Homily - Lent 1C, Deuteronomy 26:1-11 and Luke 4:1-13

(many of the thoughts came from this sermon by Rev Timothy Pauls)

            Sometimes at Church you hear a Scripture passage and wonder what it has to do with your life.  Not today, as we hear of Christ’s temptation in the wilderness each year on the First Sunday in Lent.  You and I face temptations.  Constantly.  And so listening to Jesus oppose our temptations for us and our salvation is a good thing.

            Many of your temptations revolve around the things that you have, or do not have.  Today’s Old Testament is both a warning and a blessing in reminding us that everything that you and I have is a gift from God.  Six times in 11 verses God is said to be giving land and crops to Israel.  Moses is teaching about worshipping the Lord in thanksgiving.  There is nothing they would possess without His blessing.  When the Israelites brought their firstfruits to the Lord, they were to praise Him saying, “A wandering Aramean was my father.”  Without the Lord’s blessing, their ancestor Jacob would have remained just a drifting traveler who never amounted to anything and would probably have died in a famine.  But God provided.  The words they were given to say at worship acknowledge that everything that they have was undeserved gift.  Likewise, we often begin our services by saying, “I, a poor miserable sinner, confess unto You all my sins and iniquities with which I have ever offended You, and justly deserve Your temporal and eternal punishment.”  With those words, we are saying that everything good that we have is an undeserved gift from God.

            Moses commanded an offering of firstfruits.  Before the people enjoyed the full harvest, they were to take a portion of the best of their crops and offer it back to God.  Note that this is not a bribe to buy God’s favor and grease His palm, so to speak.  The reason they had firstfruits to offer was because God had already given them His favor.

            And so it goes with our own church offerings.  The nuts-and-bolts reason for the offering is that while God’s grace in Christ is free, it does take money to run the furnace and pay the electric bill.  We financially support the spread of the Gospel.  Not just here among us, but around the world.   We do it so that people will be told that God raised Jesus from the dead and they learn to call on the name of the Lord with us and be saved (Romans 10, Epistle) – even as past generations of Christians gave offerings that made it possible for you to hear the Gospel and be saved.  The Gospel reason is that Christ has set us free from sinful doubts so that we trust that God has given us more money than we need to for ourselves – and that the Lord will provide tomorrow as well.  Our discipline of giving further impresses upon us the truth that everything we have is a gift of God.  Giving it away reminds us that money is not an idol to cling to.

            But you know how the Devil uses all of those “daily bread” sort of gifts – from food to clothes to cars and medical care - to provoke covetousness, jealousy, discontentment and doubt.  He exploits them as false evidence that God is no use to you.  When you lack the things you would like, the Devil will suggest, “Are you really sure that you are a child of God?  It seems like you should have more good stuff if you were.  Maybe God does not care about you.”  And when you happen to suffer misfortune, then the Devil tempts you to drop God and set off on your own.  On the other hand, when times are good for you, the Devil tries to seduce you all the way to Hell, saying, “Look at all the things you have gotten for yourself.  You did this without any help!”  Left unrepented, these sinful thoughts would lead to flat out unbelief that imagines you do not need God.  Why deal with annoying commandments and God’s talk about sin and grace if you get by on your own? 

           Whether the Devil attempts to get you to doubt God, hate God, or see no need for God, underneath all those tactics is that one ultimate goal – to destroy your faith in Christ.  And material things are some of the most useful for his temptations – because you can see the things you have.  You cannot see your Savior Jesus, and the thing in your hands seems so much more real than a Savior you trust by faith.

            However, to all these temptations, you can respond with Jesus today, “Man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD!” (Matthew 4:4).  By the word that comes from the mouth of the Lord, you know that Jesus has taken His place with sinners, for you.  Immediately after He was baptized at the Jordan River, Christ was tempted in the wilderness – not only with the physical comfort of food when His tummy was growling, but He was also tempted to pride and power, idolatry and the testing of God as St. Luke tells us.  Tempted continuously for 40 days by the Devil.  As the Son of God, He should have everything.  However, as the

Lord come to save sinners, He has laid aside His glory, humbling Himself.  And with nothing in His hands, He faces Satan’s tempting accusations, “If you are the Son of God… but are you sure?”  All that Jesus sees would gives false testimony against His sonship.  However, Jesus goes with what He has heard when the Father said, “You are My beloved Son.”  He has heard His Father say, “In You I am well pleased,” and so Jesus knows all His work to save us has His Father’s blessing, even while He is weak and alone facing the Devil’s deceitful attacks.

            You have heard the words that come from the mouth of the Lord, and so by that word, you know that Jesus resisted perfectly.  By the word of the Lord, you are told that Jesus gave you the credit for it – as if you have been perfectly obedient to His Father.  That word declares to you that God’s Son died in your place – not by falling from the top of the Temple, but by being lifted up on the tree of death outside of Jerusalem.  That word tells you to be certain that there is no condemnation against you for any of your sins

because you are in Christ Jesus.  No matter who else might tell you or not tell you that they love you this Valentine’s Day, God’s word tells you today and every day that He loves you in Christ Jesus, and that neither death nor life nor anything in all of Creation can separate you from that love.

            The Lord speaks His Word personally to you, so that you can be sure that He cares for you as one of His children – because He said to you the words, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!”  As the Father called Jesus His beloved Son at His baptism, so the Father has also declared you to be His beloved child at yours.  And God speaks His word to tell you that His favor for you has not changed – each time He declares, “I forgive you for all your sins!”  As long as you are in this wilderness, you know that you are not forsaken.  The Lord is with you, near you, as near as His Word – so near as to give you His own body and blood for the forgiveness of your sins.  God’s word promises these works of salvation for us – a grace that is far greater than the great deeds, signs and wonders that He performed to free His people from Egypt; for by His Word, God has freed you from sin, death, and Hell.  Eternally.

            Everything you have is a gift from God.  An undeserved gift.  As long as the Devil tempts you and me, that will be tough to believe all the time.  Yet no matter whether God gives you to be a steward of many things or few in this life, you have the Word of the Lord which promises that you are a child of God.  That is why you live by every Word that comes from the mouth of the God Who has forgiven you for all of your sins.  Amen.

            

Saturday after Ash Wednesday - from Yesteryear

I'm busy working on sermon for tomorrow morning, but I re-discovered what I wrote in 2010, and I think it is pretty insightful weaving the readings together.  Check it out. (Oh, and I know now who was responsible for the Psalm selections.)

