The Twelfth Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: 2 Kings 5:1-15
In Christ Jesus, who through His own flesh delivered the eternal cure for our sin and death, dear fellow redeemed:
If you think of the stories of King Arthur’s brave knights or perhaps of the courageous heroes in modern war movies, you can get a sense of Naaman, the commander of the army of the king of Syria. He is described as “a great man with his master and in high favor” and as “a mighty man of valor.” He was a man’s man, bold, and strong. We can suppose that he wasn’t afraid of anyone, that he never backed down from a fight. Wherever the danger was greatest or the odds were most against him, Naaman went forward.
And Naaman won. He was held in high esteem by his master because he was so successful. A ruler cannot be effective without loyal and capable men around him ready to carry out his orders. But neither the king nor Naaman realized where their success came from. We learn in today’s reading that “the LORD had given victory to Syria.” Syria’s strength was part of the LORD’s plan. And so was Naaman’s leprosy. Leprosy was a serious and debilitating skin disease. Naaman had probably prayed to his own gods for relief and healing, but none came. It bothered him enough that even his servants were aware of his struggle.
We don’t expect to see weakness in our heroes. We’re surprised when our nation’s leaders get sidelined by the cold or flu, or when elite athletes pull a muscle and have to take time off. These instances are good reminders that the people we look up to are human also. Because of sin in the world, hardships come on the strong and the weak, the wealthy and the poor, the famous and the obscure. This also teaches us that the people who seem to have it all probably have troubles and pains that we wouldn’t want to touch with a ten foot pole.
So Naaman, who knew military strategy, who knew his way around a battlefield, had been outflanked by a skin disease. He had no answer for it; he couldn’t beat it. It was going to kill him. And now we see the LORD’s strategy in play. Through a little girl who was carried away from Israel and made a slave in Naaman’s house, the LORD made Naaman aware of a prophet in Israel. The little girl confidently told Naaman’s wife that this prophet “would cure him of his leprosy.”
If Naaman’s skin disease did not bother him very much, he would have ignored what the little girl said. What would a Syrian commander want with an Israelite prophet! But that was not his response. He took the message to his king—as farfetched as it sounded—, and the king sent Naaman to Israel with a letter and a load of gifts. Naaman was willing to try even this if it meant he could be healed.
When he was sent to the house of the prophet Elisha, what Naaman expected was that he would have the opportunity to make the case for why he should be healed. Or perhaps he thought he would flatter the prophet and impress him with the gifts he had brought. Certainly it wasn’t every day that Elisha had such esteemed visitors come to his door with all their horses and chariots.
But Elisha was not impressed by these things. He was nobody’s tool but the LORD’s. When Naaman arrived, Elisha didn’t even come out of his house to greet him. He sent a messenger with simple instructions: “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean.” This is not at all what Naaman expected. In fact, he found it very offensive. The prophet wouldn’t even speak to him directly?!? He was supposed to wash himself in the dirty waters of the Jordan River?!? No thanks.
Many people make the same judgment about the Christian Church. “If Christianity were true,” they think, “and if the Christian God is supposedly a God of love, then why wouldn’t He come and make the problems in the world go away? Or if He truly cares about His people, why wouldn’t He at least make their troubles go away?” When told about the basics of the Christian faith, they say, “How can regular water make me a child of God? How can eating bread and drinking wine be a Communion with the body and blood of Jesus? How can these simple things bring salvation?”
Looked at from the unbeliever’s perspective, we can see how strange this all seems. We don’t have anything like Naaman expected—someone waving his hands and saying the magic words and all our troubles disappear. How could washing in the Jordan River seven times do anything good? People expect that salvation should be harder to come by. Shouldn’t we have to do something to be saved? “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
Initially, Naaman rejected the Word. He drove away in his chariot angry, perhaps thinking thoughts of war against Israel for treating him like this. Then his servants meekly approached and said, “Did you not hear what the prophet said? Has he actually said to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” So Naaman consented. He went down to the Jordan and dipped himself “according to the word of the man of God” once, twice, up to seven times—the number for perfection, holiness. And what happened? The flesh that was infected with leprosy “was restored like the flesh of a little child.” He was clean.
Now bold Naaman, mighty Naaman, Naaman the conqueror returned to Elisha’s house and said, “Behold, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel.” What had changed him? Was it the water? Did it have some special quality that when applied resulted in healing? No, it was the Word of the Most High God. The Word attached to the water brought healing to Naaman. The Word brought faith to his heart.
Naaman had been conquered by the LORD’s Word, and he didn’t even see it coming! Many other enemies of the LORD have also been conquered by Him and brought into His kingdom in the same way. You were one of them. Like Naaman, you had something like a disease clinging to and afflicting you, a disease for which you had no cure. It was worse than leprosy; it was sin.
People try all sorts of remedies for this: trying to do enough good to cancel out their bad, pointing to the worse failures of others to make themselves look better, even arguing that what used to be considered sinful isn’t really sinful anymore. But we can’t escape it. The sin of Adam has been passed along to us, and this sin has captured our hearts. Ignoring this infection doesn’t make it go away; it only makes our condition worse. So what can we do to make our condition better?
Jesus says, “There is nothing that you can do. But there is something that I can do.” The Son of God took on our weak human flesh, so that He could reverse the fortunes of Adam’s line. He came to bring salvation to us who were sick, and life to us who were dying. For the official beginning of His public work, Jesus stepped down into that same dirty river as Naaman had some eight hundred years before, and He was baptized by John “to fulfill all righteousness” (Mat. 3:15).
At His Baptism, your sin was poured over Him, and He carried that sin all the way to His death on the cross. His death on the cross was the cure for your sinful condition. It was the remedy for the Fall of all mankind. The perfect Son of God made full satisfaction for all your sins against the holy God. By His death and resurrection, He declares you righteous and pure in God’s sight.
To make sure that you know this righteousness is for you, He has sent messengers to tell you. Your parents brought you to the baptismal font, where you received “the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit” (Ti. 3:5), so that like Naaman, you were made new, “like the flesh of a little child”—born again by water and the Word. It was a perfect cleansing, removing all your sin from you, and placing Jesus’ righteousness over you. At your Baptism, God gave you a tremendous gift. And since that time, your parents and sponsors and fellow believers and pastors have reminded you about this gift.
The humble appearance of Baptism makes some think it is powerless. It’s like Naaman stating that there must be better options for bathing than the Jordan River. But where Jesus’ Word is spoken according to His promise, there is power—life-giving, heart-changing power, the power to heal and save. Today’s Holy Gospel presents an excellent example of the power of His Word (Mar. 7:31-37). Jesus said, “Ephphatha—Be opened,” and the deaf and mute man was healed.
The Word attached to the water of Baptism is what brought you healing and salvation from the LORD. You return to these waters every time you repent of your sins and cast off the things that hinder your faith in Him. Like mighty Naaman humbly obeying the Word and dipping his leprous skin in the water, you and I bring our sins to God, but not only our sins. We bring our weaknesses and strengths, our past and our present, our worries, struggles, and pain, our abilities, our dreams, and our plans, our imperfect hearts and minds. We bring them all to the cleansing waters of Christ and drown them all in faith.
We want everything we do to be washed in Him, to flow from Him, to be sanctified through Him. We need Him to guide our thoughts, words, and actions. We need Him to carry us and keep us true to Him, so that we are not misled by other gods that cannot save. His method for keeping us faithful is not what we expect—the proclamation of His Word and the administration of water, bread, and wine with His promise. These are the powerful means that bring us His forgiveness and salvation, that conquer and cleanse our sinful hearts.
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 Saude Lutheran Church stained glass)
The First Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: 1 Samuel 24:1-22
In Christ Jesus, who “works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed” (Psa. 103:6), so that we always have hope, dear fellow redeemed:
Last week, we heard how young David took down the champion Goliath with no sword or spear in his hand. This made David a hero to all the people of Israel. By David’s hand, the LORD had delivered them from the Philistines. When the Israelites returned from battle, the women met King Saul with singing and dancing. “Saul has struck down his thousands,” they sang, “and David his ten thousands” (1Sa. 18:7). It was quite a compliment to say that Saul had struck down thousands. But he was very angry that the song praised David even more highly than himself. From that point on, Saul looked at David with suspicion and as a threat to his throne.
