulness and need to be covered before God. At the same time your clothes are an assurance of your salvation. You have been covered by God with the garment of forgiveness obtained by Jesus’ blood shed on the cross. Your sins are forgiven. There will be no shame for those who are clothed with Christ’s righteousness, but eternal joy and peace. God grant us faith to hold dear to this priceless clothing freely given to us,
Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness,
My beauty are, my glorious dress;
’Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,
With joy shall I lift up my head. Amen.
ELH 432:1
(picture from “Cristo Crucificado” by Diego Velázquez, 1632)
The Baptism of Our Lord – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: 1 Peter 3:18-22
In Christ Jesus, who was baptized into our sin, so we would be baptized into His righteousness, dear fellow redeemed:
The ark that Noah built was a very big boat! It was longer than a football field and about as tall as football goalposts from the ground to the tip of the posts. (If you have visited the “Ark Encounter” in Kentucky, you have gotten a sense at how big the ark probably was.) It was large enough to hold Noah and his family, two of every kind of animal, and the food and provisions they needed for the time they spent on the ark, which totaled about a year.
When the waters began to recede after completely covering the whole earth, Genesis 8 says that “the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat” (v. 4). Where exactly that is has been the focus of a good deal of research and a lot of expeditions that have failed to produce any evidence of the ark. As neat as it would be to find a big boat buried in the ice on top of some mountain, I think it would be better if Noah’s ark is never found. Why? Mainly for these two reasons: First, we don’t need physical evidence of the ark to prove that what the Bible says is true. And second, people would be tempted to view the ark as a sacred relic that possessed some kind of holy power.
This has happened all through human history. Churches around the world have tiny bones of the apostles and famous saints on display, which supposedly give spiritual benefits to those who visit them. Many places display pieces of Jesus’ cross (so many pieces said Luther in his day, that they could build a church with them!). Even in Old Testament times, the godly king Hezekiah destroyed the bronze serpent that Moses had made at God’s command some seven hundred years earlier, because the Israelites were worshiping it (2Ki. 18:4).
The ark that God told Noah to build served its purpose. It brought His chosen people safely through water. Our churches have a sort of connection to the ark. The main part of the church where all of you sit is called the “nave.” It comes from the Latin word navis, which means “ship.” The Youth Convention theme some years back was semper in navi—“always in the ship.”
You are brought into the ship of the Church through water. You became a member of the holy Christian Church through the water and Word of Holy Baptism. This is what today’s reading from St. Peter’s First Epistle describes. By inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he ties together the salvation of Noah’s family through water, with your salvation through water.
Where you were baptized is not the most important thing, just as where the ark is now is not important. You can imagine how a family could attach too much importance to a church building or to a particular font, where parents and grandparents and great-grandparents were baptized, so that those things become more important than the power and promises of God through His Word.
It is not where you were baptized that is so important, but how you were baptized. If you were baptized with water “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mat. 28:19), you received all the magnificent gifts of God in Christ. What gifts are those? Today’s reading says that Baptism is not “a removal of dirt from the body.” It is not about outward cleansing. You know as well as I do how quickly children get dirty again after they have been washed.
We can see the physical part of Baptism—the application of water. But we can’t see the spiritual part, which is “an appeal to God for a good conscience.” That is an interesting description of what Baptism does. Jesus instituted Baptism as an appeal for God the Father to give the baptized what Jesus won. This is something like a super rich person sharing his bank account information and telling you to go ahead and take it all!
Baptism gives you the goods—the best goods. It is an appeal for God to cleanse your guilty conscience and give you a good conscience. But why should He do that for you? Today’s reading says why: “Baptism… now saves you… as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” We make the claim that Baptism saves, and we have confidence that Baptism saves, because Jesus rose from the dead.
First, He “suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God.” He had to exchange His righteous life for our sinful lives and die in our place to pay for those sins. Without the shedding of His holy blood to atone for our sins, we would still have to answer for them. We would have to answer for every unholy thought, every mean word, every un-Christian action. But He did shed His blood to reconcile us with God.