Ash Wednesday - Mark 1

Mark says the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begins in the wilderness.  That is appropriate, because that is where you and I are at.  You do not need me to tell you this is not Paradise.  You have known that since long before the first time you complained to your mommy that life was not fair.  The Bible lets us know that in fact there was a time when life was fair - and more than that, filled only with goodness.  But we lost that through no fault of God's.  And so now we wander around outside of Paradise through a spiritual wasteland, a wilderness filled with wild things and wild people.  And the evidence of where we are at being wrong piles up like dead bodies.

However, the Scriptures let us know that being in the wilderness is not as bad a place to be as it could be.  Because God is there.  He does some of His best work in the wilderness.  Jacob is turned by God into His Israel through the wrestlings in the wilderness.  From Egypt He took a bunch of slaves who had divided loyalties and in the wilderness God made them to be His faithful people.  In the wilderness He taught David and opened his mouth so that David could teach us that the Lord is our Shepherd.  In the wilderness God shook Elijah out of his pity-party that "celebrated" his utter "failure" as a prophet and let Elijah know that there were in fact 7000 preserved who had not bowed down to Baal.  

And then into that wilderness Jesus goes - to stand shoulder to shoulder with sinners at His baptism, and then to face His temptation.  Because that is where you are, and where I am, facing our temptations.  

As we enter the wilderness of Lent, we become a bit more aware in this penitential season of the beastliness of our sin.  We have grown too accustom to it, and even convinced ourselves that we have tamed our wickedness.  Your Lord knows, however, how dangerous your sin is, that it can never be domesticated.  Christ has released us from its jaws, yet He knows better than we do that it is ready to sink its lethal teeth into you again without any warning. 

Yea, though we walk through this shadow of Lent opening up our eyes to our deadly sin, we shall fear no evil.  For the Lord is with us.  And He does some of His best work in the wilderness.  The question for us this Lent is - are we interested in the Lord working on us?  Are we looking to improve ourselves in just minor ways?  Do we just want to limp along in survival mode day to day?

Or do we really desire the Lord to resurrect us?

February 9 - John 3 on the Doorway to Lent

I've been encouraged by a friend to dust off the blog and get back to writing for this.  So here we go.
As far as I can tell, February 9 will not be the day before Ash Wednesday again in my lifetime, but John 3 seems like an extremely fitting text on which to leave Epiphany and enter Lent.  Nicodemus, in the darkness, has the Light of the World revealed to Him.  As we follow Jesus to the darkness of Good Friday, He will be revealed to be the Son of God given by the Father to save us from perishing when He is lifted up on a pole like the bronze serpent of Moses.

(Oh, and I always feel bad about leaving Job where he is at in the middle of the story in the Treasury.  Some years I've added the end of his saga to my daily Lenten devotions just to get to his salvation.  Or at least chapter 19.  I wonder if we get to the end of Job in 2038.)

Proper 5b - Mark 3:20-35 sermon, Who is the Devil Around Here

            “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist.”  At least that is what one movie character says.  And certainly, that is one of his tricks.  A 2009 poll of those identifying themselves as Christians found that almost 60% think that the devil is no living creature, just a personification of evil.

            Whatever works is what the Devil will do.  If he figures that his best bet to separate you from God is

In The Screwtape Letters, a supervising demon advises
an underling to keep his human victim in the dark.
"The fact that 'devils' are predominantly comic figures
in the modern imagination will help you.
If any faint suspicion of your existence begins to arise in his mind,
suggest to him a picture of something in red tights,
and persuade him that since he cannot believe in that
(it is an old textbook method of confusing them)
he therefore cannot believe in you.

to terrorize you with his diabolical tricks, then he will do that.  But if you believing his lie that he poses no threat to you – if that will get you away from Christ, then absolutely that is the way he will lead you straight down the broad path that leads to destruction. 

            In an article[1] about the spiritual beliefs of the ¼ of Americans who report no religious affiliation, there was this quote from a young person helping to provide clean water in Africa: “I don’t need ‘magic trick Jesus.’ I’m not interested in that, and I’m not interested in ‘saving my soul.’ I’m not about saving myself.  I want to save the world.”  You do not think you need Jesus to be God if you do not think the Devil is any sort of problem.  A human Jesus who inspires to be good to others – that is all they are interested in.

            Is Satan’s greatest trick convincing people he does not exist?  Perhaps.  Or maybe it is convincing people that God is a devil.  That happens in the OT text where the Devil had persuaded Adam and Eve that God was being rude to them by forbidding them the fruit of knowing good and evil.  And it happens in the Gospel text today when the enemy scribes from Jerusalem accuse Jesus of having an unclean spirit, saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “by the prince of demons he casts out demons” (Mark 3:20-35).  Meanwhile Christ’s flesh and blood family figure something evil is going on in His brain, giving Jesus delusions of grandeur. 

            In our own day, God still gets accused of being a devil.  A Christian woman who had suffered domestic violence told her story on the radio last week.  She said as she struggled in the months after she left her abusive husband, she could not believe in God – because it was easier to believe there was no God than to believe that God would allow her husband to abuse her.  She now is glad that God did not abandon her, but had loved her in Christ through and past it all. 

            Also this last week was the sad story about Bruce Jenner.  Now if I were to go get plastic surgery so I could look like an alien, people would recognize I was not right in the head – and at best they would hope I would get mental help.  At worst they would mock me.  It would be wrong for people to go along with my lies and say that in fact I was an alien.  Likewise with Mr. Jenner, who needs our prayers, not mockery nor approval.  The surgery does not change the fact that he still has the male chromosomes God gave him through his dad.  Which brings up the worst part about this mess – whether people realize it or not, Jenner’s actions are an accusation that God got it wrong giving Jenner a man’s body. 

            You and I accuse God of getting it wrong with us too.  Just consider how each time we break God’s

holy Commandments, we are accusing the Lord of giving us bad rules.  Just like Jenner, each sin has us pretending to be something different than we are – as if we did not belong to God.  Or think of how we have mocked and insulted our fellow humans – people whom God created.  We might not go so far as to call some brother or sister in Christ “evil” – but our hatred has made monsters out of them, so that we can imagine they deserve for us to treat them as less than human.  We label them as “closed-minded,” “liberal,” “old-fashioned,” stubborn, or just plain dumb – all to make ourselves look good and to hurt their reputation.  The rest of the world does it this way.  But brothers and sisters of Jesus, among us this lack of love must not be!  How can the same mouth praise God and insult those whom He created? 

            Why God made Satan and his demons in the first place is a mystery we will not know the answer to in this life, though we do know that God created them to be holy angels.  However, the demons turned away from goodness.  Satan became envious that God made humanity to be the crown of creation.  Judging God to have gotten it all wrong, the Devil declared war on God to take over the Universe – and quickly recruited Adam and Eve to his side, seeking to turn man away from God.  His weapons are deception and murder – which is why our Savior Jesus calls the Devil the father of lies and a murderer from the beginning.

