210328 Homeschool Christ's Passion Service

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Service Program

210328 Sermon on John 12:12-33 (Palm Sunday) March 28, 2021

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Our Gospel reading today has two parts. The first part deals with the events that we are familiar with concerning Palm Sunday. Jesus was entering into Jerusalem to celebrate the upcoming festival of Passover that was happening that week. There were more people than usual in Jerusalem because they were doing the same thing that Jesus and his disciples were doing. Interest in Jesus was quite keen because of what he had done just days before. He had raised Mary and Martha’s brother, Lazarus, from the dead, even though he had been dead for four days. This is why the crowd is large, and why they are praying to Jesus: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the Name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!”

The second part of our reading tells us some other things that happened that day. These are lesser known happenings connected with Palm Sunday. It is this second part of the Gospel reading that I’d like to focus on today.

The second part is different from the first part. In the first part of the reading there is a joyous, spontaneous parade (which are always the best kind of parades). In this second part the topic is quite different. Jesus speaks about his soul being troubled, about hating one’s life, about death, about being lifted up on the cross. Here on Palm Sunday, even while the crowd was singing and smiling, Jesus came to understand that his hour had come. How did that happen?

John says that there were some Greeks there who came to Jesus’s disciples. They said, “We want to see Jesus.” So the disciples went to Jesus and told him about it. Immediately Jesus said, “The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” This is what made Jesus understand that his death was quickly approaching: Some Greeks came to see him.

So why should this make such an impact? For us Christians it is easy to forget that salvation is really a Jewish, an Israelite prerogative. The people whom God chose out of all the nations of the earth were the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Greek people are from an entirely different branch of the human race. They aren’t even distantly related to Abraham, like some of the other people in the Middle East were.

When Jesus came he did not disrupt or overturn this basic structure. He was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. When he sent his disciples out, they visited their fellow Jews. Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well that salvation comes from the Jews.

Now, as it turns out, there were non-Jews who came to believe in Jesus. The Samaritan woman believes in him. Then her whole village came to believe in him. There is one outstanding male example of faith and one outstanding female example of faith. Both of them are non-Jewish. The man who is said to have great faith is a Roman Centurion. The woman who is said to have great faith is the Canaanite woman, whom we heard about four weeks ago.

On the other hand, while there certainly were Jews who believed in Jesus, most did not. After his first sermon in his hometown of Nazareth the men of the synagogue want to throw him off a cliff. The Jewish leaders in Jerusalem are especially hostile to him. They believe that he is a dangerous heretic who is leading the people astray.

So already before Palm Sunday you see that the Jews, the people who should have received Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, were resisting him. These are the nobles of the human race, who, if anybody has a claim to the King’s Son’s wedding banquet, they do. But they are unwilling to come. On the other hand, people who don’t belong at the wedding banquet—the non-Jews—are being compelled to come in.

This is not by accident. It is all there in the Old Testament. God threatens to punish all who break his commandments, and the worst punishment that God can inflict upon a person is hardness of heart. When his people, who have had his promises and commandments, who have been visited by him and know his will, do not repent, then God will harden their hearts and move on. Thus in many geographical areas where in the Word of God was richly and powerfully proclaimed previously in history, there is now no Word of God. Instead people go after other gods, which actually are demons. So God warned his people in the Old Testament that he would not put up with their disobedience forever.

The Old Testament also has many prophesies about how the non-Jews, the Gentiles, will come streaming into Zion, the city of God, the city of salvation, in the end times. This is what is especially relevant to what we heard today. This seems to trigger Jesus’s understanding of the end coming. The Gentiles are starting to trickle in with this group of Greeks who are seeking him. Soon that will turn into a flood. And so it is that even today the number of Gentiles who believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Savior of the world, is vastly larger than the number of Jews who believe that Jesus is the Christ.

But this is not a popularity contest. Neither is it a matter of people’s picking and choosing—as though it were up to the Jews or the Gentiles to choose wisely, and one failed while the other succeeded. Rather it is a matter of God’s grace. At the end of our reading Jesus says, “When I am lifted up on the cross, I will draw all people to myself.” It was Jesus’s own death that drew in and continues to draw in the Gentiles, as the Old Testament prophets foresaw. The Gentiles were once far off, alienated from God, stupidly worshipping demons because they had no other choice. Now they have been brought near by the blood of Christ that cleanses them from sin. So when a group of Greeks came, Jesus knew that they would have to be cleansed. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to die, so that we might live.

Notice how Jesus speaks about his death. He speaks of it as being glorious. He says, “Now the time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” Later he says, “Father, glorify your name!” And the Father says, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”

This is a linking up of two things that we wouldn’t otherwise bring together: glory and death—at least not a death like Jesus’s death. Sometimes it can be glorious to die: The soldier dying for his comrades, the police officer dying in the line of duty. But Jesus’s death was not like that. He died alone—all his disciples forsook him. He died as a heretic and a criminal, having been found guilty by both the Sanhedrin and by Pontius Pilate. He died as a fool. His enemies beat him and spit on him. The soldiers mocked him. All of this is what Jesus is referring to when he says, “Now the time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” Jesus was glorified when he was poor, weak, alone, a fool, a criminal, a curse. What is so glorious about that, you might ask?

Jesus tells us in our reading when he says, “Now is the judgment of this world. Now the ruler of this world will be thrown out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

This world is judged. Fathers who abandon their children are judged. Mothers who smother their children are judged. Children who curse their parents are judged. Adulterers who break up marriages are judged. Fornicators who blaspheme the act of procreation are judged. Corrupt politicians are judged. Swindlers, also known as businessmen, as judged. Kidnappers who defile and murder children are judged. People who sell sex and violence are judged. Scientists who experiment on the disabled and poor are judged. Those who live for just one more drink are judged. Those who masturbate to pornography are judged.

We live an incredibly disordered existence. And it comes right down into our homes and families. It haunts our daily life. The wounds and after-effects and pollution linger on and on and only serve to create more filth and dread and sadness. And we all have done our own part in contributing to it. Praise God that this world is judged! It is in sore need of judgment.

And the ruler of this world is judged. The devil is judged. The one who holds the purse strings. The one who opens the doors to advancement and shuts the doors to advancement. The one who keeps people blind to the true God and his love by filling them with lies about what life is really about. The one who teaches children that fame and fortune is the real name of the game. The one who tempts and irritates and saddens and lies and murders and brings into despair. Praise God that this one is judged, and, furthermore, thrown out! Good riddance you great bewitcher of souls!

There has never been glory like Jesus’s. There has never been glory like this, where the evil poison is drawn out of our wounds and out of our existence. It is judged, condemned, and done away with. And the way that it is done is by Jesus being lifted up on the cross. The way that he does away with all the evil is by absorbing it all into himself and bearing God’s righteous wrath against it, fulfilling the immutable Law of God.

But there is yet one more dimension to how the Son of God is glorious. The world is judged. The ruler of this world is judged and thrown out. Finally Jesus says, “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.”

What does this mean, “I will draw all people to myself?” Well, what does Jesus do? In contrast to all the evil things that we spoke about, Jesus is the opposite. He is good. He is kind. He is patient. He forgives. He makes people righteous, setting them on the right path, making them wholesome and loving. He takes away the power of past sins to infiltrate and continue to pervert our lives. He introduces us to a new childhood—better and more healthy than the one we had—where he is our brother, and God is our Father, and Mary is our mother. Perhaps we could sum up all these things that happen when Jesus draws us to himself by the word “peace.”

Jesus says to his disciples on the night when he was betrayed: “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”

The world’s peace, in contrast to Jesus’s peace, is where everything is going your way. You’re on your way to being rich and famous. You have good health. Everybody thinks you’re a jolly good fellow. You’re on the top of the heap, or at least on your way to the top.

Jesus’s peace is his complete self, his entire divine life, everything he is and everything he has he shares in common with us. Mercy and truth and met together. Righteousness and peace have kissed each other. The divine life that Jesus shares is more than enough for anyone, and if you find that it is not enough, you can ask him for some more and he will give it to you.

