This Sunday in Easter is oftentimes called “Good Shepherd Sunday”. Therefore, today we sang Psalm 23 and a portion of John 10, along with the Shepherd references in the Old Testament and Epistle readings. John 10 and the 23rd Psalm contain passages that many consider their favorite. Our readings used that beautiful imagery of Jesus and God as the Good Shepherd who searches for and guides the sheep, meaning members of the church, His flock. We often use these texts to comfort ourselves when we are suffering, hurting, near death, and at funerals. Many of you I am sure even have the 23rd Psalm committed to memory. If you do, that is wonderful; if you don’t have it memorized, it might be helpful to do so. Why would it be helpful? Because when the time comes that you will be in need, you may not have access to a Bible. It will then be good to have this psalm with you in your memory to comfort you, to remember that the Lord is your Good Shepherd whom we need especially during difficult times.

Very often we have thought of shepherds during Bible times as these peaceful, caring, good, hard working types. Perhaps at Christmas Eve we might hear in a sermon that shepherds were smelly and were considered by the rest of society as being rather low in social status, but in many ways, it was actually worse. In fact, shepherds actually had a nasty reputation as being untrustworthy. In a Rabbinical list of thieving and cheating occupations, we find “shepherd” to be included. A Jewish Midrash/sermon on Psalm 23, the good shepherd psalm, comments: “No position is so despised as that of shepherd.”

Often, when the hired shepherds (the hirelings) would be sent to sell sheep to interested buyers, they would return to their master and tell them that some of the sheep had died, therefore the sale was less than expected but what they had really done was pocket the extra money. Since the hired shepherds had no real stake in the flock, if a wild predator would come and seize one of the sheep, that hired shepherd would not risk his life to save the sheep from the jaws of death.

These hired hands, these unfaithful traveling shepherds, remind us all too well of the world and its trickery, cruelty, and self-interest. By the way, the word: “Pastor” means “Shepherd”. Perhaps you have been the victim of such wily and worldly unfaithful religious “shepherds” who have seized every opportunity to take advantage of you or who have not been faithful in protecting your spiritual needs, but only look for popularity and prosperity for themselves from the backs of the sheep.

Sadly, this is the state of the world. There are many people, in business, politics, education, or even in “so called religious professions”, in any position of trust, who do not fulfill their obligation to be faithful. Many who are in the position where they are called upon to protect, yet, instead of protecting the weak, take advantage of and abuse the weak, and when trouble comes, they seek only to protect themselves.

But let us be honest here, though we can think of examples of those pastors or people who have taken advantage of us, let us not forget how often have we taken advantage of others. How often have we pushed our advantage over others to get our way? How often have we lapsed in our faithfulness to do our duty as an employee or employer, as a citizen, as a student, as a parent, as a child, as a member of the church: a pastor or as a lay person?

There are all these problems in the world because there is something wrong with each human: an illness, a disease which is the source of all sorrow, all sickness, all betrayal, all selfishness, greed, lust, laziness, gossip, narcissism, abuse, and danger. This condition which all humanity shares is, of course, sin. It is a condition which we have inherited from our fathers and mothers. Sin is a rebellion against God. Yet God is a good shepherd, the best. He is the one who created each and every one of us and each and every person in this world and loves them. Yet all we like sheep have gone astray each one to his or her own way. That selfish way that we have pursued is a way of death, of destruction, of faithlessness and pain. We feel this pain in our weak bodies, in our broken relationships, in our fears and doubts, in our toil and failures, and in the pain we have given to others when we have taken advantage of them and when others have taken advantage of us. It is our adversary, the devil, who takes advantage of this rebellion and the resulted vulnerability to consume whomever he can, to bring them not only death, fear, and misery here on earth, but to an eternal destruction.

But, our Lord is indeed a good shepherd, a shepherd: faithful, loving, caring, and self-sacrificing. Jesus the Christ is the fulfillment of Psalm 23. Jesus said that He is the good shepherd, but Jesus did not claim this as a means to take advantage, but because He is. It is to our advantage that He is the Faithful and Good Shepherd. He took this job, this responsibility of loving care seriously, yes, all the way to the cross.