            When Jesus tells the parable of the strong man in today’s Gospel (Mark 3:20-35), He describes the world as the Devil’s home territory, a world in bondage to that evil and powerful warlord who does not want you to praise the Lord’s holy name, nor let God the Father’s kingdom come.  The prince of demons hoards his plunder in the courtyard, protected by the walls of his fortress, like some legendary dragon asleep on his piles of golden treasure.

            In this case the treasure is not silver or gold or precious gemstones.  The plunder is you.  And me.  The story Jesus tells is no “once upon an imaginary time” fairy tale, but a real life once upon a historical time.  Jesus tells the one true story that makes sense of this messed up world as His Word cuts through Satan’s lies.  Our Lord and Savior tells us that we are right to cry out when the world goes wrong, because it was never meant to be this way.  Tragedies should not have happened.  God, after all, had created humanity in His image for good.  He put us in this world for far more than the meaninglessness of modern life.  However, humanity has lost its way, falling into sinful pride or self-hatred; lusts and cravings that only hurt us in the end.  The human race fell under the spell of the lie of the warlord and we are enslaved – stripped of the true freedom and life God gave to us.

            But for us fights the Valiant One, whom God Himself elected.  And so Jesus says, “No one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.”  Jesus Himself is this Stronger One who has come behind enemy lines like soldiers

storming a beachhead to bind the strong Devil for us.  The spoils of this war are you.  Jesus fights indirectly against the Devil when He teaches the words of eternal life in the face of Satan’s deceptive propaganda.  And He fights head on against the Devil as He casts out demons and ultimately crushes the Devil’s head at the Cross.  

            Jesus does all that for you – for you are His treasure.  You are worth everything to Him, in spite of your sinful rebellions.  You are worth dying for, worth redeeming, worth forgiving.  Brother Jesus has taken care of your evil.  “Truly, I say to you, all sins [and blasphemies] will be forgiven the children of man,” is His promise to you!

            But what about that unforgiveable sin?  That is enough to keep a person up at night, worried they are guilty of doing something that could lock them out of Heaven.  However, the very fact that a person gets worried about sinning against the Holy Spirit is evidence that the Holy Spirit is working on that person and has not abandoned them.  The sin against the Holy Spirit is to be completely unconcerned about being opposed to Jesus, consciously unrepentant, stubbornly unbelieving – as the Pharisees were that day.  After all, as we heard on Pentecost, the job of the Holy Spirit is to grant us faith in Jesus – and if we reject that work of the Holy Spirit, it will not go well for us. 

            No matter how many other people think Satan is imaginary, you are in good company to believe the demons are real.  Jesus treats them as real too.  And more importantly, even while the Devil rages and the world continues to live all sorts of lies, you know that Jesus is the Truth, and He is the Stronger One who has already conquered and chained up the Devil.  You belong to Jesus.  You are free from Satan’s chains.  Yes, you and I have ignored God’s goodness, and misjudged His actions to be evil.  However, you have also confessed yourself to be a sinner before God.  You do not claim your sins are good.  You call them evil and pray that God the Father will deliver you from them.  And you also confess the goodness of Jesus and His Cross, and His power over death and the Devil.  You expect and receive forgiveness from Him.  And so even as He is arisen after death, so you shall live forever.  A life that is not meaningless, but eternally meaningful – for you live in Jesus the Stronger One, and in Him you shall die, and you shall be His forever.  Amen.

---

[1] Elizabeth Drescher, “The Gospel According to the ‘Nones’” http://americamagazine.org/issue/gospel-according-nones

Homily for Lent 1 - Mark 1

(adapted from a 2007 sermon by Rev. Todd Peperkorn)

          “We know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose,” - Romans 8:28.  That is important to keep in mind as we plunge into the holy season of Lent.  You need to recognize that when Jesus is tempted, suffers, and dies – it is all done to benefit you, to be worked for your good.  It is all going according to God’s plan for you.  Jesus does not get caught by surprise in a hidden trap laid out by the devil.  Martin Luther said, “Even the Devil is God’s devil.”  In other words, God will work even the devil’s works for the good of God’s people.

          That is so easy to forget in the midst of temptations – both when you are pressed up against it, and also when you hear today’s Gospel text.  Still wet behind the ears from Baptism, immediately Jesus goes to

spend His 40 days in the wilderness being tempted by the Devil.  Note that Jesus does not accidentally wander into the wrong place at the wrong time.  It was not His idea to go there, but the Holy Spirit “drove Him out into the wilderness,” as St. Mark reveals.  Matthew and Luke let us know a few specifics, detailing three of Satan’s attacks, trying to lure Christ away from righteousness and into selfishness, fake faith, and idol worship.

          However, St. Mark skips those details to get to other things.  As we listened along to the rest of Mark chapter 1 this past month, it might have seemed like everywhere Jesus went, He was battling against demons.  And that is St. Mark’s point.  He wants you to see the temptation as the opening battle of the Kingdom of God invading the stomping grounds of the Devil – and as Jesus casts out more and more demons, the battle intensifies until He gets to the Cross, where He decisively defeats the Devil once and for all people.  Even though Christ’s death looked nothing like a victory – until Easter that is, when Christ’s resurrection proves that Satan does not win in the end.

          Knowing Christ wins in the end strengthens you as you find yourself in this battlefield of sin, the arena between God and the Devil.  Day by day the prince of darkness works to recruit you in his rebellion against the King of the Universe.  “Come, join me, and we will throw God off His throne all on our own.  And you will not have to put up with Him telling you what to do anymore.”  He tempts you to reject, neglect, forget about and revolt against the Kingdom of God that comes to you in Christ Jesus our Savior.  In both good times and bad, Satan would convince you that God is too far from you – so that you falsely believe that God cannot help you out of your failures, or have any hand in your successes.  That serpent constantly asks you, “Did God really say…?” until your thoughts question God’s Word, your words contradict it, and your life shows more concern for what the world says than what God says.  After all, the world that you can see and touch is so much more real to you than the God whom you only know by faith.  But when you fear offending the people at work or in your home more than you fear offending the Holy God, you have broken the First Commandment.  You have committed idolatry.

          St. James warns, “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and He Himself tempts no one.  But each person is tempted when he is lured and

enticed by his own desire.”  Lured and enticed are the words of hunters and fishermen – baiting the hook with the lure, enticing into the trap, to make the beast or the fish to want to come unknowingly into the danger zone.  And you know what is to happen next to the victim.  This is how St. James describes your sinful nature, your own desires, as baiting the hook to catch and kill you.  “Sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death.”

