Sermon: Last Sunday – 2022

20 Nov 2022

Text: Matt 25:1-13 (Isa 65:17-25, 1 Thess 5:1-11)

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

As we are now at the Last Sunday of the church year, as the days are shorter and the nights are darker, our attention turns toward the last things: in the words of the ancient prayer: “the end of the day, the end of our life, the end of the world.”  Since our risen Lord ascended into heaven, we have been awaiting His return in glory, “to judge both the living and the dead” and when “His kingdom will have no end.”

But as we measure time, it has been a long time in waiting.  As St. Paul says: “For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, ‘There is peace and security,’ then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.’”  The Lord’s return will be sudden, and once He returns, there will be no time to prepare.

This is why our Lord tells us the Parable of the Ten Virgins.  You know the story.  Ten girls are going to a wedding feast.  The five wise virgins are prepared.  They have oil for the journey.  The five foolish virgins procrastinate, and have no oil.  And when the bridegroom is near, the foolish virgins have to scamper off to buy oil from the dealers.  So when the bridegroom comes, he brings only the five wise young women with him.  The foolish miss their opportunity, the door is shut, and the bridegroom does not answer their knocking, saying, “I do not know you.” 

Jesus Himself tells us the moral of His story: “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”  In other words, be the wise virgins, not the foolish.  Be prepared.  Be ready for the Bridegroom to come. 

Notice that we are not told that the foolish virgins are evil.  No, they are foolish.  They have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and they occupy their minds with less important things.  They are foolish because their priorities are misplaced.  This is a time of preparation and waiting – but the foolish occupy themselves with things of less importance. 

And if you asked these ten virgins, “Are you wise or foolish,” I find it hard to believe that any of them would say that they are foolish.  We all identify with the wise virgins in the story.  No foolish person thinks that he is foolish.  Indeed, it is wise to come to grips with our foolishness, and to change it.  That is called “repentance.”  The Word of God convicts us of our sins, and as the Psalmist says: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

Our problem, dear friends – our foolishness – is our own misguided priorities.  Instead of preparing for the return of the Bridegroom, we get wrapped up in the passing things of this world, storing up treasures where moth and rust destroy.  What kinds of things occupy our time instead of prayer?  Are we filling our flasks with the pure oil of God’s Word, or with the rancid sewage of the world’s debased entertainments?  And even if we aren’t attending to evil, are we elevating worldly things above the holy things?

On a scale from one to ten, how important is it in your life to attend Divine Service, to pray and read the Scriptures every day, to seek out the pastor for private confession and absolution?  Do you pray before you eat?  Do you thank God for His goodness to you?

If you are one of the foolish, the good news is that the Bridegroom has not yet returned.  The time is growing shorter every day, but Jesus has once again told you this parable for you to wise up, get your priorities in order, and fill your flasks with oil.  Don’t wait.  Don’t be foolish.

If you had to have kidney dialysis every day, or you would die, you would make the time to do it, every day.  You would find the resources to pay for it, you would make any sacrifice to carry it out.  If your child needed dialysis, it would be more important than sports or extracurricular activities.  In fact, it would be more important than even school.  Because his or her life would depend on it.

Well, dear friends, our eternal lives depend upon these means by which God gives us His grace: the preaching of the Word and the administration of the Sacraments.  This is your spiritual dialysis.  This is the most valuable use of time that you parents can give to your children.

So don’t wait.  Be wise.

For listen, dear friends, listen to the promise!  “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.  But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness….  no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress.”

This is what the Lord has prepared for us as we enter the door and come into the eternal wedding feast with the Bridegroom.  We cannot even imagine how glorious this eternal life will be in this New Jerusalem.  “‘The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent's food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain,’ says the Lord.”

“Says the Lord,” dear friends.  This is not my personal opinion.  This is the Word of the Lord.  And listen to this Good News, brothers and sisters, and rejoice in it: “But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.”

And listen to what this means:

“For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with Him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.”

“Encourage one another,” dear friends, “and build one another up.”  That is what you are doing by being here.  You may not feel like you “get anything out of the service.”  And that’s okay.  Facts don’t care about your feelings.  The facts are that Jesus died for you, you are baptized, you are here hearing the Word of God, and you are called to take part in the Holy Sacrament.  God has brought you here today to pour oil in your flask and make you ready for the Bridegroom’s return.  Indeed, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.  You are getting oil for your flask out of this service.  You are getting wisdom.  So “encourage one another.”  Urge one another to put things in perspective and be prepared.  For just by being here and taking part in the service, you are encouraging others.  For the Divine Service is not just about what you get from the service (which is forgiveness, life, and salvation), but it is also what you give your neighbor: encouragement when your voice blends with his.  We are helping one another in this time of waiting.  We are encouraging each other to be wise. 

