The Twelfth Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. Mark 7:31-37
In Christ Jesus, who came to bring healing not just for bodies but also for souls, not just for this life but for the life to come, dear fellow redeemed:
If you could change one thing about your body, one thing that would make you happier and more content, what would it be? For some of us (maybe many of us), it would be our weight—“I wish I could trim off a few pounds.” Others of us might say, “I wish I were a little bit taller.” “I wish I were stronger.” “I wish I were prettier.” Most of these wishes have to do with how other people see us. We want them to think we look good, because that helps us feel better about ourselves.
Or maybe what you would like to change is not so much your appearance, but your health. “I wish this pain in my joints or my back would go away.” “I wish I could get back the energy and mobility I used to have.” “I wish my heart were more reliable.” “I wish this cancer were gone.” And there is no question that being healed of these things would be a great relief. But how far would it take you? Would you actually be happier and more content if you received exactly what you wanted?
Today we hear about a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment. Those two things often go together. If you grow up being unable to hear, or unable to hear correctly, you won’t know how to control the sounds that you make with your mouth. Communication for this man was certainly difficult, but he had gotten along so far. He did not have a life-threatening illness or demon-possession like other people Jesus had healed. But the people figured that if Jesus could help with those things, He could “lay His hand on” this man and heal him too.
While the people had confidence in Jesus, it isn’t exactly the case that they believed in Him. They believed that He had special powers, and they were really hoping to see Him use them. But they did not believe He was the promised Savior of the world. What they were hoping for was a miracle of physical healing and not much more.
Jesus of course knew this about them. We see how He took the deaf man away from the crowd, because He wasn’t interested in making a spectacle of it. He sighed deeply—even groaned—as He looked toward heaven, saddened by the whole situation. And then after the miracle had been performed, He charged the people not to tell anyone what He had done—an order which they totally ignored.
But why would Jesus order them not to tell? Well what kind of message do you think they shared? Would you guess that they talked more about who He was, or about what He was able to do? “He has done all things well!” they cried. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak!” The message was that Jesus mattered because of the physical healing He could perform.
This message could have led some to wonder, “Who is Jesus anyway? How is He able to do the things He does?” Those are the questions all the people should have been asking. But many just looked at Him as a means to get what they wanted. “If Jesus could take away this problem, or this problem, I would be so free. Then I could do whatever I wanted again.”
You can see how getting healed by Jesus did not guarantee that people would follow Him. We see the same thing today. Our merciful Lord regularly blesses the medical treatment people receive, so that their life is extended. Or He preserves people from greater harm when they could have easily died. Many who have been through these things will even express that they have “a new lease on life.” But their attitude toward God doesn’t change. They don’t give thanks to the One who gives them their daily bread, who gives them everything they have and everything they need for this life.
And the same often goes for us. We might fervently pray for one thing, one physical gift, whether it be healing from an infection or disease, or for improved health. We say that we will dedicate our whole life to God if only He will fix this one thing. But how much changes for us if that healing comes? It usually doesn’t take long before we forget what God has done for us. And then we take up a new petition, a new concern, that would make our lives so much better if only God would help.
There is always another problem. This makes me think of the animated movie Aladdin by Disney. When dirt-poor Aladdin learned he had three wishes to ask for whatever he wanted, he figured he really only needed one and said he would happily use one of the wishes to free the genie. But that first wish didn’t accomplish everything Aladdin wanted. More issues and needs kept coming up. That’s how life is in this sinful world. We cannot have a perfect existence here.
Instead of looking for happiness and contentment through the relief of our physical problems, Jesus wants us to look to Him. That was the message for Paul, who pleaded for the Lord to remove his “thorn in the flesh.” Surely God would grant this request to His loyal servant, who endured tremendous affliction for preaching the Gospel! Paul prayed specifically for this three times, and this was the Lord’s answer, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2Co. 12:9).
The question is not whether God has the power to heal us. Of course He does. The question is whether that healing is the best thing for us. God’s response to Paul was that his thorn in the flesh would be a reminder to Paul of His grace toward him. Paul would have to rely on the Lord’s strength instead of his own, which is what he realized and confessed. Paul said, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me…. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (vv. 9, 10).