God the Father showed that His Son’s sacrifice was sufficient for us by raising Him from the dead. Jesus came back to life on the third day, and before anything else, He descended into hell. He did not go there to suffer. His suffering was already complete, as He said on the cross, “It is finished.” Today’s reading says that “He went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison” who “formerly did not obey.” Some have speculated that Jesus went to free the spirits from hell. But that would be inconsistent with the rest of the Bible, which says that there is no escape, no coming back, for the souls in hell.
About as much as we can say is that Jesus descended into hell to proclaim His victory over sin, devil, and death. Those “spirits in prison” now knew exactly who and what it was they had rejected, “when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared.” They ignored Noah’s preaching. They laughed at Noah’s ark. And they were all consumed by the waters of the flood and condemned to everlasting torment.
After His descent into hell, Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to many of His disciples. In one of those meetings, He told them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Mat. 28:18-20a). Jesus was using His authority as the Conqueror of sin and death to send out His disciples to distribute His gifts.
Jesus still has that authority, and He still calls servants in the Church to distribute His gifts. Where His Word is purely preached and His Sacraments are rightly administered, Jesus promises to be present with His grace. He told those first disciples, and all the Church who would follow them, “behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (v. 20b).
Jesus is here now, right here, today. He is here to bless you and comfort you with His gifts. Are you worthy of His presence? Are you worthy to have Him come to you? If your thought is “yes,” because you have been pretty good, that is pride. The proud have no need for a Savior, because they think they are fine on their own.
If your thought is “no, I am not worthy,” that could lead to despair. You might think about the harsh words you said to the people closest to you, the harm you have done to them. You might think of the bad choices you made, the things you have done in secret that burn your conscience, things you wish you could take back. You might think of how selfish you have been, how weak in faith, how you have ignored the needs of your neighbor.
In that state of mind, you might forget something very important, which is that you are baptized! As unworthy as you may feel, and as much as you have fallen short of the glory of God, He chose you. He sent His only Son for you. When He looks at you, all He can see is the righteousness of His Son that covers you. He sees the blood of His Son that cleansed you of all sin.
These gifts were poured over you at your Baptism, and they remain yours by faith in Jesus. You stay in your Baptism by repenting of your sins, even the ones you are stuck in, day after day. You hand your sins over to the Father and cry, “Forgive me, Lord! I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mar. 9:24). And He does forgive you, every day. As He said to His Son on His Baptism day, so He says to you today, “You are My beloved Son, with you I am well pleased” (Mar. 1:11).
Like the flood that washed away the wicked and lifted Noah and his family to safety, your Baptism has done that for you—washed away your sin and brought you salvation from God. The hymn the children just sang says it so well, “Sins, disturb my soul no longer; / I am baptized into Christ. / I have comfort even stronger: / Jesus’ cleansing sacrifice. / Should a guilty conscience seize me / Since my Baptism did release me / In a dear forgiving flood, / Sprinkling me with Jesus’ blood?” (Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary 246, v. 2).
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 Saude Lutheran Church)
The Second Sunday after the Epiphany – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Romans 12:6-16
In Christ Jesus, from whom all blessings flow to His holy bride, the Church of all believers, dear fellow redeemed:
I was surprised to learn that there are twelve couples in our parish who will celebrate fifty or more years of marriage this year. Thanks be to God for this! It is an example and an encouragement to the rest of us, as we live in a culture that places less and less value on marriage. I wish I had compiled these anniversary lists sooner, since there would have been more couples to recognize in years past.
When married couples reach their seventieth or seventy-fifth anniversary, that seems to be high enough for an article in the local newspaper. And the question is always asked, “How did you make it work for this long?” Or, “What advice do you have for other married couples?” The advice is often something like: “Never go to bed angry.” “Communicate with one another.” “Compliment each other every day.” And that is all good advice.
The couples among us who have been married a long time would agree that marriage takes work—and sometimes very hard work. But I think they would also acknowledge that it wasn’t so much their “being good at marriage” that got them through. It was the grace of God covering over their faults and forgiving their sins that brought them to this point.
