The Lord does remember

Posted on February 28, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Reminiscere

1 Thessalonians 4:1-7  +  Matthew 15:21-28

We prayed in the Introit today, Remember, O Lord, Your tender mercies and Your lovingkindnesses, For they are from of old. Let not my enemies triumph over me. God of Israel, deliver us out of all our troubles! Now, think about it for a moment. Why do we ask God to remember anything? Can He forget anything? He isn’t like us. We easily forget, and not just the little things in our daily lives. We forget the big things, too. Like the infinite power of God’s Word. Like God’s commandments. Like God’s promises. Like the Lord’s mercy and goodness. Like the real spiritual battle that is going on between the Church and her members on the one side and the demons on the other.

We may forget. But the Lord doesn’t forget. And yet, we ask Him to remember, to remember His tender mercies and His lovingkindnesses. What we’re really asking, then, is that the Lord would help us to remember those things, and that the Lord would help us now against our enemies, as He has so faithfully helped His people in the past. And He will! Because, you can be sure, the Lord does remember.

You remember, from last week, how God the Father sent help to His Son in the wilderness, after forty days of fasting and facing the devil’s temptations. He’ll send help to you, too, against the devil’s temptations, whenever you ask. But as we see in today’s Gospel, the devil doesn’t stop at tempting. He and his demons are active in the world in other ways, too, including tormenting people physically. He has been given room both to tempt and to torment mankind since the fall into sin. He’s restrained by God’s power; he’s not all-powerful. He can’t take hold of believers, as long as they continue to take refuge in Christ by faith, because where the Holy Spirit dwells, there Satan can’t dwell, even though he can still tempt. We’ll hear more about that in next week’s Gospel.

For today, we see how Satan, or one or more of his fellow demons, had taken hold of the daughter of a Canaanite woman and was tormenting her. And it “just so happened” that Jesus was visiting her country—the first and only time He stepped outside the borders of Israel, except when He was carried off to Egypt as a small child. The Gentile woman heard that He was nearby, so she hurried off to find Him. And when she did, she prayed, O Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is dreadfully tormented by a demon. It’s as if she had prayed, Remember, O Lord, Your tender mercies and Your lovingkindnesses, For they are from of old. Let not my enemies triumph over me. God of Israel, deliver us out of all our troubles!

This Gentile woman was very different from the Gentiles do not know God, as Paul referred to them in today’s Epistle. If we were to list all the people in Israel up to this point (who were all supposed to know God) who called Jesus by this title, “Son of David,” that is, who openly confessed Him as the Christ, who was to be descended from King David, it would be a very short list. Two men, to be specific. Two blind men. That’s it. After this, there would be two more blind men in Israel who confessed Jesus to be the Son of David, and then, finally, the crowds on Palm Sunday outside Jerusalem who sang, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” But outside of Israel? This woman is the only one in history, until after the Day of Pentecost. So it was a remarkable confession of faith, showing that she must have heard enough about the God of Israel, enough of the Old Testament Scriptures, and enough about Jesus to put together that He was not only the Christ promised to Israel, but the Christ who would also be a Light to the Gentiles and their Savior, too.

With a confession of faith like that, and with a plea for help against the devil, you might think Jesus would have given her what she asked for immediately. But He had other plans, for her, for His disciples, and for us. He did not say a word in reply. Seems like the Lord doesn’t remember His tender mercies and His lovingkindnesses. In fact, it often looks that way, as the Lord often doesn’t send help right away, as soon as we ask for it. It looks like the Lord isn’t listening. It looks like He’s forgotten.

But, that’s impossible, because the Lord doesn’t change. He isn’t fickle. In Him there are no “shifting shadows” as James puts it. So there must be another explanation for His momentary silence.

The woman kept crying out. We know that, because the disciples complained to Jesus about it. They came and begged him, “Send her away! She is crying out after us!” They might better have prayed for the woman, Remember, O Lord, Your tender mercies and Your lovingkindnesses, For they are from of old. Even so, Jesus ignored their request. He simply answered the woman, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Again, it seems like a rather shocking statement to our modern ears, where everything has become about race and racial sensitivity. How do the Holy Scriptures help us to understand why Jesus would say this?

Well, remember, in the history of the world, there has been only one privileged race, and that was the race descended from Israel, and only until the coming of Christ to Israel. Of all the nations, God chose Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their descendants to be His, and He made some very specific promises to Israel in the Old Testament. Listen to just this one from Ezekiel 34: For thus says the Lord GOD: “Indeed I Myself will search for My sheep and seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock on the day he is among his scattered sheep, so will I seek out My sheep and deliver them from all the places where they were scattered on a cloudy and dark day. And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them to their own land; I will feed them on the mountains of Israel… Thus they shall know that I, the LORD their God, am with them, and they, the house of Israel, are My people,” says the Lord GOD.’ That was part of God’s covenant faithfulness to the people of Israel, whom He chose out of all the nations to be brought into a covenant with Him, to receive His Word, to receive His prophets, to bear His name in the world, and, finally, to receive His Christ and to be sought by the Christ, as a shepherd searches for his lost sheep. The fact is, at His first coming, Christ was not sent to evangelize the world or to help the world with its problems. He was only sent to Israel, in fulfillment of God’s covenant with Israel.