Together with this peace, Jesus also wishes to glorify you. He would have you be glorious, just as he is glorious. That is to say, he wishes to bless us by making us fall into the ground like a grain of wheat and die, thereby producing much fruit of love. We suffer because we testify to the world that its works are evil. We suffer as we absorb the insults, the pain, the sin. Though we are reviled, we do not revile in return. Thus we appear poor, weak, alone, a fool, a criminal, a curse. These things are not shameful. They are the most beautiful things there are, because they are a reflection and reverberation of the most beautiful one there ever was.  

These glorious ones are easy to miss. They don’t promote themselves. They do not lift up their voice in the street. But quietly the Holy Spirit is at work in their lives. They take up their station in life and love those whom God has put in their life. They follow Jesus.

This is a good life. It is the life of divine love. It is open to all who want it, regardless of past sins—regardless of the sins you are ashamed of, the sins of last week, or the sins of last night. Jesus draws all people to himself. The sin that has polluted your life is cleaned up with Jesus’s holy, precious blood. Jesus says, “Come unto me all you who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”

210324 Why infants should be baptized

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This Lent season we have considered baptism by answering the fundamental questions of our catechism: What is baptism? What benefits does baptism give? How can water do such great things? and What does such baptizing with water indicate? Here, at the end of our series, we will take up a topic that is important, especially where we live, because churches are divided on the question of whether infants should be baptized.

Lutherans, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and perhaps a couple other smaller confessions have their babies baptized. The great many church bodies that originated in Great Britain, such as Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians; as well as others such as the Evangelicals, the Hutterites, the Amish, and many others, either do not baptize their babies at all, or they mean something different than we do when they baptize. Baptism is said to be a mere sign or a kind of dedication, or initiation into the community. It is not seen as the bestowal of forgiveness, life, and salvation.

So first, let me say a little something about controversies in general. Whenever an article of faith becomes controversial, Christians talk and write about it. By God’s grace this can open up new understanding for us. It also can reveal those who are not genuine Christians so that they can be marked and avoided. Controversies can be good, therefore, by increasing knowledge and understanding on the one hand, and by purifying the church of false teaching on the other.

However, controversies also can have many negative effects. This is why the apostle Paul warns Christians to avoid useless controversies. Controversies can draw out all the evils of the old Adam—pride, anger, triumphalism, party spirit, and so on. Plus, as the controversy goes on, and every Tom, Dick, and Harry writes a book about it, so that the material to be learned grows and grows. It can get to the point where there is so much stuff that has been said, and everybody wants to put their little twist on it, that we might just want to give up. While this is an understandable reaction, it is not good.

Remember what I’ve told you several times before: God’s revelation to us is clear and simple. He says things like: Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Go baptize in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Baptism saves you. It is not God’s truth that is complicated. The devil’s lies are complicated. He always basically says what he said at the beginning: “Did God really say…?” Then, when the lies are complicated and sophisticated, it can take a lot of effort to get things straight again.

Think of a ball of yarn. Originally it is wound in such a way where it comes off simply and easily. But if someone comes and makes hay with it so that it gets all tangled, then it can be quite a task to sort that stuff out again. Of course it’s easier to just chuck the whole skein of yarn and buy a new one. The devil would like us to do that with God’s revelation too. He’d like us to believe that it is too complicated and full of contradictions. Might as well chuck it and believe some other creed. This inevitably means, though, that you end up believing in some other god instead of bearing the cross of the true God.

With infant baptism we are dealing with something that has been tangled over the past 500 years. There is a lot that we could talk about. We certainly won’t deal with even a tiny fraction of the stuff that has been written about it. What I want to try to do is apply the most fundamental teachings of the bible to the situation. The argument goes like this: Baptism saves. Babies need to be saved. Therefore babies should be baptized. Let me say that again: Baptism saves. Babies need to be saved. Therefore babies should be baptized.

I do not intent to spend much time at all on the first part of the argument, that baptism saves. We’ve been looking at that for four weeks. I hope it is clear to you that baptism is not just plain water, but a washing of rebirth and renewal in the Holy Spirit. I hope that you are convinced by the apostle Peter that baptism is like the ark that saved Noah.

Let’s spend more time on the second part of the argument, that babies need to be saved. A lot of folks have a hard time with this. Babies are cute. They don’t seem to have the same calculating power and capacity for evil that adults do. We don’t hold them responsible for the things that they do, and rightly so. There’s plenty of time for instruction and discipline later on in their lives. Since we don’t hold them responsible for their actions, it doesn’t seem like God should hold them responsible either.

But we should not come at these things with our own feelings and assumptions. We should understand these things according to God’s Word. God’s Word tells us that Adam and Eve fell into sin and that this changed them and all their descendants. They became sold under sin. All people were born with what we call the “old Adam.” That is what we inherited from him just as surely as we might inherit our eye color or hair color from our parents. David says in the psalm that we recited tonight, “I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me.” All people are under the power of the devil until they are born again as children of God through baptism.

God’s Word also tells us God’s Law. It is by the keeping of God’s Law that a person is righteous. It is by the breaking of God’s Law that we know that we are sinners. Let’s take the summary of that Law and apply it to little children. Jesus summarizes the Law when he says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Does an infant, even with its limited capacities, love the Lord its God with its whole being? Does an infant love others? What I found with our baby is that she was pretty clever at getting what she wanted, even if it meant that Mom had to be woken up in the middle of the night.

But it can be kind of hard to tell this kind of thing with a baby since its ability to communicate isn’t very sophisticated yet. How about with toddlers? Do they love the Lord their God with their whole being? Do they love others as themselves? I’m sure we’re all aware of the common reaction that a toddler might have to baby sister or baby brother showing up. They’ve been known to try to shove the baby off of Mom’s lap.

So since little children are declared to be sinners by God’s Word, and since little children have not and cannot keep God’s Law, it is obvious that they are sinners who need to be saved. Baptism saves. Babies need to be saved. Therefore babies should be baptized. This is a solid, fundamental, spiritual truth that cannot be denied. It is as fundamental and solid spiritually speaking as the many needs that have to be met physically. We could do similar arguments in the physical realm: Food nourishes. Babies need to be nourished. Therefore babies should be fed. Clothes provide warmth. Babies need to be kept warm. Therefore babies should be clothed.

We do not wait for babies to say please or thank you. If they could talk, they probably would. They might very well say, “Pardon me. Sorry to bother you, but could you provide me with a bit of milk?” So also, spiritually speaking, having been informed by God’s Word about their condition, they might very well confess that they were born in sin, born in bondage to Satan with all his works and all his ways. But they would like to believe in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and be made into children of God.

Put yourself in the baby’s shoes. When you are hungry, don’t you like being fed? When you are cold, don’t you like being made warm? When you are burdened with sin don’t you want to be forgiven? Don’t you want to know that God has made you his beloved child and promised you his Holy Spirit? Why would you deny that, then, to a child? What would you say of someone who didn’t feed or clothe their child? Aren’t they abusing that child? So isn’t it spiritual child abuse to deny eternal salvation to them by withholding the gift of baptism? I know that claim upsets people. Maybe we’d all like to pretend that this is no big deal. It makes our lives easier that way. But perhaps the accusation hurts because it’s the accusation that’s true that cuts the deepest.

Of course I understand that people do not do this intentionally. A person would have to be the devil himself to knowingly withhold baptism, knowing that it gives salvation to someone who needs to be saved. People don’t baptize their children because they do not believe, or they have been falsely taught. But then it is our responsibility to help them see clearly.

Again, wouldn’t we do this with physical things? If some poor soul thought that a baby didn’t need milk, wouldn’t we tell them otherwise? We aren’t playing games here. This is not a hobby. Without being born again, no one can see the kingdom of God for the simple reason that they do not belong there and would not even be happy there. According to our first birth, our birth from Adam, we belong with the devil. But God, in his mercy, planned for our salvation before the foundation of the world. He intended to redeem us by the holy, precious, innocent suffering and death of his only begotten Son. He intended us to receive this and be made his disciples by being baptized according to Jesus’s own word at the end of Matthew’s Gospel.

