16.4.z

Concordia Pulpit Resources

Published by Concordia Publishing House

of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod

Volume 16, Part 4, Series B

September 17–November 26, 2006

Articles

The Presence of Christ in Preaching—Edward O. Grimenstein

Bonhoeffer the Preacher—John T. Pless

Features

From the Editor

Pastors Conference

Ideas for Illustrating

Book Review

Annual Index

Sermon Studies

Pentecost 15, Ephesians 6:10–20

We’re at War!—Carl C. Fickenscher II

Pentecost 16, James 1:17–22 (23–25) 26–27

A Pretty Picture?—Robert C. Hedtke

Pentecost 17, Mark 8:27–35

Who Is He? Who Are You?—Jeffrey M. Kuddes

Pentecost 18, James 3:16–4:6

“Let These All Be Gone”—Jeffrey M. Kuddes

Pentecost 19, Numbers 11:4–6, 10–16, 24–29

For Jesus, a Heavy Burden—Warren W. Graff

Pentecost 20, Genesis 2:18–24

Aloneness Destroyed, Oneness Restored—Warren W. Graff

Reformation Day (observed), John 8:31–36

In Bondage to Freedom—William C. Weinrich

All Saints’ Day (observed), Isaiah 26:1–4, 8–9, 12–13, 19–21

Triumphs of the Blessed Ones—William C. Weinrich

Third-Last Sunday, Mark 13:1–13

Built to Last—R. Michael Hintze

Second-Last Sunday, Mark 13:24–31

Summer’s Coming!—R. Michael Hintze

Last Sunday (Fulfillment), Mark 13:32–37

Watch and Keep Watching!—Timothy E. Beck

Last Sunday (Christ the King), John 18:33–37

The Unkingly Rule of the True King—Timothy E. Beck

Special Sermons

St. Michael and All Angels, Matthew 18:1–10

Of Angels and Man—Derek A. Roberts

Sermons for All the Saints: A Collection

All Saints’ Day, Isaiah 26:19

With Angels and Archangels and All the Company of Heaven!—William R. Marler

All Saints’ Day, Revelation 7:9–17

War and Peace—Richard C. Resch

All Saints’ Day in Iraq, Revelation 7:9–17

He Will Wipe Every Tear from Our Eyes—Mark S. Nuckols

Thanksgiving Day, Genesis 41:41–42:2

In the Land of Our Suffering—Leonard B. Poppe

Funeral Sermon, Luke 2:28–32

Departing This Life in Peace—Robert W. Hill

Wedding Sermon, Matthew 18:20

Be Our Guest—Robert W. Hill

Children’s Messages

Pentecost 15—Dolores E. Hermann

Pentecost 16—Deborah K. Schmich

Pentecost 17–18—Jeffrey M. Kuddes

Pentecost 19–Reformation Day—Katherine S. Perkins

All Saints’ Day–Second-Last Sunday—Penelope Selle

Last Sunday (Fulfillment), Last Sunday (Christ the King)—Timothy E. Beck

Suggested Hymns

From the Editor

One year ago, September 2005, the city of New Orleans was devastated by floodwaters after Hurricane Katrina.

Five years ago, September 11, 2001, well, we all remember.

In the weeks following each, countless pulpits addressed the events and their significance. The week of 9/11, I was invited to speak on the Issues, Etc. radio program with the attacks as the specified topic, and, on The Lutheran Hour a couple of months later, the changes terrorism had suddenly wrought on our nation were still at least my primary illustration.

When disaster strikes, when a community or a country faces a shared crisis, our people come to church, I think, expecting—or at least hoping—to hear from God on the subject. The first sermon study in this issue, written for September 17, recognizes the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. A special sermon for St. Michael and All Angels by Pastor Derek Roberts (who has quite a story to tell in his own right!) recalls the New Orleans disaster. And this issue also includes the fourth and final of Chaplain Mark Nuckols’s series of sermons preached to the troops in Iraq. Timely, we think.

Yet no less a preacher than the esteemed Swiss theologian Karl Barth in 1932 looked back and chastised himself for letting World War I (no small skirmish!) “rage on” in his sermons for the sake of relevancy. So which is it? Should we preach specifically about those truly nation-shaking (or congregation-shaking) events or not?

I believe our pastoral inclination to do so is quite right, but perhaps with a few thoughts kept clearly in view:

1. God’s Word is always relevant. Our sermons don’t become relevant because we address the latest news. They are relevant when they proclaim God’s Law and Gospel because God’s Word always describes with perfect accuracy what really is. Man’s relationship with God, broken by human sin and restored by Christ for all eternity, is the only real reality.

2. Therefore, Christian preaching always preaches the Word. Christian sermons have the right to examine the world only from the perspective of Holy Scripture. The pulpit is no place for private opinion or best-guess human judgment. Certainly, then, sermons speaking to current crises will be grounded just as firmly in a text (or at least in carefully chosen passages to support a topical sermon) as any other Sunday’s message.

3. The lectionary is a valuable tool, not a straitjacket. To be thusly textual while dealing with a particular situation, of course, may sometimes require choosing the text from outside the pericopal options of the day. There’s no sin in that. While the lectionary is usually the best insurer of preaching the full counsel of God over time (and has countless other advantages!), this time might be well served by something special.

4. Christ is both the Omega and Alpha of Christian preaching. Jesus is not only the final solution to every problem, but he’s the reason we preach in the first place. A Christian sermon never sets out to discuss anything as momentary, as fleeting, and, therefore, as trivial as, say, a world war. It sets out to proclaim Christ, and that means proclaiming the cross. What the reconciliation of God to man in the cross of Jesus means for the crisis of the day—that’s what we preach.

Carl C. Fickenscher II

\\ • Editor: Carl C. Fickenscher II*

• Senior Editor: Scot A. Kinnaman

• Designer: John Krus

• Advisory Board
—Parish Pastors: Dean W. Nadasdy,
John A. Nunes, Henry A. Simon

—Seminary Professors: Glenn A. Nielsen,
John T. Pless, David R. Schmitt, Harold L. Senkbeil
—District President: Herbert C. Mueller Jr.

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Scripture quotations, other than literal translations or other translations that are indicated, are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James or Authorized Version of the Bible.

The quotation from the Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament, by Ernst Jenni, ed., et al., is copyright © 1997 by Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The quotation from Early Christian Rhetoric: The Language of the Gospel, by Amos Wilder, is copyright © 1971, 1999 by Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Concordia Pulpit Resources (ISSN 1057-1833), published quarterly, succeeds Concordia Pulpit, an annual volume of sermons published from 1930 to 1990. The Sunday themes of the sermon studies and children’s messages are coordinated with CPH’s Every Sunday Bulletins and Creative Worship for the Lutheran Parish, a quarterly publication including ready-to-edit worship services in print format and CD-ROM.

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Pastors Conference

Your Responses to Practical Preaching Questions

Q: Who’s the most provocative preacher you’ve heard in recent years?

A: I must say—sadly so—that I have not heard for a while a preacher who engages the text and the hearer’s mind.

Name Withheld

A: Unfortunately, most of the time I’m preaching. I don’t hear a lot of other pastors.

Name Withheld

A: There are two instances of a glorious hearing of God’s Word that stand out in my mind, seemingly above all others. The first was at the feet of the Rev. Dr. John W. Kleinig of Australia. I was attending the Divine Service Institute at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Fort Wayne, and Dr. Kleinig was the speaker for the evening. The topic was “Worship as Heaven on Earth.” Now I must admit that Kleinig did not ascend the pulpit that evening, but what I heard in St. Paul’s fellowship hall that night was preaching of the highest order. The kerygmatic force of his words was unmistakable. The blood of Christ saturated every phrase, and he most deftly took his audience from Old Testament shadow to messianic fulfillment and then to our contemporary reception of God’s holiness. As a preacher he was assembling a mosaic for the congregation, and with each new pass through the Prophets to the Gospels he was adding more tiles to the portrait of God’s stunning plan. The mosaic of Christ crucified and victorious and now extending his gifts to his people was seared into every mind.

The second preacher who stirred my mind was Rev. Walter Otten. It was during the Fort Wayne symposium the year after Dr. Robert Preus had died, and Otten had the homily for the Commemoration of the Saints. He opened the preaching with a single word uttered in his well-known gravelly voice: Grace. His matter-of-fact delivery was perfect for an occasion that bordered precipitously on sentimentality. Otten captured the congregation not with idyllic speech or labored anecdotes but with that which is most true, most certain, and most comforting. I remember him lingering on the word (grace) and then fleshing out its cruciform content. The preaching was without complexity and noticeably authoritative—it was Christ in action.

Rev. Wiley James Smith, pastor

Christ the King Lutheran Church, Redlands, California

A: The three whom I think of as being excellent preachers when I hear them are Dr. William Weinrich, Dr. Dean Wenthe, and Dr. Carl Fickenscher. One of the things that has struck me is that they’re always very textual in their preaching, but they’re able to weave concrete, everyday examples into it. It seems as if their sermons fit the text so perfectly, but that they’ve preached on things that concern me and my ministry—not only me personally, but also issues that have arisen in my congregation. I always listen for Law and Gospel, and the way in which these three are able to apply Law and Gospel is to me astounding. I’ve perhaps done the same text a number of times, and I’d never caught that nuance—very strong Law there or very strong Gospel here—in a phrase they’ve been able to capture or address. Also, the three of them have different styles that fit their personalities. I’ve heard them each talk enough times in other situations to know that when they’re preaching, their own personalities are coming out.

Rev. Daniel F. Ognoskie

Emmanuel Lutheran Church, Dwight, Illinois

Editor: I’m glad we asked . . . I think. In addition to the above responses, we heard from a number who simply gave names without comment or details. Among those named were media evangelist Kenneth Copeland and LCMS pastors Peter Cage and Michael Hintze. Hintze—who just happens to have two sermon studies in this issue—was mentioned by several responders. If we may add our own two cents: The master illustrator in our circles may well have been the late Donald Deffner. And for pure voice? Paul Shoemaker of New Haven, Indiana. If you haven’t heard of him, you’ve probably still heard him, from wherever you are.

Upcoming Topics

17-1: What’s the matter with preaching today? (Thank you for your responses.)

17-2: Do you see a place for visuals (art, objects, multimedia, etc.) in preaching? Why or why not? (Submit by July 15, 2006.)

17-3 What’s your favorite true (or almost true) preaching story—or preaching nightmare? (Submit by October 15, 2006.)

17-4: What role do you feel body language—eyes, face, hands, feet, posture, position, and so one—has in your preaching, and how do you utilize it? (Submit by January 15, 2007.)

Responses should be a maximum of 250 words and may be sent to Editor, Concordia Pulpit Resources, 3558 S. Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, MO 63118-3875 or e-mailed to cpr@cph.org. We also invite suggestions for future topics.

The Presence of Christ in Preaching

The Preacher as the Bearer of Christ

Chaplain (Captain) Edward O. Grimenstein, ThD candidate in homiletics from the University of Toronto,
chaplain with the 3-27 Field Artillery Regiment, U.S. Army, Fort Bragg, North Carolina

While passing a church recently, I was struck by its marquee: “Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior. Come inside to meet him.” The first statement wasn’t too shocking. Christians often proclaim Jesus is Lord and Savior, but the second sentiment brought more questions than should be pondered while driving. Is Jesus really inside? When I walk in, will a man in sandals greet me? Will Jesus be wearing a crown of thorns or a golden sash? Is the church speaking figuratively of Jesus’ presence, or is he really present in some manner? The questions could have continued. However, the main question remained: “What does it mean to say Jesus is present?”

Historically, denominations have many different positions regarding Jesus’ presence. In regard to the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, some denominations say Jesus is present physically. Others say he is present spiritually, some say mysteriously, and still others say Jesus is not present. The marquee was not clear which type of Jesus I should have been prepared to encounter. But then a new thought occurred: What if the marquee implied Jesus’ presence not in Baptism or the Lord’s Supper, but in preaching? Many preachers and homileticians say Jesus is present in preaching, but few explore the implications of such a sentiment. Homiletics is facing a bit of a marquee dilemma. Preachers often say Jesus is present in preaching, but they don’t always explain how, why, or what the implications are for such a presence.

This article will not seek to answer all questions related to the presence of Christ in preaching. However, I hope a theological proposal will be raised that will allow such questions regarding Christ’s presence in preaching to be properly answered. This proposal is simple: Only through the right proclaiming of Law and Gospel, a redemptive intention, is Christ’s presence incarnated in this world. This essay is part of a much larger work in locating instances of incarnation throughout an entire gambit of preaching aspects, but for the sake of brevity it will give only a brief synopsis of homiletical literature pertaining to the preacher and Christ’s presence.

In the Preacher’s Person

Homileticians often speak of Christ’s incarnation occurring in relation to the preacher. Many homileticians speak of Christ meeting the preacher during the initial stage of exegesis.[1] Others say that preachers embody the essence of who Jesus is in character and deed,[2] while others assert Christ is the true preacher of a sermon speaking through the preacher.[3] Many well-respected homileticians even go so far as to say the preacher is the Word Incarnate.[4] So what is the relation between Jesus and the preacher? There are far too many answers to this question to be addressed here. However, one error may be so striking that to learn to avoid it may help prevent many others.

Charles Rice is one who asserts that the preacher or priest is, to a certain degree, the manifestation of Christ’s incarnation. In telling of a trip to Greece, Charles Rice mentions that he saw the same event happening at every port city: the village priest would come down to the docks to meet the boats. As people disembarked, they would stop to talk with the priest and even reach out simply to touch him on the shoulder or to brush up against his robe. Responding to this event, Rice says, “I was looking at the embodied faith, the presence of Christ being acted out in simple human intercourse, amid the morning’s commerce and the smell of the day’s catch.”[5] Now certainly, the priest is to be applauded for being present in the community, which is what Rice is trying to emphasize through the example—priests and preachers are to be among their people. But this image, and what it further implies, raises several concerns for preaching.

Rice would argue, as many Episcopalians and Roman Catholics would, that because of the priest’s apostolic role there is intrinsically within that priest something that sets the priest apart as a divine mediator of Christ. In The Embodied Word, Rice argues that the preacher or priest retains the incarnated presence of Christ by means of location with liturgy, font, and altar.[6] If Christ’s presence is truly connected to the Sacraments, then in what way is the priest the incarnation of Christ when standing on a dock? Surely Rice and others could argue the priest is the visible manifestation of Christ in the secular world. And it is true; there is nowhere better for Christ to be present than at a dock, meeting people as they disembark from a boat. But the question revolves around the type of incarnation occurring. Is the incarnation inherent in the preacher, or does the incarnation happen through the preached Word? A priest standing on a dock and being touched like an idol is one thing, but a priest standing on a dock and rightly preaching Law and Gospel to people as they walk by is quite another.

Rice’s example highlights the clear demarcation between Roman Catholic/Orthodox/Episcopalian understandings of the office of the ministry and Lutheran understandings. Merely touching a priest to be near Christ while disembarking from a dock implies gratia infusa: God’s grace is passed from God, through priest, and then to people. Rice is intentionally or unintentionally proposing that grace might be passed on to others by means of a touch, blessing, or, worse, by a passive presence. It might be easy to pass Rice’s illustration off as a nice picture, but this simply cannot be done because too much is at stake. Although most Lutherans would never see Rice’s image as a trap they would fall into, there are similar pitfalls for Lutherans.

A more Lutheran-sounding error would be to believe that by a preacher’s mere opening his mouth, God will use and bless that Word to the congregation. This, obviously, ignores the importance of the Law and Gospel content. Now certainly, God does use our feeble words for his divine ends. However, if we lazily pass off the task of preaching, as if Law and Gospel truly did nothing, then we are no better than a priest standing on a dock hoping passersby are able to grasp something from our seemingly passive presence. Whether the pastor is sitting on a dock or passively standing in a pulpit, the preacher is never the fount from which divine blessings flow. Christ is present through the preaching of Law and Gospel, a divine intention inextricably linked to the very essence and mission of Christ. It is odd that Rice, who so emphasizes the dependence of preaching upon the Sacraments, seems to abandon this physical connection with Christ to collapse the ethos of the preacher not upon Christ, but upon the priestly character of that particular preacher. Only a preacher who has experienced the reverse-ethos of truly being a slave to and for Christ can point to himself as Christ’s ambassador.[7]

Rice’s declarations raise other questions regarding examples of Christ’s incarnation in the world. If priests on docks, lived experiences, or even metaphors can all be manifestations of the incarnate Christ, then in what way do those manifestations participate in the redemptive character of Christ? A red flag should be raised when simply naming worldly experiences as manifestations of Christ or even Christ’s grace. Christ came incarnate to do one thing: seek and save the lost through his death and resurrection. Unless worldly manifestations are servants of that goal, then, at best, they may not be as true to Christ as they may wish. At worst, such namings of Christ’s presence could be false manifestations of the true Christ by inadvertently denying the One who has truly come in the flesh to bring salvation.

In the Preacher’s Preparation

Perhaps there is a right way to speak of Christ’s incarnation in regard to the preacher. Some homileticians have proposed this happens early in the preaching process. When recognizing the days and hours preachers spend in preparing their sermons, it could be argued that the first to be influenced by the incarnate Christ are the preachers. Such influence by Christ could even come before the preacher writes a single sentence in the sermon. For Paul Scott Wilson, the biblical text is to be made alive for the preacher before the preacher brings a single word to the congregation:

We want to be putting our ears to a chosen text, straining to hear through the words on the page the sounds that are there: perhaps the market buzz, the family squabbles, the splash of well water being poured, the clank of the field hoe hitting a stone, hoof beats in narrow lanes, the temple’s echoing silence, or the baby’s cry on the night breeze. These are, after all, the sounds of God’s Word becoming flesh.[8]

A preacher should not simply read a text, but be immersed in the sights, sounds, beauty, and even ugliness of a text. What is interesting in Wilson’s writing is his proposal that the first instance of God’s Word becoming flesh is not in the sermon, nor the congregation, nor in the preached Word. The first instance of God’s Word becoming flesh happens within the preacher. Unless a preacher is willing to be affected by the enfleshed Word of God in the text, then it seems next to impossible for a preacher to bring a Word to the congregation. The first sacrificial lamb for the sermon is not a congregation or the pastor’s wife; it is the preacher who is first encountered by Christ in the Word-world of the biblical text. From out of this world the preacher brings a message from Christ to the congregation, a message in which, through the distinction between Law and Gospel, the event of salvation actually takes place.[9]

Ever since the inception of new homiletical theories, the role of the preacher has been constantly re-evaluated. Fred Craddock proposed that congregations have a greater role in deciding the essence of a sermon than was previously practiced in history.[10] However, many denominations, and even entire church bodies, still retain some type of priestly/mediatorial mandate for the preacher. Many homileticians who are staunch practitioners of new homiletical theories and practices actually support the role of preacher as mediator in ways that may seem surprising to many. Thomas Long says:

We go to Scripture, then, not to glean a set of facts about God or the faith that can then be announced whenever and wherever, but to encounter a Presence, to hear God’s voice speaking to us ever anew, calling us in the midst of the situations in which we find ourselves to be God’s faithful people.[11]

Long strongly believes Christ is present in the sermon. Long’s assertions regarding how the incarnation affects the preacher are twofold. First, it is the preacher who goes to Scripture to witness Christ; second, it is the preacher who finds a claim of God for the congregation’s life.[12] Many black preachers also support this eyewitness function of the preacher.[13] Preachers do not have to be an incarnation of Christ in themselves to the congregation. It is possible for the preacher to be a type of mediator on behalf of the people and the incarnate Christ. The preacher is like Moses, who goes before God and witnesses the claim of God upon the people’s lives, and then returns to the people with that claim.

Although some homileticians may be turned off by referring to the preacher as a mediator between God and the congregation, this mediatorial role actually reinforces congregational authority. As a member of the congregation, the preacher has been set apart by the congregation and sent by the congregation to listen to the Scriptures on their behalf.[14] It is the preacher who has been called to witness Christ’s work in this world and in the Word, and to become the bearer of that grace-full message to the people. Preachers do not have to be stripped of their authority entirely. Rather, a preacher’s authority simply needs to be seen as an extension of the priesthood of believers, who have called one from among them to speak with God and from God on their behalf.

In the Preacher’s Thoughts

Preachers do encounter Christ in the biblical text. They read the Word, they themselves are affected by the Word, and they bring something with them out of the text for the congregation. But if the preacher is meeting Christ and then bringing Christ out, then the preacher’s thoughts should also take some type of Christological shape. If pastors truly are the bearers of Christ in preaching, then preaching itself should also take some form of Christ. Henry Grady Davis says, “Expressing a thought means giving it a form recognizable by another person.”[15] Davis argues that forms will always come about from a preacher’s thoughts. Some forms will be well constructed, others likened to a pile of dead branches, but nonetheless, forms will take shape through preaching.[16] This forming of a sermon has great implications when saying Christ is present in preaching.

Davis spends a great deal of time discussing how a sermon first begins in the thoughts of a preacher. The thoughts are molded and then eventually given substance through speech because “to be without form is the void of matter.”[17] What Davis is describing is, in fact, a type of incarnational process. Thoughts are shaped and given form through speech, specifically through the preached Word. Using Davis’s sentiments, it would be possible to identify the incarnation of Christ as stemming from within the very thoughts of the preacher. The Christ who first allowed his form to be shaped by the Virgin Mary’s humanity is now pleased to allow his form to be shaped by the preacher’s own thoughts and words. This sentiment is a natural outgrowth of Davis’s thinking: Christ is pleased to dwell within people and even to be shaped by them through their words. For preaching, this means having Christ conceived in the preacher’s thoughts (an annunciation) and delivered into the world through the preacher’s mouth (a birth). And within this whole annunciatory-birth is the pounding heartbeat of Law and Gospel—the very essence of who Jesus is and what Jesus came to do.

So there appears to be a natural progression for the preacher in meeting the incarnate Christ. The preacher first encounters Christ, or is encountered by Christ, in the biblical world. The preacher is then affected by Christ in some way, while pursuing a Word to preach. The very thoughts of the preacher’s thinking are then molded and shaped by Christ, who is pleased to reside in the thoughts of the preacher. But a sermon never exists purely in a preacher’s mind. Christ still needs to get out of the preacher’s head and into the congregation. It would be easy to say, “Well, the preacher just preaches,” but even the act of preaching is described by many in more incarnational terms.

In the Preacher’s Speaking

Walter Ong offers a very interesting way of describing how the interior thoughts of one person are communicated to another. He defines speaking in very incarnational terms. Ong proposes that speaking is one interior reality seeking another interior for a resting place:

The word itself is both interior and exterior: it is, as we have seen, a partial exteriorization of an interior seeking another interior. The primary physical medium of the word—sound—is itself an exteriorization of a physical interior, setting up reverberations in other physical interiors.[18]

For Ong, one person’s interior is incarnated into an external manifestation of sound so that it might become interiorized within another person. Ong is arguing that all speech essentially carries with it this incarnational quality. With Ong’s view in mind, there may be more to preaching than just preaching. Since the preacher has met Christ, been affected by Christ, and now delivers Christ to others, it might be better to describe the preacher as a planter. The interiorized reality that had been affected in the preacher by Christ (that is, the claim Christ has made during exegesis, and so forth) now seeks another interior reality (person) in which to rest (be believed).

Martin Luther believed the Virgin Mary became pregnant with the Christ Child as she heard the Word and believed it.[19] The Word, Christ himself, was passed on to Mary by the angel Gabriel. Gabriel did not quote abstract thoughts to her. He did not talk about Jesus. The angel spoke Jesus into her. Using Ong’s analogy, preachers could rightly be seen as Gabriels, with each preaching act delivering Christ to others. Every time Christ is preached, the interiorization of the preacher (the preacher’s own thoughts, wrestlings with the text, Gospel encountered, and so on) seeks another person to become interiorized within; the preacher hopes the message he preaches will be taken in by others and believed.

Preachers are not in and of themselves the incarnate Christ. If preachers were the incarnate Christ, then they would never need to preach. Preachers could simply pass on grace through a touch. But preachers do preach. Within the preacher’s task, there is a theological intent. The preacher does not merely stand idly by; the preacher effects a change in the congregation. In particular, preachers name new realities for a congregation. They re-create the world in the new image of Christ, not by being the new image themselves in an idol-like fashion, but by refashioning the world anew through Christ. As Amos Wilder says:

If the naming of things is equivalent to their being called into being, we find ourselves on the same ground with the Genesis account of the creation. God spoke and it was done. Such is the power of the word.[20]

It is one thing to say a preacher is Christ simply by standing and being touched. But it is quite another to say the preacher is Christ by the actions of being Christ—by redeeming the world through a redemptive Word. Preachers can speak of themselves as being Christ to the congregation through the redemptive Word they preach, just as laity are Christ as they care for the least of their neighbor (Mt 25:40). But note that there is a redemptive action occurring. Preachers are Christ by preaching, not by standing around. Preachers are not Christ, but what a joy it is for preachers to be the handservants of our God in being the bearers of the living God to a dying world shocked into a new life.

Bonhoeffer the Preacher

Rev. John T. Pless, assistant professor, Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana

Why Bonhoeffer?

“Preaching was the great event for him. His severe theologizing and critical love for the church were for its sake, for preaching proclaimed the message of Christ, the bringer of peace. For Bonhoeffer nothing in his calling competed in importance with preaching.”[21] So wrote Eberhard Bethge of his good friend Dietrich Bonhoeffer. February 4, 2006, marked the centennial of the birth of this Lutheran pastor, who was executed by the Nazis on April 9, 1945. Sixty years after his death, Dietrich Bonhoeffer remains an enigma. His death at the age of 39 left fragments that others have tried to piece together. Eberhard Juengel spoke of the unfortunate “halo of theological unassailability” that “has surrounded the works of Bonhoeffer, much to their own detriment. One should destroy that halo, for Bonhoeffer’s sake.”[22] The halo has sometimes blurred Bonhoeffer’s actual contributions as theologians of the 1960s, beginning with John A. T. Robinson and continuing down to the present, have refashioned Bonhoeffer in their own image.

This article will not attempt to probe all the twists and turns of Bonhoeffer’s theology, nor will it seek to criticize the missteps that he may have made. Rather, we will seek to look at an often-overlooked aspect of Bonhoeffer’s work, namely, his preaching. In doing so, we will seek to lift up aspects of both his theology of preaching and elements of his sermons that might be serviceable to confessional Lutheran preachers in the twenty-first century.

The Weight of the Word

For Bonhoeffer, preaching was a weighty undertaking because God’s Word was no light or ephemeral matter. The words of preaching are freighted with Christ himself and carry the weight of Calvary. Thus Bonhoeffer writes, “Where a word, so to speak, comes with immediacy from the cross of Jesus Christ, where Christ is so present for us that it is he who speaks our words, only there can the terrible danger of spiritual small talk be banished.”[23] Such preaching grows out of silence for Bonhoeffer, but it is not the silence of the mystics. “Teaching about Christ begins in silence. . . . That has nothing to do with the silence of the mystics, who in their dumbness chatter away secretly in their soul by themselves. The silence of the Church is silence before the Word.”[24]

This Word does not arise from within the soul of the preacher or the collective consciousness of the congregation. It is a Word that comes from God; it is extra nos: “outside of us,” outside of the self. This leads Bonhoeffer to be highly critical of the preaching that he observed especially in America, when he was a student at Union Seminary in New York in 1930—preaching that had been rendered insubstantial with its reduction of the sermon to a narrative of edifying examples or religious experiences or commentary on current events.[25] Indebted to the old Reformation slogan that goes back to Heinrich Bullinger, Praedicatio verbi divini est verbum divinum (“The preaching of the Word of God is the Word of God”), Bonhoeffer sees preaching itself as Christ Jesus present in the sermon. In this sense, Bonhoeffer will speak of the sacramentality of preaching and contend that in the sermon, God’s own power to save is operative. But this power is hidden in weakness. “The Word of God is there and it is the only thing that an action has no power over. The human powers that surround the Word of God may be ever so slight and weak so that they may be broken and destroyed. Only the Word of God endures. . . . In actions God remains mute, but God reveals himself to those whom God wants to save, those who might find God. That revelation occurs in the poverty of the word, for God wants to be believed, not to gain recognition by force.”[26] The Psalms, both in language and content, anchored Bonhoeffer’s preaching.[27]

Periods of Bonhoeffer’s Preaching: Barcelona to Prison

Bonhoeffer spent a year (1928–29) in Barcelona as vicar of the German-speaking congregation. At this early stage, he was noted for his passionate preaching—even if it did go over the heads of most of his hearers. Letters back to friends and family in Germany indicate that Bonhoeffer approached the pulpit with both trepidation and eagerness. He saw a need to speak the Gospel enticingly to the people that he had met during the week. The twenty-two-year-old Bonhoeffer wrote to his parents, “Writing sermons still takes up a great deal of my time. I work on them a whole week, devoting some time to them every day.”[28] Bonhoeffer preached nineteen sermons during the course of his year in Spain. These sermons reveal both theological themes and homiletical approaches that continue to repeat themselves throughout his career.

From Barcelona, Bonhoeffer went to Berlin, where he served as a pastor to students. While serving in Berlin, he was not tied to a single pulpit, but often assisted local pastors in preaching. Bethge notes that “Bonhoeffer’s sermons as a student chaplain give little indication that his audience consisted of engineers and scientists.”[29]

In 1930, Bonhoeffer traveled to New York for a year of studies at Union Seminary. He says little about preaching during his first American visit and what he says is mostly negative. He was not impressed with Harry Emerson Fosdick, who understood the church’s message “in an extreme humanistic sense.”[30] When Bonhoeffer returned to New York in 1939, the comments in his diary on preaching were largely negative. He wrote of a sermon preached at the liberal Riverside Church on June 18, 1939, as “quite unbearable. . . . The whole thing was respectable, self-indulgent, self-satisfied religious celebration. This sort of idolatrous religion stirs up the flesh which is accustomed to being kept in check by the Word of God. Such sermons make for libertinism, egotism, indifference.”[31] The following Sunday, Bonhoeffer attended the fashionable Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, where the man who was perhaps the dean of American Lutheran homileticians in the mid-twentieth century, Paul Scherer, was the pastor. Bonhoeffer evaluated Dr. Scherer’s sermon on Luke 15 as follows: “Very forced application of the text. Otherwise lively and original, but too much analysis and too little Gospel.”[32]

In between the two trips to New York, there would be additional pastoral work in Germany and London, as well as lectures at the preachers’ seminary, first at Zingst and then at Finkenwalde. His preaching in London was marked by a deeply eschatological imprint, even as the sermons from Finkenwalde were strongly Christological. Sixteen sermons from this period survive. After the Gestapo closed the Finkenwalde seminary in 1937, Bonhoeffer had fewer opportunities to preach. In 1940, he was forbidden from preaching and lecturing by the Nazis. Yearning for the pulpit, Bonhoeffer wrote in 1942, “I eagerly want to preach once again.”[33] On Quasimodogeniti, the First Sunday after Easter, in 1945, Bonhoeffer would preach his final sermon to a small group of prisoners on a verse from the Epistle for the day, 1 Pet 1:3, and Is 53:5. The next day, April 9, Bonhoeffer was executed.

Themes in Bonhoeffer’s Preaching

A variety of influences can be detected in Bonhoeffer’s sermons. Although he received a theological education dominated by a historical-critical approach to the Scriptures, Bonhoeffer, for the most part, left such scholarship out of his preaching, opting instead for what he called a “pneumatic exegesis.”[34] His “theological interpretation” of the Old Testament would incite the criticisms of biblical scholars such as Gerhard von Rad and Friedrich Baumgaertel.[35] The influence of Adolph Schlatter, especially his lectures on the Gospels, seems to have made a profound impact on Bonhoeffer. Only the writings of Luther ousted Schlatter for shelf space in Bonhoeffer’s personal library.[36] The effect of Karl Barth on Bonhoeffer is clearly evident. Especially in Bonhoeffer’s doctrine of the Word over against every idolatry human beings construct do we hear echoes of Barth. The hymns of Paul Gerhardt are often cited by Bonhoeffer. These hymns had a formative influence on his piety and his preaching.[37] Bonhoeffer exhibited great appreciation for the writings of George Bernanos, of whom he writes, “When ministers say something from them [the books of Bernanos], then their words carry weight. That does not originate from some linguistic consideration or perception, but quite simply from the daily, personal encounter with the crucified Christ.”[38] However, none of these influences were as dominant as that of Luther. Bonhoeffer understood himself to be an heir of the Reformation, and that heritage is most vivid in his sermons, even if at times the voice of Barth does muffle Luther.[39]

Bethge has observed that the first sermons Bonhoeffer preached in Barcelona reflected “the full scope of his theological work and perspective.”[40] Here in these early sermons, Bonhoeffer contrasts religion with faith, contending that the cross of Christ crushes religion so that faith might arise. The First Commandment unmasks every attempt to have a deity of our own making. This is a theme that Bonhoeffer returns to often in his sermons. Not long after Hitler took power in 1933, Bonhoeffer preached the following at Trinity Church in Berlin, making the point that the First Commandment is exclusive of all rival gods: “The church has only one altar, the altar of the Almighty . . . before which all creatures must kneel. . . . Whoever seeks something other than this must keep away; he cannot join us in the house of God. . . . The church has only one pulpit, and from that pulpit, faith in God will be preached, and no other faith, and no other will than the will of God, however well-intentioned.”[41] Here we see the incisiveness of Bonhoeffer’s preaching as he dares draw a line between faith and idolatry.

In the same year, Bonhoeffer preached a sermon entitled “A Church of the World or a Church of the Word,” based on Exodus 32, at the Kaiser Wilhelm Church in Berlin. In this striking sermon, Bonhoeffer develops a contrast between the “church of Moses” and the “church of Aaron.” He raises the rhetorical question to the congregation, Why is it that Moses and Aaron must be in conflict? “Why cannot they stand side by side in the same service? Why must the church of Moses and the church of Aaron, the church of the Word and the worldly church, break apart time and again?”[42] Then Bonhoeffer devotes the remainder of the sermon to developing the answer. These two churches represent competing faiths that cannot live in reconciling diversity. Hidden under the cross, the church of Moses is the Church that lives by Word that is spoken but not seen. The church of Aaron relies on sight. Moses is vanished and with his disappearance, there is now the need for something tangible; hence the idolatry of the golden calf.

The impatience that is a fruit of unbelief is exposed and condemned as Bonhoeffer holds the Law before a Church in the world. Only as God humbles the haughty does the church of Aaron become the church of Moses. “The impatient church becomes the quietly waiting church, the church anxious to see sights becomes the church of sober faith, the church that makes its own gods becomes the church which worships the One God.”[43] To this Church broken by the Law, Bonhoeffer speaks words of Gospel: “Who will make expiation here? It is none other than he who is priest and prophet in one, the man with the purple robe and the crown of thorns, the crucified Son of the Father, who stands before God to make intercession for us. Here, in his cross, there is the end of all idolatry. Here the whole human race, the whole church is judged and pardoned. Here God is wholly the God who will not tolerate other gods but now also wholly God in that God forgives without limit. As the church which is always at the same time the church of Moses and the church of Aaron, we point to the cross and say, ‘This is your God, O Israel, who brought you out of slavery and will lead you evermore. Come, believer, worship!’ Amen.”[44]

Bonhoeffer’s preaching of the First Commandment permeates his sermon. In a sermon on the confession of Peter (Mt 16:13–18), delivered in Berlin in July 1933, Bonhoeffer reminds his hearers that the security of the Church’s future, like its beginning, is in the hands of Christ. To think otherwise is to be seduced into idolatry. Christ builds his Church even when it seems that it is being destroyed. With a series of short, pointed statements, Bonhoeffer proclaims: “But it is not we who build. He builds the church. No human being builds the church but Christ alone. Whoever intends to build the church is surely well on the way to destroying it; for he will build a temple to idols without wishing or knowing it. We must confess—he builds. We must proclaim—he builds. We must pray to him—that he may build. We do not know his plan. We cannot see whether he is building or pulling down. It may be that the times which by human standards are times of collapse are for him the great times of construction. It may be that from a human point of view the great times for the church are actually times of demolition.”[45] So Bonhoeffer called Christians to unflinching trust in the sure promises of Christ in the face of Hitler’s ascendancy and the beguiling temptation to idolize him as a savior.

