Ash Wednesday, Midweek Lent 1 – Vicar Lehne homily
Texts: Genesis 3:1-6, St. Matthew 27:37-44
In Christ Jesus, who did not seek his own glory, but ours, dear fellow redeemed:
Everyone loves to receive glory for the things they do. Athletes show off in front of their fans when they make a good play. Actors and singers hope that they win awards for the work that they’ve done and even become upset if they think that they deserved to win an award but didn’t. We can even see this desire for receiving glory at the earliest stages of a person’s life. When a child does something good or impressive and those around them start to clap and cheer for them, you can see a smile spread across their face, and they may even try to replicate what they just did so that they will be cheered for again. Because of how much we love to receive glory, it’s no wonder that this desire is what the devil used to cause the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, to fall into sin.
Adam and Eve were the crown of God’s creation and were given the task to rule over his creation. There was only one thing that God told them not to do, which Eve repeated back to the devil, who was in the form of a serpent, when he first began his attempt to lead her into temptation, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die” (verse 3). By following this command, Adam and Eve gave glory to God. But Adam and Eve weren’t content with giving glory to God alone. They wanted glory for themselves too. So, when the devil said to Eve, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (verse 4–5), they fell for the devilish temptation and ate the forbidden fruit, thinking that doing so would give them the knowledge that would make them worthy of glory. But when they did, they didn’t become like God and receive glory like he had; they instead fell into sin, falling as far away from God as they could.
Because Adam and Eve disobeyed God, sin entered the world and corrupted everything in it. That means we are deserving of God’s wrath and punishment, for we have inherited the sin of our first parents and have sinned throughout our lives. God has revealed to us in his Word the commands that he wants us to follow, which are summed up with the Ten Commandments. By following these commandments and resisting the temptations to disobey them, we give glory to God. But, just like our first parents, we want glory for ourselves and are often willing to disobey God to get it. We want to receive glory for the work that we do, for the talent that we display, for the words that we speak and sing, and in our quest to receive glory for these things, we don’t give a second thought to God or to the people that we have to ignore, push aside, and even sabotage to receive that glory that we think we rightfully deserve. By giving in to the devilish temptation to chase after glory, we don’t show love to God or our neighbors, which is what the law demands. So, while we think that we deserve glory for the things that we do, the things that we do actually make us deserve eternal punishment in the fires of hell.
While anything that we do can make us deserving of hell if it is done with sinful intent, no good thing that we do, regardless of the intent, can get us out of hell, which is why God promised to send us a Savior, Jesus Christ, a promise that he first made to Adam and Eve after they ate the forbidden fruit. The Son of God would not seek glory for himself but would humble himself by coming down from his throne in heaven and becoming a man. He would give his Father glory by resisting every temptation and by carrying out his will to go all the way to the cross, where he would die an innocent death on the cross in our place. On that cross, Jesus would crush the head of the serpent, the devil (Genesis 3:15), and save us from our sins.
But the devil wasn’t going down without a fight. While Jesus was suffering what we rightfully deserved on the cross, the devil tempted Jesus to seek glory for himself by abandoning his mission and miraculously coming down from the cross. Throughout Jesus’ earthly ministry, it seemed as though everyone wanted to give him glory for the miracles that he was performing. In fact, after Jesus miraculously fed five thousand men, not counting women and children, with just five loaves of bread and two fish, the people wanted to force Jesus to become their king (John 6:15). But now, everyone seemed to be against him, wanting him to die. The chief priests, the scribes, the elders, the people who were passing by, and even the robbers who were being crucified with him were all mocking him. “You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself” (verse 40)! “He saved others; he cannot save himself” (verse 42). “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross” (verse 40). “[L]et him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him” (verse 42). As the crowd said these things, it was as though the devil was right there along with them and saying these things to Jesus himself.
