The sermon text for this morning is from our Gospel lesson from John 15:9-17.  Jesus said, “This is My commandment that you love one another as I have loved you.”

Only two generations ago, motherhood was routinely at or near the top of the list of vocations most desired [...]]]> Christ has risen!  He has risen, indeed.  Alleluia!

The sermon text for this morning is from our Gospel lesson from John 15:9-17.  Jesus said, “This is My commandment that you love one another as I have loved you.”

Only two generations ago, motherhood was routinely at or near the top of the list of vocations most desired by girls in school.  Today, not only is motherhood not at or near the top it’s rarely mentioned.  Not only is it rare to hear young girls encouraged regarding motherhood, it’s almost as though one who aspires to that status couldn’t have succeeded anywhere else or had sacrificed life’s joy and fulfillment.  God places a very high value on motherhood, and the Christian family more generally.  That scorn for motherhood is sad outside God’s Church, but even more within Christian congregations.

This isn’t about whether a young girl wants to be a lawyer or doctor or singer or anything else.  Moms get lots of press when it’s time for Hallmark to sell more cards, but too little gratitude to God for our moms the rest of the time.  While many can become moms, being a Christian mom isn’t just a bodily function anyone can do.  Being a Christian mom necessitates one developing calluses on prayer-bent knees, learning and sharing God’s Word in discipline and daily conversation.  A Christian mom is a professional teacher, counselor, doctor, nurse, chef, janitor, launderer, chauffeur, waste removal expert, party planner, childcare specialist, and a million other things, all rolled into one.  You’ll break your calculator trying to appraise the value of a mom in real $$. 

A Christian mom’s highest calling and greatest value lies in her sanctifying place in the Christian home.  1 Corinthians 7 goes so far as to say a Godly woman who lets the love of Jesus shine in and through her heart brings holiness and heavenly hope to all the members of her home.  So many of us will one day whisper a prayer of thanksgiving before God in heaven for moms and dads who prayed with us and for us and brought us to Jesus to hear about a love even greater than the love of any earthly parent – God’s love in Christ.

Sometimes we talk about what Scripture says about men and women and it gets turned into anything good said about moms, must be at the expense of dads, so don’t do that.  That’s not true.  I’m not implying it.  Life in the Gospel of free forgiveness for Jesus’ sake means life without dumb power struggles.  Husbands and wives, moms and dads are equally sinners, and equally loved by God and justified by grace for Jesus’ sake.  But praise God we’re also created different in more than just the obvious ways, and we have different roles within marriage and the family. 

I can think of no other vocation in Scripture as highly praised as the Christian mom.  Christian dads are given the charge to be sacrificial, servant leaders in their homes – Godly husbands are called to be the heads of their homes, mirroring Christ – the head of His Church.  But with the possible exception of 1 Timothy 4 where pastors who insist on pure life and doctrine are saving themselves and their hearers – I can’t think of any vocation that stacks up to God’s verdict over Christian moms.  Only of mothers is it said in 1 Timothy 2: “She will be saved through childbearing – if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.” 

Notice, so highly does God value motherhood – it adds this amazing promise of salvation through faithfulness in her vocation.  But don’t forget!  A mom’s faithfulness in her vocation, like a pastor in his own, is always the fruit of someone who is justified freely by grace for Jesus’ sake.  I have a gift for turning really brief obvious things into long, tedious things, but God’s point is this:  We’re saved by believing in Jesus… But God really thinks Christian moms are important!  For our young girls who are being indoctrinated to think little of Christian motherhood, moms share in a special way in God’s ongoing creation.  Within the one flesh union of husband and wife, God “knits us together in our mother’s wombs – fearfully and wonderfully made!”

God calls husbands and fathers to mirror Christ in loving service as head of the Christian family.  This is a complementary relationship, not a tyrannical one.  God’s calling to a Godly man within his home doesn’t make the Godly wife and mother less, but together they are more.  A Godly husband and father seeks good for his wife and family, as each dad becomes – in a manner of speaking – a pastor to his little flock.  The Godly woman in Christ is blessed when the Godly man leads and sacrifices and empties himself for his family.  A man’s headship in the home, like Christ in His Church, is willing to lay down His life for the sake of His beloved. 

Can anyone doubt that a home where husbands emptied themselves in loving service and wives submitted to their husbands out of reverence for Christ would be more blessed than the modern marital battleground?  For the sake of Christian women, we need to teach boys from early on how to be Christian young men and servant leaders in their homes and church – not overgrown children in need of being served, but servants with a heart to model lovingly Christ’s care for His Bride.  For the sake of Christian men, we need to teach women to be Godly helpers, encouraging and affirming their husbands to be the head of their home.  Such a love is more than emotion – more than falling in love today and out tomorrow – but mirrors God’s perfect love – a commitment to sacrifice everything for the salvation of His blood-bought Church. 

Our Christian daughters have no place even dating someone – not even the first time – who doesn’t belong to Christ, to whom they can’t imagine willingly submitting and respecting out of reverence for Jesus.  Move on.  He’s not the right one for a Christian home.  Dear young men, if the young woman you’re considering would never encourage you to be God’s leader in your home – you can do better!  Modern marriage gets it wrong because it’s about each partner giving 50%, rather than both giving all of themselves.  God’s formula is better if you’ll trust Him.  The Good News for us who usually give much less than 50% of ourselves, limping along through life, Jesus gave all of Himself to forgive and love and fill you with grace beyond anything you could ask or imagine. 

When husbands and wives seek the Holy Spirit’s Bible-revealed plan for the family, there is no tyranny.  Life is enriched for both.  Both are fed and nurtured in God’s grace and forgiveness, and both let God’s love flow through them into their families.  When we let our lives get clogged up by selfishness and fighting and battles, God gives us repentance.  You know how you pick up the water hose and no water comes out, so you check to make sure the nozzle is turned.  When you un-kink the hose, the water pours out.  In the same way, the Holy Spirit opens the floodgates of God’s love, un-kinking the sinful mess of our lives and pouring God’s love through us to others.  Ephesians 4 says, “Be kind and compassionate, forgiving one another just as God in Christ forgave you.”  God’s love, not only makes us Christians, it moves us to love with His love: “We love because He first loved us.”  1 John 4:19.

Where there is tyranny and lovelessness on the part of the husband or rebelliousness and chafing against headship on the part of the Christian wife, repentance and mutually sharing God’s forgiveness reorders the marriage and the home becomes a place where forgiven sinners loved by God – forgive other sinners loved by God – freely giving what we’ve freely received from God for Jesus’ sake.  Godly homes aren’t perfect.  They’re rooted and established in the Heavenly Father who sent His perfect Son, sacrificing His own life for the sake of Christ’s Bride the Church!

The Christian home and the bond of marriage isn’t a societal arrangement.  It is God’s gift, a pattern firmly imprinted in God’s Order of Creation, beginning with Adam and Eve.  President Obama this week professed he has evolved into a supporter of homosexual marriage.  I don’t intend this to be political commentary, but it’s past time for Christian citizens to give voice to God’s will for His creation.  We mention it today, because where else will young people hear the truth – not in the modern cesspool of television and internet, and probably not in the public school.  These days God’s Church must give a faithful and clear witness to His truth – a truth written on every heart and known intuitively even by those who despise that truth.  Not only is it a fairly common sense biological, reproductive fact that man and woman were created for each other; it’s a fact of our very anatomical functioning.  God made Adam and Eve for each other.    

Many have said this week that homosexual marriage isn’t a subject Jesus ever discussed.  Yet, this is what Christ our Lord said about marriage, from Matthew 19: “Have you not read that God created them male and female from the beginning, and said, ‘Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?  What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”  He then immediately proceeds to instruct the parents: “Let the little children come to Me and do not hinder them for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these.”  Only the one flesh union of man and woman begets children.  And despite many men and women young and old who have despised marriage in favor of living together, only within the bonds of a lifelong marriage commitment does such a one flesh union have God’s blessing.  God gives us the rule and tells us His will for marriage and family, not because it’s easy and we’ll never experience temptation and struggle, but because He loves us and knows what’s best for us and our families – and it’s a hedge against our sinful flesh’s selfish using of others.

            Today we thank God for the Christian family and more specifically moms.  We pray God’s strength for those who long for the gift of marriage and family or those who have lost their loved ones, even as we pray for continence for those who in repentance struggle against the temptation to “play house” or against homosexual temptations or pornography or any sexual impurity. 

            True love is embodied in undying commitment.  For us who fall so short of that perfect love, Christ the Bridegroom is your living Head.  He emptied Himself – not in fleeting emotion – but in sacrificial love and service for your sake and for all His Church.  Into our world of marital fits and starts and family resolutions and failures, our Savior is bigger than our sins.  He gives you a new heart.  In my home, the wife knows more about cleaning, but dear redeemed, consider how your Bridegroom cleanses you!  Ephesians 5 says, “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, to present the Church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but holy and blameless.”  Amen.

            Christ has risen!  He has risen, indeed.  Alleluia!  And now may the peace of God which surpasses human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  Amen.

            The sermon text is from John chapter 15:1-8:  Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches.  If a man remains in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing.”  So far the text.  

            In Holy Baptism, [...]]]> Christ has risen!  He has risen, indeed.  Alleluia! 

            The sermon text is from John chapter 15:1-8:  Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches.  If a man remains in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing.”  So far the text.  

            In Holy Baptism, you became a branch; you were put into Christ.  You remain in the True Vine through faith.  In the Lord’s Supper Christ is put into you and remains in you.    

