Flee to the stronger Man for refuge

Posted on March 24, 2019 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Oculi – Lent 3

2 Samuel 22:1-7  +  Ephesians 5:1-9  +  Luke 11:14-28

The Sundays in Lent are powerful, aren’t they? They all focus on Jesus’ power over our enemies: the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh. The demons came out in full force after Jesus began His ministry, but in every confrontation, Jesus defeated them. He defeated the head demon, Satan, in the Gospel we heard two weeks ago. He defeated another demon last week when He effortlessly cast it out of the Gentile woman’s daughter without even needing to speak to the demon directly. Today we see Him casting out a demon that held a man captive so that he couldn’t speak.

Except for the demons Jesus cast out during His ministry, the Bible really doesn’t say much about them. They’re powerful spirit-creatures, far less powerful than God, but far more powerful than any man. They were created as angels to serve God, but they soon chose vice over virtue, rebellion over service to God. So they were condemned, but not yet sent away to their eternal punishment, which will happen on the Last Day. For now, they roam somewhat freely around the world, though still bound by God’s hand, like pit bulls on a leash, so that they can go as far as God lets them and no farther. They continue to plague humanity, by God’s permission. Adam and Eve, our first parents, gave them that right when they submitted to the Devil’s rule in the Garden of Eden. As St. Peter warns in his first Epistle, your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

But the tactics of the demons have changed over the centuries. Outright possession was common in Jesus’ day. But over time, the demons found greater success using less overt tactics: hiding their existence from mankind, quietly influencing the political realm with all manner of wicked policies and wicked behavior in the governments of the world—we see it every day as true justice is replaced with tyranny, lawlessness, and persecution of Christianity; quietly influencing religions with all manner of false doctrine—we see it every day in both subtle and not-so-subtle false teachings that make the truth of Christ harder and harder to find; quietly influencing society in general with all manner of deception and temptation and blindness, both intellectual and spiritual—we see it every day in people’s hatred and animosity and in their readiness to believe anything except for the word of God. St. Paul reminds us in Ephesians 6 that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

This is a daunting wrestling match! What hope do we have against these powerful rulers of the darkness of this age? They are strong! But Jesus is stronger. Even now, they must obey Him. Even now, they must follow His commands. In today’s Gospel, we learn to flee to the stronger Man for refuge!

We begin with Jesus casting out another demon, doing what no one else was able to do. Like His other miracles, this was meant to prove to the people of Israel that their Christ had finally come. Jesus wasn’t just a little different than the teachers who had come before Him. He was utterly unique in His power and in His preaching.

But the Pharisees hated Jesus so much that were able to find fault with everything He did. That’s what hatred does to people. It drives them insane. It causes a mental and spiritual derangement, if you will. It causes them to find fault where there is no fault and malice where there is no malice. He casts out demons by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons. They claimed that Beelzebub—the Lord of the Flies, Satan himself—had given Jesus power over the demons.

Well, that’s not only blasphemy. It’s nonsense, as Jesus points out. Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and a house divided against a house falls. If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? Satan’s kingdom most definitely stands. The only way Satan’s kingdom falls, according to Scripture, is for the Seed of the woman—the Christ—to crush his head. His kingdom must stand until the Christ comes. Satan can’t be sending his demons to torment people on the one hand and at the same time helping Jesus to cast out the demons who are doing the tormenting. So it’s senseless to talk about Jesus casting out demons by Satan’s power.

Jesus has another question for those who seek a sign from heaven: If I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? I think it’s clear from the context that the answer to this question is, “Our sons don’t cast them out! Our sons, our followers, can’t cast out demons at all!” They had to admit, “You’re the only One doing this, Jesus!” And if that’s true, then either God is not working through Jesus or through anyone to help His people against the demons, or…

If I cast out demons with the finger of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. Finally! The One who is stronger than the demons has come!

That’s the point Jesus illustrates in the parable of the strong man. The devil is like a strong man, fully armed, guarding his own palace. No one can get in. No one can take his possessions away from him. They’re his to own, his to control. Such are the people trapped in the devil’s kingdom. That’s not only a reference to those who are actually possessed by demons, but to all people who are born into the world. He who sins is of the devil, John writes in his first Epistle. There’s only one way out of the devil’s kingdom. Someone stronger than the devil has to overcome him and take away his armor and free those who are trapped in his house. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.

