The Epiphany of Our Lord – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. Matthew 2:1-12
In Christ Jesus, at whose name “every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phi. 2:10-11), dear fellow redeemed:
When strange men from the east arrived in Jerusalem, they could not have asked a more provocative question: “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews?” Very quickly their question reached the ears of King Herod. These men from the east, described in our reading as magi or wise men, did not know that Herod was one of the most wicked kings in the history of Israel. He was a very jealous king who even had some of his own sons killed in order to preserve his power.
And now these men were asking about a newborn “King of the Jews.” Far from wondering about this, even when he heard the Old Testament prophecies about the Christ, Herod immediately made plans to destroy this little rival to his throne. But he didn’t let the wise men see his rage. They could make his job easier. If they found this so-called “Christ,” they could tell Herod where He was, and then Herod could kill Him.
Herod must have been a convincing liar. The wise men did not suspect a thing. Herod acted like a fellow believer. He wanted to know everything they could tell him about the star and the promise attached to it. He may have indicated that there were some bad characters who would oppose this Baby in Bethlehem, but that he, Herod, would see to it that the Child was protected. Herod was so certain that he had the wise men tricked, that he did not feel the need to send them to Bethlehem with his own officials or soldiers. He had set the trap, and these Gentiles from the east were walking right into it.
The contrast between the two kings in today’s reading could not be more pronounced. King Herod was exceedingly active. When he heard the news about some other king of the Jews, he turned the whole city upside down to get to the bottom of this problem. When he called the religious leaders to come, they came. He pulled the strings on all the people around him, including the innocent wise men. No one dared challenge him or cross him. King Herod had power, and he used it.
The other King we hear about was under two years old at this time. This King counted on his humble mother Mary and his guardian Joseph for everything—food, clothing, a place to live. He had no other attendants (at least visible ones). He pulled no strings, ordered no one around, threatened no one. He had no obvious power. He may have been called a “king” by the men from the east, but He hardly seemed it.
And yet, this was the King the wise men had come to worship. That was their stated reason for making the long trip: “We have come to worship this newborn King.” And that’s what they did when the special star from God led them to Jesus’ house in Bethlehem. When they entered the house and saw this Child with Mary His mother, “they fell down and worshiped Him.” What an absurd sight! Grown men falling on their faces and worshiping before a toddler! What could He do for them, this little diapered Child?
Their actions are a beautiful example of faith. If they were looking for a king with obvious power and influence, they would have stuck with Herod. But they were looking for a King of promise, One who could rise above all political intrigues and petty jealousies. They hadn’t just seen a new star appear in the sky and decided to follow it because they had nothing better to do. Somehow, some way, they knew this star was tied to God’s promise to send a Savior.
This Savior was born of the Jews, but He was not just for the Jews. He was for all people, including these Gentile men from the east. If they did not believe this, they would not have worshiped Jesus and brought Him gifts. That is why the Epiphany of our Lord, celebrated on January 6 just after the twelve days of Christmas, is often called “Christmas for the Gentiles.” It was the first time that non-Jewish people laid eyes on the Christ-Child.
We are Gentiles like them. Most if not all of us have descended from the Gentile peoples who did not have the Old Testament Scriptures, who did not know the Promise. But after His resurrection, Jesus made it clear that His message of salvation was to be broadcast to “all nations” (Mat. 28:19). Disciples were to be made for Him from people of all ages, nationalities, and languages by baptizing them in His name and teaching them His Word.
You have become one of these disciples. As great as the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh given by the wise men were, you have received greater ones. You have received the forgiveness of all your sins, the righteousness of Jesus’ perfect life credited to you, and the assurance of eternal life in His kingdom. You received these gifts when you were a little child like Jesus, when you seemingly had nothing to offer Him or the Church. At your Baptism, your Lord was not seeking to get something from you; He was present there to give you the gifts of His grace.
But He did not come with visible displays of power. The heavens did not visibly open and bright rays did not shine down on you when you were baptized. The same goes for your hearing of the Word and receiving the body and blood of Jesus in His Supper today. These do not come with impressive signs like glowing light, the sound of a rushing wind, or a tingly feeling that God is near. You trust that God is active through His Word and in your life because He promises that He is.
