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The Lord Will Provide

Before Abraham
Before Abraham

Abraham had waited his entire life, over 100 years for this one son to be born. He had waited more than 25 years even since the Lord first said that He would have this son with Sarah from which a nation would grow and all nations would be blessed. Finally, Isaac was born. 

At the time of our Old Testament text Abraham was probably about one hundred and twenty-five years old. Now God tells him to take his long awaited son of promise out into the wilderness and offer him up as a burnt offering to God. It is difficult to imagine what must have been going on in the mind of Abraham. The Bible only tells us of his faithfulness. When Isaac asks about the lamb for the sacrifice, “The Lord will provide.” Was the answer of Abraham. “The Lord will provide.”

Abraham had to be crushed and frightened as the moment of sacrifice drew nearer. 

Nevertheless, he followed the command of God. We could try with worldly wisdom to answer why Abraham would believe that God would deliver Isaac or raise him from the dead.

We could reason: well, God had granted Abraham wealth, God’s previous promises had been fulfilled, but that isn’t the real reason. Abraham was faithful because Abraham believed in the faithfulness of God.

His faith is demonstrated first in his words to his servants: “I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.”, but it becomes even more evident in in his answer to Isaac – “God will provide for Himself the lamb”. Isaac was the miracle child, yet Abraham did not question God’s ability to do more miracles. Abraham thought God would raise Isaac from the dead. That is what the book of Hebrews says chapter 11. “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac… He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.”

Abraham trusted God to provide, and so he was willing to sacrifice his son. And God provided. He provided for Abraham in a way I suspect Abraham had never fully envisioned. He stopped Abraham at the very last moment, and provided the sheep for sacrifice, caught by its horns in the bush nearby. Abraham passed the test and worshiped God, and everyone went home happy.

Hebrews tells us that this was a type. Abraham received Isaac back from the edge of destruction as a type of the resurrection from the dead. Also, Abraham was the father who was sacrificing his only son, just as God did for us. Except God was under no command to do it.

It was His plan and His will to sacrifice His Son for us and for our salvation. 

People should marvel, when they stop to consider that Isaac went along with the whole thing. Isaac was old enough to flee or to fight this hundred and some year old man of a father as he began binding him for the sacrifice, but he didn’t.  Isaac carried the wood for his own sacrifice. He allowed his father to tie him up and lay him on the pile of wood in the altar area for the sacrifice. No matter what may have been going through his mind, he humbly and without complaint did what his father asked him to. In this, Isaac is a type of Christ.

Christ also humbly followed the plan and will of His Father. He knew throughout His life who He was and where He was going to end up. He walked that road and was faithful. He faced the wrenching dread and sorrow of the garden of Gethsemane. He carried the wood of His sacrifice, the cross, willingly obedient to His Father for the purpose of our salvation. He allowed Himself to be tied, pierced, and placed on the altar of the cross for sacrifice. Of course, no voice from heaven stopped the hand of the executioner for Jesus, because His blood is that which we need to make atonement.

In Genesis, God commanded Abraham to stop, and he saw the ram caught by its horns. God told Abraham that he had demonstrated his faith and absolute trust in God, being willing to give up that which was most precious to him for the sake of his God. Similarly, God demonstrated His great love for us, and His desire to rescue us from sin and death and hell by offering up that which was most precious to Him – His only-begotten Son. By faith in Jesus Christ and His sacrifice, because Jesus suffered the torments of hell and died in your place, you are forgiven, and you will never die. Your body will, and it will rest, as did the body of Jesus, in the grave for a time, but like Jesus, you will commend your soul into God’s presence and keeping, and you will live both between the day of your body’s death and the day of resurrection, and, following that day of the resurrection of all flesh, you will live in joy and glory body and soul with the Lord eternally.

This is amazing and truly by God’s grace. For we have not been faithful, but God was and is faithful. God provided the lamb of sacrifice for us sinners. He provided for Abraham in the ram caught in the bushes, and He has provided salvation for you in Jesus Christ. That sheep in the account of Abraham and Isaac was the type, and Jesus the antitype – the anti-type meaning that is He is the reality which fulfills the meaning of the symbolism in the story of Abraham and Isaac. Therefore, “In the mount of the Lord, it will be provided.” For Abraham it was a specific yet unnamed hill in the land of Moriah. In 30 A.D. it was a hill named “Golgotha,” just outside the city walls of Jerusalem: ” for in the mount of the Lord it has been provided”. 

