Learning to drink the cup of Christ

Posted on July 25, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for the Festival of St. James the Elder

Romans 8:28-39  +  Matthew 20:20-23

All twelve of the apostles were given a privileged place among our race; they were all called directly by Jesus, and they all got to sit at the feet of God and learn from Him directly for three years. But St. James was one of the privileged few, together with Peter and John, who also got to accompany Jesus on special occasions, like the raising of Jairus’ daughter, the transfiguration, and as Jesus’ close circle of friends in the Garden of Gethsemane. James and his brother John were likely cousins of Jesus, according to the flesh, which was in itself a great honor. James and John were fishing partners in their “former life,” the sons of Zebedee, and together they received the nickname from Jesus, Boanerges, which means the “sons of thunder.” James is never mentioned separately from his brother John; even when he was finally put to death by Herod, Luke writes that Herod killed “James the brother of John.” He was the first apostle to be martyred and the only one whose death is actually recorded in Scripture, so that we know with absolute certainty how it happened. That was how his earthly story ended, with the ultimate witness of faith, with the glory of martyrdom, with the willingness to die for Jesus.

Our encounter with St. James in today’s Gospel is less glorious. He and his brother John were overcome with selfish ambition, even as they were just about to enter Jerusalem for Holy Week, after Jesus had told them all that He was about to be mocked, scourged, and crucified. James and John, with their mother’s help, approach Jesus with this request: Let these two sons of mine sit in your kingdom, one at your right hand, and the other at the left.

Now, first of all, let’s understand what they were asking for. Throughout Scripture, sitting at the right hand of a king in his kingdom means having a position of honor and of power second only to the king himself, and sitting at his left was almost just as good. We already know all this, of course, because we confess in the creeds that Jesus sits at the right hand of God, that He was given that ultimate position of honor and authority after conquering sin and death. So, while James and John certainly recognized that Jesus deserved the highest honor, they thought they deserved the second and third highest, maybe because of their family ties to Jesus, or because they were singled out for those special events, or simply because they were the first to ask. And they figured this was the time to ask, because they were just about to enter Jerusalem for the Passover, and, in spite of what Jesus said about His going there to suffer and die, they apparently thought He was really going there to establish His visible, glorious kingdom on earth, once and for all.

You do not know what you are asking, Jesus told them. They had envisioned, as people still do today, a glorious earthly kingdom, where Christ reigns visibly and where His people flourish, where His disciples prosper all the time, where liars and cheaters and impenitent scoundrels are defeated, where truth prevails over falsehood, where the unjust suffering of Christians is a thing of the past. But You don’t know what you’re asking. This “kingdom” they had envisioned isn’t the kingdom Christ came to bring to earth. Oh, it will come, but only after this long age of the New Testament is done. For James and John, there was a lot of suffering and earthly defeat to be faced first.

Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink, and to be baptized with the baptism that I will undergo? This is the first time Jesus mentions drinking this cup, the same cup about which He eventually prayed in the Garden, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup be taken from Me.” But it wasn’t possible, and so, after praying, He asked, “Shall I not drink the cup which My Father has given Me?” It’s the cup of suffering that God would pour for His beloved Son to drink, willingly, obediently, and fatally. As for this “baptism,” there are three kinds of Baptism that Jesus talks about in the New Testament. There is the Sacrament of Holy Baptism, the washing of water with the Word. There is the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire, which took place on the Day of Pentecost when the Spirit was poured out on the Church; that baptism was tied to the Sacrament of Baptism from that day on. And then there’s this baptism, this pouring out of suffering, this being washed in blood and in death that Jesus would have to undergo.

Are you able to drink that cup and be baptized with that baptism? Jesus asked the brothers. Because that’s how Christ would earn the right, as our human Redeemer, to sit on His throne, by drinking the cup and being baptized with that suffering and death. We are, they said. Of course, they didn’t even know what the cup or the baptism was; they didn’t know what they were claiming to be able to do. But they were sure they could do it, as their pride mingled with their ignorance.

You will indeed drink my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I undergo. “Even though you don’t know what it means now, you will. You will be My witnesses, and that means you will be treated as I am treated. You’ll drink the cup of the world’s hatred and injustice and mistreatment, just as I will. You already share in My Baptism in the sacramental sense, so you will also share in the baptism of My suffering.”