For those who believe some act of their will or decision for Christ makes them branches, it seems hardly necessary to point out – that’s not how it works.  Branches don’t connect themselves to the Vine.  Jesus said in John 15:16: “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you to bear fruit.” 

Neither do our good fruits or sanctified lives of good works keep us as branches.  You don’t stay branches off the vine as a reward for good behavior.  Actually, if there’s any good behavior the True Vine Jesus gets the credit – bringing forth His fruit in and through us by His Holy Spirit.  Galatians 5 says, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”  Joined to the True Vine through faith by the power of the Holy Spirit, you and I as branches “live under Him in His kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness.”  Not only are we justified or saved by grace alone.  Our good works – which God commands of us – are God’s works through us in the places you are planted to bear fruit.  Ephesians 2:10 says, “We are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do the good works God prepared in advance for us to do.”

If that were the end of the story, we’d never have to say a word about doing good works or God’s command to love one another.  We wouldn’t need reminded to stay connected to the Vine and God’s command to avoid false teaching by “testing the spirits to see whether they are from God.”  We’d do all these things naturally, just because the Vine is alive and nourishing us.  The problem is we know that we struggle against being spiteful and ornery and apathetic in caring about others, and just plain lazy and careless when it comes to learning and growing in the pure and true teaching of God’s Word.  In an ideal world, we’d so learn and love and grow in our familiarity with God’s Word, we’d be warriors for God’s truth.  But sinners such as we are, we’re often gnarled and twisted branches, threatening to choke off the life of Christ flowing into and through us. 

In God’s Law the Holy Spirit teaches us how often and completely we fail to adorn our lives with the fruits of faith, good works.  The Spirit teaches us what our lives in Christ the Vine should truly look like.  What does God want you to be as a mom or dad in your home?  How does God want you to honor your parents as a child; to give of your money and time as a member in this church; to be involved as a citizen in this community and country?  Are you living up to it?  God wants you to be useful and fruitful – not so you can be patted on the back for being a great father or church member.  “By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be My disciples.”  To a dying world God wants you to be a Light “that men may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”  Are you doing it?  Are you living it for the sake of your family?  I’m totally aware I can’t save anyone, but I also know every choice I make in my home is a living witness to the little ones I want more than life itself to see in heaven.  God’s Law is His good will for your life as a parent, child, boss, worker, church member, etc.  We would all do well to get out our catechisms and learn to apply God’s commandments to our God-given vocations as teachers or students, parents or children, husbands or wives. 

            It’s mildly disturbing to hear Jesus say, “Every branch that does bear fruit [gets] pruned.”  Pruning is nasty work… painful stuff… keep your scissors away from me, God!  And, yet, we know pruning is necessary and life-enhancing and good.  You are and will be pruned.  Sometimes God’s pruning happens when God’s Law pokes you in the chest and says, “YOU!  How could you act that way?  How could you be so selfish?  How could you keep all my gifts as your own?  How could you use all My gifts to build your own kingdoms and not My heavenly Kingdom?”  People don’t like that kind of pruning of God’s Law.  That’s why St. Paul says, “People gather around themselves teachers who say what their itching ears want to hear.”  “Test the spirits.”  

Sometimes we experience God’s pruning by suffering.  When God lays the cross on our shoulders, we think God has it wrong; He’s made a mistake; He’s forgotten His promises, as though the Vinedresser were sleeping.   In our aging bodies and through our ailing loved ones… in the innumerable pains that fill our lives, the depressions and despair and heartaches Scripture tells us that the unpleasant, sometimes painful things that God permits in the lives of His people will be for our greater good. Philippians 1 says, “It has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in Him but also suffer for His sake.”    

Under the cross of suffering we learn like nowhere else that God’s hands hold us tightly.  Our sinful nature doesn’t fear, love and trust in God above all things.  The eyes of our sinful flesh view the crosses that we bear in this life, depression or disease, suffering, pain or death, and we immediately think, “How could this happen to me?  Why is God allowing this?”  Hebrews tells us:  “God disciplines those whom He loves, as a loving Father disciplines His children.” 

When St. Paul prayed for God to remove the cross of suffering from Paul’s shoulders, God answered:  “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”  Where else do we learn to see through the devil’s lie that focuses us on ourselves and our lives in the hear and now than through the cross of suffering, and this is where God’s strength towers over our weakness.  When our vanity and strength and pride are stripped away, faith can bear its fruit.  James 1 says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness… that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing.” 

It’s when our vocations bring us pain, that faith bears fruit by resting in the love of Christ the Vine and serving.  Sometimes we just want to be done with it all… but under that cross we learn to “Cast your cares on Him who cares for you.”  If your burden is heavy today… if your vocation brings you the cross and pain in your life and you are thinking about running away from your calling as a husband or wife, parent or child, or even in your work, “Stand firm, for God is able to make you stand.”  Know He is strong enough to carry your load.  Run to Him in prayer.  “Be still and know that He is God” as Jesus your True Vine lets His healing love and forgiveness nourish you.  Don’t give up.  God has handled bigger problems than yours, and in Jesus’ cross and resurrection God has handled yours and my biggest problem by winning for us heavenly homes.  Though you suffer for a little while, God will not forget you.  Don’t despise the cross but in repentance “Call upon God in the day of trouble, and He will deliver you.”   

Dr. Martin Luther describes the Christian take on pruning:  “Here Christ does not present a useless, unfruitful tree to our view.  No, He presents the precious vine, which bears much fruit and produces the sweetest and most delicious juice, even though it doesn’t delight the eye.  Christ interprets all the suffering we experience as nothing else than the diligent work and care which a vinedresser expends on his vines and their branches to make them grow and bear abundantly.  With these words Christ wants to teach us to have a view of affliction and suffering as Christians that is far different from what appears on the surface and before the world.  He says that Christians are not afflicted without God’s counsel and will; that when this does happen, it is a sign of grace and Fatherly love, not of wrath and punishment, and [it] must serve our welfare…”

              [Luther cont.] “This requires [patience under life’s cross and] the art of believing and being sure that whatever hurts and distresses us does not happen to hurt or harm us but for our good and profit.  We must compare this to the work of a vinedresser who hoes and cultivates his vine.  If the vine were able to be aware of this, could talk, and saw the vinedresser coming along and chopping around its roots with a hoe and cutting the wood from its branches with his clipper or pruning hook, the vine would say: ‘Ah, what are you doing?  Now I will wither and decay, for you are removing the soil from my roots and tearing my branches with those iron teeth.  You are tearing and pinching me everywhere, and I will have to stand in the ground bare and seared.  You are treating me more cruelly than one treats any tree or plant.’  But the vinedresser would reply:  ‘You are a fool and don’t understand.  Even if I do cut a branch from you, it’s a totally useless branch; it takes away your strength and your sap.  Then the other branches, which should bear fruit, will suffer.  Therefore away with it!  This is for your own good.’ 

            [Luther cont.] “You say: ‘But I don’t understand it, and I have a different feeling about it.’  The vinedresser declares:  ‘But I understand it well.  I am doing this for your welfare, to keep the wild branches from sucking out the strength and sap of the others.  Now you will be able to yield more and better fruit and produce good wine.’  The same thing is true when the gardener puts manure on the vine; this, too, he does for the benefit of the vine even though the vine might complain and say: ‘What’s this for?! Isn’t it enough that you are hacking and cutting me to pieces?  Now with this filthy cow manure you’re defiling my tender branches which yield such delicious juice!  Do I have to stand for this too?’”

            [Luther cont.] “That is how Christ interprets the suffering which He and His Christians are to endure on earth.  This is to be a blessing and help rather than affliction and harm.  Its purpose is to enable [us] to bear all the more and the better fruit.”

            When the dark clouds and storms of suffering come, frail and slender branches are helpless on their own, battered and bent by the winds of worry and pelting problems of life.  You and I are doomed on our own, but Christ our true Vine clings to us when we’re too weak to hold on.  Jesus said, “No one can pluck you from My hand.”  Our Lord Jesus thrust Himself into life’s raging storm.  At the cross, Christ the Vine, our sinless Savior, chose to die, bearing the Father’s judgment against our wandering world.

The life that sustains you in this dark and stormy world is nothing other than the heavenly nourishment which Christ the Vine gives, His very body and blood given into your lips for the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation.  No storm can sever you.  Paul reminds you that suffering and sadness, strained relationships, financial struggles, wandering children, aged bodies and waning strength are no match for the True Vine and His strength.  In His resurrection you are already victorious, now and one day with your Lord in heaven.  “For I am convinced,” Paul said, “that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Amen.

            And now may the peace of God which surpasses human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  Amen.

The sermon text is from our Gospel lesson previously read from John the tenth chapter: 

I am the Good Shepherd.  The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.  SFTT. 

            God’s Church is everyone whom the Holy Spirit calls to a living trust that Jesus’ death and [...]]]> Christ has risen!  He has risen indeed!  Alleluia! 

The sermon text is from our Gospel lesson previously read from John the tenth chapter: 

I am the Good Shepherd.  The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.  SFTT. 

            God’s Church is everyone whom the Holy Spirit calls to a living trust that Jesus’ death and resurrection isn’t simply an historical fact, but the most significant event in the history of the world and for me and for my salvation.  God’s Church is composed of those who hear Christ the Good Shepherd and follow Him.  Faith is a living relationship with Christ the Shepherd and whatever else one might be in the visible church, pastor, teacher, elder – without that living trust in God’s grace – such a faith is a lie and a fraud.  The God who sees and judges the heart doesn’t give brownie points for good conduct.  Sheep in God’s Church, His communion of saints forgiven in Jesus, hear Jesus’ voice and follow Him, being led and fed.  “They will never follow a stranger.”    