Jesus had the power to do as they said, and doing so would undoubtedly cause the people to want to give him glory again. Receiving glory for the miracles that you can do certainly sounds a lot better than suffering and dying for the sake of others while everyone mocks you, especially when you have done nothing to deserve any of it. So, we wouldn’t blame Jesus for coming down from the cross. In fact, it would probably be satisfying for us to hear and read, since all those people who got him put to death in the first place and were now mocking him would be proven wrong and humiliated. But if Jesus gave in to this devilish temptation, then we would be doomed.
If Jesus came down from the cross, you would still be a slave to your sin, you would still seek glory for only yourself, with no desire to seek repentance, and you would one day go to hell to pay the punishment for your sins for all eternity. But Jesus didn’t give in to the devil’s temptation. He remained on the cross so that you would be freed from your sins; so that, through faith in him, you would resist the devilish temptation to seek glory only for yourself; and so that you would one day go to heaven to live with him forever. Jesus remained on the cross because he loves you, and because Jesus did as his Father willed by remaining on the cross, he undid the sin of Adam, who went against his Father’s will.
But while Jesus has crushed the head of the serpent and has saved you from your sin by putting your sin to death with him on the cross, your old Adam, your sinful nature, doesn’t want to stay dead. It still wants you to receive glory for yourself no matter what you have to do to get it, and the devil works through that sinful nature to continue to tempt you. But through the faith that the Holy Spirit has given you, God leads you to repent of these sins and trust in the forgiveness he won for you. He gives you the strength to resist these devilish temptations and give him glory by doing so.
Even though God gives you that strength, there are still times when things seem helpless. But in those times, God points you to the glory of his Son dying for you on the cross. On the surface, there doesn’t appear to be any glory in someone dying a gruesome death on a cross. But it is what Jesus accomplished by his death on the cross that is glorious. On that cross, he paid the price for all your sins. On that cross, he won you the glory of heaven. You don’t need to earn any glory for yourself, because Jesus already earned all the glory for you.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from “The Temptation of Christ by the Devil” by Félix Joseph Barrias, 1822-1907)
The Festival of the Reformation – Pr. Faugstad exordium & sermon
Flung to the heedless winds
Or on the waters cast,
The martyrs’ ashes, watched,
Shall gathered be at last.
And from that scattered dust,
Around us and abroad,
Shall spring a plenteous seed
Of witnesses for God. (Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary #556, v. 1)
These words were inspired by Martin Luther’s first hymn, a commemoration of the deaths of two monks named Henry and John. These monks were arrested for their “evangelical” preaching, which meant they proclaimed salvation through Jesus alone and not through a person’s own efforts or works. After eight months of imprisonment and interrogation, they were put on trial.
At the trial, they were told to bow to the authority of the pope and the church fathers. They said they would as long as their writings did not contradict the Holy Scriptures. They were told that it was sinful to read Luther’s writings, since the pope had banned them. They replied that it was wrong to ban writings that faithfully teach the Word of God. When it became clear that the two men would not repent of what they were teaching, they were sentenced to death by fire.
They were led quickly to the place of their execution. A yellow tunic was put on Henry to mock him and a black gown on John to symbolize his sinfulness. They were tied to the stake. They waited for half an hour as their executioners tried to get the fire going. Then as the flames advanced, the two men said the Creed, and they sang Psalms and hymns. Their last song was an old Christian hymn, the Te Deum Laudamus, which means, “We praise You, O God.” Finally they cried out, “Lord, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on us!” And then they were overwhelmed by the smoke and after a while were reduced to ashes.
The monks Henry and John were the first martyrs of the Lutheran Reformation. They died on July 1, 1523—five hundred years and a few months ago. They did not go to the stake because they believed in the man Martin Luther. They learned from Luther’s writings to put their trust in Jesus. They died confessing Jesus as their Savior and Lord, even when the whole world seemed opposed to them.
