Revelation 6:9-11; Romans 6:1-5; Mark 6:14-29

Martyrdom of Saint John the Baptist A.D. 2021
Pr. Neal Blanke

In Jesus’ name.
This has been a difficult 2 weeks.  2 weeks ago today Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, fell to the Taliban.

With the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, governments around the world have been frantically making plans to rescue as many at-risk Afghans as they can.  Germany, which has vowed to evacuate as many as 10,000, and the United Kingdom have been coordinating with civil society partners to determine who is most in need of rescue and how they can be located and evacuated.

India announced…that it will prioritize evacuating Hindus and Sikhs, two religious minorities that have already neared extinction in Afghanistan due to the Taliban’s brutal rule 20 years ago.

Canada has expressed a willingness to grant visas to religious minorities whose lives are presumed endangered under the Taliban.  Among the country’s most vulnerable minorities are Christians.  But the Christian community is becoming increasingly difficult to track down.  And fears are growing that, for many, it’s too late and there’s no way out.

Afghanistan’s Christians are estimated to number between 10,000 and 12,000.  The vast majority of them are converts from Islam to Christianity.  For decades they have largely practiced their faith underground, as conversion is considered a crime punishable by death under Sharia law.

Yet, since the Taliban’s fall in 2001, the Christian community has not only been growing, it has become emboldened, in part because of the modicum of security leant by the U.S. presence on the ground.  In 2019, as the number of children born to converts grew, dozens of Afghan Christians decided to include their religious affiliation on their national identity cards so that future generations wouldn’t have to hide their faith.  Only about 30 Christians successfully made this change before the Taliban’s takeover 2 weeks ago. 

Now the United States’ highly criticized withdrawal has left Afghan Christians with no choice but to join those who cooperated with the U.S. and Afghan governments in attempting to hide.  The memories of public executions, floggings and amputations of Christians and other religious minorities under the Taliban’s previous rule remain vivid.
As the Taliban is reportedly already working to track down the known Christians on its list, some local church leaders are counseling their communities to stay inside their home, even though they know the best and perhaps only long-term hope is to somehow flee the country.  Other Christians are reportedly escaping to the hills in attempts to find safety. 

Some Christians on the ground have expressed that, with the takeover of Kabul, they expect to be killed, mafia-style.  Although some reports say that the Taliban is already conducting targeted killings of Christians and other minorities found using public transportation, as well as executing anyone found with Bible software installed on their cell phones. 

Christians also fear for the safety of their children, with the Taliban already publicizing plans to “eradicate the ignorance of irreligion” by taking non-Muslim women and girls as sex slaves and forcing boys to serve as soldiers.

Without any clear plan from the United States to evacuate Afghans under special threatbesides those who cooperated with our military Afghan Christians and many other religious minority groups are stranded.  They know the Taliban is seeking them.  Christians in hiding have already reported receiving threatening letters or phone calls saying, “We know where you are and what you are doing.”  Without knowing how sophisticated the Taliban’s tracking capabilities are, Christians are turning off their phones to avoid surveillance and have started moving to undisclosed locations.

Further complicating any plans to rescue Afghanistan’s vulnerable minorities is the fact that many of them are without passports.  It is estimated by locals that only 20-30 percent of the known Christian community have passports.  Without passports, it is currently unclear whether any foreign country would accept them, were they able to get out.

Several European government officials have been discussing the possibility of overlooking immigration documentation requirements for those individuals whose identities and vulnerability status can be verified by civil society groups.  But until countries confirm and announce that they are willing to waive passport and visa requirements, many Afghan Christians have been unwilling to risk the increasingly perilous journey…to the airport.  And, currently, a passport and safe arrival at the airport aren’t even enough.  (Kelsay Zorzi, “Afghanistan’s Christians are turning off phones and going into hiding” TheHill.com, August 23,2021.  She is president of the U.N.’s NGO Committee on Freedom of Religion or Belief and director of advocacy for global religious freedom for ADF International)
Last Thursday’s terrorist attack means that the U.S. and its NATO allies are no longer flying out noncombatants.  Let us pray for our brothers and sisters in Afghanistan!  The deadline Tuesday is fast approaching.  Christians have been, and will be persecuted, in Afghanistan and around the world.  Let us pray for all of them! 

In order for us to make sense of all this suffering, the Church has designated today, August 29th, as the day to remember the Martyrdom of Saint John the Baptist.  The Martyrdom of Saint John the Baptizer is a violent and salacious narrative.  John was imprisoned very early in the Public Ministry of Christ.  Of course he was not imprisoned at the Baptism of our Lord, but he was imprisoned shortly thereafter.  John the Baptizer was in prison before the start of Jesus’ Galilean Ministry.  At the time of his execution John had been in prison for months.  For months Jesus had been publicly preaching, teaching and performing many miracles, and then right before John’s execution, Jesus had sent out His twelve disciples, to preach, to teach, to cast out demons and to heal the sick.  The people generally did not know what to make of this Jesus of Nazareth.  “Some said, ‘John the Baptist has been raised from the dead.  That is why these miraculous powers are at work in him.’  But others said, ‘He is Elijah.’  And others said, ‘He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.'” (Mark 6:14b-15 ESV)  But Herod, that is Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great, had a bad conscience.  Herod had seduced and married “Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife.” (Mark 6:17 ESV)

…John had been saying to Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.  And Herodias had a grudge against him and wanted to put him to death.  But she could not, for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and Herod kept him safe.  When Herod heard John, he was greatly perplexed, and yet he heard him gladly.”  (John 6:18-20 ESV)

Here is a great example of the seed, which fell upon the path.  In Mark, chapter 4, Jesus told the parable of the Sower and the 4 kinds of soil.  The 1st kind of soil is the path.  Jesus said, “Listen!  A sower went out to sow.  And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it.”  Later Jesus explained this parable, “The sower sows the word.  And these are the ones along the path, where the word is sown:  when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them.” (Mark 4:14-15 ESV)  Herod Antipas heard John the Baptizer gladly.  John was a great preacher, but Herod did not understand what he heard.  “When Herod heard John, he was greatly perplexed…” (John 6:20b ESV)
This is a warning to each of us.  Our Christian faith is a precious gift.  If God gives it to you, cling to it, and don’t let it go.  It is the means of your salvation, and it can be lost.  Perhaps Herod did not understand John’s preaching, because of his unrepentant sin, which he was not unwilling to let go of. 

But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his nobles and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee.  For when Herodias’s daughter came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests.  And the king said to the girl, “Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it to you.”  And he vowed to her, “Whatever you ask me, I will give you, up to half of my kingdom.” (Mark 6:21-23 ESV)

Herod’s pride and his unchecked libido had led Herod into adultery with his sister-in-law, Herodias, and then on his birthday, when his step daughter danced, his pride and libido led to lust and to a foolish oath.

And she went out and said to her mother, “For what should I ask?”  And she said, “The head of John the Baptist.”  And she came in immediately with haste to the king and asked, saying, “I want you to give me at once the head of John Baptist on a platter.”  And the king was exceedingly sorry, but because of his oaths and his guests he did not want to break his word to her.  And immediately the king sent an executioner with orders to bring John’s head.  He went and beheaded him in the prison and brought his head on a platter and gave it to the girl, and the girl gave it to her mother. (Mark 6:24-28 ESV) 

What a sick story, but before we are quick to look down our noses at Herod, Herodias and their daughter, let us remember that we too are sinners, just like they were.  We too struggle with pride, foolish words, hateful thoughts and lust, and we would be damned just like they were, if it were not for the grace and mercy of God in Christ.  We struggle under temptation, and we sin.  Our sins deserve God’s wrath, but thanks be to God that He took Flesh, lived the perfect life, was tempted in every way, just as we are tempted, except that He did not sin.  Jesus is that Incarnate God, Who went to the cross, suffered the wrath of God for us and died in our place.  Christ rose from the dead to proclaim our Absolution, to give us new life and to guarantee that we too will rise on the Last Day.  Jesus has ascended into heaven and promised to return to take us with Him into heaven for eternity.

All these promises change the way we look at the death of Saint John the Baptizer, and of every other martyr.  Where is John the Baptizer now?  Our 1st Scripture Reading from the Revelation answers that question.  The Revelation, chapter 6, beginning with verse 9:

John the Baptizer, and all the martyrs, are now in the glories of heaven.  Chapter 6 is a continuation of chapters 4 and 5.  “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants” (Revelation 1:1 NKJV) begins with an introduction of Jesus in His heavenly glory speaking to John the Apostle in a loud voice like a trumpet in chapter 1.  The 7 letters to the 7 churches are chapters 2 and 3, and then we have the vision of the throne of God in heaven.  John the Apostle writes in chapter 4:
After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven.  And the first voice which I heard was like a trumpet speaking with me, saying, “Come up here, and I will show you things which must take place after this.”  Immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne set in heaven, and One sat on the throne.  And He who sat there was like a jasper and a sardius stone in appearance; and there was a rainbow around the throne, in appearance like an emerald.  Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and on the thrones I saw twenty-four elders sitting, clothed in white robes; and they had crowns of gold on their heads.  And from the throne proceeded lightnings, thunderings, and voices.  And there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God.  Before the throne there was [something like] a sea of glass, like crystal.  And in the midst of the throne, and around the throne, were four living creatures full of eyes in front and in back.  The first living creature was like a lion, the second living creature like a calf, the third living creature had a face like a man, and the fourth living creature was like a flying eagle.  And four living creatures, each having six wings, were full of eyes around and within.  And do not rest day or night, saying:

“Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, Who was and is and is to come!”

Whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne and worship Him who lives forever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying:

“You are worthy, [Our Lord and God],
 To receive glory and honor and power;
 For You created all things,
 And by Your will they exist and were created.
 (Revelation 4 NKJV modified)

and then in chapter 5 there is a problem.  The scroll containing God’s judgment on sinful humanity is sealed with 7 seals.  The Apostle John writes in chapter 5:

And I saw in the right hand of Him who sat on the throne a scroll written inside and on the back, sealed with seven seals.  Then I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and to loose its seals?”  And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll, or to look at it.  So I wept much, because no one was found worthy to open the scroll, or look at it.  But one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep.  Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll and its seven seals.”  And I looked in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as though it had slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent out into all the earth.  Then He came and took the scroll out of the right hand of Him who sat on the throne.

Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.  And they sang a new song, saying:

“You are worthy to take the scroll, and open its seals;
For You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood
Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation,
And have made [them a kingdom] and priests to our God;
And they shall reign on the earth.”

Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angles around the throne, the living creatures, and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice:

“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain
 To receive power and riches and wisdom,
 And strength and honor and glory and blessing!”

And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, I heard saying:

“Blessing and honor and glory and power
Be to Him who sits on the throne,
And to the Lamb, forever and ever!”

Then the four living creatures said, “Amen!”  And the elders fell down and worshiped. (Revelation 5 NKJV modified)

The Gospels of Mark and Luke record the ascension of Jesus into heaven, but only record it from the perspective of men on the earth, the perspective of the eye witnesses.  In Revelation, chapter 5, John the Apostle records Christ’s ascension from the perspective of heaven.  Revelation, chapter 5, is the enthronement of the Incarnate God, and He is worthy.  He has conquered sin, death and the Devil and now lives and reigns to all eternity.

Chapter 6 records Jesus, the Lamb of God, opening the 7 seals.  The opening of the 1st seal brings a white horse and a man who will conquer.  The opening of the 2nd seal brings a fiery red horse, and its rider is a picture of world-wide war.  The opening of the 3rd seal brings a black horse, and its rider is a picture of famine.  The 4th seal brings a pale horse, and its rider is Death.  Christ opening the 5th seal is our 1st Scripture Reading.
When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne.  They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth? (Revelation 6:9-10 ESV)

Where are the martyrs?  They are in the glory of heaven.  On earth we appeal to neighbors to repent and to avoid the wrath to come, but in heaven the martyrs are completely reconciled with the judgment of God.  From under the altar, the martyrs

…cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?’  Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been. (Revelation 6:10-11 ESV)

So far the 1st Scripture Reading.  Our Epistle Reading tells us that we have been united to Christ’s death and resurrection via our Baptism.  Therefore we do not pity the martyrs, rather we honor them and long to be with them in all the glories of heaven.  May we live here in our Baptism unto Christ and be faithful unto death.  The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

We stand to confess the creed.

Readings: Isaiah 29:17-24; 2 Corinthians 3:4-11; Mark 7:31-37

12th Sunday after Trinity A.D. 2021
Pr. Neal Blanke

In Jesus’ name.
All 3 of our Scripture readings this morning speak of Divine restoration. The Old Testament Reading foretells Christ’s Ministry of restoration. The Gospel Reading gives us one example from Christ’s Ministry of restoration, and the Epistle Reading describes how Christ’s Ministry of restoration continues, in the Church unto this day.

The 1st verse of our Old Testament Reading is a little hard to understand. In the 1st 29 chapters of Isaiah, God through his prophet has spoken of judgment against a variety of nations and cities. Namely Isaiah has spoken against Judah and Jerusalem, Babylon, Moab, Syria and Damascus, Ethiopia, Egypt, Tyre, and Ephraim. Our Old Testament Reading begins, “Is it not yet a very little while until Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field shall be regarded as a forest?” (Isaiah 29:17 ESV) In the context of the 1st 29 chapters, this verse sounds like the prophet is returning to his rebuke of Tyre, the most prominent city of Lebanon in ancient days, but then in the middle of this verse, Isaiah turns to something much larger than the nation of Lebanon. It is helpful to remember that the vast majority of fruitful farmland is found in valleys, where silt and rich nutrients are naturally gathered by rain and rivers.

Thus good commentary on the 1st verse of our Old Testament Reading is found later in Isaiah. Isaiah, chapter 40, beginning with verse 3:

We are familiar with this passage, because all 4 Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, all Isaiah, chapter 40 as referring to the Ministry of Saint John the Baptist. Therefore the New Testament fulfillment of Isaiah 40 makes it clear that the filling of the valleys and the lowering of the hills has nothing to do with earth moving, nor physical roads. Rather the valleys are humble people, and the hills are the proud.

With this in mind, we can now turn back to Isaiah, chapter 29, verse 17, and see that the prophet is talking about the same thing. It is helpful to remember that Lebanon is a mountainous nation, famous for its trees, the cedars of Lebanon. Mountains and tall trees in the Bible are a picture of kings and their rule, probably because they tower over us, and because human governments are full of pride. The prophet Isaiah may have started verse 17 thinking of the pride of the nation of Lebanon, of their mountains and cedars as symbols of their pride, and of how God would humble them via the Assyrians and Babylonians, but in middle of the verse Isaiah’s mind turns to the New Testament Ministry of Saint John the Baptist, and of Jesus. Verse 17 again, “Is it not yet a very little while until Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field shall be regarded as a forest?” (Isaiah 29:17 ESV) Thus this verse is also talking about the exalted mountains and low valleys of humanity. The Ministry of John the Baptizer, and of Jesus, was a Ministry of Law and Gospel. The Law humbles the proud. Humanity in its vain glory believes that it is basically good. The Law of God slays such pride and humbles the exalted. Sinful humanity believes it can keep the 10 Commandments, but Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount makes it clear that the keeping of the 10 Commandments is just as much a matter of the heart, as it is a matter of our outward behavior. Matthew, chapter 5, beginning at verse 20, Jesus said:

Martin Luther, when he explained the 10 Commandments in the Small Catechism, clearly understood that the keeping of the 10 Commandments is a matter of thought, word and deed.

Who does this? None of us. We all break all of the 10 Commandments every day in thought, word and deed. We don’t put God 1st. We don’t give Him the prayer, praise and thanksgiving He deserves. We are not always happy about hearing God’s Word. We don’t always honor the civil, ecclesiastical, and familial authorities in our life. We certainly do not always love and cherish them. We are careless when driving. We lust. We steal. We lie. We fail to put the best construction on our neighbors behavior. We covet. We are sinners. Listen to Saint John the Baptizer preach the Law. Luke, chapter 3, beginning with verse 7:

The Law slays. The Law finds us all guilty, but John the Baptizer also preached the Gospel, the good news about Jesus. On the day after the Baptism of our Lord, “…John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, ‘Behold! The Lamb of the God who takes away the sin of the world!'” (John 1:29 NKJV) John understood that Jesus is the Messiah, that Jesus is the Sacrifice that would bear and take away all the sin of all the world. The Law slays us in our sin, but the Gospel brings us back to life. The Gospel raises the dead. The Gospel tells us that God took Flesh, lived the perfect life, and went to the cross to suffer and die for all your sin. The resurrection of Christ is our Absolution. It proves that God the Father has accepted Jesus’ suffering and death, as the full payment for all our sins. All your sins of thought, word and deed are forgiven. Christ’s resurrection gives us new life here and now, and forever in heaven! The Law lowers every proud mountain, and the Gospel raises up every humble valley. Thus we see that our Old Testament Reading foretells the Ministry of Saint John the Baptizer, and Christ’s Ministry of restoration. Isaiah, chapter 29, verse 17 foretells the Law humbling all the proud and the Gospel lifting up the humble.

Verses 20 and 21 speak of the Law and of God’s judgment. Verses 20 and 21:

The wicked shall be judged. The ruthless, the scoffers, the false witnesses, those who are eager to do evil, those who try to catch people in their own words, and those who are offended by reproof, they shall all die and go to hell.

Our Old Testament Reading ends with the Gospel. Verses 22 through 24:

God’s people will rejoice in God, when they see God raise up the next generation of believers. The Law and Gospel will instruct those who go astray and correct those who murmur and complain. Thus our Old Testament Reading foretells Christ’s Ministry of restoration.

Our Gospel Reading gives us one example from Christ’s Ministry of restoration. In our Gospel Reading Jesus is in Gentile territory. Immediately before our Gospel Reading Jesus was in the region of Tyre and Sidon, and there He healed the daughter of the Syrophoenician woman, whose great faith Jesus commended. Now Jesus has returned the Sea of Galilee and the region of the Decapolis, which was also Gentile territory. Jesus heals the deaf man, who has a speech impediment, in a similar way to the way He has healed us in our Baptism. Privately Jesus “put his fingers into [the man’s] ears, and after spitting touched his tongue. And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, ‘Ephphatha,” that is, ‘Be opened.’ And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.” (Mark 7:33b-35 ESV) This is hands on Ministry. Jesus uses both of His hands. He touches both of the man’s ears, spits and touches the man’s tongue, probably with one or both of his thumbs. In our Baptism Jesus put His spit on us. He has laid His hands on us. He has opened our ears to be able to hear God’s Word with understanding, and He has touched our tongue, so that we could rightly speak His praises. Ephphatha is the Aramaic imperative, “Be opened.” Jesus healed people physically and spiritually, and He still does. The Gospel Reading gives us one example from Christ’s Ministry of restoration, but Christ’s Ministry of restoration continues to this day!

