Quasimodo Geniti - The Second Sunday of Easter (Easter 2)

(Audio)

John 20:19-31; 1 John 5:4-10; Exodus 37:1-14

 

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

I like Thomas. Thomas is a realist. Thomas calls a thing what it is. Thomas believes that things have meaning in and of themselves, meaning endowed in them by the very God who created them. Thomas believes that, if he observes and studies real things in the real world, he can know something about them, and thereby he can know something about the God who created them.

Do you see how radically different Thomas’ view is than the view commonly held by people today? Today, as a people, as a culture, we do not believe that things have meaning in and of themselves, and we certainly do not believe that things are endowed with meaning by God or by any other supernatural being. Rather, we assume that things only have meaning insofar as we, human beings, ascribe meaning to them. We have become like the scoffers of whom St. Peter warned us saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” Truly, this is the only way that you can arrive at a biological, chromosomal, anatomical male “identifying” as a female and legislators, lawyers, judges, the media, corporations, and all the world agreeing that this man is a woman simply because he says he is, thinks he is, or feels that he is. Somewhere in time there was a seismic shift in thinking, in common philosophy, in worldview, in common sense, away from realism, calling a thing what it is, to nominalism, calling a thing what you think it is regardless of what it really is.

Thomas is not a nominalist who calls a thing what he thinks, feels, or desires that it is, but he is a realist: Thomas calls a thing what it is, what it is endowed by God to be. “These things did Thomas count as real: The warmth of blood, the chill of steel, the grain of wood, the heft of stone, the last frail twitch of flesh and bone.” Thomas needed to see and touch and, presumably, smell, taste, and hear, in order to believe. So do I, and so do you! God created our bodies and our souls, our reason, and all our senses, good. And so, it is not a bad thing that we need to experience real things in order to believe – God made us this way – but it is only a bad thing if, after having experienced other real things that proved to be true in accordance with the Word of God, and upon hearing the testimony of trusted friends who have also experienced those same real things, also in accordance with the Word of God, we do not believe them. That is where realist Thomas goes wrong saying, “Unless I see in His hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into His side, I will never believe.” Now Thomas has shifted from being a realist who calls real things what they really are as God endowed them to be, to being a materialist who only counts as real material, physical things. Thomas believed in Jesus, to be sure. He believed Jesus to be dead. Thomas had seen his Lord scourged, whipped, and torn. He had seen the cruel thorns driven into His holy head. He had seen his blessed hands, feet, and side pierced with nails and spear. He had seen His lifeless body taken down from the cross and placed into a tomb. He had seen these things and he called them what they were: He called them death.

However, it was not the case that Thomas had only seen and touched His Lord in the past, but he had also seen the signs He performed, more than mere miracles, but signs confirming and fulfilling Messianic prophecies of God’s Word that he had heard with his God-given ears and comprehended with his God-given reason. Thomas had good reason to believe, not only that his Lord had died, but also that He had risen and was alive, just as Jesus had said before His crucifixion, just as his trusted friends accounted to Him that Sunday evening in the upper room. “The vision of his skeptic mind was keen enough to make him blind to any unexpected act too large for his small world of fact.” Just like that, faced with the certainty of death, Thomas became a Modernist and a Materialist. Though Thomas knew that Elijah had raised a widow’s son from death, and that he himself had witnessed Jesus raise a widow’s son from Nain, Jairus’ daughter, and his good friend Lazarus, nonetheless “His reasoned certainties denied that one could live when one had died.”

And, so it is with much that passes as science today; it is a close-minded ideology, a “small world of fact,” not an open search for truth. Only consider the debate on global warming, Neo-Darwinist evolutionary theory, novel untested gene therapies masking as vaccines, gender orientation, and identity politics. To be on the wrong side of these ideological issues is to be labeled anti-science, anti-intellectual, bigoted, sexist, and racist. But, true science requires critical thinking and intellectual honesty, the ability to admit that, when the findings disprove your hypothesis, then what you had believed, no matter how strongly held a viewpoint, is wrong. Those who truly want to support science should defend the right of all scientists — including dissenters — to express their views. Those who stigmatize dissent do not protect science from its enemies. Instead, they subvert the process of scientific discovery they claim to revere.

However, our Lord is gracious and merciful. He comes to us in our weakness of flesh and raises us up to faith and life. He breathes His Holy Spirit upon the dry bones of our unbelief and causes sinews and flesh to come upon us, and He fills us with His life and Spirit. The following Sunday, the disciples were gathered together again with the door bolted behind them. But, this time Thomas was present with them. Once again, our resurrected Lord Jesus came to them where they were. He passed through the barrier that kept them in and He spoke directly to Thomas saying, “Peace be with you. Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Then Thomas’ “fingers read like braille the markings of the spear and nail,” and Thomas believed and confessed “My Lord and my God!” If you think about it, Thomas’ confession is even greater than was Peter’s who confessed Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of the Living God. No longer doubting, Thomas confessed Jesus to actually be God Himself. Jesus gently and lovingly rebuked Thomas for His foolish unbelief saying, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Thomas had everything he needed to believe, but, like we too often do, he became enslaved by his desire for visible and physical proof so that he forgot that God had also given him ears to hear His Word and Promise and believe.