We are sinners, but we are redeemed sinners, dear friends.  The Bridegroom came for us, and He is coming again – for us.  And again, “God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him.”

It is easy to get our priorities confused, but it is also easy to fix it, dear friends.  Just come.  And keep coming.  “Watch, therefore,” says Jesus.  So let us watch: wise, awake and joyful.

Amen.

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

Sermon: Tuesday of Trinity 22 Vespers – 2022

St. John Lutheran Church – Mattoon, IL

15 Nov 2022

Text: 2 Thess 1:3-10

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

In this, St. Paul’s second epistle to the Christians at Thessalonica, we learn that they are suffering “persecutions” and “afflictions.”  And yet, the apostle commends them for their “steadfastness” and their “faith” through all of their ordeals.  Paul goes so far as to say that he and his associates “boast” about them, for their “faith is growing abundantly” and the “love of every one of [them] is increasing.”

Think about how extraordinary this is, dear friends.  For when things are going badly, that is when we often see man-made organizations crumble into disarray and blamecasting, finger-pointing and chaos, becoming divided, and thus becoming conquered.  But these Thessalonian Christians are actually doubling down defiantly in response to persecution: in their growing faith and in their increasing love for one another.

And so, in their case, their persecutions seem to be paradoxically strengthening them.  And we will see this miraculous response by the Bride of Christ often in her history, in which her enemies and detractors try to destroy her, but instead of withering away, she prospers, grows, and bears the fruits of faith and love.  And bearing these fruits, she multiplies.

St. Paul will soon reveal to the Corinthian Christians what outlasts our sufferings in this fallen world, what abides, what is transcendent, that which endures even unto eternity: “Faith, hope, and love abide, these three” (1 Cor 13:13). 

The suffering Christians at Thessalonica are growing in faith and increasing in love, but their hope is what needs shoring up.  For they have some problems with their eschatology.  They seem convinced that the Day of the Lord has already come.  And perhaps as a result, this has caused some in the church to become lazy.  St. Paul reveals to them that there is indeed much that is yet to happen before the Day of the Lord.  There will appear the “man of lawlessness,” the Antichrist, who will come, “proclaiming himself to be God.”  And though the Caesars make such claims, this particular Antichrist will come from within the church herself, not from the Pagan Empire.  Indeed, there is still more to come in the future, so St. Paul urges the little flock at Thessalonica  to “stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught,” by the apostles, whether by “spoken word or by… letter.”

For though love is the greatest of these virtues, and though faith is the means by which we receive the grace of God, we also need hope, dear friends: hope to endure, hope for our salvation, hope for vindication in the midst of persecution, hope that we indeed “may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God,” especially in our suffering in this fallen, temporal world and in our sinful flesh.  And part of that eschatological hope includes the promise that God will “repay with affliction those who afflict [us].”  Indeed, vengeance is not ours, but the hope of our vindication by God is ours, dear friends. 

And so we, like the Thessalonians, have hope, for no matter how much we may be afflicted and persecuted, no matter how powerless we are to fight back, no matter what befalls us in this broken world – we know how this war ends: in victory for our Lord and vindication for His saints – victory won for us at the cross and the empty tomb: victory over sin, death, and the devil; victory over hell; victory over the grave: eternal victory.  And as St. Paul wrote to the Church at Thessalonica shortly before in his previous letter, “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thess 4:13). 

Dear friends, indeed, we have a sure and certain hope, because of the ironclad promise of our Lord’s return, and “the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.”  The Day of the Lord has not already come, rather, it is coming!

So thanks to the promises of the Father revealed in Christ Jesus by the revelation of the Holy Spirit, given by the hand of St. Paul in the Holy Scriptures and in the preaching of the kingdom – we join with the Thessalonians, and with Christians of every time and place – in faith, in love, and in hope.

For these three do indeed abide, as our Lord Jesus Christ abides with us, now and even unto eternity.

Amen.

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

Sermon: Trinity 22 – 2022

13 Nov 2022

Text: Matt 18:21-35

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant is a cringe-worthy lesson from Jesus involving being forgiven, but refusing to forgive.  It should pop into your mind when you pray in the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

For in this fallen world, we are both the trespassed against, and the trespasser.  We are both the forgiven and the forgiver.  It’s all about perspective.  It’s all about where we are at any given moment.

