Sermon: Presentation of the Augsburg Confession – 2023

25 June 2023

Text: Matt 10:26-33 (Neh 8:1-2, 5-6, 9-12; 1 Tim 6:11-16)

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Today is the 493rd anniversary of what became the birth of the so-called Lutheran church.  That’s the name chosen by our opponents to mock us as not being truly Christians, and the name stuck.  But if you read the Augsburg Confession, it’s clear that we Lutherans, so-called, are actually Catholic Christians who made some Evangelical reforms to go back to an older way of being Catholic, a way that is in accordance with the Bible and the early church fathers.

In 1530, the emperor, Charles V, had a plan to just force us to recant these reforms, but he at least had to go through the motions of pretending to listen to us.  He asked the Lutherans to write a document in order to have a proper discussion.  So Philipp Melanchthon – who is credited with writing the first verse of the hymn we just sang – wrote this Confession that was presented in Augsburg on June 25, 1530.  And right away, even many of our opponents were shocked to learn that we had been lied about. 

The Augsburg Confession continued to cause quite a stir even into modern times.  In the 1960s and 1970s, a team of Lutheran and Roman Catholic theologians met for dialogue.  The Roman Catholic theologians at that time were still in the dark about what we believe, and after studying for years with Lutheran theologians, this committee of some of the top Roman Catholic theologians recommended that the Vatican recognize our ordinations and our sacraments as valid.  The Vatican did not act on those recommendations.  And even before this, the man who would become Pope Benedict XVI, had argued that the Augsburg Confession should be declared a “Catholic document.”  Sometimes I run into Lutherans who don’t really know what Lutherans believe.  They need to read the Augsburg Confession.  Our church is committed to it, and my ordination vows include it.  Here we stand, dear friends.

The Augsburg Confession is short and sweet.  It has 21 brief articles of faith, followed by seven articles explaining various reforms that our churches had made in the 1500s that continue to this day.  I read this document 42 years ago, and never looked back.  While in Augsburg, the emperor tried to force the Lutheran princes to worship the way he commanded them to, and so the princes bowed, bared their necks, and invited the emperor to cut off their heads.  They would die before violating their consciences.  The emperor was shocked, and backed off.  He told them in his broken German that he would not cut off their heads.

Dr. Martin Luther had been put on trial eight years before this meeting at Augsburg, when he made his famous reply that concludes:  “Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason… my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand.  God help me. Amen.”  A few days ago, I held an original 1521 edition of that speech.  It is written in Latin.  The “Here I stand” is missing in the earliest published editions.  “God help me” is written in very personal German instead of official Latin: “Got helff mir.”  And by 1530, many of the pastors, princes, and churches were saying the same thing, and instituting reforms.  Some of these very same reforms, like restoring the blood of Christ to the laity and having worship services in the common language – were instituted by the Roman Catholic church more than 400 years later.  There are even a few married Roman Catholic priests out there.  But in the 1500s, reformers were hauled before the Inquisition and burned at the stake.

As we just heard Jesus say, concerning our persecutors: “Have no fear of them, for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known.  What I tell you in the dark, say in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.  And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.  Rather fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”  Jesus also warned us that we confessors, we who place our trust in Him alone for salvation, would be hauled before courts and treated this way.  Some of the early Lutherans were executed.  Luther was himself condemned to death, but his princes protected him.  Our fathers in the faith were militarily attacked and suffered greatly because of their confession – which is our confession.  Jesus said, “Everyone who acknowledges Me before men, I also will acknowledge before My Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies Me before men, I also will deny before My Father who is in heaven.”

St. Paul speaks anew to us today as He wrote St. Timothy: “Fight the good fight of the faith.”  Paul points us to our Lord, “who in His testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession.”  And we also heard once more how Ezra brought the Word of God back to the people after their captivity in Babylon.  And indeed, all of our Christian life is a daily renewal, a return to baptism, a continuous life of repentance and recommitment to the Word of God – to which we are all captive, taking our stand, and refusing to recant.  And to some extent or another, all Christians suffer for the sake of the Word and of their confession.  But we suffer joyfully, dear friends, knowing that we do indeed fight the good fight.

