Lenten Vespers in the Week of Reminiscere (Lent 2)

(Audio)

John 3:13-21; Galatians 3:10-14; Isaiah 52:13 – 53:12; Psalm 103

 

Christ’s Suffering as Payment and Sacrifice for Sin

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

There is truly only one commandment, the First Commandment: You shall have no other gods. To obey this commandment, to have the LORD as your first and only God, is to be blessed. To disobey this commandment is to be cursed. And to be cursed is to die, temporally and eternally. There is no other possibility, and no other possible outcome. You are either with the LORD and so are blessed, or you are against the LORD and so are cursed. When our First Parents rebelled against the LORD and disobeyed, they became cursed, just as the LORD had said, and their progeny and all creation along with them. There was no other possibility. The curse is death. The wages of sin is always and only death, spiritual death now, physical death still to come, and it would have been forever if not for Jesus.

Make no mistake, Jesus became a man because of the curse; Jesus became the curse for us, in our place. The wages of sin is always and only death, and cursed is everyone who hangs upon a tree. He who knew no sin was made to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. In Christ crucified we see both the will of the Father and the love and obedience of the Son. “It was the will of the LORD to crush him.” When God the Father commanded his Son to humble himself to become a man, to suffer mockery, ridicule, spitting, scourging, crucifixion, and death at the hands of men, and the wrath and forsakenness of the Father, he wasn’t kidding. That is what it would take, and nothing less, the death of the Son of God, the death of God himself. Man, humankind, had committed the sin, had made himself subject to death; for man to die would merely pay the debt that was owed and would gain nothing. No, if man was to live, then God must die. God cannot die, but God become man can suffer and die, and that was the will of the Father for his Son. “It was the will of the LORD to crush him.”

In the catechism, concerning the second article of the Apostles’ Creed, we speak of Jesus’ humiliation: “He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.” “It was the will of the LORD to crush him.” All this Jesus did willingly and obediently out of love for his Father. But it was humiliation, and it was suffering of the greatest intensity physically, emotionally, and spiritually. The cost of our redemption was impossibly high. Nothing less than the death of God himself could satisfy it. “It was the will of the LORD to crush him.”

“But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” “For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.”

Yes, becoming man was part of Jesus’ humiliation. Everything about his conception, birth, life, suffering, death, even his resurrection, was scandalous to our fallen reason, our misconceptions about virtue and glory, our denial of the seriousness of our sin and God’s wrath against it. And so, men rejected him. There was nothing special about the carpenter’s son from backwater Nazareth. Nothing to see here, move along. And when he was arrested, tried, scourged, mocked, and crucified, they concluded that he was only getting what he deserved from God and from men. They accused God of being a sinner. They accused God of being a blasphemer, when it was for they, when it was for we and our sins for which this happened, for which he was born, for which he suffered and died. Christ became cursed for us. Christ became our curse. “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us - for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.”

It was by a tree in the Garden that our Enemy first overcame us. So, it was by the tree of Jesus’ suffering, shame, and death that our Enemy was overcome. This is how God so loved the world: He gave his only Son over to suffering, shame, and death upon the cross. St. John compares this to Moses lifting up the bronze serpent in the wilderness. There, as in the Garden, and still today, there is truly only one commandment, the First Commandment: You shall have no other gods. In the wilderness, the children of Israel feared the Edomites more than they feared, loved, and trusted in the LORD and his promise to provide for them and protect them. Therefore, the LORD sent poisonous serpents to bite them, and many of the Israelites died. They cried out to the LORD that he should take away the snakes. The LORD did not take away the snakes, but he commanded Moses to make a bronze serpent and raise it up on a pole that anyone bitten might look upon the snake and live. The snakes still bit, but the LORD provided a way that those bitten need not die. No one wanted to look at a snake on a pole; it seemed absurd, ridiculous, pointless, offensive. But it wasn’t about the snake, or the pole, but it was about the Word of the LORD, his promise, his command, and their fear, love, trust, and obedience. Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so was the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, lifted up on the tree of the cross “that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” “It was the will of the LORD to crush him.” Jesus became the curse for us that has set us free.

After their forty years wandering in the wilderness because of the rebellion, disobedience, and sins of their fathers, the children of Israel stood on the banks of the Jordan about to enter the promised land of Canaan. Moses set before the people once again the First Commandment: “Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse: the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you today; and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way which I command you today, to go after other gods which you have not known.” Truly there is only one commandment: You shall have no other gods. To obey this commandment is to have the LORD as your first and only God and to be blessed. To disobey this commandment is to be cursed. Jesus became the curse for us, in our place. God has poured out all his wrath against our sin upon him. It is finished; there is nothing left.

In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.

Reminiscere - The Second Sunday in Lent (Lent 2)

(Audio)

Matthew 15:21-28; 1 Thessalonians 4:1-7; Genesis 32:22-32

 

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

“Lord, how wonderfully You associate with Your own. You struggle with them not to conquer them but to be conquered.” Those words begin a prayer of C.F.W. Walther, the first President of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and of the synod’s first seminary. Indeed, the patriarch Jacob wrestled and struggled with God all through the night and overcame Him. Thus, the LORD changed Jacob’s name to Israel, which means one who has striven with God and has prevailed. The LORD blessed Jacob because Jacob would not let go of Him, even when the LORD Himself seemed to be against him, to be fighting with him, and even when the LORD caused Him to suffer. Indeed, Jacob walked away from that encounter with God blessed, but He also walked away permanently changed, permanently wounded and limping from the struggle.

Similarly, St. Paul complained of a thorn in his flesh, a messenger of Satan he called it (!), with which the LORD afflicted him. Three times did Paul plead with the LORD that He might remove the thorn, but the LORD answered, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” – yes, in your weakness. So also, there was a man who was born blind. Jesus’ disciples asked of Him, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered them, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.” And, who can forget the answer the LORD gave to Job concerning why he had to suffer so immensely? – Effectively, it was that God’s righteousness might be revealed. Truly, the LORD struggles with those He loves, He wrestles with them, He pins them down and permits them, He even causes them, to suffer, not to conquer them, but that they may conquer Him and receive His blessing.

Last Sunday we heard of the great battle between Satan and the Son of God, Jesus, and of how Jesus overcame Satan by the Word of the LORD, though He suffered mightily; He was hungry, and He was physically and emotionally weak. This Sunday we hear of Jacob’s wrestling bout with God and how the LORD wounded Jacob even as He blessed him, and also about a Gentile woman whom Jesus at first ignores and calls a dog, but who refuses to relent, accepts Jesus’ chides, and, refusing to let go and give up, is ultimately blessed and praised by Him for her great faith. Sometimes God is for you even when He seems to be against you. Truly, the LORD is always for you, but the LORD’s ways are not your ways, His thoughts are not your thoughts, and the foolishness of the LORD is wiser than your wisdom. “Oh, teach us today from Your Word,” Walther continues in his prayer, “how to struggle with You and conquer, that You can also someday gloriously crown and lead us into Your eternal kingdom.”

