Luke 8:4-15
Sexagesima

In the name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit

    We have long ago stopped being an agrarian society, where most people have directly experienced the realities of farm life.  Add to that an education system which is sometimes focused on social engineering over knowledge about God’s ordered creation, and today’s Gospel about sowing seed may seem a bit foreign.  That’s why it’s a good idea even for city and suburban folks to plant and keep a garden, if for no other reason than to keep in dirt-level contact with the created world, and in particular here, to understand the workings of a seed.

    Then again, if you have never seen a seed germinate and sprout, it may actually add to the wonder of our Lord’s story.  For what if you knew nothing about seeds, and I handed one to you, say, a kernel of wheat, and told you that if you put it in the dirt and put water on it, in a few decades it could possibly provide bread for an entire city?  You might think that sounds like superstition, or some kind of Jack-and-the-Beanstalk story.  For how does a little seed know what to do?  Where do the stem, the roots, and the leaves come from?  And what about the fruit?  And how does it seem to work perfectly all the time if it has the right conditions to grow?

    The original listeners of our Lord’s story saw where their food came from, and that it didn’t just appear on the shelves at the grocery store.  But what a wondrous thing to learn about if you haven’t seen it before, to behold the workings of a seed.  Many of us planted seeds in a paper cup indoors when we were schoolchildren, perhaps sunflower seeds.  We watched as the little stem burst forth out of the dirt and started to grow leaves.  And if we stuck with it long enough, the sunflower might have grown to be taller than our parents, with a flower bigger than a grown-up’s face.  And in time, it would have a bunch of new seeds in the middle, which we could plant and start the process again, with no real limit to the number of plants that could come from that original seed.

    That sense of wonder should equally apply to the Word of God and how we think of it.  For the seed in our Lord’s story is the Word of God.  Just as a little seed contains microscopic DNA instructions embedded in the cells, which start working like a computer program when water signals the seed to do its thing, so too does the Word of God contain power–true power to produce everlasting life by germinating faith in Christ.  The DNA of salvation is carried upon the preached Word of God.  How it works exactly, we don’t know any more than the original hearers of Jesus knew precisely how seeds germinate and mature.  But they knew that the seed had a hidden power: power to feed many–so long as it had water and good soil.

    The Kingdom of God also begins with water: baptismal water that sets in motion the activation of the Word of God into faith.  It starts out small; but it grows.  And with the right soil conditions for us human beings who are created from the dirt, that small seed will transform into flourishing faith, bearing fruit that abides and endures, multiplying itself a hundredfold.

    In our Lord’s story, the sower of the seed tosses it everywhere.  He doesn’t discriminate.  He doesn’t try to predict what soil will ultimately be good soil.  Likewise, preachers do not discriminate.  We cannot predict who will come to faith when they hear the Word.  We cannot see into hearts.  We cannot point to any group or category of person and project who will be good soil and believe, and who will ultimately prove to be bad soil, and the Word of God will die in their hearts.  There have been times when I’ve been happily surprised at someone who receives the Word so favorably and faithfully without a great deal of special attention on my part; and there have been times when I’ve been sadly disappointed when a great deal of time and effort result in rejection and unbelief.  The Word alone does the work.  So we just sow the Seed everywhere.  Sometimes we preach convinced that nobody cares, that our words are being wasted.  But the Word is never wasted.  It carries out the purposes of God regardless of appearances, even if that purpose is to bring judgment on the unrepentant hearer.  And sometimes in unexpected and surprising ways, the Word takes root and grows in the hearts of those who hear it.

    First, Jesus speaks of the seed sown along the path.  It was stepped on and carried away by birds.  This is a description of those whose hearts are hardened to the Word of God, like a foot-worn path.  Perhaps they’ve been stepped on and misused in their life, and they blame God or the church.  Perhaps they’ve been deceived by YouTube preachers that the Bible isn’t trustworthy and by the world that mocks Christian teaching.  The devil makes the soil of the heart unreceptive; he snatches away the Word of God so that it doesn’t have the chance to take root.

    Jesus then speaks of the seed that falls on rocky soil; it doesn’t get enough moisture, and it dies.  This is like those who initially hear the Word with joy; they’re passionate about the faith.  But it turns out that their faith is shallow, not deeply rooted in the Word and the foundational watering of baptism into Christ.  And so as soon as the heat of difficult times comes, when they realize that being Christian means daily repentance and bearing a cross, when Christianity no longer gives them the life they want in this world, they lose their faith.  Rather than being drawn to Jesus in their time of need, they turn away from Him to something else they think is better and more practical.

    Jesus also speaks of the seed that does take root and sprouts and grows, but it gets choked out by thorns, and it is unfruitful.  This is like the people who hear and believe God’s Word, but they get distracted by the “cares and riches and pleasures of life,” and their faith dies before it can bear fruit. Our culture is filled with these distractions–diversions that waste your time or that get you to focus on things which don’t really relate in any direct way to your particular vocations and callings in life.  Time that could be spent meditating on God’s Word or fulfilling the duties He has given you is instead spent getting angry about some political cause or scrolling endlessly through videos on social media.  This is why I’ll be proposing that we all engage in some screen fasting this coming Lenten tide–more details on that later.  Beware of that which chokes out your faith, either by displacing it and sucking up all your time, or by diverting you from the one thing needful, the Word of Jesus.

    But then finally, note the miracle that happens in the good soil.  The seed falls into the dirt, and it germinates and grows.  Eventually it bears fruit, and in the fruit are more seeds, so that its descendants will bear fruit exponentially.  And this is what happens in the Kingdom of God when the Word is preached and received in the good soil of the believer who hears, listens, and takes it to heart.  The Word of the Lord grows to be a blessing to others, from generation to generation.

    Now you may feel a bit uneasy at this point.  Because you know that the first three soils describe you to some extent.  The hardening of the path by the devil, the thorns we are exposed to in this fallen world, the shallowness of our own sinful nature are all factors in our life. So how do we become the good fourth soil?  How do we hear the Word so that we hold it fast in an honest and good heart and bear fruit with patience?

    First, we do this by recognizing that the power is not in us but in the Seed.  And so we prayerfully make it our purpose to get rid of any impediments to that Seed–to reject the temptations of the devil, the world, and our flesh that would snatch the Word from our hearts, choke us with distractions, and lure us with shallow spirituality.  Put simply, our primary task as Christians is to repent and remove whatever is in the way and simply be receivers of the implanted Word.  God’s design imbedded in the Seed will do the real work of giving us life and making us fruitful.

    And then above all, we must remember that if the Seed is the Word, Jesus is the Seed, the promised Seed of Abraham and David.  And He is also the perfect fourth soil.  He is the eternal Word of God having taken root in the earth of our humanity–fully human, but entirely without the rocks and thorns and hardness of sin.