Today, we are also calling to mind (as part of our 150^th anniversary celebrations), the weddings of our church.  For marriage is a holy estate established by God. The Augsburg Confession deals with marriage, since there was a controversy about it back then, which was: could the clergy be married men?  We find this in  the Augsburg Confession: “Complaints about unchaste priests are common… Since our priests wanted to avoid these open scandals, they married wives and taught that it was lawful for them to enter marriage.”  We went back to the older way of being Catholic, when priests, bishops, popes, and even the first pope himself – St. Peter – were all married men. 

Our confession predicted that unless priests could again marry: “Impure celibacy will cause many scandals, adulteries, and other crimes that deserve punishment from just rulers.  In light of this, it is incredibly cruel that the marriage of priests is forbidden.  God has commanded that marriage be honored.”

But we have a bigger controversy today than whether or not pastors can marry.  Today, the institution of marriage itself has nearly been destroyed by our unchristian culture and corrupted government: easy divorce, an anti-child and anti-family culture, legal abortion, same-sex relationships being called marriage, open promiscuity, so-called polyamory, transgenderism, and even the words “man” and “woman” themselves are no longer defined according to God’s creation and plain reason.

Today, across denominational lines, Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and Christians of every confession find themselves under attack for simply saying what marriage is, for quoting the Bible, for living out their consciences, for believing and making the good confession of Jesus, who says: “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh’?  So they are no longer two but one flesh.  What God has joined together, let not man separate.”

When we live according to God’s creation, there is joy, dear friends.  When we make the good confession like Jesus, like the apostles, like the martyrs, like the reformers, and like the brave men and women today who refuse to allow modern emperors and modern churches to force them to worship at the altar of wokeness – we are doing what our Lord said to do, not to fear them.  Dear friends, remember our Lord’s words: “And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”

Let us reflect on the 150 years of marriages conducted by the pastors of our church.  Let us rejoice in the institution of Holy Matrimony.  Let us honor our forebears of every time and place who confessed Christ – in season and out of season – with or without the approval of society and state.  Let us continue to make the good confession.  Here we stand.  God help us.

Amen.

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

Sermon: Funeral of Janet Schouest – 2023

24 June 2023

Text: John 14:1-6 (Job 19:23-27a, 2 Cor 4-7-18)

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Dear Dudley and Dudley, dear Mena, family, friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, and honored guests, Peace be with you.

Janet was an anchor in her family, and I think it is fair to say, after 67 years of marriage; Janet remains a fixture in Dudley’s life and the life of her family.  Death not only makes us mourn and grieve, it changes how we get by from day to day.  Facing life without her is truly an act of faith. 

Our Old Testament reading from the book of Job includes Job’s confession of faith.  He suffered the deaths of all of his children, the loss of his wealth, and the destruction of his own health.  His closest family members and friends tempted him to “curse God and die.”  But Job refused.  He did suffer, and did not understand it.  He also asked God, “Why?”  But he kept his faith to the end, and he was rewarded for it.  God has His ways, and they are not our ways – but He is good, and His mercy endures forever.  He does not abandon us – not even in times like these.  Thousands of years before the coming of Jesus into the world, Job said defiantly in the face of death and suffering: “I know that my Redeemer lives.”  He confessed that even after his own death, “after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God.”  Job confessed a bodily resurrection.  He didn’t know how God would do it, but he trusted God. 

Job’s suffering came to an end.  And God rewarded him for his faith.  And yes, Job’s Redeemer did come in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ.  In the end, Job’s body will be resurrected and made perfect.  And so will Janet’s, and all who confess Jesus.