But to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to give; it will be given to those for whom it is prepared by my Father. Even the Son of God, who is equal with the Father according to His divinity, defers to His Father as the One who chooses whom to exalt and whom to humble. If Jesus doesn’t take that authority for Himself, then James and John (and you and I) have absolutely no business seeking glory or privilege for themselves or for ourselves. It’s My Father’s business, Jesus tells them, whom to glorify, not yours. Your only business is to be faithful.

And they did prove faithful. James and John humbled themselves before Jesus’ gentle rebuke. They repented of their sinful, selfish ambition, trying to exalt themselves above their fellow Christians and even above their brothers in the apostolic office. They humbled themselves and resigned themselves to drink whatever cup the Father should pour for them. Yes, James became the first to drink it and to be baptized with martyrdom as his blood was shed by King Herod. And the two brothers, James and John, who were never separated in Scripture ended up being separated more than any other apostles, with James being the first of them to die and John being the last, so that their deaths were like bookends of the apostolic era, almost as if one were sitting at Jesus’ right hand and the other at His left.

What do we learn from the example of James? We see in St. James an example of a faithful and devoted follower of Jesus who was not immune to selfish ambition and pride, but who also humbled himself when rebuked, who trusted in Christ for forgiveness, who confessed Christ in the world, and who willingly drank the cup that God the Father poured for him.

Watch out for that pride and ambition in yourselves, thinking you deserve a place of honor in God’s kingdom — or a place at all! — because of how faithfully you’ve followed, trying to exalt yourself above your fellow Christian. You know the example that Jesus set for us all, of humble service that put the needs of everyone above His own, who never sought glory for Himself, but was glorified by His Father precisely because He didn’t seek His own glory, who did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many. Your place in heaven depends on Jesus and faith in Jesus, not on how well you’ve served here on earth.

What about that cup that James so willingly drank? You and I will have one, too, whether it’s martyrdom or some other cross to bear. How does all this fit with what St. Paul wrote in today’s Epistle? We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. How can a cup of suffering and a baptism of death work together for good?

Well, we tend to make some terrible assumptions. That every painful thing is a curse, that suffering is to be avoided at all costs, that death is always a tragedy, or a failure, or a loss. We think that the real blessing from the Lord is to avoid suffering, to be raised up to a position of joy and happiness and special privileges without going through the turmoil and the pain. That’s what James and John thought, too, in that infamous moment of weakness.

But they were wrong, and they eventually learned the truth as they watched Jesus willingly suffer and die, that God uses the suffering, self-sacrifice, and service of His children to accomplish His good purposes for His children, that God is always ruling the events and the outcomes in this world so that everything does turn out for the good of each one of His children, and most importantly, that not even death will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. The death of a Christian is not a tragedy, but a victory, just as Christ’s death turned out to be.

So learn to drink that cup of Christ, whenever that moment comes, to suffer for His name, to serve humbly, to trust boldly. And give thanks today for St. James, whose service in the apostolic office was the shortest of all the apostles, but whose willingness to drink the cup of Christ gave him a privileged place among our race, and in the Church, and has become a pattern for all Christians who share the same hope in the same Lord Jesus. Amen.

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Love flows from sins forgiven

Posted on July 21, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for the Festival of St. Mary Magdalene

Song of Solomon 3:5-6, 8:6-7  +  Luke 7:36-50

We probably know Mary Magdalene best from her role on Easter Sunday, as one of the faithful women who had accompanied Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem, who had served Him and provided for His earthly needs, who had witnessed His death on the cross and His burial, and who had gone to attend to His supposedly dead body on Easter Sunday morning. When she saw the stone rolled away from the tomb, she ran straight back to tell the apostles, and after Peter and John saw the empty tomb for themselves, Mary stayed behind weeping. And then Jesus appeared to her alive and finally revealed Himself to her by saying her name, “Mary.”

She may or may not have been the penitent sinful woman in this evening’s Gospel from Luke 7. Her name first comes up in Luke’s Gospel right after this account, where we’re told that Jesus had driven seven demons out of Mary Magdalene, and being demon possessed strongly implies that she was previously living a life that was sinfully separated from God.