    This Word became flesh and bore all that has infested your soil.  Jesus was planted in this world by His heavenly Father to redeem your humanity.  Behold how this Seed is cast to the earth, how Jesus the Word is thrown onto the wayside, the way of sorrows, where he is dragged to His cross, mocked in His suffering like the caws of scavenging ravens.  But notice that the birds of the air do not devour Jesus’ body; He was reverently buried.  This Seed is hurled upon the rocky ground of Golgotha, where He lacked moisture and cried out, “I thirst!”  But in spite of his suffering and thirst, this Seed would not wither away permanently.  And Jesus was even crowned with thorns, the very symbol of Adam’s curse; yet this Seed would not be choked out of existence, but would rise again.  A Seed has to die, if it is to rise out of the earth and bear much fruit.  The fruit of Jesus’ suffering is your salvation.

    In this way our Lord has overcome all that stands against you, all that keeps you from having life, all that keeps you from growing to maturity.  In Christ you are set free from hard-heartedness and the rocks of shallow faith and the thorns of this world.  In Christ alone you are the holy fourth soil, pure and righteous and fruitful and forgiven.  In you the Word of God is implanted through preaching and teaching.  And the Word is sown in the soil of your body, placed on your very tongues, in the Sacrament of Christ’s body and blood.  The power of God to give life is in the Seed.  And the Seed of the Word is in you and with you and for you, the Word of the Father who wants with all His heart for you to share forever in His life.

    Let us, then, be eager to confess this Word with our mouths before the world.  Let the scattering of the holy Seed continue outside of these walls, out in the daily callings that God has placed you in.  Let the Word accomplish its purpose with your unchurched or de-churched friends and family.  Invite them in to divine service, to adult instruction classes.  Together with them, let us all seek the Lord while He may be found, and call upon Him, for He is near; His Word is here.  Return to the Lord, for He will have mercy on you, and He will abundantly pardon.  His grace in Christ is more than sufficient for you, even in the midst of your weakness.  For His strength is made perfect in the weakness of the cross.  “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

In the name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit

(With thanks to the Rev. Larry Beane for some of the above)

Matthew 20:1-16
Septuagesima

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

    One way of understanding today’s Gospel is that it’s a debate about equality, and whether or not equality is a good thing.  The laborers who had worked all day in the vineyard did not favor equality.  For when those who worked fewer hours were paid a full day’s wage by the landowner, their complaint was  “You made them equal to us!”  They didn’t like that.  

    And to some extent we can understand their complaint.  It doesn’t seem particularly fair to reward everyone equally for unequal work–sort of like a group project in school where one or two people do all the heavy lifting, but the slacker in the group still gets an “A” grade.  The Olympics are starting next weekend.  Imagine if everyone in the Olympics was rewarded equally after the competitions, and the person who fell three times in a skating event received the same medal as the one who performed all the jumps flawlessly.

    In this sense we can rightly say that sometimes equality is not good.  Coercing and forcing equal outcomes and rewards is fundamentally unjust, no matter how the socialists and Marxists want to spin it.  It is good and just that the one who works harder, takes more risk, has more responsibility is given a higher wage.

    But then what’s going on in today’s Gospel parable?  Well to begin with, Jesus is not speaking about politics or economics here.  Nothing that He says here has to do with being a republican or a democrat, a social justice warrior or a free-market capitalist.  This is not about the kingdoms and power structures of this world.  For what does Jesus say?  “The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.”  So let us zero in today on what Jesus is teaching us about the way things work in God’s kingdom, how He desires to treat us, and what that means for us who have been called to work in the vineyard of His church.

    “You made them equal to us!”  The complaint was accurate; that’s what the landowner did.  So in what ways are we all equal in God’s sight?  Firstly, we are all equally created by God, knit together by Him in our mother’s womb, and therefore equal in dignity and worth as human beings, made in the image of God–whoever we are, wherever we come from.  But as Scripture makes clear, that image has been broken in each one of us.  We are also equal before the Lord in this respect, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  Not a single one of us can lay claim to some sort of heavenly reward or say that God owes us anything.  In fact, quite the contrary.  The wages we have earned by our work, the equal wages of sin is death.  If God were to be just and fair with us and give us what we deserve, eternal death is what we’d all receive.

    This is where we begin to see the difference between the first laborers in the vineyard and the later laborers.  For the first, they thought that anything good they received was based on their work, what they did.  They were operating under the principles of a contract; a day’s wage for a day’s work–that’s what a denarius is.  But notice how it was for the later workers.  The landowner said to them, “You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right you will receive.”  Now if that was you, would you go and work for this man, without any idea of what you’d be paid?  Well it depends, doesn’t it.  It depends on what kind of person you think him to be–is he more like the cheap next door neighbor or the grandparent who’s looking for an excuse to be generous?  Is he a man of good character or bad?  It depends on whether or not you trust him–do you know him, do you have a good relationship with him?  If you don’t trust the landowner, you probably won’t go into his vineyard.  If you do, you will.

    That ultimately is the real difference between the first and the last in this parable.  The first were dealing with the landowner on the basis of the Law, a legal agreement; the last were dealing with him on the basis of the Gospel, faith in his goodness.  The first wanted to deal with him on what they deemed to be fair.  The last dealt with him on the basis of what he deemed to be good and right.  That’s a huge difference.

    Remember, the Lord is not unfair with the first men.  He is just very generous to the others.  The Law was not broken.  The first received a proper and fair wage.  He tells them, “Go your way.”  “You want it to be all your way, based on your work, fine.  Take it and go.  But I wish to be gracious to these others and bring them joy.  If that makes you grumpy, too bad.”  Hell is filled with grumbling and complaining against God.  The damned in their pride actually believe that God is wrong, that His grace is unfair.  This worsening bitterness and teeth-gritting frustration is part of their unending torment.

    Do you find yourself considering God to be unfair because of your situation in life or something that’s happened to you?  Are you one whose religion is like a contract with God, a system of rewards for your good deeds?  Do you negotiate with God in your prayers (I’ll do this for you if you do this for me)?  If so, then you are behaving like the first laborers in this parable, and you must repent.  Turn away from ranking yourself above others, turn away from trusting in your own works, and turn to the works of Christ.  Believe that it is only and entirely through Him that you receive any blessing at all from the Father.  Trust in Christ alone to save you from death and hell.  

