Still fleeing Jerusalem

Posted on November 11, 2018 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Third-to-Last Sunday (Trinity 25)

Isaiah 49:12-17  +  1 Thessalonians 4:13-18  +  Matthew 24:15-28

Our Lord urgently warned His disciples in today’s Gospel about future events—scary events—that His Christians would face in this world. His disciples, earlier in the day, had pointed out to Him the beautiful craftsmanship of the temple in Jerusalem, and Jesus had prophesied that destruction was coming to that city and to that temple. In the verses before our Gospel, the disciples asked Jesus this question: “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” It’s really two questions. When will Jerusalem be destroyed, and what will things be like before You come at the end of the age? Jesus’ answer addresses both questions, even though they are separate events—separated by at least 1948 years. The literal tribulation leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. mimics the spiritual tribulation leading up to the second coming of Christ. In both cases, the words of Christ to His dear Christians are the same: Flee to the mountains!

Therefore when you see the ‘abomination of desolation,’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place, then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Idolatry is that great abomination, the thing that God hates and that brings with it desolation and destruction, as the Old Testament makes clear. Idolatry is the worship of a false god, elevating someone or something above God. Idolatry is man’s attempt to worship God apart from His Word, apart from Jesus Christ, apart from faith in His death on the cross for our sins.

Idolatry is what had firmly taken root in the city of Jerusalem over the forty years following Christ’s death and resurrection. Yes, it was bad that the Jews crucified Jesus. But they could have been forgiven for that. The unforgiveable sin, as Jesus also talked about it in the Gospels, was their sin against the Holy Spirit who preached repentance to them through the apostles and held out the promise of forgiveness through faith in Christ. For a time after the Day of Pentecost, the Gospel was received by some in Jerusalem. But over the years it became increasingly apparent that the people of Jerusalem would continue to trust in their own merits and reject the Holy Spirit’s ministry. They would continue to offer up their own sacrifices to God in the Temple. And those sacrifices, since they were separated from faith in the one true sacrifice of Christ, were pure idolatry in the sight of God. And so Jerusalem would be destroyed by God’s own decree—wiped out by the Roman armies in AD 70 after several years of some of the worst tribulation and horror any nation has ever seen.

So Jesus warned His Christians ahead of time to “flee to the mountains,” without hesitation, without delay, and without looking back. And they did flee. The Christians listened, and were saved.

Ever since that time, the city of Jerusalem has ceased to be “the holy place.” Even Christians through the ages have failed to acknowledge that. There’s nothing holy about that city anymore, nothing special about it, no prophecies that deal with it. Don’t let anyone deceive you with lies about some special place Jerusalem has in the prophecies leading up to the end of the world. All of God’s prophecies about the earthly city of Jerusalem were fulfilled when the city was destroyed in AD 70.

The true “holy place” now is not a single geographic location. The “holy place” is the Christian Church on earth, where the “holy ones” are, the saints, the believers in Christ, and where the holy Word of Christ is preached and the holy Sacraments of Christ are administered. The Church on earth, in its broad sense, is made up of all baptized Christians, all who claim to believe in Jesus Christ. But there will always be weeds among the wheat, as Jesus’ parable says, people within the Christian Church who do not actually trust in Christ or honor His Word. In fact, Scripture declares that within the Church, within this “temple” of Christianity, a man of lawlessness will set himself up over everything that is called “God.” This is the Antichrist, the “one who replaces Christ,” the spiritual “abomination of desolation.”

But the Antichrist is not a single person. It can’t be, because, as Paul describes in 2 Thessalonians, it lasts from shortly after the time of the Apostles until the Second Coming of Christ. The Antichrist—that institution within the temple of the Christian Church that sets itself up as a “replacement-Christ” has been revealed over time as the Roman papacy. Now, we’re careful to make the distinction: Not all Roman Catholics are the Antichrist, nor are they all unbelievers going to hell. That’s just the thing: the abomination of desolation sets itself up right there in the holy place, in the temple of God, where Christians are. It’s represented in the line of popes who, for over a thousand years, have been contradicting Christ and setting up their own papal authority and human traditions over the authority of Christ’s Word. The idolatry that has been set up in “the holy place” is truly an abomination of desolation—the sanctioned idolatry of trusting in saints and their merits, the sacrifice of the Mass, the justification-not-by-faith-alone theology, the trust that is placed in the glorious human institution, not to mention the more recent idolatry of science that Rome has embraced, denying the six-day creation and embracing the doctrine of evolution. All of these are idolatries, setting up manmade doctrines over the Word of Christ. And all of it takes place within the pale and in the name of Christianity.

