Our congregation decided on October 17, 2012, to disaffiliate from the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) so that we can continue to believe and teach that sinners are saved and justified in no other way but by faith in Christ. The WELS demanded that we believe and teach that God has already saved and declared all people to be righteous in His sight, whether or not they believe and are baptized. When they condemned our confession of faith as false doctrine, we could no longer remain in fellowship with them. The Gospel is more important than any denominational affiliation, and by God’s grace alone, the Gospel is still being proclaimed in our midst.
Our congregation faced an immediate challenge. Our church’s mortgage was with the WELS Church Extension Fund (CEF), and we still owed $275,000 on the property. Within 48 hours of our decision to disaffiliate, in spite of the fact that we had never missed a monthly payment, the CEF sent us a letter in which they cited a clause in our loan agreement that placed us in default on our loan the moment we disaffiliated from the WELS. In the same letter, they threatened to begin foreclosure proceedings if we did not pay off our balance in full by December 1st.
We were not entirely surprised by this letter from the CEF. On the very evening on which we decided to disaffiliate from the WELS, within two hours of our decision, Pastor Jon Buchholz, president of the Arizona-California District of the WELS, who happened to be at a pastors’ conference at that very moment, began announcing to some of the pastors there that the CEF would call the note on our loan—another warning not to defy the synod.
But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ (2 Corinthians 2:14-17).
The Lord provided willing and generous hearts among our members and among our brothers and sisters in Christ in other parts of the country, and we were immediately able to reduce our debt by over $25,000. At the same time, He provided a local bank that was willing to refinance our mortgage. We closed on the loan November 26th, five days ahead of our December 1st deadline.
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies (Romans 8:31-33).
This is part of a letter I sent to my members yesterday:
I would like to thank all of the families and individuals of our congregation who helped to make all of this possible—those who donated large or small amounts. Your gifts for the work of the Lord in this place are fragrant offerings to the Lord, acceptable and pleasing to Him through faith in the blood of Christ that cleanses and purifies all the works of God’s children. I give thanks to God for all of you.
Most of all, let us give thanks to God together. We took a stand on a very basic but very important doctrinal issue, trusting that the Lord would preserve us in spite of the odds that were against us. It is He who has helped and supported us for the sake of His Gospel. We could never have done it. And so we pray with the Psalmist in Psalm 115:
1 Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness! 2 Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?” 3 Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases. 4 Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. 5 They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. 6 They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. 7 They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat. 8 Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them. 9 O Israel, trust in the Lord! He is their help and their shield. 10 O house of Aaron, trust in the Lord! He is their help and their shield. 11 You who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord! He is their help and their shield. 12 The Lord has remembered us; he will bless us; he will bless the house of Israel; he will bless the house of Aaron; 13 he will bless those who fear the Lord, both the small and the great. 14 May the Lord give you increase, you and your children! 15 May you be blessed by the Lord, who made heaven and earth! 16 The heavens are the Lord’s heavens, but the earth he has given to the children of man. 17 The dead do not praise the Lord, nor do any who go down into silence. 18 But we will bless the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. Praise the Lord!
See you Sunday,
+Pastor Rydecki
Posted inNews|TaggedCEF, emmanuel, las cruces, WELS|Comments Off on Praise the Lord for preserving our place of worship
Isaiah 65:17-25 + 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 + Matthew 25:1-13
What beautiful images are set before us today in the lectionary, like a banquet of words to appetize our souls before the day of the great Wedding Banquet arrives! New heavens and a new earth, the city of New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, that we are children of the light and children of the day, destined not for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. Ten virgins waiting with their lamps, watching for the Bridegroom to come, and waking at the midnight cry announcing his arrival.
But only half of the ten virgins—the wise ones—were ready to enter the marriage feast when the Bridegroom arrived in Jesus’ parable, while the other half—the foolish ones—were left outside, locked outside forever and ever. Jesus told this parable to His disciples long ago and repeats it to you, His Christians who are gathered here today, so that you may be found in the half that enters with Him. Wake, awake! Watch for the Bridegroom! For you know neither the day nor the hour of His coming.
The kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. According to Jewish custom, the bridegroom would leave his father’s house, and, at the appointed day and time, together with his groomsmen, he would go to pick up his bride and her attendants, and they would go together in a joyful procession to their new home where the marriage would be celebrated with a rich banquet.
Throughout the Scriptures, God depicts Himself, and specifically Jesus Himself, as the Bridegroom, and the Church as His Bride. Of course, this Bride is totally unworthy of His love. She is made up of sinners, and the worst of sinners. But she has been chosen out of the world by the grace of God, washed with water and the Word of God in Holy Baptism, declared to be righteous and holy through faith alone in Jesus. Jesus sealed the marriage contract with His blood long ago, then rose from the dead, ascended into heaven and continues to feed His Bride with His body and blood until He returns to claim her and to begin the never-ending marriage feast with her in their new home, the new heavens and the new earth.
Until then, we wait, with our feet firmly planted on the earth but with our eyes and our hopes and our longings in heaven, where the Bridegroom is seated at the right hand of God. But Jesus warns us that we are still in danger as we wait, because we wait for Him like those ten virgins in the parable who needed one thing and one thing alone in order to meet the Bridegroom and join the procession with Him. Each one needed to have her own burning lamp.
Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. We’re talking about Christians here, people who start out watching and waiting for the Bridegroom, Jesus, to return. We’re talking about Christians who, at least at first, are given a lamp, a lamp of faith. Faith is like a burning lamp. It’s the one thing you cannot enter heaven without. Whoever hears my words and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life, Jesus says. Not a single work of yours would light the way to heaven or prepare you to meet Christ when He comes. But faith, faith in Christ crucified for you, faith in His blood shed for you, faith in His Word that promises eternal life to all who believe in Jesus—that faith ties you to His goodness, to His merits. It’s Jesus’ own blood and righteousness that lights the path and makes you worthy to enter into His wedding feast. Faith lights the way to Christ. Faith overflows in works of love and compassion and overcomes fear and doubt and the devil himself. Faith rejoices at the thought of spending eternity with Jesus in His great marriage feast. The ten virgins represent all Christians. All Christians start out longing for Jesus’ appearing, with the lamp of faith burning.
But the Bridegroom was delayed. He took longer to come than the foolish virgins expected. They were ready at first to run out to meet Him and join the procession. But they weren’t prepared for a long wait. They didn’t bring along any extra oil—just the oil that was already there in their lamps, being consumed moment by moment by the flame.
So it is that the Christian life of watching can get old. As the cares and pleasures of this life compete for our attention, as life gets harder and money gets tighter and society around us becomes more and more wicked and godless, as the body grows older and weaker and pain grows stronger, as the cross grows heavier and daily self-denial becomes more and more unbearable…Who’s watching for the Bridegroom anymore? Who has time? The Christian life becomes a fantasy world that we set aside as easily as we set aside a book, as we get back to the “real” world of paying the bills and watching TV.
But Jesus has warned us ahead of time that it would be this way. Jesus has already told us that He will be delayed in His return and that life will make us weary and sleepy as we wait. Your life of watching for the return of the Bridegroom won’t be a simple matter of hours. It will be a matter of years, decades maybe, from the time you become a Christian until the day and the hour of His return. And you will be tempted, enticed by this world to stop thinking about the Bridegroom, to stop your waiting and to take your readiness for granted.
But you dare not do that. Only five of the ten virgins will be ready when the Bridegroom comes—only the wise ones, only those who took along oil for their lamps, to keep them burning during the Bridegroom’s long delay.
What is it? What is the oil and how do you take it along? Just as the flame of a lamp is fed by oil, so the faith of Christians is fed by the Word of God. You were born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and enduring Word of God. Like newborn babies, crave the pure spiritual milk of the Word. My words, Jesus says, are Spirit and they are life. The same Word of God that gave you the new birth of faith continues to feed your faith until Christ comes again. Christ has given the Ministry of the Word not only to bring you into His family one time through Holy Baptism, but to sustain you throughout your long watch for the Bridegroom, to teach you with every word that is written in the Holy Scriptures, to preserve you through the Word of Absolution spoken again and again to penitent sinners, to nourish you through the Sacrament of the Altar week after week after week and even in between. These Means of Grace are God’s instruments for keeping your lamps burning bright.