    Unbelievers seek a God who is fair, and then when they find Him, they don’t like Him.  Believers seek a God who is merciful and gracious, and when He finds them, they love Him.  (Notice how in the parable, it’s the owner who finds the workers; He initiates the “hiring.”)  Believers know that it is only by grace that they are even in the vineyard, no matter how long they’ve been there.  They consider it a privilege to be able to work in the vineyard and contribute to its health and growth.  They are not jealous of the newcomer or the repentant restored sinner or the one converted in his dying days, but they rejoice that the same mercy that saved them has also saved another.  They’re glad to say to the Lord, “You have made them equal to us!”  Even a faithful lifelong Christian recognizes that of himself he deserves nothing and that it is only because of Jesus that he has forgiveness and life.  As it is written, “The free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23).”  And again, “By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast (Eph. 2:8-9).”

    In the same way that the landowner dealt with those hired at the 11th hour, so the Lord treats you as if you did all the required work, from the beginning to the ending of the day.  For what you failed to do, the Lord Jesus has accomplished completely on your behalf in His perfect life and death and resurrection.  He Himself is the real Laborer in the vineyard who brings you the generous reward at the end of the day.  Let’s run through the times again: Jesus began His work before dawn on Good Friday, being condemned by the Jewish authorities.  He was questioned by Pontius Pilate, flogged, and crucified at the third hour of the day.  Darkness covered the land from the sixth hour, noon, until the ninth hour, as a sign of the judgment He bore in your place.  At the 11th hour our Lord the cried out “It is finished!” and died as the perfect and complete sacrifice for your sin.  Behold how He did all the work for you!  He who is the Rock was struck, and water and blood flowed forth from His side for your cleansing and your forgiveness.  He was buried just before sundown to sanctify your grave and make it a place of rest from which you will awaken and rise in glory on the Last Day.

    So to bring this full circle, Jesus is like that classmate who is the only one in your group who understands the material and who gives you to share in His perfect score on the project.  He is like the gold medal winner who invites you up onto the podium to share in His glory.  He is the one who gives you “whatever is right,” that is, His own righteousness and undeserved love as a gift.

    And now, living in that confidence, we are freed to do truly good works, without calculating what’s in it for us or what reward we’re going to get out of it.  Instead of ranking ourselves above others and sneering at equality with them, we give attention to the words of St. Paul when he says, “Count others more significant than yourselves.”  1 Corinthians 12 speaks about how it is in the body of Christ, “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor. . . God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.”  We are all one body in Christ, we have all equally received the denarius of grace.

    Let us then attend to the work of the vineyard of the Church and be full of good works by trusting in the grace of Christ alone to save us.  Let us run in such a way as to obtain the prize of life with Christ.  Let us fight the good fight of faith, setting our hearts on Him, disciplining our bodies and minds, filling ourselves with His words and His life-giving body and blood.  Come and lay hold of the denarius Christ earned for you–not because it’s owed; but simply because it is His good pleasure to be generous and loving toward you.

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

Acts 9:1-22

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

    Saul was breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples.  He wanted to lock up and even exterminate believers in Christ.  It was only a short time earlier that Saul had been involved in the stoning death of a Christian deacon named Stephen.  Following that, Saul was inspired to go from house to house and drag off to prison those who were followers of Jesus.  He was so zealous to protect his false religion and so eager to persecute Christians that he even got letters giving him authority to go to far away cities and arrest believers.  His attempts to destroy the church caused the faithful to flee for safety throughout the region.

    In our text Saul was traveling all the way to Damascus in Syria to further his campaign against the Christians.  As he got close to the city, a light from heaven flashed around him.  Falling to the ground, he heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”  Saul asked, “Who are you, Lord?”  “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.”  Saul thought he was on God’s side; but he wasn’t.  He thought his was the true religion; but it wasn’t.  He thought he was diligently carrying out God’s work; but in fact he was fighting against God.

    Are we ever at all like Saul?  We need to remember that we can even use religion and spirituality to fight against God.  Saul was a very religious person.  He had great zeal in seeking to live a righteous life.  But the problem was, he was using religion to justify himself and advance himself.  He thought he could make himself acceptable and pleasing to God by his own loyalty and goodness.  

    Do you ever use religion as a way of advancing your own cause, as a means to achieve some self-serving end, showing yourself to be a good person?  In other words, is your spirituality about gaining some benefit for yourself or is it about desiring fellowship with God?  Do you ever find yourself despising people who aren’t living up to your standards?  Do you sometimes get upset because you feel like you deserve a better life from God?  Do you think that the main purpose of religion is to get people to behave properly?  If so, then you’re being like Saul, fighting against God, following a religion of the Law, trying to establish your own goodness.

    The truth is, we could get everyone to take a stand for God and country and pass all sorts of worthwhile laws–and some good might indeed come from that–but we still won’t have addressed the main issue.  There’s only one righteousness that counts before God, and that’s the righteousness of Christ.  Only Jesus’ death and resurrection redeems us.  It’s not our good works but His good works on our behalf that do the job.  After his conversion Saul, whom we now know as Paul, said that he considered all the religious merits of his former way of life that he could brag about as garbage, sewage (skubalon), that he may be found in Christ, “not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith.”  Only in Jesus are we put right with God and granted eternal life.

    That’s a dangerous and scandalous message.  People are offended when their spirituality of self-fulfillment is declared worthless.  Such a Gospel of pure grace alone is seen as a message which needs to be suppressed and done away with–whether it’s “righteous” Muslims persecuting and killing Christians in Sudan and Nigeria and elsewhere, or “righteous” progressives in this country mocking Christian teaching and ignoring the cross and storming into churches, or for that matter “righteous” libertarians who insist on the superiority of everyone being free to live the way they want and who hate the church’s call to repentance.  False religion will always turn the focus from Jesus and put it on human wisdom and  qualifications.  Fallen human nature has to lash out at others like St. Paul did in order to justify itself as being right or worthy of God’s favor.  And so the Gospel of Christ will always be a target in this world.

    “Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing.”  Saul had to be knocked to the ground before he could comprehend his lowliness before the Lord.  He had to be blinded before he could perceive that he had no spiritual vision.  So it is with us.  God has to knock us on our butt with His Law to make us see that we are by nature spiritually blind and in darkness.  Saul could not see for three days, even as the Lord was in the grave three days.  Saul needed to die through repentance before he would be reborn in the Lord.  Likewise, we also must repent, dying to ourselves so that the real life of Christ may be ours.

    Now, as of yet, Saul was not converted.  Many think that his conversion took place on the road to Damascus; but it didn’t, at least not entirely.  That was the Lord getting his attention.  The conversion was yet to be completed.  The Lord called a man named Ananias to go to the house in which Saul was staying on Straight Street.  Ananias was understandably hesitant.  After all, only days earlier, any Christian would have been in grave danger in Saul’s presence.  But the Lord said to Ananias, “Go!  This man (Saul) is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel.”  God had special plans for Saul, and so Ananias went.