The problem with us sheep is we wander.  We mindlessly munch the next tuft of grass, and wandering sheep are in big trouble.  Sheep make a tasty treat for predators.  The devil is the wolf that wolf attacks the flock and scatters it.  The devil lures and entices us into the shadows – away from Christ the Shepherd.  Sometimes the devil seduces the sheep through internet pornography or the love of money, sometimes through false teaching, sometimes through leisure or laziness.  Regardless of how, sheep separated from the Shepherd are dead sheep. 

For Christians, the devil’s most sinister ploy is to imitate and pervert the voice of the Good Shepherd.  Much Christian music and many Christian books and programs aren’t so much wrong as pious bromides – God-like talk that really doesn’t mean anything but sounds good.  God calls us to grow to spiritual maturity by hearing the Shepherd’s voice, because there are real false teachers – and they can do even worse damage than the trash on TV or on the internet, because we give it a pass when it has the name Christian attached to the music or book.  We drop our defenses and embrace anything that talks the “God lingo” even if it really glorifies us.  Old songs like “I have decided to follow Jesus”, sound wonderful, except they’re wrong.  They glorify our egos and deny the truth that we’re saved by God’s grace alone!  Other than that a great song, right!  It’s just to show we always have to be careful.  Jesus said, “Watch out for false prophets.  They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.” 

You, dear sheep of Christ, are called by God to insist on faithful teaching – and that means you need to be in Bible class to learn it and love it and know it – and then demand it be taught faithfully for yourselves and children.  How sad when God’s sheep refuse to listen to Jesus and run away from false doctrine.  The teachings you and I have learned and loved from the Small Catechism and studying God’s Word together are precious.  So help us God, may we never compromise them because they are nothing more or less than God’s Word.  And may we never deny them, but only by faithfully preaching this Word – because it is God’s truth – will we have anything to offer our children and our community.  Such devotion to God’s truth takes seriously the presence of the wolf, the devil.  How foolish and sad when we or our young sheep feel no great danger in testing the boundaries and walking away from the truth they have learned. 

How beautifully our text portrays our Loving Lord and Savior:  “I am the Good Shepherd.  The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.”  The Good Shepherd, our Lord Jesus Christ, hasn’t simply done something nice for you, hasn’t simply done something to help you to be better sheep.  He became your Substitute.  Our spiritual blindness, our wandering and corrupt hearts, demand that God damn us to hell. 

“I am the Good Shepherd.  The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.”  That we might be a part of God’s flock, our Good Shepherd entered the wilderness of our world.  Christ the Lamb of God staked Himself to a tree naked and bloodied.  Like blood-thirsty wolves circling their prey, Jesus hung helplessly, luring the wolves in from the shadows to tear to shreds the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”  The cross appeared to be exactly that – Satan’s victory over the Savior – the death of the Shepherd at the hands of the wolves.  “The foe was triumphant when on Calvary the Lord of creation was nailed to the tree.  In Satan’s domain his hosts shouted and jeered, for Jesus was slain, whom the evil ones feared.” 

Jesus’ death makes you part of a new flock – a flock who hear His voice – a flock forgiven by grace through faith for Jesus’ sake.  The Shepherd wasn’t forced to die for you and me – no one held a gun to His head.  Jesus said, “No one takes my life from me, I lay it down of my own accord.”  He wasn’t some hired hand doing what He was told.  Good Shepherd Jesus, our living Lord, laid down His life on behalf of His enemies, praying for His murderers and for us, whose sins necessitated God’s action.  Isaiah wrote:  “We considered Him as a lamb to the slaughter, but He was pierced for our transgressions.”

Our Easter joy is that death couldn’t hold the Good Shepherd.  If Jesus were dead today like Mohammed and Buddha and Joseph Smith and other peddlers of false religions He wouldn’t do you much good.  A dead shepherd can’t guard and protect his flock.  A dead shepherd can’t lead us in the paths of righteousness.  “The devil who prowls like a roaring lion” swallowed the hook of Jesus’ Divine nature buried in human flesh.  When Jesus’ rose again, the devil was reeled in.  You might look at this world thinking the devil won the battle.  The truth is, like a fish thrown up on the bank, the devil’s thrashing and flailing in this world is nothing more than the last gasps of a defeated, dying enemy.  “Short was their triumph, the Savior arose, and death, hell, and Satan He vanquished, His foes;  The conquering Lord lift His banner on high.  He lives, yes, He lives, and will nevermore die.” 

The Risen Christ is our Living Good Shepherd, and because He lives He defends and lovingly watches over those for whom He died.  Because He lives the sheep, those baptized into the flock of faith, need not fear death.  These pastures that we live in today, surrounded by danger and predators, are not our home.  The Risen Christ leads His flock through this “valley of the shadow of death”, and beyond this fallen world we have eternal pastures prepared especially by the One who took our place – who laid down His life in place of the sheep.  The protection and salvation of the sheep owes only to the Good Shepherd, His death and resurrection, and His continued presence within the flock.  It wouldn’t do much good for a shepherd to kill the wolves, and then leave the sheep alone, assuming they could find their own green pastures and watering holes.  The Good Shepherd said, “I am with you always even to the end of the age.”

Our Good Shepherd promised:  “My sheep listen to my voice;  I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish;  no one can snatch them from my hand.”  My sheep listen to my voice.  I’ve only fed cattle and seen them come running.  I assume it’s the same with sheep.  The cows would really run to the feed troughs if they heard dad’s voice.  Even if the cows heard our truck coming down the lane, they’d all start running to the feedlot.  They knew dad’s voice meant something good so they ran to the gate to wait for some grain.

In a world where God permits us to experience things we don’t like – unhappy, difficult struggles, the Good Shepherd only has good things for us.  We may not always immediately understand how He cares for us, but His greater good for us isn’t, in the end, for long, happy lives this side of heaven: “We are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.” 

In the midst of a broken world in which even Christians experience deep suffering and sadness and pain and loss, our Shepherd loves nothing more than giving, and calls us in the humility of faith to let the Shepherd feed His flock.  We honor God most highly as our Good Shepherd, not by trying to give Him our paltry goodness, but by looking to the heavenly food that He provides for us and for our salvation.  Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled.”  There is no deeper spiritual peril – no surer sign of danger and death – than scorning the Shepherd’s voice, than wandering from the flock and refusing to be fed.  Nor is there anything more blessedly, eternally sure than resting in the words and believing the promise of God: “I am the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep… no one can snatch you from My hand.”  Amen.  

Christ has risen!  He has risen indeed!  Alleluia!  And now may the peace of God which surpasses human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  Amen.

            The sermon text is from 1 John 3:1-7.  See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.  The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.  [...]]]> Christ has risen!  He has risen, indeed.  Alleluia! 

            The sermon text is from 1 John 3:1-7.  See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.  The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.  Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is.  And everyone who thus hopes in Him purifies Himself as He is pure…  This is the text.

            Good News magazine published the picture of a very famous little boy called “the Bubble Boy.”  Born in 1971, the Bubble Boy’s name was David Vetter.  David was born without a functioning immune system.[1]  That meant his body couldn’t protect itself by fighting harmful germs and viruses the way a normal body could.  To keep David alive, immunologists enclosed him in plastic to protect him from infections.  The picture in the magazine was of a beautiful, playful looking 3 year old boy crouched in his 3 foot by 6 foot plastic home, filled with his favorite toys, a picture of his mom and dad, stuffed animals and bedding.  For 12 years, David’s nurses and parents had to feed him, change him, and play with him by reaching with sterile plastic gloves into the bubble until he died from complications of his disease in 1984.

            You and I and everyone else ever born, except for Christ our Virgin-born Savior, is born without a spiritual immune system.  At birth, you and I have no inborn power to fight against the devil and the power of sin that lives within us.  Our text calls us God’s children but when we were born through our parents, Ephesians 2 says, “We were by nature objects of God’s wrath.”  Cuddly and cute as our children are, yet God’s Word from Psalm 51 says, “Surely, I was sinful from birth, from the time my mother conceived me.”

            But here’s the amazing thing – even though you had no spiritual immune system at birth and your “sinful nature was an enemy of God”, as Romans 8 says, your Heavenly Father acted and still acts to save us.  Because He loved you, through the seed of His living Word in Holy Baptism, God caused an immune system to be planted within you.  1 Peter 1 says, “You were born again… through the living and enduring Word of God.”  Romans 6 says that God joined you to Himself in His watery Word and comes to live in you.  “You have been crucified with Christ,” according to Galatians 2, “and you no longer live, but Christ lives in you.”  And when Jesus lives in you, the devil must flee.  He loses power and control over our lives.  1 John 4 says, “Greater is [Jesus] who is in you than he who is in the world.”  “Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.”  In Christ through faith, you are already victorious, and the devil’s days are numbered.  Cling to your Savior and love Him and live for Him.  He loved you so much He gave all of Himself to make you adopted sons and daughters with God’s heavenly inheritance in your future.  Trusting in Jesus, you aren’t an orphan but a King’s Kid forgiven in Jesus’ blood.

            Little David Vetter eventually lost his battle.  Even living his life under plastic in a nearly completely sterile environment, there came a point at which he could only be outwardly protected, but not inwardly – his weakened body succumbing to disease and death. 

