The Second Sunday after Michaelmas (Trinity 20) – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: 2 Kings 18:1-12
In Christ Jesus, who joined Himself to us by taking on our flesh, and who joins us to Him through Holy Baptism, so that all that is ours became His, and all that is His became ours, dear fellow redeemed:
The best way to teach people the value of marriage is to value your marriage. Valuing your marriage means treating your spouse with love and respect, being willing to forgive when you are wronged, and doing the hard work of communication when you’d rather just play the blame game. This has a powerful influence on children and others who witness what a healthy marriage looks like.
When the opposite happens, when spouses run each other down, refuse to forgive, stop communicating, and possibly even get divorced, this also has a powerful influence. You have probably heard the statistics that children of divorced parents are significantly more likely to get divorced themselves later in life. These patterns certainly can be broken, but it is more difficult to see the way forward to a healthy relationship for those who have witnessed the opposite.
The same goes for transmitting our faith. The degree that we value what we have received by the grace of God will be shown by the priority it has in our life. Do our children, our classmates, our co-workers, our neighbors hear us speak about the comfort and hope we have in Christ? Do we keep the Word in our homes through prayer and family devotions? Do we plan everything else in our schedule around the Divine Service, giving first place to God’s Word and Sacraments?
I think each of us would acknowledge that what Jesus has done has not always been first place in our lives. We have spoken and acted in ways that are not at all consistent with the Christian faith. We have made money, or popularity, or fun and games the most important thing. We have relegated our Christian faith to an hour or two each week, easily picked up and easily set aside again.
The way we approach the faith as adults has a huge influence on the way our children will approach it when they are adults. The more important it is to us, the more important it will be to them. We can carry a lot of guilt over this because we never do as much to encourage the faith in our families as we know we should. St. Paul expressed this struggle in Romans 7: “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing” (v. 19).
Our comfort is knowing that Jesus forgives all our failures in the past and all our weaknesses in the present. Despite our faults, He still calls us each day to try again, try harder, and pray unceasingly for His help and strength. We also have the comfort of knowing that God loves our family members even more than we do, and He does not forget them. We might feel as though we have made a mess of everything in our homes, but God still works all things for good (Rom. 8:28).
Today’s reading gives us an example of the powerful grace of God. We are introduced to Hezekiah the son of Ahaz, king of Judah. King Ahaz was anything but a good father. He was a spiritual man, but it was the wrong spirit. He did not worship the LORD, the true God. He worshipped the gods of the heathen nations around Judah. He set up images of the Baals, made sacrifices in the high places, and closed up the doors of the temple. He even followed the pagan practice of offering some of his sons as burnt offerings to try to appease the gods (1Chr. 28).
Because of the grievous sins of Ahaz, “the LORD humbled Judah…, for he had made Judah act sinfully and had been very unfaithful to the LORD” (28:19). When he died, he was not given an honorable burial with the previous kings of Judah since he had brought such trouble on the land and its people.
So then at age twenty-five, Hezekiah the son of Ahaz began to reign. He took a very different course than his father, possibly because of the influence of his mother who is named in today’s reading—Abi the daughter of Zechariah. Wherever the good influence came from, Hezekiah “did what was right in the eyes of the LORD” by undoing all that his father had done wrong. “He removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah.” Then he did something even more extreme: “he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it.”
That bronze serpent was some 700 years old at this time, and it was made by Moses himself! When initially the people looked up to it on a pole, trusting in the LORD’s promise, they were spared from the poisonous serpents that afflicted them (Num. 21:9). This was a significant piece of Israel’s history, but it had become an object of their worship, so Hezekiah destroyed it. Can you imagine destroying a significant artifact from the 1300s because it was leading people astray? How about a precious family heirloom, or another item of great value? If you think about the most important object you possess, would you destroy it out of devotion to the LORD?
Hezekiah made it clear that nothing would get in the way of the worship of the true God. Our reading says, “He trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel, so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him. For he held fast to the LORD.” The word translated, “held fast,” is the same word we find with the institution of marriage in Genesis 2:24, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
This is how Hezekiah “held fast” to the LORD: like a man and his wife “hold fast” to each other. Hezekiah did what was right by the LORD; he avoided temptations to sin; he trusted the LORD and did not depart from following Him; he did the opposite of the Israelites to the north who were conquered by the Assyrians—he listened to and obeyed the LORD.
This is how each one of us should be toward God. We hold fast to Him by respecting, honoring, and trusting Him in all things. We avoid everything that could tempt us away from Him. We look for help, healing, and salvation nowhere else than from Him. We acknowledge that there is no lasting love, no happiness, no life apart from Him.
