Seeing Jesus even when you can’t see anything else

Posted on February 7, 2016 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Quinquagesima

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

The words of Jesus in today’s Gospel are very plain; there is no secret meaning, no lofty interpretation to be sought. He tells His disciples plainly, in detail, about His suffering, death, and resurrection, which will all take place soon. He tells them that they’re traveling toward Jerusalem, walking into all of this, on purpose. And none of it makes sense to His disciples. They didn’t think Jesus was speaking literally, apparently. They didn’t understand the Scriptures that pointed to this. They didn’t understand the need for Jesus, the Christ, to suffer, to die. It’s not what the Christ was supposed to do, in their thinking.

Why? It says that it was hidden from them, hidden from Jesus’ own apostles. The Holy Spirit was intentionally not enlightening their minds yet at this point, but was leaving them in blindness, for the moment. They weren’t supposed to understand Jesus’ suffering and death ahead of time. And Jesus, for His part, wasn’t supposed to have the comfort of friends who could sympathize with Him and who could understand what He was about to go through. So they couldn’t see the path ahead of Jesus and ahead of them, in spite of Jesus’ clear words. Even the clearest words of God are hidden from us sinful human beings unless the Holy Spirit enlightens our minds to perceive what the words mean.

For the moment, the Holy Spirit left the disciples blind. But not totally blind. They couldn’t see or understand the path of the cross that was laid out for them, but they still saw one thing clearly enough: they still saw Jesus. They still saw Him as the Christ, the Son of the living God. They still knew His selfless and committed love for sinners—the love St. Paul described in today’s Epistle, even though they didn’t yet know the full extent of that love that would drive Him all the way to the cross for them. They still trusted in Him, even though they didn’t yet understand the whole truth about Him. They still had faith, with Jesus Himself as faith’s object.

And because they did, they kept following Him. They kept walking with Him toward Jerusalem. They stayed on the path of the cross, even without understanding it. Because they trusted in Jesus. They knew Him to be truthful, to be kind and good and merciful. They knew Him to be the Son of God and the Savior of the world, and the One who would keep them safe from the just condemnation of God’s Holy Law. That was enough for them to stay with Jesus, whether they saw their path clearly or not. And when the time was right, after He was raised from the dead, Jesus did open the minds of His disciples to understand clearly the things that were now hidden from them.

Then there was the blind man they encountered on their way to Jerusalem, a beggar. He heard the commotion as the crowds traveled with Jesus to Jerusalem, and he asked what it was about. They told him, Jesus of Nazareth is passing by, so he began crying out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” “Eleison” is the Greek word, the same thing we sing in our Liturgy five or six times every Sunday. Have mercy!

It often happens with people who are blind that their other senses are heightened as they compensate for the lack of a sense of sight. That was certainly true in this blind man’s case. He had been listening, listening better than most in Israel, listening to the word about Jesus that had been spreading in Israel over the past three years, that He was the promised Son of David, the Christ, and that He was good and merciful, willing and able to help anyone with any need whatsoever.

Even more importantly, though, the Holy Spirit had been using that word about Christ to enlighten the blind man’s mind, to shine the light of Christ on him and give him spiritual sight, even though his physical eyes didn’t work at all yet. He couldn’t see Jesus with his eyes, nor did he have the benefit of the years of instruction that the apostles had. But he believed in Jesus. He believed in Him as the Son of David, the Christ. And he believed in Him as the One who is love, who is kind and good and merciful, who offers divine help to all who seek it from Him, even to blind beggars.

That faith is what led the blind man to call out to Jesus for mercy, and no one could dissuade him, even though they tried. They tried to silence him. Somehow they must have thought that Jesus was too important to stop and take time to help a beggar. But his faith led him to overcome their scolding and focus on Christ alone. He just wouldn’t stop crying out for mercy, mercy, until he received it from Christ. That’s what faith does.

And he did receive it. Jesus stopped walking toward Jerusalem, stopped the procession with the crowds who were following Him, and He asked, “What do you want Me to do for you?” He said, “Lord, that I may receive my sight.” Then Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight; your faith has made you well.” Or translated in another way, “Your faith has saved you.”