          When it is not just the Devil out to get us, but we serve as our own worst enemies when our evil desires get a hold of us – who will save us from these bodies of death?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord who gives us His victory.  When Jesus went out to be tempted by the Devil, He did not do it for Himself.  He is led by the Holy Spirit to face these temptations for you.  Where you fall into the snare of seductions, Jesus remains steadfast under His trials to give you the crown of life.  He went into the wilderness of this world so He could be your substitute, stand in your place, and earn the credit for you to be counted as blameless and free before God.

          More than just forgiving and cleaning up your past failures at temptation, Christ’s testing in the wilderness also strengthens you for the trials you will face later today and throughout the rest of your life.  Listen to what Martin Luther beautifully said when he preached on this Gospel:

          Christ has served and helped us by His fasting, hunger, temptation and victory. Also, whoever believes on Christ shall never suffer need, and temptation shall never harm him. Instead, we shall have enough in the midst of want and be safe in the midst of temptation because the Lord triumphed in our behalf. Christ’s fasting also encourages us to believe that, by His example, we can cheerfully suffer want and temptation for the service of God and the good of our neighbor, like Christ did for us. Therefore this Gospel is sweet consolation and power against the unbelief. It awakens and strengthens our conscience, that we may not be anxious about the nourishment of our bodies, but be assured that God can and will give us our daily bread. (Luther)

          Note that Luther does not promise an easy life to those who follow Christ.  If you want to avoid suffering then maybe you should be looking to find a different religion.  For a Christian will face many temptations away from faithfulness to God and love for your neighbor.  However, what Luther does say is that even in the midst of hard, dark, and difficult times, you do not need to worry.  Christ’s temptation,

fasting, hunger, and victory demonstrate for you that God will always take care of you too.  You do not need to worry about tomorrow, because God will be there with you.  Christ has come to be your shield as He suffered the brunt of God’s wrath against our sin on the Cross. 

          Now the Lord feeds you not only with daily bread for your body, but also with the bread of His very body to keep you body and soul in Him.  At His Supper, the Son of God calls us in a special way to assure us that He is in communion with us in our battles against temptation.  Not only does Jesus know what we are going through because He was tempted like we are, but as one pastor put it, Jesus shares with us all that “He is and has, in all He has done and will do for our salvation.  His invincible power against temptation is ours... He sat down on the right hand of God and received power over all His and our enemies, also over Satan.  In this power we share, He is at our side in every battle.  With Him at our side, fighting for and with us, we must conquer” (Lindemann, vol 2, pg 60).

          “Even the Devil is God’s devil,” said Martin Luther.  There is so much comfort in those words.  While that evil foe is trying to bring down the Son of God, the Son in the wilderness successfully does His work to save you.  Satan is much more powerful than us, yet his power only goes as far as God will let it.  Even to the point that God actually uses all the evil things Satan does to bring about good in your life – with no greater example than the Cross, when the devil attacked Jesus with death, and the Lord produced life eternal for you. 
          Amazing, right?  What kind of wonderful God do we have who can turn even the evil things of this world for our benefit?  This is none other than the true God come down from Heaven to save you.  Trust that when He gave you His Spirit in Holy Baptism, you are now in His hands – safe from the assaults of the Devil, even when God tests and tries you to strengthen your faith.  When your own sin, or other people’s sin in this world attacks you, take heart.  Find peace in knowing that Christ has overcome the world, and He creates a new world for you.  Believe it for Christ’s sake.  Amen.

January 3 - Luke 2:21 (and Homily for New Year's Day)

            Today’s is the shortest Gospel of the year – and yet Martin Luther found so much beautiful Gospel in our little Lord Jesus being circumcised that Luther’s sermon is over three times the length of mine this morning.  But it is so good, I have stolen most of Luther’s points.  [Also credit goes to Rev. William Weedon, whose sermon I adapted for this.]

            He starts off with the silliness of circumcision.  What man would ever do that to himself – or to his sons – if God had not commanded it?  Even with a command, human reason sees it as ridiculous.  Other nationalities were bound to say, “Can you believe it?  Those Jews think their God wants their men to mutilate themselves there!”  And even in our day, can you imagine if a friend tells you about how great their pastor's New Year sermon was, about how people have been really mean in 2014 and need to be nicer this year, and they ask you what this sermon was about, can you imagine how "eager" you will be to say, "Uhhhhh, circumcision"?  Even Luther makes note of how strange it is.  “Man is made no better by it, for everything depends upon the soul.”

            However, that is the way it goes with all of God’s commandments and works – they appear foolish and useless, so that our proud reason can be put to shame and die.  If God chose something that made sense to us, our know-it-all natures would be left unconfronted and have no reason to surrender.  Then there would be no room for faith.

           Like in the days of Noah, when he preached in word and deed that there was a flood of God’s judgment on the way, so find salvation on the Ark.  How long did Noah’s neighbors think he was a fool as they never saw any flood – until it was too late?  Or what about Lot leaving all his property behind in Sodom and Gomorrah?  Or Moses and Aaron sounding like fools by threatening Pharaoh with destruction?  The list goes on and on.  Yet we see who was right in the long run – the ones who trusted God’s wisdom and promises over human reason. 

            And we also have this going on now in our lives – with a baptism where God calls us to believe that we are really cleansed of our sins and saved with that little bit of water; “also, that Christ’s body is in the bread of the altar; also that we worship the crucified man as Lord and God.  All this is immeasurably far above – and contrary to – reason.”  

            But why mark that member of the body?  Dr. Luther asks, “Why did [God] not command to circumcise a finger, hand, foot, ear, or eye, or some other member?  If evil was to be cut off, then certainly the hand or the tongue… for by the tongue and hands all wickedness is perpetrated among men.”  The answer is that what is wrong with us has to do with our whole nature, our whole being.  We come from corrupted seed, inheriting our sin when we were conceived.  It is not that we do sins and then that makes us sinners.  Rather, we are sinners first, and then out of our sinner hearts comes all sorts of wickedness.  The tree is not good, and so neither are our fruits good.  Circumcision shows that the problem comes to us right at the root.  Done to the infant boys to  make the point that it was done for the sake of original sin and for the future actual sins – and that the original sin is the bigger problem.

            What needs to be changed in your life and mine?  New Year’s resolutions focus on behavior – and

that is a good place to start.  However it is your very nature and mine that really needs the change, our hearts, the core of our very being.  A new nature will automatically lead to a new behavior.  And so we pray, “Create in me a clean heart, O God” – asking God to give us that which circumcision signifies.

            Jesus did not have this corrupted nature at all, however.  Like us in every way, except without sin.  Fully human and holy, so He did not need circumcision.  And yet He chooses to receive it.  Which sounds funny since Jesus was 8 days old – how could He choose anything?  And yet from eternity God chose to be born of this Jewish family, destining Himself to be circumcised even before He gave the sign to Abraham.  Christ “was born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:4-5).  His blood that is shed for the first time today points ahead to the greater bloodshed – when death would take Him. 