    Ananias came to Saul, placed his hands on him, and said, “Brother Saul . . .”  That was no insignificant title.  For a “brother” among Christians was someone who was to be considered a fellow inheritor of eternal life; a “brother” was someone who belonged to the community of those saved by Christ.  And so by referring to Saul as a “brother,” Ananias was declaring to him that from this point forward, his sins were forgiven, that he was now reconciled to the Lord.  “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”  Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again.  He got up and was baptized.  Now that Saul had been given the eyes of faith, his physical vision was restored.  He was baptized into Christ.  Here on Straight Street, the crooked way was made straight.  By water and the Spirit, he had become a Christian.  Solely by the mercy of God, he had been converted.

    This story of Saul should be of great comfort to you.  For it shows that even someone like him, who became the great Apostle Paul, was converted the same way you were.  Most of you probably had no miraculous Damascus road experience; but just like Saul you were enlightened by the same gifts of the Spirit.  It was holy absolution and holy baptism that converted Saul and made him a Christian.  So also with you, an ordinary pastor just like Ananias applied the name of God to you with the water.  Your sins, too, are absolved.  You are a child of God, a brother or sister in the faith who possesses eternal life in Christ.  You are no less of a Christian than St. Paul.  For you were made one the same way he was.

    This story also teaches very clearly that it is purely by God’s grace and not any merit or decision of your own that you are saved.  For clearly, Saul didn’t choose to be a Christian; Christ chose him.  He didn’t find the Lord, it was the other way around.  He didn’t give His heart to Jesus.  Jesus created a new heart and a right spirit within him.  It was God’s doing.  Jesus said to His disciples, “You did not choose me, but I chose you.”  If that is true for the great St. Paul, then that is certainly true of you.  You are Christians by God’s doing, not your own.  You didn’t find Him; you didn’t even choose to believe in Him.  Rather the Holy Spirit worked in you by the Gospel to bring you to faith in Jesus your Savior.

    St. Paul later wrote: “I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.  But by the grace of God, I am what I am.”  And again he wrote, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst.  But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display His unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on Him and receive eternal life.” St. Paul, Saul, is an example for you, to assure you of God’s mercy towards you.  If God forgave him who sinned so grievously by harming the very church of God, then certainly He forgives you.  The cross of Christ is bigger than your grievous sins.  Repent and trust in Him; He is merciful towards all who take refuge in Him.

    You’ll recall that when Saul was on the road, Jesus said to him, “Why are you persecuting Me?”  By persecuting Christians, you see, Saul was persecuting Christ Himself; for they are members of His body.  Christ is in heaven; but His body, the church, is still on earth.  So then, if you are in Christ by baptism and faith, you are protected in His body; your eternal salvation is secure.  For the Scriptures reveal that Jesus cannot die again; death has no mastery over Him.  Therefore, the world and the grave have no power over you.  For when they attack you, they’re attacking Christ Himself.  And He cannot be overcome.  He will surely bring you, the members of His body, safely through this troubled world and the jaws of the grave.  Just as He rose again and ascended to heaven, so you will follow where He has gone.  For the body always follows the head.  St. Paul had to go through many sufferings in His life, as must many Christians.  But he reminds us, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us,” the glory that shines from Him who is the light from heaven, Jesus Christ.

    Brothers and sisters of Christ, St. Paul experienced a radical, 180-degree conversion, from persecuting Christ to preaching Christ.  You also have experienced a radical conversion; for you have been changed from the enemies of God to the family of God, from those who are blind and dead to those who are alive and seeing and who confess His saving name.  You are followers of the Way, Jesus Christ, who is the only path to the Father.  God grant, then, that you daily walk the narrow Way of the cross, the way of repentance and faith.  For the end of the journey in Jesus is the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come.

    ✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

John 2:1-11; Ephesians 5:22-32
Epiphany 2

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

    God’s good gift of marriage has always been under assault.  Right from the beginning Satan subverted the marital order of husband and wife by luring Eve to turn away from the Word of God which Adam had preached to her.  Division and self-orientation have tainted marital unions ever since.  The assault on marriage can even happen under the guise of religion.  In medieval times those who rejected married life and the one flesh sexual union were honored–monks and priests and nuns were held up as leading a higher and holier life than those who embraced ordinary, earthy things like marriage.  Today, our problem tends to be falling into the ditch on the other side of the road, where people take pride in their supposed freedom of sexual expression and doing what they want with their bodies.  But it’s still the same root issue: marriage is thought of as non-essential.  Maybe it’s a nice cultural practice if you want to, celebrate the couple and have a big reception, but in the end just a piece of paper for legal purposes.  (And of course, if getting married means legally losing financial benefits, well then, skip the wedding.  Money trumps matrimony.)

    Whether you’re on the prudish side of things where you think celibacy gives you some supposedly higher state of holiness before God, or whether you’re on the libertine side of things where you just follow your heart and sleep with someone you’re not married to, in the end it’s two sides of the same coin.  In both cases, it’s the same sin: degrading and casting aside God’s gift of marriage.  “No thanks, God, I’ve got a better way.”  

    However, in today’s Gospel we see that Jesus approves of marriage and blesses it and the sexual relationship within it as good.  Marriage is not just a human arrangement.  It’s a divine joining together of a man and a woman, an act of God making two people one flesh.  That’s why it’s called holy matrimony.  Don’t ever forget that God created marriage and joined Adam and Eve together before the fall into sin.  He’s the One who created us male and female.  God instituted this for the mutual delight and companionship of husbands and wives, and for the creation of new human life when He grants it.  So whether you’re married or single, God teaches you in His Word to honor marriage highly, especially in how you talk about it with friends and family and co-workers.  Raunchy joking about sex does not honor marriage.  Belittling your spouse does not honor marriage.  Talking about marriage as if it’s this burdensome prison that limits your freedom doesn’t honor marriage.  Rather, we should remember and emphasize the great good that God works through this holy estate.

    First of all, in marriage (as in all our vocations) God works to protect us from selfishness.  He places a flesh and blood spouse directly before our eyes, with specific and real needs.  God calls us out of a self-absorbed life that invents its own good works into a devoted life that takes care of the spouse He has given.  A husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the Church and sacrificed Himself for her.  That’s why if a husband is complaining that his wife is hard to deal with or that she’s not “meeting his needs,” he needs to quit whining and man up.  Your job is not primarily to be a receiver but a giver, sacrificing yourself for her.  It’s time to focus on how to draw her to yourself again.  And likewise, if a wife is lamenting that her husband is not turning out to be the man she hoped he would be, she should remember that God’s call to respect her husband is not dependent on how romantic or patient or communicative he’s been lately.  Honor him as your head as the church honors Christ.  With a gentle spirit, don’t give up looking for him to be the man God has called him and declared him to be.  It is God’s intent that through this mutual self-giving, His people would be built up and that self-orientation would be put down.  

