Each Day in the Word, Wednesday, February 22nd

Posted on February 22, 2023 by Tom and Karen Klumb

Luke 7:1-10

7 Now when He concluded all His sayings in the hearing of the people, He entered Capernaum. 2 And a certain centurion’s servant, who was dear to him, was sick and ready to die. 3 So when he heard about Jesus, he sent elders of the Jews to Him, pleading with Him to come and heal his servant. 4 And when they came to Jesus, they begged Him earnestly, saying that the one for whom He should do this was deserving, 5 “for he loves our nation, and has built us a synagogue.”

6 Then Jesus went with them. And when He was already not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to Him, saying to Him, “Lord, do not trouble Yourself, for I am not worthy that You should enter under my roof. 7 Therefore I did not even think myself worthy to come to You. But say the word, and my servant will be healed. 8 For I also am a man placed under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

9 When Jesus heard these things, He marveled at him, and turned around and said to the crowd that followed Him, “I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!” 10 And those who were sent, returning to the house, found the servant well who had been sick.

Seeing is not necessarily believing. Many people in Israel saw the signs Jesus was doing and, instead of believing, kept demanding more and more signs. Not so with the Roman centurion. He had already seen enough. Or better, he had already heard enough.

It seems clear that the centurion had never met Jesus or watched Him perform His miracles. But he had clearly heard the word about Christ, that He was good and merciful, and that He behaved as a Commander over disease, and over nature, and even over demons, and that His commands were readily obeyed.   The word about Jesus created such faith in the centurion’s heart that, even when given the opportunity to see Jesus and have Him come under his roof, he refused. Why should he desire something so unnecessary when a simple word from the Commander will do?

Why should we? Why should we desire to see the Lord’s plan for His Church beyond what He has already revealed in His Word? Why should we desire to see more evidence of His loving care than the cross He willingly bore for us?

Let God’s Word be enough. If He has promised it, it must be done. It must come true. He has proven Himself dependable and reliable. He doesn’t have to keep proving His faithfulness over and over again, does He? If He has not said it, then we didn’t need to know it, nor should we expect it. But if He has, then let us believe it, without having to see a thing, knowing that, in the Lord’s time, we will see everything turn out just as He said.

Let us pray: Lord Jesus, You are the mighty Commander and Ruler over all things. Grant us Your Spirit to strengthen our faith, that we may trust steadfastly in Your word and look to You for mercy at all times. Amen.

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Each Day in the Word, Tuesday, February 21st

Posted on February 21, 2023 by Tom and Karen Klumb

  Luke 6:43-49

43 “For a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. 44 For every tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush. 45 A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

46 “But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say? 47 Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like: 48 He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock. 49 But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently; and immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great.”

In the verses just before today’s reading, Jesus warned His disciples to make sure they were able to see clearly before trying to correct their neighbor’s sight. In other words, before you try to fix your neighbor, you have to fix yourself. He expands on this with another illustration about good and bad trees. As you go about dealing with your own faults, it will do you no good to try to fix the outward behaviors that are sinful and evil. No, if you are to produce good fruit, you first have to be made good. Otherwise, like a bad tree, you will produce only bad fruit.

How can you be made good? Not by ignoring the words of the Lord Jesus and taking matters into your hands to improve yourself. The truth is, you can’t fix yourself. Only God can do that, and He will do it through His Word. He shows you your sin as His Word reveals what is right and wrong. He convicts you of sin as His Word is applied to you. He shows you your Savior Jesus who loved you and gave Himself for you. And then He shows you Jesus as the true Vine, the good Vine, into whom you must be grafted by Baptism and faith.

Once you are made into a good tree, or into a branch that is grafted into the good Vine, then the Word of God teaches you to work together with the Holy Spirit, to apply yourself to hearing and meditating on God’s Word, and to devote yourself to living according to it.

When you do, you are like that man who built his house on the solid rock foundation. No storm or wind will be able to move you from it. But if you ignore Jesus’ Word and rely on yourself instead, then, like the house built on nothing, you will come to nothing.

Let us pray: O Lord Jesus, we are nothing without You. Keep us from relying on ourselves. Forgive us for the evil we have done and the good we have failed to do. And graciously continue to send preachers of Your Word, that we may hear it and believe it and put it into practice. Amen.