So there’s no excuse for running out of oil. You have a constant supply at the ready. This Divine Service and every Divine Service brings Jesus to you through His Word so that you’re ready when He comes in glory with all His holy ones. And you have as many opportunities to dig into God’s Word as you want on your own, and as many opportunities to be taught as you ask for, as many services and classes here at church as you’re willing to attend.
Those who take along this supply of oil with them can fall asleep in peace—literally, you can go to sleep at night without worrying that the Bridegroom may come while you’re sleeping. Don’t worry, He’ll wake you up. You won’t miss it. And you can also fall asleep in peace in that thing we used to call death. Don’t worry. The Bridegroom will wake you up when He comes. You won’t miss it. The midnight cry will ring out and the Bridegroom Himself will call you out of your grave and you will join the wedding procession into the marriage feast.
But those foolish virgins who neglected their lamps, who gave no thought to the fuel they would need, for those who began as Christians but then foolishly neglected the Means of Grace—they will wake up, too, when the Bridegroom comes, but for them it will be too late. There are no dealers of oil who can help them at that time, no ministers of the Gospel to preach or teach or absolve. When the Bridegroom comes, either you’re already prepared with a faith that has been fed and nourished by God’s Word, or it’s too late.
We have come to the end of another Church Year. Most of you here today are here most days when we gather around the Word of Christ and the Meal of Christ. Some days you surely pay attention better than other days. Some days you’re more serious than others about the words you speak and hear and sing. I know that’s true for you, because it’s certainly true for me. Jesus gives you an opportunity today to check your lamps, to check your oil, to fill your flasks and to keep them full. Do you know the Scriptures better today than you did at the beginning of this Church Year last December? Are you equipping your children with oil that will last their whole life through? Are you awake or asleep? Watching for the Bridegroom or just taking your readiness for granted?
Wake, awake! For night is flying. The watchmen on the heights are crying, “Awake, Jerusalem! Arise!” Not a single one of you can make yourself ready for that day. But see! The Spirit of Jesus is preparing you today for that day. Repent and believe the Gospel that, for the sake of Jesus Christ, God forgives you your sins and will most certainly welcome you into His marriage feast. Until then, watch for the bridegroom, no matter how long He delays! Behold, He says, I am coming. Soon. Amen! Come, Lord Jesus! And keep us ever watchful until Your appearing, that with our lamps trimmed and burning, we may arise prepared to meet you. Amen.
Sermon for Second to Last Sunday of the Church Year
Daniel 7:9-14 + 2 Peter 3:3-14 + Matthew 25:31-46
Everyone knows that the day of judgment is coming. God has hardwired it into the fabric of our souls as part of the conscience He has written into our hearts. The day of judgment is coming. Wouldn’t you like to know beforehand how things are going to be?
Jesus tells you today in the Gospel. He prepares us so that we know ahead of time just what to expect on that day when the Son of Man comes to judge the living and the dead. He wants us to know how the judgment will go and what the outcome will be in order to spur us on to live as Christians in this world as the Day of the Lord approaches.
What will it be like? First, Jesus says, When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. You have to catch the irony in what Jesus was teaching His disciples. He said these words during Holy Week when the contrast couldn’t be greater between the Son of Man coming in glory, and the Son of Man facing the greater shame than any man has ever faced—the shame and humiliation of the crucifixion, and all of the wicked details that surrounded it. The Son of Man came first in humility, and the world mocked Him and rejected Him, even as the world still mocks and rejects and places a cross on the shoulders of God’s people. But after all the shame and disgrace and suffering, the Son of Man would come out victorious on Easter Sunday, and He will come in all His glory on the Day of Judgment.
When He comes, it will not be to investigate anything. It will not be to determine who has been naughty and who has been nice. He knows already who are the sheep and who are the goats, who are the righteous and who are the unrighteous. He knows already whom He has justified—as Paul says, the one who believes in Jesus. And He knows already who stands condemned—the one who does not believe in Jesus, who does not rely entirely on Jesus Christ, crucified for our sins and raised to life for our justification. The Lord knows those who are His and has marked His believers with a seal that, for the moment, only He can see. It says, “Holy to the Lord.”