Faith clings to His promise. When the wise men saw the star over Bethlehem, “they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.” They rejoiced because of the promise attached to the star, that the King of the Jews had been born for the salvation of the world. The Bible, the true Word of God, is that same guiding star for us. We sang about it in our opening hymn: “As a star, God’s holy Word / Leads us to our King and Lord” (Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary #120, v. 6).
We rejoice exceedingly with great joy because “the King of the Jews” worshiped by the wise men is our King too. He is the King of creation. He is the King over sin, death, and devil. He is the King who reigns at the right hand of the Father, and who shall come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead (Nicene Creed). He is the “King of kings” and “Lord of lords,” as the Bible describes Him (1Ti. 6:15, Rev. 17:14, 19:16).
But it does not always appear so in this life. The Church of all believers, the body of Christ, does not look very powerful. We often feel threatened or afraid about what might happen to us. We are tricked and betrayed by the false promises of those who seem to have power and influence, like the wise men were by King Herod. We wish that God propelled His kingdom forward by outward displays of majesty and might. We know we are on the winning side, but we would like to see this and experience it.
The wise men are good examples and teachers for us. They followed the promise of God with steadfast and joyful hearts. No matter what wicked plots and intrigues were happening all around them, they went forward in faith and hope. And when they found the Christ-Child, who displayed no visible power and authority, they humbly fell before Him and offered Him their gifts. We do the same when we hold to the promise of God revealed in His Word, no matter what temptations or trials come our way. We hear His Word and receive His gifts in the Divine Service, though they come with no visible show of God’s power. And we respond with our own humble gifts of praise, thanksgiving, and a godly life.
To outsiders, unbelievers, this all seems utterly ridiculous and foolish. They may look at believers in Christ as Herod viewed the wise men—as simpletons, easily manipulated, inferior people who hold to an empty faith. They want the Christian Church to crumble and fade into history. But we have a secret weapon: we have the Lamb.
Revelation 17 describes the kings of this world who receive their power from the devil. Verse 14 says, “They will make war on the Lamb.” This should be an easy victory. What could be more vulnerable or weaker than a lamb? But that isn’t what happens. We read that “They will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings.” This Lamb is the eternal Son of God who became a Baby born of the virgin Mary. He is the One who offered up His spotless life to take away the sin of the world, including your sin and mine.
He may have looked like nothing but a little Child when the wise men came calling, but they saw Him differently by the grace of God, and so do you. This Christ-Child, the Lamb, the suffering Servant crowned with thorns and hanging on a cross is no King the world wants. But He is the only King who matters. He is the only King who saves. We Worship the King of Kings. You know where to look for Him. You find Him where He promises to be found. And that is right here, through His Word, for your eternal good.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from “Adoration of the Magi,” a late 1800s mural in Conception, Missouri basilica)
The Presentation of Our Lord – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Genesis 37:17-36
In Christ Jesus, who was sold for a small sum of money and returned the deposit with the payment of His holy, precious blood, dear fellow redeemed:
When Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem at forty days old, He looked like any other baby. In fact, with so many coming and going from the temple, I expect that hardly anyone noticed or paid attention to this family. But what a monumental moment this was! The God who descended on the most holy place of the temple in a cloud, was now carried through the temple courtyard as a little baby in His mother’s arms. He whom the sea and wind obey had come to serve us sinners in great meekness (Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary, #161, v. 2).
Only those to whom this mystery was revealed could see this baby for who He was. Simeon was one of these. The Holy Spirit led him to the temple just before Mary, Joseph, and Jesus arrived. While everyone else just saw a baby, Simeon saw salvation. Praising God, he declared, here is “a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel” (Luk. 2:32). Here is the Savior of the whole world!
But it would be a while before His identity as the Savior would become widely known. For the vast majority of His earthly life, Jesus toiled away in Nazareth, serving His earthly parents, living a mostly unremarkable life—at least in the view of the people around Him. This changed when He was about thirty years old. At that time, He was anointed as the Christ at His Baptism in the Jordan River and began teaching and performing miracles.
Even then, many had their doubts about Him. Jesus heard it all: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (Joh. 1:46). “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?” (Joh. 8:48). “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross” (Mat. 27:40). None of it stopped Jesus from doing the work His heavenly Father gave Him to do—fulfilling all righteousness according to the Law, paying for all sin on the cross, and rising in victory over death.