It is true that David would take Saul’s throne. The LORD had chosen David for this, and the prophet Samuel had already anointed him as the next king. But David would not take the throne by force. Saul had nothing to worry about in that regard. At every step of the way, David showed himself to be a loyal servant to Saul. But sinful envy and jealousy do not often stand on evidence and reason, and they don’t result in anything productive. The proverb says, “For jealousy makes a man furious” (6:34).
Jealousy made Saul furious. David was and could have continued to be a source of great success for Saul. Saul’s kingdom and rule could have expanded. Instead, Saul wanted to destroy David. On multiple occasions, when a harmful spirit came upon Saul, and David was playing music for him, Saul threw his spear at David (1Sa. 18:11, 19:10). Another time, he tried to have David ambushed and killed at his house (19:11). Each time, David escaped which made Saul even more afraid of him.
Today’s account shows how far Saul was willing to go to kill David, pursing him even into the wilderness where David and his men were hiding in a cave. David did not deserve this. He had done nothing wrong to Saul. How many times had he played music for him when Saul was troubled? He had never gone against him. How had he become Saul’s enemy?
You have wondered the same thing if you have ever been targeted or bullied by a classmate, a coworker, a boss, or a neighbor. You wonder: How did I get on this person’s bad side? What have I done to deserve this? These experiences hurt. Even years later, you can remember the pain of being singled out, attacked, feeling alone. You wish there were a way to make the unjust treatment stop. You wish there were a way to get justice.
Now there isn’t a great distance between the desire for justice and the desire to have revenge. The desire for justice can be godly; the desire for revenge is not. Let’s take the example of one sibling picking on or provoking another. If the sibling who has been harmed brings the matter to the proper authorities—his parents—he will have justice. But if he lashes out at the sibling who offended him and strikes back, he may have gotten revenge, but he has also gotten himself in trouble. And he won’t really receive the justice he might have deserved.
Revenge never brings the satisfaction that we think it will. Our natural, knee-jerk response is to hurt the person who hurt us. But causing someone else to feel pain does not make my pain go away. Imagine if David had stabbed Saul to death in that cave. Perhaps Saul’s men would not have known who did it. But David’s men would have. And what kind of precedent would that have set for them? Wouldn’t it teach them that as soon as they felt wronged by David, they would have the right to take his life? And imagine the burden on David’s conscience, the burden of knowing he had murdered Saul.
David opted instead to leave the matter to the LORD. He recognized that as evil as Saul was acting toward him, he was still “the LORD’s anointed.” As long as the LORD allowed Saul to remain the king, David would continue to rely on the LORD for justice. It was all in the LORD’s hand. David held up the corner of Saul’s robe as proof that he could have harmed him but didn’t and said, “May the LORD judge between me and you, may the LORD avenge me against you, but my hand shall not be against you.”
Now David had put himself in a very vulnerable position. He had just revealed his presence to Saul. Saul could have ordered his three thousand men to charge the cave, and David with his small number of men would have likely perished. We also make ourselves vulnerable by not going on “attack mode” against our enemies. Doesn’t that just leave us exposed to further attacks by them? If we don’t try to “take them down a notch” and “give them a taste of their own medicine,” won’t they just continue to wrong us and treat us even worse?
The inspired Epistle to the Romans says, “Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’” (Rom. 12:17-19). We don’t need to take revenge because God promises that He will take care of it. He knows what injustices have been done. He sees every wrong that we experience. And He promises to make everything right in the long run.
That is difficult for us because we don’t want to wait for justice. How long does God expect us to sit still? One month? One year? Ten years? How long will our enemies go unpunished for their evil deeds? It is popular in our culture to talk about “karma”—that bad things will happen to bad people, and good things will happen to good people. But that is not how it works. We don’t always see people get the punishment they deserve. Being on the lookout for “karma” is the same as being focused on revenge.
That is how the world would write the account of the rich man and poor Lazarus (Luk. 16:19-31). Somehow, someway, the places of the rich man and the beggar would be switched. The rich-man-turned-beggar would learn the hard way how selfish he had been and end up with nothing, and the beggar-turned-rich-man would laugh all the way to the bank. But that isn’t how it went. The beggar whom no one wanted to help died, and the rich man kept on throwing his lavish feasts. Justice was not done in this life, but it was done in eternity. Lazarus who trusted in the LORD was brought to heaven. The rich man who trusted in his riches was sent to hell.
Like Lazarus, we don’t always receive good things on earth. Sometimes we suffer unjustly while our enemies prosper. It isn’t fun. It doesn’t seem fair. But it is the way of our Lord Jesus. St. Peter wrote that “He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. 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. 2:22-23). No one was treated more unjustly than Jesus. He did nothing wrong, but He was attacked, tormented, and nailed to a cross.
Justice was not done in Jerusalem. The justice system of the Jews and the Romans failed. But on a higher level, justice was done. Jesus bore this injustice and carried these griefs and sorrows for the salvation of the whole world. He took on Himself all the mistreatments, injustices, evils, and violence that sinners had perpetuated against one another. And more than that, He took on Himself all the wickedness that we sinners had done against the holy God.
This is where we remember our place. We might feel we are treated badly by others. But what makes us think we deserve so much good? What we deserve is the same punishment the rich man received in hell. We deserve to have to pay for all of our sins. But that is not what we get. What we get is forgiveness, righteousness, and life from the gracious hand of our God. He does not treat us like enemies. He does not pay us back for our sins. He saw that justice was done on our behalf by His Son who gave Himself in our place. He paid for our sins to reconcile us with the all-powerful, all-holy God.
And this was David’s comfort as well, that even if Saul opposed him, God did not. His life was in the LORD’s hand just as Saul’s was. He had no right to take Saul’s life. Shortly after the LORD says “Vengeance is mine” in Deuteronomy 32, He says, “there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand” (vv. 35, 39). That is a warning to those who oppose Him. But it is a promise to all who put their trust in Him.
Your merciful LORD gave you life, He redeemed your soul, and brought you to saving faith. He gives you this day your daily bread—everything you need for your existence on earth. He guards and protects you from threats you are not even aware of. And when you do suffer, He strengthens you through His Word to endure.
Because He is with you, because you are on His side, you never stand alone. Even if the entire world opposes you, and there seems to be no way to turn, you are safe with Him. Your Life Is in the LORD’s Hand.
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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(woodcut of Lazarus and the angels from 1880 edition of The Story of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation)
The Baptism of Our Lord – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Exodus 11:1, 12:21-30
In Christ Jesus, whose blood cleansed us from all our sins and reconciled us to God, so that we would be saved from destruction, dear fellow redeemed:
God turned all of Egypt’s water to blood, but Pharaoh wouldn’t let the people of Israel go. Then God sent frogs and gnats and flies, but Pharaoh wouldn’t budge. Then He sent a disease on Egypt’s livestock, boils on Egypt’s people, and destructive hail throughout the land. Still, Pharaoh said no. God sent locusts that devoured every green plant, and then caused a deep darkness to fall on the land for three days. Through each of these nine plagues, the book of Exodus says first that Pharaoh hardened his heart, and then that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. He did this to show Egypt and all other nations that He was the LORD (Exo. 10:2). He would free His people, the Israelites, from slavery.
They weren’t always slaves. You remember that Joseph brought his father and brothers to Egypt during a time of famine. When they came with their families, there were seventy of them. But over a period of several hundred years, the people had multiplied greatly, and the Pharaohs in power no longer knew about Joseph. They saw the Israelite people as a threat, so they enslaved them. When the people continued to expand, the Pharaoh ordered all Israelite baby boys to be killed. It was a horrible time for God’s people.
But the LORD heard their groaning. He saw their suffering. He hadn’t forgotten them (Exo. 2:24-25). He raised up an unlikely deliverer, eighty-year-old Moses, to lead them out of Egypt to the Promised Land. Moses and his brother Aaron delivered the message to Pharaoh that he was to let the Israelites go to worship the LORD in the wilderness. When Pharaoh refused, the plagues commenced and continued.