So when He comes, it won’t be for investigating. It will be for separating—separating the sheep from the goats. Right now, up until that very day, sheep and goats remain unseparated in this world, living side by side, suffering similar catastrophes, engaging in similar activities like going to school, working, getting married, having kids, waking and sleeping and all the other human activities that there are. But on that day everyone will see who are the saints and who are the wicked as they are separated one from another and placed into two groups.
In the same way, those who have died before that day all appear to be unseparated now. Graveyards do not distinguish between believer and unbeliever, sheep and goat. All the dead are lumped together and their bodies decay together, buried under the earth. But on that day, they will all be resurrected. Again, not for determining where they should go—their souls have already been separated and waiting for this great day, either in heaven (for those who fell asleep in faith) or in hell (for those who died in unbelief). They will all be raised and visibly separated one from another, believers in one group with all the other believers who have ever lived, and unbelievers in one group with all the goats.
And how will it go on that day, when all of mankind has been visibly separated into two groups? First, the King will speak to those on His right, to the sheep. Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. There’s that word again, “Inherit!” And in that word we learn so much. The kingdom of heaven, the new heavens and the new earth—the new creation—is an inheritance, not a payment for service. You don’t earn your place there. You inherit your place there. And who are they who inherit? They are sons and daughters of the King, born again by water and Spirit, born into His kingdom through faith in Christ Jesus as the Holy Spirit calls us by the Gospel and teaches us to rely on Christ alone for grace and mercy and life.
And see, the kingdom has been prepared for the sheep from the foundation of the world. God has known His elect from eternity. He planned everything in the history of the world to have His Gospel preached to the elect, to put them in contact with the Means of Grace and to work powerfully through those means to bring them to faith and to preserve them in the faith unto life everlasting. Nothing about this inheritance is earned by us. It was earned by Christ for us. And on that day, we will see with our eyes what we hope for now.
At the same time, Christ will say to those on His left, Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
The Judge will list some of the works of service done by His believing people in this life, and He will accuse the wicked of not doing these same works. “You fed me and gave me something to drink when I was hungry and thirsty, you welcomed me when I came to you as a stranger, you clothed me when I needed clothes and visited me when I was sick and in prison.” When did we see you in need, Lord? When did we help You?, the righteous will ask. Or, when didn’t we help you?, the wicked will ask. Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me. Who is He talking about? “These brothers of mine.” It goes back to the inheritance, doesn’t it? Christians inherit the kingdom of heaven because we have been made brothers and sisters of Christ through Baptism and faith in Him. Jesus is talking about helping Christians in need—serving them because they are Christians—brothers and sisters of Christ Jesus.
There are many good works that God has commanded. Jesus lists only these from the 5th Commandment—helping our neighbor with his bodily needs. Why do you think? Maybe because these are works that lots of people do, believers and unbelievers alike. There are plenty of unbelievers who do works of charity and who help one another in need. And yet on the day of judgment, none of those works will help them, because their works don’t come from faith in Christ, and their service isn’t done for Christians out of love for Christ. Only believers will be praised on the Day of Judgment, and their works will be recognized.
Jesus said to His disciples on the night He was betrayed, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” See how Jesus spurs us on to faith in Him and to love for each other as Christians.
And why not? God has given us all things, and all these things will pass away and be destroyed by fire. As Peter says, Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace.
The day is coming and Jesus has warned us ahead of time. He’s painted this picture for us so that unbelievers have no excuse on that day. Here they have been warned, at least those who hear these words of Jesus. Now is the time for repentance, not later.
He’s painted this picture for Christians so that we should not live as unwise, but as wise, for the days are evil, and the great day of separation will surely come. The only way to be counted among the righteous is through faith in Christ Jesus. And that faith is a living, active thing. That faith in Christ urges us each day to serve our fellow Christians in love. So take Jesus’ words here in the Gospel as comfort that, for as difficult as things are in this life, for as useless as our faith appears to be now, it will go well for those who believe in Christ in the end. And take Jesus’ words as an encouragement for you to live as Christians, to serve one another in love, or as the writer to the Hebrews says, to keep on meeting together, encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day approaching. Amen.
