Midweek Lent 5 – Pr. Abraham Faugstad homily
Text: St. John 19:25-27
In Christ Jesus, who perfectly kept God’s law in your place, so that you could be regarded as saints, dear fellow redeemed!
Jesus summarizes the Ten Commandments when he says, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ (and) ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 22:37, 39). Love God; love your neighbor. Oftentimes, we think of keeping God’s commandments as simply not doing things we shouldn’t—you shall have no other gods, you shall not misuse the name of the your God, you shall not murder or hate your neighbor, you shall not steal, and so on. But to keep God’s commands is more than just not doing something—it also means to fulfill his commands. Not only are you not to murder or hate your neighbor, you need to help and befriend him in every need. To keep the seventh commandment doesn’t mean just not to steal from your neighbor but also help him to improve and protect his goods and means of making a living. To keep the eighth commandment doesn’t just mean not lying or slandering your neighbor, but excusing him, speaking well of him, and interpreting everything in the best possible way. For every “you shall not,” there is a “you shall.”
As we think about our life it’s easy for the many good things we have left undone to weigh on our conscience. As we look back upon our life and our day, it’s easy to find times where we could have been a better spouse or parent, child or friend. I should have said or done that! It’s easy for us to feel remorse and guilt for failing to fulfill God’s command to love him and our neighbor. Because it’s true. Not only have we broken God’s law and sinned, but we have also many times not done what we could have or should have done. We let opportunities that God place in front us go to waste.
That’s why tonight, as we focus on Jesus’ great love and mercy from the cross, taking care of his own mother, I want us to focus on the great comfort of Jesus’ active obedience for us.
When we speak about the saving work of Christ and his obedience, we distinguish between his active and passive obedience. By his innocent sufferings and death, Jesus suffered, in our stead and for our benefit, the punishment which we deserved according to the law of God. We call this his passive obedience. Though he was completely innocent, he suffered for the sins of the world so that we could be forgiven. He took our sentence of death so that we could go free. “Chief of sinners though I be, Jesus shed his blood for me.” The other part of Christ’s obedience was his active obedience. By his holy life, Jesus has perfectly fulfilled the law in our stead and for our benefit. Jesus loved God above all things and his neighbor as himself. He did this throughout his life, so that we who were unable to obey God’s law perfectly, might be credited a righteous life on his account. And we have a wonderful example of how Christ perfectly fulfilled the Lord’s command to love in our lesson tonight.
These were the last few hours of Jesus’ life. As the only innocent man to ever live, he was scourged and beaten, lied about and betrayed, and sentenced to crucifixion. The Roman’s didn’t invent crucifixion, but they did perfect it—ensuring it to be the most painful form of death at the time. Jesus now hung from the cross. We know from Scripture that a few women and a disciple watched this all take place from a distance, but now we are told they stood by the cross. Mary the mother of Jesus, his aunt, Mary Magdalene, and John, the disciple whom Jesus loved. They would have seen first-hand Jesus’ aching body, the sweat, the wounds, the blood, and the tears. They had come to grieve and mourn and offer what support they could to Jesus who was not only in extreme physical pain, but in spiritual affliction as he bore the weight of the world’s sins.
Yet instead of them offering him what little comfort they could, Jesus offered it to them, specifically, to his mother. He knew he would no longer be able to fulfill his obligation as a son. But as her Lord and Savior, he ensures that his mother, likely a widow, was cared for by his beloved disciple. John would later write of Jesus, “having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end” (John 13:1). He loved them to the end. Surely, the Psalmist is right when he writes that God is “A father of the fatherless, a defender of widows” (Psalm 68:5). God does not forget his people. Jesus shows us this.
When we are in pain, it is normal for us not to think about anyone else. It’s natural for us to be selfish and want others to care for us. A couple weeks ago I was rinsing out a tin can and sliced my finger as I was washing it. I stomped my foot in pain. But it made me think, “how would I have responded if my wife in that moment would have asked for me to change our daughter’s diaper?” I am not too optimistic about how I would have responded. Of course, she didn’t ask for help but offered to help me.