Their example is an encouragement to us, encouragement to resist the temptations of the devil and the appeal of going along with the crowd, and encouragement to firmly believe and clearly confess God’s truth with honest hearts. We pray that our Lord equips us as He did these two faithful men, so that we also are kept in the saving faith until our earthly end.
We join in the prayer of hymn #18, the fourth stanza, “Triune God, Be Thou Our Stay”:
Triune God, be Thou our Stay;
O let us perish never!
Cleanse us from our sins, we pray,
And grant us life forever.
Keep us from the evil one;
Uphold our faith most holy;
Grant us to trust Thee solely
With humble hearts and lowly.
Let us put God’s armor on,
With all true Christians running
Our heavenly race and shunning
The devil’s wiles and cunning.
Amen, amen! This be done;
So sing we, Alleluia! (ELH, #18, v. 4)
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Sermon text: Ephesians 6:10-17
In Christ Jesus, the great Conqueror who willingly joined Himself with us losers and single-handedly destroyed our terrible enemies, dear fellow redeemed:
If you had to go to the front lines of a battle, what would you want to have with you? What would you need in order to feel safe, or at least to feel like you had a fighting chance? Maybe it would be body armor like a bullet-proof vest and a helmet that could protect you from shrapnel and bullets. Maybe it would be a thick wall in front of you or well-trained soldiers on either side of you. Perhaps what would make you feel safest is a powerful weapon in your hands that causes your enemy to duck for cover.
The apostle Paul talks about a battle situation like this, except that the battle he refers to is a spiritual one. It happens around us and inside us, and we can’t see the enemy. But we can see the enemy’s work; we can see his “schemes.” Paul writes that our conflict is not primarily “against flesh and blood”; our greatest enemies are not other human beings. Rather our conflict is against the rulers, authorities, cosmic powers of darkness, and forces of evil in the spiritual realm.
Paul is describing a hierarchy of wickedness with the devil at the top and his fellow demons sowing destruction and chaos around him. They are the ones who tempt and incite human beings to do the bad things they do. If we do not recognize that the devil and demons are behind the evil in the world, we might think that every human problem can be solved by a human solution. But there is no human solution that can overcome the devil.
This is what the Roman Church was attempting to do at the time of the Reformation. The people were taught that they could make satisfaction for their sins by the good works they did, by the prayers and gifts they offered, or even by purchasing a piece of paper, an indulgence authorized by the pope. On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther posted his Ninety-Five Theses, which argued that a soul could be saved only through repentance and not through the purchase of indulgences.
As he continued to study the Scriptures, Luther came further in his understanding of salvation. He realized that only God could supply the righteousness that His holy law required, and that this righteousness was fulfilled by His only-begotten Son in the flesh, Jesus the Christ. A sinner could have his sins forgiven and be justified before God not because of anything he did, but because of God’s grace toward him and the faith worked in his heart by the Holy Spirit to receive these gifts.
When Paul writes about putting on “the whole armor of God,” this is what he is talking about. He is talking about putting our trust in God alone as we face the devil’s attacks. What is the armor we wear? “The belt of truth”—that doesn’t mean our own personal truth, what is true for each one of us. It is God’s truth, the truth about our sinful weakness and about His gracious plan to save us. “The breastplate of righteousness” is Jesus’ righteousness. A breastplate protects a soldier’s vital organs, and so it is Jesus’ perfect life that covers and protects us, so that we are kept alive and well in Him.
The “shoes for [our] feet” is the readiness to stand firm in the Gospel of peace, to conquer by the message of grace which has conquered our own hearts. Paul tells us what “the shield of faith” is for. It is to “extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one.” Whenever the devil tries to accuse us for our sins, we point in faith to Jesus, who already paid the penalty for all our sins. “[T]he helmet of salvation” is what protects our minds from the devil’s schemes as he tries to work doubts in our heads or anger toward others or sinful desires for what God has not given us.