Jesus said, and we heard it again in our Gospel reading: “In My Father’s house are many rooms….  I go to prepare a place for you.”  And when Thomas asked Jesus how we can know the way, Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

Jesus is Job’s Redeemer, Janet’s Redeemer, and Dudley’s Redeemer.  Jesus is your Redeemer, and mine.  Jesus has come to offer redemption to the whole world by means of His own death, His own blood, and His own resurrection, His own body.  When we celebrate Easter, we don’t talk about Jesus becoming a ghost or spirit.  We don’t talk about Jesus living on in our hearts as a memory.  No indeed!  For Jesus came in His flesh, died in His flesh, and rose again in His flesh.  His body came back to life, and He emerged victorious from the tomb.  This is why Jesus speaks of houses and rooms.  We need such physical places because we human beings are both body and spirit.  Job knew that in his flesh, He would see God – and with his own eyes. 

This is why we said in the creed: “I believe in… the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.”  Jesus went to prepare a place for Janet, and for everyone here who loves Janet and wishes to see her again, everyone who confesses with Job: “I know that my Redeemer lives,” everyone who believes that Jesus rose from the dead and goes to prepare a place for us, everyone who knows that are sinners, but we are forgiven by the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ.  You will see Janet again in your flesh, and she will see you in your flesh – with your eyes.  We are not talking about spirits, but our own flesh and blood bodies made perfect.  You will see her smile again.  You will hear her voice.  You will look into her eyes with your eyes.  You will embrace her again.  This will happen.  And it will never end.  For we know that our Redeemer lives.  We believe His promise, even when we don’t have all the answers, even when we mourn.  We still look forward to this great reunion in the flesh with our beloved Janet.

St. Paul sums up what life and death is for the Christian: “We have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.”  Dear friends, our sorrow and suffering are very real.  Paul continues, “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our bodies…. in our mortal flesh.”  He continues, “We also believe, and so we speak, knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus.” 

“So,” says the apostle, “we do not lose heart.  Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.  For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen.  For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

Dear friends, our grief is real.  Our suffering is real.  Our sorrow is real.  But it is temporary.  The unseen reality is that God has prepared a place for Janet.  He has prepared a place for you.  He invites you to believe that your Redeemer lives.  We are “afflicted” and “perplexed,” but in the hope of the “resurrection of the body and the life everlasting,” we are neither “crushed” nor “driven to despair.”  We mourn, but not as others do who have no hope.

And in fact, because of Christ’s work on the cross and His resurrection, because of the words He has given to us in the Scriptures, we can even be joyful as we mourn, and hopeful in our grief.  For we know that our Redeemer lives.  We know that our Janet lives, and God prepared a place for her.  We know that our Lord prepares a place for us.  And so let us continue our walk in this life with Jesus, our Redeemer, and let us look forward to a reunion in the flesh that will last unto eternity!

Dear friends, peace be with you.

Amen

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

Sermon: Trinity 2 – 2023

18 June 2023

Text: Luke 14:15-24

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Economics is the study of human choices.  We have to make choices because things are scarce, and we can’t have everything.  We have to pick and choose.  Time is also scarce.  We can’t be in two places at once.  Every time you choose one thing, you are rejecting everything else.  When you are invited to a party, you have to decide if you are going or not.  Will this be the highest priority at that time, or will something else be more important?

This is life in our fallen world.  We would like to play all day, but we have to work.  We can’t be in two places at once.  And sometimes an invitation to a party is very important – such as when your boss invites you to a banquet.  Do you decide to go, or not?  There may be many ways to look at it. 

On the one hand, maybe you are getting an invitation to the company Christmas party, but it is the same day as your kidney transplant.  Do you cancel your surgery?  Or maybe you would just rather stay home and watch TV.  What choice would you make?  What if you knew – or even suspected – that those who come to the company parties are given bonuses and promotions at work?  What if you believed that a famous person that you always wanted to meet would be there?  What if the boss’s party included a meal that you could never afford on your own?

What if the host of the party was your friend?  Your best friend.  What if it were your own father?  What if your father were the king, and this banquet was part of your job as a royal?  What if the host of the banquet was an eccentric billionaire, and those who attended the banquet – even random people off the street, even the waiters and waitresses and the dishwashers – were each given a million dollars as a free gift?  Would that affect your sense of priority about going?  Would what you believe about this event play into your decision to attend?

