Sermon for the First Sunday in Advent: November 28, 2021 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord!” Let us make our way in a pilgrimage of faith to Zion, one of the Bible’s many names for the Church who firmly believes and trusts in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Advent has begun and you and I both know that Christmas is already in the air all around us, but first, while we still have an opportunity to give it our attention, we need to remind ourselves of this important fact: “Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.”

Believe it, O Daughter of Zion! Awake from your sleep, O children of God! This is big news for you! What does it mean that salvation is nearer to you now? It’s not to say that you have to work to make yourself closer to being saved. It’s not that Jesus deceived you into thinking that you were saved, because His perfect and unbreakable promise remains: Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved. No, salvation is nearer to you now, means that the time is getting ever closer and closer to the Day when you will see the salvation that you already have. Faith will be replaced by sight. Trusting only in His Word will soon make room for you to experience that Word of God in utter fullness. Advent is just as much a reminder of Christ’s glorious return as it is a preparation for the celebration of His birth in long-ago Bethlehem.

This is why Advent begins with Palm Sunday. It’s almost like Advent is designed not only to look forward to Christmas, but to look beyond Christmas as well to the Last Day of the world. And Palm Sunday is itself a prophecy of the End Times. I count as many as eight hymns in our hymnal’s Advent section that refer in some way to Palm Sunday. On the first Palm Sunday in the city of Jerusalem, the crowds gathered to greet the arriving Messiah. The golden setting sun was shining on the face of Jesus as He was riding on that donkey that had never been ridden before, meandering down into the shady valley as He got closer to the base of the city wall. Then, as the road turns back up the steep hill toward the city gate the cheering crowd lined both sides of the dusty street, threw off their expensive outer garments, leaving on their plain- looking robes that they were wearing underneath. The people held palm branches in their hands, symbols of victory a little bit like the wreath of olive branches that the Greeks used to place with honor on the heads of Olympians and valiant soldiers.

The words of praise from their lips bounced off that imposing Jerusalem city wall: “Hosanna! Blessed be the Son of David! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest! Hosanna, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” The Prince of Peace entered the reputed City of Peace, and He was fully aware of the Price of Peace, that for your forgiveness and mine to be a reality, His holy Blood must be shed and handed over. The exultant crowd of pilgrims and disciples will disperse and soon another crowd will assemble to shout in a mad rage, “Crucify Him!” As unlikely as it sounds, these events are exactly the way the Lord has chosen to raise up, in the words of Isaiah, raise up the Mountain of the House of the Lord, namely, the Church, so that it will be the highest of all the mountains. Before swords can be reshaped into farm implements, and spears used for tree and vine trimming, Christ the Savior must be lifted high on the cross. As our brand-new church year will unfold for us yet again, we will relive all those moments that make for our own story of salvation.

But the Palm Sunday that you and I participate in today is not merely a reliving of a past event. It is so much more. “Come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord!” Our spiritual pilgrimage to Zion that we are walking in our hearts this morning is not meant for us to see Jesus die yet again, because that was done once and for all. Instead, we are called together today to receive the fruits of that holy Cross, most especially the forgiveness of sins.

The night of your blindness to the wrongs you have done and the “rights” you have left undone—that night is far gone; the day is at hand. Your lack of love for your neighbor, your quarreling and jealousy, whether spoken or left in the darkness of your thoughts, must now be abandoned! Those who were there that first Palm Sunday took off their fancy overcoats. You instead on this First Sunday in Advent, take off all from this world that covers you, all that you use to make yourself impressive in the eyes of this world, and leave what remains underneath, a simple garment of repentance, a spiritual garment that Jesus has washed white with the forgiveness you received in your baptism.

As the setting sun shone on Jesus’ face on Palm Sunday afternoon, let the light of a new day, a fresh start, shine on your face with the blessing that comes with God’s face, His countenance that shines with favor upon you and gives you peace. Though there will be days when you must pass through a time of shadow, the road will be steep, and the walls will seem high and imposing that try to keep you outside of the borders of God’s love, but you will keep the simple prayer “Hosanna” on your lips, for your King will truly save you when you call on Him. You will one Day hold the palm branch of victory, as John’s vision in Revelation 7 shows in a great multitude—see, that’s you, you’re there somewhere in that massive crowd that he saw! That’s the Palm Sunday to end all Palm Sundays!