Finally, we have “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” We do not advance in this battle by physical force. We speak God’s powerful Word, and the devil and the demons have to retreat. They cannot stand against the power of God’s Word. Whenever Jesus comes through the Word, the devil’s head starts hurting, since Jesus stomped on it and crushed his power by dying in our place and rising from the dead for our victory.
But if we want to give the devil the advantage over us, we can set aside the armor of God and try to face him on our own. We do this whenever we feel pride for the great things we have accomplished, and fail to give God the glory. We do this when we embrace what God says is sinful, instead of repenting of sin and running away from it. We give the devil the upper hand when we don’t speak up when the truth is challenged, when we compare our good works with those of others, when we trust our own reason or strength, when we stop regularly hearing and learning the Word of our God.
The devil will defeat us if we are not wearing the armor of God. He has done it before. He schemed against us, and his schemes were successful. We lost ground in our faith, and perhaps at certain points, we lost our faith altogether. But even though the devil has won many battles against us, he has not won the victory. This is clear by the attention you are giving to God’s Word right now. You know that you are weak. You know that you have sinned. And you also know that Jesus saved you from your sin and death and still fights for you against “our ancient foe” (ELH #251, v. 1).
That is what Martin Luther’s hymn, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” is about, a hymn that is called “The Battle Hymn of the Reformation.” Based on the Forty-Sixth Psalm, it describes God as a Fortress of strength, a Shield of protection, and a Weapon of defense. We need His help because of our powerful enemy who wants to destroy us, whose strength has no equal on earth (v. 1). On our own we would lose, but One stronger than the devil fights for us, the Man of God’s choosing. This is God’s Son come from heaven to earth, the Lord of hosts, who is victorious in every field of battle (v. 2).
Even a world full of devils cannot defeat us when Jesus fights for us. They are overthrown by a Word, the Word of God (v. 3). Their arms go limp when God speaks His Word. They have to run and hide, because they know they are beaten. As long as our Lord is with us in the fight “with His good gifts and Spirit,” with His power imparted to us through His Word and Sacraments, we remain in the kingdom of God, and His kingdom remains ours (v. 4).
This is what it means to “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.” This is what it means to “take up the whole armor of God” and “to stand firm.” It means repenting of our weak efforts on the battlefield that could not win the victory, and it means trusting in Jesus’ righteousness and blood for our salvation.
We are not lost. We are not forsaken. We are not destined for eternal damnation—because God the Father loves us, His Son redeemed us, and the Holy Spirit sanctifies and keeps us in the true faith. A Mighty Fortress Is Our God. We give Him thanks that the Gospel was proclaimed and bore fruit at the time of the Reformation, and that His saving Word is still proclaimed among us today, despite our unworthiness to receive it.
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 “Martin Luther at Worms” by Anton von Werner, 1877)
Midweek Lent – Pr. Faugstad homily
Text: St. Matthew 27:38-44
In Christ Jesus, the sinless One, who for our sake was made to be sin by His Father, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (2Co. 5:21), dear fellow redeemed:
“If You are the Son of God.” Jesus had heard those words before. The devil said them when Jesus had fasted for forty days and forty nights in the wilderness. Jesus had just begun His public work which would lead Him to His death outside Jerusalem. “If You are the Son of God,” the devil said, “why do You feel so hungry right now? Why not throw Yourself off the temple and let the angels catch You? Or maybe You aren’t the Son of God after all!” (Mat. 4:1-11).
Now as He hung on the cross, the same abusive words came at Jesus from all sides. “If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” “Save Yourself!” “Let God deliver You from this suffering, if He really thinks You are worth saving.” They mocked Him, speaking blasphemous words about Him. They jeered at Him, made fun of Him, laughed at Him.
Is that how you would treat someone who was fighting for your life? Would you verbally abuse the person trying to save you from a burning building, or the person who jumped in to defend you from an attacker? Would you laugh at him? Mock him? That’s what was happening at the cross. Jesus was hanging there out of love for the very people who spouted these hateful words at Him. He was there to save their souls, and they despised Him.