Lutherans have recognized this abomination of desolation in Rome for some 500 years, and so we are as those who are fleeing to the mountains. We couldn’t stay in communion with Rome, nor can we go back to Rome. We can’t stay and share in her prestige or her glory, because destruction is coming upon her. I think everyone here is well aware of that.

But while the papacy may best represent the Antichrist, its idolatries are not restricted to the Roman Church. Protestants, who have no outward allegiance to the pope, have set up plenty of idolatries in the Christian Church, too. Women pretending to serve as pastors. Homosexuality endorsed and approved as acceptable and God-pleasing. Denying the Real Presence of the body and blood of Christ in Holy Communion. The worship of man, the worship of personal preference, the rejection of the holy ministry, and the elevation of church bodies and synods to the place of God in people’s hearts. These are just a few of the abominations that have been set up in the Christian Church. You don’t have to be Roman Catholic to be in league with Antichrist. All of these share the spirit of Antichrist. To remain in communion with those who promote any of these idolatries is to remain in Jerusalem after the abomination of desolation has been set up.

And so we must always be as those who are fleeing to the mountains. That doesn’t mean we stop going to church. On the contrary, it is still God’s will to create faith and to forgive sins only through the ministry of the Word, through preaching and through the Holy Sacraments. It is still God’s will to save sinners by proclaiming Christ crucified for their sins and by sustaining faith through His Means of Grace. And it’s still God’s will that Christians gather together to encourage one another, and all the more as we see the Day of Judgment drawing nearer. God will most certainly keep us safe from death and the devil as we flee from the idolatry of the Antichrist.

But fleeing to the mountains means we have to give up all our idolatries, too, and keep giving them up, because idolatry is like the mole in the whack-a-mole game. Smack it down in one place, and it pops up in another. We’ve given up the prestige and the comforts and the conveniences of a larger church in order to remain faithful to the Word of Christ. But we could easily start to cling desperately to the external things we still have. We could easily grow more attached to the things of this world than to the Word of Christ, which would mean forfeiting all the benefit of fleeing the abomination of desolation in the first place.

But to guard us against that, God continues to provide for us here in our flight. The Gospel is still being proclaimed in our midst, where the Holy Spirit calls us daily to repentance through His Law, comforts us and forgives us through His Gospel, hedges us in with His warnings to beware of all those false christs and false prophets who will seek to distract us along the way. “Here is Christ! Over here! Over here!” You know how confusing the religious scene is in our world. So confusing, so lonely, and so disheartening that even the elect are close to being deceived, as Jesus said we would be.

That would be more disheartening if we were truly alone. But we aren’t. Not only does the Lord Jesus accompany us always, to the very end of the age, but there are countless others around the world who have also fled Jerusalem and are living as spiritual refugees. Some of them we know, some of them we don’t. But we give thanks for them all, for the entire Holy Christian Church.

And all of this would be scarier, too, if Jesus hadn’t told us it would be this way beforehand. But He did. Right here in our Gospel. And He promises that it will be all right, and better than all right for those who cling in faith to Him above all things. We may be living as those who are fleeing, but God is with us as we flee, our Captain, our Defender, our Savior. He hasn’t sent us out of the city empty-handed, but has poured His love into our hearts by His Holy Spirit, and has given us His Word and His body and blood for food, and His righteousness for a cloak.

And at just the right time, the carcass will appear—the body of Him who was dead, but now lives again forevermore. And when He appears, the eagles will gather around Him, all those who have longed for His appearing. Paul described that in today’s Epistle: The Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.

The words of Jesus today paint a frightening picture, but not so frightening when He promises His help and a blessed ending for His Church, for His believers, for His saints. Cling to that promise! And wait patiently here in the mountains for the Lord’s return! Amen.

 

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Render unto…Trump?

Posted on November 4, 2018 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 23

Isaiah 32:1-8  +  Philippians 3:17-21  +  Matthew 22:15-22

I’m sure I’m not the only one here who’s eager for Tuesday to get here and then to go away. It’s been another year of constant bombardment with political ads, campaigning, half-truths, lies, propaganda, and empty promises on the part of politicians. And, to be honest, it’s been two years of a lot of people in this country working, not just to choose new leaders in a new election, which is legitimate, but wickedly trying to overturn the decision made by the American voters in 2016.

What is the Christian’s responsibility in the face of so much ugliness in the political realm? What is the Christian’s role as citizen of both the heavenly kingdom and the earthly kingdom? Jesus gives us some guidance in today’s Gospel for the 23rd Sunday after Trinity, which strangely falls just two days before election day in the United States this year. Very simply, Jesus would have you render under Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.