Here hangs Jesus, at a time when anyone would understand not thinking about others—but still he loves. He perfectly cares for his neighbor, fulfilling the law of God for us. We are told that John took Mary to his home that hour, he made her part of his family. John took care of Mary until the end of her life.
John, perhaps better than anyone else, understood what it means to love our neighbor. Here, Jesus laid before John his own opportunity to show love—by caring for Mary as his own mother. To help her in her grief and support her in old age. We often call the apostles saints. Like St. Paul, St. Peter, and St. John. Why do we do that? Is it because they lived a holier life than most? Or performed certain miracles? While they lived fine Christian lives and did amazing things through God, that is not why we call them saints. They are regarded saints because they believed in Jesus. As Scripture says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness” (Romans 4:3).
Even John as he cared for Mary couldn’t have done it perfectly. John himself writes by inspiration, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” But John believed in Christ. He confessed his sins and trusted in Jesus. And he says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (I John 1:8,9).
You and I have sinned. We have broken God’s law. What’s more, we have often failed to live up to the life that God demands of us. Yet we know that Jesus has not only paid for all our sins and failures on the cross, but that he also lived the life that God demands in our place. Jesus left no good deed undone. Our Savior did all things well for you.
Maybe you’re feeling guilty for your failure to love your children, your spouse, your parents, or your coworker the way you could or should have. Maybe you missed opportunities to show love. Don’t let the devil cause you to despair. Look to Jesus. See how in his agony he still loved. He perfectly fulfilled God’s law. And he did it for you and for your benefit—so that his perfect life could be credited to you.
In willing and loving obedience to his Father, Jesus laid down his life and freely offered himself as the spotless Lamb of God for you. “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:19). By his willing obedience, active as well as passive, Jesus has fully atoned for our sins, reconciled us to the Father, and made us children of God and heirs of eternal glory.
Could anyone accuse Jesus of failing to live up to God’s command to love? No. Here’s the amazing thing: through faith in Jesus, neither can anyone accuse you. Because his life is your life, his death is your death, and his victory over death is your future. Yes, you are a sinner, but by God’s grace through faith, you are a saint fit for heaven. God has declared it. Behold your Savior! Amen.
(picture from “Crucifixion, Seen from the Cross,” by James Tissot, c. 1890)
The Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. Matthew 23:34-46
In Christ Jesus, who fulfilled the Old Testament and ushered in the New Testament, dear fellow redeemed:
It was the week of Passover. The city of Jerusalem was full of Jewish people who had traveled there from all directions. Everyone was buzzing about “Jesus of Nazareth” who had recently raised Lazarus from the dead. Some viewed Him as a great prophet, a miracle worker, and perhaps even the Messiah. Others regarded Him as an imposter, a blasphemer, an enemy. The religious leaders had been plotting His destruction for some time, but they didn’t want to create an uproar among the people by arresting Him in public.
So they waited for a good opportunity. While they waited, they decided to try to catch Him saying something false, something they could use against Him in a trial. First the Herodians came asking Him if it was lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not. They went away marveling at His expert answer. Then the Sadducees came with a question about marriage in the resurrection. In His answer, Jesus quoted from the Old Testament Scriptures, showing that the Sadducees did not know what they claimed to know.
Then the Pharisees came. They fancied themselves as experts of the Law, the best of the best. If anyone could expose Jesus as false, they could. Their confidence in their own abilities is laughable. It was like pee-wee league players facing off against professionals. They didn’t know who they were dealing with. Their pride was about to be checked.
“Teacher,” one of them said, “which is the great commandment in the Law?” It’s hard to know how they were trying to trip Him up with this. Jesus’ answer came from the classic Old Testament creed in the book of Deuteronomy: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (6:4-5). Then Jesus added a second great commandment from the book of Leviticus: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (19:18). “This is the summary of God’s commands in the Scriptures,” He said. “These are the hooks on which they ‘hang.’”