The Good Shepherd, the Word of God made flesh, came down from heaven and used His sinless incarnate body as the tool of salvation. Jesus, the Son of God, humbled Himself to be born among the sheep, to become as a sheep, Himself. To seek and to save His sheep by being the perfect sheep that the sheep could not be. He came to be the Good Shepherd who actually lays down His life so that the sheep who loved to roam and rebel would be redeemed and rescued from the wild beasts of the devil, the world, and their own flesh. He became sin for His sheep, He took the punishment for sin so the sheep would not have to receive an eternal punishment for their sin. Jesus the Good Shepherd laid down His life, destroying the choke hold of sin upon the sheep. Jesus contended with Satan in His crucifixion and by it defeated the devil’s power to accuse people of their sin. At the same time that He did this in His death, He also destroyed the final enemy which is death itself. Death could not defeat the perfect sacrifice which took away the power of death which that disease of sin. Therefore, Jesus was raised triumphant over death. The Good Shepherd has redeemed His sheep!

The image of the Good Shepherd is powerful. He overcomes the enemies which would destroy us, having sought us, and then gathers us into the sheepfold of the Church. There we behold Him crucified upon the cross, we hear His Voice by His Word and in His powerful absolution and see Him feed us in His body and blood given for us for the forgiveness of sin. His heroic actions for us testify by His Spirit that we sheep can trust Him: A truly loving and Faithful Shepherd. Yes, He will rebuke and exhort us when we do wrong, but for our good. He will forgive, He will pick the nettles out of our wool, bind up the wounds that we incurred by our own wanderings, forgive us, and then heal us, and make us right. Not just right, but righteous and holy in thought, word, and deed by His Holy Spirit. In the green pastures of His Word and sacrament He nurses you, me, and all His sheep back to health. He whispers assurances to us: that in Him and His cross, the devil and death cannot harm us any longer. In the daily battles that we have against sins, accusations, and our temptations He says, “stay by me, this is my battle, I am the answer for you.”

In the midst of suffering, we are tempted to ask, “Why has this happened?” Know that it is because of our sin. Instead of asking, “Where are you, God?” See Him sharing your suffering at the hands of the world, the devil, the flesh. Behold Him coming to you triumphant over your sin in His Word and Sacrament. He has won for you your final deliverance. Find comfort in His promise: ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you’ (Hebrews 13:5 and Deut. 31:6).

From Holy Baptism where we were first washed as His little lambs He leads us forth to the place of eternal rest in heaven. We follow Him who is the “Good Shepherd”, “the Great Pastor”, “the Faithful Overseer and Bishop” of our souls: He who has laid down His life for His sheep and took it up again so that you and I can have forgiveness of sins, and victory over sin, death, and the devil.

Jesus Christ makes all the hopes and promises of the beloved 23rd psalm come true throughout our lives. He shall always provide for us so that we have no true want. He allows us to be restored and refreshed in the green pastures and still waters given in this Divine Service of His Word and in His Holy Supper as we receive forgiveness of sins, life and salvation from His hand. When you are tempted to hear and listen to voices of unfaithful shepherds and the world, resist them. Listen faithfully and learn the voice of the One who has defeated your enemies and given you the victory so that you fear no evil even in the valley of death.

As He prepares a table for His sheep here, He anoints us with joy and mercy and heals us of our sin as we drink the overflowing cup of blessing in Jesus’ blood for the forgiveness of sins. We see that truly God’s mercy and goodness shall follow us as we dwell in the house of the Lord now on earth and forever in eternity. All this through Faith in our Faithful Good Shepherd Jesus Christ, Christ is Risen….Alleluia! Amen.

Pastor Aaron Kangas

The last 40 years have seen a great increase of persecution of Christianity in the middle East, Africa, Asia, Europe, Canada, even here in the United States. Although we see and hear the growing threat to Christians confessing the truths of Christianity here, we still have not experienced persecution to the point of having to deny Christ or be put to death. This kind of persecution is also on the rise around the world by Islamic terrorists, atheists, or corrupt governments.

How are they able to have such a strong and vibrant faith to confess their Lord and Savior even under the threat of extreme torture and death? Could you or I stand up to it? Might we or our children have to experience the ultimate persecution? The flesh is weak, but the power of God is greater.