This didn’t surprise Jesus. The surprising thing is that the Jewish chief priests, scribes, and elders were so ignorant of the Scriptures they claimed to know. The very words they hurled at Jesus had been prophesied more than a thousand years before then. Listen for yourself to these words recorded by King David in Psalm 22 which clearly describe Jesus’ suffering on the cross: “But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people. All who see me mock me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads; ‘He trusts in the LORD; let him deliver him; let him rescue him, for he delights in him!’” (vv. 6-8).
What the religious leaders said about Jesus at the cross is word-for-word what God said they would say. But they did not recognize it. They thought they were with God by being against Jesus. But they were with the devil. They were parroting the words of the “father of lies.” Through their mouths, the devil was tempting Jesus to give up His suffering, to abandon His mission.
“[L]et Him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in Him,” they said. And why shouldn’t Jesus do this? Think of the powerful impact it would have. If all of a sudden the nails popped out, and Jesus floated down to the earth, how could the crowds deny who He was? But not even this would have convinced them. How many miracles had these people seen Him perform? Just a few weeks before this, they witnessed Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead. In their mocking words, they even admitted He had done these things: “He saved others,” they said, but “He cannot save Himself.”
They thought His suffering on the cross was proof that He was not the Son of God. But in fact the opposite was true. Jesus stayed on the cross not because He had no power to save Himself. He stayed on the cross because it was the only way to save sinners. Jesus could agree with what they said, “He saved others; He cannot save Himself.” If He was going to save others, He could not save Himself. In order to save others, He had to die in their place.
Jesus’ cross is planted right in the middle of human history. On one side of Him stand all the people of Old Testament times, from Adam to John the Baptizer. On the other side of Him stand all the people of the New Testament, from the apostles to you and me and everyone who will come after us. We all look upon Jesus—one Man before billions, one Man against the world, the Holy One surrounded by sinners.
We should come to His defense. We should own our sins. We should admit our wrongs. But instead we join the chief priests, scribes, and elders. We spit insults at Jesus. We mock Him. We laugh at Him. That is what we have done by our life of sin. We put Jesus on the cross. We caused His suffering.
And He willingly accepted it. He obeyed His Father’s will to become the scapegoat for all us straying sheep, to become the “fall guy” for us fallen sinners. God the Father knew what He was sending His Son to do. He knew how terrible the anguish and affliction would be, how ruthlessly He would be treated by those He came to save. But He would not let the people of the world go to hell without contending for their souls. He would send His Son on a rescue mission to redeem them.
This was the Father’s will, and His Son submitted Himself to it. Isaiah writes that “it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief” (53:10). God the Father forsook His Son instead of forsaking you. Jesus suffered the torments of hell, crying out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” so you never would. He endured taunting, mockery, and laughter at the cross, so your ears would be spared these demonic words which echo constantly and eternally through hell. You deserved this suffering, but Jesus endured it for you.
Jesus is the true focus of our Lenten series—not His enemies. They were ignorant tools, manipulated by the devil, who was in turn manipulated by God to carry out His holy plan. It does us no good to vent our anger toward the Jews or the Romans for their treatment of Jesus. Jesus had to suffer and He had to die if you were going to be saved. He could not come down from that cross. He could not save Himself. He stayed there and suffered for your forgiveness, to win eternal life for you.
As the hymnwriter says:
What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered
Was all for sinners’ gain:
Mine, mine was the transgression,
But Thine the deadly pain:
Lo, here I fall, my Savior!
’Tis I deserve Thy place;
Look on me with Thy favor,
Vouchsafe to me Thy grace.
What language shall I borrow
To thank Thee, dearest Friend,
For this, Thy dying sorrow,
Thy pity without end?
O make me Thine forever!
And should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never,
Outlive my love for Thee. Amen.
(Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary #335, vv. 4, 6)
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(picture from “Cristo Crucificado” by Diego Velázquez, 1632)