The Third Sunday in Lent – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. Luke 11:14-28
In Christ Jesus, who guards us His prized possessions so closely, that He declares, “no one will snatch them out of my hand” (Joh. 10:28), dear fellow redeemed:
The “strong man” that Jesus refers to who is fully armed, guarding his own palace, and keeping his goods safe is the devil. He rules over the kingdom of darkness and death. Jesus called him “the ruler of this world” (Joh. 12:31, 14:30, 16:11). That means no earthly power, no human authority is stronger than Satan. Ephesians 6 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” (v. 12).
The devil and his fellow demons are our primary enemy. Their aim is to keep us from Jesus, and in so doing to keep us from life. They want to drag us into eternal death with them. It started with the devil’s temptation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. God told Adam that if he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he would surely die (Gen. 2:17). The devil said the opposite, “You will not surely die…. [Y]ou will be like God” (3:4,5).
The devil lied. Adam and Eve were already “like God.” They were made in His image. Now they knew sin and fear. They went into hiding as soon as they heard God in the Garden. They acted like God was their enemy. He proved to be their Savior. The LORD told the devil that he could not have mankind. He had not created them; they were not his. So God would be taking them back. He said to Satan, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (3:15).
This was a prophecy of the coming Messiah. This One would be born of woman, so that He could storm the devil’s palace and take his spoils. It was a perilous mission. Jesus was not welcome on earth. The book of Revelation describes the devil’s response to the incarnation of the Christ: “the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it” (12:4). But the devil did not succeed.
That doesn’t mean he stopped trying. We heard two weeks ago how he tempted Jesus in the wilderness to give up His mission (Mat. 4:1-11). There were more attempts like these. But Jesus did not fall for his temptations. He kept on marching right through the devil’s territory, as though it were His and not the devil’s. And as He went, He took away the armor in which the devil trusted and divided his spoils.
The armor the devil wore was the power of sin and death. Seeing how successful he had been with Adam and Eve, he kept on tempting man to sin. And as soon as he catches them in his trap, he points the flamethrower of accusation against them. In the Garden, he said, “Did God actually say?” Now he says to you and me, “Does God actually love you? How could He, since you have broken all His laws?”
The incarnate Son of God is the answer to that horrible question. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son” (Joh. 3:16). God had the devil in His sights. 1 John 3:8 says, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.” The devil’s works include the power of death. If the devil can no longer successfully accuse us for our sins, then he can’t torment us with death either. Hebrews 2 says, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, [Jesus] himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (vv. 14-15).
Jesus came on a rescue mission. He stood alone against the devil’s kingdom, and the devil was forced to give ground. We see this at the beginning of today’s account. Jesus cast out a demon from a man who was mute, and the man started speaking. He did this everywhere He went. He applied the power of His Word, and the demons retreated.
Jesus’ opponents accused Him of casting out demons by the power of the devil, whom they called “Beelzebul, the prince of demons.” Jesus explained how utterly foolish this would be. He said, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and a divided household falls.” He was not working with the devil; He was clearly working against him. A stronger Man had come to challenge the strong man, which meant that the devil’s goods were not safe.
The devil’s goods consist of sinful human beings. You and I were once in his prison, but Jesus freed us from it by the light of His truth. That’s how He fights against the devil’s kingdom on earth. He does it by wielding “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Eph. 6:17). It is by the Word that God “called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1Pe. 2:9). And it is by the Word that He keeps you in the light.
That means the last thing you would ever want to do is to step away from His Word. To do that would be to take your life into your own hands, and you already heard how you measure up to the devil—like a predator and his prey. 1 Peter 5:8 tells us that our “adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” We step away from the powerful and protective Word of God every time we willfully sin against God. We know we shouldn’t do something, and we do it anyway. We listen to our heart instead of to Him who loves us and redeemed us.
Jesus gives an example in today’s account of someone who thinks he is safe but isn’t. He spoke of “the unclean spirit [who] has gone out of a person.” The only reason the demons leave is by the power of God. So the Lord had delivered this person, just like He delivered all of us by the power of Holy Baptism.
But the person who had the demon expelled took his new spiritual freedom for granted. He had his house—or rather his body and heart—“swept and put in order.” Life was going well for him. He was enjoying the pleasures and treasures and human measures of the world. He was not filling his heart and mind with the power and presence of the Holy Spirit through the Word of God. So the unclean spirit returned and brought “seven other spirits more evil than itself” to enter and dwell in that person.
This is not a figure of speech or old-fashioned superstition. The demons exist, and they are constantly working to destroy your faith. A heart that is not filled with the Holy Spirit is a heart that is exposed and open to other spirits. Our modern culture may think this is foolishness, but the devil and demons are just as active today as they were in the past. And baptized believers are their special target.
This is why Jesus says, “Blessed… are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” It is not enough to hear the Word of God. We could hear it but then reject it with our mind or reject it by our intentional sinning. Jesus says we are blessed when we hear His Word “and keep it.” The word for “keep” does not mean “obey.” It means to “watch over” the Word, “guard it,” “keep it close.” It is the same word as the one used earlier in the reading for the strong man guarding his own palace and goods. We want to hold on to the Word with all that we have, guard it, and keep it close because God’s Word is the source of our faith and life.
It is by His holy Word that Jesus holds on to us. He says, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” (Mat. 18:20). We need His presence every passing hour because only His grace can foil the tempter’s power (ELH #561, v. 6). Alone, we cannot withstand the devil’s attacks, but by the Lord’s power, we can stand. We would fall, but Jesus did not. He stayed faithful to His Father’s will all the way to His death on the cross to redeem us.
His death and resurrection are how He destroyed the work of the devil and wrenched the power of death out of his hands. The devil threw everything he could at Jesus, and everything failed. There was nothing he could do. The LORD told the devil what He would do after the fall into sin. He would send the woman’s Offspring to crush Satan’s head, and that is just what He did. Jesus defeated Satan. He booted him right off his dungy throne.
The devil knows now that he cannot overcome Jesus, so he focuses his destructive powers on the followers of Jesus. But our Lord does not leave us to fend for ourselves, just as He did not give up Adam and Eve. We are His prized possessions purchased by His holy blood. He guards us and keeps us close. He fights for us. He does not get tired of defending us, no matter how weak we are or how often we slip up. He continuously forgives our sins and places His protective armor on us through His Word and Sacraments.
He keeps speaking His powerful Word into our ears and hearts. He tells us: “I kept the holy Law of God for you. I died for you and rose again to free you from sin and death. I have called you by name. You are mine (Isa. 43:1). I will not let you go.” And we trust Him; we find refuge in Him. We see the great powers of darkness arrayed against us, but we know they are no match for our Lord Jesus. His Word will prevail. His Word stands 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 “Exorcism” woodcut by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1794-1872)
Midweek Lent 3 – Pr. Abraham Faugstad homily
Text: St. Mark 15:20-23
In Christ Jesus, who has removed the heavy load of our sin through his suffering and death, so that our yoke would be easy and our burden light, dear fellow redeemed!
In less than a day’s time, Jesus had been betrayed by one of his disciples, deserted by the rest, and brought before the religious authorities. There he was accused by false witness after false witness, but nothing would stick until they were able to charge him for blasphemy for acknowledging that he was the Son of God. Since the Jews could not sentence someone to death, they brought him before Pontius Pilate. However, Pilate could find no actual fault in him. Perhaps, hopeful that the Jews would cease their demands after seeing him being beaten, Pilate had Jesus scourged. The soldiers gladly inflicted their harsh blows to Christ, putting on a crown of thorns and purple robe, mocking him as the “King of the Jews,” even spitting on him. Yet, Pilate’s cruel punishment did not satisfy the bloodthirsty crowds. They wanted death. Pilate, worried about his own position and keeping peace among the Jews, eventually yielded to the demands of the crowd and sentenced Jesus to crucifixion, a death saved for the worst of criminals.