What Jesus does for us—that is what matters. Today’s Epistle lesson is about the change brought by our Savior’s coming. It contrasts the ministry of condemnation and death with the ministry of righteousness and life (2Co. 3:4-11). The ministry of condemnation is the work of God’s Law on our hearts which convicts us of our sin, sins like worry and impatience in our suffering, and sins like forgetting the mercy of God toward us. The ministry of righteousness is the Holy Spirit applying the gracious work of Jesus to us sinners.
God sent His Son to infuse life into this world of death. We see this so vividly in Jesus’ healing touch. The man’s ears and tongue which were “broken” because of sin in this world, Jesus touched with His holy hands. Then He spoke His powerful Word. The man didn’t have the physical ability to hear this Word, but Jesus’ Word made its way through the damaged parts of his outer ear, middle ear, or inner ear and into his brain and set all those mechanisms right again.
That’s what Jesus’ Word does, it sets everything right. His Word sets our hearts right and our minds right. His Word sets our homes right and the teaching of our churches right. His Word sets our priorities and our plans and our hopes right. When the man’s tongue was released, we are told that he was now able to speak rightly (Greek: orthos).
The people said, “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak,” as though that were the most he could do or the height of what He could do. But He came to do something much bigger and much better than physical healing. Putting His fingers into the man’s ears was just a small sign of who He is and what He came to do. The Son of God put His whole divine self into our human flesh. “For in [Christ] the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Col. 2:9).
He came to be the Minister of Righteousness, to serve us in His righteousness and to distribute His righteous acts to us. All the good He accomplished according to the holy Law, fulfilling its demands in full, He gives to us. He credits us with His perfect listening which covers over all the times we used our hearing to listen to what is false and wrong. He credits us with His perfect speaking which covers over all the times we used our mouths to speak what is untrue and unkind. The life we have lived in our sin has been wrong in so many ways, and Jesus set us right again with the Father by His perfect life. And the debt we owed to God for breaking all His commands, Jesus paid it by shedding His holy blood on the cross.
So whether or not everything is all right for you or for me in our bodies and in the world, we are right with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. This is our confidence and this is our comfort when we suffer. Our suffering might not quickly go away, and it may be God’s will that it does not go away as long as we live here. But He promises to keep touching us with His mercy and grace in both the good days and the bad ones.
He does not tire of coming to minister to us and serve us with His healing presence in the means of grace. He does not tire of encouraging us in our weakness. He does not tire of speaking His promises to us again and again, opening our ears and filling us with His righteousness and with His enduring peace. The people were right that Jesus “has done all things well,” but they didn’t fully appreciate what “all things” meant.
Jesus “has done all things well,” all things right, because He is Righteousness. He is the Righteousness of God sent down from heaven to free us from our bondage to sin and death, and free us to hear His Word rightly and confess His truth clearly. In Him, we can be happy and content, even if not everything is right with our bodies on the outside or the inside. Jesus, the Minister of Righteousness is the one blessing we truly need.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
+ + +
(picture from the morning of the annual outdoor service)
Midweek Lent – Pr. Faugstad homily
Text: St. Mark 15:16-20
In Christ Jesus, who in great humility hid His power and glory, so that He might suffer and die in our place, dear fellow redeemed:
What the soldiers said was perfectly correct: “Hail, King of the Jews!” “Hail” was a positive and proper greeting. And Jesus was “King of the Jews,” at least in a certain respect. He was a descendant from the line of the great King David, and His reign had been prophesied all through the Old Testament. Earlier that Holy Week, Jesus had told the religious leaders that He was both David’s Son and David’s Lord (Mat. 22:41-45). He was David’s Son according to His human nature, and He was David’s Lord according to His divine nature.
But Jesus was more than the King of the Jews. The book of Revelation refers to Him as “King of kings and Lord of lords” (19:16; 17:14). He is King over all. He spoke everything into existence in the beginning, and “he upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Heb. 1:3). In Psalm 2, God the Father Almighty declares, “I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill” (v. 6). Then He says to this King, His eternal Son, “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel” (vv. 7-8). In Psalm 110, the Father says to Him, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool” (v. 1).