All that God asks of us is found in these two commandments: love God with our whole being and love our neighbors as ourselves. But what kind of love is God talking about? People use “love” today to describe things like their favorite food, their favorite musical artist, or their favorite color. Regarding relationships, our culture likes to say that “love is love,” meaning any form of affection we might have toward another is a proper love, even if is actually harmful to ourselves or others.
The definition of love given by Jesus from the Old Testament is clearly a self-sacrificing, humble love. How should we love God? With “all our heart… all our soul… all our mind.” That means we should attune each of our desires, plans, and beliefs to the will of God. We should apply our intellect and our thoughts to His service and dedicate ourselves to studying His Word of truth above all else.
And how should we love our neighbor? Just as we love ourselves. This means that my neighbors should matter to me as much as I matter to me. Their needs should be just as important as my needs, their struggles as my struggles, their pain and sorrow as my pain and sorrow. This is not necessarily a mutual love, as in, “I love you; you love me.” This is a love that does not require or expect a return. It is love spilling over from one to another, and even to an enemy.
This is the love Jesus had for the religious leaders who wanted to destroy Him. He didn’t show them love by affirming them in their pride and self-righteousness. Love does not mean supporting people in every choice they make. If that is the way we parented our children, they would be spoiled brats and would almost certainly reject the saving truth of the Bible. Instead, we correct them, call out their bad decisions, rebuke them for the untrue or unkind things they say, challenge their selfish thinking. That is love.
And we need God to do the same to us. We need to hear these two great commands of God and ask ourselves how well we have kept them. All our heart, soul, and mind? Love for others as we love ourselves? Most of the time, we can’t rightly say that God has even half our heart, soul, and mind. So often we are focused on earthly concerns, things like our health, money, influence, future plans, pleasures. And our neighbors? The people closest to us don’t always get our best; they might more likely get the leftovers. Instead of thinking about what I can do for them, we think about what they can do for me. We need the Holy Spirit to convict us through the Law for our lack of love.
But while the Pharisees were still gathered together, Jesus shifted the focus from the Law with a question of His own. He asked them whose son the Christ, or the “Anointed One,” is. They said, “the Son of David,” meaning that the Christ would descend from the royal line of David. Jesus followed that with a quotation from one of David’s Psalms, where David recorded a conversation between “the LORD,” and “[his] Lord.” Then Jesus asked, “If then David calls Him Lord, how is He his Son?”
Where were the experts now? Didn’t they claim to know the Law like no one else? Their mouths were shut. They didn’t know what to say. The evangelist Matthew, who was a witness to all these things, said about them, “no one was able to answer Him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask Him any more questions.” Jesus had exposed their ignorance. But His goal was not to win a verbal battle. His goal was to open their heart, soul, and mind to the beautiful promise of the Scriptures.
The central promise, the core message of the Old Testament is not first of all the Law of God. The Old Testament is first of all about the LORD’s promise to send a Savior for sinners. The promise came right after Adam’s fall into sin. The written Law came much later, probably thousands of years later, through God’s servant Moses. Jesus was calling the Pharisees to consider this central teaching. He wanted them to recognize that the promised Christ was both David’s Son and David’s Lord. He was both human and divine.
And what would this Christ do? The Jews were hoping for a man who would return Israel to its former glory like it had under King David. That is probably how the Pharisees understood Psalm 110, from which Jesus was quoting. And this Psalm does speak in terms of conquest. The first verse says, “The LORD says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.’” And later in the Psalm: “The Lord is at your right hand; he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath. He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses; he will shatter chiefs over the wide earth” (vv. 5-6).
It certainly sounds like the coming Christ would be a conqueror of nations. That is probably how we would have understood it too. But now we know that this Psalm is much more. Defeating the powerful leaders of the territory would be impressive. Jesus did something infinitely more impressive. He took on the enemies that have vexed and conquered humanity ever since the fall into sin. He took on the poison of sin, the power of death, and the devil that pulls the strings of all that is evil and destructive in the world.
These are the enemies that would become Jesus’ footstool. But first He had to perfectly fulfill the command to love God and neighbor by going to the cross. His Father sent Him into the world for this very purpose, and Jesus willingly offered His perfect life for the lives of all His neighbors, for all the sinners of all time. What wondrous love is this! It is perfect love.
