The Feast of the Ascension is right around the corner. With Christ’s visible presence removed, how will the world see him? It should see him when it sees us. That we would strive to reflect in our lives the love of Christ and his obedience to his Father for us is not optional for the Christian. The branches, to connect with last week’s gospel lesson, bear corresponding fruit of necessity. To spur us on Jesus gives us a new title; he calls us his friends, those with whom he has shared the heart and mind of God! Now we get to look like his friends by the way we are with one another. Love each other!
Because He Lives... We Have a Good Shepherd (Easter 4)
The whole work of Jesus from Christmas to Easter had this in mind, that he should be and remain our Good Shepherd and we should be and remain his sheep. All in all, it’s a bad bargain for the shepherd! Look what happens! Everything is upside down and backwards. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, for whom the whole of creation exists, freely and willingly sacrifices himself for the sheep who add nothing to his own infinite worth. The Father even agrees with that sacrifice. He loves the sheep, it would seem, even more than he loves the Shepherd! For it is his will that the Shepherd become the Good Shepherd in just this way. So much they love the flock!
Because He Lives... We Have Peace (Easter 3)
From Easter Sunday until the Ascension Jesus emphasized in his discourses with the disciples the absolute necessity of the Word. Soon he would remove his visible presence. The closer they are to his Word, the closer they will be to him. He opens the Scriptures so that they finally understand; without that miracle of the effective Word all remains darkness and foolishness. For how impossible everything he promised appears to reason! But with the effective Word, it all becomes both clear and powerful even beyond the creation of faith. We see clearly what our God has done and what he brings… peace. Peace with God that now motivates us to share that peace with the world. Because he died, because he lives, we have peace!
Because He Lives... Easter at Our Savior Lutheran Church
If death was all that we had to look forward to, then we would be miserable indeed. We would have reason to fear that our whole life was in vain and the endurance of every struggle or temptation a wasted effort. If death ends all, why struggle, why sacrifice, why endure opposition and persecution especially from our own flesh in its fight with sins and temptations? But death does not end all. Death, feared by all, has now fallen victim to Christ in his resurrection; he has conquered it for us! Because he lives, we will rise. Because he lives, we will see him as he is. Because he lives, we will spend eternity not in dust but in adoration. That’s why he came. That’s why he died. That’s why we are so glad on this most holy day of days. Therefore do not be afraid of life. Fear death even less. For Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! His life is our life, our death is his death, his resurrection and his heaven are our future!
Good Friday Tenebrae Service: It is Finished
It is the day of contradiction. Everything is the opposite of what it should be. Man lives. God dies. Only John and some women stand nearby, and they are of no help at all. Instead the Sufferer takes care of his friend and his mother. Soldiers, the crowd, and officials of church and state care nothing for the Sufferer. The Sufferer dies for these who caused every bit of his suffering and who on this day made it as shameful and as painful for him as they could. We dare not look. But still, we cannot look away. We are devastated and desolate at the sight of what we have done by our sins. And a wave of relief sweeps over us. Yes, a day of contradiction: we heave a sigh of relief that he whom we love suffers thus, nor would we help him, even if we could! For he suffers instead of us! He suffers for us! He brings it all to a close, our whole salvation, the redemption of sinners, when he declares in agony and in triumph: It is finished!
Maundy Thursday / Holy Thursday: Christ Gives Us Himself
How perfectly the readings on this holy day sum up so much of Lent! Look at these sinners! For these he came? Yes, for these! Look at what he gives them even when he knows perfectly what they are about to do. Having no earthly property or wealth, he writes his Last Will and Testament and he bequeaths them Himself and all that he has come to win for them! He bequeaths them his true body and true blood, the price of their salvation, the promise that he will never forsake them. That’s what he gives us in his Sacrament! He gives it knowing all about us. He gives it to us, to sinners!
Palm Sunday: Your King Comes!
Lent began with an almost equal focus on the sinner and the Savior. But increasingly and now in Holy Week the focus is on Christ. The readings for today want us to understand once and for all who it really is who has come to save us, so that with all confidence we may do as the Prayer for the Day suggests, follow him from Holy Week to Easter, from earth to heaven.
Our Savior Goes to War: Jesus Overcomes our Judgment
Our sin and our failures demand only one thing—judgment. What our thoughts, words, and actions have earned for us is not only death, but a complete separation from God and his love.. In other words, hell. Today, though, we hear again about a Savior who goes to war for us. A Savior who comes with one mission and a singular, unwavering focus on that purpose: to save us. Jesus has come to suffer. Jesus has come to die. Jesus has come to take the judgment our sins deserve and to stand condemned for them. Jesus comes to take our judgment and overcome—and he does! He now lives and promises us that our sin is forgiven, that there is now no condemnation for us! So, while we see his suffering and death for us, we rejoice in the victory he has given us.
Our Savior Goes to War: Jesus Overcomes our Sin
There's a snake under your pew! It is the stinging awareness of our failure to love God and our neighbor. We are impatient with God as well as with our neighbor. Sometimes we're tempted to look for a better god or a better neighbor. As long as we obsess over our troubles, our frustrations---our "snakes"---they will keep biting and sin will keep killing us and our relationships. The Word today lifts our eyes to see that Christ on the cross took the bite of our sins into Himself in order that, as faith gazes and focuses on Him, we receive the perfect antidote to sin and death: forgiveness in Christ. Our Savior overcomes even our sin!
Our Savior Goes to War: Jesus Overcomes False Belief
So many things in our world and in our life clamber for our attention and want to be first in our lives. It can be hard to weed out the unimportant and keep the important in the right priority. Even more difficult, no, impossible, is to do if perfectly each and every day. Your Savior God wants to be first in your life. He went to war for you fighting the devil, the sinful world, your own sinful nature so that your relationship with God might be restored. His perfect obedience and sacrifice for us assures us of our salvation.
Our Savior Goes to War: Jesus Overcomes the Cross
German philosopher and economist Karl Marx once stated that religion is the opium of the masses. Marx believed that religion had certain practical functions in society that were similar to the function of opium in a sick or injured person: it reduced people's immediate suffering and provided them with pleasant illusions. In other words, religion is something that is supposed to reduce suffering. Yet, listen to the readings from God’s Word this morning—they don’t describe happy times. Jesus’ life here on earth was marked by suffering because of who he was and what he came to do. The price of our salvation is steep—it involved Jesus suffering and dying for our sins. In our Savior though we see the stark reality of the love of God and how it is inseparably connected to the cross, both his and ours! Salvation and suffering go hand in hand, for Jesus and for us too! May God strengthen our hearts as we see Jesus overcome suffering to assure us of our salvation, and to strengthen us when we must suffer. Our cross drives us to his cross both for forgiveness and for strength.
Our Savior Goes to War: Jesus Overcomes Temptation
This past week with Ash Wednesday, we entered the time of the church year called Lent. During the season of Lent, we reflect on our Savior’s battle with the devil with a somber realization that it was our sins that brought on his suffering and death. Through the next several weeks we are going to see our Savior go to war—to fight for us on our behalf and to fight against the devil, the sinful world, even death itself. Today, we see our Savior battle the devil and his temptations, something you and I are intimately familiar with. How often doesn’t the devil strive to lead us away from our Savior and into sin, and how often don’t we fall. But Jesus didn’t. Jesus overcame temptation, and in overcoming temptation, defeated the devil and won our salvation. We see our Savior go to war and come back victorious over temptation.