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Each Day in the Word, Monday, February 20th

Posted on February 20, 2023 by Tom and Karen Klumb

Luke 6:1-19

6 Now it happened on the second Sabbath after the first that He went through the grainfields. And His disciples plucked the heads of grain and ate them, rubbing them in their hands. 2 And some of the Pharisees said to them, “Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?”

3 But Jesus answering them said, “Have you not even read this, what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: 4 how he went into the house of God, took and ate the showbread, and also gave some to those with him, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat?” 5 And He said to them, “The Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.”

6 Now it happened on another Sabbath, also, that He entered the synagogue and taught. And a man was there whose right hand was withered. 7 So the scribes and Pharisees watched Him closely, whether He would heal on the Sabbath, that they might find an accusation against Him. 8 But He knew their thoughts, and said to the man who had the withered hand, “Arise and stand here.” And he arose and stood. 9 Then Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one thing: Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy?” 10 And when He had looked around at them all, He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he did so, and his hand was restored as whole as the other. 11 But they were filled with rage, and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.

12 Now it came to pass in those days that He went out to the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God. 13 And when it was day, He called His disciples to Himself; and from them He chose twelve whom He also named apostles: 14 Simon, whom He also named Peter, and Andrew his brother; James and John; Philip and Bartholomew; 15 Matthew and Thomas; James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon called the Zealot; 16 Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot who also became a traitor.

17 And He came down with them and stood on a level place with a crowd of His disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem, and from the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear Him and be healed of their diseases, 18 as well as those who were tormented with unclean spirits. And they were healed. 19 And the whole multitude sought to touch Him, for power went out from Him and healed them all.

There was a prevailing blindness in Israel with regard to the Sabbath law, and all God’s laws, at the time of Jesus. Most of the Jewish leaders thought that their religion was about doing things for God, obeying His commandments in order to earn His favor. They viewed the Sabbath law as Israel’s special obligation to “work” by not working.

Jesus exposes their blindness in today’s reading. The disciples were not breaking God’s Sabbath law by having a bite to eat on the Sabbath, and Jesus was not breaking God’s Sabbath law by healing on the Sabbath. The ceremonial aspect of the Sabbath law—the part about not doing any work on the Sabbath—was not an absolute commandment that was to be obeyed to the detriment of one’s own body or the body of one’s neighbor. On the contrary, the Sabbath law was God’s merciful gift to Israel. It was given for man’s benefit, as a way to ensure some rest in the midst of this world’s toil, and as an opportunity to help one’s neighbor in need. But the people’s focus on themselves and their works made them unable to see or to reflect God’s mercy.

The same blindness prevails in today’s world, too. Those who think they have a chance to earn their way into heaven despise the free favor and mercy of God in Christ, just as those who love their sin despise God’s condemnation of it and His insistence that all must come to repentance. In either case, they are unable to see how hopeless their situation is and that the only thing that can save them is resting in God’s mercy and in Christ’s work on our behalf.

May our eyes be open, both to our sin and to God’s mercy toward sinners. Then, having received mercy from God, we will finally be able to see how to be merciful toward those around us, just as the Lord Christ always was.

Let us pray: Merciful Lord God, turn our eyes toward the needs of our neighbor and warm our hearts by Your mercy to show mercy to those around us. Amen.

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Trust and follow, even when you can’t see

Posted on February 19, 2023 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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1 Corinthians 13:1-13  +  Luke 18:31-43

There’s a theme that runs through today’s Gospel: the theme of sight vs. blindness, seeing vs. not seeing. Sometimes blindness about the things of God is sinful and rebellious, like the blindness of the Pharisees, which was made worse, because they insisted that they could see. Jesus once told them, For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind.” Some of the Pharisees replied, “Are we blind also?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘We can see.’ Therefore your sin remains. Rejecting Jesus as the Light of the world, as the Son of God, as the Christ to whom the Old Testament Scriptures had been pointing, as mankind’s only Savior, is the worst kind of blindness, and many, many people live each day in that blindness.

But that’s not the blindness before us in today’s Gospel. The Twelve Apostles had their own kind of blindness. They were about to enter Jerusalem for the Passover, for Holy Week. But before they did, Jesus wanted them to see exactly what was about to happen to Him. Behold (that is, Look! See!), we are going up to Jerusalem, and all the things that were written through the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be finished. For he will be delivered to the Gentiles, and he will be mocked and mistreated and spit upon. And they will scourge him and put him to death. And on the third day he will rise again.” Could it be stated any more clearly than that?

