Approaching the cross with faith and love

Posted on February 15, 2015 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Quinquagesima

Isaiah 35:3-7  +  1 Corinthians 13  +  Luke 18:31-43

Today’s Gospel is simple. We see the love of Christ on the one hand, and the faith of the blind beggar on the other. Faith and love. That basically describes the Christian life. I suppose it’s especially fitting that we heard the Biblical description of love today from 1 Corinthians 13 as the rest of the world goes crazy over Valentine’s Day, often celebrating things that aren’t really love at all.

We see true love in Jesus in today’s Gospel, who “loved the Church and gave Himself for her.” He even described to His disciples ahead of time the things that were about to happen—the things that He Himself was about to let happen:

Then He took the twelve aside and said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished. For He will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon. They will scourge Him and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again.”

See, Jesus isn’t complaining here to His disciples about what’s going to happen to Him. Nor is He trying to make them feel guilty, nor is He trying to show off just how wonderful He is. Love does not parade itself, is not puffed up. He’s just telling them about it ahead of time so that they will understand later, first, that Jesus truly is the Christ, the Son of God, the Son of Man, the Son of David, whose coming, whose suffering, death and resurrection were foretold by all the Prophets. And second, that no one was forcing Jesus to go through with Holy Week. He allowed those who hated Him to hate Him and to arrest Him and abuse Him and crucify Him. He did it, because He wanted to provide the sacrifice for sin by which sinful men may be saved. He did it, because His Father wanted to give His Son into death, so that sinners who were hostile to Him might be converted and saved by faith in Christ who loved us and gave Himself for us. He did everything for us. Love “does not seek its own.”

How different that is from what passes for “love” in our society, where people call it “love” when you’re attracted to another person. But see, if you’re attracted to another person, then there’s something in the other person pulling you toward him or her, some quality that you like, some action or attitude that draws you to that person. But Biblical love isn’t turned on by something good in someone else. It isn’t a give and take. It just gives. It’s a sacrificial devotion to another person’s wellbeing. God’s love for sinners isn’t inspired by something good He sees in us. It starts with Him. It’s God’s sacrificial devotion to our wellbeing that prompted Jesus to come and to give Himself for us. The message of that love of Christ inspires our faith in Him, and faith does produce love. The same kind of giving love and sacrificial devotion that God has shown to us, we now begin to show to our neighbor.

Well, not always. Sometimes the self-centered flesh of believers still get the better of them. It wasn’t exactly “love” that prompted the crowds in the parade to Jerusalem with Jesus to try to shush the blind man who was calling out to Jesus for help. That response on their part was not love, not devotion to the blind man or to Jesus. It was self-centered. They were thinking about themselves and how bothered they were that their joyful procession to Jerusalem was being interrupted by a blind beggar who wouldn’t shut up. He just keeps praising Jesus. That’s right, praising Jesus. Because the highest praise Jesus receives from anyone is to be recognized as the Christ and believed in as the merciful Savior. Faith is the worship inspired by the Gospel.

Jesus didn’t cast away the crowd, or the beggar. Instead, He showed kindness—unmerited kindness to the blind beggar and granted his request that his sight should be restored. In other words, Jesus loved the blind beggar and showed him and showed the crowd and showed us that faith in Jesus saves. “Your faith has made you well. Your faith has saved you.” Jesus made him well physically to show that faith alone in Christ is what saves us spiritually. That’s what the love of Christ accomplished here.

That was prophesied, too, in the Old Testament, not just His suffering. What did we hear today from Isaiah?  How did God announce the coming of the Christ? Strengthen the weak hands, And make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are fearful-hearted, “Be strong, do not fear! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, With the recompense of God; He will come and save you.” Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.

Strength for the weak, comfort for the despairing. There is absolutely no need to despair, no matter what’s falling apart in your life, no matter how sinful you’ve been, no matter how many people are against you. Strength, comfort, encouragement—these are the things that mark the Messiah’s coming. These are good reasons to believe in Him and trust in His goodness. The ones who will be condemned at His coming are those who are strong in themselves, secure in themselves, stubbornly holding onto their sins, worshiping false gods of their own making. But those who are weak, sinful, distressed—they will find a Savior in Jesus, not only when He comes again, but first now as they hear His Word and are baptized and trust in His name, as He sends His Spirit in the Word, in Baptism, in the Absolution, in the Sacrament. It’s good news that Jesus is here for all who want Him for a Savior, for all who look to Him for help, mercy, strength and forgiveness.

