April 3, 2010 - Easter Vigil - St. John 20:1-18

What has fallen has been lifted up again. What has been lost has been recovered. What was ruined has been made whole again. What was destroyed has been repaired. What was cursed has been blessed. We who expected death have been given life. All this because He who was dead is now alive! Christ who was slain is alive again.

When the Lord made man He gave him life and put him in a garden. When Adam and Eve left the garden it was in shame and death. Our Lord enters the garden in shame and death; He is laid in the tomb. But He leaves the Garden alive and the tomb is left empty. Where man brought death into the world in a garden, Christ brings forth life from the garden.

When Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden, an angel with a flaming sword was stationed to keep them from ever going back. The flaming sword of God's judgment blocked them from that paradise ever again. Now angels are in the empty tomb, no longer swinging deadly flaming swords but pointing to the risen Christ who is the Life of Mary and Peter and John and all the world. In this Garden the angels are not enforcing the bad news of the curse but proclaiming the Good News of Jesus' resurrection.

The Lord walked in the Garden and Adam and Eve hid themselves. Now in this garden of the empty tomb, Jesus comes, hidden to reveal Himself to Mary as the risen Savior. A serpent preached to Eve. Eve then shared these lies with her husband. The result was the Fall into sin and the judgment of death. Now, Christ speaks to Mary and she goes to proclaim that He is alive to the disciples. The lies of death are replaced by the Good News of life. What happened in the Garden of Eden is reversed in the Garden of Christ's empty tomb!

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, by His death that conquered death and His life which restores life, Christ has overturned the work of sin and death in this world. By your Baptism into Him, you have died and rise with Him. By the preaching of His Gospel He has called your name and turned you to Him. By His Holy Supper He lives in you and promises to raise you up at the Last Day. All the powers of hell and death have been defeated and they cannot hurt you. By his death He has rescued you even from death. By His resurrection He has promised you to be raised and have eternal life. All of the curse that you have been under has been undone by your Lord Jesus and paradise is once again yours. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.  

April 2, 2010 - Good Friday - St. John 18:1--19:42

(with inspiration from Johann Gerhard's Sacred Meditation “The Fruit of Our Lord's Passion”)

Behold, dear Christians, the Lamb of God who is killed for you this day. Hear of His suffering so that you might be set free:

Our Lord's suffering begins in a Garden because it was in a Garden that our first parents were deceived and fell into sin. Jesus is betrayed and handed over to His enemies because we were betrayed by the serpent's craftiness and handed over into sin and death. Jesus is arrested and bound because we were bound by the strong cords of sin and death from which we could not free ourselves.

Jesus stands before the Council and is mocked so that we might stand before God and be comforted. Jesus stands accused before the high priest so that we will not stand accused before the Father. Jesus is struck and beaten so that He might stop the blows of the devil and the judging sting of God's Law from striking us. Jesus suffers the denial of His close friends, so that He will never deny us but confess us before the Father as those for whom He died.

Jesus stands before Pilate in silence so that we will not have to stand silent on the Last Day before our Judge. Jesus speaks of His kingdom before Pilate to rescue us from the kingdom of darkness. Jesus gives witness to the truth because we so often think to lie to God. Innocent Jesus takes the place of guilty Barabbas so that He might also take our place, the innocent for the guilty, the just for the unjust, the righteous for the unrighteous, the Lamb of God in the place of sinners.

Jesus wears a crown of thorns, the proof of God's curse on this world, to become a curse for us so that we who were cursed in our sin might instead be blessed by His death. Jesus is mocked and made sport of because we so easily mock and make sport of God's Word and Name. Jesus endures the shouts to crucify Him so that we will never hear such a judgment of condemnation from our Lord. Jesus is weighed down by the burden of His cross so that He might lift from us the burden of our sins.

Jesus is nailed to the cross because we have pierced ourselves with the grief of our sins. Jesus is called the King of the Jews because we want to rule our own lives. Jesus has his clothes stripped from Him and divided up so that we might be clothed in Baptism with Him and His righteousness. Jesus gives His mother into the care of His apostle so that we might be given into the care of His church. Jesus thirsts and drinks the sour vinegar so that He might quench our thirst with the sweet wine of His blood given for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus declares that our salvation is finished so that we are rescued from every effort and attempt to save ourselves.

Jesus dies, so that we might have life. His side is pierced, letting blood and water flow, so that we might be washed at the holy font with this saving flood and drink from the cup His saving blood. Jesus gives blood and water from His side so that we, whose parents ate from the tree that brought death, might have the fruits of the cross, our eternal life. Jesus is wrapped in linen so that we will be wrapped in His robe of righteousness for a protection against death. Jesus is laid in the tomb so that our graves will be sanctified and be the place from which He will raise us from the dead, just as He is risen.