Jesus came into our world bringing good news.  The best news, really.  Jesus has the cure to death.  Jesus has victory over sin and the devil.  Jesus has the words of eternal life.  Or more accurately, Jesus is the cure to death, is victory over sin and the devil, and is the living Word that is our very life.  But those who were invited, those closest to Him, those whom His Father personally invited to the banquet of eternity could not be bothered.  They were happy with the way things were – especially the leaders of the people.  They had convinced themselves that this fallen world wasn’t so bad, and they didn’t want Jesus disrupting it.  They liked being on the top of the hill – even if the hill was a fly-covered dung-heap.

They rejected Jesus.  They made the economic decision that having a few more baubles than their neighbors, having their neighbors think highly of them, and pretending to be righteous based on works was a better deal than admitted their need, and being saved by grace by humbly submitting to this Jesus. 

And so, those who reject the kingdom will be replaced.

There is a good reason Jesus uses the illustration of a banquet, dear friends.  For a banquet is a celebration of some kind of Good News.  It is a feast, a sacred meal.  And a feast must have guests.  There is nothing more humiliating than to invite guests to an event, but they don’t come.  It says, “You are not important.”  It says, “I have better things to do.” 

Jesus describes Himself as the Bread of Life.  Jesus invites us to a feast in which Jesus is both the host and the guest.  Jesus is both the master of the feast and the meal itself.  Jesus is the both the priest and the sacrifice, and we are all invited to eat the flesh of the Lamb of the eternal Passover.  We are invited to participate in His blood – the blood that saves us.  We are invited to the banquet, dear friends, and so here we are!

But how many empty pews there are.  How many of those who were invited are not here.  Maybe you are one of those who are usually not here.  Maybe some of your family members and friends have things that they perceive are more important than to be here. 

It’s all about choices, dear friends.  It’s all about what you believe happens here at this weekly banquet.

Do you believe the Word of God?  Do you believe that Jesus has the words of eternal life, and promises to give you this greatest gift of all by hearing the Word preached?  Do you believe the Bible?  Do you believe St. Paul when he says that faith comes by hearing?  Do you believe Jesus when He says: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.  Whoever feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”?

Do you believe that attending this banquet actually does something?  Do you believe that you will receive gifts from the Master of the feast?  Or do you think He is lying?  Do you think He is a stupid old man who makes claims but doesn’t deliver?  Do you think that you’re just fine and don’t need Jesus?  Are you one of the Pharisees who reject Him?

What is a good excuse to blow off the eternal Sunday banquet in which Jesus comes to you by means of a miracle and gives you the gift of eternal life?  “I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it.  Please have me excused.”  Is this a good excuse?  “I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them.  Please have me excused.”  Is this a good excuse?  “I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.”  Is this a good excuse?  Is one hour a week to much of a burden?

Sunday is the only day I get to sleep in.  I work all day Wednesday and I just want to relax.  I was up late partying.  I have a new video game.  I want to binge-watch a show.  I don’t feel like getting dressed.  The weather is good.  The weather is bad.  There’s a game on today.  I’m going to another banquet, another party, some other event with a better meal and better people.  Hypocrites go to church.  The pastor didn’t shake my hand.  The pastor didn’t read my mind and visit me in the hospital.  The organ is too loud.  The organ is too soft.  I don’t like standing and sitting.  I want fun music instead of hymns.

“Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’  And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you have commanded has been done, and still there is room.’  And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled.  For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’”

It all boils down to belief, dear friends.  Do you believe Jesus – both the bad news that those who refuse the invitation will “never taste [God’s] eternal banquet” – and the good news that you are invited, regardless of your reputation or works or past or how much money you have or whether you think you deserve to be here?  Do you believe this Good News that Jesus is offering you His Word, His body, His blood, His salvation, His righteousness before the Father, and His invitation to a feast that will never end – all by grace, all for free, all by His kindness?