Nowhere, not in a single, solitary passage, does God say that we should not baptize babies. If anything, the opposite is very strongly implied. You heard tonight how Jesus became angry (something that happens only a couple times in the Gospels) when the disciples were trying to keep the kids away. He rebuked them sharply. Children are loved by Jesus and he saves them. “Do not hinder the little children coming to him,” he says. Jesus says, “Baptize all nations.” Surely, babies are included in nations, aren’t they? In our first reading, Peter’s great sermon at Pentecost, he tells the Jews that this salvation is for them and for their children. After he preached, 3,000 people were baptized into Christ.

The basis for baptizing infants is not just one obscure passage in a hidden book. It is front and center and at the heart of the Christian Gospel. Babies are human beings just like us. The same logic that applies to us also applies to them. Their hope of salvation is the same as ours. They, together with us, by the power of the Holy Spirit, believe that baptism saves. They know that they need to be saved (just as they, in some way, know that they need food and clothing). Therefore, they thank God that they were baptized in their childlike way. As Jesus says, “Out of the mouths of babes and nursing infants the Lord has ordained praise.”

And if someone hasn’t been baptized, then let us sing baptism’s praises. Do not mothers sometimes do this with some new food or clothing that they’ve come across? They talk to other moms about why it’s good. Let’s do the same thing with baptism, which meets our great spiritual need.

210321 Sermon on Genesis 22:1-14 (Lent 5) March 21, 2021

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I’d like to consider our Old Testament reading today about Abraham and Isaac from two perspectives. First, I’d like to consider how an unbeliever might regard what is going on. Then I’d like to consider how a believer understands what is going on. By looking at this event from these two different perspectives, I hope that you can see the radical difference faith makes for how a person understands God and his actions.

So let’s begin with the unbeliever’s perspective of Genesis 22. In a way, Genesis 22 is one of the unbeliever’s favorite parts of the Bible. The unbeliever wants to believe that the bible is irrational, unreliable, full of tales and myths, and even those tales and myths are often more disturbing than edifying. Thus it is below the dignity of any sane, rational person to believe what the Bible says. Genesis 22 seems to offer support for such a view.

After all, what kind of a God says to anyone, much less to one of his faithful followers, that he should sacrifice his son, his only son, whom he loves? It is a monstrous thought. Any parent can tell you the utter repugnance they have toward such a thing. A parent would much rather sacrifice their own self, and spare the child, rather than put any child whom they love to death. So the idea of God demanding such a hateful thing is the kind of stuff that makes people say, “If God is like that, then I don’t want to have anything to do with him.” Thus we can see that the God of Genesis 22 is hateful to the unbeliever.

Abraham, the believer, is also hateful to the unbeliever. What kind of deranged fanatic is willing to go through with something like this? If Abraham is willing to do this, then what is he not willing to do for his God? Abraham seems to be the type of person that makes people say that organized religion is bad, that all kinds of atrocities have been done in the name of religion.

So that’s what an unbeliever thinks of this God and Abraham his servant. Wwhat kind of God and what kind of believer would be more acceptable to the unbeliever? That’s actually pretty easy to answer. All you have to do is consider the popular beliefs all around us. Unbelievers are pretty content with how the average person thinks about God and how people should be pious.

Let’s get a little more specific. Unbelievers want a God who is very detached and afar off. He’s out there somewhere, but he doesn’t say much and he doesn’t do much. If anything he is just happy to watch people have a good time on this earth. He doesn’t make any specific serious commands. He might have some suggestions, but it’s always up to the person whether or not he or she would like agree with him. He certainly, never ever, says anything weird like: “Abraham, sacrifice your son, your only son, whom you love.”

God, to an unbeliever’s mind, always has to present himself in such a way where everybody wants to believe in him. If God should happen to break that rule, like he does here, then we can just ignore that. Cut it out of the Sunday School curriculum. This kind of thing happens all the time, even with good publishing houses, like our Concordia Publishing House. They mean well. They do not want to scandalize anybody with the gory or seedy details. But this editing only plays into the unbelieving mind we all have. All people, to a greater or lesser extent, believe they have the right to believe in God only to the extent that we want to. If God does something we don’t like, then we can safely ignore that.

So what this means is that a person can pledge allegiance to God, but despise whatever nasty things the Bible says that he has done. So what is important for them is that the idea of God and the idea of faith are embraced. That is considered sufficient. These things should never get too specific. If these things get too specific, then it might cramp our style. And, after all, what is really important about life is that we always have a good time.

In order to always have a good time, one’s religion should never be taken too seriously. It should be seen as kind of a hobby, or how a person might be a member of a public service organization like the Lion’s Club or the Kiwanis. Just as God should always act in such a way where everybody always wants to believe in him, so also religion, according to the unbeliever, must always be something that a person wants to participate in. If that rule should be broken, then a person is fully justified in walking away from something like that. Thus, with Abraham, surely he didn’t want to participate in that stressful, terrifying event. He should have just quit, and practiced his own religion at home.

I think you already know that this God and this religion—which is the most widely practiced religion among us—is terribly boring. It’s as boring as a Lion’s Club meeting. But it does have one redeeming feature that is so powerful that our people can’t help but embrace it: It is as tame as a kitten. The devil gets banished. Hell is written out of existence. God always agrees with you. So you are free to pursue all your life goals to your heart’s content. Then, after living your long, happy life, you can have your life flash before your eyes before you die. You can lap up the sweet sentimentality to the last drop. Then we, who are left behind after your passing, can get together and celebrate your life! This is the Gospel, not according to St. Matthew or St. Mark; it is the Gospel according to Saint Disney.

There is an obvious contrast between popular religion and what God has revealed to us in the Bible. Popular religion is super, duper safe. The Bible teaches that life is not safe. The devil prowls around like a lion. The plague prowls in the darkness, and the pestilence destroys at noon. Finally all will be brought before a Holy God whose holiness is such that sinners can’t help but be terrified before him.

Consider even the very heart of our faith: Jesus’s resurrection from the dead. On that Easter morning the women ran from the tomb with shivers racing up and down their spines. They said nothing to anyone because they were afraid. So if being as tame as a kitten is the sign of a good religion, then Christianity gets a big fat F.

But who made the rule that religion has to be as tame as a kitten? I think we are so used to that idea—we’re so thoroughly trained in that idea—that we can’t hardly see straight when it comes to Genesis 22. We’re so busy being embarrassed about God, or trying to make excuses for God, that we don’t even see what is going on. So let’s look at Genesis 22 from a believer’s perspective.

For that I’d like to quote rather extensively from the New Testament book of Hebrews. What we will see is that Genesis 22 is not an isolated event for Abraham. It wasn’t as though this were Abraham’s only interaction with God. God had already dealt with Abraham. This is the continuation of a pattern. Hebrews chapter 11 says:

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go to a place that he was going to receive as an inheritance, and he left without knowing where he was going.

By faith he lived as a stranger in the Promised Land, as if it did not belong to him, dwelling in tents along with Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

By faith Abraham also received the ability to conceive children, even though Sarah herself was barren and he was past the normal age, because he considered him faithful who made the promise. And so from one man (and he as good as dead), descendants were born as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand along the seashore.

And now we come to Genesis 22:

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered Isaac. This man, who received the promises, was ready to offer his only son, about whom it was said, “Through Isaac your offspring will be traced.” He reasoned that God also had the ability to raise him from the dead, and, in a figurative sense, Abraham did receive him back from the dead.

As the writer of Hebrews sketches Abraham’s life for us, we can see that it is pretty much the opposite of the unbeliever’s religion. Instead of God being distant, he is incredibly near for Abraham. Instead of God’s specific words being neither here nor there and completely ignorable, God’s promises were incredibly important to Abraham, even before they came to fulfillment, and even when it didn’t look like they would be fulfilled. Instead of living for this life and dining on the sentimentality of how wonderful it all is, Abraham set his eyes on a much more distant horizon. He was but a stranger here. Heaven was his home. He was looking for his permanent dwelling in the temple not made with human hands where he would dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Thus the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come was not only kept in mind, it was at the center of his vision.