Some of Bonhoeffer’s most poignant preaching comes on the final Sundays of the Church Year and in Advent. The end of the Christian year, with its eschatological focus, provides the context for preaching that sets sinful and perishing human life in light of God’s eternity. These end time Sundays bring judgment and hope. The cross is decisive in this preaching, not apocalyptic speculation, as Bonhoeffer explains that “the end time in the Bible is the whole time and every day between the death of Christ and the last judgment.”[46] Bonhoeffer’s sermons from this time of the Church Year issue the call to repentance and life in the face of death. The preaching of the return of Christ is not meant to frighten hearers but, as Bonhoeffer puts it in a sermon preached on November 19, 1933, in London, God lets us know what the last judgment is, “so that we might perceive what life is. God lets it be known today so that we may lead a life in openness and in the light of the last judgment. . . . God sends us the word about judgment so that we may all the more passionately, all the more eagerly, seize the promise of grace, so that we recognize that we do not stand before God in our own strength, lest we should perish before God; that in spite of everything God does not desire our death, but rather our life.”[47]

Bonhoeffer’s sermons are preached in the valley of the shadow of death. It may be said that his sermons anticipate death, which by faith is made blessed. A sermon titled “Learning to Die,” preached at the Finkenwalde seminary on November 24, 1935, on Rev 14:6–13, announces this blessedness: “To die in Christ—that this be granted us, that our last hour not be a weak hour, that we die as confessors of Christ, whether old or young, whether quickly or after long suffering, whether seized and laid hold of by the lord of Babylon or quietly and gently—that is our prayer today, that our last word might only be: Christ.”[48]

Bonhoeffer delighted in Advent, perhaps because so much of his life seemed to be spent in waiting. Already in a sermon from the First Sunday in Advent, preached in Barcelona in 1928, he writes, “Advent is a time of waiting. Our whole life, however, is Advent—that is, a time of waiting for the ultimate, for the time when there will be a new heaven and a new earth.”[49] The theme of Advent as waiting, as anticipation, is echoed in a sermon Bonhoeffer preached on the Fourth Sunday in Advent in Havana in 1930. For his text, Bonhoeffer selected the account of Moses on Mount Nebo in Deut 32:48–52. (Bonhoeffer often opted for a “free text” rather than those given in the lectionary.) In this sermon, Bonhoeffer pictures Moses as the embodiment of Advent. Like Moses, Christians behold the promised land: “Great things are promised and they are in process. Unheard of happenings were proclaimed, which the ears of men have never known. Hidden secrets will be revealed. The earth and all who live upon it will tremble at their coming. . . . God himself comes, the Lord God, Creator and Judge. He comes near, in love with humankind. He will bring them home to eternal happiness! He comes. Are you ready?”[50]

In his Advent preaching, Bonhoeffer reflects the penitential character of the season, but it is repentance that is fulfilled in the Christ who comes to rescue sinners. In the 1928 sermon, he says, “The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come. For these, it is enough to wait in humble fear until the Holy One himself comes down to us, God in the manger.”[51]

How Bonhoeffer Preached

We know something about how Bonhoeffer preached, both from those who heard him as well as from the notes of his lectures in homiletics given at Finkenwalde seminary. One of his students from Finkenwalde, Albrecht Schoenherr, who eventually became bishop of East Berlin, reflected on his teacher: “In his sermons he avoided any rhetorical effect. He never gave us anecdotes in them. He chose the most sober, matter-of-fact form, the homily. In spite of this, or perhaps because of it, they were extraordinarily impressive. There was not a word too many. Only the matter itself came to speech, sometimes in such a compressed way, that what he had to say seemed almost forced out. It may be typical of Bonhoeffer’s way of preaching that today, after almost thirty years, his texts still cling in the memory, whereas the pattern of thought has gone.”[52]

The notes from his lectures on preaching reflect the seriousness with which Bonhoeffer took the preaching task. He urged students to study the text prayerfully, posing a series of questions to the text, not so much to interpret the text scientifically but rather so that the text interprets the preacher and his congregation.[53] Bonhoeffer suggested to his students that they write the sermon out word for word, quoting his teacher Adolph von Harnack: “My pen is wiser than my head.”[54] Yet the sermon should not be written too soon lest “it [perish] like the manna in the wilderness.” He urges students to make a careful use of language, language that is clean and chaste, avoiding both “the sacramental language of the sanctuary” and “the language of the street.”[55] Bonhoeffer provided his students with criteria for evaluating sermons that could find salutary use today.[56] His goal was that students should preach biblically and concretely: “One cannot understand and preach the gospel tangibly enough. A truly evangelical sermon must be like offering a child a red apple or a thirsty person a glass of cool water and asking, ‘Do you want it?’ We should talk about matters of faith in such a manner that people would stretch out their hands for it faster than we can fill them.”[57]

Conclusion

Preaching was central to Bonhoeffer’s life as a Christian, pastor, and theologian. Like Luther, he understood the preacher as a soldier engaged in the battle against Satan. “Every sermon must overcome Satan.”[58] Christian preaching, for Bonhoeffer, was the proclamation of the crucified Christ in the face of sin and death, the devil, and every pseudo-god of this age. Contemporary Lutheran pastors will continue to be enriched by a discerning reading of his sermons and meditations.

Ideas for Illustrating

Pentecost 15

Right Makes Might

In the musical Camelot, a whimsical tale of jousting and May Day frolics suddenly becomes meaningful when King Arthur has a revelation. Kingdoms have always been ruled, he says, on the principle that “might makes right”—whoever holds power makes the rules, whoever has the largest army is considered to be right, regardless of how wicked or ruthless he really is. But what if, Arthur wonders, that were reversed? What if his kingdom operated on the belief that “right makes might”? Could justice and fair play and peace and kindness possibly make a kingdom strong? Paul assures us that we are “strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might” (Eph 6:10 ESV). But the armor that he then offers is not simply a description of God’s naked power slamming Satan over the head with a mace. The strength, the might of God, which Paul calls “the whole armor” (v 11 ESV) is not raw power, but rather truth, righteousness, and peace; not bash and crash, but faith, salvation, and the Holy Spirit working quietly through the Word of God. This is the way God fights, as when he conquered Satan by the seemingly weak and helpless death of the Righteous One, his Son. Armed with each piece of God’s “right,” we are powerful enough, mighty enough, to defeat all the brute force of Satan’s wickedness!

Carl C. Fickenscher II, Fort Wayne, IN

Pentecost 16

The Word . . . Much More!

A parable told by William Cunningham, who was education adviser to former Gov. George Deukmejian of California: A man was out walking in the desert when a voice said to him, “Pick up some pebbles, put them in your pocket, and tomorrow you will be both sorry and glad.” The man obeyed. He stooped down, picked up a handful of pebbles, and put them in his pocket. The next morning he reached into his pocket and found diamonds and rubies and emeralds. And he was both glad and sorry. Glad that he had taken some—sorry that he hadn’t taken more. So it is with God’s Word. It makes us glad when we see how the Holy Spirit works through the Word and Sacraments to strengthen us in our faith toward God and in our love toward one another. Yet there is also an element of sadness when we recognize that our response to that Word is so hesitant and incomplete. We could do so much more!

Robert C. Hedtke, West Point, NE

Pentecost 17

Where Are You? Who Am I?

Our first parents had it so very good! They were free to live without sin and death. They were free to eat from the tree of life forever. They were free to worship their God and Creator! They were free to multiply and fill the earth! They were free to rule over the earth as given to them by God! Just one thing: Don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for then you will be like God, and you will surely die! They refused God’s Word—and so refused God. They would be their own gods! So they ate, and death came to all men, because all have sinned. We all refuse God and his Word; that is sin. And so God asks us an important question, “Where are you?” He knows where we are physically. What he wants to hear from us is where we are with him, spiritually. In other words, “Where are you in relationship with me?” To answer that question is then to be able to answer the question Jesus asks today. Where we are with God leads us to the right and proper and good answer that Peter gives to Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am?” (Mk 8:29 ESV).

Jeffrey M. Kuddes, Waltham, MN

Pentecost 18

Hard to Be Humble?

You may have heard the popular country song sung by Mac Davis—“Oh, Lord, It’s Hard to Be Humble.” Some of its lyrics tell how hard it is to be humble when the singer is clearly perfect in so many ways. Remember that one? This song, I believe, summarizes, in a wonderful way, the way of the world. The world would have us strive for our own ideas of perfection—good looks, prosperity, wealth, and longevity. One word can summarize such a philosophy: pride. True Christian humility does not live well with such a worldly philosophy. Christian humility is one of being last, least, and lost. Christian humility is service, seeing to the needs of others before oneself. Trying to be humble is not Christian humility. Christian humility is receiving the things of God, most important of which is grace, always more grace—and that because of Jesus. So James writes, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6 ESV).

Jeffrey M. Kuddes, Waltham, MN

Pentecost 19

Great Things Communicated

Peggy Noonan, a speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan, rejects the common characterization of her boss as “the great communicator.” She complained that reporters thought President Reagan’s communication “was effective because of the way he said things, not because of what he said.” The reporters thought of Reagan “as a great communicator as opposed to a communicator of great things” (Peggy Noonan, What I Saw at the Revolution [New York: Ivy Books, 1990], 197; used by permission).

Regardless of one’s agreement or disagreement with Reagan’s (and Noonan’s) political ideas, what an intriguing insight—and a critical one for understanding the nature of communication. Can’t we all think of speakers who were dynamic and effective and so on, but, in a good-sounding speech or presentation, gave us nothing worthwhile?

Moses was an ineffective speaker, far from dynamic, as he himself pathetically reminds the Lord (Ex 4:10). Moses was not the great communicator, but “the communicator of great things,” to use Noonan’s phrase. That is the way of the Gospel, to come only in weakness. The great things communicated are bestowal of the Lord’s name, liberation from enslavement, and forgiveness of all sin. The great thing communicated is Jesus.

Warren W. Graff, Albuquerque, NM

Pentecost 20

Oneness Restored

There’s the old joke in the form of a riddle that has a man on a sinking boat with his mother and his wife. Q: If he can save only one, his mother or his wife, which one should he save? A: He should save his mother; he can always get another wife, but he can’t get another mother. The joke illustrates—hopefully with good humor—how our world often looks at marriage: husbands and wives are less than “one flesh.”

In our world, this seems natural. In Mk 10:5, Jesus explains how this view came to us because of the hardness of our hearts. Yet our Lord speaks of marriage in a much more wonderful way: The man and woman are one flesh, joined together by God himself. No separation, no division, and no thought of replacement. Where we have sinned against our Lord’s gift of oneness, the hardness of our hearts is addressed only and fully by the kindness and healing of his Gospel.

Warren W. Graff, Albuquerque, NM

Reformation Day

Slave or Free?

At the beginning of Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ, Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane, being tempted by the devil. The devil tempts Jesus to reject the way of the cross that the Father has given to him. The scene climaxes when Jesus determines to follow the will of his Father and indicates that resolve by crushing the head of the snake with his foot. Is Jesus, by submitting to the will of the Father, therefore accepting, settling for, resigning himself to slavery?

In another scene, perhaps the most intense of the entire film, Jesus is tied to a flogging pole, there to receive the terrible punishment of the Roman lash. When Jesus allows himself to be tied down—and when he allows himself to be fastened with nails to the cross—is Jesus resigning himself to slavery?

Finally, near the end of the movie, blood and water come pouring from Jesus’ spear-pierced side, drenching a Roman soldier beneath. When the soldier kneels, is he submitting to slavery?

No! And yes! Jesus did indeed bind himself to the will of the Father, surely as a slave, but also as the Son who sets us free (Jn 8:36). And the unmistakable symbol of Baptism into Christ surely marked the soldier as a free man, but as a believer he was now a slave to righteousness.

William C. Weinrich, Fort Wayne, IN

All Saints’ Day

The Faith of a Martyr

As they were about to set fire to the wood, the executioners of Polycarp wished to nail him to the stake to ensure that he would not move. Polycarp responded: “Leave me as I am. For he who has given me the strength to endure the flames will grant me also to remain without flinching in the fire, even without the guarantees you wish to give me by using nails” (Martyrdom of Polycarp 13:3, Herbert Musurillo, ed., The Acts of the Christian Martyrs [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972], p. 13; used by permission).

Other illustrations from the lives of the saints are offered in the sermon study for All Saints’ Day.

William C. Weinrich, Fort Wayne, IN

Third-Last Sunday

Built to Last

Jesus’ disciples were little guys like us, and when they came to the big city and saw the temple in Jerusalem, it took their breath away. Naturally. It was enormous and gorgeous, built by King Herod with all his money and power, earthly to the max. But beyond that, it was one of the best things earth had ever produced. God used it. God met people there. It was the house he chose to live in for a while. If anything on earth was impressive, that was it. And when those small-town fellows from up in Galilee saw it, they were as awed as any Iowa boy, staring up at the World Trade Center—that is, if the World Trade Center were still there. It seemed as invulnerable as the Pentagon. Or, as the Pentagon seemed before 9/11. It seemed as solid as the earth, or as solid as the earth seems until Judgment Day.

Really, when you look at anything—cars or bodies or temples or planets—the question isn’t “Is it big or beautiful or impressive?” The question is “Is it built to last?”

R. Michael Hintze, Westminster, MA

Second-Last Sunday

Summer’s Coming!

“From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near” (Mk 13:28 ESV). So soon, the summer, and June, when a groom comes for his bride: “Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away, for behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come” (Song 2:10–12 ESV). So soon, Christ returns. For the believer, summer—that is, the wedding supper of the Lamb—is coming soon!

R. Michael Hintze, Westminster, MA

Last Sunday: Fulfillment

Devastation and Renewal of the Last Day

In AD 70, the Roman Emperor Titus besieged Jerusalem. Through horrible warfare, the city and temple were burned and demolished. Houses were found full of corpses from famine, with so many victims slain to such a degree indeed that the fire of many of the houses was quenched with these men’s blood (Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, Book 6, 406).

It was the end of the world, for many. Yet Christians remembered their Lord’s prediction that Herod’s temple would be destroyed. Did they imagine the extent of the devastation? The greatest tragedy of Jerusalem’s vast destruction was that it was unnecessary. Had the city received her Messiah, rabid religio-nationalism would have been replaced with love for neighbor. And the people would have borne oppressive foreign tyranny as a cross, rather than rebel against civil government. Sin destroyed the temple.

Do we realize the extent of sin’s devastation today in wars, rumors of war, and other terrible events caused by greed, lust, and defiance against the heavenly Father? Likewise, when Christ returns, the horrible devastation of the last judgment will not be fully comprehended until it has happened. It will be the end of the world. Yet all who in this life did not spurn Jesus as the Messiah shall receive a wonderful renewal of life that is as equally impossible to understand until it is experienced. It shall be heaven.

Timothy E. Beck, Richmond, CA

Last Sunday: Christ the King

The Unkingly Rule of the True King

Do you know the story about a spoiled prince and a humble pauper who, for a time, change places? The prince child throws off his little shackles of responsibility to run free. He appeals to us because he is without law, but we are glad when he receives some hard knocks by the pauper’s master. That’ll teach him to be a better king! And the untrained pauper who suddenly towers above the gutter—what shall happen when he’s discovered? Will he lose his head or only the better life? We want a conclusion in which the prince learns a lesson and the pauper is raised to safety. Would this story satisfy if an unspoiled prince left his throne because he loved the paupers in his kingdom and, in a willful sacrifice, exchanged his goodly station for the deserved beatings belonging to an ungrateful pauper? And if the pauper became a prince, what advice would we give if he had to choose between inherited comfort and privilege or following in the steps of his liege lord? Certainly the revised story could not end here, but in the ascension of the rightful prince to his throne, so that rebellious paupers might rise to privilege and to an authentic and honest inheritance in the kingdom.

Timothy E. Beck, Richmond, CA

Book Review

A History of Preaching, O. C. Edwards Jr.

Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2004, 879 pages, hardcover (800-251-3320).

Rev. Timothy A. Rossow, MA, pastor, Bethany Lutheran Church, Naperville, Illinois

O. C. Edwards has written a book that every Lutheran preacher ought to read. To be sure, it is far from perfect. For instance, it is a continual annoyance that Edwards does not judge each era of preaching by its faithfulness to the proper distinction of Law and Gospel. Why then read this book? Lutheran preachers should read it because it draws us into a two-thousand-year-old, nine-hundred-page-long dialogue with Christian preachers and their homiletical theory. The time I invested in plodding through the nearly one millennium of pages and two millennia of years lifted me out of the narrow rut of my weekly sermon preparation and gave me a mountaintop view that has helped me take a long, critical look at my own approach to preaching. As if nine hundred pages of theory weren’t reason enough to read this book, there is also a compact disc included with another 650 pages of sermon examples cross-referenced to the text. This is truly a monumental work (eighteen years in the making!) worthy of review.

This book may move you to change your approach in any number of ways. This review is a call to consider a particular reform. It is a call, first, to understand better Luther’s approach to preaching; second, to appreciate how unique Luther’s approach is in contrast to the rest of the history of preaching; and third, to make sure that our own approach to preaching is sufficiently Lutherlike. After identifying seven key elements in Luther’s approach, we will use them as an interpretive guide through the rest of the homiletical history presented in Edwards’s book.

Edwards’s summary of Luther’s approach is generally accurate and so will serve as our guide to Luther’s approach to preaching. For that matter, most of Edwards’s descriptions of the two thousand years of preachers are quite fair and accurate. He not only covers the primary source material, but also assimilates an amazing amount of quality secondary literature on each preacher and era. It is clear from extraneous comments that Edwards’s personal theology is the prevailing postmodern gospel of tolerance. However, he states in the introduction that he tries not to judge the preachers by his own standards of preaching, and I would say he fulfills that goal.

So how does Edwards characterize Luther’s preaching? First, he points out that Luther identifies the Word of God with Christ himself, but he also identifies the Word of God as the preached Word. Edwards rightly sees the full theology of the means of grace in Luther. This is important and unique in the history of preaching. This elevates what preachers do each Sunday. Unlike many of the other two thousand years of preachers, Luther rightly understands that we speak on behalf of Christ and that our words, by his authority, really do transmit the forgiveness of sins. Second, Edwards rightly points out that Luther’s preaching is both Law and Gospel (289). Third, he recognizes that for Luther, eloquence in the ear adds no efficacy to the sermon. It is neither the eloquence nor the delivery that makes the preached Word efficacious. Efficacy comes from faith worked by the Holy Spirit. This is important because it helps us understand why style and rhetoric were mostly (not entirely) unimportant for Luther and can be mostly (not entirely) unimportant for us. Fourth, he rightly points to Luther’s requirement that the preacher be educated because for Luther, preaching is the explication of the Word. The fifth summary point and the most significant one is Edwards’s definition of Luther’s preaching: “Sermons are . . . real battles in the eschatological struggle between Christ and the adversary; their aim is to make Christians of the hearers through the Word of God and thus hurl the power and victory of Christ against the power of evil” (296). In the sixth place, Edwards says that such an understanding of preaching led Luther to preach in a conversational style. The seventh and final point is that Luther was no thematic preacher. Luther hurled Christ’s power and victory right out of the text in the order that he found it in the text. His was not so much the biblicist approach of the American Evangelical’s expository style of preaching on every verse. Luther’s expository style was more dynamic. He used the Law/Gospel principle to help him zero in on those parts of the text that lent themselves to the preaching of the Word of life, yet still takes these points in the order they appear in the text.

If you are still searching for a style, may I suggest following this approach of Luther? There are an infinite number of acceptable nuances in the approach to Lutheran preaching, but at the very least, Lutheran preachers should know how Luther preached and only consciously and deliberately vary from his approach. Luther’s approach to preaching is a simple approach that focuses on the Word of God, our only true power in preaching. Luther’s approach to preaching is an excellent caution against overly dramatic delivery (which adds nothing to the efficacy of the Word), flowery language, and sermons that are thematically tight but deliver precious little of Christ, the Law, the Gospel, and are often not dripping with Scripture in the same manner as Luther’s textual preaching was. People often think of Luther as some sort of dramatic, attention-commanding preacher. That is simply not the witness of history or of Luther himself. Luther once lamented that when he told stories the people listened, but when he preached to them the life-giving Gospel, they often fell asleep.[59]

I find that Luther’s simple and direct Law/Gospel preaching of the text in a conversational way can save time and energy spent on rhetoric and outline and leave more time for meditation, prayer, and study on the text. In the last few years, following this more conversational approach that focuses on the text as Luther did, I have changed my preparation. I start early in the week reading through the text, letting it suggest its own outline and points of emphasis. I then begin preaching the text in my mind, making a few notes to record those points of emphasis that strike a Law/Gospel and Christocentric chord and to save those moves or transitions that seem to work seamlessly with the flow of the text. I then supplement those notes with a historical-grammatical study of words and doctrines from the text that are unclear to me. (This step sometimes results in a need to deemphasize some things already chosen for emphasis and reemphasize things I had overlooked in the text.) Studying Luther and his preaching style for the last few years has been a great help for me as I continually tweak and improve my own approach to preaching. Edwards’s book has greatly solidified many of those thoughts and given a greater historical breadth to support many of those choices.

With this clear picture of Luther’s approach in mind, we can move on to the rest of Edwards’s history of Christian preaching. He divides the two thousand years into five eras. The notable feature of the first era (Homiletical Origins) is the use of the homily. A homily is a verse-by-verse commentary on the text. Because it was textual, this era compares favorably with Luther’s approach. However, Luther’s understanding of the Word as Law and Gospel is not a major strength of this era. It is also an era that is decidedly more rhetorical in approach than Luther, most prominently in the use of allegory. Luther uses more allegory than we tend to give him credit for, and this should loosen us up from our usually too rigid commitment to the unus sensus literalis, but overall Luther was far more of a propositional preacher than an allegorical preacher.

The first half of the second era (Middle Ages) was a fairly quiet time for preaching. The homiletical approach (verse-by-verse commentary) was continued, and two more modes of interpretation (moral and eschatological) were added to the literal and the allegorical, thus codifying the fourfold interpretation of Scripture. This only added to the urge to make preaching overly rhetorical. This was furthered even more by a major development in the second half of this era. The verse-by-verse homily was replaced by a new organizing principal, the scholastic topical approach, described by Edwards as the trunk/branch outline, another highly rhetorical approach. The sermon was similar to a work of scholastic philosophy. It was based on a main topic from the chosen text. This was the trunk. After commenting on that main topic, the preacher would branch off from there to a subtopic and then branch further out to a subtopic of the subtopic.

This thematic approach is effective for an Aristotelian taxonomy of doctrinal theology, but as for preaching, it was a far cry from the direct, conversational, and textual approach of Luther. Luther rejected this overly rhetorical style. He did not preach thematically. Instead, he preached the Word of God in the order it came in the text. This era of preaching gives us cause to consider the proliferation of topical and single theme preaching in so many Lutheran pulpits today and calls us to consider a return to a more textual, homiletical approach. This is not to say we do not need tight and clearly focused preaching. Luther himself often abused this approach with excessive verbosity. The point is that thematic preaching from an outline foisted on the text can easily limit so much of what is effective about this Lutherlike preaching. Thematic and highly rhetorical outlines easily devolve into descriptive preaching about the faith rather than being characterized by Gospel hurling. There are also the risks that come with the intrusion of man’s outline into God’s Word. In my twenty years of reading Luther’s sermons, I don’t recall running across a single attention-grabbing introduction. Why is that? These cleverly designed rhetorical moves, human interest stories, and attention-getters eat up precious seconds and even minutes of the allotted sermon time. In Luther’s approach, those seconds and minutes are used to preach God’s Word. It is also worth noting that when Luther creates sermon helps for uneducated clergy, he does not produce outlines but writes actual sermons to be given. For Luther, the Word of God is not captured in a rhetorical outline but is captured in the preached text.

Edwards’s treatment of the third era (Renaissance and Reformation) not only includes Luther, but much more of significance for us. His summary of Calvin reminds us that we have much in common with Geneva (e.g., trust in verbal inspiration and propositional truth). Despite these similarities, Calvin’s typical sermon outline was geared toward obedience and duty, a world apart from Luther’s hurling of the victory of forgiveness at his hearers. Calvin also had a higher esteem for rhetoric and style than Luther. His sermons were cleaner and tighter. Here, I believe, is another great lesson for us today. Hurling forgiveness in the face of the devil is often not pretty or stylish and is not always capable of being neatly packaged. I would rather eat the messy scraps of mercy and feel the spittle from Luther’s plain-style preaching table as opposed to dining at the homiletical table set nicely and neatly with obedience and duty by Calvin and his progeny, John MacArthur, Chuck Swindoll, and the like.

Other approaches of note in the Reformation era include the radical reformers and the English metaphysicals. Edwards spends only a few pages on the radical reformers (305–8), but they are important pages for the modern Lutheran preacher because they clearly show the seeds of the antiliturgical, antisacramental, antiformality bent of our pop culture in the church-growth age. The English metaphysicals represent a highly stylized rhetorical approach to preaching. They were masters of wit and the turning of a phrase (373ff.). Again, this is outside of Luther’s approach, but it is an approach that is assimilated by one of the most revered Lutheran preachers of our day, Dr. Norman Nagel from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. Edwards says of the metaphysical preacher Lancelot Andrewes that he was able to squeeze the world out of a single word. I have often found myself thinking this of Nagel as well. Nagel does not do it any sort of metaphysical way, however. His is truly Lutherlike preaching because it is Christ-in-the-flesh-for-you sort of preaching, which finds the entire Gospel in most every word of Scripture. Because many of us cannot turn a phrase like Nagel, we recommend the conversational style of Luther. Nonetheless, we also recommend that every Lutheran preacher pay as much attention to the freight-carrying (and thus propositionally true) words of Scripture as both Luther and his great student Nagel do.

Edwards’s fourth era is Modernism. There is not much positive to take away from this era, but as we have been saying about the rest of the book, it is still very much worth reading for at least three reasons: first, in the Great Awakening and other revivals, we see how style and method so easily cloud the Gospel; second, in the legalistic preaching of the Puritans, we find further negative examples that motivate us to make sure our preaching is sacramental and forgiveness-hurling rather than lifeless obedience-commanding; and third, it is helpful to be reminded again of the fall of confessional Christianity into the emotionalism and moralism of Schleiermacher, Emerson, Rauschenbusch, and others.

In the fifth and final era (Century of Change), there are glimmers of hope in short chapters on the resurgence of orthodoxy and the effects of the liturgical movement on preaching. There are also interesting chapters on African American preaching, women preachers, the prophecy movement, and the electronic age. The sections on Billy Graham and Bill Hybels are quite detailed. It was disappointing that Edwards did not consult G. A. Pritchard’s work[60] for a fair but critical assessment of the Willow Creek experiment.

This last era also includes an erudite treatment of postmodern preaching theory. Throughout the book, I was impressed at Edwards’s ability to summarize accurately the philosophical theory of a given age when it truly impacted the preaching. That is never more true than in the postmodern age. It is not an easy task to understand Heidegger’s obtuse and contrary-to-common-sense approach to existence that stands behind much of postmodern homiletical theory, but Edwards does a decent job of capturing it in the section on Fred Craddock’s new homiletic (802ff). Essentially, the postmodern view of existence is a post-Kantian one, asserting that the human mind is not capable of truly knowing the material world. Human reason and perception are incapable of truly assimilating the real world and thus are incapable of cataloguing it in any meaningful way so that we can truly communicate with each other. All we know is that which is present to us in the moment, and we know it only via the words we attach to that experience. Preaching, according to Craddock, therefore, must let be what is, through evocative images (that approximate the present), rather than using conceptual structures (traditional, commonsense preaching of propositional truths and doctrines). This emphasis on evocative images offers helpful motivation for us to preach earthy, visual sermons, but Luther’s use of imagery inherent in his textual preaching of the Gospel stories and his conversational style got us there long before the advent of the New Homiletic and without having to enter the strange chimera world into which the postmodern theoretician has locked herself. It is certainly not a world in which the incarnational reality of the flesh of Christ is capable of being known. It is a false world that flies in the face of common sense. The conversational and low-rhetoric world of the truly Lutheran preacher is more akin to the commonsense assertion that “This is most certainly true” than it is to the postmodern hyper-rhetorical world of “What does this mean?”

Toward the end of the book, Edwards reflects on the diversity of the American Church. It is 50 percent Roman Catholic, 25 percent liberal Protestant, and 25 percent evangelical. Our two million Missouri Synod members do not really fit neatly anywhere in that list. If we truly follow Luther’s example, our approach to preaching does not really fit either. Let’s keep it that way. Let’s not devolve into Romanist works-righteousness preaching, liberal social gospel preaching, evangelical faith-for-successful-living preaching, highly stylized rhetorical preaching, overly dramatic emotional preaching, or politically correct postmodernizing. Instead, let us preach faith into people’s lives by hurling the word of Christ’s forgiveness into the face of Satan and into our members’ hearts. Edwards’s book is a great workshop through which we can become recommitted to such a daunting and God-pleasing task.

Pentecost 15, September 17, 2006

We’re at War!

Sermon Theme: In this war, we need the full armor of God!

Text: Ephesians 6:10–20

Other Lessons: Psalm 119:129–136; Deuteronomy 4:1–2, 6–8; Mark 7:1–8, 14–15, 21–23

Goal: That hearers would realize the cosmic seriousness of our struggle against Satan, yet be confident that in Christ we are safe and victorious.

Rev. Carl C. Fickenscher II, PhD, associate professor, Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana

Liturgical Setting

The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost is the midpoint of the second “third” of the Pentecost season, as the recurrence of the Gradual reminds. (This is fifth of nine consecutive Sundays this Gradual is used.) This portion of the Pentecost season explores “the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God.” We can never know the full mind of God—it is “unsearchable”—but what we do know we know from his Word. This is the focus of today’s other Propers. “The unfolding of [God’s] words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple” (Psalm, v 130). The Lord’s decrees would “show . . . wisdom and understanding to the nations” (Old Testament Reading, v 6). And in the Gospel, Jesus clarifies that God’s will for true good works is known only in the commands of God and not in the traditions of men (vv 1–8).

The Epistle, our text, is the last of eight readings through Paul’s Letter. Predictably, then, it takes a different direction. The emphasis is not so much on God’s revealed wisdom as on his power. There is, of course, more than coincidental connection between the two attributes. The Collect recognizes this by addressing God as “Lord of all power and might.” Further, we avail ourselves of God’s power (and therefore his protection against the adversary) only when we trust the wisdom of his Word. Israel was empowered to take possession of its Promised Land by following God’s decrees (Deut 4:1). And thus we confess our true uncleanness (Mk 7:14–15, 21–23) and plead that God “cast me not in wrath away” (LW 234:2, the Hymn of the Day) to become prey of the devil. This much we do know to be the will of God.

Textual Notes

V 10: tou loipou, “finally” or “from now on.” This pericope is a fitting climax to the whole Book of Ephesians, an Epistle that sets the Church’s very practical, earthly issues in their cosmic and eternal context (1:9–12, 18–23; 2:1–2; 3:8–10; 4:4–10, 25–32; 5:32–33; 6:9). autou: This verse may sound redundant in English (“strong in the Lord and in his mighty power”), but the emphasis is on his. The power to confront Satan is most emphatically Christ’s, not ours.

V 12: tas archas . . . tas exousias . . . tous kosmokratopas . . . ta pneumatika tēs ponērias. Not a series of different enemies, but a “piling up” of the description of Satan’s forces—the devil and his angels. Paul wants no mistake about just how formidable the opponent is. en tois epouraniois, “in the heavenly realms.” Used five times in Ephesians (1:3, 20; 2:6; 3:10), it gives the reader a window into the big picture that Paul has in view throughout the Letter. Satan, like the holy angels, once occupied the heavenly places, and for a time still has had access to them (Job 1:6; 2:1).

V 13: tēn panoplian tou theou, “the full armor of God.” Various commentaries and Bible encyclopedias detail the armor typical of a Roman hoplite. Paul spent considerable time in the close presence of Roman soldiers, including legionary regulars (Acts 27:1; 28:16, 30; Phil 1:13, the last three references, probably, as he wrote this very Epistle) who were considerably better equipped than Jewish warriors or even Roman auxiliaries. God’s armor and weaponry can only be compared to the best available.

Vv 14–17: Key to Paul’s point are the specific messianic references. Images of the belt (Is 11:5, part of an Advent lection), the breastplate and helmet (both from Is 59:17), and the feet fitted (Is 52:7, read on Christmas Day) are all drawn from clear messianic passages. Of particular note is the context of Is 59:15b–21, in which “there was no one” else to save his people, so the Lord girded himself and worked salvation for them. To wear the armor of God is actually to put on Christ so that he does the fighting. “Extinguish all the flaming arrows” (Eph 6:16) The large curved rectangular shield, made of heavy leather, could be soaked in water before battle to extinguish fiery arrows.

V 17b: tēn machairan tou pneumatos, “the sword of the Spirit.” Even in a defensive war, victory is never won simply by absorbing and withstanding the aggressor’s blows, but rather by inflicting sufficient damage to discourage further attacks. The Word of God is not only our perfect defensive weapon against Satan (Mt 4:4, 7, 10), but it is also the power of God to despoil and plunder his kingdom (Rom 1:16; Lk 11:20–22). We use the Word both to keep ourselves in the faith and to rob Satan of other victims by winning new converts to Christ.

Vv 18–20: agrupnountes, “be alert” (from agros, “field,” and hupnos, “sleep”). Though the armor metaphor ends with v 17, the military imagery is not far removed; we are to be like soldiers deployed and ready, sleeping out in the field. Prayer is a chief activity of this readiness, especially prayer on behalf of those who, like Paul, wield the sword of God’s Word publicly.

Sermon Outline

Introduction: Most people probably don’t realize this war ever happened: the Spanish-American War. Ever even heard of it? For a brief time, from April to August 1898, we were at war with Spain.

This is the war that began with Americans shouting, “Remember the Maine!” I bet we don’t remember the Maine, do we? This was the war with Admiral Dewey at the battle of Manila Bay. This was the war with Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders and their charge up San Juan Hill.

Almost as if it had never happened, in four months, Spain had surrendered. Fact is, they weren’t much of an opponent. By the late 1800s, Spain was several centuries past its prime.

There’s another war not many people realize is going on, because the enemy is largely unseen. This war is more critical than any our nation has ever fought, and the casualties are much heavier. This time the enemy is no pushover. Every ounce of our energy, every weapon we can bring to bear, every defense we can raise will not be enough.

In This War, We Need the Full Armor of God!

You do know which war I’m talking about now, don’t you? You do know the enemy. No, I’m not talking about the war against terrorism that began five years ago this past Monday, September 11, 2001, that war against a nearly invisible enemy who nevertheless seems to be operating in the shadows everywhere. No. We’re at war against a different unseen enemy, far more dangerous:

I. We are at war with Satan.

In our text, Paul writes to the Ephesians: “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (vv 10–12 NKJV).

A. It’s no collapsing Spanish empire we’re fighting. We’re at war with none other than the great evil empire and ruler of darkness himself, Satan.

1. And you know what? Satan likes the way a lot of this war is going.

2. You know why? Because his wiles are working. He’s got enemies, he’s got allies, and there are plenty of neutrals. But he’s tricked nearly all of them into forgetting what this war is really about.

B. Think about Satan’s enemies. I’m talking about his human enemies, Christians.

1. Many Christians are confused about the war to be fought with Satan.

2. We hear television evangelists and fundamentalist preachers talk about the great war to be fought between God’s forces and the forces of Satan. They call it Armageddon—the great war at the end of world. You may have heard discussion about whether wars in Kuwait, Afghanistan, and Iraq might be the beginnings of Armageddon. Many fundamentalist Christians believe this will be the final war to end all wars, actually fought on earth, physically, in the Middle East.

3. For some Christians, this prospect of a final all-out earthly war against Satan’s henchmen is a terrifying thought.

4. Now when people make some end-of-the-world battle that important to their theology, or when Christians become frightened about it, Satan is winning the skirmish. He’s diverting attention from the fact that the Great War is being fought right now—and we’re winning!

C. Satan’s got other poor souls even more confused. As hard as it is to imagine, the devil has human allies.

1. Satan worship is a real religion in America. One satanic priest claims that as many as fifty thousand human sacrifices are performed every year in the United States. That number may be hugely inflated, but time and again police do attribute violent crimes to satanic cults.

2. We might be naïve to this as well, but the entertainment world sometimes exerts a satanic influence. One very hot musician was asked why his group devoted so much of its material to deviltry. “Because,” he answered, “the devil sells.”

