The Second-Last Sunday of the Church Year – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: 2 Chronicles 36:11-21
In Christ Jesus, who came into the world, yet the world did not know Him, who came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him (Joh. 1:10-11), but who still, by His grace, gave Himself humbly for the sins of all people, for your sins and mine, dear fellow redeemed:
As we review the history of the kings of Judah, it is strange to see how often the throne flip-flopped between good kings and bad kings. Ahaz was a wicked king, and he was followed by Hezekiah who “did what was right in the eyes of the LORD” (2Chr. 29:2). Hezekiah’s son Manasseh was a wicked king before the LORD humbled him and led him to repentance. After him came Amon, a wicked king. He was followed by Josiah, a good king. Josiah’s sons once again pursued wickedness after him.
So why did it so often happen that a son did not follow his father, either in doing what was right or in doing what was wicked? The reason that some sons did not follow the wicked example of their fathers is because God was merciful to His people and continued to raise up good kings to call the people back to the worship of the true God.
On the other hand, it is troubling that so many sons did not follow the example of their faithful fathers. Was it because the fathers ruled the kingdom well but failed to lead and guide their households? Or was it because the times of peace and prosperity under faithful kings led their sons to become complacent and proud? We can imagine both to be true.
We fathers know well our own failures in teaching the truth to our kids. We might excuse ourselves for our past failures because we had too much work to do. Or maybe we were so caught up in our hobbies and leisure activities that we told ourselves we didn’t have time to lead our families in the Word of God. God’s command to fathers is clear and convicting: “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4).
Even when fathers lead their households well, it can happen that their children forsake the truth and chase after the false promises of the world. These children take the peace and prosperity of their Christian home for granted. Instead of seeing the blessings God gave them in the home, they only see barriers to their personal happiness and fulfillment. It is ever the case that the younger generation is critical about the older generation. “We could do it better,” they say. “When we are older, we won’t make the mistakes our parents did.” And maybe they won’t, but they will certainly make new ones.
Despite the clear evidence of God blessing the faithful kings before him, the last king before Jerusalem was destroyed, King Zedekiah, “did what was evil in the sight of the LORD his God.” He disregarded the words of the LORD’s prophet Jeremiah and “did not humble himself.” He rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, to whom he had sworn allegiance. “He stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the LORD, the God of Israel” and would not repent of his wrongs, and he led the people of Judah to do the same.
“He stiffened his neck and hardened his heart” against the LORD. Those are strong words! The head and the heart go together, don’t they? Zedekiah would not listen to the LORD’s Word and humble himself. He would not bow to the LORD’s will but went in a different direction. He would not turn his face from evil; he pursued it with all his heart.
We can relate to this sinful stubbornness. We have behaved like this more times than we can count. Maybe your parents or other superiors told you not to do something, so it made you want to do it even more. There was no fun in being good, so you pursued what was evil. No one was going to tell you what to do or not do. You were going to do what you wanted. If anyone didn’t like it, that was their problem. You made up your mind, so nothing would stop you from going through with it—stiff neck, hard heart.
But what did those times of sinful stubbornness get us? We acted and spoke in pride, but are we proud of what we’ve done? There is so much we wish we could undo and take back. That humble assessment of the sins of our past is a true gift from God. He is constantly calling us back from the sinful paths we’ve taken and away from our bad choices. In love, He wants to lead us to repent of our wrongs and to trust in His mercy and grace.
This is what He wanted for the people of Judah. He “sent persistently to them by His messengers, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place.” He wanted to save them. He wanted them to be His own and live under Him in His kingdom (Second Article Explanation). He wanted to lead them in faith from this life to eternal life with Him in heaven. But how did they respond to His gracious call? “[T]hey kept mocking the messengers of God, despising His words and scoffing at His prophets.” They rejected God’s Word, so they were also rejecting God’s goodness and life.
This is nothing but pride. It is saying that I know better how to live my life, than God knows who gave me life, provides for my life, and preserves my life. Talk about ungratefulness to the extreme! God does not reward this; He opposes it. We see this in God handing over His prideful people to the Babylonians. Many of the people were slaughtered, Jerusalem was burned to the ground, and all the treasures of the temple and the kingdom were hauled away.
Proverbs 16:18 says, “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” This is why Jesus will reject the goats at His left hand, the unbelievers, on the Day of Judgment. In their pride, they did not fear, love, and trust in the true God. And because they rejected Him, they neither loved Him nor their neighbor as they were commanded to do.
“But Lord,” they will cry, “when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You? If we knew You needed help, we would have helped You!” (Mat. 25:44). He will reply that they were only ever concerned about themselves: “as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me” (v. 45). No matter how outwardly good and charitable they appeared to be, “without faith it is impossible to please God” (Heb. 11:6).
The reverse is also true: “With faith it is impossible not to please God.” You, dear child of God, are pleasing to Him, though you might wonder how this could be. You remember the stiff-neck, hard-heart episodes; how in your pride, you didn’t want to admit your wrongs. You think of how you have taken God’s gifts for granted and been so ungrateful toward Him, how you have fallen short in your callings to your family, friends, and neighbors. How could you be pleasing to God?