Take the Apostle Thomas, as an example of God’s power overcoming weakness and unbelief. While the Bible doesn’t tell us much about what happened to Thomas after Pentecost, extra-Biblical histories indicate that Thomas did missionary work to the East.
In fact, historical artifacts place Thomas in the area of Mylapore, India at the time of his death. Thomas died when four soldiers pinned him to the ground with four spears. Before he died, he preached the Word and the Holy Spirit converted many through that Word, so that when the Portuguese arrived in the 15th century they were surprised to find a small Christian community that had survived and spoke of Thomas and even had biblical artwork in their churches. Though it was otherwise unknown by the rest of Christendom, it was not forgotten by the Lord and the power of His Word kept them in the faith during that time.

In spite of all the wonderful work God did through the Apostle Thomas, the world will always remember Thomas as Doubting Thomas. As we heard in today’s text, Thomas had missed the appearance of Jesus on that first Easter evening, and he refused to consider the eye witness account of his fellow disciples. 

“Doubting” is not the right word to describe Thomas. He actually said, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” Thomas did not say that he wasn’t sure. He said: “I will never believe.” Thomas did not merely doubt. He did not believe. 

But let us remember the state of all the followers of Jesus. Grief, fear, sadness, doubt and despair was all their food. Even when the two Marys and Joanna/Salome saw the empty tomb, heard the voice of the angel, and Mary Magdalene saw Jesus and reported these things to the disciples, “these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.” So, all the disciples were unbelievers lost in their grief and fear until Jesus revealed Himself to them. Therefore, the first time Jesus showed Himself to the disciples, He was showing Himself to despairing unbelievers. 

Jesus would have had the right to show up and scold the disciples. “Hey, I told you over and over and over again that I was going to rise on the third day. You are not my disciples! I am done with you!” Jesus had the right to say that, but He did not. Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They deserved judgement, He gave them peace. Peace to calm their troubled hearts. Peace which is far greater than the peace promised in the politics and materials of this world. It was peace in Jesus Christ. Peace in His presence. Peace in His wounds. Peace from God by the forgiveness of sins. This is the peace of God which can still heavy and burdened consciences. His victorious sacrifice and His love can break through the most hardened unbeliever.

That is why Jesus showed them the wounds of the cross in His hands and side: they were the source of the peace He was bringing. The Law fulfilled. God’s righteous wrath received in Him so that peace could be given to the disciples. So that those disciples, you, me, and all people who have doubted, denied, or disbelieved Jesus could be saved. Though we have deserved judgement, Hell and all misery that could be experienced here and for an eternity, Jesus stands among us here and speaks peace by the forgiveness of sins. Freeing and loosing us from the chains of sin, by His voice of forgiveness; the voice of the crucified and raised conquering son of God and Son of Man. Now despair, unbelief, grief, sadness, ignorance, wrath, and any other anxiety or trouble could be and would be defeated in Him.

Jesus has come to bring you peace between you and God by the forgiveness of your sins, to bring to you eternal life in the midst of death, hope in the midst of despair. This is the most important news of all times and places. This is news that everyone needs to hear. It is this news that can make believers out of unbelievers apologists out of skeptics.
How did Jesus plan to spread this good news throughout the world? Right after He showed Himself to His disciples, Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” To send someone is to make them an apostle. Jesus basically told the disciples, “Up until now, I have been the apostle of the Father.  Now, you are to be my apostles.”

Wait! These same men who argued over who was the greatest? The cowards who fled when Jesus was arrested? The ones who refused to be comforted or believe that Jesus had been raised until a moment before? Yes.

Then, as if sending these guys out as His Apostles wasn’t strange enough, He gave them even more authority. He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” That forgiveness which Jesus just finished earning by His suffering and death a few days ago is now to be administered in Jesus’ name by these men who had lost their faith in Jesus’ promises.

God regularly works in these strange ways … ways that make no sense from a worldly point of view. When Moses was forty years old and was all fired up to be the great liberator of Israel, and killed the Egyptian, God could have called Him to deliver the Israelites then, but Moses showed that His faith was in doing it himself, not letting God do it. God instead sent him out into the wilderness.  When Moses was 80 years old and did not want to go, that is when God sent him to Pharaoh. A Pharisee named Saul was arresting Christians for trial and consenting to their executions. Then Jesus knocked him to the ground on the road to Damascus and called him to proclaim the Gospel.