That brings us to the final and decisive plague which today’s reading describes. Before He sent the plague, God gave instructions for how His people were to be protected. He didn’t give them armor or put a force field around them. He didn’t give them supernatural powers to defend themselves. He told them that their salvation would come through a lamb.
Each household was to select a lamb “without blemish, a male a year old” (Exo. 12:5). They were to wait four days and then kill the lamb at twilight. They were directed to put some of the lamb’s blood on the lintels and doorposts of their homes, eat the meat roasted over a fire with unleavened bread on the side, and prepare to march into the wilderness. The Israelites did this. They killed the lambs, painted the blood outside their doors, ate the meat, and waited with belts fastened, sandals on, and staffs in hand.
At midnight, the LORD did what He said. He struck down all the firstborn sons in Egypt in all the homes that had no blood on the doorposts. The LORD had told His people, “The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt” (Exo. 12:13). This is where the term “Passover” comes from—the LORD passed over the homes marked by the blood of the lamb. In this way, the people of Israel were saved and set apart from all other nations. They were purchased by God from their slavery in Egypt with blood.
This purchasing with the blood of the lamb was a “type” or a shadow of what God promised to do for all sinners through His Son. 1 Peter 1 says, “you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” (vv. 18-19). This is why John, after seeing the Holy Spirit descend on Him and hearing the words of the Father about Him, pointed to Jesus and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (Joh. 1:29).
Jesus’ Baptism marked Him as the Christ, the anointed Son of God. It was the beginning of His public work. No more quiet service to His parents in Nazareth, where probably no one pegged Him as the next great rabbi or a great prophet. Now He began to teach, preach, and heal. He gathered His disciples. He traveled from place to place. And finally He set His face to go to Jerusalem, where this spotless Lamb would be bound, nailed to a cross, and die before the setting of the sun on that Passover day.
Just as the blood of the Passover lamb saved the people of Israel from death and delivered them from slavery, so the blood of Jesus has done the same for you. His blood set you free from the grip of the devil; he can no longer accuse and torment you for your sins because your sins were all atoned for by Jesus. You are not a slave to sin because you have been purchased and won by Jesus’ blood. Eternal punishment and death in hell must pass over you because Jesus saved you.
But how can you be sure about this? Doubts always creep in. What if the sins you have committed, either for their frequency or for their repulsiveness, disqualify you from receiving God’s grace? What if your faith is not true enough? What if your heart is not pure enough? The Israelites could point to the blood on their doorposts: “That made the difference! That’s why we are saved!” What can you point to?
Some people try to point to their good works, but those cannot save them. Some point to their good intentions – “My life may not look great, but God knows I tried”—that won’t save anyone either. If you point to anything you do, you will always have doubts. Your thoughts, words, and actions have never been perfectly pure, and as long as you live in this fallen world, they never will be.
And that is why you take comfort, not in what you have done, but in what God has done for you. God the Father sent His Son to be your Passover Lamb, to wash you clean of all your sin by shedding His precious blood. Jesus willingly went to the cross for you. He suffered and died there for you. And to make sure you know that He did this for you, He has given you a visible sign, the holy Sacrament of water and the Word.
Your Baptism is like the Israelites’ blood on the doorposts. The blood marked them as God’s own children. Baptism marks you as a child of God. When you were baptized “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” God put His name on you and claimed you as His own. He made you holy and set you apart from the world. He made you His heir, joining you to the eternal inheritance won for you by your Savior.
No matter what the devil and the world plot against you, no matter what harm they might do to you, you belong to the LORD. He loves you perfectly. He knows your struggles and suffering. He gives you His strength and courage through His Word and Sacraments. And He promises ultimate deliverance—safe passage to the Promised Land. In his great Easter hymn, Martin Luther puts these thoughts together:
Here the true Paschal Lamb we see, / Whom God so freely gave us;
He died on the accursed tree— / So strong His love—to save us.
See, His blood doth mark our door; / Faith points to it, death passes o’er,
And Satan cannot harm us. / Alleluia! (ELH 343, v. 5)
Your Baptism was the beginning of your new life in Christ. It set you on a different path than you were on before. Baptism lets you put behind you the desires and sins that enslaved you. It points you forward in hope to a better place, a better day, a better home. That’s exactly what the Passover was for the people of Israel. In fact, God made their deliverance from slavery in Egypt the beginning of a new calendar (Exo. 12:2). They were to celebrate the Passover at the beginning of this new year every year, in order to remember and rejoice in the grace of God they continued to receive.
This is why it is good for you to remember the date of your Baptism and give thanks for it each year—and not just annually, but even daily. The Catechism teaches that you return to your Baptism by daily contrition and repentance, and that a new man daily comes forth and arises to live before God in righteousness and purity (“The Meaning of Baptism”). You are baptized into Christ. It is your enduring identity before God. It is the eternal mark He put on you that He can see just as clearly as He saw the blood on the doorposts.
The Israelites could not see what the future held after they had made their Passover preparations. We also at Baptism cannot see all the burdens and blessings that will come along the way in our journey. But we know who is with us—the LORD who made heaven and earth and everything in them, the LORD who delivered His people Israel from slavery, the LORD who conquered sin, devil, and death for every sinner!
As we go forward, He speaks His comforting promises to us. He reminds us who we are in Him, who He made us to be through Holy Baptism. And in the new Supper instituted with the unleavened bread and wine of the Passover meal, He feeds us with His holy body and blood. The Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world, including your sin and mine. We are saved by His blood.
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 Sacrificial Lamb” by Josefa de Ayala, 1630-1684)
The Second Sunday in Advent – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Genesis 6:9-22
In Christ Jesus, whom we will see “coming in a cloud with power and great glory” (Luk. 21:27) on the day of judgment, dear fellow redeemed:
When things are not going so well in the nation or in the church, we might find ourselves dreaming about how it would be if certain individuals were still with us. What would George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln say and do about our current challenges on the local and national levels? And in the church, what difference would Martin Luther, C. F. W. Walther, and U. V. Koren make if they were still here preaching and teaching?
For us, these men have been gone a long time. But if we lived in Noah’s day, presumably all these men would still be with us. Genesis 5 gives the ages of Adam and his descendants. Adam lived to be 930 years old. His son Seth lived 912 years. Methuselah, the oldest man named in the Bible and Noah’s grandfather, lived 969 years. So when you overlap the lifetimes of these men, you find that Adam and Methuselah lived concurrently for 243 years.[1] Methuselah’s son Lamech overlapped 56 years with Adam. Now Lamech was Noah’s father! So even though Noah was unable to speak directly with Adam about what happened in the Garden of Eden and the promise God made to crush Satan’s head, Noah’s father certainly could have.
This makes it all the more surprising that the behavior of mankind had degenerated to the point that it had. The reason this had happened is because the people of the promise, the believers, began to intermarry with unbelievers. Why did the believing men do this? We are told it was because the unbelieving women were attractive (Gen. 6:2). Examples like this are why we teach our children to seek out spouses who share the same faith in Christ. A believing spouse can have a beneficial effect on an unbelieving spouse. But the opposite can also be true and often happens, that the faith of a believer is weakened or lost when the unbelieving spouse does not encourage it.
Because of these intermarriages in that early period of history, the community of believers got smaller and smaller, until “the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (v. 5). The first man and first preacher Adam had only recently died, and yet so few cared about God’s promise of salvation. In Genesis 6 just before today’s reading, we are told that “the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth” (v. 6). He decided that He would destroy mankind and all the land animals. Only one man found favor in God’s sight—only Noah.
Noah was described in glowing terms—he was “a righteous man, blameless in his generation”; he “walked with God.” In short, Noah was a believer. He knew that he deserved nothing but damnation for his sins, but he believed God’s promise that a Savior was coming. It broke Noah’s heart to see all the ungodliness around him. How could so many have forgotten their Creator? How could he alone be left? No doubt, the devil attacked Noah with terrible trials and persecutions. Noah was an outcast, despised by everyone. Did he think he was so perfect? What made him so sure that his truth was the right one?