Joseph, the son of Jacob, had a similar journey from obscurity and hardship to victory and glory. Joseph was the favorite son of Jacob because he was born from Jacob’s favorite wife Rachel. Jacob showed this favor by giving Joseph a special garment, “a robe of many colors” (Gen. 37:3). This caused Joseph’s brothers to be jealous of him and hateful towards him. Joseph was the twelfth child of Jacob and his eleventh son, so why should he be favored? Joseph didn’t help his cause when he tattled on his brothers and got them in trouble with their father.
They hated him still more when he told them some strange dreams he had. In the first dream, he and his brothers were binding sheaves in the field, and their sheaves bowed down to his. “Are you indeed to rule over us?” they said (Gen. 37:8). He dreamed again, and this time, the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to him. When his father heard this, he rebuked Joseph, “Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves to the ground before you?” (v. 10).
This is why his brothers plotted evil against him when they saw him coming at a distance. “Here comes this dreamer,” they said. “Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits. Then we will say that a fierce animal has devoured him, and we will see what will become of his dreams.” As terrible as this is, I think each one of us here can relate to wanting harm to come on someone. Maybe you were in a physical fight with a family member, and in your anger, you wanted to hurt them badly. Or you had a verbal altercation with someone, and you wanted to wound them deeply with words. Or you wished in your heart that someone you hated would die.
These are Fifth Commandment sins, “You shall not murder.” This Commandment includes all bodily harm done to others. It also includes our thoughts of anger and hatred, as the Apostle John writes, “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him” (1Jo. 3:15). For Joseph’s brothers, it was just a short step from the hatred they felt toward him to the desire to kill him, which shows how important it is to address our sinful thoughts before they turn into sinful actions. James 1:15 outlines this progression, “Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.”
Joseph did not know what he was walking into. He had gone at the direction of his father to visit his brothers as they pastured the flocks. Maybe he hoped this could be a time to patch things up with his brothers and become friends. Instead they grabbed him and tossed him into an empty pit. Reuben, the oldest, had plans to return and set him free. But before he could do this, the others saw a caravan of traders coming by. They decided it was better to sell their brother as a slave than kill him and receive nothing.
So that’s what they did. They sold him to the Ishmaelites, who were relatives of theirs through Abraham’s son Ishmael. Today’s reading doesn’t provide the details of Joseph’s reaction to their terrible deeds. But later the brothers recounted seeing the distress of Joseph’s soul, when he begged them to have mercy, and they did not listen (Gen. 42:21). Those were some hard hearts. Can you imagine selling your sibling or your child as a slave?
Joseph’s brothers sold him for twenty shekels of silver. This was the price of their betrayal as brothers. This was how little they thought of their father and the crushing grief this would bring on him. Twenty shekels to be rid of “this dreamer.” Twenty shekels to move him out of the way and increase their own inheritance from their father. This is one example of the harm that the love of money does. St. Paul wrote in his First Letter to Timothy, “those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction” (1Ti. 6:9).
Many years after Joseph’s brothers sold him for money, Judas Iscariot did the same to his Lord Jesus. The Gospel of John lets us in on a secret about Judas that “he was a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it” (Joh. 12:6). When Jesus’ enemies were looking for an opportunity to arrest Him, Judas saw an opportunity for more money. “What will you give me if I deliver him over to you?” he asked. “And they paid him thirty pieces of silver” (Mat. 26:15).
We can see many parallels between Joseph and Jesus:
- Joseph was the beloved son of his father; Jesus was the beloved Son of God.
- Joseph was faithful to God’s Law and obedient to his father; Jesus perfectly kept the Law in obedience to His Father’s will.
- Joseph was hated by his brothers; Jesus was hated by His fellow Jews.
- Joseph was sold for twenty pieces of silver; Jesus was sold for thirty.
- Joseph was handed over to Gentiles who mistreated him; Jesus was mocked, beaten, and crucified by Gentile soldiers.
- Joseph was seventeen years old when he was sold as a slave and was not elevated to the throne until he was about thirty; Jesus died on the cross and rose in victory around the same age.
The Egyptians did not know what they were getting when a young Hebrew slave was brought to their land. They did not know that this man would save them when great troubles fell on the land. So it was with Jesus. Only the faithful recognized Him for who He was as a baby and later as a man. He did not look like the Savior of the world. He did not look like the Conqueror of sin, death, and devil. Still today, many think that Jesus was nothing more than a good teacher or perhaps a social activist.
