Fix Your Eyes on Jesus in His Word of the Gospel

“Be on the alert!”  Pay attention to what you see happening in the world around you, in both the church and the state, among your neighbors, in your family, and within yourself.  But above all, give ear to what the Lord your God says; and so interpret all that you see by faith in His Word.

All around you, everywhere you look — and no less so where you refuse to look — there is sin and death, decay, and destruction.  The whole world is wearing out and wasting away.  None of it will last.  The days are growing short.  A harsh wind is blowing in a big storm.  The Winter is coming.

It’s more than just the weather or the season of the year.  There’s plenty of uncertainty in these dark and difficult days.  Political strife, ideological divisions, and economic challenges abound.

All such trials and tribulations, within and without, are constant reminders and signs that we live in a fallen and perishing world, and all of Creation is subject to the curse of sin and death.  Heaven and earth are passing away, and so are you.  Your mortal flesh and blood, your heart, mind, and body are like the grass which withers and fades, like the autumn leaves which fall and blow away.

Number your days, and know how short your life here is.  Consider your end, which comes before you know it, sooner than you think.  There is no strength in you that shall survive.

But your hope is in the Lord.  So be alert to Him.  Hear and heed what He says.  And pay attention to His Word of the Cross, in particular, even though it seems so futile, even worse than helpless.

Your dear Lord Jesus deals with sin, which is the real problem and the underlying cause of death and every evil.  He forgives all sins which you have done; but He also deals with your sin at its heart, not simply your bad behavior, but your turning away from God, your Creator.  You do not rely on Him or trust in Him; and that unbelief is your unrighteousness, which leads only to death.

But now, the Lord sends forth a Law, even to the ends of the earth.  He establishes His justice in the midst of sin and death.  Henceforth, His righteousness is near, and His salvation has gone forth forevermore.  Though everything else will perish, His salvation and His righteousness remain.

It is true that His holy and righteous Law would condemn you and sentence you to death and hell, because you are neither holy nor righteous in yourself.  Yet, He calls you to repentance, to faith and life in Him, to hope in the righteousness of Christ, the Lord, the incarnate Son of God.  For He has suffered the great tribulation and the final judgment in Himself, and has thereby accomplished justice and established righteousness forever.  Though He is the Creator of all things, the Word by whom all things are made — and though He is Life in Himself — He has taken the entire curse of sin and death, the destruction and decay of the whole world, into His own Body of flesh and blood.

By His Cross and Passion, the Lord Jesus Christ has atoned for the sins of the world, once-for-all.  And in His bodily Resurrection from the dead, He has rectified what was broken in all of Creation.  He has reconciled the sons and daughters of man unto His God and Father in heaven.

In flesh and blood like yours, as the true Man, conceived and born of St. Mary, He has waited in faith upon His Father.  He has lived as Man is created and meant to live — not knowing the day or the hour in advance, but hearing and heeding and relying on His Father’s faithful Word.  So has He been awake and alert.  At the right time He was ready.  He went to the Cross in faith and love.

So, learn the lesson of His Tree.  Consider its tenderness, its Leaves and its Fruit, which are for the healing of the nations — and so also for your healing, unto faith and life in Him, body and soul.

He has sent forth His messengers with its rich and lush Fruits, to gather His elect from the four winds, His disciples from all the nations.  Thus, by the Fruits of His Cross, that is, by the preaching of His Word and the administration of His Sacraments, He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies His whole Christian Church on earth.  With these healthy Fruits, by this Ministry of His Gospel, He Himself is near you — He is right at the door — daily and richly to forgive you all your sins.

It is for the sake of His forgiveness that He has appointed His servants to care for His household and family, that is, to feed and clothe, nurture and teach His children.  His pastors and teachers are watchmen on the heights, the doorkeepers of His Church on earth, the stewards of His Mysteries.  They are called and ordained to keep watch, both day and night, to guard your coming in and your going out by the catechesis of His Word, and to guide all your days and your deeds in His Peace.

And what He says to them, He says also to you — to the confirmands this morning, to be sure, but so also to each and every one of you: “Be on the alert!”  For to you, also, He has given your own proper duties, your own responsibilities within His household and family.  That is where and how you are to watch and to wait for the coming of the Lord, faithfully doing what He has given you to do in the hope of His mercy, which is to say, in the sure and certain hope of His Resurrection.

Give heed to the Word of the Lord, His Law and His Gospel.  And set your heart on the pilgrim’s way, to live by faith as a sojourner through the wilderness, as a wayfarer on earth.  Not with your eyes downcast and your chin in the dirt, but with your heart, mind, and spirit lifted up, your eyes and ears fixed on Christ Jesus, your Savior; for He is ready, willing, and able to keep you from stumbling and to make you stand erect in His glorious presence — blameless in body and soul.

In the midst of the great tribulation — which is to say, in your pilgrimage under the Cross — rest yourself in Him and live by faith in His Word.  Gladly hear and learn His preaching and teaching.  And avail yourself of the Gospel by making regular use of the means of grace, just as the Rite of Confirmation indicates.  Remember your Baptism and exercise its ongoing, lifelong significance by confessing your sins and receiving Absolution in the Name of Jesus.  And as often as you are given the blessed opportunity, eat and drink His Body and Blood in faith and with thanksgiving.

Likewise, keep yourself in the Love of God and live by faith in Christ Jesus, by praying in the Holy Spirit at all times and in all places, without ceasing, as the Lord Himself has taught you to pray and given you the very Words with which to do so.

Pray, also, within the fellowship of the Church, which is the Body of Christ.  For it is in Him and with Him and through Him that you pray; and He would have you pray for one another in Him.  You thereby serve and support your brothers and sisters with your prayer, and they do the same for you; and together you receive the answer to all your prayers in the Word and Flesh of Jesus.

So, then, by the Word of God and prayer, wait eagerly upon the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Fix your eyes on Him, and trust that, by His Sacrifice upon the Cross and in His Resurrection from the dead, He has established His righteousness and His salvation for you and for all, forever.

Do not be consumed by the temporal things of this life on earth, but temper your consuming with the humility of repentance.  After all, you don’t know what even tomorrow may bring, nor if there will even be a tomorrow for you on this earth.  But comfort and strengthen yourself with the eternal things of Christ, who has risen from the dead and lives forever, whose Word shall never pass away.

And as you wait upon His mercy, so have mercy on your neighbor.  Comfort and encourage the doubting in their weakness and fear by loving them graciously and well.  Save others by snatching them out of the fire, by warning them straightforwardly.  Don’t wink or nod at sin, but call it what it is, and call your neighbor to repentance in a spirit of gentleness.  To hate the garment polluted by the flesh is not to flee from your brother or sister, but to flee from sin in the fear of the Lord.

Have mercy on your neighbor, who is a sinner like yourself, just as you also depend on the mercy of God in Christ, and as He Himself is merciful.  Be gentle and compassionate, as the Lord your God is gentle and compassionate with you.  Forgive, as you yourself are freely and fully forgiven.

Have no fear of death, and do not despair of hope, for the Lord Himself now helps you in your weaknesses and doubts, and He now saves you from the fires of your passions and from the fires of eternal punishment in hell.  As your merciful and great High Priest, He persists in His constant prayer and intercession for you.  And here in His Church He faithfully speaks His Word to you.  He sends out His holy angels to guard and keep you in body and soul, and He sends His ministers to gather you to Himself by the catechesis of His Word, by the forgiveness of all your sins in His Name and stead, and by giving you the Food and the Drink that you need at the proper time.

In calling you to repentance, He calls you daily to faith and life in His forgiveness.  He calls you to find your Sabbath rest and perfect Peace in His righteousness and holiness, in His innocence and blessedness, now and forever.  Indeed, with His forgiveness He delivers you from every evil, unto that day and hour when He shall call you from this vale of tears to Himself in heaven, as even now His fruitful Cross shines the summer sunshine of His Love upon you through His Gospel.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

The One Who Endures to the End Is Your Savior

Blessed are those who have set their hearts on the pilgrims’ way.  But how shall you endure to the end of that way?  How shall you be saved?  That is the pressing question that Jesus sets before you today.  How shall you draw near to God and not die but live with Him in His Kingdom?

There are all manner of possible answers competing for your attention and allegiance: The nation, your family and friends, and all manner of would-be “churches” claim to have an answer for you.  Then there is your own reason, your common sense, and the notion that your own savvy, ingenuity, and hard work will get you there.  Or, maybe “all you need is love,” whatever that is taken to mean.  And perhaps you are tempted to look for life and love in the pleasures and pastimes of this world.

For all of that, no matter where you look, no matter how you spend your time and money, the truth remains that everything on earth will be destroyed.  Even Jerusalem is leveled, and the Temple is torn down.  Indeed, the earth itself will perish like a garment and pass away with fire in the end.

Meanwhile, nations come and go, kingdoms rise and fall.  Do not suppose that even the United States of America will last forever.  It won’t.  Whether it remains until the Lord returns in glory is up to Him and not to any of us.  Egypt came and went.  And Assyria.  And Babylon.  And the Medes and Persians.  And the Greeks and Romans.  And the Holy Roman Empire and Byzantium.  Nazi Germany.  The former Soviet Union.  Nations won’t save you.  Kingdoms won’t save you.  No amount of government stimulus will save you.

Only Christ Jesus and His Word remain, steadfast and forever in the glory of His God and Father.  He Himself who died for your sins has been raised from the dead for your justification, and He has taken His seat at the Right Hand of the Father until all His enemies shall be placed under His feet.  He alone remains.  Therefore, look to Him.  Fix your eyes on Him.  Cling to Him in heart and soul, with all your mind, your spirit, and your body, too.  Confess His Holy Name, come what may.

Listen to Him.  That is what God the Father Himself has commanded from heaven, as you may recall from the Transfiguration.  Listen to this one Lord Jesus Christ, the beloved and well-pleasing Son of God in human Flesh and Blood.  Listen to Him, to the Word that you hear from His lips, and trust in Him.  Rely on what He says and promises, and so also live according to His Word.