But that doesn’t mean His coming only had significance for Israel, or that the help of Christ would exclude the Gentiles in the future. On the contrary, He commanded His apostles after His ascension to preach the Gospel to all nations. And right here, in this encounter with the Gentile woman, He provides a solid justification for that plan, an undeniable example of genuine faith, which shines in this encounter more brightly than it shined anywhere in Israel.

She came and fell down before him, saying, “Lord, help me!” But he answered, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” And she said, “Yes, Lord. But the dogs do eat from the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” It’s as if she had said, To You, O Lord, I lift up my soul. O my God, I trust in You; let me not be ashamed!

Lest anybody take offense at Jesus’ comparison of this woman and her daughter to a dog, He would’ve made the exact same comparison to you and me and to any non-Israelite. For as much as people affectionately refer to pets as part of the family, a dog has no real place in the family, no relation to the father of the family, no inheritance in the family, and certainly far less worth than the children. In that sense, all men since the fall into sin are like dogs begging at God’s table, with no real place in His family, no relation to the Father of the family, no inheritance in the family, and worth far, far less than the holy Child of God named Jesus. But God’s love for the human race caused Him to send His Son into human flesh, to bear our sins on the cross, and to reconcile sinners to God through faith in Him. To those who believed in His name, John writes, He gave the right to become children of God. And just as God gave the status of children to Old Testament Israel, so He now gives the status of children to all who believe in Christ Jesus, which now included the Gentile woman who knelt at His feet.

Oh, woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly. The demon has no power to hold the one whom Christ sets free. But why is Jesus so moved by the woman’s faith, to praise it as “great”? Because she doesn’t claim anything before God, as if it were her right or her privilege. Her faith is sincere. It’s humble. It’s persistent. It’s unabashedly hopeful, even when it looks like God won’t do anything to help. In fact, that’s when faith shines the brightest, when we don’t see God’s friendly face, when it looks like we’ve been forgotten by Him, and yet still trust that the Lord does remember.

And He does. The Lord remembers. Every word He has spoken. Every promise He has made. Even if you were still just dogs begging at the Master’s table, He would remember you with the crumbs of His mercy and love, which are more than enough. But now, through Baptism into Christ Jesus and through faith in Christ Jesus, He has joined you to His beloved Church and has made you His dear children. And He certainly remembers His children. As He says through the prophet Isaiah, Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands!

The devil will hold onto this world for a while longer, and it will look like he has won. Scripture makes that plain enough. It will look like God has forgotten us, like He isn’t listening, like truth is lost, like joy is gone, like hope is dead. But then the Holy Spirit holds up this Gospel again of a Canaanite woman and of the Lord Jesus urging us through her example to keep the faith, to hope in Him, because in spite of all the world’s bluster and all the devil’s schemes, the Lord does remember. And when the moment comes for Him to step in against the devil and in support of His beloved Christians, no power in the universe will be able to stand in His way. Amen.

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Faithful to the Gospel, but also to the Law

Posted on February 24, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Midweek of Invocavit

Revelation 2:12-17

This evening we pick up the series that we began during Advent on the seven letters to the seven churches in Revelation. You’ll recall that all seven letters are addressed to “the angel of the church,” that is, to the pastor of the church, the one who has been divinely called to preach and to apply the Word of God to the people of God in a given place. Three of those letters have a combination of praise and rebuke for the pastor, two have only rebuke, and two have only praise and comfort. This third letter, to the angel of the church in Pergamum, has both praise and rebuke for the angel of the church, and there’s much we can learn from it.

First, Jesus reminds this pastor that He is the one whom John saw earlier in his vision who, among other things, has a sharp double-edged sword. And where is this sword? Coming out of His mouth. As the writer to the Hebrews says, The word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. With that soul-penetrating sword, Jesus accomplishes two things: He both defends His people and slays His enemies.

He says to the pastor, I know your works and where you live, where Satan’s throne is. Satan’s throne is figurative. It means that the enemies and persecutors of the Word had a strong presence in Pergamum. It means that lies and deception were common there, as Satan is called the “father of lies.” It means that, through his lies and deception, Satan was influencing tyrants and inciting them to persecute the godly. Jesus even mentions a Christian named Antipas, His faithful martyr, who was put to death in Pergamum by the servants of Satan. Jesus isn’t ignorant of Satan’s influence there. He knows all about it and is using it in His own hidden ways to build His Church.