You have been taught otherwise by the Holy Spirit. You see not as the world sees. You know who Jesus is. He is the perfect Son of God who took on flesh to save you. He did not hate those who hated Him, including you and me in our unbelief. He loved us. He came to offer the full payment for all sin, not with anything perishable like silver or gold. He offered His own precious blood (1Pe. 1:18-19). His blood washes away the stain of sin that others have put on us and that we have put on others, so that we don’t need to hold on to our anger and hatred any longer. We forgive as He has forgiven us.
We also see how God works all things for good. He even used the wicked thoughts and actions of Joseph’s brothers to make it so that Joseph would be in a position later on to save them, and with them, the promise of the Savior from their line. God sent Joseph to be A Light for Gentiles and Israelites, so that Jesus would be an even greater light some 2,000 years down the road.
The light of Christ’s salvation still shines upon us now through His Word and Sacraments. That is why in our liturgy we still join Simeon in singing, “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel” (Luk. 2:29-32).
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture of the Presentation of Jesus from St. Michael Cathedral, Toronto)
The Second Sunday in Advent – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Romans 15:4-13
In Christ Jesus, who has brought sinners all over the world into His holy body by cleansing them with His blood (Eph. 2:13), dear fellow redeemed:
In the Holy Gospel for today, Jesus describes what will happen in the world and in the universe before His return on the last day (Luke 21:25-36). Signs will be seen “in sun and moon and stars.” Nations will be distressed because of “the roaring of the sea and the waves,” referring to things like hurricanes, tidal waves, and floods. People will faint with fear and foreboding when they see what is happening.
And then Jesus will return in His glory. Most people will not be ready. Their focus was on other things. Their hope was anchored in the world. That day will come upon them “suddenly like a trap.” They will not escape His judgment. They will be condemned to eternal punishment in hell. You might wonder if you will avoid this fate. You might question if you are faithful enough to be gathered with God’s people in heaven.
Today’s reading from the Epistle to the Romans addresses these concerns. The apostle Paul writes by inspiration that we have something more sure to go by than our thoughts, our experiences, or even a feeling in our gut about where we stand with God. We have the Holy Scriptures. Specifically Paul is talking about the Old Testament, the record of events from the creation of the world to some four hundred years before the birth of Christ.
The Old Testament is far more than a collection of historical accounts, laws, and psalms, which are only useful for historians, lawyers, or musicians who like those sorts of things. Paul writes that “whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction.” As we study the Scriptures, we learn endurance and find encouragement, because we see the trials that God brought His people through and the many examples of His goodness and blessings.
So through the Scriptures we also learn to have hope. We are not the first to have troubles. We are not the first to have worries and doubts. We are not the first to fall short of the glory of God in our sin. We are part of a long line of sinner-saints stretching back through time, back through the Reformation, back through the early Church, back through the apostles, back through the prophets, back through the patriarchs. This is a continuous, unbroken line, because our merciful God has preserved His Church through all of history.
The way He has preserved His Church is through His Scriptures. Both God and His Word are described as giving the same thing. The “God of endurance and encouragement” gives this endurance and encouragement through His Scriptures. The “God of hope” gives hope through His Scriptures. Everything good that God wants to give us, every blessing He has planned for us, comes to us through His Holy Word.
Paul emphasized this point in his epistle to the Christians in Rome by pointing them to God’s promise that salvation was not for the Israelites only but for all people. Those who were not part of God’s chosen people Israel were called the Gentiles. They belonged to the pagan nations around Israel who did not glorify God or listen to His Word. The Gentiles had no reason to hope for God’s mercy based on who they were or what they did or what they could offer to Him. They deserved His wrath for their many sins.
And yet God planned salvation for them. Paul referenced the Old Testament prophecies recorded by Moses in the 1400s B. C., by David around the year 1000 B. C., and by Isaiah in the 700s B. C. All those prophecies show that Gentiles would join the Israelites in praising the Lord. The Israelites who had the Scriptures must have had a hard time imagining this. “The wicked Gentiles whom we are supposed to stay away from will join us in glorifying the true God? How can this be?”
That question is answered by Isaiah’s prophecy: “The Root of Jesse will come, even He who arises to rule the Gentiles; in Him will the Gentiles hope” (Isa. 11:10). The Gentiles would hope in the “Root of Jesse.” Jesse was the father of King David. Long after the glory had departed from that family, after the last descendant of David sat on the crumbling throne of Jerusalem, a greater King would rise up. Isaiah prophesied that “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit” (11:1).