I’m sure you caught the refrain in that quotation from Hebrews: “By faith.” By faith he left behind his family and pushed on to a greater inheritance. By faith he lived in tents. By faith he conceived a child even though he and Sarah were too old to have children. By faith he believed that God could raise Isaac from the dead, if need be. By faith Abraham keeps his eyes on God. His relationship with God is not a hobby. He’s not looking for an earthly quality of life. He is looking for God to fulfill his promises. Blessed is the one who is looking for God to fulfill his promises, for such a one will not be disappointed.

God will keep his promise of our heavenly inheritance through Jesus Christ our Savior. But God already provides comfort and relief in this life for those he loves. Here, with Abraham, God had mercy. He stayed Abraham’s hand and showed him a ram caught in a thicket. The ram was sacrificed instead of Isaac. Notice the name that Abraham gives to that place. He called it, “The Lord will provide.” Let that be your own motto. In the midst of sadness and suffering: “The Lord will provide.”  In the valley of the shadow of death: “The Lord will provide.” The God of all comfort comforts us in our afflictions.

I hope that I have made it clearer to you on how differently unbelievers and believers regard Genesis 22. In a way they both find what they are looking for. Unbelievers are looking justification for why they despise and ignore their Creator. They want to feel good about how they have their priorities straight, namely, faith, family, fun. Here it seems that they have an ironclad case against God. He is a monster, and anyone who believes in him is a monster too.

Believers look to the same event and see a fellow pilgrim. Abraham is making his way to that city that is without a human architect or builder. We are making our way to that city too. God lays afflictions upon Abraham. God lays afflictions on us. God comforts and sustains Abraham so that he is not tested beyond what he can bear. God promises the same for us.

Plus, when it comes to how believers understand Genesis 22, there is one thing we’ve left out. And, in fact, this might be the most important thing: believers find a wonderful foreshadowing of our redemption in the ram who was slain in Isaac’s place.

One day our heavenly Father would sacrifice the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. On this occasion the Father’s hand would not be stayed, but he would put to death his Son, his only Son, whom he loved. Atonement was made. God’s deadly wrath against sin is satisfied. The devil can no longer hold on to us with his accusations of wickedness that otherwise would land us in hell. Instead we receive adoption from God. He claims us as his own children and heirs.

And the story is not yet over for us. One day a trumpet will blow. We will go out leaping like calves from the stall with the warm spring rays of God’s holiness and love radiating down upon us. Shivers up and down the spine cannot do justice to that day. We’ll have never experienced anything like it. We will see God.

Lord, provide for us, that we be prepared for that great day. The Lord will provide.

210317 What does such baptizing with water indicate? (Lent 4 Midweek) March 17, 2021

 Audio recording

Sermon manuscript:

The second reading that we heard tonight, from Matthew’s Gospel, is very valuable because it answers a very basic question: “What does it mean to be a Christian?” First and foremost is the confession of faith. Jesus asked the disciples who people were saying that he was. They gave the answers that they were hearing. These were very flattering answers. They thought Jesus was one of the mighty prophets from of old, or that faithful-unto-death-greatest-man-born-of-women contemporary, John the Baptizer.

Then Jesus asked the disciples what they thought. Was their answer any different than the crowds? Yes, it was. No matter how flattering other answers might be, they are nothing compared to Peter’s confession: “You are the Christ.” There is only one Christ. Peter is identifying this man, named Jesus, from the town of Nazareth, as that Christ. He is saying that Jesus is the rightful son and heir and king, descended from King David. He is saying that Jesus is the one through whom all the nations of the world would be blessed, as God had promised Abraham. So this man is the culmination of Israel’s history and the central figure in all existence. In a way, it is an outlandish claim.

But this has been the claim that all Christians make. If anyone does not believe that the man Jesus was and is the Christ, then that person simply isn’t a Christian. There is no more basic Christian Creed than to say, “I believe that Jesus is the Christ.”  If someone were to ask what you believe, you could answer them, “I believe that Jesus is the Christ.”

Notice what Jesus adds to this. Notice what the implications are for the person who makes this confession. He says, “On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Jesus gives to Christians the authority to retain the sins of the unrepentant as long as they do not repent, and to forgive the sins of those who repent. The salvation that Jesus has accomplished by his atoning sacrifice is distributed authoritatively when his disciples deal with people in God’s name.

Here, again, we have something that is wonderfully simple. What is a Christian? Someone who believes that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ. What is the Christian Church? It is the defeat of hell by the forgiveness of sins that Christians are authorized by Christ to give to one another. However, those who do not repent are excluded until such time as they do repent and believe in Christ.

Thus the Christian Church which is solely made up of believing and confessing Christians is a great light to this condemned and dying world. Corruption and decay are all around us. Death ruthlessly takes its prey. The devil carries away cartloads upon cartloads of souls who remain in bondage to him by believing his lies. Christians know the truth: Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. In him is redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

So at the beginning I asked, “What does it mean to be a Christian?” First and foremost is the confession of faith. Jesus is the Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

But what does baptism have to do with this? We’re supposed to be considering the significance of baptism tonight. Baptism is not just plain water. It is not a disconnected ceremony or a technicality. It is intimately tied up with faith and confession. Whoever is baptized is baptized into Jesus, into his death. Baptism is the renunciation of the devil, and all his works, and all his ways, and the reception of a new birth as a child of God, with Jesus as our brother. Baptism is the thing that is to be done first thing with anyone who comes to believe that Jesus is the Christ, as the example of the jailer in Philippi shows in Acts chapter 16. When he believed in Christ, he and his whole household were baptized at once. Within baptism itself is the Christian confession that Peter made, and by baptism we receive everything that Jesus is and has because we are joined with him.

So the first part of our reading from Matthew chapter 16 tells us what is first and foremost to being a Christian. It is the confession of faith. Everything is built upon that. Without that, a person cannot be a Christian. In the second part of our reading we also learn what follows after. This is very important too.

After Peter’s confession, Jesus began to teach the disciples that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, be mistreated, be killed, and on the third day rise from the dead. This did not fit in with Peter’s thinking of how Christ the king should be, so he took Jesus aside and told him that he should not suppose such ignoble things would happen to the blessed, holy one of God. Christ the king should be regal and powerful. He should not suffer. He should make other people, the wicked people, suffer.

And so it came to pass that Simon who had just been given the name “Peter,” should soon afterwards be called “Satan.” Jesus said, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a snare to me because you are not thinking the things of God, but the things of men.” Jesus was going to be the king of kings, but not in the way that Peter expected.

But this unexpected way of life was not just something for Jesus, but also is for anyone who wishes to be and remain a Christian. Right after this Jesus said to his disciples: “If anyone wants to follow me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. In fact whoever wants to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. After all, what will it benefit a person if he gains the whole world, but forfeits his soul? Or what can a person give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man will come in the glory of his Father together with his angels, and then he will repay everyone according to his actions. Amen I tell you: Some who are standing here will certainly not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

This way of life does not appear very attractive to our flesh, and why should it? It is the death of our sinful flesh with all its sinful desires. The fall into sin made us believe that loving is bad, unless there is a mighty big payoff for ourselves in the deal. That is not how we were created to be. We were created in the image of God. We were created to love even if it costs us our life. The goodness of this is something that we have to learn by the Holy Spirit. That is not something that comes naturally to us.

Our first reading tonight speaks to this at great length. Romans chapter 6 is a very important chapter to read over and over again. I’ve been reading it for years, and I still do not think I’ve grasped all of it. The main thing to remember while reading it is that Paul is talking about our Christian life in a way that does not come naturally or easily to us. We can easily think of our Christian life as being a matter of knowledge and willpower. We know certain things. We try harder to be better. While this way of thinking can’t be totally wrong, it certainly isn’t the way that Paul talks in Romans chapter 6.

Instead of speaking about the Christian life as being a matter of knowledge and will power, he speaks about it in terms of being baptized, and in that baptism being united with Christ’s death and resurrection. Being a Christian, therefore, is a matter of first of all being baptized. Then that baptism continues on with its effects in the Christian. When we were baptized we died together with Christ with all our sin. When Jesus was raised, we were raised too, having been united with him. Thus, in a sense, our life is not our own.  We haven’t gotten rid of our own sin. We haven’t manufacture any holiness for ourselves whatsoever. This is true no matter how much knowledge or willpower we might want to throw at the situation. Rather, these things come solely from Jesus through our baptism into him.