On this Friday, all that was Bad was heaped upon our Lord so that we might call this Friday Good. For all that He did, He did for you. By His life, you are rescued from death. By His death you are given life. Happy Good Friday in the Name of Jesus. Amen.  

April 1, 2010 - Maundy Thursday - St. John 13:1-15, 34-35

Why does Jesus institute this Holy Supper on this night? His Words give the answer: “Given and shed for you for the FORGIVENESS OF SINS.” The salvation He won at the cross is delivered in this holy meal to our mouths. When we eat and drink Christ's body and blood, we have the forgiveness of sins. We also have Jesus' promise that He lives in us and we in Him and He will raise us up on the Last Day. But too many people, dear Christians, you and I included, come up to this meal thinking that this forgiveness we are given here is only to benefit us and not for us to receive it in order to benefit our neighbor, especially our brothers and sisters in Christ. On the night when He was betrayed, our Lord gave His disciples His body and blood to forgive their sins. But He also showed them what this body and blood are all about: that such forgiveness that they receive is passed on in the care and serving of others.

See how after the Supper, Jesus takes a towel and some water and begins washing the disciples' feet. Jesus is teaching us here that His purpose on this earth is to save us and to serve us. Salvation comes in the Supper when but then He also does this service of washing their stinky, nasty feet. In a similar way, the Lord is teaching us that His love doesn't stop with the Supper in our lives. We come and feast upon His body and blood for the forgiveness of our sins, but that forgiveness is then passed on from us to others. When we wash someone else's feet, it doesn't mean we have to scrub them with a bar of Irish Spring. It means we are forgiving them when they “step in it.” The point is that the service Christ is doing for His disciples in feeding them His body and blood doesn't end with the meal but continues as He washes their feet. Likewise, our connection to our brothers and sisters in Christ doesn't end when we stand up at the end of Communion. It goes on in our lives together as we serve one another and take care of one another.

When the Passover Lamb was sacrificed in Egypt, that Lamb was killed and then eaten and its blood was the mark that kept the Angel of Death away from God's people. The Passover Lamb was the Lamb who set them free from slavery because right after the Passover, the Israelites left Egypt. Just so Christ is our Passover Lamb. He is sacrificed on the cross and He is eaten in the Holy Supper that is celebrated in the church. And it is that Lamb of God who rescues us from our slavery. For we are in slavery not to Egyptians but to sin and death. But His salvation also ends our slavery to sins against others. Now we don't have to be slaves to other people's sins, holding grudges, acting as if someone is our brother or sister in Christ in name only. When we're slaves, we're looking out for number one, trying to survive, trying to keep ahead of and above others. But with Christ' freedom comes a freedom from such slavery in which we treat others like slaves. Christ's sacrifice on the cross, delivered in His Holy Supper frees us from the worthless lives in which we are only concerned about ourselves. Christ's salvation not only sets us free but makes us servants to care for others. We are free before God. No longer condemned. And now we are true servants to our neighbors, forgiving them and helping them.

St. Paul says that we shall eat and drink the body and blood of Christ in an unworthy way if we don't discern the body of the Lord. This means two things. It means we must never dare to eat and drink this Holy Supper as if it is not truly the body and blood of Christ given for the forgiveness of sins. You can't eat and drink Christ' body and blood if you don't believe that is what it is. That is to sin against Christ's body! But just as much as we shouldn't eat and drink without recognizing that Christ's body and blood are in, with and under the bread and wine, so we shouldn't eat and drink without recognizing that we are united with everyone else by that body and blood into Christ's body, the church. That is, if we eat and drink and then walk away and forget about those around us, being mad at them, hating them, ignoring them, or pretending they don't exist and are not our problem, we have despised Christ's body, the church. To eat and drink forgiveness and then to get up from the altar and then not pass that forgiveness on to others is contrary to what Jesus Himself is doing in the Supper! In the Supper we eat the true body of Christ and thereby we are His body the church, given to one another to serve and care for. To wash each others feet, that is, to forgive each other.