And there is a mismatch between how we see ourselves, and how we really are.  And especially in our current society, if we can make ourselves out to be the victim, the trespassed against, we can parlay that into a lot of power, into the ability to bully others.  And so we are tempted, dear friends, to see ourselves as always the ones who are sinned against, instead of seeing ourselves as people who constantly sin against others, not to mention who sin against God.

This distortion is made plain in the person of the king’s servant in our Lord’s story.

Jesus tells this parable as a way to answer Peter’s question about his moral obligation to forgive others.  Peter is asking what is reasonable?  How many times?  If a person continuously sins against us, should we forgive him again and again?  And Jesus puts the question back on us.  If we are the one doing the sinning, how often do we want to be forgiven?  How many times?  If we do sin many times every day, do we want God to put a cap on our forgiveness?  And if we want God’s mercy to be so great that He forgives all of our sins, how can we be so unloving and unyielding to treat others the same way?

And to make this more concrete, Jesus tells the parable.

The king’s servant owes a comically large sum of money.  It is such a large debt that it boggles the mind.  Jesus is making it very clear that we are talking about an unpayable debt.  And so the king, looking to cut his losses, resolves to sell his servant and his family, and at least make a little bit of his money back on the sale.

At this point, the servant pleads, falling on his knees, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.”  Of course, he is making a promise that he can’t possibly keep.  But what we see here is not the servant who is in debt miraculously coming up with a way to generate billions of dollars, rather we see the miracle of the king’s grace and mercy, his compassion, his “pity” as Jesus words it.  And this is indeed a miracle, dear friends.  For in this world, how often would a person discharge a debt?  If you slammed into someone’s car, how many people would tell you not to worry about it?  If you got into credit card debt, how often would Visa just tell you that they just zeroed it out and restored your credit limit?

And considering that this king in the story represents God, who is perfect and almighty, who expects perfection from all of us, who shows us mercy, and forgives us an entire lifetime of sin – this is indeed a miracle.  For we know that this king, our Father who art in heaven, is willing to wipe out all our debts by the blood of His only beloved Son.  And this love toward us, toward His servants who can never pay our debts, is a manifestation of His extraordinary love and mercy and goodness. 

But in our Lord’s story, the man who was forgiven a huge debt “found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii” – and this, dear friends, is not a small amount.  But it is nothing compared to what the servant had himself been forgiven.  So the servant “began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’”  And replaying his own very actions, this servant who owes him money pleads: “Have patience with me, and I will pay you.”

Instead of seeing himself in the pleading eyes of his debtor, he thinks only of himself and what is owed him.  He has already forgotten that his own massive debt was wiped out.  And instead of showing the same compassion to his own debtor, “he refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt.”

And we, outside of the story, join the characters in the story in being “greatly distressed.”  For this angers us.  We see the discrepancy between being forgiven, and refusing to forgive.  It is grotesque and immoral.  It is monstrous.  And the king rescinds his offer of grace, and treats this unforgiving servant with the same un-forgiveness that he rendered his brother servant.

But the point is not to be appalled at a fictional character in a story, dear friends, but for us to see ourselves in the story, and to be appalled with ourselves.  For we want God to forgive us.  We want others to forgive us.  But we want to hold onto grudges.  We want to paint ourselves as the victim, and justify ourselves for not forgiving those who sin against us – even as many as seven times, or as many as seventy times seven times.

And listen to what happens to those who will not forgive: “Then the master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant!  I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me.  And should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?” 

God’s logic is unassailable, dear friends.  For we can fool ourselves, and make excuses before men.  But we cannot fool God, or make excuses before Him.  Have you not been forgiven much, dear friends?  So how dare you hold grudges to others?  From God’s perspective, when we do this, we are telling Him that His mercy is no good.  “And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt.  So also my heavenly father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

So when we look at our own thoughts, words, and deeds from God’s perspective, when we examine our hearts and see a refusal to forgive the sins of others, we should be alarmed, dear friends.  This parable should cause us to grieve over our sins and seek forgiveness, even as we should be looking out for opportunities to forgive others, lest we end up like the ungrateful and unforgiving servant in the story. 

The good news, dear friends, is that in His unbounded mercy toward us, Jesus calls us to repent, and gives us the opportunity to live a life of forgiveness and mercy, both that we receive from God, and that which we show others.  The good news is that very forgiveness shown to us is that which empowers us to show forgiveness to others. 