That’s what Jesus did for the possessed by casting out their demons. That’s what Jesus has done for all people by coming into the world and by shedding His blood on the cross. He has invaded the devil’s palace, the devil’s kingdom here on earth, and He has opened the way into His own heavenly kingdom—a grand rescue mission to lead the captives out. Come with Me, He says. Come into My kingdom of grace! The way is open through the forgiveness of sins. Believe in Me and be released from the devil! Believe in Me, and even now the devil won’t be able to harm you!

But there are some warnings in our Gospel, too. He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters. If you don’t want to go with Jesus out of the devil’s kingdom, then you remain the devil’s servant. If you don’t want to work with Jesus to gather other people out of the devil’s kingdom, then you remain the devil’s ally. There are only two sides in this great struggle. If you won’t have Jesus as King, then you will have the devil. This is the danger for the one who doesn’t want to become a Christian in the first place.

Another warning follows. When a person is baptized and becomes a Christian, the demon is “cast out.” Not that the person was necessarily possessed, but that the person was previously owned by the devil and now is owned by Christ, rescued from the devil’s kingdom and brought into the kingdom of Christ. But the demon doesn’t just leave that person alone. It goes back to see if the person it previously owned is available again. Either the person’s heart is occupied with the word of God and faith and the Holy Spirit, or it’s vacant. And if it’s vacant, then the demon will go back, and he’ll take his demon buddies with him and make things even worse. This is the danger for the Christian who falls away.

Finally, a warning and encouragement for those who remain Christians. As He spoke these things, a certain woman from the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, “Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts which nursed You!” But He said, “More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”

“More than that.” In other words, don’t think of it that way. The one who bore Jesus was, indeed, blessed. But the blessing of God wasn’t reserved for her alone. All who hear and keep God’s word are blessed. Think about that! You have the promise of the One who is stronger than the demons that, by hearing and keeping His word, you will be blessed by God. Not necessarily in a worldly way, but in all the ways that matter. Flee to the stronger Man for refuge, and you will be blessed even with protection against the demons; even with the forgiveness of sins; even with help for this life; even with hope for the next. Amen.

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First for the Jew, then for the Gentile

Posted on March 17, 2019 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Reminiscere – Lent 2

Isaiah 45:20-25  +  1 Thessalonians 4:1-7  +  Matthew 15:21-28

We have before us today a beautiful Gospel about great humility and great faith on the part of the Gentile woman, and about great kindness on the part of Jesus and His great power to deliver people from the devil’s power.

An unbeliever might hear today’s Gospel and accuse Jesus of being unkind to the Gentile woman who came to Him for help. Even believers might wonder why He treated her as He did. To me, this text has always provided a wonderful opportunity to step away from our entitlement culture—and from our entitlement nature—so that we can understand both ourselves and Jesus rightly.

Jesus leaves the boundaries of Israel proper to visit the northern lands of Tyre and Sidon, where mostly Gentiles lived. (It’s worth pointing out, for any who may have doubts, that the Gentiles were all the nations of the world except for Israel. A person was either a Jew or a Gentile.) So Jesus goes to Tyre and Sidon, but tried to remain hidden, as Mark tells us in his Gospel. Why was He there, then? From His later comments, it’s very likely He was seeking groups of Jews who lived there, in faithfulness to God’s promises to Abraham and to his descendants. The shining jewel in the crown of Israel was God’s promise to send the world’s Savior to them—not to them exclusively, but to them first. The Jews were the invited guests at the heavenly banquet. The Jews were the ones who were supposed to receive the Christ and all His benefits. As Paul says in Romans 1, the Gospel is the power of God for salvation to all who believe, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.

So Jesus went north, and the demons were active there, too. A Gentile woman’s daughter was possessed or otherwise afflicted by a demon. And somehow the girl’s mother had heard about Jesus, heard that He was the Son of David, the promised Messiah who would come to Israel, but from Israel would also welcome the Gentiles into His kingdom. So she found Him and pleaded for help: Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! Hopefully you recall singing those very words already this morning, right after the Introit. Lord, have mercy upon us!