It seems as though God goes out of His way to scrape the bottom of the barrel of humanity in order to find His servants. In every case, God took away any chance of boasting of “worthiness” on the part of the human being. In every case, the odds of human success were so low, that it was absolutely necessary that a miracle of God would have to provide success. The absolute helplessness of God’s servant shows the power of God’s Word of salvation.

God could have set aside a few legions of angels to do His preaching. Yet, that is not what God does. He places foolish, sinful men into the office of preacher. He puts the administration of the forgiveness of sins into the mouths of those same foolish, sinful men. When He needs to proclaim salvation, He sends sinners to proclaim it.

The comfort for Christians in all ages is that no matter how odd or weird or boring or whatever their pastor is, their faith should not be in the man, but in the message from God when it is preached in truth and purity. The effectiveness of the Word does not depend on the pastor. It is God Himself who deserves all the credit for our salvation. Jesus Christ earned it on the cross. The Holy Spirit delivers it in Word and Sacrament. I, as your pastor am merely the servant who administers the gifts God gives to you from the cross of Jesus Christ. In this way, Jesus comes among us here in Baptism, Absolution, Divine Service, the Lord’s Supper, and wherever His Holy Word is proclaimed and taught in its truth and purity. He comes to His people wearied by the world, their sins, their doubts, unbelief, disbelief, and anxieties and says, “Peace to you!” Do not disbelieve anymore but believe! He doesn’t just wish you peace, He actually gives you peace by giving you faith even as He gives you the forgiveness of your sins. God confirms you in that Word of peace as He uses the physical instruments working with the Word to deliver this Grace, this gift of love and mercy to you and me from Himself by His Holy Spirit. As Christ comes to us here in His Word and Sacraments He proclaims His peace and in Christ we freed from the troubles and fears which would overwhelm us.

Then having received from Him mercy and forgiveness in the absolution, having witnessed the crucified body and blood of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament of the altar, we too can be witnesses to the world of Him wherever we are. This is the message of Easter, the message of God’s Passover in Jesus Christ. Forgiveness and hope in Jesus Christ. This message of Christ crucified and raised to pay for our sins in the defeat of sin, death, and Satan turns cowards and unbelievers into believers, martyrs, and apostles. Some witnesses He makes into pastors, but others He calls into lay vocations to reach the world serving the Lord, abiding in Jesus Christ and receiving His gifts and then speaking to people where you are called. You are called by God into His forgiveness, to bear the joyous message of life, the message of forgiveness in Jesus Christ wherever you go. You do not realize how much God can and will work through you as you are strengthened and centered by His peace here given. Do not be afraid. Believe and Rejoice! No persecution can defeat this message of Jesus Christ crucified and risen. He has given you His victory to live in His peace and forgiveness in this world until we live eternally His perfect peace in His heavenly kingdom in Jesus Christ’s name, Amen.

Pr. Aaron Kangas

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, alleluia!

“We do not know where they have laid him!” This is the lament of Mary Magdalene in our Gospel text from St. John. Her concern for where Jesus was laid is repeated three times!! She had gone with the other women to the tomb of Jesus while it was still dark. With sad and heavy hearts they made their way through the dark. On their way to the tomb of their beloved teacher. On their way to pay their last respects and anoint the body in their own way. In the Gospel of St. Mark we are told that the women wondered how they would move the large stone in front of the tomb, they heard an earthquake, the stone was rolled back and there was no body. Mary wasted no time. She went from grief to alarm, to panic. She ran to Simon Peter and John and cried out “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him!” The Jewish leaders had been afraid someone would come and take the body of Jesus and then lie that He had been raised, but here Mary is upset because those same people had treated Jesus so shamefully in life, perhaps they had taken his body to destroy it as one last mockery, as one last trick to abuse and malign Jesus one last time. Perhaps that was what she was afraid of. Maybe she was upset because she merely wanted to say good bye one last time and now she couldn’t.

Mary returned to the garden, looked into the tomb, again no body, but now she saw two angels. They asked her a question, “Why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?”