Abraham received Isaac back from the dead, as Hebrews put it. Isaac hadn’t really died, but he was marked for death, and as good as dead at his father’s hand, if God had not intervened. His release from death was a type pointing to the resurrection of Jesus. We, because of our sin were marked for death, but Jesus is the Lamb that intervenes for us. He is also the first-fruits of our resurrection. We shall also rise from the dead as Jesus did, when He returns because we are His body, and we have been joined with Him in His death and resurrection through baptism. Just as Isaac pointed forward as a type to the resurrection of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus points forward to our own resurrection from the dead.

The Lord will provide. And He has. But this text is not just about history. When God wants us to serve, to do some specific thing, or just to be faithful, the Lord will provide. We will never face any situation where God cannot meet our needs. We will never face any circumstance where God will not provide what we need in order to be faithful to Him. Trust Him because He is faithful.

Trust God and be faithful, therefore. You cannot need more than God can provide, and if you are faithful, and are doing what is faithful, the Lord will surely provide, especially when it comes to spiritual strength and hope for each day. We are living on “the mount of the Lord” today. When the children of Israel left the holy mountain, God went with them. He provided Manna and water and guided them to the holy land, promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Then they built the temple, and God claimed it as His place of His presence on earth among men. But it was all pointing to Christ Jesus. He was Immanuel, “God with us.” When Jesus ascended at the end of His earthly ministry, He did not stop being with us. He is still Immanuel as He leads His church forth by His cross, giving daily bread and as His kingdom comes in His Word, in the Sacrament of the Altar and with His body and blood!

The Lord is gracious and faithful even when we are not. He continues to call us to repent and be restored in Christ so that we may learn to become faithful not just in obedience but in receiving, believing, and rejoicing in His many blessings that He provides for us.

In the Gospel lesson this morning, Jesus said to the Jews who did not believe in Him: “Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death. Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad. God is not the God of the dead but of the living.” Abraham trusted in the Lord and Abraham kept the Word of God. Though his body now sleeps, He never truly experienced death. Abraham and all believers, who are dead according to the flesh, are actually alive in spirit and in God’s eternal glory have seen Christ and His day of crucifixion and resurrection and now rejoice. We, likewise, have known and experienced Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. In Holy baptism, we were crucified according to the flesh in Christ’s death, and have been raised into newness of life into the resurrection of Christ by faith. Furthermore, we are able to receive Christ’s very body and blood in the Sacrament of the Altar, and in that moment, already see a glimpse into eternity as all the Saints who have gone before are present at the feast of victory given here.

Dear fellow believers, keep the Word of the Lord in your life, in your heart, in the sacraments, and the Lord will provide life forever for you. Life lived here by faith in the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ. Those who have died to sin by repentance and the remembrance of their baptism will never truly die. So do not be afraid. Believe in the Lord; trust Him, and rejoice with the living Church in triumphant glory and the living church militant here on earth as we together keep the Word of God in Jesus Christ; celebrating His victory over our sin and death because God has truly kept His own word for us. He has provided the Lamb for the sacrifice, so that we may receive the inheritance of eternal life through His beloved son, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Pr. Aaron Kangas

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Where are we to buy bread?

Loaves And Fishes
Loaves And Fishes

In today’s Gospel, it was written that Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little.”

Phillip didn’t understand that Jesus was not asking about the cost of the bread or how much was needed to feed the people. He was asking: “where was the bread to come from?” As it turns out, Jesus had the answer to all these questions.

As I pondered this text this week, I couldn’t help think about current events. Specifically tax season, the passing of Governmental appropriations to avoid shut downs with many more bills to come, will there be: giving away of money to Ukraine, Israel, or any other thing that our government spends money on? Regardless, where you stand on these topic, there are many people who are already thinking about that money in various ways. Maybe you are too. Questions like: “Who is going to pay for it? What about all the pork within the laws? Are they expanding the child tax credit? Will I qualify for any governmental funds? Where does the money come from and how long before they spend more?

The reality is much like Phillip’s concern: money will only go so far. Whatever you or I may get back in any tax refund. Whatever any money that any nation gets from the US government, whatever money is allotted…it always runs out and there is always a need for more. There is always something else that money could be spent on: whether noble or entertaining, or in defense, or in stocking up: by us, by the government, or anything. Whatever that money is spent on, things break, run down, run out, it’s not enough… the point is that money, food, whatever it is: it is finite. It is temporary, it can only go so far until it has an end.

The people in our gospel lesson also knew this. They knew that even after Jesus fed them, their bellies would become empty again. The knowledge that “they would get hungry again, but here’s a guy who can give us free food whenever we are hungry” motivated them to try to seize Jesus and make him king. Then their bellies could always be full. That is why they pursued Jesus in John 6 after our verses today; they wanted Him to feed them and fill their bellies again and again with free bread and fish.