There it is again. Salvation by faith alone. Faith in what? Faith in the merciful and loving Lord Jesus Christ. The eyes in the blind man’s head counted for nothing; they were worthless. Only faith created by God’s Holy Spirit through the good report about Christ benefited the blind man. Not human reason, not good works, not some inherent worthiness in the man. Only faith in Christ. And as a result of that faith, Christ saved him from his physical blindness. And in so doing, Christ teaches us that human reason counts for nothing. But all who believe in Him, that is, all who seek refuge in Christ from the condemnation their sins have earned, are justified and saved by that faith.

By faith, Christ heals our status before God. He takes sinners and turns them into saints who are counted holy and righteous before God by faith alone.

By faith, Christ also heals our spiritual blindness, even as He healed the physical blindness of the blind man. When you can’t see God’s Word clearly, when you can’t see God’s path clearly, when the road ahead appears dark and dim…when you can’t see anything else, just focus on Jesus. Not with your eyes, but with your ears. You know Him well enough through His Word. You’ve seen that He is truthful and dependable. And you know what the apostles still didn’t know as they kept following Jesus toward Jerusalem—how He would suffer at the hands of sinners and be crucified, how He would rise from the dead, and how His Church would indeed be built over the next 2,000 years, how you yourself have been made a member of Christ through Holy Baptism, how He continues to give you His body and blood.

That Spirit-worked faith is enough. That’s all you have to see, for now, until Christ sends His Spirit to enlighten your mind further. Pray for mercy, and you will receive it. Pray for His help to strengthen your faith, and He will do it. And when you can’t see in yourself the strength to love your neighbor as you ought, pray that Christ may increase His love within you, so that you begin to love with the perfect love described in 1 Corinthians 13, with a love that suffers long, and is kind, that does not envy, that does not parade itself, that is not puffed up, that does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, that thinks no evil, that rejoices not in iniquity, but in the truth, a love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Seek His help that you may grow into His image of love, and don’t stop crying out until you receive it.

See Jesus even when you can’t see anything else. See Him during the Lenten season that begins this Wednesday, and follow Him along the path of suffering and self-denial, even when you don’t understand it, even when its outcome is hidden from you. He will lead you to the cross, but also to an empty tomb. And all who look to Him for help will find it. Amen.

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The Holy Spirit tends to the seed He has planted

Posted on January 31, 2016 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Sexagesima

2 Corinthians 11:19-12:9  +  Luke 8:4-15

The seed in Jesus’ parable fell on four different kinds of soil. Or better, there were three out of four scenarios in which a set of obstacles prevented the seed from taking root and growing up into a fruit-bearing plant: the hard, trampled-down soil of the wayside, and the birds that snatched the seed away; the rocky soil that didn’t allow the seed to send down roots to soak up the much-needed moisture; and the thorns and weeds that sprang up with the seed and choked it.

The constant in the parable is the seed, which is the Word of God. No matter where it falls, no matter how it is received when men hear it, it has the same power, the same purpose, the same strength. No matter what the soil is like, the seed has power in itself, and life—life that will germinate and sprout and grow into a plant that produces much fruit, unless it is resisted and hindered by surrounding conditions.

Now, first, what is the Word of God? It’s every word recorded in the Bible as those words are put together into the story—the true story!—of God: the story of creation, the fall into sin, the promised the Seed of the woman who would crush the serpent’s head. It’s the story about man, God’s fallen creature, how our very nature is corrupted and diseased with sin, and how we have filled the world with our wickedness. The Word of God is the story about God’s mercy and grace toward rebellious mankind, and His deeds in history to bring about the birth of mankind’s only Savior. It’s the story of Christ Jesus, true God and true Man, His deeds, His Words, His life, His death, His resurrection, His sending of the Holy Spirit, His working in and through the ministry of the Word, His call to repentance and His promise of the forgiveness of sins to all who believe and are baptized. The Word of God is, in summary, His Law and His Gospel.

The seed—the Word—is sown whenever it is preached. What happens after that…well, that’s the theme of the parable.