So our Lord answers Peter’s question by teaching us that as God’s forgiveness is without limit to us, we should adopt this gracious attitude toward others.  When we see ourselves not as victims, but rather as sinners forgiven by the victim of the Lamb whose blood was shed on our behalf, and when we ponder just how merciful God is to us, what else can we do but forgive our brother from our heart.

And when we do, we are set free, dear friends!  So go in peace and love and mercy, for we have been forgiven that comically large debt.

So let us call to mind the words of our catechism: “We daily sin much and surely deserve nothing but punishment.  So we too will sincerely forgive and gladly do good to those who sin against us.” 

Amen.

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

Sermon: Wittenberg Academy – Nov 10, 2022 - Vespers

10 Nov 2022

Text: Jer 23:1-20

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Beware, dear friends.  Beware of “the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture.”  Beware of shepherds that do not attend to you.  This was the warning of Jeremiah to the people of Judah, and it is just as true today, dear brothers and sisters.  For there are false prophets and false Christs, even as our Lord prophesied that they would increase, even until His return.

Jesus said that you will recognize them, these false prophets, by their fruits.  Are they preaching the Word of God?  Are they convicting you of sin, and then pointing you to our Lord and His cross for His unbounded grace and mercy?  Or do they excuse sin and ignore Christ crucified?  Not everyone who says, “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven.  Not every shepherd is preaching the true Word. 

Even in Jeremiah’s day, there were “soothsayers,” who always prophesied good news, because that’s what our itching ears want to hear.  That’s what people in power want to hear.  It’s what we want to hear.  Jeremiah says to us today: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes.  They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord.  They say continually to those who despise the Word of the Lord, ‘It shall be well with you’… and ‘No disaster shall come upon you.’”

This is the mark of the false prophet, dear friends.  They only preach the Gospel with no Law, or they preach the Law in such a way as it is doable, so that you need no Gospel.  They mix Law and Gospel, or only preach one or the other.  Flee from such shepherds, dear friends.  Listen to those who proclaim with Jeremiah the coming of the “righteous Branch,” even Jesus Christ our Lord, who will “execute justice and righteousness in the land.”  And in fact, one of His many names is: “The Lord is our righteousness.”

For in calling us to repent, a true shepherd, a true prophet, will not merely tell us to “be better.”  Our salvation isn’t in the Law.  Yes, the Law is to be proclaimed, and harshly so, so as to call us to repent and lament over our sins.  But our salvation is not in ourselves, but rather our righteousness is the Lord Himself.  And it is for the sake of Christ, our Righteous Branch, that Jeremiah promises: “I will gather the remnant… and they shall be fruitful and multiply.  I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, declares the Lord.”

Let us pray for faithful shepherds to serve us, dear friends.  Let us not be swayed by soothsayers, and let us not rebel against faithful pastors who call us to repent when we need to hear the Law calling us to do just that.  May the Lord of the church continue to raise up faithful preachers among us, whose mouths are filled with the salt and light of the Word, men who constantly point us to the Righteous Branch who is our righteousness, the name that is above every name, the only name by which we must be saved: our Good Shepherd, even Jesus Christ our Lord. 

“Lift up your heads, O gates!  And be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.  Who is this King of glory?  The Lord of hosts, He is the King of glory!” (Ps 24:9-10).

Amen.

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

Sermon: Wittenberg Academy Matins - November 10, 2022

Text: Matt 25:14-30

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

The kingdom does not conform to our notions of fairness.  Can you just imagine a politician running on this platform: “To everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance.  But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”  And indeed, equity is not to be found in the Lord’s kingdom.  We do not all start at the same place.  Some have more, some less.  But no matter what hand we are dealt, so to speak, we are to invest what we have in the kingdom.  Nor do we all end up with the same result.

Dear friends, look what we have to gain: eternal life, and not just for us, but for the entire world, to all who believe this Good News and receive it by faith.  No-one is excluded based on ethnicity or social status.  We are all poor miserable sinners for whom Christ died.  He has invested His talents, the very riches of His life, in us, in His beloved.  And so the stakes are high.  Jesus came to conquer sin, death, and the devil – to raise our bodies in eternity in the resurrection.  He has come to recreate the entire universe and to restore it to its pristine glory.  That is the Good News we have for the world – a world that hates us for having Good News to share with them. 