    Secondly, in marriage God works to protect us from lust.  The book of Proverbs consistently refers to sexual enticements, pornographic enticements, as one of the chief ways in which people are led into ruin.  In marriage God seeks to protect us from the destructiveness of lust.  St. Paul counsels all who suffer from lust to marry, for this is God’s good and gracious provision for rendering proper affection one to the other.  This is also one of the reasons why Paul counsels spouses not to withhold themselves from each other for lengthy periods of time.  One of God’s blessings in marriage is the dampening and controlling of lust.

    Thirdly, through marriage God works to rescue us from doubt.  How can we be certain that we have chosen the right partner?  Through marriage God guards against such doubt by giving you the certainty that He is the One who married you to your spouse; that person is the one the Lord Himself has given you to love and to be committed to, even if they’re less than perfect.  And what the Lord has done stands far above any feelings you may or may not have or any later wondering whether you should have chosen differently.  Reject the pagan notion of a soul mate!  A man and woman may in freedom choose to marry each other, but what really and finally counts is that it is the Lord who unites them, working through the authorities that He has established.  In this way God protects marriage from doubt with the certainty that He is the One who has made the union.

    Fourthly, in marriage God seeks to protect us from loneliness.  Through the working of the devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh, we can easily become isolated and cut off, waiting for that perfect person, living in a world of books and screens rather than flesh and blood.  In marriage God is at work to protect us from that.  When it is His will, He gives us a companion for comfort and camaraderie in life.  In the Garden of Eden, God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”  Adam received Eve as the God-given companion that brought them both completeness.  Such is God’s intention for marriage also today.

    Fifthly, in marriage God seeks to protect us from the delusion of self-sufficiency.  We tend to think that we can do just fine on our own apart from God.  Without the calling of serving a spouse in marriage (or serving our neighbor in any of our vocations), sinners would perceive even less need for God.  When husband and wife fail each other, as is bound to happen, God puts His law to work.  He confronts their spiritual self-reliance; He afflicts their consciences.  In this way God drives them back to Himself, to find forgiveness, strength, and hope in Christ.  Confession and Absolution, the preaching of the Gospel, and the Body and Blood of Christ become their lifeblood, making them right with God and able to serve each other again.

    Finally, through marriage God is at work to create and preserve families and good order in society.  When God established and blessed marriage He said, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.”  Through that creative word, God blesses the union of husband and wife so that children are conceived and born.  There is no such thing as a Christian marriage that is purposely childless.  This is also why same-sex marriage simply does not exist in God’s sight.  The complementarity of male and female is essential to what marriage is.  Every child has a father and a mother–and needs a father and a mother who are joined and committed to each other.  God’s purpose in marriage is for husband and wife to serve not only each other but also to have children whom they provide for and protect and nurture in the training and instruction of the Lord.  Founded upon God’s gift of the family, human society can be more peaceably ordered.  And this, in turn, gives a good setting for the saving Word of Christ to be proclaimed and taught both in the church and in the home.

    All of this is God’s good gift.  And all of this is meant to drive us to the greater reality that marriage points to.  The fact of the matter is, to one degree or another, all marriages are broken marriages; for it is two sinners who are united, whose only hope is in the forgiveness of sins that comes from Jesus.  And whether a Christian is single or married, divorced, widowed, young or old, as members of the Church we all are in a marital relationship that rescues and saves us.  For the Church has been united with her holy Groom, Jesus. She is the betrothed of Christ.  In the Epistle today Paul spent a lot of time talking about husbands and wives and marriage.  And then he concludes his comments by saying, “What I’m really talking about though is Christ and the Church.”  Earthly marriage is a sign of the greater perfect love that God has for His people and the heavenly union that exists between them.

    From all eternity, before marriage was instituted, it was planned that Christ would lay down His life for His woman, sacrifice Himself for the church, to give her life.  Adam was put into a deep sleep, and Eve was created from his side.  Jesus was put into the sleep of death on the cross, so that a new Eve might be created from the sacramental blood and water that flowed from His side.  St. John calls the church “the elect Lady,” chosen and redeemed by Christ.  For Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her by the washing of water with the Word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having any spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.  For all of you whom sin has contaminated, or whose marriages and families are broken, Jesus shed His blood to cleanse you of every sin; He sanctified you and made you holy for Himself by the water and the Word of Baptism.  You stand before God spotless and perfect in the family of His Church, His holy bride.

    Just as husband and wife are given in marriage to become one flesh, so you now you as the church are the body of Christ, one flesh with Him through baptism.  So if He is the Son of God, then you are called sons of God.  If He holds in His hand the riches and treasures of heaven, those treasures are also yours to hold and take to heart.  If He is the Righteous One, then you are declared righteous before God.  If the death He dies no longer holds Him in the grave, then neither can death hold you in the grave.  The Bride shares in everything that belongs to the Groom.  That’s how marriage works with Jesus.  What is His is now yours, too.

    This is the joy of the eternal wedding feast that we are given a glimpse of in the Gospel.  The ritual washing water of the Law is turned into the joyous wedding wine of the Gospel.  The best is saved for last, and that best is Jesus–His forgiveness and mercy and life–which are all for you, flowing like sweet wine from the mountains.  Even now in Divine Service the heavenly Groom, our Lord Christ, comes to His bride to comfort her.  He speaks to you His words of love.  He remembers the commitment He made to you at Baptism. He gives Himself to you in Holy Communion that you may share fully in His life.

    So set aside your doubts and fears and sorrows.  For it is written, “As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.”  He has saved the best for you.  Come in faith to His table, that you may share in the joy of the eternal wedding feast of the Lamb in His kingdom that has no end.

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

Matthew 3:13-17
The Baptism of our Lord

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

    Jesus grew up like any other faithful Jewish boy, going to the synagogue weekly, and to the temple for the various feasts, as we heard last week.  And so praying and singing the psalms would have been a regular part of His life.  All the way to the end, He even prayed the Psalms on the cross.  “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?” from Psalm 22.  “Into your hands I commit My Spirit” from Psalm 31.  But that raises an interesting question: Would Jesus also have also prayed the penitential psalms during His life, those Psalms that ask for God’s mercy and forgiveness?  Could the sinless Son of God pray Psalm 51, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your unfailing love; according to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out My transgressions”?  We can picture Jesus praying parts of Psalm 69 to His Father like this, “Those who hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head. . . Because for Your sake I have borne reproach . . . Zeal for Your house has consumed me.”  The New Testament even says that those words apply to Jesus.  But what about verse five of that same Psalm, “O God, You know my foolishness; and my sins are not hidden from You”?