Then God gave Noah an even harder task: build a boat, a great big ark, out in the middle of a field. The ark had to be big enough to hold Noah and his family and two of every kind of animal on the earth with seven pairs of all clean animals. God told him what the dimensions of the ark needed to be: 300 cubits long or about the length of a football field and a half, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits tall which would be all of the height of our church steeple. In Iowa, we have the nice story of the Field of Dreams, but making a baseball field in the country does not seem quite as crazy as building a massive boat! And yet Noah did not question God; “he did all that God commanded him.”
Noah is one of the great fathers in the faith. He is an excellent example for us who are also surrounded by all sorts of violence and godlessness. Noah believed God’s warning even when everyone else ridiculed it. They attacked his family and probably tried to sabotage his work, but Noah kept building. Day after day, he encouraged his family by the Word of God and led them in prayer. Day after day, he did the work God gave him to do. And after a period of perhaps 100 years, the massive ark was ready.
Noah’s neighbors spent no time reflecting on their actions. They felt no remorse. Jesus said that “in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark” (Mat. 24:38). They cared nothing about crazy Noah and his boat, and even less about Noah’s preaching of repentance. But what about when animals started climbing into the ark two by two? “Must be some kind of coincidence” or “witchcraft,” they thought. Then the rain started to fall, and Noah was nowhere to be seen. Then they noticed that the door in the side of the ark was shut….
What happened next is almost too terrible to imagine. The waters rose higher and higher. People desperately looked for higher ground, young and old, rich and poor, but age, health, and position meant nothing. Could Noah and his family hear the screaming? Did anyone try to pry open the door from the outside? The rain poured down, the boat came free of its scaffolding, and then there was no sound but rain on the roof.
The same waters that destroyed all living people and land animals outside the ark saved the people and animals inside the ark. They were waters of destruction and salvation. That’s the same way we think about the waters of Baptism—they are waters of destruction and salvation. Baptism drowned your old Adam and washed away the filth of your sin—everything in you that rebelled against your Creator and separated you from Him. At the same time, Baptism gave you a living faith and raised you up to new life in Christ.
1 Peter 3 ties the Flood and Baptism together: “God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (20-21). You were baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection and made a member of His holy body. Your Baptism is when you stepped out of the world of darkness and destruction and into the ark of the Church.
You might think of the time we are in as the time when the ark was nearly finished and the rain was about to fall. Jesus tells us to stay ready. The day of judgment is fast approaching. But then we wonder, “How soon?” Perhaps we can eat and drink with the attractive people of the world a little longer, or at least avoid some uncomfortable interactions by keeping our beliefs quiet. And besides, being in the ark of the Church is not always the most pleasant thing. We may grow tired of the personalities around us, the little annoyances and disagreements, the criticisms and occasional coldness we feel from others. Being cooped up in the Church makes the air seem a little stale. We want to be outside! We want to breathe deeply and live fully!
Some say they don’t need the Church at all because they can worship God just fine on their own. That may be so, but when the wind blows and the waves roll, would you rather be in the large ark in good company or alone in a little fishing boat? God calls us as Christians to hear His Word together, to confess our faith together, to kneel together at His Table, to encourage one another. If we remove ourselves from all Christian fellowship, we can’t do these things.
Being together helps to keep us accountable. In love, your fellow Christians can call you to repentance when you have faltered and fallen into sin. In love, they can also point you to your forgiveness and salvation through Jesus who has redeemed you from sin and death. In love, they can help you stay alert and prepared for the Lord’s return. Jesus says that just as the people in Noah’s day paid no attention to the preaching of the truth and were caught unprepared when the Flood came, “so will be the coming of the Son of Man” (Mat. 24:37,39).
In the ark of Christ’s Church, you are kept ready for His coming on the last day. Here in this ark, there are ample supplies—His Word of absolution that frees you from your guilt and comforts you, and the rich food of His body and blood that nourishes and strengthens you and draws you closer together with your fellow believers. With these good supplies, you can weather the storms of temptation and persecution in this world. You can endure suffering because you know that your Lord Jesus Christ is with you, increasing your faith, hope, and love.
You cannot see Him now, and you cannot see how it will be for you on the other side of the storm, but you know He will carry you to safety. That is your certainty. That is your hope. Noah and his family faithfully followed the Word of the Lord and were preserved from the perils of the Flood until they set foot again on a renewed earth. You have the same promise, that your Lord will preserve you until the day of His glorious return when the heavens and the earth will be made new. When that day comes, says Jesus, “straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (Luk. 21:28).
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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[1] For more details about this, see “From Creation to Jacob: Communicating the Promise” by Pr. Joseph Abrahamson: https://steadfastlutherans.org/blog/2016/06/from-creation-to-jacob-communicating-the-promise/.
(picture from stained glass at Redeemer Lutheran Church)
The Festival of All Saints – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Revelation 7:2-12
In Christ Jesus, through whom we are sealed with righteousness and salvation, so that we are prepared to join the great company of saints in His eternal kingdom, dear fellow redeemed:
You can tell a lot about people by looking at their eyes. You can tell if they are happy or sad, angry or frustrated, surprised or scared. Eyes can indicate if people are telling the truth or lying, or if they have personalities that are more extroverted or more introverted. Eyes can also reveal health problems like stress, sleeplessness, allergies, even liver issues. The expressiveness of eyes is why they are often referred to as “windows to the soul”—windows to the innermost parts of who we are. But of course, what our brains are thinking behind our eyes is far more complex than what our eyes reveal.
Today’s reading from the Book of Revelation talks about a “seal” on the foreheads of believers that only God and the angels can see. Imagine if that seal were also visible to our eyes. You would know who was a believer in Jesus and who wasn’t, not by what they say but by what you see. Maybe the forehead would glow somehow. And what if the forehead would be brighter when a Christian’s faith is strong and dimmer when a Christian’s faith is weak? I think we would all be more focused on the means that God has given to make faith stronger!
I’m sure we would also be surprised to learn who is truly a Christian and who is not. Some who we thought were Christians would be exposed as hypocrites, and some would be shown to have faith who we would not expect. How would you feel about having a very visible seal of God on your forehead for everyone around you to see? Would it make you more aware of the things you say and do? Are there times you would rather keep your faith more hidden, so that you could fit in easier in the world?
It is clear from our reading that although the seal of God is not visible to our eyes, it does set us apart from the world. The seal on our foreheads marks us as “servants of God.” Just as God chose His people Israel to be separate from the nations around them, He calls us to be separate as well. We are part of the 144,000 who are sealed “from every tribe of the sons of Israel.” This is a symbolic number, as the numbers generally are in the Book of Revelation. For example, seven is the number for perfection, and twelve is the number for completeness.
The number 144,000 is gotten by multiplying the twelve tribes of Israel with 12,000 from each tribe. This number expresses the completeness of God’s elect, the holy members of Christ’s Church. You might have heard that the Jehovah’s Witnesses teach something different about this. They teach that 144,000 is the literal number of people chosen by God to be in heaven. Jehovah’s Witnesses who are not part of that select group are told that they will not be in heaven in eternity, but they will reign on a new earth. To improve their chances of a higher status after this life, they are urged to be more active witnesses to their church’s teachings. It is a man-made, works-based religion.
But the sealing spoken of in Revelation is clearly not the work of man. A number of passages speak about how God seals us to protect us from the attacks of the devil. Jesus says that “God the Father has set his seal” on believers (Joh. 6:27). Through the work that Jesus accomplished, the Father “has anointed us” and “has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee” (2Co. 1:21,22).
The Holy Spirit works through the Word to bring about this sealing. St. Paul writes that “when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, [you] were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit” (Eph. 1:13). And in another place, “God’s firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: ‘The Lord knows those who are his’” (2Ti. 2:19). You are sealed by the Holy Spirit with the righteousness of Jesus that He worked for you (Rom. 4:11). You are sealed with the forgiveness He obtained for you on the cross. You are sealed in faith as you eagerly wait “for the day of redemption” (Eph. 4:30).