For indeed, the way the kingdom works is not fair.  God is not a cosmic social justice warrior, but at the same time, He creates a world of true diversity, where we are neither judged by the color of our skin nor by the content of our character.  Rather we are judged righteous through the blood of the Lamb.  And because we cannot lose, dear friends, we have no reason to be stingy in the kingdom.  We have no reason to operate out of fear.  For the Lord has given all of us different gifts and talents (‘talents’ as we use the word in English).  And He implores us not to be faithless and selfish, but to boldly look to the kingdom, trusting in the Lord to provide – not only for our needs but for the needs of the kingdom.  We have Good News for the world.  So let us invest in the kingdom!

We are in the time between Jesus’ first and second coming.  This is the time for us to use our talents and our worldly gifts to labor in the vineyard, and to put those God-given gifts to work in the kingdom.  We have babies to baptize, children to educate, unbelievers to dazzle with the Good News from the Word of God.  We have older folks to care for according to our callings.  For Jesus is telling us a parable.  It isn’t about making millions of dollars in the market, or even earning a few bucks on interest from savings.  For we are about a different kind of saving.  We Christians have the very thing to save the world.  And it is not this world’s concept of social justice.  For the Lord’s justice is crooked, dear friends. 

The Judge is biased, but biased in favor of those for whom His Son died.  The Judge is partial, but partial to those of us whom His Son defends in court, those who believe and are baptized (Mark 16:16).  The Judge is unfair, but unfair only to Satan, the accuser who would drag us into the pit of hell.

But thanks be to God that He runs a crooked courtroom, focused not on justice but rather on mercy.  Let us not bury the talent, dear friends, but let us rejoice in how much a tiny down-payment grows by the will of God.  For He has paid it all “not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death.”  Jesus did not bury the talent, for He would not stay buried.  God has invested it all in us, His beloved, and in the new heaven and the new earth.  Thanks be to God for His unfairness. 

Amen.

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

Sermon: Wittenberg Academy – Nov 9, 2022 - Vespers

9 Nov 2022 – St. Martin Chemnitz

Text: Jer 22:1-23

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Shortly before the exile of Judah to Babylon, before the destruction of Jerusalem, the prophet Jeremiah pleaded with the people to hear the Word of the Lord and repent.  But by this time, they are so far gone that it is just not going to happen.  And yet, Jeremiah continues to plead, preaching a Law that the people refuse to believe, and prophesying disaster that the people refuse to acknowledge. 

Of course, we Christians are the people of the Gospel.  We want our pastors to speak to us of forgiveness and victory – and indeed they are ours by virtue of Christ Jesus.  But we, like the people of Judah, live in a fallen world, surrounded by amoral unbelievers on every side, and our own sinful flesh inside.  We allow ourselves to be tempted and led to and fro by the devil and his fallen angels.  We desperately need the Word of God – both the Gospel and the Law – even as preached with the severity of Jeremiah.

For the preacher has no choice, dear friends.  If he is to obey the Lord, he must preach the Word, in season and out of season.  If it is his task to preach the Law in its severity, then he must do it.  No Christian pastor would pick this text to preach on, dear friends.  This text was assigned.  It was chosen because our Lord knows that we need to hear it.  We need to hear Jeremiah’s call to repentance, and his warning to those who refuse – for we too are a stiff-necked people, intent on going our own way.

We hearers and preachers both need to hear and ponder this Jeremiad at this time and place: “Do justice and righteousness and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed.”  Indeed, the little boy who cried wolf did not do himself any favors, but lest we forget, there really are wolves, even amid the phony cries of “oppression,” there are those who oppress others.  We must stand against it.  And we are called to “do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless and the widow.”  We must not allow our riches and our conveniences to become our lords and masters.  We must not allow our understandable cynicism and skepticism rob us of our compassion and humanity.

Moreover, we are warned about forsaking the covenant and worshiping other gods and serving them.  We must not allow our riches and our conveniences to become our lords and masters.  We must not allow sports and entertainment to take precedence over our worship of the true God, for it is easy to compromise a bit here, to hedge a bit there.  And if we indulge ourselves, we run the risk of the kind of divine vengeance that Jeremiah was forced to prophesy to the people of Judah.

But even at this late stage, dear friends, hear the Word of the Lord: “If you will indeed obey this Word, then there shall enter the gates of this house kings who sit on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they and their servants and their people.  But if you will not obey these words… this house shall become a desolation.”

Our Lord is calling us, dear friends, to thoroughly examine ourselves, to seek forgiveness, and to repent – truly repent of our sins – especially in these dark days.  And even in the darkness of the Law there is the light of the Gospel, the promise of Christ and His mercy – the blessings that come to us when we do confess and seek forgiveness.  For the Lord is merciful.  He hears our prayers.