“And when they had mocked Him, they took the purple off Him, put His own clothes on Him, and led Him out to crucify Him.” Jesus now began his journey to the cross, traditionally known as the Via Dolorosa, meaning, the Way of Sorrows. They had Jesus carry the very cross upon which he would be crucified. He likely would have been carrying the crossbeam, which could weigh up to 100 pounds. Since Jesus was either too exhausted to carry the cross any further after the beatings he had received or the soldiers were worried he would die in the process, the soldiers compelled or seized a man, Simon, to carry Christ’s cross.
Mark only gives one verse on Simon, but this is still more than the other Gospel writers. He notes that Simon was from Cyrene which was a Roman colony on the coast of Libya in North Africa. He was a foreigner. We don’t know whether he was making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem or there on business, but what we do know was that he had nothing to do with what was happening that day. He was coming out of the country and simply “passing by.” The soldiers likely saw that he was not from there and picked him out for convenience.
When Simon got up that morning, he would have had no idea that his role that day would be spoken of throughout the rest of history. Did he even know who Jesus was? What did he think about everything going on? What did he do after carrying the cross?
It’s hard for us to imagine Good Friday. Every year we learn about it and commemorate it, but it’s hard to imagine what it would have been like to be there, as someone in the crowds that day. It was a day of extremes—love and hate, compassion and anger, mercy and cruelty. Here was a King, but he was crowned with thorns. God is there, but as the murder victim. Simon carries the cross past mockers, crying women, Roman soldiers, confused foreigners, and a few disciples who remained. He bears not only the cross, but the jeers, the sorrow, the pain, and the blood.
Imagine being Simon. What were the thoughts going through his head as the soldiers forced him to carry Christ’s cross? He was likely embarrassed and scared, to be associated with a Man who was condemned to such cruel suffering and death. He was probably confused. Of all the people, why him? He was just passing by. He hadn’t done anything wrong. He was probably trying to avoid the soldiers’ attention, just like students when a teacher asks a question.
Nonetheless, for whatever reason, Simon was chosen. But Mark does add one important detail for us about Simon, he was the father of Alexander and Rufus. The Bible doesn’t tell us if Simon became a Christian, but we do know that Alexander and Rufus were. They became associated with the other apostles as we hear in both Acts 19 and Romans 16. No doubt, this event had made an impression on Simon and his family. He saw our Lord’s terrible suffering, but how he handled it all with meekness. He witnessed how through all the pain and ridicule, Jesus still cared for the wailing women, his mother, prayed for his enemies, and promised a thief eternal life in heaven. How could this not make an impression on Simon?
By bearing our Lord’s cross, Simon serves as a picture of all true disciples of Jesus, who must bear his cross after him. Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). Every Christian must bear the cross of Christ. Our crosses, like the one Simon bore, are often unexpected. A cross is a challenge or trial you face as a Christian. Of course, we all would prefer Styrofoam crosses. But we can’t choose our crosses. Simon needed to understand why Jesus, a King, had to receive such punishment. All Christians face similar struggles—trying to understand evil, making sense of hardship, public rebuke for remaining faithful to the scriptures and its teachings such as creation in six 24-hour days, a biblical flood, biblical morality, admitting your sin and need for another’s help, you name it. But Jesus says, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” What Jesus means is that he who is willing to lose all for Christ—pride, social standing, riches, and more—he will be given life. He will find life—because he will have Christ. What’s more, how we bear our crosses often serves as the best sermons, like Simon’s did to his own sons.
But we are to remember that whatever cross we might bear in this life pales in comparison to the cross Christ bore for us. Ours are but a splinter of the cross Jesus bore for you and for me. While Simon literally carried Jesus’ cross for a distance, that was nothing compared to the weight of the world’s sin that Jesus carried on his back. As the prophet Isaiah foretold, “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:5,6).
This is why Jesus had come to Golgotha. It wasn’t Pilate’s doing, he was just God’s instrument along with the religious leaders, who unknowingly played a part in completing God’s plan for our salvation. Because of our sin, we had been thrown out of God’s holy city, his paradise. Our punishment was death in hell. But God intervened. He promised a Savior, born of a virgin, who would crush Satan’s head. Only Jesus, as true God and true man, could perfectly fulfill God’s law in our place by his holy life. Only Jesus could lay down his life to make full satisfaction for the sins of the world. By Simon carrying Jesus’ cross, we also see that Jesus did not just come for the Jews, but also for the Gentiles—for all people.
What sins troubled Simon? What sins trouble you? Just as Simon saw Jesus bear them all, we have the Scriptures recorded for us so that we might know that Christ has paid for them all. Through faith in Jesus, that forgiveness is ours. Why does this forgiveness matter so much? Because then Christ’s promise is also ours—“You will be with me in Paradise.” Death had no power over Jesus, and it now has no power over you.
Simon’s name means, “hearer” or “listener.” We all become Simons when we listen to God’s Word. Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish” (John 10:27,28). Though it is true we are tasked to bear our cross, it is an easy burden because Christ has taken our heavy burden of sin away. Jesus invites us, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28–30). Amen.
(picture from “Simon the Cyrenian Compelled to Carry the Cross with Jesus” by James Tissot, 1836-1902)
The First Sunday in Lent – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. Matthew 4:1-11
In Christ Jesus, who promises to protect you and everyone who trusts in Him from “all the flaming darts of the evil one” (Eph. 6:16), dear fellow redeemed:
The devil started with a temptation about food. He followed that up with a temptation about making God prove Himself. He concluded with a temptation to seek glory, instead of faithfulness to God’s will. This describes his temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, and it also describes his temptation of Eve in the Garden of Eden.
What was the first thing he said to Eve? “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” (Gen. 3:1). He started with food, with the stomach. We have to admit that the stomach is a difficult thing to manage. We are often torn between what we enjoy eating, and eating what we know is good for us. We do not live in a time of lack or of rationing, when certain goods are not available to us. Sometimes the price of something skyrockets, like eggs and beef in recent months, but they are still available. If we have money to spend, we can buy whatever we like.
When something is not limited or moderated by factors outside of us, we need to exercise self-control. Part of the reason for this self-control is what St. Paul talks about: “I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified” (1Co. 9:27). He did not want to let the devil tempt him through the weakness of his flesh, so he practiced self-discipline.
One way to do this is by periodic fasting. Fasting is telling the stomach that it does not have all the power over us. It shows us that there is something more important than food. Our physical hunger reminds us of our need for spiritual nourishment. Fasting is one of the old spiritual disciplines of Lent, along with prayer and almsgiving, or charitable giving. If we limit our food intake or withhold for a time certain foods that we like, we have more time for prayer, and we have extra money that we can share with others in need.
Jesus fasted for forty days and forty nights. We might think that was easy for Him since He is God. But remember that in His state of humiliation, He was not making full use of His divine powers. The Holy Gospel for today tells us plainly that “He was hungry.” As a true human being, He felt true hunger. That made it a real temptation by the devil.
But what made the devil think he could possibly overcome the Son of God in the flesh? Well, he had done it before with the perfect crown of God’s creation, man and woman. If he could defeat them in a perfect world, why couldn’t he succeed against Jesus in a sinful world? “Humankind is weak,” thought the devil. “Why should Jesus be any different?”
The devil tempted Eve to eat whatever she wanted, particularly from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It looked good, didn’t it? It would not harm her; it would make her even better, like God. So he said to Jesus, “If You are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread. You’re hungry, aren’t You? If You are God, why should You have to feel pain? Why suffer? You can have it. Take it!” The temptation worked on Eve, but not on Jesus. He answered the devil by quoting from Deuteronomy, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
The devil did not stop at the stomach. He continued his temptation of Eve by urging her to make God prove Himself. “Eat this fruit,” he said, “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened” (Gen. 3:5). “God knows it, so why shouldn’t you know it? Why should you be left in the dark? Make God show you.” We feel the same temptation when we can’t see a clear way forward. Maybe we are struggling with a health issue, or we have gotten caught up in a sin that we can’t get free from. And we tell God that He needs to give us a special sign or take away our pain. If He doesn’t, then we might conclude that He does not love us, that He does not care.