The Epistle Reading describes how Christ’s Ministry of restoration continues, in the Church unto this day. The context of our Epistle Reading is Paul’s messed up congregation at Corinth. If you want to know the major problems in the congregation, just read 1st Corinthians. In 2nd Corinthians, Saint Paul is having to defend his apostleship. In chapter 3 Paul is talking about letters of recommendation. I read the 1st 3 verses of 2nd Corinthians, chapter 3:

Thus Saint Paul begins our Epistle Reading talking about the confidence he has, because of the Gospel work that the Holy Spirit has done in the hearts of the Corinthians, through Paul’s Ministry of Word and Sacrament. The faith in the hearts of the Corinthians has made them living letters of recommendation, which testify of the apostleship of Saint Paul, because they came to faith by the preaching and teaching of Paul. Our Epistle Reading begins with 2nd Corinthians, chapter 3, verse 4:

Here Paul is saying that, in and of himself, he would not be sufficient nor competent for the Ministry of the Gospel, but God has also worked faith in his heart and equipped him for the Ministry of Word and Sacrament. He speaks of the Ministry of Gospel as “the Spirit,” and the Ministry of the Law as “the letter,” as he makes clear in verse 7, “Now the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end…” Our translation is not as clear as it could be. In verse 7 the Greek is clear that Paul is talking about the glowing of Moses’ face after he had been in the Presence of God on Mount Sanai and that this glow of his face faded and disappeared with the passage of time. Verse 7 again:

In others words the Covenant of the Law came with the Burning Bush, the Ten Plagues, the crossing of the Red Sea, the Manna and quail, the cloudy fiery Pillar, the thunderings, lightnings, the trumpet blast and the Voice of God from Mount Sinai, but none of that compares to the glory we have now in the New Covenant. Here in this church we hear the Voice of the Incarnate God. Here we eat His Body and drink His Blood for the forgiveness of sins, and in heaven we will see God Face-to-face in all His glory. “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” 1st Corinthians chapter 2, verse 9. (NKJV)

Our Epistle Reading describes how Christ’s Ministry of restoration continues, in the Church unto this day. Through Paul and the apostles, through our pastors, through the Law and the Gospel, through the Word and the Sacraments, Christ’s Ministry of restoration continues. All 3 of our Scripture readings this morning speak of Divine restoration. The Old Testament Reading foretells Christ’s Ministry of restoration. The Gospel Reading gives us one example from Christ’s Ministry of restoration, and the Epistle Reading describes how Christ’s Ministry of restoration continues, in the Church unto this day. The peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Sermon for the Festival of St. Mary, Mother of Our Lord: August 15, 2021 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

The virgin Eve fell to temptation when she heard the word of the serpent, the devil in the Garden of Eden, the center of God’s loving attention to all creation. At first, she questioned those deceptive words, but in the end Eve came to desire what Satan called wisdom, his wicked promise she would be like God. Moved by these inner desires that the serpent planted in her, she decided to eat forbidden fruit simply because it looked good. And by that temptation, she gave birth to you and all the other children of Adam under the dark shadow of sin.

The Virgin Mary heard the words of God spoken through the Archangel Gabriel, who suddenly appeared to her in the out-of-the-way hillside town of Nazareth. At first, she questioned those holy words, how this miracle could possibly happen, but in the end Mary said, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord. May it be to me as you have said.” Moved by the Holy Spirit who overshadowed her, she desired the Lord’s will to be done, and not her own, even when the Lord’s will didn’t at the time seem to make a lot of sense. And by her faith in the promises of God, all of which came from hearing His Word, Mary conceived and gave birth to her Savior, your Savior, the Hope of all the world, Jesus the Christ, and in Him, the deathly shadow of sin has been lifted from you.

And so on this day set aside in honor of Mary, all the glory belongs not to her but to the Lord whose Word she heard and believed. Today may have been the traditional day that she died, although that itself is not recorded for us in the Bible. It’s the best guess that she went along with John, when he departed to start the church in Ephesus, especially since John was the one to whom Jesus said when He was on the cross, “Behold your mother!” Anyway, now that Mary’s soul is in heaven with her beloved Son, she along with all the other saints may very well be praying for all of you because whether you see the church or you cannot, you are all still united as one together in worship of the Savior. But that does not mean that you must worship Mary or pray to her, because she is still a fellow forgiven sinner and child of God, saved by grace, just like you. The only distinction for her, once again, is what the Angel Gabriel himself said: “Blessed are you among women,” because she was chosen to conceive and give birth to God the Son.

The Bible calls attention to Mary also as an example, but please note, not as an example of what you should do. Rather, she is an example of how the Lord creates faith in a Christian’s heart. A faith that gives up on anything good that could possibly exist within you, and fully trusts instead in what Jesus has done for you. The word and promise of God to you, His forgiveness and Life, that’s all there is, and all that really matters.

But it seems everything else would matter more to you. The mad rush to get all your “summer-priorities” done now that school has restarted in person, the latest and greatest sales at the mall, another sports season, hopefully COVID free, just around the corner. These things and so many like them occupy your attention more often than the Word of God and prayer. Oh, no doubt, you pray, but your prayers are constantly for things, or some sort of convenience, or something else that will simply fade away soon enough. You are so comfortable with your crutches that you tune out Christ when He speaks the word to rise up and walk. The more you look at the law, the ten commandments, or even personal examples like St. Mary, you find yourself falling far short. Instead of praise and honor, your sins cultivate shame and dishonor.

But it is especially to you that the Lord has shown His favor! The prophet Isaiah comforts you: “Instead of shame there shall be a double portion;” –meaning a more than generous helping of His undeserved mercy! Instead of dishonor you shall rejoice in your lot as a baptized child of God living under the cross. You shall have everlasting joy, because of the forgiveness you have right now in Christ the crucified One! His holy blood was spilt in order to create a new everlasting covenant, that is, a new promise from God for you that can never be reversed.

Though you have acted unjustly toward your Creator, the Almighty Judge declares to you that your death sentence will rest upon His shoulders instead. Though your life has mimicked Eve on many more occasions than Mary, the same powerful Word of God that strengthened Mary’s faith is working on you right now. Your sinful nature is being drowned in your baptism so that Christ who is in you may rise from the dead just as surely as He broke through the garden tomb on Easter. You are the offspring that the Lord has blessed, because He has given you new birth to a new and living hope. You, despite all your sins, are covered in the robe of righteousness. What He has planted inside you will sprout up and grow until the Last Day. God speaks His Word, and the stubborn, selfish, cold heart within you melts in warm praise and joy because of Jesus.

Fellow blessed believers, may your souls rejoice in God your Savior this day along with the Blessed Virgin Mary! Rejoice in sufferings and trials with her who was once an outcast of her society for being pregnant before marriage. For the Baby she bore and nursed and raised was the Christ who suffered for you and for her. Listen to and trust in His Word alone, as she did, for Jesus desires to be born within your heart now and forever. Believe in the Son of God with the faith that the Holy Spirit placed in your heart at Baptism– the Son of God who is begotten of the Father before all worlds. Eat and drink His precious Body and Blood, which was born of the Virgin Mary and suffered under Pontius Pilate. For when all is said and done, even on St. Mary’s Day, the center of attention is not her or you or even the saints and angels of heaven all around you whom you cannot see right now. Rather the center of attention is on Jesus and His forgiveness that He hands out to you today. And with faith you too may boldly say to Him, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord. May it be to me as You have said.”

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Readings:
  Is. 61:7–11 He has clothed me with the robe of righteousness
  Psalm 45:10–17 She shall be brought to the King in robes of many colors
  Gal. 4:4–7 when the fullness of the time had come God sent forth His Son
  Luke 1:39–55 Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!

Sermon for the Tenth Sunday after Trinity: August 8, 2021 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

Out of the many and various reality TV shows that were on the airwaves, one that I had often watched was Undercover Boss. It had the CEO or other top executive of a large company, often a restaurant, a merchandise or a service provider, put on makeup and costume and pose as a newly hired employee, working at one of the company’s locations. The idea was to arrange a secret visitation, that is, give the leader a close-up and evidently more accurate view of how the company operated on the local level. He or she got to know more personally the people involved in the lower levels of the employee food chain.

What made it interesting was that the boss now had to struggle like the ones under him, and the employees who were helpful to this new recruit were in some suddenly unexpected way rewarded by the boss when the time came for the mask to be removed and the identity was revealed. On the other hand, those middle managers who were squandering their responsibilities and poorly running the local franchise were faced with a sudden surprise retribution when they realized the mystery employee was their own boss watching them from within. The drama and the conflict and the swift justice, balanced with the generosity, concern and care for the hardworking but down on their luck, all brought good ratings to the show, plus a bump in popularity for quite a few bosses and their companies, even among people who had been taught that rich people are somehow all bad.

The original Undercover Boss, if I could borrow that title for a minute, was our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, creator of the universe. He had to disguise His Divine Majesty in the form of a servant, a humble man who walked the dusty streets of Palestine. He came close in order to examine His creation, and care for the sick, the hungry; He even raised a few from the dead. But importantly, Jesus did not pose as someone else, nor was His visitation in secret. He did not intend to keep His identity hidden, He openly preached and performed miracles. He repeatedly claimed to be exactly who He was, true God and true man. He told His disciples that He would suffer and die, then on the third day rise from the dead. People believed Him and crowds followed Him as He taught and healed. The downtrodden would plead to Him, Lord Have Mercy, just like we do in our service, and they knew He would do something great to lift them up from their oppression.

Now imagine if an undercover boss saw something going horribly wrong in his own company. The secret, undercover part would have to end right then and there. The offended CEO removes the mask, the cameras swoop over to the faces of the mediocre manager and the pitiful yes-men, looking for a gasp of surprise and dread—but there’s nothing. Not even a blink. “I knew it was you all the time! It just isn’t worth it enough to me to do things your way, so I’m not going to change. So what if you’re my boss?” You don’t need to guess what the CEO would do next, but that was the very scenario that confronted Jesus as He interacted with the religious leaders who rejected Him. Either they knew who He was and refused to believe, or they saw Him only as a threat to their power and plotted to get Him out of their way.

We saw in today’s Gospel, that our Lord’s reaction was first to weep over Jerusalem. He mourned over the lack of faith that He now saw up close with genuine human eyes. God’s holy city of Jerusalem stubbornly remained in their ignorance while God Himself was making His visit. Some people were hanging on His every word, and these faithful received blessings straight from the boss, but the managers, if you will, the ones entrusted with the task of teaching and pointing people to the Savior, they said no, it’s not worth it to us to believe in You. The Little Lord Jesus, no crying He makes? Whether or not that’s true when He was a baby, away in that manger, it certainly isn’t the case now, because Your Lord Jesus wept over Jerusalem, at least twice. He wanted, yes, He deeply desired their trust in Him just like He desires your trust in Him too.