For now, as St. Paul instructs us, walk properly as in the daytime through this new church year and for the rest of the pilgrimage of your life in Christ. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, feed your soul with pure spiritual food of all those fruits of love that are pleasing to God, and withdraw all provisions, starve out the sinful flesh that pesters you for self-gratification. You’ll find that it would be better to owe no one anything, other than to love them sincerely, since focusing just on earthly obligations will only distract you from what is truly most important in this spiritual pilgrimage that you are walking in faith this day until the Day you see Jesus with your own, resurrected eyes.

Prepare our hearts for Christmas? Yes, we will do that this Advent. Marvel in the prophets’ words over centuries coming true in the womb of the Virgin Mary? Most certainly we shall. But for now, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord!” Salvation is nearer now than when we first believed, so today let us take hold of that Salvation. Eat and drink that Body and Blood that has already paid the Price of your Peace. Rejoice and praise your true King who comes in the name of the Lord, for blessed is He, indeed! Let us pray our Hosanna to the Son of David once again: Stir up your power, O Lord, and come to rescue us from the threatening perils of our sins, and save us by Your promised deliverance; for You now live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

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

Readings:
Jer. 23:5–8 The LORD our righteousness
Psalm 24 Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD?
Rom. 13:8–14 Owe no one anything except to love one another
Matt. 21:1–9 you will find a donkey tied

Thanksgiving Eve, 11/24/2021
Pastor Stirdivant

Readings:
  Deut. 8:1–10 remember that the LORD your God led you all the way these 40 years in the wilderness
  Phil. 4:6–20 I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content.
  Luke 17:11–19 10 lepers … but where are the nine?

Sermon for the Last Sunday after Trinity: November 21, 2021 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

The German Pastor Philipp Nicolai was born a decade after Martin Luther died. He was trained at the University of Erfurt, the same school where Luther had started instruction in the Law before he dropped out and suddenly changed his major. Nicolai completed his theological training at none other than the University of Wittenberg, at about the same time when the Formula of Concord resolved the several great Lutheran doctrinal controversies of all time and became part of our Book of Concord, the ten Lutheran Confessions that our congregation has sworn to attest as true and pure Bible teaching. Imagine those historic documents coming fresh off the press as the young preacher Philipp began his ministry. After about a decade serving a nobleman’s family, he served a parish in a small town in Westphalia, when the bubonic plague struck the entire area, killing over 1300 people, including Philipp’s wife and most of his children, and decimated the parish to a mere handful of faithful souls in one summer. He looked out his parsonage window at the church cemetery, where there was not a day that went by without several burials taking place, up to even thirty of them a day.

Pastor Nicolai, perhaps while looking out that window at all those fresh graves, resolved to think about nothing but the sheer joy of Eternal Life in the blessed wounds of Jesus Christ, and wrote poems and hymns based on what he found in the Bible about this holy and this certain hope. He recalled hearing a song from the Middle Ages, a tune that would have been sung by a town’s night watchman back in those days, scolding any would-be evildoers to scurry away into the darkness and not harm the peaceful citizens getting their rest within the city walls. Philipp Nicolai wrote a magnificent hymn, starting with that same medieval watchman song, but expanding it into a melody of his very own, with words that turned it on its head. Instead of telling the children of darkness to flee, Nicolai assumed the role of spiritual watchman, and wrote a hymn that calls for all the children of light to come forth, for the wise virgins from Matthew chapter 25 to take their lamps full of oil, and meet the coming Lord Jesus as the Midnight of the Bridegroom’s arrival comes ever closer. The hymn is known to us English speakers as Wake Awake, for Night is Flying, our opening hymn today.

A plague of mass devastation can certainly remind us that this sinful, cursed world is passing away, and other signs could also point us decisively to the fact that Christ is coming again soon, any day now, for the Last Judgment. But our Epistle reading, from St. Paul’s letter to the churches in the city of Thessalonica, the city by the sea on the rocky Greek coast, reminds us that there are more important things than signs and days to consider about the end of the world. In fact, there are three points from our reading today that we should remember and consider:
1. We need to be ready constantly for the Last Day.
2. We must keep watch with a true and active faith in Jesus. And
3. We need to help one another keep ready and watchful.

First, the Last Day is coming. That is a certainty. Even though the precise date will never be known until it actually happens, we still need to be ready for it to come anytime. It will come like a thief in the night, the Apostle warns us. No one selling a burglar alarm will tell their clients, “You won’t have anybody break into your house until next Friday, so don’t turn on your alarm system till then.” No, instead they would insist that you begin arming your alarm tonight and don’t ease up on your vigilance. Plan on it happening anytime, so you’re not taken completely unawares when it does happen. In this region we are advised to be prepared for disasters like fires and earthquakes, if only for the fact that once something like that happens, your remaining time to prepare has whittled down to zero. We need not be fearful or panicked about the end of the world, so long as we are prepared and ready. It’s our salvation, after all, that is nearer to us now than when we first believed.