If you don’t believe it, then you won’t come.  If you do believe it, then you will.  If you need a ride, we will make sure you get here.  If you truly cannot leave your house, I will bring the banquet to you.  If you believe that taking a medicine will keep you alive, you will take the medicine.  You won’t piously protest that it’s too much trouble for the doctor and you don’t want to be a bother to the pharmacist.  No, you will take them up on their offer so that you might live. 

What do you believe about Jesus?  What do you believe about His Word?  What do you believe about the feast of Holy Communion?  What do you believe about sin and forgiveness, life and death, heaven and hell?  What do you believe about the Good News that Jesus brings? 

You cannot be in two places at once, dear friends.  You must economize.  What is your highest priority?  Do you want forgiveness, life, and salvation?  Do you want Jesus?  Or is a stupid TV show or a few minutes of sleep more important than the invitation to the King’s eternal banquet?  The good news is that Jesus is here for you right now, no matter what decisions you have made in the past.  They don’t matter now.  You have been invited, and He has come to the highways and hedges and has compelled you to be here right now. 

Here is the banquet!  Here is the medicine!  Here is the Good News!  Here is Jesus!

“Come, for everything is now ready.”

Amen.

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

Sermon: St. Barnabas – 2023

11 June 2023

Text: Mark 6:7-13 (Isa 42:5-12, Acts 11:19-30; 13:1-3

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

St. Barnabas was a huge figure in the early church.  He wasn’t part of the original twelve, but Scripture calls him an “apostle” – that is, one sent out by God to preach.  Barnabas was a Jew, and he was of the tribe of Levi, the tribe from which came the priests and their assistants.  When he became a Christian, he came to realize that the true temple, the true priest, and the true sacrifice was Jesus.  And Barnabas shifted his priestly service from the rituals of the Old Testament to serving our Lord Jesus Christ, who brought us the New Testament, the fulfillment and completion of the Old.

Barnabas brought St. Paul to the city of Antioch, the place where the word “Christian” was first used.  And Barnabas accompanied Paul in his first missionary journey.  St. Luke, in our epistle reading from Acts, describes Barnabas as a “good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.”  And because of Barnabas’s preaching, Luke says, “A great many people were added to the Lord.” 

Tradition in the church maintains that St. Barnabas – like nearly all of the early preachers, missionaries, pastors, and bishops of the church – was martyred for the faith that he held, and for the sake of the Christ whom he served. 

And although Scripture doesn’t have much more to say about St. Barnabas, what we do know is that he was a proclaimer of the saving Word of God.  And everywhere he went, people heard the Word, believed, and likewise followed Jesus.  And as is the case with all of our saints and heroes in the church, Barnabas’s greatness is not in and of himself, and we don’t remember him for his own deeds, but we call to mind his life that was dedicated to our Lord Jesus Christ, and that Jesus worked mightily through Barnabas, whom He called to this holy work of preaching the Gospel.

Just before our Lord ascended, He told the apostles: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).  And in carrying out this task, the Lord added to the ranks of his called and ordained and sent preachers, like Barnabas, in a similar way to how He sent off the twelve, “two by two,” giving them “authority over the unclean spirits.” 

For it was by the preaching of the twelve that Jerusalem was won to the kingdom, and it would be by their preaching, and by the preaching of others who were added to their number, that Judea and Samaria would be led out of darkness to light, and it will be by even more preachers, called over the course of thousands of years, who will be our Lord’s witnesses to the “end of the earth.”  For that work goes on even today, dear friends, and will continue until the world’s end and the return of Jesus.

And though it is easy to romanticize those early days of the church, and to carve statues of marble to represent men like Sts. Paul and Barnabas – and it is important that we honor the saints and call them to our memory, to emulate them and express our love for them, to give thanks to God for them – but it is also important to keep in mind that their work goes on today in what seems so ordinary.  We carry with us the same Gospel of the same Jesus, preaching to the same world enrobed in darkness and held captive by the devil, a world that desperately needs the hope and light that only Jesus can provide.  For it is only the Gospel that “casts out many demons” and brings healing to those suffering the sickness of sin and death.