            However, death was completely wrong to take Him because it had no claim on the Sinless One.  And because Death owes Jesus big time for the wrong it did to Him, Jesus is now the Lord over it.  This point Luther makes was one that really struck me – that this is how death loses its power over all people who are in Christ as Jesus gives us His victory.  All believers in Jesus will rise at the last day and proclaim

that Death was wrong to take them also!  Because in Christ, we have become completely innocent.  So Death has no right to take us captive!

            Luther relates this to why circumcision happened on the 8^th day of life.  “Seven days signify the time of this world until the Last Day, because this present time is measured by the week or seven days described in Genesis 1.  The eighth day is the last day after the present time, when weeks, months, and years will cease and there will be only an eternal Day… when not only the soul, but also the body, shall be redeemed from sin, death, and all impurity, and shall shine as the sun.”

            Lastly we note that the name of Jesus is given on this day of His life – for He will save His people from their sins, as the angel announced before His birth.  As Christ received this name as His own, so also on that day when you were baptismally put into Christ, you received all that belongs to Him, including His Name.  “Therefore we are all called ‘Christian’ from Him.”  A name by which we God has known us from all eternity.  Before the world began, God wrote this name for us into the Lamb’s book of life.

            Dearly beloved children of God, let this New Year be for us a true feast of the Circumcision of our Lord, a true living in our Baptism.  Let us in Christ put down our old sinful selves, corrupted by its deceitful desires.  Let it drown and die in the waters of Baptism.  In its place, receive from our Lord our new self, our new and clean hearts whose desires line up with those of God.  Let this new year be for us a time of living by faith in the promises of the Christ who shed His blood for us – no matter how much human reason thinks it is foolish.   For there is no way to measure the dignity and honor given to us by the Father, through His Son, in the Holy Spirit.  “These [dignities and honors] are superabundant riches of His goodness, which He pours out upon us, so that our heart may be free, joyous, peaceable and unterrified; and [eagerly] and cheerfully” live according to His good and holy will.  Amen.

            

Homily - Matthew 16:21-28 Proper 17A

    All of a sudden, Jesus spins around and demands, “Get behind Me Satan!” If you have lost the sense of shock over this verse because you are familiar with it – which is a good thing, to be familiar with the Bible - but for a moment try to remember how stunned you were the first time you heard this – or imagine how surprised the Disciples were when Jesus looks Peter straight in the eye and commands, “Get behind Me, Satan!”

    That is a bit harsh, wouldn't you say? Jesus calling one of His own disciples “Satan.” Really? Give Peter some credit. Last Sunday we heard him get it right when he confessed Jesus to be “the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Now He treats Peter like that never happened.

    Jesus staunchly refuses to back down. “You are a hindrance to Me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” Peter, as well intentioned as he thought he was, actually ended up becoming the mouthpiece of Satan. And that is something that should stop each of us – pastor and people –and make us think. What are the thoughts that make sense to us – but sin has so twisted us that those thoughts are no different than what the Devil thinks against the plans of God?

    To a human mind that recognizes Jesus has great wisdom, knows how to confound His enemies’ arguments, can do great miracles like calming storms, feeding 5000, healing the sick, casting out demons, and even raising the dead – it makes no sense that He should suffer and die. Flex some divine muscle and avoid all that. After all, when you have a choice, do you choose the more painful option or do you choose the way that will be less costly? If you could heal wounds in an instant, when the doctor said the word “surgery” your stomach would not tie itself up in knots. “No thanks, doc. I got this.” Hocus pocus, and poof, you are good as new. However Jesus just said to His disciples for the first time that “He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”
    Peter dreams of Jesus being a glorious king in Jerusalem as He preaches and teaches goodness, love, and kindness. Just do some miracles and it will inspire people to live at peace with their neighbors. And they will want Jesus to be their Lord who establishes justice everywhere forever. However, Christ recognizes Peter's dream as a temptation from the Devil to go against God's plans for His Son.

    Just like this trap worked on Peter, Satan knows it will work on many other would be followers of Jesus. That is why plenty of people will tell you that it does not matter what you believe. That all good and kind humans are going to the same blessed place in the end, no matter what religion they belong to. And really that ends up meaning that they wrongly think that it does not matter whether Jesus died on the cross or not. These are the minds that are set on the things of man. These are mouthpieces that are being used by the ancient dragon. His entire goal is to keep you from enjoying Christ's victory over Hell.

    If those people were right, then Jesus might as well have let Peter get his way. If in the end it does not matter if Jesus died on the cross for you or not – well then Jesus pretty much wasted His time sacrificing Himself so painfully on Good Friday.

    However, you know you will never get the blessings of Heaven if it depends on you being good and kind enough. You know you need Jesus to tell you to deny yourself – because you do not want to sacrifice. Neither do I. We want good things, a comfortable life, respect, well-being, health. And we want it now. None of this delaying until later, if we can avoid it. So we cut a few corners here and there when we think nobody will care. Naturally I might help someone – if I get something out of it. And so I ask myself if it will be worth what it will cost me in time and money. You and I have set our minds on the things of man, not the things of God.

    Here is the Good News – God lets none of this get in His way of saving us. He knows better than we do how we are naturally born selfish, thinking about no one else's needs but our own from our first days. And still He sends His only-begotten Son into this self-centered world. Satan tried tempting Jesus away from our salvation during the 40 days in the wilderness. But Jesus was determined to rescue us. Peter foolishly tries to save the Savior from Good Friday by putting a stop to it all. And if you now insist upon having a Jesus without His Cross, well then you are still in your sins and it will all end hellishly for you!

    Salvation is at stake for you, me and the world here. Jesus says it is absolutely necessary for Him to go through bitter suffering, absolutely necessary for Jesus to get dead as a doornail, and gloriously be raised on the third day. Just as God promised, the shed blood of His Son purifies your heart of evil. Just as God promises, He raised Christ to now declare you forgiven of all our wrong-headed thoughts and self-centered words. Just as He promised.

    So now what? Now Christ’s Cross – the death and resurrection of the Son of the living God – it shapes your mind and guides your life. For as disciples, you and I find our life by losing it as Jesus says here. You could say that today's Epistle from Romans 12 does a good job describing what losing your life looks like as Christians genuinely love one another, show honor to one another, help fellow Christians in need, associate with the lowly and pray constantly. Not one bit of that is wrong.