You are pleasing to Him not because of what you have done for Him or others, but because of what He has done for you. He has redeemed you, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won you from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil. The price for your soul could not be covered by anything you might do or pay, not by a billion good works or by all the gold and silver in the world.
You could not do it, so Jesus humbled Himself for you. The Son of God took “the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phi. 2:7-8). He redeemed you with His life of perfect obedience to God, with His holy, precious blood, and with His innocent suffering and death (Second Article Explanation).
He did this for you, and the Holy Spirit has given you faith to believe it. One of the gifts that comes with faith is humility. How can I be proud when I hear that Jesus took all my wretchedness and transgression on Himself, every sordid sin, and paid for it as though it were His? How can I be proud when I know that He suffered eternal death and hell in my place to win for me eternal life? How can I be proud when I learn that He chose me by grace to be His own and that He brought me to faith by the power of His Word?
This same powerful Word that brought you to faith is what keeps you humble before Him and equips you for humble service to others. As true as it is that “God opposes the proud,” which sometimes means you and me, it is also true that He “gives grace to the humble” (1Pe. 5:5). He looks with favor upon you. He knows how you are weak, and how you don’t always do the things you want to do or should do. He does not turn His back on you or push you away from Him.
He says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Mat. 11:28), and “whoever comes to me I will never cast out” (Joh. 6:37). And when you stand before His throne of judgment on the last day, He will say, “Come, you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Mat. 25:34). This is all grace, undeserved love.
Grace cannot be earned; it can only be received in humility. The LORD has looked with favor on you. He has chosen you. He has saved you. There is no other response, nothing more to say, than: 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 Last Judgment” by Fra Angelico, c. 1395-1455)
The Third Sunday of Easter – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Joshua 21:41-45
In Christ Jesus, who promises rest to His sheep who “labor and are heavy laden” with their sins and with the troubles of the world (Mat. 11:28), dear fellow redeemed:
Have you ever been perfectly happy? Have you been so relaxed, that you felt like you had no care in the world? Has it seemed like everything in life was going your way? Often these thoughts come to mind when you are looking back and remembering, when you say, “I didn’t know how good I had it.” Or perhaps you are constantly hoping for that experience, for that time in the future when you can say, “I finally made it; I reached my goal; now I can be happy.”
A wise pastor said that we almost always miss the experience or feeling we are aiming for. So if we aim for happiness, we never seem to have it. If we aim for contentment or success or fulfillment, they always seem just out of reach. But if we aim for service and love toward others, for hard work, or for any other noble pursuit, we often find happiness, contentment, success.
So it was for the people of Israel. It wasn’t sufficient to aim for happiness and prosperity in the Promised Land. They thought they could achieve that through their strength, their plan, their work. They should have focused on the promises of God and trusted His Word, and they would have received the happiness and prosperity they wanted. But most of the Israelites whom the LORD brought out of Egypt did not enter the Promised Land. They did not trust the LORD. Because of their unbelief, they had to wander in the wilderness for forty years, and they died in the wilderness.
They never reached the Promised Land, but their children did. Their children trusted the promises of God. We heard on Easter how they entered the land of Canaan through the Jordan River, when God stopped the water from flowing so they could cross on dry ground. Last week, we heard how He delivered the stronghold of Jericho into their hands by making its walls come tumbling down. After Jericho fell, the book of Joshua details victory after victory over their enemies until we get to the point of today’s reading.
Now the people had rest from their wandering and their fighting, “rest on every side.” Now each tribe of the sons of Israel received cities and lands in Canaan. The descendants of Levi received very little land because the LORD wanted them to live in the territories of the other tribes. The Levites provided instruction from the Scriptures and spiritual care, and their needs were supported by the people they served—much like it works with pastors today. Throughout the land of Canaan, the Levites were provided forty-eight cities with pasturelands to keep animals for sacrifice.
Many times before the Israelites reached Canaan, they heard it described as “a land flowing with milk and honey.” It was a beautiful land. It had everything the Israelites needed. They were able to settle so quickly because God gave them victory over all their enemies. The Israelites took over the cities, homes, vineyards, and fields. It was all theirs! “And the LORD gave them rest on every side just as He had sworn to their fathers…. Not one word of all the good promises that the LORD had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass.”
That sounds like the last words of a happy book or the last scene of a feel-good movie. The Israelites had to go through a lot of trials and suffering, but here they were. Everything had worked out well in the end. It would be nice if we could visit this land today and find it just as it is described in Joshua 21, to find “a land flowing with milk and honey,” to find everyone living in prosperity and peace—a people dedicated to the LORD.
But you already know that isn’t how the story played out. Shortly before he died at age 110, Joshua urged the people, “be very strong to keep and to do all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, turning aside from it neither to the right hand nor to the left, that you may not mix with these nations remaining among you or make mention of the names of their gods or swear by them or serve them or bow down to them, but you shall cling to the LORD your God just as you have done to this day” (Jos. 23:6-8).
The generation after Joshua’s remained faithful; they knew what God had done for them. But the next generation took this all for granted. They only knew the prosperity and peace, and it spoiled them. They imagined they would always have it. The days of slavery were in the distant past, they thought. Now they were a force to be reckoned with. They forgot the source of their peace, the reason they had “rest on every side.” And they lost it all.