This is the equivalent of asking a relative or great friend of the deceased at a funeral, why are you here? Why are you weeping? Almost nobody ever asks that. The reasons are obvious. Death is grief worthy. Death is unnatural. Death is the tearing and separation from body and life in the person who dies, and it is also the tearing of the bond from person to person: from the person who died from those who are called survivors. Death is tragic and it is because of sin, which is not obeying God’s Law, that Death came into the world as a penalty for disobedience and unbelief. That is why you and I and all humanity will go through the Death of the body, because of our sin.

But that is also why Jesus came as true God and true Man. That is why He obeyed the Law, because no human born of natural means could. That is also why He was crucified. To take the penalty that we deserved, the penalty of eternal damnation. Jesus became the Passover Lamb, the perfect sacrifice to pay for the sins of the world. That is what Good Friday was all about: Jesus the perfect Lamb of God allowing Himself to be punished, to receive in Himself the chastisement of God’s righteous wrath that we deserved. That is why He was treated shamefully, rejected, humiliated, scorned, mocked, beaten, and crucified, not because there were a lot of bad, unjust, cruel people in Jerusalem, but for the sake of all the bad people who have been born throughout time, meaning all people. So that by His stripes, through His death, death and sin would lose its power. So that all of God’s promises of mercies would be fulfilled in Himself in His own death on the cross.

So where was Jesus that morning? The stone had been rolled back, not so that Jesus could escape or that He could be taken, but to show that He was already gone, the tomb was already empty. Jesus had already risen, He had already descended to Hell to preach the News of His triumph at the cross. The cross is the place of triumph. The empty tomb proclaims that what Jesus accomplished on the cross was acceptable. That Jesus took with Himself the sins of the world, but because He was innocent of those sins, He was now raised. Nobody had taken Jesus’ body, that morning. After His Sabbath rest on Saturday, He who laid down His own life, took that same life up again after 3 days.

Mary in her grief sought the Lord frantically searching the tomb and the garden in hopeless frustration. In that hopeless frustration and grief, she even overlooked Him, she had forgotten His words of promise and prophecy, of what He came to do. Only when Jesus called her name, did she recognize Him, that He had found her. He brought her the Good News of victorious death and resurrection. That He had laid down His own life for her life, for her forgiveness. That death is now swallowed up in Victory.

Where is Jesus now? He who was crucified and risen has ascended to the Father, this is true. He has promised to return at the Last Day to judge the living and the dead. Do we need to search Him out and find Him in ourselves, in our emotions, in our deeds of obedience, in cryptic prophecies? No the Lord continues to be where He has promised to be. He comes and sound the trumpet of His victorious death and resurrection in His Word proclaimed in His preaching, in the witness of His people, in the true teaching of His Word. In Baptism He continues to snatch victory from the jaws of death by taking those dead in their sins and unbelief and washing them through water and His Word, old sinful selves drowned in the sea like pharaoh and his armies, crucifying them and their sins, burying them in the tomb so that we exit the fount of baptism with the same resurrection victory of Jesus Christ. This gift is yours and saves you through faith as Jesus calls you by name and you respond by confessing the truth of His name in the creeds, the liturgy, in your life, and in holding fast to all His teachings in His Scriptures.

Now to strengthen you and prepare you for your eternity, behold, the gifts of Jesus laying before you, where Jesus the triumphant and victorious chooses to appear to His people gathered in His name. He comes again in bread and wine, to give the blessings of His victory, under the linen cloths. He who was slain, now lives and reigns in the simple means of bread and wine. Here He gives eternal life in His crucified and risen body and blood to sustain His people in this life, to give us joy in the midst of grief, sin, and sorrow. Where is He? Where is His body? It is Here. It is here where He said it would be. In the Lord’s supper, and in Him as the head we are joined as one body with the communion of saints. We know that He is here, because He said He would be there.

Jesus Christ is risen! The night of sin is ended! His light of salvation, His plan of mercy bursts through the darkness so we may believe! Now through Him, death is but temporary, our enemies silenced. We no longer grieve like those without hope. Why do you weep? Our Jesus is alive! We have seen Him, here! He gives you forgiveness, life, and salvation. And on the last day, He shall find you and all believers wherever they are laid and rest. He shall call them forth and this mortal shall put on immortality. Because our Redeemer Lives, we too shall live! Christ Is Risen (He is risen indeed) Alleluia!

Pr. Aaron Kangas

A blessed Palm Sunday to you!