This is what we emphasize at our marriage ceremonies, an emphasis that you won’t hear in many other places. We keep the focus on Jesus, and the love He has for us. For many others, the focus is only on the love the married couple has for one another. In some cases this mutual love is treated as the foundation of the marriage, and the vows are accordingly changed from “until death parts us,” to “as long as we both love each other.” That’s a problem, because the love one might have for another is not a constant. It is changeable, and it often does change in a marriage.
The Epistle lesson before us today is not specifically a marriage reading. It is instruction and encouragement to be who we already are in Christ. The reason we need the instruction is because sin clings to us, and we continue to think, say, and do things that are not right. We need to be taught what is right before God. We need to learn how He wants us to be as His people.
Marriage and family are wonderful ways to put these teachings into practice. What marriage wouldn’t benefit from outdoing “one another in showing honor,” or being “patient in tribulation,” or never being “wise in your own sight”? And think of how peaceful a home would be where siblings “love one another with brotherly affection,” where they “live in harmony with one another,” where none are “haughty, but associate with the lowly.”
The home is the testing place to see whether we will succeed outside the home. If a child does not respect his parents, what other authority will he respect? If siblings do not learn to get along, who else will they get along with? If Mom and Dad don’t model love and sacrifice in their marriage, how likely will their children learn these things for future relationships outside the home? So much depends on the home!
But the home is not perfect—no home is. I expect there is much you are thankful for about the home you grew up in, especially if it was a Christian home. But you also remember hard times, arguments, fights, impatience, anger. And you probably weren’t an innocent bystander in all of that. You remember the part you played in that discord. You remember your sins.
The home Jesus grew up in was no different. Probably Joseph and Mary worried about money like most couples do. I’m sure their tempers got short. You can imagine how Mary fretted when they lost track of their twelve-year-old Son in Jerusalem. When they finally found Him in the temple, Mary blurted out, “Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress” (Luk. 2:48). We see more worrying from Mary in today’s Holy Gospel when she brought the problem of a wine shortage to Jesus at a wedding they attended.
But one thing was different about the home of Mary and Joseph that made it like no other home. Jesus was different. He actually was an innocent bystander. He did not contribute in any way to the sin of the household. He was perfect. He submitted to the authority of Mary and Joseph (Luk. 2:51). He showed perfect love toward them and the neighbors around Him, and they noticed. The evangelist Luke writes that “Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man” (2:52).
That perfect life was for you, to cover over all your transgressions and unkindnesses toward the people God placed in your life to love. Everything in today’s reading that you fall short of time and again, Jesus fulfilled. He was genuine in His love. He held fast to what was good. He loved and honored all the people around Him. He was not slothful in zeal; He was fervent in spirit; He perfectly served the Lord God. He rejoiced in hope; He was patient in tribulation; He was constant in prayer. He was humble, kind, gracious, and helpful in the best possible ways.
This perfect life that Jesus lived, He freely hands over to you. Like a husband and wife who agree to share everything with each other, Jesus says, “Everything that is Mine is yours.” In fact, marriage is exactly the picture God uses to explain what His Son did for you. But it is not like our marriages, which we enter into by mutual consent as equals. The union between Jesus and His bride the Church was totally by His prerogative, and it was nowhere near balanced like we expect the marriage relationship to be.
Jesus, the perfect Bridegroom, chose for His bride the world of sinners. The only-begotten Son of God, God from all eternity, chose to join Himself to our human flesh and become a Man, so that He could make everything that is ours His, and everything that is His ours. He accepted our pride, our anger, our bitterness, and our self-centeredness. He accepted our unkind words, our manipulative actions, our unfaithfulness, and our lies. He let all of our sins be placed on Himself as though He were the straying spouse, as though all the stains of our wrong-doing belonged on Him.
And in return, He gave us what is His. He gave us His perfect obedience to His Father, His kind actions, His gracious words, His righteous thoughts. He gave us His eternal life, His everlasting peace, His heavenly kingdom. All that He accomplished by His holy life and His sacrificial death on the cross, He poured over us in Baptism (Eph. 5:26).