This is very instructive for us who also enjoy many good things. The standard of living that we have is higher than most places in the world. We have plenty to eat and places to live. We enjoy relative safety with no imminent threats to our daily existence. Our country could be described as “a land flowing with milk and honey.” But do the people of our land give glory to God for these tremendous gifts? Do we give glory to God for these tremendous gifts?
The Israelites didn’t seem to recognize that as they had received the homes of others by the grace of God, so He could turn their homes over to others as He saw fit. Their beautiful land was only theirs because God handed it to them. Our reading states it very clearly: “[T]he LORD gave to Israel all the land…. [T]he LORD gave them rest on every side…. [T]he LORD had given all their enemies into their hands.” The LORD had done it all, and He had done it all for them.
When the Israelites forgot about this or ignored it, then He had to remind them what was most important. It wasn’t their homes, their vineyards, or their success against their enemies. For their own good, He took these things away from them, so they would remember, so they would seek His mercy, so they would trust His Word. Nothing was more important than calling His sheep back to the green pastures and still waters of His promises.
Our Lord also calls us back to His holy Word when we have drifted toward the ways of the world. He can see when our eyes are drawn to what appear to be greener pastures, but are actually dangerous places that are not safe for us. Joshua warned the Israelites about mixing with the unbelieving nations around them, people who would tempt them to serve their gods.
We are tempted in the same way to adopt the thinking and practices of unbelievers around us, to think the way the world thinks about relationships and money and priorities, so that God’s Word no longer has a place in our lives. But when the worldly things we have come to trust slip through our fingers or are taken from us, what will we have left?
If we aim at the appealing things of the world, we will find neither peace nor rest. Just ask anyone who has won big in the lottery if their life has improved since winning. Their possessions increased exponentially but so did their problems. But if we aim at God’s holy promises, at His unchanging Word, we find both peace and rest—and not just for this life but for the life to come.
Hebrews 4 is all about this heavenly rest of God. This rest comes to those who believe His promises. It is our Sabbath rest, a rest that results from God’s work and not man’s work. We have to do just as much work to obtain salvation and eternal life as God the Father did on day seven of Creation week, or that Jesus did in the tomb on the day after His atoning death. The Sabbath rest we enter by faith is a gift from Him.
It is a rest from our sin because God the Father took our sins off us and placed them on His Son who suffered and died for them all. It is a rest from our sorrows and troubles because our Lord promises to carry us through the difficulties of this life and strengthen us to endure. It is a rest from the devil’s afflictions since his head was crushed by our Savior. It is a rest from the fear of death since we know that death is our entrance to the green pasturelands of heaven.
This Sabbath rest of God fills your ears and mind and heart every time you listen to His Word and partake of His Sacraments. Here our Good Shepherd comes to tend His sheep. He knows His sheep. He recognizes our weaknesses, He sees our invisible burdens, He knows our deepest cares. He tends personally to each of His little lambs as only the perfect Good Shepherd can do. Everything you need, even if you were not aware you needed it before hearing His Word, is richly supplied by Him.
Through His Word, God gives you His kingdom. It is a glorious kingdom, flowing with spiritual milk and honey—with forgiveness, righteousness, and life. Your worldly wanderings in the past are forgiven and forgotten by Him. The Lord invites you to remain with Him where you have Rest on Every Side, where your enemies cannot harm you, where you shall want for no good thing, where He restores your soul. And when He takes you to the Promised Land above, you will join all His sheep in praising Him and saying, “Not one word of all the good promises that the LORD made to us has failed; all came to pass.”
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture of the Judean mountains in Israel)
Midweek Lent 2 – Pr. Abraham Faugstad homily
Text: St. Matthew 26:31-35
Dear Fellow Redeemed,
Jesus had made prophecies about his suffering and death. He had explained to his disciples what he would endure and the evil that would be brought against him. After Jesus had instituted the Supper of his body and blood he was with his disciples on the Mount of Olives and he now foretold what would happen to them, which would fulfill the words of the prophet Zechariah, “I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered” (Zechariah 13:7). Judas would betray Jesus into the hands of the religious leaders and be struck. In fear for their own lives, Jesus’ disciples, his own flock, would scatter and desert their Lord and Shepherd.
This was just too much for Peter to believe. He wouldn’t and couldn’t listen to Jesus’ words. Peter turns and looks Jesus in the eyes and says, “You’re wrong, Jesus. You don’t have to worry about me. I won’t leave you. Even if everyone else leaves you, I will stand by your side. I will never fall away.” Peter contradicts Jesus and makes his own prediction. Yet, Jesus tells Peter that not only would he leave Jesus, but he would deny him three times that very night before the rooster crows. Then Peter makes his bold confession, “Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you!”
There is no doubt Peter meant what he said, but Jesus knew, that instead of dying, Peter would lie and deny to save his own life. Contrary to his grand words, Peter would completely disown his Lord and Master, not by silence, but by three loud and forceful declarations.