3. So often satanic involvement begins with things that seem like fun: drawing pentagrams, playing with Ouija boards, conducting séances just as a gag. But thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, do consciously sell their souls to the devil.

4. Do people who are into devil worship know what they’re doing? The answer is probably yes and no. They believe the devil is real and can really give them what they want. But surely they can’t know what’s finally in store for them. They can’t possibly grasp how terrible hell will be. Surely even those who’ve consciously allied themselves with Satan have forgotten that he’s fighting a very deadly war against their souls.

D. You know what’s even more tragic? Satan hopes to inflict exactly the same fate on those who try to remain neutral in this war.

1. This is a huge number of people. So many people, even so many professing Christians, don’t really believe we’re at war at all. They don’t really believe there’s a devil. This may be the devil’s wiliest scheme. When someone doesn’t believe in Satan, or when we forget, we forget we’re at war.

2. When we do that, we get soft, flabby. We become even more vulnerable to sin than we were already. We can begin to rationalize our favorite sins, whatever they may be—loving our cars a little too much; showing love for our kids a little too little; failing to show love to God at all, except the occasional Sunday morning; maybe even pretending sex outside of marriage is love. Whatever. When we forget our war against Satan, we can rationalize almost anything, because we think we’re hearing words of wisdom rather than whispers of the enemy.

3. St. Paul won’t let us forget: “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (v 12 NKJV). Satan is real, he’s at war with us right now, and he’s powerful!

Transition: Yet when the last drop of blood has been shed, we’ll be able to stand against him, because

II. God provides us with all the armor we need.

“Therefore,” Paul says, “take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand” (v 13 NKJV).

A. Believe it or not, the Spanish-American War was a war that America wanted.

1. No less than Theodore Roosevelt, then serving as assistant secretary of the navy, wrote in 1897, “I should welcome any war. This country needs one.”

2. And the whole country got behind it. For that brief period, the energy of the whole nation was devoted to war.

3. We need the whole armor of God for our war against Satan. To Paul’s way of thinking, there’s no such thing as putting on half the armor of God. We need all the protection God gives!

B. Picture the armor in your minds.

1. A Roman soldier preparing for battle first puts the belt over his short tunic. “Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth” (v 14a NKJV). Every soldier in every age and in every kind of war needs to feel convinced that the cause for which he’s fighting is true. Our cause is true. We stand against Satan and against the world because God has opened our eyes to see him as he truly is. Because Satan has blinded the world, it may ridicule us, abuse us, and call our cause foolish. But someday our cause will be vindicated.

2. “Having put on the breastplate of righteousness” (v 14b NKJV). We know our righteousness will never stand against Satan, because our righteousness, our works, the best we can do, is as filthy rags. But God has firmly fastened onto us the righteousness of Christ. Jesus did that on the cross, laying down his armor to die and rising from the grave to give us absolute protection against all Satan’s accusations—the assurance that we are forgiven, that we wear Christ’s own holiness.

3. As a result, we stand, “having shod [our] feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace” (v 15 NKJV). In the midst of war comes that beautiful word, peace. Now that our sins are forgiven by Jesus’ death, we are at peace with God. We are in holy alliance with God.

4. That means we need never fear. “Above all, [take] the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation” (vv 16–17a NKJV).

a. Satan will do everything he can to frighten us. He’ll tempt us, threaten us, and someday even bring physical death. At every turn, he’ll ask us, “Can God really get you out of this one?” In faith, we say, “Yes! He always has and always will.” “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Rom 8:31).

b. We have the helmet of salvation! Salvation has been won for us! In the ultimate battle of the cross and grave, Jesus defeated the devil and broke Satan’s power. Satan fired all his arrows and spent all his weapons; he has nothing left. Christ has given us the victory by his death and resurrection. And that means someday he will certainly give us the crown to replace the helmet.

5. So there we are, outfitted for war—except that all our armor is worthless without a sword, “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (v 17b NKJV). How often do we go into battle with everything but our weapon? When fighting at close quarters, God’s holy Word is the best piece of all for warding off Satan’s thrusts. And it’s the only weapon we can use to attack, change things, even win for our Savior many of those neutrals—and some of Satan’s own allies.

6. Magnificent armor! Every piece of it!

C. But you know what makes it so powerful, truly invincible? All this is the very armor of Christ.

1. See, Paul’s illustration of armor isn’t original to him. Way back in Isaiah 59, God looked down and saw that man didn’t have a chance. So, in Isaiah 59, God himself put on the same armor and entered the fray.

2. Paul is telling us that this armor of ours is battle-tested. It’s been worn to victory. And the One who wore it before still fights for us.

3. When we put on the armor of God, we’re really wearing as our armor Christ himself.

4. And if we are in Christ, we are invincible!

Conclusion: By 1898, Spain was a shell of its former self. Three hundred years earlier, it had been the most powerful nation on earth, but the defeat of its armada by the English in 1588 forever changed that. By the time we picked a fight with Spain, it was a pushover. The enemy that declared war on the United States five years ago this week has certainly proved to be no pushover, largely because it’s invisible.

Satan once ruled the world, and even today, working in the shadows, always lurking, he’s no pushover. But he is pushed-over. Christ has knocked him flat. We’re still at war; let us always remember that. But in Christ we are armed for victory!

Pentecost 16, September 24, 2006

A Pretty Picture?

Sermon Theme: Picture who you are in sin—and who you are in Christ.

Text: James 1:17–22 (23–25) 26–27

Other Lessons: Psalm 146; Isaiah 35:4–7a; Mark 7:31–37

Goal: That the hearers of the Word externalize that which they have internalized: the life-giving and saving Word of Christ.

Rev. Robert C. Hedtke, pastor, St. Paul Lutheran Church, West Point, Nebraska

Liturgical Setting

As the preacher acquaints himself with the Propers for the day, it becomes apparent that they deal with both justification and sanctification and their relationship to one another. God gives “every good and perfect gift” (Epistle, v 17), and we respond by praising the Lord (Psalm); we first “trust in the Lord and [then] do good” (Introit). “Cleansed from all their sins,” believers then “serve [God] with a quiet mind” (Collect). When the Good News is applied to our souls, we are completely regenerated (baptismal rebirth, the new creation in Christ). Then the Holy Spirit begins to sanctify us as only he can (sanctification, narrow sense). Thus every aspect of our life changes—our spiritual life as well as our visible and audible life (sanctification, wide sense). It is the Word that has this impact on the soul, and the regenerated soul responds in the life of the disciple. When the Word is present, “then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy” (Old Testament Reading, vv 5–6). When the word of Jesus, ephphatha, was spoken over the deaf and dumb man in Mk 7:34–35 (the Gospel), his whole life was transformed. His ears were opened, his tongue was loosened, and he began to speak plainly. James, in particular, stresses the impact the transforming Word will have on us, God’s “firstfruits” (v 18), making us “doers of the word, and not hearers only” (v 22 NKJV).

Textual Notes

V 17: ouk eni parallagē ē tropēs aposkiasma, “who does not change like shifting shadows.” We often change with new whims or popular fads that cross our mind. In contrast, that which comes from God never changes, never fades, never dims, and never dies.

V 18: apekuēsen hēmas, “give us birth.” The supreme gift that God has given us is the new birth through Jesus Christ. This new life is a gift, which 1 Pet 1:3 connects explicitly with “the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” 1 Pet 3:21 says this connection to Christ’s resurrection occurs in Baptism. Our new life is a direct result of his new life. Clearly, James’s “word of truth” is the Gospel (1 Pet 1:23; Eph 1:13; Col 1:15).

Vv 19–27: Here there is a turning from and a turning to. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, we turn from the pride of self-assertive speech, anger that resents God’s judgments on our sin, filthiness, and wickedness, speaking without listening, and the self-assertive anger that cannot hear God. By God’s grace, we turn to him when we receive from his Word the righteousness that only he can give. Receive it in a repentance that confesses the filth and wickedness of self, and in nakedness receive from God the salvation of the soul.

V 19: iste, the perfect imperative of oida, here means “take note.” James adds this to show that what precedes is of utmost importance.

Vv 20–21: Pragmatically it is obvious that anger, moral filth, and evil do not produce the righteous life that God desires. Therefore we are challenged by James to do away with that which is counterproductive.

James describes God’s Word in two different ways. It is the life-giving “word of truth” (v 18). It is also “the word planted in you, which can save you” (v 21). Thus it is clear that this Word of which he writes is the Gospel, with its transforming and formative impact on our lives.

V 22: poiētai logou kai mē monon akroatai, “doers of the word and not hearers only” (NKJV). With God’s power in our life through the Word and the Sacraments, we turn from the self-deception that thinks God’s Word is a word only to be contemplated—that a person may hear God’s Word without being moved to live it. We turn from a forgetful hearing of his Word to a doing of the Word!

V 26: The tongue, James suggests, is a prime indicator of real faith—or absence of it—in the heart (2:2–12).

V 27: James uses the language of the Old Testament here to give two concrete examples of authentic religious actions that reach out to others, that is, actions that spring from faith for the benefit of our neighbor. The orphans and widows were typically those most in need of help—and those least able to repay! These actions are contrary to pietistic actions invented by men and which help no one.

Sermon Outline

Introduction: It’s not always a pretty picture, that first look in the mirror at 6 a.m. Growth of beard, mussed hair, slumped shoulders. No makeup, droopy eyes, no hint of a smile. Not a pretty picture. But perhaps instructive.

Your boss, your girlfriend, even the neighbors will never see you like this. They’ll see you ready for action, chipper, wearing your best public face. Even when you don’t feel it, you’ll put it on.

That first face in the morning—that’s you. That tussled mop in the mirror—that’s the real you. It may not be pretty, but it’s awfully important to remember what you look like—at your worst. In today’s Epistle, James reminds us to remember that face—the real us—and then to live with joy what Christ has made us—the new real us.

Picture Who You Are in Sin—and Who You Are in Christ.

I. Picture the Christian Church as we’d like it to look in the mirror.

A. James is looking to see doers of God’s Word and not hearers only (v 22).

1. Every Christian would act like a Christian, sound like a Christian, and think like a Christian. That would be perfect.

2. Isn’t that what our Lord commands of us? “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48).

B. Then, whenever the world would look upon a Christian, it would see Christ (as the Greeks desired in Jn 12:20–21).

1. In our actions and in our words toward others, we would be accurate reflections of Jesus Christ! The world would look at us and see our Lord.

2. Luther writes, “Man was created to be the image of God, and to be his image for this very purpose: that God should and would be known through him. Therefore God should appear and shine in the entire life and conduct of man as in a mirror; and a Christian should have no higher and greater concern than so to live as not to dishonor God’s name” (What Luther Says, vol. 1, compiled by Ewald M. Plass [St. Louis: Concordia, 1959], no. 624).

C. But this is not the case in our lives.

1. We Christians are—to say the least!—improper reflections of Christ. Too often we’re hearers of the Word but not doers. And, James says, “Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like” (vv 23–24). At times our actions may even project a negative image of Christ.

2. We need look no further than our own daily activities. We become angry (v 19), we fall into all kinds of moral filth (v 21), we let slip unkind words (v 26). Give examples of each. Paul says, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do” (Rom 7:15). This is the reality of our struggle with evil in our lives. It’s not a pretty picture.

Illustration: “Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand” (Mark Twain). Our text is painfully clear. It’s not a pretty picture. We are not the ideal Christians, nor are we the ideal Christian Church that James—or God—would like us to be.

II. Picture yourself as you look by “the word of truth” that gives us new birth.

A. “Every good and perfect gift” comes from God (v 17), but among the best is his perfect Word.

1. The Word tells us that the Son of God, who is “the radiance of God’s glory” (Heb 1:3), a perfect reflection of God’s beauty, laid aside his glory to look as homely as one of us. “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him” (Is 53:2b).

2. Yet he fulfilled the perfect Law of God for us, doing what we couldn’t do, to give us freedom (v 25). And looking beaten, bruised, and bloodied, he died in our place.

B. Now, in Holy Baptism, this Word was applied to you and me. God “chose to give us birth through the word of truth” (v 18).

1. We have been immersed in the water of life. Through our Baptisms, we participate in Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection (Rom 6:1–10). We have been reborn through the blood of the Lamb, and we are now saturated with the righteousness of God.

2. “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20).

C. This new birth gives us a totally new view of ourselves.

1. Suddenly we see ourselves not as the quick-tempered, morally stained, and foulmouthed mugs our eyes see every day, but as the new men and women God has declared us to be. God’s Word says that we, who have been baptized into Christ, are holy. We may not believe our ears—remembering what our eyes see—but if righteous and holy, reborn and washed clean, is the way God says we are, then this is the way we are.

2. And people who are holy and reborn cannot help but look the part by sharing God’s love and forgiveness—even though imperfectly. “I myself am convinced, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness” (Rom 15:14).

III. Picture the Christian Church looking as God sees it.

A. We as a corporate Church look desperate for forgiveness. We have failed and fallen short of what the Lord would have us do. Thanks be to God for the forgiveness earned for us on the cross of Calvary.

B. In the Nicene Creed, our whole congregation confesses with all other Christian congregations throughout Church history that we “acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins.” The Church as a whole has received “the washing with water through the word” (Eph 5:26).

C. Let us, then, live as the people God says we now are. Let us look the way God sees us. Let us do what his Word says. Give examples of how individuals and the congregation can listen to others (v 19), care for “orphans and widows” and for all those in need, and keep themselves pure (v 27).

Conclusion: Now that’s the pretty picture God sees when he looks at us, the people “he chose to give . . . birth through the word of truth” (v 18).

Pentecost 17, October 1, 2006

Who Is He? Who Are You?

Sermon Theme: Who we say Jesus is finally determines who we are.

Text: Mark 8:27–35

Other Lessons: Psalm 116:1–9; Isaiah 50:4–10; James 2:1–5, 8–10, 14–18

Goal: That confessing both his sin and Jesus as the Christ, the Savior from sin, the hearer might see himself as a true heir of life and salvation in Christ.

Rev. Jeffrey M. Kuddes, pastor, Trinity Lutheran Church, Waltham, Minnesota, and St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Hollandale, Minnesota

Liturgical Setting

We are well into the season of Pentecost (Trinity) and not too far from the end of the Church Year. The color of Pentecost, green, reminds us of the joy of growing in the Christian faith through the Word and in the Sacraments. The Introit strikes the theme of our Christian life of faith in that “the Lord is gracious and righteous; our God is full of compassion.” Sinners need such a deliverance from death, and the grace that comes to us from such a God and Christ. In the Collect, we pray to our God who hears, so that by his Spirit he “may in all things direct and govern our hearts; through Jesus Christ.”

See the sermon (below) for connections of the other Readings to the Gospel and sermon theme.

Relevant Context

We are, almost literally, at the midpoint of St. Mark’s Gospel. It is a most appropriate time for Jesus’ disciples, after hearing him and seeing his works of mercy and love, to be called to confess him. We should be mindful, too, that to confess Jesus is to confess his cross for us and for our salvation! The disciples have been told—and will immediately be told again—of the way of the cross. Yet St. Peter gets it wrong: No cross for this Christ! He won’t be King in that sort of way! Jesus says, “Get behind me, Satan!” (v 33). Peter has in mind the things of men, not God. The things of men are sin and death. The things of God are forgiveness, life, and salvation, because Jesus is the Christ!

Textual Notes

The development of the above and the following hinges on Peter’s answer to Jesus’ question. Especially noted is the title ho Christos (v 29). Lenski writes that “ho christos is appellative, the substantivized verbal adjective from the verb chriō which denotes ceremonial or sacred anointing” (R. C. H. Lenski, Interpretation of St. Mark’s Gospel [Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1961], 336; all quotations used by permission). Therefore, Jesus is proclaimed the Christ, the Anointed One “for the great office for which God had commissioned Jesus” (Lenski, 336). This was done at Jesus’ Baptism. Further, with respect to our Baptism, the Venerable Bede writes: “He calls us his companions since we have also been fully anointed with visible chrism for the reception of the grace of the Holy Spirit in baptism, and we are called ‘Christians’; from Christ’s name” (Thomas C. Oden, ed., “New Testament II: Mark,” Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998], 110; used by permission).

Sermon Outline

Who We Say Jesus Is Finally Determines Who We Are.

I. Who are you? A sinner in need of a Savior.

II. Who is he? Jesus is the Christ, the Savior!

III. Who are you? A forgiven sinner who confesses the Christ.

Sermon

“But who do you say that I am?” (v 29 ESV). So Jesus asked his disciples. This morning, we must answer that question too, because

Who We Say Jesus Is Finally Determines Who We Are.

I.

We always want to be sure of it, don’t we—who we are. And just what would you say about it? “Who are you?”

Several years ago, Disney produced a movie called The Lion King. The movie was about a young lion named Simba and told of his journey to become king of the jungle. Toward the climax of the movie, when Simba becomes king, he’s faced with this question: “Who are you?” You see, Simba was the eldest son of the great king Mufasa. He was the legitimate heir to the throne, but his wicked uncle had his own designs. Simba’s uncle sees to it that Mufasa meets an untimely death and that young Simba believes he’s responsible. In disgrace, Simba drifts far from home, wondering what the future holds for him, believing he’s no longer fit to rule. He wanders for many years, until he grows up and is confronted by a wise baboon named Rafiki, who knew the circumstances of Mufasa’s death and the uncle’s usurpation of the throne. Simba is still beset with doubt, with uncertainty, with hopelessness. To awaken him and set him on the course appointed for him, Rafiki goes to the heart of the matter. He asks Simba the question “Who are you?” The question forces the issue; it brings Simba to a realization of his natural destiny—to be king. He was still the legitimate heir to the throne. Simba returns to his land, throws out his uncle, and becomes king of the jungle! So, dear friends, I ask you this morning, “Who are you?”

I ask you this question in order ultimately to answer Jesus’ question. The question “Who are you?” helps us to consider our own natural destiny. And in answering that question, we find that our natural destiny is not nearly as glorious as Simba’s. When we’re honest, we must answer the question “Who are you?” in a way that we’ve already done this morning. We answer it something like this: “We confess that we are by nature sinful and unclean. We have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed. . . . We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We justly deserve your present and eternal punishment” (LW, p. 158). Who are you? Said in summary, “a poor miserable sinner.” What’s our destiny by nature, by birth, by sin-filled thought, word, and deed? Our destiny is eternal condemnation and separation from God, our Father and King.

“Who are you?” gets to the heart of the matter for us. St. Matthew tells us that from our hearts come all manner of evil in thought, word, and deed (Mt 15:19). We are by nature sinful and unclean. In the Epistle today from James, this truth is confirmed when we hear how we reject good to do evil. Our sinful human nature is confirmed in each one of us. By the Holy Spirit, St. James tells us to “show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory” (2:1 ESV). In other words, we are not to be prejudiced toward one, over and against another. Yet by our sinful nature, we often base our opinions, our likes and dislikes of another, on his or her appearance, demeanor, or social standing. The one who in appearance is favorable to us we welcome into our presence with glad hearts: “You sit here in a good place.” To the one who is poor, we say, “You stand over there,” or, “sit down at my feet” (v 3 ESV). Another question then comes from God through St. James: “Have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts” (v 4 ESV)? Who of us is not guilty?

But you say, “I try! I try to live by God’s Law. I really do.” So we hear James again, “If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it” (vv 8–10 ESV). That’s not fair! To transgress against just one point of the Law brings judgment and wrath? Yes! Even though you try really hard, when you sin even in one point, you have broken the whole Law and deserve God’s judgment and wrath. Who are you? It is true when each of us says, “I am a sinner!”

II.

If that’s the final word, if that’s the final answer to the final question, we are like poor Simba wandering and wondering, doubting, uncertain, and hopeless. But there is another question! It comes from the mouth of the Savior! In the Gospel, it’s directed to Peter and the apostles. But this question is not just for them. This question is for you too! Here it is again: Jesus asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” (Mk 8:29 ESV). That question calls forth a confession, and the answer that sinners like you and me give, the confession we make, is the very key to eternity, “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved” (Rom 10:9–10 ESV).

So what is the true confession? “You are the Christ” (v 29)! Such a confession and belief in this Lord Jesus, the Christ who justifies and saves, cannot be your doing; it is God’s doing, through his Word and in his Sacraments. Faith to believe in our hearts, and to confess with our lips, that Jesus is the Christ, the Lord, the Savior, comes from hearing, and hearing comes by the Word of God and the work of the Holy Spirit in and through that Word. Ears and tongues for those who would have forgiveness for sin, so that they would be heirs of eternal salvation! And all of that through Jesus, by Jesus, in Jesus, the Christ! That was Peter’s confession, and so it must be ours! “You are the Christ,” the Anointed One, the one destined to be King of kings and Lord of lords!

Kings are anointed. The Holy Spirit and the voice of his Father saying, “This is my beloved Son” (Mt 3:17 ESV) anoint Jesus in his Baptism. Jesus preaches repentance for sin, as John did at Jesus’ anointing. For our salvation from sin, Jesus must assume the throne of his kingdom. But his throne is unlike any other throne. To be sure, it’s made of wood and nails like many other thrones. But this throne is in the shape of a cross. The nails used will affix Jesus to it. There, on that vile throne, that glorious tree, Jesus will deal with sin and death forever. The King who ascends that throne will conquer sin and death for you and for your salvation. Jesus the Christ does just that. The heir to the throne of the cross wandered this earth to speak into ears that would hear life and salvation in the forgiveness of sins. This heir to the throne of the cross did ascend the throne of the cross to do away with your sin and death, and to give to you, who believe and confess this Jesus as the Christ, the sure and certain hope of eternal life! Jesus the Christ gives you such by his death and resurrection as it flows down to you in the word of forgiveness, spoken and preached into your ears, in the washing of regeneration and renewing in the Holy Spirit in Holy Baptism, in the Holy Supper of his body and blood for you! In such a way, and in no other way, Jesus is the Christ, the Anointed One, the only true Savior and King.

III.

“Who are you,” then? The prophet Isaiah answers for you in our Old Testament Reading: “The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught” (Is 50:4 ESV). We are sinners in this flesh, each and every day. That is who we are by birth, by nature. Repent! We are also those who are anointed by Christ in our Baptism, those who are taught even this morning, and given faith to believe and love him. We are those who have been given a tongue to speak words of faith to those who are weary, who need the Christ even as we do. We are those who are given to take up the cross of the faith and follow the Christ. We are heirs of the kingdom because Jesus, our Christ, our King, our Lord, entered his glory by the cross and the empty tomb and has given us a glorious inheritance, here and into eternity. To that end, he who has ascended to prepare a place for us will come again and take us unto himself.

We, who are poor sinners, “God [has] chosen . . . to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him” (James 2:5 ESV).

Pentecost 18, October 8, 2006

“Let These All Be Gone”

Sermon Theme: Let the things of the world all be gone; God gives more.

Text: James 3:16–4:6

Other Lessons: Psalm 119:25–32; Jeremiah 11:18–20; Mark 9:30–37

Goal: That the hearer cling not to the world, but to the grace of our Lord Jesus.

Rev. Jeffrey M. Kuddes, pastor, Trinity Lutheran Church, Waltham, Minnesota, and St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Hollandale, Minnesota

Liturgical Setting

The color of Pentecost, which is green, indicates that this is a time for the child of God to grow in faith and trust in the Savior Jesus. The antiphon of the Introit for the three-year series in Lutheran Worship pictures such trust: “Surely God is my help; the Lord is the one who sustains me” (Ps 54:4). The Introit echoes the infinite grace of God to those who call upon him, “For he has delivered me from all my troubles, and my eyes have looked in triumph on my foes” (Ps 54:7). The Collect reminds us that without our Lord’s “perpetual mercy,” we will but stumble and fall. We pray that he would “keep us . . . from all things hurtful, and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation.” In the Old Testament Reading, Jeremiah had no choice but to trust in God, for he “had been like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter” (v 19), totally naïve to the plot against him by his idolatrous countrymen. By contrast, the Gospel confronts the pride of Jesus’ disciples. Even after Jesus alerts them to his work of salvation by the cross, the disciples argue over pride of place, and who would be the greatest among them. Jesus reminds them of the way of the cross and true trust, namely, to “be last of all and servant of all” (Mk 9:35 ESV). This problem, “envy and selfish ambition” (James 3:16) leading to “quarrels” (4:1), “disorder and every evil practice” (3:16), which are always a result of exalting self rather than trusting God, is the very problem James addresses in the Epistle.

Textual Notes

Problems in the Church? Imagine that! So it was, so it will always be! The problem that St. James is addressing in the sermon text certainly is one of trust. Will the believers put their trust in the world and friendship with the world (hē philia tou kosmou, 4:4), or will they put their trust in the one true God alone? We are tempted in the same way. We worship our things. We want more things to worship. Our things, the world’s objects, seem to give us the greatest security, peace, and hope. It is from these false gods that we must be turned—repent—and return to the only God of security, peace, and hope. The First Commandment is the heart of all of the commandments. Indeed, we are called to “fear, love, and trust in God above all things” (Luther’s Small Catechism, p. 11). St. Matthew records Jesus’ sermon in which he, Jesus, says, “No one can serve two masters” (Mt 6:24 ESV). It is not the world and God. It is only God. Jesus also preaches, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth . . . but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. . . . There your heart will be also” (Mt 6:19–21 ESV). Life does not consist of pride and possessions or the things of this world. Life consists of humility and grace.

The Christians to whom James writes are “adulterous” (moichalides, 4:4). That is, they are as it is described in the Old Testament, “whoring after [other] gods” (Ex 34:15 KJV), namely, the world and its things. But they have been given a different Spirit (4:5) and grace with the Spirit (4:6). They are called to an allegiance and trust apart from the world. Humility is called for. Jesus humbled himself and did not consider equality with God something to be grasped; rather, he served, going to the cross. We are called to have the same mind as Jesus. “The humble” (tapeinois, 4:6) receive the things of God and are content with that. “The proud” (huperēphanois, 4:6) receive the things of the world and are never content. Pride would make us gods, rulers of our own lives, and makers of our own destiny. Grace gives us a life and destiny apart from the world and the humility to receive it and give thanks for it!

Sermon Outline

Let the Things of the World All Be Gone; God Gives Us More.

I. Friendship with the things of the world leads to murderous quarreling.

II. Above all else, we want to be god of our own world.

III. But God gives us more grace.

Sermon

It won’t be too many Sundays from now that we will be singing the great hymn of the Reformation. We love to sing “A Mighty Fortress,” and rightly so. But how about these lines from Luther’s last stanza? “And take they our life, Goods, fame, child, and wife, Let these all be gone” (TLH 262:4). How does that suit you? What if all those good things of this world were taken from you? What then? We look to the things of this world, the everyday things of life, as life itself, and indeed our future. Without them, we think, there is no real living, and certainly very little hope for the future. Is that how you think? Repent! Or, rather, sing the rest of that last stanza: “Let these all be gone, They yet have nothing won; The Kingdom ours remaineth.” You should know that if the world and all that’s a part of it were taken from you, by faith in Jesus Christ, the kingdom is still yours. Life consists not in the world and its things, but in faith that clings to Jesus alone.

Let the Things of the World All Be Gone; God Gives Us More.

I.

The Christians that St. James was addressing needed to hear that, and, obviously, so do we. James asks them, and us, “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?” (4:1 ESV). What causes you to fight and quarrel? How many times have pastors counseled marriage partners and families and congregations because of fighting and quarreling that has as its source the things of this world, the passions such as hatred, jealousy, and anger that war within each one of us? You know what I mean by the things of this world, don’t you? It’s the things that you own and even the things that you don’t now own, but want to own. At the source of all of the things of this world is money, that which gets you the world’s things. Little wonder St. Paul reminds us that “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs” (1 Tim 6:10 ESV). These pangs are what have afflicted the congregation, the Christians to whom James is writing. These pangs are quarreling and fighting, even murder and adultery.

James continues to lay out the picture of unbelief among the believers when he writes, “You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (4:2–4 ESV).

Are the Christians in James’s time literally killing one another? The answer may be yes. James writes at a time of a great persecution against Christians. Some of that persecution may fuel a betrayal of Christians by other Christians. James is likely writing to Jewish Christians, many of whom still have contacts with the temple in Jerusalem, with the synagogue, and certainly with their unconverted relatives and friends. Realize that to be a Christian at this time was not, in the estimation of the world, a beneficial thing. To be a Christian, especially a Jewish Christian living among other unbelieving Jews, was potentially to be cut off religiously, that is, from being present and heard proclaiming the true faith in the synagogue and temple. To be a Christian was potentially to be cut off socially from friends and relatives and cut off financially as a result of being socially ostracized. With all that happening in the daily lives of Christians, selling out the brethren to death could be an attractive temptation, a way to save one’s own skin from persecution. In order to maintain a status or way of life in this world, a Christian might be seduced even to such a drastic step as murder. At the very least, though, even if it didn’t involve the taking of physical life, these Christians certainly were guilty of the murder of hatred and betrayal, all to maintain an adulterous relationship with the world and the things of the world.

II.

We, too, are capable of that. Christians, sinners, are prone to taking into our own hands our own lives. We would become makers of our own destiny. We would provide our own security, peace, and well-being into the future. And so we would put ourselves in the place of God. Indeed, we would be God!

Such was the temptation of our first parents in the garden. The tempter came to turn them away from God and his Word. The tempter came to tell them that if they no longer listened to God, if they acted against God, they would be “like God” (Gen 3:5). They would then have control over their own lives in knowing good and evil. They would give up the knowledge of only good, only God, and become gods, makers of their own destiny, and so know evil. They would live, not by the Word of God alone, but by the bread of the world, the things of the world. They could take pride in that they would be their own providers, independent of God, that they would find their worth in their own accomplishments, and that they would find their joy in the world and its pleasures.

Such was the temptation acted upon by our first parents. Such is sin of the Christians in James’s day. They had become adulterers. They had joined themselves with the evil one and with the false gods of their own desires and covetousness, the world, and their own flesh. So we are tempted in the same way, and we all too often fall, as did our first parents, as do Christians of all times. We must be warned, even as Jeremiah attempted to warn with words of judgment the people of Jerusalem who had adulterated themselves with the gods of this world, as we heard in the Old Testament Reading: “But, O Lord of hosts, who judges righteously, who tests the heart and the mind, let me see your vengeance upon them, for to you have I committed my cause” (Jer 11:20 ESV). Repent!

III.

But we also have been given a different Spirit. We have been given the Holy Spirit and faith that returns to the one true God, in all humility. We have been given, by the same Spirit, faith to renounce the world, the devil, and our flesh. That Spirit and faith were first given to us in our Baptism. It is in our Baptism that we now live, not as our own gods, but by faith in God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in whom we are named. It is always to that name that we humbly return in repentance, to receive more grace, because we know that in that name there is forgiveness for our sin, there is a sure and certain future, and there is divorce from the world and its gods. So James tells us, “Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, ‘He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us’? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, ‘God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble’ ” (4:5–6 ESV). More grace is what God gives to the humble, and that is what we need.

Humility in God’s sight is the kind that Jesus showed. When Jesus came into our flesh to bring us more grace, he came down from heaven and “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:6–8 ESV). Jesus humbled himself to be like us, to do away with our sin and death by his suffering and death and his rising to life. Jesus became a servant for our sake. He was indeed truly God, but became truly man for us and for our salvation. He took our place in death, and now he gives us a place in life. So we should be humbled.

When I was in the seminary, one of my professors loved to say, “There is nothing so humbling as to be nothing but given to.” And that is what we are, nothing but given to. And what we are given is more and more grace. This grace is from Jesus, from the cross, given to us in his Word and in the Sacraments because of his Word. It is a grace that is received by those who are last and lost, who have no other gods in the world, and who look to the only true God for nothing but mercy. Such a mercy, such grace, such a Jesus then leads us from this world to eternal life. Humility leads us to confess that we are not gods, nor can we find pride in such, but rather we are “poor, miserable sinners” living in this world by more grace, in Jesus alone!

So “take they our life, Goods, fame, child, and wife, Let these all be gone, They yet have nothing won; The kingdom ours remaineth” (TLH 262:4). We return to our God every day in our Baptism, denouncing the gods that are in this world and even ourselves, so that we might receive more grace, forgiveness, and life through Jesus Christ, our Savior. That is our only true joy and hope, and in such the kingdom of God is ours forever.

Pentecost 19, October 15, 2006

For Jesus, a Heavy Burden

Sermon Theme: The burden killed Jesus, but that is our salvation!

Text: Numbers 11:4–6, 10–16, 24–29

Other Lessons: Psalm 135:1–7, 13–14; James 4:7–12 (13–5:6); Mark 9:38–50

Goal: That hearers see in our Lord Jesus the one who bears the burden of keeping us steadfast in his name.

Rev. Warren W. Graff, STM, pastor, Grace Lutheran Church, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Liturgical Setting

The Introit speaks of the divine name (“Your name, O Lord, endures forever”), then turns the Church’s attention to the Lord’s servants using it: “Praise the name of the Lord; . . . you who minister in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God. Praise the Lord, . . . sing praise to his name.” The Verse gives “the name of Jesus” at which “every knee should bow” (Phil 2:10–11). In the Gospel, the disciples try to stop a man who is driving out demons in Jesus’ name, because, they say, “he was not one of us” (ESV: “he was not following us,” Mk 9:38). Jesus had just taught the disciples of receiving little children in his name (9:37), and this after Peter had confessed, “You are the Christ” (8:29). Now, in today’s Gospel, Jesus unfolds the name more: “Anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward” (9:41, emphasis added). His name reveals who he is; he is the one given over, as the Christ, to “suffer,” “be rejected,” “be killed,” and “rise again” (8:31). These are the gifts of the cross—the gifts his servants are to preach and distribute in his name, by his authority, to his people.

All these (Introit, Verse, and Gospel) serve to extol why we are here “in the courts of the house of our God” (Ps 135:2). It is due to the name—the name to which we belong by Baptism, and which is again spoken over us in the Invocation. “ ‘In the name’ means—along with much more—at his bidding, by his authority, his mandate” (Fred L. Precht, ed., Lutheran Worship: History and Practice [St. Louis: Concordia, 1993], 262). Moses knew very well that he could not lead the mass of God’s people on his own—the burden was too heavy for him!—but the good news of the text is that he functions by the Lord’s bidding, the Lord’s authority, the Lord’s mandate, that he is carried along by the Lord’s name.

Textual Notes

V 4: wəha’sapəsup, “and the rabble.” The Israelites join with “the rabble” (see Ex 12:38 ESV, where a “mixed multitude” goes with Israel) who had come with them out of Egyptian slavery. As Fretheim notes, “many non-Israelites had been integrated into the community of faith, and other communities no doubt took advantage of the opportunity to choose freedom” (Terence E. Fretheim, Exodus [Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1991], 143; used by permission).

When Israel was liberated, they were liberated as the children of Abraham (see Ex 3:15), who is “the father of many nations” (Gen 17:4). All nations, including Egypt (though she, to her doom, turned away from the prophetic word), and this “rabble,” are to look to Israel for the word of salvation. So when the Israelites are liberated, many others are freed for inclusion in Israel. This is the working of the Gospel, calling and inviting many into salvation. But affliction comes to Israel (i.e., the Church) when she listens to the desires of the rabble, rather than the rabble listening to the word of salvation from Israel.

This introduces the problem of Israel’s identity. Since she is in the world, she identifies herself with the world, and God becomes her enemy, such that she even starts complaining (along with the world) that God’s provisions will not do.

Her birth, though, was not from the world, but from the prophetic word. By the prophetic word, Israel was to know that she belongs to YHWH and is identified with him. Foundational for Israel is the gift of the holy name, by which the Lord identifies himself with the people upon whom he places his name: “This [YHWH] is my name forever, and my remembrance unto all generations” (Ex 3:15, author’s translation). With the holy name goes all the blessings of YHWH (see Ex 20:24), so that the temptation for Israel to join with “the rabble” in complaint is the temptation for Israel to depart the holy name.

hit’auu ta’awah, “began to crave” (NASB: “[they] had greedy desires”). The word refers to an object of lustful desire. (See Gen 3:6, where the tree is an object of the woman’s desire.)

wayyashubu wayyibku, gam bəne yisra’el, “and again the Israelites started wailing.” More literal: “And again the sons of Israel turned back, and wept” (author’s translation). The turning back is the verb shub. This is the verb of repentance (along with nacham) throughout the Old Testament text, the Lord through the prophet constantly calling upon Israel to turn away from her idolatry and turn back to him. Unfortunately, the reason Israel needs to turn back to the Lord is that she has turned back from the Lord to her idols; or, as here in our text, she is turning back to her Egyptian enslavement.