God first applied this seal to many of you at your Baptism when you were called “out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1Pe. 1:29). At your Baptism, water was applied to your forehead, and the sign of the cross was made over your head and over your heart. The opening hymn referred to Baptism when we sang, “Each newborn soldier”—born again by water and the Word—“Each newborn soldier of the Crucified / Bears on his brow the seal of Him who died” (Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary #194, v. 2).
Thinking about this connection to Baptism, could it be that the seal of God on our foreheads is in the shape of a cross? Two passages in Revelation speak about the seal in a different way. In chapters 14 and 22, what the 144,000 are said to have written on their foreheads is the name of the Lamb and the Father’s name (14:1, 22:4).
Through Baptism, God claimed you as His own. He put His name on you, sealed it to you, so that you are identified both as His child and His heir. You might have doubts about yourself, such as how strong your faith is or how God could love a sinner like you. But God says that nothing has changed from His view. The commitment He made to you when He brought you to faith still stands.
It was no mistake that He set His seal on you. He wants to keep you in the faith until He brings you to the great celebration of heaven. This is why He continues to send the Holy Spirit through the Word and Sacraments to strengthen you. As the Holy Spirit works through the Word, we are reminded again who we are. Yes, we are sinners who continue to struggle and break God’s Commandments. For that, we repent, and we need to keep repenting. But the Holy Spirit also assures us that we are saints, sealed with righteousness, forgiveness, and life.
We did nothing to earn this; Jesus earned it for us. This is what the great uncountable multitude in heaven cries out in thanksgiving and praise: “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” The saints in heaven give glory where glory is due, and we do the same here on earth. In our liturgy, we join the angels in their Christmas song, “Glory be to God in the highest / And on earth peace, good will toward men” (ELH p. 44). We join them later in the service in their heavenly song of praise, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth; / Heav’n and earth are full of Your glory” (ELH pp. 51-52).
That is the beauty of the historic liturgy. It recounts God’s gifts and teaches us how to give thanks for them. It joins our voices spiritually with the saints and angels around God’s throne, even while this fellowship is hidden from our eyes. And it prepares us to join the heavenly liturgy with the saints, angels, elders, and living creatures around the throne of God.
As you sing the liturgy and hymns in our worship here in church, you might sometimes think about where members used to sit whose souls are now in heaven. Today we especially think of Nadine, Swede, and Derwin from Redeemer and Don from Jerico who were called out of this life within the last year. Those of you who are older have seen many saints of our congregations go on ahead of you. Perhaps you think more and more about how you will join them soon, and what it will be like when you do.
Today’s reading gives us a glimpse of what is coming. The elect who were sealed by the Holy Spirit in this life through Word and Sacrament now enjoy the bliss of heaven. They stand “before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands.” Their focus, the object of all their love and praise, is the Triune God. They are glad to be with their fellow saints, but their attention is on God.
They are clothed in white robes. An angel explained to John what made their robes so white: “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev. 7:14). In heaven, we won’t remember any sins, not the ones we have done or the ones others have done to us. We won’t remember any of the things that caused us grief or pain. Jesus’ blood washes all that away. We will stand in the presence of the holy God, and we will be holy. By faith, we are holy now—we are saints now—but the glory is hidden from our eyes. In heaven, we will be perfect saints in body and soul.
This is what you have to look forward to. This is what you are sealed for. You Are Sealed for Eternal Salvation. This is not something to try to hide, so that you can fit in better with the world. Both the troubles and the triumphs of this life are short-lived. Your merciful Lord has something much better and more glorious planned for you. He had it planned for you before you were even born. In fact, He chose you in Christ “before the foundation of the world, that [you] should be holy and blameless before him” (Eph. 1:4).
This is how we stand by faith in Him, and this is how we will stand before Him in heaven. As St. John writes: “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure” (1Jo. 3:2-3)—saints forevermore.
“Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
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(picture from “Seventh Seal and 144,000 Sealed” by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1794-1872)
The Twenty-First Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Ephesians 6:10-17
In Christ Jesus, who rallies His soldiers around a manger, a cross, and an empty tomb and sends the terrible army of darkness scurrying away from His piercing light, dear fellow redeemed:
“It’s time to take a stand!” “Seize the moment!” “Stand up and be counted!” “Your future and your children’s future are at stake!” We have been hearing these messages a lot lately. They are attached to appeals for the citizens of this country to get active and go vote. People from both sides of the political aisle are calling this the most important presidential election in our lifetime. Each side says that if the other candidate wins, it will be the end of democracy as we know it.
It is not my job to tell you who to vote for. It is not even my job to tell you to vote. That is a right and privilege you have that you can choose to exercise or not. But it is my job to tell you not to get too caught up with the candidates you support or the candidates you oppose. God can use bad rulers as well as good rulers for His purposes. After this November 5th, our almighty Lord will still reign over all things in heaven and on earth just as He does now.
We are reminded of this in today’s reading, where our chief enemy is identified along with the battle plan for his defeat. Paul writes that we must take our stand “against the schemes of the devil.” Jesus described the devil as “a murderer from the beginning, [who] has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him…. he is a liar and the father of lies” (Joh. 8:44). The devil’s goal is that we join him in the eternal torments of hell. He is pure evil. He does not play fair. He will do whatever it takes to separate us from the forgiveness and salvation we have in Christ.
The devil is our number one opponent. We can never forget that he is on the march against us. Bad people—including bad politicians and government officials—come and go (Psa. 146:3-4). The devil has been carrying out his destructive work since the beginning (1Jo. 3:8). Our reading says, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” When people pursue bad things and do bad things, we have to remember who is behind it—the great tempter and deceiver and his fellow demons.
He has his sights set on you, too, especially you. You confess Jesus to be your Savior and Lord, which puts you at odds with the devil. He hates you. He wants to destroy you. The unbelievers can go their merry way, but not you. You have to pay for your devotion to Jesus. He will attack wherever he thinks you are vulnerable, wherever he thinks he can cause the most pain and do the most damage to your faith. In Job’s case, he attacked his possessions and his family and then Job’s own health. But he did not prevail against Job, and it is not a foregone conclusion that he will prevail against you.
So how can you withstand his attacks? What is your battle strategy? If you knew someone was going to try to break into your home, you would stay awake and alert. Or if someone was going to physically attack you or take shots at you, you would wear protective body armor and carry weapons to defend yourself. But physical defenses and weapons don’t work against the devil. You need spiritual protection for this spiritual battle.
That is why Paul says, “Put on” and “take up the whole armor of God.” Only God’s armor can protect you against the devil. God knows the dark and imminent threats to your faith. He sees the dangers and pitfalls that are hidden from your eyes. He knows how to equip you, so that you “stand firm.”
The first piece of God’s armor is “the belt of truth.” This is not your truth or anyone else’s truth; this is God’s truth. His is the only truth that matters. His is the only truth that is most certainly true. We know the truth because He has delivered it to us in the Holy Scriptures. Jesus said, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (Joh. 8:31-32). And He said in prayer to His Father, “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth” (Joh. 17:17). We learn the truth by listening to and studying God’s Word, and in this way we also learn to identify the devil’s lies.
The next piece of God’s armor is “the breastplate of righteousness.” A breastplate protects your vital organs. What is it that covers your heart, so you are safe from the devil’s attacks? Some think that their heart is protected by their own good works and good intentions. Their heart is pure because they work hard to keep it pure. But this kind of self-righteousness is not a strength; it is a terrible weakness. The only righteousness that can cover and protect your heart is Jesus’ righteousness. The devil cannot pierce through the armor of His righteousness because He has perfectly kept the holy Law, and He kept it on your behalf.
The next part of God’s armor is sturdy shoes that help you to stand firm. You are ready for battle when you stand on “the Gospel of peace.” Now that doesn’t sound very strong. What about “the Gospel of power” or “the Gospel of victory”? The Gospel is those things too. But “peace” is where you stand with God. Paul wrote about this to the Christians in Rome, “since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1). And, “Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand” (v. 2). As long as you have peace with God and remain in His grace by faith, you have firm footing against the devil.