Were you as desperate when you sang those words as this woman was, do you think? Was your song that sincere, that urgent? Think about that for a moment. Think about what those words actually mean. You have desperate needs; only the Lord can fulfill them; so you cry out to Him for His help. Is that what you’re crying out when you sing them? Shouldn’t it be? This is a healthy reminder not to say or sing the words of the Liturgy in vain, which would be worthless and worse than worthless, a breaking of the Second Commandment not to misuse the name of the Lord your God. You’ll have the chance to sing the same words again today in the Agnus Dei right before Communion. Have mercy upon us! I hope you’re thinking about when you sing them.

The Gentile woman in the Gospel cried out with all sincerity and desperation, Lord have mercy upon me! And she got no reply. Nothing, either positive or negative. Jesus heard her, but seemed to be ignoring her. You could view that as meanness, which would be wrong. Or you could view that as Jesus urging her to be persistent in her request and preparing His disciples for an important lesson about Jews and Gentiles.

She kept crying out. It became so uncomfortable that Jesus’ disciples urged Him to send her away.

But that wasn’t His purpose. He replied, Jesus’ reply is striking, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” From Scripture, we know that the Son of David was to be a Light to the Gentiles, that He was supposed to gather the Gentiles into His kingdom, that the Gentiles would seek Him and put their hope in Him. Those prophecies help us to understand Jesus’ words. Again, it was never about exclusivity for the Jewish people. But it was about chronology, doing things in the right order. Israel was to receive the Christ first. He was sent to help them first. It’s why He was born and raised in Israel. It’s why He conducted almost all of His ministry in Israel. God had made certain promises to Abraham and to His offspring. Why? Because they were a better race than the rest of men? Not at all. God tells them that He didn’t choose them because they were better. On the contrary, they were a stiff-necked, stubborn people who easily went astray. It was an election of grace. He chose them for His own reasons, for His own purposes. He gave them the Gospel as a gift. And so the Gospel was “first for the Jew.”

But it was never meant to be only for the Jew. The woman in our Gospel clung to that truth, held fast to Jesus as One who would help her, regardless of her Gentile race. She came and worshiped Him, saying, “Lord, help me!” “Worshiped” is probably not the best translation. She knelt down before Him and pleaded with Him.

And as she was down on her knees, begging (something like the picture on today’s service folder), Jesus placed one more test before her, yet another obstacle in her way. He answered and said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.” What would she do with this response? Would she become indignant? Would her pride cause her to get angry with Jesus, to accuse Him of racism? No. As she sits there, begging on her knees, she’s happy with Jesus’ analogy, happy to be compared with a little beggar-dog. Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.

Her humility before Jesus, combined with her unwavering faith in Him, is a shining example for all of us, as Jesus Himself attests, as Mark emphasizes in his account: For this saying go your way; the demon has gone out of your daughter, whereas Matthew emphasizes the woman’s faith is making such a statement: O woman, great is your faith!

What was so great about it? It claimed nothing before God. No virtue. No merit. No entitlement to God’s help. It allowed God to put her in her place, not only as a Gentile, but more importantly as a sinner who deserves God’s wrath and punishment. There was no fighting back, with a, “God, I deserve to be treated better than this! How dare you refer to me as a little dog!”

No, her faith shone brightly for the disciples to see, and Jesus rewarded her for her it. See, Jewish disciples! Not only the Jews are capable of faith in God. Not only the Jews will receive help from Jesus. On the contrary, this Gentile woman showed greater faith than most of the Jews. That would be a recurring pattern they would see going forward. The favored race of the Jews, the ones to whom the Messiah came first, would mostly tragically reject their Messiah and put Him to death on a cross. And more tragically still, the majority of the Jews would still reject Jesus after His resurrection and ascension and the sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, whereas larger numbers of the Gentiles would believe.

So does God see a person’s race? Well, God made every single one of us, through our parents, so it isn’t as if He’s oblivious to race. He sees everything about everyone—everyone’s personal and family and cultural history, every trial we’ve ever faced, every struggle, every genetic strength, every genetic weakness. He sees it all. And, in His own wisdom and for His own reasons, He chose to put each one of us where we are, some with more earthly benefits, some with less, some in one country, some in another, some with good families, some with bad. What He doesn’t do is treat us differently or love us more or less because of any of that. He is not a “respecter of persons,” as James puts it. He doesn’t show favoritism to anyone, neither to white nor to black nor to brown. The same holy Law condemns all who fall short of its righteous requirements, and that’s everyone. And the same Gospel promise goes out to everyone descended from Adam and Eve, and that’s everyone.