So let us hear His Word, dear friends.  Let us take the warning to heart.  For even in these dark and despondent days, the Psalmist still declares to us: “The Lord builds up Jerusalem; He gathers the outcasts of Israel.  He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds…. The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His steadfast love!”

Amen.

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

Sermon: St. Martin Chemnitz, Nov 9, 2022 - Wittenberg Academy Matins

November 9, 2022 – St. Martin Chemnitz

Text: Matt 25:1-13

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

When our Lord wants to teach us about the kingdom, he doesn’t lay out a series of theses for debate, the way our great saints and theologians, like Martin Chemnitz did.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that!  But our Lord teaches by means of narrative, and does so in a way that leaves us with no logical twists and turns, no room for escape, no way to impose our own laws and rules, whether of the made-up kind of the Pharisees, or of the logical ways that we would run the kingdom if we were God.

Dear friends, please pay heed to the parable of our Lord.  For it involves your salvation, your eternal destiny in paradise, or in suffering.  The ten young women are attending a wedding, and they are waiting for their ride to the wedding hall, where there is feasting and joy.  Five of the girls have their things in order, as they are wise.  Five are in a state of disarray, as they are foolish.  In their waiting, they fall asleep.

When the bridegroom is near, they are awakened.  The time is short.  The foolish girls are unprepared.  They are out of lamp oil for the journey.  They ask to borrow some from their wise sisters.  But there is not enough.  The only solution is to go to the dealers and buy the oil that they should have already had.  While they are gone, the bridegroom comes.  He will not wait for the foolish virgins to return.  He leaves with the virgins who are prepared.  The fate of the foolish, who arrived at the wedding hall after the door has been closed, is terrifying.  “I do not know you,” says the bridegroom.  And the bridegroom, dear friends, is Jesus.

“Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” 

We are tempted to focus and fixate on the foolishness of this world: things that are transitory and just unimportant.  Our gaze is turned inward on ourselves, on our desire to do what we want to do, to slumber, to join in the world’s revelry rather than keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, “the author and perfecter of our faith” (Heb 12:2).  And in so doing, dear friends, we put our salvation in peril.  This parable is a warning.  But it is also a gracious invitation!  For the invitation to the feast is not earned.  It is given by grace.  And if we believe the invitation, we will be watchful and mindful, vigilant, and ready! 

For the Bridegroom is Jesus, our Savior, our Redeemer, our Master, and our God in the flesh who endured this fallen world so that we might enjoy the eternal feast in paradise!  “Watch, therefore.”  It is an invitation to watch with joyful expectation of a feast that will never end! 

The Bridegroom comes, awake!
Your lamps with gladness take! 
Alleluia!
With bridal care
Yourselves prepare
To meet the Bridegroom, who is near.

Amen.

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

Sermon: Wittenberg Academy – St. Johannes von Staupitz, Nov 8, 2022

8 Nov 2022 – St. Johannes von Staupitz

Text: Matt 24:29-51

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

This morning, there was a lunar eclipse.  It was a total eclipse, also known as a “blood moon” – which gets the “prophecy experts” worked up.  Like astrologers, they get out their charts and programs that convert Hebrew letters to numbers and dates, and they can upgrade their timetables for the return of Jesus.

Of course, their prognostications always fail, because as our Lord says: “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.”  And in fact, Jesus gives us pretty good advice, as He is wont to do: “Stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.  But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into.  Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”

And so, dear friends, we know that He is coming.  It is as inevitable as the rising of the sun and moon.  But we don’t know when.  That is why we are to be awake, to be vigilant, to be standing ready like a minuteman armed and ready to deploy on a moment’s notice. 

Things like celestial events do have a good use, as they do remind us of our Lord’s words that “the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”  And then the whole world will see “the Son of Man coming on the clouds.” 

He is returning, dear brothers and sisters.  While the wild-eyed late-night TV preachers are wrong in their calculus, they are not wrong that Jesus is coming.  We confess it in the Creed at every Divine Service: “And He will come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead, whose kingdom will have no end.”  And that is the main thing about our confession, dear brothers and sisters.  He is coming in His glory to bring justice, to right wrongs, to vindicate the hurt, to fix that which is broken.  And though we are poor miserable sinners, we do not have to fear His coming.  For more important than a blood moon is the blood of Christ shed on the cross, when indeed signs appeared in the heavens, and Satan was defeated for eternity. 