With this temptation in mind, the devil took Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple and told Him to throw Himself down. “If God loves You, if He cares, won’t He send His angels to catch You? Isn’t that what the Scriptures say He will do? And just imagine the impact it will have on the people of Jerusalem, when they see how God saved You from any harm!” But Jesus said again quoting the Scriptures, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”
The devil had one more. He said to Eve, “you will be like God, knowing good and evil. You can have what God has! You can experience His glory!” We are surrounded by people who promise they can make our life better. If we take this supplement, exercise in this way, invest like this, follow these five easy steps, our life will completely change. We can have what we’ve always wanted!
As we have already heard, it is good to practice discipline for our health, just as it is good to practice discipline in the stewardship of our money and possessions. But to what end? If this is for selfish reasons, to gain power and glory on earth, then we haven’t made any progress at all. Then things might get better for us in the world, but they will be getting worse with God. In Romans 12:1-2, St. Paul writes, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
The devil tempted Jesus to bypass His suffering and His death on the cross to save sinners. “You can have all the kingdoms of the world and their glory,” he said. “All You have to do is fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus, whom the devil thought was so weak, told him to take a hike. “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.’”
This is where Adam and Eve failed. Eve was the first to eat of the fruit, but she “gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate” (Gen. 3:6). Adam had heard the command directly from God’s mouth: “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (2:16-17). Adam knew what God said, he heard what the devil was saying to his wife, and he did not put a stop to it. That is why the first sin is pinned on Adam.
Romans 5:12 says, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” Adam was perfect. So was Eve. They already were “like God,” since they had been made in His image. But they threw away these tremendous gifts of God because they wanted to have more.
We have inherited their sin, all of us have. No matter what excellent gifts God gives us, we also want to have more. And that is how the devil so often succeeds at tempting us. “Don’t hold back,” he says. “Take what you deserve. Eat that fruit. You won’t be disappointed. Stop worrying about what you think God wants, and do what you want.” How many times have we given in? How often did it make our life better?
There is a reason that the Son of God took on human flesh. There is a reason He was anointed by the Spirit at His Baptism. There is a reason He was “led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” It was for Adam and Eve and you and me and all sinners. He came to succeed where we had all failed. He came to win the victory over sin, death, and devil by perfectly following His Father’s will all the way to His death on the cross.
Where you succumbed to the devil’s temptations by putting your stomach first, by insisting that God prove His love for you on your terms, by seeking the world’s glory instead of God’s will, Jesus did not give in. He was certainly tempted just like Adam and Eve were and like we are. “[I]n every respect [He] has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). That perfect life of following the Father’s will counts for you and me. God does not see your sins and failings. Jesus’ blood has washed them all away, and His righteousness covers you in a much better garment than Adam and Eve’s fig leaves.
Romans 5 states the beautiful truth: “Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous” (vv. 18-19). The Bible refers to Jesus as the “second man” or “second Adam” (1Co. 15:45,47). He came to undo and deliver all that the first Adam destroyed.
The devil thought Jesus was an easy mark. He thought he could do to Him what he did to the first Adam. He learned otherwise. Jesus, the second Adam, stayed strong for you. He did not eat from the forbidden tree. He did not turn stones into bread. He did not throw Himself off the temple. He did not bow down to the devil. Instead, He suffered willingly. He took up His cross. He died in your place, so that His perfect life would be accepted by the Father as the sufficient sacrifice for your sins.
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 woodcut by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1794-1872)
Midweek Lent 1 (Ash Wednesday) – Pr. Faugstad homily
Text: St. Matthew 26:69-75
In Christ Jesus, who was “despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isa. 53:3), dear fellow redeemed:
The cursing and swearing that came out of Peter’s mouth were not characteristic of him—at least not since Jesus called him away from his fishing nets. We don’t know how he was before, except that when Jesus provided a great catch of fish on the Sea of Galilee shortly after Peter met Him, he fell down at Jesus’ knees and said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord” (Luk. 5:8). Now whatever foul language he had learned in the past came rushing back to him as he stated with an oath before God that he did not know the Man Jesus. Peter was afraid, afraid that he would be arrested and beaten up like Jesus was and maybe even killed.
It was only a few hours before this that Peter had confidently told Jesus, “Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away” (Mat. 26:33). Jesus told him that before the rooster crowed twice (Mar. 14:30), Peter would deny Him three times. Peter would not hear it: “Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you!” (Mat. 26:35). He was so sure of himself, so sure that he could not fall like that.
And that’s exactly the kind of self-assurance that the devil looks to exploit. History is full of Christians—good and faithful Christians—who fell into sins they thought they would never succumb to. They heard the stories about how others had fallen, and they thought to themselves, “That would never happen to me. I would never do that!” An attitude of judgment and pride are mixed into those thoughts. We are warned about this arrogance in 1 Corinthians 10: “Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall” (v. 12).
The devil, like a roaring lion, is watching and waiting for the opportunity to attack us when we think we are standing strong. Jesus spoke these ominous words to Peter when he boasted about his faithfulness: “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat” (Luk. 22:31). In other words, “You are not as strong as you think you are, and the devil knows it.” Then Jesus added these hopeful words, “but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers” (v. 32). Peter would fall, but he would not be lost forever. The Lord’s mercy and grace would cover even his horrible curses and denial.
This is a great comfort to us. We can also think of times that we cursed and swore and indicated by our words and actions that we “do not know the Man.” We did it because we wanted to fit in. We did not want to be made fun of for our faith. The devil was right there, tempting us, ready to sift us like wheat, and we gave in. Don’t you wish you could go back and unsay the terrible things you’ve said, and undo the wicked things you’ve done?
But there is no going back. There is no fixing what you broke. As much as Peter wanted to forget what he did in that Jerusalem courtyard, it happened. He did it. When faced with the reality of our sin, our natural reaction is to try to downplay it: “I was young and made some mistakes—everyone makes mistakes. It didn’t really hurt anyone. It wasn’t that big of a deal.” Or we try to assign the blame to someone else: “If I hadn’t been put in that situation by that person, I would have been fine.”
We think we can escape our sins by trying to wiggle out from under them or by keeping them buried in the past. But as much as we might want to detach ourselves from our sins, they will not detach themselves from us. We can’t try to balance out the bad by doing good. We can’t pay the debt of past sins by paying it forward in kindness. There is nothing we can do to make our sins go away and make things right with God. We sinned against Him. We did it.
Peter felt his sin to the depths of his soul. Jesus told him what would happen, told him what he would do. Peter denied his Lord’s words. And then he denied his Lord. Jesus was aware of all of it when it happened. Right after the rooster crowed the second time, the evangelist Luke records that “the Lord turned and looked at Peter” (Luk. 22:61), either as He was being led through the courtyard or from a window or doorway nearby.
Peter saw Jesus look at him, and he remembered what Jesus had said about denying Him. When the reality of what he had just done hit him, there was nothing he could do but weep, bitterly. Was he sorry for his sin? Every tear said that he was. There was no more posturing from him, no more proving his faithfulness. He was crushed by his sins, and he repented.
This is what we do with sin—we repent of it. Repentance is not about saying the right words, and you are good to go. It is not a work you do that God rewards. Repentance is acknowledging sin from the heart, without selling it short or making any excuses for it. It is admitting what you thought or said or did that God said you should not think or say or do. Repentance is painful; we don’t like to own up to our sins. But repentance prepares us to receive grace from God.
Jesus came for sinners. He suffered and died for all of them, including his dear disciple Peter who denied that he even knew Him. The first thing Jesus said when He was nailed to the cross was not, “How could they all desert Me and leave Me to suffer alone?” He said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luk. 23:34). Those words are for you, too. Even though you have denied Jesus by your sin, He went to the cross willingly for you.