Next, Jesus told the parable of the wedding banquet and the ten virgin wedding attendants in order to teach us how to be prepared and ready. Waiting for the Day of Judgment will be difficult, even wearying for every one of us. Our Lord reminds us that all the virgins fell asleep as they waited, but only five of them were ready at the stroke of midnight when they all were awakened by the groom’s arrival. What is the oil that you need in your lamp?

Paul chose to employ the image of a breastplate, a protective armor of faith and love. Both of those, faith and love, are essential to your end of days preparedness plan. Without faith in Jesus, your self-chosen works of love come up short. You think you are doing good things, but you’re doing them to help yourself only, and you are not allowing Christ to do His good works through you. And if your faith is not accompanied by your love for others, then it turns out you have a dead faith, and you’ve been trying to believe in something else besides Jesus Christ, who was crucified for you.

Faith and love together are your preparation for the End. Just like the foolish virgins couldn’t buy oil anywhere at midnight, you cannot buy your spiritual necessities at any dealer, for the Holy Spirit gives these to you for free in your baptism. Hear your spiritual night watchman singing out: You are children of light, rather than the darkness. God has named you His own, no matter who you are or what you’ve done. Do not get your spirit drunk on the things that are of value in this fallen, sinful world. Instead, your Lord calls you to the wedding hall of the Divine Service, so that you may feast upon the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Every week, every Lord’s Day brings you closer and closer to the great wedding banquet that follows the Last Judgment. It will be a wedding banquet we’ll enjoy forever; you’ll not want to miss it. Be ready at a moment’s notice to leave behind anything that tries to tear you away from the eternal kingdom, the inheritance of your Savior Jesus. No one can believe for you; this must be the refrain of your heart: I am God’s child!

Which brings up our third point. As the Last Day and the Final Judgment approaches, we need to help one another keep ready and watchful for the coming of Jesus. As the five wise virgins could not spare their oil with the five foolish at the moment when the groom was to arrive, so also you cannot share any of your own personal faith to help your loved one or neighbor, but while there is still time you can invite them to God’s Word and to His Holy Table, where faith and love are still being handed out for them in abundance. You can pray for those who are still attracted to the things of darkness, and in this way you arm them also with God’s protection. You can share with them the absolute truth that we read in First Thessalonians, none of us is destined for wrath, but instead God our heavenly Father has chosen us in Christ to obtain an eternal salvation. Whether awake or asleep, whether it’s our loved ones who are resting in their graves, or it’s we who are mourning over their loss, we will live with Him. Until then, we comfort and build up one another, not neglecting to meet together as God’s Church so long as we see that the great Last Day is approaching.

Yes, the End of the World is a real thing. Just because it seems that these days only the overly zealous Christian denominations and cults get too preoccupied with the End Times, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t think about them in light of God’s Word and prepare properly for the Last Judgment. Instead, we need to keep a constant watch for our Lord’s return. We must maintain a true faith that is active with good works of love. And we are called upon to help keep one another watchful over against this increasingly evil world. This is our role as God’s children who are in the world, but not of this world, which is soon to pass away. Whether you will be called to be with the Lord, or He will come to visit us Himself before your death, it doesn’t matter; you will receive the life everlasting that you were promised. With Pastor Philipp Nicolai we all, after a brief time of trial and sadness, may look forward together with joy at that awe-inspiring moment that is coming soon; the moment when we gather around Christ’s radiant throne, enter through the gates made of a single pearl, and sing His praise eternally.

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

Readings:
Is. 65:17–25 behold, I create new heavens and a new earth
Psalm 149 His praise in the assembly of saints
1 Thess. 5:1–11 the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night.
Matt. 25:1–13 ten virgins who took their lamps

Sermon for the Second Sunday after All Saints: November 14, 2021 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

Our Lord Jesus Christ predicted His own coming Day of Judgment saying: “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.” “What does this mean?” Well, it’s exactly the same thing we confess in the Creed when we say that on the Last Day Jesus will “come to judge the living and the dead.” Is that Good News or bad –Gospel or Law – an occasion for anticipation, or a time for dread? The answer is “Yes! Both” – depending, of course, on whether you’re a sheep or goat. This is bad news for goats – cursing, condemnation, and eternal hellfire. For sheep, it’s Good News – blessing, praise, and eternal life. You may say, I don’t know which one I am, because some days I feel a little like both sheep and goat. So, what will that judgment be like for me? Our reading gives us some answers.

