St. John's and Grace Evangelical Lutheran Parish

The Righteousness of God

Text: Romans 3:19-28

St. Paul wrote to the Romans, “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it – the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.” (Romans 3:21-22, English Standard Version) Today we celebrate the Festival of the Reformation. Though Reformation Day itself falls on Thursday, we take the opportunity today to give thanks to God and glorify Him for the grace revealed to us in His Scriptures, and for calling His Church back to the Scriptures through His servant Martin Luther. On October 31st, 1517, Martin Luther posted the 95 Theses, giving a start to the Reformation.

This year, I’d like us to look at a different portion of the text than we normally do. Normally, when Romans 3 comes up in the Lectionary, we take the opportunity – and rightly so – to be reminded that we are not saved by our works but by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ. That is and (must always be) evident in our preaching, our hymns, and even the Liturgy. This year, I’d like us to focus on the words the Holy Spirit gives us through St. Paul, where he says, “The Righteousness of God.” What is the righteousness of God, and how is it shown? The righteousness of God is shown in His

a) punishing the sins of those who break His Commandments, but also, and especially, in
b) the sending forth of His Son as the atonement for all sin.

In order for us to understand what St. Paul means by the righteousness of God, we need to first talk about God. Who is God? How should we describe Him? Speaking for us as a group, we would probably refer to the words of Scripture to describe Him. How do the Scriptures describe Him? In addition to being a Trinity and the creator of all things, the Scriptures speak about God as being a God of love and truth and, also, of righteousness and justice. As the creator and source of all things, He is the one who determines what is right and what is wrong. For lack of a better explanation, we might say that he who invents the game also sets the rules. And, in a way, that is what God has done. He has revealed to us what is right and good and true. He has revealed to us how best to serve Him and love our neighbor. He has even written these rules on our hearts and revealed them in Scripture. We know them. The Ten Commandments.

God has revealed to us His holy will, the standard of what is right and wrong, what is good for us and for our neighbors. He has revealed these things to us, and what have we done? We have ignored His Commandments or explained them away. We have forgotten them and disregarded them. What’s worse, we who have been raised in the Church have known the Commandments since our childhood – and we break them anyway. This confession is what St. Paul is working toward when he said, “There is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (vv. 22-23) St. Paul worked in chapters 1-3 of Romans to demonstrate that, because God has revealed His Law in the Commandments and written it in human hearts, there is no excuse we can give. We are sinners, one and all, no matter which way you cut it.

Now, what is God to do with such a bunch? God is love, that is true; but He is also a God of justice and righteousness. He has revealed to us how to act righteously, and we have not done it. What is a righteous God to do with those who are unrighteous? Well, He’s to punish them. In fact, it would be unrighteous for God not to punish. We have already confessed this morning, that we deserve God’s punishment in both temporal and eternal fashions for own evil sins. When parents don’t discipline their children, they fail in their vocations as parents. If God did not punish those who break break the Commandments, He would make Himself to be unrighteous. The righteousness of God is shown when He punishes those who transgress His Law.

In the book of Numbers, the Holy Spirit gives us an account of how the children of Israel responded to the reports of the spies they had sent into Canaan. The twelve spies came back, telling of the great land, but also of the powerful people who lived there. Joshua and Caleb encouraged the people that the Lord was on their side and had promised to give them that land. But, the nation was swayed by the report of the ten wicked spies. They even prepared to stone Moses and Aaron, Joshua and Caleb before the Lord stopped them. The Lord said to Moses, “How long will this people despise Me? And how long will they not believe in Me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.” (Num. 14:11-12) In other words, the righteous Lord was prepared to punish the unrighteous breakers of His Law. He was going to do it, until Moses interceeded for them.

Moses said to God,

Now if You kill this people as one man, then the nations who have heard Your fame will say, ‘It is because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land that he swore to give to them that he has killed them in the wilderness.’ And now, please let the power of the Lord be great as You have promised, saying, ‘The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression.’
Numbers 14:15-18

Moses reminded the Lord that He is not only a righteous God, but a loving and merciful one – one who forgives transgression. The Lord shows His righteousness in punishing transgression, this is true. But even more so, does He show it by forgiving the sins of those who trust in Christ.

Instead of pouring out His righteous wrath on all mankind, which would be what we deserve, the Lord took another course – one which came only at great cost to Himself. God the Father saw our sin and considered the punishment we deserved, and instead put forth His only Son in our place. He sent His Son Jesus to take own our same human flesh and to bear our sins in Himself. Jesus actively and fully obeyed the Commandments and then suffered our punishment on the cross. On the cross, the Father poured out all His wrath on Jesus, as our substitute. Jesus bore it so that, in Him, we might be forgiven. And, how do we receive this forgiveness? We heard these words already, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith.”

Our God is a righteous God. He sent forth His holy will in the Ten Commandments and He wrote it in our hearts. In keeping with His righteousness, He punishes the sins of those who break His Commandments. But, He freely forgives those who believe in His Son. That is why Christ took on our flesh, so that God might both be just and our justifier through faith. This is what all the Scriptures are about, and it’s what Luther called back to our attention. Or rather, God called it back to our attention, through Luther. We are not saved by our good works. We contribute nothing to our salvation by them. Rather, we are saved by God’s grace through faith in Christ – whom He put forward as the sacrifice for sin in our place. In this way, God shows Himself to be righteous: in demanding payment for sin, but, even more so, in forgiving those who trust in His Son, even us.

The Law and the Gospel

Text: Matthew 22:34-46

In our Christian Book of Concord, the Lutheran confessors write,

The distinction between the Law and the Gospel is a particularly brilliant light. It serves the purpose of rightly dividing God’s Word and properly explaining and understanding the Scriptures of the holy prophets and apostles. We must guard this distinction with special care, so that these two doctrines may not be mixed with each other, or a law be made out of the Gospel. (Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration Article V, paragraph 1)
Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration. Article V, paragraph 1.
An public domain copy of the Book of Concord can be found here: http://bookofconcord.org/sd-lawandgospel.php#para1

They wrote this because, after Luther’s death in 1546, there was confusion about how God’s Word should be preached, particularly in congregational settings. Some pastors were saying that people should be taught to repent of their sins by contemplating Christ’s death and resurrection. Others maintained, correctly and with Luther, that repentance comes through the preaching of the Law, while faith and the forgiveness of sins comes through the preaching of the Gospel. In the Book of Concord, the Church confesses that there is a difference between the Law and the Gospel and, in this, we follow the pattern of our Lord.

The Gospel today gives us an opportunity to speak this way because we heard our Lord giving a masterclass in preaching the Law and the Gospel. Even yet in the temple during Holy Week, even then, He desired that His opponents would repent and believe in Him, and so receive the forgiveness of their sins. Therefore, He preached the Law to them – that God demands absolute love for Him and neighbor. Then, He preached the Gospel – that the son of David is also the Son of God, come to put the enemies of sin and death beneath His feet. Our Lord preaches both Law and Gospel so that we would rightly know and lament the depth of our sin, and so that we would also know the greatness of His love for us.

The underlying question the Pharisees and lawyers had for our Lord was how to interpret the Scriptures. The setting of our Gospel text this week is the temple in Jerusalem during the last week of our Lord’s earthly ministry. During Holy Week, Jesus would lodge at Mary, Martha, and Lazarus’ place and teach in the temple during the day. The question for our Lord today is the third question posed to Him, each an attempt to trip our Lord up and cause Him to blaspheme. They should’ve known better by now. But, the question behind their question was, as we said, how to interpret the Scriptures. Should the Scriptures be interpreted simply as a rule book for us to follow and thereby merit eternal life – as some of our Lord’s opponents held – or is something else going on? In His response to their question, and in the question He gave them, our Lord shows us how to interpret the Scriptures: by first recognizing the difference between the Law and the Gospel.