“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book.” Which book is that?  It is first the Gospel of St. John, but that book is also the entirety of the Holy Scriptures, all of which testify of Jesus. “These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His Name.” This is the reason you have the Holy Scriptures. This is the reason you have as Church and a Pastor. This is the reason you have preaching, teaching, and exhortation, the proclamation of your sins forgiven, Holy Baptism, and Holy Supper – that you may believe, and keep believing throughout your life until Jesus comes again. These things come to you from outside of you. You can see them and hear them, touch them, smell them, and taste them. “May we, O God, by grace believe and thus the risen Christ receive, whose raw imprinted palms reached out and beckoned Thomas from his doubt.”

By all means, use your God-given senses to observe and study His creation, and derive its meaning. By all means, use your God-given reason to know and understand and believe. However, use also your God-given ears and listen to His Word, the Holy Scriptures, for they are the revealed Word of God and they are Truth. That which you perceive finds its meaning in God’s Holy Word, “which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.” For, “if we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater. For this is the testimony of God that He has borne concerning His Son.” Don’t be a nominalist, believing that things are essentially meaningless until you give them meaning, but be a realist like Thomas, believing and confessing that all things that are are and are sustained by the creative Word of the LORD and thus testify to their Creator and to Jesus, the Word made flesh, crucified, died, risen, reigning, and returning in glory today, tomorrow, or the next day. And, to preserve you in faith until that day and hour, your Lord Jesus is present with you now that you may believe, and that believing you may have life in His Name, to the glory of God His Father. 

In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.

Homily for the Holy Matrimony of Marc Miller and Lauren Craig - August 6, 2016

John 15:9-12; 1 Corinthians 13:4-13; Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

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

Marc, Lauren – today you two will follow in the steps of billions before you and establish a new community, a new household, a new partnership, a new family. Since sometime shortly after the Sixth Day of Creation, man and woman have been joined in marriage and the two have become one flesh. So, this day, you, Marc, will cease to be merely Marc, and you, Lauren, will cease to be merely Lauren. Truly, you are no longer two, but you are one.

But, what does this mean? That is a good question! It is commonly believed today that each of us is independent. Indeed, independence is a founding principle of our nation and the American Dream we each pursue. However, independence is neither natural to us as God’s children, nor as holy, sacred, and virtuous as we might be tempted to believe. Truth be told, we are never independent, but we are always dependent upon each other. Not a one of us came into this world independent. Quite the opposite! We each came into this world completely dependent upon our mothers who nourished and protected us in the womb and who continued to do the same after we were born. Each of us was born, quite by necessity, into a community, a family, each of us having, at the very least, a mother and a father and grandparents, and quite likely siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins. John Donne was quite correct when he wrote that no man is an island. Likewise, beyond our immediate families, we were each born into communities, villages, towns, cities, states, a nation, etc. Our dependence upon others, from the beginning of our lives to their ends, is absolutely obvious. And, yet, we cause ourselves and others so much heartache and suffering by striving for and insisting upon our independence.

After each day of creation, the LORD looked upon what He had made and He declared it good. However, after the creation of the man, for the first time, God looked at what He made and He declared that something was not good. “It is not good that the man should be alone.” And, that’s the beginning of the greatest love story ever told – the only love story there is, from which all others are drawn. That is the story that you, Marc and Lauren, enter into this day. “So the LORD caused a deep sleep to fall upon the Man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the Man He made into a woman and brought her to the Man. Then the Man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman because she was taken out of Man.’ Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”

The two shall become one flesh. What does this mean? That’s another great question! Well, I know of no equation of mathematics where one plus one equals one. In terms of relationships, however, marriage in particular, the only way that one plus one can equal one is through mutual sacrifice. And, that is precisely how marriage is described in the Holy Scriptures. St. Paul teaches in His Epistle to the Ephesians: “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.” Likewise, St. Paul teaches in the same Epistle: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might by holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.”

Now, I know that word submit makes everyone’s neck hairs bristle, and rightly so given the way that term has been twisted and distorted from its true meaning in Scripture to justify all manner of misogyny and discrimination and abuse. However, that is not what the Lord and St. Paul have in mind in using that word. What the word submit means in this context is “Taking one’s proper role in God’s order and laying aside one’s selfish interests.” And, that goes for the husband as well as for the wife and for us all. As I shared with you during our counseling in preparation for your marriage, St. Paul says elsewhere, in 1 Corinthians, “The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.” Marriage is selfless. Those who enter into marriage insisting upon maintaining their independence not only miss the meaning and purpose of marriage, but they are setting themselves up for great difficulty if not out-right disaster.