The picture of a marriage is exactly how St. Paul describes our connection to Christ. “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:25-27). This tells us that all that we were in our wickedness and weakness, Jesus has covered in His perfect righteousness.
Imagine a highly-regarded, virtuous, successful man choosing for his bride a lady with a bad reputation, no possessions, and no prospects for a productive future. That is what Jesus did by taking on our human flesh and offering up His perfect life in payment for all our sin. The righteous One gave Himself for us unrighteous ones, the holy One for the unholy. He took all our sins on Himself and gave us His perfect record of keeping God’s Law. He did this, so we might be as He is and live forever with Him in His heavenly kingdom.
Today’s Holy Gospel speaks about our invitation to the wedding feast of the King’s Son (Mat. 22:1-14). This is the invitation to believe in Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit and to receive His heavenly and eternal riches. But some respond to the invitation with disinterest—they think they have better things to do. Others react with violence and attack the servants who bring the invitation to them. Still others want to attend the feast on their own terms, wearing their own righteousness, which is a great insult to the merciful and gracious King.
But despite our sins, the invitation to join the wedding feast still comes to us. We sit down at this feast each time we hear the Word of our Lord and receive the rich food of His body and blood for the remission of our sins. His Word and Sacraments are how, like a good husband, our Savior Jesus serves us. He does not treat us as our sins against Him deserve.
Though we have often been unfaithful to Him and His Word and pursued other priorities to the detriment of our faith, our relationships, and our homes, He forgives every one of these sins. He has mercy on us in our weakness; He treats us with patience and love; He communicates clearly and regularly His commitment to us. He perfectly does His part to keep His marriage with the Church healthy and strong.
His willingness to serve and sacrifice is what makes us want to Hold Fast to the Lord. Like a faithful bride, we love Him, we submit to His authority, and we want to please Him by all that we think, say, and do. We seek no other Bridegroom, no other Savior. No one could ever love us so well and care for us as perfectly as He does.
This was Hezekiah’s confidence. “He trusted in the LORD” and “held fast” to Him, and the people of Judah were blessed by his faithfulness. When we do the same by the grace of God, our marriages, our homes, and our communities are likewise blessed. Then it is said of us as it was said of Hezekiah: “And the LORD was with him; wherever he went out, he prospered.”
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 “Healing the Blind Near Jericho” by a Netherlands artist in the 1470s)
The Second Sunday after the Epiphany – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Romans 12:6-16
In Christ Jesus, from whom all blessings flow to His holy bride, the Church of all believers, dear fellow redeemed:
I was surprised to learn that there are twelve couples in our parish who will celebrate fifty or more years of marriage this year. Thanks be to God for this! It is an example and an encouragement to the rest of us, as we live in a culture that places less and less value on marriage. I wish I had compiled these anniversary lists sooner, since there would have been more couples to recognize in years past.
When married couples reach their seventieth or seventy-fifth anniversary, that seems to be high enough for an article in the local newspaper. And the question is always asked, “How did you make it work for this long?” Or, “What advice do you have for other married couples?” The advice is often something like: “Never go to bed angry.” “Communicate with one another.” “Compliment each other every day.” And that is all good advice.
The couples among us who have been married a long time would agree that marriage takes work—and sometimes very hard work. But I think they would also acknowledge that it wasn’t so much their “being good at marriage” that got them through. It was the grace of God covering over their faults and forgiving their sins that brought them to this point.
This is what we emphasize at our marriage ceremonies, an emphasis that you won’t hear in many other places. We keep the focus on Jesus, and the love He has for us. For many others, the focus is only on the love the married couple has for one another. In some cases this mutual love is treated as the foundation of the marriage, and the vows are accordingly changed from “until death parts us,” to “as long as we both love each other.” That’s a problem, because the love one might have for another is not a constant. It is changeable, and it often does change in a marriage.
The Epistle lesson before us today is not specifically a marriage reading. It is instruction and encouragement to be who we already are in Christ. The reason we need the instruction is because sin clings to us, and we continue to think, say, and do things that are not right. We need to be taught what is right before God. We need to learn how He wants us to be as His people.
Marriage and family are wonderful ways to put these teachings into practice. What marriage wouldn’t benefit from outdoing “one another in showing honor,” or being “patient in tribulation,” or never being “wise in your own sight”? And think of how peaceful a home would be where siblings “love one another with brotherly affection,” where they “live in harmony with one another,” where none are “haughty, but associate with the lowly.”
The home is the testing place to see whether we will succeed outside the home. If a child does not respect his parents, what other authority will he respect? If siblings do not learn to get along, who else will they get along with? If Mom and Dad don’t model love and sacrifice in their marriage, how likely will their children learn these things for future relationships outside the home? So much depends on the home!