He said that in response to the trap-question posed to Him by the Pharisees in the Gospel. As many trap-questions do, theirs started out with bald-faced flattery: Teacher, we know that You are true, and teach the way of God in truth; nor do You care about anyone, for You do not regard the person of men. Slimy, isn’t it? They didn’t believe those things about Jesus. But they thought they could goad Him into being just a little too direct for His own good, to say more than He should. Tell us, therefore, what do You think? Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?

Understand the political climate at that time. Israel still existed as a nation, but it had fallen under the umbrella control of the Roman empire, whose emperors were still using the title of “Caesar” at that time, after Julius Caesar, whose military and political exploits greatly expanded the power of Rome. Rome had divided the land of the Jews into four territories and placed four tetrarchs or governors over them who were to serve Rome by keeping the Jews in their territories under control. As a result, the Jews were living under the general belief that to be pro-Caesar was to be anti-God and anti-Israel, and to be pro-God and pro-Israel was to be anti-Caesar.

So the Pharisees put this yes/no question to Jesus about paying taxes to Caesar, and they made sure the Herodians were there as witnesses (Herod was one of those four tetrarchs who served Rome). If Jesus answered, No, it isn’t lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, then Herod’s men would have arrested Him for inciting rebellion against Rome. If He said, Yes, it’s lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, then the fanatical Jews, who hated Rome and were constantly trying to start another revolt, would have cut Him down themselves. Either way, the Pharisees would have won.

But Jesus is wiser than all His enemies. He doesn’t give them a yes or no answer to their question. Instead, He defeats their trap by reframing the argument. Why do you test Me, you hypocrites? Show Me the tax money.” So they brought Him a denarius. And He said to them, “Whose image and inscription is this?” They said to Him, “Caesar’s.” And He said to them, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.

The fact that Caesar had conquered God’s people, the nation of Israel, didn’t mean that God’s people should rebel against Caesar. It wasn’t “God vs. Caesar.” Caesar—who represents all secular rulers—has his place in the world, a place given to him by God, with a specific scope of authority given to Him by God, even though Caesar and his entire government were not believers in the true God or citizens of the kingdom of heaven. And the Christian, as a permanent citizen of heaven, who has also been made a temporary citizen under Caesar, is to be neither anti-God nor anti-Caesar. But we are taught to recognize the place of each, and to fulfill our responsibilities toward them both. Certain things belong to Caesar, Jesus says. But all things belong to God.

So you should pay taxes to Caesar. And you should render earthly obedience to him. You should even honor Caesar in your heart and with your speech. As Paul writes in Romans 13, Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves… Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience’ sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God’s ministers attending continually to this very thing. Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.

Paying taxes to Caesar, obeying Caesar, honoring Caesar, doesn’t mean that you’re in favor of everything Caesar does. It simply means that you recognize that God, for His own reasons, in His own counsel, has chosen to give certain tasks to sinful (and many times godless, unbelieving) earthly rulers, and He has chosen to place you in the nation in which you were born. As Paul preached to the Athenians, God has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord. If you were born in America, it wasn’t luck, it wasn’t fate, it wasn’t without purpose. You were born here because God appointed it for you. If you were born in another country, you were born there because God appointed it for you.

Why? So that you might seek Him. You see, God appointed sinful secular authorities so that they might keep a measure of peace among their sinful citizens in this dying world where everything marches toward chaos, toward selfishness, toward violence, and toward destruction. In order to seek God, you have to know Him, and in order to know Him, you have to hear about Him, and in order to hear about Him, you have to be able to live in this world, to have some measure of peace and safety in this world, and preachers have to have some measure of freedom to preach.

Ultimately, God has put Caesar in place so that His Gospel might be proclaimed and heard. This is why Paul writes to Timothy as a matter of such importance, I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.

So render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, even as you render unto God the things that are God’s. All of which is easy enough for our modern ears to hear. Until we replace the name “Caesar” with the name of the authorities whom God has placed over us. For example, how many of you would have been glad to hear two years ago, “Render unto Obama the things that are Obama’s”? How many Christians in this country are glad to hear, “Render unto Trump the things that are Trump’s”?

Our sinful nature, truthfully, doesn’t like to render anything to anyone if it conflicts with what the self wants, what the self thinks. The very idea of someone having authority over us is repulsive to the sinful flesh, and all the more when that person says or does things that we don’t like. The flesh lives in rebellion against God, which often means living in rebellion against the governing authorities, whether openly or just in your heart and in your speech.