We see this happening today. Many people do not care what else the government is doing, what corruption is occurring, how many tax dollars go to propaganda, indoctrination in our schools, abortions, sex changes, immoral bombings and wars, so long as they get their bellies fed. As long as the government gives them a few dollars now and again to please themselves: they’re satisfied. But these people are only looking at the short-term pleasure of selling their affections. Think they are happy and satisfied until… they get hungry again or hopefully (before too late) they wake up from their haze and realize the cost of that short term hand out: not only their freedom, but their life, their faith, their hearts and minds, but the hearts, minds, and souls of their children and neighbors as well. Lest you misunderstand me, the problem is not even so much the worship of the government. The problem for you, me, Americans, and all people, is how easily we can be misled because of the worship of our own flesh: our own interests in the immediate moment. That momentary selfish impulse to serve our self and to honor and worship those people or things which give us that momentary thrill or sense of fulfillment.

To worship our bodies, our food, our leisure, our money, our government, even our freedom… it’s all a sinful trap. It is the way to never be satisfied and never be joyful and always be unsettled and worried that these things in which we trust will be taken away. This is the path of death. If we worship only the finite, the things that pass away and are temporary, then we live ever and only under the shadow of death and trying to beat and race the clock. We may change our clocks, (like last night) but we cannot change time, and we cannot change the constant gnaw of time and cost of our sin which is the ending: the death of all things, including our own life.

This then was the real purpose and meaning of Jesus feeding the crowd; what Jesus told the people who continued to follow him hoping for another handout…A purpose to show more than the fact that God is generous and all created things can be a blessing from God our Father and received with thanksgiving. This miracle points to something that God wants people to receive: a something higher, greater, and more lasting than the passing away, finite food, clothing, and money of this world.

Jesus told the people later in John 6: “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you… I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” Jesus was telling the people that He was the fulfillment of Isaiah 55 were God said: “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.”

How can there be such a food, such a drink that if people eat or drink they never die? A food and drink that has no price, no cost?

Who is paying for this free bread, this bread of life, that people may eat and not die, even though humanity’s sins deserve it? Where must people go and be to receive this most glorious and redeeming miraculous bread of life from heaven?

“Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” 

To the cross. To Jesus Christ. Jesus has paid the price of our sin. He has purchased the redemption of our flesh and our lives, our souls, and bodies. He paid a price that we could not pay, with a substance far more precious and valuable than silver, gold, precious jewels. He purchased it with His own pure and perfect flesh and blood, by His own suffering and death.

An innocent man had to die for you, me, and the world so selfish and idolatrous. But this God-man did this so that we could turn and be filled, no longer be lost, no longer empty, no longer destined for our bodies to die, decompose, and then soul and body receive eternal damnation at the last. Jesus Christ died in His body, shedding His blood so that we could be repented, turned and brought to the place which bought for us life eternal: the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

“But what is this among so many?” This one body, this one blood of Jesus Christ is enough and more than enough for individual sinners. Individuals no longer scattered from faith and hope and life, scattered to then be gathered in slavery to flesh, and finite, and failing things of the world, death, and the devil.

No, you have been brought to Jesus the crucified by God the Father, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to be unified with Him, by His power, wisdom, and life. Baptized and washed in that precious blood invited to drink and eat of His words and of His flesh by faith and be saved from sin, death, and the power of the devil.

Jesus said: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 

So as God asked through Isaiah: “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
    and your labor for that which does not satisfy?”

Do not put your hopes in money, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, any political party, or anything else. As you live and receive earthly things, as you are tempted to worry and be anxious about the things of this life, labor no more for that which does not and cannot satisfy. Labor for that which lasts forever. Labor and invest by resting in Him where He is especially for you. Pray for ongoing perspective: for faith in Jesus Christ. Come to where He promises to be for you. He provides you with that wine and that bread, that meat and milk which makes strong and satisfies our hungry hearts and souls, here. Here in His Word. Here where He gives His eternal crucified and raised flesh as food and His holy precious blood as drink even under these finite forms of bread and wine. Here we express that we are made one church, one in confession of the truth that overcomes all falsehood, in the one body that was enough and more to pay the price of sin: Jesus Christ.

Come and eat. Be made truly alive and be satisfied by our king, who fills us with the abundance of His forgiveness, His Spirit, His life; all so that these bodies may not die, but merely sleep to be raised and live where there is no end. At the last we these bodies will be transformed to Christ’s: bodies that cannot and will not wear out or be destroyed because they have already been and will be filled in Jesus Christ. Jesus who was crucified for your sin and raised for your salvation. Thanks be to God in Jesus Christ, Amen!