V 10: The burden falls upon Moses. All Israel (“the people of every family”) has turned her back on the Lord’s gift, the “bread from heaven” (Ex 16:4), and YHWH is angry. In the middle is Moses. As prophet, he is given to speak YHWH’s words to Israel, and to intercede for Israel before the face of YHWH. This is the office the Lord has given him, to speak thus, so that by his prophetic intercession YHWH would not act in anger, but mercy (see Ex 32:11–14 for the prophet’s intercession and YHWH’s consequent change of mind from anger to mercy).

V 11: “You put the burden [massa’] of all these people on me.” Massa’ is burden or load, as on a donkey. It can refer to the burden of speaking the Lord’s Word (Zech 9:1 ESV; 12:1 ESV). It is used here three times: vv 11, 14, and 17.

V 25: kənoach ‘alehem haruach wayyitnabə’u, “when the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied.” Scripture can speak of the Spirit in two distinct ways: first, as in a man; second, as upon a man (or, synonymously, a man “filled [male’] with the Spirit” [Deut 34:9]). For the Spirit to be in a man speaks of the man’s life of faith (Num 27:18; Ps 51:10–11). For the Spirit to be upon a man speaks of the man being taken up into the purpose of the Lord, that is, to speak the Lord’s Word of life (i.e., to prophesy). The man upon whom the Spirit rests thus speaks by the authority and office of the Lord. In this way, Joshua already has the Holy Spirit (Num 27:18), but when he is then filled with the Spirit, the people are to listen to him for the prophetic Word. In Isaiah, the Spirit will rest upon the Servant of the Lord, and he is thus given to speak (prophesy) the words the Lord has put in his mouth, speaking the Gospel to the poor (Is 11:2–5; 42:1–4; 59:21; 61:1). As von Rad remarks of the Isaiah 11 portion, “we are shown the anointed one exercising his office in virtue of this gift of the spirit” (Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology, vol. 2 [New York: Harper and Row, 1965], 169; used by permission).

When the Holy Spirit rests upon the seventy elders, they prophesy. This is not only a help to Moses (for whom the burden is too heavy), but also a benefit to all Israel, as the Lord has now provided the way for them to be kept steadfast in his Word of life.

Sermon Outline

The outline below follows this chiasmic structure:

3 The Lord gives Israel the gifts of his name.

2 Israel turns from the Lord.

1 Moses’ burden.

1' Jesus’ burden.

2' The Church turns from the Lord.

3' The Lord gives the Church the gifts of his name.

Outline

3. The Lord gives Israel the gifts of his name.

a. Israel is given as a light to the nations (see textual notes on v 4).

b. They are recipients of the Lord’s gifts (notes, v 25).

(1) The gift of liberation from slavery (notes, v 4).

(2) The gift of God’s loving sustenance (11:6, the manna).

(3) The gift of the atoning blood to forgive all sins, which is the gift the Lord generously serves out to the Israelites when he gathers them to the priestly sacrifice at the tabernacle (see notes on the liturgical setting: “you who minister . . . in the courts of the house of our God”).

c. And all this (a and b) is because they are the people of the Lord’s name, and he will never depart his name (notes, v 4).

2. Israel turns away.

Israel is in the world and becomes of the world. She listens to “the rabble,” the multitude mixed in with her, and in so doing she wants to turn to the gifts of the world—even though these gifts are nothing more than the rejection of the Lord’s gift (bread from heaven) and a return to enslavement, 11:5 (notes, v 4).

1. Moses’ burden.

a. Moses’ burden is to speak for the Lord to Israel and to turn her from her sin, back to him and his mercy (notes, v 11).

b. Moses’ burden is to intercede to YHWH, that YHWH may turn back from his anger (11:10; see note on v 10). Moses accomplishes this intercession by calling upon YHWH to remember his name (notes, v 4).

c. Moses’ burden is too heavy. So the Lord appoints others to minister to his people (notes, v 25).

1'. Jesus’ burden.

a. Jesus’ burden (a burden of joy) is to turn us back to his Father by forgiving our sins, saving us from Satan (Mk 10:38), and keeping us in his name.

b. Jesus’ burden is to provide the intercession for our sin! This is the burden that sets upon him the burden of his suffering, rejection, and death (e.g., Mk 8:31; notes, v 11).

The Burden Killed Jesus, but That Is Our Salvation!

2'. The Church turns from the Lord.

The Church is in the world and often becomes of the world. She is found doing this whenever she falls to the temptations to understand and present herself in worldly terms, rather than as the humble, suffering people gathered to the Lord’s name for the forgiveness of sins.

3'. The Lord gives the Church the gifts of his name.

a. They are the people of his name (see notes on Liturgical Setting); by the Gospel, he calls them back to his name.

b. They are recipients of his gifts.

(1) The gift of his body (the true bread of life) and blood for the forgiveness of all sin.

(2) The gift of life and salvation (“for where there is forgiveness of sins, there is also life and salvation” [Luther’s Small Catechism, p. 31]).

(3) The gift of pastors, servants of the Word. In order that sins are forgiven, that his name is bestowed (Baptism), and that his body and blood are distributed to his people, the Lord sets men as servants to administer Word and Sacrament (see notes on Liturgical Setting; AC V).

(4) The gift of his continuing intercession and advocacy before the heavenly throne (1 Jn 2:1–2).

c. A light to the nations!

Because the Church is the people of his name, living in his forgiveness, the world is given to find salvation there. When our world looks at the Church and hears the confession of Jesus’ name (for we are the people of his name, see notes on Liturgical Setting and v 4), the world is now looking upon “the light to the Gentiles” (see LC II 56), and is given to see her salvation (Liturgical Setting).

Pentecost 20, October 22, 2006

Aloneness Destroyed, Oneness Restored

Sermon Theme: The sinner’s aloneness is destroyed as the sinner is brought into oneness with his God by the forgiveness of all sin.

Text: Genesis 2:18–24

Other Lessons: Psalm 119:49–56; Hebrews 2:9–11 (12–18); Mark 10:2–16

Goal: That the hearer would lament the brokenness sin brings to our lives and extol the oneness restored to us in Jesus.

Rev. Warren W. Graff, STM, pastor, Grace Lutheran Church, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Liturgical Setting

This day, as much or more than any other in the Church Year, is a time to speak of God’s gift of marriage. (The Ephesians 5 text of marriage was several weeks earlier, Pentecost 14.) Marriage finds its institution, of course, in the Old Testament Reading (Gen 2:18–24). Then, in today’s Gospel, against the Pharisees’ legalistic rendering of marriage, Jesus speaks from this Old Testament Reading to refer the Pharisees to marriage as a work of God: “What God has joined together, let man not separate” (Mk 10:9). If the Old Testament and the Gospel texts speak of the unity of man and wife, the Epistle gives the unity of “those who are made holy” with their Lord, who “makes [them] holy” (Heb 2:11): They “are all of one” (NKJV), and “[he] is not ashamed to call them brothers.” The Church rejoices in the unity of this fellowship as our Lord “sing[s] [his Father’s] praises” in “the presence of the congregation” (the Verse, Heb 2:12).

Textual Notes

V 18: lo’-tobh, “It is not good.” What is the meaning of tobh? What is good in creation has already been stated several times—1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31; 2:9a, 12. (At 2:9b and 2:17 there is “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” but this is not the statement of something that is good.) That something is good is more than a statement of pleasantness to sight, and more profound than just its moral aspect. In the creation account, the meaning of good is explicated by its opposite: that which is not good. What is not good follows.

lo’-tobh heyot ha’adam ləbado, “It is not good for the man to be alone.” Man’s aloneness is the antithesis of good. To be alone (ləbado from badad) is “to be separate and isolated” (R. Laird Harris, ed., et al., Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, vol. 1 [Chicago: Moody Press, 1980), 90; quotations used by permission). But man is created for community, “for sociability” (Gerhard von Rad, Genesis [Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1973], 82). More to the point, man is created not for aloneness, but for “at-one-ness” (see notes on v 24, below), and, specifically, to be at-one-flesh with his wife. (The harshness of the isolation of ləbado may be seen in the despair of a leper who, in his uncleanness, “must live alone,” Lev 13:46.)

‘ezer kənegdo, “a helper suitable for him.” More than just a “helper,” ‘ezer is a companion to stand with you, an ally, even an ally in the military sense. (Note the use of the verb “to help,” and its Hebrew cognate, “allies,” in, for example, Dan 10:13; 1 Ki 20:16; Ezek 32:21; and others; ‘ezer “involves unity in war” [Ernst Jenni, ed., et al., Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament, vol. 2 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1997), 873; used by permission.]) In the Psalms, ‘ezer speaks of YHWH, who is the helper who has mercy (30:10), saves (38:22), delivers (40:13), is “not far from me” (71:12), and so forth.

Man’s companion/helper will be that which corresponds to him, kənegdo. This is more than just what is “suitable” (NIV), or even his equal. It is his counterpart (see TDOT 9:175). The image of part/counterpart rightly shows the necessity: without the counterpart, the part is unfulfilled and useless; without the part, the counterpart has nothing to fulfill and complement. Both must be there for the other for creation to be fulfilled and bring forth new life. This is what is good.

So in this “companion counterpart to him” (‘ezer kənegdo) the “not good” (see above, lo’-tobh) has been rectified, and we now see what is good. What is good is the creation of life, the ongoing procreation established in the union of man and woman, and all that sustains, upholds, enriches, and embraces life. In this way, YHWH has already spoken of the light, the seas and waters, the plants and fruit-bearing trees as being good (Genesis 1, see above), not because of any moral aspect of good (for there is yet no knowledge of good and evil), but because these things support and enrich life for the man and woman who are God’s image.

This, then, shows what is not good. Not good is anything that does not bring and embrace life. In simplicity, it is not good for the man to be alone because, alone, the man brings forth no life. While he is without his companion counterpart, no life will come from him. But with his companion counterpart, his wife, there is the bringing forth of children, and all creation can now be seen as good in that it provides food and sustenance and is beautiful to man and woman and their lineage.

It is after sin that we, unfortunately, have the knowledge to speak of good in its moral aspect (as in “good and evil”). For anything that doesn’t uphold and embrace life, any taking or cheapening of life, is, necessarily, evil. But evil is not understood abstractly. It is the intent or action that, because it is contrary to God’s gifts of creation and procreation, is contrary to life (the Fifth Commandment) and to the wholesome bringing forth, upholding, and extolling of life (the Fourth through Tenth Commandments).

V 24: ‘al-ken, “For this reason.” This introduces the remarks of the writer, Moses. What follows is the expectability of marriage (and monogamy!), flowing from the action of the preceding verses, where woman “was taken out of man” (v 23).

wədabaq bə’ishto, “and be united to his wife.” dabaq “has a medial-passive character” (TDOT 3:80). It often refers to physical objects “sticking to each other, especially parts of the body” (Harris, 1:77). Thus, “be united to” (“be joined to,” NKJV) may be more accurate to the sense of the word here than the active rendering of “shall cleave unto” (KJV).

wəhayu ləbasar ’echad, “and they will become one flesh.” Man and woman came from one flesh (vv 21–22). Adam recognizes this by declaring, upon seeing the woman, “flesh of my flesh” (v 23). Now the two become one.

The point cannot be missed that marriage is spoken of not as a relationship (where we must speak of two things relative to each other), but as a oneness (where we cannot speak of the two apart from each other—the man is no longer alone, v 18’s ləbado). In marriage, man (created as male and female, 1:27) is now found in his “oneness”; man and woman as one flesh is man in his fullness and entirety, without division. The man finds his completion in the woman, and she in him.

And it is both together who are “the image of God” on Earth (1:26–27). The oneness belonging to man and woman is integral to the way God wants to reveal himself on earth—in their oneness, bringing forth life, they are the image of God.

Sermon Outline

Introduction: “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Gen 1:31). Except that we’re getting ahead of ourselves. God didn’t say it was all good on that sixth day of creation until he’d taken care of one last thing. There was a good planet; there were good stars in the heavens, good trees and plants and birds and fish and every good beast of the field. There was even a man formed specially—very well!—from the dust of the earth by God himself. But something wasn’t good yet. It was not good for the man to be alone.

And maybe we’re getting way ahead of ourselves, because even after everything was good, suddenly it once again wasn’t. What could make the world good—and then make it good again? Good is when aloneness is replaced by oneness, and for that second time around,

the Sinner’s Aloneness Is Destroyed as the Sinner Is Brought into Oneness with His God by the Forgiveness of All Sin.

I. Good contrasted with not good (v 18).

A. Good is that which brings forth, supports, enriches, and embraces life.

1. Creation.

a. All of creation, including the stars, the waters, the plants, and so forth were good in that they were created to support and enrich the life, ultimately, of mankind.

b. Man and woman were good in that they were given the role and blessing to be fruitful and multiply (1:26–28).

2. The Creator is good in bestowing gifts and upholding all life by the Word of his mouth.

B. Not good is that which does not bring forth life, which denies life.

1. Man without woman (even before sin’s entrance) was not good.

2. Man without woman (because of sin) is not good.

3. Satan speaking words to divide us off from the God of life is not good (3:1).

II. Oneness contrasted with aloneness (vv 18–20).

A. God created us for oneness and unity.

1. God created us to enjoy the oneness of man with woman (vv 21–25).

2. God created us to live in a perfect oneness of man (mankind) with God.

B. We brought aloneness and disunity by our sin (3:6–7).

1. We brought division between man (mankind) and God (3:8).

2. We brought division between the man and woman (3:12, 16).

3. We brought division throughout all of creation, over which we had been given dominion (3:17–19).

III. Oneness restored.

A. Jesus made himself one with our sin and death.

1. “He suffered death, . . . [tasting] death for everyone” (Heb 2:9).

2. All our division from each other and from our God reaches its final culmination in death, the ultimate separation, aloneness, and forsakenness. This is the death Jesus took upon himself for us: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt 27:46).

B. Jesus makes us one with his righteousness.

1. He sanctifies us with his blood, so that we are “of one” (NKJV) with him (Heb 2:11).

2. All our division from God is destroyed in Jesus’ act of sanctifying us and unifying us to himself by his blood. The sinner’s aloneness is destroyed as the sinner is brought into oneness with his God—a true holy communion of man and God found at the sanctifying blood of forgiveness. In this way, Jesus lovingly declares of his Church, “Here am I, and the children God has given me” (Heb 2:13, from the Epistle).

IV. Good restored.

A. While we are in our life of flesh (the old Adam), the restoration of good is not evident to our eyes.

1. While in our life of the flesh, the evidence that things are not good—and that entails all things against the bringing forth, embracing, and sustaining of life—is manifest to all.

2. Even intact families know of tension or division within the family and with those outside the family. Examples of these tensions or divisions may be easily drawn according to local needs.

B. But in his Word of Gospel, our Lord grants faith—and faith looks upon the good, that is, the new life wrought by our Lord’s atonement.

1. This faith, then, is the certainty of what we do not see but know from our Lord’s Word.

2. As Luther wrote of faith: “Faith, however, is a divine work in us that changes us and makes us to be born anew of God. . . . It kills the old Adam and makes us altogether different men, in heart and spirit and mind and powers; it brings with it the Holy Spirit” (quoted in FC SD IV 10).

C. Even in our brokenness, by faith we know that our Lord gives restoration by his Word of Gospel.

1. The husband who has not loved his wife may rejoice in sins forgiven.

2. The wife who has not looked to her husband for the gifts of marriage may rejoice in her Lord’s word of grace.

3. Parents who see conflict in their families may teach their children the words of reconciliation in Christ Jesus.

4. And even those who are alone, whether because of one’s own sin or divorce or abandonment or death or timing or circumstance, may look to their Lord in faith, knowing that even as we live in this world of division and aloneness, our Lord lovingly speaks to us his Word of oneness—his Word sanctifying the sinner with his own blood, reestablishing us in communion with him and with each other, so that he now stands in oneness with us, saying of us, “Here am I, and the children God has given me” (Heb 2:13).

Conclusion: And God saw all that he had made, and now it was very good.

Reformation Day (Observed), October 29, 2006

In Bondage to Freedom

Sermon Theme: Who is this man? A slave or free?

Text: John 8:31–36

Other Lessons: Psalm 46; Jeremiah 31:31–34; Romans 3:19–28

Goal: That the hearers believe in that God who out of the freedom of his love gave his Son that they might live in the freedom of love.

Rev. William C. Weinrich, ThD, professor, Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana

Liturgical Setting

The Festival of the Reformation is rightly celebrated by the Protestant Church, for through the Reformation, the Gospel of the righteousness of God was restored in its purity to the Church (Epistle). The Psalm proclaims the God of Jacob as “our refuge and strength” (Ps 46:1) and “our fortress” (46:11). It invites us to “come, behold the works of the Lord” (46:8 ESV) and to know that he is God and “will be exalted in the earth” (46:10). But who is this God, and how is he exalted in the earth? This was the real question answered by the Reformation. The answer was that this God is the Christ, Son of the living God, who by the work of his death forgave sin and gave life to men. This work is the “righteousness of God” apart from the Law, but to which “the Law and the Prophets [bore] witness” (Rom 3:21 ESV). The demands of the Law were fulfilled in him who is the Word made flesh. In him, the old covenant of stone was replaced by the new covenant of the flesh (Old Testament Reading, also Ezek 36:26). In him, sin would be replaced by the obedience of faith, and in him the faithful would “know the Lord” (Jer 31:34). Therefore, according to the Gospel of John, Jesus says that “when you have lifted up the Son of Man [that is, on the cross], then you will know that I am the one [egō eimi]” (Jn 8:28). The crucified Jesus is the vision of God. The point is sung in Luther’s great Reformation hymn, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”: “But for us fights the Valiant One, Whom God Himself elected. Ask ye, Who is this? Jesus Christ it is, Of Sabaoth Lord, And there’s none other God” (TLH 262:2).

Relevant Context

Jesus is speaking within the context of the Feast of Tabernacles (Jn 7:2–8:59), which commemorated Israel’s sojourn in the wilderness after having been freed from the slavery of Egypt. During this sojourn, God gave to Israel the way of the Law. This section continues the theme of John’s Gospel that Jesus is himself the true Torah of God, the Word of God who is the way of discipleship that leads to the Father. Jesus has just indicated that he does nothing “on [his] own” but does only that which the Father teaches him, and so he pleases the Father “always” (Jn 8:28–29). The Jews understand their identity as grounded in Abraham and in their loyalty to Moses (cf. Jn 9:28). True discipleship, however, is found in Jesus, who is the way to the Father.

Textual Notes

Vv 31–32: John’s language is suggestive. ean humeis meinēte en tōi logōi tōi emōi, “If you abide in my word” (ESV). But Jesus is himself “the Word” (ho logos, Jn 1:14). “You are truly [alēthōs] my disciples” (ESV). In the next verse, Jesus says that “the truth [hē alētheia] will set you free.” But Jesus is himself “the truth” (Jn 14:6). alēthōs has the meaning of “authentically,” “truly,” “not only in appearance.” To be truly the disciple of Jesus is to be to Jesus as Jesus, who is the truth, is to the Father (8:28–29). As the truth, Jesus is the perfect expression of the Father’s will. Those who are truly the disciples of Jesus are those who follow the way, which is Jesus himself.

meinēte indicates perseverance, steadfastness, and immovability in purpose. As Jesus remains in the Father, we are to remain in his Word. gnōsesthe, “you will know,” is not to know cognitively with the mind but experientially with the will and the heart. To have faith is a close synonym of to know. The language of truth occurs frequently in John’s Gospel; the language of freedom only in this context.

V 33: Jewish texts could say that the Torah brings freedom from worldly cares or from the slavery in the coming world (Genesis Rabbah 92.1; Numbers Rabbah 10:8). The Mishnah (R. Akiba) says: “Even the poorest in Israel are looked upon as freemen who have lost their possessions, for they are the sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” (Adolf von Schlatter, Der Evangelist Johannes [Stuttgart: Calwer, 1975], 212; used by permission). The Jews understand the identity of Israel in terms of their sonship to the patriarchs.

V 34: Jesus defines the reality of slavery and freedom in terms of spiritual status (condition). To be a slave is to have a lord who governs and directs. Those who sin have sin as their lord. Here it is not so much a question of sinful acts as it is of the condition of will and heart, which is sinful and therefore sins.

V 35: Although slaves were regarded as members of a household, they were not necessarily permanent, for they could be sold or otherwise separated from the household. Sons, on the other hand, were the permanent recipients of the father’s inheritance. They stood to receive the inheritance because of their filial relationship with the father. One’s status determined one’s destiny. “The Son,” v 36, must refer primarily to Christ and not generally to any son. Elsewhere in John’s Gospel, the term son refers only to Christ.

V 36: Jesus is here implicitly referring to his own Sonship with the Father as the basis of his authority to free from sin. Freedom from sin does not come from one’s natural attachments, but from the Son, who is himself the free gift of the Father’s love for the world (cf. Jn 3:16). Important is the idea that it is the Son who frees. He is the instrument of the Father’s grace and love. The Father works only in and through the Son. Important, too, is the implicit allusion to Baptism, through which we are made to be sons of God in him who is the Son of the Father. In the Son, the Father of the Son becomes and is also our Father.

Sermon Outline

Introduction: In one of his earliest Reformation writings, Martin Luther wrote On the Freedom of a Christian Man. Indeed, the Reformation was about the question “What does it mean for man to be free?” In our culture and society, freedom is usually associated with choice; a person is free who has the right and power to choose as he wills. We often, therefore, hear of the freedom of choice. However, such freedom arises from the idea that man is free by way of detachment from persons and things; such freedom arises from the idea of the person as independent and autonomous. The Bible knows of no such freedom of man. The Bible rather reveals man as entrapped, dead in sin, and destined to death. That man can live only if he is freed from that slavery and is reborn to the servanthood of love.

Illustration: At the beginning of Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ, Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane, being tempted of the devil. The devil tempts Jesus to reject the way of the cross that the Father has given to him. The scene climaxes when Jesus determines to follow the will of his Father and indicates that resolve by crushing the head of the snake with his foot. Is Jesus, by submitting to the will of the Father, therefore accepting, settling for, resigning himself to slavery, or is he indeed free? Just

Who Is This Man? A Slave or Free?

I. Who is this man who willingly goes the way of the cross for the sinner? A slave?

A. To die is his purpose; for this reason he has come (Jn 12:27).

1. Someone had to come; someone had to die, for we needed someone to set us free (vv 31–32).

2. Though the Jews didn’t want to admit it, everyone who sins is a slave of sin (vv 33–34).

B. This man, Jesus, is the One who is sent for this purpose (12:28b—the Father’s voice).

1. Jesus does nothing but the will of his Father (8:28).

2. What Jesus does is by the authority of the Father (10:18).

C. He is the Son of Man sent to be “lifted up” (12:32; 3:14).

1. This lifting up is light; it reveals (12:35, 46); Jesus is himself light (8:12–20).

2. This lifting up reveals the Father (12:45 ESV—“Whoever sees me sees him who sent me”).

D. He is the man crowned with thorns, robed in purple—a king (19:1–5).

Illustration: Here the preacher might refer to Gibson’s movie, specifically the scene of the flogging where Jesus is tied down to the flogging pole and the scene of his being nailed to the cross. Reflect on these two scenes—tied down, nailed—as symbolic of Jesus bound to the will of God.

E. Does that mean this man, Jesus, is a slave? No! To die the death of the cross reveals the freedom of the Son (freedom to do the will of his Father).

II. Who is this man who gives over his life? Absolutely free!

A. He is the Lamb of God (1:29, 36).

B. He is the Son of God who freely does and reveals the Father’s will (5:30–38).

1. What the Son does makes known the Father (1:18; 5:30–38).

2. The Son is loved by the Father (5:20), and what the Son does is a vision of the Father (5:19).

C. He is the Word of God, that is, the manner in which God speaks and is spoken. (See also Col 1:15: “the image of the invisible God.”)

D. The Father and the Son are one (Jn 14:20; 17:11).

E. The love of the Father for the Son is the gift of love for the world, sent in the coming of the Son (3:16), who freely gives over his life.

III. Who is this man whose life is given so that others might live? A slave? Free?

A. He is the Son who is no slave, but remains in the house forever (v 35).

B. Therefore, he is the Son who made us free indeed when we were baptized into him (v 36).

1. In Baptism, we have received his Spirit (3:3, 5; 20:21–22; 1 Jn 4:13–14).

2. In this Son, then, we are created anew as new men baptized into the man, Christ (Rom 6:1–14).

C. But these new men, free men, are also slaves.

1. We are no longer slaves to sin, but we are slaves of righteousness (note the discussion of slavery and freedom in Rom 6:15–23).

2. In him we are bound to the commandment of love, given to him by his Father (Jn 14:15–21; 1 Jn 4:7–16).

IV. Who, then, is this man whose life is willingly given over for others? A slave and free?

A. This man is the baptized—you and I—who is invited freely to pray “our Father” (Rom 8:12–17).

B. This man is the baptized—you and I—who gladly lives as a slave the life of Christ (1 Jn 3:16–18).

C. This man is the baptized—you and I—who is bound to the law of love (Jn 15:12–17).

D. This man is the baptized—you and I—who lives in the perfect freedom of God’s own love.

Illustration: Here the preacher might refer to the scene in Gibson’s movie in which there is an outpouring of blood and water from the side of Jesus on the soldier beneath, who then kneels.

Baptism! Jesus is Lord whose will and way have become our own.

Conclusion: The Reformation preached the God who is known in the crucified Christ (see 1 Cor 1:23–24). The Father gave up his only Son out of the freedom of his love (sola gratia). It is impossible to receive that which is freely given except through the freedom of a thankful reception (sola fidei). This is the Gospel that is proclaimed through the Scriptures (sola scriptura).

All Saints’ Day (Observed), November 5, 2006

Triumphs of the Blessed Ones

Sermon Theme: Beginning with the Holy One himself, we are blessed to hear of all the saints.

Text: Isaiah 26:1–4, 8–9, 12–13, 19–21

Other Lessons: Psalm 34:1–10; Revelation 21:9–11, 22–27 (22:1–5); Matthew 5:1–12

Goal: That the hearers bring to remembrance Jesus, the true saint, and so await, desire, and seek God by abiding in and emulating his meekness, purity, and mercy.

Rev. William C. Weinrich, ThD, professor, Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana

Liturgical Setting

The Festival of All Saints is celebrated toward the end of the Church Year, for its theme is the consummation of God’s purposes in the perfect and completed coming of the kingdom of God. The consummation will entail the glorious and open revelation that Jesus, the Lamb slain, is Lord with the Father (Epistle, Rev 21:22; 22:3). It will further reveal the glorification of those who in this life had faith and trust in Christ the crucified (Old Testament Reading, Is 26:3; the Epistle, Rev 22:5; the Gospel, Mt 5:12). The truth of who is the one true God and who are his people will be clear and apparent. This is indicated on the one hand by the “strong city” (Is 26:1), which is understood to be the great city of holy Jerusalem, which appears from heaven (Rev 21:10). This city admits of no false worship, for here God Almighty and the Lamb are both temple and throne (21:22; 22:3), and Christ’s name alone is remembered and worshiped (Is 26:13; Rev 22:3). On the other hand, those who trusted God in this life will serve and worship him in security and perpetual joy. This is indicated by the fact that the strong city will have open gates (Is 26:2; Rev 21:25) and that the saints will experience no night, but will walk in the light of the Lamb and in the glory of God (Rev 21:24–25; 22:5). The sermon text gives a stunning image of this point when it combines the idea of eternal life from death (dust to moist earth or dew) and the idea of light out of night (Is 26:19; night, 26:9).

All Saints’ Day, therefore, thematically emphasizes both faith and hope. The consummation of the mercy of God is not yet come; it is anticipated in hope. Yet the consummation is also awaited in faith, that is, in the steadfastness of trust in God. Hope is concealed in faith, or faithfulness is the appearance in the night of that which is hoped for (Heb 11:1). In this life, in the night of trial and temptation, saints are known and revealed in the steadfast endurance in which they wait for God and by which they seek and desire him (Is 26:8–9). In the Beatitudes, Christ speaks of this steadfast patience (poor in spirit, meek, pure in heart, persecuted) in which saints seek God (shall see God) and desire him (hunger, thirst). The Festival of All Saints is a celebration of those who, in their faithful endurance, especially manifested that consummation that is the common hope of all.

Relevant Context

Chs 24–27 form a special and unique part of the Book of Isaiah. The oracles against the nations concludes with ch 23, and ch 28 begins a new section, which appears to have no special thematic relation with these four chapters. Already Jerome called Isaiah 24–27 a “prophetic sermon” that describes what is going to take place to the whole world at the end of time (Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina [CCSL], 73:316). Following upon the oracles against the nations, these chapters assume the function as oracles of promise and hope concerning “that day” (v 1), when God will establish his people in a “strong city” of universal and everlasting peace.

Textual Notes

V 1: “In that day” is a common prophetic phrase to designate the time of consummation and completion of divine promise. The term for “song” is a general one, but can be used for liturgical singing (see Ps 30:1; 92:1) and here probably suggests a victory procession in time of war. The term for “salvation” (yəshu‘ah) at the literal level means “protection” or “defense.” But clearly here more is intended. God, the “everlasting rock” (v 4 ESV), gives to this city a perfect safety. The LXX has sōtērion. From the point of view of the New Testament, the language is especially suggestive: “Yeshuah” = Jesus (Mt 1:21).

V 4: The language of “everlasting rock” (ESV) occurs only here, although the image of “rock” is elsewhere used of God (Ps 62:7: “my mighty rock”). Rock is a symbol of reliability, of stability, and of immovability. That God is an “everlasting rock” gives the reason why the people may “trust in the Lord forever.”

V 8: Those who hope in God are not brought to doubt when they experience God’s judging hand (ESV: “the path of your judgments”). Indeed, it is precisely within such contexts of chastisement that the people of God wait in hope toward God. The verb qawah, “wait” or “hope,” always refers to waiting or hoping for an event worked by God.

V 9: That the soul yearns for God “in the night” is suggestive of hope and expectation in the midst of a situation of threat and suffering. Night is the time when one cannot see clearly. In the night of temptation and duress, one does not see with clarity the help that God will send. In such occasions, one sees only in faith and in hope. The morning is sometimes the time of God’s redemption.

Vv 12–13: There is a contrast between what God has done “for us” and the ruling “over us” by other lords. There is a war of allegiance here in play. In fact, at least to some extent “the night” (v 9) is characterized by this war of allegiance. Yet in spite of all, Israel declares its allegiance to the Lord our God. The question of faith and hope is always also a question of loyalty to the one true God.

Vv 19–21: God will vindicate his people, who lived in faith and hope, by raising them up from the dead. For this reason, they are not to fear death, even if that is the cost of discipleship. When the time of vindication comes, those who have opposed God by persecuting his saints will be manifested, and the earth will reveal their evil deeds. Both faith and evil will at the end be exposed to the sight of all.

Sermon Outline

Introduction: “Spouse of Christ, whose earthly conflict Here below doth never cease, Lift thy voice and tell the triumphs Of the blessed ones at peace” (“Spouse of Christ, Whose Earthly Conflict,” The New English Hymnal, Words Edition [Norwich, UK: SCM-Canterbury Press, 1986], 523:1; used by permission).

Among many Christians, the very idea of saints, unless that should mean all Christians, is an unfamiliar, even a suspect, idea. However, the Festival of All Saints gives to the Church an opportunity to speak of “the mighty works” (Acts 2:11 ESV) and “the excellencies” (1 Pet 2:9 ESV) of Christ, which continue in and through the faith of those who call Christ “Lord.” Through the works and stories of the saints, we are strengthened by the deeds of those who, although sinners as we are, yet steadfastly maintained faithfulness in the night of temptation and so revealed the hope of the resurrection in our common Savior. Beginning with the Holy One himself,

We Are Blessed to Hear of All the Saints.

I. God is holy (Lev 11:44–45; 19:2).

A. How is he holy?

1. He is the one true God and therefore distinct from all other gods (Deut 6:4; the repetition of “I am the Lord your God” in Leviticus 19).

2. He is the God who redeems his people (Lev 11:45; Is 26:12).

3. He is the God who redeems his people that they might be holy as he is holy (Lev 11:44–45; 19:2; 1 Pet 1:15).

B. The life of God’s holy people identifies them as distinct from the world (Lev 19:8; 1 Pet 1:18–19).

II. Jesus Christ is “the Holy One of God” (Jn 6:69).

A. Jesus is born of the Holy Spirit, so that he might reveal his Father by doing his Father’s will (Jn 12:27 ESV: “For this purpose I have come to this hour”).

B. Jesus is the one, led by the Spirit, who resists the temptations of the devil (Lk 4:1–13).

C. Jesus is designated Son of God, “according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead” (Rom 1:4 ESV).

D. Jesus has left us an example of himself as holy, so that we might walk in his footsteps (1 Pet 2:21; 3:15; 4:1).

III. We who have been baptized into Christ are also saints, holy ones called to follow in Christ’s footsteps (1 Pet 2:21 ESV: “for to this you have been called”; cf. Jesus, Jn 12:27).

A. Receiving the Spirit of Christ, we live in Christ according to the life of the Holy Spirit (Rom 6:4–14; 8:2–11; Col 2:12–15; 3:1–17).

B. Receiving the Spirit of Christ, we ought to expect temptations and sufferings, which test our faith and our hope (Jn 15:18–25; 1 Pet 4:12).

1. Having received the Spirit of Christ, we understand such temptations and sufferings to be participation in the sufferings of Christ (2 Tim 2:11–13; 1 Pet 4:13).

2. Receiving the Spirit of Christ, we are to endure such temptations and sufferings with steadfast faith and hope, even as Christ himself did (Is 26:8; Lk 23:46; 1 Pet 4:19).

IV. On the Festival of All Saints, we thank God for giving to his Church examples of faith and hope in the great saints of the past.

A. In them, we see examples of the steadfastness of faith.

Illustration: As they were about to set fire to the wood, the executioners of Polycarp wished to nail him to the stake to ensure that he would not move. Polycarp responded: “Leave me as I am. For he who has given me the strength to endure the flames will grant me also to remain without flinching in the fire, even without the guarantees you wish to give me by using nails” (Martyrdom of Polycarp 13:3: Herbert Musurillo, ed., The Acts of the Christian Martyrs [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972], 13; all quotations used by permission).

B. In them we see signs of participation in Christ’s victory over death.

Illustration: When the holy Blandina was hung on a post for the animals to attack, she “seemed to hang there in the form of a cross,” and the other martyrs “saw in the person of their sister him who was crucified for them, that he might convince all who believe in him that all who suffer for Christ’s glory have eternal fellowship with the living God” (Eusebius, “Letter of the Lyons Martyrs,” Historia Ecclesiae 5.1.41: Mussurillo, 75).

C. In them we see examples of faithful confessors.

Illustration: When Sanctus had suffered incredible cruelties, his torturers tried to make him say something blasphemous. But Sanctus “resisted them with such determination that he would not even tell them his own name, his race, or the city he was from, whether he was a slave or a freedman. To all of their questions he answered in Latin: ‘I am a Christian!’ ” (Eusebius, “Letter of the Lyons Martyrs,” Historia Ecclesiae 5.1.20: Mussurillo, 69).

D. In them we see the steady life of the Spirit, given in that Baptism, which we all have received: “There, confessors are rewarded, And each holy, humble soul, Who on earth left no memorial, Now make up the saintly whole” (“Spouse of Christ, Whose Earthly Conflict,” The New English Hymnal, 523:5; used by permission).

Note: Section IV invites pastors to use any story of a martyr or saint that is appropriate, edifying, and illustrative of the point to be made.

Conclusion: The resurrection of Christ, to those who in faith are baptized into his death, bestows a life to be lived in faith and hope, precisely within situations of threat and trial and suffering. In such situations, some have, by God’s grace, proved to be especially powerful and manifest examples of the faith and hope to which all are called. The Church properly remembers these saints and recounts their deeds, not to extol their merits, but to praise Christ, who for us has also given to his Church these persons as gifts and encouragements.

Third-Last Sunday in the Church Year, November 12, 2006

Built to Last

Sermon Theme: What is built to last?