That is powerful language about a powerful king. But Jesus hardly looked the part on this day, the day of His arrest and His trial before Pontius Pilate. Pilate was showing his own weakness as he presided over a trial he wanted nothing to do with. He had no special compassion toward Jesus. Jesus was a Jew, and the Romans disliked the Jews. This Roman governor and the battalion of Roman soldiers would have much rather been about anywhere else, not watching over this annoying, unruly people. Now things were even worse, since the city of Jerusalem had filled with Jews who had traveled from all directions to celebrate the Passover.
In Jesus, the Roman soldiers found an outlet for their disgust of this people. Supposedly He was an important Jew from what they were hearing, perhaps some sort of a king. Some of the soldiers had already scourged Him leaving deep cuts all over His back and sides. But neither these wounds nor the bruising and swelling on His face would keep them from inflicting more pain on Him. He had just been sentenced to die, so why shouldn’t the soldiers have some fun at His expense?
The soldiers who had charge of Him called together the whole battalion. A battalion was about 600 soldiers. This church could hardly fit a group of people that large. These men acted without restraint. It was mob rule, where anything goes. They dressed Jesus in a purple cloak. They made a crown out of thorns and pressed it into His skull. Then the soldiers took turns saluting Him, striking Him on the head, spitting on Him, and kneeling before Him in mock worship.
I can imagine six against one. I can’t imagine six hundred against one, each taking his turn. But in a certain sense, the number was actually higher, much, much higher—thousands against one, millions against one, billions against one. We must remember why Jesus was in this horrible situation. It was because of sin—not just the sins of the Jewish leaders who turned Him over to Pilate, not just the sins of the godless Romans, but because of your sins, my sins.
When we see the terrible actions of these Roman soldiers, it should not make us feel self-righteous. “Oh, I would never do something like that! I would not treat someone like that!” Instead we should picture ourselves among those violent soldiers, striking Jesus, spitting on Him, mocking Him. Our sin put Jesus in this situation. Our sin caused His suffering. Our sin sent Him to the cross.
The sins we have committed against God are every bit as serious and just as bad as what those soldiers did. We cannot wash our hands of Jesus’ suffering. We cannot say, “the Jews did that,” or “the Romans did that,” without also realizing, “I did that.” If you and I don’t understand our part in it, then we will not see Jesus for who He is or understand what He did for us. He was not simply a tragic figure who was dealt a bad hand. He was not a victim of unfortunate circumstances, caught in the middle of a race war against His will.
He was a Lamb that “goes uncomplaining forth, / The guilt of all men bearing; / And laden with the sins of earth, / None else the burden sharing! / Goes patient on, grows weak and faint, / To slaughter led without complaint, / That spotless life to offer; / Bears shame and stripes, and wounds and death, / Anguish and mockery, and saith, / ‘Willing all this I suffer’” (ELH #331, v. 1).
He, this totally innocent Man, this descendant of David’s royal line, this mighty King of kings—He suffered willingly. For the salvation of sinners—for your salvation—He let the thorns be driven into His head. He let the punches land. He let the spit run down His face. He let the mocking words enter His ears and sting His soul. He did all of it in perfect obedience to His Father’s will.
The prophet Isaiah recorded these words of the Son’s humble submission to His Father: “The Lord GOD has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious; I turned not backward. I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting. But the Lord GOD helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame. He who vindicates me is near” (Isa. 50:5-8).
Jesus did not fight back. He did not say a word. The apostle Peter wrote, “When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly” (1Pe. 2:23). Perhaps this is why the soldiers grew tired of their game. Maybe they were beginning to feel guilt for their terrible actions. For all the abuse they had carried out on Jesus, He hadn’t spoken one word in anger or hurled one curse their way. He just took it.
He took it for their sake and for yours. He took it in order to spare you from the eternal suffering of hell, a suffering we all deserve. He received this punishment, so you would receive God’s grace and forgiveness.