            Beloved, now you are children of God, sons and daughters of the Heavenly Father who saved you in the blood of His Son by raising Jesus from the dust and ashes of death that first Easter, but dear child of God, don’t be foolish about the world in which you live.  Don’t be complacent about the ever-present power of sin that surrounds you.  1 John 5 says, “The whole world lies in the power of the evil one.”  Jesus called the devil the “ruler of this world.”  Ephesians 6 says, “Our struggle isn’t against flesh and blood… but against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”  1 Peter 5 says, “Be self-controlled and alert.  Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” 

Please don’t take lightly the words of our text.  Don’t close your ears to God’s call to repentance, choosing to think your life is your own.  “Everyone who makes a practice of sinning practices lawlessness… No one who abides in [Jesus] keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen Him or known Him.  Little children, let no one deceive you.”

I was making hospital calls this week in St. Louis and couldn’t believe how much things have changed in just the 15 years of my ministry.  Can you guess what I saw every time I walked down a hall or got off an elevator and on the wall by every room?… Canisters of foam disinfectant.  More than ever hospitals understand their halls are stalked by hidden-unseen enemies that bring infection and death.  It’s time Christian families had that same realization of hidden enemies bringing infection and death.  If you think about it, your earthly life may last 90+ years.  Life is a gift.  We should be wary of earthly infection and disease, but how much more does God want you to be vigilant for yourself and your family with respect to your eternal life?

            If you haven’t noticed, this world isn’t getting any better.  Now is the time to stand guard over our homes and hearts – time to be done with the half-measures and compromises.  We talk about Jesus.  We come to church, but try to keep God in His place, not every Sunday, not Sunday school too, not prayer and devotions in the home.  We don’t take seriously that we’re in spiritual battle and the stakes are eternal life or death.  The enemy hates and wants to kill us and our families.  Do we think we’re fine if we are just nice people or we raise nice kids, whether or not we or those kids love God with every ounce of who we are?   

Sin is an infectious evil and we let the devil loose in our or our family’s life by not praying with our little ones or not bringing them to church and Sunday school every single week.  A germ is spread through the Christian home when our choices convey Jesus is important part of the time or on our schedule, or we follow Him until it’s difficult and begins to make demands on our wallets or our free time.  You may recognize yourself in this too, but sometimes I catch myself acting like my life and family and stuff is mine and I can give God some part or place in it.  We get in this trap of thinking it’s ours and we can crack the door to God on our schedule without letting sin’s infectious power loose in our lives…

But here’s the truth we all have to remember, we don’t own one thing in this world, and not one part of it will follow us.  All you have is a gift from God – a blessing of His love.  Luther wrote: “All this God does out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me.  For all this it is my duty to thank and praise, serve and obey Him.”  Faith sees through worldly gifts to God the Giver.  Unbelief gets stuck in the stuff.   

What’s our view of spiritual reality when we parcel out the pieces of our lives and money and time we will give to God?  What’s our view of God when we put TV and movie and music filth into our heads and hearts?  What picture of God do we have when we choose to live in sexual sin or greed or anger and quarreling, when we refuse to forgive and reconcile within our family, when we gossip and spew filth with our words.  Our text reads: “Little children, let no one deceive you.  Whoever practices righteousness is righteous as He is righteous.”  St. James wrote: “Faith if it is not accompanied by action is dead.”   

So what’s the answer?  It ain’t purex.  It’s repentance.  We can’t just say tough luck I’ll live how I want, and things will be OK.  We who are so surrounded by the germs and viruses of sin all around us, can’t rub on some lotion and hope for the best.  David Vetter couldn’t escape the ravages of infection, even inside a plastic bubble.  Even diligently standing guard over our homes and hearts to avoid outward contamination, we need healed from the inside.

When our kidneys don’t function correctly, they don’t filter out the impurities in our blood and the results are always bad.  You might say in Jesus we have God’s Divine Dialysis.  St. John wrote: “Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself as He is pure.”  What hope is John talking about?  “The blood of Jesus Christ God’s Son purifies us from all sin.”  For us who, even on our best days, do a lousy job of filtering the impurities out of our lives, Christ our Savior lived perfectly and purely in our place.  He died covered from head to know in the filth and impurity of who we are.  He buried the ugliness and filth of our sin in Easter’s tomb and rose victoriously from the dead so that we could be purified in His blood.  Your Risen Jesus gives into impure lips the purifying power of His own death-destroying body and blood.  In God’s Word and hear at His altar He speaks loving words of forgiveness and strength.  Just as the water and blood flowed from Jesus’ spear-pierced side, we are purified in His water and Word – purified in the blood of His Holy Supper, fed and forgiven in Him.  From the inside, God chooses to purify our lives and to fill us with Himself – a spiritual immune system – with the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Christ has risen!  He has risen, indeed.  Alleluia!

            The sermon text is from John 20:19-31 previously read.  On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with [...]]]> Christ has risen!  He has risen, indeed.  Alleluia!

            The sermon text is from John 20:19-31 previously read.  On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”  Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “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.”  Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”  Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”  Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”  Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book;  but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. 

            What a day!  What an unbelievably, head-spinning day that first Easter Sunday was!  On that evening as the shell-shocked disciples gathered, we can imagine the stories flying about the Easter angels and their Good News.  Forgive me for perpetuating a stereotype, but I bet the women who made that journey to the tomb must have been effusively painting every minute, miraculous detail; about how Jesus appeared to them on the journey from the tomb.  I bet Mary Magdalene recounted how she mistook Jesus for the gardener, thinking he had taken Jesus’ body.  I bet they all marveled at the booming message from the Easter angels, “He has risen, just as He said!”  Peter and John probably puzzled over the mechanics of Jesus’ grave clothes lying in place – decompressed from His absent body – His head cloth neatly folded separate from the other linens. Too bad for Thomas on Easter evening He AWOL on Easter evening, because God wasn’t done yet!

            Our text reads:  On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”  Notice, the doors are locked.  No doubt they were thrilled with all the reports, but they were also scared the Jews were going to kick down their door.  But Jesus didn’t have to knock.  As true God and true man, Jesus can do with His real, flesh-and-blood body what you and I can’t.  No need to unlock the doors, Jesus simply appears standing in front of them.  With God nothing is impossible!

            Have you ever wondered why after The Words of Institution each Divine Service, the pastor turns to the congregation and says, “Peace be with you”?  It’s Jesus’ Easter greeting, because just as surely as Jesus was bodily present bringing peace to His 10 disciples that Easter evening, so in our Holy Communion, the Christ who is actually present under bread and wine is bringing His Resurrection Peace into our lives.  Not some ethereal, disembodied peace, but the peace Christ brings is Himself, the Prince of Peace, and His own life and presence and power over death and the grave.

            Jesus brought them true peace.  He brings you true peace.  In Gethsemane each one of the disciples had betrayed Jesus and deserted Him. Each day you fail and flee when given opportunity to confess Christ, loving and serving Him with all your heart.  And to them and to you He brings peace.  The peace of the Lord be with you always!  Our sinful flesh is at war with God, but God’s Son has smashed down the dividing wall of hostility.  The war is over!  Jesus was forsaken by God and judged by Him under your sins at the cross.  In Jesus, you have peace. 

            “As the Father has sent Me,” Jesus said, “So I am sending you.”  It’s time to get up and go.  We need to listen to God’s Word together each week as He brings God’s perfect peace… We need to eat Christ’s body and drink His blood in the Lord’s Supper, but we can’t live behind these walls.  We don’t lock the doors and hide away.  “I am sending you,” Jesus said.  We aren’t saved in Christ’s blood to hide from the world behind locked doors.  God is sending you… the where is no mystery: to your office; to your parents, children or grandchildren.  He’s sending you to your teammates into your school or work, home and circle of friends.  God is sending you to point a dying world to a Living Lord.  He’s sending you to spread the awesome message, “The War is Over” – Christ has risen, indeed!  Believe in Him and know true peace.

            We won’t be too hard on Thomas today.  His skepticism is actually a nice layer of authenticity.  Today, on the Malabar Coast of India you’ll find statues of St. Thomas the former skeptic, who having seen and touched Jesus’ nail-pierced hands carried the Easter message to India.  There St. Thomas, formerly the Doubting Disciple, died refusing to worship a false god in a pagan temple… died preaching a Risen Jesus.  Before you say, “Big deal, people are always dying for weird causes”, every day in the news you hear another Muslim strapping a bomb around their waist for their so-called “god.”  People are always dying for things they believe, but only a clinically insane person dies for something they know is false – and fisherman turned raving lunatics don’t tend to attract a huge following.

The poor Muslim who dies for his religion is demonically deceived.  He believes a lie, but he doesn’t know any better.  Here’s the difference… St. Thomas and most of Jesus’ Apostles died telling about the Risen Christ, but if Jesus didn’t actually appear to them – they knew the message they were beheaded for and crucified for and stoned to death for and other terrible deaths was a lie.  The better explanation is this – the same Thomas – who started out as a Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens of unbelievers – had Jesus stand in front of Him and say, “Put your finger in the nail marks.  Put your hand in My side.  Stop doubting and believe.”  In one of the great understatements of all time, that experience changed his life:  He died for Jesus because He saw with His own eyes and felt with His hands.  “My Lord, and My God.” 