Consider the seed that fell by the wayside. Why is it trampled by men? Why are the birds able to come and snatch it away? Because the ground is hard. Stubborn. The mind and heart are distracted. Disinterested. Here the preaching of the word falls on deaf ears, as they say. People don’t take it seriously. They don’t think about what they hear or meditate on it. They assume they don’t need it, or that they know enough already. They may eat up what comes out of a false teacher’s mouth, but the plain and simple Word of God, with its call to repentance and faith in Christ—that sits on the surface until the devil snatches it away.

Consider the seed that fell on the rocky soil. These people, Jesus says, receive the Word with joy at first. They believe for a while. They start out as Christians. But they have no roots, and therefore, no moisture. Their faith is not watered by God’s Word and Sacraments. Instead, they become enamored of the empty philosophies of this world. They’re satisfied with the latest Christian meme on Facebook, or with drive-by theology, if you will, soundbite-Christianity. “Jesus loves me this I know—and this is all I want to know. Don’t bother me with doctrine.” Their faith is rooted in what men have said as opposed to what God clearly teaches in His Word. They cling to human teachings or human institutions instead of clinging to Christ and His sure and faithful Word. I’ll give you one example from Thrivent’s January calendar. It shows a picture of a pretty outdoor winter scene, and the quote reads, “This is where I go to relax and be with God.” Do you see how shallow that theology is, how false? God has never sent anyone out into the cold to “be with Him.” Instead, He sends people to where the Word is preached and the Sacraments rightly administered in order for them to “be with Him.” But this is rocky soil. And when temptations and persecutions come along, there are no roots to sustain faith. They give in to falsehood instead of suffering for the truth. And the plant withers and dies.

Consider the seed that fell among thorns and weeds, which are the cares and riches and pleasures of this life. The importance of Christ and His kingdom are placed further and further down the priority list as they begin to worry about money or sickness or comfort or entertainment. Their faith becomes a matter of Sunday mornings, at best. And the rest of the week it’s as if they had nothing to do with Christ. That’s what can happen. Until even regular Sunday morning slips away and is choked out by other things.

There are two messages in this text: one for the preacher, and one for the hearer; one for us Christians as we observe what happens around us in the world when the Word of God is preached, and another for us and for all people as we ourselves are hearers of the Word.

Jesus first wants His own disciples to understand how they are to preach. They are to preach the Word as this sower in the parable. Scatter it abroad. Don’t cater to this one or that. Don’t mess with the Word. Don’t try to focus your preaching on what you perceive to be the good soil. Don’t try to manipulate the soil. Don’t try to change the conditions or the atmosphere. Simply preach the Word.

Then Jesus wants His disciples to understand what happens and what will happen when they preach the Word. It will fall on different kinds of soil with different conditions and be received differently by different people. The always-effective, ever-powerful Word will not always produce a desirable effect in those who hear it. In fact, rarely will it find good soil, where it will grow into a faith that perseveres and lasts and that produces an abundance of love and good works.

Too often preachers and Christians in general have the wrong idea about the results they see. Too often Christians look at the size of a church or of a gathering of believers and measure the church by the numbers they see. “Is it growing? Is it growing? If so, they must be doing something right! If not, they must be doing something wrong!” Too often Christians doubt the efficacy of the Word of God and imagine that it’s really other things besides the Word that will cause the plant of faith to grow or cause a church to flourish and bear fruit. Too often Christians worry about the conditions surrounding the preaching.

But Jesus would have us simply preach the Word and trust God to do what He wishes through that preaching, trust that, through the Word and Sacraments, as through instruments, the Holy Spirit will work faith, when and where it pleases God, in those who hear the good news that God justifies those who believe that they are received into grace for Christ’s sake, as we confess in our Augsburg Confession. Most will never believe, not because the Word was ineffective, but because they resisted the Word in many different ways. But God’s word will not return to Him empty, as Isaiah says. It will find good soil, too—those who receive it with a good and noble heart, who believe every word, who take it seriously, who keep hearing the word and receiving the Sacraments, who live in daily repentance, who bear fruit with patience and who bear the cross with perseverance.

That’s the first main message of this Gospel, for us as preachers and as observers of how the Word of God works around us. The second message is for us as hearers of the Word, so that we take to heart the dangers that threaten the Word when we hear it and take care for ourselves, lest we hear it and fail to keep it. “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” Jesus says. In other words, everyone! If you have working ears, God wants you not just to hear the sounds of these words, but to take them to heart and learn from them.