In the end, it doesn’t matter if she’s the woman from this Gospel account, because the saints’ days in the Lutheran liturgical calendar aren’t meant to focus on the saint, but on the Scripture lessons associated with their day. So let’s spend a few moments reviewing the account in Luke 7.

The three main characters here are Jesus, the woman, and Simon the Pharisee. As Jesus sits at the table at Simon’s dinner, a woman enters and approaches Jesus with great humility. She stands before Him crying, and her tears fall on Jesus’ feet. She wipes them with her hair. She kisses them. And she pours expensive perfume on them.

Remember what Isaiah wrote? How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who proclaims peace, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns!” That verse is applied to all ministers of the Gospel, but only because it was Jesus Himself who first proclaimed that good news, that “Gospel” of good things, of salvation, of the free forgiveness of sins through faith in Him, even to the sinner who has committed the filthiest sins and lived in open hostility to God his whole life.

To a person like that, like the sinful woman in the Gospel, whether it was Mary Magdalene or another woman, the feet of Jesus, the One who came from God to atone for her sins and to bring her a promise of free forgiveness, were truly beautiful, and her tears and her peculiar attention to Jesus’ feet flowed from a heart that knew just how badly she had offended her God, just how tightly she had formerly embraced the filthy devil, just how close she had been to eternal death, but now, just how wonderful her God was, who offered her forgiveness, life, and salvation through this Son of Man sitting at the table in front of her.

But to Simon, as a self-righteous Pharisee, who already thought he was better than most people, including Jesus, her behavior was disgusting, and so was Jesus’ acceptance of it. If this man were a prophet, he would know what kind of a woman this is, and he would send her away in the disgrace she deserves.

But Jesus took pity on Simon, too, and told him a very simple, very gentle parable to snap him out of his self-righteous condemnation of that woman who had shown such humility and love to Jesus. Two men owed money to a lender. One owed 500. The other owed 50. Neither could pay, so the lender forgave them both. Which one would be more grateful? Which one would love the lender more? Obviously, the one who owed more.

Then Jesus goes on to show how that little parable played out in real life. The woman who knew how terribly sinful she was, who knew she owed a huge debt to God, was promised the forgiveness of her enormous debt through Jesus, so she loved Him very much, like the woman portrayed in this evening’s first lesson from the Song of Solomon, who sought out the one whom her soul loved and wouldn’t let go of him once she found him, because “love is strong as death.” She showed that love by her tender, humble acts of kindness toward Jesus, with her tears and her hair and her kisses on Jesus’ feet and her pouring out of the perfume that she used to use on herself as she practiced her sinful adultery, but now pours it out on Jesus’ feet, as one who has abandoned her sinful life and has found forgiveness with Jesus and a new life devoted to Him.

Simon, on the other hand, didn’t even show Jesus the customary courtesies of a dinner host. No water for Jesus even to wash His own feet. No kiss of greeting. No oil to anoint the head. Simon didn’t just love Jesus “little.” He didn’t love Jesus at all. Because he didn’t view Jesus as His Savior from any sins. He didn’t look to Jesus for forgiveness for anything.

But the woman’s demonstration of love showed everyone the faith that God already saw in her heart, and so Jesus says to her, Your sins are forgiven…Your faith has saved you. Go in peace. Now, which came first, the pronouncement of forgiveness, the faith, or the acts of love? Well clearly the faith came first, which came from the word she had already heard about Jesus, which brought her to this dinner hall and which already made her a forgiven daughter of God. Then came the acts of love. And then came the pronouncement of forgiveness, affirming the righteousness that was hers by faith, and also giving her another firm and solid word of God on which to rest her faith and build her faith, so that the next time her conscience troubled her over her past sins, the next time Satan tried to remind her of what a wretch she was, the next time a Pharisee or another person should treat her with contempt because of the filthy life she had once lived, she could turn back to those words Jesus spoke to her again and again and be comforted again by the word of Christ. And if this was St. Mary Magdalene, she didn’t just go away after that day, but stayed close to Jesus for the rest of His earthly life, and then stayed close to His Church for the rest of her earthly life. As we all must.