It’s important that you listen to Thomas and learn from those words.  It does you no good to think Jesus came to give you a nice, positive example of how to be kind.  True “religion” isn’t just about you being nice to each other.  If you could save yourself by being nice, Jesus wouldn’t have needed to die for our sins.  God doesn’t save you because you’re kind.  Truth be told, Isaiah 64 says that in God’s eyes your best righteous acts are still filthy rags before Him – still covered in your selfish sinfulness.  People sometimes foolishly think Jesus was some kind of moralist, like Barney the Dinosaur.  The Christ who died wasn’t just a good ethical teacher.  He was the only perfectly-pure and sinless man ever to walk the earth, and yet of this Jesus you can truthfully say, “God died for my sins.  God rose for my salvation.”  No mere man could destroy the devil’s kingdom and empty death of it’s power, but Christ the God-man.  And because He shared your flesh and blood in every way “except without sin”, you who are joined to His death in Holy Baptism and raised with Him through faith, will also share in His resurrection. 

Your body will one day be glorified – raised from death, cleansed of corruption and sickness and weakness and share in God’s glorious resurrection life.  With Job this promise is true for you: “I know that my Redeemer lives and that in the end He will stand upon the earth, and after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see Him with my own eyes; I and not another, how my heart yearns within me.”

God’s Church – and each of us as God’s children – must be a going Church, precisely because our lives have been changed by the single most significant event in all of human history – Jesus’ resurrection.  Without a Risen Jesus, St. Paul said the whole Christian faith is useless, and you are still in your sins.  With our Risen Savior, we live in the assurance that our bodies too will one day rise.  Bodily and baptismally claimed, we will bodily come forth on the Day of Resurrection when Christ returns to take His Church home body and soul into His glory.

Until that day – we are sent ones… Sent into our homes and families and neighborhoods to speak words of forgiveness for those who repent and calling the unrepentant to repentance.  No work is more precious and important.  Nothing we do… No item in our church budget… no priority on our radar looms larger… God sends us to people and places and vocations so that He can speak through your lips and reach through your hands and go through your feet.

The message that we carry as we are sent, is the message that is always and forever for us and our salvation, “Jesus is the Christ the Son of the Living God; and by believing you have life in His name.”  Christ is alive and joined to Him, loved by Him and living in Him we live yesterday, today and forever!  Amen.

            Christ has risen!  He has risen, indeed.  Alleluia!   

The sermon text is from Isaiah 25:6-9.  On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.  And He will swallow up on this mountain the [...]]]> Christ has risen!  He has risen, indeed.  Alleluia!

The sermon text is from Isaiah 25:6-9.  On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.  And He will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations.  He will swallow up death forever;  and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of His people He will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.  It will be said on that day, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for Him, that He might save us.  This is the Lord; we have waited for Him;  let us be glad and rejoice in His salvation.”  This is our text.

            Our lives are run by the clock, and few things in our day and age are more frustrating than waiting.  Does it drive you crazy when you’re waiting for your computer to get started?  Do you pace back and forth at Walmart trying to guess which line will go faster?  Do you get frustrated by a slow line in the drive-thru or when you hit a restaurant and the guy in front of you orders subs for the whole office?  We’re so impatient some very rich person figured out we don’t even have time to talk to each other – and so we send text messages.  But even texts are like a language of their own with whole phrases boiled down to a few letters.  It’s enough to make me LOL! 

            Our Isaiah text says, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for Him that He might save us.  This is the Lord; we have waited for Him; let us be glad and rejoice in His salvation.”  Since Adam and Eve fell into sin in the Garden of Eden, God’s people in every century waited for God to send His Son to crush the devil’s head.  Through the years Abraham, Isaac, King David and all the OT heroes of faith passed along the hope and waited.     

How overjoyed were those who recognized Jesus as the true Messiah, God’s heaven-sent Savior!  Their wait was over.  Remember the delight of Zechariah and Elizabeth when told their son John would be the forerunner of the Christ.  Remember the excitement of the Christmas shepherds who ran in from the Bethlehem countryside when the angel announced Jesus’ birth.  Remember the joy of saints Simeon and Anna when they held Baby Jesus in their arms in the temple. 

            The disciples and the women who followed Jesus throughout His ministry didn’t quite understand Jesus’ mission, but they knew they had found the Messiah.  They didn’t know His was a heavenly kingdom, but they knew God’s power was at work in Jesus.  They had waited all their lives and Jesus’ crucifixion brought them as low as you can go.  Death is awful.  The death of a loved one is agonizing.  But Jesus death was a bloody disaster – the end of all their hopes. 

Crucifixion wasn’t just any death.  The Bible says, “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”  To be crucified was to be under the judgment and condemnation of God.  The disciples couldn’t understand how their beloved Jesus – the One they waited for -could be cursed by God the Father.  That first Easter they didn’t yet understand the words of Galatians 3:13: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse for us” or Isaiah: “We considered Him stricken by God, smitten by Him and afflicted; but He was wounded for our transgressions.  The punishment that brought us peace was upon Him and by His wounds we are healed.” 

It’s frustrating to wait, but even worse when you’re so bereft of hope you have nothing left to wait for – nothing to hope in.  By the time that first Easter Sunday morning rolled around, Jesus’ disciples wouldn’t even leave the house.  Early at Easter dawn it was the women who journeyed to Jesus’ tomb.  They weren’t looking for a miracle.  They weren’t waiting in hope.  In their minds Jesus was dead.  They wondered who would roll the stone away from the tomb so they could finish the burial job. 

If we feel deep relief for a wait to be over… can you imagine the women when stooping into the tomb, they heard the Easter angel: “Christ has risen, just as He said!”?  Jesus was the Messiah.  God’s plan hadn’t been derailed or destroyed.  That very morning at that empty tomb – all God’s promises were kept.  The wait was over!  God’s victory was here in the flesh and blood of our Risen Redeemer! “The Jesus you seek,” the angel said, “has risen; He is not here.  See the place where they laid Him.”  We’ll pardon the women for not dilly-dallying.  Mark says when they heard the message, they didn’t go stand around the market spreading the news, they bolted out of the tomb and made a bee line for the disciples.  They couldn’t wait.  Luke says the women’s report was so breathless and joyful and exuberant, the 11 thought it was crazy talk.

Dear saints in Jesus, waiting is part of life this side of heaven.  Because ours is a Living Lord and Savior we aren’t called to be hopeless and miserable.  We aren’t called to be fearful for our lives or despairing of our future.  God calls us to be watchful and expectant, waiting for the return of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Because our Lord Christ kept His Sabbath rest dead in the tomb, rising from the dead that Easter, we can wait, “not as those who have no hope, for we know that Jesus died and rose again.” 

That first Easter was a busy day for our Living Lord.  Jesus’ first post-resurrection appointment was His descent into hell where Jesus proclaimed victory over the devil and all the hounds of hell.  The Easter hymn reads: “Jesus lives! I know full well Nothing me from Him shall sever.  Neither death nor powers of hell Part me now from Christ forever.  God will be my sure defense; This shall be my confidence.”  It’s that singular fact that fills us with heavenly hope.  The devil is the loser.  Jesus said, “Because I live, you will live also.”  He promised, “I am the resurrection and life; whoever believes in Me will live even though He dies and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die.” 

At a large church one crowded Easter morning as the people milled about waiting for the first service to let out so that the second service-goers could file in to take their seats a young boy was waiting with his family.  As he waited he read the names off a plaque hanging in the narthex.  Taking notice an elderly gentleman came over and proudly explained to the boy that these were the names of all the sons of the congregation who had died in the service.  As fear washed over the boy’s face, he gasped, “Was it the early service or the late service?”

Many people live fear-filled lives between Christ’s first and Second Coming.  Many for good reason.  Fear is prudent if your life doesn’t include a living relationship with Jesus.  It’s most certainly true that – unless Jesus returns before – you will draw your last breath this side of heaven.  It’s also true that you will one day give an account of your life when you stand before God.  On that day it will matter very little how much money you’ve made or how many points you or your child scored; how nice was your house or how much stuff you have.  You and I will live forever somewhere in heaven through faith in Christ or in hell through faith in ourselves.

That’s not to scare you into some fly-by-night resolution to commit yourselves to Jesus, but to encourage you to believe this truth with all your heart… to build your lives on this truth as you wait for Jesus… God has so committed Himself in love to you that He chose to immerse Himself in your sins and mine.  He chose to be crushed under the judgments of hell, and He chose to blast open the steely grip of the grave by rising from the dead.  His love chose the path of suffering so that you could wait for Christ’s return confident in your future and certain of His resurrection victory for you! 

In Jesus and only in Jesus, you don’t need to fear your death.  On Calvary’s cross Christ swallowed up death.  Your sins were buried with Jesus in a stony tomb, but Jesus didn’t bring them out on Easter to hold over your head.  He buried them so that you could share His free gift of forgiveness.  

St. Paul wrote: “Now I would remind you brothers of the Gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the Word I preached to you.”  Christ has risen and Christ is coming soon.  Don’t lose one moment of your life living fearfully.  But rest in the certainty of Jesus’ victory and share the hope that you have.  The God who formed you in your mother’s womb knows all the days ordained for you.  And the God who loved you enough to die your death, is the God who loves you and holds you in the arms of His care every moment of your life.  What’s to worry!  “If we live, we live to the Lord,” Romans 14 says, “If we die, we die to the Lord; so whether we live or die we belong to the Lord.” 

Brothers and sisters in Jesus, your Savior is coming soon.  Only God knows when, but He will come visibly to call His blood-bought Church home.  Until that day He calls us to tell the Good News of Jesus – to share the joy of Easter!  Ours is a prayerful waiting, as God works work through us in our homes and families.  We’re not here to fixate on jobs, money, ballgames, and on and on.  2 Peter explained, “God is not slow in coming as some understand slowness.  He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish but all to come to repentance.”  We’re here to point a dying world to a Living Savior. 