Marriage is about love. I’m certain that we all agree about that. In fact, some of you are probably thinking, “Finally, he’s going to talk about love!” Ah! But, what is love? That’s yet another great question! In know, everyone thinks that they know what love is. After all, Hallmark and Hollywood and Tiger Beat and Vogue and Oprah Winfrey and Ellen have all told us what love is, right? Wrong. Dead wrong. Love is sacrifice. I’ll bet you haven’t thought about love that way before. But, let me share with you just a few words about love from the Holy Scriptures. St. John the Evangelist has written that “God is love.” Well, there you go! A simple definition of God: God is love. However, we still don’t know what love is, so we can’t know who God is. Ah, but Jesus tells us a bit more. Jesus says, “Greater love has no man than this, that he would lay down his life for his friends.” Let me paraphrase that for you: No greater love is possible than that a person would sacrifice their own life for the sake of another. That is love; love is sacrifice. So, God is love; and love is sacrifice; therefore God is sacrifice. But, there’s more! Jesus also commands you that you love one another as He has loved you – that you sacrifice yourself for others and for another. Love is sacrifice. And, as I said a moment ago, and you all agree – marriage is about love. Marriage is about sacrifice.

Marc, this day you commit yourself before God and these witnesses to sacrifice yourself for the sake of Lauren and for the sake of your marriage to Lauren. She and her welfare, both physical and spiritual, will, from this day forward, be more important to you than your own life and wants and desires. And, Lauren, this day you commit yourself before God and these witnesses to sacrifice yourself for the sake of Marc and for the sake of your marriage to Marc. He and his welfare, both physical and spiritual, will, from this day forward, be more important to you than your own life and wants and desires.

The passages you selected from the Holy Scriptures were good choices! From 1 Corinthians: “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; […] Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” Do you see how all of the qualities that are said to be love are selfless and sacrificial? It means being forgiving, slow to speak in anger, long in listening, and always putting the best construction on the words and deeds of the other. As you think of and treat your husband, your wife, so do you think of and treat your own body, for you are one flesh. However, this is no easy task, for our flesh tempts us to lash out in anger, to point out our spouse’s failings and mistakes, to be impatient when we believe we know a better way, to harbor resentment and not forgive, etc. Therefore, you will need a source of strength and patience and forgiveness and mercy and compassion to draw upon and to fill you that you may love.

And that is where the passage you selected from Ecclesiastes comes to bear: “Two are better than one […]. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. […] A threefold cord is not quickly broken.” Just as the LORD brought our First Parents together and established the covenant of marriage in which two become one flesh, so is Jesus Christ the third strand in the cord of your marriage that will make you strong and unbreakable. If you abide in His love, then you will have ample love for one another to bear and to endure all things. Do not neglect the Third Partner in your marriage. It is Jesus’ love for you that has brought you together. It is with His love that you love each other. And, it is with His sacrificial love you that you will be able to sacrifice yourself in love for each other. You have asked Him to bless your marriage and your one-flesh union, and He will most certainly will.

Keep this image in mind: When God created Eve, He did not take her from Adam’s feet – that he might rule over her and subdue her. Nor did He take her from Adam’s head – that she might be lord over him. But God took her from Adam’s side – his rib – that she might be an equal partner with him, ever at his side, close to his heart.

Marc, Lauren, always remember that your marriage, blessed by God, is a reflection of God’s own Divine Family – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As you sacrifice yourselves for one another, two becoming one flesh; and as, if God should so bless you, you are fruitful and bear children – remember the third partner in your marriage – your Lord Jesus Christ. It was God who brought Adam and Eve together because He desired for them to know the love and fulfillment of His own Divine Family. He is the love that binds you and makes you one flesh; and He has promised to be with you always. Call upon Him daily for your needs. Thank Him daily for your blessings. Make Him Lord of your hearts and your marriage – and He will bless you and your marriage. You will be fruitful. And your one flesh union will be very good.

In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.

Why is it so hard to live freely?

It is really hard to live in the freedom of the Gospel. The flesh actually likes, loves the Law. Well, ok, it's a love/hate relationship. The flesh loves the Law because it justifies itself (falsely, of course) by it. The flesh hates the Law because it forbids what it wants to do.  Like a toddler, however, the flesh rebels against the Law in part to test that it is still there. The flesh receives comfort knowing that the rules are still in force.