    However, losing your life for Christ's sake is more than just stuff going on outside your body as you interact with other people. It is also about what goes on inside your mind and heart towards God. Losing yourself simply means that you first believe the truth about yourself, and then you believe the truth about Jesus. You believe the Scriptures when they diagnose you as not just a person with a little problem, but a sinner who would replace God's will with your own if you had a chance. And for that, both me and you deserve nothing but God's temporal and eternal punishment.

    To deny yourself is to repent. To seek forgiveness from God, even when your self-centered feelings would rather not. To deny yourself and take up your cross is to go on a daily search and destroy mission to hunt down your old sinful nature, and to crucify it along with your evil desires. St. Paul lists a few of those evil things in today's Epistle text – like slothfulness, arrogance and thoughts of revenge. Humble yourself under the nail-marked hands of the Christ who has chosen to live at peace with you, the Christ who has chosen to show hospitality to you forever in Paradise. See all of your sin where it belongs – nailed to death on Christ's cross and buried forever in His tomb.

    Turn away from that old deadly life of believing Satan's lies. Lose your old ways of trusting in yourself. For only then will you find the new life in Christ, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. When you take up your cross and follow Jesus, you believe what He says – that He is the God who died on Good Friday and was raised again on Easter for us and for our salvation, to rescue us from the place prepared for the devil and all demons.

    True to Christ's word, Peter and the other Disciples did “not taste death until [after] they [saw] the Son of Man coming in His Kingdom” (Matthew 16:28). They did not die until after they saw Jesus go to the Garden of Gethsemane and pray for His Father's will to be done, and then go to the Cross and come out of the tomb in obedience to the Father's will. All to bring salvation to sinners like Peter, you, and me.

    There is one bonus bit of Good News for you and me in this. It took a long time for the Disciples to understand all this – to see that Jesus reveals His reign over sin and death by suffering His own death at the hand of sinners. Jesus only BEGAN to teach them this here. Which means He told them again. And again. And again... And they still did not quite understand it all after the Lord was risen from the dead, and so Jesus told them again after that. The God who had that much patience with their slow-heartedness in believing the Scriptures – He is the same God who has that much patience for you and me. He will not give up on us until He brings our faith to completion at the resurrection of the Dead on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

August 21 - What I wrote in 2010

at first I considered all the texts and propers separately - all are tremendous treasures in their own right.  I didn't see any connection until Luther's Writing ("Thus the incarnation and the death of Christ are both comprehended most concisely in this one word, 'testament.'"  WOW!) reminded me to see today's Words from TDP united in Christ.
The heir to David's throne is privately plotted against by those who would usurp his authority thinking the Father is unaware of their schemes (1 Kings 1).  Adonijah assumes that if he is not the head, he is nothing (1 Corinthians 12:15-16).  Yet, as head, he would say "I have no need of you" (1 Corinthians 12:21) to Solomon and Bathsheba (1 Kings 1:21) - and probably Nathan, Zadok, and Benaiah as well!  (Now hear the Pharisees and Sadducees and Romans saying this to Jesus!)
A lot is at stake here if Adonijah succeeds - both the faith of Israel in rejecting Nathan and Zadok, but also your salvation which is found in the descendant of Solomon!
God leads David in the way everlasting (Psalm 139:24) - despite what David deserves for his secretly usurping Uriah's role, despite what we deserve for our "usurpations."  Adonijah (and the Pharisees, Saducees, and Romans - and atheists and synergistic pagans of our day) will not succeed.  The son of David will be the Head.  Jesus is risen from the dead, putting to death the plots against Him.
And now you have your role in His body (1 Corinthians 12:27-31).  Do not say "Because I am not as brainy/witty/popular/well-spoken as so-and-so, I do not belong to the body."  In His book were written all your days and the important roles you would play in the body of Christ when as yet there were no days.  Wonderful are His works indeed (Psalm 139:14-16). 

August 20 - Whose Soul Are You Worried About? (2 Samuel 11, 12, and Psalm 51)

"Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart." (Psalm 51:6)

So much can be taught from this incident:

• How one sin leads to another - especially as we try to solve our sin problem with more sin
• Original Sin (Psalm 51)
• God's Absolution
• The son of David's death on account of Sin pointing ahead to the Son of David's death on the Cross

But today, the Holy Spirit had something else for me to ponder.  I cannot use any names or details, but heavy on my heart is how sin has torn apart a family I care deeply about (outside my parish, thankfully.  And even better, God has provided them with a faithful pastor.)  There is an extreme expressed lack of repentance on the part of an individual.  This person's soul is in a VERY dark place.  Right now I have no doubt this person has become an unbeliever, living and believing lies.

It is tempting to think things will not change for this beloved person.  Yet at one point, David was similarly

living his lie.  He had gotten away with his sin of adultery and murder.  Or so he convinced himself.  Even without TMZ in those days, you can figure the palace servants passed the juicy dirt amongst themselves about the King's scandalous behavior.   We know David lived this lie for about 9 months - the length of time it took for his son to go from conception to birth.  And then God sent Nathan to rebuke David.  And God worked the change of heart.

That same Holy Spirit at work in David that day to bring David back to God in faith and truth through the forgiveness of sins - I cannot lose hope that He will do the same in the life of this lost sheep, my beloved friend.

"Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice." (Psalm 51:8)

July 24 - OT Juxtaposed with NT reading

The juxtaposition of the OT and NT reading is phenomenal.

In Samuel, Israel wants to become just like all the other nations and have a man as King.

In Acts, the Lord has given a man as King - His Son.  And by that King, He makes all the other nations to be just like His Israel, a member of His kingdom.

Oh, and uses the earthly pagan rulers to accomplish His will too in delivering Paul from evil.

July 22 - Psalmody, OT and NT readings

Whether it is the Lord delivering His righteous from the persecution of the Babylonians after they cry out to

Him in the Psalm,

• or the Lord returning the Ark to Israel from the Philistines, 
• or the Lord granting success in the face of opposition to the Apostle Paul  

some days, you just need the reminder that the Devil will not win in the end.  God does.  And in Christ, we shall see that victory too.