Exodus 32:1-20 + 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 + Matthew 24:15-28
Today our thoughts begin to turn toward the end of the Church Year, and at the same time, to the end of this world and to the coming of Christ. Last week as we celebrated All Saints’ Day, we saw the saints wearing white robes. These, said the angel, are the ones who are coming out of the great tribulation—those who die in faith and whose souls are even now before the throne of God in the presence of Christ, the Lamb, washed in the blood of the Lamb and clothed in sparkling white.
But that means that the great tribulation they were coming out of, is here and now. It means that these are the last days, and that you and I are living in the midst of the great tribulation. Jesus speaks of it in the Gospel, and Matthew weaves back and forth between Jesus’ predictions about the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the world. The Evangelist Luke separates Jesus’ sayings, especially in Luke 17 and Luke 21, so that you can easily tell when He is predicting the destruction of Jerusalem, which happened about 40 years after Jesus’ resurrection in 70 AD, and when Jesus is predicting the events leading up to the end of the world and the return of the Son of Man. Why does Matthew tie them so closely together? It’s no accident and no mistake. The Holy Spirit wanted those two events to be connected for us, so that we learn some things about the great tribulation of the end times from the great tribulation that surrounded the destruction of Jerusalem.
Jesus warned His dear disciples and Christians about the coming destruction of Jerusalem and taught them how to survive those troubling times. But today we won’t spend much time talking about the destruction of Jerusalem. Instead, we’ll focus on this great tribulation in which we still live, and we’ll listen as Jesus gives us Warnings and Comfort in Times of Tribulation.
“Therefore when you see the ‘abomination of desolation,’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place…” An abomination is something that is detestable—hated and despised by God. This abomination enters the “holy place” and brings with it “desolation.” “Desolation” is devastation, to turn a place into a wasteland, either by causing the inhabitants to flee or by wiping them out.
Throughout the Old Testament, the thing most hated and detested by God is idolatry—the worship of idols, false gods. You heard this morning about that abomination called the golden calf and how God almost wiped out—desolated—the entire Israelite community because of it. Over and over again, the idols of the Old Testament caused desolations in Israel.
But the greatest idolatry Israel ever committed was its rejection of Jesus as the Savior sent from God to redeem them from their sins. The Jews at the time of Jesus didn’t bow down to images of silver or gold. But when the majority of them rejected Jesus as the Messiah, they turned away from the worship of the true God and turned toward the abomination of works-righteousness—trust in themselves and their own goodness. From that time on, all their priests and all their sacrifices became an abomination in the sight of God, because instead of promoting faith in Christ, their worship now pointed away from Christ. The desolation of Jerusalem by the Roman armies was God’s severe punishment for such idolatry.
Idolatry is all around us in the world today as people worship false gods. Sometimes images of gold or silver or stone, but more often things like money and comfort and pleasure, the idol of self and self-reliance and self-service.
But see! Jesus is not warning us in this Gospel against all the idols that may exist in the world. He speaks of “seeing the abomination of desolation” standing “in the holy place.” The holy place is no longer Jerusalem. There’s nothing holy about Jerusalem anymore. No, the holy place is the Holy Christian Church, the communion of holy ones—the communion of saints. And the abomination is still idolatry.
Yes, it’s true, the Lutheran Church has, for the last 500 years, identified the papacy in Rome as the very Antichrist that sets itself up in the Church above the Word of God, that exalts man and puts man in the place of God in the hearts of the people, and that condemns the teaching that sinners are justified by faith alone in Christ. The abomination is epitomized—summarized in the papacy. But the abomination extends beyond the papacy, and just because the Lutheran Church has separated from Rome does not mean that the Lutheran Church is immune to the abomination. No Christian church is immune, hence Jesus’ warning in our Gospel.
Where the word of man is made equal to or even given priority over the Word of God in the Church, there is the abomination that causes desolation. Where faith alone in Christ for salvation is replaced with the works of man in the doctrines of the Church, there is the abomination that causes desolation. Where men and councils and synods pretend to speak for God apart from His Word, or where they demand our allegiance above our allegiance to the Gospel of Christ, or where they condemn the teaching and the teachers of justification by faith alone in Christ, there is the abomination that causes desolation. See it for what it is!