Today’s festival is about the basics of Christianity: First, Repentance. Your debt of sin is far greater than you imagine it to be. Not one of us here needs to be forgiven only a little. So come to Jesus daily in repentance, not so that you can keep on living in your sin, but so that you can get rid of it, first before God, and then in your life going forward. Second, Faith. Trust in the faithful Lord Jesus, who is the propitiation, the atoning sacrifice for your sins, and not only for yours, but for the sins of the whole world. Third, Forgiveness. Whether it’s the promise of the Gospel you’ve heard hundreds of times before, promising forgiveness through Christ, or whether it’s your Baptism, or the Lord’s Supper, or private absolution from the pastor to you individually, cling to those promises and know that when God pronounces you forgiven, not even hell itself can override it. Finally, Love. Let demonstrations of love flow from your faith in Christ, so that everything you do is for love of Jesus, who loved you first and gave Himself for you. Let Mary’s example spur you on to love Jesus as she did, always remembering the depths from which Jesus pulled you up, so that you never despise His forgiveness as Simon did.

Repentance, faith, forgiveness, and love. These are the things we learn from the Gospel for St. Mary Magdalene’s day. May the Lord make us ever more like her. Amen.

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A good Master who gives gifts in the end

Posted on July 18, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 7

Romans 6:19-23  +  Mark 8:1-9

Slavery is the picture St. Paul uses in today’s Epistle. But the picture he uses isn’t humans enslaving other humans by force. It’s a picture of two “masters,” and everyone serves one of the two, although St. Paul also admits that this analogy is far from perfect; he uses it only because of our human weakness and inability to grasp how things really are. Still, the Holy Spirit chose to use that picture, and, according to the apostle, there are some comparisons to be made. The fact is, everyone is slave, either of sin or of God.

Like the rest of mankind, we were all born into sin’s slavery, unable to serve the true God, unable to truly love Him, unable to truly love our neighbor. Adam and Eve willingly and foolishly chose this slavery, and now their children are born into it, bound with spiritual chains to sin, unable to free ourselves. We could do things that outwardly appeared good, but everything was tainted by selfishness on the inside, and very many things were evil on the outside, too. It’s an ugly slavery, and the worst part of it is, people who are slaves to sin don’t even recognize it as slavery, don’t even want to be rid of it, but on the contrary, Paul says, You presented your members as slaves to uncleanness and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness. You offered, you volunteered your mind and the parts of your body to unclean thoughts, words, and acts. Paul asks, What fruit did you have then in those things of which you are now ashamed? How did you benefit from presenting your members as slaves to uncleanness? What benefits did you reap? Maybe some immediate pleasure, some instant satisfaction, some temporary relief, popularity, fulfillment, the love of the world. But the end of those things, Paul says, the end or the result of that slavery of sin, is death, which paid out like wages at the end of the day by sin, the slave master. And it’s a death that doesn’t end when your heart stops beating or when your body decays. After your body dies, it only gets worse for those who die in sin’s slavery.

But, Paul says to the Roman Christians, you have been freed from sin and made slaves to God. You were freed from sin, justified from sin, through faith in the Son of God who has set you free. As we saw last week, you were baptized into Christ’s death, baptized out of sin’s servitude and into God’s. It wasn’t a choice you simply made or could make, to leave sin’s slavery. It was God’s Holy Spirit working through the Gospel, turning your will, which was enslaved to sin, toward Christ, the Deliverer from sin. In that sense, by the conversion worked by the Holy Spirit, you willingly entered God’s “slavery,” which is much more like freedom than like slavery, because, instead of a whip cracking over your back, instead of threat after threat after threat, it’s the word of God that calls on His believing, forgiven children, to present your members as slaves to righteousness, leading to holiness. Now, the immediate results of this slavery may not be pleasant—the cross, self-denial, the world’s hatred, the devil’s attacks. But the end of this slavery, the slavery to God, is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord, as the gift of God.

Now, what kind of master do we have in the Lord Jesus, and is there any relief at all before that final gift of Paradise at the end of our service? Those questions are answered very simply in today’s Gospel of the feeding of the four thousand. Jesus a kind, good, and compassionate Master who gives good gifts to His people after they’ve suffered with Him for a little while in the wilderness.