That King was Jesus, a blood descendant of David through His mother Mary (Luk. 3:23ff.), and a legal descendant of David through His guardian Joseph (Mat. 1:1ff.). Jesus’ family tree contained all manner of sinners—liars, murderers, adulterers, and even some Gentiles. This human line shows what kind of people He came to save—sinful people, guilty of all sorts of wrongdoing against God.
God in His love does not make a distinction between Jew and Gentile anymore. He does not see any one group of people as better than another, and neither should we. Men are not better than women, or women than men. Republicans are not better than Democrats, or Democrats than Republicans. Americans are not better than foreigners, or foreigners than Americans. Even Christians are not better than non-Christians in the sense of being less guilty of sin.
Romans 3 says, “For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (vv. 22-23). That should give us a great sympathy toward the people around us. They struggle with sin just like we do. They probably regret a lot of things just like we do. And Jesus died for their sins just as certainly as He died for ours. Who can be below me, unworthy of my love, if Jesus, who was perfect in every way, who never did any wrong toward anyone—if He humbled Himself to be nailed to a cross and die for all my sins?
That is our hope, a hope that is clearly spelled out for us in the Old and New Testament Scriptures. Jesus died for me. Jesus died for you. Jesus died for every sinner in human history. It is His sacrifice that brings together people of various nationalities, languages, and customs into one holy body, into His body the Church.
As members of one body, God wants us to glorify Him with one voice. Some Christians take this to mean that we need to set aside our doctrinal differences, and we need to compromise the Bible’s teaching for the sake of outward unity among Christians. This is the reason why many churches in our area will hold joint worship services. They believe and teach many different things in their own buildings, but they still think something can be gained by an outward show of unity. This is a false unity that we want nothing to do with.
Unity in the church is never to be looked for outside of the Scriptures, but in and through the Scriptures. God’s Word creates the only unity worth having, as the Holy Spirit brings us to Christ and Christ to us. Unity in the church is God’s work, not ours. Paul writes, “May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” We see here that God grants harmony, and that this harmony will be built on Christ Jesus and grow through Him if it is true harmony.
So we don’t create this unity, but we certainly can destroy it. We destroy unity in the church when we put anything else before God’s Holy Word. Maybe it is our pride—we want things a certain way, and we insist that everything happen just the way we want it, or else there is going to be a big fight. Or maybe it is our passions—instead of resisting our sinful desires, we give in to them and give no thought to how our actions affect and hurt the whole body of Christ. Or maybe it is our prejudice—we think that we could never work with people who have this background, who look like this, or talk like that.
When we give in to our pride, our passions, our prejudice, or any other sins, we simultaneously give up all hope. Trusting in our own way always leads to hopelessness. But God in His mercy calls us out of our hopelessness and away from our sin. He leads us to repentance, to the humble acknowledgement that we have done wrong, and to the conviction that we don’t want to keep doing wrong.
Then the Holy Spirit through the Holy Word points us to Jesus. “That Root of Jesse came forth for you,” He says. “He came to be your King and bring you into His kingdom. He came to pay for all your sins and cover you in His holiness. You are not destined for the Father’s wrath and punishment. You have salvation by faith in His Son.”
That is the hope given to you and declared to you in both the Old and the New Testaments. It is the hope that gives “endurance and encouragement” as the world around us devolves into selfishness, hatred, and deceit. We Glorify God for His Gift of Hope. The hope we have in Jesus gives us joy in trying and troubling times, and it gives us peace in our distresses.
Jesus comes through His Holy Word to bring us this joy and peace and to strengthen our confidence that He will return on the last day. He will save us from the judgment that awaits those who reject Him. He will bring us safely to His heavenly kingdom. For this, we Gentiles praise and thank Him and extol His holy name, just as the Scriptures said we would.
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 stained glass from Jerico Lutheran Church)
(audio unavailable for this sermon)
The Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. Matthew 6:24-34
In Christ Jesus, whose promise to provide for us is far more powerful than our worries and troubles, dear fellow redeemed:
He says it five times!
- “Do not be anxious about your life.”
- “Which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?”
- “Why are you anxious about clothing?”
- “Do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’”
- “Do not be anxious about tomorrow.”