It’s the human race. That’s the only race that really mattered to Jesus, except for fulfilling God’s promise to go first to the Jews, then to the Gentiles. He took on that human race in order to take a human body to the cross and pay for humanity’s sins. Now He calls for His Gospel to be preached equally to people of every race, repent and believe the Gospel! That message went out first to the Jews, but now has reached all the Gentiles as well, even you and me.

So treasure your Baptism! It separate you from the mass of the human race and made you children of God and heirs of eternal life, together with all the Jews and Gentiles who have believed in Christ Jesus over the ages. And that means you can beg for the Lord’s mercy at any time, for any reason, and you can know that He’ll give the help you need. As we sang in the hymn today:

Commit whatever grieves thee
Into the gracious hands
Of Him who never leaves thee,
Who heaven and earth commands.
Who points the clouds their courses,
Whom winds and waves obey,
He will direct thy footsteps
And find for thee a way. Amen.

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Honoring the Giver of life

Posted on March 13, 2019 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

Sermon for Midweek of Invocavit

1 John 1:1-10  +  John 12:1-11

We’re going to spend these five Wednesdays before Holy Week with St. John, hearing one chapter from his First Epistle each week, and walking through the twelfth chapter of his Gospel for our Lenten meditations.

This evening we begin by hearing John in his Epistle reveling in the glory of the Word of life who was in the beginning with God, but who has now been manifested—brought out into the open and revealed to the world in the Person of Jesus Christ in order to share His life with us who were dead in our sins and trespasses. You can sense John’s devotion to Jesus, his love for Jesus, and how glad he is to have fellowship with the Father and the Son, and how grateful he is to have the cleansing blood of Jesus to cleanse him and all who believe in Him from all sins and unrighteousness.

We sense the same devotion, love, joy and gratitude in Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, in the first verses of John 12. Even before Jesus had raised her brother from the dead, she showed that devotion when she sat at Jesus’ feet, listening to Him in her house—you remember, that time that Martha got so upset with her for not helping with the chores. At that time, Jesus praised Mary for her devotion to His word and wouldn’t let Martha take that away from her.

Now, six days before Passover—the night before Palm Sunday—Jesus is having dinner with a large group of people. Martha is there, along with the recently-resurrected Lazarus. And in walks Mary with a jar of expensive, fragrant oil. She breaks the jar open and pours the bottle out on Jesus’ feet, and, as Matthew and Mark tell us, also His head, and then she wipes His feet with her hair.

A pound of nard. We’re told it was worth about 300 denarii. If you recall Jesus’ parable of the workers in the vineyard, their wages for a whole day of work was one denarius. So roughly a full year’s wages—what would that be? $20,000? $30,000? $40,000? More? Poured out. Used up in a few minutes. Just to give a sweet smell to Jesus’ body—a smell that would easily stay with Him for His ride into Jerusalem the next day, and probably for the rest of Holy Week, so that He still carried the scent of Mary’s anointing into the upper room on Maundy Thursday, to Gethsemane, yes, even to the cross and to the grave.

Matthew and Mark tell us that Jesus’ disciples were upset when they saw what Mary had done. Why was this fragrant oil not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor? But John clarifies this for us. It wasn’t all the disciples. It was Judas who was upset. It was Judas who complained about the waste and criticized Mary for caring more about Jesus than she did for the poor—except that he wasn’t actually concerned about the poor. John tells us that Judas was both the keeper of the money bag for the disciples and a thief who would help himself to its contents. So it makes sense that he was upset.

It also makes sense, because Judas and Mary saw Jesus entirely differently. Judas saw Jesus as a tragic failure, as the man who got all his hopes up for a glorious earthly kingdom and then dashed his hopes by His preaching and teaching, by His prophesying of suffering and death, for Himself and for them, and by turning down every chance He had to lead a rebellion against the Romans. Jesus dashed Judas’ hopes because He came to give us eternal life and eternal happiness through cross-bearing and sacrifice and the forgiveness of sins, while Judas, like many people still today, was more interested in a good earthly life and earthly happiness. He didn’t view Jesus as the eternal Son of God, so he saw no reason to spend so much money on Him. He just wasn’t worth it.