As Jesus arose from the waters of His baptism, only to be thrown into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, so too, upon your baptism, have you gained a relentless enemy who ceaselessly seeks to destroy and to devour you. The Canaanite woman was one of those heathen whom the LORD had instructed Joshua and the Israelites to destroy when they entered the Promised Land. Because they disobeyed the LORD and did not destroy the Canaanite women and children, in time they intermarried with them and they adopted the Canaanite gods, and fell into apostasy and the sorry, cyclical history of judgment, repentance, restoration, and apostasy again and again which comprises the bulk of the Old Testament Scriptures. However, this particular Canaanite woman was a believer of a sort. Seemingly, through the hearing of the Law and the Prophets, the Holy Spirit had created faith in her heart. And, for her faith, what did she receive, but ridicule and mockery from her countrymen, hatred and despising from the Jews and Jesus’ disciples, a demon-possessed daughter, and rejection and chiding from the Son of God Himself. As soon as faith is kindled and begins to burn and glow, Satan furiously seeks to stamp it out and destroy it. Indeed, God Himself begins to wrestle with you and pin you down and wound you that His power may be made perfect in your weakness.

For, it is not only Satan’s attacks upon us with which we struggle, but often God Himself struggles, wrestles, and strives with us, as He did with Job, and Jacob, and David, with Paul, and even with Jesus on the cross. Truly, as St. Luke records in The Acts of the Apostles, “through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.” Tribulations are good for you, for they drive you into more fervent and stronger faith, dependence, and trust in the LORD alone. Indeed, when you are at your weakest, God’s power is made manifest. Job’s trust was not destroyed, though God permitted Satan to reduce him to dust and ashes. Jacob’s faith was not crushed, but he held on to the LORD even when He afflicted him and sent him away limping in pain. David’s dependence upon God was increased as he faced seemingly insurmountable enemies and trials. And, St. Paul’s thorn in the flesh was not removed, despite his pleas and prayers, even as he received the LORD’s grace to persevere and flourish in fruitful works and deeds.

We do not know exactly what the Canaanite woman believed about Jesus. The Canaanites were heterodox at best. They worshipped Baal and a host of other gods, and undoubtedly mixed a little bit of the Jewish religion in with their pantheon of gods. Nonetheless, she addressed Jesus by the Messianic title Son of David, which she had to have heard from the Law and the Prophets. Regardless of what she understood and the likely heterodoxy of her faith, it is clear that she believed that Jesus could help her, that He could exorcise the demon that oppressed her daughter. “Everyone who calls upon the Name of the Lord will be saved.”

We shouldn’t be surprised that there was demonic oppression and possession in Canaan, for Satan flourishes in lands and cultures where the LORD is not honored and His Commandments are not obeyed. Truly, there are no other gods, but all idolatry is the worship of demons. Foolishly does our own nation and culture believe that Satan and demons are not real, because we are an enlightened, scientific, and materialistic people. Indeed, we have fallen for the devil’s greatest deception, believing that he doesn’t exist. No, Satan and his demons are running rampant among us, perhaps even more so than in first century Canaan, for the devil does not need to make himself visible and obvious in a culture that so blindly immerses itself in all that is profane and immoral, hedonistic, wicked, and just plain evil. Today, people in our nation routinely call evil good and good evil. Demonic infestation, oppression, and possession are all too real and are regularly experienced even by Christians in their homes, churches, relations, and lives.

Why then did Jesus ignore, shun, and insult this woman of faith? Not to conquer her, but that He Himself might be conquered by her. Jesus put it another way elsewhere saying, “to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.” The Canaanite woman had faith, faith that clung to Jesus even when He seemed to be against her. In fact, the more Jesus rejected her and chided her, the tighter she clung to Him, the more fervently she pleaded with Him, “Lord, have mercy on me!” “Lord, help me!” She would not let Jesus go until He blessed her. Truly, this Canaanite woman was also Israel, one who has striven with God and has prevailed. The Canaanite woman had faith, even if it was small and heterodox faith. Because she had faith, Jesus wrestled and struggled with her and even wounded her, and then He gave her even more faith, and He gave her what she pleaded for – He exorcised the demon from her daughter and He healed her saying, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” “To the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”

Faith trusts that what God ordains is always good, even when it seems to be bad, even when it seems like God has abandoned you, is not listening, doesn’t care, or seems to be the one who is afflicting you. “What God ordains is always good: He never will deceive me; He leads me in His righteous way, and never will He leave me. I take content what He has sent; His hand that sends me sadness will turn my tears to gladness.” “What God ordains is always good: His loving thought attends me; No poison can be in the cup that my physician sends me. My God is true; each morning new I trust His grace unending, my life to Him commending.” “What God Ordains is always good: Though I the cup am drinking which savors now of bitterness, I take it without shrinking. For after grief God gives relief, my heart with comfort filling and all my sorrow stilling.”

And so, God’s Word for you today is about faith and prayer: Faith that clings to the LORD come what may, and prayer that never wavers, even when it seems to go unanswered, or that God Himself is against you. Prayer is good for you, always. You don’t pray to get what you want. You don’t pray to change God’s mind. But, you pray because prayer is good for you. It’s a First Commandment thing. It is good for you to have no other gods but the LORD. You pray that God might change you, and He will, and He does. God will change you, God is changing you, through sorrow and suffering, through trial and tribulation, and ultimately through death – God is changing you back into the image in which He first made you, His image, the image of Jesus who is the express image and icon of God. Day by day, year by year, bit by bit, blow by blow, trial after trial, tribulation after tribulation – The LORD is chiseling you, carving you, shaping you, pruning you, forming you back into His image. It is a good thing! The LORD struggles with you, not to conquer you, but that He may be conquered by you. The LORD teaches you this day from His Word how to struggle with Him and conquer, that You may also one day, in His way, and in His time, be gloriously crowned and lead into His eternal kingdom. But a crumb from His table bestows forgiveness and life, and yet He gives loaves to those who trust in Him and do not let go. Come and eat the children’s bread from the Master’s table. Come and drink His precious blood of forgiveness and live. Let this be your desire. And, it will be done for you as you believe.

In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.