As the spotless sacrificial Lamb, He offered up His perfect life as the sacrifice for all sin, for your sins and mine, sins of arrogance and pride, of stubbornness, of trying to pass the blame for the wrongs you have done. He suffered “once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring [you] to God” (1Pe. 3:18). You sinned against God in countless ways, and Jesus reconciled you with the Father by pouring out His holy, precious blood to wash your sins away.
His blood also paid for Peter’s sin, even that horrible denial of Jesus in His darkest time of suffering. Jesus had told him, “I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail.” This was Peter’s hope in his gut-wrenching grief. Jesus had not forsaken him—He would not forsake him—because He had promised to be faithful. Jesus made sure that Peter knew His love and forgiveness by appearing personally to Peter after His resurrection (1Co. 15:5) and then reinstating him to feed His lambs and sheep (Joh. 21:15-19).
He assures you of the same love and forgiveness each time you hear His Word of absolution and receive His body and blood for the remission of your sins. You do not come before Him with boasting, presenting all your good works to Him. You come in humble repentance, laying bare your soul to Him, begging for His mercy and grace.
That is the message that Martin Luther wrote on his deathbed. 480 years ago today (2/18/1546), He left a note ending with these words: “We are beggars, this is true.” Luther did not enter death empty-handed, but he took along nothing of his own. He knew that the Lord supplied the forgiveness and righteousness that he needed for eternal life in heaven.
The same is true for you. Jesus suffered and died for you, so that all your transgressions would be forgiven, removed from you “as far as the east is from the west” (Psa. 103:12). His ear is always open to your cry, and His Word is always ready to bring you His healing and life. So you can confidently and gratefully say along with penitent David and Peter: “A broken and a contrite heart—These, O God, You will not despise” (Psa. 51:17, NKJV).
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 Second Denial of Saint Peter” by James Tissot, 1836-1902)
The Second Sunday after the Epiphany – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. John 2:1-11
In Christ Jesus, who does not reject us for our sins but nourishes and cherishes us as members of His holy body (Eph. 5:29-30), dear fellow redeemed:
We expect that Jesus would perform His first public sign in the heart of Jerusalem, perhaps in the temple, so all the higher-ups would know the Messiah had come. He could have done something magnificent like the transfiguration of His appearance, flying from one place to another, or putting food on everyone’s table or money in their pockets. Or His first sign could have been in His hometown of Nazareth, so all His neighbors would realize who He really was.
But Jesus did not choose Nazareth or the Holy City. He chose Cana, a little town in Galilee about nine miles north of Nazareth. And the occasion for His first sign was a wedding. A common Jewish custom for wedding feasts at this time was a seven-day celebration. The fact that the wine ran out does not automatically mean the guests at this wedding drank more than usual. It could mean that more guests had arrived than anticipated.
Running out of wine would have certainly changed the celebratory mood of those who were present. And it would have been an embarrassing way for the bride and groom to begin their life together. The situation concerned Jesus’ mother Mary enough that she brought the problem to her Son. “They have no wine,” she told Him. Jesus’ reply is surprisingly blunt: “Woman, what does this have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.”
We’re not sure what Mary wanted Jesus to do. But her message to the servants, “do whatever He tells you,” indicates that she thought He might do something. We can’t forget how Mary treasured up all the things she heard and saw about her special Son through the years and pondered them in her heart (Luk. 2:19,51). Now that He was a grown man, she was waiting for Him to take the next step, to reveal who He really was, who the angel Gabriel told her He was—the true Son of God (Luk. 1:35). His recent calling of Galilean men to be His disciples certainly had her thinking that something was about to happen.
But Jesus was not going to be forced to act by His mother whom He loved dearly. He told her as a twelve-year-old that the plan was not in her hands, “Did you not know that I must be in My Father’s house?” (Luk. 2:49). And He reminded her of the same thing now, “what does this have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.” And at this point in the account, Mary, after speaking to the servants, steps aside.
Soon after this, Jesus quietly asked the servants to fill six large stone jars with water. When this was done, He asked them to “draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” Could they tell that the water’s color had changed? Could they smell the aroma of wine? Did they comprehend what had just happened? Whether it struck them in the moment or later on, these eyewitnesses could only conclude that Jesus had powers unlike anyone else they knew or had heard of. That’s certainly the impact this sign had on the disciples. The evangelist John who was almost certainly present at the wedding reported about himself and the other disciples that they “believed in [Jesus],” that He was the Son of God incarnate.
So Jesus saved the wedding celebration. He saved the bride and groom from embarrassment. Their joy-filled union was the occasion for His first public sign through which He “manifested His glory.” Of all the places and ways He could have revealed His divinity, He chose a wedding celebration, the formation of a new home through the marital union of husband and wife.
While it might not be what we expect, a wedding was a fitting place and way for Jesus to start His public work. Marriage is the first building block of society and everything that exists within it—from home to church to state. God instituted marriage before the fall into sin, so He saw that it was “very good” even for a man and woman who lacked nothing. Marriage was a gift for them, and it was the means by which God would expand the human race.
Adam and Eve had the first and only perfect marriage. Adam rejoiced that the woman made from his rib was “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man” (Gen. 2:23). The end of Genesis 2 includes this note, “And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed” (v. 24). They had a marriage without shame, without any sin. They perfectly loved one another and perfectly served one another.
But then they gave it all up because they wanted to have more. They brought sin into Paradise. Immediately after falling, they played the blame game, pointing their fingers at each other instead of themselves. But God did not destroy them for their sin or take them away from each other. He gave them a promise that would hold them together and give them hope. From the woman would come an Offspring who would crush Satan’s head (3:15).
That particular woman was not Eve but the virgin Mary, and that particular Offspring was Jesus the Christ. What Adam and Eve destroyed, Jesus came to restore. He came to rescue the human race, and with it, His beautiful institution of marriage. Marriage can never be in this life what it was before the fall into sin, but it can be more than the world considers it to be—much more.
To teach us about the greatness of marriage, Jesus likens it to His union with the Church of all believers. Ephesians 5 says that as the Church acknowledges Christ as its Head and submits to Him, “so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands” (v. 24). And as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her, this is how husbands should love their wives (v. 25). When this happens by the grace of God, when neither spouse points fingers and both spouses make sacrifices for each other, then we catch a glimpse of the blessed union of Christ with His Church.
Sometimes a self-sacrificing love can be found in marriages between unbelievers. But more often the view of marriage in the world today is that it exists for my personal fulfillment, and if I am not happy, if my needs are not being met the way I want them to be, then I am going to walk. And then there is the growing number of couples who think marriage is “nothing but a piece of paper,” a formality, which is “not nearly as important as a shared expression of love for one another.” The devil attacks the best gifts of God, and that’s what he is doing to marriage today.
It isn’t just unbelievers who are affected by his lies and temptations. Satan especially works against marriages of Christians, and he has done damage among us too. He tempts us to selfishness, unkindness, jealousy, manipulation, hurtful words, and hurtful actions. He tempts us to look outside of our marriage to get what we want. He tempts us to think that happiness should be the primary concern in our marriage instead of faithfulness and sacrificial love.
But Jesus is active in our marriages too. Despite our sins against Him, He has not turned His back on us. We might get frustrated with each other, but He does not get frustrated with us. He loves us perfectly. As ugly as we know we look in our sin, He declares His bride the Church to be “without spot or wrinkle or any such thing… holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:27). This is because He cleansed us in Holy Baptism “by the washing of water with the word” (v. 26). He joined us to Him. He paid for our sins. He covers us in His righteousness. He keeps no record of our wrongs.