Barnabas preached Christ and Him crucified.  He tirelessly traveled from place to place in search of those who needed to hear the Good News.  Some would hear the Word and come to faith, but others would not.  And the same is true today, dear friends.  Some will hear the preaching of the Word for years on end, and still not believe, while others may disbelieve for years on end, and then one day, the Word successfully implants, takes root, and grows – bearing fruit, even a hundredfold. 

And so on this feast in which we celebrate St. Barnabas, we are really celebrating Jesus, the Seed of the Word, which has been implanted into us by preaching, watered by baptism, and tended and nurtured by the Holy Spirit, and fed by the Sacrament of the Altar, that is, by Jesus’ presence.  We continue to hear and confess this Gospel – the same one preached by Paul and Barnabas, the same one embodied in the living Christ who is present with us, and who was present in the preaching of St. Barnabas, in the Word proclaimed by the apostles.

“So they went,” says St. Mark, “and proclaimed that people should repent, and they cast out demons.”  We preach the same thing today, dear friends.  For the Word of God includes the Law.  The Law shows us our sins.  And the Law calls us to repent.  The Law shows that we cannot do this ourselves.  The preaching of the Law makes us hungry and thirsty for an answer to this dilemma, some Good News.  And this proclamation – the proclamation of Barnabas and all Christian preachers – includes the Good News, the Gospel, that though the Law condemns you, Christ forgives you, though you cannot repent of your own will, it is the will of God to rescue you.

We celebrate St. Barnabas because we celebrate the one Barnabas preached, namely, our Lord Jesus Christ, the one who was crucified for us, rose for us, and sent the Holy Spirit to us, who continues to use preachers and His Word to save us from sin, death, and the devil. 

We preach even as Isaiah did in the Old Testament, repeating the Word of God: “I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you….  The former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare…. Sing to the Lord a new song, His praise to the end of the earth, you who go down to the sea, and all that fills it, the coastlands and their inhabitants.”

And we do sing a new song, dear friends, a song not to glorify ourselves or of worldly heroes, but rather of the humble and yet mighty Word:

On what has now been sown
Thy blessing, Lord, bestow;
The power is Thine alone
To make it sprout and grow.
Do Thou in grace the harvest raise
And Thou alone shalt have the praise.

Amen.

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

Sermon: Holy Trinity – 2023

4 June 2023

Text: John 3:1-17 (Isa 6:1-7, Rom 11:33-36)

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

There’s not much that we can know about God unless He reveals Himself to us, unless He teaches us about Himself. 

Our reason teaches us that He exists, that there is a God.  Since there is a creation, there must be a Creator.  If you see a building, you may not know who designed it and who built it, but you do know that it didn’t just appear in nature or by accident.  You do know that someone planned it and someone made it.  And when you see a building, you might be able to draw some conclusions about the designer, but you probably can’t tell much about him personally, what his motivation in making the building was, or what his future plans are.  If you want to know all of that, you need to interview the designer, or read a book about him.  You will only know these things if he wants you to know them.

Our Creator has indeed revealed Himself to us, and left us a book.  He also broke into our world as well, as our Teacher.  He did this because He wants us to know Him.  He wants us to know ourselves.  But since He is all-knowing, and we are limited, we can’t know everything about God.  Some things are simply unknowable, dear friends.  Even if a three-year old wants to know everything about everything, and asks “Why?” over and over, his mind is still limited.  We can only answer his questions so far. 

St. Paul praises God for His exalted nature: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His ways.  For who has known the mind of the Lord?”  We cannot understand everything about God, because we don’t have the mental capacity to do so.  Our pets cannot understand everything about us, but they do know that we provide food and love for them, we take pleasure in them, and that we take care of them.  And they respond with love and trust. 

There is a huge gap between what we would like to know about God, and what we are capable of knowing.  And that gap, dear friends, is made up with faith.  God reveals a lot about Himself to us, and what we can’t understand we simply accept, and we trust that God is good, and that He tells us what we need to know, and what we can know.