He joined His life to yours at your Baptism. There He promised to remain faithful to you at all times and in all situations—“for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health; to love and to cherish.” But not until death parts you, because death cannot part you from your Bridegroom who rose in victory over your death and lives forevermore. By faith, you cling to Him. You trust that He will not break His baptismal vow to you no matter what you have to face in your marriage, in your home, or in your life.
Jesus our Bridegroom is perfectly true. Our side of things is the side that is less certain. Like a discontent spouse, sometimes we try to blame Jesus for not doing more for us, for not addressing our wants and needs, for not making us happier. But Jesus hasn’t changed toward us. It is we who change toward Him. It is our love for Him that falters. It is our confidence and trust in Him that are lacking.
When things get bad for us it is because we get this verse backward. Instead of “Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good,” we often abhor what is good and hold fast to what is evil. That’s when we have problems with Jesus. We ignore His powerful Word, while giving way to our own bitter thoughts and sinful actions. We forget His love, while wallowing in self-pity.
But if we are going to “Hold Fast to What Is Good,” there is no other way to do this than to hold fast to Jesus, because it is Jesus who is good, whose mercy endures forever. The word for “holding fast” is the same word that Jesus used when quoting from Genesis 2: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh” (Mat. 19:5). Or if you prefer the old translation, “a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife.”
We “hold fast” to Jesus, we “cleave” to Him, by gladly hearing and learning His Word, and trusting that He is here to bless us through the means of grace He instituted for His Church. We should have no doubts about what His Word can do. If it could turn water into wine and bring gladness to a wedding at Cana long ago, it can change bitterness to love, curses into blessings, and sorrows into joys in our hearts and in our homes.
So whether you are married or single, whether you are looking forward with excitement to unknown joys and challenges, or looking back with sober reflection and contentment, remember that Jesus’ vow toward you has not changed. He joined Himself to you and will never leave you. He is your salvation, your comfort, your strength.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from Redeemer Lutheran Church stained glass)
The First Sunday after Christmas – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Galatians 4:1-7
In Christ Jesus, who paid the price of our redemption, so we might be set free from sin and death, dear fellow redeemed:
On September 22, 1862, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that all slaves in the southern states were freed from slavery effective January 1 of the following year. But the Confederate army did not surrender until April 9, 1865, more than two years later. Even then, slavery persisted in several outlying areas in the south, especially in the state of Texas where the Union army did not have a strong presence.
The order of emancipation was not read and enforced in Texas until June 19, 1865. So even though the freedom of the slaves had been declared two and a half years earlier, the slaves did not gain their freedom until word was brought right to them. To mark the day of their freedom, some former slaves celebrated a “jubilee day” the following year on June 19, a day that is now known as “Juneteenth” and observed as a national holiday.
Long before all these events took place, St. Paul spoke about slavery on a much broader scale. In fact, he referred to all people as slaves. In today’s reading, he said that “when we were children, [we] were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.” These “elementary principles” were the things that agreed with human thinking. For the Jews, this included their extra demands placed on top of God’s Law which were not about words and actions of love but about maintaining outward obedience. For the Gentiles, these “elementary principles” were their methods of operating in the world which often violated the moral Law of God.
Many of the people who heard Paul preach and teach probably laughed when he called them slaves. Many people still laugh at this idea. Unbelieving people in our community and around the world think that freedom consists in establishing their own set of rules, living by their own thoughts and plans, doing whatever they feel like doing. And sometimes believers are tricked by this. Believers may think of themselves as restricted, tied down, by the rules and regulations of “the church,” and they long to experience what it is like to live totally free—to live “totally for me.”
That, writes St. Paul, that is slavery. Because if you decide to follow your heart wherever it leads you—away from responsibility, away from family, away from the needs of your neighbor, away from the Word of God—you will not find the freedom you seek. You may find pleasure for a while like the prodigal son did. But people’s sin and guilt always have a way of catching up with them. So does their mortality. Do you think the rich and famous care much about the wild life they lived when the cold eyes of death are staring them right in the face?