This plays out in interesting ways in the Christian life. How tempting it is for those who are justified by grace through faith in Jesus Christ to grope around for laws to follow and to impose upon others? And then there's the temptation to rebel against the Gospel itself, because it contains the Law fulfilled in Jesus. This is to say that we are free *in* the Gospel, not *from* the Gospel. The Law is fulfilled; it has not been abolished, nor did it pass away. That's a BIG difference!

Well intentioned Christians both cast the justified back into the shackles of law and teach that the law no longer applies! My heart is comforted in the proclamation that Christ has justified me in His blood, and then some yahoo comes along and says, "Now you have to do this...: evangelize, witness, read your Bible more, attend small groups, whatever." Of course, some other yahoo will come along and say, "Just go to mass, that's all."

No. Justification means something. It means that you are freed from the Law's demands that you may live freely *in* the Gospel. You see, that's a bit different from the kind of antinomian freedom some peddle. In Christ you are a new creation; that means a new life and a new way of living. It doesn't mean a sinless life, but it means a repentant life, a contrite life, a humble life. However, the works of this new life are not to be quantified or measured -- that is purely a human rationalistic idea. The fruit of faith is not to be quantified or measured, but they must be there; and they will be there, if there is faith. Christ says that faith as small as a mustard seed can move mountains. I don't know anyone who's moved any mountains. Undoubtedly, "O ye of little faith" are amongst the best that our Lord will ever find. "O Lord, I believe; help me in my unbelief," a father cried. "He who believes... will be saved." How much? How often? Doesn't enter into the equation.

"Give, and it will be given..."
"Love God...., and love your neighbor..."
"Forgive...., and you will be forgiven..."

How much? How often?
Doesn't enter into the equation.

Living in the freedom of the Gospel can only be done in continual contrition, humility, and repentance in faith and trust in Jesus Christ who is making (still) all things new. The faithful follow Him in the Way that He goes. They cannot be Him, but they are baptized into Him and He will make them like Him throughout their lives, culminating in the resurrection of their bodies on the Last Day and eternal life with Him thereafter.

What does that life look like? Perhaps it's better to say what it does not look like. The new life does *not* look like a life lived under the Law or law. It does not have a long list of "must dos" or "pieties" or "steps" or anything else contrived by human reason and sinful pride.  It does not force a rationalistic interpretation upon God's Word breaking it into "three rules" or "seven dispensations" or any other forced categorization. I suppose it might be said to look like the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount, not because they describe a new Law, rule, or guide for the Christian life, but because they describe Christ and His kingdom which has broken into this world and is day by day establishing its reign until the culmination and unveiling of Christ's glory on the Last Day.

Think fruits, not rules.
Think contrition, repentance, and humility, not works and obedience.
Think what Christ has done, not what I must do.
And, do your vocation. Be your vocation. Faithfully, in humility and repentance, every day of your life.
Live *in* the freedom of the Gospel. That is all.

Exegesis the Lutheran Way

Excerpted from The Form and Meaning of the Fall Narrative by Norman C. Habel (1965)

Our moorings are biblical and our bearings are Lutheran. This means that we affirm certain presuppositions and follow certain basic principles of interpretation. In brief, these presuppositions and principles are as follows:

1. The approach of the Lutheran exegete is governed by his faith in Jesus Christ, in whose name he has been baptized, and by whom he has been made righteous in God’s sight. This faith is anchored in the Gospel, the scandalous news that Jesus Christ died and rose again to execute God’s plan of redemption for sinful mankind.

2. In the interpretation of Scripture, the Lutheran exegete must relate all of Scripture to its center, viz., solus Christus, that is, the message of justification by grace propter Christum [on account of Christ] through faith.

3. In applying this principle the Lutheran exegete must follow the rule that “Scripture interprets Scripture” (Scriptura Scripturam interpretatur). Understood in its primary sense this rule means that the clear passages of Scripture, namely those which display the teaching of justification by grace through faith in all its force and glory, must be used to interpret and evaluate those portions of Scripture where this truth is obscure. In short, the right distinction between Law and Gospel must be rigorously maintained in all biblical exegesis (Apology of the Augsburg Confession IV 5).

4. The Lutheran exegete also follows the norm that “the Old Testament must be interpreted in the light of the New Testament,” that is, in the light of Christ’s advent as the fulfillment of God’s eternal plan of salvation. The ultimate context of the Old Testament is the New Testament . This principle is abused, however, when we insist that that New Testament interpretation or application of a given Old Testament passage is always the only meaning which God intends us to discover in that Old Testament passage.

5. The Lutheran exegete must assume an attitude of subservience to the Scriptures as the inspired word of the living God which is designed to lead men to salvation. In so doing the exegete will always seek to determine the message which God intends to communicate in any given passage.

6. By seeking to ascertain the intended sense of a given passage the Lutheran exegete is applying the principlesensus literalis unus est. The Latin formula stands in antithesis to the medieval method of discerning the fourfold meaning of each passage of Scripture. Sensus literalis has reference to the God-intended rather than surface meaning (sensus literae) of the biblical text.