This account is important for all of us to ponder. We learn here how dangerous it is to presume and to rely on our own strength. Peter was so confident in himself that he believed he could never fall. “I will never fall away… I will never deny you!” Yet, instead of making promises that he could not keep, Peter should have been praying to God to be with him and not let him sink. But he relied on his own strength. And so, he fell.
Like someone who has eyes bigger than their stomachs, we often think we are stronger than we really are. Even as we hear about Peter’s fall we are tempted to think, “I can’t believe he did that” or “I would never do that.” When we hear that after being accused of being one of Jesus’ disciples a third time, Peter began to curse and swear that he did not know Jesus, we are shocked to learn that the Lord witnessed this denial. Scripture records, “And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times” (Luke 22:60–61). Right as Peter was frantically denying knowing Jesus, Jesus happened to be led through the courtyard. It’s hard to imagine the remorse and shame that Peter must have felt after he denied Jesus. We are told, “And he went out and wept bitterly” (Luke 22:62).
It would be a terrible thing to deny Jesus like Peter did. Yet, wouldn’t it be even worse, if Peter showed no regret or sorrow? Wouldn’t it have been even more shameful for Peter to act as if it really was not a big deal? Wouldn’t it have been more alarming if Peter acted as if he hadn’t done anything “that bad” when he saw the resurrected Christ?
Every sin that we commit is a denial of Christ. And our sin is never hidden from God—he sees everything. He knows the sinful thoughts that run through our minds and hears every careless word we speak. He sees us when we damage or take something that doesn’t belong to us. He sees us when speak poorly of our neighbor. He sees us when we fail to stand up for what is right and confess the truth. He sees us when we join in with the crowds and seek comfort by the fires of this sinful world. But how often do we act like our sins are not sins and a denial of Christ?
Perhaps the only greater sin than denying Christ is when we deny that we sin against him and deny how serious our sin is. There is no such thing as a small sin. The hymn verse reminds us (ELH 297:3),
Ye who think of sin but lightly
Nor suppose the evil great
Here may view its nature rightly,
Here its guilt may estimate.
Mark the Sacrifice appointed,
See who bears the awful load;
’Tis the Word, the Lord’s anointed,
Son of Man and Son of God.
We can’t save ourselves from our sin nor do we have the strength to keep ourselves in the faith. Our lesson shows this with the example of Peter. Yet, this lesson isn’t as much about Peter as it is about what Christ suffered for our sakes. As Peter denied Jesus, Jesus was redeeming Peter and all people. He was abandoned so that we wouldn’t have to be. Jesus suffered what we truly deserve so that we wouldn’t have to. He is the innocent Lamb of God who came to take away the sins of the world.
Jesus knew that his disciples would abandon him. He knew all that he would endure. Yet, none of the suffering that would come his way deterred him from his mission to save our souls. In fact, this is why Scripture exhorts us to look to Jesus, “The author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame” (Hebrews 12:2). Jesus went forward with “joy,” because he was setting out to accomplish our salvation—the salvation of even those who have denied and sinned against him.
After Peter denied Jesus and saw him, he went out and wept bitterly. He realized the magnitude of what he had done. He knew Jesus’ warning that anyone who denies him, he would also deny before his Father in heaven. Nevertheless, Peter did not despair because he also remembered the words which the Lord had often spoke—that he had come into this world to call poor sinners to repentance. Christ would go before Peter in Galilee and restore him to himself. Peter had this promise. Later, Peter would confess Christ three times, just as he had denied him three times (John 21). Jesus forgave Peter and would even use him to boldly proclaim this forgiveness to others!
Paul writes, “For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope” (Romans 15:4). The account of Peter gives us hope. There is no sin beyond forgiveness. There is nothing that you have done or failed to do, that cannot be forgiven and healed. Our sins may be great, but Jesus is greater than our sins. When the Holy Spirit shows you your sin through the Law, don’t run from God but to him. When you see what Jesus suffered, you should realize that there is no sin that he did not pay for. You don’t have to die for him, because he died for you. Your sins are forgiven. You have been reconciled with God. None of us are part of God’s family because we have earned it. We are all members by God’s grace. Jesus is a friend and Savior of sinners. He welcomes those who confess their sins and believe in him.
When Peter trusted in his own strength, he fell. Yet, through this experience he learned to put his confidence in God alone. As he later wrote, “You are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation” (I Peter 1:5). Just as Peter was kept in the faith through Christ’s prayer and help, so too are we kept in the faith through Christ’s help. This is why we gather as Christians around the means of grace, God’s word and sacraments, because these are the means through which Christ forgives us, strengthens us, and keeps us in the one true faith. Jesus promises, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:27–28). Amen.
(picture from “The Second Denial of Saint Peter” by James Tissot, 1836-1902)
The Third Sunday of Easter – Vicar Lehne sermon
Text: St. John 10:11-16
In Christ Jesus, who laid down his life for us that he might take it up again, dear fellow redeemed:
The sheep were all jumbled together. Several shepherds had brought their sheep to the same pen for the night. The pen had only one gate that was guarded by a watchman, and it had walls that were tall enough to keep the sheep from wandering away during the night and to keep thieves and predators, such as wolves, out. But if all of the sheep were in the same pen, how would the shepherds know whose sheep were whose when they came back for them in the morning? It actually wasn’t a problem at all. Why? Because the sheep knew the voice of their shepherd. When they heard their shepherd’s voice, they followed him, while the other sheep, who did not recognize his voice, stayed behind. The shepherds led their sheep by their word.