    It would be easy to think that Jesus could not possibly have prayed those words.  But one of the things the baptism of our Lord teaches us is that Jesus must have prayed those psalms–not because He had any sins of His own to confess, but because He humbly bears our sins in His flesh and makes them His responsibility and confesses them as if He were guilty of every single one of them.

    It was a strange sight for John the Baptizer, to see the Messiah, the One he had been preparing the way for, stepping down into the water to be baptized.  The people were coming out to John in response to his preaching of repentance, confessing their sins.  John’s baptism was for the forgiveness of sins.  And yet here is Jesus with His feet in the murky Jordan waters asking John to baptize Him.  You can understand why at first John tried to prevent Him and didn’t want to do it.

    We probably would have done just as John did.  For the truth is, we don’t necessarily want Jesus getting down into the mess and the muck of our actual everyday life in this world.  Better to keep Him at a distance all shiny and clean; better to keep Him here at church unstained and separate from our lives out in the “real” world.  We, too, try to prevent Him, keep Him away from the coarseness of our workplace or the imperfections of our home life.  It bothers us and unsettles us a bit when Jesus gets down into the daily realities of our existence.  For then there’s no more hiding the way things are with us.  Jesus’ entry into the water means things are going to be stirred up and changed, everything out in the open.  And that means repentance for us, which is never easy.

    But it is good.  For Jesus enters the water to take our place.  Jesus said to John, “Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”  In doing this Jesus was fulfilling the Father’s righteous plan to save sinners by trading places with us–the holy for the unholy.  Jesus receives this baptism for sinners in order that He might become the Sinner, the only sinner.  Like a great sponge He absorbs the whole’s world’s sin into Himself, and counts Himself guilty of it all, so that we would be counted righteous in God’s sight.  It is written in 2 Corinthians, “God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”  Jesus takes our curse of death so that through Him we might have the blessing of His divine life.  Here in the water is where it all starts.  Jesus begins His ministry here by accepting and taking this burden on Himself, as John would later say, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away, who carries away the sin of the world.”

    You might say that Jesus stole your sins from you in the water; He took them away.  The only way they can damn you now is if you steal them back and insist on continuing in them and keeping them away from Jesus.  Either your sins are on Him or they’re on you.  And Jesus says today, “They’re all on me.  I took them.  Believe that; deal with it. You don’t get to hold on to them any more; you don’t get to keep beating yourself up over them.  I became your pride, your greed, your lust, your immorality, your jealousy, your impatience, your laziness and weakness.  And in turn you have become My righteousness, My holiness, My glory.  Today I begin My sacred journey toward Calvary, bearing and carrying the sin of the world, so that I may destroy it there by My death and the shedding of My blood.”  

    It’s interesting to note that after Jesus persuaded John to baptize Him, it says that John “consented” or permitted Him.  It’s the same word that Jesus Himself later uses when He says, “Let the little children, permit, allow the little children to come to Me.”  That word in Greek is closely related to the word meaning to be forgiven, released, let go of our sins.  The point for us is this: Because Jesus was permitted to be baptized, there is now forgiveness and release for us in the water of baptism.  By the power of His Word and Spirit, all our sins washed away.  They have been taken up by Christ and carried to the cross where they were paid for and destroyed forever.  You are forgiven, pure and holy in Jesus’ name.

    Proof of what Jesus’ began to accomplish in His baptism is shown by the signs that appeared that day.  As soon as Jesus was baptized, the Gospel says “behold”–pay attention to this–the heavens were opened to Him.  That’s what Jesus accomplishes: He opens the heavens by His taking on and taking away the sin of the world.  Heaven was closed to us fallen creatures.  There was no entrance permitted for us by our own efforts or striving.  But now the heavens are opened to Him, the righteous One, and to all who are baptized into Him and who share in His righteousness by faith.

    Then it is written that “the Spirit of God descended like a dove and alighted upon Him.”  That imagery of the dove is important, particularly as it connects this event to Old Testament events involving water and new life.  In the very beginning we hear that the Holy Spirit was hovering, like a bird gliding over the face of the waters.  The Holy Spirit was there with His creative power to bring life to the world that was being made.  And then we hear of Noah sending out a dove from the ark, hovering over the waters, and then bringing back a freshly plucked olive branch, as a sign of the new creation that Noah and his family would enter after the flood.  The Holy Spirit coming in the form of a dove points to Christ as the bringer of the new creation.  It’s all there in Him.  Through our baptism into Christ we receive the same Holy Spirit which He was anointed with.  The Holy Spirit alights upon us to bring us new life, to make us new creatures, and to give us entrance into the new creation.

    Finally, it is written that a voice came from heaven, the Father’s voice declaring, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”  God the Father was greatly pleased to see His Son obediently humbling Himself in love like this to save us, beginning His journey to the cross.  Because of what Jesus has done, all the baptized now hear this very same voice of our heavenly Father saying, “You are My beloved Child; in you I am well pleased.  I see no fault, no blemish in you–only my perfect and holy son or daughter.  I am with you in the messiness of your day to day to life to sanctify you and sustain you.  You may feel worn down, but I will never cast you aside or forsake you; find your rest in My Son.  I have called you by name; you are Mine.  Nothing in all creation can separate you from My love.”  

    All three persons of the Trinity are present here at Jesus’ baptism, the very ones whose name you are baptized into–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  And so you have been drawn into that divine fellowship.  Since Jesus has put Himself in the water for you, your baptism gives you His life.  All your sins are washed away.  You have a place in the Father’s house forever.

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

Luke 2:41-52

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

    The Gospel of Luke gives us more detail about Jesus’ childhood than any other Gospel.  Luke begins his Gospel by telling us that his account is an orderly and careful narrative based on eyewitness testimony.  We get a strong hint as to who one of those eyewitnesses is in today’s reading.  Luke points out that “His mother kept all these things in her heart”–just as earlier we heard at Jesus’ birth when the shepherds came that “Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.”  Luke is able to give us these details because Mary was there for it all, and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit Luke recounts her true story.  

    This story has the ring of truth to it all the more since Mary doesn’t make herself look particularly good.  She, along with Joseph, lost track of Jesus for an entire day before they even noticed that He wasn’t there!  Think about that.  Mary and Joseph were faithful parents, but also parents of a sinless child–one who did what He was supposed to do, who honored and obeyed and never rebelled against His mother or father.  So perhaps they became a bit lax and neglected Him here.  You can understand how it would have been easy for them to take for granted that Jesus was where He was supposed to be on that journey home–in the large caravan of family and friends that they were traveling in for safety’s sake.