Jesus also knows that the pastor has been faithful in confessing the true faith and holds fast to the doctrine of Christ. You hold fast to my name and have not denied my faith, even in the face of persecution and as he watched others being put to death for confessing Christ before men. You continue to teach My Gospel! That’s good!

But it’s not all good. But I have a few things against you, because you have there people who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to set a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit fornication. In the same way, you also have people who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans, which I hate.

The story of Balaam and Balak is recorded in the book of Numbers. The children of Israel had spent their 40 years in the wilderness. They were just about ready to enter Canaan from the east, which meant they had to go through Midian and Moab, where Balak was king, and he had seen the incredible victories they’d recently won against the surrounding kings. So Balak hired Balaam, a well-known prophet / sorcerer from the east, to curse Israel. It’s quite a story. Balaam was offered lots of money to curse Israel, but the Lord kept him from doing it. Instead, the Lord compelled Balaam to bless Israel instead. But that meant he didn’t get paid. So he came up with another solution for Balak: Send a bunch of beautiful young women over to the Israelite camp and have them seduce the Israelite men, both to have sex with them and to join them in their pagan rituals and festivals.

It worked, though, in the end, it didn’t save Moab. Many Israelite men joined in the fornication and idolatry, resulting in a plague that killed 24,000 Israelites before Moses and the Phinehas priest put an end to it.

In a similar way, there were Christians in Pergamum who were being seduced by the Nicolaitans, a sect that promoted sex outside of marriage and participating in pagan rituals and meals. These Christians were engaging in these obvious sins, and nothing was being done about it by the pastor. He was supposed to be using the Word of Christ not only to preach the sweet comfort of forgiveness of sins to the penitent, but to preach the Law to the impenitent, the Law that bites and kills on the inside, the Law that condemns sin, including the sin of adultery and of idolatry, in all their forms. Jesus Himself commanded His apostles to practice church discipline, and finally, if the sinner refused to repent, he was to be excommunicated. Instead, the pastor was tolerating it. And Jesus says, “I hate that.”

So He says to the pastor, Repent! Recognize your own sin in failing to preach and apply the Law! Realize that it’s not okay to tolerate sinful behavior among the members of your flock. You must use the sword of My mouth against it, and if the sinners refuse to repent, you must exclude them from the fellowship of My Church, both for love of Me, and for love of them, and for love of the rest of the flock, and even for love of outsiders, lest they should start to think that Christ Himself tolerates or even endorses adultery or idolatry.

If you don’t repent, Jesus says, I am coming to you soon, and I will fight against them with the sword of my mouth. It’s far better to have a preacher preach the Law in Jesus’ name now, even if it hurts, than to have Jesus Himself come and fight against you.

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. This warning, and the encouragement that follows, is not just for the pastor of the church in Pergamum. It’s for all who will listen, for all the churches, for all the hearers to pay attention and learn.

Jesus closes with an encouragement and a twofold promise: To him who overcomes I will give to eat of the hidden manna. The manna, the miraculous bread from heaven, came down to the Israelites in the wilderness every day for forty years, except for the Sabbath days. But a portion of it, a measure of it, was to be hidden away in a jar in the tabernacle, to be kept from generation to generation. That jar was eventually lost. But the true hidden-away manna is the joy and refreshment and sustenance of the heavenly good things that are reserved for the saints in heaven.

He adds, And I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on it which no one knows except the one who receives it. The Roman poet Ovid, who lived just before the time of Christ, writes of a white stone signifying an innocent verdict in court. So here, to the one who overcomes, to the one perseveres in repentance and faith until the end, who continues to confess Christ and abide in His Word, He promises that the absolution that the sinner hears here in this life, from the minister, will most certainly be honored in heaven. He’ll be forever absolved from sin, from the curse of the law, and from eternal damnation.

Also, when a person was to be elected to the magistrate, his name was written on a white stone and cast into the voting jar, where it was hidden until it was revealed in the public election. The sense is that he who overcomes has been elected by God to be His child and heir, a brother and coheir of Christ, a citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem. But all of that is still hidden in this life. All of that is ours only by faith, and faith, while it shows itself openly through our words and our works, is still truly known only to God and to the believer himself, or herself.

Now, how does all this apply to us here? Well, Satan’s throne, his diabolical influence on society and on the government, seems to be everywhere at the moment. His hatred toward Christians, toward God, toward the Word of God, and toward the creation itself is taking over our country, as it has already begun to take over many countries in the world. Surely the end is near! But we are encouraged by Jesus’ words in this letter that He both knows and ultimately controls how things are going in the world, and He also knows when His people continue to confess Him and His Word boldly and unapologetically, which should inspire us to keep doing it, because it’s only a matter of time before Satan’s throne is overthrown, since Christ is coming soon.