Now it's all well and good to say that Jesus gives us an example to follow. It's good to hear that when we get up from the Supper, we are to love and serve our neighbor. But when we don't? When we see that we don't want to smell someone else's feet, let alone wash them? That is why Jesus died. For your sins. That is why He gives you His body and blood. To take away your sins. That is why He went to the cross and left you a Holy Meal of salvation. When you fail at loving your neighbor, come and feast on Christ's body and blood. If you fail to forgive others, then come and receive forgiveness for that and with enough to spare to dish some out to your neighbor too. Here you see that these things go together: the Supper and loving others. Don't try to love others as if you have the strength and ability to do so on your own! Rather, you must live from the forgiveness that Christ gives in His Supper. Then again, don't come to the Supper with no intention of living to serve others, as if the Supper is just “you and God” and you don't need to worry about anyone else. The body and blood of Jesus are what set you right with God but also with your neighbor. Feast upon Christ's body and blood to know that you are forgiven. Feast upon Christ's body and blood to know that you are a part of His church in which you love others as Christ has loved you. When you sin, you need the Supper. From the Supper learn to serve your neighbor. When you sin in serving your neighbor, back to the Supper. And so it goes; that is our life as Christians.

Jesus' body and blood makes you a Christian. His death takes away your sins. His Supper delivers that forgiveness to you. But it is your loving your neighbor that shows the world you are a Christian. They can't see that just from you going to the Supper. So see how the Lord gives you your whole life on this night. He gives to you the holy food that delivers forgiveness and everlasting life. And He shows you how to live, not for His benefit, but the benefit and blessing or your neighbor. On this night, Christ gives you His body to eat for the forgiveness of sins. And He gives you His body, the church, to serve and love as you live in His grace and forgiveness. For your sake He goes this night to His suffering and death so that you might have new life in Him. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.

March 31, 2010 - Wednesday in Holy Week - St. Luke 23:39-43

Someone once told me, “I just don't get what your church teaches about forgiveness. It makes it sound like you can just live a terrible life and then right before you die, repent and then you're in.” That's a pretty crass way of putting it but yes, that's the gist of it. That's because it's not us suddenly turning around our lives at the last hour. It's Christ's grace and mercy penetrating sinful hearts and saving us by His forgiveness. That's what happens when Jesus saves the thief on the cross. He probably didn't do much good in his life; he probably didn't contribute much to society but rather worked against it. He was a robber and in the last moments of his life, he learned who Jesus was and Jesus saved Him. That's what Jesus does by hanging on that cross. He saves sinners. Sinners who don't have a hope or a prayer other than that Jesus smiles upon them and says that His being on the cross is for them, too.

The thief that is saved bothers us. It seems too easy. It seems like there has to be some price. It seems like if that miserable and worthless man should get to paradise, he's got to do SOMETHING. But all he does is point out what a rotten guys he and the other thief are. How they're getting what they deserve. And how Jesus doesn't deserve anything that He's suffering. And then there is the prayer for mercy, for Jesus to remember this poor thief who knows he's only getting what he deserves. “Jesus, remember me.” He doesn't even say he's sorry. He just pleads for Jesus not to forget him. Brothers and sisters in Christ, we can learn a lot about being a Christian from this thief on the cross. If it's about us, then we ought to talk about what we deserve: punishment and death and hell. But when it's about Jesus, we confess that He is perfect and holy. And yet, the thief knows that this innocent Jesus is the One who can save him. On the cross, Jesus doesn't deserve what the thieves are getting. Yet He suffers along with them because that's why He came: to suffer what thieves deserve. To suffer what you and I deserve. And it's that suffering for us that saves us. Because He suffers like the thief, and for the thief, He can say to the thief, “Today you will be with Me in paradise.”

It's a good prayer, “Lord, remember me.” And how could He forget you? He made you His own when you were born from above by water and the Spirit at the font. Jesus remembers you. He has issued you a divine pardon from your sins and eternal death by pronouncing Absolution upon you. He doesn't' forget you. He can't forget Himself and that means He must remember you when you are filled with His body and blood eaten and drunk for that same forgiveness the thief received. Lord, remember us. Never fear. Now that Jesus has gone the way of the cross and risen again, the only thing He will forget about you is your sins. You, He remembers because you have His name and seal upon you. And the same Lord whose word spoke the thief into paradise speaks you into eternal life too. By water, word, body and blood, you have the Lord's word that on the day you die you too will be in paradise with the Lord who was on the cross for thieves and for you. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.  