Pray for our Christian sisters and brothers in Mosul.
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2014/07/n-is-for-solidarity

Homily - Proper 10A Isaiah 55 and Matthew 13:1ff God the Farmer went out to Sow

“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 sprout, 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.” Isaiah 55:10-11

In college one year I worked on the Summer Youth Ministry Team for Concordia University.  Mostly that meant helping out with the VBS for a congregation and working with their youth group.  Our team each chose one of our professors who promised to pray for us throughout the summer.  I will never forget the day when a letter came from my partner, Dr. Brighton.  He specifically quoted this text from Isaiah to encourage me.  But that made me a bit confused.  I remember questioning God, “Why this verse now, Lord?  I mean, I feel like my ministry work is going great.  I am seeing the kids learn as I teach.  Your Word is having success.  I mean, maybe if I was discouraged I could understand why You had Dr. Brighton quote this passage.  But I am actually getting great joy from my work.”
In less than half an hour, I had an answer.  During our Team meeting, one of my friends poured out her heart saying she felt like a failure.  She was trying to reach the kids with God’s Word, but they just did not seem to be getting it.  Then I realized how foolish and self-centered I was to think that God had sent His Isaiah 55 promise just for my sake.  No, it was for my friend.  At that moment He had given it to me to give away.  He sent Isaiah 55 out so He could promise His daughter that His Word she was speaking would get done what He wanted it to do.  Even if she could not see it happen.
When it comes to sharing the Word of God with others – or even when it comes to life in general - we can get short-sighted, looking for immediate results.  Or we can get near sighted, seeing only the bad results.  Or both.  And so, for example, many evenings it might take a LOT of successes for us to consider a day to be really good – but only 1, 2, or 3 failures and we consider the day terrible.  That is what is going on inside many of us when we come to today’s Gospel text and hear the parable of the Sower.  The sin in us gets us distracted.  The seed that does not produce sticks out.  Too bad for all that wasted seed in the rocky soil, amongst the weeds, and eaten by the birds.  At least it was not a total loss… However, we fail to appreciate the seed that does produce 100 fold, 60, and 30.  Those are no small numbers!  This is a bumper crop, abundantly fruitful beyond expectation.
So what does this Parable of the Sower look like in real life?  Jesus tells this Parable because things in real life have been getting in the way of faith.  Christ’s disciples have always gotten confused by this.  He has given us His Word, great and wonderful promises of forgiveness and salvation and God’s unending love.  How come the unbelievers reject it?  Christ’s followers are confused because the crowds have been leaving Jesus.  He is not as popular as He once was, and worse yet, people are actively opposing Him.  Even family members of Jesus are refusing to go along with Him.  Jesus teaches that sin-closed ears and hearts, the cares of the world, persecution, and the love of wealth and luxury all get in the way of the true Christian faith.  
What does this Parable of the Sower look like in real life?  It looks like a congregation or a Christian who focuses only on what is going wrong that they fail to see the great stuff God is doing, for instance noticing the people who are not here with the result that they fail to rejoice in the people God has brought here.  This parable looks like a congregation or a Christian who expects no setbacks, nothing but overnight success stories.  Yet you farmers and gardeners know it would be ridiculous to look for crops the day after planting your seed.  God takes His time providing for our daily bread.  And God takes His time converting hearts and making people a part of His Church, a citizen of His Kingdom.  On a few rare occasions, God QUICKLY works repentance and Christ’s forgiveness into a person – almost overnight.  Most of the time we do not get to see what God’s Word has been doing all along inside an unbeliever until months or years later.  
Ultimately our impatience with God gets down to a violation of the First Commandment.  When we hear the Parable of the Sower and think the Sower is foolish for wasting so much seed on all sorts of unproductive ground, we are really judging God to be a fool.  As generous as the Sower is in spreading the seed, that is precisely how generous God is in spreading His Word.  Speaking it to those who would believe it, or believe it not.  Yet when we imagine that God should be efficient, like we would be efficient if we were God – then we are trying to make God in our own image, instead of God re-making us in His own image of love, generosity, kindness, patience, and so on.  We end up telling God He is wrong, we are right.  And that is sin.
What does this Parable look like in real life?  It looks like God spreading His Word of salvation from the Flood in the days of Noah – and His Word of life takes root in 8 souls, while the rest of the seed falls on rocky hearts that will be destroyed on the Day of Judgment.  In the days of Moses, God sows His Word on Israel.  In the hearts of the Joshuas and Calebs and Rahabs, the seeds find a home and grow.  In other hearts, the seeds find soil as soft as concrete, as hospitable as Hell, who grumble and complain about the true God while bowing down to a golden calf.  In the days of Jonah, God sows His Word on pagan Ninevah and the seed takes root in the soil of over 120,000 repentant hearts, while the people of Israel are not so thrilled with God’s mercy.  In the early days of Jesus, God sows His Word in Herod’s Palace, where wise men rejoice but the King plots murder.
Though some of His seed is snatched and some is scorched and some is trampled, the Lord does not stop.  He continues to spread His Word.  Here, there, and everywhere.  Preaching in season and out of season, in the field and out of the field, embraced and rejected, scorned and loved, insulted and praised.
When God went out to sow the seed of His Word, He dropped some into your heart.  Did His seed take root, this seed of Christ, this seed of grace and mercy?  How could it take root in a heart like yours and mine – hearts that are as clean as a manure pile and as fertile as a Walmart parking lot?  The truth is, where there are not rocks, there are weeds, and where there are not weeds, there was that vulture-like Devil ready to snatch God’s Word away from us.
But lo and behold, God did not look for good soil to plant His Word.  He created good soil for Himself in you, no matter how rocky or weed infested your heart may be.  And His Word has its way with you.  His gracious absolution transforms you the sinner into good ground.  Christ now cleanses you of the poisons of your past.  The weeds of your impatience are patiently pulled out by Jesus.  God the Farmer scatters His seed on the Walmart parking lots of our hearts, and somehow, by His work, in His time, our souls become rich soil.  All that was lifeless is now covered by colorful blooms.  Dead land transformed into a field of salvation.  That is what the Lord Jesus does for you.  He converts your parking lot heart into a place for parking His Word, His Spirit, His Body and Blood, His life divine.  God’s Word will do this, for that is the reason He sent it into your life.
For the seed of God’s Word is packed with the life, death and resurrection of His Son – His Son who was once packed with your sin and death; packed with your impatience and mine; packed with all the times you and I have judged God was foolishly doing things wrong, yet we were the fools; packed with all the rest of our guilt.  It looked at the Cross like Jesus was choked by the weeds of this world, as His enemies got Him out of the way so they could go on loving the things of this world.  It looked at the cross like Jesus had successfully sprung up for a time in this rocky world, only to be scorched by God’s wrath.  It looked like the vulture-like Devil had snatched Jesus away from us.  Yet when the body of Jesus was planted in the Earth, it turned out that He became the first-fruit of those Risen from the Dead, the promise that your body will rise above the ground of your grave too.
God the sower went out to sow His seed.  He planted it in you, and when the harvest comes, He will find in you a hundredfold crop.  And what He has done in you, Christ has plans to do in many more hearts around the world, until all is ripe for the Day of Resurrection.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

December 16 - Revelation 4:11

“Worthy are You, our Lord and God,

    to receive glory and honor and power,

for You created all things,

    and by Your will they existed and were created.”