True freedom, the emancipation of ourselves, cannot be found by “doing it my way.” Whatever we try to do, whether trying to live a strict life of discipline or living a reckless life of indulgence, cannot free us from our sin and death and the holy Law of God that condemns us. And since we cannot secure our own freedom, we either have no hope of freedom at all, or another has to secure it for us.
St. Paul has sweet words for us, something we might call “God’s Emancipation Proclamation”: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” Of course there is more to the Proclamation than this, more details that this passage doesn’t cover. But those details are at least summarized by the one word “redeem.”
To “redeem” means to “buy back,” and the one doing the redeeming is the eternal Son of God, whom the Father sent to be “born of woman, born under the law.” He had to be born under the law like we are, so He could redeem us by His perfect life and His innocent suffering and death. It is difficult to imagine a free person willingly taking the place of a slave subject to terrible abuse at the hands of his master. But that is exactly what Jesus did for us.
“[T]hough he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich” (2Co. 8:9). He became poor by “taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phi. 2:7-8). He let Himself be attacked again and again by “the father of lies” (Joh. 8:44), who tried to tempt Him to give up His mission of salvation. He let Himself be falsely accused, repeatedly struck, spit on, whipped, and crowned with thorns by the hands of both the Jews and the Gentiles.
Then nails were pounded through Jesus’ hands and feet, and He was put on display on the cross for all to mock and laugh at Him. This is what the Father sent His Son to do. This is what the Son faithfully did to redeem you. As Paul wrote earlier in Galatians, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.’” Jesus redeemed you—He bought you back—from your sin and death, by shedding His precious blood for you and dying in your place (1Pe. 1:18-19).
That is how your freedom was gained. He won it for you. He entered your slavery, so you would have His freedom. He became poor, so you would be rich. This is true of every single person who is a slave to sin and death. Jesus did not suffer and die only for some. He did it for everyone. John the Baptizer stated it clearly at the beginning of Jesus’ public work: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (Joh. 1:29).
But what if you don’t feel like your sin is taken away? What if you continue to be plagued by the guilt of sinful things you have done? Or what if you are terrified of death, or you carry a heavy burden of sorrow because someone you dearly loved has died, and it feels like you will never see them again?
The slaves in Texas were legally free for a long time, but they didn’t know it. And when word finally reached them of their emancipation, I’m sure there were many who doubted it could be true. All they had known was slavery. They were slaves, as their fathers were before them, and as their fathers were before them.
The same is true in our case. We were born into Adam’s slavery of sin and death, and it seems too good to be true that we could actually be free of it. We keep on sinning, and each day is a day closer to our death. So many wonderful, faithful people have died. Are we really free? How can we be sure? Today’s reading says that the Son of God redeemed us, “so that we might receive adoption as sons.” He purchased us from our slavery, so that we “might be His own” and “live under Him in His kingdom” (Luther’s Explanation to the Second Article).
That purchase agreement was sealed with your name on it when the Holy Spirit worked faith in your heart at your Baptism. Your Baptism is when God officially adopted you as His own. He washed you clean of your sin by water and the Word and transferred you from a state of death to His inheritance of life. When He brought you to faith through the Word, He put you in the position of His Son, because all who believe in Jesus are members of His holy body.
Since you are adopted as God’s son, you stand to inherit everything Jesus obtained in perfect obedience to His Father’s will. God the Father put His stamp of approval on everything Jesus did “by raising him from the dead” (Act. 17:31). That means the holy life Jesus lived perfectly fulfilled God’s Law and cancels out your sinful life. And the payment He made by His death on the cross satisfies the debt you have with God.
So even though you may not feel like you are forgiven and you struggle with guilt, by faith in Jesus you are no longer a slave to sin. He set you free by the price of His blood. And even though you may fear death or grieve the death of a loved one, Jesus assures you, “I am the resurrection and the life…. Because I live, you also will live” (Joh. 11:25, 14:19).