Repent of that rebelliousness and turn in faith to Christ for forgiveness. Recognize that He has freely given you a citizenship in a far better kingdom than the United States will ever be. But until God changes your permanent residence to the heavenly kingdom, render unto God the things that are God’s here below by rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s: taxes, obedience, and honor. Be content with your citizenship here on earth, which is relatively easy for us in America, and perhaps harder for those who live in other countries, but the same command applies to all. (The mass exodus of those caravans of people from their own Caesars and their apparent insistence that our Caesar take them under his protection, even as they carry the flags of their own Caesars is nothing but rebellion against God.)

So be content with your citizenship. Be content with your Caesar. Render unto him the things that God has given him, whether he’s good or evil, godly or wicked. Vote in the elections as part of that rendering. Only be careful that you don’t give your vote to any candidate who promises to do the opposite of what God commands the authorities to do: to protect the innocent within their kingdom and to punish the evildoers. There are candidates in New Mexico who openly defy God’s commandments, especially when it comes to unborn children. Make sure you don’t become complicit in their wickedness by giving them the power to carry out their even plans.

Still, regardless of how you vote or who gets into office, God knows how to rule His universe, even through wicked rulers, and He will build His Church, in spite of every obstacle. Remain focused on the better kingdom that awaits, as Paul encouraged us in today’s Epistle: Our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself. Amen.

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Hallowing God’s name by cleansing God’s House

Posted on October 28, 2018 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for the Festival of the Reformation

2 Chronicles 29:12-19  +  Revelation 14:6-7  +  Matthew 11:12-15

Last year was the big Reformation celebration, the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther nailing the 95 Theses to the church door. We celebrated here. We gathered at the park. We put up a big banner: Reformation 500. Where are the banners for 501? There aren’t any. And that’s OK.  Whether we acknowledge it or not, celebrate it in a big way or in a small way, even while we sleep, the Reformation goes on. Because the Reformation of the Church is nothing else than God’s answer to the Church’s praying of the First Petition of the Lord’s Prayer. We say it daily as Christians, weekly as a congregation. We pray, “Our Father, hallowed be Thy name!” What does this mean? Martin Luther gave us a neat summary in the Small Catechism: God’s name is certainly holy in itself; but we ask in this prayer that it may become holy among us also. For that to happen, a Reformation is always in order.

How is this done?, Luther asks. How does God’s name become holy among us? He gives this answer: When God’s Word is taught purely and correctly, and when we, as the children of God, also lead holy lives according to it. Help us to do this, dear Father in heaven! But whoever teaches or lives differently than God’s Word teaches, he profanes God’s name among us. Guard us against this, O heavenly Father!

Two things must happen for God’s name to be hallowed, sanctified, made holy among us. His Word must be taught purely and correctly, and we, as the children of God, must lead holy lives according to it. But neither of those things was happening in 715 B.C. when King Hezekiah of Judah took over for his father, King Ahaz.

The Church of God, which, at that time, was synonymous with the nation of Israel, had fallen into a state of disrepair—a spiritual disrepair which was visibly represented by the physical disrepair of God’s house, the temple in Jerusalem, which had been filled with trash and left to decay. King Ahaz, like his neighboring kings to the north in Israel, had led his people astray into all kinds of idolatry and immoral behavior. Everyone worshiped the god of their choice, while the true God was all but forgotten.

This was the same King Ahaz who heard Isaiah’s prophecy about the sign of the virgin giving birth to a Son named Immanuel. The king and the leaders in Judah were largely responsible for the spiritual rot. But the king had plenty of help from the average Israelites. They didn’t want to make any waves. They didn’t want to speak up and risk the king’s wrath. So many simply joined him in his idolatry. Most of Judah was to blame. The Chronicler tells us that “they had forsaken the God of their fathers.” And that King Ahaz had “encouraged moral decline” in Judah.

So it was that the Word of God was no longer being taught purely and correctly. And the children of God were not leading holy lives according to it. Instead of hallowing God’s name, they were profaning it.

Then Ahaz died, and his son Hezekiah took office at the age of 25. Hezekiah was very unlike his father. He wanted to serve the Lord.

So what do you do when you find the house of the Lord in disrepair? You have three options, really. You can live with it, wringing your hands over the sad state of the Church, thinking that there’s nothing that can be done. It is what it is. We’ll just make do with what we have. Or, you can leave it, grow disgusted with the Church, try to worship God in your own way, by yourself.

But what’s the right thing to do when you find the house of the Lord in disrepair? You do what Hezekiah did. You cleanse it. You cleanse it, because it matters. You cleanse it, because God loves it. You cleanse it, because in reality you can’t live without it. It’s the place God Himself has established to save sinners. So you use all the power at your disposal to cleanse it. Because your life depends on it.