Mary obviously thought very differently. Is Jesus worth a year’s wages? Yes, and far more than that. Not only had He given life back to her dead brother Lazarus. He had promised to give eternal life to all who believe in Him. And in order to earn the right to give that life to sinners, He would offer Himself as the true Passover Lamb. He would soon give Himself into death for the sins of the world.

And so Jesus defends Mary and won’t allow anyone to get away with criticizing her for what she did. Let her alone; she has kept this for the day of My burial.

The sinner who recognizes his sin will surely find something precious in Jesus, something far more valuable than any treasure on earth, more valuable than a paltry year’s wages. Because there are only two ways out of this sin-devastated world: the way that leads to eternal unhappiness in hell, and the Way that leads to eternal happiness in heaven. Only through Jesus can God look at a sinner who has destroyed his life and say, It’ll be OK. I’ve redeemed you. I forgive you. You’re My child. And I want to spend eternity with you. If only Judas could have known God that way! Thank God, Mary did.

And thank God that you do, too, don’t you?

Now, what can we learn from Jesus’ words here? For the poor you have with you always, but Me you do not have always. Isn’t Jesus “with us always, to the very end of the age”? Yes, but not in the same way, no longer in His state of humility, where He personally benefited from deeds of kindness like Mary did. We do still have the poor with us, and we can and should help them.

But is there anything we can do to show our love and devotion and joy and gratitude for Jesus? Well, if Mary could sacrifice a year’s wages all at once, surely we can spare a few hours a week to honor Jesus by hearing His word proclaimed. We can provide for those who stand in Jesus’ place in His holy ministry—even as you already do in your weekly offerings and as some of you have pledged to do for a Colombian pastor and his family and for other pastors in our diocese who stand in the place of Christ. We can provide a place for His word to be preached, and encouragement for one another. The poor are certainly a concern for us, but they are not meant to be our only or even our highest concern. Don’t ever let anyone shame you for giving your offerings to Jesus in His Church, or for spending money on the Word-and-Sacrament work Jesus has given us to do in the world, or for taking time away from worldly concerns to pray and to give thanks to Jesus. You honor Him by all these things, and He receives your honor and gratitude just as He received it from Mary.

So honor Him who is the life with the life He has given you. Pour out the fragrant oil of your prayers, offerings, hymns, and thanksgivings, and with your daily confession of faith in the world. And if you’re criticized for any of it, know that the One who sits enthroned in heaven is the One whom you’re honoring, not them, and that He smiles on you and will one day openly defend you and honor you before the world for every act of love with which you’ve honored Him. Amen.

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Resisting the temptation to covet

Posted on March 10, 2019 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Invocavit – Lent 1

Genesis 3:1-24  +  2 Corinthians 6:1-10  +  Matthew 4:1-11

Over the last three Sundays, we talked about Pride as the root sin in the human heart, but there’s actually something that comes before Pride, something deeper, the condition that originally led to Pride. We call it by several names. Original sin. The vice of origin. Concupiscence. Coveting. It’s the desire or the longing for something that God hasn’t given you. It’s dissatisfaction with God. Once that longing, that dissatisfaction, is conceived in the heart, it gives birth to every other sin, with Pride at the top of the list, because if your desires and your longings are turned away from God, then the most natural place for them to land is on yourself, so that you end up thinking more highly of yourself than of God, also known as Pride.

Adam and Eve had no natural longing for the fruit from the forbidden tree. On the contrary, their desire was for God, to know Him, to have Him for their God, to obey Him and not to do anything He had forbidden. So the devil’s first task in the Garden wasn’t to get Eve to eat. It was to get Eve to desire to eat from that particular tree, to long for something God hadn’t given her, to attract her desires away from God to something else, like a powerful magnet tugging at a compass so that it no longer points north as it should. And then, once that was done, it was a simple thing to convince her to eat the fruit in order to get that thing that she now longed for.