When Jesus came into Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday, He came as the Lord and King who brings salvation. He didn’t ride horses and chariots with earthly pomp and circumstance. Instead, He came on a beast of burden, meek and gentle, ready to bear our burden of sin and guilt. He didn’t have any sword on His side. He had no armor bearers next to Him. He only had His lowly disciples whose weapons in this world would be nothing other than the Word of their Master. And this is precisely the point of Jesus coming into Jerusalem in this way. It happened according to His Word. His Word, which does not return empty, is what brought all of this about. “Go into the village ahead of you,” He told two of his disciples, “and right away you’ll find a donkey tied up and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to Me.” It all happened just as He said. This Word of our Lord Jesus is His shield and His sword. It is His mighty weapon, which He has been wielding His entire earthly ministry up to this point. And everything during Holy Week happened just as He has spoken.

Even what the people do. They spread their clothes and palm branches on the ground where Jesus was riding. This was just as our Lord recorded in Psalm 118, several hundred years before this: “March in the festive procession with branches.” They shouted “Hosanna,” which means “Save now” or “Please save.” Again, this was recorded in this same Psalm, “O LORD, please save! Lord, please give us success!” And they also chanted these words from the Psalm, “Blessed is He who comes in the LORD’s name. We bless you in the LORD’s temple.” Everything was happening according to the Word of the Lord. From the donkey and its colt to the clothes and branches on the ground, even to the words of praise coming out of the lips of the people, it all took place because God said it would.

Psalm 118 from which our Introit was taken is a song of praise. The people of Israel would have sung it during the feasts, especially the Passover. It’s a wonderful song about God’s mercy, which He has promised to keep for His people. It calls on all Israel to sing of God’s eternal mercy. It calls on the priests to sing of this mercy. And it calls on all people who fear God to sing of this mercy. It tells of the great salvation the Lord has won by His right arm, and it tells of the certain hope in the resurrection and eternal life. In verse 17 of Psalm 118 it is written: “I will not die, but I will live and tell what the LORD has done!”

Only a short time before Jesus came into Jerusalem, He had raised Lazarus from the dead. As they approached the Passover Feast this Psalm, along with others, would have been ringing in people’s ears. And now these words, written so many years before, were finally being fulfilled.

Just as the Psalm begins by thanking the Lord for His mercy lasting forever, the Psalm wraps up by identifying what this mercy is. “I thank You, for You have answered me and have become my Deliverer.” In other words, “You have become my Salvation.” God said to Moses, “I am what I am,” and here the Psalm reveals who He is. He is “Salvation”. He delivers us from sin and death by being the Stone, the Chief Cornerstone. But how has He become this? How is He our Deliverer, our Salvation, and then become our Chief Cornerstone? It says, “The Stone the builders rejected has become the Cornerstone.”

The builders of the temple, the leaders of the people who watched over the affairs of the temple of God, would reject this one Stone. As Moses struck the Stone in the wilderness causing water to come out of it, so the Scribes, Priests, and Pharisees would strike Christ with their hands and in their demand that Jesus be crucified. And in that crucifixion, this Stone, rejected by the builders, would become the Cornerstone and from Him flow the blood and water of life and salvation. His sacrificial death is the foundation for the true temple made up of believers from all time worshipping the true God in cries of “Hosanna”: “Lord save!” We aren’t singing about a temple made with hands. No, Jesus is the Head of His Church: His own Body. He has become the Rock on which our Salvation rests forever.

He was despised and rejected by men. And yet, the Psalm says that this is marvelous in our eyes. Why? Because this is the work of the LORD Himself. While it looked like the enemies of Christ won the day as Jesus hung on a cross, this was all a part of God’s own plan. This was all what His Word said would happen. In fact, His Word brought it all about. As the Psalm sings, “The LORD had done this, and we think it is wonderful.”

These are words that can only come from faith in God’s promise. To look at an image of Christ hanging on the cross and see it as beautiful – to think it is wonderful – defies our human reason. In the same way, what is beautiful about eating Jesus’ body and blood? How can water do such wonderful things? It is because it is what the LORD has done. It is His work. He has spoken it, and He has fulfilled it so that sinners would be saved from hell and given eternal life.