Lenten Vespers In the Week of Invocabit (Lent 1)

(Audio)

John 6:35-40; Romans 5:1-21; Isaiah 50:5-10; Psalm 16

 

The Obedience of Christ for Our Righteousness

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

Everything Jesus did, he did for you; he did it as you, in your place. Jesus was conceived and born for you. Jesus was circumcised for you. Jesus was redeemed with the sacrifice of two turtledoves for you. Jesus was baptized for you. Jesus was tempted by the devil and overcame him in the wilderness by the Word of God for you. Jesus was mocked, ridiculed, and spat upon for you. Jesus was flogged, whipped, scourged, and was crucified for you. Jesus died for you. Jesus rested in the tomb on the Sabbath for you. On the third day Jesus rose from death for you. Forty days later, Jesus ascended to the right hand of his Father in heaven for you.

However, when I say that Jesus did all this for you, what I truly mean is that he did it for you because his Father demands this of you, and you are incapable of doing it yourself. You were conceived and born in sin, corrupted by enslaving concupiscence so that any good work you want to do comes out corrupted as filthy rags. You are a skeleton in the valley of dry bones of Ezekiel’s vision, dry, lifeless, dead. You are Lazarus dead in his tomb four days, you stinketh. There is no help, no hope for you within yourself. If there is any help or hope for you it is going to have to come from outside of you, from God himself. Yet, God is love, and God loves you in this way: He gave his only-begotten Son over to suffering and death for you. And the Son went willingly out of love and obedience to his Father. The obedience of Christ has obtained your righteousness, which you receive as a free gift of God’s grace through faith, which he has created within you. Your justification and righteousness is all God’s doing, pure grace, which you receive by faith, which is also God’s doing.

Paul Gerhardt captures this dynamic in a conversation between God the Father and God the Son in his hymn “A Lamb Goes Uncomplaining Forth.” “Go forth, My Son,” the Father said, “And free my children from their dread of guilt and condemnation. The wrath and stripes are hard to bear, but by your passion they will share the fruit of your salvation.” Jesus replies to his Father’s command saying “Yes, Father, yes, most willingly I’ll bear what you command me. My will conforms to your decree, I’ll do what you have asked me.”

We hear the same in prophecy in our reading from Isaiah which is known as the Third Suffering Servant Song. The Messiah says, “The Lord GOD has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious; I turned not backward. I gave my back to these who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.” “Yes, Father, yes, most willingly I’ll bear what you command me.” Jesus suffered all this for you. We hear still more in Isaiah’s Fourth Suffering Servant Song: “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

Why would Jesus do this? You must resist the strong Christian sentimentalism that enjoys believing that Jesus suffered all of this out of love for you. While it is true that Jesus loves you, it was truly out of obedience and selfless love for his Father that he laid down his life. It was the Father’s love for you, not Jesus’ love, that moved him to sacrifice his only-begotten Son. God the Father was moved by love for you; God the Son was moved by love for his Father who loves you so much that he gave his Son. Perhaps you think I’m splitting hairs or making much about little. And yet, the Scriptures are clear that God acted, not because of who you are, but because of who he is, so that, “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” “For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will,” says Jesus, “but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

Why would Jesus do this? Yes, there is more to the story. Jesus also feared, loved, and trusted his Father above all things. That is to say that, even though it meant excruciating suffering and death for him, because it was the Father’s will it was just and good. The Messiah confesses his faith in his Father saying, “But the Lord GOD helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame.” Because of his fear, love, and trust in his Father, Jesus was steadfast and resolute even in the face of intense suffering and death. Three times Jesus prayed in Gethsemane that there might be some other way, that he might not drink the cup of God’s wrath that was prepared for him. Still, Jesus ended each prayer with the words, “Not my will, but your will be done.” And Jesus faced and endured the cross the Father laid upon him, for “it was the Father’s will to crush him” for you.

We can draw strength from Jesus’ fear, love, and trust in the face of suffering and as we bear the crosses the Father has laid upon us. “Not only that,” St. Paul writes, “but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been give to us.” And our Lord Jesus also encourages us saying, “He who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who is my adversary? Let him come near to me. Behold, the Lord GOD helps me; who will declare me guilty?”

Everything Jesus did, he did for you; he did it as you, in your place. The obedience of Christ has obtained your righteousness. “Since, therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.”

In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.

Invocabit - The First Sunday in Lent (Lent 1)

(Audio)

Matthew 4:1-11; 2 Corinthians 6:1-10; Genesis 3:1-21

 

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

One of the unquestionable pleasures of being a pastor is having the opportunity to baptize a newborn infant. Sometime before that day of joyous rebirth, as it goes, I will have met with the happy parents to catechize them in this Holy Sacrament and in the solemn responsibilities which they are about to undertake. It is during this catechesis that I take pains to convey to them the seriousness of Holy Baptism, that it is nothing less than a death and a resurrection to new life for their child, and that, also, it is the guarantee of a new and powerful enemy, Satan, who will plague and pursue their baptized child throughout his or her entire life until their life ends in physical death, awaiting the resurrection of the body on the Last Day. For, the entire life of a Christian is a life subjected to the devil’s temptations. Indeed, as soon as you are accepted and welcomed as children of God through Holy Baptism, the enemy will not cease to assault you that he might enslave you once again.

Thus, Jesus suffered the temptations of the devil for you in the wilderness. Immediately upon being baptized by John in the Jordan, Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness for the purpose that He would be tempted by the devil. In Mark’s Gospel it states that the Holy Spirit drove or threw Jesus into the wilderness. However it is worded, the meaning is clear: After verbally declaring Jesus to be His Son and the fullness of His pleasure, after anointing Him with His Holy Spirit, God the Father sent Jesus into the wilderness to suffer the temptations of the devil forty days and nights, without food, exposed to wild animals. Though God tempts no man, He does permit you to suffer temptation that your faith may be proven true. You may consider this His passive will, or His alien will, but you must accept that, ultimately, suffering, testing, and temptation are God’s will for you. For, you are not automatons, mindless machines, or animals acting on instinct, but you have been given a free will, that is, you have been given the freedom to reject God in unbelief.

Similarly did God the Father permit our First Parents to be tempted by the devil, not in hunger in a barren wilderness, but with full bellies in a garden paradise. God did not tempt them, but He permitted the devil to do so. As always, God provided a way out of the temptation: trust in His Word, and fear and love of Him alone. This gift of faith they already possessed; indeed, they had everything they needed to support their bodies and lives. But they still had a choice and the freedom to choose it. Their free choice, however, was to disbelieve God and His Word, to fear the devil and the harm he might do to them, and to love their own lives more than God who gave them life. Adam and Eve succumbed to the devil’s temptation. They chose to exercise their own will over and against God’s will. They acted freely, but in so doing, delivered themselves unto bondage and slavery and death. From our First Parents first corruption have all their progeny received the corruption of sin and death, for a bad tree produces only bad fruit.