We know that Jesus’ humble suffering made an impression on some of the soldiers. They saw how intensely He suffered, and how He bore it patiently. Then when nails were driven mercilessly into His hands and feet, they heard Him say, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luk. 23:34). So when the ground shook immediately after His death, a centurion and those who were with him cried out, “Truly this was the Son of God!” (Mat. 27:54)—“Certainly this man was innocent!” (Luk. 23:47).
Perhaps they also added the same words as before, but now with a holy awe: “Hail, King of the Jews!” We join them in praising this suffering Servant, this righteous King, the Savior of our souls.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
+ + +
(picture from “Ecce Homo” by Mateo Cerezo, 1650)
Septuagesima Sunday – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. Matthew 20:1-16
In Christ Jesus, who chooses to give what belongs to Him to those who have not earned it and do not deserve it, dear fellow redeemed:
If you have ever baled hay, butchered chickens, shoveled out a barn by hand, or even weeded the garden, you know the difference between a full day of work and about an hour of work. And I expect you have had the experience of working hard at something and then having someone stop by to help when the work is almost done. You would rather they didn’t help at all instead of acting like they had been part of the crew all along.
You can imagine how the workers in our parable felt after putting in a full day. Of course they expected to receive more than the latecomers! But the foreman paid everyone the same. What a shock this was! The latecomers were shocked to receive so much for so little. And the full-day workers were shocked to receive the same as the latecomers. Jesus’ parable shocks us too.
But there are some details that Jesus leaves out. He tells us how long the workers worked, but He does not tell us how well the workers worked. We naturally assume that the ability and effort of all the workers was about the same. But that isn’t necessarily so. It could be that the workers who spent the whole day in the vineyard were the poorest workers while the ones hired last were the best.
Think about your own experience. Have you ever seen one employee do more in an hour than another employee does in a day? Or is it always the case that the workers with the longest tenure somewhere are always better than the workers who are relatively new? Quantity does not equal quality. Just putting in the time does not mean that higher compensation is deserved.
We don’t know who the best workers in the vineyard were. Jesus does not tell us. His point, which He makes right before today’s reading and at the very end of it is that “the last will be first, and the first last.” He says that those who expect to receive the most from God will receive the least. And those who expect to receive the least will receive the most.
So what will you and I have? Jesus’ parable is a picture of the members of His Church. We have been called away from our idleness in the world and have been put to work in the Lord’s vineyard. Many of us here have been in the vineyard a long time. We were brought into God’s kingdom through our Baptism when we were babies, and we have remained in the kingdom by faith in our Savior.
Being a part of this kingdom has required some sacrifices. The all-day workers said they had “borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” We bear the burden of the curse of sin brought on by Adam and Eve. There is pain in child-bearing and child-rearing, conflict in relationships, difficulties in our jobs. And the devil, the world, and our own flesh are opposed to righteousness and a life of humble faith. Their pressure and persecution can seem like a scorching heat that we will not be able to endure.
So then the longer we do endure, the more we expect we deserve. But as soon as we start thinking about what we deserve from God, the less productive we are in our work. You’ve had co-workers like this. They spend the entire shift telling you how badly they are treated by the boss, how much more they should be paid, and how much they hate the work. And all along, you think to yourself: “I know why the boss gets tired of you. I know why you aren’t getting a raise. And I know why you are so unhappy at work. It’s because of YOU!”
Now it certainly can be the case that your boss is not qualified, that you should receive better compensation, and that your work is no fun. But even if those things are true, you can make the most of it, give it your best, and thank God for what you have. You and I don’t have to grumble and complain. We don’t have to point our fingers. We don’t have to focus on what we don’t have; we can focus on what we do have.
What do we have? We have a place in the vineyard, a place in the kingdom of God. There is work to be done in the kingdom, but everyone who was invited to the vineyard went. Work in the vineyard was obviously better than sitting hungry in the marketplace. Being a member of the holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, is obviously better than wasting away in the world, choking on the cares, riches, and pleasures of life, watching the shadow of death creep closer.