While the world is roiled in fear and trepidation about the climate, elections, politics, the economy, world affairs, even as depression and drugs and despondency seem to have become a pandemic of doom, we Christians take comfort, and even joy, in the old maxim: “Stat crux dum volvitur orbis.”  That is, “While the world spins, the cross stands.”  The crucified one stands for us, dear friends, as our advocate, as our Redeemer, as our Savior. 

As the hymnist sings:

Those dear tokens of His passion
Still His dazzling body bears,
Cause of endless exultation
To His ransomed worshipers.
With what rapture, with what rapture, with what rapture
Gaze we on those glorious scars!

Amen.

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

Sermon: All Saints Day (Observed) – 2022

6 Nov 2022

Text: Matt 5:1-12 (Rev 7:2-17, 1 John 3:1-3)

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

On this Feast of All Saints, dear friends, we remember with love, affection, and with the joy of triumph, all the saints “who from their labors rest.”  We remember and honor the patriarchs and prophets, the apostles and martyrs, the great theologians of the faith, and all of the ordinary people throughout history who placed their trust in Christ.  We remember those who have died recently, for they too are the saints whom we honor on this day.

In Article 21 of our Augsburg Confession, we confess “that the remembrance of saints may be commended to us so that we imitate their faith and good works according to their calling.” 

“Faith and good works” indeed go together.  And faith is first.  For what makes a saint a saint is our Lord Jesus Christ.  He makes saints out of sinners, and this gift of grace is received by faith.  But we not only emulate the faith of our fathers and mothers, we also emulate their good works.  We all need examples: heroes and heroines who show us how to live out the Christian faith and life.

But at the end of the day – as well as at the end of the life and the end of the age – it is the faith that drives the works that we associate with sainthood.

In our Gospel, our Lord preaches His Sermon on the Mount, and gives us the “Beatitudes.”  I have heard people trying to be clever and turn this passage into Law by calling this passage “The Be-Attitudes.”  In other words, they see this passage as a series of commands by Jesus, to “be” this and “be” that.  And if that is what the beatitudes are, it might make you think that Jesus is promising payback if you are a “good person.”  Of course, the problem is that you are not a “good person,” and neither am I.  For “none are righteous, no not one.”  And yet, here we are, speaking about saints and our emulation of their faith and works.

Dear friends, the beatitudes are not “Be Attitudes.”  The word “beatitude” means “blessing.”  Jesus is not laying down more laws for us to fall short of, rather He is promising something glorious to us in eternity!

To those who fall short spiritually, Jesus gives you the promise that heaven will be yours.  To those who mourn in this life, Jesus promises comfort when we leave this vale of tears.  To those who are meek, who just don’t have the strength to triumph on their own, Jesus promises that they will “inherit” the earth, that is, receive it as an unearned gift.  To those who desire righteousness, but don’t quite get there, still hungering and thirsting because of their lack of holiness, Jesus promises satisfaction in heaven, when all is complete.  To those who show mercy, they will be recipients of it.  To those who are “pure in heart,” a quality that the world despises, they will find their fulfillment in seeing God.  To those who make peace rather than seek victory, they will be honored with Sonship according to the Father. 

And to those who are persecuted in this fallen world, the perfect world of heaven will be yours.  For you are blessed when you suffer persecution and reviling in this fallen life, because a perfect and eternal life will be different.  “Your reward will be great in heaven,” promises Jesus.  And so “rejoice and be glad.”

The beatitudes are promises of blessing in the life to come.  They are not the promise of “your best life now” by following nine rules for happiness.  For there is no true happiness in this fallen world, but there is the promise of happiness in the fullness of time, when time itself is no more.

For we live with one foot in time, and another in eternity.  We “feebly struggle” here, as the hymnist says, but they, the saints in eternity, “in glory shine.”  They have completed the race, while we are still on the way.  And so the Christian life means we are saints here by God’s promise, and we will be saints there by God’s fulfillment.  We live in the “now” but the “not yet.”

For as St. Paul says: “Beloved, we are God’s children now.”  This is important, dear friends, for the kingdom is ours even here and even now, here in time, and as we limp along in this fallen world of sin and death.  “We are God’s children now.”  And yet, beloved, “what we will be has not yet appeared.”  For “we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is.”

This is the glory of the saints in the Church Triumphant, dear friends!  Think of what they see in the heavenly realm!  Think about what it must be to be declared in the state of full “beatitude” by the Word of Jesus in the presence of the Father, by means of the Spirit – in the presence of the Most Holy Trinity, having been separated from sin, having been cured of death, and having been placed outside the reach of the devil.