But, what is the Law; and what is the Gospel? Let’s see if we can stretch our minds back to our confirmation days. When we say “The Law,” we mean those passages in Scripture where our God tells us how we are to live, what we are to do and not do. When we say, “The Gospel,” we mean those passages in Scripture that speak of Christ and His work for us, such as His keeping of the Law for us and His death on our behalf, as the payment for our breaking of the Law. St. Paul teaches us that the purpose of the Law is to make sin known and lead to repentance while, through the preaching of the Gospel, faith is created and forgiveness is received. We maintain this distinction because, if we take away the preaching of Christ’s cross and leave only the Ten Commandments, we lead people only to despair. If we preach only the death and resurrection of Christ but leave out the Law, then we remove the reason why Christ died and our need for salvation in the first place. This, in a very short time, is what we mean by the Law and the Gospel. But, what does preaching the Law and the Gospel look like in practice, in real life? Let’s turn to our Lord’s preaching in the temple.

II.

The Holy Spirit records for us through St. Matthew that, “when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question to test Him, ‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?’” (Matthew 22:34-36, English Standard Version) Remember, we’re in the temple during Holy Week and Jesus’ opponents are crowding around Him. They ask Him, more or less, which is the greatest commandment in the Old Testament. Apparently, historically-speaking, this was the sort of conversation people would have, and the usual response would be what our Lord did say, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Mt. 24:37) The greatest and first commandment is that we fear, love, and trust in God above all things. Now, here, Jesus preaches the Law. He said to them, “A second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” (v. 39)

We hear elsewhere that the Pharisees were lovers of money. They were also lovers of being honored and respected by the public. They were lovers of loving those who loved them, but not so much of loving everyone. And, so, Jesus rightly pointed out that God does not only demand absolute love for Him, but also absolute love for everyone whom He places in our earthly lives. In fact, the whole second table of the Commandments is directed toward that end. By doing this, Jesus preached the Law to Pharisees to point out that they were, in fact, sinners in need of salvation. However, we should also hear this preaching of the Law ourselves. The Scriptures say that the “word of our God will stand forever” (Is. 40:8), and that includes both the Gospel and the Law.

God, in His Law, demands perfection. He demands that we, truly and with our whole being, love Him alone and above all things. There is no equivocation, there is no wiggle room. He will not tolerate anything to take His place. And yet, we cast His Law aside and throw it away from us. We neither study His Word or hold it in our hearts. We consider it a burden to be well-versed in Christian doctrine and live accordingly. In our homes, our televisions and stuff feature prominently while Bibles gather dust or are absent. We trust in our retirement investments to provide for us old age more than God. Just as God commands absolute love for Him, He also demands that we love our neighbor – every neighbor. Yet, we ignore that, too, as we all have in the past or do now hold grudges in our hearts. The same Law preached to the Pharisees should also weigh heavy on our hearts. They were no deeper into sin than we are now.

III.

Do you feel that? That sinking, heavy feeling in your chest? You’re supposed to feel that; it’s evidence that the Holy Spirit is working in your heart. The Lord has just shown us through the Law, how wicked we are. We don’t love God like we’re supposed to, and we don’t love our neighbors as we’re supposed to, either. God commands and we disobey, and that often on purpose. The punishment for this is death and eternal condemnation. This is what the Law does. The preaching of the Law shows our sins. It does this so that we can then hear this: Jesus Christ died for your sins. He knows how you only half-heartedly love God and how you have gossiped and hated your neighbor. He knows you have not treasured God’s Word as pricest of all jewels and that you have grown bored of hearing sermons preached. He knows these things, and all the things you have ever done, and He died for you. He died so that you might hear these words and believe. By His death He paid for your sins, by His resurrection He restores to you eternal life. If you believe these words, you have exactly what He says.

This is all because Jesus is not just David’s son according to the flesh but, as our Lord pointed out, He is “David’s Lord.” (v. 43) Jesus pointed out for the Pharisees and us that the son promised to David would be the same offspring promised to Abraham, the same promised to Adam and Eve, the Son of God Himself. His would be no mere earthly kingship, but a heavenly one filled with truth, righteousness, and love. This what our Lord established by His death and resurrection. He brings us into His reign by Baptism and by faith. Through these things, He gives to us the forgiveness which He won for us and the eternal life He purchased for us poor sinners. This is what we mean by the Gospel. Jesus Christ knew your sin and shame, took it Himself all the same, nailed it to the cross in His own flesh and made payment for it. The forgiveness which He earned, He gives to you as a gift through faith.

These two things must always be preached in the Christian Church, the Law and the Gospel. Our Lord did it there in the temple, as we heard, and He does here, now. By His Law, He shows us which things are right and good – and which we fail to do and so deserve eternal condemnation. By His Gospel, He teaches us that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ, because those who are in Him are rescued from sin and hell. Let us give thanks to God that He has preserved this teaching among us this far and pray that we would be granted to confess the same in our lives and conversations. Amen.

Sabbath Humility

Text: Luke 14:1-11

In our readings this week, we seem to have two streams of thought going on. The first stream we heard in the Old Testament reading, in St. Paul, and the second half of the Gospel text. The word that comes to mind in all three readings is humility. Our Lord encourages us to live in humility toward Him and our neighbor; that we not think only of ourselves, but look to the good of those whom the Lord places in our lives. The second stream of thought that comes up this week concerns the Sabbath. We heard in the text how our Lord healed a man on the Sabbath – demonstrating, again, the true purpose of the Sabbath.

It seems that these are two different streams of thought and perhaps we shouldn’t try to meld them into one sermon. I went back and forth on which part of the Gospel I’d like us to focus on this year; but I do think there is a connection between the two thoughts. I think it’s this: a right understanding of the Sabbath will lead us to live in love and humility toward others. You see, the Sabbath is not about doing no work. The Lord provides us the Sabbath so that we have time to rest, reflect, and receive the benefits of His work for us. In humility, Christ did not count His equality with God as something to be doted upon. Instead, He emptied Himself to bear our sins and make the payment on our behalf. When we understand that the Sabbath is for us to receive the benefits of Christ’s humility, how can we not, then, aspire to share in that humility in our lives here on earth?

Let’s pause for a moment, though, and reflect, again, on the Sabbath. This past Lent, we had the opportunity to study our Lord’s Ten Commandments and we spent a Sunday on the Third Commandment. But, that was a little while ago. The Sabbath, as you know, is the day set aside by God as a day of rest. In fact, the Hebrew word means, “rest.” This day was not given by God on Mt. Sinai, when He delivered the Ten Commandments, but it actually predates the Commandments. The Sabbath was given by God in the week of Creation. In Genesis 2, the Holy Spirit says, “On the seventh day God finished His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all His work that He had done in creation.” (Genesis 2:1-3, English Standard Version) God did not rest on the seventh day because He was fatigued from His work, but to reflect on His good work of creation and to delight in it. God first gave the Sabbath on the seventh day of creation. Only later did it become codified in the Ten Commandments on Sinai.

God commanded the observance of the Sabbath in the Third Commandment. He said,

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God…For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
Exodus 20:8-9, 11

God insisted that His people observe the Sabbath so that they would have a day of rest. Our God knows that life in the fallen creation is hard and full of labor and that we don’t always take time to get the rest we need. Therefore, He made the Sabbath a commandment. His people were to rest from all their work on the seventh day for this purpose: that, as God rested and reflected on all His work, so His people would pause to reflect on His work, receive His benefits, and live in love toward their neighbor.

II.

Whenever God gives something good, however, man usually finds a way to ruin it. It happened in the Garden of Eden and it happened with the Sabbath. This is what’s going on in the Gospel text. Our Lord was invited to dine in the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, so He went. Now, this dinner was on the Sabbath. There was a man among them suffering from dropsy, a debilitating swelling of body parts. Our Lord then asked the lawyers and Pharisees whether it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not. He didn’t ask because He didn’t know, but to point out the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and lawyers. By their time, they had corrupted the Sabbath and lost its true meaning. Instead of the Sabbath being a gift of God to His people, they turned their observance of the Sabbath into work for God. And it was quite a strenuous work, doing no work. They believed that they honored God’s Commandment by doing nothing on the Sabbath; no walking, no cooking, no lifting of anything. That’s what the Sabbath meant to them. Instead of being a day given by God to reflect on and receive His blessings, they made the Sabbath about them – them doing no work.