It is a great gift to be invited to work in the vineyard, to be called by the Gospel. God did not call you into His kingdom because of your impressive qualities, your amazing work ethic, or your great potential. He called you into His kingdom because He is merciful. What does the all-powerful, all-holy, all-knowing God need from you? He did not call you to believe because of what you could give Him. He called you to believe because of what He wanted to give you.
And what did He want to give you? One denarius. A denarius was a good day’s wage. But it is not the amount that matters here. What matters is that this wage is given no matter how much or how little one works. But isn’t that like communism? And what happens in communism when compensation is not tied to labor output? Everyone does less work, since they are all going to get the same anyway. Isn’t that what would happen to the vineyard owner the next day? Everyone would linger in the marketplace until the end of the day knowing they would receive the same as if they would work all day.
But let’s put this in spiritual terms. You could step out of the vineyard, you could step out of the church. You could set aside God’s Word and follow the passions of your heart. You could tell yourself that there is always time to enter the vineyard later. Now is the time to really live and do what you want. But that is labor too. St. Paul poses this question, “Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?” (Rom. 6:16).
If you are not serving God, you are serving yourself. And if you are serving yourself, you are playing right into the devil’s hands. He knows that if you are not with God, then you are with him. Then you are his. How many Christians do you know who are grateful for all the sinning they did in the past? Grateful for the lying, the stealing, the sexual sin, the drunkenness, the selfish decisions? No, they are ashamed about those things. They wish they had not indulged in them. Paul writes that “the end of those things is death” (v. 21). That’s what standing idle in the marketplace and despising the vineyard gets us. It gets us death, for “the wages of sin—what we earn by our sin—is death” (v. 23).
But the workers in the vineyard—the members of Christ’s body by faith—receive different wages. They receive the gift of grace which leads to eternal life. That is the whole point of Jesus’ parable. It is not to promote communism or a new kind of business model. It is to teach us about grace. Grace is God’s undeserved love. That means it is given apart from any work we do, whether we work a long time or a short time, whether we are among the best workers or the worst.
The spiritual payment we receive from God is pure grace. It is true as Paul says, that “the wages of sin is death.” But there is more: “the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (v. 23). The gracious payment of salvation and eternal life is yours because of what Jesus has done. It is His work—and only His work—that matters. We can make a big deal about what we have done for God. “Look what I have sacrificed for You. Look what I have borne for You. Look how well I have served You, how hard I have worked.”
But it isn’t our work that gets us into heaven. It is only Jesus’ work. Jesus is the one who truly bore “the burden of the day.” He humbled Himself and took all the world’s sin upon Himself. He carried it to the cross and suffered the punishment for every one of our sins, every complaint, our impatience, our selfishness, our weakness. He felt “the scorching heat” of hell for all these sins—the eternal separation from His Father in heaven, so that we never would.
He could not be accused of going halfway with His work or wasting His time as we so often do. He applied Himself wholeheartedly to the keeping of the Law, and He presented His perfect life on our behalf to God the Father. And all our imperfections, all our laziness and grumbling, He washed away with His holy blood.
Everything comes from our merciful Lord as gift. The blessed vineyard of the Church is His. So is the gracious desire to call us out of the darkness of our sin and death to lives of righteousness and fruitfulness in His service. He dispenses to us the riches of His kingdom, not because we have earned them, but because He chose us to receive these gifts. He does not manipulate us. He does not play favorites. He does not treat us unfairly. He gives and gives and gives some more.
So Have You Been Properly Paid for Your Labor? The answer is “no.” Jesus has not given you what you deserve for your imperfect work in His kingdom. Instead He shares His earnings with you. You have nothing, and He gives you everything. You were last, and He makes you first.
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.
+ + +
(picture from 11th century Byzantine manuscript of laborers working in the vineyard [lower portion] and receiving their denarius [upper portion])
The Childhood of Jesus – Pr. Faugstad homily
Texts: St. Luke 2:22-38, St. Matthew 2:1-12, St. Matthew 2:13-23, St. Luke 2:41-52
In Christ Jesus, who entered this world of temptation and sin to win our righteousness and salvation, dear fellow redeemed:
When we review the accounts of Jesus’ childhood—especially the first three readings for today—Jesus is not depicted as doing anything on His own. When He was forty days old, His parents brought Him to Jerusalem to present Him to the LORD and to offer a sacrifice for Him as Old Testament Law required. Then Simeon took Jesus in his arms, blessing God. A number of months after this, wise men showed up at their house in Bethlehem, worshipping Jesus and giving Him gifts. Then because of Herod’s jealous wrath, an angel of the LORD told Joseph to take Jesus and Mary to Egypt for safety.