In order to instill that longing, the devil had to tell a series of lies. They weren’t outright lies. He started with a bit of truth, half-truths, but then twisted them, spun them into something evil: You will be like God, if you eat from that tree. That’s what he got her to long for. And as a result, the sinful longing, the dissatisfaction with God that took root in Eve’s heart not only led her to eat, but to entice Adam to eat, and as a result of that, this sinful longing and dissatisfaction with God—this original sin—passes down to Adam’s and Eve’s children, so that it’s now an innate condition of our soul.

But God made a way for Jesus to be descended from Adam and Eve without inheriting those sinful longings and dissatisfaction. He was born of a virgin, without the help of a man and with the divine working of the Holy Spirit. That made Him the only human being who could be both the Son of Man—that is, the Son of Adam—and still be without original sin, as Adam was before the Fall.

So the devil had his work cut out for him in today’s Gospel, trying to inject a sinful longing into the heart of the Son of Man so that He would sin against God and fail as our Savior. Let’s consider the three temptations recorded for us in Holy Scripture and how our Lord responded to each. I think you’ll find them all too familiar.

Jesus had been led out into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit to conduct this miraculous 40-day fast, no food, no water—like Moses had done on Mount Sinai when he received the Law from God. At the end of the 40 days, He was hungry. So, for the first temptation, the devil takes advantage of Jesus’ natural desire for food: If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread. If only he can get Jesus, not just to desire some bread, but to long for it, to set His heart on it, to become dissatisfied with God for not providing it right away when He wanted it. That would lead to Jesus becoming impatient with God, even angry with Him.

There’s a lie hidden within this seemingly innocent suggestion to provide bread for Himself: Your Father in heaven doesn’t really know you, doesn’t acknowledge you or appreciate you, doesn’t care about you, won’t provide for you. He makes rules and laws that are too unreasonable to obey. You deserve better treatment. God is not good. You don’t need Him.

The solution he proposes? You have the power to get what you want, to get what you need. Don’t worry about God! Don’t wait for God! Just do it! Take what you want, right now!

Waiting for God to provide, to help, to save. You know how hard that can be. And so you know how easy it can be to believe the devil when he tells you, You need bread, and you need it now! Just substitute for bread anything that you really want or think you need. And you know how tempting it is to push God out of the equation entirely. Pursue your career without worrying about God! Pursue your dreams, your desires, your cravings! Build a family! Build a life!

How does Jesus respond? It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’”

When the first temptation didn’t work the devil turned to a second temptation: He took Jesus up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down.” And then he even quotes from Scripture to back up his suggestion. For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.’” If only He can get Jesus, not to abandon trust in God—that would be a step too far—but to misplace His trust in God, to tempt God to help Him in doing something for which God never promised His help. Of course, Jesus knows better than to jump off a building, but then, don’t you often know better before you go and do something stupid?

The lie hidden within this seemingly insane suggestion is not so unfamiliar to us: God will take care of you no matter what. As you go about your life, doing whatever you want, you can trust in God to take care of you. In fact, you can even grumble and complain against God (like the Israelites did in the wilderness right after God had rescued them from the Egyptians and brought them safely across the Red Sea on dry ground), and He’ll still take care of you! You can thumb your nose at all of His commandments, and He’ll still take care of you. Again, the devil takes a little truth from Scripture and puts a spin on it, his own interpretation of it.

The implication? Cast yourself down and trust that God will take care of you anyway. Or to someone living today, do drugs! Marry the person who doesn’t share your faith! Have an abortion! Stay home from church! Hang out with whatever friends you want! Drink more! Pray less! And still go on convincing yourself that everything will be fine in the end! God would never abandon you, would He?

Jesus’ simple response to these lies and temptations? It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the LORD your God.’ His words accuse us for all the times we’ve fallen for this lie, acting against God’s commandments and even our better judgment because we trusted that God would help us anyway. At the same time, Jesus is acting here, not only as the One who shows us how we should have behaved but didn’t, but as the One whose perfect behavior mercifully covers the failings of those who trust in Him.

The third and final temptation in our Gospel is the biggest one of them all. The devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.” You can have everything you’ve ever wanted! Earthly wealth, glory, and happiness! All of it! To hell with God!