Jesus demonstrates His great love for His people when He shed those tears, looking down on Jerusalem likely from a close-by hilltop. It broke His heart, not because He had some inner need for their love, but because He knew that without Him, they would be forever lost. He could see ahead not even 40 years, and the city scape sprawled out in front of Him would drastically change. The Roman armies would surround Jerusalem’s wall, build their crude barricades to stop the Jews’ supply of food and hem them in. Then, when time came to strike, they would demolish the once-sacred temple building and throw every stone on the ground, not one left upon another. This event really happened in the year 70 AD. Many historians recorded it and archaeology confirms it. Most importantly, Jesus predicted it, and partly it was a Divine judgment against the Jewish lack of faith in the true Messiah. That was why Jesus wept. These people had their chance, and instead wanted their way, their made-up attempts to access God’s favor instead. They stumbled over Jesus, who offended them and their false spirituality. As the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans, Israel pursued a law that would lead to righteousness… as if it were based on works. That will not end well for them when the boss renders His final judgment. The next time they see Him, He will no longer be undercover in His humble form.

Perhaps with the stain of a tear still in His eye, Jesus next came down from His hilltop vantage point and entered the city gate, then walked up to the temple mount with His disciples. His weeping was over, now it’s time for action. Motivated by purely righteous anger and the utter zeal for His Father’s house that He’s had all of His human life, Jesus drove out from the outdoor courtyards everyone who sold. Whether they sold animals for sacrifice or worthless trinkets, we aren’t told, but to Jesus, that doesn’t seem to matter. These are robbers, and they have no place in God’s house of prayer. And He wasn’t upset merely about opportunists making money in a place of worship, He was more concerned about erasing the horrible notion that salvation was for sale. That somehow you have to find the way to God’s blessing inside yourself, rather than in Jesus alone. With the distraction of the merchants, plus the priests, scribes and leaders teaching the people a false righteousness, Jesus said, enough is enough—this must stop or else people will perish forever. Forgiveness, bought and paid for with His holy blood, that forgiveness is what must be found in God’s house of prayer.

Today, dear flock of the Good Shepherd, today is your day of the Lord’s visitation. The Boss is here for a visit, and good things are in store for you! No, you won’t get your debts paid or your children receive a free ride education, or your business get a makeover and a fresh start. Those are things that the world sees as the best there is possible. Those things and others like them can litter the temple of your heart and distract you from Jesus. Do you harbor anger against someone who hurt you? Are you worried and frantic over what may happen to you or to a loved one? Christ is here today to drive that robber out of your heart!
Nothing is more important than hanging on these words: You are forgiven all because of Jesus! You belong to your Heavenly Father’s family simply because your Savior gave His life for you! Your dead or diseased body will be raised to eternal life on Judgment Day because Christ your Lord rose from the dead and won the victory! No other benefit, no amount of present suffering can come anywhere close to what Jesus here brings to you as a precious gift.

He wept in His bitter pain and love for you so that you would not weep in everlasting torment and punishment. He struggled in pain against the same sinful world that afflicts you. He then destroyed the futile, false temple you built to yourself, not leaving one stone upon another, so that He could build you into a cleansed and living temple for Himself, laying your foundation on Jesus Christ the chief cornerstone. You prayed, Lord Have Mercy, and He answered your prayer. He has done it all and promises to give it all here for you! Salvation is not for sale—it’s free!

We do not need other reasons for drawing people in to join us; we have already here and now the precious gifts that everyone needs. What we do need to keep doing is repent of our sins and keep believing in the forgiveness of Jesus ourselves. It’s too easy to stop caring or to get discouraged, but we must trust that our Lord knows what He’s doing, and He’ll keep opening our opportunities for us to keep handing out that free forgiveness, if we are courageous enough to follow His lead.

The episodes of the TV show Undercover Boss rarely ended without joyful weeping due to the love and kindness that came about as a result of the visitation. Perhaps you might shed a tear or two knowing that your Lord and God who once wept over Jerusalem, now has visited you and He welcomes you into His embrace for everlasting life. But the time is coming when He will wipe away every tear from our eyes, every sorrow will be forgotten, and only good will be remembered. God’s true majesty and glory will be fully uncovered, for today you have come to God’s house of prayer where goodness and mercy follow you all the days of your life; and soon you shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Readings:
Jer. 7:1–11 Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of thieves in your eyes?
Rom. 9:30—10:4 Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes
Luke 19:41–48 He went to the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in it.

Sermon for the Ninth Sunday after Trinity: August 1, 2021 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

God has a knack for teaching you something perfectly, even while using an imperfect example. The only thing you have around you is an imperfect world, a world riddled with sin, suffering, hardship and death. So for God to explain anything good and true and perfect to you, chances are He’ll sometimes have to use something imperfect, something tainted by sin’s disease and given to false pretenses and abuse, at least the way you normally see it.

We find this in today’s Gospel, a parable of Jesus, an earthly story that has a heavenly meaning. When you read His parables, normally there is only one or two main points that Jesus intends you to draw from them, and the surrounding details remain in the background. That is especially true with this story, because if you give equal emphasis to all the details, you actually contradict the main point. The parable is about a steward, or business manager, that a rich man put in charge of his possessions. Evidently, one of the items for which this manager was responsible was what today’s business world may call “accounts receivable.” He was to collect payments for bills that other people owed to the rich man. As the story goes, the manager wastes his boss’s possessions and it was announced to him Apprentice style: You’re fired. Prior to his last day on the job, this terminated manager thinks ahead a little bit and wins the favor of a few of the master’s debtors. How does he do it? He dishonestly tells them to pay his master less than they owe! That’s what will make his future unemployment a little brighter.

Most people don’t have a problem with the story up to this point. It’s the very next thing that happens that causes a real stir. It makes you scratch your head and wonder, What is Jesus thinking with this story? Because the rich man, the master, commends his fired manager! And since Jesus is providing this story in a positive way, you could even say Jesus Himself is commending this manager as an example for you! But here on out you must be careful: this is an imperfect example that He uses, and I must point out that He does not necessarily commend the actual dishonest thing he did, but the key to this whole parable is the manager’s shrewdness. Actually that word shrewdness in verse 8 is worth highlighting or circling in your Bible, if it belongs to you, that is. In the NIV it says he acted shrewdly. You might even see the word “cunning” in some other English Bibles. That sort of worldly wisdom that just like a good chess player it thinks a few steps ahead—that is what Jesus says the world can teach the Church.

Listen to your Lord’s own words: “The sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light.” Guess what? This is not a compliment. For you who are born of water and the Holy Spirit and ushered into the loving embrace of God your heavenly Father, you’ve got a big lesson to learn from the people of this world, people who wouldn’t ever give one thought to their eternal salvation! Jesus is telling you that you are not diligently wise in doing what you do best as a Christian, and the business sense of this fallen world is really showing you up.

The best way to illustrate this worldly diligence is how it makes you wonder—how do all those scam artists keep coming up with more and more elaborate plans to separate you from your money by fraud? It was bad enough that they concocted a scheme to steal your carbons back in the days when there were credit card carbons. Now they can be so bold as to impersonate you to a bank or to your own friends and take out a loan in your name or even trick you to be generous to them because they are in an emergency and Grandma Robbie or Uncle Tim, surely you can help out with just a few bucks to get them out of their bind? That kind of diligence would pay off really well in a real, legitimate job, right? But the world apparently can’t see that difference, and it still rewards shrewdness, whatever form it takes.

Jesus makes the point clear: “Make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.” The word for wealth or money in the older versions of the Bible is Mammon, perhaps you heard of it. It means everything you have as God’s gift to you, and that means time, personal influence, strengths and abilities as well as money, anything you have that is extra beyond what you need to keep alive and satisfied. Jesus called it unrighteous wealth or Mammon because people like you and me use that extra surplus normally just for selfish things. That’s what the sinful world does best, but that’s still not the lesson Jesus wants you to learn. You already know that. You and I are by nature selfish because of sin.

Making friends by means of unrighteous wealth means to use the time, money, and energy that your heavenly Father has lavished on you to help someone who needs it. Another parable Jesus tells in the Gospel of Matthew reveals that when you feed the hungry, clothe the unclothed and visit those in prison, you are actually serving God. Now Jesus is not saying that all of a sudden you are saved and going to heaven just because you did good things, as if faith and trust in Him were now thrown out. No, believing in Jesus is still the only hope you have for salvation. You cannot do enough to please God, but Jesus has done it all, and your heavenly Father counts what Jesus did for you in your favor. That is the true faith, that is still the only way you’re going to heaven.

But it is also true that the true faith changes you in the process. It renders the lies and the deceptions of this world absolutely foreign and empty to you, and at the same time makes you do something that your sinful human nature could never do: and that is, look out for the benefit of someone else, doing good works for someone who needs it. Ephesians 2 sums it up: you are saved by God’s grace that you have received in your heart through faith and not by doing anything for it. Yet you are still the Lord’s new creation and He has preprogrammed you to help others and do good works, not to improve your situation, but to improve their situation. Since you were grafted in Baptism to Jesus Christ the Vine, you as His branches produce fruit, doing good things, but really it is God doing it all through you. Whether it is praying for your friends and loved ones, wielding a paintbrush on a Saturday, saving a friendly hello for someone new, changing a baby’s diaper, taking out the trash for your wife, giving to the Lord’s Work here at church as well as in some other area of missions, doing your homework, driving kids to millions of places, (as you know, the list just goes on and on)—whatever it is, God is placing the desire in your heart to do it, and you do it automatically. No matter what the service is that you do, or how unnoticed and unappreciated it might be, it is a good work that pleases the Father only because He is pleased with Jesus. In fact, the more unnoticed and unappreciated the better, the way He sees it. It’s what you do best as a renewed, forgiven Christian: thinking not about how to help yourself, but how to help other people.

And so, now to put it together, Jesus is telling you to learn from the shrewdness of the dishonest manager and apply it to the good, helpful things that you do best as a child of light. Look diligently, even creatively for ways to use the God given gifts you have beyond what you need to help other people. Jesus says in another place, Let your light shine before men, that they may see what you do for them and praise your Father in heaven. Remember, the dishonest manager didn’t have any means of his own to give to these people to make them his friends. He only had the generosity of his master the rich man to rely on. He had to know that the boss would honor the discount in the first place or else his plan wouldn’t work. It’s the same for you: the generosity you share with others isn’t really yours but God’s, yet He has given it to you to hand out to others.