Now, lest we heap it all on them, we must confess that we have a share in this load of sin. We also take the good thing that God gives and reshape it in our image. And we do it, first, but cutting God out of the Sabbath; that is, Sunday. When Sunday rolls around and we want to sleep in, we sleep in. If we want to fish, we fish. If we want to attend sports, we do it. If we plain don’t want to go to church, we don’t. In all of this, we act as if this is the reason why God gave us Sundays at all – for us to do what we feel like. We also corrupt the Commandment when we do come to church and then tune out. Even crasser still, is the idea that we earn something in God’s eyes by coming to the worship service. Sometimes we act as if attending the Divine Service is just another box to check for us to count as good Christians. Now, we’ve come full-circle; because that’s how the Pharisees looked at the Sabbath.

III.

Our Lord asked the lawyers and Pharisees if it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath, but they kept silent. They weren’t even able to string two words together. Our Lord took hold of the man, healed him, and sent him away. Thereby, Jesus demonstrated for us, again, the true meaning and purpose of the Sabbath. God calls us to observe this time of rest so that we might receive the blessings and benefits of Christ’s work for us. This how the early church understood it. All throughout the Book of Acts, we hear how the Apostles gathered on the “Lord’s Day,” Sunday. In a way, the man in the Gospel suffering from dropsy is a good picture of ourselves. Dropsy was a swelling which rendered one unclean. Sin is a disgusting swelling of the heart and mind that renders us unclean before God.

The Scriptures say, though, that Christ bears our infirmities. We saw this in an immediate sense in the Gospel, but we see it to an even greater extent in the cross. Christ properly and fully observed the Sabbath. And, yet, He took our failures to do so upon Himself on the cross. By His death, He atoned for our failures to love and honor God. By His rest in the tomb, He fulfilled the Sabbath. Just as the Father rested from His work on the seventh day, so the Son, from His. Now, He gives us this day and time for us to rest. In our busy and stressful lives, He gives us this time to pause. In this hour He comes to us. He takes our burdens and makes them His own. He gives us His righteousness and makes it our own. Worldly comforts come and go, but here Christ gives us a rest and refreshment that lasts unto eternal life.

There’s a word for this, to describe how our Lord behaves toward us. Well, there’s many; but the word today is humility. St. Paul said in the Epistle, “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love.” (Eph. 4:1-2) He recalled to the Ephesians that our Lord has borne our burdens with patience, love, and gentleness. He did not cast us away for our sins but, in humility, counted us as more important than Himself – even to death. Here in this hour He gives us all the fruits of His cross. This is what the Sabbath is for. And maybe, now that we know what the Sabbath is for, we can live humbly toward our neighbor as Christ is toward us. God grant this unto us all. Amen.

Life Through Death

Text: Luke 7:11-17

I will extol you, O Lord, for You have drawn me up and have not let my foes rejoice over me. O Lord my God, I cried to You for help, and You have healed me. O Lord, You have brought up my soul from Sheol; You restored me to life from among those who go down to the pit.
Psalm 30:1-1, English Standard Version

These words of King David, spoken at the dedication of the land upon which the temple would later be built, could well have come out of the mouth of the poor mother in our Gospel text. To begin with, she was a widow. However, she also was the mother of only one son, who had died by the time our Lord came to that town, Nain. It would’ve been that son’s responsibility to provide and care for his mother. With his death, her hopes faded and she became as among “those who go down to the pit.” That is, until our Lord had compassion on her.

When Jesus entered that town, leading a joyous procession of the Gospel of the forgiveness of sins, He was met by a procession of another sort: a funeral procession. Where these two things collide, life must the victory win. Our Lord stopped the procession, spoke to the young man, and – with His Word – raised him from the dead. Then, as a continued expression of His compassion, our Lord returned this young man to his mother so that he might care for her. In our Gospel text today, we learn, again, that Jesus, our compassionate Lord, is able to bring life out of death.

That there were resurrections in the Old Testament, we noted in our reading today – where Elijah restored a widow’s son to life. Elisha, as well, would later be connected with a resurrection. There were also near resurrections, such as when King Hezekiah was restored from a grave illness. These resurrections, along with the prophecies of Isaiah, David, and others, pointed ahead to the resurrection of Christ at the fullness of time. But, as yet in our Gospel text, our Lord’s resurrection has not happened. Neither, has our Lord yet raised anyone from the dead – Luke 7 being earlier in His ministry. It happened, after the Sermon on the Mount, that our Lord returned to His home base in Capernaum, where He healed the centurion’s servant. From there, Jesus set out again to preach and teach the Gospel.

When our Lord entered the town of Nain with His disciples and a crowd of followers, St. Luke writes, “Behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her.” (Luke 7:12) Nain was about 25 miles from Capernaum. It would’ve taken about a day to get there on foot. Our Lord spent that day preaching and teaching. People who heard the Gospel and believed it followed Jesus to continue learning from Him. So, upon entering this town, our Lord was leading a parade of sorts when He then encountered an especially sad occasion. There was a widow from that town who had not only lost her husband, but now her only son, as well. With that son, her hopes of a future – of a place to live and food to eat – died, too. King David, in another psalm, speaks well for the situation of the woman, “The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me; I suffered distress and anguish.” (Ps. 116:3)

“When the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her and said to her, ‘Do not weep.’” (v. 13) When our Lord saw the procession, He had compassion on the poor widow. He stopped the funeral parade and told her not to weep. Then, He gave her good reason not to weep. St. Luke writes, “He came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And He said, ‘Young man, I say to you, arise.’ And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.” (vv. 14-15) Our Lord Jesus Christ is gracious and merciful, and has compassion over our human suffering. When He saw this widow carrying out her son, He cared for her by bringing her son back to life. Jesus is able to bring life out of death.

II.

The same Lord who had compassion over this widow, also had compassion over the whole world. In Genesis, no sooner did our Lord declare the consequences of sin than did He also promise a victory over sin and death in His own death and resurrection. That’s what Genesis 3 promises, it’s what the prophets sang of, and what the young man’s resurrection pointed ahead to. Jesus, also, was an only son. Though He Himself was without sin, unstained by original sin and without any actual sin of His own, Jesus placed Himself into the snares of death and pangs of Sheol. Though He had committed no crime, yet He opened not His mouth. And, why? Because of us.

We are the reason why Jesus died. Though we were not there in the Garden, the corruption of sin has flowed down into us. We were born in it and live in it. In the course of our lives, we have allowed sin to hold sway in our hearts, minds, and actions. We have allowed its flow to continue unchecked. On account of this, we stand justly condemned. We disobey the Almighty God. His verdict is just, and the sentence for treason against the divine is death. This is why we die. But, it is also why our Lord died. Only, He didn’t die as a punishment for His sin – because He didn’t have any. Jesus died so that the wrath of God which we have deserved by our sins, might pass from us to Him. By His death – the death of the only Son of God – our sins are paid for. Then, our compassionate Lord not only died for us, He rose for us. He brought us life out of death.

III.

That is what Jesus’ resurrection means. Just as the Old Testament resurrections and the son’s in the Gospel text pointed to Christ’s resurrection, so Christ’s resurrection points to our resurrection. That is what the Scriptures mean when they say that Jesus Christ is the “Firstborn of the dead,” which we spoke together this last week. It means that Jesus was the first, but more would follow. We would follow. By our Baptism into Christ, and by faith in His name, His resurrection is our resurrection. His newness of life is our newness of life, here and in the life hereafter.

In many ways our experience of life is the same as King David’s and the widow’s, because we also experience what comes to all people as the punishment of sin: death. We die, and our loved ones die. But, the Scriptures say that Jesus Christ is the “same yesterday and today and forever.” (Heb. 13:8) The same compassion He had for the widow, and for the world in His own death, He has over us. When our loved ones die in the faith – and we as well – we have the joyful hope that we will be reunited. If we should die before our Lord returns, we depart immediately into His presence among the saints in heaven. When He returns, He will raise our bodies and change them to be like His, and we will live forever in the new creation. If we are alive at His return, we will be likewise changed. Our Lord is compassionate, and He is able to bring life out of death: for the widow in the text, for the world, and for us. Amen.

Altar Guild Workshop 2019, Pt. III

Welcome back to the third and final session of this year’s altar guild workshop. So far, we have reviewed our Lutheran confession of faith when it comes to the Lord’s Supper. We have explored the idea that what we believe about something should be reflected in our actions. And, we have learned about the items needed for the celebration of the Sacrament. Tonight, we’re going to learn a little bit about church architecture. Then, we’re going to learn about setting up for the Lord’s Supper – what goes where, and so on. Finally, we’ll talk about how we should take down after the service has ended.