Remember, it wasn’t all the same people who followed Jesus around Galilee and Judea. The crowd of 5,000 men, plus women and children, who were fed by Jesus on a previous occasion were a much different crowd. They went out to Jesus to see signs and wonders. They went out for healing and for entertainment, not for listening. They were slaves of their boredom. Slaves of their bellies. But the 4,000 were a different group, a different crowd. They didn’t run out to where Jesus was to see signs and wonders. They didn’t follow Him out there to get their sicknesses healed. They went to hear Him preach the Word of God, to learn from Him, to “remain with Him.” They were faithful followers. They had become slaves of righteousness.

But that came at a cost. In order to follow Jesus, they had to go far from their homes, out into the wilderness, into the desert, where food was scarce. And they remained with Him for three days. Would you spend three days out in the desert listening to sermons all day long? Not a “revival” meeting. No music. No dancing. No band or music playing to keep you entertained, and certainly no food vendors. Just Jesus and His Word.

After those three days, Jesus saw that they had no food, and He had compassion on them. Notice, the people weren’t complaining. It was a very different group of people from those Israelites who followed Moses in the wilderness east of Egypt. These people weren’t complaining or grumbling. They had found contentment just in being there with Jesus, content with whatever He provided. But Jesus saw their need.

He sees yours, too. Each one you. He knows before you do what you need in your life right now. Sometimes He leads His people out into the wilderness, as it were. He takes us to a place, into a situation that’s difficult, even painful. Presenting our members as slaves to righteousness often involves hardship, without any instant gratification. But His compassion for you who have been baptized into His death is surely no less than was His compassion for those who spent those days with Him in the wilderness. His love for you is real, and so is His help.

Jesus saw those thousands of people before Him and said to His disciples, I have compassion on the multitude, because they have already remained with me for three days, and they have nothing to eat. And if I send them away to their homes without eating, they will faint on the road, for some of them have come a long way. This is how the Master views His slaves, not as tools to be used for His own good, not as worthless creatures for whom He cares nothing, although our sins have earned nothing but wrath. No, He views His slaves as precious and has compassion on them, always.

He mentions this the people’s need to His disciples, giving them a chance to exercise and show their faith. They didn’t. They forgot about Jesus’ power. They forgot about the feeding of the 5,000 and how easy it was for Jesus supply what was needed. And we have to be thankful for the disciples and their forgetfulness, because it affects us, too. So weak we are because of sin, so incapable of saving ourselves, we could never believe in Jesus or keep trusting in Him if we hadn’t been born again of water and the Spirit, if we weren’t constantly preserved by the Holy Spirit’s power as He works through preaching and the Sacraments to stir up our faith again, to remedy our forgetfulness and remind us to look to Jesus in every need.

This time, instead of five loaves of bread and two fish, Jesus blessed seven loaves of bread and a few fish. He gave thanks, gave them to His disciples, and had them feed all the people with so much food that, again, there were baskets of leftover pieces that would be shared with still more people later on. Such is the power and the providence of the Master toward His slaves who have suffered a little while in order to remain with Him.

As we said, the slavery of sin often gives immediate rewards, and those rewards can be enticing. But in the end, it’s a brutal, ugly slavery, and it ends in death. On the other hand, the slavery to righteousness can be hard, and not much reward is seen at first. But eventually, Jesus, the gentle slave-master, rewards those who are in His service with a demonstration of true love and compassion and with abundant blessing. The Lord will provide relief when He knows it’s needed. And until He provides it, He is still sending out His disciples, His ministers, to distribute the Word and the Sacraments, to nourish our souls and to give us the strength we need to endure until the promised relief comes.

It’s a very different kind of slavery, isn’t it?, this slavery to God, this slavery to righteousness, where the slave-master loves His slaves so much that He gave His only-begotten Son into death in order to save us from death and bring us into His service, which means being adopted as His children, which includes His loving care and providence along the way, and which ends with the gift of eternal life. Whenever the burden of this slavery seems too hard to bear, whenever the wilderness of this life seems too desolate, remember the words of the good Master: Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me. For I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light. Amen.