In our reading for today, we are called “sheep,” and if we are sheep, then that means that we must have a shepherd whose voice we follow. Who is that shepherd? He is none other than Jesus, the Good Shepherd. When we call Jesus “the Good Shepherd,” we don’t mean that he is simply good at being a shepherd. We mean that he is the best shepherd that we could possibly have, and Jesus shows this in what he was willing to do for us.
You were once lost sheep, wandering every which way and being hunted by wolves. These wolves are your spiritual enemies: the devil, the world, and your sinful nature. Led by the devil, your spiritual enemies had completely surrounded you. You were doomed to be snatched by them and dragged away into the fires of hell. But even though you were already in the deadly clutches of your enemies, Jesus did not want to leave you to that fate. So, he left the green pastures of heaven and entered the wilderness of Earth to save you. When Jesus appeared, the wolves attacked him and killed him. In this moment, your spiritual enemies thought they had won, but it was by Jesus’ death, by the shedding of his blood, that the price that was necessary to save you was paid. By the shedding of Jesus’ blood, you were made his own. Jesus saved you from the clutches of your enemies by laying down his life of you. This is what sets Jesus apart from all other shepherds. “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (verse 11). Other shepherds are willing to protect their sheep, but they wouldn’t go so far as laying down their lives for their sheep. It is through this act, through willingly laying down his own life for you, that Jesus shows just how much he loves you.
But Jesus didn’t leave you without a shepherd. As he says in the verses following our reading for today, “I lay down my life that I may take it up again” (John 10:17). Death had no power over Jesus. On the third day, he rose again from the dead, declaring his victory over your spiritual enemies. Because Jesus is risen, you remain safe from the attacks of your spiritual enemies and are led to green pastures and still waters that nourish the faith that you have been given. As the psalmist says, “He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul” (Psalm 23:2–3). These green pastures and still waters that your Good Shepherd nourishes you with are the means of grace, the Word and Sacraments.
Just like real sheep, who are led by the word of their shepherds, you are led by the Word of your Good Shepherd. You know Jesus’ voice because he speaks to you through his Word, and the words that he speaks to you are very comforting. When there are sins that are troubling you, Jesus says to you, “I forgive you all your sins.” When you feel like you are in danger from the wolves that surround you, Jesus says to you, “They will never snatch you out of my hand.” When you feel lost, Jesus says to you, “Follow me.” And when you feel like you are all alone, with no one to turn to, Jesus says to you, “I will be with you always, even to the end of the age.” Your Good Shepherd not only leads you with these comforting words. He also nourishes you and strengthens you with them, just like he does with the Sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion.
In the Sacrament of Holy Baptism, you are marked for eternal life, which Jesus promises to give to his sheep in the verses following our reading for today (verse 28). You are marked for eternal life when the waters of baptism wash your sins away. These waters continue to wash you to this day. For every day, your new self rises up out of the waters of your baptism and your old self is drowned in them. Through baptism, you are comforted and strengthened, knowing that you have been washed clean. For since you have been washed clean, you have been marked as Jesus’ own, meaning that the eternal life that he promises to give his sheep is yours.
While you wait for the day when you will receive your promised eternal life, you receive a foretaste of it in the Sacrament of Holy Communion. During this holy supper, you feast on the true body and blood of your Good Shepherd who laid down his life for you to win you that eternal life. Jesus willingly went to the cross and shed his blood for you, and through the shedding of his blood, you receive the forgiveness of sins. When you come to his table, along with your fellow sheep, the forgiveness of sins that he won for you on the cross is brought to you when you eat and drink Jesus’ true body and blood in the bread and the wine. Then, you leave his table strengthened and nourished in the confidence that you have been forgiven. These means of grace truly are the best green pastures and still waters that your Good Shepherd can provide you with in this life.
You are blessed to have a Good Shepherd who continues to provide for your spiritual needs and protect you from your spiritual enemies. But that doesn’t mean that you can let your guard down. Your spiritual enemies are cunning, and there are lots of tricks that they have up their sleeves that they use against you to try and lure you away from your Good Shepherd. One of their most cunning tricks is to use false teachers to leave you defenseless to their attacks. Even though Jesus is your Good Shepherd, he has left you with shepherds who he has tasked with watching over his sheep. These shepherds are your pastors. But not all pastors are true shepherds who serve the Good Shepherd. Some of them look good and sound good, but in reality, all they care about is themselves. They do not feel responsible for you. All they want is to make a living off of you. So, when the wolves attack, they show their true colors and leave the flock to fend for themselves. Jesus compares these false teachers to the hired hands who watch the sheep. He says, “He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep” (verses 12–13). What a blessing it is to have a pastor who truly cares about you and is always willing to be there for you.