These are promises that we need to hear again and again, just as I’m sure the slaves in Texas wanted to hear the Juneteenth proclamation over and over again. The Word and Sacraments are God’s proclamation of grace toward us sinners. They are the means by which He calms our consciences, comforts our hearts, and strengthens our faith. Through these means, God sends “the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’”
The Spirit’s powerful work in us through the Word is the reason we came to church all through this past year, and the reason we will keep coming in the year ahead. It is no surprise that the Simeon and Anna in today’s Gospel account were led by the Holy Spirit to Jesus in the temple—in church (Luk. 2:25-38).
Here, the Holy Spirit brings us Jesus with all His saving gifts. Here, the Holy Spirit prepares us to share the sweet message of freedom with others who have been freed from their slavery but haven’t heard the good news yet. Here, the Holy Spirit says to each one of us personally, no matter how difficult or stained our past might be: “You Are No Longer a Slave, but a Son.” And since you are a son of God, all that is His is yours.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from “Presentation of Jesus in the Temple” by Rembrandt, 1631)
The Feast of the Holy Nativity of Our Lord – Pr. Faugstad exordium & sermon
Festival exordium:
If you set two Christmas presents next to each other, all wrapped up, and one of them is really big while the other is quite small, which one would a child choose? Which one would any of us choose? The possibilities seem so much greater in something big.
The emphasis at Christmas is often on the big things—a house covered with lights on the outside and filled with decorations on the inside, gifts piled up around the tree, great feasts shared with family and friends, grand gestures of charity. All of these are wonderful things, and all of them are tied to Christmas. But none of these big Christmas things is the main thing.
The main thing appears much smaller, hardly significant, easily missed. To find Christmas, you have to look past the lights and decorations and presents and food, and even past friends and family. You have to look back to a humble place in a little town where a poor man and woman welcomed a tiny Baby into the world.
That Baby, wrapped up in swaddling clothes, surrounded with straw like gift bag tissue paper, and placed in the box of a manger, is the greatest gift that has ever been given. That Baby was a gift from the God who made all things on earth and in heaven. That Baby was a gift for you.
But what could this Baby do for you? If He were just a regular baby, He could do nothing for you. If He were just a regular baby, we certainly wouldn’t be gathered here today. But He was no regular baby.
He appeared so small, and yet He was exceedingly great. He appeared so weak, and yet His power was immeasurable. He appeared so helpless, and yet He was the One who would conquer death itself.
That Baby who looked like nothing special was the Son of God incarnate, the Son of God in the flesh—your flesh. He came to be your Brother, to exchange His perfect life for your sinful one, to exchange His joy for your sorrow, to exchange His life for your death.
He is the greatest gift ever given, and He was given for you. Let us rise and sing our festival hymn, #142:
Rejoice, rejoice this happy morn!
A Savior unto us is born,
The Christ, the Lord of glory.
His lowly birth in Bethlehem
The angels from on high proclaim
And sing redemption’s story.
My soul,
Extol
God’s great favor;
Bless Him ever
For salvation.
Give Him praise and adoration!
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Sermon text: St. Luke 2:1-7
In Christ Jesus, “the founder and perfecter of our faith” (Heb. 12:2), “the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” (Rev. 22:13), dear fellow redeemed:
We hear stories from time to time about people who rose up from difficult circumstances to become very successful. They started with nothing and now have great wealth and power. But that doesn’t change the fact that who they are in their genetic make-up had nothing to do with them. We came from our parents, who came from their parents, who came from their parents, and so on.
In that way, we are all inheritors; we inherit both what is good and what is bad from those who came before us. For the good things we inherit, we see the great privilege and the great responsibility that is handed to us. If a good name has been handed down to us, we want to live up to the name. If wealth has been handed to us, we want to use our inheritance wisely.
At the time of Jesus’ birth, it was especially the firstborn son who felt this privilege and responsibility. He received the greatest portion of the family inheritance. The honor and influence that his ancestors had gained were passed on to him. The firstborn son had a lot to live up to and a lot to lose!
The Holy Gospel for today identifies Jesus as the “firstborn son” of Mary. The original Greek states it even more emphatically, “And she gave birth to her son, the firstborn.” This is a way of emphasizing that Mary had no children prior to Jesus. In fact it was impossible for her to have children before Jesus, because she was a virgin (Isa. 7:14; Luk. 1:34).