See it for what it is, because on the outside, it doesn’t look like an abomination. Nobody, not even the pope, comes out and says he denies Christ. And he can twist the Scriptures and quote from the Word of God and make it sound like he must know what he’s talking about. And he has so many supporters and so many intelligent men to back up his doctrine and so much history and so much glory on his side, and he teaches so many things that are true and right and good. Who could see an abomination of desolation behind the papacy?
Luther could. And so could all the faithful who took to heart the simple Word of God and compared it to the teachings of Rome. The abomination that causes desolation will not be removed from the holy place, from the Christian Church, until Jesus Himself returns and destroys it with the breath of His mouth, as Paul writes to the Thessalonians. The abomination is an integral part of the great tribulation in which we live. Keep your eyes open and see it for what it is!
And when you see it, Jesus says, flee! Flee and don’t look back. And pray that your flight may not be hindered by anything. Don’t go down to take anything out of your house. Don’t go back to get your clothes. Or as He says in Luke, don’t look back as Lot’s wife did while Sodom and Gomorrah were being destroyed. Her hesitation to leave the idolatry behind cost her her life.
But it’s not as simple—and in some ways, not as difficult!—as fleeing to the mountains, as the Jews in Judea were warned by Jesus to do when they saw the abomination in Jerusalem. The holy place, the Christian Church, extends now into all the world, to every nation, tribe, language and people. And wherever the people of God gather, there the abomination will threaten to take hold.
So what’s the answer? Leave the world? No, God Himself will take each one of us out of this great tribulation when He sees fit and bring us safely into His heavenly kingdom. What, then? Leave the Church itself where Christ Himself has given pastors and teachers to preach His Word and administer His Sacraments? Wouldn’t Satan have his victory then!
No, you don’t leave “the Church.” But you may need to leave “a” church or even a church body if the abomination is allowed to set up shop in the denomination. We have some experience with that, don’t we? Jesus’ admonition to flee and don’t look back still applies.
But as you leave and as you flee, be on your guard there, too, because false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. As you run away and flee from the abomination of desolation there will be church salesmen trying to drag you into their dens. Look, here is Christ! Look, he’s in here! Come on in! Come to my church! Don’t believe them, Jesus says. It would be like hopping out of the frying pan and into the fire.
And so it is that, ever since Luther led the flight away from the Roman papacy, countless denominations have formed, one sect after another, and you know what almost all of them have in common? They invite you to come and find Jesus where He isn’t, and they turn you away from where Jesus is.
What am I talking about? I’m talking about the separation of Christ and His Spirit from the preached Word and the Sacraments. When Jesus returns, every eye will see Him. It will be like lightning flashing from one end of the heavens to the other. Until then, Jesus is not found out in the desert or there in the inner room. He isn’t found in your feelings or in your heart or in your prayers or in a certain kind of music. Until His return, Jesus has promised to give Himself to us for salvation, for the forgiveness of sins, only in the Word, only in Baptism, only in Holy Communion. And ironically, or maybe just in fulfillment of prophecy, the vast majority of denominations in the world today that have separated from Rome deny the saving, forgiving power of Holy Baptism, and they deny the real presence of Jesus in the Sacrament of the Altar for the forgiveness of sins.
Well, doesn’t this all sound frightful? Abominations, desolations, false christs and false prophets and danger on every side. What is our comfort in the midst of this great tribulation? Our comfort is sure and certain. Our comfort is Christ Himself and the Word of Christ that will not pass away, even though heaven and earth pass away. Our comfort is that Christ has preserved His Word among us. His Spirit has gathered us here today around the Gospel and has enlightened us with His gifts. Here He has given us shelter from the storm. Here He forgives our sins and strengthens our faith and nourishes our bodies and souls with the body and blood of Christ, so that even in the midst of this great tribulation, God has not abandoned His children but has given us all we need until Christ returns, even the warnings and admonitions in today’s Gospel. The Lord Jesus hasn’t sent us off into the great tribulation to fend for ourselves. He has given us His Spirit and has promised to go with us.
The final words of our Gospel are also comforting, although somewhat cryptic. For wherever the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered together. Strange as it sounds, that’s Jesus referring to Himself and His people, even as He says to His disciples in other place, I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. Even now we gather around Jesus in the Sacrament. But when the times of this great tribulation are finally over and past, we will fly to Him like eagles, as you heard in the Epistle today: For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.