Because sin and corruption are present from conception, no man is without sin and all bear Adam’s fatal mark. As it was for Noah and the Patriarchs, so it was for Elijah and the Prophets, the Apostles, and so it is for you today. Thus, was it necessary for Jesus, the Second Adam, to be baptized and to suffer the temptations of the devil and overcome them by perfect faith and trust in the Word of God for you. And thus, is it necessary that you be baptized into Jesus, that you may share in and benefit from His faith and obedience and victory over the devil, death, and the grave. But, as the devil assaulted Jesus with temptations in the wilderness, so too does he assault and tempt those who are members of His body, you children of God in Christ Jesus. It was necessary that Jesus face the devil in the wilderness for you, but that was only the first skirmish in a battle that would end with Christ’s victory over the devil in His death on the cross.

Satan had tried to take the infant Jesus’ life and had failed. Now he thought to attempt to win Jesus over to his side. Why not, he had been successful with Adam, why shouldn’t he be able to do the same thing again? And so, he tempted Jesus in the same way that he tempted our First Parents; he tempted Jesus to doubt what God had said in His Word. “Did God really say?” At Jesus’ baptism the Father had just declared “This is my Son with whom I am well pleased”, now the devil tempts Jesus to doubt this saying, “If you are the Son of God…”. Also, the devil tempted Jesus to satisfy His fleshly desires and passions for food and comfort, respect, and power, much in the same way that he tempted Adam.

You might consider the temptations of Jesus to be the temptation to avoid suffering and the cross that God has chosen for you. The temptation to turn stones into bread is the temptation to believe that feeding the body is the most important thing of all. “There’s a whole lot of hungry people out there in the world that you claim to love so much, Jesus,” says the devil, “won’t you do whatever you can to feed them? C’mon, God wouldn’t mind? You mean well, right?” Makes sense, doesn’t it? It’d be so much easier to believe that Jesus is God in the flesh if only He’d feed all the hungry bellies in the world and take away the suffering of hunger and striving to put bread on our tables. What did God say again? Oh yeah, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

“Well then, Jesus, why don’t you perform some miraculous and uncontestable sign so that everyone will believe you, you know, like throw yourself down from the pinnacle of the temple or something? God has said that He’ll command His angels concerning You, right? C’mon, it’ll be great!” “Again, it is written,” Jesus said, “‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test’.”

“This isn’t going so well,” said the devil. “This is going to require the big guns.” So, the devil took Jesus to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me’.  Then Jesus said to him, ‘Be gone, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve’.” And thus, the temptation of our First Parents has come full circle. The temptation to make yourself a god has been resisted and overcome by Jesus’ faith and trust in the Word of God for you. Jesus placed His fear, love, and trust in God His Father above all things and He said to the devil, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve’.” Then the devil left Him until an opportune time.

Throughout His ministry, Jesus suffered the assault and temptations of the devil for you. The devil tempted Jesus through the men Jesus came to save to perform impressive and glorious works to convince everyone that He was the Messiah. They tempted Jesus to secure early power and influence and become the new king of Israel who would rally the troops and overcome the subjugation of the Roman occupiers. And, when it became clear that Jesus was not going to do any of those things, but, rather, that He was following a path of selflessness and humility that would end in crucifixion and death, they tempted Him go a different way, man’s away, a way of avoidance of suffering and death, and a way that, if followed, would have left all of us in our sin with eternal death as our ultimate fate and destiny.

Throughout His ministry, Jesus resisted the assaults and temptations of the devil and, when He died upon the cross, He took all that the devil had left to pour out upon Him. Satan harangued and taunted and assaulted Jesus on the cross, and all the world with him, and Jesus willingly bore it all and, when He was ready, He gave up His Spirit and died – no one, no man, not even Satan took His life from Him, but Jesus gave it up willingly for you. And, in the moment of His death, Jesus dealt Satan the death blow; the Seed of the woman crushed the serpent’s head. In His death, Jesus won the victory over death for you, that He could give to you His life.

Paradoxically, after being tempted in the wilderness, Jesus went on to do all things the devil tempted Him to do, and on a grander scale, in accordance with God’s Word and will. He did even better than turning stones into bread when He multiplied the five loaves and two fish, feeding over five thousand. And He did better still by giving His own body with bread in Holy Communion thereby feeding millions with the bread that leads to everlasting life. And rather than merely circumventing death by having the angels catch His fall, He died and fell into the earth, and He rose again, the first fruits those who sleep in death. And, finally, He does take up rulership of this earth and the heavens, not by force and power grabbing, but by ascension to the right hand of His Father in heaven.

Jesus suffered the temptations of the devil in the wilderness for you. It was necessary that Jesus face the devil in the wilderness for you, but that was only the first skirmish in a battle that would end with Christ’s victory over the devil in His death on the cross. For, Jesus accomplished the salvation of mankind by the tree of the cross that, where death arose, there life also might rise again and that the serpent who overcame by the tree of the garden might likewise by the tree of the cross be overcome. The Second Adam Jesus Christ has atoned for the sins of the First Adam. Your enemy has been defeated that you may place your fear, love, and trust in God alone and find strength in His Word to resist all the temptations the devil may through at you. They are but lies and deceits that cannot harm you. Though devils all the world should fill, all eager to devour us, we tremble not, we fear no ill; they shall not overpower us. This world’s prince may still scowl fierce as he will, he can harm us none. He’s judged; the deed is done; one little word can fell him.

In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.

Ash Wednesday

(Audio)

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21; 2 Peter 1:2-11; Joel 2:12-19

 

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

The penitential season of Lent is about returning. You are called to return to your baptism. You are called to return the faithful reception of God’s gifts in Jesus Christ. You are called to return to your family of faith, which is the body of Christ, the Church. You are called to return to the Lord and giver of your life. You are called to return to your Lord.

Of course, all this returning means that there is something you are called to return from. You are called to return from your self-centeredness. You are called to return from your selfishness. You are called to return from your self-righteousness. You are called to return from your being lost. You are called to return from your sin. You are called to return from your path of death upon which you are walking, running, slipping, and sliding.