Learn from the love of Jesus in today’s Gospel, that His love knows no limits, no bounds. It propelled Him to the cross, because He was devoted to sinful mankind. And the love and devotion of Jesus does not fade with time, because “love never fails.” People fail. Sinners fail. But love doesn’t fail.

And learn from the blind beggar in today’s Gospel to trust in Jesus, the Son of David, to admit that you need His help, and to call out to Him in every need. Receive Jesus’ help in Word and Sacrament and trust that He will open your eyes, too, that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe.

And with Jesus’ love in view and with faith in Him that is kindled by His love, now turn to your neighbors and love them, too, not because you find something loveable in them, but because God has poured His own love into your hearts, love that does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

This is the only path of the Christian: faith and love. Faith that receives all good things from Jesus, and love that gives all good things to our neighbor. As we enter the season of Lent this Wednesday, let us all devote ourselves to hearing the Word of Christ, that we may rejoice in the love of Christ, and grow in faith, and put His love into practice. Amen.

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Hearing the Word with a noble and good heart

Posted on February 8, 2015 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Sexagesima

Isaiah 55:10-13  +  2 Corinthians 11:19-12:9  +  Luke 8:4-15

The Word of God—what is it? It’s every word that’s written in the Holy Scriptures, which holy men of God wrote down as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. I think that’s what first comes to mind when we think of the Word of God, isn’t it? The written Word of God is our fount and source of doctrine and the judge of every preacher and of every teaching. But remember this: what the prophets and apostles preached to their hearers was also the Word of God, whether or not it was written down. So, too, the message of Christ in our day, if it is faithfully proclaimed, is also the Word of God. The Word of God, for example, is not only proclaimed in our Divine Service when I read to you from the Scriptures or when our hymns quote snippets from the Scriptures. A hymn or a liturgical response that faithfully and accurately proclaims the message of Christ is also God’s Word. And the sermons preached by ministers of the Gospel in agreement with the written Word of God are also the Word of God. Keep that in mind as you consider Jesus’ parable today about the Sower and the Seed.

The seed is God’s Word. The sower is God who sends forth His Word to be preached. The hearers are the soil. The plant that springs forth from the Word is faith, and the fruits that are produced from the plant are works of love and the godly life that flow from faith. Before we even discuss Jesus’ parable, there is a warning here not to despise or neglect the preaching of God’s Word. The seed already has enough obstacles to overcome when it is being sown. Those who refuse to hear the Word have already set up an idol to worship in place of God, something more important than the Word of God. I warn you, who are here today, to take care lest you fall into such idolatry in the future.

But now, you who are hearing the Word, you are the soil onto which the seed is now falling. And the parable is not just about the moment when the seed is sown, but also about what happens afterward. So think about that as we go through the parable and remember it as you travel home today, as you approach the coming week. How will the word of God that is sown today grow during the week? What effect will it have on you and those around you? What does the seed need in order to grow? What things in your life are attacking the seed and the plant that begins to grow from it?

May the seed that is sown today through your ears not be like the seed that fell by the wayside. The wayside, the road, is hard. The seed falls on it but doesn’t penetrate the soil at all. Instead people walk on it and the birds snatch it up right away. Jesus says that this happens when people hear the word but don’t think about it, don’t take it to heart. They’re distracted. Or they just stubbornly assume they know all that stuff already. Instead of thinking about the Word they hear, they focus on the preacher, what they like or don’t like about him, or they think about other things that are going on in their life. They forget what God said as soon as they hear it, and don’t give it a second thought. And so the devil comes and snatches the Word of God away from them so that it doesn’t take root and grow into faith.