Even if the devil can give these things—and, to some extent, he can here in this world where he is prince—the lie is that you’ll be happy if you all the things you want. You’ll be happy without God. You’ll be happy if you turn your back on God. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have the money to do all the things you want to do? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be loved, to be popular? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a bigger church, a larger community of fellow believers, a greater impact on the people around you? Whether it’s peace with the world, so that you’re no longer constantly fighting against your own society, or whether it’s the glory of the Roman Church or of the Lutheran synods or even of the big Baptist churches, wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a share in it? Think of all the things you’re missing out on! Think of how alone you are! All you have to do, is compromise a little, bend a little, be a little more flexible. Then you can have what you really want!

These are real temptations. But Jesus teaches us the response of the perfect Son of Man: Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.’

In each case, in each temptation, Jesus felt the tug at His heart’s compass to long for something besides God. But the compass needle never budged. His desire remained fixed on God, His dear Father, and the Holy Scriptures gave Him all the armor He needed to stand firm without sinning.

Of course, the devil doesn’t have to convince us to long for something other than God or to focus on ourselves; our compass already points inward by nature. He doesn’t have to work hard to convince us that God isn’t good. Our flesh already believes it. He doesn’t have to work hard to make us impatient with God, or to believe falsely about God, or to long for the life we could have, if only we gave in to sin. We’re already predisposed to all those things.

But there is peace in naming our sin, in acknowledging, that’s what I’m feeling, a longing for something God hasn’t provided. Because once we acknowledge it, once we name it, we can confess it, and, precisely because Jesus resisted the devil’s temptations, we can receive forgiveness for it.

Because Jesus, our Substitute under the Law, resisted every temptation and never allowed His heart to be pulled away from God, we now have a Savior who can offer us His own righteousness in place of our disobedience. God knows that our hearts are not tuned to Him as they should be. So He offers us Jesus as our Champion. What He does, God will count to us who believe in Him. What He suffers, God will count to those who believe in Him. The forgiveness of sins is now ours because Jesus never gave in to sin.

And for the forgiven, we are also given a powerful instruction in today’s Gospel, in recognizing the ways that the devil tempts us and in responding as the Son of God responded. Jesus shows us what it looks like to wait for God. He shows us how to use prayer and the Word of God so that we are not led astray into misbelief or other shameful sin and vice. He shows us how to prefer poverty to riches wickedly gained, how to prefer loneliness to heterodoxy, how to choose conflict with friends and family rather than to choose friendship with the world, which always means enmity with God.

Trust in Christ, both for forgiveness and for the strength to resist temptation. It is your calling as a Christian, as one who is to follow in the footsteps of Christ, who resisted temptation for your salvation and in order to help you when you face temptation. Use and rely on the Word of God, as Jesus did. And as He promises through His apostle: God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it. Amen.

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Time to focus on the things of God

Posted on March 7, 2019 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for the First Day of Lent

Isaiah 59:12-21  +  Joel 2:12-19  +  Matthew 6:16-21

It’s Ash Wednesday. But we’ve never used ashes for Ash Wednesday here at Emmanuel. So it kind of makes sense not to keep using the name Ash Wednesday, doesn’t it? I encourage you to read the explanation in your service folder about the traditional use of ashes and about our preference from now on to simply refer to this Wednesday as the First Day of Lent.

We don’t use ashes, but we do mark the beginning of the Lenten season with this special service, and we are certainly free to observe a fast during this 40-day season before Easter. We can observe it by consciously examining our lives according to the Ten Commandments to identify, confess, and get rid of the sins that we don’t normally take into account. We can observe it by going out of our way to do extra deeds of kindness—as long as we don’t think we’re somehow earning God’s favor or the forgiveness of sins with such deeds. We can also observe it by choosing to avoid certain foods or drinks or desserts, or even by skipping lunch or another meal on certain days during the Lenten season. That sounds “too Catholic” to some Lutherans. But it isn’t “Catholic” at all. It’s completely free and without obligation or regulation. The Lutheran Church has always been in favor of fasting, as long as no one’s conscience is bound to any laws about it and as long as it isn’t seen as an act of worship or as cause for boasting about one’s own piety.

What is the purpose of fasting, then? The purpose is self-discipline, to restrain our bodies so that we can focus on the things of God.

