Christ Sent Faithful Lazarus into the Arms of Father Abraham

First Sunday after Trinity

May 29, 2016

Luke 16:19-31

Christ Sent Faithful Lazarus into the Arms of Father Abraham

In the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!

“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was a laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores. (Luke 16:19-21 NIV 1984)

Who was better: the rich man or the dirty dogs? The rich man couldn't be bothered to put the tip of his finger into water and give Lazarus a drop to drink, but at least the dogs cared enough to lick his sores and give him some relief. If only some dogs go to heaven, these dogs would make the cut.

Why did Lazarus make the cut? Why was he in heaven in the embrace of Father Abraham, and not in the agony of eternal fire like the rich man?

First of all, we need to be clear that both men were sinners. Each one died because the wages of sin is death. If Lazarus had not been a sinner, he wouldn't have died. He was a sinner, and like the rich man, he sinned as much as he could.

So why did death bring Lazarus into everlasting life? Kindness or callousness didn't cause salvation or damn these men. The rich man never did anything for Lazarus, but Lazarus never did anything for the rich man, either. If kindness was the key to earning life eternal, then the dogs in the gutter would be in heaven before us.

Money isn't the answer, either. For a short time, the rich man had it all; Lazarus had nothing. But being rich or being poor didn't damn or save either of them.

This story can be easily misused to blast those who have much in a judgmental way. But that's not the point Jesus is making by telling this story.

Christ never said why Lazarus and the rich man were different, but using simple logic under the fullness of Holy Scripture, we can deduce the why.

But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our message?” Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ. (Romans 10:16-17 NIV 1984)

Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham. (Galatians 3:7 NIV 1984)

Lazarus is in heaven in the arms of Father Abraham because through faith in Christ Lazarus is a child of Abraham. And through death Lazarus went to his true home and family. In this life Lazarus had only one thing: the Holy Word, inspired by God and written down by Moses and the other prophets.

We learn this from the dialogue between the nameless rich man and Father Abraham. The rich man did not believe God's Word. He chose to believe in himself.

It's tragic to see the rich man still living for himself as the center of attention, even in hell. Notice how he still somehow thinks of Lazarus as someone who exists to serve him. “Make him get me some water,” he says. Father Abraham says no to this demand.

He also refuses the rich man's second demand: send Lazarus to warn his still living brothers that hell is for real. He says no because there is no good in his demand. Salvation is communicated through the Gospel Sacraments, the Word of God. The messenger does not make the Gospel more credible, whether he is a recently dead man or a even charming pastor.

When God's Word is rejected, then all the most glorious miracles are of no point. Think of how often Jesus' miracles and teaching were followed by unbelief, anger, and even attempted violence toward Him. When Jesus resurrected another Lazarus the village of Bethany, this merciful miracle caused Jesus' enemies to dig in and really get busy with the work of murdering Him!

Miracles don't cause faith in Christ.

“He said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ Abraham said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’ ” (Luke 16:30-31 NIV 1984)

Today we see something similar to the rich man's demand. There are those who become infatuated with stories of near-death trips into the afterlife. We don't need a heavenly travel tour guide for assurance that heaven is real; we already know this by faith in Christ. Dead men would tell us no new tales.

Our faith clings to the Jesus revealed to us in Scripture, the One who rose from the dead and will never die again. If Lazarus had been sent back to those five brothers, what might he have said? Listen to Moses and the prophets: they will you all you need to know about the Christ who saves.

This is why Lazarus made the cut: because Jesus cut him into everlasting life with His death and resurrection. Lazarus just lay there like a helpless baby and the dogs were the best nurse he had. But because Christ knew him, so did the Father. Not just Father Abraham, but our Father, who art in heaven.

You, too, have already made the cut because Christ has cut you into His death and resurrection. And so until He calls us into everlasting life, you are cared for by others and at other times you are the one doing the caring. As you care for others, be merciful to those both high and low, for each one is a precious soul for whom Christ died.

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. Alleluia! Amen!

2 Corinthians 5:21

Firmly Believe These Things of Heaven

Trinity Sunday

May 22, 2016

John 3:1-15

Firmly Believe These Things of Heaven

In the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!