Pr. Aaron Kangas

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Christus Victor

beelzebul
beelzebul

In today’s Gospel, Jesus casts out demons, and immediately the scribes and Pharisees accuse Him of being in cahoots with the devil, casting out demons in the name of “Beelzebul,” that is, literally “The lord/Baal of the flies.” Of course, they mean the devil even as they reference one of the ancient pagan gods of the Canaanites. They just can’t accept the fact that this man they hate could possibly be on God’s side. He’s obviously in league with the devil, right? That’s the only explanation. 

Jesus lets them know how utterly foolish their premise is. “A house divided cannot stand. If Satan is divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand?” The point is clear: Jesus can’t be working for the devil if He’s so clearly working against the devil. 

There is a reason that for the 3rd Sunday in a row, we hear of Jesus and Satan. Jesus going toe to toe with the demonic forces of the devil: the temptation in the wilderness, the Canaanite woman’s daughter who was being oppressed by a demon, and this morning, Jesus casts out a demon from a man who was mute, and he is accused of being in league with him. As if!?

No, rather it points out something else. Who is in control. Who is the strong man? Who can stand strong if one stronger than they should come along? Why did Jesus come to earth? And who was He really fighting and struggling against in the Garden and upon the cross of Golgotha?

So, Jesus goes into the lesson on the strong man. There is a reason that Scripture refers to the devil as “the prince of this world.” He and his demonic minions are far stronger than any of us feeble children of Adam. This is also why St. Paul warns us that we aren’t battling against ordinary flesh and blood, but against the spiritual rulers and powers of this present darkness. However… that demonic strong man is no match for the stronger man; the One who breaks in and overcomes him and puts him down. Which is good, because until Christ breaks in, having bound the strong man, and takes what was his, well, we would have no hope and be left where we were. Where is that? Bound in the chains of our sins. Possessed by the devil in thought word and deed in his palace. Belonging to him, enslaved, and without life: zombies, only living for the moment, always trying to escape the pain of fear and earthly trouble, but never finding a peace which can only come through Christ. Like the unbelieving of this world, had Jesus not come into the house of the prince of this world, bound Him, and redeemed us by taking our place for punishment, we would have remained bound, speechless, unable to confess Jesus and the Holy Words of God’s name in prayer and praise.

So, when Almighty God, in the flesh and person of Jesus Christ, breaks in, and goes to war, the Baal of the flies—Beelzebul—is bound up, overcome, and put down by the stronger God of Israel. It’s not even a contest. 

And given what we experience in life, it’s good that we ponder this Christus Victor reality. Beelzebul and all his minions, although certainly much stronger and more powerful than any and all of us children of Adam, is no match for the Lord of Life. No matter how bleak and fly-infested and rotten things may seem to be sometimes, the Lord of Life is in charge. The stronger man—God in the flesh—has already entered in and won the war. The strong man has already been overcome. Satan has been rendered impotent by the omnipotent. “Where, death, is thy victory? Where, death, is thy sting? Death has been swallowed up in victory!”

But what about the rest of what Jesus had to say? “Whoever is not with Me is against Me.” That’s pretty cut-and-dry, black-and-white, isn’t it? Either you’re with Jesus or you’re against Jesus. You are in one camp/one household or the other. Either you’re with Jesus or you’re with the devil. Those are the only two sides. And I know everyone here breathes a great big sigh of relief because we’re clearly with Jesus. But maybe that’s why so many Christians don’t bother wrestling with these words. There’s a reason these texts are appointed for this Sunday in Lent; this season of repentance. 

You may not believe it; you may not want to admit it, but there are plenty of times when you and I are against Christ and we struggle against God wanting to go back into the devil’s house, to become Satan’s slave once more. Who here sins? Doesn’t sin put us at enmity with God? It does. Who here sins purposefully? Careful before you answer! All of us are more than familiar with the Ten Commandments. You know what God clearly says about things such as adultery and sex outside of marriage, murder, honoring those in authority over us, covetousness, lying, and slander. And yet… we still do these things, oftentimes quite willingly and unapologetically. Nobody has ever made you think adulterous, murderous, or hateful thoughts, have they? You know what God so clearly says about not having any other gods and trusting in Him above all things, about not misusing His name, and honoring His Sabbath by keeping it holy. Nobody has ever forced you, against your will and under the threat of death, to hit the snooze button and pull those warm blankets so you can worship the mattress god. Nobody has ever forced you to go have fun or the sporting event or the concert instead of gathering at church. Those are very willful. You are NOT a poor, innocent victim! You have stood against God. “Those who aren’t with Me are against Me.” It’s cut-and-dry, plain-and-simple. You are either with the gatherer or the scatterer.