God also supplies you with “the shield of faith.” This part of His armor provides some insight into how active the devil is. Paul speaks about “all the flaming darts of the evil one.” Picture thousands after thousands of burning arrows flying at you through the darkness. Or if that isn’t scary enough, picture thousands upon thousands of missiles screaming your way. God provides a shield to protect you—the shield of faith. The devil’s unending accusations cannot land on you as long as your trust is in Jesus. Those flaming darts are quenched like matches flicked toward a waterfall.
By faith you wear “the helmet of salvation.” You put this on when the water was poured on your head while Jesus’ words were spoken at your Baptism. The sign of the cross was made over your forehead and heart that day, and the sign of the cross still starts at your forehead and ends over your heart. God does not let the devil hang your sins over your head or bury you under them. You are protected by the salvation Jesus secured through His death and resurrection.
So you have the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, shoes standing on the Gospel of peace, the shield of faith, and the helmet of salvation. Finally you take in your hand “the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.” There is no more powerful defense than the Word. The Second Letter to Timothy says, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work” (3:16-17). Everything you need in your battle against the devil is supplied by the Word. You also learn through God’s Word how to pray, speaking back to God in petitions and praises for what He has promised you (Eph. 6:18).
The inspired words of today’s reading make it very clear where we should stand and where our strength is found. We stand “in the Lord and in the strength of His might.” The parts of the armor of God that we have reviewed today are all gifts from Him. None of them depend on our own strength or our own abilities. In other words, the only way to stand firm against the devil’s attacks is to recognize our own weakness. The only way to win is to admit how poor and unprepared we are by ourselves.
Our powerful Lord must fight for us. This is exactly what Martin Luther wrote in “the Battle Hymn of the Reformation”:
Stood we alone in our own might,
Our striving would be losing;
For us the one true Man doth fight,
The Man of God’s own choosing.
Who is this chosen One?
’Tis Jesus Christ, the Son,
The Lord of hosts ’tis He
Who wins the victory
In ev’ry field of battle. (Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary #251, v. 2)
Jesus fights for us in every field of battle. We stand with Him. Or better yet, He stands with us. He comes to strengthen and keep us in the faith through His Word and Sacraments. This is how He keeps us ready for the cosmic conflict against the devil. This is how He picks us up when are staggered by the devil’s blows and have fallen into sin. This is how He fortifies and tightens our armor, so there are no gaps and weak spots for the devil to exploit.
Today and every day is the Time to Take a Stand. Not on the shaky ground of a politician’s promises or an important person’s power because they will disappoint us. Not on the mushy ground of our own strength or our good intentions because they will fail us. We take our stand on the solid rock of Jesus Christ and His Word. Even the gates of hell cannot prevail against His Word (Mat. 16:18). “The word of our God will stand forever” (Isa. 40:8).
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from “The Temptation of Christ by the Devil” by Félix Joseph Barrias, 1822-1907)
The Baptism of Our Lord – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: 1 Peter 3:18-22
In Christ Jesus, who was baptized into our sin, so we would be baptized into His righteousness, dear fellow redeemed:
The ark that Noah built was a very big boat! It was longer than a football field and about as tall as football goalposts from the ground to the tip of the posts. (If you have visited the “Ark Encounter” in Kentucky, you have gotten a sense at how big the ark probably was.) It was large enough to hold Noah and his family, two of every kind of animal, and the food and provisions they needed for the time they spent on the ark, which totaled about a year.
When the waters began to recede after completely covering the whole earth, Genesis 8 says that “the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat” (v. 4). Where exactly that is has been the focus of a good deal of research and a lot of expeditions that have failed to produce any evidence of the ark. As neat as it would be to find a big boat buried in the ice on top of some mountain, I think it would be better if Noah’s ark is never found. Why? Mainly for these two reasons: First, we don’t need physical evidence of the ark to prove that what the Bible says is true. And second, people would be tempted to view the ark as a sacred relic that possessed some kind of holy power.
This has happened all through human history. Churches around the world have tiny bones of the apostles and famous saints on display, which supposedly give spiritual benefits to those who visit them. Many places display pieces of Jesus’ cross (so many pieces said Luther in his day, that they could build a church with them!). Even in Old Testament times, the godly king Hezekiah destroyed the bronze serpent that Moses had made at God’s command some seven hundred years earlier, because the Israelites were worshiping it (2Ki. 18:4).
The ark that God told Noah to build served its purpose. It brought His chosen people safely through water. Our churches have a sort of connection to the ark. The main part of the church where all of you sit is called the “nave.” It comes from the Latin word navis, which means “ship.” The Youth Convention theme some years back was semper in navi—“always in the ship.”
You are brought into the ship of the Church through water. You became a member of the holy Christian Church through the water and Word of Holy Baptism. This is what today’s reading from St. Peter’s First Epistle describes. By inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he ties together the salvation of Noah’s family through water, with your salvation through water.
Where you were baptized is not the most important thing, just as where the ark is now is not important. You can imagine how a family could attach too much importance to a church building or to a particular font, where parents and grandparents and great-grandparents were baptized, so that those things become more important than the power and promises of God through His Word.
It is not where you were baptized that is so important, but how you were baptized. If you were baptized with water “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mat. 28:19), you received all the magnificent gifts of God in Christ. What gifts are those? Today’s reading says that Baptism is not “a removal of dirt from the body.” It is not about outward cleansing. You know as well as I do how quickly children get dirty again after they have been washed.
We can see the physical part of Baptism—the application of water. But we can’t see the spiritual part, which is “an appeal to God for a good conscience.” That is an interesting description of what Baptism does. Jesus instituted Baptism as an appeal for God the Father to give the baptized what Jesus won. This is something like a super rich person sharing his bank account information and telling you to go ahead and take it all!
Baptism gives you the goods—the best goods. It is an appeal for God to cleanse your guilty conscience and give you a good conscience. But why should He do that for you? Today’s reading says why: “Baptism… now saves you… as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” We make the claim that Baptism saves, and we have confidence that Baptism saves, because Jesus rose from the dead.
First, He “suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God.” He had to exchange His righteous life for our sinful lives and die in our place to pay for those sins. Without the shedding of His holy blood to atone for our sins, we would still have to answer for them. We would have to answer for every unholy thought, every mean word, every un-Christian action. But He did shed His blood to reconcile us with God.
God the Father showed that His Son’s sacrifice was sufficient for us by raising Him from the dead. Jesus came back to life on the third day, and before anything else, He descended into hell. He did not go there to suffer. His suffering was already complete, as He said on the cross, “It is finished.” Today’s reading says that “He went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison” who “formerly did not obey.” Some have speculated that Jesus went to free the spirits from hell. But that would be inconsistent with the rest of the Bible, which says that there is no escape, no coming back, for the souls in hell.
About as much as we can say is that Jesus descended into hell to proclaim His victory over sin, devil, and death. Those “spirits in prison” now knew exactly who and what it was they had rejected, “when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared.” They ignored Noah’s preaching. They laughed at Noah’s ark. And they were all consumed by the waters of the flood and condemned to everlasting torment.
After His descent into hell, Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to many of His disciples. In one of those meetings, He told them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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. 28:18-20a). Jesus was using His authority as the Conqueror of sin and death to send out His disciples to distribute His gifts.
Jesus still has that authority, and He still calls servants in the Church to distribute His gifts. Where His Word is purely preached and His Sacraments are rightly administered, Jesus promises to be present with His grace. He told those first disciples, and all the Church who would follow them, “behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (v. 20b).
Jesus is here now, right here, today. He is here to bless you and comfort you with His gifts. Are you worthy of His presence? Are you worthy to have Him come to you? If your thought is “yes,” because you have been pretty good, that is pride. The proud have no need for a Savior, because they think they are fine on their own.
If your thought is “no, I am not worthy,” that could lead to despair. You might think about the harsh words you said to the people closest to you, the harm you have done to them. You might think of the bad choices you made, the things you have done in secret that burn your conscience, things you wish you could take back. You might think of how selfish you have been, how weak in faith, how you have ignored the needs of your neighbor.