And what are the things of God? It begins with repentance—the kind of repentance Isaiah exemplified in the first reading you heard this evening. For our transgressions are multiplied before You, and our sins testify against us. Now, Isaiah was confessing the great idolatries and open rebellion in which Judah had been living and which would result in their almost-complete destruction by the Babylonians. You may be guilty of such open rebellion against God. Or you may not. But all kinds of sin testify against us, the big ones and the little ones. The ones we know and the ones we don’t know. The outright hatred of God and His Word and the indifference toward God and His Word; the hatred of your neighbor and the indifference toward your neighbor. Pride and despair. Jumping into sin together with the world and longing to have the things that the people of the world have, even if you don’t jump into sin with the world. All of these sins reveal the inner blindness and depravity of a sin-sick soul that will never be entirely cured this side of heaven. All of these sins “testify” against us.

You notice, that’s a courtroom analogy, “testifying.” The thing about appearing in court, is that the judge doesn’t care how many times you’ve obeyed the law. All he’s looking at is if you’ve disobeyed the law, and then he’ll make his ruling accordingly. And there are our sins, testifying against us in God’s courtroom, before the Judge whose only real punishment is hellfire.

And there’s no one to intervene. The facts of the case are indisputable. But what else does Isaiah say? Then the LORD saw it, and it displeased Him That there was no justice. He saw that there was no man, And wondered that there was no intercessor; Therefore His own arm brought salvation for Him; And His own righteousness, it sustained Him. For He put on righteousness as a breastplate, And a helmet of salvation on His head; He put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, And was clad with zeal as a cloak…The Redeemer will come to Zion, and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob,” says the LORD.

A guilty man in court may be very penitent, very sorrowful over crimes he’s committed. That doesn’t change the guilty ruling. At best, it may keep the judge from imposing the maximum sentence. But with God, guilty is guilty, and eternal condemnation is the result for everyone who’s found guilty, penitent or not. Repentance is not the key to forgiveness. Christ is the key to forgiveness; repentance is the path to Christ. Because God, in His mercy, made a way for our guilty verdict to be changed. God, in Christ, became guilty of our crimes, the big ones and the little ones. He allowed our trespasses to testify against Him. And He paid for them all, so that those who are truly guilty might no longer be counted guilty. That’s what makes repentance worthwhile. In the courtroom of the Gospel, the penitent is invited to trust in Christ Jesus and so be declared innocent, righteousness, holy, clean.

So focusing on the things of God begins with a focus on repentance and on the peace of the forgiveness of sins that God grants to all the penitent for Christ’s sake. The season of Lent is meant to drive us back daily, not only to a recognition and confession of our transgressions, but to our Baptism, where all our sins and transgressions were washed away, so that even today, as we continue to trust in Christ, we stand under the protective shelter of Christ’s forgiveness.

But Baptism does more than that. It was a new birth into a new life. Our first birth made us children of this world. But that second birth of Holy Baptism made us children of heaven, children of God. It means that this world, this life, is not our forever home. This world is passing away. Boyfriends, girlfriends, spouses, houses, games, movies, careers, money, pastimes—those things won’t be around for much longer. And so Jesus urges us in the Gospel, Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

How do you lay up treasures in heaven? With Bible reading and study, because the God who speaks to you in Holy Scripture will still be the same God who speaks to you in heaven. With prayer, because the God to whom you speak here without seeing Him will be the same God to whom you speak openly and visibly in heaven. With deeds of love and kindness, because those things prepare you for life in heaven, where love and kindness will be the continual way of life of God’s people. With love and encouragement for your fellow Christians, because they will be there, rejoicing with you in heaven. With a readiness to confess your faith before men and to invite others to know the Gospel that you know, because some of those who hear will believe and will be there in heaven to share eternity with you. With self-denial and earthly sacrifices, because the things you give up here will be multiplied many times over in heaven. With patient endurance of suffering here for Christ’s sake, because your reward in heaven will be great.

Take the time, make the time over the next six weeks to discipline yourselves, to focus on the things of God, to restrain your flesh, to evaluate your life and to get rid of the sins that lurk in your thoughts, words and deeds. Take the time, make the time to live in daily contrition and repentance, to meditate on the things of God, to receive the preaching and the body and blood of Christ, and to serve your neighbor in love. Amen.

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