March 30, 2010 - Tuesday in Holy Week - St. Mark 15:2-5

St. Paul writes that we have made the good confession as Christ made the good confession before Pontius Pilate. What confession did Christ make? What did He say to Pontius Pilate? Mark points out the silence of Jesus when He is before Pilate. Pilate asks Jesus questions and the whole time the religious leaders are there slinging accusations but Jesus doesn't say anything. He is silent. Pilate is amazed. This isn't how prisoners facing the Romans act! They beg for their lives. They cry and tremble in terror, making excuses for what they've done. Or they shout in anger and defiance, claiming their innocence. But not this one. It's almost like a lamb going to the slaughter. He walks along quietly not realizing he's about to be slaughtered. So this Jesus. He doesn't say anything. Doesn't beg for mercy. Doesn't argue His innocence. Doesn't make counter-accusations against His accusers. He just stands there. And gets scourged with the Roman razor-tipped whip. Crowned with thorns and smacked around by the bored soldiers and finally led out to be nailed to the cross. What kind of “confession” is that? How is that, as St. Paul says, the “good confession?”

The answer is in this: Jesus doesn't open His mouth in order to save us who do. We open our mouths and make excuses for our sins. We open our mouths to tell others how great we are, how much we do, how important we must be. Or we open our mouths to complain, to curse, to grumble against what God gives us or doesn't give us. We throw out words that defend ourselves and tear others down. We accuse others as the Jews accused Jesus. We boast in ourselves as Pilate boasted in his power. Because we can't keep our mouths shut, Jesus doesn't open His. He goes silently, like a lamb led to the slaughter because we can't keep quiet. We can't stop ourselves from saying things that profane God's name and hurt others. That's why the Son of Man makes this good confession, that He holds His tongue and endures what must come. Jesus does not go to Calvary grumbling and complaining and pleading and cursing! He goes as the Lamb of God led to the slaughter of our salvation. Jesus opens not His mouth and that saves us from all the times we open ours!

But now, having been raised from the dead, Christ sends His Holy Spirit to us by water and the word so that we too make the good confession. What is that good confession? What are we “confessing” with God's Word? We confess that we are sinners, to be sure, but that by Christ's death and resurrection we are forgiven. Our confession of faith is that Jesus is our Savior. Now, the Holy Spirit opens our lips to declare His praise and speak of the Christ who died and rose for sinners, who washes and feeds His people and gives us eternal life. Now Jesus' silence before Pilate along with all of His suffering and death, silences the accusations of the devil, death and even the Law against you. No one can accuse you before God because the Lord was accused before Pilate. No one can condemn you before the Lord because He Himself was condemned for you by the Roman Governor. Jesus suffered under these earthly authorities so that you will never suffer before His authority. Rather, by His authority, earned by His obedient work of suffering and death, Christ grants you an eternal pardon that cannot be overturned. Christ is condemned. You are set free. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.  

March 29, 2010 - Monday in Holy Week - St. John 12:1-43

The Pharisees were really upset! “You see we can't do anything! The whole world has gone after Him!” For all their holy talk of keeping the Law and being religious men, what really made the Pharisees mad was that Jesus was stealing their thunder. The common people flocked to Jesus for His healing and preaching of mercy and the Pharisees couldn't stand it. This Savior wasn't flattering them and patting them on the back! Some believed in Him, but they did so secretly, not wanting the Pharisees to put them out of the synagogues. They loved the praise of men more than the glory of God. Jesus comes and delivers a salvation that robs them of their glory. It doesn't flatter them. It doesn't flatter us either. The terrible crushing the Law does to us is to expose that we love the praise of men more than God. It bothers us when people don't recognize how hard we try to be godly. How religious we are. How pious. When we consider how much better we are than those around us, it can make us angry that God doesn't seem to notice what we do! The truth is, as sinners, one way or another, we love the praise of men more than God and our Old Adam hates it when the Lord gets all the attention in church instead of us!

But Jesus doesn't fear men. And He doesn't seek their praise. And He doesn't glorify Himself by showing off. Jesus comes to do as Isaiah says, to give His back to the smiters. He doesn't seek their praise or approval but patiently and humbly submits Himself to their cruel insults, their harsh slaps, their beatings, scourging, and crucifixion. When Jesus is mocked and has such hateful words flung at Him, He doesn't fight back. He commits Himself to the Father who judges justly. Who's right? The Pharisees or Jesus? Christ's resurrection on Easter answers that question! Jesus came to be the most hated, insulted and unflattered person because we love all the flattery for ourselves. Because we love to be the centers of attention, because we want God to pat us on the back and tell us how great we're doing, Jesus goes the way of sorrow. The way of mockery, pain and death. There on Calvary is the one Man who doesn't care what men think but only desires to do the Father's will. There on the cross is the Son of God who draws all people to Himself, not because He flatters them and they like to hear it. He draws them to Himself because He is our Savior from sin. His wounds and blood cleanse us and win for us the salvation that comes not because we deserve it but because of God's grace and mercy.