    Have you ever done that–taken Jesus for granted and not paid attention to Him like you should?  It can be easy to get lax and lazy about looking to Christ, meditating on His Word, praying in His name. You figure you know enough about Jesus; you don’t really need Bible class, you went to Sunday School!  It’ll be fine if you don’t have daily devotions or give attention to Jesus’ Word for a while.  As you travel through life and go along with the crowd, you turn your attention elsewhere and leave Jesus behind.  Next thing you know, you’ve journeyed a long way from your Lord.  Perhaps the fear has even struck you, “What if there’s no way back and I’m cut off from Him?  What if I’m the one who’s lost because I lost Him?”  You can understand Mary’s panic that she had lost track of the Savior Himself.  Perhaps the anxiety we often feel in our own life comes from the distance we’ve built up between ourselves and Jesus.

    And then Mary does something that we also do in the midst of our worry and anxiety and stress; she says to Jesus, “Why have you done this to us?”  Even though it’s our own neglect or failings, we still want to blame the Lord for what we endure, as if the sinless One has somehow not done the right thing by us.  When we go through hard or stressful times, we can be tempted to say, “Lord, why did you do this to me?” as if the consequences of our fall into sin were His fault.  Of course, you can also hear the good motherly tone in Mary’s voice, which is not simply expressing anger but relief at finding Him, and wonder at what He was doing there.

    Jesus’ response to His mother indicates that they should’ve known all along that He would’ve been in His Father’s house.  “Why did you seek Me?” He said.  This was an easy one.  And yet it clearly illustrates how we fallen human beings tend to search for God and seek His presence in the wrong places.  We think we can get closer to Him simply by going out into nature.  And it is true that getting away from the digitized artificiality of contemporary life and back to creation is helpful in orienting us toward the Creator.  But without the Word of God, such experiences of nature will tend toward paganism.  We think we can get closer to Him through inwardly focused self-help philosophies, in emotional experiences, in superstitious spirituality.  But that’s not where God has promised to be with His grace.  We may wonder why Joseph and Mary didn’t look right away in the temple.  But then again, when we’re panicked or troubled, how often are we busy running around everywhere but the house of God.

    Jesus begins to reveal to us here that the temple, the true and abiding dwelling place of God is not a building but His own eternal flesh.  The temple is Jesus Himself.  For it is written that in Christ all the fullness of God dwells in bodily form.  Therefore, if you wish to seek God, you must seek Christ and nothing else.  And if you are seeking Christ, you must look for Him according to His human nature, in those physical, audible, concrete places where He is present for you.  Seek Him in His Word and preaching.  Listen for His help in confession and absolution.  Find Him in the supper of His body and blood, given for your forgiveness and healing.  Jesus is still about His Father’s business, teaching us and comforting us and giving out His gifts of life and deliverance and hope.

    The human nature of Jesus here is the key thing.  You may be wondering, if Jesus is God–and He is–why would He be asking the teachers questions, as the Gospel says.  How could He grow in wisdom if He already knows all things? Well, remember that prior to His resurrection, Jesus was in what we call the state of humiliation.  In other words, He didn’t make full use of His divine knowledge; He had emptied Himself of His powers as God.  So when Jesus amazes the teachers, it wasn’t as if He was cheating and using His divine omniscience.  Rather, right there before the teachers is perfect humanity, a boy who loves His heavenly Father and who is absolutely enthralled with pondering the Scriptures, who has no sin to cloud His understanding and insight.  Jesus had been hearing and learning the Scriptures all His life and was growing up with a perfect, sinless grasp of them as a true human being.  Jesus was living that perfect and holy life for us so that He might give us His holiness as a gift and make us perfectly human again.  In Jesus, we learn to love the Word of God and to ponder it and meditate on it just as He did.

    All of this happens when Jesus is at the age of twelve.  At this age, Jewish boys would begin to leave the society of women and enter the society of men. The rabbis instructed Jewish fathers to be gentle with their boys until age twelve, and then begin to teach them the way of manly living, including strict discipline if necessary. Probably at this point, Joseph would have begun serious teaching of his carpentry trade to Jesus. The twelve-year old Jesus was now being treated as a man, and that is why He went up with Joseph to Jerusalem for the Passover.

    The point is, a Jewish boy begins to do his work at age 12; and at twelve, we see Jesus already apply Himself to His proper work – not only the things of His guardian-father, Joseph, but especially the things of His heavenly Father.  For He says to Mary His mother, “Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” Conceived without the aid of a man in the womb of the blessed virgin Mary, God the Father is Jesus’ Father–in a way that is different than God is our Father. Jesus is the only-begotten Son of God, of one substance with the Father.  Jesus is the Son of God by nature; we are children of God by grace through faith in Him.

    So now Jesus begins to apply Himself to the work that the Father has given Him to do, and He will keep on working until that work is perfected.  In Jerusalem 21 years later, He will say, “It is finished.”  Remember that Jesus is in the temple, where sacrifices would occur.  It was the time of the Passover, when the lamb would be offered up in remembrance of how death passed over God’s people in Egypt.  The shed blood of Christ the Lamb of God causes eternal death to pass over you; His holy cross takes away the sins of the world.  

    So twice Mary would have to feel the loss of her Son, when He had to be about His Father’s business.  Mary surely recalled this day in the temple as she stood at the foot of her Son’s cross, and lost Him again, this time to death and the grave, only to receive Him back again on the third day, risen from the dead.  Here Jesus said, “Why did you seek me?”  Later angels would announce to the women at the tomb, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?”  The cross and resurrection were etched into Jesus’ entire life.  Jesus had to be about His Father’s business, dying and rising, to rescue Mary and you and me and the world from sin and death.  He is alive to lift you out of emptiness and despair and to give you His mercy and His life.

    You may sometimes lose track of Jesus, but He never loses track of you.  He grows in wisdom and stature to perfectly restore your humanity and to bring you back again into the Father’s good graces.  Jesus lived your whole life for you, even the challenging years of young adulthood, in order to give you new life with God.  Your hold on Him may grow weak; but His baptismal hold on you is strong and sure.  He put His saving name on you, and He’s not going to go back on His Word.  You can count on this Jesus, true God in the flesh, who already as a Boy is applying Himself to His work on your behalf.

    So then, since you truly are brothers and sisters of Christ, resolve to be about the heavenly Father’s business in this new year.  Do not be conformed to this world and drift with the crowd away from Christ Jesus.  But rather be transformed by His words and sacraments, treasuring them up in your hearts, growing up into Him who is your Head.  By the mercies of God, offer up your bodies as living sacrifices in love for one another, holy and acceptable to God in Christ.  Seek the Lord in His holy house, until we all finally come to the stature of the fullness of Christ on the Last Day.