Above all, we learn that Jesus will come to judge – a task which was given to Him by the Father from eternity. All nations will be gathered before Him. The living and dead from every tribe, people, and language will stand before Him as He appears enthroned in heavenly splendor surrounded by armies of angels. Concerning that day, St. Paul writes: “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done.”

The judgment Paul speaks of, however, is really more like sorting – the way a shepherd sorts sheep from goats at the end of the day. During the day, they graze together in the same field, but at night, when they’re brought into the pen, the shepherd stands at the gate and separates them one from the other – the goats on his left and the sheep on his right. What that means is that in this world believers and unbelievers will graze together and be treated alike. Both will receive the same rain, sunshine, illnesses and diseases, have the same business, car and house problems – and both will die to rise in the resurrection of all flesh on the Last Day. But that’s where the similarity ends. The righteous will rise to eternal life, but unbelievers will rise to eternal condemnation – the sheep will be on the right and the goats on the left – with Jesus, the “Dividing Line,” between them.

However, even though works are mentioned, the judgment of that Day won’t be based on what you’ve done or left undone, but instead on what you are – sheep or a goat. What you are will determine where you go – be it to the right, to blessing, inheritance and praise for your works – or to the left with cursing, punishment, and condemnation for the works you didn’t know you didn’t do. The sheep hear Christ say: “Come, you who are the blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” They receive a gift that’s been in the works since before the beginning – when God was at work preparing salvation even before any of us even existed. And what they will receive is an inheritance and a gift – rather than wages for their work.

Parents can do a similar thing if, before having children, they establish a fund so that when their offspring reach a certain age they’ll receive the money as their own. When the child is old enough, at that time the parents can rightly say: “We set this aside for you before you were born, and now we want you to have it.” The child can no more say he’s earned that money than you and I can say we’ve earned eternal life. This was something set aside for us before we were born – even before the foundation of the world.

God has been working for our salvation since before the cosmos came into being. He made His promise to save when He spoke to Adam and Eve in the garden following the fall. He called Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob because of us – even as He guided Israel out of Egypt through the wilderness and into the Promised Land. He caused His Son to be born of the Virgin Mary – to suffer, die and rise again –for us and for our salvation. God brought us to His Word in Holy Baptism – later to His house to hear that Word and to taste that Word and strengthen our faith in Christ. All this has been worked out so that Christ could hand us the kingdom on the Last Day and say: “Here, it’s all yours. Your Father has been working on this for a long time.”

On that day the works of the sheep will be judged as righteous – and the sheep will be amazed! After all, they had no idea any of the things they had done were done for the Lord. And so they’ll ask in amazement: “When did we do those things? When did we see You hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick or in prison?” They hadn’t seen Christ Himself. They’d only seen some poor beggar picking through the garbage, a lonely foreigner in need of welcome, a person with nothing to wear, and another sick or in prison who needed company. Whether Jesus was there or not was the last thing on their minds. They had only done what they knew needed doing. They had only done what comes naturally to a child of God. They were simply exercising their God-given vocation.

That’s how faith in Christ works. It does what needs to be done even before the Law lays down the requirement. It does the right thing without having to be led or prompted. It’s like an apple tree producing apples, or a tomato vine bringing forth its fruit. Faith gives food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothing to the naked, welcome to the stranger, and company to the sick or imprisoned – and all without having to be told. That’s how faith in Christ serves Christ in the service of one’s neighbors, because Christ is actually hidden behind the “mask” of those we serve.

Jesus who fasted for us in the wilderness and felt hunger pangs Himself is hidden in the hungry. Christ who cried out: “I thirst” is hidden in the thirsty. The Shepherd who came as a Stranger despised by His own people is hidden in the stranger in our midst. He who became sick unto death with our sin is hidden in the sick and physically afflicted. Our Lord became a Prisoner under the Law in our place—He’s hidden in the one who is imprisoned. Jesus became the least, so that through His poverty we might become rich in God’s mercy – so that when we love those who are least, we love Him who loved us unto death. When we love the neighbor in need whom we see, we’re loving Christ, our Shepherd-King, whom we do not see.