How do you avoid being the soil of the wayside? It’s not about removing the distractions around you or about making the devil disappear. It’s about being a different kind of soil. A softer one. A more receptive one. It’s about fighting against the devil, praying for God to let His word penetrate your hard heart, and then listening attentively whenever it’s preached.

How do you avoid being the rocky soil? It’s about taking the doctrine of Christ seriously and studying it and learning it. Pray for God to strengthen your faith and to keep you rooted in Christ Jesus, which means being rooted in His Word and nourished by His Sacrament. Then when trials come, when false doctrine comes along, when persecution attacks you, you’ll be able to bear up under it, as God promises in His Word to help you and to protect you.

How do you avoid being overtaken by thorns? Be on your guard. You know that the cares, riches and pleasures of life are like creeping vines that are constantly inching toward the plant. And the devil will use even the good things in your life to lure you away from Christ. Recognize those cares and riches and pleasures and then stop and remember the words of Christ, to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

As you hear these very words of Christ, His Holy Spirit is working the ground of your heart and would turn it into good soil. Not that you’re good by nature. But the power of the Word is such that it breaks up the hard ground and leads you to repentance and to faith in Christ, who is good and merciful, who bore your sins on the cross and covered them with His blood in Holy Baptism, and who is even now tending to the seed that He has planted, so that you may persevere in the faith, and bear fruit with patience—all of which will not be your doing, but the faith and the fruits that God Himself has produced and will produce in you, for His honor and glory. Amen.

 

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Never taking God’s grace for granted

Posted on January 24, 2016 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Septuagesima

1 Corinthians 9:24-10:5  +  Matthew 20:1-16

In today’s Lessons, the Holy Spirit cries out for you who are Christians to take your Christian faith seriously, not to neglect it, not to take it for granted, and certainly not to despise it. You have been called out of darkness into the marvelous light of Christ. You have been baptized into Christ and called out of Satan’s kingdom and into the kingdom of Christ. But you’re not home free until you’re home; you’re not automatically safe from falling away from God’s kingdom and from God’s grace, just because you have been called into God’s kingdom. Because while you dwell on this earth, you are still running the race. While you dwell on this earth you are still fighting the fight. While you dwell on this earth, you are still laboring in God’s vineyard. That’s a good thing! That’s a blessed thing! Because even now you bask in God’s favor through faith in Christ Jesus. Even now you have the forgiveness of sins and the love of a gracious Father in heaven, and the promise of everlasting life. You have been shown wondrous grace. But you also have a warning from your God in the pages of Holy Scripture that you do well to heed, never to take His grace for granted.

In today’s Epistle, the apostle Paul urges all Christians to run the race as he runs it, to live your Christian life on your way to heaven as if you were competing for a prize and seeking first place, even as the Apostle Paul was doing. Did you notice in the Epistle that even St. Paul didn’t take God’s grace and his salvation for granted, as if he could never fall away. I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified. How can he speak about becoming disqualified? He was hand-picked by God to be an apostle! Yes, but he also learned the Holy Spirit’s lesson taught throughout Scripture. He learned from Israel. See what happened to Israel after God had redeemed them from slavery in Egypt. They made a good beginning. They were “baptized into Moses” as they crossed the Red Sea with him. They received the Word of God at first. But of the adults who left Egypt, how many entered the promised land? Two. Two adults, together with the children who had left Egypt or who had been born in the wilderness. As for the rest, with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.

It was the same sad story throughout most of Israel’s history. They always made a good beginning. They always started the race well. But usually the ending was tragic for most of the people.

It was no different at the time of Christ. Jesus illustrates the problem in our Gospel today. A landowner went out early to look for workers for his vineyard. God went out early, 1500 years before Christ, and brought Israel up out of Egypt and called the children of Israel to be His special people. In the Old Testament God often describes Israel itself as His own, precious vineyard, His beloved Church. God went out early and sought the Jews to be His workers, His Church members. He gave them plenty of work to do within His Church. It was called “The Law of Moses,” which they were to keep, with all its commandments and prohibitions—not just the moral law, which required love for God and love for one’s neighbor, which God still commands to all men; but also all those ceremonial laws: Don’t eat these certain foods, do celebrate all these festivals, keep the Sabbath Day holy, circumcise your boys, give your tithes, etc.