Text: Mark 13:1–13

Other Lessons: Psalm 16; Daniel 12:1–3; Hebrews 12:26–29

Goal: That Christians may contemn what can be shaken and, as living stones, cleave themselves and call others to permanence in the one thing built to last: Christ, the true temple.

Rev. R. Michael Hintze, pastor, Our Savior Lutheran Church, Westminster, Massachusetts

Liturgical Setting

The next two Sundays turn our eyes more insistently toward the blessed consummation; here, on this Third-Last Sunday, we see what must precede the consummation, that is, the end of all things.

Today’s Introit begins, “He who stands firm to the end will be saved.” Certainly and finally comes the “will be saved.” But first, through these last days, comes the standing “firm” through that shaking “of what can be shaken” (Epistle, Heb 12:27), which has already commenced, though thus far only as “the beginning of birth pains” (Gospel, Mk 13:8).

Relevant Context

The text is from Holy Week, probably Holy Tuesday, immediately after Monday’s temple cleansing and just days before the destruction and raising of the temple, which was Christ’s body.

Textual Notes

Note: All biblical quotations are taken from the ESV.

V 1: “And as he came out of the temple.” This is, first, the temple of Herod, one of the “kings of the earth” prophesied in Psalm 2, who (re)built this temple as a testament to his worldly wealth and power and as a bid for popularity and respect. Nevertheless, this is also the temple that Jesus, only the day before, had honored as his Father’s house. It is God’s tool, an image of the true temple, namely, the incarnate Son.

“One of his disciples said to him, ‘Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!’ ” What wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings! One imagines Peter saying this. But any of them, who were all (bar Judas Iscariot) small-town people from up north in rural Galilee, must have been deeply impressed by the sheer size and splendor of the temple complex, in their eyes as awesome as the Twin Towers and as invulnerable as the Pentagon.

All earthly splendors seem unsurpassable, even final, to their own moment; so also that earthly temple of God can hardly have seemed in its moment merely a shadow of things to come, even though the far grander reality was already present there, in the Son.

“Look, Teacher”! (didaskale, ide). The disciple who calls Christ’s attention to the temple complex plainly expects his Galilean rabbi to be as overawed as he, though he had seen this same rabbi raise the dead; though he had heard him confessed as Son of God and Messiah; though he was witness when, only two days before, the Lord had suddenly come into this temple, where none could abide the day of his coming. Yet what is seen has power to make what is unseen seem insubstantial, even when what is unseen has revealed itself, that is to say, even when the Word became flesh and tented among us, and we beheld his glory in the true tabernacle of his flesh (see Jn 1:14). But, of course, when they saw him in the likeness of sinful flesh, he had no majesty in his form (Is 53:2).

V 2: “And Jesus said to him, ‘Do you see . . .?’ ” Christ has looked; Christ has seen long before. It is he who calls their attention to these transient buildings, as he (truly!) sees them.

“These great buildings.” They are shadows, yet he also calls them great (megalas), without sarcasm. In their moment, they are substantial and, relatively speaking, splendid; it is not an illusion that will disappear, but a doomed reality that will be destroyed. So Christ does not deny the apparent reality of the present earth. Indeed, in Psalms, Job, and elsewhere, he insists on, even celebrates, the reality of what is seen. What he disallows is its apparent future.

“There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down [kataluthēi].” These wonderful stones have no foundation; these wonderful buildings, like earth and everything on it, are under sentence of demolition, unlikely as it seems.

V 3: “And as he sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple.” Speaking of externals, we see a young Galilean rabbi sitting on the ground opposite the huge and grand center of Israelite faith. In fact, we see two temples opposite each other, the incarnate God and his earthly likeness.

“Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately.” Christ’s words have been shocking; they may even have seemed impious. These four, the inner circle of disciples, dare to inquire further.

V 4: “ ‘Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when all these things are about to be accomplished?’ ” They mean, first, “When will the temple be destroyed?” and, second, as Matthew makes clear, “What will signal the end of the world?” (see Mt 24:3), because they rightly, though with distortion, connect the end of the temple with the end of all things. For the end of the temple is the end of the world written small, as the destruction of the true temple is the destruction of the world in one man.

Christ does not answer the first question, though after this pericope he gives them a sign by which they may know to flee the city’s fall (v 14). As to the second question, the great sign of the end of the world (and the beginning of the new creation) is the world’s judgment and rising in Christ. But the final sign is reserved to next Sunday’s pericope, that is, the sign of the Son of Man appearing in the clouds of heaven.

The burden of the remainder of this present text is not the questions of when the temple (and the world) will be destroyed and with what sign, but rather, the questions of what will and will not endure (v 13) into permanence.

V 5: “And Jesus began to say to them, ‘See that no one leads you astray.’ ” This sentence is such a powerful and poignant response to their questions that it might well end with an exclamation point. They ask their Teacher, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when all these things are about to be accomplished?” (v 4). Their Savior responds, in essence, “Stay with me!” This is first; this is crucial. Finally, nothing else signifies, but that they stay with him who cannot be shaken. In no other way will they endure.

V 6: “Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ [egō eimi] and they will lead many astray.” Certainly, antichrists are a sign of the end, but that is of secondary importance here. Of first importance is that to be led astray (planēsousin) is to be destroyed, that the opposite of astray is aright, and that none can lead aright but Christ alone. It is because Satan knows Christ’s absolute uniqueness, and the absolute necessity of following him only, that Satan floods the world with pseudo-christs to confuse, distract, and destroy. And even apart from antichrists proper, the world through many mouths is always crying, if not, “I am he,” certainly, “I am it.”

Vv 7–8: “And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. This must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.” Christ created the world as a peaceable kingdom, but peace and peace treaties will not endure among fallen men in a fallen world, nor can endure here the concomitant blessings of prosperity and well-being.

“Do not be alarmed [mē throeisthe]. This must take place, but the end is not yet.” Not as though the disciples should or would be alarmed by the end itself, but rather that until the end, they must not be startled or intimidated by mutability under the curse. However it may seem, the curse has rendered temporary what is seen, until the end (and the beginning of what will be everlasting).

“There will be earthquakes in various places.” Christ created the earth so that it would not be moved. But a fallen earth already moves under man’s feet, and it shall move more and more violently until it removes altogether.

“There will be famines.” Christ promised Noah that seedtime and harvest would not cease while the earth remained (Gen 8:22). If they become uncertain, the earth is moving to its end. Thus, as there is no enduring stability in the ground beneath, there is none in the climate above, till the skies disappear with a roar.

“These are but the beginning of the birth pains.” The Law here is that the uncertainty of earthly life must only increase as divine wrath shakes the world more and more fiercely, finally to remove everything that can be shaken. The Gospel here is that these increasing evidences of the evanescence of the visible (like birth pains, stronger and stronger and closer and closer together) herald the birth of the world without end.

Vv 9–10: “But be on your guard.” Here again, as in v 5, we hear a Savior speak. Earth and everything on it must disappear; Christ himself has decreed it. But he is determined that his disciples shall not be lost, however they may be shaken by a shaking world.

“For they will deliver you over to councils, and you will be beaten in synagogues, and you will stand before governors and kings”: The peace of their daily lives will not endure, nor the approval of their society. They must not be surprised to see these things vanish.

“For my sake, to bear witness before them. And the gospel must first be proclaimed to all nations.” The witness they will bear is the everlasting Gospel. The Word that will outlast the heavens and the earth will, through them, enter all the dying world, to all the fading kings, administrations, and nations. It is the Word of Christ, by believing which (certainly not by proclaiming which) they will endure forever. (It is, of course, implied that through their witness others shall receive the everlasting life while the world is passing away.)

V 11: “And when they bring you to trial and deliver you over, do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit.” As above, the peace of their daily lives will not endure, but this (like the end of all things) is no cause for anxiety. When they bear witness, it will be the same enduring Word that they will be speaking.

“It is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit.” To these disciples who are to be apostles, the Holy Spirit will give these words directly. To the world’s end, the Holy Spirit gives all disciples these words indirectly through Holy Scripture, to be heard, marked, learned, and summoned by the Spirit from our hearts as occasion is granted. Thus, the miracles of inspiration and enscripturation guarantee that as we speak the everlasting Gospel, it is not we who speak, but the Holy Spirit himself.

Vv 12–13: “And brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death. And you will be hated by all for my name’s sake.” Christ so created man that family harmony should be everlasting and human love be universal. But humanity is fallen; only the family that is in Christ and only the love among those who are led aright will endure forever. Apart from him, all family ties and all human love will disappear.

“And you will be hated [esesthe misoumenoi] by all for my name’s sake.” The hatreds, resentments, and wicked lovelessness that are endemic in all fallen nature will only burst forth all the more as those who are dying confront those who have eternal life. By the very life his disciples have in him, they will be the odor of death to those who are dying, for it is through their union through faith with the Living One that they condemn this world (that is, like Noah, acknowledge its doom, Heb 11:7) and become heirs with him of the world to come. Therefore, they will be hated by all who are in denial.

“Over to death . . . have them put to death.” Christ created man to live forever; by sin came death. Insofar as his disciples, too, are also sinners, their present bodily lives will not endure. Whether by martyrdom, by the judgments now present in a fallen world, as sickness, disaster, age, and so forth, or by the appearing of Christ, these present bodies of sin and the sinful nature that remains in them are, like the temple in Jerusalem and the whole fallen world, sentenced to destruction. Of course, for his disciples, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, and all judgments imply only that their release and resurrection is drawing near.

“But the one who endures [hupomeinas] to the end [eis telos] will be saved.” That is, the one who is found enduring to the end will be rescued from all he has endured: sin, Satan, and all the sorrows of mutability. But also, and self-evidently, the one who endures to the end will endure, that is, the one who has eternal life will have eternal life, glorious, powerful, immortal, and imperishable: in a word, permanent. He who stands firm will stand firm forever, for he who stands firm is simply he who stands in Christ, and the one who is in Christ will be in Christ, world without end.

Sermon Outline

Introduction: So why are we always shocked when cars break down, or bodies, for that matter? Don’t they always? Or why are we surprised when the house that was always on that corner—though, obviously, it wasn’t always there—but why are we surprised when it’s not? Or everything you see, sit on, or lean on in the whole world? I don’t know, but maybe one reason we trust in things on earth is not just idolatry. I think maybe we secretly think that if we believe in them enough, we can make them stay—by faith. Ah, well. St. Paul told us that the things that we can’t see yet are permanent, whereas the things we can see now are temporary. “Yes,” says my heart, “but you can see them.” To little guys like us, whatever you can see, in spite of everything we know, it can seem like it’s forever. Especially if it’s impressive at all—like, say, oh, the Roman Empire or cancer or a Mercedes-Benz—it takes your mind away, until we can reason, contrary to all experience, “It’s here today; ergo, it won’t be gone tomorrow.”

Well, the disciples were little guys like us, and when they came to the big city and saw the temple in Jerusalem, it took their breath away. Naturally. It was enormous and gorgeous, built by King Herod with all his money and power, earthly to the max. But beyond that, it was one of the best things earth ever produced. God used it. God met people there. It was the house he chose to live in for a while. If anything on earth was impressive, that was it. And when those small-town fellows from up in Galilee saw it, they were as awed as any Iowa boy staring up at the World Trade Center—that is, if the World Trade Center were still there. It seemed as invulnerable as the Pentagon, or as the Pentagon used to seem before 9/11. It seemed as solid as the earth, or as solid as the earth seems until Judgment Day.

Really, when you look at anything, cars or bodies or temples or planets, the question isn’t “Can I see it?” The question is “Is it built to last?”

What Is Built to Last?

I. Not the world or anything from it, not anymore.

A. In the beginning, all earthly things—including us—were built to last.

1. By this we know God’s will.

a. Not destruction,

b. But everlasting joy.

2. Because of this, we still expect permanence (v 1).

a. It’s what we ourselves were made for.

b. It’s the nature of the world we were made to live in.

B. But nothing from earth is built to last now.

1. Everything from earth perishes, to our shock and grief.

2. Even the best and greatest from earth is doomed: “Do you see these great buildings?” (v 2).

3. In this, we have a warning and a preview of the end of all things.

a. Earthly peace perishes: “wars” (vv 7–8a).

b. The ground is shaking already: “earthquakes” (v 8b).

c. The skies are undependable; crops fail: “famines” (v 8b).

d. Inevitably, earth and everything on it will be swept away: “These are but the beginning of the birth pains” (v 8c).

4. Things don’t last because human sin has brought God’s curse on all fallen creation—including our natural lives.

a. Your life is a mist, a vapor that appears for a little while,

b. As God turns us back to dust,

c. As the beginning of judgment.

Transition: What am I saying? Don’t earthly things matter at all? Aren’t they real? Of course, they are. We can see them. We can see them all leaving. Is anything built to last?

II. Jesus Christ is built to last.

A. He was born everlasting.

1. He is, from his conception, everything we were made to be.

a. A sinless man, like Adam before the fall, and therefore,

b. An immortal man, like Adam before the fall: the permanent man.

2. He is from before his conception the eternal Son of God.

a. In him the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily (Col 2:9).

b. The God-man is the everlasting temple,

c. Of which the splendid temple in Jerusalem was just a shadow.

Transition: That’s what was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple (v 3). How strange: A temple looking at a temple! How strange that that one man, sitting on the ground, was greater than all those wonderful buildings! Only Jesus Christ is built to last. How strange that his flesh and blood was more permanent than all those wonderful stones! Tell me, which one looked more enduring? To his own disciples, which one seemed more impressive at the moment? They told him, “Look, Teacher, isn’t it incredible?” But that teacher from Galilee sitting there, with his little followers looking at the best thing the world ever made—he was God’s real house, holy and everlasting, looking at a little model that was doomed, like the whole planet. Only Jesus Christ is built to last.

But then he died too, like everything else.

B. The everlasting man was born to be destroyed.

1. As if he were fallen and sinful, like everything we see, including ourselves.

2. To bear Judgment Day ahead of time, the whole world’s curse in his body.

3. To bring the end of the world on his everlasting self, instead of on us.

Transition: Soon enough, the temple in Jerusalem was rubble, like the Twin Towers. It was a great building, for a moment; then there was not left one stone upon another. But that ruin was nothing as terrible as the ruin left hanging on the cross. The end of the whole world couldn’t be as horrifying as the end of Jesus Christ, when the living temple of God everlasting was destroyed in front of our eyes. Tell me, what score doesn’t that settle? What sin doesn’t that pay for? What curse, what doom, what judgment isn’t swallowed up in that destruction? No matter how stained, how doomed, no matter how we’ve sinned, God’s death puts paid to it all. And Christ is risen!

C. The everlasting man was raised. “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days” (Jn 2:19 NIV).

1. Built to last. Christ, being raised from the dead, cannot die again; he is the permanent man.

2. Built to last. As the Son of God, he continues forever, the same yesterday, today, and forever.

3. Built to last. He is holy and immortal, the everlasting temple of God.

Transition: He’s back. He’s here. The only permanent thing in all creation. And he’s here to make us permanent again. Who would’ve thought those little disciples would wind up indestructible and glorious, long after that temple was dust? But

III. Jesus Christ rebuilds us to last.

A. He rebuilds us by his Word, Spirit, and life.

1. That’s why the Gospel must be proclaimed to all the dying nations (v 10).

2. That’s why the Holy Spirit is still speaking that Gospel to us and through us (v 11).

a. That vanishing people may be reborn of imperishable seed.

b. Through faith alone: Whoever believes has eternal life.

B. Jesus Christ, the everlasting temple, makes us everlasting stones. “You yourselves like living stones are being built up” (1 Pet 2:5).

1. We receive from him the life we were built for in the first place: holy, with his holiness; immortal, with his immortality.

a. Already in our souls: “Everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (Jn 11:26).

b. And soon in our bodies: “Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live” (Jn 11:25). Raised, like his glorious body, powerful, imperishable. More than Adam in Eden: indestructible, like living stones.

2. So that while everything we see disappears, the world around us, rushing past like waves over rocks, and everything temporary about each of us—don’t be alarmed!

a. These suffering bodies, with their cancers and their pains!

b. The last bit of sinfulness inside us!

3. What we can’t see yet is built to last.

a. Jesus himself.

b. Our own resurrection.

c. Our own reborn souls.

C. Therefore, as living stones, stay in the temple that lasts.

1. No matter what pretends to matter:

a. “And Jesus began to say to them, ‘See that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name, saying, “I am he!” ’ ” (vv 5–6).

b. And the world will always be saying, “I am it!”

c. Only he has the words of eternal life.

2. No matter what else disappears:

a. Our peaceful lives: “But be on your guard. For they will deliver you over to councils, and you will be beaten in synagogues” (v 9)—but Christ is built to last.

b. Our friends: “You will be hated by all for my name’s sake” (v 13)—but Christ is built to last.

c. Our family ties: “Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death” (v 12)—but Christ is built to last.

d. Our own bodies: “over to death . . . put to death” (v 12)—but Christ is built to last.

e. The ground, the skies, the universe (v 8)—but Christ built us to last.

Conclusion: Everything we see is disappearing while we watch, but not you: you were judged on his cross and raised by his Gospel. The one who endures to the end will be saved, and that’s you, Christian, whom he has built to last, to the end and through the end, into the world without end. Everything else comes and goes: don’t lean on it. Don’t chase it into the air. And don’t be alarmed; pleasures and property, sorrows and sins—we can see them all leaving. But stand, you precious stone, in Christ, until you see what’s ahead. Everything else that’s here today, you can bet will be gone tomorrow, but all the while, in Jesus Christ, you are being built together into a dwelling place for God. In him the whole building is rising into a holy temple in the risen Lord (Eph 2:19–21).

And any minute now, all the scaffolding is going to disappear with a roar. When Christ, who is our life, appears, we also are going to appear with him in glory, and holy angels are going to shout in amazement at what he’s made of us, “Look! What wonderful stones!” But we, when we see him face-to-face, when we see him as he is, God in flesh, our Brother, destroyed and raised for us, then with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, we’re going to shout in amazement at the splendor, the glory, and the wonder of the temple built to last forever and ever and ever, Jesus Christ himself. Amen.

Second-Last Sunday in the Church Year, November 19, 2006

Summer’s Coming!

Sermon Theme: Summer’s coming!

Text: Mark 13:24–31

Other Lessons: Psalm 111; Daniel 7:9–10; Hebrews 12:1–2

Goal: That Christians, seeing in the worst the coming of the best, may set their hearts on pilgrimage.

Rev. R. Michael Hintze, pastor, Our Savior Lutheran Church, Westminster, Massachusetts

Liturgical Setting

Next Sunday, the Sunday of the Fulfillment, is pure celebration, the Church’s annual wedding rehearsal, which may very well, please God, be interrupted by the wedding itself. This Sunday, then, proclaims the blessed hope and celebrates the end of all things as the beginning of all things new.

Here, in this fallen world, by faith the Church sings the Introit, “In your faithfulness and righteousness come to my relief. I spread out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land”—expecting rain. And while we hear of great tribulation, the Gradual anticipates the joy of those “who have come out of the great tribulation” and claims the promise: “Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.” So this Second-Last Sunday refreshes pilgrim souls with the scent of summer.

Relevant Context

Once again, the text is from Holy Week, probably Holy Tuesday, mere days before the grimmest consequence of the fall, that is, Christ’s withering and death, which is to say, mere days before the coming of the world’s impossible spring in him resurrected. Thus judgment is as counter-intuitively pregnant with hope as was Jesus’ tomb.

Textual Notes

Note: All biblical quotations are taken from the ESV.

V 24: “But” (alla). Immediately after Christ’s words about dreadful troubles (v 19), false christs (vv 21–22), and the necessity of the most strenuous vigilance (v 23), comes this “but.” What follows is in essence very good news (as v 28 insists). Indeed, this “but” governs all that follows.

“But in those days, after that tribulation [tēn thlipsin ekeinēn], the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light.” The Lord is quoting himself from Isaiah 13, where the judgment of Babylon is likened to an uncreation of the creatures there. The Creator will himself so undo Babylon as to make it seem that it had never been. But this, which is poetry (and a taste of the world’s end) regarding Babylon, will become reality at the world’s judgment, when he who created the universe and continually sustained it, even in its fallen and cursed condition, will in fact uncreate it.

“Darkened, . . . will not give its light.” We are reminded of the visions of the Revelation, where the darkening of created light is a metaphor for the darkening of spiritual light by demonic powers, as a judgment from God on those who loved darkness rather than light. So, on the Last Day, Christ literally grants to those who suppressed the truth in unrighteousness the darkness they desired.

V 25: “And the stars will be falling from heaven.” Again the Lord quotes himself from Isaiah, here ch 34, where he describes not a typical judgment, but Judgment Day itself. How vividly the phrase “will be falling” pictures the impossible rain of stars, as impossible as Noah’s flood or the virgin birth or the resurrection, but happening all the same, as all the world learns that what seemed upheld by immutable natural law was in fact upheld by his mere and powerful Word, and that natural law itself had simply been all along only what God usually says for the time being.

“And the powers in the heavens will be shaken.” A difficult phrase. We might understand by this the powers and principalities in heavenly places, that is, demonic powers, shaken and, indeed, terrified, by the coming of Christ. That is by no means an unlikely interpretation, but, in this context of the collapse of the natural world, the phrase is probably better understood as speaking of the collapse of elemental powers, such as gravity.

V 26: “And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory” (emphasis added). Since they (implied by opsontai) must be opposed to you, they must refer to the pagan world. Of course, disciples as well will witness the appearing, but the appearing is no subjective event, perceived only by the faithful. Here is presented the shock of the naturally minded, seeing the reality that they have to this point avoided and denied.

“The Son of Man.” The Lord is quoting the title he gave himself in Daniel, Ezekiel, and other references. Certainly “the Son of Man” is a divine name, since it is the name of the Messiah, God-with-us. Yet it is the name that emphasizes the human nature of Jesus as the second Adam, the ultimate man, innocent and immortal, that is, man, by the wonder of God’s grace, in triumph. He who will appear is human flesh and blood, one of us and supreme, the one of us who, by the taking up of his humanity into the Godhead, is God, Creator, and Judge. It is the revelation of him who is also a creature (and the first of the new creation) that occasions and causes the end of this creation.

“Coming in clouds.” “He makes the clouds his chariot” (Ps 104:3 ESV) because he is Yahweh, coming to deliver his people. But he is also Yahweh the Son of Man, for here is a plain allusion to Daniel’s night vision. It is an allusion and not a quotation because Daniel sees Christ’s ascension, not his second coming; the direction is exactly reversed. At his ascension, Christ goes trailing clouds, as it were, from creation to heaven; at his return he comes from heaven, likewise trailing clouds into creation. The clouds that seem to roof this world simply mark the border crossing. Thus, the world is not roofed over at all, but wide open to (defenseless against?) the divine: To see the clouds is to see his ready chariot.

“With great power and glory.” These are not accoutrements adopted for his triumphal reentry. They are rather his divine attributes from his conception, veiled by the likeness of sinful flesh and not fully used in his state of humiliation, but unveiled in heaven and fully used since his ascension and session. They and we shall see him as he is.

V 27: “And then he will send out the angels.” Note that the Son of Man will send out the angels; this man is Lord of glory. His use of angels demonstrates his magnificence as Creator of angels and humanity—not that angels (or human beings) are in any sense necessary to him, but that they reveal the overwhelming life, love, and wealth of one greater than Solomon in all his splendor. Note also his love for his elect, that glorious angels should be sent (as servants; remember the parable of the wedding feast) to summon his beloved to ecstasy. But then, we are God’s children, whereas they are servant spirits, sent to serve salvation’s heirs.

“And gather his elect.” The subject of the sentence remains Jesus. He gathers his elect. How intimate and personal is the connection between the waiting believers and the coming Lord! And as his elect whom he himself chose before time, called in time, and now gathers by his angels at time’s end, how utterly certain (despite the tribulation mentioned just before) is their destiny!

“From the four winds, from the ends of the earth.” That is, from all over the globe; none are forgotten. We are reminded of the Great Commission: the saving word has gone out from Zion to all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. Here is the fruit of what has been planted. Here he who went out weeping, bearing precious seed, returns rejoicing.

“To the ends of heaven.” This might allude to the spirits of the just who will return from heaven with Christ for their resurrection. But the parallels in Deut 30:4 and Neh 1:9 make it plain that the phrase means “to the ends of the skies” or “to the farthest horizons.” As it stands, then, this gathering “from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven” vividly pictures the air, earth, and sky thronged with the redeemed, raised and caught up to meet their Lord as the cosmos yields the purpose for which it was made.

V 28: “From the fig tree learn its lesson.” A critical verse, which, as suggested above, insists on the evangelical nature of this passage. The disciples have just learned a lesson from a fig tree, namely, that that which is fruitless will be destroyed. In this context of the world’s end, we might expect, then, such a lesson of Law as this: “When you see its leaves wither, you know that winter is near.” But on the contrary (and perhaps to the disciples’ surprise), the lesson is purest Gospel. For the world’s end is, above all, the new world’s beginning.

“As soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near.” Far from auguring the winter of judgment, for Christ’s disciples, the collapse of the universe is the herald of spring, or, rather (and how much better!), of summer, an even sweeter season of both greenness and fruit. The restoration of all things is near; the better Eden is near, as is the tree of life bearing fruit with its healing leaves.

V 29: “These things . . . he is near.” “These things” are the darkening of the sun and moon, the rain of stars, and the shaking of natural law: When you see these things, they are to be for you like the tender branch and the new leaves, for “summer is near” parallels “he is near.” These things are the evidence of his nearness; he who is the summer and who brings summer to us.

“At the very gates.” The universe shakes as gates might shake at the knocking of a heavy fist, for, as noted above, it is his very approach in his unveiled great power and glory that occasions and causes earth’s collapse. For “these things” are different in kind from the other signs of his coming. Other signs point to his appearing as the beginning of birth pangs, but with these things comes the birth itself of the new creation. They not only point to but are the evidence of his proximity, from whose face heaven and earth will flee away, whose very presence will destroy the unbelieving world (the ESV glosses 2 Thess 1:9), by whose appearing we shall be changed, for we shall see him as he is. One and the same parousia accomplishes all, as a high wind might level dead trees, but merely prunes living trees of their dead growth.

Thus, when we see the world ending, we are to know that “he stands behind our wall, . . . looking through the lattice. . . . [Saying,] ‘Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away, for behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come’ ” (Song 2:9–12); that is, that the wedding supper of the Lamb is here.

V 30: “Truly, I say to you.” This solemn phrase demands that we take what follows quite literally and disallows one interpretation of “generation” (see below).

“This generation” (hē genea autē). How shall we interpret this? Some suggest that we understand the word generation in a common English use, meaning “the life span of those now living.” Since Jerusalem was destroyed within the life span of those then living, these interpreters would see the fulfillment of Christ’s words in that destruction, Jerusalem’s fall being understood (rightly) as a sign and symbol of the world’s end. But Christ says, “all these things” must take place and this, coupled with the solemn “truly, I say to you” that introduces the promise, demands not a typical but a literal fulfillment.

Others understand generation in a common Hebrew use, meaning “a kind or race of persons,” and apply it to unbelieving humanity in general or to unbelieving Jews in particular. If the latter, then quite apart from the ineluctably anti-Semitic tone, this interpretation would suggest (as the millennialists would have it) that the continued survival of an ethnically Jewish people is in itself more significant than the survival of any other ancient and displaced peoples, as the Romans or the Armenians, that is, as though “God’s Israel” were any other than the Jewish-Gentile Church. But in either case, whether we understand “this generation” to be all unbelievers or Jewish unbelievers (as if Christ were merely telling his disciples, “You will have opposition until the end”—which we already knew from the preceding pericope), the only promise in the promise would be, “I will destroy all unbelievers when I come.” Of course, this is true, but jarringly out of place given the brightly evangelical context, especially of the verses immediately preceding and following.

It seems far better to understand “this generation” as speaking of the generation to whom he was speaking: “this generation” right here, namely, his disciples, the kind of persons who belong to him, the race generated by the Holy Ghost, who are also themselves the new growth, the fragrance of life, that signals summer’s approach, for they are children of the day (even before the day dawns) and, in their spirits, already a new creation (before the new creation comes), the resurrection of whose spirits anticipates their bodies’ resurrection, and whose faith, seeking another country, already lays claim to the world they will inherit.

“This generation will not pass away” is paralleled by “my words will not pass away” (v 31). In both instances, what will not pass away is good. Here is Gospel. The gates of hell will not prevail against this generation. His words, which generate it, will produce their harvest, and it will never perish, nor can anyone pluck it out of his hand. It will be here to be harvested when he appears, and the Son of Man will, in fact, find faith on earth when he comes. And until he comes, this generation will itself be a sign of and witness to his coming.

V 31: “Heaven.” That is, the skies and, as we should say, space.

“Heaven and earth will pass away,” with all sin, sorrow, and death. Christ urges his disciples not to be afraid, but rather to lift up their heads as their redemption draws near.

“My words.” That is, the words of Yahweh, by which the worlds were made and are upheld, by which the present earth is reserved for fire, by which the paradise ahead will arise, and by which his elect are chosen, called, sanctified, and kept till the appearing of the salvation that is about to be revealed.

“My words will not pass away.” In time they remain as an unbreakable and life-giving promise; in eternity, they remain in their everlasting fulfillment.

Sermon Outline

Introduction: It’s fall. We talk about the message of spring, but fall’s got a message too. The leaves are dying all around. It’s getting dark. It’s turning cold. And you get the message: the wages of sin is death. We’re in a fallen world. And I’m here to tell you in the fall that

Summer’s Coming!

I. In the fall . . .

A. All nature is groaning.

1. Suffering from human sin:

a. “Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin” (Rom 5:12).

b. “Cursed is the ground because of you” (Gen 3:17).

2. Testifying to human sinners of judgment: “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men” (Rom 1:18).

B. We are groaning.

1. In our fallen bodies. “We . . . groan inwardly as we wait . . . [for] the redemption of our bodies” (Rom 8:23).

2. In our fallen nature. “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom 7:24; see also previous verses).

Transition: You’d have to be blind or in denial not to see it. The whole world’s full of graveyards and graveyards of human hope. Yes, and the whole unbelieving world is blind and in denial. Why? Because if you face the fall, you face the judgment, and how can they bear it? So they sin while they can; they hoard all the more greedily what they can’t keep, and all their safety deposit boxes are filled with dead leaves. Do not join them, beloved! Hold out for another country! When we see what sin causes here, we glimpse what sin finally brings. In the fall, we know that winter’s due.

II. In the fall, winter’s due.

A. For all creation.

1. Not merely the shortening days, but “the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light” (v 24).

2. Not merely falling leaves, but “the stars will be falling from heaven” (v 25).

3. Not merely fallen, but utterly collapsed: “the powers in the heavens will be shaken” (v 25).

B. When the wrath of God is revealed in person: “they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory” (v 26).

C. With endless winter for all the unbelieving world.

1. Not merely darkness, but the outer darkness.

2. Not merely death, but eternal death.

3. Not merely cold, but the absolute cold that burns like fire.

Transition: From his face, the skies and earth will flee away; his very presence will blow away sinners like a winter storm, while the world they held and hid in disappears, while all denial disappears, while everything they called impossible happens, when the fall finally ends in winter, when they see him, when this creation is finally destroyed by his power and great glory—as impossible as Noah’s flood, but it happened; as impossible as fire from heaven on Sodom, but it happened; as impossible as Jesus rising from the dead, but, thank God, it happened! Christians, long before this fallen world is over, the new creation has already begun.

III. In the fall, spring is here.

A. In Jesus Christ:

1. The risen God and Savior, with power and great glory, the Lord of angels.

2. The Son of Man, the firstfruits of the new creation.

a. Innocent enough for all other humans, however sinful.

b. Deathless enough for all other humans, however mortal.

B. In you who believe: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Cor 5:17).

1. Made alive with Christ, born again.

2. Made like Christ in the inner man.

a. Children of the day, while the light fails all around.

b. Children of the Kingdom, while the world decays.

c. Made for another country, before it appears.

Transition: The end of the world is the beginning of the world you were made for. Summer’s coming, when the new earth will be green forever, and you will be like him, body and soul, when all the fruits of his salvation bloom and grow and never die: no sin, no grief, no clouds. Summer’s coming, better than spring; summer’s coming and the spring was just the foretaste. In the fall, Christian, wait for summer; all through the fall, hold out for summer. Summer’s coming, and when this whole world shakes, for you that’s summer knocking on the gates.

IV. In the fall, summer’s coming.

A. “After that tribulation.” After all that sin and death and hell can do (v 24).

B. “The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken” (vv 24–25).

1. And “you know that summer is near” (v 28).

2. For these things—for you—are like the new leaves of the fig tree (vv 28–29),

3. That show “that summer is near” (v 28), “at the very gates” (v 29), in “great power and glory” (v 26).

C. And we “will see the Son of Man coming in clouds” (v 26). And . . .

1. . . . “He will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven” (v 27).

2. . . . Summer will be here.

V. Summer’s coming.

A. We know it from his rising.

B. We know it in ourselves.

1. By the new life that groans within us: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me . . . ?” (Rom 7:24).

2. By the new longing for another place. “My desire is to depart and be with Christ” (Phil 1:23).

C. We know it by his words,

1. That plant spring in our souls: “Born again . . . through the living and abiding word of God” (1 Pet 1:23).

2. That are stronger than anything in the fall: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (v 31).

3. That will keep green those they generate till summer comes: “Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place” (v 30).

Conclusion: The leaves are dying all around. It’s getting dark. It’s turning cold. And summer’s coming, and we’ll be there to meet it. Till the world ends, his words will keep his own alive to greet him. And while the world ends, his words will all come true. And God will bring to completion the good work he’s begun in us. Hold on, Christian. The fall, with all its tears, is just a season. It’ll pass. But, oh, that endless summer day! Amen.

Last Sunday in the Church Year: Sunday of the Fulfillment, November 26, 2006

Watch and Keep Watching!

Sermon Theme: Watch for the end by receiving Christ’s promises today.

Text: Mark 13:32–37

Other Lessons: Psalm 130; Isaiah 51:4–6; Jude 20–25

Goal: That we, as the Church Year ends, confess failing to heed his warnings for these last days, yet look to the Christ, who sustains our faith to the Last Day.

Rev. Timothy E. Beck, pastor, Mount Zion Lutheran Church, Richmond, California

Liturgical Setting

The Last Sundays of the Church Year anticipate Christ’s soon return. While presently suffering tribulation and temptations, the Church prays in godly fear to be kept in faith until that day.

The Last Sunday in the Church Year, the Sunday of the Fulfillment, calls pilgrims traveling through this vale of tears to remain faithful until the day of our salvation. We shall receive an enduring home—“A new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness” (Introit). The blood of the Lamb is our righteousness and strength (Gradual); therefore, we contend for the faith that we may be built up in our own “most holy faith” and “snatch others from the fire” by that same faith (Epistle, vv 20, 23). We cannot predict the eschatological hour of the Last Day; therefore, we look perpetually to Christ while abiding in his gifts that keep us steadfast. We work, entrusted with Christ’s authority until his return, praying the Lord leads us safely to our eternal home (Collect) and presents us as holy before the Father.

Relevant Context

In Mark 13, when a disciple admires Jerusalem’s magnificent temple, Jesus predicts destruction. Shocked like those who saw its first destruction centuries ago, Peter, James, John, and Andrew ask the question: When will it happen, and how will we know before it happens (v 4)? Then Jesus describes Christian pilgrimage in a sinful world, the destruction of the temple, and the coming of the end. He sums up the disturbing predictions with the pronouncement, “This generation will not pass away until all these things take place” (v 30 ESV), while promising that his words remain forever.

After stating the signs belonging to these three kinds of events, Jesus answers the question “When?” “But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (v 32 ESV).

Asserting that the disciples, or any future believer, would not discern the time of his coming by the events that must occur, Jesus calls disciples to a life of faith in the certain expectation of his return.

Textual Notes

V 32 answers the original twofold question: When will this occur, and how can the time of the event be predicted (v 4)? Christ does not speak about the temple in vv 32–36, but about the parousia, that day (tēs hēmeras ekeinēs). Our Lord refers to the great eschatological event of his return (Joel 3:18; Amos 8:3, 9, 13; Micah 4:6; Zeph 1:14–18; 3:16; Zech 9:16; Mt 25:13 [the day]; Jn 6:40 [the Last Day]; 1 Cor 5:5 and 2 Pet 3:10 [the day of the Lord]; Rev 16:14 [the great day]). He also addresses the possibility of recognizing the specific time of that day (“the hour,” tēs hōras). “No one knows,” oudeis oiden (perfect active indicative). From the past continuing to the present moment, the faithful, the angels beholding the Father, and the Son do not know. He corrects the fascination of those attempting to date Christ’s return by correlating predictive prophesy and current events.