Jesus thinks we have an anxiousness problem, a worry problem, and Jesus is never wrong. He also identifies another problem: our little faith. Both of those go together—worry and a lack of faith. We worry because we do not believe God will do what He says, or at least we have doubts that He will provide for us in just the way and at just the time that we need it.
But what is it that causes our worry? What is our worry based on? Our worry is not based on anything we find in God’s Word. We don’t read about an arbitrary or a fickle God who sometimes chooses to bless His children and sometimes chooses to harm them. At times He does chasten and discipline us, because He wants to lead us to repentance and a stronger faith. But this is done out of love. He is always faithful. He does not change. So worry is not based on uncertainty about God’s will and work which are clearly revealed to us in His Word.
Worry is based on our own experience and the evidence we see around us in the world. We can think of times when we had more expenses than income, more responsibilities than we had the ability to meet. Maybe we were worried about paying our bills, and then more bills came. We didn’t know where the money would come from to cover even the essentials like food and utilities. Or one of our family members was sick, and we didn’t know if we could afford the medicine needed for healing.
We also look around us and see many people who go hungry, who can’t afford clothing, who have no place to go home to. If God feeds the birds and clothes the lilies, why doesn’t He feed and clothe all people in need? And if doesn’t do this for the people who really need it, how can we be sure He will do this for us? So we worry. We give more weight to our experiences and doubts than to God’s promises.
When we allow worry to come in, we are taking matters that God wants to handle and holding those matters in our own hands. We keep the burden on ourselves of providing for our needs and fixing our own problems. Or we look for another provider, another god, whose promises seem more reliable.
This is how many people view the government. They trust the government to take care of all their needs. But as necessary as government is—and God has certainly ordained it for good order and for our protection—yet government is made up of sinners, who are often ready to take as much or more than they promise to give.
Our worries really come down to 1) having enough and 2) keeping what we have. A person just out of high school or a married couple with little children might especially worry about having enough. They do without new clothes, new cars, and a nice house. Retirement is a long way off—there’s lots of work to do! But older individuals whose work has been blessed and who are able to afford the finer things, now worry about having enough to retire on and having the good health and energy to enjoy it.
When we worry about the future like this, we behave like “the Gentiles.” Jesus says, “Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.” Now many of us are Gentiles in the sense of not having Jewish background. But Jesus is referring to the unbelieving Gentiles, the ones who did not have the Scriptures. That isn’t us, but we act like the unbelievers when we worry about having what we need.
Instead of worry, Jesus teaches us to do this: “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” He says that when we put our faith in God and His Word—little though our faith may be—, all the things we need for this earthly life will be provided to us. That’s quite a promise! It’s a promise that we have difficulty accepting.
We think that if we are going to prosper in this life, we have to make it happen. We have to outwork our co-workers, we have to come up with new solutions to get ourselves noticed by the “higher-ups.” We have to be in the right place at the right time. Then we will have a shot at our dreams. Then we can have a chance at the life we always wanted.
This is not a criticism of hard work. God wants every one of us to do our work to the best of our ability, whether we are in the classroom, in the workplace, in our homes, or at church. God never endorses laziness. In teaching us not to worry, Jesus is certainly not teaching us to sit back and wait for everything to drop in our lap. The apostle Paul couldn’t have said it more clearly than this: “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat” (2Th. 3:10).
The difference is working for selfish gain or working for godly gain. We work for godly gain when we recognize that God is the one who gives each of us our unique abilities and strengths to employ in His service. We trust that He will bless our efforts as He sees fit. He might give more to some of His children and less to others, but all of it is a gift from His gracious hand. So it is not helpful to compare what we have with what others have, since God is the Giver, and “He is good, for His mercy endures forever” (Psa. 136:1).
And how do we know this is true beyond any doubt, that God really is so good and merciful? We know this because the Father who created and provides for all things also gave the greatest gift of all—His only-begotten Son to save us. When Jesus says, “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,” He is referring to His own holy work.
God the Father sent Him to do for us what we could not accomplish, no matter how much we worried after it or worked for it. Jesus the Christ was born under the Law, so that He might redeem us, buy us back, by His own holy life. While we are anxious and doubtful about God’s care for us, He perfectly entrusted Himself to the Father’s will. He did not worry about tomorrow; He focused on God’s Word today.