Hence the ashes. Ashes are what is left when all is spent, when all is burned up, when all is wasted away. Ashes are the end for all living things. Uniquely for men, however, ashes are also the beginning. God uniquely made man from the dust of the earth and breathed into the dirt man’s nostrils His own living breath, and the man became a living creature. When our pilgrimage upon this trodden soil is complete, when our life is spent and burned up, we waste away, we return to the dust from whence we came. It is good for you to remember – to remember that you are dust and that to dust you shall return. It is good for you to remember that it is only by God’s gracious creative activity that you live at all. It is good for you to remember that it is because of your sin that you die. For, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and the wages of sin is death.

When you submit yourself to be marked with ashes, you are confessing this truth. You are confessing that you are a poor, miserable sinner deserving only punishment, both now in time and in eternity. You are confessing that a return to the dust and ashes from whence you came is a just and deserved wage for your sin. You are confessing that you have nothing to bring to God to bargain with Him for something better. You are confessing that you came into this world, apart from your choosing, with nothing at all – that all you are and all you have, even your life, is an undeserved gift of God’s grace – and that God is justified to take it all back should He so choose.

But why? Why do you submit yourself in such humility and lowliness? Why do you receive such harsh words against you and suffer to be branded with dust and ashes? Why do you repent and return?

Because there is something, because there is someone to return to. For the LORD is gracious, giving us good things that we do not deserve, forgiveness, life, and salvation. For the LORD is merciful, not giving us those bad things that we do deserve, eternal suffering and death. For the LORD is slow to anger, in fact He is long-suffering, patient, and kind, and He is abounding in steadfast, self-sacrificing love.

Then the LORD became jealous for His land and had pity on His people. He calls to His prodigal children in His love, “return.” His eyes search ceaselessly, His embrace is wide and waiting to receive would-be strangers as sons. Return and receive and be restored. He made man once from dust and ash, He is ready to do it again! He has slaughtered His choice, unblemished Lamb. There will be a feast – grain, wine, and oil – you will be satisfied. This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.

Quinquagesima

(Audio)

Luke 18:31-43; 1 Corinthians 13:1-13; 1 Samuel 16:1-13

 

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

I know that the cross of Jesus Christ is a scandal and a stumbling block for you. However, you should know that it is also a scandal and stumbling block for me, and for every Christian preacher and believer, and for unbelievers as well. For, when it comes to Christ crucified, your eyes are blind, even though you see. When it comes to Christ crucified, your reason and your wisdom, your stolen knowledge of good and evil, these get in the way, they cannot understand and they reject the only means of your salvation.

In our Gospel reading this morning, Jesus was about to lead His disciples up to Jerusalem and to His cross. You, Christian, are about to go there too. He said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For He will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging Him, they will kill Him, and on the third day He will rise.” “But they understood none of these things,” and neither do you. In fact, “This saying was hidden from them,” and from you, “and they did not grasp what was said,” and neither do you.

For, the scandal of the cross of Jesus Christ has made you blind. It has confounded your reason and your wisdom, which are fallen, corrupted, and broken by your sin so that you cannot possibly see the wisdom of God’s ways, you cannot possibly understand His knowledge, because your sight and your reason and wisdom are fallen, corrupted, and broken by your sin. And so, you are no better than either the disciples of Jesus “who understood none of these things” or the blind beggar alongside the road who needed to be told that Jesus was present – that is, except that, the blind beggar knew that he was blind and that he needed healing and restoration. Therefore, upon hearing the Good News that Jesus was present, he cried out to the only source of healing and comfort for mercy, and nothing but mercy, through faith alone.

Those who were in front rebuked the man and told him to be silent. You do the same. This weak, pitiful man, they thought, has no business in the presence of our Rabbi and Master. Who is it that cries out to the Lord for mercy that you despise and wish to silence? This blind beggar had nothing, no money, no food, no clothing, no home, and no sight – and he knew it. Therefore, he did not offer anything to Jesus, or to anyone, but he begged, he pleaded and he cried out to Jesus alone for mercy. That is what you cannot understand or tolerate, that is what you want to silence – singular, focused, unwavering trust in Jesus, God’s Word made flesh, and no one and nothing else. This blind beggar did not cry out to the government, he did not cry out to the church, he did not even cry out to the disciples for anything at all, but he cried out to Jesus alone, for mercy alone, in any way that Jesus might choose to dispense it. He doesn’t ask for your approval or your prayers. He doesn’t ask for your grudging handouts or tolerance. He doesn’t ask for your councils, programs, rules, policies, or laws. He begs for, he needs, he clings to Jesus’ mercy alone – period.

Jesus’ mercy scandalizes you and causes you to stumble for the same reason that you are scandalized by Jesus’ cross and Jesus crucified. Jesus’ dead body on the cross communicates something to you. It is repulsive. It is offensive. It is morbid. It is weak. It is foolish. It is scandalous and it causes you to stumble. You don’t want to look at it. You don’t want to be reminded of it. You want to look away from it – and Satan wants you to do just that. You see, don’t believe that nonsense that Hollywood puts out about the devil. Don’t believe that nonsense that the horror writers scribble about. Satan has but only one goal, to take your eyes off of Jesus, to get Jesus out of the way. And, he has only one way of accomplishing that goal – lies. He tells you lies, he deceives you, so that you will take your eyes, your faith, off of Jesus and put them on, well…, truly anything else will do just fine.

In last Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus’ Parable of the Sower, Jesus taught that the seed is the Word of God. When the seed falls upon the hard trodden path, upon the heart hardened by sin, it does not penetrate, it is not received. Then, Jesus teaches, “the birds of the air devoured it,” or, “then the devil comes and takes away the Word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved.” The central teaching of Jesus’ parable is that it is the Word of God alone that creates faith. This is one of the three Lutheran Solas – Sola Scriptura, or, Scripture Alone. You heard about another Sola two weeks ago in Jesus’ Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard. That Sola was Sola Gratia, or Grace Alone. In today’s Gospel of the Healing of a Blind Man you hear of the third Sola, Sola Fide, or Faith Alone. Thus, over these three weeks of Pre-Lent, the Gesima Sundays, you have heard that we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, and that faith is created by the Word alone, that is, by Scripture alone.

Yet, there are two other Solas in the Lutheran Christian faith. They are Sola Christus, or Christ Alone, and Soli Deo Gloria, or to God alone be the Glory. Sola Christus is absolutely essential and is confessed in all the other Solas, for it is through Christ Alone that grace is given and faith is created, and it is Christ Alone that is the object of faith. Further, it is in Christ Alone that God is Glorified. And so, it all begins with Christ, and it all comes back to Christ, and in the end, God is glorified for His goodness, His love, His mercy, His compassion, and His forgiveness which are in, and through, and with Jesus Christ alone.