V 33: How should the faithful respond to the words of Jesus? Look! Watch! (blepete, agrupneite). Both words are commands requiring continual action (present active imperative). The uncertainty of “when” and the inability to discern the hour of “when” requires a continual expectation.

Regarding the command “Be on guard!” (literally “look,” blepete), in ch 13 (vv 5, 9, 23, 33) the word occurs four times, each punctuating a warning. “Look!” is followed by the cause for looking: first, look “that no one leads you astray” (v 5 ESV); second, look to yourselves, for “they will deliver you over” (v 9 ESV); third, look, I have told you before it happens (v 23); and fourth, look, “you do not know when the time will come” (v 33 ESV). Christ’s four look warnings regard faith and may be applied as first, be continually guarding against false doctrine; second, be prepared to suffer for your faith; third, do not doubt God while suffering; and fourth, do not doubt in the promised return.

“Be alert!” (agrupneite, literally “watch!”) admonishes against doubting that the promised return is indeed coming, and coming unexpectedly. You will not recognize the time until it is upon you. ouk oidate [perfect] gar pote ho kairos estin [present]. In fact, seeking for the chronological moment (ho chronos) will lead you astray. You will not even know the ho kairos, the fullness of time for that day. Any attempt to discern the hour of Christ’s return is fruitless. This is not how believers watch.

V 34 contains a short parable. The departing master (Jesus Christ) leaves, giving his servants authority to do his work (see Mt 28:18–20; Mk 16:15). He emphatically charges the doorkeeper to watch and keep watching (eneteilato hina grēgorēi [present active subjunctive]) until the unknown time of return.

Vv 35, 37 again repeat the command to watch continually (grēgoreite, present active imperative) so that you are not caught sleeping. The temptation will be to sleep. The command is given to watch. Like a doorkeeper who cannot possibly discern the master’s time of return from circumstances around him, we watch for the Lord.

Sermon Outline

Introduction: The Lord will return, and we want to know when. So bookstores are filled with paperbacks interpreting biblical signs through current events. Don’t waste your money buying predictions about the Last Day. This will only lead you astray, since Jesus promised that you will not know when he returns until he returns.

For your faith’s sake, he warned you of things to come, even things now here, because you will be tempted to drift from faith, to fall away in persecution, to doubt God’s love when suffering, and to doubt he will return. Therefore, don’t stumble on these things that you fear, the speculations of the end that are so uncertain, or the troubles of today that seem so threatening, but

Watch for the End by Receiving Christ’s Promises Today.

Watch for the Lord, who redeemed you by his blood. He is able to keep you until the final day.

I. Christ warned us to watch because we will be tempted before he returns.

A. He warned us about apostasy.

1. How many so-called Christian religions reinterpret Jesus into a Christ of human making? Should you worry if a pastor baptizes in the name of Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, but not as Scripture commands?

2. The battle over Jesus’ words is a fight for the faith. Watch the Word of God that your faith remains to the end.

B. He warned us about persecution.

1. Have you heard, “Don’t speak about Christ here!”? Scripture promises trouble to those who remain faithful.

2. Discouragement comes in the fight: being slandered by friends and family, even in the Church. Watch that you don’t shrink from faithfulness just to get by.

C. He warned us about difficult times.

1. Terrible things happen, including terrorist attacks, natural disasters, or common diseases and accidents.

2. When it happens to you, don’t doubt that the Father loves you. Even if everything good is torn away, watch out! God uses trouble to lead us to repentance and faith.

D. He warned us not to wonder whether or not he will return.

1. Are you tempted to believe nothing really changes, so why act as if Christ will return? Watch out! Even if none know the hour of his return, the Lord is coming.

2. He calls you to a lifetime of watching and remaining in your holy vocation, through receiving the means of grace.

a. We are given the authority to work until his return. The Church received Christ’s authority to work while it is day. Christians are a royal priesthood, living as Gospel people in ordinary vocations. Their greatest work is faith. Despite the temptations of false teachers, tribulations because of faith, or suffering in a sinful futile world, the Church does not receive or declare the Word in vain. Christ’s authority assures us that his words remain forever.

b. We must not be found asleep. Therefore, repent. If desire or sophistry turned you to accept false as true, return to the pure Word. If you are too fearful to bear a cross, confess your cowardice. If troubles seem greater than Christ’s sufficiency, confess your unbelief. And if urgency to hear Christ’s Word and receive his very body and blood are forgotten after the Saturday late movie, confess your failure to watch.

II. Christ commanded us to watch, looking in faith to him and his promises.

A. Look to Christ.

1. We do not find strength to remain faithful by fixating on the signs of apostasy, persecution, catastrophes, or trying to calculate the day of our Lord’s return.

2. Since he is coming, look to Christ. Like a doorman, strain to catch a glimpse of the master.

B. Look to Christ, who remained faithful in the same temptations we suffer. He conquered our fierce foes.

1. Jesus Christ preached the Word in purity. He did not turn from the truth, and therefore bore the anger of our untrue race; he bore the sin of our apostasy by his holy and honest faith.

2. Jesus Christ suffered persecution. He embraced the violence of jealous rebels, assuming their guilt unto death on the cross.

3. Jesus Christ felt discouragement (Is 49:4). The crowds wanted a bread king but no dead king. Those versed in Scriptures plotted his death, and his disciples abandoned him in the moment of trial. Worse yet, bearing the wrath against sin, Christ cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mk 15:34 KJV). Although abandoned, he still trusted his Father.

4. He endured the cross, clinging only to the promise. He waited for the Father to hear him and therefore was heard. He rose and ascended, to return for all who believe in the promise of his salvation.

C. Therefore, look to Christ by receiving his promises today.

1. You received Holy Baptism, the Word with water cleansing you from sin and creating faith. He who gave you this promise will preserve you.

2. You listen to the Word that keeps you in faith, despite false doctrine, persecution, suffering, or even your weakness. Christ’s words endure forever.

3. You taste the Lord’s Supper granting you forgiveness. With forgiveness is eternal life and salvation, sustaining you until his return.

Conclusion: You don’t need to worry about the end. Watch for the Lord’s return by receiving his gifts today. He gave his promises, bought by his blood, to keep you. These sustain you in the faith and make you fruitful until the unknown hour of his return.

Last Sunday in the Church Year: Christ the King, November 26, 2006

The Unkingly Rule of the True King

Sermon Theme: Jesus is the King whose rule is very unkingly.

Text: John 18:33–37

Other Lessons: Psalm 130; Daniel 7:13–14; Revelation 1:4b–8

Goal: That the hearer believe that he, too, has rebelled against the true King and yet is restored to the kingdom and even shares Jesus’ glory by the King’s humbling himself unto death.

Rev. Timothy E. Beck, pastor, Mount Zion Lutheran Church, Richmond, California

Liturgical Background

The Last Sundays of the Church Year focus on the coming eschatological feast. Christ’s promised return reminds us of the brevity of this life and stirs us to holy living. In view of the coming judgment, believers rejoice in the grace that brought us to salvation. When all things are restored to our anointed Priest, the King of all creation, we shall reign with him eternally.

The Last Sunday in the Church Year, Christ the King, assures God’s children that the Alpha and the Omega (Verse) was crucified that we might see him as he is, and be made like him (Offertory). As priest and king, he will grant healing from sin’s schism and unite his people in peace (Collect).

Textual Context

In John 18, Jesus is betrayed by Judas (vv 2, 5). Jesus accepts the Father’s will, rebuking Peter’s protection by the sword (v 11). Later, Peter denies his Lord. Annas and Caiaphas falsely accuse Jesus, handing him to Pilate and demanding crucifixion (vv 19–32). Pilate questions Jesus (vv 33–38), finding no earthly crime. Pilate recognizes that Jesus is rejected for claiming to be the Messiah (cf. Jn 1:49; 12:15; 19:7). The Sanhedrin considers his kingship blasphemous (TDNT 1:577). Despite political innocence, Pilate commands crucifixion. He fears accusations of disloyalty to the earthly king (see 19:12, 14–15, 19–22). Thus Jesus is betrayed by his disciples, religious leaders, the nation itself, and civil government.

Textual Notes

Vv 33–35: After the Jews demanded the death penalty, Pilate summons Jesus to answer the criminal charge: “Are you [su ei, emphatic] the king of the Jews?” (emphasis added). In a legal pretense filled with irony, the heavenly King does not look kingly and his subjects deny his Kingship. Jesus asks Pilate if this charge is his or hearsay. Pilate distances himself, saying that because the nation, your ethnos (to ethnos to son), and the chief priests delivered you, there must be a reason. (The word delivered, paredōkan, often refers to betrayal. Judas delivered Jesus to the Sanhedrin [Mk 14:10], the Sanhedrin delivered Jesus to Pilate [Mk 15:1], Pilate delivered Jesus to the will of the people [Lk 23:25], and soldiers delivered Jesus to execution [Mk 15:15]. The Gospels present a comprehensive abandonment of Christ by all.)

V 36: Jesus does not defend himself against accusation, but emphatically declares he has a kingdom (hē basileia hē emē) whose origin is not of this world. Jesus is not a political threat, proven because his servants would have fought (ēgōnizonto, imperfect middle indicative) to prevent Jesus from being delivered (and none did, except Peter, 18:10).

V 37: Pilate infers from Jesus’ testimony he is a King (oukoun, “Interrogative, when the question has inferential force,” W. F. Arndt, F. W. Gingrich, W. Bauer, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957, 1979], 592; used by permission). Jesus replies that Pilate claims he is a King, thereby maintaining Pilate’s responsibility to decide the case. Pilate later admits that Jesus committed no crime, yet he commands execution (v 38; 19:16).

Jesus declares that he left his kingdom to witness to the truth. For this purpose he was born (egō eis touto gegennēmai, perfect passive indicative) and comes (kai eis touto elēlutha, present active indicative). In this expression, Jesus affirms his preexistence, an intentional incarnation, and that he is the manifestation of truth (see Ps 31:5; Jn 1:14, 17; 14:6; 17:3, 17). All who are of the truth (pas ho ōn ek tēs alētheias) hear and continue to hear his voice. Those who receive this witness belong to the truth as Jesus’ loyal subjects.

Sermon Outline

Introduction: What is a king according to the world? In England, royalty is a shadow of the former rule. Henry VIII was a king. Although hemmed in by a growing body of English law and harassed by papal legalities, he got what he wanted by execution or intrigue. Charlemagne was a king. His naked sword unified great territories. The greatest kingly line was the Caesars. They ended the Roman Republic, but, oh, did they rule! In the eyes of the world, a king, good or bad, uses power to rule. But the Creator, incarnate in Jesus the Christ, did not use power to ascend an earthly throne.

Jesus Is the King Whose Rule Is Very Unkingly.

More than anything else, this disappointed the expectation of his nation. If only he came to rule rather than serve!

I. Jesus is the King, but not a King of human desire.

A. Jesus failed to live up to the worldly demands of kingship.

1. Although subjects may resent their king, they desire him to be kingly.

2. Jesus had no army, which is impossible in the world of kings. He had no iron fist in a velvet glove, only tolerating rebellion until able to smash rebels in pieces. He had no royal court trimmed in ermine, studded with the spoils of conquest and taxation. He forced none to grovel at his feet.

3. Instead, he served his servants. Therefore, Jesus failed to measure up to the earthly expectations of kingship.

B. Jesus was rejected by his own as their King (Jn 1:11).

1. The people, the ethnos, rejected Jesus’ claim to be King when he failed to meet their desires for temporal security. Jesus refused to become a bread king (Jn 6:35). He brought an eternal kingdom, not a temporal rule. But sinful desire only follows Jesus to get what it wants. We should love him because he is our King!

2. The religious rulers of Israel rejected Jesus as heaven’s King when he failed to restore the Davidic monarchy. Despite the mighty signs Jesus worked, the Pharisees and Sadducees demanded Jesus conform to their interpretations and desires. When he refused, they preferred the rule of Caesar to the eternal grace of God’s Son (19:15). In our sinful desire, we try to force Jesus into our religious expectations, and we betray him if disappointed.

3. Civil government in the person of Pilate rejected Jesus as a spiritual King by spurning his truthful witness. Pilate despised God’s Word in order to preserve political position. Temporal preservation was favored over the eternal kingdom and even civil righteousness (19:12, 16). Sinful desire compromises truth for what is easy, safe, and respectable: rejecting the witness of the heavenly kingdom.

Transition: Because he failed to fulfill earthly expectations for kings, Jesus was rejected by those he came to save. Because he didn’t meet felt needs and because he challenged the deceptive values of power, Jesus was perceived as an enemy of his subjects. His rejection is universal. Like the Jewish nation, religious leaders, or Pilate, you and I have proven to be traitors. We have not loved God with our whole heart. Let us repent.

Yet the Father willed to establish the eternal Kingship of Jesus through his cross and bring us into the kingdom of heaven through his self-sacrifice.

II. Jesus is the King, the King of the Father’s design.

A. The Son had a purpose in assuming a human nature: “For this reason I was born” (v 37).

1. The Son of God reigns eternally. Yet he purposefully was born of Mary. According to the Father’s will, he became like us in all respects except sin. Through his obedient suffering, Jesus Christ, in his humanity, was raised to the highest authority. At the name of Jesus, all creation will bow before his Kingship (Phil 2:10).

2. No human king so humbled himself, yet the Son of God assumed a mortal body that we might inherit the kingdom of God in our bodies. The Son assumed a human nature in order to die. He bore our rebellion in his divine-human person, suffering the traitor’s penalty.

B. The Son had a purpose in coming: “For this I came into the world” (v 37).

1. He came to witness to the truth without destroying the rebel. He came to transform our false earthly expectations of kingship into true heavenly life. He came as a servant, his glory veiled, that we might see God, hear his holy voice, and live.

2. Unlike earthly kings, who do not hesitate to destroy traitors, the Son died for those who rejected their heavenly King. He came for the rebel deserving execution. He came to witness to this truth, so that some might repent and be restored to his heavenly kingdom.

III. Jesus is the King, the King of truth.

A. Jesus is the truth incarnate.

1. The ancient kings of this world dressed in purple, which they forbade their subjects to wear. Yet the transcendent Son became least of all in order to reveal the kingdom. This King was veiled in flesh to declare his eternal reign in glory. In Jesus Christ, the kingdom of God is truthfully revealed in grace upon grace. In Jesus we see what is true, and we see truth.

2. His life and death expose the kingdom of the world as a farcical tragedy of shadow and darkness. The cross exposes sinful love for power, fame, and wealth as the taste of destruction. Jesus fulfilling the Father’s will reveals that the kingdom of God reigns not by ruthless power, but in righteousness expressed through the compassion of the cross. Against the absurdity of self-exalting philosophies, the cross declares the truth.

B. Jesus declares the truth and his own hear him.

1. As proven by the world’s universal rejection of its rightful King, the King himself turns us from error to truth. Jesus speaks a true word, bringing sinners to repentance. He shows the rebel his yellow stripe.

2. Then, like monarchs of yore, he extends his wooden, bloody scepter in forgiveness. Touch the scepter and live. Receive pardon and be restored to the kingdom. The scepter touches our ears and is placed upon our heads or within our mouths. His Word gives eternal life, not as serfs enduring Caesar, but a life sharing in the very reign of the Christ.

Conclusion: Heaven’s infinite kingdom came to earth, born in humble suffering hidden within the kingdom of this world. By submission to the Father’s will, Jesus fulfilled and displayed the glory of heaven upon a seeming instrument of futility, the cross. His Kingship reigns on earth as it does in heaven, calling those who hear the word of pardon into the true kingdom. His death for your sins lifted you from the kingdom of this world into the very presence of the Father.

St. Michael and All Angels

Of Angels and Man

Matthew 18:1–10

Rev. Derek A. Roberts, assistant pastor, First Lutheran Church, Knoxville, Tennessee

Editor’s note: On September 9, 2005, a group of students, staff, and alumni of Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana, were en route to New Orleans to assist with relief efforts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Pastor Roberts does not mention in this sermon that he is the one who took the wheel of the bus as it careened off the highway out of control. Instead, he makes clear in the sermon that credit for deliverance of the travelers does not belong to him.

Sermon Outline

2. That we have angels who see God’s face with us reveals the value God places on man.

1. Even more, that we have One who is the face of God with us reveals the value God places on man.

We Have Our Own Michael.

Sermon

There are perhaps few times in life we can point to personally in which we miraculously live when we could have, probably should have, died. Close calls in the car. A slip down those slippery stairs. We might reflect after the fact, “Aha! God’s angels were with us.”

I had one such event this month. The driver of a charter bus carrying fourteen pastoral and deaconess students, staff, and alumni—myself included—of Concordia Theological Seminary to Louisiana fell unconscious. He passed out while the bus was driving straight off a curving interstate at 75 miles per hour. As we knocked down wooden posts and broke through metal cable, then traveled off a twenty-foot approach, you could hear the grass of the field scraping beneath the bus and see it jumping up on the windshield. Though a few of us inside the bus sustained bumps on our heads, scrapes on our legs, or a swollen knee, we all lived! I cannot tell you how much my brothers and sisters in Christ and I valued life for those moments after we stopped and exited the bus. I’ll also never forget seminarian Bradley Vogt leading us in a prayer thanking God for protection and reminding us that God sets his holy angels to watch over us. When life is near the edge of ruin, we are reminded how frail yet precious life is and that we are totally dependent on outside help to sustain it. On a moving bus without a driver—or on a sickbed—one cannot simply choose to get off and go about one’s own business. If we get bumped too hard or if our blood pressure rises too high or if floodwaters inch above our nostrils for too long, we will most certainly die.

2.

The psalmist knows nature and our humanity: “We are dust. As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more” (Ps 103:14–16).

In our case (May the God of angels be praised!), we lived. I breathed a huge sigh of relief knowing I would see my wife and daughter again, and to be there as my daughter learns to confess the faith given to her here at Zion’s font. I’ll continue to enjoy with her the daily gifts God created and called good. I was granted to be there for another night’s prayer to our Father: “Let your holy angel be with me, that the evil foe may have no power over me” (Luther’s Small Catechism, p. 33).

Angels, you see, surround the reality that God values man. Consider these words in our text—so near to where Jesus mentions angels: “See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven” (Mt 18:10).

“See that you do not look down on one of these little ones” shows again how God values human life. What are these words to us but the same that God gives to all in the commandments? Of the two tables of the Law, the First through Third Commandments regard our relationship with God, while the Fourth through Tenth are God’s commands that we uphold the welfare of other human life, our neighbor. You shall not murder, the Fifth Commandment, is a protective shield around our neighbor’s life; the Sixth Commandment protects our neighbor’s sexuality; the Seventh Commandment protects our neighbor’s goods and possessions (we are not to steal them); in the Eighth Commandment, God would have us honor our neighbor’s reputation. The Commandments declare that we have a responsibility to help and sustain what God made in his own image and declared good, and to value what he values. In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus teaches that God values us when we acknowledge that he alone provides daily bread to all creatures. Then, on every page and in every word of Scripture, God presents the bread of life, Christ Jesus, so that we know he is present on earth as he is in heaven, as St. Paul confesses: God “wants all . . . to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4).

Not so with terrorists who kill at random—even children—because of their misguided devotion to a false prophet. Not so those who would deny little ones Baptism because they want their children to be freethinkers or decide for themselves.

Sadly, too often little ones don’t even live to have a choice. Today, you’ve no doubt heard this: “I am personally opposed to abortion, but I think women should have their choice.” It’s a compromise position that hides moral absolutes. But more, what intrinsic value on human life does that demonstrate? A friend of mine asked someone who held that position, “Why are you personally opposed to it?” “Well,” he said, “I think it kills a baby, but all perspectives should be considered; women should have a choice.” Then my friend said, “Let me repeat back to you what I think you just said. You say that abortion kills babies, but that it’s acceptable for others to choose to kill babies?” The person said, “Well, no, not when you put it that way.”

Because of persuasive but empty rhetoric, people become confused over the definition and value of man. Is it an excuse to avoid what our consciences know even without the Word of God? We have a responsibility to protect those who cannot protect themselves.

But it is specifically those little ones who do believe, who are inside the kingdom of belief, that Jesus proclaims have angels who continually see the face of God in heaven. The world without Christ cannot secularize and celebrate St. Michael and All Angels with us.

1.

St. Michael and All Angels is not an opportunity to turn our worship from Christ to angels, but to recognize that their worship, their service to God, is multidimensional. On earth, angels are the ministering spirits under the helm of Jesus as he fights for us! And they will accompany him when he returns to gather the faithful from the four corners of the earth and all those under the earth. But even now in heaven, little ones’ angels always see the face of our Father in holy adoration.

They are part of the trinitarian reality that is confessed in our praise and thanksgiving. They come where Jesus is present! They appeared to Joseph and Mary and the shepherds at the birth of our Savior. They ministered to Jesus in the wilderness. They appeared to Mary at the tomb when Christ was raised by the Holy Spirit.

They continually bear witness that God humbles himself, becomes like us, and, like grass, withers and dies for us.

Angels know that God shared in our frail humanity—floods, death, and all. They know that water flowed from his pierced side. Echoing from the cross, they could hear the psalms Jesus prayed: “My bones burn like a furnace. My heart is struck down like grass and has withered” (Ps 102:3–4 ESV).

Isaiah prophesied of him, “I, I am he who comforts you; who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, of the son of man who is made like grass?” (Is 51:12 ESV).

In becoming like us and revealing angel hosts, God shows how much he values our existence. Whether we live a hundred years or die tomorrow in a bus, God reached through the great chasm that separates Creator from creature to bring frail, fallen man back to the good world to come. And this not of ourselves, but by the word of the cross.

Today, in the company of angels and archangels, including the archangel Michael,

We Have Our Own Michael

—not that created angel, Michael, but the One who is like God, because he is God. Immanuel, God with us, mounts up on Zion, crucified and risen, and enters our ears and our mouths so that we hear and taste bittersweet victory. Here we know that God feeds us and strengthens our faith for the battle he shares as we wait the consummation.

Angelic voices rise today in preparation: “To you all angels cry aloud, the heav’ns and all the pow’rs therein; to you cherubim and seraphim continually do cry” (LW, p. 214).

Why? Because the voice of him through whom all things were created, even angels, says, “See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.”

May his face shine brightly upon us and be gracious to us. Amen.

A final note: In April 2005, four and a half months before the relief trip, Pastor Roberts had received a contingent placement for his first call into the ministry, a mission assignment overseas. When, subsequently, that assignment could not be formally extended, he and his family remained in Fort Wayne until he received his eventual call to First Lutheran. Had the initial placement gone as planned, he would not, humanly speaking, have been on the bus to New Orleans and in a position to take the wheel at the crucial moment. “He will give his angels charge over you!”

Sermons for All the Saints: A Collection

All Saints’ Day

With Angels and Archangels and All the Company of Heaven!

Isaiah 26:19

Rev. William R. Marler, pastor, Trinity Lutheran Church, Springfield, Missouri

Sermon Outline

How Does a Lutheran Celebrate All Saints’ Day?

I. Because of all the false ideas about saints, many Lutherans ignore All Saints’ Day completely.

II. But Lutherans do celebrate All Saints’ Day by looking beyond and above.

III. And Lutherans do celebrate All Saints’ Day by what is below and within our grasp right now.

Sermon

Our text on this All Saints’ Day is from the Old Testament Reading in Isaiah 26: “But your dead will live; their bodies will rise. You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy. Your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead” (v 19).

This is the inspired and inerrant Word of God. Amen.

The title of this sermon is “With Angels and Archangels and All the Company of Heaven!” The goal of this sermon is that you would leave this sanctuary today so excited about the second coming of Jesus that you truly could desire it more than all the earthly blessings you now enjoy and desire, so much so that you truly pray that the end of all things comes tonight! The goal of this sermon is also that if God chooses not to make today Judgment Day, you would leave this sanctuary excited about faithfully serving your Savior while you await his coming.

How Does a Lutheran Celebrate All Saints’ Day?

I.

To many, of course, saint implies good works, apostles, great Church leaders, people of great charity. In October 2003, one of the most popular and well-loved “good people” here on earth, recognized worldwide, was beatified by Pope John Paul II. This is the first step of the Catholic Church in the process of naming one a saint. I’m speaking of Mother Teresa. Those who believe that one gets to heaven by being good and doing good works would surely say Mother Teresa racked up a ton of merits, probably more than she needed to make paradise. Some of her merits might be shared with those not so holy in their lives.

If you’re a Roman Catholic or have Roman Catholic background and family and you’re feeling nervous that we’re going to present a Protestant case against the pope, relax. Plenty of Protestants in all sorts of denominations have invented many kinds of works-righteous religions for themselves, some that far surpass the original Lutheran complaints against Rome’s medieval interpretations. There’s decision theology and the theology of glory; there are levels of discipleship and many “how to” books out there—quite enough to prove Protestants have plenty to repent.

Mark Twain, for whom there’s no solid evidence he ever embraced the Gospel of Jesus Christ and justification by grace through faith, did fully understand the foolishness of works-righteous religions, and he enjoyed making fun of them. In his short story “Captain Stormfield Goes to Heaven,” Twain has his central character, Captain Stormfield, totally in shock by what he discovers after he dies and goes to paradise. His first twenty-four hours in heaven were pretty much what he was expecting: sitting on a cloud with a harp. He didn’t know how to play the harp, and he noticed that most of the multitudes around him didn’t either. The lot of them were making some pretty awful noise! When he got to the point where he couldn’t stand it any longer, heaven or not, he walked away, running into the original angel to whom he’d been assigned, a fellow who was also disappointing. He felt slightly cheated by this heavenly mentor, an old bald-headed angel named, of all things, Sandy. Well, Sandy explains to him that everybody spends their first day in heaven this way, because God doesn’t want to disappoint their expectations. And when they tire of it, then they check in the harp and halo and get assigned to the place they’ll live and the job they’ll have. That was another shock for Captain Stormfield—that he had an occupation in heaven.

But the biggest shock was when he asked to see one of the great saints. He was thinking Adam or Noah or Moses or David or an apostle. But above them all was a fellow who’d been a barber in Cleveland! As Sandy the angel explained, no one but God could really see what a righteous man he was, but he beat out most men in good old down-to-earth humbleness, goodness, and love.

Because of all the false notions and ideas that are out there about saints and how to get to heaven, a lot of Lutherans ignore All Saints’ Day completely. That’s unfortunate, because Martin Luther chose the eve of this day, of all the days on the Church calendar, to post his Ninety-five Theses. He was beginning to perceive that it’s not our decisions, choices, willpower, or efforts that save us or help save us from sin, the devil, and death, but the decision of Jesus to come to earth as a man, his choices always to do, say, think, and desire only the holy, his efforts on our behalf, and his incredible willpower on the cross to finish the mission for which he was sent. Luther, who sought inner peace, understood we don’t have to make peace with God, because God sent his Son two thousand years ago to make peace with us!

All Saints’ Day is a celebration of true Christian sainthood. And true Christian sainthood is not about us. It’s all about Christ!

All Saints’ Day is a celebration of what is beyond and above us, as well as a celebration of what is below and within our grasp right now. Shall we go beyond and above first?

II.

All Saints’ Day is a wonderful day to rehearse the greatest promises of Scripture. Those promises are from God, so they are true words that will come to fulfillment when we die. First, the Bible teaches us about death and what it is. We wish we had more information about death, and especially about the state of our soul between death and Judgment Day, but God doesn’t reveal much. What he does tell us is that death is not the annihilation of a human life. The only thing that ends is our physical life here on earth. Because we’re conceived and born into sin and death and, therefore, enter this world with a fallen body, the body can’t escape death. That brings a painful separation. Jesus, our Creator, who knows more about life and death than anyone, hurt just like we do when we lose a loved one. He openly shared his pain at the tomb of his dear friend Lazarus (Jn 11:35). He cried even though he was minutes away from hugging his old friend once again.

But the Bible teaches that this death, called the First Death, is not the end of the person at all. The soul separates from the body and lives on. Once you’re conceived, there’s never a moment when you will not exist. When you die, you will not cease to be. You will just be separated from your body for a time. You will experience a kind of relief, a “freeing” from the prison of sin. The believer will be “in Christ.”

But the Bible also teaches that not all people, not even most people, are going to be so happy after death. Those who remain alive may speak wistfully about the deceased being freed from this world of suffering and from a dying body. The one who dies will suddenly experience the certainty that there indeed is an afterlife, that his existence does not come to an end. But for the unbeliever, that will be no comfort. There is a judgment at death. Those without faith in the true Christ are consigned to condemnation and eternal torment.

For believers, the Scriptures speak of the most wonderful of things: our souls join the angels and archangels and the whole company of believers’ souls from Old and New Testament times in the beautiful and blissful presence of God. Our human knowledge, our human imagination, our human language cannot comprehend the glory that awaits us, says God’s Word. But it is wonderful!

If I live to be a hundred, I’ll never forget the grief and pain I felt at my father’s funeral. I loved him so much, my best friend in life—I don’t say that just after his death, but it was so true also during our life together. To lose him so suddenly without getting to talk about his departure or to say good-bye—I really felt, even as a pastor, that I was inconsolable. And then his pastor said these words to our family: “What if you had the wish of Solomon today? What if you could wish for anything and God would make it come true? I know what you’d wish for. Some more time, some more life, at least a day, to spend together and to say good-bye properly. But think about that. Wouldn’t that be a most selfish thing? Would you really call back to earth one you loved so much who has finally achieved the crown of victory and life, who’s left all this misery behind and is in perfect bliss?” (Pause) And after that, it was all over for me, struggling against God and against what I knew to be true. It was no easier or less painful inside me, but I was so happy for him. I was able to say my good-byes for now right there in the pew.

But now for the greatest promise of Scripture, one that goes beyond all the other false religious claims about life after death. Our good-byes are only temporary separations. It might well be that our loved ones, and someday each of us, are simply transferred to Siberia, or some other remote place on earth, where there will never be any communication or contact again. Death brings not the end to our relationships, but only a time of separation. Do you believe this? If you understand this Bible promise and believe it, you will still mourn, but you don’t have to mourn like people who have no hope!

Your fellow Christian has been sent on a long journey, that’s all! Given, there’s no postal service, no phone lines on land or in the air, no e-mail, zero communication and contact. But your separation is only for a time. This is the best of much good news from God!

Christians ought to think about what they say about dying. “We’ve lost her” needs to be qualified, doesn’t it? A Christian has not been lost at death, but has completed his or her finding. The same Jesus who came and found this person at Holy Baptism now takes the person to the place that he himself has prepared for eternal dwelling. A Christian has not been lost to life at all, but has simply changed addresses, and the new address is out-of-this-world awesome!

Or “You’ve got to give him up now,” “You’ve got to let him go.” These are all statements that poor sinners like us use because we don’t know what else to say or do. We have no control over illnesses and accidents and death, do we? So why do we speak that way? We do not have the power to give up or let go. The truth is that God gives life and takes life. He takes life through a variety of ways and means here on earth. The Bible teaches us that for Christians, the day and hour are appointed, chosen by God. The decisions God makes and the actions he takes in our lives are always best. That’s what the Scriptures mean when they say, “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Rom 8:28). We have no choice because God loves us too much to leave such a decision up to us. For each one of us God has a date in history, selected just for us, when he will take us from here to eternity, from death into life.

There is also a day appointed by him for his Son to return in all his glory. The Bible has much to say about this Last Day. No one knows the date and time but God. It will come suddenly upon us, globally, not first across the ocean in Europe and then thirty minutes later here. Jesus will return with all of his angels in a show of absolute divine celestial power, and the end of history and this world as we’ve known it will take place. And then the prophecy of Isaiah will come true. All the dead will be raised. All these physical bodies that were born into sin and death will come back to life, reunited with their souls. How will this be? By the same powerful Word that called everything into existence out of nothing, the resurrection of the dead will occur. Notice how specific Isaiah is in his description: “Their bodies will rise. You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy. . . . The earth will give birth to her dead” (26:19, emphasis added). According to 1 Thessalonians, the dead in Christ, that is, believers, will rise first and be caught up in the sky, along with the believers who are living at the time of the second coming. All these saints of God will then be taken, transferred, to the new heavens and the new earth he will create for our eternal home (4:16–17).

What great promises! We won’t just be souls and spirits floating around in some ethereal heavenly existence. Our souls will rejoin our resurrected and glorified bodies, which the Bible describes as being like Jesus’ resurrected and glorified body. We will see each other again with our eyes, talk with each other again with our tongues and mouths, hug and hold each other again with our arms and hands, walk together, and live together. Only there, unlike here, there will be no more accidents, no more illnesses, no more death, never again a separation of any kind. And best of all, we shall see our Savior face-to-face and live in his glory.

That’s how Lutherans celebrate All Saints’ Day! We look beyond and above. We dream and trust.

III.

But if we wake up alive in this world today, which all of us here have, we realize we must come back to earth. For we don’t become saints only when we die; we are saints already because of faith. Look at the introductions to many of Paul’s Letters: “To the saints in . . .” Rome, Ephesus, Philippi. We are already considered holy in God’s sight because of what Christ has given us by faith.

Just to pull you back to earth, let’s remember there are blessings of sainthood here on earth too. Blessings of great fellowship. First, we are given each other. We are in the Church and, in every true Christian congregation, a company of saints. If we really regarded each other this way, see how it could transform our lives! If we saw each other not only as sinners, but as saints of God, it might be a little harder to be angry at each other, lustful, envious, slanderous, and gossipy. If the saints in the community, in the neighborhood, in congregations, and in homes would treat each other like saints, what a witness we would be to the world! Instead of always trying to reform each other, we would practice more kindness, more gentleness, more patience, more forgiveness.

Let’s not forget the other kind of fellowship we already have here on earth. It’s the fellowship of the Church on earth and the Church in heaven. We are one Church. We are together now. In our experience here, we’re able to realize that at the Communion rail. There the veil that separates saints alive in heaven and saints here on earth is at its very thinnest! It’s true! Through Communion with Christ at his Divine Service, we praise him with the angels and archangels and all the company of heaven! Think about that promise when you have received the body and blood, and know and feel the fellowship you already have!

And all this you have not in your growing, not in your synod membership, not in your church attendance, not in your church work, but all in your Baptism. That’s right. Little Katherine, baptized this morning, received all things in Christ. There’s nothing she lacks; she has received all God’s grace from day one of her Christian life! It really is true—when I die, in a sense, I will have finally caught up with my Baptism!

In a northern Missouri cemetery there’s a gravestone, some hundred years old, with this epitaph:

Pause a moment, stranger, when you pass me by.

As you are now, so once was I;

As I am now, so you will be.

So be prepared, stranger, someday to follow me.

A contemporary poet, posing as a graveyard vandal, added his own addendum:

To follow you I am not content

Until I know which way you went.

You do know, Christian friend and saint, where you’re going, how you’ll get there, and what a wonderful destiny awaits you. Now that’s the way to celebrate All Saints’ Day!

Sermons for All the Saints: A Collection

All Saints’ Day

War and Peace

Revelation 7:9–17

Rev. Richard C. Resch, associate professor, Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana

Sermon Outline

The Saints Look at What It Means to Be the Church Militant.

I. We are the Church Militant because every one of us is under constant attack.

II. But even as the Church Militant, we see the vision of triumph and peace.

Sermon

On September 29, St. Michael’s Day, Christ’s bride heard terrifying news—not for the first time, but yet again: “Woe to the inhabitants of the earth . . . ! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time” (Rev 12:12 NKJV).

That chilling warning was the beginning of a season in the Church’s year of grace called Michaeltide, a time when the saints prepare for war. They sing words like, “Let us put God’s armor on, With all true Christians running Our heav’nly race and shunning The devil’s wiles and cunning” (LW 170:1). And, “Lord, you can help when earthly armor fails us; Lord, you can save when deadly sin assails us” (LW 301:3).

They plead for help as they pray: Give “peace in our hearts, where sinful thought are raging, Peace in your Church, our troubled souls assuaging, Peace when the world its endless war is waging, Peace in your heaven” (LW 301:4). In these end-time days,

The Saints Look at What It Means to Be the Church Militant.

I.

And why should the bride be militant? Because every one of her members is under attack—constantly! Is it not true? You know that it is. Melanchthon said it well in his hymn:

The ancient Dragon is their foe;

His envy and his wrath they know.