There is now no more need to fear men. Never mind what people say about you out there, being a Christian. There is now no more fear that God doesn't recognize you and all the great things you do. That Old Adam way of thinking has been buried with Christ. Now, in your baptism, you have something spoken about you by God—that you are His forgiven child. That is such a description of you that no other person will ever make. It's a conclusion about you that you could never draw about yourself. What the Father says about you because of His Son is so different, so undeserved and yet so powerful and saving that it forgives your sins, quenches your lust for flattery and calls you holy in Christ. God is not content for you to want the weak and sad glory of men! He gives you His own glory, the glory of His Son, the salvation of Jesus. This Holy Week is not our time. It is Jesus' time. His time to come and suffer for our wanting it to be ours. But it is His. All His. And He's doing it for you. To save you. To make you His. To throw down all false flattery and the love of men's praise and to lift you up to enjoy the glorious riches of God's grace and glory which are given to us for the sake of that Son who is lifted up on the cross. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.  

March 28, 2010- Palm/Passion Sunday - St. Matthew 26:59-61; 27:6-8

The Law of Moses says that you can't condemn anyone without two or three witnesses. So if they're going to convict an innocent man, they'd better find two or three witnesses that can lie about Him! The Law says you can't put blood money in the treasury. So don't put those thirty pieces of silver in the plate; buy a field to bury the John Does in. Brothers and sisters in Christ, do you see the vast and shameful hypocrisy in Jesus being sent to His death? The religious leaders, the men who are supposedly experts in God's Word and the examples of godliness are going to send innocent Jesus to death but they have to do it in a way that appears right. They are murdering an innocent man, the Messiah even, but they're going to dot their “i”s and cross their “t”s! What hypocrites! They want to act like ungodly men while pretending to LOOK like godly men. Sounds like us. We come to church. We sing along and pray. But out there we live as if we can't get rid of God fast enough. We live as if we're holy and pious while we murder each other with our words and actions and show that we not only don't love our neighbors as ourselves, we don't love them at all. But then it's back to church in a show of piety and clean living. No wonder some people say they don't want to go to church because of all the hypocrites.

But that's the religion of the Pharisees. They go to the church of “say one thing and do another.” That's the belief of Pilate: if I “wash my hands” then I'm not really guilty. That's not our faith. Oh, we live like it is. But that's our repentance: to acknowledge that we are good at being hypocrites too, saying one thing, living another. But that's not why you are here. This church is not for those who want to look holy. This is the church in which God's Word strips away all of our pretensions to holiness. Here, there is no arguing, no doubting that we don't love God and we don't love our neighbor. God's holy Law strips away any notion that we're “good Christians” or that we're particularly religious or pious. No illusions here. I don't love God. I don't love others. I only love me. But loving me won't save me. And it won't do my neighbor any good. So we need a God who comes to love others more than Himself. A God who will take on our flesh and carry our hypocrisy and every other sin to Calvary and there love us more than Himself. In Jesus we have such a God who comes and doesn't defend Himself but allows these evil men and their self-righteous hypocrisy to condemn Him. To crucify Him. To kill Him. Here is the ultimate in the opposite of hypocrisy: the Lord speaks mercy and His actions do what His Words say: He takes our sins upon Himself and takes them away!

Now it may be that we still come here and hear God's Word and try to live it and fail out there, looking for all the world like hypocrites. But what the Lord says about us is not what the world concludes. Jesus has suffered and died for your sins. Your Baptism is God's promise that He will never regard you as a hypocrite and Pharisee but as His child, overlooking and forgetting your sins for Jesus' sake. The words of Holy Absolution are Christ's promise that all that He suffered on Calvary was for you and that it worked: your sins are forgiven. The Holy Supper of Christ' body and blood is that wonderful promise that while you may be a sinful hypocrite, it is Christ who lives in you and through you and He's no sinner or hypocrite! Most people think that the reason you go to church is to learn how to live, but when you go out and live some other way, you're just being a hypocrite. That's true if such a church is run by the Pharisees. But in Christ's church, we don't come to learn how not to be sinners. We come to learn that we are NOT sinners any longer because we are in Christ Jesus. The hypocritical clergy sent Jesus to His suffering and death. Our being hypocritical sinners sent Jesus to His death. But He went to death for just such sinners. Now He who was condemned by the false testimony of two witnesses declares you forgiven and free and not guilty by the witnesses of His death and resurrection, the water and the word and His body and blood. Christ is sacrificed! And you are free. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.