So, think about it, and repent. Be sorry for your sins, and find ways to train your thoughts, your hearts, your minds, and overcome those temptations to willfully do what is wrong or NOT do what is right. How can we?

What is the Way? Not my way, nor yet your way. The Way is in Christ. He is the only Way, the Truth, and the Life. Blessed is the One who hears the Word of God and keeps it,” Jesus said. So, hear the Word of God. Meditate upon it. Be gathered here as often as you possibly can.

Your story doesn’t end here with your guilt. Look to this cross. Your heavenly Father gave His only-begotten Son to suffer and die for you, to mute the demonic mouth of Satan who would mislead you into sin, self-justification, or despair. Jesus took on flesh and came down to the house of the Devil, to this valley of darkness, death and despair in order to take your place. In a very real way Jesus even became the enemy of God for you. He came to this earth so that our heavenly Father would pour out all His righteous wrath against Him and not you even for the times you willfully became His enemy. We are delivered from this justly deserved death sentence purely by God’s grace; purely by Christ’s perfect obedience and perfect love for His Father and for us. Understood in repentant faith, how do you show your thanks for such incomprehensible mercy and grace? “Blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it.”

So, keep that Word by faith and fill your hearts and minds by it. We prayed in the Introit: “My eyes are ever toward the LORD, for He shall pluck my feet out of the net.
Turn Yourself to me, and have mercy on me, for I am desolate and afflicted.” 

Let this be our confession in the midst of anything that happens in this life. Train your eyes of faith ever toward the Lord, the “The Strong Man” Look to this cross. Look to the font. Here is the fruit of God’s light over and against the dark deeds of sin and the worldly flesh that the Devil would try to use to ensnare you. Remember what the Lord of Life has already said and done for you in your baptism; how He has blessed you. Keep this Word. Hold fast to this blessing. Look to this altar at the Lord’s Supper. Here is Almighty God Himself, breaking into our dark shadowy valley of death, not to bring His wrath and strike us down, but to comfort us, to forgive us, to give to us His blood-bought gifts of pardon, assurance, and peace that surpasses all understanding. 

Memorize good songs from the hymnal. Try to memorize parts of scripture as directed from our catechism or from our readings or the Introit, or liturgy, or our devotional handouts. Keep this Word and Promise. Hold fast to this blessedness, and you will be truly blessed, not because of anything you’re doing, but because you are holding fast to the Blessed One.

And then when the devil returns to you after having been cast out by confession and Absolution, by the remembrance of your Holy Baptism, and Christ’s promise for you, when that Devil returns to tempt and taunt you, he will NOT find an empty house to “house himself and many other demons”. Instead, he will come face to face with the Stronger Man: Jesus Christ in you, oh temple of the Holy Spirit, and because you are praying, singing, focused on Christ and the cross, Jesus, Himself, will bar the gate of your heart and Satan will flee.

Christ is here for you: the Blessed and Almighty One who vanquished the strong forces of sin, death, and the devil. Here is the One, who in binding up Beelzebul and the powers of sin and death, has loosed you; has set you free; Free to be His: safe, washed, and declared Holy in His Church, in His Hand, saved, and fed in Household for everlasting life in Jesus Christ. Amen.

Pr. Aaron Kangas

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Wrestling with God

Gentile Woman
Gentile Woman

This morning’s Old Testament text about Jacob and God wrestling can be confusing and might leave us scratching our heads. Why did God wrestle with Jacob? For many Christians, this text often winds up getting turned into a “how-to lesson” on perseverance. This attitude ends up verging on teaching a doctrine of God or God testing us. Somehow, according to this wrong interpretation of Jacob we might be tempted to think: God is testing us and we are called to outwrestle and outlast God by our prayers and determination in challenging him, then He will give us what we want. So, you hear this kind of language: “stick it out, fight hard, and stand your ground, pray unceasingly” those are not bad words if referring to battles against the devil, the world, or the temptations of our flesh with events in our life. But if we mean to stand your ground, stick it out and fight hard against God… well something is not right.