This is sacrificial love. We sinned against Him, but He took the punishment in our place. We were unfaithful to Him, but He willingly carried our guilt to the cross. We deserved eternal death, but He died to win us eternal life. Your sins against your neighbor, including your spouse, are sins against Him—and He forgives you. He forgives you, which moves you to share that forgiveness with others. Ephesians 4:32 says, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”
The first sin happened because of a breakdown of marriage. The first sign that God had taken on flesh to bring salvation to the world took place at a marriage celebration. Marriage was not perpetually cursed by Adam and Eve, so that it should be avoided at all costs. Marriage is eternally blessed by God, so we should embrace it and give thanks for it as a great gift. Whether or not you are married today, you came from a marriage. You had a father and a mother. You know what a gift a healthy marriage is. You know how important marriage is for the home, the church, and the state. It is the human foundation on which everything else rests.
And that’s why Jesus is particularly interested in the home. He gives husband and wife to care for, help, and encourage one another. He gives children through their union, so that children have stability, so they are provided for, and so they receive training in the saving Word of God. He gathers the family around His Word, so we set our hope on His promises and grow in love for God and one another. Where His Word is, Jesus is present. He says, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” (Mat. 18:20).
Jesus is present in holiness and power turning sorrows into joys, pain into pleasure, hardship into contentment. Whatever is brought into our homes because of sin, He transforms by His grace like the way He turned water into wine. Keeping His Word at the center of our home and our life together is how we know our family will be blessed, even if the future does not go the way we plan or expect. Jesus is with us drawing us closer to Him and to one another and giving us hope—hope in this life and hope for the eternal life to come.
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 a work by a 10th century monk)
Maundy Thursday – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Numbers 9:1-14
In Christ Jesus, the perfect Passover Lamb, whose holy blood cleanses us from all sin, dear fellow redeemed:
When the LORD was about to deliver the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, He gave Moses instructions for the Passover meal—the male lamb without blemish, killed at twilight, roasted whole over the fire, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs on the side. Because they had put the blood of the lamb on the doorposts of their homes, the angel of God passed over their homes, and their firstborn sons were spared. The same was not true for the homes without blood as death came to every Egyptian home.
The Israelites quickly gathered their belongings and marched out of Egypt, no longer enslaved. The Passover was the defining event in their deliverance. It ushered in a new era for the people. The LORD told the people, “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you” (Exo. 12:2). And every year on the fourteenth day of the first month, the people were to remember the Passover and “keep it as a feast to the LORD” (v. 14). When they observed it, they were to tell and teach their children, “It is the sacrifice of the LORD’s Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses” (v. 27).
It had been an eventful year since the Israelites left Egypt. They had been saved from Pharaoh’s army by passing through the Red Sea. They had received God’s holy Law at Mount Sinai. The tabernacle had been constructed, where God made His presence known through a cloud. And now it was time to partake of the Passover meal again—on the fourteenth day of the first month.
But some of the men brought a problem to Moses. They told him they were unclean according to God’s Law because they had to take care of a dead body. So they were unable to observe the Passover even though they wanted to. They asked Moses what they should do. Moses asked the LORD, and the LORD gave a special provision for the Passover. He said that if any were unclean from touching a dead body, or if they were on a long journey at the time of the Passover, they could observe the Passover exactly one month later, on the fourteenth day of the second month.
But this only applied in special cases; it was not to be done for convenience’ sake or because a person preferred to wait. Such disregard for the LORD’s Passover required that the offending individual be “cut off from his people”; in other words, that he be cast out or excommunicated from the Israelite congregation. The Passover observance was not optional. It had to be done in remembrance of what the LORD had done for them.
There was also a forward-looking aspect of the Passover. Every year that the people observed it, they were reminded that the LORD had delivered them from slavery and death in Egypt by the blood of the lamb. But in the future, He would deliver them from something much greater. That lamb without blemish was a type or picture of the sinless Son of God, who would take on human flesh to deliver all people from our slavery to sin and death.
This is the week that the Lamb of God made His way toward the altar of sacrifice, toward His crucifixion on Calvary. The night of His betrayal and arrest, He reclined at table with His disciples to partake of the Passover. He said, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God” (Luk. 22:15-16). Jesus was the Passover’s fulfillment. He was the spotless Lamb that took away the sin of the world on the cross.
Since He was its fulfillment, the observance of the Passover was no longer required. Now Jesus instituted a “new testament” to replace the old. He took unleavened bread from the Passover meal, “and when He had given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is My body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.’” Then He took the cup of blessing filled with wine and said, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood” (vv. 19,20).
Just as the LORD directed the people of Israel to observe the Passover “in remembrance” of what He had done for them, so now Jesus tells His followers to eat His body and drink His blood “in remembrance” of Him. But is the Lord’s Supper required in the same way as the Passover was? In other words, can we as Christians choose not to partake of the Supper? And if so, how long can we go without it?
It is true that Jesus did not mandate how often to receive Holy Communion. He just said, “do this.” So perhaps we should ask what might keep a Christian from not doing this. Like the Israelite men who were unclean from working with a dead body, the death of a loved one or a personal illness or injury could keep us from attending the Divine Service for a time. Or if we were “on a long journey” like the LORD spoke of with the Passover, perhaps we would not be able to receive the Lord’s body and blood for a while.
But if we are in fair health, and we are able to attend church, or we are able to receive a pastoral visit in our home, then why would we not want to receive Jesus’ body and blood for the forgiveness of our sins? Our Catechism asks the question, “Do those who neglect the Lord’s Supper commit a sin?” The answer is “yes” with this explanation. They sin first of all against “the Lord, whom they insult by treating His gifts as unimportant,” second of all against “themselves, whom they deprive of great blessings,” and finally against “the believers, whose fellowship they neglect” (ELS Explanation, 2023 edition, p. 252). Whether or not we partake of the Lord’s Supper is no unimportant matter.
It can happen, though, that a child of God is struggling. He carries a burden of guilt because of a sin done long ago or not so long ago. Perhaps he is still stuck in the sin. He wants to stop, he is sorry for it, but he doesn’t have the strength. Or maybe someone is hurting from harm done to her by another. She knows she should forgive, but she can’t get rid of the anger. Sometimes people in these situations stay away from the Lord’s Supper because they don’t feel worthy enough to receive it.
To such as these, Jesus says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Mat. 11:28). “But Jesus, I have sinned!” we say, “I’m not worthy to come to Your table!” And Jesus replies, “whoever comes to me I will never cast out” (Joh. 6:37). His Supper is for sinners. If you recognize your sin and are sorry for it, His Supper is for you. He gave His body on the cross and shed His blood in payment for your sins, and now gives you the same holy body and cleansing blood for your comfort and strength.
Partaking of the Lord’s Supper is not a time for going through the motions. The Israelites were to observe the Passover each year remembering what the LORD had done and continued to do for them. We also partake of the Sacrament remembering what Jesus has done and continues to do for us. This is no place for our unrepentance, our sinful smugness and stubbornness, our pride, our self-righteousness. This is the place for broken and contrite hearts, for humble faith, for thankfulness.
We come forward remembering who Jesus is, the true Son of God and Son of Man. We remember what He has done, given Himself and shed His blood to redeem us from our sin and death. We remember our ongoing need for His forgiveness because of our many sins. And we remember His promise to be with us always here and to return again on the last day to take us to be with Him.
Just as the Israelites observed the Passover to God’s glory, so we observe the Lord’s Supper to His glory. “For as often as [we] eat this bread and drink the cup, [we] proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1Co. 11:26). Amen.
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(painting of the Last Supper by Simon Ushakov, 1685)
Palm Sunday – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Numbers 21:4-9
In Christ Jesus, whose saving work was foretold by the prophets and depicted among the peoples at many times and in many ways, dear fellow redeemed:
If you had to guess what verse in the Bible is the most popular one, you would probably say John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” It is an awesome verse. It clearly states that we are saved from our sin and death by faith in the Son of God. But did you know that the context leading up to this verse includes a reference to the bronze serpent that Moses made?
John 3:14-15 says, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” Then the famous passage follows. By this reference to today’s account from Numbers 21, our Lord is teaching us how to read the Old Testament. We read the Old Testament not just for historical purposes and not just for lessons about what we should and should not do. We read the Old Testament as a book about God keeping His promises, including His chief promise to send a Savior for sinners.