In his discussion with Nicodemus, Jesus told him:

We speak what We know and We testify to what We have seen, but you do not accept Our testimony. (John 3:11)

The “We” who speak and testify is the one holy Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This testimony is put into our mouths when we confess the Athanasian Creed.

We confess that “Whoever does not keep this faith pure in all points will certainly perish forever.” Do you worry about that? Or when we confess that “Whoever does not faithfully and firmly believe this cannot be saved,” do it make you nervous?

These true statements of our faith cause our sinful flesh to crawl, because we are still tempted to think that our effort of believing is what saves us. And we also live in a Christian culture that supports the false teaching that you can accept Christ by your own force of will, your own thinking and choosing.

The Athanasian Creed demolishes this lie. It says to keep this faith pure. It says to firmly believe this. And we get nervous. These are hard things to firmly believe. The Trinity? The three-distinct-Person-yet-one-God God? If I can't imagine the Trinity, how am I supposed to firmly believe it?

We believe and confess this blessed Holy Trinity through the work of the Holy Spirit through Baptism that makes us wet with Christ's forgiveness each and every day of our lives. We firmly believe and keep this faith pure because the Holy Spirit creates and strengthens us in this true faith through the Gospel. If you worry that you don't believe enough or precisely enough or that you haven't done enough good works, repent and trust Jesus.

Is Jesus true God? Yes, and so we confess that He is equal to the Father as to His deity, His being God.

Is Jesus true man? Yes, and so we confess that He is less than the Father as to His humanity. Is God greater than man? Yes, and so we confess that Jesus as to His man-ness is less than the Father.

Can only believers do good works? Yes, and so we confess that those who have done good—believers—will enter eternal life.

Can unbelievers do good works? No, and so we confess that those who have done evil—unbelievers—will go into eternal fire.

If we start to imagine that we can create our own faith in a new God that we imagined up out of thin air, then we are like Nicodemus. If we start to tell the true God that His revealed Word isn't true, then we are like Nicodemus to whom Jesus said:

If I have told you about things that happen on earth and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you about things of heaven? (John 3:12)

Don't trust your thin and dry imagination; trust your rich and wet Baptism, when you were born again. Jesus soaked you in His death and resurrection in the name of the Father who always is, and the Son who always is, and the Holy Spirit who always is. Yet not three gods who always are, but One God who always is, and is always for you for the sake of Christ.

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us,

so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. Alleluia! Amen!

2 Corinthians 5:21

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit in Every Tongue

Feast of Pentecost

May 15, 2016

Acts 2:5-11

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit in Every Tongue

In the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!

⁵Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. ⁶When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. ⁷Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these men who are speaking Galileans? ⁸Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? ⁹Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome ¹¹(both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” (Acts 2:5-11 NIV 1984)

If you've visited or worked in a foreign country, you'll have had this experience. You're surrounded by unfamiliar words and people you don't understand, speaking a language that you don't know.

And then you hear it. Words in your own language! Someone is speaking English. And it is wonderful! You understand. You don't have to translate it. You just know it.

Most likely the many pilgrims in Jerusalem on that first Pentecost knew Hebrew. They lived around the world, but their mother tongue had traveled with them. They were God-fearing Jews. So it's fascinating that the Holy Spirit chose to have these first Christians speak to the crowd not in the common language of the Jews, but instead in their many foreign tongues.

This choice to speak in their own native languages reinforced the truth that Christ Jesus and His conception, virgin birth, perfect life, suffering, death, and resurrection was not just for the Jews, but for all people, no matter what language.

The 3,000 baptized souls who heard the polyglot preaching of Pentecost never forgot it. They went home to their homes all over the world and spoke Christ's life and death in their own homes. They didn't have to translate a Hebrew sermon into Latin or Cappadocian, because the Holy Spirit had had His preacher give them the words to confess. And many of those homes heard this Christ in own language and the Holy Spirit created trust in their hearts. They trusted Jesus as their Savior from sin, baptized into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Last year I watched a political drama in Danish. I don't know Danish, so I read the subtitles, but once in a while one of the characters spoke English. And it was such a treat!

Lutherans want to treat others to Christ in their own languages. So our national church body spends part of our offering money to produce and supply good Lutheran books in many languages. The following are languages in which we have materials and books.

Albanian Arabic Bulgarian Burmese Chewa Chinese Haitian Creole Czech Dutch Farsi Finnish French Georgian Hindi Hmong

Hungarian Indonesian Italian Japanese Kazakh Korean Kurdish Laotian Latvian Luvale Mizo Nepali Norwegian Pashtu Polish

Portuguese Punjabi Russian Spanish Swedish Telugu Thai Tibetan Tonga Tumbuka Ukrainian Urdu Vietnamese Turkish

https://wels.net/serving-others/multi-language-publications/publications/

Our synod does things together that we can't do alone as individuals or individual congregations—for example, treating speakers of other languages to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Treating them to the confession of faith that knows the mysterious and wonderful ways in which the Holy Spirit works, to kill us in Baptism and raising us to new life, using words as His way of creating saving faith in Jesus.

And dear baptized-in-English souls, don't forget to treat yourselves. Speaks these English words—In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit—as you pray.

Remember that these same words were spoken in Greek and Latin and German and French and Italian and Norwegian for centuries. These words of Christ connect us to the saints of God who have gone before us.

And remember how these same words are being used right now and throughout the week in those languages listed before and many more. These words of Christ connect us to our fellow baptized souls around the world.

But even than connecting us to our fellow saints through time and space, this forgiveness that puts His name on us binds us to our Savior Jesus.

Was there ever a more beautiful promise spoken to you in your own tongue?

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us,

so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. Alleluia! Amen!

2 Corinthians 5:21

The Spirit Testifies about the Son

Seventh Sunday of Easter

May 8, 2016

John 15:26

The Spirit Testifies about the Son

In the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!

When the Counselor comes, the One I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father—He will testify about Me. (John 15:26 HCSB)

On this final Sunday of Easter throughout the world the Church hears some of Jesus' final words before His suffering and death. The Counselor that Jesus talked about was God the Holy Spirit, who would be sent into the world to counsel and comfort God's people. Jesus called Him the One who is called to our side. Like an attorney who stands with the accused in court as the judgment is read out, the Holy Spirit stands with us by our side defending us. He does this by testifying about the Jesus who comes to us through Baptism, the Bible, and the Lord's Supper.

You also will testify, because you have been with Me from the beginning. (John 15:27)

Jesus told the apostles, His first preachers, that they would also testify. The word testimony today might have a bad flavor in our culture, but the testimony that Jesus called you to in Baptism is not how Jesus changed your life for the earthly better.

All the faithful and their pastors testify to what Jesus did and does to take away the sins of the world and to save His chosen people.

But Jesus warned them that their truthful testimony would come at a cost.

I have told you these things to keep you from stumbling. They will ban you from the synagogues. In fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering service to God. They will do these things because they haven’t known the Father or Me. (John 16:1-3)

We live in one of the most moral times in history. We live in one of the most religious times in history. As proof I offer that if you wish someone to do something in our culture, simply appeal to their gods and their sense of right and wrong. Our culture is deeply devoted to the god of fairness based on the false belief that humans are good. According to their morality they try to live correctly.

They do not know God the Father or the Son, because they refuse to listen to God the Holy Spirit. They do not know the one true God.

God speaks the truth and Jesus' words came true. The apostles were thrown out of the Jewish churches, the synagogues, for testifying to the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Men did go out and round up Christians to harm them and even kill some.

We don't face the raised fist of persecution; we face the raised eyebrow. Our own people, young and old, have been corrupted by the gods and morality of this world, and we are afraid to testify to our loved ones that they have been lied to and led astray. We think that our testimony will be rejected by them and will even drive away these souls from Jesus.

Lord, have mercy on us for our weak trust that Your Word will accomplish the task for which You send it.

But I have told you these things so that when their time comes you may remember I told them to you. I didn’t tell you these things from the beginning, because I was with you. (John 16:4)

Jesus told us these things so that when they happened, we would not be surprised. We see that Jesus is sitting and ruling from the right hand of God the Father almighty.

When Jesus spoke these words to the apostles, He told them why He never told them these things up to that point. Since His bodily presence was soon be in heaven and not with them, He wanted them to know and trust that they would not be alone, especially with the crosses that they would soon bear for His name. The Holy Spirit would bring them Jesus, just in a different way.

Dear baptized souls, keep the promise of the Spirit-spoken Jesus close to your heart and mind. And as you testify with the Word of God, trust that the Holy Spirit will keep on bringing Jesus to you to the very end of the age, until you die or until Jesus comes back.

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us,

so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. Alleluia! Amen!

2 Corinthians 5:21

Not the First Time He Went Up

Ascension

May 5, 2016

Judges 13:20 & Mark 16:19

Not the First Time He Went Up

In the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!

Jesus' ascent into heaven that we celebrate tonight wasn't His first ascension. He had done it before. It isn't a well-known incident, but it is well-worth hearing. Judges, chapter 13. (See if you can guess the name of this special son before I mention his name.)

1 Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, so the Lord delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years.

2 A certain man of Zorah, named Manoah, from the clan of the Danites, had a wife who was childless, unable to give birth. 3 The angel of the Lord appeared to her and said, “You are barren and childless, but you are going to become pregnant and give birth to a son. 4 Now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink and that you do not eat anything unclean. 5 You will become pregnant and have a son whose head is never to be touched by a razor because the boy is to be a Nazirite, dedicated to God from the womb. He will take the lead in delivering Israel from the hands of the Philistines.”

6 Then the woman went to her husband and told him, “A man of God came to me. He looked like an angel of God, very awesome. I didn’t ask him where he came from, and he didn’t tell me his name. 7 But he said to me, ‘You will become pregnant and have a son. Now then, drink no wine or other fermented drink and do not eat anything unclean, because the boy will be a Nazirite of God from the womb until the day of his death.’”

8 Then Manoah prayed to the Lord: “Pardon your servant, Lord. I beg you to let the man of God you sent to us come again to teach us how to bring up the boy who is to be born.”

9 God heard Manoah, and the angel of God came again to the woman while she was out in the field; but her husband Manoah was not with her. 10 The woman hurried to tell her husband, “He’s here! The man who appeared to me the other day!”

11 Manoah got up and followed his wife. When he came to the man, he said, “Are you the man who talked to my wife?” He said, “I am.” 12 So Manoah asked him, “When your words are fulfilled, what is to be the rule that governs the boy’s life and work?”

13 The angel of the Lord answered, “Your wife must do all that I have told her. 14 She must not eat anything that comes from the grapevine, nor drink any wine or other fermented drink nor eat anything unclean. She must do everything I have commanded her.”

15 Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, “We would like you to stay until we prepare a young goat for you.” 16 The angel of the Lord replied, “Even though you detain me, I will not eat any of your food. But if you prepare a burnt offering, offer it to the Lord.” (Manoah did not realize that it was the angel of the Lord.)

17 Then Manoah inquired of the angel of the Lord, “What is your name, so that we may honor you when your word comes true?” 18 He replied, “Why do you ask my name? It is beyond understanding.” 19 Then Manoah took a young goat, together with the grain offering, and sacrificed it on a rock to the Lord. And the Lord did an amazing thing while Manoah and his wife watched: 20 As the flame blazed up from the altar toward heaven, the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame. Seeing this, Manoah and his wife fell with their faces to the ground.

21 When the angel of the Lord did not show himself again to Manoah and his wife, Manoah realized that it was the angel of the Lord.

22 “We are doomed to die!” he said to his wife. “We have seen God!”

23 But his wife answered, “If the Lord had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and grain offering from our hands, nor shown us all these things or now told us this.”

24 The woman gave birth to a boy and named him Samson.

The angel of the Lord is God's Son ascended into heaven on this flame. This Son of God came to Samson's parents as the Angel of the Lord. Over a 1,000 years later, He would be born to the Virgin Mary and would be named Jesus.

Samson was a man sent by God to deliver one group of people at one time in history from being oppressed by another group of people. Jesus is better than Samson. Jesus is God sent by His Father to deliver all His chosen people from all times and all places from the tyranny of all our sin and death.

Samson lived a life full of sin; Jesus' life was so perfect that His most bitter enemies couldn't even imagine up lies to discredit His life and behavior.

Samson ended his life in disgrace, but used his death to kill many of his countrymen's enemies in one crushing blow. But Jesus' death, unlike Samson's, would not be to kill His enemies. No, His death would save His enemies from eternal death and deliver us from evil.

And unlike Samson, Jesus did not remain dead. He rose on the third day, just as He promised. And for forty more days, He taught His disciples all of His promises. And then He went back to His Father in heaven.

Samson's parents saw Jesus' ascend on a pillar of fire; Jesus' disciples saw Him ascend as a Himself, as the Man, who is God's Son. And from that moment on, the God-Man Jesus Christ sits at His Father's right hand. Spirits and angels cannot sit down because they have no body. But Jesus sits. He is the Man who saves. He is our Man, who does His Father's will. He breaks and hinders the Devil's plans. He opposes our sinful nature and proclaims that we deserve to die. But He also sends us His Word that makes us holy and faithful unto the end.

Jesus died for Samson and washed away his sin. And in the end He saved Samson because of His great mercy. Just as He spoke up for Samson before His Father, He speaks up for you. When the Law correctly damns us because of our many sins, Jesus exonerates us with His greater sacrifice of His own life on the cross. And His Father will listen to His Son every time, so that when we see Jesus eye-to-eye, we will not cry out in fear. We will not die when we see Him. We will live.

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us,

so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. Alleluia! Amen!

2 Corinthians 5:21

Christ Speaks to Forgetful Saints

Sixth Sunday of Easter

May 1, 2016

James 1:22-25

Christ Speaks to Forgetful Saints

In the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!

Senior moment. Mind like Swiss cheese. Scatter brain.

We have many ways of remembering that we're forgetful. We forget where we put the remote, the wallet, the eyeglasses, the bills. I am currently still trying to find my keys, so if you've seen them, let me know, will you?

We complain about being forgetful. We're too busy, we're too old, we're too young to be expected to remember important things.

Here are some important things:

You shall have no other gods.

You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

Honor your father and mother.

You shall not murder.

You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not steal.

You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor.

We are forgetful sinners; we are forgetful saints. Even as forgiven children of God, we still forget these commands daily. It is well confessed by our liturgy:

For the evil I have done and the good I have failed to do.

We could say that last part: the good I have forgotten to do. So too often we are the ones described by James:

But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. Because if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man looking at his own face in a mirror. For he looks at himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. (James 1:22-24 HCSB)

We hear God's Word today, and tomorrow we forget. In Christ's eternal presence of the world to come, we will never forget. We will remember forever. But until then, even with our best intentions of remembering, we will still always forget.

But there are things we can do to be less forgetful. When you forget your keys a bunch of times, you finally remember to try and put them purposefully in a dish by the front door. When you go in and come back, the keys go in and the keys go out.

Same with God's Word. When you fling God's Word around haphazardly, Christ will still find you and forgive you. But why not keep God's Word in the same place, even the same time, every day? You have a place for your keys; why not a place and time for God's Word?

Daily read God's Word. Recite a part of the Catechism (you could say the Ten Commandments, for example) and then take a few moments to compose a few short prayers asking for specific help for yourself and others.

O Lord, help me find my keys.

O Christ, keep me from losing my temper.

O Father, watch over my grandchildren.

This is why Jesus said:

Anything you ask the Father in My name, He will give you. Until now you have asked for nothing in My name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete. (John 16:23b-24 HCSB)

When Jesus speaks to you every day and you in turn speak to His Father, you will see more clearly the good works He has prepared for you to do.

But the one who looks intently into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but one who does good works—this person will be blessed in what he does. (James 1:25 HCSB)

I might not find my keys. Tempers still will be lost, but sometimes they will be found. Some grandchildren have great parents, others less so. But for forgetful saints, forgetful believers, daily seeing the Commandments of our Lord and seeing our sins and our evil shows us daily our Savior. And in this remembering that our Savior Jesus has purposely forgotten our evil is where our joy is made complete.

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us,

so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. Alleluia! Amen!

2 Corinthians 5:21