7. When attempting to determine the intended sense of a given text of Scripture the Lutheran exegete must employ all the tools at his disposal to discover the character or nature of the text with which he is dealing . In this task the evidence of the text itself must be taken into account and the analogy of comparable texts given due consideration. If this is done the exegete will not hastily jump to the conclusion that a given text is a chronicle, a law code, a parable, or any other kind of literature, without sufficient evidence.

8. Finally the Lutheran exegete must pay special attention to the usus loquendi of the biblical writer, that is, he must try to ascertain what the terms, concepts, imagery, forms, etc., of a given text meant in the culture and specific historical situation of the audience to which the passage was originally addressed. God means to be understood and so he employs that living language or medium of expression which can be readily grasped by the original audience to which the speaker or writer addressed his message. In short, the exegete must attempt to become a part of the audience which the inspired biblical author addressed himself and to hear that writer speaking on his own terms, as far as this is humanly possible.

HT: Piotr Malysz

The Spirituality of Ordinary Life

The following was a talk, not a sermon or a homily, that I presented at a dinner in honor and thanksgiving for three nurses who responded to a man who had suffered cardiac arrest at a graduation ceremony. The man, Peter, is alive and well today due in large part to the actions of these three nurses who knew their vocation and responded in service of their neighbor. The purpose of my talk was to encourage them in their God-given vocations and to see the miracles that God is performing by them and through them each and every day.

You are probably aware that there is a war going on today. Ok, so you’re aware that there are many wars going on today. But, I’m not talking about Afghanistan, Egypt, or Syria. I’m not even talking about politics, education, healthcare, or the “culture war”. No, the war that I am talking about involves our understanding and expectations concerning the supernatural, the spiritual, the miraculous, and the divine. You see, there is a war going on here, in that belief in the spiritual is being attacked and undermined both from without, that is from naturalistic and materialistic philosophies and worldviews and the people who hold them, as much as it is being attacked and undermined from within, that is, from spiritual religions and denominations and the people who hold them. What I mean is that spirituality has come to be understood as something absolutely, unequivocably distinct and separate from the material and earthly stuff of which this world consists and from the mundane, day to day lives of the people who claim to believe in the supernatural, the spiritual, the miraculous, and the divine.

A quick Google search for the definition of the word miracle demonstrates my point. It reads: “A surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency.” Did you catch the part about being “not being explicable [that is, explainable] by natural or scientific laws”? That’s a huge problem! Why is it necessary that the miraculous not be explicable by natural or scientific laws? Is it only those things and events that we cannot explain that are to be attributed to God? Well, that’s very convenient for atheists and for the contemporary breed of materialistic naturalist neo-Darwinian scientists and philosophers who consider belief in the supernatural, the spiritual, the miraculous, and the divine a form of insanity, a disease, and a moral evil. For such as these, this definition permits them to dismiss anything that they cannot explain as merely a gap in their scientific knowledge that will, in time, be bridged and the possibility of the divine eliminated.

However, too often those who consider themselves spiritual think in this same way: For something to count as a miracle, and possibly be attributed to God, it has to be unexplainable by nature and science. The result of this is, first, that we play directly into the hands of those who wish to discount and discredit spirituality altogether, and second, we often look for, and think that we find, God in the wrong places, and we too often fail to find Him working in the places He has promised to be.

But, what are those places where God has promised to be? Where is God working in this world? You see, what I’m talking about here is the spirituality, not of the extraordinary and the unnatural, but, rather, the spirituality of the ordinary, mundane, day to day lives that you and I lead in this world. I’m talking about how God works with you and through you for the benefit of your family, your friends, your neighbors, and, yes, even complete strangers. This is a spirituality that is rooted, not in the inexplicable, the unnatural, and the non-scientific, but in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, God in the flesh dwelling amongst us.

Perhaps, however, that is where the problem and the confusion lie: in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. For, surely, this was the miracle of all miracles! God became a man and made His dwelling with us, in our flesh, in the world that He had made. If the incarnation is true – and it most assuredly is – then, I hope that it is needless to say, that changes everything. Why does it change everything? The incarnation changes everything because God is not merely afar, outside of nature and time and everything that we know, live, and experience in our lives, but He has permanently penetrated, entered, and taken up flesh and blood, bone, in the material world of atoms and cells and gravitational forces, rays and particles of light, etc. In other words, the God who made all things permeates all things and sustains all things. God entered this world in the flesh and blood human body and soul of Jesus Christ. He lived in that body, was tempted in that body, suffered and died in that body, rose from the dead and ascended back into heaven in that body. Now, Jesus fills and permeates all things visible and invisible. Therefore, Jesus is in this world still. He is with you at all times. And you have become His hands, His heart, and His mouth to all His people whom He shed His precious blood to redeem from sin and death.