Wherever we have failed in our work through our worry, our selfishness, and our laziness, Jesus fulfilled the holy Law through His faith, His love, and His perfect commitment to the work of saving us sinners. “His righteousness” is the righteousness we must seek if we will stand before God in heaven. And this is the righteousness we already have by faith in Jesus.
Yes, our faith is “little” and never as strong as it should be. But even a little faith has salvation in Christ. Our eternal future does not depend on how strong our faith is, but on how strong our Savior and Lord is. And He is strong! He is stronger than hunger and want, stronger than worry and fear, stronger than sin, death, and the devil.
He suffered when He went to the cross, but He was not worried. Just before He took His last breath, He cried out, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” (Luk. 23:46). Then He was taken off the cross and closed up in the tomb, but He was not worried. Death was no match for Him, and He rose from the dead on the third day to prove it.
It is this Conqueror of sin and death who tells you: “Do not be anxious; do not worry.” If your needs and concerns are like ten enemies threatening you with pocket knives and pitchforks, God’s care is like an entire army right behind you outfitted with the best weapons and equipment. Worldly cares are scattered by the powerful promise of God’s care.
He will provide for you. If He needs to say it again and again, even every day, He will: “Do not be anxious. I have not forgotten about your needs. I know how to turn trials into blessings. I will come and help you. Have no fear!” In His care for you, God the Father already sent His Son to rescue you from eternal death. That must mean He will not forsake you in your times of need (Rom. 8:32).
And you know this to be true. You know that your cares and worries have never done anything for you. You know that God’s care for you has never failed. Even when you were anxious, even when you complained, He kept on loving you. And if He didn’t give you everything you wanted at the time, He gave you everything you needed.
God knows your needs even better than you do. He gives you His kingdom and His righteousness for your eternal life, and He gives all that you need for this body and life besides.
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 Jesus and the lilies from stained glass at Jerico Lutheran Church)
The Third Sunday after the Epiphany – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. Matthew 8:1-13
In Christ Jesus, through whom we are Abraham’s offspring, heirs not by blood but by faith in our Lord’s promises, dear fellow redeemed:
It’s about time for church to start. You hear the door open and turn to look. Who would you most like to see walk through that door? Maybe it’s someone you haven’t seen in a while—a member of your family, a childhood friend, a co-worker, a neighbor. You make room next to you and motion them over. What a great surprise!
But is there anyone you would not want to see walk through that door? That’s a tough question. In general, we say that everyone is welcome at our churches. We want everyone to hear the truth and learn what Jesus has done for them. But some people have hurt us, sometimes very deeply. Even seeing them can bring back all the pain. We might think in our hearts that people like that do not belong in our churches. They can go somewhere else, but not here.
This shows how our love has limits. It is an imperfect love because our sin is mixed in with it. We keep inside ourselves a certain amount of bitterness, a certain amount of prejudice, against individuals or groups of people because of experiences we have had with them. We might say that we could never respect a person who supports a cause or a candidate that we totally disagree with. Or we might condemn all the members of a social class or people of a different nationality that we think only care about themselves. Or we justify our lack of love toward someone because of the wrongs he or she has done to us.
All of these things come not from a strong sense of righteousness and justice, but from our own pride. Our pride keeps us from the self-sacrificing, generous life that God calls us to live. When we read about Jesus in the Gospels, we see the contrast so clearly between how we should be and how we actually are.
In today’s Gospel reading, a man with a terrible, contagious skin disease knelt before Jesus begging Him to cleanse him. Lepers like this man were outcasts, banished to live in their own colonies. They had to announce their status—“unclean!”—whenever they came near people without leprosy. Probably quite a few people looked down on these lepers. They pitied their condition maybe, but they still stayed as far away as they could. I’m sure we would have too.
But when the man came up to Jesus, Jesus did not keep His distance. He could have just spoken a word and healed the man like He did with the centurion’s servant. But in this case, Jesus stretched out His hand and touched the man! No one could have seen that coming. It was something that non-leprous people simply didn’t and wouldn’t do. Why risk being infected with the same disease?
When Jesus reached across that great divide toward His suffering neighbor, it could be that the man shied away. He was not used to a compassionate action like this. He didn’t want Jesus to get what He had. And then suddenly his leprosy wasn’t there anymore. His skin was clean! Jesus directed this outsider to come back in, to show himself to the priest and return to his home and family.