As the “firstborn son” of Mary, Jesus was descended from the line of King David, who in turn had descended from the great patriarchs Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham who could draw their line back through Noah to the first man Adam. So Jesus had a tremendous inheritance of family, faithfulness, and history funneling down to Him. But there was one thing—one very important thing—He did not inherit. He did not inherit His forefathers’ sin.
All the rest of us do. We were all conceived in the natural way, which means the sin of Adam has come down through the generations all the way to us. The apostle Paul writes, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Rom. 5:12). And, “For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners” (v. 19). Adam’s sin is ours, as though we were right with him reaching out and taking a bite from the fruit in disobedience to God.
But Adam’s sin did not reach Jesus, because He was conceived in Mary’s womb by the Holy Spirit. The angel Gabriel told Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God” (Luk. 1:35). So Jesus was the firstborn son of Mary, but He was also the first child to be born without sin. He represented the human line He came from, but His birth was also the start of something new, something the world of men had never seen before.
Jesus was not just the firstborn Son of Mary; He is the only-begotten Son of God. There was never a time when the Son of God was not. He is begotten of God the Father from eternity. And “when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son” (Gal. 4:4). He sent Him to take on flesh in Mary’s womb by the power of God the Holy Spirit, so He could be the Redeemer of all sinners.
Once this happened, once God entered our world and took on our flesh, our future became very clear and very bright. What we see Him doing was all done for us. His perfect love for God and neighbor was to fulfill God’s holy Law for us. His innocent suffering and death was to atone for our sins. And His resurrection on the third day was to conquer and cancel our death.
The Bible wraps up all His work for us in the term “firstborn.” St. Paul describes the Christ as “the firstborn of all creation… all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church” (Col. 1:15,16-17). This tells us that we have nothing apart from Him, and we are nothing apart from Him. “[A]ll things were created through him and for him… in him all things hold together”—and especially His holy Church of all believers.
The Son of God came down to earth and clothed Himself in our flesh, so He could clothe us in His righteousness and take us with Him to heaven. The way that He causes us to be spiritually reborn and connected to Him is through His Sacrament of Baptism. He joins us to His holy body and therefore makes us inheritors, heirs, of all that He has fulfilled and done according to the will of His Father.
By the faith given to us at our Baptism, we inherit what is His. Galatians 3:26-27 says, “for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” Whatever the only-begotten Son of God and firstborn Son of Mary has, we have. This was God’s intention all along, even before the beginning of time. Romans 8:29 tells us that we whom God the Father has elected to salvation are “conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Rom. 8:29).
So we keep a close eye on the events of Jesus’ life, because in His life, we see our future unfolding. How can I hope to escape God’s wrath and enter into heaven? Because Jesus lived a perfect life of love for me and paid for all my sins through His death on the cross. How can I hope to live when death will one day take me as it has taken so many others? Because Jesus rose from the dead in triumph over death, so that all who trust in Him share in this victory.
In fact, this is another way that Jesus is referred to as “firstborn.” The same Colossians passage that calls Him “the firstborn of all creation,” later says, “He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent” (Col. 1:15,18). He was the first to be born in holiness, so that we could enter that holiness through our Baptism into Him. He was the first to rise from the dead, so that we could be assured of our resurrection on the last day.
Apart from Jesus, there is no clear way forward, no real hope for the future. Apart from Jesus, all we have to look forward to is getting older and dying. But because “the firstborn of all creation,” entered our world and destroyed sin and death, rising as “the firstborn from the dead,” we know what our future holds. It is a future in Him, covered in His righteousness, filled with His life, going on where He has gone. Jesus First—We Follow.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2Co. 5:17). We have nothing to add to His redemptive work. All of it is done for us. This is why the Christ came. This is what we celebrate at Christmas. With the angels, we worship this holy Firstborn, our Savior, and glorify His name (Heb. 1:6).
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from “Adoration of the Shepherds” by Gerard van Honthorst, 1592-1656)