So… why did God wrestle with Jacob? Why didn’t Jesus answer the Canaanite woman straight away. What does this mean? What is God endeavoring to teach us with these accounts?
Let’s review who Jacob was. He was the grandson of Abraham. Jacob was the younger twin brother of Esau, and there was a lot of bad blood between the two (which was primarily Jacob’s fault). Jacob wasn’t exactly a good guy. He certainly wasn’t a good brother. He had tricked his brother into giving up his birth right and then he tricked his blind father, Isaac into thinking that he was blessing Esau as the eldest, but it was really Jacob. Then Jacob fled. He ran away. Because Esau was beyond angry. He was fed up with Jacob and wanted to kill his brother. Jacob having been blessed and then directed by Issac and Rebekkah to leave to go to Laban, left. As he had been on his way to Laban, Jacob was visited by the Lord and despite his past wrongs, the Lord blessed him and made with him the same promise that He had made to Abraham and Isaac “in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

His uncle, Laban, was Jacob’s match for trickery. That is its own story. At the time of today’s Old Testament passage, Jacob was married to not one, but two ladies—Rachel and Leah. He had been blessed with 12 sons, all kinds of servants and wealth and goods. He had been blessed! After all those years, Jacob was attempting to return home, not because he’s homesick, but because he’d worn out his welcome with his father-in-law.

Anyway… Jacob and his household had found themselves on the river’s edge that separated his homeland—the Promised Land—from the foreign land he’d been calling home for the past several decades. He wants to cross over into this good land; the land that had been promised to his grandpa Abraham and father Isaac and to him, but he was afraid. He was sure Esau still held a grudge even after all these years. Despite God’s promises, Jacob was sure that Esau would kill him and his family on sight and plunder all his goods. So, Jacob devised a plan. Rather than trusting in God’s Word and Promises, he decided to split the party up into two—half and half. The idea was that Esau may get one group, but he wouldn’t get both. After Jacob gets done sending both parties across the river under the cover of darkness, he laid down to get some rest. Notice: He’s not with either group! What a brave guy, right?! 

In his loneliness, and fear, he laid down to sleep and that is when God actually/physically comes to him and wrestles with him… all night long. 

After hours and hours of this brutal wrestling match, Jacob finally gets God in a leg-lock and demands that He tell him His name and give him a blessing. (He still doesn’t know he’s wrestling with God.) And how does God respond? He blesses Jacob, “Because you have striven/struggled/wrestled with God and man and have prevailed.” Okay…so the moral of the story is to fight and wrestle with God until you get your way? NO! That’s not what this is teaching us. I know that’s what we want to hear, but that’s not the point of the story.
What actually was the lesson, was that the difficulties that Jacob had faced, the wrestling and struggles of the past, even his worries and fears regarding Esau were of his own making. By doing it the wrong selfish way, he had been wrestling God all along. God had made Jacob a promise, but Jacob hadn’t believed Him. Jacob had still wheeled and dealed his own way, and now there he was: alone, afraid. He had claimed to believe God and His blessings/promises, yet his prayers and actions revealed the fact that he really didn’t trust God.

What does God do? He comes to his troubled, rebellious, disagreeable child. God takes on human form and wrestles with Jacob (and lets him win) all so that God can teach Jacob a profound lesson on trust. The wrestling with God was God showing Jacob that as long as Jacob wrestled against God in his unbelief, there could be no rest.

Also, God was teaching that He NEVER forgets His promises! God NEVER forgets His blessings! Let us remember that too! God had already promised that He would bless Jacob. Esau wasn’t going to be able to undo that. 

What was the blessing, Jacob received? It wasn’t “more stuff.” Jacob’s blessing had already been given to him before when God Himself had first promised to make his name and his family line great with the birth of a Savior. God blesses Jacob now with a new name—Israel—which means “one who wrestled with/struggled with God.” To Jacob, now Israel, God left him with a reminder to trust, and not rely on His own wits and effort. He dislocated Jacob’s hip which likely bothered him the rest of his life.

How is any of this a blessing?! That question reveals our lack of understanding of what it means to be truly blessed by God. Jacob had a new name and a new perspective. Every time he heard that new name; he remembered God’s promises and blessings that he wrestled God, yet God was still merciful and gracious to him. Every time he had to limp somewhere, he remembered his face-to-face encounter with God. “I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” He learned that He must live by faith.

Esau by the way, did not hurt Jacob but was glad to see him. Jacob—Israel—was a changed man; a new man; a man who truly walked (or limped,) by faith.

There are many things that you and I wrestle against, and there are many times that you and I make things worse because we resist what God wants for us. By our pride, our, fear, our doubt, our unkindness to others, we end up wrestling not against our enemies of the devil, the world, and our flesh, but against God and making things worse.

There are some things you simply can’t overcome or beat, no matter how hard you try. Sometimes God says “no,” and that’s His final answer. The Devil, the world, our flesh? there is no way we can defeat them on our own. Persistence only pays off by faith seeking the blessing and grace of God by that trusting faith.