So the very first thing King Hezekiah did, in the very first month of his reign, was to send people in to repair God’s house. It took the Levites two weeks to cleanse and to sanctify the Temple in Jerusalem. And then the people returned to it, after a long time away. They repented of their sins. They offered sin offerings and thank offerings to the Lord, and Israel prospered again for a time, and God’s name was hallowed in Israel, until the newness of the cleansing wore off, until the very next generation came along and abandoned the Lord again.

What did Luther do when he found the Church in disrepair? Oh, the buildings were gorgeous. St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome was being rebuilt on a grand scale. But the state of the Church was horrendous, both in the teaching and in the living. Salvation by works was being taught. Purgatory had been invented out of thin air, a place for people to make satisfaction for their sins after they died so they could still get into heaven—an insult to Christ. Indulgences were being sold, giving people false hope of a forgiveness that was not by faith in Christ, but by paying out money. Papal authority was placed over Biblical authority. The Gospel of God’s promise of free forgiveness through faith alone in Christ was silenced. So no, the Word of God was not being taught purely and correctly. Nor were the people—neither priests nor laity—leading holy lives according to it. You had the same moral decay among the priests back then that you hear of today. And you had a similar moral decay of the laity, too, who didn’t know and for the most part didn’t care to know even the most basic texts of Christianity. God’s name was most certainly not being hallowed.

What do you do, if you’re Martin Luther? You’re not the king. You’re not the pope. But you are a priest, a minister in God’s house, charged with preaching and teaching and administering the Sacraments. What do you do? Live with it? That’s what Christians had been doing for centuries, unfortunately, even the priests who knew better. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t make waves in the Church. There’s no use complaining or trying to change things. Just live with it. Or, what do you do? Leave it? No, Luther knew better than that. Outside the Church there is no salvation. God has established the ministry of His Word, the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments, and no Christian can abandon it and remain safe.

So what do you do? You cleanse it! And they did. Luther and his followers couldn’t change Rome. They couldn’t cleanse the capital of false doctrine. They simply preached the Gospel of Christ crucified. They cleansed their own preaching of the false doctrines of Rome. And they cleansed their own lives on a daily basis, by daily contrition and repentance. They didn’t make any sacrifices for sin, as the Israelites did in Hezekiah’s day. Because the one sacrifice of Christ had already been made, which made satisfaction for all sins. But they did use the sacrifice made by Christ. They used Him as their Mediator. They put their faith in Him and preached faith in Him. And so God’s name was hallowed in the Church. And it all started with 95 theses nailed on a church door 501 years ago.

People, drawn by the Gospel and the pure preaching of Christ, returned to the Church for a time, long enough to spread the Gospel again and to give it a firm foothold in the world, so that we’re still confessing the same Gospel that Luther confessed. Free salvation, by grace alone. Justification by faith alone, with Scripture alone as the foundation of all doctrine in the Church.

But within a couple of generations, the newness wore off, the doctrine started going downhill again, and with it, the lives of God’s children also decayed, so that modern day Germany is a spiritual wasteland, like the rest of Europe.

If we were to analyze the state of the Church in America today, what would we find? I think you know. Utter chaos. Debris everywhere. Impure and incorrect teaching of God’s Word. And unholy lives that are led unchecked.

But it isn’t really our business to cleanse the Church throughout the world or throughout our country. It is our business to pray that God’s name may be hallowed among us. And so it is our business to attend to our teaching and our living, to cleanse it and to keep it clean.

We prayed, Hallowed be Thy name! And about six years ago, that meant attending in earnest to the teaching of justification by faith alone, getting rid of the debris of “universal justification.” But we’re not home free. We must remain vigilant about the doctrine that’s proclaimed from this pulpit. And we must continually be on guard against the false doctrine that surrounds us in the world, lest we be drawn in by it. That means we have to take the time to read the Bible, to meditate on God’s Word, to learn it and to grow in it. God has given us the treasure of His Gospel, the truth of His love for sinners, the willing sacrifice of His Son on the cross, the ministry of Word and Sacrament by which He feeds us and forgives us and strengthens us against the devil, the world, and our flesh. And so we pray, Hallowed be Thy name! Let this truth continue to be preached among us purely and correctly!

But even when the teaching is pure and correct, remember that each of us carries around with us the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and all of us, as the children of God, affect the hallowing of God’s name among us. If we live as the people of the world live, focused on this life, living to please our flesh, ignoring the Word of God when it’s preached, refusing to learn it and to grow in it, refusing to repent of our sins and to mend our ways, then God’s name is profaned among us. Guard us against this, O heavenly Father!