That is what we are celebrating today, dear friends, the lives of the saints as they lived among us, and as they now live in the heavenly realm awaiting the resurrection and our great reunion of body and soul with all the saints!

And it is in the final revelation to the Evangelist and Apostle St. John that we get a glimpse of all the saints in heaven, vast numbers of men and women, “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”

This is what our Lord was talking about in those nine beatitudes: the picture of those who suffered and struggled, those who were attacked, those who held on to their faith in this fallen world, but now, their sorrow and anguish are gone forever.  They have left the world of troubles for an eternal existence of triumph, of worship of God – not from afar, but in the very Presence.

Their worship is very much like our hymns of praise: “Amen!  Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever!  Amen.”

Their song is especially sweet when we remember that these saints, “clothed in white robes” came “out of the great tribulation” in this broken world plagued by sin and death.  But their robes are white because they have been washed “by the blood of the Lamb.”

For that is what it means to be a saint, dear friends.  To be washed in the blood, to be baptized and cleansed in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  And we too are given a little glimpse into heaven when we come to the rail to partake of the body and blood of the Lamb, to taste of the eternal banquet surrounded by the saints, by our departed loved ones, by those who have indeed made their robes white by the blood of the Lamb.  For here in the Divine Service, we join them, as the veil that separates us is so thin as to be virtually non-existent.  For the divine presence that the saints enjoy comes down to us. 

Their praise is our praise.  Their triumph is our triumph.  Their faith is our faith.  And when we are in Christ’s miraculous presence in the sacraments, we are in the presence of the saints, dear friends.  For they are with Christ, and so too are we. 

And what the saints enjoy in the fullness of eternity is what we enjoy by virtue of the promise of our Lord:

“For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and He will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

Blessed are they, and blessed are you.  Let us rejoice and be glad!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!

Amen.

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

Raving Madman With Too Much Time On His Hands

 

Yep, that's me!  😂

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Sermon: Wittenberg Academy – All Saints, 2022

1 Nov 2022 – All Saints Day

Text: Matt 21:1-22

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

On the heels of His closest followers squabbling over which of them were going to be King Jesus’ top advisors (Matt 20:21-28), His time has come to enter Jerusalem.  It is the time of His coronation.  And although Jesus has plainly told His disciples three times that it will not be what they envisioned – that He will be arrested, put to death, and rise again – they are still wrapped up in the excitement of the coming of the kingdom as they imagine it, rather than as He has revealed it.

Jesus is being received as the King.  He enters David’s Royal City as the “Son of David” – as two blind men in Jericho, whose vision He had restored, had just confessed before the “great crowd” (Matt 20:29-30).  And with a “great crowd,” our Lord dramatically enters Jerusalem in the same way as His ancestor King Solomon, the first son of David: borne through the gates “mounted on a donkey.”  This is how the Messiah was prophesied to come and establish the kingdom, as one of the final prophets Zechariah had written (Zech 9:9). 

When an event has changed the course of history, we often compare it to Julius Caesar “crossing the Rubicon.”  Caesar wrote, “The die is cast.”  His great gamble was now something that could not be undone.  But compared to the event of our Lord entering Jerusalem to be crucified for the sins of the world and to rise from the dead on the third day, the Royal Entry of Jesus makes Caesar seem, by comparison, to be a low-level government worker, the Rubicon to be a puddle, and the vast Empire to be ruled by Rome for centuries to be nothing more than a few forgotten ruins of marble dug up by treasure-hunters.  God does not toss dice.  He is in charge of the events of history as they play out.

For the crossing of the Gates of Jerusalem by the King of the Universe would not just change history, but rewrite the narrative of the universe.  We number our years not according to Caesar, but according to Christ.  Julius Caesar would also die violently at the hands those who would betray him, but in the end, his life ended in tragedy, whereas our Lord’s bloody death redeems the sins of the world, and He will also rise from His own death to take up His eternal reign at the right hand of the Father.

But on this original Palm Sunday, the Scriptures were fulfilled, even as the “great crowd” and the disciples are in a state of denial about the events to come, culminating one short week into the future – when their lives and the history of the world will be forever and irrevocably changed.  The children cried out: “Hosanna to the Son of David” to the annoyance of the chief priests and scribes.  Singing praise to our God and King is so natural that it is the children who are not deterred by adult expectations.  As the Psalmist prophesied, and as Jesus points out to the experts in the Scriptures: “Have you never read, ‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?” 

“Hosanna to the Son of David!”

 Amen.

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