But what about the goats? Their situation is entirely the opposite. Jesus says to them over His left shoulder: “Depart from Me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Notice two things. First is that Jesus doesn’t call them “cursed of My Father.” And the second is that the eternal fire they’re being sent to – that is, hell – wasn’t prepared for us, but instead for the devil and his angels. You see, God’s desire isn’t that anyone go to hell. He sent Jesus to die for everyone. If anyone goes to hell, they’ve wound up there in spite of the Father’s desire to save the world through the death and resurrection of His Son.

The goats on the left hear nothing but condemnation because their works are found wanting. “I was hungry and you gave Me no food, I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink. I was a Stranger and you didn’t welcome Me, naked and you didn’t clothe Me, sick and in prison and you didn’t visit Me.” Did you notice how the goats seem to be just as surprised as the sheep at what they didn’t do? “When,” they asked Him: “when did we see You hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick or in prison and didn’t help? If we had known it was You, Lord, we would’ve done something to help and assist You!”

In spite of all their supposed “good works,” the goats actually despise and reject these the least of the world – because they despise and reject Christ who is hidden in our neighbor. They reject Him who came in the form of the least – the poor, helpless Babe of Bethlehem and the broken Man of Calvary – the very One who comes still today humbly and hiddenly – only now in water, Word, bread and wine. The goats had done what comes naturally to unbelievers. They had rejected and refused the gracious gifts of our giver-God – the gift of Christ, and the gift of their neighbor in need. That was why they were rejected and their works refused. It’s sad, God never intended that anyone perish, but the reality is that if you reject the gift of Christ and the life He brings, you get the wages of hell.

Now we’re back to the earlier question – which are you: a sheep or a goat? Are you standing at the right or the left hand of Christ? The answer here and now in this world is “Yes!” Your sin and the Law tell you that you are a goat by nature, for we all often neglect the needs of the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and the imprisoned. And no matter what we’ve done, it hasn’t been nearly enough. But the Gospel tells you something else – that you are a sheep from the Good Shepherd’s flock. You’ve been marked with His cross in Baptism and taught to trust only in Jesus, not in yourself. Daily you die and rise to new life through repentance – which is the very thing this account is intended to work in you – that is, that we each turn from goats into sheep. That doesn’t mean you’re supposed “try real hard” to become a sheep, or that you are to endeavor to mold your life in such a way that you make yourself a saint. No, there’s only one way. The sinner in you must die in Christ so that the saint can rise – because that’s how God transforms a goat into a sheep!

Repentance means simply that you have to be transformed. You must get a new identity. Before, you could only see yourself as a goat with Christ as your Judge, but God wants you to see yourself as a sheep with Christ as your Shepherd-King. The Good News is that you will not be judged by what you’ve done but who you are. You don’t do good works falsely hoping to earn God’s kingdom, you do them because God’s kingdom is already yours through faith in Christ Jesus. You don’t feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, or comfort the sick and imprisoned in order to become a sheep, you do those things because you’re already one of His sheep. And along with being a sheep comes this wonderful promise: “As you did to one of the least of these, My brethren, you also did it unto Me.”

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

Readings:
Dan 7:9-14 One like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven!
Psalm 50:1-15 Every beast of the forest is Mine
2 Pet 3:3-14 the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night
Mt 25:31-46 a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats

Sermon for the First Sunday after All Saints: November 7, 2021 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

While the world quickly ditches all the Halloween candy and costumes, it hurtles inevitably along toward its breathless bustle of Christmas decorations and preparations. The Church year seasons, however, aren’t quite ready for that yet. We haven’t even celebrated Thanksgiving! Advent is still 3 weeks away. There is still one important theme that we should explore in the Scriptures before we join in to welcome the birth of Jesus the Christ Child. The Last Days, the Second Coming of our Lord, the Resurrection of the dead, the Last Judgment, the New Creation of heaven and earth—these are all in the emphasis for this last portion of our church calendar.

The Last Days are frightening, uncomfortable. There are many fearful signs of the end that we seem to witness all around us. We never feel its sharp sting more strongly than we do when a loved one dies. How do we comfort one another? What do we say? Sorry for your loss. We say they’re looking down on us, even though the Bible teaches us that they do not. They are at peace. God wanted them with Him in heaven so we should be satisfied with that. We place their dead bodies in cushy caskets or their ashes in lavish urns, as if that’s going to help them somehow. Some have even thought that it would bring comfort if they wear a loved one’s ashes in a ring or a necklace. None of those quite do that good a job at comforting us, if you’re completely honest. The truth is simple. We hate to see death. It’s ugly, and unnatural; definitely not a part of life. It fills us with fear. We know we are powerless in its grasp.