But if, with our Father’s help, we live the holy lives we have been called to live, if, with our Father’s help, we see to it that the teaching among us is pure and correct, then not only will His name be hallowed, but our neighbor will be helped, too. Understand what a blessing God is holding out to our community through this tiny church of ours! Where else is the Word of God purely and correctly taught, without any debris of false doctrine? Where else is sin so clearly identified and the forgiveness of sins so freely proclaimed? Let the Gospel shine forth as beacon from this place, both from the pulpit and from your daily lives out there in the world!

That’s how we cleanse God’s house in our time. That’s how we hallow God’s name in our midst. That’s how the Reformation goes on in our day. We have our own small part in it. We have work to do. And we most certainly have thanks to give! Amen.

 

 

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God builds stronger believers

Posted on October 21, 2018 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 21

Hosea 13:14  +  Ephesians 6:10-17  +  John 4:46-54

People, in general, come to church on Sunday mornings for different reasons. Some, out of a sense of obligation. Some, to be entertained. Some, for a spiritual “experience” of some kind. Some, to learn how to improve their lives. Some, simply to be seen going to church. Others come for better reasons: to hear the Word of God, to honor Him, to pray, praise and give thanks, to seek help from God, to receive forgiveness in the absolution of His Gospel and in the Sacrament of His body and blood, to encourage their fellow Christians. But regardless of why you came, now that you’re here, understand that God has a reason for you to be here: He wants to work on you.

That implies, of course, that you’re not yet what you should be, that you need work, that you need His help. Your flesh will not like that idea. It doesn’t want to be changed or improved. Your flesh is content to remain as is, because it knows that God’s methods are painful, even fatal to the flesh. But God insists. He insists on forming you, building you into a stronger believer.

We see God building the faith of the nobleman in our Gospel right before our eyes, and as we watch, He does the same for us.

We see the nobleman of Galilee seek out Jesus. This is still early in His ministry. He had performed that one famous miracle in Cana right away at the beginning, changing water into wine. Then He went back down to Judea and performed lots of miracles there, but He wasn’t received well there; the people of Jerusalem didn’t want to be changed. So He went back up to Galilee, and the people there were more receptive—at least, for a while. Word spread about Jesus throughout Galilee—two things in particular. That Jesus has come from God with divine power to heal, and that Jesus is merciful and good.

So when the nobleman from Galilee hears that Jesus is back in the area, he shows a bit of faith, trusting that Jesus will help his son, who is sick and dying. He goes to Him and begs Him to come over to his house to heal his dying son.

The reaction that anyone would want from Jesus would be, “Yes, of course I’ll do what you ask. I’ll come over and heal your son right this instant!” But that’s not the reaction the nobleman got.

Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe.

You see, it wasn’t just the nobleman who needed to be built into a stronger believer. “You people,” Jesus said. All the Jews were in danger, either of rejecting Jesus entirely, or of looking to Him mainly as a miracle worker rather than as the Savior from sin, death, and the devil. So He warns them: faith that is rooted in signs that you can see is not good enough.

Did your parents ever tell you when you were little that you shouldn’t drink coffee, because it will stunt your growth? Well, I don’t think that’s probably true. But there is something that will stunt the growth of your faith: too much seeing. Too much human reason. Too much logic. Too much looking to Jesus to miraculously deal with your earthly problems. Those things will stunt the growth of your faith, and if that happens, then faith will eventually fail and become useless on the day when you really need it.

The nobleman wasn’t ready to learn a lesson just yet. He wasn’t interested in being built into a stronger believer. He had a pressing earthly problem. So he begged again, Sir, come down before my child dies! He still insists that Jesus come over to his house to perform a miracle. What’s the problem with that? The problem is that, if Jesus is truly sent from God, if Jesus truly is the Savior He claims to be, then why does He have to come over to the house in order to help? If God is able to speak a word and bring the entire universe into existence, isn’t He perfectly capable of healing an illness in the same way?

And that’s just what He does. Go your way; your son lives. Jesus gave him what he wanted, but not in the way he wanted it. He forced him to settle for a word, a promise. The seeing would come later; it would eventually be there. But first faith had to work. Reason and logic had to step back. Sight had to be turned off. And faith—even blind faith—had to be exercised.

But how? By the power of the Holy Spirit working through Jesus’ word. This is what even Christians fail to grasp. Faith is not the product of logic, reason, and sight. Faith is the product of hearing the word of Christ. The word itself has the power to create faith.

And it did. The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he went his way. See how Jesus built him into a stronger believer! When he first came, he was panicking. He was fearful. He trusted that Jesus could help, but only if he could see Him helping in person. Now he isn’t afraid; he’s full of hope. Now he doesn’t need to see anything. His faith relies on Jesus’ promise. He goes home expecting to see his son alive, simply because Jesus said that he would be.