But then our clever, self-serving reason pipes up: “Well, if it’s all God’s doing and none of my own, then I might as well live how I want to live.” That is to say, “I might as well sin all the more so that grace may abound.”

Notice what Paul doesn’t say in response. He doesn’t take back anything of what he said about our life as baptized believers. He certainly doesn’t say, “God does his part, now you need to do your part.” That makes perfect sense to our reason. That’s what all the natural relationships we have on this earth are like. Quid pro quo. You do your part, and I’ll do mine. But that’s not what he says. Instead he says that you have died and your life is hidden in Christ. He warns against presenting yourself as a slave to the devil. If you do that, then you’ll be stuck with him. Instead, walk in the way that God has given you to walk, which is the dying and rising of Christ within us, as we die to sin and live to righteousness.

So in Romans chapter 6 we get a fuller treatment of the things that Jesus spoke about in Matthew chapter 16: “If anyone wants to follow me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. In fact whoever wants to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” There is no quid pro quo here. It’s all “I’ll do mine”—not because there is a hope of being paid back, but simply because to love is good.

Let’s sum up. We had excellent texts tonight that answered the question: “What does it mean to be a Christian?” We saw, first and foremost, that it is a matter of confession: “Jesus is the Christ.” By believing in him we have forgiveness of sins, thereby defeating sin, death, hell, and the devil. Then we also learn, like Peter learned, that being a Christian is not a matter of worldly glory, power, or success. Christians are being worked on through their baptism. They are dying to sin, and living to righteousness. They are learning to deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow Jesus.

210314 Sermon on Exodus 16:2-21 (Lent 4) March 14, 2021

 Audio recording

Sermon manuscript:

The apostle Peter has an interesting phrase in his second epistle. He is writing to Christians about how they have to live in the midst of people who are like the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. He says that these people “have hearts that have been trained in covetousness.” The word that is used for training is “gumnazdo” in the Greek. Perhaps you can pick up the English cognate if I say gumnazium, that is, gymnasium. What do people do at a gym? People have hearts that have been trained, like someone working out at a gym, in covetousness, in the desire to get more and more.

This covetous heart has been implanted in us by the fall into sin. It is apparent already in toddlers or even younger. As soon as we can manage it we say “mine.” In order that we wouldn’t grow up to be totally antisocial, our parents had to teach us to share. But this might be debatable. Were we really taught to share or were we taught that we couldn’t snatch things out of another person’s hands? Those aren’t the same thing. To be sure, the violence of snatching is frowned upon. It’s too direct and unambiguous. You’ll never get ahead in life that way. You have to be more subtle. Unintentionally, we were taught that it is alright to take what belongs to others, but it had to be according to certain rules.

Think of how it is among siblings. In a way we were allowed to abuse our siblings, so long as it didn’t get to the point where they called in the authorities. Or, on the other hand, some of us learned how handy it is to call in the authorities for every little thing. That was another way that we could abuse our siblings. It’s the law of the jungle, but kids learn how to keep the volume down to an acceptable level—not because they are good, but precisely because they are evil.

It’s not that parents intentionally set out to achieve this kind of thing with their children. Rather, we know not what we do. Since this way of living is so thoroughly engrained in us with our sinful nature, it makes it hard to know that there could be anything different. We can’t know what is actually going on. And this is where that phrase from the apostle Peter can give us some insight.

If we have hearts that have been trained in covetousness, if we’ve been working out at always getting as much as we possibly can so long as it is legal or socially acceptable, then it becomes second nature to us. When anything becomes second nature it means that you no longer have to think about what you are doing. Repetition creates muscle memory.

For example, I’ve done a lot of typing over the years. I don’t have to think about which buttons I have to push in order to get words on the page. The only time that I ever have to think about the buttons I’m pushing is when I’m trying to spell an unfamiliar word. Otherwise all the words simply flow out of my fingers.

Equipment operators can do the same thing. At first a backhoe operator needs to think about what each movement of the controls is going to do with the boom and the bucket. Eventually the machine almost becomes an extension of himself. He thinks about what he wants to accomplish without having to think about what movements he might need to do with his hands or his feet.

So if we’ve been trained in covetousness, if we’ve been trained in always getting more and more, then we won’t even think about what we are doing. We will screw over or rip off whomever we might be able to do that with without giving it a second thought. “That’s just life,” a person might say.

And when it comes to parenting, Luther has a proverb about that. He says, “One fool raises another.” If we have hearts that have been trained in covetousness, and if we have been trained well, then how can we possibly do anything different than raise our children the same way we were raised? It doesn’t even enter our minds to do anything different.

This is why the Bible is a strange book, and why it is so difficult for people to read. God’s Word teaches the one who is willing to learn from it to think about life differently. It is quite open about this too. Jesus says, for example, “That which is exalted among men is an abomination before God.” People are impressed by how well someone can rip off everybody else and get to the top of the heap. Jesus says that the first shall be last and the last shall be first—a strange saying, is it not? That only proves my point. The Bible is a strange book, with a strange way of looking at life, and this is why it is so difficult for all people gladly to hear and learn it. Apart from faith, it is impossible to understand even the tiniest part of it.

I think we can see this is true when we consider our Old Testament reading today. The descendants of Israel found themselves out in the middle of nowhere with nothing to eat. What did this bumbling fool of a leader get themselves into? When they were in Egypt they at least had something to eat. Now they are going to die.

All of this is perfectly reasonable to our flesh. A basic assumption in the field of economics is that supply is limited. The Israelites could see with their eyes how severely limited their resources were. When it comes to allocating these resources, there won’t be nearly enough. For a heart that has been trained in covetousness, this is sheer hell. There is no hope of getting more and more.

But when you are dealing with the Creator of the universe the basic assumption of economics goes out the window. When you are dealing with the Creator you are dealing with the one who opens his hand and satisfies the desires of every living thing. You are dealing with the one who causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. The concern for the lack of bread is not the same as it is for the one who is trained to horde. If need be, God can make bread rain down from heaven. What’s more likely is that God will work through his created means to supply the one who is in need. Some opportunity, some boon, will open up, but you might get a little hungry before it does.

That’s not a big deal though. Like the psalmist says, “My soul waits and in his Word do I hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning.” Do you suppose somebody who is keeping watch in the middle of the night might get a little sick of waiting and watching? He looks forward to the morning because that is when he can get off duty and get some rest. But does the watchman ever think the morning isn’t coming? He knows it’s coming—not as quickly as he might like—but he knows it’s coming. So it is for the one who believes and waits for the Lord. Sooner or later he’s coming. However, for the one who does not believe, this waiting seems to them to be terrible advice.

Thus you see that there are two groups among the Israelites. Moses doesn’t understand why the people are so angry at him. He’s been obeying the Lord’s commands. He plans on continuing to put his hope in the Word, and wait for the Lord. The other group is looking around and only seeing desert—barren, dry desert. They believe that they need to organize themselves quickly and head back to Egypt before they run out of what little they have and no longer have the strength to get back.

This is a pattern that repeats over and over again, particularly during this time period where the Israelites are in the wilderness. The majority of them want to throw in the towel. They want to reject their baptism in the Red Sea. They want to reject their status as royal priests—a nation that was specifically chosen by God to be his own. They’d rather have a pot of porridge than God’s blessing.

The faithful, on the other hand, keep their eye on the Lord. They are not anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, they make their requests made known to God. And the peace of God that surpasses all understanding keeps their hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. So long as their hearts and minds are on the Lord, they can do anything if need be. This would not be because of some strength within themselves, but with the strength that the Lord supplies—specifically to those who are weak. As Christ says to Paul, “I won’t remove the thorn from your flesh. My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”

Remember that one time with Peter? The Lord was walking on the water in a wind storm. Peter, that wonderful fellow, said, “If it’s you Lord, command me to come to you on the water.” Jesus said, “Come.” So Peter stepped out of the boat. So long as he kept his eyes on Jesus he was able to do what otherwise is impossible. When did he start to sink like a stone? It was when he took his eyes off of Jesus and started to examine the limited supply of sure footing that was available. He became afraid that he was going to be stuck out there in no man’s land—too far from the boat, not close enough to Jesus. There you see the struggle in a single man that the whole people of Israel went through together.