This love was poured out for you when Jesus shed His holy blood. He went to the cross as your substitute carrying the many ways you have failed in love toward God and your neighbors. He carried your selfishness, the anger you have felt toward others, the grudges you have nursed, and your reluctance to help those who needed you. On the cross, He paid for all those transgressions as though they were His own, all those violations of God’s clear commands. His death in your place freed you from the culpability and blame of all your sin.
You do not love God with all your heart, soul, and mind or your neighbor as yourself, but Jesus did, for you. Romans 10:4 declares that “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” Because He fulfilled the Law, you share in that fulfillment by faith in Him. His life of perfect love is credited to each one of us by His grace alone.
This is the comfort we find in the Word of God as recorded in the Old and the New Testaments. We certainly become more aware of our sin when we hear and learn the Word, but we also learn about our Savior, the promised Christ, from the beginning of Genesis all the way to the end of Revelation. As Jesus said to the religious leaders on another occasion, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me” (Joh. 5:39).
With these words, Jesus is teaching us to look for Him and His saving work all through the pages of the Bible. He is The Anointed One who Fulfills the Scriptures. This Son of David and Lord of David, Jesus the Christ, did not come to make a spectacle out of us sinners. He came to save us. He came to carry out the mission His Father sent Him to do, until His enemies—and our enemies—were made a footstool under His feet. Jesus, the Son of God incarnate, reigns over sin, death, and the devil, now and forever. He won the victory for us sinners, just as the Scriptures said He 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 from the altarpiece in Weimar by Lucas Cranach the Younger, 1555)
The Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity – Vicar Lehne sermon
Text: St. Luke 10:23-37
In Christ Jesus, who always loves us, his neighbors, as himself, dear fellow redeemed:
The lawyer was not happy. After all, he was an expert in the Law. He knew what the Law said and what it meant. And yet, in a verse that came just before our text for today, Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will” (Luke 10:21). Not only did this suggest that little children knew more about the Law than the lawyer did, but this also suggested that faith, given by God, was all that was required to understand the Holy Scriptures and to be saved. The lawyer had to prove that he understood the Law better than little children, better than Jesus. So, he put Jesus to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life” (verse 25)?
The Law clearly stated what a person had to do to be saved, so if Jesus’ answer showed that he did, in fact, believe that it was by faith that a person was saved, he would prove his ignorance. However, Jesus didn’t answer the lawyer’s question. Instead, Jesus turned it on him, saying, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it” (verse 26)? While not what the lawyer was expecting, he now had a chance to prove that he understood the Law. So, he summarized the Law by saying, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself” (verse 27). Jesus then responded to the lawyer by saying, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live” (verse 28).
Wait, so Jesus didn’t think that a person was saved by faith alone? That’s what Jesus’ response sounded like to the lawyer. However, that’s not what Jesus meant. He was actually trying to get the lawyer to see that he couldn’t live up to what the Law demanded and that it was purely by God’s grace and mercy that he was saved. But the lawyer didn’t see what Jesus wanted him to see. Instead, the lawyer shifted his goal to justifying himself. Jesus had told him to “do this,” but he already thought that he had. He had loved God like he should and his neighbor as himself—as long as “neighbor” was defined in a certain way. To see if Jesus saw things the way he did, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
This question was intended to prove to Jesus that the lawyer was needed to legally define what a neighbor is. After all, in the lawyer’s mind, since the Law was given by Moses to the Jews at the Mount Siani, then a neighbor had to be someone within the Jewish community, and he wanted to make that belief law. However, Jesus didn’t give the lawyer the justification he was looking for. Instead, Jesus showed that everyone is our neighbor, and therefore, (1) we’re not to show our love just to those we think deserve it, but (2) we’re to show our love to everyone, just as Jesus loves all of us.