Then, when he hears that his son got better the moment Jesus spoke those words and when he sees his son recovered, it says that he himself believed, and his whole household. Believed what? It was no longer a matter of faith to believe that the boy was healed. That had become a matter of sight. The believing was a stronger faith in Jesus Himself as the Savior and in His word as always and utterly reliable.

That’s the kind of faith God seeks to build in each of us, a faith that is ever stronger, ever firmer, ever more leaning, not on reason or logic or sight, but on His word alone. And He does that building by means of His word alone.

You’ll need that kind of faith—stronger, firmer, and word-based—for the fight that’s ahead of you, because it’s not a fight in which you can see your enemies. As Paul wrote in today’s Epistle, 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. We wrestle against the devil and his dark forces. And the only way to fight, the only way to stand is with a faith that has been created and nurtured and built by the word of God. With such a faith, Paul says, you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.

Nowhere is such a faith needed as much as in the day of death, where you see no angels waiting to take your soul to heaven. You see no Christ crucified standing before you. You don’t see the pearly gates opening wide to receive you. All you see is your body failing. And all we see when a loved one dies is the grave standing open. If your faith is founded on reason, logic and sight, then it will surely falter on that day.

But if your faith has been nourished and built by the word of Christ, you will stand. And the words of our first lesson today will be the ones that ring in your ears as God promises ransom and redemption for His dear believers even as He mocks death and the grave: O Death, I will be your plagues! O Grave, I will be your destruction! Pity is hidden from My eyes.

The Lord God has brought you to faith by the word of His Gospel. He has received you as sons in His kingdom through Holy Baptism. Now the Lord would build you up today into stronger and stronger believers. May His good Spirit keep working on you throughout the day and throughout the week as you meditate on the word you have heard today, and may you continue to cling to the word you have heard in the face of every danger and every hardship, in the face of the devil and all his dark forces, and even in the face of death. Amen.

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Many are called, but few are chosen

Posted on October 14, 2018 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 20

Isaiah 65:1-2  +  Ephesians 5:15-21  +  Matthew 22:1-14

The days are evil, St. Paul wrote to the Ephesians. They sure are! The world is a dark place and growing darker. But you’ve been called out of darkness into the marvelous light of Christ. Not that you have been brought out of the world yet, but you have been made citizens of God’s nation—not America, but the Holy Christian/Catholic Church. You are now in the world, but not of the world. The darkness that is around you cannot touch you, cannot consume you, because God has called you into the well-lit wedding feast of His Son.

Many are called. But few are chosen. What does that mean? What’s the difference between the called and the chosen? Between the called and the elect? You’ve heard of the doctrine of election. Elect and chosen are the same word in Greek. The doctrine of election is the Biblical teaching that God has chosen beforehand those who will finally spend eternity with Him in His kingdom of light. It’s a doctrine that can be confusing, but not if we stick with the simple explanation that Jesus gives us in today’s Gospel.

This parable of the wedding feast isn’t hard to understand at all. A King arranges a marriage for His Son. God the Father, in eternity, before the world’s foundation is laid, decreed that He would send His Son into the world and shed His blood to redeem fallen mankind from sin, death and the devil, and would unite His Son to a Bride, to the Holy Christian Church. He carried through with that decree, and now Christ, by His holy life and sacrificial death, has earned salvation for all mankind.

But God the Father also decreed how He would bring fallen mankind into that Bride, into the Church. He decided to invite them, to call them by the Gospel-promise of the coming Messiah. Throughout the Old Testament, God invited people to this great wedding. Over time, He narrowed His calling activity to the Jews, the people of Israel, so that they before anyone else would be ready for the coming of the Christ, so that, when He arrived, they could be the first to come and meet Him, to come to the wedding feast and be saved.

Then Christ came. The wedding was ready. And the word went out, from John the Baptist, from the apostles, from Jesus Himself. Word would keep going out after Jesus’ death and resurrection. All things are ready. Come to the feast! Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins! But the Jews (mostly) refused to come, refused to be baptized and come to God through the reconciliation made by Christ. The King sent out other messengers, but still, the people on the whole refused to come. Some were too busy or too uninterested to worry about the Word of Christ, while others got so angry at the messengers that they mistreated them and put them to death.

This is still the reaction most people have to the true Gospel. Either they’re uninterested in it, or they persecute it, because it calls their deeds evil and insists that they repent of their sins, acknowledge the God of the Bible as the only true God, and turn to Christ in humility, for forgiveness. So it does us no good to worry about people rejecting the Gospel. It does us no good to wring our hands when the Gospel of Christ goes out and not many come into the Church. And it certainly does us no good to get angry when Christians are persecuted or killed. That’s the way it is in this dark world. That’s why we were called out of it in the first place to the wedding feast of Christ, that we may not perish with the unbelieving world. Let God get angry about it. He does!, as Jesus says in the parable. The King was furious when the invited guests turned down His invitation and even killed the servants who did the inviting. Let God do something about it, as Jesus says in the parable that the king sent out his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. But those armies are not Christians. They are the angel armies who will gather the wicked on the Last Day and throw them into the fires of hell. As for us, let us continue to simply be messengers of the truth.