But that is only one of the tricks that you have to look out for. Another one of your spiritual enemies’ most cunning tricks is making their voices sound like the voice of your Good Shepherd. You look to God’s Word to hear the words of Jesus, but when you read them, the devil, the father of lies, says to you, “When Jesus said this, what he really meant was that.” As the world continues to live in sin and encourages you to join in with them, you point to what Jesus has said to you in his Word. But in response, the world says to you, “Those things only applied to the people of the Bible. We don’t have to follow those things anymore.” When your sinful nature tempts you to sin, you remember the words that Jesus spoke to you. But your sinful nature responds by saying, “You still have faith in Jesus, don’t you? It doesn’t matter what you do, because faith is all you need.” These, along with all other ways that your spiritual enemies attempt to lead you astray, can sound very convincing and can trick you into thinking that their voices are the voice of your Good Shepherd. But unfortunately, there are even times when you and I know that we are not hearing Jesus’ voice, yet we decide to listen to the false voices and follow them anyway. We must be careful, because these wolves are only trying to get us into their jaws so that they can snatch us and drag us away from our Good Shepherd, away from the green pastures and still waters of the means of grace, and into the fires of hell.
Even though we are sheep that love to wander and constantly fall for the tricks that our spiritual enemies use against us, we don’t need to fear losing our place in green pastures of heaven, because we belong to Jesus. As Jesus says in the verses following our reading for today, “No one will snatch [my sheep] out of my hand” (John 10:28). When we do wander into the clutches of our spiritual enemies, Jesus will be there to rescue us from them. No matter how far we’ve wandered away from him, Jesus is willing to go to the ends of the earth to lead us back to him. Jesus knows who his sheep are, and he will never abandon them, especially not when they need him most.
The sheep know the voice of their shepherd, but this knowing isn’t one-sided. Your Good Shepherd also knows you. But this knowing is much more than simply recognizing each other. Even the devil, the leader of the wolves, recognizes who Jesus is. This knowing is a knowledge that unites you with your Savior in love. You love Jesus, your Good Shepherd, and desire to follow him. But this love does not have its origin in you. It has its origin in Jesus and what he did for you. As the apostle John says, “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Jesus loved you so much that he was willing to lay down his own life so that you may experience eternal life in the green pastures of heaven. And Jesus still shows his love for you in that, as your risen Lord, he leads you safely though the dangers of this world until you reach those green pastures of heaven. As the psalmist says, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me” (Psalm 23:4). Jesus, your Good Shepherd is better than any other shepherd because no one has love that matches his. So, you can be confident that your Good Shepherd knows you and will lead you to the green pastures of heaven. As Jesus says, “I give [my sheep] eternal life, and they will never perish” (John 10:28).
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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(picture from Saude Lutheran Church altar painting)
Thanksgiving – Vicar Lehne homily
Text: Psalm 100
In Christ Jesus, who is our ultimate reason to give thanks, dear fellow redeemed:
Thanksgiving is many things to many people. To some, it’s the Thanksgiving Day Parade, in which giant parade balloons of their favorite characters float down the street. To others, it’s the Thanksgiving Day football game, complete with a halftime show that’s performed by some of their favorite celebrities. Still, to others, it’s simply getting to spend time with their friends and family. But, of course, if Thanksgiving is anything, it has to be Thanksgiving dinner: turkey; stuffing; mashed potatoes and gravy; pumpkin pie! In fact, Thanksgiving dinner is such a big part of Thanksgiving that many people go without eating all day in preparation for the massive feast.
Now, these are all perfectly fine things to do on Thanksgiving, but what many people fail to realize is that the true meaning of the holiday is right there in the name: Thanksgiving. It’s a day in which we are to give thanks, but give thanks for what? The psalmist answers this question by saying in verses 4 and 5 of our reading for today, “Give thanks to [the Lord]; bless his name! For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.” Through the love and faithfulness that he shows us, God proves that he is good and worthy of our thanks. But how does God show his love and faithfulness to us? The psalmist also answers this question by saying in verse 3 of our reading, “It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.”
This verse paints God in two ways: as our Creator and our Good Shepherd. As our Creator, God shows his love for us by giving us life. Without him, none of us would even exist in the first place. As Psalm 139:13 says, “[Y]ou formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.” As our Good Shepherd, God shows his love for us by preserving us and protecting us. Everything that we have comes from God, and God makes sure that we have everything that we need, like a shepherd leading his sheep to green pastures and flowing water. As Psalm 145:15 says, “The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season.” But it isn’t just because God provides for us that we’re alive, it’s also because God protects us, like a shepherd who fights off the hungry wolves that are after his sheep. As Psalm 91:11 says, “He will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.”
God being our Creator and Good Shepherd in our earthly lives is enough of a reason to give thanks to him, but God is also our Creator and Good Shepherd in our spiritual lives. God wants us to be with him in heaven, where we will never want for anything. However, because of the countless sins that we committed, we were not able to stand in the presence of a perfect God and were doomed to be cast out from his presence into hell, where we would pay the price for our sins for all eternity.