But the criticism revealed in this letter is especially relevant. There are any number of Christian churches that no longer preach the Law, no longer condemn the sins that God’s Word condemns, like sex outside of marriage, homosexuality, and unscriptural divorce. Or, if they condemn it on paper, they don’t say much about it from the pulpit. And even if their members are publicly and persistently promoting wickedness, whether it be sexual sins or sins like abortion, for example, their pastors refuse to excommunicate them for it. Their wickedness is tolerated. And Jesus still hates that.

As for us here, I know of no examples of public, unrepented sin that haven’t been addressed. But if it ever has to be, or even if it’s just a matter of preaching against sin in general, I hope you’ll understand, it’s what Christ commands us to do. When a pastor condemns sin, either in general or in the case of an individual, it isn’t to be mean, or “holier than thou,” and it certainly isn’t to make some people feel superior to others or secure in their own goodness. It’s to be faithful to the Word of Christ. It’s to call a sinner back from the edge of the cliff of eternal condemnation, or to warn God’s beloved people so that they don’t start heading in the direction of that cliff. And finally, it’s to give a clear witness of the Christian faith to outsiders. The fact is, the Christian faith has been horribly represented to the world in all sorts of ways, and that includes churches that have stopped preaching or applying God’s holy Law. We can’t do anything about what other churches do. But we can see to it that we remain faithful here in preaching and applying both the Law and the Gospel.

So take that lesson from this evening’s letter from the book of Revelation. And also, take with you the comfort of Christ’s promise to the one who overcomes. An innocent verdict in God’s courtroom that lasts forever, and the revelation of the blessed election to salvation that took place before time began. Amen.

 

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Tested, tempted, and victorious

Posted on February 21, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Invocavit – Lent 1

2 Corinthians 6:1-10  +  Matthew 4:1-11

Today is the first Sunday in the 40-day Lenten season, which isn’t really 40 days, but that’s OK. For us, they’re symbolic. Today, in particular, we recall the literal 40-day fast that our Lord Jesus endured in the wilderness, and the length of His fast is significant. It goes back to Old Testament Israel after they were led by Moses across the Red Sea after being divinely rescued from Egypt. They took just a couple of months journeying through the desert, eating the Manna that fell from heaven every day, until they got to Mount Sinai, where Moses spent 40 days on the mountain, receiving the Law from God, and came down to find the people dancing and playing around the idol of the golden calf they had just made. But they repented, and God forgave them, and they spent about a year hearing and learning the newly given Law and constructing the tabernacle and its furnishings. From there, it was supposed to be a quick trip up to Canaan, where they would, with God’s help, quickly and easily defeat the wicked inhabitants of the land and enter into the peace and prosperity of the Promised Land.

But that’s not how it went. After they left Sinai, it was a quick trip up to Canaan. And they sent out 12 spies, who spent 40 days surveying the land. 10 of the 12 warned the people that victory would be impossible, and so the people refused to go in. As a result, the Lord cursed them with 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, one year for each day the spies spent in the land.

So it was that the Lord Christ spent 40 days in the wilderness without food, one day for every day Moses spent on the mountain, receiving the Law; one day for every year of Israel’s punishment in the wilderness. As Moses explained after those forty years came to an end, And you shall remember that the LORD your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.

So Jesus, too, had to be tested by His Father. We note from the text that Jesus didn’t choose to fast or to confront the devil there in the wilderness. He was led there by the Spirit. When He became Man, He took on not only our flesh, but our way of life, our place under the Law, and our dependency on God the Father for everything. So He went where His Father, by His Spirit, led Him and did what His Father, by the Spirit, commanded Him, which meant abandoning civilization and food and shelter and living with the wild animals for over a month. It was a time of testing, so that Jesus, as true Man, could prove His obedience. As the writer to the Hebrews says, Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him, called by God as High Priest. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Jesus knew He was there in the wilderness to be tested, that He was there to obey and to suffer hunger at His Father’s bidding. The Lord tests, but the devil tempts. The Lord tests, with the goal of giving His children a chance to prove their love for Him and their trust in Him through obedience. But the devil tempts, trying to get God’s children to turn away from God.

Still, the Lord’s testing is sometimes hard to endure. The children of Israel had to endure hunger for a very short time in the wilderness. As soon as they became hungry, God provided them bread from heaven every day. He didn’t do the same for His beloved Son. No bread from heaven for Him who is the Bread from heaven. Only debilitating hunger.

That’s where the devil began his attack, trying to take advantage of the heavenly Father’s testing and use it against Jesus: If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread! At the heart of this temptation is a dissatisfaction with God’s care. “If God loves you, how could He let you suffer like this? How could He test you for so long? How could He deprive you of what you need—or even of what you want? Forget His plan. Forget His Word. Take matters into your own hands. You deserve it.” In the end, it’s a temptation to distrust God, to disobey God, and to despair of God’s help.

Jesus fought back against the devil with the sword of the Spirit, with the Word of God. He quoted from Deuteronomy: It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ Here’s the larger context of Moses’ words to the Israelites: So the LORD humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD. Your garments did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years. You should know in your heart that as a man chastens his son, so the LORD your God chastens you.