We might have expected more out of the Son of God incarnate. When He was presented at the temple, He could have impressed His parents and Simeon and Anna by opening His mouth and speaking a blessing to them. Or He could have made gifts appear for the wise men to help them on their journey home. He could have made His family vanish from Bethlehem and arrive in Egypt with no trouble. He could have stopped the terrible work of Herod’s soldiers.
But we see none of this. There was nothing in His appearance or actions that set Jesus apart from other children His age. He needed to be fed and have His diapers changed. He had to learn to walk and talk. The only difference that might have been perceived is that Jesus never threw a temper tantrum as infants and toddlers occasionally do. He never sinned even at this early age.
God had humbled Himself so completely when He entered our world as a baby, that He required the care of others. He needed the kind of help and assistance that all children need. God has given the responsibility of raising children to every adult, even those who do not have children of their own. Children need our collective care and support. They cannot provide for themselves, or when they are younger, defend themselves.
And the kind of care that God especially requires of us is spiritual care. Deuteronomy 6 says, “You shall teach [the words of God] diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (v. 7)—our conversations about what God has done for us should happen constantly. Proverbs 22 says, “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it” (v. 6).
And Jesus speaks a blessing for those who take this seriously, but He speaks a curse for those who don’t. He said, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea” (Mat. 18:5-6). Parents cause their children to sin by not teaching them the truth of God’s Word. But they give them eternal blessings by constantly pointing them to Jesus and reminding them of the gifts they received from Him at their Baptism.
This is serious business! And serious business can often seem too much for us to handle. But the care of our children is God’s will. And what God wills, He blesses. It is no mistake that the children in our life are in our life. God has given us to serve them, and He has given them to enrich our life. Children are a check on our selfish impulses by giving us a purpose and a focus outside of ourselves. And they are the source of tremendous joy and gladness as we watch their growth and development… and their misadventures.
As children mature, we see them become more and more independent. They still need us, but not for the same things. They start to test boundaries and not always in a sinful way. They want to explore on their own and find out what they are capable of. We see this independence in Jesus as a twelve-year-old. It is clear that His parents were comfortable with this, because they trusted that He was part of the group traveling home after the Passover. They didn’t feel the need to verify it. Jesus was a good boy!
And Jesus for His part was not doing anything sneaky by staying behind at the temple. He wasn’t trying to trouble His parents or make them worry. He was laser-focused on the important task of the moment and tuned out everything else around Him. This happens with our children too. Sometimes they don’t hear us give them some instruction because they don’t want to hear it. That is sinful. But other times, they don’t mean to be disobedient—they are just so focused on what they are doing that everything else gets tuned out. I suppose that happens with adults too!
It is clear that Jesus’ motivations were pure by His response to His mother, when she chided Him for His decision to stay in Jerusalem. Jesus was genuinely surprised at their concern. In His first recorded words in the New Testament, He asked them, “Why were you looking for Me? Did you not know that I must be in My Father’s house?” They didn’t understand this at the time, but it became clear to them later. And so we learn to be patient with our children, even when they do things that are hard to understand.
Raising children is difficult, frustrating, stressful, awesome, enriching, and fun all at the same time. We wish we were better at it. It’s easy for us to list our failures, the times we grew impatient and lost our temper, when we put ourselves first, when we did not model goodness and faithfulness through our words and actions. And we know well the failures of our childhood, when we did not respect our parents and other authorities as we should, when we did things we knew were wrong, when we behaved selfishly and unkindly.
Jesus came to right all these wrongs. We are told that He submitted to His sinful parents and showed love to all the people around Him, even when they did not treat Him like they should have. We probably do the most sinning against those who are closest to us, who are part of our household. But Jesus showed perfect love to all. He did not sin. Even as a baby when it looked like He wasn’t doing anything, Jesus Was Busy Winning Our Righteousness.