The lowly Canaanite woman in the Gospel lesson who did trust in the mercy and the promises of God persisted as a witness to the others and received that which she received, not only healing, but forgiveness of sin and affirmation of her faith. Why did the Lord do what He did? To show the persistence of true faith. It doesn’t give up. Like that passage about love, true faith bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. How is that possible? Because true faith comes from God and His love first shown to us in Christ, sowing that love and that faith within us.

We are by our sinful nature little “Israels”: wrestlers against man and against God. Stop wrestling God. Stop resisting His truth, His way, His grace. That is why we find it difficult to rest. If we repent of our sin, and hand all our troubles over to God for the sake of Jesus Christ, we can finally rest: in Him.

You have been given a new name to remember God’s promises. God Himself put that name upon your forehead and upon your heart in Holy Baptism. The name of Christ as you were baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Clench and hold fast to Him, not in wrestling, but in faith. Hold fast to the blessing that He has already blessed you with in Christ. No matter how bad things may get, you belong to Christ. You are a child and heir of almighty God, and nothing and no one can ever take that from you; not earthquakes, not floods or any other disaster, crooked government, or wicked men. Not even the gates of hell can prevail against our Lord’s Promise to you! Jesus came down to earth and was crucified for you. Jesus Christ overcame the Devil, the world, your sin, and all the temptations of the flesh for you.

There are going to be times that you will doubt and despair. There are going to be times that you will not let God work, be it His way or on His time schedule, firmly convinced that you know better than God; firmly convinced that He needs your help. Don’t wrestle Him. Let Him come to you in your trouble, to take your trouble away. Here is where He speaks to you and reminds you of His promise of salvation by the forgiveness of sins. Here is where Jesus comes to remind you that you are not alone as He feeds you along with your brothers and sisters in Christ here and throughout the world with His crucified body and blood in the bread and wine for you.

God is not against you. The Father turned against Christ so that He would never have to turn against you. The Lamb of God stands before the Father’s throne for the rest of eternity, bearing the wounds of His crucifixion, forever reminding His Father that all our debt has been paid in full by Him. This is your blessing. Believe and receive. May you never lose sight of or let go of this great gift in Jesus Christ, Amen.

Pr. Aaron Kangas

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Lent 1

Temptation
Temptation

A mighty Fortress is Our God was sung just now. Why is that? In addition to it being a good and well loved hymn, it speaks very much to reality of what is going on in today’s text and in our daily lives: Spiritual battle.

The season which we call Lent or as the Germans had called it “fasting time”, is not just about giving up foods or about enjoying fish fries (which was certainly a big deal back in the Midwest). It also isn’t just a penitential season where we grieve over our sins and the fact that it was for our sins that Jesus had to die. This season of Lent should also be a time of learning, a time for making good changes. Changes like: daily devotions, maybe even more than once a day. A time of getting into Scripture. If you haven’t been coming to Bible Study, maybe now is a good season to start attending. Maybe also a time to crack open your old catechisms and read through the questions and answers. A time to review what it is that we believe and confess. Now is the time to become prepared by hearing, receiving, studying, and consuming God’s Word as much as we can. We cannot know God’s Word too much. This is God’s power of God for our salvation. It is His way of speaking to us to come to faith, then to be strengthened in that faith, and then by His Word in that faith, we are empowered, prepared, and armored to rebuke the Devil and His lies. The Devil is always on the attack, trying to drive us away from God or make us suffer the cross in faith. The Devil knows God’s Word and he knows how to twist it based on our ignorance of it. So, the devil preys upon us to tempt us in various ways through the very real spiritual battles that happen every day. Many decisions we make in a day have a spiritual element to it whether or not we realize it. Some are as obvious as whether or not we will get up, get ready, and go to church. Some spiritual conflict and challenge come upon us suddenly, like when a family member or coworker tells a joke, asks a question about your faith, shares gossip, or says a harsh word that demands answer. How will you answer? How will you handle it? Will you go along with the gossip and share some of your own? Will you laugh at the joke even if it is off color or at someone else’s expense? Will you downplay your faith and your confession as a Lutheran because you are afraid of offending or coming across as hyper-religious? At a harsh word, do you get angry and rage in response or do you not know how to answer, but later in your bitterness, do you plot vengeance or nurse your victimhood? Or how about this one, you have a big day the next day, whatever it is, and you cannot sleep, your children will not sleep or they are sick or an emergency arises. Do you lose your temper? What if your illness continues to linger, your loved one is failing. The bills are piling up? Do you lose heart? Lose faith? These are the times of suffering in this life’s journey when the Devil comes to steal faith and hope from our weak flesh so that we lose our way.