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

Luke 2:21
Circumcision and Naming of our Lord

    ✠ In the name of Jesus ✠

    Somebody randomly walking in off the street tonight might wonder why in the world we’re remembering and focusing on Jesus’ circumcision, especially on a New Year’s Eve.  It seems a little bit indiscreet.  But in the Biblical way of marking time, now after sundown, this is the 8th day of Christmas, the day of Jesus’ life on which He was both named and circumcised.  We observe this event because it is the beginning of the obedience of Christ by which we are saved.  As our substitute, a true human being, Christ actively obeyed all of the demands of God’s Law in our place in order to save us.  He didn’t just hang around for thirty-some years waiting to die and rise again for us.  Right from the very beginning He was diligently carrying out the Father’s plan to rescue us by keeping the entire Old Testament Law for us, of which circumcision was a part.

    We heard this command to circumcise given to Abraham in the Old Testament reading.  Circumcision was a sign of the covenant between God and Abraham’s descendants.  Circumcision showed that they were set apart from the other nations, that they belonged to God as His own special people.  And circumcision also showed very tangibly that it would be through the literal Seed of Abraham that the Savior would come, his true descendant and offspring.

    So when Jesus is circumcised, He is showing Himself to be one of those descendants, born under the Law in order to fulfill the old covenant.  He is the true Seed, the Promised One God had said would come out of Israel to rescue and redeem His people.  Through Jesus God the Father truly made Abraham to be the father of many nations.  For we heard in the Epistle that if we belong to Christ through faith, then we are Abraham’s seed, his true offspring in Jesus, as numerous as the stars in the sky.  By being circumcised, then, Jesus was beginning His mission to save you.  For He was placing Himself into the old covenant, so that He could truly keep the entire Law and fulfill it all for you, establishing a new covenant between God and His people.  Jesus’ circumcision is an important part of the way in which we are saved.

    The fact that we tend to overlook these active ways in which Christ saved us, focusing rather almost exclusively on the passive ones like His suffering, is a reminder that we sometimes misunderstand what our own Christian life is all about.  We tend to think of God-pleasing living not so much as what we do but as what we don’t do.  Many think of Christianity as a series of prohibitions: “Don't do this!  Don't do that!”  Just keep your nose clean and God will be happy.

    But the fact of the matter is that the Christian life is as much about what you actively do as it is about what you passively refrain from doing.  That’s why Luther’s explanations of the Ten Commandments are so helpful.  In them he shows us both sides, not only the passive restrictions, but also the active commands, not only what we shouldn’t do but also what we should do.  It’s not only that you shouldn’t curse and swear by God’s name, but that you should use His name rightly to pray and to give Him thanks.  It’s not only that you shouldn’t murder but that you should help your neighbor in every bodily need.  It’s not only that you shouldn’t commit adultery but that you should love and honor your spouse.  It’s not only that you shouldn’t steal but that you should work hard and help your neighbor improve and protect his possessions and income.  It’s not only that you shouldn’t give false testimony against your neighbor but that you should defend his reputation and put the best construction on everything.  Above all, it’s not only that you shouldn’t have any false gods, but that you should love and trust in the true God above all things and worship Him and gladly hear the preaching of His Word.  By this we can see how far short we have fallen in truly keeping His commands.  As the confession says, we have sinned both “by what we have done and by what we have left undone.”  Let us repent of where we have fallen short in the past year and return to the Lord.

    The good news for us today is that Christ didn’t leave anything undone.  He not only refrained from all sinful thoughts, words, or deeds, but He also actively carried out every single requirement and commandment of the Law in our behalf:  honoring His parents, remembering the Sabbath day, serving His neighbor in need, loving His heavenly Father and everyone around Him with all that He had.  When we trust in Christ, God credits His perfect, sinless life as our own.  We are holy and righteous in God’s sight through Christ.  We need Jesus’ fulfilling of the Law to rescue and save us.  And it all began on the day He was circumcised.

    Some of you may be wondering if circumcision is still commanded by God.  The answer is “No.”  Neither, of course, are animal sacrifices or the various Old Testament meals.  All of those ceremonial aspects of the Law were types and foreshadowings of the fulfillment of the covenant which Christ came to bring about.  With His holy life, He brought that part of the Law to its completion and culmination.  The moral Law, as summarized in the Ten Commandments, certainly still applies to us.  But the ceremonial Law has been made obsolete by Christ.  For He has established a new covenant, a covenant based on faith in His blood, which was shed for you for the forgiveness of sins, blood first shed at His circumcision.

    What counts now according to Romans 3 is not circumcision of the flesh but circumcision of the heart, in which the sinful flesh, the sinful nature is cut off and slain in repentance, so that through faith, Christ may live in us before God in righteousness and purity forever.  Now we are made to be God’s holy and chosen people by being baptized into the sinless Christ and believing in Him.  As Colossians 2 says, “In Christ you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with Him in baptism and raised with Him through faith in the power of God, who raised Him from the dead.”

    That’s why circumcision occurred on the 8th day.  The 8th day signifies a reaching beyond the seven days of the old creation into the everlasting day of the new creation, which would commence on the day of Christ’s resurrection.  Jesus Himself was cut off for us on the cross in the flesh and then bodily raised again on Sunday, the 8th day, so that through baptism we ourselves would be a new creation in Him.  Just as there were eight people on the ark who entered into a new world through the waters of the flood, so we have entered a new world with Christ by our baptismal union with Him.  We live in the unending 8th day of His resurrection life, in which the ravages of time can no longer do us any harm.  

    During this past year we have felt those ravages in both small and big ways, in the deterioration of our possessions or resources or health, even in the loss of our loved ones.  We pray God’s mercy on us to help us endure in the year ahead, even as we thank him for all the many blessings of the year now past.  But let us especially give thanks to God tonight that He has taught us to number our days, to not set our hearts on this passing world, and that He has given us a sure hope in Christ, who is the Lord of time and creation.  When the fullness of time had come God sent forth His Son born of a woman, born under the Law, to redeem those who were under the Law, that we would receive the adoption as His sons, heirs of His eternal kingdom.  Focusing on Christ’s active obedience, let us resolve in year to come to be diligent and active in doing good works, not in order to earn God’s favor, but precisely because He has already given us His favor fully and freely in Christ.  The Law stands fulfilled in Jesus, down to the smallest detail. All of it He has kept for you.  His perfect obedience is yours. And you are His.  God bless and keep each of you throughout the upcoming new year.

    ✠ In the name of Jesus ✠