In that state of mind, you might forget something very important, which is that you are baptized! As unworthy as you may feel, and as much as you have fallen short of the glory of God, He chose you. He sent His only Son for you. When He looks at you, all He can see is the righteousness of His Son that covers you. He sees the blood of His Son that cleansed you of all sin.
These gifts were poured over you at your Baptism, and they remain yours by faith in Jesus. You stay in your Baptism by repenting of your sins, even the ones you are stuck in, day after day. You hand your sins over to the Father and cry, “Forgive me, Lord! I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mar. 9:24). And He does forgive you, every day. As He said to His Son on His Baptism day, so He says to you today, “You are My beloved Son, with you I am well pleased” (Mar. 1:11).
Like the flood that washed away the wicked and lifted Noah and his family to safety, your Baptism has done that for you—washed away your sin and brought you salvation from God. The hymn the children just sang says it so well, “Sins, disturb my soul no longer; / I am baptized into Christ. / I have comfort even stronger: / Jesus’ cleansing sacrifice. / Should a guilty conscience seize me / Since my Baptism did release me / In a dear forgiving flood, / Sprinkling me with Jesus’ blood?” (Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary 246, v. 2).
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 stained glass at Saude Lutheran Church)
The Fourth Sunday of Advent/Christmas Vigil – Vicar Lehne sermon
Text: St. Matthew 1:18-25
In Christ Jesus, who is still with us today, dear fellow redeemed:
The people of this world pride themselves on being able to use their human reason to solve all their problems. They don’t need a God. They’re enlightened. However, no matter how “enlightened” the people of this world are, there are still times when they are faced with problems that they can’t solve on their own. So, what do they do in these moments? They lift their eyes to the heavens and say, “Give me a sign!” Yes, even the so called “enlightened” people of this world, who supposedly don’t need God, are at times faced with problems that cause them to hope that a higher power really does exist that can offer them guidance. However, the “higher power” that the people of this world turn to is usually the universe. The “signs” that the people of this world supposedly receive from the universe can be found in just about anything: a book that has been opened to a specific page; a song that is being played on the radio; how the stars in the sky are ordered and what they mean. However, if they were truly looking for signs that would help them solve their problems, they would not look to the “signs” that the universe supposedly gives them, but to the signs that God definitely gives them in his Word, for God’s signs point to salvation.
In our reading for today, we are told that Jesus being born of the Virgin Mary was a sign that God would save his people from their sins. However, the context in which this sign was promised to be given appears to be a bit strange. The prophecy that the sign would happen was given long ago, and by that time, the nation of Israel had split into two kingdoms: the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah. The current king of Judah, King Ahaz, had just found out that Israel had joined forces with Syria to wage war against Judah. And so, he was understandably afraid.
Therefore, God instructed the prophet Isaiah to comfort King Ahaz by reassuring him that the house of David would not fall but would be delivered. In addition to these words of comfort, King Ahaz was also told to ask God for a sign so that he would be able to attach his faith in God’s promise to something tangible. However, King Ahaz did not have faith in God, so he refused to ask for a sign, making it appear as though he piously did not want to put God to the test. But God was not fooled, so he responded to King Ahaz by saying through Isaiah, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14). This was not a sign that King Ahaz would see in his lifetime, nor would anyone who lived in Judah at that time. But, to those who believed in God, the promise of this sign comforted them and gave them hope for the future, hope that they would not just be delivered from their earthly enemies but also from their sins.
But this sign was not just meant to give hope to the believers who lived in Judah at the time. It was meant to give hope to all believers of all time, including you. The prophecy shows that it was not just the deliverance of his people in the nation of Judah that God had in mind, but also the deliverance of all his people from every nation. By preserving the house of David, God was preserving the line of the Savior, who would come from the house and line of David. That Savior would be no mere man, for a regular man would not even be able to deliver himself, let alone all people. No, that Savior would be God in the flesh, which is what Immanuel means: “God with us.” And this God-man would deliver everyone from their sins, which is what Jesus means: “The LORD saves.”
Even though we were not around to see the sign that God foretold would happen through Isaiah, God has revealed in his Word that it did happen, just as he said that it would. God inspired Matthew to write in our reading for today that “the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit” (verse 18). The Holy Spirit caused Mary to conceive, despite the fact that she was a virgin, and the baby that was conceived inside her was God in the flesh. Then, as if we needed it to be any clearer that this is how God fulfilled his prophecy to King Ahaz, Matthew goes on to say that “this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet [Isaiah]” (verse 22).
When the God-man, Jesus, came in the flesh, he experienced everything that you do. He didn’t just experience the joys of life, but also the sorrows of life. He faced your temptations and overcame them. He even experienced everything that you rightfully deserved by taking all your sins on himself, suffering your punishment of hell, and dying on the cross in your place. Through all this, Jesus saved you from your sins, and now, life and salvation are yours.
Therefore, whenever you become afraid when faced with your sins and guilt, whenever you are struggling with temptation, or whenever you are going through a difficult time, Jesus assures you through his comforting Word that he has already delivered you from your sins and that he will be there with you to help you overcome your temptations and get through your difficult times. These words of comfort should be all we need to believe in him, but he has also given us tangible signs to attach his promises to, just like he did for King Ahaz. Those tangible signs are the means by which God brings his grace to us: his holy Sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
In holy baptism, the simple means of water is applied to us as his Word is spoken. Since God attaches his Word to the tangible element of water, we know that he is truly with us to give us faith and wash away our sins through those waters. In the Lord’s Supper, the simple means of bread and wine, over which his Word was spoken during the Words of Institution, are fed to us. Since God attaches his Word to the tangible elements of bread and wine, we know that Jesus is truly with us to give us the forgiveness of sins through the bread and wine, which are his true body and blood. It is not the tangible elements themselves that we put our faith in, but they help us to remember what Jesus has truly accomplished through them and that he is still with us.
These are the tangible signs that God has given to us, and how God wants us to receive these signs is shown in Joseph. Our reading for today begins with Joseph finding out that Mary, the woman that he was betrothed to, was pregnant. Using his human reason, he assumed that Mary must have been unfaithful to him and committed adultery. We have the benefit of knowing that it was the Holy Spirit who caused Mary to conceive, but Joseph did not know this at the time. So, assuming that Mary was unfaithful to him was an understandable assumption.
Adultery was very serious in the Jewish community. According to the Old Testament law, if a woman was found guilty of committing adultery, she would be stoned to death. However, Joseph was a just and kind man. He didn’t want Mary to be exposed to public shame and be stoned, so, he decided to divorce Mary as quietly as possible instead, which was the only way to break off a marriage in those days, after which her father would look after her for the remainder of her life.
However, before Joseph could carry out his plan, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and told him that the one who was conceived in Mary was from the Holy Spirit: the promised Savior who would save his people from their sins whom Isaiah spoke of in his prophecy. Joseph now had two choices: believe what the angel of the Lord said to him and receive the sign of the virgin birth in faith or put his trust in his own human reason and divorce Mary, rejecting the sign. And Joseph, having faith, accepted the sign in faith and went through with taking Mary as his wife, as the angel of the Lord commanded him.
When we try to rely on our human reason more than God and his Word, it only causes us to doubt the words that God says and reject them. A child being born of a virgin? That’s impossible! The evangelists must have actually added this later to make Jesus and Mary seem better than they were. Baptism being a work of God through which God gives us faith and washes away our sins? That’s impossible! Baptism must actually be a human work that symbolizes the washing away of our sins and demonstrates our commitment to God. The bread and the wine in the Lord’s Supper being the true body and blood of Jesus through which we receive the forgiveness of sins? That’s impossible! The bread and the wine must actually symbolize Jesus’ body and blood to remind us of what he did to forgive our sins. And these are only some of the ways in which we can reject what God has revealed to us in his Word.
If we reject God’s signs, like King Ahaz did, then we no longer stand on God’s promises, and our faith cannot endure. Without faith, we lose all the blessings that Jesus, the God-man, won for us on the cross: the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. But when we receive God’s signs in the faith that God has given us, like Joseph did, we know that God has worked through his signs to bring us his blessings.