His active obedience under the Law was for you, offered to God on your behalf. God does not hold your failures against you. He doesn’t even see them, because Jesus paid for them with His blood, and He covers you with His own holy life. No matter how unqualified you may feel at times to watch over those in your care, you are where you are supposed to be, and God promises to strengthen you for this important work. Even your lowly and imperfect efforts are sanctified by His grace and used for the care and salvation of the little lambs who are His more than they are 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.
+ + +
(picture from “Jesus Among the Doctors” by James Tissot, 1836-1902)
The Feast of the Holy Nativity of Our Lord – Pr. Faugstad exordium & sermon
Festival exordium:
“Merry Christmas!” It rolls easily off the tongue this time of year. We might not use the word “merry” in any other month, but it seems perfectly fitting in December. In this otherwise dark time of year, we want people to find joy and happiness in Christmas. The word “Christmas” was first recorded in an old English source from A. D. 1038 as “Crīstesmæsse.” It is the combination of two words: “Christ” and “mass.”
“Christ” is the special title given to the Savior of the world. It means, “anointed one.” So when we say, “Jesus Christ,” we are saying, “Jesus, the anointed one.” Jesus was officially anointed as the Savior at His baptism in the Jordan River. The heavens opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in the form of a dove while the Father spoke from above, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Mat. 3:17). The incarnate Son of God was anointed “to seek and to save the lost” (Luk. 19:10), to give Himself as the atoning sacrifice for all sin.
But what about the word “mass”? That comes from the Latin term “missa” which has long been associated with the Service of Holy Communion. “Christmas”—“Christ-mass”—means the coming of the Christ to us in His Supper. In Holy Communion, we receive more than bread and wine. We receive the life-giving body and blood of the incarnate Son of God.
The eternal God took on flesh in the virgin Mary’s womb and came to win our salvation by the sacrifice of His body and the shedding of His blood. He gives this same body and blood to us now for our forgiveness, our comfort, and our strength. Jesus’ coming to save us and His continued presence with us is the reason we can be joyful today, even as we carry various burdens and sorrows.
So I say again, “Merry Christmas!”—“Merry Christ-mass!” The Christ was born for you, and He still comes to bless you. For these wonderful gifts, let us rise and sing our festival hymn, #142 (“Rejoice, Rejoice This Happy Morn!”):
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!
+ + +
Sermon text: St. John 1:1-14
In Christ Jesus, who came down from His exalted throne in heaven with gifts for you and me and all people, dear fellow redeemed:
The artistic depictions of the nativity often show the baby Jesus as the source of light. The faces of Mary, Joseph, and the shepherds shine as they look down on Jesus in the manger. One of our favorite Christmas hymns puts this idea into words: “Son of God, love’s pure light / Radiant beams from Thy holy face” (ELH #140, v. 3). But in reality, Jesus did not glow with an inner light. He looked just like any other baby. What set Him apart for the witnesses of His birth was the word of the angels.
The angel Gabriel told Mary, “the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God” (Luk. 1:35). An angel of the Lord told Joseph, “do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit” (Mat. 1:20). And then the angel told the shepherds the night of Jesus’ birth, “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord” (Luk. 2:11, KJV). They would find Him in Bethlehem not by looking for a shining baby, but for a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a humble manger.
So as they worshiped Him that day, they worshiped Him not because of what their eyes saw, but because of what their ears heard. And that is why we worship Him today. We worship Him because of what has been revealed to us about Him in God’s holy Word. The Christian religion is not based on what we can see. It is a religion of faith—believing what we do not see.
That does not satisfy the people of the world. They demand proof of God’s existence, proof of the virgin birth, proof of Christ’s resurrection, proof that He still comes among us today. The proof that the Bible provides won’t do—it has to be proof on their terms. But if we’re talking about Santa Claus, then it’s all about faith. “Don’t ask questions; just believe!” I suppose in their minds, faith is fine when we’re talking fantasy, but it isn’t fine when we’re talking fact.