But I should remind you that you will fail in this task as long as you are on this earth. You will constantly have your sinful human nature putting yourself first rather than your neighbor. Every day you will still need the Lord’s free gift of forgiveness that is yours in Jesus Christ and His death and resurrection. And He will come through for you every time because it is His responsibility as the head of the household of faith to serve you. For He didn’t think anything of laying down His own life for you, His bride, the Church. He just did it, and did it perfectly. And you have His Body and Blood here on this altar and placed into your mouth to bring His sacrificial love to you.

Jesus was truly diligent in completing His task when He went to the cross for your sake. Any one of us who thinks we can stand needs to take heed every moment so that we would not fall. We’re in this world, remember, and we’re not perfect. And yet temptation to sin, even at those times when we think we are being shrewd with our unrighteous wealth, that temptation will not be too great for us; we have God’s guarantee of that written down by the Apostle Paul. We have that guarantee of forgiveness sealed with the Body and Blood of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, which also through God’s own strength enables you to think ahead like that manager, imperfect though he was, but you’ll be that much more encouraged, eager and diligent when you leave this building and share His love with others.

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Readings:
2 Sam. 22:26–34 With the pure you will show Yourself pure
Psalm 51:1–12 in sin my mother conceived me
1 Cor. 10:6–13 …to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition
Luke 16:1–13 No servant can serve two masters

Sermon for the Festival of St. James, the Elder, Apostle: July 25, 2021 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

“If God is for us, who can be against us?” What confidence, what boldness is in that statement! Something that strong is what you want for a confirmation verse, or as a caption to a poster with a hang-glider flying over the Grand Canyon. It has a pretty heavy initial punch, but I wonder if it always lasts. You say that God is for you and it gives you instant encouragement, but what does it really mean? When you come to think of it, that’s a pretty easy phrase to say, don’t you think? I mean, you would have to be a hard-boiled atheist not to be attracted to the claim that God is on your side.

You hear the idea tossed around a lot, and it can get emphasized a little too far out of hand in some Christian Churches, the mistaken notion that God has an interest in the United States in a different way than He does in other nations of the world. It’s as though He’s building up His glorious heavenly kingdom right here on earth, and sure, He’s given us a unique and special blessing of freedom in our country, but there’s no nation past, present, or future that can replace one, holy Christian Church. And you can misuse any number of Bible verses that in reality either speak of the Old Testament kingdom of Israel in their divine role of preparing for Jesus, or they really talk about the royal priesthood of baptized children of God, citizens, if you will, of an eternal, not an earthly, nation. While pagan religions like Islam demand their subjects to fight for their god’s cause, we just like to think that God, the true God, fights for us. Isn’t that the holy promise you hear in St. Paul’s letter to the Roman church?

The disagreement, of course, lies not in the statement itself, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” but rather in how it came to be that God is for us in the first place. It’s probably the most popular to think that in some way you have or can somehow obtain the right to say such a thing. Like you’ve earned it by what you’ve done or the kind of life you lead. And this can get pretty sneaky, where you don’t realize that you’re falling for a favorite deception that the devil uses. Sure you’re saved only because of Jesus and His death on the cross, your sins are forgiven and Christ is your Savior. But then, so the reasoning goes, it is your decision to make Him your Lord, meaning, you have to lead a better, moral life so that God will be pleased with you, bless you with various benefits, give you a harmonious family, provide you with means to get ahead and take away your suffering. People fall for that trap every day. If you feel abandoned or condemned by God, then the false reasoning goes, you are abandoned and condemned. Try harder. Just commit yourself to God in a more meaningful way, you’ve got to pray longer prayers about more and more people whom you don’t know, and demonstrate in public how dedicated to the Lord’s work you are.

If that describes you, then you’re in good company. Because I just described the Pharisees of Jesus’ day, the Catholic monks of Luther’s day, and the popular evangelicals of every denomination of our own time. And God’s holy Law accuses you the same way it always has: God is not pleased with you because of what you do. He despises your self-pride and sinful human nature. Apart from Jesus, the good deeds that you take pleasure in are worse than waste. Because you insist on extolling your own virtues especially over against others, you have a fouled-up image of the glory of Jesus, just like the Apostle St. James and his brother did—at one time.

The disciples’ three-year seminary education with Jesus was nearly over. They were walking on the last journey that would lead up to Jerusalem, right before Palm Sunday and the extremely important events of Holy Week. The Lord Christ has the cross and His suffering in mind, and He is taking every opportunity to explain this unique, once-in-all-history sacrifice to His followers, and what it will mean for them, and what it means for you. And in a total interruption, like they were not paying any attention to what Jesus was saying, James and John came up to Him (Matthew says it was their mother) and asked Him to grant them the right- and left- hand places in His glory.

Jesus Himself said that James and John did not know what they were asking, because they had the wrong idea of His glory. That same false idea of glory is what is most attractive to you, and it’s what most often makes you think that God is for you because of something you have done. But the glory that Jesus enters and the glory He hands out to you today is the glory of the cross. Suffering, being weak and in need, having others persecute you or treat you unfairly because of your Lord, these are the true glorious things. Take a look at the Beatitudes of Matthew 5 again to refresh your memory of Christ’s real glory.

It was a cup of suffering that Jesus drank in your place, a chalice that you filled to the top with your sins, your rebellion against God, your self-centered attitude. It was a cup that He even prayed that the Father take it away, but He obeyed with no regard to the pain and death He would later undergo. That cup of punishment He drank all the way down to the bottom, when He was baptized with the fire and brimstone of God’s anger that should have been directed at you. He endured it, though. You are no longer condemned. You walk away completely free! The cup of the glory of suffering that He drank He then fills up with His precious blood for you to drink after Him. And as you drink His chalice with your fellow confessors of the faith in remembrance of Your Lord, be reminded also of His glory, not only of the future, sinless and eternal glory of heaven, but the glory you possess right now, the glory of suffering and the cross.

For this cross is what assures you that God is for you. The cross on which your Savior died is truly precious and Holy to you because you were reconciled to your Creator there. Your sins, especially your evil and self-centered nature were killed there with Christ, but He alone rose from the dead on the third day. Your sins stayed buried. The holy cross was placed upon you when you were baptized for two reasons: first, because the washing of new birth was won for you on the cross, and second, because the rest of your entire life will be under the glorious suffering of the cross that God gives you. Those two reasons are a good reason to wear a cross as a public testimony to others, or put it up on the wall of your house, or to make the sign of the cross before prayer or during a blessing as a reminder to yourself. And as you gather up front at the foot of that cross, you eat and drink the true Body and Blood that Jesus gave for you to forgive and strengthen you in body and soul.

That is how you know God is for you: His rock-solid promise, spoken from a certain man, the pastor called, ordained, and standing in His stead, and the actual, physical things of Baptism and Holy Communion that He has set aside especially to assure you. These real things turn you away from relying on yourself, your moral life, or your emotions for the assurance you need every day.

But be assured also when you go through your times of suffering, when it is your turn to drink the cup of Jesus’ true glory, the glory of suffering that everyone else thinks is foolishness. Don’t be discouraged, you’re in good company: St. James drank that cup, as did his brother John although in another way, all those ancient Christians who met together when Christianity was declared illegal by the government and their lives were continually in danger. Remember Martin Luther and everyone else who rediscovered the Gospel, and all Christians today in all parts of the world who are beaten nearly to death simply because of Jesus. They all know, as you know, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” And that phrase means so much more to the one, holy Christian and apostolic Church than merely a throwaway encouragement or sound bite. Through this Scripture truth, backed up with the real, history-changing way that Jesus accomplished to make it come true, you can have that same confidence, that boldness to confess the Christian faith without fear.

God’s promise is absolute: you will not be separated from Him! The glory of heaven is yours, because you believe in the one who suffered the glory of the cross, a glory of suffering you endure now as your privilege. Do not lose heart! Be bold in your confession of the true faith: God is for you! Who can be against you?

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Readings:
Acts 11:27—12:5 he killed James the brother of John with the sword.
Psalm 56 You number my wanderings; Put my tears into Your bottle
Rom. 8:28–39 If God be for us, who can be against us?
Mark 10:35–45 whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant

Sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Trinity: July 18, 2021 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

The Son spoke the Father’s Word, and behold, there was an abundance of food. What a gift it was for Adam and Eve, and their children who would have come from their paradise-surrounded marriage, to eat fruit from any tree in the garden except the one God commanded not to eat. All that easily available fruit bore testimony to His desire for His human and animal creatures to possess and enjoy life in its fulness. There was, to be sure, not a need that the gracious Lord did not fulfill. They shall not want, for the Lord was their Shepherd from day one. There was water a plenty on this elevated site, enough water even to divide into four great rivers that flowed downstream to spread Eden’s lush wealth with the rest of the created land. It was so perfect that the only way we can understand it is to say what Eden didn’t have: no lack, no limitation, no sin, no lawlessness, no violence; in short, no death.

Then Satan spoke his snake-like voice, and his lies introduced doubt into Eve and also into Adam. God does not want you to be fully satisfied! He’s not interested in providing for you! You need to provide for yourself. You need to become like God, knowing good and evil, or else you will not be happy! You may be eating all this fruit and feeling full in your belly, but the Lord is starving you of what will truly give you a fulfilling life. Satan’s big lie brought forth the wages of sin, which is death. Ever since, death has cast its dark pall over God’s perfect world, and death has its unmistakable markers: lack, limitation, unfairness, violence, suffering. Every time we eat our daily bread, we are reminded that that bread came to us at the cost of our toil, our feverish, thorn-cursed working against death the inevitable.