God so loved the world that He has graciously given and put forth His Word, His Son Jesus, as a seed into soil that, in His death, He might draw all men to faith in Him and to the life He is and bestows. In doing this, God is glorified, not only by Jesus’ self-sacrifice, but by your self-sacrifice in rooting out all the stones and weeds, and thistles of sin in your hearts in repentance and by bearing the fruit of love, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness towards others that has been showered upon you in God’s gracious gift of Jesus Christ.

Sola Gratia, Grace alone – What does this mean? It means that salvation comes to you from outside of you, without your works or merit, as a free and perfect gift. It is given to everyone the same, no strings attached. Sola Scriptura, Scripture alone – What does this mean? It means that God gives you His gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation through His Word alone, and not through mysticism or nature or human reason, wisdom, philosophy, or any other way. Sola Fide, Faith alone – What does this mean? It means that Faith itself is a gracious gift of God that comes from outside of you through the Word alone, but is planted in your heart where it is nurtured and grows by the Word alone and bears the fruit of love and mercy, compassion and forgiveness. Yet, all of these are included in Sola Christus, Christ alone. And, through all of these, Soli Deo Gloria, God alone is glorified.

St. Paul, in his epistle today, exhorts you to put aside faith and trust in anything but Jesus. Paul speaks so eloquently and beautifully about love that this passage has been misunderstood as speaking primarily about the love between a man and a woman, a husband and a wife. It certainly does instruct us in the nature of love, and so this application is not inappropriate. However, that is not the primary meaning or purpose Paul has in mind. What Paul does have in mind are all of the lies that Satan speaks to you about what God has said and about what Christian faith is really is. Paul addresses tongues, prophetic powers, mysteries, knowledge, sacrifice, and even faith, but he warns that, without love, these are nothing. The devil lies to you so that you believe that these fruits are the main thing that is important so that your faith is not in Christ, but in these signs, these fruits of faith. So very subtly he gets Jesus out of the way; he takes your focus off of Christ and Him crucified and puts it on, well…, anything at all. And, he is very successful, for you often believe his lies and, unwittingly, in your striving to follow Christ, follow the devil on the path that leads only to death, taking others along with you.

The love that St. Paul is talking about is not a feeling or an emotion, or even a disposition, but that love is a person, that love is Jesus Christ. God so loved the world…, God loved the world in this way: He gave His Son. Jesus is God’s love for the world; Jesus is God’s love for you. Jesus, dead on the cross, is the ultimate image of God’s love for you, for He was patient and kind; He did not envy or boast; He was not arrogant or rude; he did not insist on His own way; he was not irritable or resentful; He did not rejoice at wrongdoing, but in the truth; He bore all things, believed all things, hoped all things, and endured all things. God’s love in Jesus never ends.

When Jesus talked to His disciples about what He must do in Jerusalem, they didn’t understand Him and the saying was hidden from them and they did not grasp what He said. That’s because they did not have their eyes focused on Jesus alone, but their eyes were on, well…, anything else. Ironically, the blind man could see better than those who could see. When he heard that Jesus was present, he cried out to Jesus alone for mercy. He had faith, not in outward works and signs, not in human wisdom or reason, but he had faith in Jesus, faith that had come through Jesus’ Word, by God’s grace. Whichever soil he may have been, he wasn’t the hard trodden path, and the devil was not able to lie to him and steal the Word from his heart. Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The man answered, “Lord, let me recover my sight.” Jesus said to him, “Recover your sight; your faith has made you well.” And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him, glorifying God.

Jesus opened the eyes of the blind man to see that, despite the humility and the weakness of Jesus’ appearance and, despite the horror and the repulsiveness, the scandal and the offense of what He must accomplish on the cross in Jerusalem, Jesus was the love of God for Him and for all the world, poured out. Faith which receives the gift of love that God has given, and is not offended and does not stumble over it, will bear fruit a hundredfold, and God will be glorified. May you so in love put away your impatience and meanness, your envy, pride, arrogance, and rudeness, your selfish insistence to have things your way, your irritability and resentfulness, and bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, and selflessly endure all things for the sake of love, for the sake of Jesus, who alone is your life and salvation, the object of your faith, the grace of God given through His Word, in whom alone God is glorified.

Satan wants to take your eyes off of Jesus and to place them on, well…, anything else. But you, Christian, must remember that, despite what you see or feel, Christ crucified is precisely how God has loved you and the world. The Church of Jesus Christ, along with St. Paul and all the Apostles, continues to preach Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, as the only Way, Truth, and Life through faith in whom alone we are saved. Though you were blind, through grace, by faith in the Word of God made flesh Jesus Christ, now you see. Glory be to God alone.

In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.

Christian Funeral for Melva Lois Trimble

(Audio)

John 5:24-30; Romans 8:31-39; Isaiah 43:1-3a, 25

 

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

It was a little over eighteen months ago that were gathered here together to remember and to give thanks for the faith and life of Melvin “Beach” Trimble. And here we are gathered together yet again today to remember and to give thanks for the faith and life of Melva “Lois” Trimble. It’s not all that uncommon for aged saints to die relatively close to one another. After all, they’d lived together as husband and wife for just shy of seventy years, and they did nearly everything together, it’s hard to imagine what it must have been like for Lois to live without Beach for very long. Who is there to laugh at your inside jokes? Who is there to finish your sentences? Who is there to make you smile when you’re feeling a little down? So many of the things Lois and Beach enjoyed in life they enjoyed together: Collecting Sad irons, antiquing, spending time with family and friends, and so much more.

I remember saying of Beach that he was “a quiet and humble man, a man of few words having an unassuming, somewhat dry sense of humor.” Well, Lois complimented that. Now, I don’t mean to suggest that Lois was loud, brash, or rude, nothing could be farther from the truth, but she was witty and sharp as a tack. Where Beach would likely let something go without saying a word, Lois would more likely have something to say. She was a strong, capable, and determined woman, but she was kind, thoughtful, and always loving. After Beach died, Lois was determined to remain independent and stay at her home. She was determined to keep driving, and she did for a good while. She joined us here at St. John for the Divine Service on Wednesday afternoons. Instability on her feet ultimately took her independence, but it didn’t quell her spirit. Lois remained strong, capable, and determined to the end. She was a spunky little spitfire to the end, and she always had that smirky little smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye.