The Jews worked under those conditions for the whole day—for their whole lives. But later in the day, the landowner went out and found other workers to bring into His vineyard. God went out and found others who hadn’t been in His Church: a few Gentiles, here and there, thieving tax collectors, prostitutes, public sinners, people who had previously refused to submit to God’s Law. Through His prophets and through the Word of Christ Himself, God called them to repent and believe in Christ, and He forgave them and gave them equal status in His Church with the Jews who had been working so hard in God’s vineyard.

Finally, at the end of the day, at the end of the age, at the eleventh hour, the landowner went out to find even more workers. With the coming of Christ, the hard service under the Law of Moses was coming to an end. And it turns out that God’s grace and favor were divvied out to the latecomers—to the Gentiles—in the same measure as they had been divvied out to the Jews who had worked long and hard under the burdensome Law of Moses. The same gracious God, the same Christ, the same favor, the same forgiveness of sins, the same place in God’s house, the same status in God’s kingdom was conferred upon them—upon us! —as upon the Jews who worked the hardest and suffered the longest.

Now, first of all, this highlights the grace of God and His great goodness and generosity to the one who came along last and has worked the least. Jesus is showing us here how the grace of God works. It isn’t earned with our works at all. It doesn’t depend on how long you’ve served or how hard you’ve worked or how much you’ve suffered. All is given freely, for Jesus’ sake. All people, regardless of their works and regardless of how great their sins may be—all are called to repent and believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins. And all who believe are given the status of sons in God’s house. The last are made equal to the first in the sight of God.

That would all be fine, except for what happened toward the end of the parable. When the landowner goes to pay the one denarius to each and every worker, he begins with the ones hired last, who had worked the least and suffered the least. That made the full-day workers think they suddenly deserved more from the landowner. Suddenly they feel cheated by the landowner, even though he was giving them exactly what he promised at the beginning he would give them. See how evil that is? They were no longer content with the promise of the landowner. Now they wanted their work to be judged against the work of the latecomers and compared with it. Now they wanted to be rewarded according to their works and not according to the landowner’s promise, not according to grace.

Even so, the Jews who thought they had worked the hardest—the Pharisees, the teachers of the Law—grumbled at Jesus for forgiving tax collectors and sinners and Gentiles and for giving them an equal status in God’s kingdom with the hard-working Jews.

But the full-day workers were reprimanded by the landowner when He heard them grumbling about their wages. Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is yours and go your way. I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things? Or is your eye evil because I am good?

If only Israel had heeded this warning given by Christ. But, just like their forefathers who left Egypt with Moses, they took God’s grace to them for granted. They assumed that, since God called them into His kingdom, therefore they deserved something from God, and so they fell away from faith into works-righteousness, and most of the Jews were cut off from God’s vineyard, from His Church, because of unbelief.

What happened to Israel can happen to the individual members of the New Testament Church at any time. You may assume that, since you were once called to faith and baptized, you don’t need a living and active faith in Christ; you don’t need to hear His Word and receive His Sacraments as much as other people do. You may assume that, since you have worked so hard to live a good and decent life, you now deserve God’s grace and recognition more than someone else does.

Don’t be deceived. Satan will try to lead you to such false assumptions, to take God’s grace for granted and to imagine that you’ve earned His favor and deserve His goodness. But such wickedness drives out faith and the Holy Spirit and threatens to make our outcome like that of Israel.

Many are called, Jesus says, but few chosen. Rejoice in your calling! It’s real! It’s effective! God has called you to be Christians. He has called you into fellowship with His Son, whose works of obedience have earned eternal life for you, whose death on the cross has blotted out your sins, and whose Holy Spirit has brought you into Christ Jesus through the Means of Grace and promises to keep you in this faith through the same means. Only don’t take God’s grace for granted. The chosen—the elect—are those who are called to faith in Christ Jesus and who persevere until the end, cherishing the grace of God toward us poor sinners and trusting in Christ Jesus and in His works alone for salvation. Amen.