A crowd had gathered to hear Jesus preach in the desert wilderness. It was about the farthest thing from Eden that the mind can imagine. Water was scarce, food would be inaccessible. If there were any trees there would hardly be enough fruit to pick for a multitude of four thousand to share even a nibble. They had been with the Lord for three days, hearing the Son speak the Word of the Father, and life had enveloped them in a way they had never experienced before. Many of them scarcely noticed it at first, but soon all present would come aware of the presence of death. There is a lack of food. This is a desolate place, as Jesus Himself observed, and many people of the crowd are far from their homes, or even the closest McDonalds.

The Good Shepherd feels compassion for His sheep. The Biblical word actually describes our Lord’s insides twisting in pain-filled concern for their health and well-being. How much more so was He caring also for their souls! God felt literal pain in His stomach for people who might not make it back home in time to eat and fill their stomachs. They might faint along the way. That would not be the Creator’s fault. God had created the world so that people would not faint from lack of food. He created food in abundance, but sin on the part of deceived mankind took that abundance away. Yet instead of throwing up His hands in disgust over what we did to ruin His perfect world, Jesus felt compassion deep down in His guts, and it is that compassion that led Him, even compelled Him to take the next step.

Jesus called His disciples to Him, and spoke to them about His compassion for the crowd. He told His traveling companions and students that He did not intend to send them away empty. What makes this even more complicated is that this very situation had already happened before. With a larger crowd of 5000, Jesus spoke the Word of blessing, and there was miraculously an abundance of food that multiplied from five bread loaves and two fish. Now there are seven loaves, some more fish, and just a gathering of 4000, and the disciples still reacted to Him as though they had not been walking around all this time with the True Son of God living and breathing in human flesh! All the disciples could see were the great number of people, the little amount of food, and the worthless wilderness that surrounded them with death.

“Have the people sit down,” so says the Good Shepherd. He was speaking as though the crowd were a flock of sheep settling down in peace for their feeding. Just as He did before, He took the bread, gave thanks to the Father the Creator of heaven and earth and all good things, and He broke apart and gave the food to the disciples to give to the people. You’d think by this point a disciple or two would have remembered the feeding of the 5000, and then would have predicted what would have happened next. The Son spoke the Father’s Word, and behold there was an abundance of food. It didn’t look like Eden’s trees sprouting forth from the ground and bearing fruit for the people to eat, but it was still God’s abundance that satisfied the stomachs and kindled the fires of faith in those who looked to Jesus as their one hope and trust. These new believers would soon find out that Jesus came not just to give them one memorable meal, but to continue feeding their souls unto everlasting life. He came to set them free from the bondage of death, lack, and limitation. They had no reason to fear, even if they themselves had grossly disobeyed God.

The abundance yielded more than enough food, more than the crowd could eat, plus the seven basketfuls of food left over. One basket for each day of creation, plus the one day of rest and worship, the day that crowns each week and reminds us that God is our provider for everything. It drives home the point to us even to this very day that our Lord wants us to hear this great miracle for our benefit. It would be one thing for us to rejoice that God did great things for some other people, some other time, in some far away other place. Instead, we have the opportunity today to give thanks to the Father, standing alongside with Jesus, and to receive this same abundance today—this time not a simple meal of bread and fish, but the true, full abundance of our Creator, granted us by faith in Christ His Son.

That same compassion Jesus felt for the hungry people, He felt in His own stomach also for you, His precious lamb. He did not want you to go home faint or with anything to lack, but instead He desires to fill you here today with His most precious gifts of forgiveness, of life everlasting, of salvation from everything that death has brought into this world. Jesus was moved by this very same gut-wrenching compassion to die the death that would destroy death, that would achieve a full reconciliation between you and your Father. On the third day, Jesus rose from the dead to crush Satan and his evil lie. He guaranteed this return of abundance of life, and it envelops you with a forgiveness and a fulfillment to your life that you had never experienced before. At your baptism, Jesus clothed you with the white robe of sinless perfection and the Father blessed you and called you His beloved child. That’s partly why I wear a white robe in church, to picture for you how God now sees you with your wages of sin paid in full in your place.

For the time being, you still need to eat your daily bread with the curse of death still attached to it. You will get hungry again. You will suffer disease and lack and limitations, and violence, and unfairness. You may faint from exhaustion as you make your way closer and closer to your heavenly home. There are days when all you can sense around you are the fearful signs of death, just like the disciples could only see that which made their situation seem impossible. But do not fear, for your Good Shepherd has you today sit down, you may even kneel at His holy table if you like. Soon you will hear again His blessed words of thanksgiving, and another miracle will take place. Bread, which ordinarily reminds us of our hunger, toil and eventual death, this bread is linked up with Jesus’ own Word and it becomes for you instead a life-giving bread! His servant the pastor serves you straight from the Lord, just like the disciples served the 4000. The true Body and Blood of Christ is given you to eat and drink for your forgiveness and everlasting life. We need not merely rejoice that Jesus did great things for a far-removed crowd so long ago. Our Creator’s great abundance is restored to you this day, and for the rest of your life as you hold fast to His Word of promise, and not sway your attention to the alluring, yet passing away things of this world.

What a great and abundant blessing is here for you, for your children, for your friends and loved ones, indeed for all whom Our Lord chooses to gather here in His presence! Nothing that helps you is withheld. Only that which will harm you is to be avoided. This may be the farthest thing from the hilltop garden of Eden, with rivers flowing down in a wealth of trees and fruit. But here you have all you need to testify to your Creator’s sincere desire not to starve you, but fill you with good things, and satisfy your soul to eternal life. Our church season’s color of green bears witness to that Eden-like growth that is taking place in your heart as you join your faithful parents Adam and Eve in worship of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There is not a need you have that your Lord has not answered and fulfilled by what Jesus has done for you. He has been your Shepherd from day one. The death you feel and sense about you will not be around much longer. Soon, well-fed and nourished by the Word of God, you will arrive home.

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Readings:
Gen. 2:7–17 and the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground
Psalm 33:1–11 The counsel of the LORD stands forever
Rom. 6:19–23 but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Mark 8:1–9 He took seven loaves and gave thanks … seven large baskets

Sermon for the Sixth Sunday after Trinity: July 11, 2021 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

Our Old Testament reading today proclaims the whole Ten Commandments, which we normally repeat when we rehearse the Catechism. As we read the entire Ten Commandments, what strikes us especially is what our Lord says about His own Name. God the Father says to you and to all Christians of every time and place, “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.” And you have read the other, more modern words for this Commandment, You shall not misuse the Name of the Lord your God. While that still gets some of the idea across in translation from the Hebrew original, I put forward to you that we should still be familiar with the idea of “take in vain,” and what that means.

Because there is a harsh and terrible warning for you in these Words: “the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His [the LORD’s] name in vain.” There is also a rich and wonderful promise for you, too: for when God gives you His Name—when you have upon yourself the powerful name of the Lord your God—that Name shall never, ever be in vain, or rendered useless. That is to say, God’s name shall at no time fail you or withhold His promised benefit and blessing from you. In the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon complained that vanity, vanity all is vanity—well, that may be true for anything in this sinful, “under the sun” cursed world, but vanity will never describe what our Lord’s powerful name has done for you in Christ Jesus.

Going back to catechism and confirmation class, the Second Commandment is usually taught so that it forbids the sins of the tongue. Perhaps you have memorized at some point in your life: What is the Second Commandment? You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God. What does this mean? We should fear and love God so that we do not curse, swear, use satanic arts (or use witchcraft), lie, or deceive by His name, but call upon it in every trouble, pray, praise and give thanks (Small Catechism, Second Commandment).

That is a very good start, especially for teaching small children, but God’s Second Commandment goes far beyond the sins you commit when you lie or deceive or when you fail to pray as you ought. Sins of tongue and a foul mouth are just one small detail of the much larger painting. Listen to the commandment again, this time with a literal ear. God does not say, You shall not SPEAK God’s name as a swear word, and so forth. But He says, “You shall not TAKE—you shall not pick up, you shall not lift up, not carry or bear—the name of the Lord your God as though it were nothing.” These Words paint for us a bigger picture!

Yes, God certainly forbids that we misuse His name with our tongues. That is still part of it. Stated another way, God does not wish for us to take His name into our mouths and to lift it up or speak it out before the world in a vain or inglorious way, cursing, swearing, using witchcraft, lying, and deceiving. Such uses of God’s name dishonor the good name of our God among us!

Yet God also forbids that we CARRY and WEAR His name vainly, and not only in what we say. “The LORD will not hold guiltless him who TAKES—picks up, carries, bears and wears—His name in vain.” To illustrate this wearing of God’s Name in addition to speaking it, listen to how God taught the priests (Aaron and his sons) to bless to the people. First, God specified certain vestments for the priests to wear and the clothing had an inscription on it: Holy to the LORD. Then He gave the priests specific Words that they were to say: Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them, “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace” (Numbers 6:22-26).

Then, after telling the priests what Words to say, God went on to explain what happens to you when the priest speaks these Words to you: “So shall they [the priests] PUT MY NAME UPON the people of Israel” (Numbers 6:27). Did you catch that? When you hear the Words of the Lord’s blessing, then at that very moment God’s name is getting laid upon you like a blanket or clothing you like the priests’ vestments. When you hear those Words, God’s name gets handed to you to bear and to carry forth into the world much as you would your driver license or your photo ID. “So shall they PUT MY NAME UPON the people of Israel.” And as God’s baptized people, you have God’s Name put on you, so that the power of God’s name would be evident to the whole world in and through you. If you do anything, including speaking, that makes it appear to others that that Name of God isn’t so powerful, or that it really is worthless and nothing, then the Lord has every right to hold that against you. When He gave you His name, He didn’t give you a piece of junk, He gave you something truly precious and powerful! So you shall not pick up and carry, you shall not wear or bear God’s name uselessly, because “the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.” So yes, by all means, think about the sins you commit with your tongue, how you offend the Lord every day by what you say, or when you neglect to pray. Yet, Do not stop there! Think also about how little you recall your Baptism, where the good and gracious name of God was given personally to you, and where you were baptized into “the NAME of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). In the Second Commandment, God forbids us to take THAT name—the name given in Baptism—and bear it up before the world in vain. Stated another way, God forbids us to live as if we were never baptized, or as though our heavenly Father never came through for us and helped us when we needed Him.