The Trimble home was always open to family and friends. The coffee was always on and hot. Lois loved to serve her famous cinnamon rolls, breads, and pickles made with fresh dill from the garden. Kneading the dough for cinnamon rolls and bread was stress therapy for Lois, but she loved doing it, and she loved that her family loved her cooking. Family dinners at the Trimble’s were never potlucks. Lois made everything, and she made everything taste good. Though Lois was an excellent cook and baker, her favorite food, surprisingly, was French fries, extra crispy. She didn’t like the nursing home fries; they were too soggy. She and Beach loved going to Cracker Barrell when they were out antiquing. Whenever a new restaurant opened in town it was always a sub or pizza shop. “Why can’t they open a Cracker Barrell,” Lois would complain. One time in Des Moines Lois and Beach went to Cracker Barrell with the family, and what did Lois want to order? A baked potato that she could have made any time at home. They talked her into ordering the Chicken Pot Pie. She at the buttery crust on top and took the filling home. She got three more meals out of just the filling!

Lois had an excellent mind. One of thirty Bock cousins, she remembered everyone’s name and could likely tell you where they lived, even at age ninety-four. Foremost on her excellent mind was – the weather. Lois should have been a meteorologist. Most conversations began with a conversation about the weather. Truth is, she was deathly afraid of thunderstorms, wind, and tornado warnings. She’d get mad at Beach because he would sit on the front porch and watch the storms roll in, while she thought they should be in the basement. Growing up, the family spent many hours in the basement, even though the kids were more akin to Beach’s way of things.

Lois enjoyed a cigarette now and then. Kim shared with me a funny story of her time at the Shell Rock Nursing Home. Lois had taken a fall and had broken her wrist, which was in a soft cast with cotton wrap underneath. One day, as she was set to enjoy her cigarette, she accidentally caught some of the stuffing on fire. Thankfully Kim was there and, out of the corner of her eye she saw Mom waving her hand around and suddenly realized that she was on fire! Quickly they had the fire out. But there was Lois, with burnt cotton hanging out from her cast, and she and Kim looked at each other and started laughing. A quick snip with a pair of scissors and the damning evidence was disposed of, just before the social worker walked in unaware that anything out of the order had happened at all.

Of course, these stories were shared with me by Lois’ loving family, and I am pleased to share them with you all. Here’s just a few more comments to round it off: Lois was cute as a button. She was a trendy dresser for a woman of her time and age. She was thoughtful at sending cards. She was a great sister and a lot of fun to be around. She was an all-around excellent cook and baker and, in addition to her cinnamon rolls and bread, she made a delicious apple pie. She loved garage sales, reading Amish novels, doing word-search puzzles and jigsaw puzzles, playing 500 and Cribbage. And she enjoyed watching Daniel O’Donnell on Sunday nights. There is of course so much more that could be said. I hope you’ll remember it and say it, give thanks for it and celebrate it today, and tomorrow, and for always in remembrance of our dear sister in Christ Lois.

The Lord blessed Lois and Beach both with long, full lives of love, family, and happy memories. And the Lord made Lois and Beach a blessing to their family, their friends, their church, and their community. We are so very blessed and thankful to have had them in our lives, to have known their love, and to have loved them in return. Truly we give thanks today for Lois, and also for Beach, and we take comfort that they are together again in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ who loved them and us and gave up his life that we could be his and live with him in his kingdom forever.

Our Lord Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment but has passed over from death to life.” What does this mean? This means that Lois began living her eternal life, her life that cannot and will not ever die, not this past Tuesday, but ninety-four years ago when she was baptized and our Lord Jesus claimed her as his own, forgiving her sin and giving her his life that cannot die. Lois’ faith, faith that she was graced with and blessed with as a free and perfect gift of God’s grace, made her the mother, grandmother, sister, and friend you knew her to be, bearing the fruits of faith in her life, words, and deeds in service of others to the glory of God. Lois’ faith is also the source of her confidence and strength, and even that spunky, fiery personality for, as St. Paul has written, “If God is for us [and he is], who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” I mean, if God’s got your back, what have you to fear? Absolutely nothing. And, to have no fear, that is freedom; freedom to love and to bless and to share with others, filled with God’s own love, knowing that you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Perhaps Lois wouldn’t have put it in those words, but that was Lois nonetheless. And that is why Lois’ death is bittersweet. It is bitter, because there is nothing sweet about death; death is unnatural, evil, and the final enemy. But, in Jesus’ death and resurrection, death has been defeated. Jesus lives, and because he lives those who die in him shall live also. And that is the sweet part. This is not the end, but a temporary parting for we who love and miss Lois. We have this promise: We will see her again with flesh and blood eyes; We will hear her voice again with flesh and blood ears; We will hold her again with flesh and blood arms. And no one will take your joy from you ever again.

In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.

Sexagesima

(Audio)

Luke 8:4-15; 2 Corinthians 11:19 – 12:9; Isaiah 55:10-13

 

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

Jesus is the Sower, and the parable you have just heard is His Seed, His Word. Your ears and your hearts are the soil: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” All soils “hear,” for hearing is passive and receptive, but not all soils are fruitful. Indeed, “Many are called, but few are chosen.” And no soil is called or fruitful apart from the Seed of the Sower, the Word of the LORD.

A great crowd of soils was gathered around the Sower, all having ears to hear, and the Sower began to sow, Jesus began to preach. Now, an enlightened, wise, and efficient sower sows his seed only in the best of soils. Not so our Lord Jesus. Jesus sows His Word-Seed indiscriminately, equally, and liberally upon all types of soils, without any regard to the type or condition of the soil whatsoever – “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and spout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My Word be that goes out from My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” Ah, did you catch that? Men of wisdom count success only in that which produces the desired result of a fruitful harvest, but the LORD counts success even when soily ears and hearts do not bear fruit. How can such foolishness be? The Word of the LORD never fails; it always accomplishes its purpose. Either it is received in Spirit-created faith and bears fruit, or it is hindered, refused, and rejected in unbelief. Isn’t it amazing that the all-powerful and all-sufficient Word of God can be hindered, refused, and rejected? And yet, the LORD “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” And so, the Lord sows indiscriminately, equally, and liberally upon all types of soils, without any regard to the type or condition of the soil whatsoever. Indeed, one of the purposes for which the Word of the LORD goes forth, Jesus warns, is that “seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.” For, when the Word of the LORD is rejected, the soily heart of a man returns to what it was before – hard, dead, and fruitless. Nevertheless, in the divine mercy, patience, and forbearance of the LORD, He keeps on sowing, even when His Word-Seed is hindered, refused, and rejected in unbelief.