But the home is not perfect—no home is. I expect there is much you are thankful for about the home you grew up in, especially if it was a Christian home. But you also remember hard times, arguments, fights, impatience, anger. And you probably weren’t an innocent bystander in all of that. You remember the part you played in that discord. You remember your sins.
The home Jesus grew up in was no different. Probably Joseph and Mary worried about money like most couples do. I’m sure their tempers got short. You can imagine how Mary fretted when they lost track of their twelve-year-old Son in Jerusalem. When they finally found Him in the temple, Mary blurted out, “Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress” (Luk. 2:48). We see more worrying from Mary in today’s Holy Gospel when she brought the problem of a wine shortage to Jesus at a wedding they attended.
But one thing was different about the home of Mary and Joseph that made it like no other home. Jesus was different. He actually was an innocent bystander. He did not contribute in any way to the sin of the household. He was perfect. He submitted to the authority of Mary and Joseph (Luk. 2:51). He showed perfect love toward them and the neighbors around Him, and they noticed. The evangelist Luke writes that “Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man” (2:52).
That perfect life was for you, to cover over all your transgressions and unkindnesses toward the people God placed in your life to love. Everything in today’s reading that you fall short of time and again, Jesus fulfilled. He was genuine in His love. He held fast to what was good. He loved and honored all the people around Him. He was not slothful in zeal; He was fervent in spirit; He perfectly served the Lord God. He rejoiced in hope; He was patient in tribulation; He was constant in prayer. He was humble, kind, gracious, and helpful in the best possible ways.
This perfect life that Jesus lived, He freely hands over to you. Like a husband and wife who agree to share everything with each other, Jesus says, “Everything that is Mine is yours.” In fact, marriage is exactly the picture God uses to explain what His Son did for you. But it is not like our marriages, which we enter into by mutual consent as equals. The union between Jesus and His bride the Church was totally by His prerogative, and it was nowhere near balanced like we expect the marriage relationship to be.
Jesus, the perfect Bridegroom, chose for His bride the world of sinners. The only-begotten Son of God, God from all eternity, chose to join Himself to our human flesh and become a Man, so that He could make everything that is ours His, and everything that is His ours. He accepted our pride, our anger, our bitterness, and our self-centeredness. He accepted our unkind words, our manipulative actions, our unfaithfulness, and our lies. He let all of our sins be placed on Himself as though He were the straying spouse, as though all the stains of our wrong-doing belonged on Him.
And in return, He gave us what is His. He gave us His perfect obedience to His Father, His kind actions, His gracious words, His righteous thoughts. He gave us His eternal life, His everlasting peace, His heavenly kingdom. All that He accomplished by His holy life and His sacrificial death on the cross, He poured over us in Baptism (Eph. 5:26).
He joined His life to yours at your Baptism. There He promised to remain faithful to you at all times and in all situations—“for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health; to love and to cherish.” But not until death parts you, because death cannot part you from your Bridegroom who rose in victory over your death and lives forevermore. By faith, you cling to Him. You trust that He will not break His baptismal vow to you no matter what you have to face in your marriage, in your home, or in your life.
Jesus our Bridegroom is perfectly true. Our side of things is the side that is less certain. Like a discontent spouse, sometimes we try to blame Jesus for not doing more for us, for not addressing our wants and needs, for not making us happier. But Jesus hasn’t changed toward us. It is we who change toward Him. It is our love for Him that falters. It is our confidence and trust in Him that are lacking.
When things get bad for us it is because we get this verse backward. Instead of “Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good,” we often abhor what is good and hold fast to what is evil. That’s when we have problems with Jesus. We ignore His powerful Word, while giving way to our own bitter thoughts and sinful actions. We forget His love, while wallowing in self-pity.
But if we are going to “Hold Fast to What Is Good,” there is no other way to do this than to hold fast to Jesus, because it is Jesus who is good, whose mercy endures forever. The word for “holding fast” is the same word that Jesus used when quoting from Genesis 2: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh” (Mat. 19:5). Or if you prefer the old translation, “a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife.”
We “hold fast” to Jesus, we “cleave” to Him, by gladly hearing and learning His Word, and trusting that He is here to bless us through the means of grace He instituted for His Church. We should have no doubts about what His Word can do. If it could turn water into wine and bring gladness to a wedding at Cana long ago, it can change bitterness to love, curses into blessings, and sorrows into joys in our hearts and in our homes.
So whether you are married or single, whether you are looking forward with excitement to unknown joys and challenges, or looking back with sober reflection and contentment, remember that Jesus’ vow toward you has not changed. He joined Himself to you and will never leave you. He is your salvation, your comfort, your strength.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from Redeemer Lutheran Church stained glass)