And so often we fall and fail. We give in to the flesh, the world, the lies of Satan, we make a mess of things. Then we make excuses for ourselves and make it worse.

Then Satan smiles and exults. He then accuses us in our sin and would cause us to despair even of God’s love. To embrace wholly the easy way, the way of the glory of this world, the way of the selfish flesh.

With might of ours can nothing be done. Soon were our loss effected, But for us fights the valiant one whom God Himself elected.

This brings us back to the Gospel text. After having taken the repentance and sin of every human in His baptism, as a scapegoat He was driven into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit. Jesus went out into the wilderness specifically to do suffer in great weakness, deprived of food for 40 days, to do battle, to face every temptation common to mankind and even uncommon. Notice the temptations from the Devil come at a time of greatest weakness in the flesh of Jesus. As the Devil arrives, he, you could almost imagine, with a sneer taunts Jesus “If you are the Son of God…” He was challenging the very words of God the Father at Christ’s baptism!! He then attacked Christ’s hunger, attacked the weakness of flesh to avoid the cross itself. He said, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” The final temptation recorded has the Devil again, saying, “If you are the Son of God…” and connects it to a temptation to test God’s protection.

But Jesus was equal to the task. The words of Jesus are significant. Up to this point no words of Jesus had been recorded in Matthew’s Gospel. In St. Luke, the only words recorded of Jesus prior to His temptation by Satan were His words to Mary and Joseph when He was 12, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” The words that Jesus used to answer the Devil is only the first or second time that Jesus speaks according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The words which they recorded the Holy Spirit had them record because What He said was important. Yet, what does He say? How does He answer the Devil? He doesn’t say anything new or original or extraordinary. Even to the bit of Scripture that the Devil misused, Jesus turned back the Devil citing Scriptures written previously. Whose Words were they? God’s. In fact, they were His Words; the words of the preincarnate Christ: the Word now made flesh who had already put them into the minds and pens of the OT prophets.

The Devil having tempted Christ in every way left Him until an opportune time, the days and moments before the crucifixion. But in this text, behold the power of God’s Word! Behold the power of God’s Love in His Word. The power of His Word for you. His Word is that power to rescue even in the greatest weakness, because Jesus has already gone to battle and then as we see Him at Calvary He has won the war. In our journey we are also led and empowered by the Word of God. It is only by His power and Word that the Devil is and can be rebuked.

But let us not get comfortable, after one rebuke, the Devil will not rest. He will continue to attack, to try to catch us weak and flat footed, unprepared without an answer, if not this time, then he hopes, the next, to catch us reacting by leading with our flesh rather than God’s Word.

In the Large catechism, Martin Luther had written: “the devil plies his force against you, and lies in wait for you without ceasing to seize and destroy you, soul and body, so that you are not safe from him one hour. “Now, what is the devil? Nothing else than what the Scriptures call him, a liar and murderer. A liar, to lead the heart astray from the Word of God, and to blind it, that you cannot feel your distress or come to Christ. A murderer, who cannot bear to see you live one single hour. If you could see how many knives, darts, and arrows are every moment aimed at you, you would be glad to come to the Sacrament as often as possible.”

So what do we do? If we are weak and heavy laden, remember Jesus is our refuge. His cross, our shade in our journey through this life. The banner of victory that leads to the end of this journey. Our eternal destination and promised land. The cross means that Jesus Christ has died for your sins and your failings. Yes, Repent and confess your sins, then receive assurance of forgiveness for those sins. Pray and do not lean on your own might, luck, or human wisdom in the battles that lie ahead. Lean upon the Lord.

Make use of the time. Be prepared with the tools and weapons that God gives you and His church. Come and worship and hear God’s Word at every opportunity, and learn God’s Words for you to rebuke anything that would cause you doubt and temptation. Eagerly receive Christ’s body and blood in the bread and wine; for there is God’s strength for you for the journey. In Christ, you can withstand the darts of Satan without fear or trembling. Christ is here to be by your side upon the plain with His good gifts and Spirit. Leading us, guiding us, and encouraging us even through the sufferings caused by sin in this life. Giving us His wisdom, joy, hope, and faith by His Word and Sacraments to remind us that Christ crucified and raised is victorious. He will bring us through Lent, through life, to the cross, to the empty tomb, to the glory of eternal life which He is even now preparing for you and all believers in Jesus Christ. Amen.

Pr. Aaron Kangas

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