Eat With Your Ears

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

What do you have that was not a gift? What do you have that you have not received from the hand of another? Your body is the product of the design of God and the flesh of man. Your life is a gift sustained by the providence of God. All that you have and all that you are is a gift from God, who has created you and called you into being.

What do you have that was not a gift? You have sin. You have the disease of concupiscence, that ancient evil infection that corrupts your entire being with a bottomless desire for all things opposed to God. This, even, was an inheritance received from your fathers and forefathers before you, who received it from their fathers, all the way back to our first-father, Adam. But your sin is your own. It is the product of your own sinful nature, which finds ever more inventive ways to flout the command and promise of God.

Come, Lord Jesus

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Even if our spirits are willing, our flesh is weak. It is terribly difficult to subdue, and the things we would not do – the things we hate – those we do. It betrays us again and again. Our flesh is the seedbed of lust, gluttony, and avarice. All our deepest sorrows come from our sins.

The years sweep by and retrospect has little to show but a list of crimes, a catalogue of lies you have told, of promises you have forgotten, of slander that has risen up out of your hearts. Is it any wonder that our families are so broken? That our lives are so complicated? That the prisons are so full?

So too do we see in retrospect the signs of God’s wrath and the temporary character of this earth. Terrorists, earthquakes, divorce, and war all serve as warnings of the judgment to come. Nothing on earth is the same today as it was a year ago. If we get one step forward, we still suffer two steps back. All things are in decay, are dying. We are in constant turmoil and change. Death is having its way. Only the Word of God never changes.

You Shall Bless the LORD Your God

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the LORD swore to give to your fathers.” This is the instruction which Moses gives to the children of Israel, that they are to be careful to do all which the Lord has commanded them.

But notice that the Lord attaches a threefold promise to His commandment: that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the Lord swore to give. The Lord has already sworn to give good gifts to His people. Now, all they must do is follow the rules He has set forth in order to receive them.

We sing the hymn:

The Law of God is good and wise
And sets His will before our eyes,
Shows us the way of righteousness,
And dooms to death when we transgress (LSB 579.1).

"The Lamb Who Died"

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

There is something to be said about the fact that the preparers of our lectionary, whoever they be, appointed this scene from the crucifixion of our Lord to be the Gospel lesson for the last Sunday in the Church year. In Year A, the year ends with a vision of the final judgment, where we see the sheep and the goats separated and sent into their respective homes for eternity. In Year B, we are left with the promise that the Word of the Lord remains forever, and with the charge from our Lord: “Stay awake.”

But this year, you have heard from the pen of St. Luke the first words of Jesus from the Cross. And how fitting it is that, at the end of time (so to speak), we hearken back to the beginning of the End.

John Calvin once called the shouts and jeers and mocking of the crowds, the insults of the Jews, and the scoffing of the impenitent thief a “premature triumph” on the part of the devil. The devil and his minions looked around and saw that they had Jesus under their thumb. He was beated, scourged, bloody, and broken. The Son of God was about to die. And would God save Him? “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!”

Settle Your Minds

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“They will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name's sake. This will be your opportunity to bear witness.” This is what is coming to you, declares the Lord. You will be delivered over to those who hate you, and brought before those who ridicule you for the sake of Christ. This will be your opportunity to bear witness.

Bearing witness will not be fun. It will not be easy. It will not win you any popularity contests in the public square. Bearing witness to the Truth in the midst of a world of lies and deception is hazardous to your health.

Let me tell you the story of a young man named Ivan. Ivan was a soldier in the Red Army of the USSR in 1970. And Ivan was a Christian. He was not shy about his faith. Ivan was a dutiful soldier and an honorable citizen, even in the midst of a thoroughly disrespectable society.

Whose Is She?

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship” (2 Thess. 2:3-4). The son of destruction will be revealed at the coming of the Lord in His kingdom. This is promised by the Holy Spirit, as recorded by St. Paul.

And so it happens. The man of lawlessness is revealed. The son of destruction comes to light. Sometimes he ventures into the light all on his own, as though he could get away with mischief in broad daylight. Other times he sneaks out under the cover of some shadow, some ruse that he thinks will cloak him with stealth, so that he can lead off captive the sons of light.

The Sadducees are the face and the mouthpiece of the son of destruction in today's text. But they are not alone. The Pharisees and scribes are right there alongside them on the Temple Mount. The Herodians have just finished trying to trick the Lord of Glory with their false questions. Read through all of Luke chapter 20, and you might marvel at how the devil can unite such diverse and ordinarily opposed people and groups in the effort to unseat the Lord of Hosts.

Change, Or Not

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Congregations, like human beings, grow old. A large congregation once filled these pews. You may become nostalgic for the olden day. A century ago people walked to church, walked to work, walked to school, walked to the store. Now we drive everywhere.

A photograph taken of the congregation from the pulpit today would be different from a picture taken ten years ago. A picture taken from the back pews toward the chancel would be just as different. Faces you thought you would never forget have slipped over the cliff of your memory. If “all the world is a stage” where we all are actors, so is the church.

Pastors and people are constantly changing, but Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Since the Church is His Body, she also stays the same. Perhaps a church that advertises itself as “contemporary” is no church at all. The true Church has one Baptism and she partakes of the one spiritual food in the Holy Sacrament. She reads the same Scriptures, hears the same Gospel, and sings the same liturgies and hymns. St. Paul said that there is one Church, one Spirit, one Lord Jesus, and one God and Father of all.