There was no way that we could change our fate and enter God’s presence on our own, but God the Father didn’t want to leave us to our fate. He loved us too much to do that. So, he sent his only begotten Son, Jesus, to earn the honor of entering his presence for us. Jesus died an innocent death on the cross, taking all of our sins on himself and paying the price for them, so that our prefect, heavenly Father would no longer see our imperfections. He also applied his perfect life to our lives so that we are able to enter the presence of our perfect Father in heaven. These blessings that Jesus won for us are brought to us and made our own through the waters of baptism. In those holy waters, our old sinful self is drowned, and our new holy self is born, uniting with Christ and rising to the surface. While we were once spiritually dead, God has given us new life in Christ.
However, our faith is just like our physical bodies: it needs nourishment, or it will die. Thankfully, God does not leave us alone once he brings us to faith but continues to nourish our faith by feeding us his Word. Every time we enter his presence in this life, gather around his Word with other believers, we hear the good news of what Jesus has done to save us and of how God continues to work to preserve us and protect us.
Because of this, our faith is strengthened, but our faith needs more than just nourishment. It also needs protection, protection from our spiritual enemies (the devil, the world, and our own sinful nature) who are constantly trying to lead us astray so that we won’t get to enter God’s perfect presence. These spiritual enemies of ours try every trick in the book on us: they tell us that our sins aren’t so bad, and that everyone else is doing them anyway; they tell us that we need to reject God in order to fit in with the rest of the world and be accepted by them; they tell us that God is a liar and that he doesn’t do the things that he says he does, so we shouldn’t follow him; and they tell us that there is no way that God could ever forgive us of our sins, so we should just give up hope. Our spiritual enemies play the role of both friend and foe, whatever it takes to win against us.
But there is no need for us to fear our spiritual enemies, for God is always there to protect us from them. They cannot harm us, nor do their accusations succeed against us, for Jesus has paid the price for all our sins, and as a result, eternal life in heaven is ours. As Jesus says in John 10:28, “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.”
So, we see that God is not only our Creator, Preserver, and Protector in our earthly lives, but also in our spiritual lives. For all this, we ought to give thanks to God. But there are times when we are tempted to think that there isn’t much to give thanks to God for at all, especially when we take a look around us and see the troubles that we all face every day. Prices continue to go up on everything, making it harder and harder to provide for ourselves and our families. Our loved ones continue to get sick and die. There continues to be war and violence throughout the world. And the world continues to encourage sinful behavior, seemingly wanting us to accept every kind of lifestyle, no matter how sinful it is, while, at the same time, rejecting those who are Christians, and even attacking them. Because of everything that’s going wrong in the world, it can sometimes make us wonder: is God truly in control? And if that thought starts to creep into our minds, it can tempt us to abandon God and turn to others for answers.
Thankfully, even though there are times when we aren’t faithful to God, God always remains faithful to us. Like a shepherd, he does not abandon his sheep that have wandered off, but he drops everything to find his lost sheep and lead them back to his flock. He accomplishes this through the preaching of his Word, the same Word that he uses to create and nourish our faith. When the Word is preached to us, we are made aware of the sins that we committed that caused us to go astray. But then, we receive the comfort that we have the forgiveness of sins because Jesus has paid the price for all our sins by his innocent death on the cross, that he willingly endured out of his great love for us.
Knowing all that God has done for us, and especially knowing what he has done to save us from our sins and open the gates of heaven to us, we are moved to give him thanks. But this thanksgiving is not limited to just one day of the year, nor is it limited to just when we go to church, but we show thanksgiving to God every day in all that we say and do, as the light that we now have in Christ shines before men. In fact, we can’t help but give thanks to God, because in every area of our lives, in how God made us, sent his only begotten Son to save us, and continues to provide for our needs, guard us from danger, and keep our faith alive, we know that God’s love endures forever. As the explanation to the First Article of the Creed says, “[F]or all this it is my duty to thank and praise, to serve and obey Him.”
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 window in St. John the Baptist’s Anglican Church in New South Wales)
The Second-Last Sunday of the Church Year
Text: St. Matthew 25:31-46
In Christ Jesus, who judges us not by the love we have shown others, but by the love He has shown us, dear fellow redeemed:
Are you ready for “Judgment Day”? We can’t help but feel some fear at the thought of it. On that day, Jesus will peel back the barrier between heaven and earth and reveal His glory to all mankind. He will come with a shout, with the sound of a great trumpet, accompanied by the angels. All the works of darkness will be exposed by His holy light. There will be nowhere to hide. Jesus says that “on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak” (Mat. 12:36). That is terrifying, because we have filled our life with careless words.
But the way Jesus describes the last judgment in today’s reading gives us a different perspective on the day. We are told of a King sitting on His glorious throne, but then He is described as a Shepherd. Those are very different pictures. A king gives orders; he exercises his power. A shepherd dutifully cares for the sheep. Here we see Jesus separating “people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.”
For the sheep, He only has sweet things to say. He calls them ones who are “blessed by My Father.” He says they will “inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” Then this Shepherd-King does something remarkable. He starts recounting all the good things the sheep have done for Him! They gave Him food when He was hungry, drink when He was thirsty, a home when He was a stranger, clothing when He was naked, encouragement when He was sick and in prison.