But why do we come to church? We come to receive what the LORD has done. He has done it. It is finished. All sin has been paid for. Death has been defeated. And though we have to suffer crosses and afflictions and temptations and sorrows in this life, the Lord here places us, our sin, our sorrows, and anxieties upon Jesus Christ, and we are built up upon the rock that cannot be moved. This is the day that the Lord has made; Let us rejoice and be glad in Him!

Again, this statement can only come from faith. It’s so easy for your body and your heart to lose its joy. But faith clings to the Word and work of the LORD. No matter how things are going in your life, no matter how much sin and shame and guilt burden your conscience, faith clings to Jesus, the LORD who saves. Faith cries out Hosanna to the Son and Lord of David, to the God Most High, to the great I AM who has done it all.

In the days when the temple was being rebuilt, when Zerubbabel, a descendant of David, was leading the building project, the prophet Zechariah taught the people what this temple was all about. This temple was to be a sign of God’s promise that He would come to dwell among His people. He Himself would come in His own name to make atonement for their sins with a covenant made with blood. He Himself would come as the King. He would come on a donkey, meek and mild, righteous, and having salvation (Zech 9:9 ff.). In the fourth chapter of Zechariah the prophet writes:
And the Word of the LORD came to me saying, “Zerubbabel’s hands laid the foundation of this temple, and his hands will finish it, and so you will know the LORD of armies sent Me to you.” (Zech 4:8)

Who is the one being sent? And who is the one sending? It is the LORD. The LORD is being sent, and the LORD is the one doing the sending. The LORD Himself says, “and so you will know the LORD of armies sent Me to you.” Jesus is the LORD, sent by the LORD. He is the eternal Son of God, God in the highest, sent by His eternal Father. So all believers can now sing the praises of the Psalm, “Blessed is He Who comes in the LORD’s name. We bless You in the LORD’s temple, even as the temple is in Jesus Christ”

The Word of the LORD endures forever. His mercy endures forever. Jesus endures, with great patience, the sins of all people. He is the only true God who comes to us in the darkness of our guilt and shame to give us His light. So just as the people did on that first Palm Sunday, just as the Word of God said in the Psalm nearly three thousand years ago, “March in festive procession with branches up to the horns of the altar.”

So today and every Lord’s Day and whenever we celebrate the Sacrament of the Altar, we confess our faith in Jesus and from the opening hymn we join the Christian procession to the horns of this altar clinging to our Savior’s promise, eating His body and drinking His blood, which was sacrificed once on the altar of the cross and continually given to all of us here where He promises to be with His victory. We confess the Savior, because we have been given faith by the same Word of God who has fulfilled all things for our redemption. What a wonderful day! It’s the Lord’s doing. It’s wonderful in our eyes, and we will rejoice and be glad in Him who purchased us for Himself.

It is because of God’s Word and promise, fulfilled in Christ, that God’s saints can march in festive procession with branches up to the horns of the altar. The people of Israel sang this as they brought their lambs to be sacrificed for the Passover. Jesus has come as the true Passover Lamb, going uncomplaining forth, the guilt of sinners bearing, laden with the sins of earth, none else the burden sharing. So as in Psalm 118 we sing to Him with all the saints before us and who are yet to come: united in Christ our Passover Lamb, “You are my God, and I thank You; my God, I honor You highly. Give thanks to the LORD! For He is good, and His mercy endures forever!” In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Pr. Aaron Kangas

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

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

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

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

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

Ash Wednesday is a day in the life of the church to stop and take stock of our priorities in the midst of our own mortality. A day to examine our lives in our thoughts, our actions, our goals. Ash Wednesday is not the most favorite holy day of the church year, but it is among the most sobering. It reminds us that we are dust and to dust we shall return… unless Christ comes again first, of course. But the main point is that it is a very real message of sin, sin around us, sin upon us, sin inside us and the result of that sin. Sin which is rebellion, falling short of God’s Law, sin is an act or thought motivated by unbelief in God which is actually an act of worship of self, the flesh, and the world: the very things which are dying and passing away. Ash Wednesday reminds us that the wages of sin is death.