We are like Peter. Even though we Christians we all continue to have a part of us that is more at home in covetousness, that is, idolatry, rather than waiting for the Lord and hoping in his Word. This might be about money. It can be about all kinds of other things too. It can be about our love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, self-control. When we look within ourselves and take stock of what seems like a limited supply, we might believe that it is impossible to keep on loving, to keep being patient, to keep being joyful. All we might see in ourselves is the equivalent of five loaves and a couple fish that are supposed to hold out against tremendous needs. There is a great temptation to just give up. It seems wiser to go with what comes more naturally to us—which is living for ourselves.

But this only makes sense if you deliberately ignore God’s Word. This was the biggest problem with those Israelites who despaired. Why did they despair? Because they didn’t believe that God was going to do what he said he was going to do. God said he would bring them into the Promised Land. Why didn’t they believe it?

Contrary to what you might expect, there is actually a good reason why they didn’t believe it: they didn’t believe it because it didn’t take place in the way that they expected it would. As soon as something gets said, the way that our brains work is that we visualize it. So the Israelites had visualized what it would be like to get from Canaan to the Promised Land. Their vision didn’t include having no food or water in barren, dry places. They didn’t think they’d have to fight against Canaanites that were much more powerful than they were. The way that God was making it turn out didn’t seem wise to them, to say the least.

So it can be and usually is for our lives of faith too. We might think we know best about how we should make our way to heaven. We might think that we should be able to get to heaven while sitting in our lazybody and enjoying the love and esteem of everybody. Here, again, you might read the Bible, that difficult book. It’s not difficult because it’s so hard to understand. It’s difficult because God’s ways are not our ways, and God’s thoughts are not our thoughts.

The Bible says that it is not easy to get to heaven. The place that is easy to get to is hell. To go to hell is the easiest thing in the world. All we have to do is be true to ourselves, to never cease in our training in covetousness—the very thing we are happy to do. The gate to heaven is narrow. The way is hard. Few there are who find it. All the ones who do find it, find it by faith. They walk it by faith. Though we are weak, God is strong. If we do not take our eyes off him, we will not sink or stumble. If we believe, we can move mountains.

So keep walking on the way and don’t lose heart. Turn away from your training in covetousness, and take up a new sport. It might be awkward at first. Learning something new usually is. Make use, here, of the third and second commandments. Learn how to be made wise for how to live by God’s word rather than sticking with your worldly wisdom. Learn how to pray instead of scheming and scraping and lying. You will find that God will take care of you—probably not in the ways you expect—but his ways are better for us than the ones we would otherwise choose for ourselves.

210310 How can water do such great things (Lent III Midweek)

 Audio recording

Sermon manuscript:

For the question from the catechism that we will be considering tonight it is helpful to know the question that comes before it: “What benefits does baptism give?” Answer: “It works forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this as the words and promises of God declare.” Think about what is being claimed here about baptism. It forgives sins. It rescues from death and the devil. It gives eternal salvation. These are not small things.

So our question tonight naturally flows from that: “How can water do such great things?” Baptism is such a simple thing that it appears that it is not even very good at washing the body, much less being capable of forgiving sin, rescuing from death and the devil, or giving eternal salvation. Such grand things seem like they should require grand efforts on our part, or at least a grand ritual. Baptism doesn’t seem to fit the bill. So how can water do such great things?

The answer is extremely simple. It can’t. Water certainly can’t do these things. But remember the definition of baptism that was given with the first question in the catechism: “What is baptism.” Answer: “Baptism is not just plain water, but it is the water included in God’s command and combined with God’s Word.” Baptism isn’t plain water. It is a wordy water. God’s word has been stuck into it. It is God’s word in baptism that makes it do what it does, together with the faith the trusts this word of God in the water.

So let’s take a moment and consider this “active ingredient,” if you will, that is in baptism. How did God create the heavens and the earth? Did he get out a mixing bowl, put in the ingredients, mix it together, and stick it in the oven? No. He spoke the world into existence. He said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. When God speaks, things happen. This is a power that human beings do not have. I can say, “Let there be light,” until the cows come home but no light is going to be created.

Unless, of course, God commanded me to do such a thing. Suppose that God said I should say, “Let there be light,” and he promised that light would come about as a result. That would be an entirely different thing. This is how the miracles generally happen in the Scriptures. God told Moses to stretch out his staff over the waters and that he would divide the Red Sea in two by doing so. A person could ask the question, “How can stretching out a staff over the waters do such great things?” The answer would be: “It can’t.” But when God tells you to do something and promises that it will produce results, then that’s an entirely different matter.

With this line of reasoning you can understand something important about our sacraments. If God did not command baptism, if God did not promise that it saves, and if were just something that Christians decided to do on their own, then it would be an empty and powerless thing. That would be like Moses deciding on his own that he is going to hang out his arm with a staff in it. Without God’s Word Moses could have stretched his staff out over the water until his arm fell off. It wouldn’t have divided in two. But if God tells you to do something and says what it will accomplish certain results, then we should be absolutely certain about that.

So with baptism God says we should apply water with the words, “I baptize you in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” He also speaks to the benefits when he says, “Whoever believes and is baptized shall be saved,” and he says, “Baptism now saves you.” Since this is what God clearly says, he’d have to be a liar for that not to take place.

The same thinking also applies to the sacrament of the altar. Without God’s Word the bread would remain bread alone and the wine would remain wine alone. But when Jesus says, “This bread is my body,” then what used to be merely bread is most assuredly also Christ’s body. Furthermore Jesus tells us what this sacrament does for us. He says that the body of Christ is “given for you.” Concerning the cup he says that it is the “new testament in his blood, which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” If this is what Jesus says that it is, and this is what he says it does, then who are you to disagree with him? You can disagree with God all you want. That doesn’t change what God does. Someone’s unbelief cannot undo God’s actions.

However, unbelief can make it so that a person is not benefited by God’s actions. This also is an important teaching. It is important that we understand that baptism is totally effective, totally saving, just as the ark saved Noah and his family. Whether a person believes it or not doesn’t change that whatsoever. However, if a person doesn’t believe it, then it won’t do that person any good.

Noah’s ark is helpful for understanding this. Peter says that just as the ark saved Noah and his family, so also baptism now saves us Christians. Noah built that boat not on his own initiative, but according to God’s own word and command. God promised that that boat would save him from the waters of judgment and death that were coming upon the world. But suppose that Noah or any member of his family decided that this wasn’t true. If they didn’t believe it, they wouldn’t have embraced the ark and held to it. Thus the ark wouldn’t have done them any good. Even though the ark was given to them and promised to do what God said it would, by their unbelief they would have made it as though God had never spoken to them. God’s grace wouldn’t have helped them.

And this is the very thing that happened with the multitudes of people who thought that Noah was crazy. Let us not forget that what Noah did appeared to be as ridiculous as somebody building an ocean-liner in Iowa. We’re a long way from the ocean. It’s hard to see how such a boat is ever going to do anything. Someone might ask, “How can a boat sitting on dry land do such great things?” But that boat was included in God’s command and combined with God’s Word. So it did what God said. But if people don’t believe, it won’t do them any good. The people at Noah’s time didn’t believe, so that totally effective, totally saving ark did them no good.

Let’s apply this line of thinking also to our own times, for it is highly relevant. Our Christian culture is petering out. As a result every single one of us knows dozens of people who were baptized, but are no longer Christians. Some of them might be very open about that. They might say that the Gospel is nothing but hogwash. That’s relatively rare, though. It is much more common that people will claim to be a kind of secret Christian where they hold on to their faith in private. But this is a delusion. The truth is that they don’t want to hear God’s Word. They don’t want to congregate with other Christians so as to make the Word of God more known among us. Actions speak louder than words, as they say. You can know whether a person is a Christian or not by observing whether they want God’s Word to be made known. All those who refuse to have anything to do with Christians or Christian congregations, show by their actions that they are unbelievers, even if they protest to the contrary.