We certainly find sinners in today’s reading. Once again, the Israelites became impatient. Once again, they grumbled and complained. They took God’s gifts for granted and wished they could go back to Egypt where they recalled being so happy and healthy. It is obvious the devil had “pulled the wool over their eyes.” The people needed to be brought out of their spiritual sleep. They needed to be reminded who the LORD was and what He was doing for them.
But being made aware of our wickedness and weakness is not a pleasant experience. It certainly wasn’t for the Israelites. The LORD sent fiery serpents among the people. We don’t know exactly what made the serpents “fiery.” Perhaps it was their appearance. Perhaps it was the type of pain people felt when they were bitten. It was a terrifying experience that claimed the lives of many people.
It also woke the people up. They came to Moses in humility and repentance, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you. Pray to the LORD, that He take away the serpents from us.” They realized their sin the hard way. Instead of trusting God and obeying His will, they broke His holy Law and faced the consequences.
We can also think of many times that we learned about sin “the hard way.” We decided to do what we knew was wrong. We thought we could get away with it, or we thought it was worth the risk, but that sin came back to bite us hard. Some sins have temporary consequences, but other sins have deeper consequences that can last our entire life and negatively impact others even after we are gone.
The sin we have inherited from Adam is like the bite of a poisonous serpent. The poison works its way further and further in, and if no treatment is applied, it leads to death. The Book of James outlines the progression of sin: “But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death” (Jam. 1:14-15). This is not just about physical death which touches all people. This is about eternal death in hell which is received by all who remain in their sin and refuse to repent.
It was a gift from God that the people afflicted by the fiery serpents repented. Not everyone feels sorry for sin. Many boast how there is nothing about their life they would change. “I did it my way,” they say, as though that is something admirable. So we see that God was mercifully leading the Israelites out of their sin and unbelief and back to Him in faith. They went to God’s servant Moses, admitted their wrong, and begged him to intercede for them. Moses prayed to the LORD, and the LORD listened to his prayer. He said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.”
Now this seems a little odd. Why would God tell Moses to put on a pole an image of the very animal that was killing them? And how could the lifeless image of a serpent save the people from the bite of actual serpents? This was a test of faith. The power to save the people was not in a piece of metal on a pole. The power to save the people was in the promise God attached to the image. He said, “and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” Would the people trust God’s Word now?
We are faced with a similar test when we look at God’s Sacraments. Many people—even many Christians—reject the Sacraments as external things, as empty rituals, that have no real effect on our faith. They say it is little more than getting water splashed on you, than eating bread and drinking wine. We receive no benefit if we look at the Sacraments in this way and just go through the motions because we feel like we should. But if we listen to what our Lord says about them, if we recognize that the power of the Sacraments is in His Word, and we trust the promise He attaches to these visible means, then we receive great benefit.
The Israelites may have tried to apply medicinal remedies of their own making to their family members and friends who had been bitten. Maybe they tried to chase the snakes away. But their efforts all failed. People kept dying. They could not save themselves. Only God could rescue them. He directed Moses to lift up the bronze serpent on a pole, and the people who trusted His promise were spared. “[I]f a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.”
So when the devil with his temptations slithers toward you, when sin sinks its fangs into you, when its poison works its way through you, what can you do? You can’t save yourself. You don’t have the power to neutralize your sins or keep their poison from spreading. You can’t heal the wounds inflicted by your sin or outrun the consequences of what you have done. There is only one remedy, only one antidote for sin—“as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up” (Joh. 3:14).
The Son of Man, Jesus Christ, had to be lifted up. It was absolutely necessary. The antidote for sin’s poison had to come from God to us. He sent healing and salvation to us by giving His Son to suffer and die in our place. That is our focus in this holiest of weeks beginning with our Lord’s humble entry into Jerusalem.
He was welcomed as a king on Palm Sunday, but the true nature of His kingdom would not be clear until He was wearing a crown of thorns on Friday. His throne was not covered in gold. It was splattered in the holy blood that oozed from His wounds. His throne was that rough, wooden cross that lifted Him up for all eyes to see. Many looked at Him in unbelief; they ridiculed and blasphemed Him.
Even for them, Jesus willingly suffered. Even for you. He carried your sins to the cross. He felt their painful bite and their burning poison. He did not grumble or complain. He did not ask His Father why He sent Him from heaven to die in the wilderness of the world. He accepted the punishing wrath of God and endured the eternal torments of hell, so you would not die but live.
Sin filled you with death, but Jesus fills you with life. He counteracts the effects of all your sins, including the ones that caused deep wounds and piercing pain in you and others. By giving up His holy life in payment for sin, He won forgiveness and salvation for you. He brings the fruits of His victory to you right now through His Word and Sacraments. Through these means, He imparts the medicine of life. You hear His promises spoken to you, you eat His body and drink His blood with faith in what He says, and His power works through you to heal, comfort, and strengthen you.
Whether you feel healthy and strong in your spiritual life or under attack and weak, you keep your eyes always on the Son of Man who was lifted up to save you. If you tried to measure your faith by how well you are doing or how much you have accomplished, you would be applying the Law as a remedy to your sinfulness. But the Law cannot save you. One of our great Lutheran hymns puts it well:
The law reveals the guilt of sin,
And makes men conscience-stricken;
The gospel then doth enter in,
The sin-sick soul to quicken.
Come to the cross, loop up and live!
The law no peace to thee doth give,
Nor can its deeds bring comfort. (Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary #227, v. 9)
You look to Jesus for comfort. His Father sent Him to fulfill the promise of the ages by suffering and dying in your place. Like the whole creation that eagerly waits for the blossoming and new life of spring, the entire Old Testament anticipates the coming of the Savior. Jesus said to the Jews, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me” (Joh. 5:39).
The bronze serpent on a pole was a picture of what Jesus would do on the cross. Like the Israelites who looked up with faith in the LORD’s promise, you also by faith Come to the Cross, Look Up and Live! In Jesus, you have life for today, life for this Holy Week, and life forevermore. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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(picture from “Crucifixion, Seen from the Cross,” by James Tissot, c. 1890)
The First Sunday in Advent – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Genesis 3:14-4:2
In Christ Jesus, the Offspring of the virgin, who was called Immanuel, God with us, dear fellow redeemed:
“The LORD God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, cursed are you.’” What the devil had done was tempt the most special part of God’s creation—mankind—to sin. In the form of or inhabiting a serpent, the devil had approached the first woman with the express purpose of turning her against her Creator. He first tempted her to doubt the Word of God and then to deny the Word of God. She took fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—the one tree God warned Adam not to eat from—, and she ate. Then she gave some of the fruit to Adam “who was with her,” and he ate (Gen. 3:6).
They did not receive what they were looking for. They were hoping to “be like God,” as the devil had promised them. They failed to appreciate that they already were “like God,” made in His holy image (1:26-27). They did receive part of what the devil had promised, the knowledge of good and evil (3:5). They learned that they used to be good as the caretakers of God’s good creation. Now they had become evil, and they viewed God as their enemy.
This is why they went into hiding when they heard Him walking in the garden. They were afraid of Him. What was He going to do to them? Adam surely remembered what God said about that one tree, that “in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (2:17). They went into hiding because they did not want to be punished for their sin. They did not want to die. In fact, they already had. They were still breathing, but spiritually, they had died. They were separated from God. They were on the devil’s side now.
But the LORD would not let the devil keep them. Their punishment would not be the same as the devil’s punishment. God extended no grace and hope to the devil, but He did to Adam and Eve. The key verse in today’s reading and perhaps in all of Scripture is verse fifteen. God said this to the devil but for mankind’s benefit: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her Offspring; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”
Just as the devil had manipulated a woman into disobeying God, so it would be through the Offspring of a woman that the devil’s power would be crushed. Martin Luther called this verse the “first comfort, this source of all mercy and fountainhead of all promises” (Luther’s Works, vol. 1, p. 191). He also suggested that God made the prophecy purposely vague, so that the devil would have to fear every woman going forward since any of them might bear the One to destroy him.
God’s promise terrified the devil, but it gave great hope to mankind. God had not changed His mind about death entering the world through sin. But now He delivered the hope of salvation, that One would come to set everything right again, to overcome sin, devil, and death for all humanity. If Adam and Eve thought another path was open to them, that possibility was closed when God posted “the cherubim and a flaming sword” outside the Garden of Eden to keep them away from the tree of life.
There was no other way to be saved than God’s way. Immediately after this, we are told that “Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived.” They trusted what God said, that salvation would come through the woman’s Offspring. They hoped their firstborn son was this Savior. They called him “Cain,” a name that means “acquired” or “gotten” because they had “gotten a man from the LORD.” But Cain was not the promised One. The devil poisoned his mind with anger and hatred, leading to the murder of his brother Abel.
God’s promise would not be fulfilled for many, many years. Child after child would be born, grow old, and die. Women had pain in childbearing like God said they would, while enduring the imperfect rule of men. Men toiled in pain by the sweat of their face to make a living, before returning to the ground from which they were made. Decade after decade, generation after generation, brief life to certain death. Still no Savior.
God’s people might have wondered if His promise would be fulfilled, except that He reminded them with clearer and clearer prophecies as the time approached. The Savior would come from the line of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Judah (Gen. 49:10). He would be a descendant of King David (Psa. 110). He would be born of a virgin (Isa. 7:14). He would be born in Bethlehem (Mic. 5:2). God waited for thousands of years after making His promise, until “the fullness of time had come” (Gal. 4:4).
Then He sent His angel Gabriel to a virgin named Mary. “Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son,” said Gabriel, “and you shall call his name Jesus” (Luk. 1:31). “How will this be,” asked Mary, “since I am a virgin?” And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God” (1:34-35). The time had finally come! The woman’s Offspring was here. God had entered His creation, taking on human flesh. The devil was about to be ruined.
And all of that, the dark day when the world was plunged into sin, the beautiful, first promise of God, the history of every joy and sadness, hope and pain, life and death, all of it was in the background and in Jesus’ mind as He rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. “Hosanna to the Son of David!” shouted the people. “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” (Mat. 21:9). No one understood what had to be done. No one knew the suffering that Jesus would endure. No one knew what it would take to redeem mankind from the sin that started in Eden.
The death that was brought on the world through a tree had to be undone by death on another tree. The perfection that was lost through sin had to be regained by a perfect sacrifice. The curse of sin had to be directed against One who had never sinned. He had to pay for man’s disobedience. He had to suffer eternal punishment in every person’s place. This is what Jesus, the eternal Son of God, had to do.
He was witness to all that transpired in Eden. He walked with Adam and Eve in perfection and then found them in their sin. He saw all the wickedness that was done from that point on, all the pride, deceitfulness, abuse, unfaithfulness, violence. He was witness to everyone’s sins from Eden onward. And because He is God, He could see even the sins that stretched forward in time, including the sins done in our lifetime, the sins done by us, even our sins today.
What would you think if you had witnessed all that poisonous evil, the terrible pain and destruction, brought about because of mankind’s sins? What would you do? Would you feel compassion for sinners? Or would your anger burn hot against them? Jesus rode forward humbly to His death in every sinner’s place. We hear this Palm Sunday account at the beginning of the Church Year because it teaches us how to think about sin and salvation and Jesus, and how to prepare for His coming.
If any of us is comfortable with our sinning, then we’re not really seeing what Jesus did in Jerusalem. He was not beaten up for anything He had done. He was not driven toward Calvary for His sins. He did not cry out in agony on the cross for His wrongdoing. He was there because of Adam and Eve. He was there because of Cain. He was there because of Abraham and David and Jezebel and Nebuchadnezzar and Mary and Herod and Pontius Pilate—all the sinful people of human history, both prominent and poor, outwardly good and evil. He was there because of you and me, because of our sins.
He was there for you and me. Jesus went to the cross to make satisfaction for our sins. Adam and Eve’s selfishness, shame, and fear—“Put that on Me,” He said. Our lovelessness, our lies, our pride, our pleasure-seeking, our greediness, our despising the holy Word—“I’ll take the punishment,” He said. He paid for the sins of your past, your sins of today, and all the sins that will be done in the future.
This is what God promised right after the fall. This is what He told Adam and Eve and their descendants to look for. This is what He tells us to look to. God kept that first promise from Eden to Jerusalem. We weren’t in the crowd on Palm Sunday, but we should picture ourselves there. While we’re at it, we can picture Adam and Eve standing there in their garments of animal skin with their sons Abel and Seth; Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob looking on; David and his descendants watching with joy. We see there a great “cloud of witnesses” (Heb. 12:1), all who waited for God’s promise to be fulfilled.
And we see there all believers who have lived since that time, up to our day and beyond. We stand there, eyes fixed on Jesus, His praise on our lips. We watch Him go forward, carrying the weight of the whole world. He goes to the cross for our sins. He goes to destroy the works of the devil (1Jo. 3:8). He goes there to save us from death.
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 Procession in the Streets of Jerusalem” by James Tissot, 1836-1902)
Thanksgiving – Pr. Faugstad homily
Text: Genesis 1:26-31
In Christ Jesus, who is “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, [who] upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Heb. 1:3), dear fellow redeemed:
The book of Genesis does not start like we might expect. It does not begin with an explanation of who God is or why He decided to make things. It just tells us in a very concise way how God created time, space, and matter. “In the beginning [time], God created the heavens [space] and the earth [matter].” Then we see how God ordered the universe and everything in it. Every detail led up to the crowning moment, the greatest part, of His creation which we hear about in today’s reading—the creation of man.
Can you see how marvelous and exalted this creation is? In the council within the Godhead—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in perfect communion—God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness.” The pronouns are plural because God is triune, three Persons in one. God did not say about the water, the trees, or the planets, “Let us make them in Our image.” And He did not say it about the fish, the birds, the land animals, or even the angels. He said it about mankind, and only mankind.
Man is made in the image of God. That does not refer to physical characteristics because God is spirit. We do not look like God, though God made Himself look like us when the Son took on our flesh to save us. The image of God is the special imprint of holiness from God, true knowledge, goodness, love, wisdom, peace. Adam and Eve had these things perfectly. They had everything that is good. They lacked nothing. They enjoyed every second of their existence.
Their existence in the beginning is like nothing we can comprehend. The light was brighter, the food more delicious. They were surrounded by beauty and harmony and sound like our eyes have never seen and our ears have never heard. They had “dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” This was not an authority to harm; it was authority to care for and keep and enjoy all the wonderful parts of God’s creation.
It was a creation full of life, and that life would only increase. “Be fruitful and multiply,” God said, “and fill the earth and subdue it.” No creature knew what death was because nothing died. All animals ate plants. God gave the produce of every plant and tree to man, including the most special tree in all creation, the tree of life. We don’t know what life tastes like, but Adam and Eve did. They smelled and saw and tasted life to the full because life is all there was.
But then they decided that they wanted more. They knew good perfectly, but what if there was somehow a higher good? “Eat this fruit,” said the serpent, and “your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5). They did what he said. They chose the words of the deceiver over the holy words of their Creator. This horrible, disobedient act plunged all creation into the sadness and suffering of sin.
It does us no good to be mad at them. There is no going back in this life. What they did, we inherited, which makes us just as guilty as they are. We cannot go back and undo what has been done, either by Adam and Eve or by us in our sin. The power of salvation is not in us, but it is in God. And the LORD says to us, “Come now, let us reason together… though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool” (Isa. 1:18).
Our sins are blotted out because the Son of God became man and shed holy blood to take them all away. We can’t go back to atone for our sins, but Jesus could. God reached back to the beginning of time and gathered up the sin of Adam and Eve, their children, and their children’s children. He swept up all the sin from the past up to the present. And then He reached forward and gathered up all sins that hadn’t even been committed yet, including our sins.