Jesus clearly reveals that His appearance, His suffering, death, and resurrection were the theme that ran under the entire Old Testament. It wasn’t just the story of creation and the history of the people of Israel. It was the story of God’s plan of salvation, His plan to rescue fallen mankind from sin, death, and the devil, by sending His only-begotten Son into the world to suffer for our sins, to die for our sins, and then to rise from the dead and to give life to all who would believe in Him. Everything had been pointing to this moment, and Jesus holds it up for His apostles to see.

But they understood none of these things; this saying was hidden from them, and they did not understand the things that were said. How is that possible?

Some of it can be attributed to the weakness, the innate dullness, of the sinful flesh that just doesn’t think clearly about the things of God. People still read the Old Testament and miss the focus on the coming Christ. And even if they see it pointing to Christ, they miss the main job of the Christ, which is not to set up a great society on earth, but, again, to be rejected by His own people, to suffer for our sins, to be killed for our sins, and to rise from the dead. And all of that, still not to set up a great society on earth, but to call sinners to repentance and faith in Him, to enable us to escape the judgment and destruction of this world and to enter with Him and all believers into the new and perfect creation. But few people see that clearly, even after it’s revealed to them.

For Jesus’ apostles, there was another reason they couldn’t understand what Jesus was telling them. It was hidden from them, Luke says. Hidden by whom? It seems that God Himself was hiding the full understanding from them at that moment. He would give them a full understanding of it after the fact. But for now, they had to go into Holy Week “blind,” as it were. The events of Holy Week couldn’t have happened the way they did—the way they needed to—if everyone saw the plan clearly ahead of time. Not only that, but if Jesus’ apostles, His closest friends, had understood what was about to take place, they could have sympathized with Him, comforted Him, gone through it with Him, in a sense. And that couldn’t be. Jesus had to suffer alone, without any moral support, without anyone who truly understood. He had to go through it alone, relying only on the support of His dear heavenly Father. Only afterward could the apostles look back at what Jesus had told them ahead of time. And then, the lights came on! He told us this would happen! The Scriptures foretold it, too. How could we be so dense? How could we be so blind?

I think you, as baptized believers in Christ, are familiar with this kind of blindness. You’ve been mercifully rescued from the blindness of unbelief. The Holy Spirit, through His Word, has opened your eyes to see the light of Christ, that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. That no one comes to the Father except through Him. Does that mean you suddenly understand every prophecy of Scripture? I doubt it. Do you see clearly every detail of God’s plan for the Church until the end of the world, even as He has revealed it in Old Testament prophecies or in the Book of Revelation? I would say, no. There is a degree of blindness that we are meant to have; certain things are hidden from us, too.

So what to do? Trust! Trust in the same Jesus who willingly endured suffering and shame so that you might be saved. You’ve seen clearly His love for you in giving Himself for you. Now trust Him in the places where you still can’t see. Trust that He will take you by the hand and guide you through whatever darkness remains until you eventually see everything clearly. That’s what the apostles did. They kept following Jesus to Jerusalem, even though they were going in “blind.” And eventually, at the right time, they were allowed to see.

In the second part of today’s Gospel, we see something similar happening. As Jesus makes His way to Jerusalem, there’s a blind man on the side of the road, begging. St. Mark gives us his name: blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus. When he heard the noise of the procession and the excitement of the crowd, he asked someone what was going on. And they told him, Jesus of Nazareth is passing by. And then this blind beggar cries out, not Jesus of Nazareth, but Jesus, Son of David! That was the common way of referring to the Messiah, to the Christ. A blind beggar was no Old Testament scholar. He was not among the wise and learned people of Israel. But his hearing must have been very good. More than that, the Holy Spirit must have worked powerfully through what he had heard about Jesus, enough for this blind man to see clearly that Jesus was not just a nice guy, not just a good teacher, not just “a” prophet sent from God, but the very promised Messiah for whom Israel—for whom mankind had been waiting for thousands of years.

Son of David, have mercy on me! he cried. He cried out several times, to the point that the people leading the procession rebuked him and told him to be quiet. They were having a glorious procession to Jerusalem. They had no care or concern for this beggar along the road. All they could think of was themselves, which revealed their own blindness—their blindness to Jesus’ true purpose, which wasn’t to have a glorious, undisturbed procession to Jerusalem, but to have mercy on the needy.