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Sermon for Friday of Trinity 6

Posted on July 16, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

Sermon preached by Bishop James Heiser, based on 1 Corinthians 2:1-16. Audio only.

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The high price of admission into God’s kingdom

Posted on July 11, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 6

Romans 6:3-11  +  Matthew 5:20-26

Whether or not a person believes in God, or in the existence of the human soul, everyone, and I mean everyone, is aware of the common problem that plagues humanity. Our common problem is death. And everyone, by nature, also has a sneaking suspicion, deep down in their hearts, that God does exist, and that the soul does exist and that, after our bodies stop working, we will have to answer to God. Atheists deny all that, of course, claiming that neither God nor the soul exists and that everything just comes to an end when we die. Agnostics claim not to know about God or the soul, claim that such things are unknowable. But for the rest of humanity, those who are not so foolish as to deny God’s existence, the question has always been, what is required for the soul (and possibly even the body) to escape torment after death and to be allowed into the kingdom or the realm of God the Creator, to live in blessedness and happiness with Him in His kingdom? In other words, what’s the price of admission?

Most of humanity, for thousands of years, has had a basic answer to that question. Do these or those good works. Offer this or that sacrifice. Be good. Work hard. And God will let you into His kingdom. Even some who call themselves Christians mimic that basic answer. There’s a phrase in a song of the famous country artist Alan Jackson that’s always made me cringe. There’s a lot of “workin’ hard to get to heaven, where I come from.” That about summarizes it. You gotta work hard to get to heaven. Right?

The great Lutheran professor and author Philip Melanchthon wrote about that basic human answer in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, where he refers to it as an “opinion of the Law”: Works, he writes, are recognizable among human beings. Human reason naturally admires works. Reason sees only works and does not understand or consider faith. Therefore, it dreams that these works merit forgiveness of sins and that they justify. This opinion of the Law naturally sticks in people’s minds. It cannot be driven out, unless we are divinely taught.

Thank God, we are divinely taught today in the Gospel as Jesus opens His mouth and preaches the Sermon on the Mount. Ironically, He doesn’t tell His disciples at that time what the answer to the question is, how can we enter the kingdom of God? But He does slam the door on any notion of workin’ hard to get to heaven. I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

We see part of an answer there. You have to have a righteousness that exceeds, that goes beyond, the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. Well, what was their righteousness like? It was externally flawless. No one worked harder than they did to get to heaven. But according to Jesus, being externally flawless just isn’t good enough. No, the price of admission into God’s kingdom is higher than that.

What do You mean, Jesus? Well, He explains what He means in the next words. You have heard that it was said to men of old, ‘You shall not murder,’ and, ‘Whoever murders will be subject to judgment. He’s quoting the Fifth Commandment, of course. Most people agree that murderers are not righteous enough to get to heaven, but most people also are under the impression that they aren’t murderers, because most people haven’t actually taken the life of another human being. Oh, is that what you thought?, Jesus implies, that you aren’t murderers? That you haven’t broken the Fifth Commandment? That you’re righteous?

No, He says, there are other ways to break the Fifth Commandment. But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without cause will be subject to judgment; and whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ will be subject to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be subject to hellfire. Murder is an outward sin that will get you condemned in the judgment of both God and man. Man’s judgment may possibly also have some condemnation for certain slanderous or insulting words that are spoken. But man’s judgment can’t condemn you for the anger or hatred that comes up out of your heart, while God’s judgment can and will condemn you for it. Hellfire is the opposite of being admitted into God’s kingdom.

So the commandments imply much more than the big outward sins that they forbid or the big outward good works that they require. Jesus goes on after our Gospel to treat the Sixth Commandment in the same way: You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. The same application can be made to the Fourth Commandment, and to the Seventh, and the Eighth. The Ninth and Tenth Commandments make it absolutely clear that sins of the heart are just as much condemned by God as sins of the hand, because coveting is, by definition, a sin of the heart. And Moses explicitly commanded the people of Israel about both sins of the heart and good works of the heart: You shall not hate your brother in your heart…, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.