All the sins of the world, past, present, and future, God imputed to His perfect Son. He did it for our sake. “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2Co. 5:21). What the first Adam lost, the second Adam, Jesus, restored. The wrath of God that we deserved, Jesus satisfied. The image of God that we gave up was placed on us again when the Holy Spirit brought us to faith. “Therefore,” writes St. Paul, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2Co. 5:17).
A new creation in Christ. And that means we focus not so much on what we lost in the fall, but on the blessings that are ours right now, and the joys we will have with God in heaven. Even though everything in the world is tainted by sin, there is so much beauty to enjoy in God’s creation. We can look at one tiny piece of what He made and never understand the full scope of its wonder and complexity. So much of His majesty still shines through.
Still, mankind is the crown of God’s creation, though the image of God is not perfectly restored to us in this life. Still, we have dominion over all creation and receive blessings from it every day. Still, God gives the gift of procreation, so that we enjoy family and home. Still, God causes plants to grow, so all creation is sustained and fed. God’s creation is still “very good” because God is very good.
And He has far more in store for us than the blessings we have in this life. A place for us has been prepared in His Paradise above. There we will enjoy the image of God just as Adam and Eve had it. There we will eat from “the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit” (Rev. 22:2). There we will see and hear and taste and experience what cannot even be imagined here.
Why does God give you all these good things? We just confessed it in the First Article: “purely out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me.” And how do we respond to His gifts? “For all which I am in duty bound to thank and praise, to serve and obey Him.” What a blessing and a privilege to be able “to thank and praise, to serve and obey” our mighty God, the Maker of heaven and earth, and our merciful Savior.
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 Seventh Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Romans 6:19-23
In Christ Jesus, who not only freed us from sin, but who also freed us for a life of righteousness, dear fellow redeemed:
In one of the books that the kids and I read recently, we read about a ship exploring unmapped parts of an imaginary sea (The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis). The crew came across an island covered in darkness where a half-wild man swam toward the boat yelling for them to turn back. When he got on board, he told them it was an enchanted island “where dreams come true.” At first, the sailors thought this sounded appealing—who wouldn’t want their dreams to come true? Then it hit them that not all dreams are good dreams, and they rowed away as fast as they could.
This illustrates how something that seems to offer ultimate freedom might actually deliver the opposite. The same goes for the choices we make in our life. We might like to think that we are perfectly free to do whatever we feel like doing. But what if the choices we make result in our having less freedom? So I might think that pursuing my desires is freedom, but if those desires are sinful, then I am being drawn away from holy and noble things, and I become bound up in sin.
And the more bound up in sin I am, the more difficult it is not to sin. Those who are addicted to alcohol and drugs, to pornography, to gambling, or to certain kinds of foods know this well. The more they need their “fix,” even though it is harming them spiritually, mentally, and physically, the harder it is to stop. In fact, all of us are drawn to our particular sins, whatever they may be. We might think we can stay in control and not let our sinful desires control us. But then we fall and keep falling. One theologian put it this way: “[W]e cannot take sin or leave it [as though we are always in control]. Once we take sin, sin has taken us” (Martin Franzmann, Romans: A Commentary, p. 116).
As much as we should resist sin, and as much harm as it does us, we still find ourselves “taking” it. This is because we have a sinful nature, a part of us that is inclined to do the opposite of what God wants. In today’s reading, Paul describes our natural state as a sort of slavery. Slaves of sin pursue “impurity” and “lawlessness leading to more lawlessness.”
This is a slavery we were born into because the perfectly free and righteous Adam and Eve chose to give up this freedom. They disobeyed the command of God and chose lawlessness. We inherited their sin, but we have chosen it too. The apostle John wrote that “Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness” (1Jo. 3:4). And Jesus taught, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin” (Joh. 8:34).
This is very different than what we hear from the world. The world says that freedom is found in “following our heart,” and doing whatever makes us feel happy. We are told to prioritize our own choices and desires without really considering how those choices affect others. And if our plans contradict what God says in the Bible, we are urged to “stay true to ourselves.”
But a life of sin is no free life. It may deliver temporary happiness. You may have pleasure for a time or power or possessions. But all of it will slip through your fingers like a handful of sand. Paul writes, “For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed?” What do the works of sin add up to? What have we actually accomplished by going our own way? Paul states the stark reality: “For the end of those things is death.”
That is what our life of sinful choices results in: death. “For the wages of sin—what we earn by our sin—is death.” A person may think he is free apart from Christ, but he is actually enslaved, and he cannot free himself. Being a slave of sin is like being stuck without water in a boat on the ocean. You can drink the salt water, you can keep sinning, but it will only make you more and more parched until it kills you.
This view of human beings as slaves of sin rather than naturally free is completely rejected by the unbelieving world. Its response is like the Jews who said to Jesus, “[We] have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” (Joh. 8:33). If you don’t know you are separated from God, you won’t know how desperate your situation is. If you don’t know you are a slave of sin and death, you won’t know you need to be freed.
We have compassion for the people around us who are in this state. They don’t know what they don’t know. They need to be awakened spiritually just as we have been through the power of God’s Word. They need to hear—just as we need to keep hearing—what Jesus has done for us, how He entered the prison house of our slavery and removed our chains of sin.
He did this by letting Himself be bound. Even though He never sinned, He accepted the wages of our sin. He took our place and paid that price. He was beaten and flogged for our disobedience. “He was wounded for our transgressions” (Isa. 53:5). We can’t see how deep our sin runs and how much damage it has done. But Jesus knows, because He paid for every last sin of every single person. The price He paid for our freedom was tremendous.
This is what God the Father sent Him to do. The Son of God speaking through the prophet Isaiah said, “the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound” (Isa. 61:1). Jesus came to proclaim and win our liberty and freedom—not liberty and freedom for sin, but liberty and freedom from sin.
Paul emphasizes this point in today’s reading. He says that as you once willingly participated in sin, now through faith dedicate yourself to pursuing righteousness. In fact, he says that it can only be one or the other. Either you are a slave of sin, or you are a slave of righteousness (Rom. 6:18). Slavery to righteousness is not an oppressive slavery; it is not unpleasant. If slavery to sin is like drinking salt water that makes you thirstier, slavery to righteousness is like drinking pure, cold water on a hot day.
God did not create us and redeem us to sin; He created and redeemed us to do good. When we pursue righteousness, we are not acting against God’s purpose for us. We are doing what He called us to do and living according to His will. This is the sanctified life that He works in us through His Word. He brings us more and more in line with His will as He brings us the forgiveness and righteousness of Jesus. This is why we can produce good fruit in our life; it is because we are joined to Jesus.
So we give Him the glory for the good we do. He is the one who works blessings for others through our small efforts. He multiplies our little words and works of righteousness, so they have a great impact. Taking credit for all the good we are able to be part of would be like the disciples taking credit for the food that fed four thousand, because they provided the seven loaves and a few fish (Mar. 8:1-9). That would be obnoxious and prideful.
All that we have and all that we are able to do are gifts from God. We do not deserve the freedom we have in Him—freedom from having to answer for our sins, freedom from the eternal punishment we deserve, freedom to bear good fruit in His name and to enter heaven by His grace. We do not deserve it, but this freedom is most certainly ours. “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
This is what we receive as the “slaves of God.” We receive the inheritance of sons. We receive eternal life. Slavery to God is not oppressive, except to our sinful nature. God guards and keeps us, so that we do not become lost in the darkness where even our worst dreams come true. Through His Word and Sacraments, He leads us out of the darkness of sin, He feeds us so we eat and are satisfied (Mar. 8:8), and He prepares us to inherit His kingdom in the life to come.
The slaves of sin in this world may appear to have everything, but without Christ they have nothing. The slaves of God may appear to have nothing in this life, but in Christ they have everything.
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 “Crucifixion, Seen from the Cross,” by James Tissot, c. 1890)
(No audio recording is available for this sermon.)