You see, God had a purpose in humbling Israel, and He had a purpose in humbling Jesus. It came from love, the love of a dear Father for His dear Son and for all who would benefit from His Son’s obedience. That’s you and me. We haven’t been perfectly trusting, obedient children. We haven’t proven that we will always do what God commands, even when it’s difficult. So we needed a righteous substitute, and now we have one, since Jesus, in our place, proved Himself trusting and obedient, even in times of suffering—suffering which was only just beginning during the 40-day fast.

The second temptation listed in Matthew’s Gospel is from the top of the temple in Jerusalem, where the devil tempted Jesus: If you are the Son of God, cast yourself down! For it is written, ‘He will put his angels in charge of you,’ and, ‘In their hands they will lift you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’” This is another temptation to doubt God’s love and care. But whereas, in the first temptation, the devil’s solution was for Jesus to disobey God and take care of Himself, the devil’s solution here is for Jesus to challenge God to prove His love, to prove that He is worthy of being worshiped and obeyed. “It looks like He’s abandoned You. If God is so trustworthy, as You say, if He loves you as His dear Son, then jump, and make Him send His angels to catch You.”

Part of the difficulty with this temptation is the devil’s own use of Scripture. He’s crafty that way. He can quote the Bible, too. But he always quotes it out of context, or twists the meaning, or leaves out important information. Jesus was too knowledgeable of Scripture to be fooled, but many aren’t so knowledgeable and are quick to be fooled by any slick-sounding preacher. In this case, the part of the Psalm that the devil left out was, “He will put his angels in charge of you, to keep you in all your ways,” that is, in the ways assigned to you by God, in the ways that flow from your vocations, in the things you’re supposed to do. No one is supposed to jump from a high building. That would be tempting God, trying to get Him to prove His care.

Jesus said to him, “It is written again, ‘You shall not test the Lord your God.’” God the Creator, God the Teacher, God the Master has every right to test us, the creatures, the students, the servants. We don’t get to test Him. Jesus’ quote was from the book of Deuteronomy, where the Israelites tested God when they started to get thirsty. They tested the LORD, saying, “Is the LORD among us or not?” It was that arrogant, blasphemous attitude, “If God loves us, then He’ll do this for us or that for us. And if He doesn’t do it, then He’s a terrible God and He doesn’t deserve to have us as His children.” And so the creature becomes his own god, which is exactly what the serpent promised Eve in the Garden of Eden, that she could be like God.

You recognize that temptation, don’t you? To make conditions for God to fulfill, if He is to have your obedience, your trust, and your love? Instead of being thankful for all that God has given, you focus on the thing He hasn’t given, and the devil takes advantage. But Christ was victorious, and He shows us how to be victorious, too: by faith in Him, by trusting the goodness of our Father in heaven without having to see yet another example of it.

The final temptation recorded for us is from a high mountain, where the devil showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said, All these things I will give You, if You will fall down and worship me. In other words, “You don’t need God at all. I’ll give you the world. You can have everything you’ve ever wanted in the world, as long as you recognize me, the devil, as the one who deserves the worship of your heart.” And lest you imagine that’s an empty promise, Jesus Himself calls the devil the “prince” or “the ruler of this world.” He became that after Adam and Eve sinned, as part of the curse we now live under, a world ruled, in large part, by an angry, bitter, hateful, spiteful, arrogant, lying demon. He hasn’t been given all power, but he has been given a lot.

Yes, but you’re no Satan worshiper. You would never bow down to the devil. Few people in history ever have…directly. But indirectly? Accept evolution, embrace secular “science,” and you’ll have the world’s approval. Support abortion and homosexuality, and you’ll have some of the most powerful people in the world on your side. Deny that there is only one true God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that there’s only one way to be saved—through faith in Christ Jesus—and you’ll find that many doors open to you here on earth. You may even get to stay out of jail when the fiery persecution against Christ-confessing Christians ramps up in earnest.

Jesus remained unmoved by the devil’s offer. Get away from me, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. “No matter what you offer, Satan, I’ll never worship you, because you can’t give Me the one thing that matters most to me: My Father’s love. My Father’s approval. My Father’s kingdom.” As the Psalmist wrote, Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart fail; but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

And so Satan was defeated in the wilderness by Christ every time, in contrast with Israel, who fell in the wilderness time after time, as have we. Christ was tested by His Father, tempted by the devil, and victorious after those 40 days. And then, what happened? Angels came and ministered to Him. The time of testing was over, and the Father comforted His Son and gave Him what He needed for the work that lay before Him for the next three years, which would see more testing and more tempting, and also, a final victory.

You’ll have more testing in your life, too, and more tempting, until the time for testing and tempting is over. You’ll have the help of God’s Spirit and God’s Word the whole time, just as Jesus did. And you have mighty promises: the promise of forgiveness for those who repent and believe in Christ, the promise of God’s love and the care of His angels, the promise that you’ll never be tempted beyond what you can bear, and the promise of victory over sin, death, and the power of the devil through faith in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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Living in daily contrition and repentance

Posted on February 17, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for the First Day of Lent

Jonah 3:1-10  +  Psalm 51:1-19  +  Joel 2:12-19  +  Matthew 6:16-21

Let’s take a moment this evening, at the beginning of Lent, this season of focused repentance, to discuss mortal and venial sins. All people are sinners. That includes believing Christians. As St. Paul writes, All have sinned. As St. John says, If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. All sins offend God. All sins need to be paid for by the blood of Christ and washed away through Baptism and faith in Christ, if a person is to be forgiven for them and admitted into God’s kingdom. But not all sins are mortal sins.

Mortal sins are sins against God’s commandments, committed knowingly, intentionally, and stubbornly, where repentance does not follow the sin. They often cause grave offense to others as well. They drive out faith and the Holy Spirit and place a person outside of Christ and His Church. And so they are sins that “lead to death.” Mortal sins are the sins in which the tax collectors and public sinners lived before they heard the Gospel of Christ and repented. They’re the sins in which the Pharisees lived who stubbornly rejected Christ. In fact, all people are born in a state of mortal sin, and everything that an unbeliever does is mortal sin, because “without faith it is impossible to please God.” But when the Law of God is preached and sinners are brought to repentance, to grieve over their sins, when the Gospel is preached and sinners are brought to faith in Christ, then mortal (deadly) sins become venial (forgivable) sins. Those are the sins that we commit every day, in fact, every moment as penitent believers in Christ. We’re never rid of our sinful flesh and its sinful desires in this life, and sometimes, in our weakness, the sin of our nature erupts into our thoughts, words, and deeds. Those things are still sins, and they would condemn us eternally if we strayed outside of Christ. But as we live in daily contrition and repentance, as we live in Christ, we also live in daily forgiveness.

As we’ve discussed before, Ash Wednesday got its name from an ancient practice in the early Church of placing ashes on the heads of Christians who had fallen into mortal sin, causing great scandal and public offense. The ashes were a public symbol to the Christian community that the sinner had repented and had, therefore, been accepted back into the communion of the Church. It was a custom, neither commanded nor forbidden by God, but it served a practical purpose of highlighting the danger of mortal sin and the need for repentance in order to be forgiven and restored to fellowship with Christ and His Bride, the Church.

At some point over the centuries, that custom changed. And the Church started urging all the faithful, who were guilty only of venial sins and were already living in daily contrition and repentance, to have ashes put on their heads once a year. Luther and the Lutheran Reformers didn’t think the practice was very helpful, and so, although some Lutheran churches participate in the ashes of Ash Wednesday, we don’t here.

But it is still essential that we live in daily contrition and repentance, that we avoid falling into mortal sin, or that we turn to repentance if we do fall into mortal sin. It’s important that we learn the lessons the Holy Spirit teaches in all the readings of Ash Wednesday. So let’s see how they all fit together tonight to lead us on the right path of contrition and repentance.

Let’s start with this evening’s reading from Jonah. Jonah, the prophet of Israel called to leave the land of Israel to preach to the heathens in Assyria, in the city of Nineveh. Those Gentiles were living in mortal sin, without repentance and faith in the true God. So Jonah (after he finally agreed to go, after spending a few days in the belly of the whale) preached a stern warning from God: “Forty more days, and Nineveh will be destroyed!” And by the power of the Holy Spirit, working through that word, the Ninevites were brought to repentance. They fasted. They put on sackcloth. They sat in ashes, as an outward sign of their inward repentance. And God spared them, because He doesn’t delight in the death of a sinner, but that all should come to repentance.

Next, consider the reading from Joel. Joel preached repentance to the impenitent Old Testament people of Israel, who had fallen (again) into idolatry and persistent mistreatment of their fellow Israelites. Turn to me with all your heart, with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning.” Rend your hearts and not your garments, and turn to the Lord your God! But he also gave them hope that, if they would repent from the heart, God would keep His covenant of forgiveness with them, for the sake of the coming Christ. For he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, of great kindness, and quick to be moved to grief over punishment.

Some did repent at that time, and at other times. But mortal sin would eventually overtake most of the nation of Israel, so that, by the time of Jesus, He could pronounce the terrible judgment: The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed one greater than Jonah is here.

That has applications for the New Testament Church. We, like Israel, have been called into a covenant of God’s grace. But sin is our constant companion, too, and if we grow proud and stubborn, as they did, if we think we can go ahead and break God’s commandments freely, without consequence, then we will be overtaken by mortal sin, as they were.

If that happens and we fall away from faith, as king David once did after committing adultery with Bathsheba and plotting the murder of her husband, then God still cries out to us through His ministers to come back, to turn to God in repentance and live. That’s what Psalm 51 is all about, which we heard earlier this evening. David wrote it after he had been called back from mortal sin through the prophet Nathan. This Psalm is a confession of sin as well as a confession of faith in the God who “washes me clean of iniquity and cleanses me of my sin,” even mortal sin, when we acknowledge our sins and confess them to God. As St. John writes, If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Why? On what basis? Because, if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world. And how is His propitiation or atoning sacrifice applied to us? Through Holy Baptism. Through the pastor’s absolution. Through the Sacrament of the Altar. And always, through faith.

That same Jesus who is our Advocate and Propitiation has something to teach His disciples in the Gospel you heard this evening from the Sermon on the Mount. He’s addressing penitent believers in these verses, those who are certainly guilty of venial sins, but not of mortal sins—not at the moment. But since the devil is always seeking a way to lure us into temptation and sin and impenitence and death, Jesus provides some guidance.

As you live in daily repentance and produce the fruits of repentance, you may choose to fast, to go without food for a short time. Observing a fast is not a form of worship, since God has not commanded it. Observing a fast is not a form of righteousness; it can’t earn you either God’s favor or God’s ear, since Christ alone has earned God’s favor and God’s ear. But Jews in the Old Testament and Christians in the New have sometimes found it to be a useful discipline, as even Jesus embarked once on a forty-day fast that we’ll hear about on Sunday. It may give you extra time or extra focus to pray, or to read or to ponder the Word of God, or to be of service to your neighbor.

But if you fast, Jesus says, don’t tell anyone you’re fasting. Don’t broadcast it. Don’t publicize it. Don’t do it so that other people can see. Only let God see. Only let His opinion matter. Only let His reward matter, His heavenly reward.

Let heavenly treasures be the only treasures you store up, not the earthly treasures that moth and rust destroy. Notice, Jesus doesn’t say to secure for yourself a place in heaven or to earn a place there for yourself. You can’t. Eternal life is a gift, not a wage. No, He says to store up things for yourself for when you get there, like God’s favor and the goodwill of the saints, like the rewards God has promised to give for a life lived in devotion to Him and to our neighbor and, specifically, to our brothers and sisters in Christ.

What exactly will those rewards be? Scripture doesn’t say much. But it will include perfect joy, perfect relationships, perfect communion with God, with the saints and angels, an inheritance described by St. Peter as incorruptible, and undefiled, and unfading, reserved in heaven for you who are kept by God’s power, through faith, for the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

And how do you store up those treasures in heaven? By doing things that last beyond this life. By learning and growing in knowledge of the truth, hearing and pondering God’s Word, using the Sacraments, praying, confessing the faith before men, resisting temptation, struggling against your sinful flesh, fulfilling your vocations, bearing the cross with patience, devoting your days to serving one another with kindness and in love.

That’s practically the whole Christian life, isn’t it? It is! And it can be summarized with one phrase: living in daily contrition and repentance. Living as baptized children of God, who live in this world, but not for this world, whose hearts and minds are fixed, as Paul says, on the things above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. So set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Amen.

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Listen, believe, wait, pray, and follow

Posted on February 14, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Quinquagesima

1 Corinthians 13:1-13  +  Luke 18:31-43

Sometimes the ways of the Lord are clear as crystal; the pieces of the puzzle all seem to fit together; the things going on around you make sense. But sometimes the Lord’s ways are about as clear to us as mud. As He says through the prophet Isaiah, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

What do you do in times like that, when the way ahead seems fuzzy and dim? We learn that lesson from today’s Gospel, both from the disciples and from the blind beggar, all of whom had trouble seeing at first. The pattern we’re taught from their example is simple: Listen, believe, wait, pray, and follow.

As Jesus made His way through Judea to Jerusalem for His final Passover, He began to spell things out for His twelve apostles. See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all the things that were written through the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be fulfilled. For he will be delivered to the Gentiles, and he will be mocked and mistreated and spit upon. And they will scourge him and put him to death. And on the third day he will rise again. For His part, Jesus saw everything clearly. He knew exactly who He was—the Christ, true God and true Man; He knew where He had come from—from God the Father; and He knew exactly why He had come: that the world through Him might be saved—saved from sin, death, and the power of the devil. He even saw clearly the path to get there, both because He was the Author of the plan, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and because it had been revealed, although somewhat obscurely, in the Old Testament Scriptures. He would go to Jerusalem at the Passover and allow Himself to be betrayed by His own friend, and by His own people, arrested, falsely accused, condemned, tortured, and killed. He would do this willingly in order to make atonement for the sins of the world. And then He would rise from the dead on the third day, ascend into heaven, and work, by His Spirit, with the preachers whom He would send out into the world to bring men to repentance and faith for the forgiveness of sins.

While Christ didn’t reveal every bit of that directly to His apostles at this time, He was very direct about His imminent suffering, death, and resurrection. Jesus shined the light on the path for them, but they were like blind men who couldn’t see, even in the light. We’re told that they understood none of these things; this saying was hidden from them. How can that be? It can be that way, because, when it comes to the ways and the things of God, only the Spirit of God can truly enlighten the mind, and sometimes He has a reason for keeping even the faithful in the dark.

In the case of the apostles, it wouldn’t work out the way it was supposed to if they had perfect understanding of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection before the fact. They had to be kept in the dark for a little while longer, for their own sake, for our sake, but also for Jesus’ sake, so that He could suffer more. You see, it lessens a person’s suffering to share it with friends, with those who can sympathize and understand. On the other hand, it increases a person’s suffering to go through it alone, without the understanding of family and friends. And Jesus had to suffer alone.

What did they do when they didn’t understand? Well, first they listened. Then, even though they didn’t understand, they believed in Jesus. And then they waited. They didn’t walk away from Jesus. Instead, they followed, waiting for the details to be made clear along the way. And in a matter of weeks, it would all be made crystal clear.

So search the Scriptures and listen to God’s Word, if the path ahead seems blurry or dim. Sometimes the answers are staring you in the face right there in the Bible. Believe what you read and hear from God’s Word. Wait for the Spirit’s enlightenment. Pray for the Spirit’s enlightenment. But also, be satisfied with what the Spirit gives and keep following Jesus, as the apostles did, whether you see clearly at the moment or not. The Lord has His reasons for not making everything clear to you now. Not that He has hidden His plan or His works from you. He has revealed more than enough of it in Holy Scripture to bring you to trust in Him and to preserve you in the faith. But you may not always “get it.” Sometimes He needs you to go along with Him, even to follow Him “blindly” for a while, without understanding why the things are happening that are happening.

You already know and understand far more than Jesus’ apostles did at this point in their following. You know the love of the Lord Jesus Christ better than they did. You know how far He went to become the sacrifice of atonement, how much He suffered, and how willingly He suffered it. You know how He would fulfill His promise to build His Church throughout the world. You know that He did rise from the dead.

If you confess Him as Lord, as the apostles did, then listen, wait, pray, believe, and follow. Everything was eventually revealed to the apostles, in the Lord’s good time. So go along with the story now, as it unfolds. Follow along with Jesus. You won’t be disappointed in the end.

Then in our Gospel we encounter a blind man. Actually, two blind men, according to Matthew, but they believed as one and called out to Jesus as one. Mark reveals the name of one of them: Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus. The fact that his name is known likely means that he became a well-known Christian over the next several years. He had no physical sight. He was reduced to begging, and the Lord hadn’t revealed to him why it had to be this way. For that answer, he had had to wait, perhaps a very long time.

But Bartimaeus’s physical blindness, and his blindness to the Lord’s plan, didn’t hinder him one bit from listening to the word about Jesus or from being enlightened by the Holy Spirit and brought to faith. As soon as he hears that Jesus is passing by, he cries out to Him, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me! His prayer shows that he had been listening! Listening to the Old Testament Scriptures about the coming Son of David, the Christ. Listening to the reports about Jesus, both His identity as the Son of David and His power and His mercy on those who sought it from Him. He listened, and by the Spirit’s enlightening, he believed. Then he waited until he had an opportunity to cry out to Jesus. Then he prayed to Jesus directly. Lord, I want to receive my sight!

And what happened? Jesus said, Receive your sight! Your faith has saved you. Jesus granted his request freely, willingly, gladly. Not only that, but he praised Bartimaeus’ faith as that which led to his healing. Not because faith had the power to heal, but because faith brought him to Jesus, who had the power to heal. The blind man’s eyes were opened, enlightened, just as his mind had already been by the Holy Spirit. His sight was restored. And then, what? He followed Jesus, glorifying God.

It’s really the same lesson as with the apostles. If you confess Jesus as Lord and Christ, as the apostles did, as the blind beggar did, then listen, believe, wait, pray, and follow. You don’t have to understand everything now. Go along with the story now, as it unfolds. Follow along with Jesus. Do the things He has given you to do, the things you know to do, because His Word has clearly revealed those things. Listen. Believe. Wait. Pray. And follow. You won’t be disappointed in the end. There will be a cross. But there will also be a resurrection and a glorious future in the kingdom of God.

So listen to the Word of Christ. And believe in Him who willingly and intentionally suffered and died for you, whether or not you fully understand. Wait for the Lord to act and to reveal things in His time. Pray for the Spirit’s enlightenment and for the Lord’s strength as you wait. And as you listen, believe, wait, and pray, also keep following the Lord Christ, wherever He goes, wherever He leads, knowing that your Shepherd will never lead you astray. His path is the path of the cross. But if we suffer with Him in shame, we will also reign with Him in glory. That’s the Holy Spirit’s enlightenment in today’s Gospel. Amen.

 

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