That means that the supernatural, the spiritual, the miraculous, and the divine are not merely those things and events that are inexplicable by nature and scientific laws. Miracles happen everyday, through everyday people in their everyday lives and vocations. You may ask, “When did the Lord perform a miracle through me?” Particularly to the Christian, Jesus promises “as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” Our God is not a watchmaker God who set the world in motion and then walked away having no further involvement in it, but our God is the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of all that He has made. He does not merely work outside of and upon His creation, but He works in and through His creation for the benefit of His creation to the glory of His Name.

Further, the ways in which God works in and through His creation are often decidedly unspectacular and seemingly unmiraculous to human eyes that cannot see the miraculous for what it is because of human minds bound in captivity to materialistic naturalist neo-Darwinian science and philosophy. Even those who truly believe in the spiritual and the divine, those who believe in miracles, are wont to think of them only as those extraordinary, inexplicable events that seemingly defy nature and the laws of science. The Lord would have you see, however, that such a view is severely limited, and is limiting of our limitless God who has penetrated His creation in order to redeem it and restore it and sustain it until its recreation is fulfilled. For, indeed, the miraculous is all around you every day, all the time!

Indeed, each of you is here tonight to celebrate many miracles that have surrounded our host Peter as the result of the cardiac arrest he suffered on June 22, 2013 at 9:35 a.m. Each of you were there − Mary, Leigh Ann, and Mary – and not by chance. You were there to witness the graduation of your own children, your daughters, that is first and foremost why you were there. But, you were also there for a reason that you could never have suspected beforehand; you were there that day to be the hands, heart, and mouth of Jesus, to save Peter’s life. Here, human reason, which is captive to and blinded by a materialistic naturalist neo-Darwinian worldview, will say “It was just a coincidence.” But, it was not a coincidence, it was your vocation, your calling. For, you were there that day, not only as mothers, but you were there as nurses. You had the gifts and skills, and the heart and the mind to use them when they were needed, to help Peter, to save Peter. And, that is no coincidence. For, God has made each of you, and God has blessed each of you with gifts with which you serve others to His glory, and God has called you to service and given you the many and varied vocations that you hold. Don’t ever discount that or allow others to talk to you of coincidence. Though you may think that you were only doing what was right to do in a given situation, I say to you that you were doing what God has called you to do. One thing that is all but certain is that, if you were not there, we would not be here tonight, for Peter would not be here. And, that is nothing less than miraculous.

Of course, you are aware that the miracles did not end there. One of you received a text message from the ambulance containing one word, “Saved.” Those EMTs were living out their vocation too. Then, was it a coincidence that the cardiologist on the job that weekend just happened to be a specialist in electro-cardiology, able to provide precisely the specific care that Peter needed? And I know that there were several other unique experiences, events, and situations, each, alone, seemingly insignificant, but, taken together, showing the miracles that God was working through ordinary people doing their ordinary vocations without Hollywood special effects or awe-inspiring signs and wonders. The lack of signs and wonders does not make your work and the experiences you’ve had any less miraculous; in truth, when you see them with the eyes of faith, you see the richness and the depth of what God is doing all the time through the people He loves and has saved and purchased in the blood of His Son Jesus Christ. We live in a miraculous world filled with miraculous lives inhaling and exhaling the life-breath of God. You are His hands, His heart, and His mouth.

This is the spirituality of ordinary life, life that is sacred, holy, and precious to God, the Creator and giver of life. Mary, Leigh Ann, and Mary – this is your vocation, your calling. When you recognize in your vocation their Giver, you will find that miracles are happening through your hands, your heart, and your mouth every day. Thank you for faithfully living in your God-given vocations. Thank you being Jesus’ hands, heart, and mouth in saving Peter that day in June. To God be the glory in all things, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

What do public education, the breakdown of the traditional family, the ghettoization of the church, and the morality of our culture have in common?

The public school system in the United States has become, and not recently, a machine of the state having the purpose of producing the kind of citizen that most benefits the state’s purposes and desires. What the state most needs to stifle is individuality and individual thinking and creativity. Here’s a quote from  a 30 year teacher in New York City schools and former New York State Teacher of the Year, John Taylor Gatto, from his book Weapons of Mass Instruction – A Schoolteacher’s Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling:

Take a second to think about these utopian algorithms – dividing people from one another and from their natural allies, is right at the head of the list, but all require wiping the slate as clean of close emotional ties – even ties to yourself! – as possible. Family, deep friendships, church, culture, traditions, anything which might contradict the voice of authority, is suspect. An independent mind  is the worst danger of all, but twelve years spent in a school chair (and now in front of a computer terminal or television, etc.), will convert the most crowded inner life into a virtually blank slate.