 

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Sermon for midweek of Epiphany 6

Posted on January 20, 2016 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

2 Corinthians 4:5-6  +  Matthew 11:25-27

This week of the Transfiguration, we’re still focused on the glory of Christ that is real, but that is hidden from the world. It’s hidden from our eyes, too, so that we can’t see it. But our joy as Christians is that God the Holy Spirit has revealed Christ’s glory to us, so that we believe it is real, so that we see it with the eyes of faith. He has enlightened us with the Gospel so that we both believe that Jesus is true God and true Man, and also believe in Jesus, the God-Man, as the One who speaks the truth to us and saves us from wrath and condemnation by the power of His blood shed on the cross.

Tonight, with Jesus and with the Apostle Paul, we have to take a step back and simply say a prayer of thanks to God for giving us this knowledge, and by knowledge, I mean both knowledge and the confidence that goes with it—faith. And not just to us here, but to all true Christians who hear the preaching of the Gospel and believe in Christ Jesus as a result. Because that faith-knowledge is and always has been hidden from most—hidden, as Jesus says, from the wise and the prudent. Hidden, or “veiled,” as St. Paul writes just a few verses before the ones you heard tonight, veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.

It’s not that we have some secret knowledge that we’re unwilling to share with “certain people,” like the lodges or the secret societies of the world claim to have. We preach about Christ Jesus plainly and openly—that He is the Lord, that He came to take away the sin that we have done, as His Law exposes the sinful selfishness that dwells in us by nature and that manifests itself in our thoughts and words and deeds.

Let’s take the example of that Law this evening from the Eighth Commandment, since that’s the one before us this week from the Small Catechism. What does God command?

You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

What does this mean?

We should fear and love God so that we do not tell lies about our neighbor, betray him, slander him, or harm his reputation, but excuse him, speak well of him, and put the best construction on everything.

So we should fear and love God in that way. That’s what His commandment requires. You are to put your neighbor up on a pedestal, with guarding his or her reputation being your highest concern. But evaluate your life in the light of just that one commandment for a moment. Start with your household and move outward from there. Start with your family who lives with you—your brothers, your sisters, your parents, children, spouse; and then consider your family that doesn’t live with you—all of them, the ones you get along with and the ones you don’t. Consider your church family—the ones you get along better with and the ones you aren’t as close to. Consider your school, your place of employment. Consider your rulers, your teachers, your pastor, your friends, your actual neighbors where you live. It’s guaranteed by God’s Word that you will find that you haven’t feared or loved God enough to eagerly and constantly guard their reputations, from the heart. You’ve thought the worst about them at times, even though you didn’t really have all the facts or the reasons for their behavior at your disposal, even though no one made you their judge. You’ve spoken or written ill of them. You’ve done things to make them look silly or foolish or incompetent. Or, you haven’t stepped forward when you could to defend them, to excuse them, to make them look good before other people, to stop others from harming your neighbor’s reputation.

Now, whatever the details are of your disobedience to God’s commandment, your sin means that you cannot in any way work yourself away from the Law’s just condemnation. You’ve earned God’s wrath for yourself, and a place in hell.

The Law has been preached to you, which reveals just how deeply your sin runs, that you are no better before God than any other person and you can’t move an inch to fix what you’ve done. But the light of the Gospel shines on a God who is good and merciful, who gave His Son to be punished for the evil you have done. The light of the Gospel shines on Christ, who is good and merciful, and who bore your sins in His body. The light of the Gospel lights up the mercy of God in the face of Christ and shows you where to find the mercy and the forgiveness that you so desperately need: in the ministry of the Word of Christ and the Sacraments of Christ. God the Holy Spirit is active in the preaching of the Gospel, shining the light of Christ Jesus into the world, and penetrating the darkness of your heart with that light.

Not everyone sees it. To them the Gospel is veiled. Their minds are blinded. They don’t believe in this merciful God. Why not? As Paul says, the god of this age—Satan—has blinded their minds. They resist the Holy Spirit. They loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

So what should we do? Is it a matter of saying just the right words to convince them, to lift the veil from the Gospel and to cure the blindness of their minds? Not at all. Jesus and His apostles spoke all the right words. And most still didn’t believe.