This Commandment is God’s warning to those who would dare to baptize their children and then disappear from worship, not bothering to teach their children the Christian faith. “The LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.” That is to say, the Lord knows and the Lord will remember those who take His name in Baptism but then want nothing more to do with Him. Yet that’s too easy for you to hear, because here you are attending the Divine Service! And this commandment does more than speak to the other guy!

What are you and I really doing, when we treat our neighbor harshly, when we withhold forgiveness or nurse a grudge against them, or when we ignore someone’s need? When we withhold love from our neighbor, in the various forms that are described in all of the other Commandments, we should think of it also as an act of taking our LORD’s name in vain. God’s name contains ALL the power and strength we need for patient and generous neighborly love, and God’s name is our gift! “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.” Stated another way, God’s name is yours! Why would you make it look like that Name was worthless? You have a truth that must be confessed, not only with the mouth but with your whole being.

How about when you or I choose to wallow in self-pity, or when we wring our hands with despair? Self-pity pays attention to the deceptive, devilish suggestion that we might have been forgotten. Despair entertains the satanic lie that there is no forgiveness and no hope to be found. Yet we have been given the name of the Lord our God! Where God’s name is, there also is the full forgiveness of every sin, created for you by Christ Jesus, paid for by His Blood on the cross. Where God’s name is, there also is security and confidence, even in the darkest hours of the night. Where God’s name is, there also is hope and expectation and certainty, standing fast against all fear. “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.” In other words, be comforted! Do not allow yourself to think that your faith is in doubt, or that full release from every sin has not been given to you in Jesus’ name, even in your darkest hour. Do not allow yourself to be fooled or deceived into thinking that God cannot or will not raise you up, even from the dead. After all, you do not carry and bear the name of God in vain and for no purpose!

Really, that is the blessing of the Second Commandment, even though it sounds like a warning and a curse. In order to spot the blessing and the promise, take the words not merely as a command for you to do something. Rather, listen for a moment to these Words as if God were stating a fact to you: “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.” Stated other ways, God has assured you: It will never be not worth it for you to carry the name of the Lord your God, both upon your forehead (Revelation 14:4, 22:4) and upon your heart (Psalm 33:21). It shall not be useless or unproductive for you to take the name of the Lord your God. Amidst struggle or hardship, terror or despair, all of God’s Christians may fearlessly say, “Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth” (Psalm 124:8). Also, “Save me, O God, by Your Name,” (Psalm 54:1) And again, “The Name of the Lord is a strong tower, [we] run to it and are safe” (Proverbs 18:10, NIV).

When God’s name is given to you—and most certainly it has been –His name shall not fail to do what it promises you! God’s name has indeed been given to you, both in Baptism and at the close of Service. Because of this name you carry and bear this name which is above all other names (Philippians 2:9) and you may say and confess with the confidence of King David, Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. They collapse and fall, but we rise and stand upright (Psalm 20:7-8). The Name that saves and forgives you, is the Name that will also strengthen and keep you steadfast to life everlasting.

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Readings:
Ex. 20:1–17 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt
Psalm 19 The heavens declare the glory of God
Rom. 6:1–11 Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?
Matt. 5:17–26 Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets.

Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity: July 4, 2021 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

I wonder if there will be a cross in heaven. Now, before you quickly say yes or no to that possibility, think a little more about what the cross is. The question by itself doesn’t mean all that much since the Bible doesn’t definitively say anything about this specific fact, whether or not there will be a cross in heaven. But perhaps asking such a question, even if you don’t find the exact answer now, it still could help you grasp and understand and believe what Holy Scripture does say about this well-known standard of Christianity. For you know as the hymn proclaims, the cross of Jesus Christ is a glorious tree and a triumphant sign. You would suppose that anything that could be called glorious and triumphant now, here in this world, would be something that you’d be sure to see around God’s magnificent, heavenly throne.

Now, perhaps the cross is only the treasured symbol of the Church Militant. That is, if you are still on this earth, fighting against the devil’s attacks, fighting your own sinful desires, and fighting the false gods of this world, then the cross is your comfort, for it promises you that Jesus has fought all your battles and He has won the war. And then someday, when you have arrived in the joyful presence of your Heavenly Father, you will exchange that old rugged cross for a crown, and you will celebrate forever the glory and triumph that the cross brought to you in this life.

Most often though, the cross and suffering do not bring glory and triumph to mind. Rather, these are better recognized to most in this world as signs of defeat. Many people think that bad events in someone’s life, even tragedies as bad as the terrorist attacks of nearly twenty years ago, or just recently the high rise collapse in Miami, that such things come as punishments. On the other side of it, if you are a good person, and you have truly committed your life to the Lord, then it’s often held that you’ll avoid those terrible things and get some fringe benefits, too: like a happier life, you’ll build a more loving family free of conflict, and your temptations to sin will flee away. When seemingly indiscriminate pain and tragedy blow away this kind of thinking, there’s no further foundation on which to stand. And yet, human nature keeps chasing after the dream that what you do and how good you live your life is going to be rewarded. And because of that, the cross will never escape the label of “foolishness” that St. Paul describes in First Corinthians.

For he knew of two groups of people who right off the bat would treat the cross of Christ with scorn and derision. Those were Jews and Greeks. The Jews (of course, the Jews who didn’t believe in Jesus) they didn’t like the cross because many of them were convinced that the Messiah would be a glorious earthly king. They read the prophecies concerning the Christ’s reign as if life was suddenly going to be perfect. Everyone will have plenty to eat. The land would belong to them forever without any more war or foreign rulership. The whole system of doing good things to earn the favor of God would still be in place. But when Jesus was crucified, all those fantasy dreams were shattered. God’s own people could not bring themselves to believe that their Lord would save them by dying. The Jewish religion became one of rejection of their own Messiah, and they and their children after them threw away the salvation that their ancestors had so fervently desired and hoped for.

When you have expected earthly blessings to come your way because of your faith, then that is the moment that you have stumbled at the cross just like those Jews did. You in the same way have hoped that everything was going to be perfect for you. The most important thing God does, at least in your mind, is to take care of your needs and give you a few of your wants, too. Because God is a loving God (and it seems everyone at least knows that) He would want you to be happy and get a raise every year, that everyone close to you would live to a long, ripe old age, or that you’d have not a single care in the world. And you cannot shake the thought that if you’ve been nice enough to others and got involved in your church, then God would have no choice but to reward you. But the shame and humiliation of the cross, the challenges that seem to be too much for you to handle, all shatter that fantasy so that you end up despising God for doing this to you.

Why, then, did the Greeks see the cross as a foolish thing? It wasn’t because they didn’t tolerate different points of view. In fact, when Paul visited a gathering of these philosophical people, he couldn’t help but notice that they were extremely devoted to learning and even intent on finding out spiritual truths. They thought, Man was the measure of all things, and the Greeks looked to cultivate and preserve all the best that man could be. Take the Olympics, for an example. Not only were they thoroughly ritualistic and considered worship of various gods, which the 2004 Athens Olympics ceremonies did so well to depict, and I’m sure we’ll see something similar this year broadcast from Tokyo, but also the games themselves displayed the all-around virtue and strength of the human being.

When, however, the message of Jesus dying on the cross comes in the hearing of the Greeks, not only is there shock at the statement that man is sinful and corrupt, but also the whole claim that the only true God is a man, a criminal, who exposed Himself to the shame of being crucified in order to save man from destruction. It seems that Jesus could not successfully provide for Himself the rescue that He promised to give to others. Anyone who was not clever enough to escape such a fate is too foolish to be worth listening to. Another problem the Greeks had was that the Christian confession of faith did not allow for other religions to exist side-by-side with it. Later on, the Romans persecuted the Christians, not really because they worshiped Jesus, but rather because they wouldn’t also worship the Roman gods along with Him. Such a religious teaching that was so exclusive and incompatible with other beliefs was simply foolish to those who were perishing.

You would share the same offense at the cross along with the Greeks if you were to follow the world’s illusion that people are basically good and hold that there is more than one way to worship God. For as long as you see your life as a Christian in terms of what you are doing, then the cross and the gospel of what God has done for you will continually get in your way. You get caught in the temptation to measure all things compared to yourself, especially when it comes to your feelings and emotions. Your human nature gets easily offended when the law condemns you. You resist accepting forgiveness because it’s just too good. You don’t want it to be a “cheap grace” that doesn’t require a life-commitment on your part, or spur you on towards living a victorious Christian life. And then the suffering of the cross becomes something you do rather than God’s blessing placed upon you.

The cross still means death. First of all, it was the death of your Savior and His blood that was shed so many centuries ago that destroys your sin. No matter what you have done, even if you had questioned the very truth of Christianity itself, you can be certain that Christ took your sin with Him and He allowed Himself to suffer and die the punishment that was intended for you. The cross not only means Jesus’ death, but it also means death on a daily basis for you. It means that you must constantly deny yourself, and receive whatever happens to you in this life as God’s precious gift, even when life brings hurt and grief. In order to be forgiven and renewed, you as a sinner must die; you must be killed on the cross that was laid upon you when you were baptized.

So if the cross means death, why should you even think that there might be a cross in heaven? Wouldn’t that be like bringing a Good Friday mood into an Easter celebration? In the Father’s house where you and I have our permanent residence being prepared, there is only life. And yet, there are also the signs of how that eternal life was achieved for you. Jesus rose from the dead with a perfect body full of the Glory of God, and yet the wounds of His crucifixion remained. When Moses and Elijah appeared straight out of heaven in order to speak with Christ during the Transfiguration, the Evangelist Luke wrote that they talked about Jesus dying on the cross. The book of Revelation describes Christ over and over again in His state of exaltation as the “Lamb who was slain.” And you may have heard that without Good Friday, Easter would be just as exciting and joyful as a motel “Vacancy” sign. He’s not here, folks! No, He rose specifically from the tomb of death. So while the cross does still mean death, it is still death that is your means to obtaining eternal life. You are still drowned in baptismal water when you confess your sins. At this altar you still have the Body and Blood of Christ brought to you straight from the Holy Cross of Calvary. The cross is a symbol of victory and triumph not because of the suffering it has brought to you, but rather because of what your Lord accomplished for you when He was nailed to it.