All of Jesus’ prophecies have come true up until now. Why would we think that this one wouldn’t—this prophecy about the abomination of desolation and the great tribulation that His people would experience in the time before His return? But if the great tribulation is real, then so is Jesus’ promise to sustain us along the way and to return to rescue His people. Pay attention to His warnings. And take comfort in His promises. And let us each be a blessing to one another along the way, in these times of great tribulation. Amen.
Today we celebrate the blessedness of all the saints—saints like Peter and Paul, James and John, Mary and Mary Magdalene; saints like Stephen and all the martyrs who were put to death for their confession of Christ; saints like Augustine and Athanasius, Luther and Chemnitz; but also saints like Ingrid and Earl, members here who have fallen asleep; John and Joyce, my parents who fell asleep in the Lord. Your parents and relatives who died in faith. Today we celebrate the blessedness of these saints, but also the blessedness of you, the saints of God, together with all believers in the Lord Jesus.
The word “blessed,” which Jesus uses nine times in the twelve verses of our Gospel, means “fortunate,” “happy,” “privileged recipients of divine favor.” To be blessed is to have God smiling on you with His grace and favor.
But ours is a hidden blessedness, isn’t it? We speak of the blessedness of the saints above—men and women who were often despised and mistreated on this earth, men and women and children who suffered and died, men and women and children whose bodies have turned back to dust in the grave. Even now their blessedness is completely hidden from our eyes. We speak of the blessedness of the saints below—and yet, most of the time you would have a hard time in this world proving that God is smiling on His Christians.
Oh, but He is! Listen to Jesus today as He reveals what our eyes cannot see, as He explains who the blessed are and what it is that makes them so privileged. Hear the Lord Jesus teach His disciples about the hidden blessedness of the saints.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. God has smiled upon the poor—the poor in spirit. This is spiritual poverty Jesus is talking about. You can be filthy rich financially and still poor in spirit. Or, you can be dirt poor when it comes to money but still snobbish when it comes to God.
What does it mean to be poor in spirit? It means to recognize yourself as a beggar before God, a beggar who sees in himself nothing but the dirty rags of sin, the bankruptcy of good works, the lack of any spiritual possessions that might satisfy the requirements of God’s law. To be poor in spirit means to stretch out your beggar’s hand and to look to God for nothing but charity, alms for the poor, not because you’re entitled to it, but because you know God to be merciful in Jesus Christ.
How can Jesus call these people blessed? Because theirs is the kingdom of heaven. God’s kingdom—Paradise!—belongs to the undeserving, to the poor in spirit who hope in God’s mercy alone. They possess nothing on their own, but God has given them His own kingdom, His own riches in the Person of Jesus.
This blessedness of the poor in spirit—the blessedness of possessing the kingdom of heaven—is hidden to us now. We don’t look like possessors of God’s kingdom here on earth, and we can’t see the saints above reveling in the glory of God’s kingdom. But we are, and they are. The saints above were poor in spirit here below, crushed by God’s law, raised up by his grace, washed clean in His Baptism, fed by His body and blood. And although they died, they are not dead. Their souls live in heaven above, in the kingdom that was theirs here on this earth, but that they now have been granted to enjoy as they sit down at the banquet table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This blessedness is hidden from them no longer.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Those who mourn…well, that’s everyone, isn’t it?, believers and unbelievers alike. But just as the blessed poor are the poor in spirit, so these mourners are spiritual mourners. The blessed mourners are those who mourn over their sins, with a broken and contrite heart. They are those who sigh and cry under the weight of the blessed cross as the world crumbles to pieces around them. The blessed mourners are those who mourn over the horrors of sin in this world, who mourn over the sting of death, and who look up to God with tears in their eyes, because it’s hard to be a Christian.