And be on your guard.  For Christ Jesus Himself has alerted you to the dangers that surround you.  Be on your guard with constant vigilance.  Do not be frightened, but do not let yourself be misled, either.  For not everyone who speaks (or claims to speak) in the Name of Jesus — not everyone who calls Him, “Lord, Lord” — actually speaks by and with His Holy Spirit.  But if you would know and recognize His Voice, then, as for you, listen for the preaching of His Cross.

St. Paul has written, for example, that he would know nothing in the Church except Jesus Christ — and Him Crucified.  The preaching of Christ is always the preaching of His Cross.  And that is the preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins in His Name.  That is the Voice of the Lord which saves you.  For it is by His Cross and Passion that He has redeemed you from sin and death, and it is by His Cross and in His Resurrection that He brings you into Life everlasting with God.

Listen for the preaching of His Cross.  Look to Him upon the Cross.  Trust and hope in His Cross.  But be aware that His Cross divides the entire world.  It divides kingdoms, and it divides families; it even divides churches on earth.  And the Cross divides your own heart and life, as well.  It kills, in order to make alive.  It wounds, in order to heal.  And it must be so.

If you belong to the Crucified One, then you shall be crucified.  If you belong to the One who was blasphemed and hated by men and by all the world, know that you also will be hated and handed over to death because of the Name of Christ Jesus which you bear.

You were given His Name in your Holy Baptism.  Little boys and girls, grown-up men and women, whatever your age, know this, you are beloved children of God because you are Christians, you are named with the Name of Christ Jesus.  So are you hated for His Name’s sake; and on account of His Word, you will be questioned, accused, and put to the test, punished, and even put to death.

These are the beginnings of the birth pangs, the narrow passage of Crucifixion with Christ Jesus, whereby you are delivered from out of death and raised up from the dust of the earth unto the Life everlasting in both your body and soul — born of God by the water, Word, and Spirit of Christ.

But if you renounce the Cross of Christ in your words and in your actions — if you turn your heart and mind away from Him, the Crucified One — if you deny His Name, reject His Word, and forsake Him in exchange for other gods — if you do this in fact, even while you give lip service to Him — you shall not stand in the judgment, you shall not survive, and you shall not be saved.

How, then, shall you endure to the end?  How shall you be saved, being the poor, miserable sinner that you are?  For your sins not only accuse and condemn you, but they also weigh you down with guilt and shame, and they so easily ensnare you in their grip and drag you down into death.

Think about it.  Think about your life.  Think about your days on earth and how you go about them.  Think about your allegiances, your commitments and convictions.  Are you strong and courageous like Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms, who stood his ground under the glare of both church and state, when so many were ready to cast him out and kill him?  Are you brave and steadfast like the holy martyrs, who were put to death by stoning or burning or even being cut in half, who did not love their life on earth but remained faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ, even to the point of death?  Are you like them?  Or do you betray the Lord for silver and gold?  Do you deny Him out of fear?

If you examine yourself honestly, there’s nothing but death there, and you cannot save yourself.

Be on your guard!  But how?  You are your own worst enemy!  And from the inside-out, by sinful nature, you get it wrong.  See to it that no one misleads you — but you do not know the way.  How shall you get there?  How shall you not already be off the trail?  That is where you end up if you go looking inside of yourself, if you try to find your endurance in your own resolve, if you try to stand by your own strength, if you try to live by your own wisdom.  Do not do that.

But do not be frightened, either.  Hold fast the confession of your hope in Christ Jesus.  That is to say, confess what He has said and promised.  Your hope is in Him, and He will not disappoint you, because He is faithful.  Even when you are faithless, He remains faithful.  He cannot deny Himself, and He will not deny you, to whom He has bound Himself in love by His Word and Holy Spirit.

His great prince, St. Michael the Archangel, and His legion of holy angels, they arise to guard and keep you for His Name’s sake and by His Blood of the New Testament, His holy and precious Blood, shed for you upon the Cross and poured out for you to drink here at His Altar.

It is by and through His holy and precious Blood, and by the Veil that He has opened for you, that is, by His sacred Flesh, that you draw near to God — right here, right now.  It is by His Flesh and Blood that you here enter into the Holy of Holies of the true Temple, which is the Body of Christ Jesus.  Not to be slain, but to stand.  Not to die, but to live.  Not to be condemned, but to be saved.

Therefore, draw near with confidence.  Do not shrink back or despair.  Where you have turned away and wandered in the past, turn back now and draw near in faith.  Do not consider your sins, but consider Christ who loves you, who has died for you and is risen, who calls you to Himself.

Do not be afraid.  For by His Cross, with His own Blood, by the sacrifice of Himself once-for-all, He has atoned for all of your sins, and that is forever.  And not for your sins only, but for the sins of the whole world.  So testifies the sure and certain Word of God.

Your Savior, Jesus Christ, has washed you with pure water, with His Word and Holy Spirit.  He has sanctified you in body and soul.  You are perfected by His humble obedience unto death, by His Resurrection from the dead, by His righteousness and holiness, innocence and blessedness.  He has cleansed your conscience of every stain.  He has forgiven you all of your sins, He has taken them all away.  There is, therefore, no condemnation, not for you who are in Christ Jesus.

By the preaching of His Gospel, which is His free and full forgiveness of sins, He calls the nations to Himself and to God the Father in Him.  So does He call you to enter in, to abide with Him, to recline upon His bosom here at His Supper, and so to recline in the bosom of His God and Father.

All of this because He has endured to the end — even unto death, even the death of the Cross.  And He has been saved from out of death and the grave — in His Resurrection from the dead and in His Ascension to the Right Hand of the Father.  And all of this that He has done, He has done it all for you.  For all of you, yes, for each and every one of you.  There are no exceptions.

You, therefore, enter into His Passion, enter into His Resurrection, enter into His Sabbath Rest, His great Salvation — by eating and drinking His Body and His Blood at His Word.  For here at His Altar are the Fruits of His once-for-all Sacrifice for sin, whereby He has ended all sacrifice for sin because the one Offering of Himself upon the Cross has atoned for all sins, forever and ever.

Here in His holy Body and precious Blood is the Temple of God and the Holy of Holies; which, having risen from the dead, shall never die again, which shall never be torn down, which shall never perish or pass away.  This crucified and risen Body and Blood of Christ Jesus, which are given and poured out for you here in His Holy Supper, have conquered death and the grave by His Cross and Resurrection; and these Fruits of His Cross now also conquer sin and death in you.

As the Lord Jesus clearly says, this Body and Blood of His are given and poured out for you, for the forgiveness of all your sins; and where there is such free and full forgiveness of sins, there is no longer any death, but everlasting Life and eternal Salvation.  That is what is here for you.

As you are assembled here, together with your brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, in His Name, to eat and drink His Body and His Blood in the Holy Communion, you live and abide in the presence of God, and you reside in His Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

Do not forsake this assembly, but draw near to God and enter into His inner Sanctum here, into the Holy of Holies, as He draws near to you in the Flesh and Blood of Christ Jesus, the beloved Son.

And so living by His grace, and living in His presence, abiding as a member of His Body — in His Temple — brothers and sisters, parents and children, friends in Christ, love one another; for all of your sins and all of theirs are forgiven.

Behold, what beautiful stones you are, built into a holy Habitation.  Even now the Lord your God is in your midst, dwelling in His Temple with such loving-kindness.  Make the circuit of His City, set here on His holy Hill.  Look well, and take it to heart, as you walk round about this place.  See the Tower of His Cross, and Christ lifted up for you upon it; consider the Bulwark of His Baptism, and examine the Stronghold of His Sacrament.  This is your God forever, your Savior evermore.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

To Fix Your Hope on God in Christ Jesus

Why did she do it?  Why would this poor widow contribute everything she owned, everything she had to live on, to the Temple treasury?  I would guess that, over the years, you have understood this woman and her gift as a commendable example.  And perhaps you have felt, or you’ve been told, that you should give to the Church in a similar manner.  Give until it hurts.  Give it your all.

Jesus does speak along those lines on occasion.  It was just a few chapters ago that we heard Him say to the rich young man, “Go and sell everything you have, give it all away, and follow Me.”

But Jesus does not speak to this poor woman (in this Holy Gospel), nor does she speak to Him in this case.  He rather sits down to observe, not just what the people are doing, but how they do it.  The rich people come and contribute a lot — out of their surplus.  And this poor widow comes and gives everything she has — which was, ironically, the minimum permissible amount; that is, you weren’t allowed to put any smaller amount into the Temple treasury.  But why does she do it?

Is she acting in faith or desperation?  Is it like spending your last two bucks to buy a lottery ticket?  Or what is going on?  Is she being faithful or foolish?  Is she giving in the fear, love, and trust of God, in order to support the Church and Ministry of His Word?  Or does she herself even know?

Charity and the Eighth Commandment compel us to suppose that she is acting in faith, and I do not suggest otherwise.  But the fact is that Jesus does not tell us, and St. Mark does not tell us, and we can no more read the heart of that poor woman than I can read your heart today.

But let us think about her gift and what it means for her.  Is it commendable or tragic, or both?  Would you do what she does here and give in this sort of way?  Do you?  Whether you have a mite or twopence or a billion dollars, do you put all that you have in the offering plate?  Should you?

These are not questions to toy with or dismiss.  The Words set before you today are from the holy apostolic Scriptures of your Lord Jesus Christ.  So, what do they mean for your faith and life?

Outward appearances and circumstances are often deceptive.  You cannot read your neighbor’s heart; nor do you know even your own heart apart from the Word and Spirit of God.  How you look and act on the surface may cover up and hide — instead of revealing — what’s really going on inside of you.  So, your looks and actions are not decisive before God.  But they do still matter.