Till that day when we gather at God’s Heavenly Feast, we gather at His altar to eat and drink life and salvation in Jesus’ real body and blood.  We feast here knowing one day we’ll join in that heavenly feast when Christ Jesus “swallows up death forever; and the Lord God wipes away tears from all faces… It will be said on that day, ‘Behold, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He saved us… Let us be glad and rejoice in His salvation.”  Amen.

Christ has risen!  He has risen, indeed.  Alleluia!

            The sermon text is from Mark 8:27-38.

Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, [...]]]>             Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.

            The sermon text is from Mark 8:27-38.

Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the Gospel will save it.  What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?  Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?  If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His Father’s glory with the holy angels.”  So far the text.

            If you’ll pardon my irreverence, here’s what I don’t like about our text: Jesus strips my right to decide what part of my life I’ll surrender to Him.  I like to make little compromises and excuses in my mind so I can make this Christianity thing a little more comfortable, but according to our verses you and I don’t get to have Him on our own terms.  Christ demands all of you:  “If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow Me.” 

Jesus rejects the idea of a Sunday morning Christian – as if I’m a Christian parent here in the church pew, but angry and foul-mouthed the rest of the week;  or I can know it’s hypothetically wrong to lie and steal, but in my personal life I’ll do whatever it takes to get ahead.  What Jesus makes clear is how you parent, or how you serve your employer, or how you forgive and reconcile with your annoying husband or wife is evidence that your faith is living faith or a dead.  God calls us to obedience – He isn’t just the Divine Rubber-Stamp for you to do what you want.  Carry your crosses and follow Him.  Enough with the lame rationalization, well, God just wants me to be happy.  Cross-bearing is hard work. 

God doesn’t say when your cross gets heavy get rid of it – when your husband or wife gets annoying or your child is obnoxious throw down the cross and give up;  When you’ve got a test in school cheat because studying takes discipline; when you can make an extra buck at work go ahead and lie and steal to get ahead.  You might be cool with that, but God’s not. 

When life’s crosses are heavy and hard to carry Jesus says, “Come to Me if you are weary [and beaten down by the crosses in your life] and I will give you rest.”  Before you throw that cross away and walk away from the calling God has put you into – the family, the church, the community – know He has carried and can carry your load.  Entrust yourself to Him.  Don’t despise the cross by which God teaches you perseverance, character and hope.

Our faith isn’t a 50/50 thing or part-time thing.  Because faith is the living presence of the Holy Spirit, how you speak with your friends or how you vote in the voter’s booth is important.  Our vote or life choices more generally aren’t about how we can have the easiest lives or who and how we can get the most stuff.  They’re about how God calls us to live in this world.  God can fill your life with earthly joy and blessings, but God doesn’t call you to despise the hard things in life for the sake of emotional or material peace and comfort.  He says – find your peace in Him.  Some things in life that are hard, like Christian parenting or witnessing to loved ones, can be hard early on, but unbelievably rewarding down the road if we stick it out and pray and trust God’s promise never to give us more than He can handle.

Sometimes as parents or as Christians in any vocation we’re our own worst enemies because of the compromises we make.  We’ll just miss church a few times or just skip adult Bible classes while the kids go to Sunday school.  And we’re taking a sledgehammer and smashing down the Christ-centered foundation God calls us to build in our home.  I can’t give in to kids to get them to quit griping or compromise my values and beliefs.  Same thing with kids, young people, the price is to high if you’re looking for popularity from the cool crowd at school by compromising your faith.  Parents, it’s too high a price to seek peace in your home by compromising God’s Word to appease a child.  Neville Chamberlain isn’t a good parenting model.  Jesus said:  “Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Me and the Gospel will save it… Take up your cross and follow Me.”  Crosses aren’t easy.  It wasn’t for Jesus, and it’s not for us who would follow Him. 

            The bad news is you and I are failures.  The “all in” discipleship Jesus demands is tough.  We know only too well we compromise too often, ashamed of our Savior and unwilling to bear the crosses of life, unwilling to do the hard things God gives us to do.  The solution is not a Divine 12 step program to change your life – no 40 steps to a purposeful life.  He says, “If you want to live – die.  Deny yourselves, take up your cross, and follow me.”  To die to this world, Jesus explains is “To lose our lives for Christ and for the Gospel.”  You and I aren’t very good cross-bearers.  We’re better at despising and running away from and hiding from life’s hard choices. 

Your Father God loves you and formed you in your mother’s womb – He knows you inside and out and adores you as a precious son or daughter…  Isaiah says God engraved you in the palms of His hands.  In the nail-pierced palms of Jesus, God chose to lift the crosses that crush and crumble us to the ground.  Jesus made your cross His own.  He didn’t despise the hard work of saving you.  The terrible wounds Jesus suffered from His cross Isaiah said were to give you peace.  Paul says the cross of Jesus reconciles you to God the Father. 

Dear fellow sinner, God killed your old sinful flesh in the Jesus-filled waters of Holy Baptism, and He’s still at it.  Romans says, “We were buried with Christ through Baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father so we too may live a new life.”  Galatians 3, written on our Baptismal font, says that in Holy Baptism, you were literally clothed in Jesus.  He was wrapped around you like a coat. 

In God’s watery-word, the Holy Spirit clothed you in His forgiveness.  You and I were covered in Jesus not because we’re good cross-bearers, but because Jesus denied Himself and took up our cross; stripping away the filthy rags of our failure; washing the sewage of our selfishness in the pure water of God’s promises; clothing you in a regal robe of righteousness.  “As many of you who were baptized into Christ,” Galatians 3 says, “have clothed yourself with Christ.”

Covered in Jesus through faith, God the Father’s verdict isn’t condemnation, but justification.  You are righteous, because Jesus received the death penalty for your failures.  Trusting in Jesus, God declares you innocent, forgiven – “Justified by faith you have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  Washed in Jesus’ watery Word and trusting in His promises, God sees you clothed in the only work that pleases God, the work of Jesus’ death and resurrection. 

Still, you and I still carry this pesky sinful flesh as long as we live in this world.  And it hates us!  Cross-bearing would be easy if we were only saints forgiven in Jesus, but we’re also sinners who struggle against the cravings of our flesh – the cravings that always want us to throw our crosses down and look for lives of ease.  It’s a constant battle, but it’s made worse when we forget the real enemy is in here – (patting the chest).  The real enemy wants us to believe our calling is, beyond all else, a calling to be happy and not a calling to take up the cross.  “Put on the full armor God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes… Take up the shield of faith – as you rest and trust in Jesus’ victory.  Take up the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God and pray in the Spirit constantly.  War’s not easy.  Put on God’s armor. 

We live in a war zone and the cross-fire is a little too close to home, because the devil knows how to pull the strings on my sinful nature… the Good News is in Jesus you are at peace with God.  You’ve been reconciled to God the Father in His blood.  You are “more than conquerors” through Christ.  And you can stand without fear before God’s Judgment because God doesn’t lie – “while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” 

Most Christians don’t put this on the brochure, but the truth is God calls us to do hard things.  The Christian life is daily dying and rising, crucifying our sinful flesh.  It was begun and completed in us at baptism where God killed and made us alive with Jesus, and though it’s finished and through faith our heavenly homes are assured – we daily die to ourselves as we take up our crosses and follow Christ.  When your crosses of life grow too strong for you to bear, be assured your Savior denied Himself to live a perfect life for you.  He carried your cross – and buried it in a stony grave.  Paul wrote, “It is God who justifies, who is able to condemn you?”  In Jesus, the war between you and God is over.  You are reconciled and redeemed, your eternal peace treaty was inscribed in His blood.   

Don’t despise the cross of an unwanted pregnancy or an aged loved one, an annoying spouse or unruly children, or mean, hurtful people.  Rejoice that God has called you His dearly loved son and daughter.  Hebrews 12 says:  “My children do not despise the Lord’s discipline. God disciplines those whom He loves as a loving Father disciplines His children.”  When you’re too weak to carry on, the nail-pierced hands of your Savior are strong enough to carry you.  Praise God that He demonstrated His love for you in Jesus.  And having died with Him, you will live with Him in heavenly glory.  Amen.

And now may the peace of God which surpasses human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  Amen.

The sermon text is from Mark 1:21-28.

            St. Mark wrote His Gospel by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and it’s striking how early and often we see Jesus’ ministry as a head-to-head contest with the devil [...]]]>             Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.

The sermon text is from Mark 1:21-28.

            St. Mark wrote His Gospel by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and it’s striking how early and often we see Jesus’ ministry as a head-to-head contest with the devil and his demons.  In our text Jesus is teaching in the synagogue of Capernaum, and a man possessed by an evil spirit challenged Him.  The demon knew Jesus was the “Holy One of God.”  In the original text, Jesus literally said to the man: “Be muzzled!  Come out of him!”  With only His Divine Word Jesus muzzled the mouthy demon.    

            This much is clear in our text Jesus and the devil are not equal powers, like two dogs fighting over the scraps of this world.  Jesus is the 2^nd person of the Trinity, true God with the Father and the Holy Spirit.  Jesus existed from eternity and God the Father made all things through Jesus.  John wrote: “Without Him nothing was made that has been made.” 

As Luther put it: “This world’s prince may still scowl fierce as he will; he can harm us none.  He’s judged the deed is done; one little word can fell him.”  The devil is a fallen angel who rebelled against God and lost his place in God’s good creation – an evil angel whose pride caused him to seek God’s place.  The devil is not for us to trifle with.  Stay away from Ouija boards and fortune telling and other occult practices.  No Christian has any business messing with that stuff, but there is no parity between Christ and the devil.  Jesus is God.  Mark’s Gospel will make clear to us as we study it this year that Christ came to bind the devil and plunder his crumbling house of lies.