From the same book, here’s a quote from William Torrey Harris, US Commissioner of Education from 1889 to 1906 from his book The Philosophy of Education, 1906:

Ninety-nine [students] out of a hundred are automata, careful to walk in prescribed paths, careful to follow the prescribed custom. This is not an accident but the result of substantial education which, scientifically defined, is the subsumption of the individual….

The great purpose of school [self-alienation] can be realized better in dark, airless, ugly places…. It is to master the physical self, to transcend the beauty of nature. School should develop the power to withdraw from the external world.

Harris is far from a lone radical in the history of public education in America. The model is a Hegelian one from Prussia, used by American industrialists like J. P. Morgan and Andrew Carnegie and communists and socialists like Karl Marx alike. Thus, education isn’t actually a political issue, but an instrument wielded by those in power regardless of their political affiliations. All the other social issues we wrangle with – marriage, sexuality, abortion, women’s rights, religious discourse in the public square, gun control, the nature and meaning of life, etc. – are indoctrinated into our culture and society through the public school system. We learn what we are wanted to learn – nothing more, nothing less.

The “O” Antiphons of Advent

“And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD.” Isaiah 11:1-2

In response to the Scriptural exhortation to “pray without ceasing,” (1 Thess. 5:17) the ancient Church developed the Canonical Hours – fixed hours of prayer at which Scripture would be read and Psalms would be sung. From about the 4^th century on, these hours, in the West have traditionally followed this order: Matins (midnight), Lauds (3 a.m.), Prime (6 a.m.), Terce (9 a.m.), Sext (noon), None (3 p.m.), Vespers (6 p.m.), and Compline (9 p.m.).

As you can well imagine, this was an extremely difficult and challenging discipline to maintain; only the monks, nuns, and some clergy were very successful at it. Sensing the value of such disciplined daily prayer, however, Martin Luther did not wish to abolish the Hours but simply to condense them into the more manageable and recognizable Hours of Matins (morning prayer) and Vespers (evening prayer). To this day, these Hours of daily prayer are a part of our tradition and piety.

As we begin a new Church Year with the season of Advent, I thought it appropriate to share with you an especially beautiful and poignant part of our catholic tradition which has become all but forgotten amongst Lutheran Christians, The “O” Antiphons. Traditionally, the last eight days of Advent form a little liturgical season unto themselves. As the Church prepares to celebrate the birthday of Christ, the liturgy gets somewhat more intense, freighted with all the hopes of an expectant church.

The “O” Antiphons are a series of “Holy Titles” for Christ by which the Church calls on Him to come. Beginning at Vespers on December 17, each night gives him a new name: “O Wisdom,” “O Sacred Lord,” “O Flower of Jesse’s Stem,” “O Key of David,” “O Radiant Dawn,” “O King of All the Nations,” and the greatest of them all, “O Emmanuel,” a name which means “God is with us.” The great and wonderful Advent hymn “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” (LW 31) is based upon The “O” Antiphons – check the seven titles against this hymn’s seven verses.

An antiphon is a small portion of a Psalm, or some other appropriate words, which is sung at the beginning and at the end of a Psalm or a canticle. The “O” Antiphons were sung specifically before and after the Magnificat (Mary’s Song) during the Hour of Vespers the last week of Advent. These seven Holy Titles for Jesus are appropriate “book ends” to Mary’s beautiful and reverent hymn of praise.

As The “O” Antiphons were originally sung in Latin, when considering the Latin titles an interesting acrostic (word puzzle) appears. When the Latin titles are arranged last to first and the first letter of each title is read consecutively, Christ’s answer to the cry of His Church “Come” is revealed: “Ero cras,” which means, “I shall, tomorrow.”

Emmanuel                  Emmanuel

Rex Gentium              King of the Nations

Oriens                          Dawn

Clavis David                Key of David

Radix Jesse                 Root of Jesse

Adonai                          Lord

Sapientia                      Wisdom

 

Ero cras. I shall, tomorrow.

 

“O Come, O come Emmanuel,” cries the Church. “I shall, tomorrow,” Jesus answers. And so, the Church awaits. Waiting is what Advent is all about. Even as we celebrate the birthday of Jesus, we await, looking expectantly for His second coming. And as we await, we prepare by repenting of our sins and receiving holy absolution, by remaining in His Word, and by receiving His body and blood. The Bride, the Church, awaits and looks expectantly for the coming of Her Bridegroom – Her lamp in hand, she prepares and awaits.

 

“Come soon to save us,” cries the Church,

“From sin and death and sorrow.”

Our Lord’s reply is “Ero cras,”

Which means “I shall, tomorrow.”

The Lord Continue to bless you in the Peace that is Christ Jesus until He comes.

On the Naming of Churches

What’s in a name? In ages not long past, one’s name was central to one’s prosperity and livelihood. One’s name was akin to one’s reputation, something to be defended and preserved, inseparable from one’s ancestry and lineage. One’s name had actual meaning (e.g., Peter means “rock”, Christopher means “light of Christ”) and often was descriptive, or prescriptive, of its bearer. Outside of our own American culture, such attribution to a name is still common practice.

The names of biblical figures are nearly always rich with meaning. Abraham means “father of nations”, Adam means “earth” (Adam, quite literally, is the “Dirt Man”). In their baptisms, Christians, traditionally, receive a new name – a Christian name. This is in symbolic recognition that the “Old Man” has been drowned and that the “New Man” has arisen. That which is ‘born again’ needs a new name. A Christian name was typically a biblical name, e.g, David, Peter, Andrew, Sarah, Mary, Ruth. Such a name connects the bearer to the life example of that figure who bore the name before them. The name Peter carries with it the association to St. Peter’s bold confession of faith even unto death, along with his failings, repentance, and restoration by our Lord.

Biblical names are not so in vogue today. Names inspired by western American landscapes (Dakota, Sierra), cities (Madison, Austin), or popular culture (Destiny, Dylan, Hunter) dominate the school rolls. On the one hand, trends change from generation to generation; but on the other, is there, maybe, something more deceptive and devious at work? The shift away from traditional Christian (biblical) names also marks a distancing from the character and quality those names represent. Subtly, seemingly innocently, our culture continues to sever its ties that ground it in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

A similar thing has happened in the naming of churches. It used to be that liturgical Christian churches were named after saints, e.g., St. John’s, St. Peter’s, St. Paul’s, etc. In the catholic tradition, the saint a church was named after was called the Patron, meaning ‘Father’. The patron saint was to the church a spiritual father, that is, someone whose faith and witness were to be emulated amongst the parishioners. The church did not worship the saint, nor was the church the saint’s possession, but the church venerated (honored) the faith and witness of that saint, and God’s faithfulness to the Saint, and sought to follow in that example.

More and more churches today bear ‘conceptual’ names like ‘Love’, ‘Peace’, ‘Hope’, ‘New Life’, or ‘Family of Faith’. While the ‘concepts’ these names represent are certainly consistent with Christian faith and doctrine, they exist in the realm of ‘ideas’, ‘thoughts’, and ‘imagination’ – that is, they do not have physical, corporal (bodily) referents. In other words, they have no ‘flesh and blood’, no ‘body’, no ‘life’.

Once again, there may be something more subtle, deceptive, and devious going on here that is consistent with an ancient heresy known as Gnosticism. The primary tenant of Gnosticism is that physical matter is evil; thus, Gnostics abhor the flesh, the body. Ancient Gnostics would often fall into one of two behavior patterns: In the first pattern, since they abhorred the flesh, they would become ascetics and would starve themselves and mortify their bodies. In the second pattern, since they abhorred the flesh, they would abuse it by engaging in excessive drinking, eating, and sexual promiscuity of all manner. A related tenant of the Gnostic philosophy was a denial of the Incarnation (the Word of God taking on human flesh in the conception and birth of Jesus) and of the Resurrection of the Dead. Hence, Gnosticism is a heretical belief that the Christian Church has fought against since the time of Christ.

The modern church names mentioned earlier (‘Love’, ‘Peace’, ‘Family of Faith’) have no connection to anyone or anything that ever lived in flesh and blood by the breath of God. The devil must be enjoying this thoroughly! All the devil desires to do is to take our eyes, our focus, off of Jesus Christ – God in the flesh – by any means possible. These ‘conceptual’ names are, perhaps, just one more deception of the devil that serve to direct us away from Jesus.

Churches named in the traditional manner, after saints and martyrs, have connection, whether recognized or not, to real, flesh and blood people, people who gave their lives for their faith. Such examples are for God’s people to emulate in their own faith and confession and to receive strength and encouragement from in the face of temptation, persecution, and suffering. God saw St. Paul through countless challenges, even a martyr’s death, and has given him the crown of life. Christians thank God for the example of St. Paul and the entire Communion of Saints – for the example of their faithfulness and witness, and for the witness of God’s faithfulness.

What’s in a name? A lot! Our church is named ‘Christ the King’ – that certainly says something! Jesus Christ is the greatest saint of all! He is the spiritual Son of God, the Word of God, in human flesh – real body, real blood, real life, real death, real resurrection. God the Father was Jesus’ strength throughout His temptation, persecution, suffering, and death; Jesus is our strength throughout ours. He has been through it all for us, and He has emerged victorious! Flesh and blood now reign in power at the right hand of God the Father! Where He is, He has promised we will be too! Now, there’s strength to live and faith to persevere!