What we do, all that we’ve been given to do, is to preach Christ Jesus the Lord. And God the Holy Spirit will enlighten whom He will enlighten. Through His Spirit, Jesus, the Son of God, will reveal the Father to whom He wills to reveal Him, as He said in the Gospel. As for you, to whom the Holy Spirit has revealed the light of Christ so that you believe in Him and confess Him, rejoice in God’s gracious election, and in God’s mercy to you, that you should hear the Gospel rightly preached and have the Sacraments rightly administered, and that you should believe the voice of the Gospel. And we ministers will continue to preach Christ Jesus the Lord, even as you Christians continue to live as lights in the world, serving God and your neighbor by gladly living according to His commandments.

That includes the Eighth Commandment. Part of your everyday worship of God and your light-shining in the world is to love your neighbor according to the Eighth Commandment. In fear of God and love for God, to not tell lies about your neighbor, slander him, betray him, or harm his reputation, but excuse him, speak well of him, and put the best construction on everything. So you will live in the world as children of God, as children of light, and as the very lights that God has strategically placed into this dark world, that Christ may be honored, and that your neighbor may be helped, and even eternally saved. Amen.

 

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Cross now, glory later. Guaranteed.

Posted on January 17, 2016 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for the Transfiguration of Our Lord

Isaiah 61:10-11  +  2 Peter 1:16-21  +  Matthew 17:1-9

Happy Epiphany to you, one last time for this year! It’s been a short season, but we’ve considered together some of the important Epiphanies of Christ’s hidden divinity: the visit of the wise men, the boy Jesus in His Father’s house, the Baptism of our Lord. Today we reach the pinnacle of the Epiphany season as we climb up the holy mountain of transfiguration with Jesus, Peter, James, and John.

All three Gospel-writers, St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke, connect the Transfiguration Gospel to what occurred about one week earlier. Listen to some of the words Christ spoke to His disciples at that time, right after they had made a bold confession about Him being the Christ, the Son of the living God. If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me…For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works.

Did you hear what Jesus’ disciples heard? If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself. The denial of self is the most unnatural, painful thing a sinful human being can do. The denial of self goes against everything our sinful nature—our old man—is programmed to do. Because our sinful flesh is all about self and views everything that happens in the world and everything that other people do from the perspective of how it benefits or how it harms the self. The self lives for the self and works for the good of the self and gets angry when the self perceives itself to be harmed in any way by our neighbor, or to be hindered in any way by God. That’s who every human being is at the very core of our being.

And here is Jesus, insisting that the only way to follow Him, the only way to be a Christian, is to deny the self. Not just a little bit, but entirely, even to take up one’s cross and hang the self on it, as St. Paul writes to the Romans, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Christ, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin… Put to death therefore the deeds of the body.

Jesus’ disciples had just confessed that Jesus was the Christ. So this is what it means to be a Christian? Self-denial, self-crucifixion? On a daily basis, as St. Luke adds in his Gospel? Who would ever want such a thing? Who could ever manage such a thing? Who would dare to follow the Christ, if this is what following Him means?

As usual, God doesn’t beg people to follow Jesus or try to sell Christianity to them. He simply speaks the truth, about our sin and about Jesus, who is the Christ, the true Son of the only true God, who came to save us from sin, death, and the devil. And, through that truth, His Spirit convicts the world of sin and works faith, where and when He it pleases Him.

So Jesus didn’t mince words with His disciples. He told them how it would be in this life. But He also told them what the hidden reality is in this life, and how it will be in the next life, and how He will indeed come at the end of the age in the glory of His Father, and how He will share that glory with His dear Christians. And now, in our Gospel, He gives us a brief glimpse, a visible—but temporary—manifestation of His hidden divinity, an Epiphany to confirm the truth He had spoken to His disciples, to assure us all of how it will be for Christians: Cross now. Glory later.

Jesus took three of His disciples—only three—up a high mountain. And there, it says, He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun and His clothes became as white as the light. This is the glory of God revealed in the face of Christ. This is the reality about Jesus that was hidden throughout His earthly life, that this humble, meek, “ordinary” Man named Jesus was also the glorious, all-powerful, only-begotten Son of God. But He covered up His glory, took on human flesh, and lived the humble life of a servant—the humble life of love and compassion that we were supposed to live, but didn’t and don’t.