And may the seed that is sown today through your ears not be like the seed that fell on the rocky soil. These people hear the word and rejoice over God’s goodness in Christ, but only for a little while. Then temptation comes. Persecution comes. The cross comes, and they fall away. They fall away because their faith wasn’t firmly rooted in God’s Word. They never bothered to grow in their understanding of God’s Word. Instead, they were satisfied with the little bit they heard, and so their faith remained superficial. But faith needs to grow roots. A superficial faith will not survive for long in the heat of the day, as Jesus plainly says, because all the false doctrine out there in the world, the culture around us that is so hostile to real Biblical Christianity, and the pressure from friends and family and society to turn away from the faith can only be withstood by a faith that is firmly grounded in the Word of God. It takes real arrogance for a Christian to imagine that he or she can hold onto his or her faith without a regular supply of God’s Word to keep watering it and nourishing it and making it grow.

And may the seed that is sown today through your ears not be like the seed that fell among thorns. These are the ones who hear the Word of God, and it does sprout in their hearts into faith, but then, the cares, riches, and pleasures of life choke it. How easy it is to let the cares of life choke the Word so that it doesn’t produce the fruits of love and perseverance! Work, school, sports, recreation, health, finances, washing, baking, cooking, cleaning, folding, ironing, repairing, maintaining, banking, retiring, dating, eating, drinking, partying, sleeping—who has time even to hear God’s Word, much less to think about it and meditate on it and study it and discuss it? Who has time to pray and to serve his neighbor and to grow into the image of Christ? It’s not that that list of things has to take over your life and choke the Word. It’s that people allow that list of things to choke the Word. And all the while, there is Jesus with this warning, and with His command from Matthew 6, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

Then there are the others, the seed that fell on good soil. Not good because the soil itself has done anything good, or because it has any natural properties that make it good. It’s called good because it receives the seed of the Word. It’s called good because these people have heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience. This! This is what God is seeking, and His Word itself has the power to create it: the hearer of His Word who listens, who takes it seriously, who cherishes the Word of God, believes it and puts it into practice. This is the one who hears the good report about Christ, who loved us and gave Himself for us, and takes comfort in Christ’s mercy and in His sacrifice for sins. Faith springs up from the Word. It isn’t flashy; it isn’t showy. It just grows, patiently. It’s watered by the Word of God, too, which, as Isaiah said, is like rain and snow that come down from the heavens and water the earth, making it bud and flourish. This faith sends down roots, so that, even though temptations and persecutions come along, these faithful hearers flee to Christ for refuge and strength and daily forgiveness. They are surrounded by the same cares and riches and pleasures as anyone else, but they heed the warning of Christ not to let those things take priority over the Word of God. And so, firmly rooted in Christ, they produce a harvest of good fruit, works of love and sacrifice and service, works of compassion and care and selflessness, ever hearing the Word, ever receiving the Sacrament of Christ’s body and blood, ever praying for all the saints.

These are the hearers whom Jesus seeks, and it’s never too late to become one, as long as the Word of God is being preached, because every time the Word of God is preached, the seed is again being sown. How will you hear it today?

The fact that some people will always mishear the Word of God, the fact that some people will not take it to heart and keep it, doesn’t mean you have to be one of them. Instead, when God’s Word is being proclaimed, when Christ’s death and resurrection are being preached, when God’s commandments are being explained, when the Sacraments are being administered, know that God’s Holy Spirit is powerfully working to sow that seed in your heart and to make it bud and flourish, so that you will be blessed, as the Lord declares in the first Psalm:

    Blessed is the man
    Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,
      Nor stands in the path of sinners,
      Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;
    But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
      And in His law he meditates day and night.
    He shall be like a tree
      Planted by the rivers of water,
      That brings forth its fruit in its season,
      Whose leaf also shall not wither;
    And whatever he does shall prosper.

May these words describe your hearing of the Word today.  In the name of Jesus. Amen.

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First in your own eyes makes you last in God’s eyes

Posted on February 1, 2015 by Rev. Paul Rydecki


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Sermon for Septuagesima

Jeremiah 1:4-10  +  1 Corinthians 9:24-10:5  +  Matthew 20:1-16

There are two kinds of workers in the Lord’s vineyard, two kinds of Christians in the Lord’s Church. Jesus describes them for us in today’s Gospel. There are those who start out first, but end up last. And there are those who start out last, but end up first. The parable about the workers in the vineyard helps us to understand how all this works, so that we don’t end up last. Because “last” in God’s eyes means losing His favor and falling out of grace.