So why is it that we are so confident that Jesus is who the Bible says He is? Why do we believe in Him? We believe because God the Holy Spirit has worked faith in our hearts through the powerful Word. We didn’t decide to believe in Jesus; God decided to pull us out of the darkness of our sin and death and into the light of His grace.
But our faith is not a “blind faith” that has no evidence to go by. We have the evidence of eyewitnesses who saw what Jesus did and heard what He said. The evangelist John in today’s reading says, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory.” “The Word” is a special term that John uses to describe the Son of God. He writes that “the Word” was in the beginning, “the Word” was with God, and here’s the part that makes it clear who He is: “the Word was God.”
Once I was talking to a Jehovah’s Witness about who Jesus was. She would not agree with me that the Bible calls Jesus God. I asked her to look up John 1 in her Bible. There her translation (a total mistranslation) said that “the Word was a god,” in the sense of being “divine” or “holy.” But that is not what John wrote. He said, “the Word was God.” God the Son has always existed with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. All things that were made in the beginning were made through the Son. All life and all light came through Him.
This Lord of life and light is the One the Father sent to be clothed in our flesh. He looked like a regular human being, but He was much more. The apostle Paul wrote about the Christ that “in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Col. 2:9). That means that the Son of God was not just partially present in Jesus, but His entire person was now found in a human body.
Why not let His glory be seen by everyone around Him? Why not let His eternal light beam through His skin? It was because no sinner could have endured His bright presence. When Moses wanted to see God’s glory, the LORD said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live” (Exo. 33:20). The Son of God incarnate kept His glory hidden for our sake. He “made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant” (Phi. 2:7). He came to humble Himself, to put Himself below us in order to save us.
And that is hard to believe. Why would God do this for us? What is in it for Him? We think there always has to be an angle. For us there often is, but not for God. God sent His Son to take on our flesh out of love for us. He sent His Son to do for us what we are incapable of doing. The Son of God did not put Himself above the Law; He put Himself beneath it, so that He could fulfill God’s commands for us. And He willingly went the way of suffering and the cross, so that full payment would be made for our sins.
If Jesus were just a man, nothing He did could count for you. But because He is God incarnate, “the Word made flesh,” everything He accomplished counts for you. His perfect keeping of the Law is for your righteousness. His innocent death on the cross is for your salvation. These gifts were intended for you long before you were born and long before Jesus was born. Right after the fall into sin, God revealed His plan to send a Savior, the woman’s Seed, the devil’s Destroyer.
That promised Savior was the infant baby Jesus lying in a manger in a little town with a bunch of poor people gathered around Him. “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, yet the world did not know Him.” No one knew except those who had received a special invitation. They were not rich or famous or influential. They were people like us, sinful people, whose eyes of faith looked in awe upon the Promise fulfilled, Hope incarnate.
We are invited to join them in beholding this great mystery. Jesus was not born for them alone, but for all people of all time. You are hearing the good news today, because God wants you to hear it. He wants you to know that a Savior was born for you to save you from your sins—that there is a solution for the darkness in your heart and mind which has caused you to do dark things.
“The Word became flesh” not to bring God’s righteous wrath down on your head, the punishment you deserve for your sins. The Son of God came down to earth “full of grace and truth.” That’s far better than presents spilling out from under your Christmas tree or brightly-colored boxes stacked in your living room. Jesus came to reconcile you with God the Father through His death in your place. He came to bring peace on earth by the shedding of His blood.
That is why when we hear again the account of our Savior’s birth today, we see more than a baby in a manger. We see “the breadth and length and height and depth” of God’s love for us (Eph. 3:18). We see “the true Light, which enlightens everyone… coming into the world.” We see His glory, “glory as of the only Son from the Father.” It is beyond our human comprehension, but it has been granted us to know it and to understand it by faith.
By His grace, through His Word of truth, Jesus has given us “the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” Because you were baptized into Him, all of His life and light and glory and grace are now yours. You couldn’t ask for better gifts at Christmas, and these gifts last 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.
+ + +
(picture from “Adoration of the Shepherds” by Gerard van Honthorst, 1592-1656)