And so here is an aspect of this parable that typically goes unrecognized and unconsidered: Who does the plowing? At least in three of the conditions of soil Jesus names, all but the trodden path, the soil has already been broken up and plowed, prepared to receive the goodly Seed. But who has done the plowing? As Luther explains in the Small Catechism, it is the Holy Spirit who has His hand on the plow: “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.” Indeed, the Holy Spirit is the active person in and through the Word-Seed of the LORD, Jesus Christ, the Sower and the Seed. Thus, the plowing, the sowing, the fruit-bearing, and, ultimately, the harvest, are the LORD’s. Indeed, the fact that there are various soils in various states of preparedness is indicative that the Sower has been this way before. The present condition of the soils reflects what has been done with the goodly Seed the Sower has sown yesterday, today, and tomorrow for as many tomorrows as the LORD may in His mercy grant, desiring that all might be saved.

For, once the Holy Spirit has plowed, once the Sower has sown His goodly Seed, there is work to do – work in cooperation with the Holy Spirit in retaining what has been plowed and sown. Mind you, and mind you strongly and assuredly – WE DO NOT COOPERATE IN ANY WAY IN OUR JUSTIFICATION OR IN THE PRESERVATION OF OUR JUSTIFICATION, but that is purely and entirely the work of the Holy Spirit who has “called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.” Nonetheless, as we confess in the Formula of Concord concerning Free Will, “As soon as the Holy Spirit has begun His work of regeneration and renewal in us through the Word and holy Sacraments, we can and should cooperate through His power, although still in great weakness (FC II, 65).” Just a few verses following today’s parable, St. Luke records Jesus’ exhortation, “Take care then how you hear.” And then, in the following chapter, Jesus warns, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

We see this in action as Jesus describes the conditions of three types of soil, two of which, although initially receptive to the goodly Word-Seed, even resulting in living and growing faith, nevertheless remain fruitless. Working backwards, there is the thorny soil – “those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.” That is to say that the Word of the LORD and faith have competition in such soily hearts, all the things, people, pursuits, and passions that you are tempted to place before the LORD and His Word. These are the things that keep people from the Word and the Sacraments on Sunday, that keep them from taking time for meditation on the Holy Scriptures and prayer, that tempt them to set up idols that demand their fear, love, and trust before and above God. Faith in such hearts gets choked out and strangled. While it may continue, it does not and cannot bear the fruits of faith and thus is counted as no faith at all.

Then there is the rocky soil – “those who, when they hear the Word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe for a while, and in time of testing fall away.” Surely, lack of root and moisture are just as dangerous to young and growing faith as are thorns and weeds. Again, faith is present, alive, and growing, but it is not being nourished. Such it is with Christians who neglect their faith and starve it by not drinking deeply from the well of God’s Word and receiving His Sacraments. Either ignorantly or willfully they refuse to put on the armor of God and so they remain weak and defenseless against the attack of the Evil One. And, when trial and tribulation, disease, unemployment, death come upon them, they have no deep and strong root and so are uprooted and swept away in the torrential flood of despair. Likewise, when the wisdom of the world attacks their faith like the scorching sun, having not the moisture of the Word of the LORD, their faith withers and dies.

And last of the three unfruitful soils, there is the hard-packed soil of the path – “those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the Word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved.” Do not think as the Calvinists and Enthusiasts do that some are predestined to be the path and cannot be plowed and planted, believe, bear fruit and be saved.  No, but we were all the path at one time, and some of us have likely returned to path-like status one or more times throughout our pilgrimage. No, there is hope even for the path, for the Sower continues to sow His Word-Seed even where it has been rejected in the past – Thanks be to God for His grace and mercy and patience! Perhaps what you should ponder more when considering the path is that the devil is eager to steal the Word of the LORD from your hearts. He doesn’t want you to believe, and he uses a multitude of very creative and inventive tactics to keep the Word from implanting itself within your hearts and minds: distractions, pleasures, and entertainment; boredom, work, and pragmatism; the false wisdom of men which we consider enlightenment and scientific fact; personal pettiness concerning the pastor, his personality, voice, preaching style, etc.; self-righteousness which tempts you to puff yourself up with pride while looking down on others with disdain and contempt, instead of pity, mercy, compassion, and love. Again, unlike the Calvinists and Enthusiasts, we must not believe that if we have once believed that we cannot fall from faith. No, the devil is just as relentless in seeking to devour you as your LORD is in saving you. Yet, there is still hope for those who have fallen away, for the Sower keeps on sowing until the day and hour the LORD has appointed for the harvest. Therefore, you must “take care how you hear” and keep your hand to the plow without looking back.

But, “some [seed] fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold.” Remember, faith also “grew” in the thorny and rocky soil, but remained fruitless. Only the soil of faith that produces fruit does Jesus call “good soil.” Moreover, the good soil not only produces fruit, but it produces a miraculous abundance of fruit, a “hundredfold.” This is in accord with the teaching of St. James that “faith apart from works is dead,” and “Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” It’s very simple, plain, orthodox, confessional, Lutheran, Christian doctrine that faith – true, living, and saving faith – always produces fruit, good works that serve the neighbor and glorify God. It is enough, it is sufficient for justification that you have faith, but faith is never alone, but is always active, always working, always bearing fruit. Thus, Jesus teaches concerning the good soil, “they are those who, hearing the Word, hold it fast in a an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.”

Again, the Holy Spirit plows and prepares the soil your of heart. And, Jesus, the Sower, sows the Seed of His Word into your heart and makes it fruitful. The LORD is Sower and the Seed. You are the soil, and you are His, your faith is His work, and the fruit you bear is His fruit which serves your neighbor and gives glory to the LORD alone. While your faith, your New Man, indeed cooperates with the work of the Holy Spirit in and through you, your Old Man, your sinful and corrupted flesh cooperates with the devil to return the soil of your heart to the hard-packed path once again. There is nothing that you can do to change the condition of your soily heart, but the Holy Spirit must continually plow, the Son must continually sow, and so you are preserved in faith unto salvation by holding the Word of the LORD fast in an honest and good heart and bearing fruit with patience. Thus, the Christian faith and life is one of humility, repentance, and perseverance through all adversity: through trial and tribulation, through the thorny temptations of the flesh, the passions, and desires; through the rocky, faith-compromising vices of boredom and complacency, self-righteousness, pride, and idolatry. These are natural to your Old Man, and the LORD will permit them to befall you that, by the Holy Spirit, your faith may be strengthened, that the rocks may be uprooted, the thorns pulled out, that the root of your faith may grow deeper and stronger in Him, and you bear His fruit, a hundredfold, to the glory of His Holy Name.

O God, the strength of all who put their trust in You, mercifully grant that by Your power we may be defended against all adversity; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit one God, now and forever.

In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.