So with all these people that we all know who are baptized, but no longer believe, we must properly understand what is going on with them so that we are not led astray into doing what they have done, and so that we can help them return to faith. Such people have been baptized. They have been given the ark of salvation. They have even been put on that ark. But with their unbelief they are saying, “This ark isn’t doing me any good,” and by their unbelief they essentially jump overboard. Thus, even though their baptism has worked the forgiveness of sins, rescued them from death and the devil, and given them eternal salvation, they block it all and refuse it. The devil is a great liar, so he has all kinds of tricks that are tailor made to accomplish this very thing for each and every one of us. So it is not surprising that so many walk away from their baptism.

How can we help these people? There is nothing better that we can do for them than to make them realize where they are—namely, that they are in the waters of sin, judgment and destruction. But we may also offer them hope if they do not want to stay in their miserable state. In fact, we can offer to them what already belongs to them. We can encourage them to believe anew in the grace that God has already given to them by their baptism. Sometimes people who have fallen away think that they need to be baptized again to become a Christian. That is not true. There’s nothing wrong with the baptism that they received. The problem was that they weren’t believing in it.

If someone had jumped off the ark in Noah’s time, they wouldn’t have to build a whole new ark would they? The problem wasn’t in God’s ark of salvation, it was that they were deceived into disregarding it and disbelieving in it. What is needed is to return again to what God has said and promised. Then, even if a person quit believing in their baptism for many decades, the benefits of their baptism will no longer be blocked by their unbelief. They will be able to enjoy those benefits even into eternity.

Despite baptism’s humble appearance, it always remains the powerful thing that Jesus has made it to be. Simply believe what Jesus says, and it is yours as he himself has promised: “Whoever believes and is baptized shall be saved. Whoever does not believe will be condemned.”

210307 Sermon on Luke 11:14-28 (Lent 3) March 7, 2021

 Audio recording

Sermon manuscript:

The bible presents us with a tremendous either/or. Either we are a child of God or we are a child of the devil. Either we are on God’s side or we are on the devil’s side. Either we are obedient to God or we are obedient to the devil. Either we are receiving the Holy Spirit or we are possessed by one or more evil spirits.

We’ve never liked this either/or very much. In our modern times we seem to have been given a powerful argument against it. There is a widespread belief that somebody somewhere discovered that there are no such things as evil spirits, nor is there a devil. These are just relics from a previous time in human development when people were too stupid to know any better.

There is a variation of the same argument that is used with God’s existence. Supposedly somebody somewhere discovered that God doesn’t exist. It is believed that ancient people had to make up the existence of God because they were too stupid to explain the world in any other way.

This mindset obviously fosters a feeling of superiority over our ancestors. That is where the greatest strength lies in that line of reasoning. We are able to do things that they couldn’t. We can move mountains. We can make the deaf hear and the blind see. These signs and wonders are taken to be incontrovertible proofs that God can’t exist.

The logic runs like this: Ancient people didn’t have modern technology. With modern technology we are able to do seemingly god-like things. Therefore, if ancient people would have had modern technology, they never would have had to believe in gods.

But there has never been a need to resort to logic for anyone to be convinced. We have run away from this either/or from the start, that is, from immediately after the fall into sin. Before the fall into sin Adam and Eve knew with all their heart, soul, and mind that God existed. Immediately after the fall they could no longer bear this thought. After all, if they brought that thought to mind, then those words would immediately float to the surface: “In the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.” Just to keep their sanity they needed to put some distance between themselves and God. They got busy making clothes and storing up some food. They started to make a living for themselves. They had to put their mind on other things besides the thought of whom they belonged to.

This busyness allowed them to think they were independent, not subject to the either/or. That was as refreshing to them as air is to a drowning man. Plus it was even plausible. The devil had wisely went away. They weren’t obedient to him were they? Sure, they obeyed him that one time, but now they could make up their own minds.

With God, they knew that they hadn’t been obedient to him. But that didn’t seem to matter. After all, the punishment that was threatened didn’t come. Plus isn’t that the very thing that the serpent had said, “You won’t surely die…”

So, they thought, there must not be any either/or. Let’s just get busy making the most of our lives. They did not need modern technology to teach them that there is no such thing as gods or devils. They wanted to believe that. They wanted to be deceived. And, if you believe in yourself, and never give up, you can usually get what you want.

You might think that God coming to Adam and Eve in the cool of the day and preaching to them would have put a stop to this delusion. Adam and Eve became aware of the consequences of their obedience to the devil, but they also learned from God that one would come who would crush the serpent’s head. But sin sank deeply into Adam’s loins. While Adam and Eve believed, probably with as much difficulty as anybody else, all his descendants are predisposed to reject the thought that either we are obedient to God or obedient to the devil. I think you can easily see that this is true in our day. You can already see the same thing with Cain and his children and grandchildren.

Genesis chapter 4 shows how unbelieving Cain and his unbelieving descendants lived like Adam and Eve did in their unbelief. They got busy. They made some businesses. What was important for them was improving the quality of life. They were tremendously successful. They invented all kinds of things. They became powerful. The brief history culminates in a man named Lamech. Moses tells of how he boasted to his two wives that he had killed a man who had wounded him, and if anybody else might get any ideas, they better have another thought coming.

This self-absorption and self-aggrandizement put other thoughts to the side. They were busy running the rat race. The great either/or of life was not on their radar. Who cares about holiness or evilness so long as the good times keep rolling? We might think that our people are so advanced, but we see the exact same mindsets in the mighty men of old who lived before the flood.

Paul says in 1 Cor. 1 that the preaching of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the wisdom of God. I’m sure that there are many dimensions to why the world thinks that the preaching of the cross is foolishness, but I’m also sure that what we have been talking about today lies at the very heart of it. The cross is the way that the devil, even though he be fully armed, is overtaken by Christ, who is stronger than he is. Christ ties the devil up and plunders all his goods. That is to say, Christ, by his sacrificial death, takes away the human beings who used to belong to the devil, used to be obedient to him, and makes them children of God.

The cross of Christ is right at the heart of the either/or of we human beings either being a child of God or a child of the devil. It is an undoing of the curses in the Garden of Eden. It works reconciliation between God and sinners because justice was carried out on Jesus. But in order for the cross of Christ to make any sense life must be understood in terms of being in a relationship with either God or the devil.

Life is about being exorcised from the devil and all the evil spirits and being given the gift of God’s Spirit. The thought that was totally unbearable—that is, how we stand with an almighty God whose commandments we have not kept—can be brought back to mind. We can confess how dreadfully we have sinned against God because we have a better justification in Jesus than we could ever have otherwise in ourselves. Adam and Eve, in their innocence, were once happy at the thought of being together with God. There was nothing they liked better. That same joy and peace is yours now too in Jesus. We don’t belong to the devil anymore. Jesus has purchased and won us with his holy precious blood and his innocent suffering and death.

Our life as a Christian, then, is a matter of receiving and believing in the justification and holiness that God continually gives us. It is a return to the innocence and hopefulness of the Garden when all things were new. The apostle John speaks of our lives as Christians this way: “We are children of God now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. But we know that when Jesus is revealed we will be like him, and we will see him as he really is. Everyone who has this hope purifies himself just as Jesus is pure.”

In our Gospel reading we heard about Jesus casting out a demon. According to what we’ve looked at today, this is not something strange. This is at the very heart of what the Son of God came to earth to do. It is the very thing that he does with us by baptizing us and by absolving us. He sets us free from our bonds to Satan and makes us children of God. Furthermore he feeds us with holy food and holy drink, so that we do not remain empty houses, just waiting to be haunted again, but are filled more and more with the Spirit of God. The great either/or are the terms in which Jesus does his work. He moves us from being under Satan to being under God, together with Jesus our brother.