In Jesus’ parable, there’s a landowner who goes out at the crack of dawn and finds a number of workers ready to hit the fields and work. These are the first workers, the ones who will put in their full twelve hours of work. They will work hard and long. They will bear the burden and the heat of the day. And they will be duly compensated for their work. The landowner agrees with them ahead of time on the wages he’ll pay them at the end of the day: one denarius. Fair enough.

Then there were the rest of the workers that the landowner hired at various points throughout the day. Some of them would work nine hours, some six hours, some three hours, and some only one hour in the vineyard. With all of these workers, there was no agreement for certain wages. Just the assurance that the landowner would treat them fairly at the end of the day.

At the end of the day, those who were hired throughout the day, including the very last hour of the day, were given one denarius. Those who were hired first in the day were given one denarius. And, as you know, that embittered the ones who were hired first, who worked the longest. They expected that the wages would be handed out based on the merit of the worker and the worthiness of the work. So when they saw those who were hired last receiving one denarius, they expected to get more than that. Surely their twelve hours of labor were worth more than these people’s one hour of labor.

Well, maybe that would be true, if this parable were about worldly economics or earthly business practices. But it isn’t. This parable of Jesus is about the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is not a business, and God, the heavenly landowner, does not reward the workers in His vineyard like an earthly landowner does.

In the end, the first workers who grumbled and complained against the landowner received their precious denarius. But they lost favor with the landowner. 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?’

Now let’s consider the meaning of this parable.

The first group of workers includes the Old Testament Jews. They were the first ones chosen by God, out of all the nations of the earth, to be His special people. He made His covenant—His agreement—with the people of Israel through Moses and gave to Israel all the commandments of the Law, the Ten Commandments and all the rest of the statutes and ordinances of the Old Testament. And God promised Israel that, if they would obey His commandments and keep His covenant, they would be His holy people, and He would be their God. By the time Jesus came, the Jews, as a nation, had been working under the burden and heat of the Law for some 1,500 years.

The second group of workers, the ones not chosen first, who didn’t work as long in the vineyard, includes the Gentiles. The Gentiles weren’t part of God’s original agreement with Israel. They never had to live under any of those Old Testament rules and regulations, and they also never had God’s promises of life and salvation, like the Jews did. But then Christ came and fulfilled God’s covenant with Israel, and opened up the kingdom of heaven, not to those who could match the Jews’ zeal at keeping the law, but to all who would believe in Him. That meant Gentiles. That also meant Jews who hadn’t worked to keep God’s law, but who had broken it time and time again, the public sinners among the Jews who knew they had no hope of earning their way into heaven, no hope of surpassing the righteousness of the Pharisees; their work would never be good enough. They were invited into the kingdom of God—into His vineyard—by baptism and faith in Christ.

That angered the Jews who thought they had worked so hard to earn God’s favor and their place in the kingdom of heaven. “Here we’ve spent our whole lives being careful to keep the commandments. We’ve given up so much, sacrificed so much for the sake of God’s Law. Why should those sinners who did hardly any work (except for evil works) receive the same reward as us?” They were proud of their hard work under the Law. They wanted to be recognized for it. And they certainly didn’t want Gentiles and sinners to receive the same reward as they. That’s why they hated Jesus so much. He made everyone equal as sinners. He made everyone’s works equally worthless for earning a place in the kingdom of heaven. And He made everyone equal in how they could be saved: only by grace, only for the sake of Christ’s merits, Christ’s works, only through faith in Christ.

Grace is the basis of reward in the kingdom of heaven, not how hard a person works to keep the commandments. If God were to reward us according to our works, we would all perish eternally. As the Psalmist once wrote, O Lord, do not enter into judgment with Your servant, for in Your sight no one living is righteous. Instead, He gives His forgiveness and eternal life out of pure grace, because He is kind and generous and good.

The merits of Christ are what count in the kingdom of heaven, not our merits. In other words, in God’s kingdom of grace, Jesus—true God and true Man—is the only worker, the only laborer. His hard work at keeping God’s commandments throughout His earthly life, His hard work at suffering for the sins of mankind—that is what has earned a place in God’s kingdom and in God’s favor for mankind.