Through the Gospel that has gone out into the world, through God’s servants who proclaim it, the King invites many more people. Go into the highways, and as many as you find, invite to the wedding. Come to the feast! Come and dine with the King in His house! Repent and be baptized for the remission of sins! And many have come, including many of the least important people in the world. Weak, sick, poor, sinners from every nation, tribe, language and people, the good and the bad. Whoever hears this Gospel of Christ is being called by the Holy Spirit to come into God’s kingdom. Because the worthiness for attendance at this feast does not come from the invited guests, but from the Bridegroom. He offers His worthiness in the baptismal waters, to cover the guests with it as with a garment, so that they may attend the feast in the house of God. As St. Paul says to the Galatians, You who were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

But there is a guest in the house when the king comes who is not dressed with the wedding garment. He has entered the house. He has entered the Church. He has been baptized. He calls himself a Christian. But he isn’t dressed with the garment of faith. He calls himself a Christian, but he remains impenitent and has no trust in Christ alone as the only God and Savior. He may be able to hide that lack of faith from his fellow guests, but he can’t hide it from God, the King. God knows those who are His. And so, when God comes on the Last Day, that Christian-in-name-only is bound and cast outside into outer darkness together with all those who were once invited and refused to come.

Many are called, but few are chosen. The Jews boasted that they had been called. We are Abraham’s children, they cried. God has called us. And to be called by God into His kingdom is, indeed, a very great gift. No one can be saved without being called by the Gospel.

But as we saw in the parable, most of those who are called do not actually want to come, do not actually want to acknowledge their sins and have Christ alone for a Savior. The Holy Spirit is working through the Gospel to bring people to faith in Christ whenever the Gospel is preached, but many of those who hear stubbornly resist the Holy Spirit. Not all who are called are chosen to enter eternal life, but only those who hear the Gospel and believe it and persevere in that faith until the end.

But when does this “choosing,” this “election” take place? We learn from the Scriptures that it took place before the world was made. The chosen, the elect, were chosen in Christ in eternity, chosen by God’s grace; called here in time through the Gospel; justified through faith in Christ; and they persevere until the end wearing the garment of Christ’s righteousness by remaining in true faith in Christ until the arrival of the King on the Last Day. Or, if they fall away from faith for a time, which can certainly happen, they are called again by the Gospel, brought to repentance, and justified by faith.

So what do we learn for our correction and edification from this Gospel?

First, we learn that God’s invitation to come into His Church and His eternal kingdom does not depend at all on the worthiness of the guests, but only on God’s grace and the merits of Christ.

Second, we learn that God’s invitation to come into His Church and His eternal kingdom is always sincere, that His Spirit is always working through the Gospel invitation to create faith. God truly wants all those who are invited to come, to believe in Christ, to receive forgiveness of sins, and to have eternal life.

Third, we learn that it’s all God’s doing when people are saved. From the election of grace, to the sending of the Gospel invitation here in time, to the faith that is given as a gift by the Holy Spirit from the hearing of the Gospel, to the justification by faith, to the preservation of our faith through the Means of Grace, to our final glorification in heaven, it’s all from God. Those who are called but don’t believe have only themselves to blame.

And finally, we learn how urgent it is that we hear and take to heart the Gospel invitation, and that we be diligent in prayer and in the use of the Means of Grace, to make our calling and election sure, as St. Peter says. God doesn’t send us back into eternity to search to see if your name is written in Christ, the Book of Life. He sends you to this ministry of the Word, to Baptism and to the Holy Supper. Listen to His Word that tells you of the goodness of Christ, His atoning sacrifice, His resurrection, and His will that all men should believe in Him to be saved. Those who are not baptized should not put it off any longer. Those who are baptized should use the means God has provided for our salvation. Hear the Word of God. Receive His Sacrament. Be steadfast in prayer, in godly living, in struggling against the flesh, and in bearing the cross patiently. God has provided and will continue to provide all that is necessary for your salvation. Take it as evidence of your election that God has called you through the Gospel into fellowship with His Son, and be assured that your faith and your salvation are no accident. It was planned by God in eternity. Use the means God has given you to remain firm and steadfast in the faith, and neither Satan nor death nor any of the darkness of this world will be able to snatch you out of the Father’s hand. Amen.

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