But, as I’ve spoken about at length, we do not like this way of looking at our life. That was true at Jesus’s time too. And so you see how the church of that time opposed Jesus, even though he is operating with the very heart of what God would have us be about. They dismiss Jesus as being weird. “He’s probably just casting out demons by Beelzebul,” which means means, “lord of the flies.” That’s the name they give for the devil. He’s just the buzzing lord of the flies. No big deal. This stuff that Jesus is doing is all a dog and pony show. He just doing some silly cable TV stuff. Meanwhile, these Jewish authorities have much more important things to do than cast out demons. They have to carry on negotiations with government officials and rob widow’s houses and make names for themselves.

The real task to the church is very different. It is the way that Jesus, through his Word and Sacraments, deals with individuals. He exorcises people who were born in sin. He exorcises those who have returned to their bondage in sin. He sets them free. He is engaged in the great either/or scenario that every single person, without exception, is engaged in. And it is a battle. The kingdom of God fights against the powers of darkness.

You can see that these are the general terms of the struggle in Luke chapter 10. Jesus sends out seventy two men to preach wherever the message might be received. When they return they are filled with joy, and this is what they say, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name!” They do not talk about how nice Grandma Schmidt is, or even about how many people they reached. They go right to the heart of our existence: Demons were cast out. People were set free. By believing in Jesus’s name they were given the right to become the children of God.

These terms of the struggle have not changed. Insofar as we are actually doing the work that Jesus gave his disciples to do, we continue to cast out demons by baptism and absolution and distribute the Holy Spirit by God’s Word and Sacraments. That this is our true task is very important for us to learn, because it has always been unpopular. It was unpopular in the Garden of Eden. Folks would rather just not think about being either under God or under the devil, because they are afraid. They are afraid that they might end up finding out that they are under the devil. They are afraid that if they are under God that they won’t be able to do the evil things that they want to do.

This is why it is important that we Christians understand that we have been given the authority to deal with people in God’s Name. Jesus says “He who hears you, hears me.” When we are speaking according to God’s Word, what is said has just as much validity and power as if God himself spoke from heaven.

And the message that we Christians have been given to speak is not terrible or frightening. It’s a message like the one the angel of the Lord spoke to the frightened shepherds on Christmas night: “Do not be afraid! I bring you glad tidings of great joy that is for all people, for unto you is born this night in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord.”

The Stronger One has come, bound up and defeated the devil (even though he was fully armed), and he has taken away the right of the devil to hold on to even a single soul. Jesus purchased everyone. The only way that the devil has any power whatsoever is by lying, and by tricking people into believing those lies. The truth is that atonement and justification have been worked for all people. All are set free to become children of God. Only by clinging to lies can people foil God’s tireless efforts to save them.

I can’t think of a more helpful thing that we can do for people than to help them see this, to understand it, and thereby be victorious over the devil, the world, and their own flesh. The outcome is never in doubt, for Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. There he rules at the right hand of God the Father. He rules by the preaching of the good news, the Gospel.

Today we will close with a different blessing than the one we’re accustomed to:

May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful. He will do it.

 

210303 What benefits does Baptism give? Lent 2 Midweek

 Audio recording

Sermon manuscript:

Last week we considered the question: “What is baptism?” The answer was very simple. It is the application of water together with God’s Words: “I baptize you in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” The whole process takes less than a minute.

With such a simple ceremony we naturally tend to believe that it can’t do very much. This is why it is important that we do not just stick with the thoughts that come naturally to us, but that we be informed by what Jesus and his apostles teach concerning baptism.

We can begin with what we have heard from the final chapters of Matthew’s and Mark’s Gospels. The last chapters of all four of the Gospels are very important. When Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to his disciples he did not talk to them about the weather or merely mundane things. He had just won the victory by his death and resurrection. Now his kingdom is to be extended into the whole world. How? This is what all the endings to the four Gospels address: How is Christ’s kingdom extended?

And, as you yourself have heard, baptism plays no small role in the readings that we heard from last week and this week. In Matthew’s Gospel Jesus says, “Go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe whatsoever I have instructed you, and, behold, I am with you always even to the end of the age.” There are really only two things that specifically get mentioned by Jesus: baptizing and teaching. If baptism were of minor importance, or, of no effect, then how could it be so prominent in these highly important final words?

In our reading tonight we hear Jesus instructing the eleven: “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to all creation.” This is a very simple statement. The Gospel is the good news of great joy that is for all people. The Gospel is the story of Jesus, who is Christ the Lord. The disciples were to preach this wherever and whenever the opportunity to do so might arise. But you might be wondering, “Where’s baptism? What does baptism have to do with this?” That comes immediately after this opening statement.

“Go, preach the Gospel to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized shall be saved. Whoever does not believe will be condemned.” The preaching of the Gospel is to result in belief and in baptism. The idea of a message resulting in belief is not surprising. This is what happens with all messages, I suppose. Either they are believed or they are not believed. So the fact that Jesus says, “Whoever believes and is baptized shall be saved,” is deliberate and significant. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is meant to result in being baptized. Why is this? Why isn’t it just left with belief, when that seems to make more sense to us?

Other passages from Scripture that speak about baptism help to answer this for us. It is clear from these passages that baptism is not an empty ceremony, or, as Luther puts it in the Catechism, that it is “not just plain water.” Baptism works. It does stuff. It isn’t just an empty sign or symbol.

In our reading tonight from Peter’s first epistle, he likens baptism to Noah’s ark. I assure you that Noah and his family were not riding on a sign or a symbol. They were riding on something very substantial that saved them from the waters of destruction. The ark was very real and produced very real results. Peter says, “And corresponding to that—i.e. to the way that the ark saved Noah and his family—baptism now saves you.”

So the way that you should think about baptism is that it is something that prevents us from being judged and damned. Those outside of the ark were judged, convicted of sin, and were punished by God with death. Noah and his family were preserved from that judgement by residing in the ark. Likewise all people would be judged and damned as sinners, unless they received the benefits of baptism that change the situation. Peter speaks to what baptism changes: “This washing does not serve merely to remove dirt from the body, but is a guarantee of a good conscience before God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

With this passage from Peter’s epistle we see why Jesus included baptism in the commission that he gave to his disciples instead of only speaking about faith. The reason is that baptism actually works. It does stuff. It changes the situation. In fact, it saves, just as the ark saved Noah and his family.

There are other passages that tell us more about how baptism is not just a sign or a symbol, but something that actually works. We will be looking at these passages in the weeks ahead, so I’ll only mention a couple of them tonight. In John chapter three Jesus speaks about baptism as being a genuine second birth. The first birth is from our mother’s womb. The second birth is by the water and the Spirit. It is necessary for us to be born this second time in order to see the kingdom of God.

Paul, in the sixth chapter of Romans, speaks about baptism as a union with Christ in his death and his resurrection. We are united with him in his death. We are united with him in his resurrection. Paul says, “Do you not know that all of us who were baptized in Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him by this baptism into his death, so that just as he was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too would also walk in a new life.” These are not empty words, mere symbols.  Something really happened.

So I hope you can begin to see why baptism is included in these commands that Jesus gives to his disciples before he ascends into heaven. Baptism is, quite simply, the ordinary way for a person to become a Christian. By baptism we are set free from our old lord, the devil, and given a new Lord—Jesus the Christ. We renounce and leave behind the old ways of living—the works and ways of the devil, and we embrace the new life of the Holy Spirit creating fruits in us such as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. Baptism makes us into new creatures whose sins are forgiven, who have been rescued from death and the devil, and who have been given the inheritance of eternal life as children of God.

What I have told you about the benefits of baptism tonight has come from specific passages of God’s Word, as you yourselves can see. I haven’t made any of this up or artificially inflated any of it. The only thing that gets in the way of people understanding the greatness of baptism and believing it is our reason. Our reason asks, “How can water do such great things?” which is the question of the catechism that we will consider next week. But you should already know that what you think is one thing and what God thinks is another. Jesus, as well as all Christians, do not wait around for people to decide whether they find something to be plausible or not. They follow what God thinks. What man thinks be damned!

So if God has spoken clearly about what baptism is and the benefits that it gives, then let that be enough for you. It doesn’t matter if you think it is strange or unlikely. Who cares what you think? What matters is what God thinks, and, according to God, baptism is the way that you become his child. It saves you like the ark saved Noah. So instead of fighting against how this can be so, why don’t thank God for so great a gift?