Moses and Elijah appeared next to the transfigured Lord Jesus and were talking with Him. These two prophets were representatives from the Old Testament, showing the disciples that the Scriptures really were all about Jesus, confirming what they themselves had confessed just one week before, and that all the prophecies—both about the cross and about the glory that would follow for Christ and for His Church—were true. As Peter says in his epistle when referring to the events of the Transfiguration, we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

But when he was in the moment, up there on the mountain, St. Peter wasn’t so much interested in heeding the word of the prophets as he was in just being wrapped up in the glorious worship experience there on the mountain. Peter wanted to stay. Lord, it’s good for us to be here. Let us make here three tabernacles. Peter knew that, down below in the world, Jesus had talked about suffering and dying, and about His disciples denying themselves and taking up their cross. But here on the mountain there is glory. Here there is peace. Here there is no disturbance or noise from the busy world to disturb our glory time.

But God the Father cut Peter off and interrupted him in mid-speech. Enough of this! A bright cloud overshadowed them and the Father spoke. This is My beloved Son with whom I am well-pleased. Listen to Him! The Father placed His seal of approval on Jesus, claimed Him as His Son, and reaffirmed Christ’s hidden divinity, both with words and with the transfiguration itself.

“Listen to Him! Believe what My Son tells you. Hear and heed His words.” That applies to everything Jesus said and did during His earthly ministry. It also applies to everything the holy apostles wrote in the New Testament, because it was the Spirit of Christ who was in them inspiring their words. It also applies to everything Jesus continues to say through His called and ordained ministers, as Paul writes to the Corinthians, Let a man so consider us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God…We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. When God’s Word is preached and applied to you, when the Sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion are administered to you, you are to hear Jesus, the Son of God, speaking to you. (That’s also highlighted beautifully on the back of your service folder in that reading from our Lutheran Formula of Concord.)

What good news that is! It means that, even though God is unseen and hidden from your eyes, He makes Himself accessible to you through His Word. Even though Jesus has ascended into heaven and you can’t see Him now, He is still present in the preaching of His Word. Even though the Christian life is a life of self-denial and the cross and all the pain that comes along with it, Christ has not abandoned you. His words are still spoken for you to hear, and that is exactly what God the Father calls on you to do.

All the words of Christ matter, and they can be summarized in three phrases: repentance; the forgiveness of sins; and “love one another.”

Every person on earth needs to repent, needs to recognize how thoroughly corrupt he is by nature, how utterly selfish and self-centered his flesh is, and how utterly sin corrupts and taints our hearts and our thoughts. To repent is to acknowledge that we are miserable wretches and beggars before God, and that we have not feared and loved Him enough to keep His commandments or to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Those who acknowledge their sins are taught by Christ to flee in faith to Him for refuge, and He promises mercy and the forgiveness of sins to all who do. Because faith in Christ, together with Holy Baptism, binds a poor sinner to Christ, so that God the Father’s words to Jesus become God the Father’s words to the believer. “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased.”

To His Christians, Christ says, “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” But to love your fellow Christian is to deny yourself. To love your fellow Christian is to put him or her up on a pedestal, with you standing at their feet, ready to serve, ready to sacrifice, not just once, but every single day of your life. Only the Christian can do that, because only one who knows the love of Christ in His service to us, in His sacrifice on the cross and in the forgiveness of sins can show the love of Christ to others.

So we’re back to self-denial. Cross now. Glory later. It has to be that way for the Christian, because it was that way for Christ. But self-denial is still painful and hard for the Christian, and the cross is heavy. And we may not always understand the need for the cross, even as Jesus’ disciples didn’t always understand it and sometimes just plain didn’t want it. Today’s Gospel shows us the simple truth. The Jesus who calls on us to humble ourselves and take up the cross is the same Jesus who humbled Himself and took up the cross for us, even though He was the glorious and all-powerful Son of God. His sacrifice for us was intentional. His death for our sins was on purpose. And the glory He promises at the end of the road to all who trust in Him is very real. He is with you as you take up your cross and follow Him. He was victorious over the cross in His glorious resurrection. And through faith in Him, you will be victorious, too. Hear Him! Amen.

 

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