And faith is the means by which sinners receive the benefits that Christ has merited, that Christ has earned. Sinners are saved by grace, for Christ’s sake, through faith. That is the simple, basic Christian Gospel.

Jesus’ parable today is a warning to Christians so that we don’t go running back to the Law, to be judged by how hard we have worked rather than by grace. Because you don’t have to be a Jew to be in that first group of workers. You can also be a Christian who has worked hard and long at keeping God’s commandments, going to church, being a good person. And you, too, can begin to be worthy and deserving in your own eyes, as if all of your hard work and the sacrifices you’ve made in order to follow Christ made you just a little bit deserving of God’s forgiveness and grace. And you could begin to become bitter when you see another Christian who has not worked very hard, in your opinion, at keeping the commandments receiving the same forgiveness you do, the same love and grace of God that you receive. You run the risk of getting to the Last Day and relying on how hard you’ve tried to live a good life as a Christian, consoling yourself on your deathbed that, you may not have been perfect, but you weren’t really all that bad, either. Surely God will accept you.

Such a reliance on your works will condemn you to hell, because to rely on your works is to reject the works of Christ. So be careful that you don’t try to buy or bargain your way into heaven with anything you’ve ever done or not done. If you become first in your own eyes, that is, if you think of yourself and your works as deserving of God’s heavenly reward, then you will be last in God’s eyes.

But, for those who know all too well that their works are insufficient, that they haven’t worked long enough or hard enough to earn God’s favor, to those who are last in their own eyes, Jesus comforts you today with this parable, because He teaches you that, when it comes to God’s grace, everyone is equal. All who rely on Christ and His merits alone are recipients of God’s generosity, of God’s grace. For Christ’s sake, God regards the lowliest sinner who repents as highly as the Virgin Mary herself. Your sins are equally forgiven, your prayers are equally heard, you are equally loved, and you are equally rewarded, because all in God’s kingdom are rewarded on the basis of the works of Another, the works of Christ Jesus our Lord. He reveals to us today a God of grace and mercy, who rewards those who don’t deserve it, and who turns away those who think they do. For those who know and rely on His grace alone, to work in His vineyard, to serve Him in His kingdom, is not a chore, but a privilege. And at the end of the day and the end of your earthly life, you will see just how generous our God truly is. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

 

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Behold the majesty of Christ, in words

Posted on January 25, 2015 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Transfiguration

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

You heard the words today describing the majesty of Jesus as He was transfigured before Peter, James and John on that mountain in Israel. You weren’t there. You didn’t see it. But Peter was there. He saw it. He saw Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus. He heard the Father’s voice from the bright cloud. And then, after Jesus rose from the dead, Peter revealed what he and the others saw, just as Jesus told him to do. You heard Peter’s words in the Epistle: We were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For He received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.

You weren’t there. You didn’t see it. But it doesn’t matter one little bit. Because the words you are hearing right now that describe Jesus’ transfiguration are the Holy Spirit’s words. The image that these words paint for you are the Holy Spirit’s portrait and the truth of Jesus’ majesty and divinity is being etched into your heart by the same Holy Spirit. Today, through the Spirit’s words, you behold the majesty of Christ.

We learn from the Spirit’s words that Jesus’ transfiguration took place about a week after another key event in the ministry of Christ. It was at that time that Peter confessed to Jesus, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. It was at the same time that Jesus promised to build His Church on the ministry of that confession, and that the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. And, it was at the same time that Jesus began to show His disciples that He, the Christ, the Son of the living God, had to suffer, and die, and rise again from the dead, at which point Peter rebuked Jesus, at which point Jesus said to him, “Get behind Me, Satan!” And then Jesus revealed to His disciples that He, and they, and anyone who wants to follow Him, first has to bear the cross and suffer on this earth before finally being vindicated and glorified.

Now, you know—you have heard—where things went from there, how Jesus was crucified and died and rose again, how the Church has been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the chief Cornerstone. But all of that was still in the future for the apostles. All of that was still unknown, unseen, still hidden. So Jesus grants a few of them a special vision so that, later on, they could reflect back on it and understand, and so that they could reveal it to us.