But the mercy the blind beggar was looking for wasn’t in the form of money or riches, as someone might expect. No, this blind beggar looked to Jesus for mercy that only He could provide. Jesus stops the procession and calls for the man to be brought to Him. And He asks him, What do you want me to do for you? Lord, that I may receive my sight! And Jesus readily grants his request, adding these well-known words: Your faith has saved you. That was true with regard to his eyesight, but it was also true with regard to his eternal soul. Faith in Jesus saves. And the one who believes in Jesus will seek help from Him, help with every need, both physical and spiritual, for this life and for the next. He won’t stop following Jesus once he gets something out of Him, just as blind Bartimaeus went on to follow Jesus to Jerusalem after he received his sight.

We learn here that the seeing of the eyes is not what’s important for our salvation. It’s the seeing of faith, which comes by hearing the Word. It’s keeping one’s eyes focused on Christ crucified and risen from the dead. It’s putting our trust in Him, no matter what we see with our eyes, no matter whether our eyes can see at all. And if you want to see something, to understand something that remains obscure, then ask the Lord for His mercy. Ask Him for the enlightenment of His Holy Spirit! And He will give you whatever sight you need.

Now, where there is faith in Christ, there is also following. That following of Jesus will be characterized by the cross. The believer’s life on earth will resemble the life of Christ on earth, which involved suffering and rejection and hatred on the part of many.

What else will that following involve? St. Paul paints that picture for us in today’s Epistle. Following Christ will involve love, love as Paul so beautifully and elegantly describes it in 1 Corinthians 13. It can’t be otherwise. Where there is genuine faith in Christ, there will also be love. It won’t be perfect in this world, but it will be the Christian’s goal to live each day in love and to repent for where love has been absent, as the Corinthian Christians themselves had to do after Paul revealed to them just how loveless they had been in many ways.

So throughout the coming Lenten season, keep your eyes focused on Christ: on His love, on His suffering for your sins, and on His victory for you over sin, death, and the devil. When you can’t see, then trust. And as you trust, remember to walk in love. Now may the Lord open our eyes to see the light of Christ and the love of Christ, and may He strengthen us to follow Him, even when we can’t see the way ahead. Amen.

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Each Day in the Word, Sunday, February 19th

Posted on February 19, 2023 by Tom and Karen Klumb

Revelation 5:6-10

6 And I looked, and behold, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent out into all the earth. 7 Then He came and took the scroll out of the right hand of Him who sat on the throne.

8 Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. 9 And they sang a new song, saying:

“You are worthy to take the scroll,
And to open its seals;
For You were slain,
And have redeemed us to God by Your blood
Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation,
10 And have made us kings and priests to our God;
And we shall reign on the earth.”

Seeing, hearing, and faith. Those themes run through the devotions this week. In today’s Gospel from Luke 18, it’s Jesus in His state of humiliation who showed His disciples what lay ahead for Him: suffering, death, and resurrection. Jesus laid out the plan for them to “see,” but they didn’t understand it at the time. Meanwhile, the blind man trusted even without seeing, which resulted in his sight being granted.

In today’s reading from Revelation, it’s Jesus in His state of exaltation who reveals to His Church the content of the sealed scroll, the decrees and judgments of God concerning what lies ahead for the Church.

Jesus is worthy to know and to reveal the Father’s decrees both as true God and as true Man, and as both the Lion and the Lamb: as the Lamb, because He gave Himself as a sacrifice for the world’s sins and cleansed His Church with the washing of water by the word; as the Lion, because He conquered sin and death and reigns over all things for the Church.

Jesus alone is worthy to reveal the Church’s future, and what He reveals is that the Church’s path resembles the path of Christ Himself. We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God. We must face suffering, rejection, and death. But like Jesus, we, too, will be resurrected and glorified. As with the Head, that is, Christ, so with the Body, that is, the Church.

Having seen the plan, learn from both the disciples and the blind man in Luke 18. You may not understand everything that Christ has revealed about these last days of the earth. But in this case, trust can be blind, because we have already seen the goodness and mercy of God in Christ. Trust in His good and merciful plan for His Church, and eventually, like the blind man whose faith saved him, your trust will be rewarded with sight, too.

Let us pray: O Lamb of God, You are worthy of all honor and praise. When we are unable to see how Your plans fit together, send forth Your Holy Spirit to enlighten our eyes and to strengthen our faith. Amen.

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