In the parable, Jesus not only put the priest and the Levite, whom the lawyer would associate himself with, in a bad light, but he also put the Samaritan in a good light. The Samaritans were certainly not people whom the Jews would consider to be their neighbors. They were a mixed race and didn’t follow the Old Testament to the letter like the Jews did. But by using the Samaritan as the good example, Jesus made his point abundantly clear, so that even the lawyer had to admit it when he said that the one who “proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers” (verse 36) was “[t]he one who showed him mercy” (verse 37), or the good Samaritan.
When we hear accounts from the Bible like these, we can often times think to ourselves, “Yeah! You tell them Jesus!” However, we fail to realize that Jesus was not just speaking to the lawyer. He was speaking to all of us. Like the lawyer, there are those whom we don’t think deserve our love. Maybe it’s because they are murderers. Maybe it’s because they committed adultery. Maybe it’s because they didn’t keep a promise that they made. Or maybe it’s simply because they don’t belong to our group, like how the Jews viewed the Samaritans.
There are even times when we don’t think that those whom we would normally consider to be our neighbors deserve our love. In times like these, we act like the priest and the Levite, who passed by a fellow Jew in need of their help, simply because it wasn’t convenient for them. We might be willing to help someone in need, as long as it’s convenient for us or it benefits us. But, if we think that people have to deserve our love, then we also have to admit that we don’t deserve God’s love.
Since we have to keep the entire Law in order to earn God’s love, as Jesus told the lawyer, then we have to admit that we’ve failed. Sure, on the surface it may look like we’ve kept the entire Law, but Jesus shows us that it doesn’t take much to break the Law. We may think that we haven’t murdered anyone, but Jesus says that “everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire” (Matthew 5:22). We may think that we haven’t committed adultery, but Jesus says that “everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). We may think that we haven’t sworn falsely, but Jesus says, “Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil” (Matthew 5:37). We may think that we don’t have to show love to our enemies, like how the Jews thought they didn’t have to show love to the Samaritans, but Jesus says, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). And these are just some of the ways that we fail to love our neighbors as ourselves.
We’re like the man who was attacked by robbers; beaten, bloody, and clinging to life; except we’re not the victim. We’re that way because of the sins that we committed, and Jesus would have every right to pass us by on the other side of the road and leave us to the fate that we brought upon ourselves. But he didn’t. Instead, like the good Samaritan, he came to help us in our time of need.
During his life on earth, Jesus was a good Samaritan in every way that we failed to be. He had compassion on those in need, feeding those who were hungry, healing those who were sick, and casting out demons. He didn’t let the background of others stop him from helping them. In fact, he would often times associate with Samaritans and those whom the religious authorities considered sinners. He even showed love to his enemies, praying while he was on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). And he wasn’t concerned for his own wellbeing, putting the wellbeing of others before his own, with the ultimate example of this being that he willingly laid down his own life for our benefit. As the apostle Paul says, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
On the cross, Jesus paid the price for all of the times that you didn’t show love to your neighbors. You did nothing to deserve the love that Jesus showed you, for you were completely helpless and dying on the side of the road. But Jesus washed your wounds with the waters of baptism, nursed you back to health by feeding you the medicine that is his own body and blood in the Lord’s Supper, and clothed you with his own perfect and holy garments. Because of what Jesus did for you and still does for you, you haven’t just received the forgiveness of sins that he won for you, but his perfect fulfillment of the Law has also been applied to your life. Now, the Father no longer sees the beaten and bloody sinner that you once were, but only the new man that his only begotten Son, Jesus, made you. This is the same message that Jesus was trying to get the lawyer to understand, that he had come to save sinners and open heaven to all who trust in him.
The lawyer didn’t get the answer from Jesus that he was looking for. He thought that he had a better understanding of what a neighbor is than others did, and he thought that by showing love only to those whom he thought deserved it would earn him a place in heaven. Jesus showed him that his understanding of what a neighbor is was wrong and also that he needed the grace and mercy that only God can give in order to be saved. It is a message that the lawyer needed to hear, as well as all of us. We have not loved our neighbors like we should, but Jesus has loved us. Because of his love we now live, and because of his love we love one another as he has loved us.
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 “Parable of the Good Samaritan” by Jan Wijnants, 1632-1684)