What you do matters.  And how and why you do what you do matters.  There is first and foremost a concern for your heart; that is what the Lord your God is always looking at.  It is your heart that He calls first to discipleship, to fear, love, and trust in Him, to fix your hope and stake your life on Him alone above all others gods.  And then He also calls you to live in love – from a heart of faith.

It does make a difference — in how you live and how you act — whether you fear, love, and trust in God above all things, or you fear, love, and trust in other things besides Him.  It does matter.

So, Jesus gives you a warning in this Holy Gospel.  “Beware of the scribes,” He says.  He does not speak of all the scribes, but He warns you to beware of those who like certain things and do certain things for certain reasons.  That is, beware of those scribes who are hungry for attention and always eager for praise and recognition.  Beware of those scribes who long for honors and benefits.

But what exactly is the real point?  It’s not just that you should be careful with your money and not let yourself get conned by charlatans and hucksters; although, of course, that is true enough.

But far more important and to the point at hand, beware of becoming like those attention-seeking scribes.  Beware of the pride in your own heart.  Beware of boasting over how you choose to dress, whether very simply or elegantly.  Beware of enjoying the praises of men more than you fear God and obey His Word.  Beware of arrogance in your circumstances.  And beware of boasting over your behavior, whether you are formal or informal, casual and laid back or highly sophisticated.

You have no need to worry about the scribes who lived back then, as though they might cheat you or cause you any harm now.  Of course you should act wisely with your money and whatever else the Lord has entrusted to your stewardship in this world.  But the Lord here calls you to repentance for your sins, to be on guard against your own selfish heart.  He warns you against being pious for a pretense or for appearances, while you meanwhile rob and devour and destroy your neighbors.

The Temple treasury served a number of different purposes.  It covered the cost of the sacrifices, it supported the Levites and the sons of Aaron, and it provided alms for the poor and needy.  And among the poor and needy, in particular, God had especially commanded the sons of Israel to care for the orphans and widows in their distress.  Correspondingly, those who are “widows indeed” fix their hope on God; the poor orphans rely on the mercies of the Lord; and the Levites have no inheritance in the Land, as the other tribes do, because Yahweh Himself is their Inheritance.

It is, therefore, a tragic circumstance, that a poor widow should be giving her last cent as alms for the poor.  Israel should have been caring for her.  The Church should have been providing for her.  It is no insult to her faith and her offering, if it is in the hope of God’s providential care and mercy that she makes her contribution.  But it is a shame upon the rich and wealthy, who give so much out of their abundance, and yet still require that a widow give all she has.  There is no Word of God that commands such a thing.  There is, though, a Word of the Lord that commands the wealthy not to glean their fields down to the last bit, but rather to allow the poor and needy, the widows and orphans, the strangers and aliens, to come after them and receive from God’s bountiful hand what He thus provides.  That is how His Church is to be ordered.  That is how your life is to be ordered.

If you have much, the Lord has given it into your hand to care for your neighbor.  And if you have little or nothing at all, the Lord God calls you to love and trust in Him, and so to live by His grace.

Beware of being like those scribes who love attention, honors, and appearances.  But do be like a widow indeed, and fix your hope on God, and pray without ceasing night and day, and worship in His holy Temple, and bow your life before Him who is your God and Father in heaven, and before the Lord who is your Bridegroom, your Savior, and your Head.

You live by God’s grace, whether you are rich or poor, married, unmarried, or widowed, a parent, a child, or an orphan left alone.  You depend upon the Lord your God to feed you and clothe you, to shelter and protect you.  So, live like a widow indeed, and fix your hope on God who loves you, and pray to Him without ceasing, not for appearance’s sake, but because you really do need Him.

Pray to Him in faith and with thanksgiving.  And as you give Him thanks for His providential care even to this day — as you pray that He would continue to provide for you tomorrow and the next day, until the drought shall end and He shall come and take you from this vale of tears to Himself in heaven — have a special care and concern for the widows and orphans in their distress, and for the strangers and aliens in your midst, and for the Levite whose inheritance is God.  Have such a care and concern for these and all your neighbors, as the Lord Himself cares for His Church.

By all rights, you ought to be a widow, yourself, for your true Husband has died.  And yet, you are not left alone, for He has risen from the dead, and He is and remains your Head, who has promised that He will never leave you nor forsake you.  So, then, care for those who are widows on earth.

You likewise ought to be an orphan, as well, as your fathers and mothers have died (or they will), every one of them, because all men have sinned.  And you will die, too.  But you are not an orphan, because God has become your true Father, and you are His true child in Christ Jesus.  He has taken you to be His own, and He has named you with His Name.  Not only that, but He has also given His Church, the Bride of Christ, to be your Mother, to feed you at her breast with His good gifts, with milk and honey indeed.  So, care for those bereft of father and mother in this body and life.

Your hope is in God, as your hope is in Christ Jesus.  For you know that He was rich, the very Son of God by whom all things are made, but for your sake He has made Himself poor, that you might inherit the riches of God in Him.  He has been stripped naked and beaten, accused and condemned, and put to death upon the Cross.  He has given up everything, His very Body and Life, in order to give you life in both body and soul.  He daily and richly provides you with everything you need.

As your merciful and great High Priest, He has entered into the presence of God on your behalf.  Not into the holy place of that old Jerusalem Temple — which was soon to be destroyed along with its treasury — but into the true Holy of Holies, eternal in the heavens.  That is where He lives and abides forever as your Anchor behind the Veil; so that is where you also live and abide in Him.

But that is not a distant or faraway place.  It is found right here, on earth as it is in heaven — in the Church and Ministry of the Gospel, in the Word and Flesh of this great High Priest, in His Body and His Blood, crucified and risen from the dead, given and poured out for you and for the many.

Right here and now, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, and you live and abide within the Temple of God, which is the Body of Christ Jesus.  For He speaks, and it is so: Take, eat, This Is My Body. Drink of it, all of you, This Is My Blood.  And as you eat and drink at His Word, you are part of His Body, the Church.  Believe it.  And support His Church and Ministry, not only for your own sake, but for your neighbors’ sake, for widows and orphans, for the Levites, and for strangers and aliens.

Consider the example of that poor widow who fed and sheltered the Prophet Elijah, though she had been ready to eat a final meal with her son and then for both of them to die.  The Prophet did not “devour” her house and home, but he did receive her hospitality and care; and they survived by the Word of the Lord, who promised, “The flour will not fail, and the oil will not run dry.”  Thus, for many days that woman and her household ate.  They did not live extravagantly, but they did live.

So sure and certain are the Words and promises of the Lord to you, as well.  And so shall you live by His grace, by faith in all that He has said and done and given.  Likewise, like that widow, when you support the Church and Ministry of the Gospel, you can be sure that the Lord will provide.

For as the Lord Jesus Christ has spoken, “Do this in remembrance of Me,” do not suppose that He will ever fail to provide the Bread and Wine by which He feeds the whole Church with Himself.

Likewise, wherever He has placed you in this world, wherever He has stationed you to serve in this life, whatever work He has given you to do, and whatever neighbors He has given you to care for, the Lord your God will provide all that is needed and required for you within that holy vocation. He has not promised to fund your grand self-chosen adventures; but if He has told you to feed your neighbor, feed your neighbor, and don’t worry that you and yours will starve to death by doing so.  But even if you were to perish, Christ is risen indeed, and your true life cannot be taken from you.

Wherever God has placed you, that is where you serve — not with a part or a portion, not with a large or small percentage of your surplus, but with your whole life, with all that you are and have.  As Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, your Savior and Redeemer, your Husband and Head, has given Himself entirely for you, so do you entrust yourself to God the Father entirely in Him — in doing your job faithfully and well, in caring for your neighbors, beginning with your own household and family, and in supporting the Church and Ministry of the Gospel with your gifts.

And the Lord your God continues to open wide His generous hand to provide for all your needs of body, soul, and spirit.  So does He serve and care for you with the Bread that does not fail, with the Water that remains, with the Flour and the Oil, with all the Gifts of the Spirit.  For, see here, He has left a Grain Offering and a Drink Offering, that you may receive His good Gifts and rejoice in His Salvation; for which we rightly offer to the Father through the Son and by the Holy Spirit the sacrifice of thanksgiving: As everything here is the Lord’s free and gracious gift to you, there is nothing for you to do or give in response, except to give thanks for His great and full salvation.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Judgment of God in the Cross and Gospel of Christ Jesus

Your salvation hinges entirely on the Cross & Resurrection of Christ Jesus.  For He has atoned for all of your sins and gotten victory over death and the grave by His death upon the Cross, and He has opened the way of righteousness and everlasting Life to you in His Resurrection from the dead.  So, where and how you stand in the final Judgment depends on where you stand in relation to Him.

Are you on His right or His left?  A sheep or a goat?  Will you live with the Lord in His Kingdom in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness?  Or will you be forever cursed and die eternally with the devil and his wicked angels?

The judgment has already been determined by the Cross of Christ Jesus, and the verdict has been openly declared in His Resurrection from the dead.  And that has been accomplished for you and for all people, for the world, and for all the nations.  In Christ Jesus, crucified and risen, there is no more condemnation, there is no more punishment.  But, so too, apart from Him there is no life or salvation.  Either you are righteous and alive in and with Him, or wicked and dead without Him.

That is what it means for Jesus the Christ to be “the Son of Man,” to whom all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to judge the living and the dead.

As He has come into the glory of His Kingdom and His Righteousness by the way of His Cross, His vicarious self-sacrifice of Atonement for all of your sins and for the sins of the whole world, so is His bodily Resurrection from the dead God’s open declaration of His Righteousness, and the justification of all those who belong to Him — of all who believe and are baptized in His Name.

So, then, because He desires all people to be saved, He calls all people to Himself by the Ministry of the Gospel.  He sends His messengers — not only His Holy Apostles to begin with, but the pastors of His Church in every time and place, even to the ends of the earth and the close of the age — He sends His messengers to make disciples from all nations by the way and means of Holy Baptism and the ongoing catechesis of His Word.  It is by this Apostolic Ministry that He gathers the lost and wandering sheep to Himself — unto Life everlasting with God in both body and soul.

The preaching of His Word is the Truth.  It is the sure and certain verdict of the Lord your God, now and forever.  By it you are crucified and put to death with Him, but so are you also raised up in and with Him to a brand new life.  In Him, the old has passed away, and you are a new creation.

Repent of your sins, therefore.  Repent of your unbelief, idolatry, and lack of love.  Turn away from sin and death, and live unto righteousness in Christ Jesus.  Receive and trust His Gospel, and live by that grace of God in Him.  Fear Him as the Lord, your King.  But so also trust in Him as your great Good Shepherd, as your merciful and great High Priest, as your Savior and Redeemer.

Love Him with all your heart, because He is your Savior and your God, your best and highest good.  But love Him so, not as though to get something from Him in return, but because you are already receiving every good and perfect gift from Him freely by His grace, by His Love for you.  Love Him, not to curry His favor, but because His favor and His righteousness are yours in His Holy Gospel.  Love Him righteously by faith in His Word, because you are justified by His grace.

It is entirely by His grace, that is, by the charity of God, by His utter charity in Christ Jesus.  It is entirely by His divine grace, because the truth is that He does not need anything at all from you.  He doesn’t need your stuff, all of which came from Him in the first place.  He does not need your work for His benefit.  He does not need anything from you.  But He gives you everything by grace.

So, too, there is nothing at all that you need which is not already yours in Him, freely given to be freely received, with no strings attached, no conditions or contingencies upon His tender mercy.

Love Him, therefore, because of who He is, and because He loves you faithfully and forever.

And in the confidence and courage of His Love for you, love Him by loving His Christians and all your neighbors in His Name and for His sake.  Such love is the evidence of your faith and life in Christ Jesus.  Indeed, that is how faith lives, without keeping score, and not at all self-conscious.  It is the good fruit that your dear Lord Jesus bears in you by the tree of His Cross in your life.  For by His Cross He brings you through repentance into the faith and life of His own Resurrection.  He brings you to God the Father in and with Himself, and He gives to you His own relationship — His own Sonship — with the Father.  So does He likewise give to you His own relationship of love with your neighbors.  For as you live and abide in Him by faith, He lives and abides in you.

So it is that you live in love toward your neighbors, especially your brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, who also bear His Name as you do, who are sons and daughters of the same God and Father.  You live in love toward your neighbors because this is the life of Christ, which He also lives in love toward you.  He feeds and quenches your hunger and thirst; He shelters you from the cold, from darkness, and from death; He covers your nakedness and shame; He cares for you in every adversity; He heals your diseases, and He releases you from the prison house of all your sins.

Thus do you know, in turn, what you should do for others.  Feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, clothe the poor, visit the sick and imprisoned.  Do it for Jesus’ sake.  Do it in His Name, as He does it all for you.  Do it all as unto Him.  Not only the occasional extraordinary act of kindness, charity, and mercy toward someone you barely know or rarely encounter — someone to whom you can allot a certain portion of time and a certain percentage of stuff; and then after you have done your good deed, you can go your merry way, feeling good about yourself, and get on with your own life.  But so also exercise a steady and consistent, persistent and patient love and care for the neighbors whom the Lord has set right alongside of you and all around you in your daily and ongoing life — for those neighbors it is hard to continue loving and hard to keep forgiving, over and over again, even seventy times seven, for the same hurts, the same insults, the same neglect, the same apathy.

Learn to see Christ Jesus in your neighbor, in the stranger you’ve never met, in the acquaintance you barely know, in your own wife or husband, and in your parents, children, and siblings — your brothers and sisters here on earth, and all the more so the brothers and sisters who sit with you here in church.  Behold the Lord Jesus in them, and take it to heart that you love and serve Him in each and all of these people.  For the Lord your God, the One who needs nothing from you, has given you this opportunity to return thanks to Him, to love and serve and care for Him — and thereby to demonstrate your faith and exercise your fear, love, and trust in Him — by caring for each other.

When your spouse is grumpy and nags at you; and your children disobey and disregard you; and your parents don’t understand, and they don’t listen, and they don’t keep their promises; and your siblings fight and argue with you — look at them the way your Father in heaven looks at you, and see Jesus in them.  Don’t see their bad behavior, which He has covered with His righteousness.  Don’t hold their sins against them, because He forgives them all their sins, as He forgives you.  And don’t withhold your love from them, because He does not withhold His love from you.

It is precisely in His poor and needy ones, in those who are the most work — in those who have the biggest and seemingly never-ending needs — it is in the weak and lowly and despised — in those who smell funny, in those who look odd, in those who act strangely, in those whom nobody wants to be around — in the little ones of every age and kind — that is where you find your Lord Jesus, in order to love and serve Him, because that is how He has come to love and serve us all.

He has made Himself hungry, and He has thirsted.  He has been the stranger and the outcast, the One whom even His own family thought weird, perhaps even sick in the head.  And He has been abandoned by friends, left alone to bear the staggering burden of the Cross and Passion by Himself.  He has been imprisoned, stripped naked, tortured, mocked, and cruelly punished — not for any sins of His own (He has none!), but for your sins.  All the dirt, all the grime, all the crud in your life — He made it all His own, He bore that shame, and He suffered all its punishment.  Indeed, He has been sick with the sickness of this whole dying world, unto His death upon the Cross.

Consequently, it is not only in your neighbor’s weakness and poverty and need that you find the Lord your God, your great Shepherd King.  But He is also with you in your weakness and shame; He is with you in your nakedness and pain; He is with you in your hunger and fear; He is with you in your sickness and at the hour of your death.  And He is with you as your Savior and Redeemer in the Judgment.  It is as we sing in the Te Deum: “Lord, we believe that Thou shalt come to be our Judge; therefore, we pray Thee, help Thy servants, whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy precious Blood.”  And assuredly He does.  He does help you.  He does have mercy upon you.

What is more, not only has He taken your place — in the midst of all your poverty, sickness, sin, and death — not only has He taken your place in His death upon the Cross — but so does He also give to you His place and His Righteousness in His Resurrection from the dead.  He gave it to you in your Holy Baptism.  For you know that in the waters of your Baptism, in and with His Word and Holy Spirit, you died with Him, and so have you also been raised up with Him to newness of life.

And here is what that means for you: His Righteousness is yours.  His works of love are yours.  Whereas all the sins that you have done He has made His own, all the works of love that He has done He has made yours.  He credits them to you.  He counts them as your works.

His whole Life, His Resurrection, His Salvation — all of that is yours.  All because the Atonement, the forgiveness, the reconciliation, and the peace of His Cross are yours — given and bestowed upon you by His Word and Ministry of the Gospel.  That is what the Gospel is and does.

It is the judgment of God that you are in Christ, that you are a Christian, by faith in His Gospel.  And everything that belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ, the almighty and eternal Son of God who has become your Brother in the Flesh, who is your Strength and your Song because He has become your Salvation, who has died for you and risen again — everything that belongs to Him is yours.

Hear this Word of Christ and take it to heart, because it is already in this preaching of the Gospel that you truly hear and receive God’s verdict concerning you:  You are forgiven all your sins.  You are holy and righteous.  You are beloved and well-pleasing to your God and Father in heaven.  You are not guilty, but innocent in Christ Jesus.  And so it is that you are set free from the prison house of sin and death.  You are healed of every disease in both body and soul.  You are not found naked, but you are fully clothed in Christ and His perfect righteousness.  And you are fed, not only with meat and potatoes, vegetables, and even dessert, with turkey and gravy and stuffing and cranberries — because the Lord is generous to all of us poor sinners, even in this body and life — but you are fed with a far greater Feast than any of us will otherwise eat this week; because here you are fed with the very Body and the holy and precious Blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God.  And as He gives you Himself to eat and to drink, you know the very heart of God toward you.  You are blessed, and you are beloved of the God and Father of your Lord Jesus Christ — and you are welcomed into His Father’s Kingdom, because His God and Father is now also your God and your dear Father.

That is the purpose, reality, and significance of the Church on earth, and of this congregation.  It is why the Lord has called and gathered us here this morning.  For eternal judgments are declared and delivered here and now.  Here the Son of Man exercises His authority to forgive sins, and with that forgiveness He gives to you His Life and His Salvation.  Here at His Altar He sits upon His glorious throne and, just as we sing, all of the angels are round about Him.  Here He gathers you to Himself, He enfolds you to His embrace, and He holds you in His strong arms.  He calls you and draws you here to Himself, in order to feed you, to clothe you, to heal you, and to give you Life.

Come, then, blessed of the Lord!  Enter into His Peace, and rest yourself in Him.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Enter into the Joy of Your Lord by Faith in His Gospel

Whatever you have, whatever your talents, whatever your possessions and abilities, none of these are your own; they are the Lord’s good gifts, which He has entrusted to you as a stewardship.  And as the Scriptures testify, it is required of a steward that he or she be found faithful.

Whatever money you have, it is the Lord’s.  And whatever you are especially good at, those talents, too, are from the Lord — and for the Lord — just as you yourself are His own workmanship.  If you are smart, it is from the Lord.  If you are fast or strong, it is from the Lord.  If you are good at math or music or languages or art, any and all of those skills are a stewardship from your Lord.

Likewise, your callings and stations in life are the positions and responsibilities within which the Lord would have you serve His purposes in faith toward Him and in love toward your neighbors.  And whatever you may hold within your hands, that is not only God’s good gift, but it is His own “stuff,” just as you also are His.  Your whole body and life are a sacred stewardship from the Lord.

Be faithful, therefore, in the use of your talents.  In the fear and faith of God, use them according to His Word.  Use whatever you have to the glory of His Name.  Use it for the benefit of His Kingdom.

Don’t look around at your neighbor to see what he or she has been given to do.  Don’t be counting, comparing, and competing.  Do not harbor pride or envy in your heart.  Do not consider whether you or your neighbor has more or less, because it all remains the Lord’s in any case.  Do not be down in the mouth if you have less, and do not be arrogant if you have been entrusted with more.  Rather, use faithfully however much or little you may have, however many or few your talents.

When you covet what the Lord has entrusted to your neighbor — when you despise or resent your Lord for the ways that He has distributed and managed His own things — then you presume that His things are really yours (or should be), as though by right or merit.  But that is not the case.

Use what God has given you in faith and love — not selfishly, for your own profit.  Be responsible, and take care of yourself and your family, to be sure, but not as though your life and future were in your own hands.  Remember that all you are and all that you have is from the Lord and ever in His hands.  And so use what He has given you in the ways that He intends — in order to return thanks to the praise and glory of His Name, especially by serving and caring for your neighbors.

Don’t be afraid to use the talents God the Lord has entrusted to you.  Don’t be afraid to exercise your stewardship.  Do not be frozen by indecision, as though success or failure depended on you making all the exactly right choices and decisions, doing and saying all the right things.  But rather trust the Lord, and so be faithful in using His good gifts according to His good and gracious Will.

You know His Will from His Word.  He has not left you in the dark.  He has told you what to do.  He has given you guidance in using what He has placed into your hands.

He distributes His gifts according to each man’s ability — and of course, each man’s ability is also from the Lord your God.  So your stewardship is not too hard for you.  Have confidence in your Lord, who has created you and called you in Wisdom, and who continues to care for you in Love.

Do not hoard His gifts, but use them as He intends.  Do not misuse them, but do use them rightly.  Use His Name, which He has given to you in Holy Baptism, by calling upon Him in every trouble, by prayer, praise, and thanksgiving under every circumstance.  Do not despise the good gift of His Word and the preaching of it, but gladly hear and learn it.  Do not despise your parents and the other authorities whom the Lord has placed over you in love for your good, but honor them with obedience, love and serve them, pray for them, and submit to them for God’s sake.  Do not hurt your neighbor, but help him as you can, and provide for his needs of both body and soul.  Do not take your neighbor’s stuff, but help him to guard and keep whatever God has entrusted to him.

Do not covet or jealously desire the position and possessions that God has given to your neighbor according to His divine Wisdom and His good and gracious Will for the repentance and salvation of all people.  Rather, use wisely and well whatever God has entrusted to you.  Serve faithfully within your place, within your position in life.  It is for that that you will be judged and rewarded.

Just as a pastor is a steward of the Mysteries of God, and it is required of him to be found faithful in that stewardship, so is it also required that you be faithful in your stewardship, whatever it may be, whether it is big or small, and whether or not it involves lots of money or people or things.  “Be thou faithful unto death,” trusting and believing that the Lord will give to you the Crown of Life.

If you are a husband, use your gifts — use God’s gifts — to love and serve your wife, to protect her and provide for her, to care for her.  And if you are a wife, use the gifts that God has given you to love and serve your husband, to do what is good and right, and to care for your own family.

If you are a father or a mother, use the gifts of God to love and care for your children, to teach them what they need to know, not least of all the Word of God.  Bring them to church and teach them how to pray.  Teach them by your words and by your example.  That is your stewardship.

If you are a child, use the gifts that God has given you to love and serve your parents and siblings, your playmates and your peers.  If you are a student, use the gifts of God to study faithfully, to learn, to grow in knowledge and wisdom.  And if you are a teacher, use the gifts of God to teach.

Whatever your occupation, work to benefit your employer and to serve your customers and clients.

And whatever your calling and station in life, enter into the joy of your Master.  That is to enter into the joy of repentance and faith, of life and love, of righteousness and peace, justice and truth.

Do not use your talents for wickedness, certainly.  Do not squander God’s possessions on foolish things or wicked things.  But do not be lazy, either.  The lazy and wicked slave who is condemned in our Lord’s Parable is not a man who has squandered his Master’s money on fast living, but one who has simply not used it at all.  So, then, do not neglect the talents with which the Lord your God has blessed you, by failing to do what is good and right according to your abilities and the position in life that He has given you.  For it is to this that you are called.  It is a sacred trust.  Your entire life is lived before the Lord, to whom you are accountable for all that you do with His gifts.

What shall be the settling of accounts when your Lord returns from His long journey?  When the books are opened, what will the ledger show?  What will you have to say?

Where you have not used the talents that God has given you to glorify His Name and to serve your neighbor in love, Repent.  Turn away from evil and begin to do what is good and right.

Do not devise excuses for yourself.  Do not claim fear or ignorance, as though this would get you off the hook.  But invest yourself and your talents in bringing forth the praise and glory of God, in bearing fruits worthy of repentance, in bearing fruits worthy of your Lord and Master.

Indeed, let us consider what sort of Man the Lord is.  What is He like?  Is He a “hard man”?  Is He a harsh taskmaster?  Does He care only about what He can get from you, this One who has given you everything you are and have?  Is that what He is like?  Is He a “hard man” because He reaps where He has not sown and gathers where He has not planted?  Or is it not, rather, that He is gracious and merciful, that He is generous and kind in calling all men to Himself?  Why?  Because He needs something from them?  Not at all.  It is rather because He desires all men to be saved.

What sort of Man is He when He causes His Seed to be sown and His Word to be preached even to the ends of the earth?  In point of fact, He does not take anything away, but He freely gives everything to His own creatures.  If you listen carefully, He’s not at all the sort of master that third slave claims Him to be.  He takes the one talent back from him, but He doesn’t take it for Himself; He gives it to another servant.  He clings to nothing for Himself.  He is gracious.  He is generous.  He is kind.  He is not harsh but bounteous in bestowing His gifts upon His people.  Upon you.

This Rich Man has actually made Himself poor to the point of death, in order to make you rich with all the wealth and riches of His Kingdom.  He has liquidated everything, His whole Body and Life upon the Cross, in order that you should have divine, eternal Life with God forevermore.

That is what the Kingdom of Heaven is like.  The King has gotten a Sacrifice for Himself.  He has gotten a Lamb for Himself to offer.  The King has buried His singular, greatest Treasure, His own beloved Son, in the ground of the earth.  He has put Him in the dark.  He has buried Him.  That is the journey on which your Lord Jesus has embarked — by the way of the Cross, through death and the grave, through the valley of the shadow of death — in order to atone for your sins by His own holy and precious Blood, and to justify you in righteousness before His Father in His Resurrection.

He has borne your sin and shame.  He has borne your failure to use the talents He has given you.  He has borne your falsehood.  He has borne your arrogance and fear, your pride, and your despair.  He has borne it all, and He has suffered for it.  He has been cast out into the outer darkness of death and the grave.  You know that He has done it.  And He has done it all for you.

But He has not returned from His journey void or empty-handed.  He has not come back looking for you to help Him.  But in His own crucified and risen Body He has become the Firstfruits of an abundant harvest.  He does indeed reap where He has not sown, and He gathers where He has not planted, in this respect: He reaps life from out of death, from the curse of your sins.  He gathers victory from out of the grave — which was not His own, but He made it His, that it should not be yours forever.  He has compounded interest on His investment, far more than you could ever count.

And here is the currency of His Kingdom.  This is the coin of His realm, as I’ve often said.  Not gold or silver, not dollars and cents, but the free and full forgiveness of all your debts and all your trespasses.  Not the money in your bank account, but His own holy Body and His precious Blood, given and poured out into your mouth — into your body — for the forgiveness of all your sins.

That forgiveness is the foremost talent with which He blesses you.  That is the treasure that He places into your hands — the forgiveness of all your sins.  And with that forgiveness, He gives you Himself, His Life and Salvation, and all good things.  That is what He gives you here and now.

He has been faithful in much.  He has been faithful in everything, in order that He should freely bestow upon you all the treasures of His divine and heavenly Kingdom.

Therefore, as you are forgiven much — as you are forgiven everything — so also love much.  Trust the Lord your God, your Savior and King.  Love Him, and so also love your neighbor in the Name and for the sake of this dear Lord Jesus Christ.  As you are forgiven much, love much, and forgive those who trespass against you.  Multiply the talents of Christ by forgiving as you are forgiven.

That is the marvelous divine paradox of your Lord’s Kingdom.  His talents bear interest as they are given away.  His Gospel increases as it is spoken.  His forgiveness is multiplied as it is shared.

So, then, forgive as you are forgiven.  And by His forgiveness, enter into the Joy of your Master.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today You Are with Christ Jesus in Paradise

Jesus remembers you today, and you are with Him in Paradise, because He is here with you in the midst of the great tribulation.  His Tree of the Cross is not only green, even as winter approaches, but it is fruitful and life-giving; not “in spite” of His suffering, but precisely by and from His innocent suffering and death.  His Body and His Blood are the First Fruits of the New Creation.  And as the Church Year begins with the coming of Jesus into His Holy City on Palm Sunday, so does it conclude with His Holy Cross and Passion, which are the heart and center of all things.

Therefore, daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Him; sons of Israel, do not mourn His death.  Rather, weep and mourn for your sins, for which the Lord Jesus willingly suffers, sheds His blood, and dies.  And sorrow for your children, who have inherited your sins and your mortality.

Sons and daughters of Adam & Eve, weep and mourn over your fall into sin, over your disbelief and disobedience, and over your departure from the Lord your God and from His Garden.  Weep and mourn over the death and decay of God’s good creation, which bears the burden of your fault and suffers the sorrow of your trespasses and sins, the stain of your iniquity and disobedience.

And yet, do not succumb to despair and hopelessness, despite the attitude and actions of this fallen and perishing world.  The days have long since come when they say that the barren are blessed to have no children, and many now choose to make themselves barren on purpose.  The wombs that do not bear and the breasts that do not nurse are considered fortunate and free.  What a sad and striking contrast to the joys that we cherish and celebrate here at Emmaus, as we pray and give thanks for the children who are born among us, baptized, and brought up in the faith of Christ.

But it’s not as though we are naive to the challenges and difficulties that face mothers and fathers, marriages and families, in the bearing and rearing of children in this body and life.  Indeed, there are sacrifices at every stage, and we are bombarded with the contrary rhetoric of the world with its criticisms and complaints.  Surely it is tempting to wonder whether it is all worthwhile.

You bear your burdens and struggle to do your part, but in the meantime you cannot see whether it matters one way or another.  Whether you pray or not seems to make no difference.  Whether you are righteous or wicked is of no obvious or immediate consequence, unless it be that the righteous suffer want while the wicked appear to flourish and prosper at the expense of the righteous.

Satan taunts you, and he tempts you, as he dared to tempt Christ Jesus: If you are a dear child of God, then why this, and why that?  Why do you go hungry?  Why are you so poor and so alone?  Why must you suffer?  Why must your job be such a pain?  Why is your marriage so stressful, and why are your children ill-mannered and disobedient?  Or, why do you have no spouse or child?

The devil hurls these assaults and accusations against you, against the Words and promises of your Holy Baptism, and against the forgiveness of the Gospel.  After everything that God has said, the devil puts a big question mark: “Really?”  “Did God really say that?”  And with that he drives you to doubt and despair concerning both the Lord your God and yourself.  Perhaps God is deceiving you, or else unable to help you; or you’ve not done enough or done it right, so why should God even bother with you, unless it be to punish you severely for your depravity and failure?

Thus are you caught in this great tribulation, which rages all around you, and roars in your ears, and batters your heart, and confuses your head, and wearies your soul.  The choices set before you seem utterly bleak and futile.  Either God is not good enough, or you are not good enough.

If God is not good enough, or if He isn’t even real, then why bother with anything in particular?  You might as well do whatever you want, and it won’t matter, anyway.

But you know that’s not true.  God forbid that you should fall into such perdition.  God forbid it, and God forgive you for all such doubts and fears wherever you have entertained them.

But what about yourself?  Are you good enough?  Have you done enough?  Have you done it all just right?  Have you kept your nose clean?  Have you given enough?  Have you prayed enough?  Have you loved enough?  Have you believed enough?  And do you believe all the right things?

These are impossible questions, but the answer to each and all of them is, “No, you have not.”

You are a sinner, first of all, from the inside-out, before you have done anything.  And as a sinner, all your thoughts, words, and deeds are sinful.  Even the best of what you manage to do is filthy with your sin.  And the harder you try to make yourself righteous, the more sinful you become.

The root of the problem is not your bad behavior but your faithless heart.  You do not fear, love, and trust in God above all things.  You do not rely on Him and look to Him in faith for all that you need, expecting only good things from Him.  Instead, you bargain and maneuver and negotiate, you plot and you strive to make some kind of compromise or cut some kind of deal with Him.

And there is always this hesitancy and reservation in the way you approach and relate to God.  You do not entrust yourself to Him, but you offer what you think you can afford, what you figure you can live without, as much as you think it will take, but as little as you think you can get away with.

Why do you not tithe?  Is it because there is no Law that says you must?  Because you don’t think you can afford it?  Because you are not thankful for what you have?  Because you do not trust the Lord to provide all that you need for both body and soul, for this life and the Life everlasting?

Why do you not bring the whole tithe into the stores of the Lord’s House, in order to support His Church and Ministry?  Why do you not give the first fruits of your labor and your income to the Lord your God, in order that His House should be well-supplied with food and drink?

Instead of trusting and relying on the Lord to forgive your sins and save your life, you imagine that you must save yourself — as if you ever could!  That is the devil’s satanic seduction, which he throws into your face and whispers into your ear, as he did with Christ Jesus in the wilderness, at Caesarea Philippi, on the Cross, and at all the opportune times and places in between.

Unlike the Lord Jesus, you listen to the devil’s lies and temptations instead of to the Words and promises of God.  You rehearse the devil’s thoughts, instead of God’s.  You confess his lies to yourself and to others.  And you act as Satan urges, instead of living as the Lord has commanded.

Is it not robbery and theft to live your life as though it were your own possession, when it is the Lord who made you, and not you yourself?  Is it not criminal to horde those things which God has entrusted to your stewardship, and to use them as though they were your own by right, instead of using those treasures and talents to serve your neighbor and to support the Lord’s Church?

Daughter of Jerusalem, son of Israel, child of Adam & Eve, repent of this robbery and theft.  Own that you are a criminal, deserving of nothing but punishment, and be crucified with Christ, who numbers Himself with such transgressors.  For so has He numbered Himself also with you.

Fear the Lord your God, your Maker and Redeemer.  Fear the Lord, who willingly suffers the punishment that you justly deserve.  See in His Body crucified the wages of your sin and the price of your Redemption.  And hear His Word to you, His preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of all your sins.  Despair of yourself, to be sure, but do not despair of Him.  Rather, hope in Him, in His Cross, in His Body and His Blood, in His Church and Ministry, His Gospel and His Spirit.

Do not suppose that the wicked will always prevail, nor that the righteous are forgotten.  For the Lord Jesus remembers you, even in death.  And this same Jesus is risen from the dead and seated at the right hand of the Father in His eternal Kingdom.  He lives and reigns forevermore.  And all this He accomplishes for you and your salvation, in His own Body of flesh and blood like yours.

He is the true and perfect Man, in whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily, in order that you should live and abide with God the Father in Christ, the incarnate Son, as He abides with you.

He surely does save others.  He is the Savior of the world, and He is your Savior.  But He does not save Himself.  Instead, He lives by perfect faith in His God and Father.  He loves Him and trusts in Him, and He prays to Him in confidence, even in the face of death and the grave.

He brings the whole Tithe into the Lord’s House, and far more than 10%.  He offers up Himself, His whole life, His Body and soul, His flesh and blood.  He is the spotless Lamb who suffers and dies in the place of His people, and who by His sacrificial death atones for all their sins, including all of yours.  He is the sweet-smelling Incense that fills the Temple with the very Peace of God.

And He is the Food, the Meat and Drink indeed, which fills the Lord’s storehouse and feeds His entire Church in every time and place, from the rising of the sun to the place of its going down.

His faith was not misplaced, His faithfulness was not in vain.  Though He was numbered with transgressors and crucified as a criminal, cursed upon the Tree between two guilty robbers, His righteousness is vindicated and openly declared when God the Father raises Him from the dead.

And because He is your King, your Savior, and your Head, His Resurrection from the dead is also your resurrection, your vindication, and your righteousness.

That is your sure and certain hope as you bear the Cross and suffer and die.  That is your sure and certain hope, your righteousness and peace, although you are a sinner, a robber, and a thief.

But do not for that reason continue in your sins.  Rather, in the hope of the Resurrection, repent, trust Christ, and live.  Be crucified, dead, and buried with Him, in order to live with Him in His Kingdom, here and now by faith within His Church, and hereafter in His Paradise forever.

Trust Him by hearing His Word and calling upon His Name in prayer.  Trust Him by doing the work that He has given you to do, bearing your burdens in love, patiently and without grumbling.

Trust Him by forgiving those who sin against you, by loving your enemies and praying for those who persecute you, by turning the other cheek and gladly doing good to those who hurt you.

Trust the Lord to vindicate you, to defend you and speak well of you, just as He has declared you to be righteous by His Gospel.  Trust Him to uphold the good Name with which He has named you.

Whatever your circumstances here and now may be, trust that He will surely save your life from death, and feed and clothe your body, and shelter and protect you.  For He has given Himself for you, and in His Church He freely provides you with all of the best and most permanent things.

Here He clothes you with His righteousness and covers you with Himself.  For He was stripped naked, and His garments were divided, that you might be dressed with that which is His.  Here He feeds you with His Body and gives you to drink of the same Blood with which He has redeemed you and reconciled you to His God and Father forever.  So has He made His House your home.

Here, indeed, you are with Him in Paradise, because the Fruits of the Tree of Life are freely given without cost, and the Waters of Life are generously poured out for your cleansing and refreshment.

Here the Lord Jesus remembers you by coming to you in and with His Kingdom.  He remembers you with His Word of Peace, His Gospel of forgiveness.  He remembers you with His Body and His Blood, given and poured out for you to eat and to drink, unto eternal Life and Salvation.

By these Fruits of His green Tree, you are with Him in Paradise.  And as surely as you are crucified and die with Him by your Baptism in His Name, so surely do you rise and live with Him forever.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Watchful, Awake, and Alert in the Hour of Christ

The Word of our Lord this morning is a continuation of the Word we heard from Him last Sunday.  It follows His final departure from the Temple in Jerusalem, with His Cross and Passion right on the horizon.  It concludes His response to the disciples’ question concerning the destruction of the Temple: “When will these things be? And what will be the signs when they are being fulfilled?”

Understand that several significant events kaleidoscope together in these Words and warnings of the Lord Jesus.  He addresses not only the destruction of Jerusalem, the Temple in particular, but also the final Judgment of the world and, above all, His own approaching sacrifice upon the Cross.  It is His Cross that really defines and governs those other events.  And it is solely by His Cross and Passion that you are prepared, made watchful, alert, and ready, for your own death and judgment.

It is the Crucifixion of Christ Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, which fulfills and supercedes and renders obsolete the Temple in Jerusalem.  And it is the rejection of that same Lord Jesus Christ and His Cross which brings the judgment of God upon that once holy City, put to the sword and leveled to the ground a few decades later.  For it is by the Cross of Christ that God has atoned for the sins of all people and reconciled the world to Himself; and it is thus by His Cross that all people are judged, either righteous by faith or condemned in their sinful unbelief.

By faith in Him, crucified and risen from the dead, you have nothing to fear in the Judgment, but only a glorious confidence and blessed hope, as sure and certain as Christ Himself.  Thus does He admonish you to watch and to wait upon His coming, whenever that Day and that Hour shall be.

To watch, to be alert, and to pray.  That is the Christian faith and life to which the Lord Jesus calls you this morning.  Not only for a season, but all year long, and really throughout your life.  For with this exhortation He summarizes and describes the keeping of the first Three Commandments.

To watch, to be alert, and to pray, is to fear, love, and trust in God above all things.  Above your job and your income.  Above your house and home and all your stuff.  Above your own thoughts and feelings and opinions, and above your family and friends and what they would have you do.  And thus to worship and rely upon the Lord alone as your true and only God means that you call upon His Name at all times and in all circumstances, be they good or bad, with your prayers and petitions, your praise and thanksgiving.  And that means that you must give attention to His Word and the preaching of it, gladly hearing and learning all that He says to you.  For it is only by His Word and Spirt that you fear, love, and trust in God, and that you call upon His Name in faith.

To live in this way is to live as a Christian disciple of Christ Jesus, watchful and alert each day and hour of your life, hearing and heeding His Word; clinging to His Word — and so clinging to Him — with all that you are and have; confessing His Name and praying to Him by faith in His Word.

“Take heed,” therefore.  “Watch and pray!”  Thus says the Lord.  For you do not know when the Judgment will be, but He would have you number your days and know that your life is fleeting.

Remember that, when Jesus first spoke these Words, it was only a matter of days and hours before He would be handed over to His death.  It was so essential that His disciples be alert, and watch, and pray, that they should not fall into temptation in the face of His Cross and Passion.  It is no less essential for you, now, as you bear His Cross and follow after Him, lest you fall away and be lost.

Of course, if you consider those disciples in the days that followed, then you will know how badly they failed in every respect, and how they fell asleep on their watch at that most critical Hour.

The Master of the House had departed from His Temple in Jerusalem, and the disciples did not yet know when the Lord would raise up the Temple of His Body.  He would go away to the far country of death and the grave, and then He would come again, suddenly, in the power of His Resurrection.  They knew not when it would occur, and yet, they were surrounded on all sides by the signs of His coming: at evening, at midnight, at cockcrow, and in the morning.

It was “at evening” when Jesus first celebrated and instituted His Holy Supper, thereby replacing the Temple and the sacrifices of the Old Testament with Himself.  As He was handed over by His Father to His voluntary suffering and death upon the Cross, He handed over His Body and Blood to His disciples (and so through them to His Church of all times and places).  He thus made explicit the journey that He was undertaking, as well as the divine significance of His approaching Cross.  It should therefore have woken the disciples up to the utter seriousness of that Day and that Hour.  Instead, those who were closest to the Lord Jesus failed Him in every way, and He was left alone.

It was “at midnight” when Jesus went to the Garden of Gethsemane on that same night, and He asked His disciples, Peter, James, and John, in particular, to watch with Him and pray.  And you know what happened, how they fell asleep, not once, not twice, but three times over.  Their spirits were willing, but their flesh was weak, as your flesh also is weak.  Not only that, but it was in that very Hour when Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, betrayed His Friend and Master with a kiss.

It was “at cockcrow,” while Jesus was being falsely accused, derided, mocked, and beaten, that Simon Peter denied even knowing the Man, cursing and swearing to that effect in his fear.  And of course, by that point, everyone else but St. John had already run away and fled into the night.

And it was finally “in the morning” when Jesus was then handed over to the governor, Pontius Pilate, by the chief priests, scribes, and pharisees, who should have been the watchmen of Israel.

Now, then, it’s easy enough to point fingers and find fault, especially from our vantage point in retrospect.  But surely you know better than that.  As the Lord’s own Apostles were unable to stay awake, alert, and watchful in that day and at that hour, do not suppose that you would have done any better then; and do not imagine that you do any better, even now, by any power of your own.

The truth is that only the Lord Jesus has remained steadfast in His faithful vigil.  In the evening, at midnight, at cockcrow, and in the morning, He was always watching, always alert, always in prayer.  His submitted Himself at all times to the Will of His God and Father.  That is why even He, the incarnate Son, did not know the Day or the Hour.  He rather lived His life in the flesh, and He went to His death on the Cross, in the same way that you are called to live and die, that is, by faith alone, not trusting in Himself but in the Word and Spirit of God.  So, too, with His prayer in the Garden (while His disciples were resting and sleeping), the Lord Jesus entrusted Himself entirely to the purposes of God, willingly taking and drinking the Cup of wrath and Judgment.

And so it was that, when that Day and that Hour came, Jesus alone was watchful and alert, awake and ready.  Not by an exercise of His divine prerogatives, by His might and power and knowledge as the very Son of God in the flesh, but rather as the true and perfect Man, by faith in His Father.

It is in Him, therefore, that both the necessary watchfulness of faith and the final Judgment of God have already been fulfilled and satisfied for you and all people.  For He has given Himself to suffer the entire punishment of hell for the sins of the entire world, the sins of Adam and Eve and all their children down to the close of the age.  But notwithstanding all of that, He alone has lived perfectly the life that you could not — the life of holy faith, of fear, love, and trust in God above all things, of prayer, praise, and thanksgiving, and of constant attention to the Word and promises of God.

The watchfulness to which you are called by the Word and Spirit of God — the patient forbearance of the Cross in your body and life, from the waters of the font to the dust and the dirt of your grave — it is all made possible for you by Christ Jesus.  His watchfulness and His bearing of the Cross strengthen and sustain you in the Word and faith of God through His forgiveness of your sins.

It was “in the morning” that Jesus was handed over to Pilate on Good Friday; but then it was also “in the morning” that the women discovered His empty tomb on Easter Sunday.  And it is in the power and promise of His Resurrection that you are woken up and raised from the death of your sin to the morning of His Life.  It is likewise in the power and promise of His Resurrection that the Hour of His Cross is proclaimed as the judgment and defeat of sin, death, the devil, and hell, and so also as the Day of righteousness, life, and salvation for you and all who believe and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.  It is by His Cross and Resurrection that you and His entire Church on earth are made watchful, alert, and awake for His coming, now in the Ministry of His Word and Sacrament, and in His glory at the last, when He shall raise the dead and give life to all who are His own.

So were the Apostles prepared by their Lord, Jesus Christ, to be His faithful servants and the door-keepers of His new House, which is the holy Christian Church.  And those same holy Apostles, as well as the ministers of Christ to this day, prepare the entire Household of the Church by the preaching of the Gospel of Christ, by the speaking of His Word of Absolution, by the washing of the water with the Word in His Name, and by the feeding of His Christians with His Body and His Blood in remembrance of Him.  The administration of those various means of grace is the work and responsibility entrusted to the servants of Christ who are called to be pastors of His Church.

But the watchfulness to which Apostles and pastors are exhorted is a watchfulness also demanded of all disciples of Christ Jesus, each of you in your own place, your own office and station in life.

For each and every one of you, that watchfulness begins and continues in the faithful use of the Word and Sacraments of Christ, as those gifts are given and received in His Name in the Life and Liturgy of His Church.  For just as the Old Testament people of God were prepared for the coming of the Christ by the Temple and its sacrifices, so are you prepared for the coming of Christ Jesus by His coming to you now in those ways and means which have superceded and replaced the Temple in Jerusalem, namely, the Divine Service of preaching and the Holy Communion.  That is where and how the Holy Trinity makes His Name and His Glory available to you, where you are given to eat and to drink of the Sacrifice that Christ Jesus offered for you and for all on the Cross.

Thus are you exhorted, now more than ever, to watch, to be alert, and to pray, that you might cling to the sure and certain hope that is yours in Christ Jesus, and hear and receive His many good gifts of forgiveness and life and salvation, and rejoice all your days in His grace, mercy, and peace.

By the same token, as you are faithfully served by the Lord Jesus Christ in this way and through these means, so does He also serve others and prepare them for His final Judgment through you, through your words and actions in His Name and by His Spirit.  For just as you hear and receive the Word and Sacraments of Christ Jesus in the Liturgy of His Gospel, so do you become a kind of living Word and Sacrament of Christ for those who live outside of His Church.  The Lord thus comes to them through you, that He might bring them into His House, and there prepare them by the preaching of His Gospel and the nourishment of His Holy Supper for His coming in glory.

Of course, your watchfulness and your service to others are not what they should be.  Even at your best, you are doing nothing more than what is your duty.  And the fact of the matter is that, even as a Christian, you continue to sin every day in your thoughts, words, and deeds, falling far short of the glory of God in what you do and say, and in all that you fail to do in love for God and others.

But where your watchfulness and service are always so weak and pathetic, the Lord’s watchfulness and His Divine Service are always trustworthy and certain.  He continues to prepare you by His preaching of repentance unto faith in His forgiveness of all your sins.  He has already satisfied the Judgment of God by His sacrifice upon the Cross, and in your Holy Baptism He has granted you eternal life with God by His Cross and Resurrection.  And now, again this morning, He feeds you with Himself in that great Feast which goes on forever in His Paradise; so that already here and now is that Day and that Hour in which you are called to share in His divine Life and Salvation.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Lord Jesus Christ Endures to the End

The Temple in Jerusalem was a magnificent thing.  It’s no wonder the disciples were impressed.  The massive stones of the Temple buildings were beautiful white marble, adorned with gold and very strong.  Some of the stones were as large as semi trucks.  Certainly, the Temple was the match of any pyramid in Egypt, and it was rightly considered one of the great wonders of the world!

But out of this great Temple steps a Carpenter from Nazareth, days away from being crucified.  Earlier that week He threw the money changers out of the Temple courtyard; and now it sounds like He’s ready to tear the whole place down.  As Jesus leaves the Temple for the very last time, His final words are a cry of anguish: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem.  Your beautiful house will be left a deserted place!”  Not one stone of this great building will be left upon another!

The words of Jesus must have stung the ears of those who heard them, not least of all His own disciples.  The Temple was the heart and center of the Jewish faith.  Not only were the buildings magnificent, but more important, the priests who served the Temple offered up the sacrifices that the Lord had commanded through Moses.  How and why would Jesus criticizes the Temple?

The thing is that God, the Lord, had commanded the sacrifice of lambs and sheep and goats and bulls to prepare His people for the Sacrifice of Christ, the Son of God, for the sins of the world.  The Temple priests came every day to offer up those sacrifices in the Name of the Lord, but none of those sacrifices could redeem the world from sin forever.  They were a shadow and a preview of the sacrificial Lamb of God, who bears the sins of the whole world in His Body on the Cross.

Sadly, when the Christ of God appeared in the flesh, the people of God were largely unwilling to receive Him.  The long-awaited Savior was rejected by the majority of His own nation.  After all those years, the Jewish people by and large missed the point of their own history and religion.

Instead of looking at the sacrifices in the Temple as a Gospel proclamation of the coming Savior, most of the people saw them as a way of buying God off.  Their whole point and purpose had been in preparation for the Christ, the Messiah.  Once He had come in the flesh and been rejected, all that remained of the sacrifices was an empty and pointless shell.  Those who persisted in relying on the Temple and its sacrifices were bastardizing the Gospel into a means of self-righteousness.

But how often aren’t you guilty of doing the very same thing?  How often do you come to Church, not to receive the blessings of God, but rather to appease Him (or impress others) by going through the motions?  How often do you come to the Lord’s Supper, not because you need the forgiveness of His Body and Blood, but instead because you wonder and worry what everyone will be thinking if you do not?  How often do you blasphemously treat your Holy Baptism as a license to continue in your sins, instead of exercising its real significance in repentance and confession of your sins?

Do not allow the shadows of the Temple to eclipse the Gospel of the Lord.  For you are a sinner, and what you need is His forgiveness.  As a son or daughter of Adam, you are born in bondage to sin and death, and only God can set you free.  There is nothing you can do or give to save yourself.  Christ alone has done it all.  Everything else, like the Temple, will be left deserted and torn down.

The sacrifices of the Temple were brought to an end in the Year of our Lord 70, when the Roman army destroyed the city of Jerusalem.  To this day, the Temple has not been rebuilt, the sacrifices have not been restored.  But even if men were to rebuild the Temple and attempted to offer the Old Testament sacrifices as before, it would all be for nothing and a sinful rejection of Christ Jesus, who has already offered Himself once-for-all upon the Cross.  There is no other sacrifice for sin.

Jesus Christ alone has stood the test of sin and death, and only those who endure steadfast in Him will survive until the end and be saved.  There is forgiveness and salvation nowhere else.  Not in the massive stones of magnificent Temple buildings.  Not in the good works that you or anyone else might do.  Not in the spiritual charade of a pietistic life.  But only in the Sacrifice of Christ.  By His voluntary suffering and death, He has made Atonement for the sins of the entire world.

God’s wrath and judgment against sin have thus been set aside forever, having been spent upon the Son in His Cross and Passion.  And yet, as the words of the Prophets and Christ Himself have warned, there will be a Day of Judgment for the living and the dead.  The destruction of Jerusalem is only the beginning, a miniature foretaste of that devastating final judgment at the end of days.

Christ has made Atonement for the sins of the world by His holy and precious Blood, and by His innocent suffering and death.  The final Judgment will thus turn on where you stand in relation to that same Lord Jesus Christ.  Jerusalem was destroyed because the majority of its inhabitants rejected Him and His Gospel.  So, too, those who will be condemned in the Day of Judgment are those who have persisted in their rejection of the very One who died to redeem and save them.

In the meantime, to be sure, your sin is still sin.  It offends the holy and righteous God, and He calls you to repentance for it by the preaching of His Word.  He also disciplines you, as a father disciplines his children, in love.  He punishes your sin in this body and life, not to the extent that you deserve, but that you might recognize its wrongness and its danger, and that you might turn away from your sins to the mercies of God in Christ, that you might live in faith and love.  For the fact is that persistence in your sins — in doing what you should not and failing to do what you should — is destructive of your faith and life and drives the Holy Spirit from your body and soul.

Those potential consequences of sin in your body and life are evident in the signs of the end that Jesus describes in His Word this morning.  It is a sinful world, and the consequences of sin are all around you: wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes and famines, hurricanes and devastating fires.  There are no lack of nations rising against nations, of kingdoms rising and falling.  Ever since Adam and Eve disobeyed the Word of the Lord and fell into sin, the history of their children has been full of death and destruction.  And all who cling to this perishing world perish along with it.

Dr. Luther, considering the trials and tribulations of his tumultuous day and age, remarked that, “The world cannot stand long, perhaps a hundred years, at most.”  But really, truth be told, every Christian from the Twelve Apostles onward has looked for the Day of Judgment to come at any time.  The signs have certainly been there all along, and they continue going on even to this day.

Those signs of God’s judgment should keep you mindful of your sin, and of your need for the Lord Jesus Christ.  The tragedies of life call you to repentance and drive you to the Gospel of His Cross.  And all the sufferings of this body and life are reminders that this present evil age is coming to an end, and that salvation is on the horizon.  As labor pains alert a woman to the time of her delivery, so do the pains of this world remind you that God is giving birth to new heavens and a new earth.

Even common sense should therefore warn you not to place your confidence and hope in anything but Christ and His Word.  For just as the massive stones of the beautiful Temple were finally thrown down and wrecked, so are all things of this earth eventually thrown down and destroyed.  Kingdoms do rise and fall, nations come and go, buildings collapse, and even the most powerful of people die.  The good works of today give way to the wickedness of tomorrow.  Christ Jesus alone stands head and shoulders over everything, always the same, yesterday, today, and forever.

Despite what such logic and sound theology should tell you, it is still too often the case that you end up drifting, taking your stand on shifting sands instead of resting yourself in Christ.  You rely on your own wisdom, reason, and strength to secure God’s favor and forgiveness, even as the Jews relied on the Temple and rejected the Messiah.  And you are too easily persuaded and led astray by the flash and fiction of those who reject the Gospel in favor of the monuments of this world.

How on earth shall you endure in Christ alone, and finish the race, and make it to the end?  How shall you resist the temptations of those who would lead you astray?  The answer is surprisingly simple.  It is by going to that place where Christ Himself has promised to protect you.  By hiding in the bosom of His Church, the House that He has established on the Rock of His own choosing, which He has promised to guard against even the powers and gates of hell itself.  That Rock is the Ministry of His Gospel-Word and Sacraments, by which He comes to you and deals with you in mercy, in order to grant you faith and forgiveness, to give you Life and Salvation in His Body.

Beginning with His Twelve Apostles, Christ Jesus has sent His preachers into all the world.  And what a joy it is to preach and minister in His Name, to bring His means of grace to those in need, to forgive sins in His Name and stead.  As you have heard this morning from the Prophet Daniel, those who thereby lead the many to righteousness will shine like the stars forever and ever.

So it was that, already in your Baptism, you were crucified, put to death, and buried with Christ Jesus, united with Him in His Cross and Sacrifice.  As the called and ordained servant of Christ administered the water in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, you entered the tomb on Good Friday and rose with Christ Jesus on Easter morning.  You emerged from the water, a member of Christ’s Church, a beloved child of His God and Father, and a partaker of His Spirit.

Likewise, in the Holy Absolution spoken by your pastor, it is the gentle voice of the Lord Jesus that you hear and receive, granting you the forgiveness of all your many sins, and sustaining you with His Peace and with the sure and certain promise of the Resurrection.  What greater comfort could there be for those seeking shelter from the storms of life?  For we believe, teach, and confess that, when the called ministers of Christ deal with you by His Word, it is just as valid and certain, even in heaven, as if Christ your dear Lord dealt with you in Person.  That is not “make believe” or “let’s pretend.”  It is in fact precisely Christ who is with you and gives you life in this way.

And in the Lord’s own Holy Supper, you receive again and again the very same Body and Blood that He sacrificed for you and all upon the Cross, here given and poured out for the forgiveness of all your sins.  Here you find and receive the Lord Jesus Himself, in the flesh, in the Breaking of the Bread.  Here at His Altar, with His own flesh and blood, He strengthens your faith to keep you standing steadfast in His Word until the end.  Your sin is covered by His Righteousness, and your guilt is washed away forever by the working of His Holy Spirit.  For here is your robe, your refuge, and your peace, the Blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, which cleanses you of all your sins.

It is all quite steady and strong, because the Church of Christ does not stand on massive stones, she is not girded by concrete and steel.  She rests and remains upon the Ministry of Christ in His Gospel-Word and Sacrament.  There is no army that will ever penetrate that Mighty Fortress.

With what, then, has that magnificent Temple in Jerusalem been replaced?  With the Body of the Lord, crucified and risen from the dead.  And so also with you and all the people of God, who are collectively the Body and Bride of Christ Jesus, our Lord.  In the waters of Holy Baptism, by His Word and Holy Spirit, you have become one of those living stones which, by the Ministry of His Gospel, are being built into a spiritual Temple, with Jesus Christ Himself the Chief Cornerstone.

As you belong to the living Temple of the living Lord Jesus, you now live wherever God has put you on this earth, proclaiming the praises of Him who has called you out of the darkness of your sin and death into His marvelous Light; who has called you from the false hopes and misleading lies of the world to endure until the end in Christ. For He has endured in perfect faith and holy love, even unto death, and in His Resurrection He has entered the Holy of Holies on your behalf.  In His Body and His Blood, by faith in His Word, you now live and abide with God in heaven.

And so it is that the disciples of Christ Jesus, living by faith under His Cross in the hope of His Resurrection, now stand back in awe and admiration of the living stones and the spiritual Temple which are His Holy Christian Church, on earth as it is in heaven:  “Look, Teacher.  What massive stones!  What a magnificent building!”  Yes, indeed.  For these are they who have come out of the great tribulation.  They have washed their robes and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb.  And those who are righteous by faith shine like the Son in the Kingdom of His God and Father.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.