It is impossible to say for sure that you will or will not see a cross when you get to heaven. But if you happen to see one, don’t be surprised, because it is truly a symbol of joy for you, the redeemed Christian. Feel free to make the sign of the cross over you when you pray, in order to teach you to fix your confidence not on yourself but on the Cross of Christ. Thank God that He has gathered you into a congregation that proclaims nothing more and nothing less than the “foolish” word of the cross. And because the body of your Lord paid for your sins there, it truly is for all believers a Holy Cross. May that Cross of Christ that we proclaim here be your one and only source of your hope for eternal life until the time comes when you will experience that blessing first-hand.

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Readings:
  1 Kings 19:11–21 and after the fire a still small voice
  Psalm 16 At your right hand are pleasures evermore
  1 Cor. 1:18–25 the foolishness of God is wiser than men
    or 1 Peter 3:8–15 always be ready to give a defense
  Luke 5:1–11 Launch out into the deep and let down your nets

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Trinity: June 27, 2021 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

Jesus teaches, “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.” What is mercy? Mercy is not giving someone what they deserve. Mercy means that you know exactly what someone else has said and done. If things are right and fair, mercy would not be the expected outcome. Revenge is the expected outcome. Mercy is instead, when you know what someone deserves rightly and fairly, yet you choose to abandon the revenge. You forgive them instead. You don’t give them what they deserve. You showed mercy.

So when Jesus teaches, “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful,” He is in fact teaching us the Law. Do this. Be merciful because that is pleasing to God. It’s His will. But, He knows perfectly well that we are not merciful. On the contrary we are full of revenge, judgment, anger toward our fellow human creatures. Have there been times when we have sat in church, listening to God’s Word of grace and mercy, while at the same time our hearts have been full of anger, hatred, judgment of someone, maybe one sitting in church with us!

Jesus teaches, “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful,” and He helps us understand mercy through the 8th Commandment, in our Catechism: You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. Recall what this means: We should fear and love God that we do not tell lies about our neighbor, betray him, slander him, or hurt his reputation, but defend him, speak well of him, and explain everything in the kindest way.

Sounds easy, right? Just like “Be merciful,” sounds easy. But you know it’s terribly hard to put that into practice. Be merciful. Don’t give in to your evil desire! Don’t sit in judgment over others. Many people actually believe that they are not really that bad of sinners. They haven’t really seriously hurt anyone, so what harm can a little secret hatred do? But we hear Jesus’ words “Be merciful” and reflect on the Commandment, and we can’t deny the times we have been unkind, even cruel toward others in our own family, toward those we love, or should love. How often have you opted for revenge instead of mercy?

Joseph’s older brothers were by the time of Genesis 50 well into their grandparent years, but they could not put out of their minds what they did to Joseph at least 35 years before, out of their hatred. The decades-old guilt could not be quenched. They had sold him into slavery and he was taken down into Egypt. Joseph was ripped away from his loving father Jacob at the age of 17. He was later thrown into prison for a crime that was fabricated by his master’s wife.

Now look at Joseph! He’s the one in charge of the whole Egyptian kingdom. All the riches and fame that Joseph had now as the most powerful man in the land, second only to Pharaoh, still couldn’t reverse what his brothers had done to him (so they reasoned). They, too were by this time also living well in Egypt. Joseph was providing for his brothers and their families, and that despite the widespread famine. Joseph had forgiven them, but the brothers were still leery. They assumed that Joseph harbored the same hatred that they once had against him, even after all those years. Now that their father Jacob died, they feared that Joseph would seize the opportunity to take revenge.

Even though they lived so long ago, they knew well the language of our sinful flesh that is still with us today, the way of the world, as it were, that does not allow for love and forgiveness. It just doesn’t make sense, nor is it right or fair. The guilt these brothers had inside made them afraid of Governor Joseph. They thought they were protected by the life of their father, and now that shield was gone. What they had done against their little brother was quite an injustice, and they knew that he had every right to pay them back—that was what they feared.

Yet Joseph showed not revenge but mercy. He said, Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. You almost assume that the answer is, No, I am not in the place of God! I have no right to judge or condemn. Jesus echoes this when He teaches further, “Judge not, and you will not be judged.” What He is saying is that none of us stands in the place of God when it comes to passing judgment on others. It is not my job to stand as judge, jury, and executioner over my fellow Christians, or anyone. That is God’s place. My job, if you will, is what I read in the Catechism, my job is to defend my neighbor, speak well of him, and to explain everything about him in the kindest possible way. My place as a Christian is to remember, not that I was offended and hurt, but rather to remember that we all are poor, miserable sinners, with no room to say we’re better than anyone else.

This is a blest teaching: Judge not, and you will not be judged. Yet it can be often misunderstood. Many might take this to mean that Christians may never condemn sin or make a distinction between right and wrong. Some say that parents should never be allowed to discipline their children. Others think that pastors should never point out and condemn false teaching, or speak out against open, offensive sins that the world likes to praise with rainbow-colored pride. It’s clearly now rude and unloving in our culture, especially in the month of June, to point out that gay, lesbian, or transgender lifestyles are against God’s Word. They try to turn Jesus’ own teaching against Christians: Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?… You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. He’s really condemning a hypocritical double standard. He’s saying that you don’t hold others to a higher standard than you hold yourself. So what is the standard by which we are all to be judged? The standard is God’s holy Law, not our own petty rules. We all, talking about the big sinners of our crazy world today, and little old us as well, we all stand condemned before God’s Law, which we all break every day.

So we come back to Jesus’ first teaching, Be merciful, as your Father is merciful. What sort of mercy does our Father in heaven have toward us? We tend to judge others based on very little evidence, I look and see a little of what I don’t like in someone else, and I condemn him or her based just on that. By contrast, the Father sees all and knows all. There is nothing hidden from His sight. He knows all your faults and shortcomings, as He knows all of mine, down to the very end. Sin must be avenged. Its guilt must be quenched. It cannot be set aside and forgotten. As Joseph’s brothers could tell you, this kind of guilt is persistent. Your conscience may remind you about something you did, even if that sin was already forgiven. To erase that revenge we deserve, takes nothing less than an act of His marvelous grace.

And that is exactly what He has done! Our Father is merciful! Jesus demonstrates the Father’s mercy perfectly in His salvation mission: He took care of our sin once and for all by shedding His blood to death on the cross. His resurrection proved to all creation that the revenge due on our heads was paid fully by our merciful King of Kings. God did something very surprising. He did not take revenge on us, like we deserved, but He punished Jesus instead, in order to show mercy to you. It wasn’t fair to our Lord at all, He didn’t deserve revenge at all, but out of that gross injustice came the saving of many lives.

It’s very similar to what Joseph said to his brothers: What was intended for evil, God intended for good, for the saving of many, many lives- your life and mine included this time! Our loving Father has this way of turning evil on its head, of reversing the grim reality of death we have to face, and instead bringing forth life through the Gospel—life that is offered to you today. As Jesus breathed His last on the cross, He pronounced total victory over sin and death. You, as one crucified and buried together with Christ, also died to sin, and you are raised each day with Him, through your baptism, to new life.

Because Jesus died for you and was raised from the dead, God now speaks words of mercy and forgiveness to Your hearts. You don’t get what you deserve! Rejoice in the new life you now share with Me because I have won the victory over sin and death permanently. This is mercy of God for you now and forever. Judgment is no more, because true judgment has been fully rendered and satisfied. Anyone crying out for justice and equity in the affairs of this world will be utterly disappointed. It’s not going to happen. The appetite for revenge is just too great. There will always be another enemy in this sinful world who is taking away justice and fairness. But not in God’s kingdom! In God’s kingdom, you have assurance of your heavenly Father’s mercy.

You can tell the brothers completely lost hope when they finally reached Joseph’s presence. There they were in his courtyard, with nothing between them but the unresolved guilt. No longer did they sense having the upper hand to work out a deal for their forgiveness. They were ready to give up and become Joseph’s slaves, because they were so crushed with guilt. Quite a different attitude from the time when they sent the message, isn’t it?

Joseph forgave them. He told them repeatedly: Do not be afraid. He wasn’t going to take revenge; he wasn’t even going to take them up on their offer to make them his slaves. He assured them by saying God turned this evil that they had done into something good. He didn’t say it as though they were right to sell him into slavery 35 years before. He did say that God is in control, as He always is. He spoke tenderly to their hearts; what was broken has now been made right. God speaks to your heart today, and to your brothers and sisters in Christ. He is here today forgiving you, feeding you with His Body and Blood, that you may have full assurance despite any doubts that might return to you later. You don’t even have to come up with your own apology—He gives you the perfect words to say! Meditate on the words from Psalm 51 that are in the liturgy: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with your free spirit.

You acknowledge the forgiveness that comes from Christ and what He did for you. It’s not that you repeat certain words like a magic formula, but rather you’re trusting the promise that backs these words up. Believe that God is actually saying to you: I forgive you all your sins, and you will be confident in Him.

As you are confident that your heavenly Father will not take revenge against you, now you are free to abandon revenge against those closest to you who have done you wrong. Instead you may say: “Do not be afraid. What you did hurt me, yes, and I forgive you. God can now make something good come out of the situation.” That’s where, ironic though it feels, you are in the place of God, because God shows mercy. In God’s mercy there is great healing and a great future for our church today- it all starts with forgiveness.

Do not be afraid; confess your sin to God and to each other. Trust in Jesus and He will provide for you and your family, even making good come sometimes out of bad. Do not be afraid. Trust in mercy.

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Readings:
Gen. 50:15–21 you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good
Psalm 138 The LORD will perfect that which concerns me
Rom. 12:14–21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
or Rom. 8:18–23 eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.
Luke 6:36–42 why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye