The Guardians Who Protect the Father's Children

St. Michael and All Angels

Observed September 25, 2016

Matthew 18:10

The Guardians Who Protect the Father's Children

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

Angels are messengers and guardians who see the face of our heavenly Father. And they have two jobs: delivering messages from God to humans and protecting humans, particularly Christians, from harm and danger.

Cynics might ask that if angels do these two things, why do Christians die in car crashes? And why hasn't an angel ever spoke to them? We can answer these questions.

This first question wrongly assumes that the worst thing that can happen to someone is physical death. And the second question wrongly assumes that angels speaking to humans is about receiving secret knowledge that no one else has.

As to the first question, believers know that the worst thing possible isn't death; it's not trusting in Jesus' promise of forgiveness—unbelief. We are protected from unbelief in part due to the work of angels bringing messages from heaven down to Earth. And this addresses the second question: when angels from heaven deliver messages to humans on earth, the message is always Christ. Not secret knowledge just for you, but the truth of the Gospel for all people.

So angels protect us from unbelief and everlasting death by delivering messages of Christ. They were sent to deliver messages of Christ's conception, His birth, and His resurrection.

An angel brought the Word of God to the blessed Virgin Mary through his divine message.

²⁶In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, ²⁷to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. ²⁸The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” ²⁹Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. ³⁰But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. ³¹You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. ³²He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, ³³and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” (Luke 1:26-33)

A whole bunch of angels delivered the joyous news of Christ's birth.

⁸And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. ⁹An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. ¹¹Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. ¹²This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” ¹³Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, ¹⁴“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.” (Luke 2:8-14)

And they announced the news that Jesus was no longer dead.

¹On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. ²They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, ³but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. ⁴While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. ⁵In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? ⁶He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ⁷‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” (Luke 24:1-7)

In addition angels comforted Jesus after the temptations of the Devil in the wilderness and also in the Garden of Gethsemane. God chose to use these created beings in service of His work of saving us. And He continues to send His angels for our benefit in a world that filled with evil, mostly inside of us.

Jesus addressed the evil that's around us and inside of us when He said:

"I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. ⁴Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. . . . ¹⁰See 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. (Matthew 18:3-4, 10)

We do evil when we look down on little children. We do this by thinking too much of them and by thinking too little of them.

We think too much of little children when we fail to discipline them when they do evil, because we think of them as innocent or ignorant or uneducated. We think too much of them when we fetishize their wishes as the way of the future. Our culture thinks that if a young person says something, then it must more pure and correct and profound than if an older person says that the same thing. Our churches are not immune from this obsession with youthfulness. Everybody wants to stay young.

We think too little of little children when we ignore what they really need. We spend great amounts of time and money plotting to make our kids successful grown-ups and so we easily neglect what they really need: to pray with them. Prayer before meals and bedtime is wonderful, but God's children need more. Healthy children need to listen to Jesus Himself every day and to remember the great things He does for them. Children, that's what we are doing right now: remembering that Jesus died and remembering that Jesus lives again and forever for you! Say that everyday with your parents: Jesus was born, Jesus died, and Jesus lives. These things happened and you know it and so you say it.

Jesus sends angels to little ones who speak His name, even little baptized babies who can't yet speak, yet believe in Him. These angels are sent by Jesus to protect us from harm. These guardian angels rejoice when they hear the name of their Master spoken in the homes they protect. And they rejoice to report these glad tidings to their Father in heaven. The angels who protect you see His face always; this is good news for you because this means that the good angels are watching over you. The angels cast out of heaven do not see the Father's face; only the good angels see Him and He sends them to watch over you.

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!

Jesus Humbled Himself For Our Exaltation

17th Sunday after Trinity

September 18, 2016

Luke 14:11

Jesus Humbled Himself For Our Exaltation

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

⁸“When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. ⁹If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, 'Give this man your seat.' Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. ¹⁰But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, 'Friend, move up to a better place.' Then you will be honored in the presence of all your fellow guests. ¹¹For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 14:8-11)

This is good advice, isn't it? Don't sit in a seat that isn't yours. In a time when everyone is encouraged to feel entitled to whatever chair they won't, a little humility might go a long way.

But this advice isn't limited to the lips of Jesus. Solomon, whose wisdom came from listening to Jesus, wrote down this advice 1,000 years before Jesus was born in Bethlehem:

⁶Do not exalt yourself in the king's presence, and do not claim a place among great men; ⁷it is better for him to say to you, “Come up here,” than for him to humiliate you before a nobleman. (Proverbs 25:6-7)

This advice is timeless. It was true in 1000 BC, it was true in Jesus' day, it's still true today.

To Jesus' original audience—a group of Pharisees—this advice was meant to rebuke them. His description accurately got what they did. They craved attention; they wanted the best seats. The younger Pharisees tried for the places of honor and were sent down. But the older Pharisees had learned the wisdom of Solomon and grasped how to get good seats by taking the lowest places. It was a good trick and it probably worked.

This is why Jesus said at another time:

²“The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. . . . But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. . . . ⁵“Everything they do is done for men to see . . . ⁶they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues . . . ²⁸In the same way, on the outside [they] appear to people as righteous but on the inside [they] are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. (Matthew 23:2, 3b, 5-6, 28)

We are no better than Pharisees, young or old. We might appear righteousness to others and we might even begin to believe our own propaganda. But we must confess that on the inside we are full of wickedness.

We wickedly covet attention. And we pay attention to where others sit and we judge them. In our fairness-obsessed culture where we sit doesn't seem to matter much anymore. But we still care about who's getting attention.

For example, when we visit others Lutheran churches, we complain when none of the members of the church says hello to us. We crave attention, but we also know that we should try to appear the opposite. So we try to piously pass off our obsession with attention as evangelism. We claim, “Well, if they don't greet me and aren't overtly friendly to me, then they must not care about evangelism.” We should stop pretending and using imaginary strangers; we're coveting attention and when we notice it going to others, we become peevish and upset.

Or when our ideas at home, school, work, or church don't get the attention we think they deserve, we become dissatisfied. When our plans don't play out as we thought, we become irritated and we complain to ears that are eager to hear gossip.

Lord, have mercy on us!

Christ, have mercy on us!

Lord, have mercy on us!

And He does. Indeed His parable about picking the lowest seat at the banquet is best fulfilled by Him. Listen to Paul's description of Jesus and compare it with Jesus' story.

⁵Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

⁶Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,

⁷but made Himself nothing,

taking the very nature of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

⁸And being found in appearance as a man,

He humbled Himself

and became obedient to death—

even death on a cross!

⁹Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place

and gave Him the name that is above every name,

¹⁰that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

¹¹and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5-11)

Jesus willingly took the lowest place—He became a man! He willingly got even lower—He was nailed to a tree to be punished for the sins of the world! And then His Father, as His Son committed His spirit to Him, came and said in a way: “My beloved Son, move up to a better place.” So He raised up His Son's soul to His right hand and raised Him bodily on the third day.

He who humbles Himself will be exalted.

Jesus humbled Himself and is exalted.

Jesus humbled Himself for us lowly sinners and for His sake, we are exalted with Him!

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!

Jesus Stopped Death in Its Tracks

16th Sunday after Trinity

September 11, 2016

Luke 7:14

Jesus Stopped Death in Its Tracks

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

We live in a dying world where Death seems to win. Whether 3,000 die in a terrorist attack on 9/11 or if your most cherished friend dies of old age on 9/12, the result is the same: they are no longer here. Nothing seems to be able to stand up to Death; it appears inevitable and invincible.

If only Jesus would attend every funeral and appear bodily at the grave site of all faithful believers. If only He would gently touch the caskets of the dead, they would get up. In the history of the Old and New Testaments, this is just what happened several times. God's prophet or even His Son intervened and got in Death's way. Death was stopped in its tracks.

But God isn't content to just save the handful of souls recorded in Scripture; He desired that all should live. So God Himself ended Death's power not just in Nain, but completely on Calvary. Jesus stopped Death once and for all on the cross.

He went to the cross for the same reason He raised the widow's son in Nain—His heart went out to poor miserable lonely souls. His heart went out to a grieving lonely husband-less son-less woman; His heart goes out to you, too.

He came to this village of Nain and in His humanity is caught short by this funeral procession. And so He acted. He came up to the coffin of this dead son and touched it. He didn't bang the casket; He pressed His holy hand to this box of death and those carrying it stopped. And using His divine voice He called on Death to give up its prize. And Death had to listen. Death couldn't say no.

The young man got up and began to talk. We don't know what he said, but he was clearly alive. Jesus' word had made all the difference.

Not only did Jesus give this widow her son back, but He ended her tears of sadness with the promise of reunion with her husband as well. Now it is said at funerals: “Grandma is with Grandpa now.” Yes, and with millions of other believers, too, in the great eternal family of God. Jesus told us that everlasting life with Him will not be like life here—it's not just your family, clan, or tribe, but all nations together around Him. Heaven is wherever Jesus is; not wherever Grandpa is.

So yes, there is join in seeing your beloved spouse again. But if that's your center of gravity in the face of Death, you'll lose your balance. Jesus is Heaven, and everyone else there, including the widow's husband, is an added harvest of joy!

In the resurrection of all the dead Jesus promised her that her life would never again be empty and barren. One day this widow of Nain would die and then we know that her son died again. But though they both died, they still live.

When we face Death in the eye, we hold on to Jesus' word.

²⁵“I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in Me will live, even though they die; ²⁶and whoever lives by believing in Me will never die. (John 11:25-26 NIV)

Your never-dying is accomplished in Jesus' dying. His death makes Death die and His resurrection makes all other comings back to life realities. The widow's son. Your son. You.

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!

Christ Died for You So That the Worst Has Already Happened

15th Sunday after Trinity

August 28, 2016

Matthew 6:24-25

Christ Died for You So That the Worst Has Already Happened

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

She's calm. The woman in Zarephath who had lost her husband and now was on the brink of losing her son and her own life comes across as calm.

We hear her when Elijah comes to her town. He asks her for some water; she obliges. But when he asks her for some bread, she says she can't help. She only has enough bread to have one last meal with her son and then they will die from starvation. She's calm. She doesn't break down and cry. She is speechless—she tells a stranger that her son is going to die before her eyes How do you say this to anyone?

But she told Elijah. What else could she do? What good would worrying do? Worrying is just imagining the worst that can happen. It's hard to worry when the worst is happening.

This poor widow isn't the only one who is calm in the face of the worst that can happen.

Before they were thrown into the fiery furnace Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied to a furious Nebuchadnezzar:

¹⁶“King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter [they hadn't bowed down to a golden idol]. ¹⁷If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and He will deliver us from your Majesty’s hand. ¹⁸But even if He does not, we want you to know, your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.” (Daniel 3:16-18 NIV)

No groveling, no anger, no curses, no backing down. Just calm steadfast trust in the true God. Just so with Daniel before he was thrown into the lions' den. There's no record of screaming or crying. They just throw him in.

For Daniel and his fellow Jews, this calmness came from their trust in God's promise to them, which we summarize in the words of Jesus:

Seek first [My] kingdom and [My] righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:33 NIV)

Daniel and his fellow Jews already had Christ and His kingdom; nothing, not even Death itself, could not rob them of Him and His righteousness.

So also Death cannot rob you of God's gift of being right with Him. Many of you have faced the death of a Christian loved one. You were sad, but underneath it was your calm abiding trust in Jesus' promise: believers cannot die. This is Jesus' promise to Martha, when her brother died. It is His promise to you when your brother dies:

²⁵“I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in Me will live, even though they die; ²⁶and whoever lives by believing in Me will never die. (Jesus 11:25-26 NIV)

What is strange is that we trust Jesus is the big things—death and resurrection—but we so often sin by worrying about the little things. We worry about school exams and college boards. We worry about paying for unexpected medical bills. We worry about retirement.

Our brains demand that these little things get the most attention and the most anxiety. These issues are the literal bread and butter of our lives: money, good schools, good jobs, good living after work.

But Jesus tells us: Don't worry. And He specific here about what not to worry for: Money and loving Money.

²⁴“No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. ²⁵Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?” (Matthew 6:24-25)

When we worry about Money, we are more foolish than birds and sadder than lilies. When you worry about Money, repent and trust in Jesus' forgiveness. If you are burdened with this Money-ache, come and see me and I will bring you Christ's forgiveness. Pray to Him for daily bread in the prayer He taught you. Daily pray for His swift return and deliverance from the burden of our imagination that is so often imagining the worst that can happen: the loss of money.

Instead daydream and imagine how the best thing has happened to you. Christ died and rose for you. He shed His blood on the cross and now gives you His blood—which is worth more than all the gold and silver in the world—for the forgiveness of your sins, especially your sins of worrying about Money.

Money can't love you, but He loves you, you know. He really does. He proved it again and again. His cross and when He had you Baptized. He love you, even when you think the worst is happening.

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!