Martin Luther, Large Catechism, Article 1 of the Apostles' Creed:

Therefore, this article ought to humble and terrify us all, if we believed it. For we sin daily with eyes, ears, hands, body and soul, money and possessions, and with everything we have, especially those who even fight against the Word of God. Yet Christians have this advantage, that they acknowledge themselves in duty bound to serve God for all these things, and to be obedient to Him [which the world knows not how to do]. 

We ought, therefore, daily to practise this article, impress it upon our mind, and to remember it in all that meets our eyes, and in all good that falls to our lot, and wherever we escape from calamity or danger, that it is God who gives and does all these things, that therein we sense and see His Paternal heart and his transcendent love toward us. Thereby the heart would be warmed and kindled to be thankful, and to employ all such good things to the honor and praise of God.

Advent 1A - Matthew 21:1-11 Homily "The Lord Needs Them"

(based on this sermon by Rev. Todd Peperkorn)
The sermon this morning is based on the Gospel reading, particularly our Lord’s instructions to the Disciples as they go fetch Him the donkey and colt.  “If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them.’”
As the old Church year came to an end in November, the Scriptures spent time preparing us for the end of the world.  Today the start of the new Church Year makes us see the Almighty Judge and King coming to you – and He is “humble, mounted on a donkey.”  It is out step with where our lives are this month.  These Scriptures clash so much with the world around us that is busy setting its sights on happy holidays.  In the midst of Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday, you probably were not expecting to come and hear about Palm Sunday.
Yet centuries before this became a season of shop-til-you-drop, Christian leaders thought it wise to start

a new Church Year not with some pre-birth of Jesus Scriptures, but with this one.  That is not a bad thing.  You and I are more likely to remember something the more unusual and unexpected it is.  Furthermore, if you ever want evidence that God’s ways are not our ways, Palm Sunday certainly proves that point.
This is a time of contrasts for us Christians.  On the one hand, the themes of love and family and gift-giving and charity are certainly great things that we should encourage in all people.  And yet some nagging feeling inside us says there should be something more, that the wrapping paper and trees are hiding more than just gifts.  Behind it all, things are not right.
Jesus knows what our world is trying to hide.  His understanding of you and me is far deeper than we can imagine – so deep that it would TERRIFY US, for if the Lord kept a record of sins, who could stand?  However, with Him there is His forgiveness of our sins.
Jesus knows what you suffer.  He knows the brokenness that you see in your world, in your loved ones,

in your own self.  He knows how evil grieves you – both the evil others do against you and how you have hurt them.  The Lord knows that November to January are the hardest part of the year for more people, with more spikes in depression than other times.  He knows that people try to show Christmas cheer, but that mask hides some serious sorrow underneath.
What are you trying to bury out of sight and out of mind this holy season?  The deaths of loved ones? – or are you already grieving ahead of time because you know their time is short?  Is there a marriage in trouble – or one that ended long ago that still eats at you?  Financial problems or problematic personalities?  Conflicts at family gatherings?  Fear of unknown troubles that might come your way in the future?  All of these are pretty likely to hit people this month.  Life has a way of getting in the way when all we want to do is to forget.  If you try to use alcohol, or food, or shopping, or illicit affairs, or the computer to forget... well, it might work for a short bit – but in the end it makes the problems worse.  As St. Paul reminds us that our salvation is nearer to us now, the Apostle WARNS us that waiting for the Lord does NOT go together with works of darkness like “orgies and drunkenness, ...sexual immorality and sensuality,... quarreling and jealousy” (Romans 13:13).
Getting back to Christ’s entry into Jerusalem, just a few days before His death at the hand of sinners, Matthew sets the scene up in Bethphage.  It is just one short mile from the Holy City.  Think of it in terms of baseball – Bethphage was the dugout and on-deck circle for the priests of the Temple.  They prepared for their service in God’s House here and rested after their sacrificial service was done.  Now here is Jesus, getting ready to do the ultimate service of sacrifice.  He gives the disciples the job of bringing back the donkey and colt from town.  And “if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them.’”

God has a way of pressing things into His service, using them in ways that we never intended nor could have imagined.  Random moments in life, our joys and charity – but even also our sorrows and hardships and sins are pressed into God’s holy service.  However broken and troubled you are, our Lord with gentleness takes all of the scattered pieces of your crazy life and mine – and God says to you quite simply, “I need to have this.  It fits perfectly into My plans to show mercy.”  It is as if God takes inventory of all the junk in your life, everything you want to toss out as too hard or too painful, and it is those things He wants to use for His holy purposes.
One of the hard things that He wants to take and use from my life is that I struggle because I want to see what God is up to!  I want to be able to pull back the curtains of Heaven, look to the end of your stories, and tell you exactly what good He will bring from specific hardships.  I really do not want to walk by faith – I want to walk by sight.  And the stuff we see – so often they look like
impossible messes.  How can Christ use all this junk to prepare people for His appearing?  I do not know how He will do it in your life, and I certainly do not know how in my own.  BUT I do know what our Lord and Savior says to you and me today – that the Lord has need of it all.  All you and I have and all that we are, Christ takes it all and presses it into His service.
Now this goes much deeper than simple, cheesy “God has a plan for you” talk.  What God wants for you at this time, and every time, is that through His Word and Spirit, you recognize what is really going on around you.  St. Paul’s epistle put it this way, “Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep.  For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.  The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light” (Romans 13:11-12).
Our Lord does not ask you to go get Him a donkey and colt today.  He asks you to wake up!  Remember who you are as a baptized child of God, holy and beloved by your Heavenly Father.  Remember that our Lord’s coming to this world is all about you, about your salvation.  Remember that salvation is right here, right now.  Christ’s Word is here.  And He does not simply ride past you on a donkey in parade.  Now He rides INTO you on a donkey with His Body and Blood here to bring you forgiveness, life and salvation.

Like those people lining the streets of Jerusalem so many years ago, you are here waiting to greet with Hosannas in the Highest the Savior who comes in the name of the Lord.  And your waiting will not end in disappointment.  For the Savior is coming.  Indeed, Jesus has already come for you.  He is here already releasing you from the chains of your sin and brokenness.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer used that imagery to describe

Advent, as he explained, “A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes – and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, this is not a bad picture of Advent.”
The door to your freedom has been opened in the birth, perfect life, sacrificial death and glorious resurrection of your Advent King, the Lord of Heaven and Earth.  Be free.  Shout and rejoice, daughter of Zion, for our King is coming to You.  Sing with faith in your hearts as we cry out with the people of Jerusalem, with angels and archangels and all the company of Heaven - “Holy, Holy, Holy Lord!  Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!”
He is coming to be your Savior.  He is coming now.  With healing in His wings, to set you free.  Blessed is He who comes.  Believe it for Christ’s sake.  Amen.