Maybe the first question to ask is, what is a church? What is a church building, and what is it for? A church is a building where God’s faithful people gather together to receive the Lord’s Supper, to receive God’s blessings through His Word and Sacraments, to speak back to Him in prayer, praise, and thanksgiving, and be encouraged through corporate worship and Bible study. These are just some ways to describe a church, but the focus overall is the loving faithfulness of God toward us in Christ, as given to us in the Means of Grace. This is actually reflected in how church buildings are laid out. At least, according to traditional church architecture – of which, both our congregations are examples.

In the history of the Church, it has been quite common for churches to be built west-east. People would enter, generally, in the west and face forward to the east. This isn’t always possible or practical, so this isn’t always the case. Regardless of the actual orientation, the altar is always said to be in the east (liturgical east). The right side of the altar (as you face it) is called the north or Gospel side, the left the south or Epistle side. Now that we have our directions down, we can start to navigate the rest of the building. A church building has two main parts, the chancel and the nave. The chancel is where the altar is. The nave is the main body of the church, where the congregation sits. If there is a space the congregation enters before the main worship space, that is called the narthex. In history, this often where baptisms would take place – symbolizing the washing away of sin before entering God’s presence. These are the big divisions everyone should know. But, there is one more that is helpful for us to know now. In most churches there is a room off of the chancel for the pastor to vest before services, which might also hold the supplies for the divine service. This is called the sacristy.

Now, let’s zoom in to the altar. The altar stands front and center in the sanctuary. It is a sign of God’s enduring presence among His people. Though the language of altar presents us with the idea of sacrifice, in the Lutheran Church we understand the altar as, primarily, the place where our Lord distributes to us His many gifts: chiefly, in the Sacrament, but also in the words of Absolution. Only after, may we talk about the altar as a place of offering – since it is where we place our offerings of thanksgiving. Just as the building has parts, so does the altar. The top of the altar is called the mensa. In many cases, the mensa is inscribed with five crosses – one in each corner and one in the middle. These correspond to the five wounds of our Lord on the cross. On top of the mensa go just about everything we’re about to talk about.

We’ve already talked about the items that we need for the celebration of the Sacrament. We need the elements of bread and wine. Without these, it wouldn’t be the Lord’s Supper. In order for easier distribution of the Sacrament, we also use plates and cups of various kinds. In most cases, however, we don’t just throw all these things on the altar. When you’re having a fine meal at home with your guests, you might put out a tablecloth and some nice napkins. This serves a purpose. Number one, it protects your table, but it also adds a dignity to the meal. Setting up a nice tablecloth and the like says that what’s going on is important. We also take that approach to the Lord’s Supper.

Before we place the communion vessels upon the altar, we first vest the altar. We can talk more about paraments some other time; let’s focus on items connected to the Supper. Right on top of the altar, cut to the exact size of the mensa is a linen called the cere linen. This used to be a waxed linen placed upon stone altars to prevent condensation from ruining other things. Over the cere linen goes the fair linen. This is the first thing you can see from the pews. It’s a white cloth the width of the altar that extends over the ends a little bit. Traditionally, this has been made of the finest linen available, as it symbolizes the linen used to wrap the body of the Lord.

On top of the fair linen, in the center of the altar, goes the corporal. The corporal is a square cloth that the communion vessels are placed upon. It, also, should be of fine material, since it represents the cloth that was placed on our Lord’s face while He rested in the tomb. Once the vessels are placed upon the corporal, then the pall goes on top of the chalice. This is a square piece of a stiff material, covered in fine linen. The purificator is set alongside the chalice. This is the linen used for cleansing the rim of the chalice during the distribution. Over all the vessels before and after the distribution is another piece of fine linen called a communion veil. Some congregations have a veil just for the chalice and a larger one for the other vessels. Finally, a burse is a envelope-like case used to house the corporal, purificators, and veils when not in use.

Now comes the part that occasioned all of this. How do we set up the Lord’s Supper? First things first. For reasons that we’ll talk about later, we want to know how many we are expecting to commune, so that we can have an appropriate amount of supplies. If we are expecting 40, we wouldn’t want to be setting a table for 100. Ordinarily, we want to keep the number we prepare for and the number of those actually communing fairly close. Once you have your numbers, in the sacristy, find the hosts. Count out the appropriate number and place them in the appropriate vessel. At Grace, that’ll be the paten. At St. John’s, the ciborium. If there are hosts that have been previously consecrated, be sure to use those first. After preparing the hosts, prepare the wine. In the sacristy, fill the appropriate amount of individual cups and place them in the trays. Also, fill the flagon with an appropriate amount. As with the hosts, be sure to use any previously consecrated wine first.

Next, find the corporal. Stretch it out on the center of the altar. Then, take the chalice and place it on the center of the corporal. From north to south, place a purificator across the mouth of the chalice. When possible, place the paten over the chalice, and the pall atop. Once those are in place, the paten or ciborium are placed back and left of it (the liturgical south east). The flagon then may be placed back and right of the chalice. Once these are all in place, the veil goes over all. The trays of individual cups are then placed to the right. They may be under the veil if it is large enough, or another may be over the trays by themselves. This is how we prepare for the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. How, then, do we clean up after?

Remember the thesis we’ve been working with. What we believe about something should be reflected in our actions. What we believe about the Lord’s Supper should be reflected in our actions before, during, and after. We believe that, at the Word of Institution, the bread and wine are changed in such a way as to be both bread and wine and Christ’s body and blood. The term for this is Sacramental Union. In the Roman Catholic Church, they believe that the substances of bread and wine are forever and unalterably changed into the body and blood. In the Lutheran Church, we believe that apart from the administration and distribution of the Sacrament, bread is bread and wine is wine. That is to say, after the distribution has ended, at some point, the earthly elements return to being simply the earthly elements. When the Book of Concord speaks on this topic it purposely does not say when the bread and wine are no longer Christ’s body and blood, because we can’t know. At some point the Sacramental Union does end, but we’re not exactly sure when. This means that there are certain ways should act with what remains from the Supper.

Remember, also, the word we’re looking for here is reverant. Even if these elements are no longer Christ’s body and blood, they are still bread and wine that at one point were. These were the true body and blood of Christ which conveyed His life, love, and forgiveness to us poor sinners. Therefore, we handle what remains with reverence. There are a few ways to do this, and each has a longstanding history in the Christian Church. The first option is reserving the reliquae for future use – for home and hospital communion services, and for the next Divine Service among the congregation. In this case, the hosts that remain are kept separate from unconsecrated hosts. This helps the pastor and altar guild know which are to be used first. The remaining wine, likewise, is stored in a separate container from unconsecrated wine. In both cases, the separate containers should be clearly marked or in other ways made obvious.

A second, and equally as ancient, practice is simply to consume everything. This does require keeping diligent counts so that we don’t end up consuming an unnecessarily large amount of reliquae. In this case, the wine from the individual cups is poured into the chalice. Then, the pastor and assisting minister consume what remains, there at the altar. This may also be done by the pastor and altar guild after the service. Our Lord said to eat and drink and this method stays as close to this as possible. This was the method practiced at the seminary while I was there. These are both reverent and acceptable options, and it isn’t a sin to choose one or the other. Often, a combination of both takes place. Another common practice with the wine is to pour it out on the ground. In this case, what comes from the earth returns to it. We pour it directly on the ground and not down the sink so that wine which previously was the blood of Christ is not mixed with common waste.

What about the vessels? After properly storing or consuming the elements, the communion vessels should be cleaned with soap and water. An additional step should be taken with the chalice and individual cups. The individual cups should first be rinsed into a larger container, then washed as normal. The initial rinse water is then poured onto the ground. This, again, prevents wine that was previously Christ’s blood from becoming mixed with common waste. We rinse the chalice by pouring water into it and then onto the ground. After being washed, plastic communion cups may be recycled. A practice in some congregations is simply to burn the used individual cups. This, also, is a good practice. There are some tips for laundering the linens which I will leave to other discussions. This much is good for us all to know.

This about brings our workshop to a close. There is more that could be said, but I think this much should suffice for now. We do have some resources available to us for further study. Probably the most authoritative is What an Altar Guild Should Know by Paul H.D. Lang. This is from 1964, but is usually mentioned as the standard. The Altar Guild Manual by Lee A. Maxwell was authorized by the LCMS Commission on Worship in 1996. That one is available directly from CPH.

Altar Guild Workshop 2019, Pt. II

Administration of the Sacrament

Welcome to session 02 of our workshop covering the Sacrament of the Altar. The focus of this workshop to remind ourselves of what the Scriptures teach and what we, as Lutherans, believe about the Lord’s Supper. It’s my opinion and, I think, the Lutheran one, that what we believe should be reflected in how we act/practice our faith. But, as a reminder, what do we believe about the Lord’s Supper; what is it? We believe that the Lord’s Supper is Christ’s true, real, and very body and blood. The same body which was broken for us and the blood which was shed for us on the cross are given to us beneath the forms of bread and wine. We commonly use the phrase, “in, with, and under the bread and wine,” to describe how, though we see with our eyes only bread and wine, yet our Lord says, “This is My body, this is My blood.” By the power of His Word, Christ joins Himself to the earthly elements. This is called the Sacramental Union.

For what purpose does our Lord give us this meal? We confess each week in the Post-Communion Collect that it is for the forgiveness of our sins, the strengthening of our faith, and the increase of our love – both for God and each other. Or, as the Catechism says, the Supper is for the forgiveness of our sins, life, and salvation. We receive these good things not simply by eating and drinking, but by faith in Christ’s Word, along with the eating and drinking. When we eat and drink trusting in Christ and desiring what He gives to us here, we receive exactly what He says, “forgiveness of sins.” In short, the Lord’s Supper is Christ’s body and blood for us, for the forgiveness of our sins. Last week we learned some Latin, a phrase: lex orandi lex credendi. Loosely translated: how you worship reflects how and what you believe. Our faith should have a bearing on and be reflected in how we receive the Lord’s Supper. But, how do we receive it?

Let’s start with the basics and work our way on up. When it comes down to it, what do we need in order to have a celebration of the Lord’s Supper – from a physical perspective? We need the elements, don’t we? St. Augustine said that a Sacrament has an earthly element and a heavenly one. In Baptism, the earthly element is water and the heavenly is Christ’s Word. Without water, you don’t have Baptism; right? In a similar way, there is an earthly element to the Lord’s Supper. Or, maybe we should say, elements. In Baptism, Christ joins His Word to water. In the Lord’s Supper, what does He join His Word to? Bread and wine. In the most basic sense, in order to have the Lord’s Supper we need bread and wine. These are the elements. That’s the technical term. There will be a test.

I realize that this can be a topic of some contention at this point. In various quarters of the Church, certain innovations have taken place that have seen different elements being used or substituted or removed. Well, we call it the Lord’s Supper because it is His Supper. It’s His to change or not; we simply receive. Our Lord’s Evangelists and Apostles are clear and in agreement that our Lord, on the night He was betrayed took bread and He took wine. Now, within these categories there is some acceptable latitude. For example, we do not know what sort of bread our Lord had available to Him at the Last Supper. The Last Supper was a Passover meal, so it is possible that it was unleavened bread – but the Gospel doesn’t explicitly say. Our congregations do use what are called hosts – which are little unleavened disks of bread. Other congregations do things differently. In the Orthodox Church they use leavened bread almost exclusively, and many bake the loaves themselves on Saturdays. Some church bodies allow for rice-based bread. Here we may err on the side of grace. But the Word says and what Christ used is bread and, hence, what we should use, is bread.

Since the setting of the Lord’s Supper was in the context of a Passover meal, what was in our Lord’s cup was wine. He Himself said, “fruit of the vine,” which is another way of saying wine. We could delve into the historical reasons why alcoholic drinks were consumed more frequently than water, but that would push us beyond our time limits. We might also note that what we know as grape juice simply didn’t exist in our Lord’s time, therefore it would not have been available to Him at the Last Supper. Just as we have some freedom over what sort of bread is served – since the Scriptures don’t specify – so we also have freedom with the wine. It should be wine, but there is freedom in whether it’s red, white, or rose. Congregations that offer substitutes for wine – even with good intentions – do depart from our Lord’s institution. Where we depart from our Lord’s institution, there uncertainty reigns. Jesus doesn’t want us to be unsure of whether we’re forgiven, but to be joyfully confident.

Out from the elements, which are the most basic items needed for the Lord’s Supper and, alone, are necessary (without them it isn’t the Supper), the next most basic items are the things the elements are in. At home we put our bread on plates and wine in glasses; same with the elements of the Lord’s Supper. Let’s start with the bread. Present in most Lutheran congregations is an item called the paten. Paten is Latin for “plate,” and it is the plate used in the distribution of the Sacrament. There are a few variations on the paten. In some congregations, the paten is simply a plate. In other congregations, the plate will have a deeper portion in the center which also serves as a storage vessel for the hosts. This is common, especially, where there may be large numbers communing at one time. In congregations where the paten is simply a plate, it will usually be accompanied by either a ciborium or a pyx. At St. John’s we use a ciborium, which looks like a chalice but holds the hosts. The ciborium is also used to distribute from. If a congregation doesn’t have a ciborium, it may have a pyx which is a small, round box for housing the hosts. The celebrant takes hosts from the pyx and places them on the paten for the distribution. So, we have three items for housing the hosts: the paten, the ciborium, or the pyx. What about the wine?

In many congregations, upon the altar you’ll find a large metal container. This container is most often made of sterling silver or maybe gold, and is called the flagon. The flagon holds the wine before it is poured into a vessel for the distribution. In some congregations, you may find that, instead of a metal container, there is a glass one. The glass container for holding wine is called a cruet. Where there is a cruet, there may be a second one holding water. In some areas, it is traditional to mix a little water into the wine. The water cruet may also be used for the celebrant to wash his hands. From the flagon, wine is poured into another metal item, the chalice. This is otherwise known as the “common cup.” In Church history, these have almost always been metal and, often, of precious metal. Besides the common cup, most congregations – if not all – have available what are called individual cups. They are carried around in metal trays. Often the cups themselves are made of plastic, but they are also available (preferably) in glass or, even, as miniature chalices.

These are the items for the celebration and distribution of the Lord’s Supper. Among Christian congregations, you will find various shapes, sizes, and materials, but most congregations have and use these same things. One item that we have at St. John’s that is becoming less frequent is a spoon with holes in it. This is used in the event something should fall into chalice. In Eastern Orthodox church bodies, they practice infant communion, and the spoon is also used for that. One last item, which you may see at a Roman Catholic Church or perhaps an ELCA congregation, is silver or glass bowl called the lavabo. This is used by the celebrant to wash his hands before continuing with the service of the Sacrament. All of these things are placed on or near the altar in the fashion we’ll learn next week.

He Will Command His Angels

Text: Psalm 91:11-12

We sang together in the Psalm, “He will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.” (Psalm 91:11-2, English Standard Version) In the Gospel, we heard our Lord say, “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels away see the face of My Father who is in heaven.” (Mt. 18:10) From these verses, along with many more throughout the Scriptures, we conclude that Biblical faith also includes a belief in angels. The angels are not essential to our salvation; they don’t contribute anything to it. Yet, one who confesses faith in the words of Holy Scripture must also acknowledge that angels do exist.

But what are angels, and for what purpose do they exist? These are questions that our Lord answers through the Scriptures, and we have the opportunity today to talk about them. Today is the feast of St. Michael the archangel along with all other angels. This holiday has been celebrated in the Christian church on September 29th for over a 1,000 years, even if hasn’t always been marked in every congregation. For us, this is another opportunity to give thanks and praise to God. He so greatly desires and is concerned for our salvation that He has created angels to serve and watch over us. We pray that, as they continually serve Him and behold His face in heaven, so we would serve God faithfully in this life until we behold Christ with our eyes in heaven.

That angels do exist is a fact. Though, at times in Scripture, angels do take visible forms, we cannot prove their existence scientifically. We must simply trust God – who cannot and does not lie. Let’s first ask this question: What are angels? In simple terms, angels are beings created by God during the first six days. They are similar to humans in that – at creation – both they and we were created with free will to love and serve God. Angels are different from us according to their nature. We humans are both body and soul, while angels are purely spirit beings. They do not have bodies. But, that isn’t the only difference. The angels are also different according to their strength. The Scriptures often speak of the angels as being strong and mighty; they are often pictured as warriors and armies. They are not all-powerful or all-knowing, things which belong to God alone; but they are mightier than we are.

As we heard in the reading from Revelation, there are both good and evil angels. The evil angels are frequently called “demons,” “devils,” and “unclean spirits” in Scripture. We do not know exactly how there came to be evil angels except for that the Scriptures indicate they were not created that way. The evil angels are in fact fallen angels who, with Satan, rebelled against God sometime before the Fall of Man, were cast out of heaven, and will locked away in hell on the Last Day. The goal of the evil angels is to cause havoc in both Church and state and destroy the faith of as many Christians or prevent as many from hearing the true Gospel of Christ as possible. However, their number is limited and their time is short. There will never be any more fallen angels, as God made it so that the angels can no longer fall. Christ did defeat them one and all by His resurrection from the dead, and all demons will be finally put away at His return. That is what the demons were afraid of before Jesus cast them into the herd of pigs.

II.

That is what angels are. They are spirit beings created by God in the first week of creation. They are similar to us in that they were created with free will, different from us according to their nature and might – and that Christ was sent only for us. That’s what angels are, now we should ask what angels do. Why did God create the angels? The angels exist to do God’s will. The Scriptures describe them doing this in a few ways. First, the Scriptures teach us that the angels serve to worship and praise God. They did so at the creation of the world. In His answer to Job, the Lord asked, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth…when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” (Jb. 38:4, 7). We heard on Trinity Sunday of St. Isaiah’s vision of the heavenly throne room. It was angels who first sang these words, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory.” (Is. 6:3) The Gloria in Excelsis we sing in the Divine Service was also first sung to the glory of God by His angels. The angels exist for the glory of God.

A second work of the angels we learn from the name, angel. The word “angel” comes from the Greek and means “messenger.” The angels serve as messengers and ministers of God to His children. Angels brought God’s Word to the patriarchs and prophets – which we heard in the Old Testament reading. Gabriel announced the birth of John the Baptist to Zechariah and the birth of our Lord to Mary and Joseph. They announced to the women and apostles on Easter that our Lord had risen from the dead, just as He said He would. Angels cared for our Lord in the wilderness after He was tempted by the devil, and one strengthened Him with encouragement in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Angels also serve God and carry out His will by protecting and watching over His children on earth. Our Lord referenced this in the Gospel, the Psalm also spoke of God commanding His angels in their care over us. We see examples of this in Scripture, such as when an angel of the Lord defended Jerusalem by single-handedly defeating an enemy army, when angels rescued Lot from the destruction of Sodom, and when an angel preserved Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the fiery furnace. The same things they did then, they do know. They help defend the Bride of Christ – us – from the devil and all his minions. They are present with us in the worship of Christ, and they rejoice together with us over the forgiveness of sins. Jesus said, “Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” (Lk. 15:10)

III.

What, then, should we take away today, especially with today being a Church holiday? Today we give thanks to God for His great mercy and we praise Him for His great care for us. His concern and care for our – for your and my – salvation is so great that He created angels, who are strong and mighty, to keep watch over us. They are at all times obeying God’s will and defending both His Church and us His children. We may never know how often we have been preserved from great danger, misfortune, or false teaching, by God through His angels. For that, we give God all praise and glory.

Another thing we might take away is that the heavenly angels serve as faithful messengers of God’s Word to His people. We should pray that we might also be faithful, like the angels. In thanksgiving for the forgiveness of sins that we have by faith in Christ, we might pray that we would be, likewise, faithful servants and messengers of God in this earthly life. The angels do now, at all times, behold God’s face in heaven. May the Lord grant that we, giving all thanks and praise to Him for His great glory, serve Him faithfully throughout this life until, with eyes unclouded, we behold His face ourselves in the life to come. In Jesus’ name.

When God Blesses You

Text: Luke 17:11-19

St. Paul wrote to the Galatians in the Epistle reading that those who belong to Christ Jesus, “have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” (Galatians 4:24, English Standard Version) He wrote this to encourage them and us in our walk as Christians, that we do not fall backward into the old pattern of living we inherited from our first parents. St. Paul gave a long list in the reading of the sorts of things that reside in our hearts by nature, but which now have been beaten back in us through the work of the Holy Spirit in the Word and Sacraments. Now, by His grace, we are led to bear the fruits of faith – love, joy, peace, and so on. Today in the Gospel, we also see another fruit of faith: thankfulness toward God in Christ.

The healing related to us by the Holy Spirit through St. Luke demonstrates our Lord’s power, but also His love and compassion for those suffering from sin and its effects. We also see in the reactions of the lepers to their cleansing pictures of ourselves by nature and by faith. By nature, we are numbered among those unthankful lepers, but by faith we are led to confess with the one that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh. Today, we confess that a true faith worked in us by the Holy Spirit causes us to give thanks to God by glorifying Christ.

Our text today comes from St. Luke’s Gospel as he recounts for us our Lord’s final journey toward Jerusalem. Earlier in the Gospel, after our Lord was rejected in Nazareth, He set His home base in a town called Capernaum. He preached regularly there and performed many miracles in their midst. But, now in our text our Lord is headed to Jerusalem. There is a more direct route between Capernaum, which was on the northwest side of the Sea of Galilee, and Jerusalem, but our Lord sort of meandered. As the Holy Spirit says, “He was passing along between Samaria and Galilee.” (17:11). This is not the direct route. Perhaps our Lord was taking His time so that more people would have a chance to hear and believe His Word. Regardless, as our Lord entered a certain village, “He was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices saying, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.’” (vv. 12-13)

We’ve heard before about leprosy and the plight of lepers. The word for leprosy in the Bible can mean a range of skin conditions, but most commonly it’s used for what we know today as leprosy. Leprosy can present as a skin condition, but it is related to nerve issues, and causes all sorts of problems. Beyond the physical problems, one who was afflicted with leprosy was also considered ceremonially unclean. They could not visit the temple in Jerusalem, they could not offer sacrifices of thanksgiving or any other sort. Anyone who came into contact with a leper would likewise become unclean. Therefore, lepers commonly lived in colonies separated and separate from their communities and families. When they did enter public areas they were required to keep a distance and either ring a bell or shout at people nearby to stay away. The misfortune of a leper was, indeed, great.

These lepers cried out to the Lord for mercy and, like the Samaritan we heard about last week, He had compassion. Jesus said to the ten, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” (v. 14) Jesus directed them to observe the correct Old Testament procedure. If one afflicted with leprosy was healed, they were to go to a priest, who would inspect and declare the same. An offering of thanksgiving would be made and the person would be re-integrated into the community. It happened that, as the lepers were headed to the temple, they were healed. One of them, when he realized what had happened, turned back and praised God. He returned to Jesus, fell at His feet, and gave Him thanks. He recognized that this great blessing from God was given to him through Christ. Jesus said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.” (v. 19)

II.

In this text we get a picture of what resides in all of us by nature. For, although the one man came back to give thanks to Christ, the majority did not. Whether the priests in the temple had a hand in that or whether the nine themselves were the unthankful ones, we can’t necessarily say. The result is the same, though. The majority of people – and this is true today – do not praise or thank God for all His many blessings. It wasn’t that long ago that in the sermon I had us recite the First Article of the Creed from the hymnal. There we confessed how many blessings God bestows on us and all people. Our Lord did say that He causes the rain to fall on both the just and the unjust. (Mt. 5:45) Yet, we see how quick people are to dismiss this as mere chance. We have what we do only by some grand cosmic luck and by our own blood, sweat, and tears. Some do seem to thank God, but that not truly from a place of faith. And, if you ask them what God they mean, they are unable to confess a faith in the only true God: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

However, before we jump on a world-bashing bandwagon, the very same thing happens among us Christians. We, also, bear in ourselves the corruption of original sin. St. Paul wrote to the Romans, “Therefore you have no excuse, O man, everyone of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you…practice the very same things.” (2:1) Later, St. Paul concluded, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.” (3:10-11) We might also say, no one truly gives thanks to God nor counts all good things as coming from Him. We see this in our own lives. When things are going well, we are more apt to forget God than remember that all good gifts are from Him. If we were truly thankful, we would not forget to hear His Word. And then, when things in our lives are difficult we also forget God’s blessings. What’s worse, we attribute our suffering to some evil agenda on God’s part or a failure of His to divert what is disagreeable to us. Instead, what we should do in our suffering is remember God’s many blessings in our lives and submit to His fatherly care and discipline, give thanks that we should share in Christ’s sufferings, and know that God disciplines those whom He loves. And this all is, of course, in addition to all the other evil things that reside in our hearts by nature that St. Paul listed earlier.

III.

“And such were some of you,” St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians. “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” (1 Cor. 6:11) Though evil thoughts and actions were once all that filled our hearts, along with a deep seated unthankfulness and spite toward God – as with the nine lepers – that has all been washed away. Through the work of the Holy Spirit, our evil stony hearts were turned into beating hearts of flesh when we were baptized. The old evil Adam was drowned and died and now does so daily in our Baptism. All unthankfulness toward God is now beaten back in us by the Holy Spirit.

Christ our Lord also has compassion on us as He did the lepers. As He spoke to the lepers in our text, so He speaks to us now in this hour through His Holy Word. As, earlier in the Gospel, He touched a leper, so He offers us His pierced hands and side in the Sacrament of His Body and Blood. Through these Means, He continually gives to us the forgiveness of our sins, which He won for us on the cross. By these Means He continually strengthens us in the faith and beats back the devil and his influence, which would have us never thank God or bless His holy name.

Through the Word and Sacraments, the Holy Spirit also brings us to confess with the one leper that Jesus is God in the flesh. We do not believe in some distant God: unknowable, unreachable, and – ultimately – unconcerned with us as individuals. We believe in a God who speaks to us, who reaches out to us, makes Himself known to us and known by us. He comes to us with love and compassion, and with the power to heal and save. Such has He done, healing us of the spiritual leprosy of sin. There is nothing left for us to do, but to give thanks to God by glorifying Jesus Christ. That is, after all, one of the reasons we’re here; isn’t it? God grant us the grace to know and confess that all earthly blessings come from His loving hand and that the callous unthankfulness which resides in us by nature would be daily forgiven and beat back until we abide forever with our God, Jesus, in heaven.

Altar Guild Workshop 2019, Pt. I

Altar Guild Workshop 2019 – Session 01, “What is the Lord’s Supper?”

An Overview of the Sixth Chief Part

Our most gracious Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, promised us in the Gospel that He would never leave us nor forsake us, that He would not, “leave [us] as orphans.” He made these promises with His own ascension in view. Though He would be parted from the Disciples and us in the immediate sense, yet He would also dwell among us to strengthen, comfort, and forgive His beloved flock. In the Lutheran Church we have a term for the ways in which our Lord carries out these promises. We call them the Means of Grace. The Means of Grace are: The Scriptures, the Sacraments, and “the mutual conversation and consolation of the brethren.” (Smalcald Articles, Pt. III, Ar. IV) The topic for our workshop tonight and the following weeks is one of these means: The Lord’s Supper. In our time together we will be reminded of the treasure our Lord has given us in this meal and how we might reverently receive it.

It is true that the Holy Scriptures, in regards to the Lord’s Supper, speak mostly about the doctrine of the meal and prescribe little beyond the administration of the Sacrament. For example, the Scriptures teach us about who should commune, but do not command us to place a veil over the communionware during the service, or that we receive the Supper from metal vessels; yet, we do so. Why? We do these things because they reflect what is taking place. What we believe should be reflected in how we act. This holds true in many parts of our lives. It should also be true here. What we believe about the Lord’s Supper should be reflected in how we go about receiving it and, perhaps, how we prepare for and take down after it. However, let’s not put the cart in front of the horse. Before we discuss setting up, receiving, and taking down the Lord’s Supper, we should review what the Scriptures teach and what we as Lutherans believe about the Sacrament of the Altar. We’ll do this from Martin Luther’s Small Catechism.

First of all, what is the Lord’s Supper? From the Catechism we answer, “It is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ under the bread and wine, instituted by Christ Himself for us Christians to eat and to drink.” In clear and succinct words, this is what we believe. We believe that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God who took upon Himself our very same human flesh. He was “conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.” On the Mount of the Ascension, Jesus taught us that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him. (Mt. 28) All that the Father has is His. (Jn. 16) This includes power over all creation. (Heb. 1) Just as the Father and the Holy Spirit are all-powerful, so, also, is the Son. That includes the power to do things which, to us, seem impossible. Such as, giving us His true, real, very body and blood with the earthly elements of bread and wine. Yet, this is precisely what our Lord does.

The same body and blood which were broken and shed for us on the cross, He distributes to us beneath the forms of bread and wine. The term Lutherans use for this is the sacramental union. This means that by the power of His Word, Christ joins Himself to the bread and wine in such a way that the earthly elements retain their substances, but are also joined to the body and blood of Christ. In the Athanasian Creed, we confess that Christ became man, “not by the conversion of the divinity into flesh, but by the assumption of the humanity into God.” Jesus didn’t change from God to man, but joined the human nature to Himself. He became both God and man. In a similar way, in the Lord’s Supper we receive at the same time both bread and wine and body and blood. Our Lord affects this union by His own power through the Word. Our Lord teaches with His own words, as St. Paul also testified through the Holy Spirit, that in the Lord’s Supper we receive the true body and blood of Christ. (Matt. 26, Mk. 14, Lk. 22, 1 Cor. 11)

But, to what end do we receive this Supper? What special comfort does our Lord intend for us to receive through this sacred meal? As He says, “Do this.” The Catechism answers the question this way: “These words, ‘Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins,’ show us that in the Sacrament forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation are given us through these words. For where there is forgiveness of sins, there is also life and salvation.” This is what the Lord’s Supper is for: that by it we poor sinners receive the forgiveness of our sins. In the Post-Communion Collect, we also confess that by this Sacrament, our faith is strengthened and our love for God and each other is increased.

In the Lutheran Church we recognize that our Lord Jesus Christ purchased for us the forgiveness of our sins by the breaking of His body and the shedding of His blood on the cross. He gives us that forgiveness of sins by His grace as a gift, which we receive through faith (which is also a gift received in Baptism). We would have the forgiveness of our sins by faith, even if we were never to receive the Lord’s Supper, but our Lord instituted this meal to be a way in which we are continually assured that our sins are forgiven. This part of why the Sacraments in general were given. The Augsburg Confession acknowledges this when it says,

Our churches teach that the Sacraments were ordained, not only to be marks of profession among men, but even more, to be signs and testimonies of God’s will toward us. They were instituted to awaken and confirm faith in those who use them. Therefore, we must use the Sacraments in such a way that faith, which believes the promises offered and set forth through the Sacraments, is increased.
Augsburg Confession, Article XIII, Paragraphs 1-2

Did you catch that? We must use the Sacraments in a way that faith is increased? We’ll come back to that at the end.

How can the Lord’s Supper do this? How can it give us the forgiveness of our sins, such a small thing as eating a piece of bread and drinking a small amount of wine? We know the answer to this. The Catechism says,

Certainly not just eating and drinking…but the words written here: ‘Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.’ These words, along with the bodily eating and drinking, are the main thing in the Sacrament. Whoever believes these words has exactly what they say: ‘Forgiveness of sins.’

It isn’t just the eating and drinking, but the Lord’s Word along with the bodily eating and drinking does all these things.

In Confirmation class, I sometimes use an illustration that might not necessarily be the best; but it gets the point across. If you take a tube of toothpaste and turn it around, it will almost always list an active ingredient of some sort – something inside that paste that makes it effective in preventing cavities, tooth decay, etc. In most toothpastes, it’s sodium fluoride that prevents cavities. In the Lord’s Supper, the active ingredient is the Lord’s Word. It is the Lord’s Word which makes the elements the body and blood. When we receive the Supper believing the Lord’s Word – that it is what He says it is and why – that is how we receive the benefits the Supper gives. And this brings us to the final question: Who receives this Sacrament worthily?

Our reason for being here tonight doesn’t permit us to stretch into the topic of Closed Communion – maybe we can come back to that sometime later. But, we should review who receives the good things the Lord’s Supper gives. In Luther’s time, it was commonly taught that, in order to receive the Mass, one must first do penance and fast. These were necessary elements. If someone had not fasted, and the priest found out, no Mass. This persisted in the Roman Catholic Church well into the 1900s and, in some places, continues today. In the Catechism, Luther points out correctly that it’s isn’t fasting which makes one receive the Sacrament worthily – as if we could make ourselves worthy to God, anyway. What makes one worthy, what makes one to receive the benefits of the Lord’s Supper, is faith.

St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians that, “anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.” (1 Cor. 11:29) By this, St. Paul teaches us that those who commune without faith in the Supper’s essence or its purpose do not receive its benefits; rather, they receive judgment. The one who comes to the table in faith, however, receives all its benefits. The one who comes repenting of their sins and desiring Christ’s body and blood for the forgiveness of their sins receives exactly that.

Now we’ve reached the point that I’d like us to ponder tonight and into next week. The Scriptures teach that in the Lord’s Supper we receive the true body and blood of Christ with the bread and wine for the forgiveness of sins. This, we know and confess. What I’d like us to ponder is this: How should this belief be reflected in our practice, in the way we worship? Though this thought can spread to most areas of our practice, our focus at this time is on how we set up and take down the Sacrament of the Altar. Next week we will begin looking at what goes into the set-up of the Sacrament. What are the items, how should they be arranged, why these items?

There is an old Latin phrase that has, more or less, become a motto throughout different areas of the Christian faith. The phrase is: Lex orandi, Lex credendi. A loose translation: the law of prayer reflects the law of belief. Or, even looser: how you pray reflects what you believe. How you worship, how you practice your faith, reflects your faith. How we receive the Lord’s Supper should reflect what we believe about the Lord’s Supper. More on that, next week.

Christ, the Good Samaritan

Text: Luke 10:23-37

Dear friends in Christ, St. Paul wrote to the Galatians in our Epistle reading,

Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But the Scriptures imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
Galatians 3:21-22, English Standard Version

Paul’s lesson for the Galatians is that the point of the Law, both God’s Ten Commandments and the Old Testament in general – which is sometimes called “law” with a lowercase l, is not that our works make us righteous in God’s eyes. The point of the Law is to show us which things are pleasing to God and are His will, and how we fail to do them. By failing to keep the Commandments, we all fall under the condemnation of the Law – which is God’s plan. It is God’s plan to condemn all through the Law so that He can also have mercy on all through faith in Christ.

This is what’s at stake in our Lord’s conversation with the lawyer. The lawyer, whom the text indicates is not a believer in Jesus, came to our Lord to test Him, albeit with a wrong understanding of the Law. The lawyer assumed that by works of the law – by obedience to the Commandments – we are able to make ourselves right with God. But, our Lord shows through the parable that no such thing is possible. By our own good works, we cannot merit eternal life; therefore, Christ became our Good Samaritan.

This is an idea that is very easily missed in this text, and commonly is. Quite often this text is moralized to teach that we are love every single person we across regardless of any “merit or worthiness” on their part. This is true. Our faith in Christ does lead us to live in love toward our neighbor. This cannot be encouraged enough; it’s just not the point of this text. For that, we need to look at the whole text. It starts this way, “Behold, a lawyer stood up to put Him to the test, saying, ‘Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’” (Luke 10:25) There are a few red flags we should note here. The first is that the man doing the speaking is a lawyer. A lawyer in the New Testament is not the lawyer we have now. In the New Testament, these guys were experts in knowing and applying the commandments of God in the Old Testament. They were also known for inventing loopholes in these laws and, as a group, were opposed to Jesus. The lawyer greeted Jesus as “teacher,” which is something His enemies do. Then, St. Luke writes that the lawyer “tested” Jesus; but the word the Spirit uses is the same word for the devil’s tempting Jesus earlier in the Gospel.

This lawyer questioned our Lord with dubious intent and with a wrong understanding of God’s Law. He assumed that he could bring himself into eternal life by his own good works. Jesus, knowing this man’s a lawyer answered him with a lawyer’s question. He said, “What is written in the Law?” (v. 26) The man responded with words we heard recently, that we should love the Lord with all our heart, soul, and strength; and our neighbor as ourselves. Jesus said, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.” (v. 28) The man was right. If you love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself, you will enter eternal life. What’s the problem here?

The problem is that no one is able to do this. Jeremiah served the Lord as prophet for 40 years. Yet, this is the conclusion he drew. He begged the Lord, “Correct me, O Lord, but in justice; not in Your anger, lest You bring me to nothing.” (10:24) Jeremiah knew that, despite whatever good deeds he did have, it was certainly not enough to offset his sins, for which he deserved to be brought to nothing. Read the psalms of King David and you will find the same. Still, the lawyer wasn’t going to budge on this, and instead desired to justify himself. So, Jesus decided to teach a parable.

II.

The parable goes that there was a man headed down from Jerusalem to Jericho. Along the way he fell among robbers who, “stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead.” (v. 30) By chance, there was a priest returning home from his duty down that same road. The priest – who certainly would’ve been expected to come to the man’s aid – went by on the opposite side of the road. Perhaps he was concerned that the man was dead. If the priest touched a dead body, he’d be made unclean for a time; and, well, we couldn’t have that. Later, a Levite also came down the same road. He actually came up to the place where the man was and saw that he was, indeed, alive. The loving thing, of course, would’ve been to help him. But, then, the Levite – like the priest – crossed to the opposite side and kept going. So, two men who should’ve supreme examples of righteousness and love for neighbor fail to love their neighbor as themselves. By the lawyer’s definition, they would not enter eternal life.

Finally, a Samaritan came by. Samaritans were descendents of those who previously lived in the Northern Kingdom. The Northern Kingdom of Israel was destroyed in 722 B.C. People from other countries were brought in – with their idols. The Samaritans were descendents of Israelites who married unbelievers. They were despised by Israel in Jesus’ time. Yet, the Samaritan came to the place where the man was and had compassion. He loved the man by binding up his wounds and poured on healing oil and wine. He put the man on his own animal and walked him to an inn. There, he continued to care for him, paying the innkeeper and promising full payment upon his return. The point of the parable is that those who should’ve been the utmost examples of righteousness and love failed to love, while the unexpected Samaritan did truly love his neighbor.

III.

If we were to place ourselves in this parable, one conclusion we could draw is that the priest is very near a picture of ourselves. We have all been brought to faith in Christ by the Holy Spirit through the Word. We have been called to labor in our Lord’s vineyard, bearing the fruits of love which flow from a right faith. But, when it comes to loving our neighbor as ourselves, speaking truthfully, we don’t. It’s true; we might love our neighbor, but not as much as we love me. One example. In small congregations, we are all accustomed to noticing how many people are in church and we all know the feeling when there are few in attendance. The reality is, we don’t only attend worship to praise God and receive His gifts, but also to encourage one another. When we purposely choose not to attend worship, in a way, we are failing to love our neighbor when we cause them to be discouraged by our absence.

There are other examples. We don’t support the food bank as much as we should. We don’t pray for others as much as we should. We don’t visit them as much as we should. All the excuses that we give all come back to the same one letter word: I. And that is what sin is, to be more concerned with I than with God or neighbor. All our sins have piled up. They pile up on us and they pummel us into the ground. They leave us naked before God and fully dead. Not only are we the priest, we’re also the man left for dead. That’s where our sins get us. But, there’s someone else in the parable, isn’t there? Not the priest, not the Levite, not the man beaten up. Who’s left? The Samaritan.

The Samaritan is Christ. He alone is the one truly fears, loves, and trusts in God above all things and loves His neighbor as Himself. Christ is the one who came to where we were laying broken and dead in sin and had compassion. He did the work of healing Himself when He took our sins in His own body on the cross. By His death He made the payment for our sins of thought and word and deed. He binds up our wounds with the healing oil and wine of His Word and His Sacrament. All that we need He does supply. He forgives us our sins, strengthens our faith, and causes us to live in love toward Him and toward our neighbor.

The lawyer was wrong on two points. First, he was wrong to not believe in Jesus. Second, he was wrong to assume that it was within his power to earn eternal life – by loving God above all things and his neighbor as himself. Sometimes, we fall into that same error. Our Lord teaches us today that we are unable to merit salvation by our works, for we fail to love God above all things and we love ourselves more and to the exclusion of our neighbor. Therefore, He became our Good Samaritan, healing and saving us by His death and granting us His forgiveness as a gift through faith.