We have all sinned again and again, why should God have any mercy upon us when we have taken His Law, His Grace, His forgiveness, His Word and taken it for granted again and again? We deserve death here on earth and forever in hell. We can’t put a smiley face on Lent, we can’t pretend that our sin isn’t a serious matter. It is because our sin is such a serious matter that Jesus came as a perfect sacrifice on behalf of our sin. This is why Jesus had to be betrayed into the hands of sinners to suffer and die on the cross. It was to pay for our sin. As we behold and look upon the Son of God and the Son of Man upon the cross during these 40 days, we are called to reflect upon the fact that because our sin was and is so great, He our innocent loving God, had to die in our place to pay for our sin. So, we repent, yet this is not a time for navel gazing and feeling sad, it is not a time of hopelessness, it is not merely an opportunity to jump start our diet with some sort of fast, it is certainly not a time to brag about our outward austerity and repentance as the Pharisees and hypocrites did and still do. It can be a time of disciplining the flesh and training ourselves not to be so driven by our desires but rather focusing on living by God’s Word and not on bread alone. If that is your rationale, good, but do not believe that your penitent actions save. No, what saves is the hope and trust within the very act of repentance and to whom we are turning. The hope and trust that comes through faith, faith that moves us to rend our hearts and not our garments alone. Faith that looks up from the dust and ashes of our dying bodies and looks for hope not in us but to Jesus the Christ, to His cross and by that faith in what He has done for us…because He has died upon the cross as a perfect sacrifice for our sins, we see God’s love, and in the midst of our sorrow and tears over our sin, we see victory and forgiveness over and from these sins, for Jesus’ sake who has died but is raised triumphant over death. Though we have received ashen crosses of repentance, we are baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection and for Christ’s sake, we are forgiven, and we know that our future is not just ashes and dust. Our bodies will not be thus destroyed forever because of our sin. Our eternity is not going to be one of weeping and gnashing of teeth, but joy… and these bodies which began in dust, which may return to dust will at the last day return in redemption to our Lord and Savior. These bodies sown in corruption shall be raised incorruptible. These mortal bodies will for the sake of Jesus Christ put on immortality.

So on this Ash Wednesday, we may have joy. Joy that God hears us, that He knows that we are dusty and dead sinners, yet He has mercy on us. Joy that we can repent and be cleansed again and again, that we can return to the waters of baptism, that we can hear again from the pastor “Your sins are forgiven for Jesus Christ’s sake.” Joy that these are not empty words and empty promises. Joy that the words which Jesus spoke from the cross, in Holy Scripture, in true teaching and preaching and in the sacrament actually has power: the power to change us mind and heart. To reorganize our priorities: from preoccupation with the things of this hopeless dying world without Christ to a life of dying in our flesh to Christ by repentance. All so that we may live now and forever in the joy and forgiveness that Jesus Christ brings in the teaching of His Word, and in receiving of His death and resurrection in His body and blood given and shed for you in the sacrament of the altar.

Therefore we gladly and willingly observe these 40 days of Lent as a time of precious cleansing, healing, and reordering from death to life as we go with Jesus to the upper room, the cross, the tomb, His rising again and ascension. These are the realities of your salvation as He does these things for you.

God made Jesus to be sin for us. Placing all our guilt on His sinless head, the Father sent Him forth as the payment for our sins, receiving in His Body the just penalty for all that we by our sins have deserved. Being made a curse for us, He died our death in our place after horrible suffering of body and soul. He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed.

All this Jesus did for us and our salvation. All this so that we might in Him be absolved of our sin and cleansed from our iniquity.

So as we have come clean tonight and admitted our sin and laid bare our iniquities upon the altar of Christ’s sacrifice, Christ has washed you clean by His blood from the cross. Our bodies may die and be laid in the grave, but even now He is preparing these same bodies of dust and ash to be resurrected at the last day because in His death and His resurrection He has conquered death. These same bodies that have been baptized, absolved, fed with His body and blood at His Holy Eucharistic banquet will be raised again incorruptible at the end of this age when He comes in the fullness of His glory. His grace and mercy, His gift of life in His body and blood incorruptible is here for you during your suffering and during your joy to reorder our priorities and redeem the time He has blessed us with.

Should you fail, remember, A broken and contrite heart He will not despise for the Lord has had pity on His people by His Son, and He will turn your sorrow into joy. Rejoice, for “Behold, now is the day of your salvation in Jesus Christ”, Amen.

Pr. Aaron Kangas