Because God works through these signs of Word and Sacrament to bring his blessings to us, we know that he is with us today. Jesus didn’t come in the past only to leave us when he ascended into heaven. He is with all of us today, including you. And because Jesus saved you from your sins by his innocent death on the cross and experienced your struggles and hardships, you know that he will continue to bring you the forgiveness of sins and help you through your struggles and hardships today, as well as throughout the rest of your lives, until the day when you enter eternal life in heaven, where you will never struggle or face hardships ever again. In all of these ways that God is with us, we know that God’s signs truly do point to salvation.
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 “Joseph’s Dream” by T’oros Roslin, 1210-1270)
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)
The Second Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. Luke 14:16-24
In Christ Jesus, who fills the hungry with good things, but who sends the self-secure away empty, dear fellow redeemed:
“I’d like to throw a party at our house soon, and you are invited! I just need a little bit of help from you to make it happen. I’m going to need about ten people to come early to clean the house and five more to get the yard set up. I’ll need a few of you to decorate, make things look nice. Then I’m going to need a bunch of you to work on the main dish and the rest of you to bring side dishes and desserts. And of course we will need you to help clean up afterward. ‘What will I be doing?’ you ask. Don’t worry, I’ll be at the party on time. It’s going to be great!”
How many people do you suppose will come to my party? I expect there would be a lot of excuses, a lot of conflicts in the schedule. Who wants to go to a party where they have to do all the work? We attend parties such as graduation open houses and wedding receptions to celebrate and have fun. We look forward to the good food and the good company. It is a privilege to be invited to attend.
In the same way, it was a tremendous honor to be invited to attend the party that Jesus speaks about in today’s parable. This was no backyard barbeque, no small gathering of relatives or friends. This was “a great banquet” that the guests had been informed about far in advance. “Many” were invited. They knew this banquet was coming; it didn’t catch them by surprise.
But when the master of the house sent his servant to tell those who were invited, “Come, for everything is now ready,” they started making excuses—not just some of them—all of them! Not one of them intended to come. What an insult to the host! You would be crushed if this happened to you. Then you would probably be angry. “All that work, and no one could trouble themselves to come?! Do I really mean so little to them?!”
That’s how the master of the house reacted. He became “very angry” and told his servant to invite anyone he found in the city, “the poor and crippled and blind and lame,” and the strangers way out in the country. The honored guests who were first invited lost their place to the dishonored and the downtrodden. And the master’s house was filled, and the great banquet was enjoyed by many.
Jesus spoke this parable to teach how the invitation to salvation came first to the Israelites, the chosen people of God. They should have known this salvation was coming because they had the Old Testament Scriptures which clearly pointed to the promised Messiah. But the devil tempted them to give attention to other things. He got them to focus not on the commands and promises of God, but on making and keeping their own self-righteous laws. These were too busy with their possessions, their work, and their families to listen to the Messiah when He came. They did not follow Jesus their Savior, but rejected Him.
So God turned His merciful help to the Gentiles. These were the dishonorable and downtrodden ones who did not have the Scriptures or live according to God’s holy law. They were not worthy to receive an invitation to salvation, but God graciously extended it to them. Jesus made this clear when He said just before His ascension into heaven, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Mat. 28:19). And the apostle Paul wrote by inspiration that God “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1Ti. 2:4).
But “all nations” have not been converted to the Lord, and “all people” have not come to the knowledge of the truth. Why is that? Why does anyone reject the summons to God’s great banquet of salvation? It is because so many think they have better things to do with their time. Some people focus on their fields, their possessions in this life, building up more and more, better and nicer things. Some focus on their work, getting more done, making progress, building a legacy. And some focus on their family and friends, enjoying new experiences together, making memories, having fun.
All of those things can seem more important than the saving Word of God. We typically don’t go to the Word of God when we want to make money, when we want to move up in our job, when we want to have fun. Part of this is because of our misunderstanding about where all good things come from—they come from God who gives us our daily bread. And part of it comes from our own sinfulness, our stubborn tendency to overlook the best things in favor of the lesser things.
You wouldn’t miss your own child’s graduation party, but missing the great banquet of salvation is infinitely more serious. God doesn’t have our whole heart, soul, and mind until nothing matters more to us than His holy Word. The “field” can wait, the “five yoke of oxen” can be examined later, spouse and family must be led to the banquet and not away from it. “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,” said Jesus, “and all these things—all these earthly blessings—will be added to you” (Mat. 6:33).
“[S]eek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness”—tell me why this priority is not possible, and I will sympathize with you. All of us think we have better things to do than to occupy our heart, soul, and mind with “the kingdom of God and his righteousness.” All of us have excuses, and they can sound pretty good and reasonable: “I am exhausted. I don’t have time to read the Bible or pray.” “We are on the go constantly! It just isn’t possible to have devotions at the dinner table or the bedside.” “I don’t feel qualified to have devotions with my family. What if I can’t answer their questions? What if I tell them something wrong?”
As reasonable as these excuses sound, they are all bad excuses. I’m especially talking to Christian fathers. It is our job to make sure our families are trained in the Word. It is our job to spend ourselves and sacrifice ourselves, even when we don’t feel like we have anything left to give. God tells us do this. Ephesians 6:4 says, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” It is not first of all the mother’s job or the church’s job. It is our job as fathers, whom God the Father has placed on this earth to be examples of His love and care for His dear children.
But here’s the important point, here’s the thing to remember: not one of us has to come up with the plan for the banquet; not one of us has to prepare the food. All of that is done. God the Father is the Master of the House, and His only Son is the Food, and this Food is enjoyed by all who are brought to faith by the Holy Spirit’s invitation.
This is not a party (like the one I am planning) where the people who are invited do all the work. This is a party where all the work is done—the table is set, the food is prepared, your spot is reserved, everything is ready. All of this was done by Jesus for you. He won your place at God’s table by setting aside His glory to suffer and die for you.
Your excuses for doing what you knew you shouldn’t and for not doing what you knew you should—Jesus took them on Himself. He accepted these excuses, not as valid reasons for acting the way you did, but as what they are, violations of God’s holy law and stains on His perfect creation of you. He took the blame for all of them.
Jesus offered no excuses to set aside His work of suffering and dying for you. He willingly went in your place, suffering the eternal anger of God, so that you would have “redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of [your] trespasses, according to the riches of his grace” (Eph. 1:7). God does not say, “You missed your chance! The door to the banquet hall is shut! Go away!” He says and keeps saying to you, “Come, for Everything Is Now Ready.”
That is often what I say after the Lord’s Supper has been prepared. Christ’s Words of Institution have been spoken, we sing the Agnus Dei, “O Christ, the Lamb of God, You take away the sin of the world, have mercy on us,” and you are summoned to the great banquet of salvation. Jesus is here for you. He is here to feed you with His holy body and blood. He is here to cleanse your heart and mind and give you a clear conscience. He is here to strengthen you for the work He has called you to do. So I say to all who have examined themselves—confessing their sin and their trust in Jesus and His Word—“Come, for Everything Is Now Ready.”
You haven’t had to do anything. God has prepared this banquet for you, His guest. Many are invited to this banquet, but they make excuses for why they cannot come. Those who do come when they are summoned are the ones who are done making excuses. These are the ones who recognize that they don’t deserve to be at the banquet, and that they have nothing to offer God that could ever compare with what He gives them.
God made no mistake when He invited you to this banquet. No matter how spiritually “poor and crippled and blind and lame” you have been, no matter how far down the highway of this sinful world you have gone, there is a place for you in the Lord’s kingdom. Listening to His Word, faithfully partaking of His Sacraments, you are tasting the rich food of His banquet.
And the foretaste that you enjoy right now with the Christian friends who sit beside you in the pews and kneel or stand beside you at the Communion rail—this delicious feast you will enjoy in all its fullness in the great banquet hall of your heavenly Father’s house.
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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(woodcut of the poor, the blind, and the lame being invited to the banquet, from the 1880 edition of The Story of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation)