Enter into the Holy City with Your Priestly King

It is truly an amazing and remarkable thing, that your King, the Lord Himself, the Son of God in His own human Flesh, comes to you and makes His dwelling here with you.

But what does this mean for you?  It’s a bit frightening, really.  I mean, does He come to provide for you or punish you?  To promote you, or to pull rank on you?  After all, a visit from the powers that be and the governing authorities often means discipline or consequences for wrongdoing.

There is a certain ambiguity and tension to the coming of your King.  Is He coming to put you in your place, or to remove you from your place and your position?  Wondering and worrying about when and where and how the axe is going to fall is nerve-wracking and scary.  And if, on the other hand, you get your hopes up that your King is coming to set things right and make everything better in your life on earth, you’re likely going to be surprised and disappointed by what He does.

It’s true enough, as the Holy Scriptures testify, that things are pretty messed up, not only in your own personal life, but on a national and global scale.  And even if you’re not a ruler or a boss — perhaps you’re one of the little guys, or you’re still making your way to wherever it is that you’re going — you’ve done your part to mess things up in your own little corner of the world.

There is no one who is righteous; no, not one — no one but Christ Jesus, the King who comes to His own people in righteousness and peace.  But then, consider how this one Lord Jesus Christ is regarded and received.  He’s hailed on Palm Sunday, yes, but mocked and ridiculed, condemned and crucified by the end of the week.  Falsely accused, brutally beaten, and spit upon.  His closest companions betray Him, deny Him, and abandon Him. How should a King respond to all of that?

Even now, as He enters the Holy City on the cusp of His Passion, it is primarily due to His miracles that the crowds throng to see Him and welcome Him.  His own disciples don’t yet understand what’s going on.  Everyone is eager for a “Bread King,” a great big “Sugar Daddy,” a Miracle Worker who will build a glorious Kingdom on earth and take on all the nations of the world.

To be sure, the raising of Lazarus from the dead has been an impressive Sign, as even the skeptics must admit and the enemies of Jesus grudgingly concede.  But, as a Sign, it points beyond itself to something else, that is, to the dying and rising of the Lord Jesus Himself.  The way that He approached that situation, as you heard last week, has indicated that the Glory of God in Christ is to be found, first of all, in His suffering and death, and only then in His Resurrection and His Life.

That is the pattern, too, of Christian faith and life, as your Baptism signifies and testifies, if you think about the dying and rising of that Holy Sacrament.  It is also your experience of life in the world, with all its ups and downs, with all its hopes and disappointments, frustrations and fears.

It is frankly confusing and difficult to navigate.  Just when you think you’ve finally got it figured out, and gotten your bearings, and found your footing in the world, then everything suddenly shifts and changes, and you’re left not knowing what’s up and what’s down, or which way to turn.

Think of how it must have been for the disciples in the course of that first Holy Week, from Palm Sunday, through Maundy Thursday, to Good Friday and Easter.  The Passion of Christ Jesus is a profound and powerful story, even to consider it.  But it is also the life into which you are baptized, by which the Lord recreates you from the dust of death and conforms you to His own Image.

It is impossible to understand any of this superficially, nor at all apart from the accomplished fact of the Cross and Passion — manifested in the Resurrection of Christ Jesus from the dead, and now realized for you in His Sacrament of the Altar.  The Lord’s Supper is the interpretive key to the Lord’s Passion, both beforehand and afterwards.  It not only explains what happens to Him, and why, but it now delivers and bestows the Fruits and Benefits of His Cross and Resurrection.

Only in the Body and Blood of Christ Jesus — crucified and risen from the dead, given and poured out for you and for the many — only there do you see and know and believe what is the Truth of God in Christ, your King: That He has indeed come to “take your place,” and to “put you in your place,” but in such a way that you could never have guessed or imagined or invented for yourself.

Do not be afraid, dear child of God!  For the Lord has made you a beloved son or daughter of His Church on earth, and therefore a son or daughter of the Father in Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son.  Rejoice in His mercy, and give all thanks and praise to this one Lord Jesus Christ, your King, who comes to you in Love, not to punish you for your sins, but to bear your punishment and grant you His Peace.  He comes to save you from your enemies; to give you rest from your weariness, relief from your fears, and safety in place of uncertainty; and to reign over you in love with His Word.

He has not come to “lord it over you” in the way of earthly monarchs, but, as your Lord, as your Savior and your King, He calls you by His Cross and Resurrection to become and be like Him.

To that end, He has first of all become like you in every way, save only without sin.  He has been tempted in every way that you are; He has suffered every burden of your mortal flesh and every dire consequence of your sin.  He truly has taken your place, your sin and death and every ill, and He has made it all His own, in order to bring you into His place with God the Father in Paradise.

By His Self-Sacrifice He opens up the Way through suffering and death into the Resurrection of the Body and the Life everlasting; for He is a priestly King, a royal High Priest, who enters the Most Holy Place by His own Blood and brings you into the presence of God in His own Body.

He humbles Himself, even unto His death upon the Cross, in order to be exalted and glorified on your behalf by His God and Father.  He becomes a disciple, Himself, in order to make a disciple of you by the catechesis of His Word and by your Holy Baptism in His Name.

So it is that your salvation is accomplished, established, and secure in the Person of Christ Jesus, in His own crucified and risen Body of flesh and blood.

Now, then, He testifies to the Sign of His own Cross and Resurrection by preaching repentance for the forgiveness of sins in His Name.  His dying and rising are the fulfillment of all things, and they are also then the Sign of your own dying and rising with Him, by which you are saved from sin and death unto Life and Salvation forever.  All that He has suffered and received in your place, in order to rescue and redeem you, to justify and save you, He preaches and gives to you by His Word.

His preaching to you is not simply information to be processed and stored; it actually calls you to follow after Him.  Accordingly, as you hear the testimony of His Cross and Passion, come out to meet Him as He comes in Peace to meet you here at His Altar within His Church on earth.

His preaching of repentance does put you to death, it crucifies and buries you with Him.  So, you do lose “your place,” the place that you have made for yourself, the place of sin and death which Christ has taken from you and made His own.  But so does He also then bring you to Life and put you in His place.  He gives to you His Sonship, His Spirit, and His Glory in and with the Father.

In calling you to follow after Him, His preaching calls you and brings you into the New Covenant of His Flesh and Blood, the Promise of His eternal Inheritance which He has established forever.

Beloved of the Lord, as He entered the Holy City on Palm Sunday for His Cross and Passion, so do you enter the heavenly City, New Jerusalem, by the way and means of His Cross and Passion.

And as He entered the Most Holy Place once for all with His own Blood, by His innocent suffering and death and in His bodily Resurrection and Ascension, so do you now enter with Him into that same Holy of Holies, eternal in the heavens, by His Flesh and Blood in the Sacrament of the Altar. 

That is why the Liturgy has taught you to cry out in prayer and praise, to rejoice, give thanks, and sing, as the Lord comes to His Altar: Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord!  Hosanna in the highest, and the Peace of the Lord on earth.  For here, indeed, He comes to save you now in this Divine Service, to sustain you with His Word and Holy Spirit, and to sanctify you for the Life everlasting in body and soul with His own holy Body and His holy and precious Blood.

As He thus remembers you in mercy, forgives you all your sins, and gives you His own Life and Salvation in body and soul, so remember Him by faith, repent of all your sins, and rejoice in His Resurrection and His Righteousness.  As surely as He comes to be with you here and now, so shall you surely follow after Him, to be with Him where He is forever and ever.

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

The Living Water of the Spirit from the Body of Christ Jesus

He knows her, as He knows the hearts and minds of all people. He knows her before she has spoken a single word, as He has known her from before the foundation of the world in His Love.

Oh, yes, He knows her sin, her sordid past, her scandalous life. He knows her serial adultery and present fornication, that she is living in sin with a man who is not her husband. He knows, too, that she is thirsty, not only for water, but for love, for acceptance and companionship, for meaning and purpose in her life, for self-worth and value. And He knows that she will not find it on her own.

But He is the Gift of God, who has come down from the Father in heaven to save sinners like her: To rescue them from sin and death. To pour out the Living Water of the Holy Spirit generously upon them, into their hearts and minds, and into their flesh and bones, to give them eternal Life.

He, too, is thirsty — and hungry, as well — not only for the food and drink that perish, though His body on earth needs both, just as you do. But He hungers and thirsts to do the Will of His Father, to seek and to save the lost to the glory of His holy Name, to become the true worshipers of God.

Therefore, as He has known this Samaritan woman all along, so does He also come to wait for her, to meet her at the well, to give her what she really needs and what she’s looking for unknowingly.

In love for her, with tender mercy and compassion, He catechizes her with the Wisdom of God. He leads her by His Word — from guilt and shame, from doubt and fear — first of all to curiosity and interest — then to the dawning of new hope within her troubled heart, which has for so long ached with disappointment — finally to repentance, and to faith in the One who speaks to her.

He declares to her all things. Not only those things that she has been doing wrong, but the things concerning Himself; that she might learn to know Him, and the power of His Resurrection, and the fellowship of His Cross and Passion; and being conformed to His death by the Gift of His Spirit, that she might also attain to the resurrection of her body and the Life everlasting of body and soul.

He quenches her thirst with the free Gift of His Word and Spirit. And in doing so, He leads her and He brings her to the worship of the Father in the Spirit and the Truth, for which she was created.

He does the same for you. For He is the Gift of God. Ask of Him, and He will quench your thirst, your burning, desperate thirst for something more than what you’ve got, for something to satisfy your aching, empty heart. Indeed, He pours out the Love of God into your heart, and He fills you up with the Living Waters of His Spirit, which freely flow in you and well up as a fountain in you, unto eternal Life, to the worship of the Father in the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ our Lord.

What is it that you’ve been chasing after and trying to find, instead of this Gift of God in Christ? What are you trying to do and achieve and to get for yourself? And whose well do you run to, in the heat of the day, in order to fill up your bucket? How many men have you had? Or how many women? Or how do you compete and keep the score? What is it that you worship with your body and your soul, with the investment of your heart and the exercise of all your strength and spirit?

The Lord knows your heart and mind, your thoughts and words and actions. There are no secrets hidden from Him. He knows your sins and all that you have ever done or failed to do. He knows your guilt and shame, your doubts and fears, your ignorance and confusion. He knows your frailty and weaknesses. He knows that you have tried to quench your thirst with all the wrong liquids.

Yet, even knowing all of that, He has come to you in mercy and compassion, in tenderness and loving care, in order to bestow the Gift of His Spirit upon you, and to bring you to the Father in Himself, in perfect peace and genuine hope and real joy, which shall remain and not be used up.

So it is that, even in the desert, He pours out Living Waters to quench your thirst, to cleanse you and refresh you inside and out, in both body and soul — to shatter your rocks and wear down your mountains, but also to float your boat on the ocean waves and preserve your life in the rapids. Tribulation, therefore, does not shipwreck your body and life; it brings forth perseverance, and it builds up your faith, hope, and love in Christ Jesus, in whom you shall not be put to shame.

Consider how He does so, how it is that your Hope in Him is not disappointed, and that you are not put to shame or disgrace, but vindicated and exalted in His own crucified and risen Body.

He is the Rock on the Mountain of God; and He is the One who is struck by the Staff of Moses, by the command and judgment of the Law of the Lord. Thus do the cleansing Rivers of the Water and the Blood flow from His sacrificed Body — and times of refreshment in His Atonement.

By His Holy Cross and Passion, at about the Sixth Hour, He has grown weary and thirsted, in order to strengthen and preserve you in the one true faith, and so to provide you with His Sabbath Rest.

In the completion of His good work He gives to you His Holy Spirit through His Word of Holy Absolution, the free and full forgiveness of all your sins — those you know and regret, and those you don’t even realize or remember — He removes them all, and He remembers them no more.

As He is thus lifted up in death upon the Cross for your salvation, and as He thus returns to the Father in His Resurrection and Ascension, so does His own Holy Body become the true Temple of God. So the Mountain of God is now wherever He is with His preaching and catechesis, with His Body given and His Blood poured out: from Jerusalem to Samaria and the ends of the earth.

Here, then, is the Gift of God for you: Living Water from the Rock of Ages, the Spirit of the Father in the Word and Sacrament of Christ Jesus, His Son. And right here and now — by His grace, through faith in Him — you worship the Father in the Spirit and the Truth. Such is your Life and your Salvation forever.

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

To Eat and Drink in the Fellowship of God

It is for this purpose that God the Lord has brought you out of Egypt, for this purpose that He has written and revealed His Word to you — that you should have Life and Fellowship with Him, that you should eat and drink in His presence, in peace and without fear.  Indeed, this is your Life, both now and forever — to be and abide with God in harmony, in holy faith and holy love, in Christ.

In view of that divine Life to which He calls you, do all that He has commanded you.  Fear, love and trust in Him above all things.  Hear and heed His Word.  Call upon His holy Name.  Follow the Cloud of His Glory by day, His Pillar of Fire by night, and dwell with Him in His Tabernacle.

Eat and drink the Food that He provides — the Living Bread from heaven, the Living Water from the Rock — for these are your Meat and Drink indeed, even here and now in the wilderness.

So, also, love one another; for love is of God, and you and your brothers and sisters in Christ are His own people, the beloved sheep of His green pasture.  Love is the fulfillment of the whole Law; for love does no harm to the neighbor, but helps him and supports him in all things, at all times.

Do not yearn for the feasting and fashions of Egypt, from which the Lord has set you free.  Do not return to your sins, like a dog to its vomit, nor indulge in the lusts of your flesh, like a pig in its wallow.  Rather, stay the course and trust the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and spirit.

Do not grow restless in the desert, nor suppose that the Lord has forgotten you or failed to keep His promises.  Tremble in fear of the Lord, to be sure, for He is the Holy One before whom all creation bows in reverence.  But do not quail in terror and deathly despair, as though His desire were to destroy you.  It is not.  His desire is to save you and give you Life, because He loves you.

Repent of your false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice.  And do not attempt to fathom the heart and Spirit of God apart from His incarnate Son, Jesus the Christ, the beloved and well-pleasing One, the new and greater Joshua who serves you in love.  Not even Moses enters the glorious presence of the Lord God Almighty apart from this Joshua, Christ Jesus, the Word-made-Flesh who tabernacles among His own with grace, mercy, and peace.

The Law of God is good and wise.  It instructs you in the way that leads to Life in fellowship and harmony with the Holy Trinity.  Yet, apart from Christ Jesus it is a consuming Fire, which accuses and condemns you and threatens to destroy you utterly and forever.  It exposes the darkness in your heart and mind, the self-idolatry and lack of love in your thoughts, words, and deeds.  It uncovers the nakedness of your sin and the stench of death that already clings to the carcass of your flesh.

Apart from Christ Jesus, you are an animated corpse, merely biding your time on the way to your grave (and far worse) — separated from the Living God and devoid of His Life-giving Holy Spirit.

Who, then, shall save you from this body of death and the darkness and damnation of your sin?

It is Jesus, Jesus, only Jesus, the beloved Son of the Living God.  He is the Holy One of Israel.  He is the Christ, your Savior.  He is the Glory of God — in Person — in the Flesh.  He is the Sacrifice of Atonement, and His Blood is the New Covenant of peace and reconciliation with God.  You are anointed with the Holy Spirit unto Life, and you have Fellowship with the Father, only in Jesus.

So, listen to Him.  Hear what He says to you, take it to heart and believe it, and live by His Word.

Consider also the touch of His hand — His Body given for you — and be raised up from the death of doubt and fear to Life and Hope and Peace and Joy in His holy Flesh and precious Blood.

He has brought you through the waters out of Egypt.  He has baptized you in the Cloud and in the Sea of His own Exodus, His Cross and Resurrection.  And so shall He bring you through the Jordan into Canaan, the Promised Land, flowing with Milk and Honey and every Good Thing.

Not Moses the Lawgiver, but this new and greater Joshua does it, who is the fulfillment of the Law.  By the Gospel of His Cross and His forgiveness of your sins, He brings you in with Himself.

So shall He bring you at last up to the high and holy Mountain of God in and with Himself.  That is, not to Sinai, but to the true Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, His Holy Hill — not consumed with fire and brimstone, lightning and thunder and billowing smoke, but bathed in the beauty of His divine holiness and cloaked with the radiance of His righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.

The time is not yet.  But do not fret, do not be afraid, do not hide yourself away.  Do not withdraw from the world and curl up inside yourself.  Do not lie there frozen, nor sit there dumbfounded.

See, here is Jesus.  Stand up, and follow Him.  He is your Pillar of Cloud by day and Fire by night.

He leads you forward by the way of His Cross.  That is hard to understand, more difficult to bear, but it will not defeat you.  It is by the wood of His Cross that He parts the sea and opens the Rock and pours down Manna from heaven, by the wood of His Cross that He defeats all your enemies, sin, death, the devil, and hell, the world with its wickedness, and the treachery of your own flesh.

Cease your grumbling and complaining.  The Lord has heard the cries and lamentations of your heart, and He has already acted to save you by His mighty arm and His outstretched hands.

So, then, close your mouth altogether, and first of all open your ears to hear what Christ Jesus the Lord shall say to you; for you have nothing worth saying until He has spoken and you have listened.  Then open your mouth and be fed.  Eat from His hand, drink from His Cup.  And after He has filled you with Himself, confess what He has said, what He has done, what He has given.

Yes, you’re in the wilderness — and Jesus is right there with you all the way.  You’ll not starve, for He is feeding you.  Your shoes will not wear out, your feet will not blister or swell, so long as you follow Him.  Though an army encamp against you, do not be afraid.  The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is with you; the Lord God of Sabaoth is for you.

Lift up your eyes roundabout and see.  You are surrounded by the Glory of the Lord, already in His Ministry of the Gospel here within His Church on earth, and so also in that great Cloud of His witnesses, His saints, who have gone before you in the faith and live forever in His presence: Moses and Elijah, Aaron and his sons, Samuel and David, Peter, James, and John, Mary and Joseph, Simeon and Anna, Stephen and Paul, Timothy and Titus — a multitude of disciples from every nation, tribe, and tongue, which no man could ever count, but God Himself has numbered.

All of them have been transfigured by the Cross of Christ Jesus to share His Resurrection and His Life everlasting.  And you are likewise being transfigured by His Cross.  Not yet outwardly — for your mortal flesh is still wasting away — but inwardly you are being renewed, day by day, in hope and expectation of the Glory that shall be revealed in you, both body and soul, in the Resurrection.

Here and now the surety of that exceedingly great and precious Promise is being given to you — the Word of Christ Jesus in your ears, in your heart, and in your mouth (for He is not far away but near to you with His Word); and the Body and Blood of Christ Jesus, given and poured out for you, for the forgiveness of all your sins.  See, He stretches out His hand, not to harm you, but to save.

To eat and drink in His presence — to feast upon Him, who is the Lord your God in the Flesh — this is already a sweet Foretaste of the neverending Feast to come.  It is the endless Sabbath Rest that remains for the people of God.  It is your Life and your Salvation in Fellowship with God.

Arise, therefore, and do not fear, but live.

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

Your Righteousness Goes Before You

It is because of who you are in Christ Jesus that you now live as God has called you to live.  That is to live in the way of righteousness for which you have been created, redeemed, and sanctified by His Word and Holy Spirit; for the great salvation that your dear Lord Jesus has accomplished for you and for all people is not the abolishment of the Law, but its fulfillment.  Not only does He keep all of the Commandments of God, but in doing so He also teaches you to do the same.

His teaching and His righteousness are not like those of the scribes and Pharisees.  But it’s not that He dismisses the Law, which is the Word of God and the revelation of His good and acceptable Will.  Jesus does not trade legalism for anarchy, debauchery, or licentiousness, as though sin and disobedience were now “okay.”  He has not come to set you free from the righteousness of God, but to bring you into the glorious liberty and genuine righteousness of God’s beloved children.

The righteousness of which your Lord speaks — and for which He sets you free — is not some quantity of stuff to be purchased or sold, earned, or traded on the stock exchange.  Nor is it a self-contained interior aptitude or disposition within you.  There is no genuine righteousness that exists or happens in isolation from the Lord your God and the neighbors He sets alongside of you.

The righteousness of Christ Jesus is the right relationship of sonship with His God and Father in heaven.  It is a relationship of faith and love, that is, to fear, love, and trust in God above all things, and, for His sake, to love your neighbor as yourself.  Such living and loving proceed from within the relationship of sonship.  Because you are a son of God in Christ by His grace, so do you live as a son of God by faith in Christ Jesus, sanctifying His Name in your words and actions.

This is the righteousness that the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished and fulfilled for you and for all people — from His Baptism to His Cross and Passion, and in His Resurrection from the dead, even forevermore.  His dying and His rising are the way and the means whereby you enter the Kingdom of heaven, and whereby you now also live with Him in His Kingdom in righteousness.

That means dying to yourself and your own self-righteousness, and rising to newness of life in Christ Jesus.  And that is to speak of repentance and faith in the forgiveness of sins, which is not a mental exercise or a do-it-yourself program; it is to give attention to God’s Word, to make use of the Means of Grace, to remember and return to your Baptism by contrition and repentance, by confessing your sins and receiving Holy Absolution, and to receive and remember the Lord with thanksgiving in the Holy Communion of His holy Body and precious Blood.  And all of that is not the end, but the beginning — the daily new beginning — which emerges in a new way of life.

To affirm that your righteousness before God is by His grace alone in Christ Jesus — by faith in His Gospel — is not to say that it may be kept hidden away in your heart.  Indeed, it cannot be.  No, the righteousness of faith before God is manifest in love before your neighbor.  It is foolish to suppose that a Christian disciple of Jesus could be or live otherwise.

To refrain from love, to neglect your duties, to ignore or disobey the Commandments of God, is to deny and disavow your very identity as a child of God — like salt that is not salty, or water that is not wet.  It is to disown your Father and His Family, to run away from His Home, and to set yourself outside of His Kingdom and His righteousness in Christ Jesus.  It is to lose everything.

Where you have disregarded the Commandments of God, as though He had no authority over you; where you have hidden yourself away from your neighbors and their needs; where you have been concerned with lighting only your own path and progress, rather than enlightening your neighbor and glorifying your God and Father in Christ — I tell you now: Repent.  Return to the Lord your God, and live before Him by faith in Christ Jesus, to the praise and glory of His Holy Name.

If you are a Christian, live as a Christian.  As you are baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ — baptized into His Cross and Resurrection — die to yourself, to your sins, and to the passions of your fallen flesh, and rise with Him to live unto righteousness as a child of God.  And where you have not lived as a Christian, repent of your sins, return to the significance of your Baptism, and believe the Holy Gospel, that for Jesus’ sake you are fully forgiven and righteous before God.

It is by the mercies of God in Christ Jesus that you are His own dear child, named with His Name, anointed with His Spirit, a member of His household, and a royal citizen of His Kingdom.  That is who and what you are, by the grace of God, through faith in the Lord Jesus.  And the simple fact is that who you are and how you live belong together, hand in glove.  The righteousness of your life is an exercise and expression of the righteousness of your relationship with God in Jesus.

This is how and why it is that repentance and righteousness both result in new behavior, in keeping with the Commandments of God.  In Christ Jesus you are a new creation, a new person, a new man, woman, or child — not in isolation, not independent of other people, but within your relationship with God, and so also in a brand new relationship with all of your neighbors.  You think and speak and act differently, because, by the Word and Spirit of your God and Father, you have the heart and mind of Christ Jesus.  It is no longer you who live, but Christ lives in you.

This is truly an amazing new reality, which you could not accomplish or achieve for yourself.  It is given to you by the gracious adoption of God.  You do not storm the gates of heaven with your good works, but you do good works of faith and love because the one true God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, has called you to be His own, has brought you into His Home, and has established you within His Kingdom of grace.  Indeed, not only do you live with Him, but in Him; and He now lives and moves in you.

The Commandments of God, from the greatest to the least, describe this Life of God in human flesh.  It is the Life of His children, of His people, of His family, on earth as it is in heaven, because it is the Life of Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son, for you and for all.  It is the Life that is lived in His Kingdom, in which you now live by His grace through faith in His Gospel.  It is a Life that can be seen, which fills the whole House with the Light of Christ to the glory of the Father.

What shall your new Life in Christ look like?  Instead of using and manipulating your neighbor, set her free and serve her.  Instead of hoarding what you have and contriving to get more and more from your neighbor for yourself, share what you have, and use whatever God has given you to care for the people around you.  Instead of entertainment and personal pleasure, invest yourself in your relationships and in your actual callings, where God has stationed you.  Befriend and benefit your neighbor, rather than avoiding her.  Provide for both body and soul, with tangible gifts of money, food, and clothing, and with forgiveness for those who trespass against you, rather than holding grudges and harboring bitterness.  Be at peace with all people.  Let your gentleness and kindness be evident to all.  In the confidence of Christ Jesus, sacrifice yourself in order to serve others.

The great Mystery of His own Cross and Sacrifice is the culmination of His divine righteousness, the fulfillment of all the Law and the Prophets.  It is the righteousness of God Himself, acting entirely in Love, in accordance with His own divine nature and the very Being of the Holy Trinity.  It is the righteousness of perfect faith and love on the part of the Son for His Father — not hidden away within the inner Life of the Godhead, but manifested in His own Body on the Cross.

In this way He keeps the Commandments of God and brings them to completion, and He catechizes you to live in the same way: Not that you become the Savior of the world, but that you are crucified and raised with Jesus, and that you live now in righteousness and purity, in faith toward God, and in love for your neighbor.  His teaching and catechesis are by instruction and example, to be sure, but more than that, they are the living and active Word of His Cross, whereby He puts you to death and brings you to life in Himself.  His Cross, therefore, is not only your crucifixion, but also your Atonement and Redemption, your Reconciliation with God and neighbor, and your Righteousness forever in His bodily Resurrection from the dead.  You live, because He lives.

This same Lord Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, is your Righteousness and Sanctification, who goes before you through death into life; indeed, He goes with you all the way.  He has opened up the way for you to enter the Kingdom of heaven.  Not only that, but He has become the Way, by which you have access even now to the Holy of Holies, to the Mercy Seat, and to God the Father.  So do you live as a child of God by faith in His forgiveness, by His Word and Holy Spirit.  And the same Lord Jesus Christ, who goes before you into Glory, also guards and keeps you on your right and on your left, and as your rear guard, to preserve you steadfast in His Righteousness and Peace, unto the Resurrection of your body and the Life everlasting of your body and soul in Him.

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.

Sons of God the Father in Great David's Greater Son

What do you think about the Christ?  Whose Son is He?

You know and you confess from the Holy Scriptures that He is both David’s Son and David’s Lord, because He is the one true God, begotten of God the Father from all eternity, but He is also the true Man, conceived and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, of the house and lineage of David.

But now, then, let us also ask, Whose son are you?  Who is your father?

On the one hand, according to your flesh and blood, by nature, you are a child of Adam.  But on the other hand, as you are baptized into Christ Jesus, born again in the washing of the water with His Word and Spirit, you are a child of God by grace.  So, whose son are you?  Who is your father?

Fathers train and teach their children to embrace their values and to follow their way of life.  They train and teach their sons, in particular, to become men like themselves.  And sons, indeed, both resemble and emulate their fathers — whether biological or adopted — whether for good or ill.

So, too, as you have heard from the Lord this morning, you are to be holy, as the Lord your God and Father is holy.  You are to be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect.  As He has redeemed you, taken you to be His own, named you with His Name, and made you His child and heir, you are to live according to His Word, to love Him above all, and to love your neighbor as yourself.

The Ten Commandments, summarized in the two great commandments of love — the first and second tables of the Law — describe the life that God desires for you, the life that He would have you live with Him forever.  To live that life is to fear, love, and trust in Him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, above everything else.  And to live that life by faith in Him is to love your neighbor as the Lord loves you — to do no harm, but to serve and care for others in Christ Jesus.

Everything depends upon these two great commandments of God.  All the Law and the Prophets hinge on these Words of the Lord, which reveal His good and acceptable Will for life and love.

That Will of God is first of all a matter of the heart.  If the heart is not right, then nothing else will be right, nor can it be.  So it is first of all a matter of the heart, which is then also manifested in the flesh.  For as you believe and as you love in your heart, so do you speak and act and live by faith.

Where, then, do you see such perfect faith and holy love enfleshed?  Where are all the Law and all the Prophets fulfilled, completed, and perfected to the glory of our God and Father in heaven?  Where is the Man who is perfect and holy, as the Father is perfect and holy?

You do not see it or feel it or experience it in your own heart and life, nor in your flesh and blood.  In yourself, in your thoughts, words, and actions, you perceive nothing but sin and death, from which you can by no means set yourself free.  You do not live as God the Lord has commanded.

So, then, whose son are you?  Who is your father?  Is it the one true God or the devil himself?  What do your words and actions confess?  How do you live in relation to God and your neighbor?

But what about the Christ?  Whose Son is He?  He is, indeed, both David’s Son and David’s Lord, because He is both God and Man.  He is the Man after God’s own heart, because He has a heart of perfect faith and holy love.  And that holy and righteous heart of His beats for you within His own Body of human flesh and blood.  So does He also live and die for you and your salvation.

All of God’s commandments, from the greatest to the least, from the first to the last, the Lord Jesus Christ has kept perfectly.  Not only that, but He is the fulfillment of all the Law and the Prophets, accomplishing all things in faith toward His God Father, and in love for God and for all people.

He has kept and fulfilled the first and second table of the Law in both His heart and in His flesh.  He has done so on your behalf, in your place, and for your benefit.  In His perfect faith and faithfulness, in love for you and for His Father, He has gone even to His death upon the Cross.

That is where you behold the open heart of God the Father.  For it is there on the Cross that God has put all His enemies beneath the feet of Christ, His Son.  Sin, death, the devil, and hell are all crushed beneath the heel of the Woman’s Seed, who is bruised and dies that you might live.

But you are not His enemy, and He does not crush and destroy you.  You are the object of His love, the object of His fatherly divine goodness and mercy, the recipient of His peace and perfect rest.  You are Christ’s brother in the flesh, His neighbor, and, by His grace, a son of the Father in Him.  That is what His Incarnation, Cross, and Resurrection, and your Holy Baptism openly declare.

In His Resurrection from the dead, the Life and Holiness of God are forever established for you, and for all who are in Christ Jesus.  For whoever believes and is baptized shall be saved, having died and risen with the same Lord Jesus Christ, who is enthroned at the right hand of the Father.

In His bodily Resurrection from the dead you see the fulfillment of all the Law and the Prophets, the Love of God enfleshed, and the forgiveness of all your sins and the sins of the whole world.  You behold the death of death in His dying, and the Life everlasting of body and soul in His rising.

In the Resurrection, you see God the Father’s open declaration that here is the Son of His heart, the beloved and well-pleasing One.  What is more, this only-begotten Son of the Father has also become the first-begotten from the dead, and the first-born of many brethren.  For in His crucified and risen Body of flesh and blood like your own, you see the Father’s gracious adoption of sons.

This is your faith and life, now and forever.  Not merely in theory, not simply as an ideal, and not only as some future “pie-in-the sky-by-and-by,” but as a sure and certain reality, a bodily Truth in the Person of Christ the Crucified, who is risen from the dead and lives and reigns to all eternity.

It is to the Cross and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, great David’s greater Son, that the Ten Commandments and all the Law and the Prophets point you.  He is the one true God you are given to love and trust.  He is the neighbor you are to love, who has first loved you with His whole Self.

Whose Son is He?  Whose son are you?  By the grace of God, the answer is the same.  His God and Father is your God and Father.  For He gives Himself and His life to you, to have and to hold by faith in His forgiveness of all your sins.  And He gives Himself and His life into your flesh with His own holy Body and precious Blood.  With that, you are given everything, and so shall you live.

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

Rendering the Image and Likeness of God to Our Father

You have been created by the Holy Triune God — you are made in His Image and Likeness — to live in His Way, by His Word, according to His Will, in Spirit and in Truth.  You have been given life in order to live in harmony and peace with Him, by His grace, through faith in His Word.  And you are called to be like Him in relation to His creation — to live in love toward your neighbors, and to grant life to others, within the particular place where the Lord your God has stationed you.

As you thus live by His creative Word, by His divine grace and in His holy love, you are confident and content with who you are and what you have; you are compassionate and charitable toward those who live around you; and, because you are well cared for, you likewise care for others.

By such faith and love — for that is what your confidence and charity as a Christian are — you render your whole body and life as a sacrifice of thanksgiving to God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  You glorify His Holy Name — the very Name which He has given to you in your Baptism, inscribed upon your forehead and your heart, your body and soul, along with the Cross of Christ.

In offering such a sacrifice — not of propitiation for your sins, but a sacrifice of thanksgiving for God’s grace — you do not lose your life, but you find your entire life in the Lord your God.

As your life is in Him, so do you fear, love, and trust in Him above all things.  You listen to His Word, and you call upon His Name in peace and hope and joy.  You love your neighbor as yourself — cherishing your own spouse, and not coveting your neighbor’s wife or husband — not hurting your neighbor, not robbing him or bad-mouthing him, but helping and protecting him, speaking well of him, and serving him as you are able.  And you honor your parents and other authorities, all the way up to governors, kings, and Caesar himself.  You obey the laws of the land, you pay your taxes, and you pray for the powers that be, who are God’s ministers appointed for your good.

In this way, also — that is to say, in rendering to Caesar what God has given and assigned to Caesar — you render yourself, your body and life, to God the Lord, your Creator and Redeemer.  For all things are His, and it is by Him, and from Him, and for Him, and to Him, that you live.

There is no either-or between God and Caesar: You honor Caesar under God, until such a time when Caesar demands that you sin against God, and then you must obey God rather than Caesar at that point.  There is no dividing of your allegiance between God and man, but your obedience belongs entirely to God — also in submitting to those authorities whom He has placed over you.

Likewise, where He has given you authority over others, you are to use that authority in the fear, love, and trust of Him who is the Author of all things.  Therefore, children, obey your parents in the Lord.  And, parents, love and serve and care for your children, as the Lord so loves and serves and cares for you.  Feed and clothe and shelter them, sure, but, above all, teach them His Word.

Truth be told, all of this requires the crucifixion of the old Adam in you, who would rather have you live as a god unto yourself, not receiving all things and living by the grace of the one true God, but grasping and taking and striving and contesting for whatever you would call your own.

The Lord shows no partiality, but, speaking the truth in love, He puts to death all that sin and selfishness in your heart, mind, body, and soul.  He does so, not with any malice or hypocrisy, nor to trap and destroy you, but that you might know the Way of God, the way of life instead of death.

He brings you under His authority — instead of leaving you to your own self-governing autonomy — not to boss you around, but to bestow His Life upon you, and to glorify His Name in you.

You resent and rebel against this Word and Work and Authority of the Lord, the one true God, because you fear that you are being robbed.  It seems as though you are losing yourself, and your freedom, and everything that you consider yours and hold so dear and precious.  In the Cross you perceive only punishment and death, instead of forgiveness and life.  In repentance you feel only humility and grief, embarrassment and shame, instead of rescue, redemption, and righteousness.

It is not possible for you to see or understand the Cross and the authority of God, the Lord, until He has put you to death by that Cross and raised you to newness of life by the authority of Christ Jesus.  That is precisely what He has done for you in Holy Baptism; and that is what He continues to do for you, so faithfully and patiently throughout your life on earth, by the ongoing catechesis of His Word, and by the preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of your sins in His Name.

He crucifies you, puts you to death, and buries you with Christ, in order to give you new birth and make you His own dear child.  He calls for your allegiance in all things, that you should live under Him in His Kingdom, and that He Himself and all that He has should be yours by His grace.

Thus, you have and you live your life before God as a little child.  And “becoming an adult” is not about getting an independent life for yourself, but it is properly an exercise of wisdom, reason, and strength for others — to love and serve and give life to your neighbor in the Name of the Lord.

You have been — and you are — brought into this Way of Life with God, in Spirit and Truth, by the Way of Christ, by His Incarnation, by His Body and Life, His Flesh and Blood, His Faith and Love, His Cross and Resurrection.  For He is the Image and Likeness of God: True God and true Man, united in His one Person; the Son of the Father from all eternity, now conceived and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary; the Word of God made Flesh; the Bearer of the Spirit in His Body.

And as God the Father has glorified this incarnate Son, Christ Jesus, at His Baptism in the Jordan River, so has this same Son glorified His Father’s Name by His voluntary suffering — even unto death upon His Cross, whereon was written the Inscription, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.”

He there submitted Himself to the authority of Caesar — and to Caesar’s governor, Pontius Pilate — in order to render Himself, in holy faith and holy love, unto His God and Father in heaven.

In this way, by His sacrifice on the Cross, the one true God is perfectly revealed in this true Man, and harmony and peace between God and man are perfectly realized.  Faith and love are perfectly united, and real life is accomplished and established, for you and all people, in the midst of death.

Indeed, as Christ Jesus your Savior rendered Himself to God for you, so did God the Father raise this same Jesus from the dead for your justification, and reconcile the world to Himself in Him.

Therefore, not only Pontius Pilate, but God the Father Almighty has named this Jesus of Nazareth to be the King, not only of the Jews, but of the heavens and the earth and all of Creation.

As the true Man of God, the Lord Jesus uses His authority to love and to serve, to care for you, and to give you life.  As He has already paid the poll-tax for you and all people with His own Body and Life, the “denarius” He grants to you, the coin of His realm, is forgiveness.  Such forgiveness you receive freely from Him, and with such forgiveness you love and serve each other in peace.

That’s an economic policy that you and everyone can live with!

Do not be amazed by this great Salvation of your Lord, and do not turn away and leave Him.  For this dear Lord Jesus Christ speaks the Truth to you in Love.  He shows no favoritism; He has given Himself for all people, and so has the whole world been redeemed and reconciled to God in Him.

He is your Life, your Light, and your Salvation.  In Him you are safe and sound in body and soul.  In Him you are rendered to God in peace; not for death, but for life, both now and forevermore.

It is in that confidence and certainty that He tells you to give Caesar his due, that is, to honor your father and mother and other authorities, to serve and obey them, to love and cherish them.

And it is in the same confidence and certainty of Christ and His Gospel that the Lord your God calls you to live by faith — which is really to entrust your whole body and life unto God, your own dear Father in Christ Jesus — to fear, love, and trust in Him above all things.

So is it also by the sure compassion and certain charity of His own Cross — in the accomplished fact of His Resurrection from the dead — that He grants you this very faith and life, this love and trust in Him, by way of His free forgiveness of all your sins, and with His own Body and Blood.

Come here and see.  Consider whose likeness and inscription this bread and wine shall bear — not outwardly, but inwardly, hidden from your sight but not from your ears.  Listen to His Voice, as He has given me to speak in His Name, and so let me show you.  For the Son of God declares, and His Word makes it so:  “This is My Body, given for you.  This is My Blood, poured out for you.  Take, eat.  Drink of it, all of you, for the forgiveness of all your sins.”

These good Gifts Christ freely gives for you, because you are indeed God’s own dear child in Him.

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

Sharing the Marriage Feast of Christ Jesus by His Grace

On this Mountain — in the midst of this City, His new Jerusalem — the Lord of hosts, Yahweh Sabaoth, has prepared a Wedding Banquet, a great Feast to the glory of His Son and for His Bride.  Not with the flesh and blood of bulls or goats, oxen or sheep, but by the sacrifice of the same beloved and only-begotten Son, who loved His Bride and gave Himself for her, even unto death.

By His death He has swallowed up death forever.  And in His bodily Resurrection from the dead He has been glorified, so that His beloved Bride should also be saved and glorified in Him.

This is the glory of the Bridegroom, indeed, that He lays down His Body and Life for His Wife, and that He also feeds and nourishes her and glorifies her with His own sacred Flesh and Blood.

Whereas earthly husbands often hesitate and fail to give themselves so completely to and for their wives, for fear of losing themselves and being lost, the Son of God has spent Himself entirely for His Church, and He gives Himself to her without fail — trusting His God and Father at all times, who raises Him from the dead, and glorifies Him, and gives life both to Him and to His Bride.

This “love story” — this divine and holy Matrimony — is the Holy Gospel.  And by this Gospel the Lord calls and invites people from all nations to be His disciples, to be united with Him and joined to His Bride, the Church — to join the wedding party — and so to eat His Feast.  For it is to His disciples that our Lord Jesus Christ gives His Body to eat and pours out His Blood to drink.

So has He called you by His Word and Holy Spirit to be His disciple — and thus to feast both with Him and on Him in this Supper.  He calls you by the ongoing catechesis of His Word, the Law and the Gospel, unto repentance and faith in His forgiveness of your sins.  Just as He called you to Himself — and wed you to Himself — by the washing of the water with His Word in Holy Baptism.  For your Baptism is the fount and source, the heart and center, of your daily and lifelong repentance and the forgiveness of your sins, whereby you are crucified with Christ Jesus, raised up with Him to newness of life each day, and clothed in Him and His beautiful Righteousness.

These are your wedding clothes, by which alone you are worthily attired to enter the Wedding Hall and to eat the Wedding Feast.  Not by any goodness of your own, but entirely by the grace of God.

You are a guest of the King.  Do not despise or reject His hospitality.  Rather, just as the Father of the Bride adorns His daughter to be given to her Groom, and just as the Husband adorns His Wife with His own honor and glory, so are you attired and adorned by the Father and the Son.  You do not adorn yourself, but as you are dressed by and with Christ Jesus in your Holy Baptism, so are you truly worthy and well-prepared to eat and drink His Supper, His Body and His Blood, by His Word of forgiveness and by His gracious gift of the Holy Spirit through the Gospel.

To wear these wedding clothes — which you have received in Holy Baptism — is to live by this grace of God through faith in His Gospel, instead of relying on yourself and your own resources.

It is to pray in faith and confidence, to trust your own dear God and Father in Christ Jesus, and to receive from His hand whatever He provides, be it much or little — living under the Cross in the hope of the Resurrection — and thus to be content and satisfied in any and all circumstances.

To wear the wedding clothes provided for the Feast is then also to do good works of love within your vocation — to glorify the Bridegroom and the King through your behavior — and to serve His other guests, your neighbors, with your words and actions — as a kind of outward vesture.

Compare it to the way a woman honors her husband and glorifies his name — which he has given her and shares with her — by receiving and using whatever he provides to care for their home and family and to share hospitality with others.  For a woman who knows herself to be loved by her husband, is able to love her family, friends, and neighbors generously and well.  And a woman who is fed and clothed and sheltered by her husband, is likewise able to feed and clothe and shelter her own children and many others, also.  A woman who is thus adorned by her husband, need not adorn herself, but she is eager and able to adorn others with mercy and kindness and tender care.

So do you also honor and glorify your Royal Bridegroom with reverent humility, and with artistic beauty, with gracious conduct, gentle words, and godly piety.  As your God-given abilities permit, according to His all-sufficient providence, you praise and give thanks to Him, you confess His faithfulness and magnify His loving-kindness, and you declare yourself to be His very own.

None of this as though to clothe yourself; nor to justify yourself; nor to make a name for yourself; nor to make yourself worthy.  You live in the strength of Christ, your Savior, in the abundant love of your heavenly Bridegroom — in the peace of His Gospel of forgiveness — in the confidence that death has been defeated by His death, and that heaven is open to you in His Resurrection from the dead — in the sure and certain hope that you have Life freely and forever within His Body.

Those who live by faith in this Gospel are fully covered by the perfect Righteousness of Christ.  From head to toe they are beautiful with His royal beauty and glorious with His divine glory.

By striking contrast, as you have heard from His striking Parable this morning, those who reject His Wedding Banquet will be condemned; their homes and their cities, their businesses, their fields and cattle, all of it will be utterly destroyed, and they will be left with nothing but punishment.

And in a similar fashion, those who attempt to enter and to eat the Feast by their own merits and worthiness — that is to say, those who refuse to wear the wedding clothes provided by the royal Host, but presume to wear their own attire, whether it be a tux or a t-shirt and jeans — they will be cast out of the Kingdom forever into the darkness of eternal death and neverending despair.

These are sobering words and a serious warning against all unbelief, false belief, and self-idolatry.

Fear God, therefore.  But do not be afraid.  Rather, fear, love, and trust in Him as your Lord.

Where you have despised and rejected His Gospel, Repent.  Return to the significance of your Holy Baptism, and to the life of discipleship, and so receive the Word and Sacrament of Christ Jesus by way of His mercy and His promise.  Or, if you are not already baptized into Christ, submit to the catechesis of His Word, become His disciple by repentance and faith and by the New Birth of water and His Word, and so follow Him into His Feast by way of His Cross and Resurrection.

In either case, wherever you have relied upon your own righteousness, Repent.  Humble yourself before the Lord your God, in order to be stripped of your old wardrobe, and to be clothed instead with Christ and His Righteousness — by His grace through faith in His Gospel.  Hear and heed His gracious Word of Life, and rest yourself in His free and full forgiveness of all your sins.

Rest assured that you are not here by mistake.  The Lord your God, the King of heaven and earth and all that is in them, has called you by the Gospel of His Son, the Royal Bridegroom.  Indeed, He has called you and invited you, not only to join the party, but to be a member of the Bride.

He has removed the shadow and stink of death from your body and life by the sacrifice of Christ Jesus, by the shedding of His Blood for you, and by His glorious Resurrection from the dead.

He has cleansed and refreshed your body and soul, your flesh and blood, your heart, mind, and spirit, with the washing of the water with His Word and Holy Spirit in your Baptism.

And as you are His own dear child by virtue of that Sacrament of Holy Baptism, your dear God and Father in heaven pours out His Holy Spirit generously upon you through the Gospel, and thereby adorns you with all the Glory of Christ Himself, as a royal Bride made beautiful for her Husband.

Indeed, the Lord Himself who is your Bridegroom has forgiven all your sins — as He daily and richly forgives you still.  As often as you fall, He raises you back up.  He beholds no flaw or fault or failing in you, but He rejoices over you in His love, and He delights in you with all His heart.

Now in this Feast of His Life and Salvation, which He has prepared and made ready for you here — in this Wedding Hall and on this Mountain, which is His Church on earth as it is in heaven — He gives Himself to you most intimately.  He feeds you with His own Body of Flesh and Blood.  He nourishes and cares for you.  He provides for you, as a Husband for His Wife.  And He guards  and keeps your body and soul in Himself, in His Word and faith.  He gives you all good things here in His Supper, here within His own Royal House, unto the Resurrection and the Life everlasting.

Behold, this is your God, your Savior and your Lord, your Husband and your Head — who with the Father and His Life-giving Holy Spirit is one God forever.  And you are His dearly beloved.  Let us rejoice in Him, and rejoice in His Salvation, today, tomorrow, and always.

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

The Life of the Vineyard in Christ Jesus

This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.  In love He has planted a Vineyard, and in love He does everything for it.  He has planted and nourished His Church on earth, providing all that is needed and tending her with loving care.  He has established the strong tower of His Word in her midst; He waters her from His Font; and He sustains her in the true Vine, Jesus Christ.

What is more, in Holy Baptism the Lord has also planted you within His Vineyard; He has grafted you as a branch into that living and Life-giving true Vine.  He has made you a member of His one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.  And in the beloved Son He freely gives you all good things.

You are part of His Vineyard.  That is what it means for you to be a Christian, to be a disciple of Christ Jesus.  And as we have been hearing from Him in recent weeks, you also have been given responsibility for some portion of the Vineyard, to care for it and keep it by and with His Word.

Within your own place in life, according to your God-given calling and station, wherever the Lord your God has planted you, there you are to bring forth good grapes to the glory of His Holy Name.

The chief priests and the pharisees understood that Jesus was telling this Parable concerning them.  Understand that He has spoken this Parable and caused it to be written by His holy Apostle and Evangelist, in order to admonish and catechize you, also, and call you to repentance, faith, and life.

The Vinegrowers are the farmers to whom He has entrusted the stewardship of His Vineyard.  They are especially those who are to serve as the pastors and teachers of His Church, who are called and ordained to tend and keep it by the preaching and teaching of His Holy Word and the faithful administration of His Holy Sacraments.  So, there are such offices and stations in the Church.

But you also have your own analogous responsibilities in your own place.  Parents, for example, you are responsible for tending and keeping your children with the Word of God, both by bringing them to church (for Baptism and catechesis, for preaching and the Sacrament) and by praying and confessing the Word with them at home.  If you are a father or mother, caring for your children in this way is fundamental to your stewardship of the Lord’s Vineyard.

Similarly, wherever God has put you, whether you are married or not, whether you have children or not, whether you are working or retired, a student or a child at home, you have a responsibility to care for whatever portion of His Vineyard the Lord has entrusted to your stewardship.

Bear in mind at all times and in all places that it is ever and always His Vineyard.  Even your own body and life are not your own.  You are God’s creature.  You are His disciple.  You are His child.  So, then, listen to what He says to you.  That is always the first and foremost thing.  Listen to what He says to you.  Hear and heed His Word.  Believe what He promises and do what He commands.

He has not left you clueless as to what you should be doing.  Nor has He left you to determine for yourself what the good grapes of His Vineyard shall be.  He is the One who gives the growth, and He does so by His Word.  So does He guide and direct you by His holy and righteous Law, and by His Ten Commandments, in particular, as the Catechism has taught you to consider carefully.

The Lord has told you, first of all, to hold Him in your heart above all other gods, to fear, love, and trust in Him alone, no matter what comes your way.  To pray, praise, and give thanks to Him at all times and in all places, and to call upon His Name in every circumstance.  To rely on Him, look to Him, and expect good things from Him.  But how shall you ever do any of this, except by the preaching of His Word?  You are to hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.  And all of this the Lord commands, not for His benefit, but for yours, that you should have life in and with Him.

He does also command you concerning your neighbors in the world, that you should bear good fruits to the glory of His Holy Name by loving and serving and caring for those people whom the Lord your God has set alongside of you and all around you in this body and life.  You need not save the world, nor could you, but the Lord Himself does that.  Rather, love and serve those right next to you and under your care, by the ways and means the Lord has provided for this purpose.

Love your neighbor.  The whole Law is summed up in that one word.  For love does no harm to the neighbor, but helps and supports, protects, and provides for the neighbor where and when and as it is able.  So, do that.  Do what is good and right.  Live as the Lord Jesus Christ has lived and still lives for you.  Love your neighbor, look to his well-being, and forgive his sins against you.  Use your words, your resources, and your abilities to care for your neighbor and defend him.

It is through His Law that God directs you to bear good fruits within His Vineyard.  Do not do violence to His Law by disobeying it, or by refusing to listen to it.  Do not do violence to His Law by keeping it outwardly, with a grudging heart, only to avoid punishment or to earn some reward.  It is not for such a purpose that God has spoken His Law.  He would have your heart, your body and soul, and your love.  And He would have you love and serve your neighbor gladly.

Incredibly, marvelously, the Lord has done more than speak His Law to you.  He does more than guide and direct you in the way that you should go with His commands and prohibitions.  And not only is He patient and persistent with you, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love for you.  He also speaks to you by His own dear Son in the Flesh, not to condemn you, but to save you.

The Lord Jesus comes, the incarnate Son of God, not only to affirm but to fulfill the Law of God and all His promises.  He comes to accomplish and establish — once-and-for-all, in His own Body of Flesh and Blood, in holy faith and perfect love — all that His God and Father has commanded.

Christ Jesus comes to manifest the Kingdom of His God and Father on earth as it is in heaven, to enliven the Vineyard in Himself.  And all that He has done and accomplished by His own Life and Ministry, by His own Cross and Resurrection, He now obtains and accomplishes in you by His preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins — unto righteousness and life in His Name.

It is by and with His forgiveness of your sins that He obtains the fruits of righteousness in your body and life.  He does not come to lay a whip across your back.  He does not come to throw you out of His Vineyard and destroy you.  He comes in love, that He might bring forth fruits in you by His work, by His Word.  And, behold, He makes all things new.  In Him everything is possible.

Honor Him, serve and obey Him, love and cherish Him.  Respect Christ Jesus with the reverence that is due the very Son of God, the Lord of the Vineyard.  Do not do violence to Him by refusing to hear and heed His Word.  Do not harden your heart to His preaching and teaching, but open your ears to listen, and take to heart what He says and does and gives.  Do not do violence to the Son of God by taking His gifts of the Gospel for granted and all the while continuing in your sins.

Do not take His gifts for granted, but, rejoicing in those gifts, live as Christ Jesus lives in faith and love.  Do not do violence to Him by presuming upon Him, as though He were yours to seize and take for yourself — as though He were your servant and your slave to command and order about.

What madness it is to suppose that by seizing the Son of God and bending Him to your will you would somehow inherit the Kingdom of God.  What madness it is to covet what God has not given, as though He were holding out on you.  What madness to lay hands upon the Son of God, not in faith, but in greedy selfishness, in hostility and violence, in order to hurt and to kill Him — to throw Him out of His own Vineyard, even though it depends on Him for everything.

When the Lord God Almighty comes to His Vineyard, what do you suppose He should do to such spiteful and wretched creatures?  For do not imagine that He is powerless to intervene and to act.

It is utter madness.  Your sin is madness.  What you think is true is false.  What you think is wise is foolish.  What you call good is bad.  And yet, for all that, there is a greater “madness” at work: That God the Father should send His Son and hand Him over to the violence of sinful man, and that God the Son should take it on Himself, that He should voluntarily lay down His life in death on the Cross — that is the holy “madness” of God, the divine foolishness that is wiser than man.

It appears as though everything were lost, as though everything were coming to a tragic end.  As though the Vineyard of the Lord of Hosts were a disaster.  As though the Owner of the Vineyard has lost, not only His mind, but His honor and His reputation, His Vineyard, and His only Son.

But nothing is as it appears.  The very Stone rejected has become the Head of the corner.  The One who is slain, He is the One who is worthy to fulfill the Scriptures and to achieve the purposes of God.  He is not defeated by His death.  By it He has accomplished the very thing He came to do.

It is by His Cross that His Church is established and upheld.  He is the choice and fruitful Vine whom the Lord has planted — the “Bright Red Grape,” as the Prophet Isaiah puts it in the Hebrew.  He’s planted in the ground by His death, so that in His Resurrection the Vineyard should live and bear abundant fruit.  He has not come simply to instruct or admonish.  He has not come to punish, but to suffer punishment in your stead.  And in allowing Himself to be killed, He has done it all.

So it is that, in His Resurrection from the dead, the Vineyard is enlivened and abundantly fruitful.  And it shall certainly not be taken from Him.  But He gives it freely to disciples of all nations, to as many as He calls to Himself, who bear the good fruits of His Cross in their own lives by faith.

Christ the Crucified is the Cornerstone of His Church.  And His Cross is the life of the Vineyard.  So, if you would live, it is only by the Cross.  And you will not escape the Cross in any case.  By it you will be broken, says the Lord.  Indeed, you must be broken.  Your will, your pride, the lust in your heart, your sinful intentions, all of it must be broken.  You must be broken.  But what then?

Shall you be scattered like the dust — or gathered unto God in the Resurrection of Christ Jesus?

Take heart, dear child of God, disciple of Christ Jesus.  It is not you but the devil who is crushed beneath the heal of the Crucified One.  He has not come to get vengeance against you.  Remember that He has come in love to take you as His very own.  He has broken you in order to bind you up and to heal you within His own wounds, to give you His own Life in both your body and your soul.  You are united with Him in His Cross and suffering, that you should also share in the power of His Resurrection — that you should live in Him.  The Cross is not your defeat any more than it was His.  The Cross is your Life and your Salvation in His crucified and risen Body of flesh and blood.

By your Baptism into His Cross and Resurrection you have been grafted into this one true Vine.  Live and abide in Him by continuing to hear and receive His good gifts in the Divine Liturgy of His Gospel, in the Ministry of His Word and Sacraments.  Thus does He live and abide in you.

And it is by His Fruits that He bears good fruits in you after His own kind.  Fruits of repentance in the shape of His Cross and Resurrection.  Fruits of repentance in the shape of Holy Baptism, the dying and rising of the Font.  Fruits of faith and love — faith toward God and fervent love toward one another.  Fruits of righteousness and justice.  Fruits of mercy, compassion, and forgiveness.

Only hear and heed His Word to you.  Instead of striving to seize what has not been given to you, open your hands and receive the abundant good gifts of His grace.  He’s not holding out on you.  Indeed, He has a cornucopia of gifts, which He lavishly pours out into your ears, your hands, and your mouth.  He has more to give than you can receive — but even in the receiving He helps you.

There is nothing lacking in Christ Jesus.  Everything else is rubbish, and all of it comes to an end.  But there is nothing lacking in Him.  And you lack nothing if you are His, as He is yours forever.

Eat the good Fruits of this true and holy Vine.  The Vineyard Owner gives it to you freely.  Drink the Blood of this Bright Red Grape.  As He pours Himself out for you — as He pours Himself out into you — so does He also bear and bring forth good fruits in you at the proper times and seasons.

This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.

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