First, the transfiguration itself, the changing of the figure of Jesus from that of an ordinary man to the brilliantly shining face and the dazzling white clothing that you would expect God Himself to have, if you could see God. And that’s just the point. God the Father makes it crystal clear in the transfiguration that this seemingly ordinary Man Jesus actually shares in the divine glory and majesty of the Father. As if all the miracles and other signs hadn’t been enough, Jesus is manifested here as the glorious Son of God.

Actually God has been depicted this way once before in Holy Scripture. In the book of Daniel, chapter 7, this is what Daniel saw in his vision of God: “I watched till thrones were put in place, And the Ancient of Days was seated; His garment was white as snow, And the hair of His head was like pure wool.” That part of the vision was about God the Father, even though it sounds a lot like how Jesus is described in His transfiguration, doesn’t it? Then Daniel says this: I was watching in the night visions, And behold, One like the Son of Man, Coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days, And they brought Him near before Him. Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, That all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, Which shall not pass away, And His kingdom the one Which shall not be destroyed. That term, “Son of Man,” was Jesus’ favorite title for Himself. This is what the three disciples were seeing, Jesus revealed as the King of kings and Lord of lords. This is the One at whose name every knee should bow, as the apostle Paul would later write. This is the One through whose name alone we must be saved.

The majesty of Christ is also revealed in the holy conversation He was having with the two great prophets, Moses and Elijah. What’s this all about? Well, God wanted Peter, James, and John, and us, to see that Jesus has the approval of the Old Testament. That’s important. Jesus did not come to set up a new religion, but to fulfill the true religion of the Jews, which, itself, was the continuation of the true religion begun in Eden. Everything about Jesus, from His birth to His preaching and miracles, to His suffering, death and resurrection—all of it was prophesied ahead of time. All was going according to plan.

And it makes sense that Moses was there. As we saw just last week, Jesus came to be a Prophet like Moses, but better. Moses was the deliverer prophet who led God’s people out of slavery to the promised land, and then died. Jesus would be the great Deliverer prophet, who would die. And by His death, all who believe in Him are saved from the slavery to sin, death, and the devil.

And it makes sense that Elijah was there. He was the persecuted prophet, who once raised the dead, the prophet who never died, but ascended to heaven still very much alive. So Jesus would be persecuted from now on, despised by the leadership of His people. He had raised the dead already and would raise the dead again. And He Himself would be raised from the dead and would ascend to heaven, like Elijah, very much alive.

And then the greatest glory, the greatest sign of majesty in Jesus, is the voice of God the Father that spoke from the brilliant cloud: This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. This is, of course, the second time the Father has spoken those words over Jesus, the first time being at Jesus’ baptism. But those words are also connected to Old Testament words. Already in the second Psalm, this is what God says about the Christ, the Anointed One: You are My Son, Today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, And the ends of the earth for Your possession. And in Isaiah 42 God says about the coming Christ, Behold! My Servant whom I uphold, My Elect One in whom My soul delights! That is, “in whom I am well pleased.” All of the Old Testament was pointing to Jesus: His life, His death, His resurrection. And God the Father has “set His seal on Him,” as Jesus Himself once put it.

That’s why it’s foolish to imagine that you can believe in God without believing in Jesus. God is only pleased in Jesus—in Jesus and in those who are found clinging to Jesus by faith, bound to Jesus by baptism, eating and drinking the body and blood of Jesus in the Sacrament. Those who trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins have God the Father’s approval. Those who will not repent and believe in Jesus have only the Father’s wrath.

Now, why hide all this glory and majesty from the rest of the world? Why only reveal it to these three believing disciples on the mountain? Because faith must not rely on sight, or else it isn’t faith. Faith must rely on things unseen. Faith must come from the Word of God alone! All of this majesty that was revealed in Jesus on the Mt. of Transfiguration was building up to this one command from God the Father: Hear Him! Hear Him! God commands us to hear His Son. It is not optional. This is the Father’s will, that you should hear the voice of His Son, and believe Him, and do what He says, in all things.

You don’t hear Jesus directly since He ascended into heaven. You hear Him through the ministry of His Word, through the mouth of those whom He has sent to preach and teach His Gospel. Jesus said to His apostles, “He who hears you hears Me.” That means you are to hear the preaching of the Word of Christ, and not despise it, and not find better things to do when His Word is being preached. Hear Him!