It always is his aim and pride

Thy Christian people to divide.

As he of old deceived the world

And into sin and death has hurled,

So now he subtly lies in wait

To ruin school and Church and State. (TLH 254:4–5)

Oh, the saints know all too well what it is like living as Satan’s prey and his desired prize. And his ruthless attempts are no less if you are a pastor, a student of theology, a deaconess, or a professor; in fact, your war will surely be more intense. For that is the reality of life as faithful saints. You are sinners and saints at the same time, with Satan still having his chance at you, but with God having the first and the last word. It’s not the easiest way to live, but it is God’s plan—so it is good.

II.

We also heard on St. Michael’s Day, and in the days since, that God’s loving care will sustain his saints through his gifts of grace in this tribulation and bring them safely home to him. St. Paul says, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom 8:18 ESV).

All Saints’ Day gives us a sorely needed glimpse into our future and the unbelievable glory waiting for us as saints triumphant. And the contrast between the warring and the sublime peace could not be greater.

What is it that we see on this day?

• We see a countless host of saints from every nation at rest and at peace, free from all that sought to crush them while here on earth, free even from bodily needs like hunger and thirst.

• We see a multitude clothed in white robes—the color for purity and righteousness! Robes made dazzlingly white for them by blood, the shed blood of the Lamb.

• And they are carrying palm branches in their hands, for they are celebrating their promised deliverance.

• And they are shouting a full-throated, resounding, magnificent hymn: “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Rev 7:10 ESV). They are confessing in this singing what they have been given and who is the giver. It is the hymn of the redeemed.

And then—the angels join the singing as they behold this manifestation of God’s boundless grace with the words: “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen” (v 12 ESV).

And then an elder asks John, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” (v 13 ESV). The elder then answers his own question, as he teaches with words that could not possibly have more meaning and beauty for each of us. For in these words, we hear what we will one day see with our own eyes.

“These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes” (vv 14–17 ESV).

You have just heard the All Saints’ Day vision of comfort for your days ahead, whatever those days may bring. They are words that cannot help but fill the blessed saints on earth with joy, thanksgiving, confidence, and longing.

In addition to those gifts, what does this vision mean for you sitting there today? You were baptized into Christ. You are his dear child who kneels often, to be filled with him in the Holy Supper that links you to the saints in heaven even now. You already sit at a feast where you taste and see, where you are in his presence, where you join the heavenly song with all the company of heaven. Never are you closer to your sainted loved ones and to your glorious future than at the altar in Holy Communion.

And even though what rages within you is the farthest thing from dazzling white, your white robe has already been purchased, and it is waiting for you, in a time and place where tears will be history.

Sermons for All the Saints: A Collection

All Saints’ Day in Iraq

He Will Wipe Every Tear from Our Eyes

Preached at a Unit memorial service for recently killed service members
who lost their lives in service to their country and the people of Iraq

Q-West Base Complex, Al Qayyarah West, Iraq

Revelation 7:9–17

Other Texts: Psalm 34:1–10; Isaiah 26:1–4, 8–9, 12–13, 19–21; Matthew 5:1–12

Rev. Mark S. Nuckols, DMin, senior pastor, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Austin, Texas (U.S. Army Reserve brigade chaplain, deployed to northern Iraq from October 2004 to October 2005)

Author’s note: In a parish setting, as for the original military occasion, this sermon is intended to serve a dual purpose, celebrating All Saints’ Sunday and commemorating a parish family’s faithful departed of the previous twelve months. The preacher might begin the sermon by announcing the name of each parishioner who has departed in the faith since this time last year, perhaps pausing three to five seconds between names. A bell could be struck or a chime or handbell sounded once after the reading of each name. The reading, “These are they . . .” would follow immediately to begin the sermon proper.

Sermon Outline

Today We Celebrate the Faith in Which These Loved Ones of Ours Died, and in Which We Continue to Stand, as We Await Our Own Death.

I. Death is frightening to face, with all its questions and uncertainties.

II. But we can picture loved ones who’ve gone before who, despite their failures, were acceptable to God by faith in Jesus Christ.

III. And we are linked to them by the same faith in Christ Jesus.

Sermon

“These are they who have . . . washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore, ‘they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple. . . . For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes’ ” (vv 14–15, 17).

I miss them. I miss their antics, their kindnesses, and their examples of Christian love and forgiveness. Each of their lives was intertwined with your lives and with mine. We were knit together, weren’t we? Bound as one in something, or rather Someone, greater than each of us individually. We were bound in the One who is our Shepherd, our Lord Jesus. We saw our loved ones gathered around this holy altar with us, communing with us and we with them, and ultimately we, as a parish family, with the host and the meal, our dear Savior. We were privileged to have witnessed some of their Baptisms, their confirmations, and their marriages. How grateful are we to have enjoyed them and to have experienced them. Reflecting upon their deaths, we are able to surmise that some of their lives were ended quite abruptly, while others lingered, awaiting their release from this vale of tears.

Today We Celebrate the Faith in Which These Loved Ones of Ours Died, and in Which We Continue to Stand, as We Await Our Own Death.

I.

It is quite sobering to consider our own mortality, isn’t it? Questions arise in our minds regarding such serious matters. How will it happen? When will it occur? Will it be soon, or will it be decades away? These inquisitions become Satan’s playground, within which our minds hopelessly wander.

As was said before, we are celebrating the faith in which all these pious died, for the psalmist wrote, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints” (116:15). Their death is precious to their Shepherd because they have died believing in the declaration made by John in his Revelation concerning them, “These are they who have . . . washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore, ‘they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple’ ” (vv 14–15).

Death is a frightening thing to face, because we will all face it alone. Alone, meaning that we will not be experiencing it with anyone else, as it is an intensely private matter. Facing such uncertainty alone tempts us to lean upon our own reason or our own understanding, yet to do so leads us only to disappointment and despair. How do we know that we have a correct understanding of things? Am I really convinced or convicted of such truths that seem so distant and unembraceable?

II.

We face death alone, but we can picture others who’ve gone before us—and before the dear ones we actually remember today. You know the kind: He was a loving father, for the most part. He was faithful to his wife and to his children. He did not run around on them. Instead, every evening he always dutifully came home from work. Money was not squandered foolishly; rather, it was spent sparingly in order to afford the important basics of food and clothing. Rational excuses could be made for any lack of parenting skills and for his semi-stable marriage. Isn’t it interesting that some of his children remember him as more of a saint than a sinner, and yet the others remember him as more of a sinner than a saint?

At the family gatherings, before and after the funeral, memories of him as a father and husband would be recalled by his children, as well as by his bride of over fifty years. Depending upon the listeners, his life would be regaled by his family with selective memory loss—so many emotions and so many recollections with which to wrestle in the process of their mourning. But here in the church, sitting in the pews that had held them as a family, along with other sinners and other sin-filled families, this father’s accomplishments and this father’s failures are all forced out from the center of consideration and attention. Here, there is only one thing that is to be front and center, and that is the shed blood of Christ for this sinful man who was both a sinful father and a sinful husband. But because of the heavenly Father’s great love for such a sinner as he, his robe was washed in the blood of the Lamb in his Baptism.

Before this father and husband was ever given the gift of fulfilling these vocations, he was called acceptable and loved by his heavenly Father. He was given this declaration when he was baptized, because his Savior’s acceptability to the Father was counted as his own. It was his Jesus who received the divine retribution for all of his failures to be the exemplary husband. It was his Jesus who was counted as the hard father who never caught the children being obedient and loving, but rather seemed always to catch them being disobedient and selfish. This sinful father and husband, by faith in his heavenly Father’s affirmation, in his Baptism received this blessing: “You are my beloved son; with you I am well pleased.”

This is the faith in which each of our beloved departed in Christ closed their eyes and died. This is also the faith that was given to their children in spite of their sins. This is the faith that has been sustaining their spouses throughout their marriages and parenthood. This is the central matter that we celebrate and on which we focus this Sunday of All Saints. We are all bound up in this declaration of the faith by our own faith in it.

III.

Those who have preceded us in death are linked together with all who have preceded them in this same faith, just as we are linked to them and to all who have preceded us in death. We, together with them, are a part of the unbroken chain of the one holy, Christian, and apostolic faith. We are the communion of saints. What a blessed heritage for us and for our children and for our children’s children. Just as they passed it on to us, so we pass it on to others that they, too, would be knit into this great tapestry known as sinners/saints.

The faith of all who have been baptized into Christ is fed and nourished by regaling the work of our Jesus for us. The benefits of his work are distributed to us through his gift of that meal that binds us to all the saints on earth with those in heaven. Here, at his Table, we gather as one body, feeding upon the one loaf and drinking from the one cup, declaring to one another the central matter of all our lives, the faith in the giver of this wondrous gift, Jesus Christ crucified and risen for us and for those whom we mourn.

Temptation continually assails us to focus on the achievements won for God’s kingdom by his children, rather than focusing upon the achievement won for God’s kingdom in Christ’s death for us all. How comforting for us to be bound up in a faith that declares that those who die in this faith are standing before the throne of God, not with shame or with guilt or even with tears, but with confidence. This confidence is born from the work of God in us who are sinful clay pots. The focus is on the One who fills us as clay pots, rather than on our inherently sinful clay pot-ness.

In remembering those who have preceded us in death, we remember, rather, that they have preceded us in experiencing eternal life with all who believe as we do. We, too, shall be reunited with them, standing before the throne of God with no shame of our failures as husbands and wives, with no regret from our disappointing parenting skills, and with no recollection of our misguided and misplaced affections. We, with them, will stand clothed in robes made white by the blood of the Lamb, who was slain for us and now lives for us that we may live eternally. Rejoice, my brothers. Rejoice, my sisters. We share this one faith in common and are bound eternally with them, with one another and with the One on whom our faith rests and clings, even Jesus Christ. Amen.

Thanksgiving Day

In the Land of Our Suffering

Genesis 41:41–42:2

Rev. Leonard B. Poppe, pastor, Immanuel Lutheran Church and Zion Lutheran Church, Lincoln, Missouri

Sermon Outline

1. Is it not illogical that there should be any joy in a fallen world?

2. Even in a fallen world, Joseph went from rags to riches.

3. But Joseph realized that despite the blessings, this was still his “land of suffering.”

4. Through Jesus Christ, the future son of Joseph’s brother, we are indeed blessed even in a fallen world.

God Has Made Us Fruitful in the Land of Our Suffering.

5. Therefore we look forward also to being taken from our land of suffering to our real home.

Sermon

“The second son he [Joseph] named Ephraim and said, ‘It is because God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering’ ” (Gen 41:52).

When we experience sorrow or tragedy, we might think, This isn’t the way life’s supposed to be. Indeed, God created this world, and his finished product was perfect. Then our sin corrupted the world, and now we long for things to be as they should be.

1.

However, today is Thanksgiving, the day when we remember with gratitude the good things and the blessings in our lives—and our lives are not just sorrow and tragedy. We all must admit there are some grand things in our lives; some of us might even say life is enjoyable. Is that the way life is supposed to be—enjoyable? This is, after all, a fallen, broken world cursed with sin. Is it not illogical that there should be any joy in a fallen world?

This morning we will take a look at the life of Joseph—not Joseph of the Christmas narratives, but Joseph in the Old Testament, the guy with the coat of many colors, the guy whose brothers sold him into slavery.

2.

Joseph’s ten older brothers hated him—mostly because their father, Jacob, played favorites. There were also these dreams Joseph had in which his brothers bowed down to him and paid him honor. This hatred was so intense that the ten brothers wanted to kill Joseph. Instead, they sold him into slavery. Now before you think that slavery is not as bad as murder, think about it: his brothers sold him into slavery! Despicable!

At age 17, Joseph was carted off to Egypt, and then, the way events unfolded there, he was imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit. For thirteen long years, Joseph was a slave and prisoner—all of it undeserved, all of it acutely unfair.

Then one day, Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, was troubled by a dream. Joseph was called in to interpret it, and at that point, a new chapter in his life began. Joseph woke up in a dungeon that morning but went to bed in a palace that night; he woke up wearing rags but ended the day wearing the robes of a prince; he began that day as a dirty, forgotten prisoner but ended the day as the leader of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh.

Literally, rags to riches. After a series of terribly unfortunate events comes unexpected and unimaginable good fortune. So how would you feel? Maybe Prime Minister Joseph thought, Wow! This is all right! This must be what God had in mind for me all along. If this were a fairy tale, we would have ended the story right here and said, “They all lived happily ever after.” But life with God is more complex than that.

As Joseph sat back and looked over all he’d accomplished, pondered how God had blessed him so exceedingly, Joseph’s first thought may have been that he’d been vindicated of his brothers’ treatment—the cruel words and the cruel actions, their selling him into slavery. In fact, we can see this attitude in the way Joseph named his first son. Scripture records that “Joseph named his firstborn Manasseh [the name Manasseh means “to forget”] and said, ‘It is because God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father’s household.’ ” It was as though Joseph thought, Ah, now this is heaven; this is God’s purpose for me; this is the way life is supposed to be.

3.

However, further reflection caused Joseph to realize that, no, all this wealth, power, and honor was not vindication. This good fortune was not the essence of life. Joseph’s deepened and changed understanding is reflected in the name he gave to his second son, Ephraim (the name Ephraim means “fruitful”). Joseph said, “God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering.”

4.

This is what Joseph realized: Egypt was not the land of his power and wealth. In reality, for Joseph, it was the land of slavery and imprisonment; Egypt was not home. His proper place was back in Canaan with his father—and with his brothers. And Joseph realized that it was illogical that he should have power and wealth in Egypt, the land of his suffering. But God in his grace made these things the way they should not be in a broken, unfair situation.

Indeed, later in the text we see even more the depth of God’s love, how contrary is his response to man’s sinful behavior, when it’s revealed that God was using Joseph’s situation in Egypt to rescue from famine and starvation the very brothers who had sold Joseph into slavery! Patience, love, and mercy could not be more plainly seen than in God using mankind’s sin to rescue mankind—just as when Jesus “suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried” for us and for our salvation.

Sometimes it may be difficult for us to remember that this is a fallen world. We have the best medical care ever imagined. We’re presently at war, but the war isn’t in our cities or anywhere close to our shores. Our lives are filled with technological toys that a just-wakened sleeper from the 1950s would consider magic. Stand on the rim of the Grand Canyon at sunset or fly over the sapphire blue waters of Crater Lake, and the beauty will take your breath away. America is still a land of opportunity, where a person with wisdom and a taste for hard work can make great wealth. However, we must remember that this is a broken, fallen, cursed world. Neither this world nor this country is the home where our lives are to be fulfilled or where our hurts are to be vindicated. This is a fallen world. It’s illogical that we should have the comforts and happiness we have. The only way to appreciate what we have is to see with a maturing faith that the blessings of this life are all undeserved gifts.

God Has Made Us Fruitful in the Land of Our Suffering.

As I said earlier, Joseph was given grace to see that God used a bad situation to save his family from an even worse fate. But something Joseph could only see dimly at that time—and this was more important than providing food for his brothers’ hungry children—was his connection to the future birth of Jesus Christ and Jesus’ connection to the world’s salvation. Jesus was a son of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and of Joseph’s brother Judah—the brother, by the way, who came up with the idea of selling Joseph into slavery. We must admit it’s illogical for God, who insists on justice and holiness, to be kind to us and bless us with good things. What causes God to see us sinners in a different light? Jesus does, because he offered himself as a substitute, a sacrifice; he died on the cross. And because of that one act, which transcends all time, our sins are not counted against us, no matter what those sins have been. Through the cross God sees you as the perfect creation he originally intended you to be.

5.

I hope that through the story of Joseph you understand that the happiness and material security we have now is not simply for our own entertainment. It is not just for ourselves, providence for a single generation. God has in mind the welfare of our children and our children’s children. But more than anything, the events of our life now, both the good and the bad, God has connected integrally with salvation. Today we say, “Thank you, God, for making us fruitful in the land of our suffering.” But remember, this is a broken, fallen, cursed world—and God wants something better for us. Our future is not here in the land of our suffering, just as Joseph’s home was not in Egypt. Your real homecoming will be in heaven, and that is why Jesus died for you and lives for you.

Illustration: A man was dealing with his grief the day after his mother’s funeral. He was a gentle man and a loving father, carefully watching for the opportunity to talk with his six-year-old son about his grandmother’s death. Since Christ had surrounded this family for many generations, this man knew a few things to say when it came to the death of a Christian.

“Daddy, why did Grandma stop talking and eating? Every day she got worse.”

He explained about Adam’s sin, a broken world, and how Jesus’ death and resurrection is the way God is making all things new. “Grandma, you and I, and all who trust in Jesus will live again, just like Jesus did. We will all live in heaven forever. We will never be sick, and we will always be happy. Nothing bad will ever happen there.”

“Will every day be better than the one before?”

The father thought about that and agreed. “Yes, every day will be better than the one before.”

We are grateful that God has made us fruitful in the land of our suffering. But today we are most thankful that, for Jesus’ sake, we will be taken from our land of suffering to our heavenly home, where each new day is better than the day before.

Funeral Sermon

Departing This Life in Peace

Luke 2:28–32

Rev. Robert W. Hill, senior pastor, Faith Lutheran Church, Plano, Texas

Sermon Outline

These Words of Simeon Are the Words of Every Believer in Christ and Were, in a Special Way, the Words of Doris in Her Life.

I. Doris, with every believer, has been enabled to declare with Simeon, “My eyes have seen your salvation.”

II. Doris and every believer have been enabled to declare with Simeon, “Now you are letting your servant depart in peace.”

Sermon

“Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel” (Lk 2:29–32 ESV).

Dear friends in Christ, and especially you, Mary and Cheryl:

The words of our text were often spoken or sung by your mother. They are part of the liturgy of Holy Communion. The week before the Lord called her home, your mother sang, at least mentally, these words, along with the congregation, after receiving the Lord’s Supper.

These words were first spoken by Simeon. The Holy Spirit had revealed to him that he would not die before seeing the promised Savior. Then the Holy Spirit moved him to be in the temple when Mary and Joseph brought in the baby Jesus, just forty days old, to present him to the Lord as was prescribed in the Law of Moses. And the Holy Spirit revealed that this baby, whom the angel had announced to the shepherds as “Christ the Lord” (Lk 2:11), and who John the Evangelist says is the Word, the Creator, made flesh (Jn 1:14), is the very promised Savior. Finally, the Holy Spirit gave Simeon this confession of faith: “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation” (vv 29–30 ESV).

These same words the Holy Spirit has also given us to proclaim. In fact, in this celebration of the resurrection that Christ has given Doris, we will observe how

These Words of Simeon Are the Words of Every Believer in Christ and Were, in a Special Way, the Words of Doris in Her Life.

I.

In these words of Simeon, “My eyes have seen your salvation” (v 30 ESV), we know that he recognized, by the power of the Holy Spirit, that this baby Jesus was the promised Savior. Here was the fulfillment of the promise to Adam and Eve, when they fell into sin and the terror of death came upon them, how God would provide the Seed of the woman to crush the head of the serpent, which brought sin and death and bondage into the world. This is that Child, born of the Virgin: Immanuel, God with us. “My eyes have seen your salvation.”

The conversation with Joseph and Mary revealed that Simeon saw more than a baby. The Holy Spirit revealed to him what this baby would accomplish as a grown man. “This child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel,” he told them, “and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed” (vv 34–35 ESV). As one who waited for the consolation of Israel, Simeon, who undoubtedly knew the Scriptures, would remember that the Servant of Yahweh would be “despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief [just as you today experience sorrow and grief]. . . . He was wounded for our transgressions; . . . upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. . . . He was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people” (Is 53:3, 5, 8 ESV). Did the Holy Spirit reveal the scene thirty-three years hence beneath the cross, the mocking “He saved others; himself he cannot save” (Mk 15:31 KJV); Mary, beneath the cross, hearing the words of her Son, “Woman, behold your son! . . . [Son,] behold your mother” (Jn 19:26–27 NKJV)? Did the Holy Spirit bring to Simeon that “the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor 1:18 NKJV)? His words would lead us to say, “Yes! This Child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against” (see v 34 NKJV). More than a baby, One who would bear the curse of sin, death, and eternal damnation and would grant salvation to all who believe. “My eyes have seen your salvation” (v 30 ESV).

Doris, too, was privileged to see her salvation, though not physically while taking him up in her arms as Simeon did. She saw him by faith when he took her up in his arms in the water of Baptism, being joined to him in his death and resurrection when she received that Blessed Sacrament. Her eyes saw the Savior through the preaching of the Word and at the Lord’s Table on Sunday mornings.

Luke the Evangelist, who so near the beginning of his Gospel records this account of Simeon seeing his salvation, later, near the end of his book, tells of two disciples of Jesus whose eyes were kept from seeing. On the afternoon of our Lord’s resurrection, the two were leaving Jerusalem in despair over Christ’s crucifixion. On their way, the risen Lord Jesus joined them, enquiring why they were so sad. They expressed deep disappointment that this Jesus, in whom they had placed such hope, was dead. Their eyes did not see that this was Jesus talking to them. Then he opened to them the Scriptures and explained that the Christ must suffer, die, and rise again. As they came to their destination for the day, they invited Jesus to stay with them that evening. And when they sat down to eat, Jesus, “when he had given thanks” (1 Cor 11:24 ESV), “took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him” (Lk 24:30–31 ESV). When he was gone, they reminisced, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” (Lk 24:32). Their eyes were opened; they saw their Savior through the Word of Holy Scripture and in the breaking of bread. How like every believer!

Doris saw her Savior through the preaching of the Word every Sunday, when the Scriptures were opened to us, and she was shown that the Christ, the Savior, must suffer, die, and rise again to bear her sins and reconcile her to her heavenly Father. She saw her Savior in the breaking of the bread, a term used by the Early Church for the Sacrament of the Altar, where he gives us his body and blood under the bread and wine for the forgiveness of sins. She could say with Simeon, “My eyes have seen your salvation” (v 30 ESV).

II.

Because Simeon saw this salvation, he said, “Now you are letting your servant depart in peace” (v 29 ESV).

That could mean, “I can leave knowing my sins are forgiven, and I can go serve my Lord. I now have a living hope. This Light to lighten the Gentiles removes the darkness of my despair. I’m ready to go out and live.”

Doris could say that too. In her youth, she went forth, singing the praise of her Lord in the choirs at church. She served her Lord as a mother to her children, and when her husband died an untimely death, she bore the burden alone. When the voice and lungs no longer let her sing, she chose to serve with the sewing ladies, making quilts for World Relief. People who sat near her on Sunday mornings, wheelchair bound as she was, were encouraged by her cheerful smile. She could say, “I’m ready to live. My eyes have seen my Savior.”

But when Simeon said, “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace” (v 29 ESV), he might have simply stated, “I am ready to die. I have seen my Savior.” The Holy Spirit revealed to him that he would not see death until he had seen the promised Savior.

We tend to think of Simeon as old, because he spoke these words. Not necessarily so. The same words could be spoken if he were younger and had a terminal illness. For that matter, he could have been young and healthy. Death comes to all people, young and old, sick and well. It’s been so since the fall of Adam: “Just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Rom 5:12 ESV). Scripture also reminds us that not all people die in peace. Death holds terror for the unbelievers, because they will be eternally damned. “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb 10:31 ESV). Intuitively, all people know that when they die, they will have to stand before their Creator. If people come before him in their own righteousness, which the Bible says are as “filthy rags” (Is 64:6), then there can be no peace in dying. They can only anticipate the Judge of the whole earth saying, “Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire” (Mt 25:41 NKJV). Simeon and Doris could say, “I am ready to die in peace, not because of the good things I have done, not because I have lived a good life, but because “my eyes have seen your salvation” (v 30 ESV). There is only one way to die in peace, and that is seeing by faith the Savior born at Christmas, who died on Good Friday and was raised on Easter morning to conquer sin, death, and Satan. The Holy Spirit gave them that peace.

Doris was eighty-four years old. People of that age know that death cannot be very long off. She could say in old age, especially those last years with emphysema, “I don’t have long to live!” But even in her youth, and throughout her years, as one whose eyes of faith saw her Savior, she could say, “Now let your servant depart in peace. I am ready to die because in his Word and Sacrament I have seen my Savior.”

Having seen her Savior, she knew that at the moment of death she would hear the words of her Savior, “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Lk 23:43). In fact, the longing of the apostle Paul may also have been hers when he said, “I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far” (Phil 1:23). She could die with the confidence that this lowly body, wheelchair bound, will be transformed like his glorious body (Phil 3:21). Because she saw her crucified and risen Lord, she could confess, “When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory’ ” (1 Cor 15:54 ESV). She, with all believers, could go on to taunt, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 15:55–57 KJV).

If Doris could speak with us as one of those in the great cloud of witnesses who have finished the race, as described in Hebrews 12, she would, from the vantage of her seat in the stadium of eternal joy and glory, say to you, children, grandchildren, friends, and fellow church members, still in the race, “Lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race” (Heb 12:1 ESV). And “fix [your] eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith” (Heb 12:2). Keep your eyes on Jesus, by continuing to hear and learn the Word of God. Come to the Lord’s Table, so that the Holy Spirit continually leads you to be ready, so that you may live and die in the words of Simeon, “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation” (vv 29–30 ESV). Amen.

Wedding Sermon

Be Our Guest

Matthew 18:20

Rev. Robert W. Hill, senior pastor, Faith Lutheran Church, Plano, Texas

Sermon Outline

Christ Wants to Be a Guest in Your Home.

I. Christ wants to be your guest, giving you a Savior from sin.

II. Christ wants to be your guest, enabling you to forgive and love one another and providing you what you need for this body and life.

Sermon

Dear name and name, along with friends and relatives gathered here for your special day:

You chose these words of our Lord Jesus Christ for your wedding text: “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” (Mt 18:20 ESV). You chose this text because you want the Lord to be a guest in your home. The text indicates that, indeed,

Christ Wants to Be a Guest in Your Home.

I.

Our Savior’s desire to be a guest in your home is a desire to give what you need most: a Savior from sin. Today, you may not see that need very clearly. Your thoughts are, “We’re in love and shall live happily ever after.” You may recall that “happily ever after” was the fairy-tale ending, not real life. After only a short time in your marriage, your need for the One who came to be your Savior from sin will become clear. You will be shocked on occasion to see how selfish, mean, and inconsiderate you can be.

Two people living in the same home will have conflict. Sin has wrecked many homes and marriages. Within many marriages, Jesus’ description of humanity is obvious: “Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander” (Mt 15:19 ESV). When your sins drive a wedge between you, remember that even more seriously do your sins separate you and your God, bringing eternal wrath upon you.

Let me repeat: what you need, on that day and every day, is the Savior from sin. He is eager to be your guest, providing you daily with the forgiveness of sins. This One who promises to be your guest is the heavenly Bridegroom who gave himself for you, so that he might sanctify and cleanse you with the washing of water by the Word, that he may present you to himself a glorious bride, not having spot or wrinkle, that you should be holy and without blemish. This happened when he laid down his life to bear the curse of your sin on the cross. He is the One who, through the Absolution in the Divine Service, says, “I forgive you all your sins.” This is he who gives his body and blood in the Sacrament for the forgiveness of sins.

II.

As your guest, Christ wants to give you an additional blessing: the power and grace to forgive one another. Immediately after this verse in the Gospel of Matthew, Peter asks the Lord, “How many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” (Mt 18:21). He could have asked, “How many times shall I forgive my wife?” Jesus replied to Peter, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times” (v 22). Your happy life together in marriage is not contingent on perfection. It is dependent on forgiveness, again and again and again, just as God, for Jesus’ sake, has forgiven you. This power to forgive will come only when he is a guest in your home.

Love is also one of his blessings. “We love because he first loved us” (1 Jn 4:19 ESV). This is the love that “suffers long and is kind; [that] does not envy; . . . does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil” (1 Cor 13:4–5 NKJV). The Lord dwelling in your midst will enable you to walk in love, just as Christ loved you and gave himself for you.

One of the prayers we Lutherans often pray is, “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest.” The couple in Cana of Galilee invited Jesus to be their guest, and he who was their guest then served as host, providing them with wine of abundance and superior quality. He alleviated their embarrassment and provided them with this material need in a miraculous way. As you pray, “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest,” you can also be assured that he will provide you with what you need for this body and life. He will calm the storms that arise in this fallen world, assuring you that he will work all things together for the good of those who love him (Rom 8:28). He serves as your comfort in grief and in death, for he is the resurrection and the life (Jn 11:25).

The Savior is delighted to hear you pray, “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest.” Remember that our Lord comes to us through his Word and Sacrament. Gather with those who confess Christ every Sunday to hear his Word and receive his body and blood in Holy Communion. Join in singing the hymns that declare his wondrous love and extol his marvelous grace. Gather day by day in his name, just the two of you, reading the Scriptures, praying together, and singing his praises. This is how he becomes a guest in your home. Then you will see that this guest comes with abundant blessing for your marriage, your home, and your eternal home in heaven. Amen.

Children’s Messages

Pentecost 15, September 17, 2006

Armed against the Devil

Text: Ephesians 6:10–20

Visuals: picture of ancient or modern soldier wearing protective armor or gear, picture of football or hockey player wearing protective equipment, Bible

Summary: God’s armor protects us and gives us victory over the devil.

Dolores E. Hermann

St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church, Park Ridge, Illinois

Show one picture at a time and ask, What is this person wearing? Why would someone wear all this stuff? Football players, hockey players, and soldiers wear special clothes and equipment. Practically their whole bodies are protected from being hurt by the enemy. The enemy would be the other team or an enemy soldier. Besides protection for defense, hockey players have a stick to use on offense. Soldiers today use a gun. In Bible times, soldiers could use a bow and arrow or a sword.

Our Bible reading tells us about a spiritual battle. We Christians are fighting against an enemy. Who might that be? Encourage answers such as sinful desires, peer pressure to sin, other temptations. Then focus on the devil as captain of the enemy army. The devil is God’s enemy. He’s our enemy too, because he tries very hard to get people to go to hell. The devil doesn’t want anyone to go to heaven.

We are children of God through Baptism and faith in Jesus Christ, God’s Son. God promises to bring us to live with him in heaven forever. There will be no fighting in heaven, only peace. But until then, we must fight against the devil.

Let’s put on God’s armor now. With every sentence, pretend to put on the piece of armor. Around our waist is the truth about God, which protects us from lies. Righteousness over our chest is the righteousness of Jesus himself, which God gives us in Baptism. The pastor makes the sign of the cross on our chest (and forehead) to show that we are redeemed by Christ, the crucified. Spiritual shoes on our feet help us go tell others about Jesus. Faith in Jesus is the shield that protects us from the devil’s flaming arrows. The helmet of salvation is the forgiveness of our sins because Jesus died for us.

To attack, we use the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. Hold up the Bible. The Spirit works through the Word to win over evil. The Spirit and the Word bring people out of the devil’s power and into God’s army, and finally into heaven. The last weapon God gives us is prayer. God always hears and answers our prayers in the best way. Close with prayer.

Pentecost 16, September 24, 2006

Mirror, Mirror

Text: James 1:17–22 (23–25) 26–27

Visuals: Bible, powdered-sugar donut, hand mirror, napkin; optional: small bag for each child containing mini-donut, mirror with Bible sticker on it, napkin

Summary: God’s Law, like a mirror, shows us how messy in sin we are, but the Gospel wipes us clean.

Deborah K. Schmich

St. John’s Lutheran Church, Arnold, Missouri

Hello, girls and boys! This morning I ate a good breakfast, so I’d have a lot of energy for the rest of the day. I had juice, a piece of toast, and a large bowl of cereal. But even when I eat a good breakfast, sometimes I like to have a special treat, like a donut, later in the morning. Take out donut, getting powdered sugar on your fingers. I like powdered-sugar donuts, but I always get sugar on my fingers and face. Demonstrate by getting a little sugar on your face. Did I get sugar on my face? Let’s see. Look in mirror. Yes, I need to wipe the sugar off my face. Wipe your face.

Listen while I read from today’s second Bible reading. Read James 1:23–24. The Bible is God’s book. In it, God tells us about himself. He tells us how he sent his Son, Jesus, to be our Savior. That’s the Gospel. He also tells us how we are to live. That’s the Law.

The Law in the Bible is like a mirror. If we don’t do what it says, we’re like a person who looks in the mirror, sees that his face is dirty—or has sugar on it!—but doesn’t wipe it off. What are some of the things the Bible tells us to do? What are some of God’s laws? Encourage responses. You shall have no other gods. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God. You shall not murder. You shall not steal. These are some of the Ten Commandments.

When we do bad things like hitting other children or not sharing, when we don’t do what the Bible says, then, just as the mirror showed me I had sugar on my face, God’s Word shows us we’ve done something wrong.

But the Gospel in the Bible says that Jesus is our Savior. He died on the cross to save us from our sins. We’ve been baptized in Jesus’ name, so we are children of God. Because of Jesus, God loves us and forgives us even when we don’t do what he says. He makes us able to love him and live as Christians, so that we can say kind words, obey Mom and Dad, and be eager to worship him. Thank God that he forgives us because Jesus loved us and died on the cross to save us. He wipes away our sins and helps us live as God’s baptized children. Isn’t that wonderful!

Optional: Give a little donut, napkin, and mirror to each child.

Pentecost 17, October 1, 2006

Our Family Name

Text: Mark 8:27–35

Visuals: All are gathered at or around the baptismal font.

Summary: Jesus’ other name, Christ, gives us our family name too.

Rev. Jeffrey M. Kuddes, pastor

Trinity Lutheran Church, Waltham, Minnesota, and St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Hollandale, Minnesota

Who are you? What’s your name? Do any of you have two names? I do. My first name is __________. But I also have a last name: ___________. Both names are important, aren’t they? Our first names tell who we are in our families; you and your brothers and sisters each need different first names so you know which present is yours at Christmastime. But your last name is important too, because it tells which family you’re in.

In our Gospel reading today, Jesus asked his disciples who he was. They knew his name, what we’d call his first name, Jesus. But Jesus was asking for something more, sort of like another name, that would tell more about him. And Peter said, “You are the Christ” (v 29). Jesus is the Christ. Say this with me, “Jesus is the Christ.” Children repeat.

Did you know that all of you have another name, the same name? Know what that name is? It’s Christian. Christian is a name like another last name because it says what family you’re in. When you hear the name Christian, do you hear another name? Do you hear the name Christ? Jesus Christ. Say your first name, followed by Christian. Now you say that too: your first name and Christian as your last name. Have children say them aloud simultaneously. Christian is the name God gave you right here, when you were baptized. And, like your last name, it tells you the family you’re in.

When you were baptized, the pastor said, “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” That means when you were baptized, God gave you his name, and that means he made you members of his family. God’s family is the family of Christ, or Christians. That’s a great thing! Now when you do wrong, when you disobey your parents, or when you’re mean to others, God, as a loving Father, speaks to you, his family, and tells you you’ve sinned. But then through Pastor here on Sunday morning, God also speaks forgiveness to us because we’re his family, the family of Christ, Christians.

Jesus, the Christ, took away your sin by dying on the cross and rising to life from the dead. Because you have his name and are members of his family, you’ll live with him forever and ever. Who are you? You’re a Christian. Thanks be to God!

Pentecost 18, October 8, 2006

He Gives More Grace

Text: James 3:16–4:6

Visuals: lots of play money

Summary: We often covet, but Jesus gives us more grace—forgiveness and eternal riches.

Rev. Jeffrey M. Kuddes, pastor

Trinity Lutheran Church, Waltham, Minnesota, and St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Hollandale, Minnesota

I need two volunteers. Thanks. I’m going to give each of you some money. Show that you have lots, then give each of the two children a few bills. What could you each do with that money? Look, I’ve got lots left. To the first child: Have some more money. What could you do with that much now? Still to the first child: Would you like some more? Sure. What could you do with all that? Continue to give more bills to the first child, asking what he or she could do with the greater and greater amounts, until all the money is gone. Before each new award, turn toward the second child, but then always turn away without giving him or her any more money.

Now to the second child: Would you like some more money too? What would you do if you had as much money as first child? Just think of it! All the things you could buy! Sorry, I’m all out—but first child has plenty. Would you like some of his? Think of everything you could buy!

Kind of tempting, isn’t it? Now take the money back from both. Lots of times when we see how much others have, or what cool things others have (list a few of the items the children said they’d buy), we start to want them too. And sometimes we start to want them badly enough to wish we could have theirs, even if that means taking it away from them. Does anybody know what that’s called? It’s called coveting, and coveting is a sin. Even if we don’t actually take anything away from the other person, just wishing like that is a sin. And often that wishing leads us to argue or fight or even steal.

Know what, though? We actually have lots more than all that money, something much more important. You know what that is! It’s the love of Jesus. We call it grace. Jesus died on the cross to give us grace, his love, and the forgiveness of our sins. We need more and more grace every day, because we do often covet or argue or fight or even steal. But for every time we sin, God gives us more grace, more love, more forgiveness. And because he gives us that, he also gives us everything else we need—including riches someday beyond all the money in the world. In heaven, we’ll have more than money can buy. We’ll be with Jesus forever—and that is far more!

Pentecost 19, October 15, 2006

No Worries!

Text: Numbers 11:4–6, 10–16, 24–29

Visuals: bird in birdcage or hamster or other small animal in cage

Summary: Because we are God’s children, he will provide for us.

Katherine S. Perkins, seventh-grade teacher

Christ Lutheran School, La Mesa, California

Good morning! I brought a very special guest to church with me today. It’s my pet bird, Abby. Do any of you have a pet? Allow responses. What kind of things do you need to do to make sure your pet stays healthy? Provide food, water, clean cage, and so forth.

When I first got Abby, she was very skittish. She would fly around the cage, bumping into the bars. When I’d come close to the cage, she’d really go crazy! I wonder if she was thinking, What’s going to happen to me in this cage? How will I find something to eat? How will I get something to drink? How can I take care of myself? See, she didn’t know yet that I really wanted her to be my pet. But when I saw Abby at the pet store, I knew she was going to be my special pet.

Do you know what I also bought at the pet store? That’s right, food to keep Abby healthy. Every day, I fill up this cup with food, and I fill up this cup with water.

Does Abby have to worry? No! Now that I’ve had her for a while, she’s learned to trust me. She knows she belongs to me, and that I’ll take very good care of her. Now when Abby sees me, she chirps at me. I think that’s her way of saying, “Thank you!”

I wonder if sometimes we feel like Abby did when I first got her. What’s going to happen to me? How will I take care of myself? When we start thinking like that, it’s called worry.

In our first Bible reading today, the people of Israel were wandering in the wilderness and began to worry that they wouldn’t have anything to eat. They were just like Abby when she was flying all over the cage! Moses, their leader, was worried too. He didn’t know what to do. But God took care of all those people by giving them thousands of quail, like chicken, to eat, and he took care of Moses by giving him assistants to help lead the people.

God doesn’t want us to worry, so he’ll always take care of us as well. Can you think of things God does for you so you don’t have to worry? Allow responses. Know why God takes such good care of us? Because his Son, Jesus, by dying on the cross, took away the sin that had made us enemies of God. Now we’re his special children, so he always takes care of us, even for all eternity with him in heaven.

Pentecost 20, October 22, 2006

Big Plans

Text: Genesis 2:18–24

Visuals: baby bonnet, Little League cap, ballerina headpiece, graduation cap, bride’s veil, man’s top hat—any other hats that you can come up with that symbolize a stage in life or a career

Summary: Because we have become God’s children through Baptism, God has a wonderful, individual plan for each of our lives.

Katherine S. Perkins, seventh-grade teacher

Christ Lutheran School, La Mesa, California

Good morning. I’ll need several volunteers throughout my message today to be my models.

I’d like you to think what each of these hats means when you see someone wearing them. Dress up volunteers in the various hats; arrange them chronologically. Start with baby bonnet. When you were a baby, your mom or dad put a baby bonnet on your head. Maybe you had a special bonnet that you wore when you were baptized. On that day, God gave you the forgiveness of sins Jesus earned for you on the cross, and you became God’s special child. That means he has a special plan for each of your lives.

Go to baseball hat: Maybe you play a sport like baseball. You’re very good in sports, so your parents take you to practice and to games. Ballerina headpiece: Maybe you’re not interested in sports, so you like to dance! Your special gift means you get to wear a pretty headpiece like this! Graduation cap: When you’re done with high school, you’ll be a graduate, and at your graduation, you may wear a hat like this. You’ll also wear a hat like this when you graduate from college.

It may seem like a very long time from now that you’ll have a job. What are some jobs that would be fun to have?

Go to bridal veil and groom’s top hat: What do these headpieces remind you of? That’s right! A bride and a groom. Someday, God’s plan for your life may include getting married. Did you know that getting married is God’s idea? He says it in his Word. Read Gen 2:24.

God knows what each of you is going to be when you grow up. As you continue to grow up, you’ll get bigger, stronger, and smarter. Someday, you may have a house and a car, just like your mom and dad have now. You might be a mom or a dad yourself! All this is growing up to be what Jesus made you by dying for you. And since you’re God’s child, you’ll grow closer to him. He’ll guide you. When you’re grown up, you might be a firefighter or a teacher or a pastor. You might also be married someday. Whatever he chooses for you will be perfect for you!

Reformation Day (Observed), October 29, 2006

Reformation Truth: It’s Free!

Text: John 8:31–36

Visuals: bag of candy (or lots of stickers) to give out as rewards; ahead of time, ask a high school youth to join the group for the children’s message, and provide the high schooler with the answers to all the questions

Summary statement: The Reformation truth is that because Jesus did all the work, God gives us the free gift of eternal life.

Katherine S. Perkins, seventh-grade teacher

Christ Lutheran School, La Mesa, California

Good morning! It’s great to see you on this Reformation Day! On Reformation Day, we like to talk about a great truth God has provided for us! When you know this great truth, you’ll be very happy, and you’ll want to tell others! I’m going to try to show you that truth, but I’ll need your help.

I have a big bag of candy today, and I want to give each of you a piece or two. But you have to earn the candy! You’ll earn a piece of candy each time you correctly answer one of my questions. Ready?

Question 1: What is the name of the longest river in Russia? (Volga River, but don’t reveal this or the other answers yet.)

Question 2: What is the cube root of 27? (3)

Question 3: In the sentence “John gave Mary a ticket to the new movie,” what is the indirect object? (Mary)

Goodness, no one’s getting the answers to my questions. How will you ever get the candy?

At this point, the high schooler will stand and offer to answer the questions. After each correct answer, give the youth a piece of candy. He will then give it to a child.

Thank the high schooler profusely and give him the whole bag of candy. He did you a big favor, didn’t he? Instead of you having to answer those difficult questions, he did it for you. Then he gave you the prize!

Now, back to Reformation Day. About five hundred years ago, a man named Martin Luther was reading the Bible, and he found that truth I told you I’d tell you about: that Jesus did something much like our helper did. God told us in the Bible that if we sinned, we would have to die. We would have no hope of going to heaven. So you know what Jesus did? Allow responses.

Yes, Jesus died for us. So now, even though we sin, we get to go to heaven. Jesus answered God’s demands—and he gives you and me the prize! He did it for us and gave us the reward. The truth is that Jesus died for my sins and gave me eternal life. Let’s say that truth together.

We want to thank our high school helper today. He did the hard work for you, and he gave you the prize, just like Jesus did. If you didn’t get a piece of candy today, you’ll get one from him on your way back to your seats. It’s free, just like the gift of eternal life that Jesus earned for you.

All Saints’ Day (Observed), November 5, 2006

The Key for His Saints

Text: Isaiah 26:1–4, 8–9, 12–13, 19–21

Visuals: jar with lid, sealed envelope, locked box and key, picture of Jesus inside box (before service, give key to adult worshiper)

Summary: Jesus is the key that opens heaven’s gates for the saints.

Penelope Selle

Alleluia Lutheran Church, Wrightstown, Wisconsin

Greet children. Show jar. How can I get at what’s inside? Right. You open it. Show envelope. How can I read this letter I got yesterday? Sure. Open it. How about this box? Ask a child to open the locked box. Look around for key. Too bad! I guess we’ll never know what’s inside because we don’t have the key.

Some things are hard to open—especially heaven. Heaven only opens up for saints. The only people who can enter heaven and live forever with dear Jesus are saints. What are saints? Receive any responses. Saints are holy people. That means people without sin. Ooh! That’s hard, isn’t it! Why? Because we all sin! And if we’re sinful, then heaven is locked to us, like that box. Well, if we all sin, how could we ever be saints—and how could heaven ever be open to us?

At this moment, the person with the key stands up and says, “Can this help?” Take the key and continue: Ah! The key to opening something that’s locked is—a key. Now we’ve got the key to this box.

What about the key to heaven? What makes a person a saint? While unlocking and opening box: Since we all sin, the only way we could be holy, could be saints, is to have our sins taken away. What makes that happen? Take picture of Jesus out of the box. Jesus is the key to heaven, isn’t he? He’s the one who opened heaven to us by dying on the cross for our sins. That was very hard, but he did it. So when we were baptized, when we first believed that Jesus saved us, our sins were gone. That means we’re now saints. In fact, today we celebrate All Saints’ Day, when we thank God for making every believer in Jesus a saint. Heaven is open to us, just like our first Bible reading from Isaiah said: “Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter, the nation that keeps faith” (Is 26:2). That means you and you and you and me. We’re all saints, and Jesus has opened heaven to all of us.

Third-Last Sunday in the Church Year, November 12, 2006

What Will Be the Sign?

Text: Mark 13:1–13

Visuals: pictures of highway signs showing approach to your town, including some that tell the distance to your destination (adapt to fit your locale); cross

Summary: With signs of the end times all around us, God’s people pay attention and share the Gospel.

Penelope Selle

Alleluia Lutheran Church, Wrightstown, Wisconsin

Greet children. We’re going to look at pictures of some signs you see when you travel from Appleton to Wrightstown. Show: Wrightstown, 5. What does this sign mean? We have to travel 5 more miles to get home. How about this sign? Show photos of signs that show food, lodging, and gas stations. Here’s one that says Wrightstown exit, 1. We’re getting closer, aren’t we? Here’s the Exit sign that tells us to get off the highway. We’re here!

What happens when a driver doesn’t pay attention to signs? He gets lost. He misses the exit. But if he watches the signs, he’ll come safely home.

Jesus’ disciples asked when the end of the world would come. Jesus told them to watch for signs. There would be wars, false prophets, famines, and earthquakes. And the Gospel must be preached to all people. These signs would mean the end is near.

Do we see any of these signs now? Yes. Specify current wars or disasters, and point out that many people are teaching falsely about Jesus. Actually, things like this have been going on ever since Jesus was on earth, almost two thousand years ago, so it’s not quite like these road signs that tell us just how far we are from home. But having these signs Jesus talks about means we could be very close to the time when Jesus will return to take his people to heaven. That’s exciting for God’s people!

Here’s the most important sign. Show the cross. The cross tells us that God loved the world so much that he sent his Son, Jesus, to die for the sins of all people. This Good News must be preached to everyone, because God wants everyone to be saved, and Jesus is the only way. That’s why we tell others about Jesus. We don’t want someone to miss the exit and lose her way because no one told her that Jesus died for her.

The cross reminds you that Jesus died for you. He made you part of his family through your Baptism. He loves and cares for you. And when we see signs of the end, we’re not afraid. We know that Jesus will come back and take us to heaven to live with him forever.

So keep watching the signs (holding up cross), especially this one!

Second-Last Sunday in the Church Year, November 19, 2006

Look Up!

Text: Mark 13:24–31

Visuals: pictures of clouds in which children may be able to see images, picture of Jesus returning in clouds

Summary: Jesus will return with the clouds to take his people home.

Penelope Selle

Alleluia Lutheran Church, Wrightstown, Wisconsin

Greet children. People spend a lot of time looking down. You walk to school looking at the sidewalk. Your parents drive the car, keeping their eyes on the road. You study by looking down at your books. But maybe when you’re not busy, you take the time to look up. When I was your age, I’d lie in the grass, look up at the clouds, and let my imagination run wild. I’d imagine the clouds looked like fabulous animals and powerful kings who took me on wonderful adventures. Ever do that? Here are some cloud pictures. Show pictures. What do you see?

Many times God appeared to his people in a cloud. God led his people out of slavery in Egypt by going before them in a cloud. When he gave the Ten Commandments, God talked to Moses from a cloud. At the transfiguration of Jesus, God spoke from a cloud, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him” (Mt 17:5 ESV).

On the Last Day, Jesus will come down from heaven in a cloud. Show picture. You won’t have to use your imagination to see this cloud picture! Jesus will really be there, in the flesh, coming down from heaven in the clouds. Read Mk 13:24–27. At that time, Jesus will send his angels all over the world, to gather all the people who believe in him and do his will. That means all of us. What a happy day that’ll be!

As you wait for this special day, remember that Jesus made you his child. Remember that he loves you and died on the cross for your sins and has made a place for you in heaven. Remember that he shows you, in the Bible, how to lead a life that cares for others. When Jesus comes on the last day, you’ll be ready to greet him.

From now on, when you look up at the clouds, remember that Jesus will come again soon, in glory, to take us to heaven!

Last Sunday in the Church Year: Sunday of the Fulfillment, November 26, 2006

Watch and Keep Watching!

Text: Mark 13:32–37

Visuals: none

Summary: Watch for the end by receiving Christ’s promises today.

Rev. Timothy E. Beck, pastor

Mount Zion Lutheran Church, Richmond, California

Greet children. Pretend your father tells you, “I’m going to take you to the movies, but I’m not going to tell you when.” You won’t know when it’s time to go by the ads about the movies on TV or by the time of day. You’ll only know when your father says, “Okay, time to go!” Would you still want to go? Sure! Since going to the movie with your father will be so much fun, you want to be ready when he says it’s time.

Now let’s stop pretending. Your heavenly Father tells you, “Jesus Christ will take you to heaven, because he died on the cross and rose again to take you there. But I’m not going to tell you when, and you won’t be able to figure it out. Still, I want you to watch for Jesus’ coming, because when the time comes, it’s going to be wonderful. I don’t want you to miss it!”

God wants us to watch every day for Jesus’ coming, because while we’re waiting, the devil will try to trick us so that we won’t go to heaven. Certain bad things will happen. Like this: Some people will say the Bible isn’t true or that it means something else than you’ve learned or that you can’t believe all it says. And if you do believe God’s Word, some people won’t like it. They’ll try to get you to stop trusting God’s Word. Also, you’ll have troubles, like sickness or sadness, but don’t doubt that God still loves you! Keep watching for Jesus Christ, because he will return. Even if every day looks the same, he will come to take you to heaven!

But if you can’t know when Christ is coming back, how will you watch for his return? Will you see him coming before he comes? No. Will these bad things happening tell you when he comes? No. Then how do you watch for Jesus Christ?

You watch in this way: First, you do the work of a Christian. That means, don’t give up your faith! Second, you receive Jesus’ blessings for you. A very special blessing is that you were baptized, a great blessing for faith. Then, third, you listen to God’s Word. His Word strengthens your faith. Fourth, and finally, when you’re older, you receive the Lord’s Supper. That’s how you watch, by receiving our Lord’s wonderful gifts today. That’s how you’re ready when your Father says, “It’s time.”

Last Sunday in the Church Year: Christ the King, November 26, 2006

The Unkingly Rule of the True King

Text: John 18:33–37

Visuals: none

Summary: Jesus’ unkingly sacrifice not only shows true kingship, but it restored traitor to King, even to share in the King’s glory.

Rev. Timothy E. Beck, pastor

Mount Zion Lutheran Church, Richmond, California

Greet children. What are kings like? Receive responses. A king is a king because he rules. His subjects show him respect and bow and say, “Your Majesty!” And, of course, everyone is supposed to obey the king. If they don’t, the king will usually punish them. What makes a king especially angry is if someone else tries to be king. Know what that kind of person is called—the person who tries to be king instead of the king, or who goes against the king or wants to have a different king? He’s called a traitor. Know what kings might say about a traitor? “Off with his head!”

Jesus is a King. He’s the King of heaven. So, of course, we should always obey him. We should always respect and worship him. He’s “Our Majesty.” But you know what we often do instead? We disobey him by doing what we want to do, by being selfish, instead of doing what he wants us to do. We really want to be king ourselves, have everything our way, instead of having Jesus as our King. In other words, we’re what? Traitors. And traitors deserve what? “Off with their heads!”

But King Jesus didn’t come to get even with traitors. He didn’t come to say, “Off with his head!” He came to serve. He came to serve traitors! He is an unkingly King!

Jesus left his throne in heaven to save traitors. Jesus came to take the traitor’s place and be punished for the traitor’s crime. “Off with his head!” So Jesus was crucified. He died for all traitors against his throne. This is how he chose to reign as King! It seems so unkingly!

Jesus is the King of kings, but he loves traitors, like you. Jesus didn’t spend his life building armies and wearing a fancy crown, saying, “Off with his head!” Jesus gave his life to bring traitors back into his kingdom. Now traitors can come back into the King’s kingdom simply by believing Jesus is the King. That’s all! And traitors—you and I—can even share in ruling the kingdom. That’s how much King Jesus loves us. When he forgives traitors, he brings them back into the kingdom and promises to let them share in ruling the kingdom. What a wonderful King!

Suggested Hymns

LW TLH LBW CW

Pentecost 15

To You, Omniscient Lord of All 234 318 310 306

Triune God, Oh, Be Our Stay 170 247 308 192

In You, Lord, I Have Put My Trust 406 524 (399) 448

Be Strong in the Lord HS98 866

Pentecost 16

Praise the Almighty 445 26 539 235

How Blest Are They Who Hear God’s Word 222 48 227 325

Lord of Glory, You Have Bought Us 402 442 424 486

For the Fruits of His Creation HS98 905

Pentecost 17

By All Your Saints in Warfare 193:10 (367) 177 552:4

Christ Is the World’s Redeemer 271 (409) (487) (452)

Lord, You I Love with All My Heart 413 429 325 434

Weary of All Trumpeting HS98 883

Pentecost 18

God of Grace and God of Glory 398 (424) 415 523

Forgive Us, Lord, for Shallow Thankfulness 401 (395) (307) 482

Love Divine, All Love Excelling 286 351 315 365

Where Charity and Love Prevail HS98 878

Pentecost 19

Come, Oh, Come, O Quickening Spirit 165 226 478 181

I Lay My Sins on Jesus 366 652 305 372

I Trust, O Christ, in You Alone 357 319 395 437

What Wondrous Love Is This HS98 860

Pentecost 20

All Glory Be to God on High 215 237 166 263

I Know My Faith Is Founded 354 381 (490) 403

I Will Sing My Maker’s Praises 439 25 (166) 253

The Tree of Life HS98 873

Reformation Day (Observed)

A Mighty Fortress Is Our God 297/98 262 228/29 200/01

Dear Christians, One and All 353 387 299 377

I Trust, O Christ, in You Alone 357 319 395 437

Not unto Us HS98 874

All Saints’ Day (Observed)

For All the Saints 191 463 174 551

Behold a Host Arrayed in White 192 656 314 550

Jerusalem, O City Fair and High 306 619 348 212

Sing with All the Saints in Glory HS98 839

Third-Last Sunday in the Church Year

In You Is Gladness 442 (612) 552 346

Who Trusts in God a Strong Abode 414 437 450 447

The Clouds of Judgment Gather 463 (604) 322 (208)

The Night Will Soon Be Ending HS98 806

Second-Last Sunday in the Church Year

The Day Is Surely Drawing Near 462 611 321 207

O Lord of Light, Who Made the Stars 17 (610) 323 31

The King Shall Come 26 (606) 33 25

Rejoice, Rejoice, Believers HS98 801

Last Sunday in the Church Year: Sunday of the Fulfillment

Rise, My Soul, to Watch and Pray 302 446 443 472

Rise! To Arms! With Prayer Employ You 303 444 (418) 455

Seek Where You May to Find a Way 358 383 (300) 395

Lo! He Comes with Clouds Descending HS98 802

Last Sunday in the Church Year: Christ the King

Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending 15 (339) 27 29

Hail, O Once Rejected Jesus 284 367 (171) 351

Crown Him with Many Crowns 278 341 170 341

The Infant Priest Was Holy Borne HS98 853

INDEX—Concordia Pulpit Resources............................................................................................................ Volume 16, 2005–2006

SERMON STUDY TEXTS AND SUNDAYS

The final column refers to the part or issue number of volume 16, followed by the page number on which the sermon/article begins.

Gen 2:18–24 Pent 20 4.29

Num 11:4–6, 10–16, 24–29 Pent 19 4.27

Num 21:4–9 Lent 4 2.18

Deut 6:4–9 Holy Trinity 3.24

2 Sam 7:(1–7) 8–11, 16 Advent 4 1.22

Ps 34:9–14 Pent 13 3.48

Ps 51:10–15 Lent 5 2.20

Is 26:1–4, 8–9, 12–13, 19–21 All Saints’ 4.34

Is 40:1–11 Advent 2 1.16

Is 55:6–11 Presentation of the

Augsburg Confession 3.28

Is 61:1–3, 10–11 Advent 3 1.19

Is 63:16b–17; 64:1–8 Advent 1 1.14

Zech 9:9–10 Palm Sunday 2.22

Mk 1:4–11 Epiphany 1 1.29

Mk 1:14–20 Epiphany 3 1.33

Mk 1:21–28 Epiphany 4 1.35

Mk 1:29–39 Epiphany 5 1.37

Mk 1:40–45 Epiphany 6 1.39

Mk 2:1–12 Epiphany 7 1.41

Mk 2:23–28 Pent 2 3.26

Mk 4:26–34 Pent 4 3.30

Mk 5:21–24a, 35–43 Pent 6 3.34

Mk 6:7–13 Pent 8 3.38

Mk 8:27–35 Pent 17 4.22

Mk 8:31–38 Lent 2 2.14

Mk 9:2–9 Transfiguration 1.43

Mk 13:1–13 3rd-Last Sun 4.36

Mk 13:24–31 2nd-Last Sun 4.41

Mk 13:32–37 Last Sunday

(Fulfillment) 4.45

Mk 16:1–8 Easter 2.24

Jn 1:43–51 Epiphany 2 1.31

Jn 2:13–22 Lent 3 2.16

Jn 6:1–15 Pent 10 3.42

Jn 6:24–35 Pent 11 3.44

Jn 6:41–51 Pent 12 3.46

Jn 8:31–36 Reformation 4.32

Jn 18:33–37 Last Sunday

(King) 4.47

Acts 1:15–26 Easter 7 2.37

Acts 2:22–36 Pentecost 2.39

Acts 3:13–15, 17–26 Easter 2 2.26

Acts 4:8–12 Easter 3 2.28

Acts 4:23–33 Easter 4 2.30

Acts 8:26–40 Easter 5 2.33

Acts 11:19–30 Easter 6 2.35

Rom 1:1–7 New Year’s Day 1.26

Rom 8:31–39 Lent 1 2.12

2 Cor 5:14–21 Pent 5 3.32

2 Cor 12:7–10 Pent 7 3.36

Eph 2:13–22 Pent 9 3.40

Eph 5:21–31 Pent 14 3.50

Eph 6:10–20 Pent 15 4.17

Titus 3:4–7 Christmas Day 1.24

James 1:17–22 (23–25) 26–27 Pent 16 4.20

James 3:16–4:6 Pent 18 4.24

AUTHORS OF SERMON STUDIES

Beck, Timothy E. 4.45, 4.47

Boxman, Mark D. 3.40

Cripe, Terry L. 2.33, 2.35

Evanson, Charles J. 2.37, 2.39

Feuerhahn, Ronald R. 2.22, 2.24

Fickenscher, Carl C. II 1.16, 4.17

Goff, Dennis J. 3.36, 3.38

Graff, Warren W. 4.27, 4.29

Hedtke, Robert C. 4.20

Hintze, R. Michael 4.36, 4.41

James, Roger B. 3.48, 3.50

Jastram, Daniel N. 1.14

Kalthoff, James W. 3.42

Keurulainen, James E. 2.12, 2.14

Koch, Aaron A. 1.24, 1.26

Kuddes, Jeffrey M. 4.22, 4.24

Lessing, R. Reed 1.19

Limmer, Harlan L. 1.37, 1.39

Maier, Walter A. III 1.22

Mueller, Mark N. 1.33, 1.35

Neuendorf, Donald O. 2.20, 2.26

Noland, Martin R. 3.24, 3.26

Norris, Thomas G. 1.41, 1.43

Puls, Kenton A. 2.16, 2.18

Rossow, Francis C. 3.44, 3.46

Stinnett, Aaron A. 3.28, 3.30

Von Hagel, Thomas A. 1.29, 1.31

Weinrich, William C. 4.32, 4.34

Wollman, Michael W. 3.32, 3.34

Zieroth, Gary W. 2.28, 2.30

AUTHORS OF CHILDREN’S MESSAGES

Albrecht, Carol 1.61, 1.63

Beck, Timothy E. 4.69

Borcherding, Gwyn D. 1.64–65

Boxman, Mark D. 3.69

Cripe, Terry L. 2.70

Ehlers, Cheryl 3.65, 3.67

Gerike, Henry V. 2.65, 2.67

Goff, Dennis J. 3.68

Haas, Jane Elling 2.68, 2.71

Hermann, Dolores E. 4.64

Jackson, Kathryn A. 3.67, 3.69

Kuddes, Jeffrey M. 4.65

Lessing, R. Reed 1.62

Limmer, Harlan L. 1.66

Maier, Walter A. III 1.62

Maschke, Ruth S. 3.70

Neuendorf, Donald O. 2.67, 2.68

Norris, Thomas G. 1.67

Perkins, Katherine S. 4.66, 4.67

Puls, Kenton A. 2.66

Schmich, Deborah K. 4.64

Selle, Penelope 4.67, 4.68

Stinnett, Aaron A. 3.66

Zieroth, Gary W. 2.69

SPECIAL SERMON DAYS AND TEXTS

Advent Midweek Is 2:1–5; Is 11:1–10;

Is 35:1–10; Is 7:10–14 (15–17) 1.45–50

All Saints’ Day Is 26:19 4.51

All Saints’ Day Rev 7:9–17 4.54, 4.55

Ascension Jn 14:1–4 2.63

Christmas Eve Lk 2:14 1.51

Christmas in Iraq Lk 2:1–20 1.53

Easter Sunrise in Iraq Ex 14:10–15:1; Jn 20:1–18 2.61

Epiphany Mt 2:11 1.57

Fourth of July in Iraq Ex 34:4–16; Jn 8:28–36 3.54

Funeral Ps 116:1–15 3.60

Funeral for a Teenager Mk 5:22–24, 35–43 3.61

Funeral Lk 2:28–32 4.59

Good Friday Mt 27:39–46 2.58

Lenten Midweek Jn 3:1–21; Jn 19:39;

Mt 26:6–16; 27:3–10;

Mt 27:11–14, 24–26;

Mt 27:32; Mk 15:21;

Mt 27:38–44; Lk 23:32–43;

Mt 27:51–54; Lk 22:14–22;

Jn 19:38; Mt 28:11–15 2.41–55

Maundy Thursday Jn 13:1–5, 13–17 2.56

New Year’s Eve Josh 23:14 1.55

Pentecost 3 Mk 3:20–35 3.52

Preaching to the Troops Series Lk 2:1–20; 1.53

Ex 14:10–15:1; Jn 20:1–18 2.61

Ex 34:4–16; Jn 8:28–36 3.54

Rev 7:9–17 4.55

Retirement Sermon 2 Thess 1:9–12 3.56

Sanctity of Human Life Jonah 3:1–4:3 1.59

St. Michael and All Angels Mt 18:1–10 4.49

Thanksgiving Day Gen 41:41–42:2 4.57

Wedding Ruth 1:16–17; Mk 10:6–9 3.58

Wedding Mt 18:20 4.61

AUTHORS OF SPECIAL SERMONS

Barth, Karl L. 1.51

Baumgarn, Jack R. 1.55, 1.57

Bird, Chad L. 1.45–50

Duchow, Gilbert J. 3.58, 3.60

Fickenscher, Carl C. II 3.52

Hill, Robert W. 4.59, 4.61

Lamb, James I. 1.59

Marler, William R. 4.51

Meyer, John-Paul 2.41–55

Nuckols, Mark S. 1.53, 2.61, 3.54, 4.55

Poppe, Leonard B. 4.57

Resch, Richard C. 4.54

Roberts, Derek A. 4.49

Saleska, John W. 2.56, 2.58, 2.63

Schade, Allen W. 3.61

Strelow, Lloyd J. 3.56

TITLES OF ARTICLES

Bonhoeffer the Preacher 4.7

The Homiletical Use of the Chiasm 3.3

Preaching like Amos 3.7

Preaching Mark 1.3

Preaching to the Troops 2.3

The Presence of Christ in Preaching 4.3

Sermon Excerpt—The Resurrection of Our Lord 2.6

The Starling Lessons of This War 3.14

AUTHORS OF ARTICLES

Grimenstein, Edward O. 4.3

Hamer, Brian J. 3.3

Maier, Walter A.† 3.14

Nagel, Norman 2.6

Nuckols, Mark S. 2.3

Pless, John T. 4.7

Raabe, Paul R. 3.7

Voelz, James W. 1.3

BOOKS REVIEWED

Handling the Word of Truth John T. Pless 3.23

A History of Preaching O. C. Edwards Jr. 4.14

The Vanishing Word Arthur W. Hunt III 2.11

What’s the Matter with Preaching Today? Mike Graves, ed. 1.13

AUTHORS OF BOOK REVIEW

Kummer, David J. 3.23

Pless, John T. 2.11

Rossow, Timothy A. 4.14

Senkbeil, Harold L. 1.13

Coming Next Issue

Advent–Transfiguration, Volume 17, Part 1, Series C, December 3, 2006–February 18, 2007

Looking Ahead to the LSB Lectionaries

By Paul J. Grime

With Volume 17, CPR begins to offer sermon studies from the new Lutheran Service Book lectionary. Pastors who’ve been checking www.lcms.org know that the changes from Lutheran Worship’s system are conservative, but sometimes significant. Dr. Grime, as executive director of the LCMS Commission on Worship, has been involved with the discussions throughout the new lectionary’s development. What are the differences? Why were particular changes made?

Preaching Luke

By James W. Voelz

Dr. Voelz completes his three-part series (having introduced the last two Church Years by exploring Matthew’s and Mark’s Gospels) with a study of Luke for Year C. What distinctives of the third Gospel will be helpful in preaching?

Pastors Conference

Readers answer this issue’s question: What’s the matter with preaching today?

Sunday Themes, Series A

Sunday Text, Title, Bulletin Verse

Advent 1 Luke 19:28–40, Bound for Glory, 19:38

Advent 2 Luke 3:1–14 (15–20), Straighten Up!, 3:2

Advent 3 Luke 7:18–28 (29–35), The Coming Scandal, 7:22

Advent 4 Micah 5:2–5a, The Consequence of Peace, 5:2

Christmas 1 Luke 2: 22–40, Hearing, Seeing, Holding the Gifts of Christmas Day, 2:34

Epiphany 1 Luke 3:15–22, Bound by Water and the Word, 3:22

Epiphany 2 John 2:1–11, Signs, Mysteries, Sacraments, 2:11

Epiphany 3 Luke 4:16–30, The Shocking Sermon, 4:21

Epiphany 4 Luke 4:31–44, By Whose Authority? 4:32

Epiphany 5 Isaiah 6:1–8 (9–13), Your Guilt Is Taken Away, 6:7

Epiphany 6 Jeremiah 17:5–8, Opposites Attract, 17:7–8

The Transfiguration Luke 9:28–36, Transfigured and Prefigured, 9:31

Special Sermons Text, Title

Advent Midweek Series The Saints of Advent

Christmas Eve Mark 1:15, A Time to Be Born

Christmas Dawn Luke 2:15–17, Christmas with the Shepherds

New Year’s Day Luke 2:21, Destiny Certain

Epiphany Matthew 2:1–12, Just as Much the Star

Sanctity of Human Life Luke 4:16–30, You Always Were His Favorite

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Notes

1. Paul Scott Wilson, Imagination of the Heart: New Understandings in Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1988), 61. All quotations used by permission.

2. Craig Satterlee, Ambrose of Milan’s Method of Mystagogical Preaching (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2002), 284.

3. Charles Rice, The Embodied Word: Preaching as Art and Liturgy (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), 21. All quotations used by permission.

4. Warren Stewart, Interpreting God’s Word in Black Preaching (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1984), 41.

5. Rice, 27.

6. Ibid., 18.

7. Andre Resner Jr., Preacher and Cross: Person and Message in Theology and Rhetoric (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 130.

8. Wilson, 61.

9. Paul Scott Wilson, The Practice of Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1999), 98.

10. Fred B. Craddock, Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990), 57.

11. Thomas G. Long, The Witness of Preaching (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1990), 45. Used by permission.

12. Ibid., 45.

13. Stewart, 30.

14. Long, 45.

15. Henry Grady Davis, Design for Preaching (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1958), 1. All quotations used by permission.

16. Ibid., 2.

17. Ibid., 1.

18. Walter J. Ong, “The Word as History: Sacred and Profane,” Rhetorical Invention and Religious Inquiry, Walter Jost, Wendy Olmstead, eds. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), 17. Used by permission.

19. LW 356:341.

20. Amos Wilder, Early Christian Rhetoric: The Language of the Gospel (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1971, 1999), 6. Used by permission.

Notes

1. Eberhard Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 2000), 234. All quotations used by permission.

2. Cited by Frits De Lange, Waiting for the Word: Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Speaking about God, trans. Martin N. Walton (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 13; all quotations used by permission. The literature on the life and work of Bonhoeffer is immense. A helpful critical guide is provided by Jonathan D. Sorum, “Review Essay: Another Look at Bonhoeffer” Lutheran Quarterly 18, no. 4 (Winter 2004), 469–82.

3. De Lange, 66.

4. Ibid., 7.

5. Bethge, 234. His criticisms of poor preaching show how highly Bonhoeffer valued proclamation: “Every bad sermon was a nail in the coffin of Christian faith. One could not deny it anymore: Here in this suburb, at least, the Word of God had turned into nonsense” (cited in De Lange, 59).

6. De Lange, 89.

7. Here see Bonhoeffer’s Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible, trans. James Burtness (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1974) and Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Meditations on the Psalms, ed. and trans. Edwin Robertson (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005).

8. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, A Testament to Freedom: The Essential Writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, ed. by Geffrey B. Kelly and F. Burton Nelson (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995), 176. All quotations used by permission.

9. Bethge, 225.

10. Clyde E. Fant, Bonhoeffer: Worldly Preaching (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1975), 14. All quotations used by permission.

11. Ibid., 21.

12. Ibid., 22.

13. Bonhoeffer, A Testament to Freedom, 177.

14. De Lange, 99.

15. Ibid., 100.

16. Bethge, 54.

17. Note, for example, Bonhoeffer’s use of Gerhardt’s Christmas hymn “O Jesus Christ, Thy Manger Is” (TLH 81) in an Advent letter to Bethge. See Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Christmas Sermons, ed. and trans. Edwin Robertson (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), 177. All quotations used by permission of Zondervan.

18. De Lange, 66.

19. On the influence of Barth on Bonhoeffer, especially on the Law/Gospel dialectic, see Jonathan Sorum, “Barth’s ‘Gospel and Law’ and Bonhoeffer’s “The Cost of Discipleship” in Reflections on Bonhoeffer: Essays in Honor of F. Burton Nelson, ed. by Geffrey B. Kelly and C. John Weborg (Chicago: Covenant Publications, 1999), 210–27.

20. Bethge, 112.

21. Ibid., 257.

22. Bonhoeffer, A Testament to Freedom, 209.

23. Ibid., 212.

24. Ibid., 212.

25. Ibid., 215.

26. Ibid., 201–2.

27. Ibid., 218.

28. Ibid., 267–68.

29. Ibid., 186.

30. Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Christmas Sermons, 36.

31. Ibid., 21.

32. Bonhoeffer, A Testament to Freedom, 252.

33. See Fant, 146, for Bonhoeffer’s description of the move from text to sermon.

34. Ibid., 149.

35. Ibid., 175.

36. Ibid., 178–80.

37. De Lange, 91.

38. Clyde E. Fant Jr. and William M. Pinson Jr., Twenty Centuries of Great Preaching: An Encyclopedia of Preaching, vol. 12 (Waco: Word Books, 1971), 131.

Notes

1. Donald K. McKim, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Martin Luther (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 144.

2. G. A. Pritchard, Willow Creek Seeker Services (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1996).