Going on a little further, Jesus was met by the friends of a centurion who appealed for help for the centurion’s servant who had been paralyzed. This request was surprising. Why would any Roman military commander ask a Jewish man like Jesus for help? The Jews resented the Romans for their occupation of Judea and Galilee, and the Romans acted like a ruling party acts. But this centurion was different. The evangelist Luke tells us that he treated the people with kindness and supplied the funds they needed to build a synagogue in Capernaum (7:5).
Even so, Jesus was under no obligation to help the centurion’s servant. The centurion was a Gentile, and Jesus had come for “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Mat. 15:24). But just as He had compassion on the leprous man, He had compassion here too. After the centurion expressed his confidence that Jesus could heal his servant without even coming into the house where the servant was, Jesus said, “Go; let it be done for you as you have believed.”
And Jesus said something else, something that applies directly to you and me today, thousands of years after that miracle in Capernaum. Jesus said, “I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness.” Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are those patriarchs through whom the promise came. The LORD told them, “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3; 28:14).
“All the families of the earth” is all-inclusive. The many who “will come from east and west” means people from around the world. It is not just the blood descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is all those who share the faith of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who believe as they did in a Savior who takes away the sins of the world.
Jesus emphasized this again after His resurrection. He told His disciples, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Mat. 28:19-20). Jesus wants all the people of the world to know that His saving work was done for them. He was anointed at His Baptism to be their Savior. He was driven to the cross and shed His blood for their sins. He rose from the dead in triumph over their death.
He wants everyone from east to west to know that He has removed their transgressions from them “as far as the east is from the west” (Psa. 103:12). The apostle Paul brings it right home to you and me. Like the leper and the centurion, we were outcasts, outsiders. Most of us have no family line running back through Israel. We are part of the great mass of Gentiles, a bunch of nobodies whom very few will remember after we are gone.
But we matter to God. We are not strangers to Jesus. When He went to the cross, He was carrying your sins. He had your bitterness and prejudice slapping Him in the face. He was pierced by your pride. He felt all the world’s anger and hatred and animosity directed toward Him. And yet He still said, “Father, forgive them. I love them. I will die for them, to save their souls.”
Paul writes, “[I]n Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Eph. 2:13). His blood reconciled you with the holy God. His blood cleansed you at your Baptism and cleanses you through His Supper. It makes and keeps you His blood brother. You were an outsider, but you aren’t one anymore. “[F]or in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal. 3:26-27).
You are a member of the body of Christ, wearing the clothes of His righteousness, no more stained by your sin. And there is room for more sinners like you. There is room for murderers, adulterers, robbers, and liars—sins that all of us have committed in our hearts if not by our actions. There is room in Christ’s body for northerners, southerners, easterners, and westerners. There is room for your closest friends. There is room for your fiercest enemies.
As soon as we have understood that our salvation comes only by the grace of God, we can’t begrudge that salvation to anyone else. We don’t deserve it any more than they do. If in our pride we think that we belong in Christ’s kingdom more than others do, then we need to hear Jesus’ warning that “the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness.” He was speaking about the Israelites who thought their connection to Abraham’s family tree was the most important thing. What they ignored was Abraham’s humble faith.
We, too, will lose our salvation if we trust in our connection to other faithful people in our church or in our family, instead of daily repenting of our sin and trusting in Jesus alone for forgiveness and life. Like that leper, we must admit that by nature we are unclean, sinful in our thoughts, words, and actions. Like the centurion’s servant, we are paralyzed if left to ourselves, suffering terribly.
We are not worthy to have Jesus love us. Our welcome gift for Him when He took on our flesh was anguish and cross. We sent Him to His death because of our sin. And He went forward willingly. He had mercy upon us. We were His enemies, but He called us friends. We were outsiders, and He welcomed us in.
He shows us the way we should be toward those who have hurt us and those who are nothing like us. We look upon them not with hatred but with love, not in judgment but with compassion. As Jesus meets us in His Word and Sacraments to heal us from past hurts, He also helps us to set aside our anger and grow in love toward those around us.
Then we begin to see others as He sees us, as poor sinners in need of forgiveness, as hurting souls in need of grace and mercy. Jesus did not give up on us, and He doesn’t want us to give up on others. Jesus Welcomes the Outsiders, outsiders like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, outsiders like you and me, and more outsiders from east and west—even many we would not expect.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from a portion of a Byzantine mosaic in Sicily)