            That’s God’s truth, but it doesn’t take a very long look at the world before we start to question who is the winner?  It feels like our world is a hopeless mess.  The world is what it is and that’s bad enough, but we’re doubly grieved over God’s Church.  We don’t expect much from a fallen world, but you don’t get a strong feeling God’s truth is really important to people.  Too many people who identify themselves as Christian don’t really care about doctrine… their faith isn’t a body of truth revealed from God but some fuzzy feeling.  And that leads us to be careless about what’s really important.  It is simply the devil’s lie to say I love Jesus, but I don’t care what His Word teaches. 

Our love for Christ and our conviction that we are saved by grace alone is what causes us to plant our feet firmly in the shifting sand of this world and say I don’t care what the world says, God’s Word has settled it.  I don’t care how the devil or culture tells me it’s OK to live; God’s Word has settled it.  

The Christian faith isn’t a quaint family tradition or a fuzzy feeling.  It’s not a private matter of the heart that says, “You have your view of God’s Word, I have mine, but there is no right or wrong – there is no truth, no right or wrong.”  It’s these lies of the devil that cause our Bibles to gather dust on the coffee table at home or cause empty seats when God’s people gather for worship or Bible class..  The devil doesn’t want us learning and extolling together in Bible class what God has done.  The devil wants us to focus on what we do, counting up our good works and patting ourselves on the back.

All appearances to the contrary, let’s be clear about this – the devil has lost.  That is universally and unanimously true – the devil has lost.  But this great war which Christ won, has many individual battles, and your heart is the battlefield.  Whose side are you on?  Where will you and your family take your stand? 

            I love our text, because it shows Jesus’ power over the devil.  Jesus was God even when He was conceived and born of the Virgin Mary, but He didn’t always use that power.  In our verses, Jesus showed His Divine power by casting out the demon.  But even though Jesus wins in our text, He willingly allowed Himself to be manhandled by the devil.  Jesus wasn’t an unwitting victim.  He willingly laid down His life.  Remember even in the Garden before Jesus was put on trial and killed He knew He was following God the Father’s plan.  He died for you and me so He could crush death and the devil.  He died to empty death of its power, and Jesus said, “Because I live you will live also.”

            The great hymn shouts God’s truth, “Jesus lives the victory’s won.”  The devil is a damned and defeated enemy.  Hebrews 2 says, “Since the children [we] have flesh and blood, Jesus too shared in our humanity so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death – that is, the devil – and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”

            Dr. Martin Luther described the devil as a mad dog on a chain.  Jesus defeated Satan.  He’s bound.  The devil’s territory has been reduced to a puny pittance of what it was.  In our text, Jesus muzzled the demon, but when Jesus rose from the dead Satan was bound – tied in knots.            

This is reality – Satan is bound and defeated.  He’s the loser.  Christ won the battle, and one day He’ll stand triumphant for all the world to see – “for every knee to bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.”  But get this – even though Satan has lost, until Christ returns Satan hates God and hates you and wants nothing more than to steal us away from Christ.  Now, it’s still true, if you’ve got a mean dog, you don’t want to put your hand in his mouth, and if you do don’t be surprised if you get bit.  Peter wrote: “Be self-controlled and alert your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.  Resist him, standing firm in the faith.”

            We need to put on our “God goggles” – and even if we can’t see the devil – we need to trust God’s Word and stop walking in to pet the cute puppy.  We’ve won the battle in Jesus – why do we choose friends at school or hang out in chat rooms or on websites where the devil is running wild?  Much of popular music is straight from hell; same with many movies.  Why are we opening ourselves to the devil’s power?  Surround yourselves with Christians and be encouraged in God’s Word.  This is no time for cowards but to be God’s men and women in our homes and church and community.  This is no time to leave it to someone else to do but to walk the walk of the Christian faith boldly for the sake of our families and church, friends and community.  Stand unashamedly on God’s revealed Word and in the face of a dying world take your stand, “Thus saith the Lord!”  

The devil is finished.  That raging dog will prowl and growl and foam at the mouth until Jesus comes again, but if you leave with nothing else, believe with all your heart that He’s finished.  He’s the loser and Jesus is alive.  Paul wrote, “We are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”  Jesus allowed Himself to be torn savagely at the cross.  He suffered, died and rose from the dead to make you victorious with an eternal home in heaven.  In spite of our fears and failures to stand with our Savior, He never failed in His mission to win your place in His heavenly home.

So what now?  How do we who have been declared victorious for Jesus’ sake live until He comes again?  Ephesians 6 says, “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

            2 Corinthians 10 says, “The weapons we fight with are not of this world.  They have Divine power to demolish [demonic] strongholds.”  “Pray without ceasing.”  Be bold and prayerful.  Your Savior invites you to come to Him.  Run to the One God and Father who loves you and calls you His dear children.  Pray for God’s strength and wisdom to see the devil’s schemes.  Be strong in God’s Word.  Learn who Jesus is for you and who you are in Jesus, and you’ll be better able to resist the temptation to be a loser on the devil’s side.  Get in the Word.  Pray.  Jesus said, “You are the Light of the Word… Let your light so shine before men that they see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” 

Until your dying day, faith rests in Christ’s victory.  You might say we have a Big Brother Jesus who is stronger than the devil and all the world; a Big Brother who won your fight and stands at your side to the end of the age.  Christ muzzled the demon with only a Word, and His Word of grace and forgiveness shatters the devil’s bondage.  “If the Son sets you free, you will be free, indeed.”  “Neither death, nor life; neither angels nor demons; neither height, nor depth nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.”  Amen.

And now may the peace of God which surpasses human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  Amen.

            The sermon text for this morning is from Luke the 1st chapter:

            The angel Gabriel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored!  The Lord is with you.  Do not be afraid, [...]]]>             Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.

            The sermon text for this morning is from Luke the 1^st chapter:

            The angel Gabriel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored!  The Lord is with you.  Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God.  You will be with child and give birth to a Son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus.  He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.  The Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever;  His kingdom will never end.”  So far the text.

            Last week someone remarked to me that the Mayan calendar says the world would end in 2012.  For some that seems shockingly soon, but the truth is our Savior could return this very night.  The world continues for the sake of the Church’s mission, because God is patient not “wanting anyone to perish but all to come to repentance.”  In Revelation 3, Jesus spoke words which aptly summarize Advent: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with Me… He who has ears let him hear.”  The Church’s Advent prayer is simply, “Maranatha, O Come, O Come Immanuel!”

            It’s hard for us to be watchful and expectant.  It’s hard to live each moment in the expectation of Christ’s return.  God’s timing isn’t ours.  That explains why God’s promise to King David from 2 Samuel 7 had to wait 1000 years.  Generation after generation of God’s people waited for the Messiah King – the long-promised Son of David to establish His throne.  And generation after generation of Jews waiting for the Messianic King died under godless, foreign kings, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes, Persians and finally Roman kings, all praying and wondering when the promise would come true.  Galatians 4 says:  “At just the right time God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, to redeem those under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.”  In our Gospel lesson God’s time had come.  The Angel Gabriel announced to the Blessed Virgin Mary she would bear a Savior Son.  The time was right!  Even Elizabeth in her old age was pregnant and her son John the Baptist would prepare the world for Jesus’ ministry.       

Sometimes as Christians we can become impatient with God and His timing, but think about the Jews.  For 700 years they waited for the Messiah Isaiah prophecied – 700 years wondering what God meant in Isaiah 7  “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a Son, and will call Him Immanuel”;  and again in Isaiah 9, “To us a Child is born, to us a Son is given, and the government will be on His shoulders.  And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”  Surely they scratched their heads in wonder about a virgin bearing a son – you don’t see that everyday… or how about a Child being born called Wonderful Counselor, the Almighty God.  But Gabriel made the announcement that changed the world – the welcome word that this Virgin would become the Mother of God.  

            Gabriel said:  “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.  So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God.”

            You notice Luke is at great pains to emphasize this Virgin Mother and Jesus’ conception by the Holy Spirit, because on Jesus’ sinless human nature rests our eternal hope.  This Child was conceived by the Holy Spirit.  God took from Mary’s egg and fashioned for His Son a human nature, like us in every way, except “He was without sin.”  To take our place under the Law and die for our sins, Jesus had to be a real, true man, but He couldn’t be a sinner like the rest of us.  Jesus died as the greatest sinner of all, but the sins Jesus carried were yours and mine.           

A lot of you are spending a lot of time these days making plans for parties and gatherings that will soon be here and soon be gone.  We wrap presents that will be played with for a time and fall apart or be put away.  Our lives are in constant flux.  By the end of the winter we get too fat to wear all our new Christmas clothes.  If anything is certain it’s change.  The stock market goes up.  The stock market comes down.  Kings and kingdoms rise and fall.  Relationships and friendships built over time are too quickly gone. 

In the shadow of Christmas what’s most disturbing is how we change.  We’re on board with Christ on Sunday and absent-minded through the weak.  When we come to church Jesus is the reason for the season when we go home it’s all the fluff and stuff.  We confess Christ with our lips, but spend too much of our lives denying Jesus in word and action.  Even at Christmas, more words are spoken about Santa than about a Savior.  God forgive us!