You can’t see this blessedness. It’s hidden. But, Oh, how God smiles upon these mourners. Why are they blessed? Why are they privileged? For they shall be comforted. Secure sinners who do not mourn over their sin but sin bravely and flippantly and could care less whom they offend—they will not be comforted. But these blessed mourners who look up to God in faith with tears in their eyes…their tears will be wiped away. The comfort of the Gospel of Jesus’ love and sacrifice, the comfort of God’s favor is held out to them even now. Forgiveness is granted to them fully and freely. Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning. And as for the saints above, the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. The blessed meek, the meek about whom Jesus is speaking are gentle and humble of heart, just as Jesus said about Himself, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” The meek in the kingdom of God don’t insist on their rights, but instead, in love, they consider others better than themselves and live to serve others, even as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many.
You can’t push your way to the front of the line in the kingdom of God. Instead, the last shall be first. You can’t fight for a place among the saints. Instead, the meek shall inherit the earth. The saints below have not fought our way to the top. Instead, we have been born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. This blessedness is hidden from us. We know it by faith. But the saints above—they have seen it firsthand in heaven where, as Peter says, our inheritance is kept for us, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. The world tells you you’ll be blessed if you hunger and thirst after love, pleasure, money, power, prestige, reputation, comfort and ease. But God condemns such hunger and thirst. Instead, Jesus calls blessed those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
Why? For they shall be satisfied. How? Not with a righteousness of our own that comes by works, but with a righteousness that comes by faith to all who believe. The righteousness of Christ is hidden from our eyes, but God reveals that to those who believe in Christ for righteousness, He credits the righteousness of Christ to us and fills our heavenly account with the goodness and righteousness of Someone Else, our Lord Jesus Himself.
Do you hunger and thirst for His righteousness to stand in for you before God? You shall be satisfied. Do you struggle against sin and temptation? Do you hunger and thirst for the day when sin will no longer be your constant companion? It’s coming, and for the saints above, that day has already come. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. We don’t have time today to consider in detail all the blessedness that Jesus speaks of in this Gospel—the hidden blessedness in being merciful, in being pure in heart, or in being peacemakers. I would like to consider with you briefly the final words of Jesus.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. If ever there was a blessedness that is hidden from our eyes, it is this one. To be persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for the sake of goodness, for the sake of the Gospel of Christ and the kingdom of God—that doesn’t sound like divine blessing, and it doesn’t feel like divine privilege, either. Our flesh rages against the cross and persecution. The devil takes suffering and persecution and divisions in the Church and holds them before our eyes and says, “See! You are on the wrong side! What kind of God would let you be persecuted for being faithful to His Word?”
But Jesus tells us how things really are—that the blood of the saints is precious in His sight, that those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake are privileged and blessed, because His kingdom belongs to them. When you are persecuted for the sake of the Gospel, ridiculed, shamed, slandered, condemned and even put to death—rejoice! You get to be like the blessed Prophets. Rejoice! You get to join the ranks of the blessed Apostles. Rejoice! You get to be like Jesus.
And that’s the long and short of what it means to be blessed: to be like Jesus, the Holy One—poor in spirit, mourning over sin, meek, hungry and thirsty for our righteousness, merciful, pure in heart, a peacemaker, and persecuted. Neither you nor I nor any of the saints who have gone before us are any of those things by nature, nor could we become those things by our own efforts or by our own choice. On the contrary, there isn’t a saintly bone in your body. But in His grace, God has given His Son to be all that we were not, so that by faith alone in Him, we might possess all that He is, first by reckoning, then by becoming. By faith, God reckons us even now to be among the saints. And now His Spirit, through the Means of Grace, continually renews us in the image of Jesus Christ so that, day by day, we grow into His image and become like Jesus in true righteousness and holiness and blessedness.
It’s a hidden blessedness now. But it won’t be hidden forever. The saints below have it by faith. The saints above have it by sight. On this festival of All Saints, let us rejoice in this blessed communion we have with one another as fellow believers, with the saints in glory as co-heirs in this blessed inheritance, and above all, the fellowship that we have been given with Christ Jesus, our Lord.
And what better way could there be for us to celebrate this communion than with the blessed Meal of Holy Communion where all the saints in heaven and on earth gather around the body and blood of Jesus to receive, by faith, His forgiveness on the earthly side of the rail, and to celebrate, by sight, His victory over sin and death on the heavenly side, where we one day shall be if we persevere in this faith and finish the race, as all the saints have done? May it be so, by God’s grace. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