God revealed something normally hidden to the prophet Isaiah.  He “saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up.”  He was given a glimpse of a reality normally hidden to us.  He saw the seraphim, the angels, serving in the heavenly temple.  He heard their song of praise: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts,” with the word “holy” being repeated three times.  God is “holy,” meaning “separate.”  God is not part of His creation, but is the Creator.  And there is a Threeness to Him, just as there is a Oneness to Him.  And this three in one and one in three nature – this Holy Trinity – is not something our minds can understand.  So we fill this gap with faith, with trust. 

Isaiah fell on his face, and his reason told him that he was “lost.”  He responded with woe, being aware of his sinful nature.  For God did not create us to be sinful.  We are broken.  And Isaiah could not stand in God’s holy presence without being aware of his brokenness.  Isaiah thought he was doomed.

But God did something remarkable.  One of His servants came to Isaiah with a burning coal from the altar, and he placed it on the lips of Isaiah, saying: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”

God used this vision to teach Isaiah, who then taught all of us, something about God.  He is merciful.  He atones for our sins.  He takes away our guilt.  And He uses a sacrament to do so – something that His servant brings from the altar and places upon our lips. 

God has the power – and even the right – to destroy us.  For He is a God of justice.  We know that we deserve His wrath.  But God loves His creatures and provides a way to save us from what we deserve.  “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts.”  We sing this hymn of the angels as we approach the altar ourselves to receive the same gift upon our lips in the Divine Service.  We come to worship His majesty as the Most Holy Trinity – though we cannot understand His unknowable and inscrutable nature.  But we certainly know that He is merciful and purges away our sins.  And we sing, “Holy, holy, holy.”

And though we cannot grasp what it means that God is three and yet one, God nevertheless places His triune name upon us at our baptism.  We are born into creation in the usual way by God’s design, through the marriage of a man and a woman and the physical generation of children.  But there is also a re-generation, a second birth, as Jesus says, to be “born of water and the spirit.”  We don’t understand how this works, but we fill the gap with faith, with trust.  Jesus said to make disciples by baptizing them “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”  And this is how we are born again and “see the kingdom of God.”  And so we trust God, and we do this, believing it – even if our reason cannot grasp it. 

We know from scripture and from the testimony of the apostles that Jesus is God, just as the Father is God.  We know that the Holy Spirit is God, and Jesus teaches us that the Spirit comes to us like the wind, which “blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.”  And indeed, “So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”  To be a Christian is to deal with what project managers call “known unknowns.”  There are things that we don’t know and can’t know, and we know that we can’t know them.  We fill this gap with faith, with trust, dear friends.  For we worship a God very different that the “watchmaker god” of Thomas Jefferson, whom he believed created the universe, and then just walked away.  No indeed, the Father loves His children, He sends His Son to rescue us, and He sends His Spirit to gather us – and we don’t understand all the details, but, like little children, we know how to receive His gifts!

We know about God mainly because God “became flesh and dwelt among us.  And we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

There are things we know about God from the incarnation of Jesus and from the inspired writings of the Scriptures.  And we receive both the testimony of who God is, as well as His grace, by faith.

And like Nicodemus, we are sometimes baffled, and wish that we could understand more.  And Jesus replies, “Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen,” and “if I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?”

Jesus then reveals the most central thing about God that we need to know: that God Himself takes flesh and dies on the cross to save us from our sins – just as God saved the Israelites from deadly snakes by having them look upon a bronze serpent lifted up on a pole.  Jesus is lifted up upon the tree of a cross, and by His wounds, we are healed, made worthy to stand before God.

For this is the God who created us, dear friends, the God who redeems us, and the God who sanctifies us: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who loves us and washes us in His name in baptism, who reveals Himself to us in His Word, and who comes to us by sending His servants to place the burning coal of Holy Communion upon our lips, freeing us from our corrupted, sinful nature, and making us worthy – because of the Son’s worthiness – to stand before His throne in the eternal, heavenly temple.

For here, dear friends, is the revelation of the Most Holy Trinity – one that cannot be understood apart from Jesus and the Scriptures: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.  For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.”

“Holy, holy holy.”

Amen.

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