And if unrighteous thoughts, words, and deeds against one’s brother or against one’s neighbor prevent a person from entering the kingdom of God, you’d better believe that sinful thoughts, words, and deeds that are directly against God do the same thing. The first three commandments also must be obeyed, even as we’re beginning our focus on the Ten Commandments this morning with the First Commandment: You shall have no other gods. What does this mean? We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things. In short, to be righteous enough before God to enter His kingdom, you have to be perfectly righteous on the inside and on the outside, toward God and toward your neighbor. That is the high price of admission into God’s kingdom. Anything short of it, and there is no kingdom of heaven for the soul, or the body. Only eternal death and hellfire.

But “all have fallen short,” says the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 3. So how can anyone enter the kingdom of heaven? How can anyone afford the price of admission? The Christian answer is: You have to die. You have to die, and then, somehow, you have to come back to life and enter the kingdom of heaven as a perfect person, as a truly righteous person, inside and out. And God, in His mercy, has provided a way for all people to die and to live again in righteousness.

That way is Holy Baptism. As Jesus Himself told Nicodemus, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a person is born again, of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Being born again means that the person you were had to die. That death and rebirth are exactly what St. Paul points to in today’s Epistle: Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? So, then, we were buried with him through baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we, too, should walk in a new life.

Holy Baptism is God’s answer to man’s unrighteousness. In order to live eternally, you either have to be righteous, or you have to be counted as righteous through faith in Christ Jesus. He truly is the Righteous One. He provided perfect obedience to God’s commandments, inside and out, for all mankind, and He paid the righteous price for the unrighteousness of all mankind with His death on the cross. Baptism, combined with faith, is what unites unrighteous sinners to the righteous Lord Jesus, and in this way God has promised to count the baptized as righteous in His sight. The high price of admission into God’s kingdom has been paid by Jesus for everyone. To be baptized and to believe is to use that payment made by Jesus to enter God’s kingdom even now, before you die, so that when your body dies, your soul is already there in His kingdom.

But we shouldn’t imagine that, since God has already counted believers in Christ to be righteous through faith, He is no longer concerned about your thoughts, words, and deeds, your attitudes and your behavior. We shouldn’t imagine that God doesn’t care whether or not you murder, whether or not you hate or burn with anger, whether or not you say cruel and hurtful words to your neighbor, and especially to your brother, to your fellow Christian. He certainly does! As we confess about Baptism in the Small Catechism, baptizing with water signifies that the Old Adam in us should, by daily contrition and repentance, be drowned and die, with all sins and evil desires, and that a New Man, in turn, should daily emerge and arise, to live forever before God in righteousness and purity.

Christ fulfilled the righteous requirements of the Law for us, so that we don’t have to pay our own price of admission into God’s kingdom. But those who have died with Christ to sin, those who will live with Him forever in perfect righteousness and holiness in heaven—how can we serve sin now? If we died with Christ to hatred and unjust anger, to nastiness and bitterness and pride, how can we continue to live with those things?

No, God has united us with His Son Jesus and has given His Holy Spirit to live within us, so that we should walk in a new life, a new life of obedience, a new life of righteousness. By daily contrition and repentance, we bury those sins, again and again. And each day we determine to rise again, to live according to the New Man, to count ourselves dead to sin but alive to God. Just because we aren’t working hard to get to heaven doesn’t mean that we don’t have to work hard to live as God has called us to live. The one who seeks to enter God’s kingdom through faith alone in Christ works harder at keeping God’s commandments than the one who is trying to buy a place in heaven with his works, because we are working in the service of the God who loved us and gave His Son for us. We are working in the service of the God whose favor has already been won for us by Jesus, the God whom we love because He first loved us. No one trying to pay his own way into heaven, or even part of his own way, can love God like that. But those who trust in Jesus have the assurance of being counted righteous even now, through faith, so we have a real motivation and real power to live for God every day until we meet our Maker.

And we will meet Him. There is a God, and there is a soul. There is an eternal death and torment for the unrighteous and an eternal life of true happiness for the righteous. Turn away from the “opinion of the Law” that seeks to work hard to get to heaven, and trust in Christ for the righteousness that counts before God, which He will share with you for free. Then work hard, not to get to heaven, but as a child of heaven. With such a life your Father will be well-pleased, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

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