When Jesus gives His Church’s ordained teachers the authority to forgive and retain sins, hear Him! And believe the Word of God spoken by His ministers, both when they absolve, and when they excommunicate.

When He says that He will die and when He says that He will rise again on the third day, oh, Peter, James and John, hear Him and don’t doubt. And you who hear Him today, know that Jesus died for your sins and was raised to life for your justification.

When He says This is My body, this is My blood, hear Him, and don’t doubt the real presence of Christ in the Sacrament. But instead, when He says, “This do in remembrance of Me,” hear Him and receive His Sacrament often.

When He promises His Holy Spirit, when He calls you to repent, to believe, and to walk as children of the light, in faith toward God and in love toward your neighbor, hear Him!

When He says that He will come again and call His sleeping children from their graves and take them to be where He is forever, hear Him!

You weren’t there with Peter, James and John on the Mt. of Transfiguration. You didn’t see what they saw. But that’s OK, because you have heard what they heard, and that’s all that matters. No matter what your eyes see, no matter what your reason tells you, no matter how much your flesh complains, hear the Word of Jesus again today and believe what He says. Then you won’t be afraid when the cross comes and you suffer for the name of Jesus. Because the One whose glory was revealed on the mountain still reigns at the right hand of God. And soon He will share His glory with you, even as you now share in His sufferings. Amen.

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A Prophet like Moses, but better

Posted on January 18, 2015 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for the Second Sunday after Epiphany

Deuteronomy 18:15-19  +  Romans 12:6-16  +  John 2:1-11

Who is Jesus? What is He like? Very few people knew the answer to that question when Jesus first began His ministry. Of course, the Apostle John, in chapter 1 of his Gospel, told us many things about Jesus. He is the Word who was in the beginning with God and who was God. He is the One through whom all things have been made. He is the true light who gives light to all men. He is the Word made flesh. He is the only-begotten Son of the Father who has come to reveal His Father to sinful mankind, sitting in the darkness. All that we learn about Jesus just in the first chapter of St. John’s Gospel.

But all of that was secret. All of that was hidden from view when Jesus walked the earth. It was John the Baptist who first began to reveal the true identity of this Man from Nazareth in Galilee. John the Baptist had baptized Jesus, and then heard the Father speak from heaven, This is My Son, in whom I am well-pleased. So John began to send his own disciples to Jesus. And within just a few days, those first few disciples had learned for themselves that this Jesus truly was the Christ, the Son of God, the King of Israel.

But what would this Jesus do? What kind of Christ would He turn out to be? How would He show His Father to His disciples and to the rest of mankind? St. John tells us that Jesus’ first act, just days after gathering His first disciples, was to…attend a wedding to which He and they had been invited.

Really? This is how the Messiah is going to begin His reign on earth? This is how He’s going to teach the world about God and gather for Himself a chosen people? By attending a wedding banquet? It’s perfect, isn’t it? Jesus shows that He has not come to summon people to some holy jihad, or to some monastic life where His people are to shun human society and go hole up in a corner somewhere or in a church building somewhere. Instead, He honors marriage and the godly celebration of it with His presence. To follow this Christ is not to avoid marriage or having children or being involved in society. It is to participate in the godly vocations of this world without setting our hearts on the things of this world. It is, as Paul says to the Romans, to “rejoice with those who rejoice, to mourn with those who mourn,” always keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the Christ.

What else will the Christ reveal about Himself and His Father at this wedding banquet? Who is Jesus? He is the God who allows Himself to be moved by the prayers and petitions of His people. When Mary first told Jesus that they had run out of wine, His answer makes it seem like it hadn’t been His plan to perform a miracle that day. “My hour has not yet come.” And it’s not like running out of wine is a desperate situation that’s worthy of Jesus’ time. And yet, He listens and chooses to help anyway—not because His mother Mary has some extra-special influence on Him, but because all of His people matter to Him and are heard by Him. He is the One who came to earth to address our every need, even the small ones. He is the One who comes to our aid without first checking to see if we’re worthy of it (We aren’t!). He is the one from whom we should expect all good to come, in whatever way He sees fit to provide it. Mary was wise to tell the servants, “Do whatever He tells you.” Whatever Jesus says, that is what’s right. If He doesn’t say it, you have no business believing it or doing it.