The sheep are dumbfounded, as sheep often are. They ask, “When did we do all these things for You, O Lord? When did we sheep do these things for You, our Shepherd, our King?” And He will reply, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these My brothers, you did it to Me.” This happy exchange is probably not the first thing that comes to our minds when we think of Judgment Day. But it is how Jesus describes it, so it is good for us to dwell on His words and to find comfort in them as the last day approaches.
On the other hand, Jesus does not only speak words of comfort regarding that day. The goats at His left hear a very different message. Jesus does not say, “As long as you tried to be good and do what is right, you can enter My kingdom.” Or, “as long as you were sincere in your beliefs and followed your heart, that’s all that matters to Me.” This is the way the unbelieving world speaks. We hear many people—including professed Christians—say that all religions worship the same god, or that all religions are different paths to get to the same place. This is “Universalism,” and Jesus never teaches it.
He makes a much more exclusive claim about Christianity. He says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (Joh. 14:6). Those who deny the Son of God incarnate cannot have the Father. The apostle Peter once told the Jewish religious leaders that in rejecting Jesus, they had rejected “the cornerstone.” Then he added, “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Act. 4:11,12).
This is why the goats ended up at Jesus’ left. They denied Him. They rejected the salvation He won for them. They did not want to hear His Word of truth. They wanted to go their own way. So Jesus will say to them on the last day, “Depart from Me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” He will explain that when He was hungry, they did not feed Him. When He was thirsty, they gave Him no drink, and so on.
In their desperation, the unbelievers will cry out, “Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?” Their thinking is that if only they had the chance, they would have helped the King. If they knew of His needs, they would have stepped up. But they miss the point. The point is not that they failed to do enough good works for God to earn their way into heaven.
Doing good works doesn’t get anyone into heaven. Ephesians 2 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (vv. 8-9). If we wanted to get ourselves to heaven by our own works, we would have to live a perfect life in every way. But none of us has even come close! We have broken each of God’s Commandments more times than we could count.
This is why the sheep are so surprised to hear their Shepherd-King recount all the good things they had done for Him. We know how much we have sinned and how far we have fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). But the sheep are not those who have always excelled at doing what is right, or who have sinned less than others have. The sheep are believers. Their trust and confidence are not in themselves and what they do, but in Jesus and what He has done.
The opposite is the case for the goats, the unbelievers. They may have been really nice people, but they did not trust in Jesus as their Savior. Because they rejected Him, nothing they did was actually righteous in His sight. That is what Hebrews 11:6 emphasizes, “without faith it is impossible to please him.” No matter how much money a person gives to the hungry and the poor, no matter how many strangers they welcome or prisoners they visit, if these are not done as fruits of faith, the Shepherd-King does not count them as being done for Him. It is impossible to please God without faith.
But then it is also the case that with faith it is impossible not to please Him. Faith produces good fruit. So when you and I go about our day, serving the people around us, these are good fruits in God’s sight. Usually we aren’t even aware of the good. We go to work, pick up groceries, clean the house, and pay our bills. We have devotions with our family, and we pray. There is never enough time to get everything done, and we probably feel guilty for not doing more.
But Jesus considers all these little things that barely seem to matter to be great works. He looks at our imperfect and lowly efforts like a parent looks at the scribbled drawings of a little child. In His eyes, the scribbled efforts of our humble lives are beautiful. On the last day, He will put our good deeds on display, like a child’s drawing showcased on the kitchen fridge. He counts all the things done for “the least of these [His] brothers,” as being done for Him.
We know that He looks at us like this not because we are so good, but because He is so good. Whatever good we accomplish starts with His good. Our love for others starts with His love for us. We learn what it means to serve the least by watching the Son of God humble Himself to serve the world of sinners. The world was happy with His miracles. The sick and demon-possessed were glad to be healed. But most people walked away from Him. Some even conspired to kill Him.
Still He went forward. He lived a perfect life according to the law of God, showing perfect love to God and to His neighbors, a life free from sin. He did not “repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling” (1Pe. 3:9). He did what He teaches His followers to do. He loved His enemies. He did good to those who hated Him. He blessed those who cursed Him. He prayed for those who abused Him (Luk. 6:27-28). Then He willingly gave up His life, so that all sin would be atoned for, and sinners would have salvation.
The holy life He lived is the reason you now stand holy in God’s sight. When you were brought to faith in Him, your sins were removed from you, and His righteousness was placed over you. This is why you can get ready for Judgment Day without being afraid of what will happen to you. You will not be judged for your careless words or any of your sins, because Jesus paid for them all. And you will not be judged as failing to do enough good, because Jesus’ life of good works, His life of perfect righteousness, is credited to you.
The King who will sit on His glorious throne on Judgment Day is a “King of love.” He is your Savior. Like a Shepherd, He will gather you and all His sheep safely to His side. Then you will never again hunger, never again thirst, never be left out or go without. You will be with Him, so you will have everything you need. On the last day, you will respond to His love for you like the hymnwriter expresses it:
The King of love my Shepherd is,
Whose goodness faileth never;
I nothing lack if I am His,
And He is mine forever. (Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary 370, v. 1)
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 Last Judgment” by Fra Angelico, c. 1395-1455)