            How wonderful for us fickle failures to hear Gabriel announce there is one thing – One Kingdom that has no end.  When all the rulers and kingdoms and the world’s mighty men are erased from our memory King Jesus will rule over a Kingdom which knows no end.  His eternal kingdom is rooted in His eternal nature as the God who always was and ever shall be.  Even the name Gabriel told Mary sheds light on this Infant King’s work, “Jesus, Savior.”  For Christ has come to save His people from their sins, to save us from ourselves and this dying world.  Politics change, economics, friendships, plans, hopes and dreams, even our lives in this world end, yet King Jesus rules on the throne of His Father David forever.  And “those who put their hope in Him will never be put to shame.”              Amazing!  Everything in our lives breaks down, falls apart, it all ends, but God’s love in Christ never ends.  In the water of Holy Baptism and in the body and blood of the Lord’s Supper, the Holy Spirit brings us into a never-ending kingdom.  His promises are spoken over and into you – and God never lies or breaks His Word – enfolding those who trust in Jesus in the eternal security of His love and forgiveness. 

            Who reigns supreme in your heart and life?  Who holds kingship and dominion in your home?  This Sunday before the celebration of Christ’s birth, I invite you again with humble hearts to bow your knee to the Sovereign Lord, who reigns on David’s throne over a kingdom with no end.  He took as His crown those twisted thorns at Calvary and bore as His regal robes the sins of the world.  Here is a King truly worthy of our devotion.  Here is a King in whom we may put our hope.

            The angel’s announcement that Mary would be the Mother of a King to sit on David’s throne would puzzle anyone, no less did it puzzle Mary:  “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”  The angel assured her that the One to be born was conceived in her of the Holy Spirit.  “For nothing,” he assured her, “is impossible with God.”  No arguments.  No demands for an explanation.  With the humble voice of faith, Mary said, “I am the Lord’s servant.  May it be to me as you have said.”  A long and troubling road lay ahead for Mary, no doubt the gossip mill would tear Blessed Mary apart, yet in faith she bowed her knee to the King of Kings.  “With God nothing is impossible.” 

            What an utterly, unlikely way for God to keep His 1000 year old promise to King David.  A virgin mother.  A child conceived by the Holy Spirit.  God becoming man.  And yet God’s promises were true for David and are still true for you.  “Our citizenship is in heaven,” Philippians 3 says.  Sealed with the Holy Spirit you are a citizen in King Jesus’ kingdom “kept in heaven for you who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” 

Even King David, the greatest King of Israel ruled only 40 years, a blip on the screen of human history.  Jesus’ Kingdom will have no end.  His love will never end.  As baptized citizen through faith every step of your life is walked in the presence of the King who cares for and watches over you, who is “with you always to the end of the age.”  The King who sits on David’s throne invites you to storm His royal courts.  He hears you and cares about you.  He guides and guards your future.  Because He wore a thorny crown, you have an eternal crown of glory He earned for you – and freely gives to you.  Amen.

            And now may the peace of God which surpasses human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  Amen.

            The sermon text for this morning is from 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24.

            Be joyful always;  pray continually;  give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.  Do not put out [...]]]>             Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen. 

            The sermon text for this morning is from 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24.

            Be joyful always;  pray continually;  give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.  Do not put out the Spirit’s fire;  do not treat prophecies with contempt.  Test everything.  Hold on to the good.  Avoid every kind of evil.  May God Himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through.  May your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  The One who calls you is faithful and He will do it.

            St. Paul wrote, “Be joyful always.”  Thanks be to God for Advent – for the joy of our preparations to celebrate Jesus’ birth – for the joy of family and children and gifts and all those things that go with this time of year.  We of all people should spend our days, praying, “O give thanks unto the Lord for He is good, His mercies endure forever.”

But hear me out on what I’m about to say before you dismiss it.  The devil’s great lie for you is that you should be happy always or spend your life searching for happiness.  If people think they know anything about the Christian faith it’s usually something like this, “God wants me to be happy.”  And often people in their pursuit of happiness enshrine themselves as God and break God’s Law, whispering to themselves the devil’s lie, “God wants me to be happy.”  It’s not true, at least not the way the devil wants us to understand being happy – that is, being my own God.  Rather, God wants to give you joy. 

Praise God sometimes life is blissfully blessed and we find great happiness, but even when life isn’t happy – in Jesus you can have genuine joy.  You don’t have to be gigglingly giddy to have joy in Christ – in the assurance that you belong to Him.  Joy is something else – it’s the certainty that Christ your Savior was born, lived and died to bring you peace on earth and eternal joy.  It’s as certain as the watery promise poured over your head.  In your Baptism you may not be endlessly happy, but you may have the joy that God joined you to Jesus and clothed you in Himself, wrapping Himself and His love around you.  The thing that makes joy in Jesus awesome is you can be joyful and certain in Christ, even when your heart is breaking.  God’s Word is sure: “Nothing can separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus the Lord.”

            Paul goes on: “Pray continually.”  Think about this.  The God of all creation knows every hair on your head and invites you to “call upon Him as dear children ask their dear father”?  Prayer is a Divine command. 

How nuts we are to think we can handle life on our own and don’t need prayer!  Two of our three boys have now reached or gone through that stage where we can’t help them with anything without being pushed aside with the words, “Myself, myself.”  That’s annoying in a two year old – it’s idolatry when we push God aside like we can handle things ourselves! 

            Between Jesus’ first Advent in Bethlehem and Christ’s Second Advent to judge the living and the dead, we live in prayer: “Pray without ceasing.”  A word here, whether you’re alone or with your family, prayer is something that takes discipline.  If you don’t discipline yourselves to pray, you won’t do it.  If you don’t make prayer a part of your schedule – to say nothing of spontaneous praise and petitions – it won’t happen.  Sometimes we need a kick in the pants to pray and this is it, “Pray without ceasing.”

In life and in our faith-life like 2 year olds we learn prayer under the cross of struggle and hardship.  Hebrews 12 says, “God disciplines those whom He loves.  Rejoice,when you endure discipline God is treating you like His children?”   A certain two year old I know is very stubborn about being helped until he finds himself wedged between the bed and the wall or stuck in some suffering or hardship.  Like the struggles of a small child, the cross of suffering drives us to our Savior.  This is good, because it teaches us trust – it teaches us to rest in Christ and be saved by grace alone.  Romans says, “Suffering produces perseverance and perseverance character and character hope, and hope doesn’t disappoint us because God has poured out His love in our hearts.”  Hebrews 12 says, “My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline.  He is treating you as children.” 

Whether you’re a victim, or your hardship is self-imposed, “What God ordains is always good: He is your Friend and Father; He suffers naught to do you harm Though many storms may gather.  Now you may know both joy and woe; Someday you will see clearly That He has loved you dearly.”

Too often we want to wiggle out of anything uncomfortable in our lives by lying or cheating – anything to avoid struggling under the cross.  For Christians, it isn’t an option for us to walk away from the crosses God lays on our shoulders – it’s not an option to scheme and squirm to avoid doing the hard work of living the faith.  Faith isn’t about avoiding hardship it’s – as Pastor Niermann put it Wednesday evening – being surprised by your location in the arms of Jesus.    

Jesus said, “Whoever would come after Me must take up your cross and follow Him.”  Is that always comfortable?  No!  But “God’s grace is sufficient for you.  His strength is made perfect in your weakness.”  If you’re a student in any grade, guess what, homework is hard… cheating isn’t an option.  Take up your cross.  Sometimes when money gets tight people try to balance their own books by lying or cheating someone else.  I lessen my suffering by passing it on to you.  It’s nothing more than despising the cross God gives us to carry.  Lots of times we’d rather not deal with the truth, so we lie. 

Luther considered family life to be the highest earthly vocation because it gives husbands and wives, moms and dads, parents and children, the greatest opportunity to be loved and comforted, but also family life teaches us to deny our selfish natures and empty ourselves in service to each other.  Problems and struggles in the home or family or workplace or whatever the vocations drive us to pray.  Our world tells us to avoid suffering and struggle or find a way to pass the pain to someone else.  St. Paul wrote, “Pray without ceasing.”  God is big enough to carry your load.  You’re learning what it means to be saved by grace through faith alone – because you’re learning God met your greatest need once for all in the cross of Jesus – and you’re learning God will meet whatever needs you face today.  God the Father doesn’t lie.  He knows how best to care for you.  Call upon Him as “dear children ask their dear fathers.”    

In Holy Baptism you were put into Christ.  In the Lord’s Supper, Christ is put into you for the forgiveness of all your sins.  In Christ through faith, God the Father regards your prayers as Jesus’ prayers.  “Whatever you ask in my name, will be yours,” Jesus promised.  He says, “Call upon me in the day of trouble and I will deliver you.”  “Ask and it will be given you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened unto you.”  It’s hard to get a doctor’s appointment or a car worked on, but in this helter-skelter world your Heavenly Father hears every prayer offered through faith in Jesus.

            I’m behind the times, because it never ceases to annoy me when I call a store and get a computer voice menu or put on hold.  But when you call upon God your call goes right through.  Let family trials or financial hurdles, holiday anxiety and sadness or failing health drive you to God in prayer.  Your crosses and struggles in life aren’t too big for God.  Rest in His arms, “Thy will be done.”  God knows how best to save you.    

            Paul concludes:  “May the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. ”  Notice, not only does God save you by grace, but he enables you to bear life’s crosses and sanctifies you by His Spirit.  “May your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  The One who calls you is faithful and He will do it.”  He will do it!  Your life today may be rapturous joy – it may be anything but.  Be filled with joy in Jesus as you cast your cares on Him: “The One who calls you is faithful and He will do it!”  Amen.

            And now may the peace of God which surpasses human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  Amen.