And what do we learn of God in the miracle itself? Who is Jesus? He is the Almighty Creator who works wonders, when and where He pleases, who is not bound to the laws of nature that He Himself created, who is not a slave to science, but who changes the laws of physics at will, to serve His own purposes, changing gallons and gallons of water into gallons and gallons of wine.

This business of changing water into another substance should jar your memory a little bit. It’s not the first time a prophet had changed water into a red substance. Remember Moses in Egypt, the first public miracle Moses performed, the first of the ten plagues? By the power of God, Moses, at the beginning of his public ministry, as his first act of deliverance before leading Israel out of bondage in Egypt, was to change water into blood. It was a terrible sign, a destructive sign, a sign of death. The water became undrinkable and disgusting, and God’s glory was revealed to Pharaoh and to all of Egypt.

Interestingly, a few verses earlier in John’s Gospel, St. John made the comparison between Christ and Moses: For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. In fact, you heard Moses in the Old Testament lesson today prophesy to the people of Israel that The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear. Now look what God does in the Person of Jesus. He puts a divine twist on Moses’ miracle. It’s another changing-of-water miracle, but this time, not to curse, but to bless. This time, all for good. This time, changing water into the blood of grapes, something more drinkable than plain water, something delicious and pleasant, a sign of life, and life to the fullest, a sign that Jesus is the divinely sent Deliverer from the bondage of sin, death, and the devil.

Moses came as a divinely chosen deliverer of God’s people Israel, but he is known especially for being the lawgiver. You shall! You shall not! The one who sins against these commandments shall be cut off from his people. There on Mt. Sinai God revealed His holy Law through Moses and made Israel shudder in fear. And yet still, they failed to keep the commandments. After 1500 years of failure, the divine lesson had been proven over and over again: by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in God’s sight, for by the Law is the knowledge of sin.

But now One like Moses has come. A prophet like Moses, but so much better. He hasn’t come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. He hasn’t come to give a new law, but to save sinners from their sins against the law. Remember the last plague in Egypt? The plague of the firstborn and the Passover? God sent His firstborn, His only-begotten Son, not to kill the firstborn, but to die, to be the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Moses instructed the Israelites to take the blood of a lamb and paint the doorframes of the houses with it in order to escape death. Jesus instructs us to be washed in His blood by Holy Baptism and by faith in His blood once shed for us on the cross to order to escape death and condemnation. Moses, by God’s Word, provided bread from heaven for Israel in the wilderness. Jesus not only provided bread, but was the true Bread that came down from heaven to feed the souls of men with Himself. Moses once sprinkled the people of Israel with the blood of beasts and declared, “This is the blood of the covenant which the LORD has made with you.” Jesus once sat down with His disciples and instituted a meal which He called “My blood of the New Covenant.” Truly Jesus is a prophet like Moses, but better.

One more thing we might consider in this miracle account this morning. When Jesus turns water into wine, it isn’t the $3 bottle kind (like I usually drink). It’s the finest of wines, designed to delight those who drink of it. The master of the feast was amazed. Most people start out with the best wine and then move to a lower quality. But Jesus did the opposite. The people drank inferior wine all along until Jesus came. The wine He created far surpassed everything they had been drinking until then.

So it is in every way. Everything that came before Jesus, including Moses, including the Law, was inferior. Now a better Prophet has come, a better Deliverer, a true Savior. Now the Gospel has come, calling all men to repent and believe in this Jesus. He hasn’t come to make life oppressive. He has come to bring forgiveness and life to His people, by faith alone in Him and His goodness. And just as He once turned water into wine, so He will soon turn all our sorrows into everlasting joy.

Who is Jesus? What is He like? He’s the God who came into this world, not to condemn it, but that all, through Him, might be saved. He shows that today in the simple, gracious, pleasant miracle of changing water into wine. That’s who Jesus is: the One who came that we might have life, and have it more abundantly. Rejoice that you, by faith, have seen His glory today and have been invited to the feast of His body and blood in the Sacrament of the Altar. Even that is just a foretaste of the better things yet to come. Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb! Amen.

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