Yet in the Creed we can still say, “I believe in the resurrection of the body.” A bodily resurrection from the dead is one of the basic teachings of our Christian faith. Even in the Old Testament, we find Abraham believing God could raise the dead even if he had gone through with sacrificing his son Isaac. Job said he KNEW that after his skin was destroyed that with his own two eyes he would see God. At a Christian burial the Pastor says, “We commit this body to the ground; ashes to ashes, dust to dust: in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

How could that be? From the ugliness of rigor mortis to the decay of the flesh, if you have seen the uncomfortable ugliness of death, a resurrection of that body seems impossible. So how can we honestly say that we believe in the resurrection of the body? Paul points us to Easter’s empty tomb and declares, “For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.”

So, do you believe that Jesus died and rose again on the third day? Of course you do, or you wouldn’t be here. None of us doubts Jesus’ death and resurrection. Then none of us should doubt the second part: God will bring those who sleep in Jesus.

And notice what God calls the death of one of His saints, His believers. He calls it “falling asleep.” How many of you were afraid to lay your head down on your pillow last night? Just as you do not fear your bed at night, the saints of God do not need to fear death. Just as we close our eyes at night expecting to awake in the morning, we can close our eyes in death knowing Jesus will awaken us at His return.

This is exactly what Jesus promised. “Because I live, you will live also.” (John 14:19) Because Jesus rose, all believers will rise to life as well. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul ties Jesus’ resurrection to the believer’s resurrection to life also. “But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming.” (vv. 20-23)

At beginning of harvest time in Israel each Spring, the Jews celebrated the festival of “First Fruits.” At this feast, they were to bring the first part of their harvest to the Temple and wave it before the LORD in thanksgiving. The first-fruit of their harvest was a reminder that God had once again supplied for their fields and there would be more to harvest after those first harvested fruits.

Jesus is the “firstfruits” of those who have fallen asleep—or died in the faith. His resurrection means that the saints who are asleep in Jesus will rise as well. It has to be that way. There can be no other possibility. “Therefore comfort one another with these words.”

What will happen on this great resurrection day at the end of the world? Paul takes us step-by-step, “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.” When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, only a handful of people were aware that the Savior of the world had been born. When Jesus returns it will be no secret. He will return with a shout, with the voice of a mighty archangel, which will resound around the entire planet, no, all over the universe. The trumpet of God shall sound to announce the return of the King.

Now, on that Day, the Bible tells us that ALL the dead will rise—both believers and unbelievers. Other readings about the end times will address that in greater detail. But in this section of Scripture Paul is trying to comfort the Thessalonians who were confused about their fellow believers that died before Jesus returned. That is why Paul focuses specifically on the resurrection of the “dead in Christ.” They will rise first and the magnificent resurrection harvest will begin.

We learn more about that resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15. Paul writes, “The trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we (that is, those of us alive to see Jesus’ coming) we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.” When the trumpet sounds and the dead rise, the resurrected believers will be changed—as will be the living believers. There will be no more stiff joints or bad eyesight. With these our own two eyes, in perfect 20/20 vision, we shall see God. From Adam, Abraham, Job and King David, to the Apostle Paul, and Betty Crickon, when Christ returns on that Last Day, all the saints who are dead in Christ will rise and be glorified. “Therefore comfort one another with these words.”

Heaven and the coming resurrection are difficult for us to comprehend because these are unlike anything we have ever experienced here on earth. It’s hard to imagine the timelessness of eternity, let alone everlasting joy with no sorrow—ever. One widow wanted to be sure she would know her husband. One grieving son wanted to know if he would be able to kiss his mother again. While God doesn’t tell us ALL the details of the unimaginable joys of the life of the world to come, He does tell us what we need to know. And what He tells is comforting for all saints.

After our Savior returns and the dead are raised, Paul continues, “Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.” After the return and the resurrection, there will be a reunion. First and foremost it will be a reunion with our Lord—the Lord who chose us from eternity to be His own; the Lord whom we had only seen by faith up to that point. Then we will personally meet the Lord whom we believed was nailed to the cross to pay for all of our sins, with the nail prints still in His hands; the Lord who died to purchase us for Himself as His own special people. The Lord who shed His blood to cleanse us from our sins and make us saints. We will meet our Lord in the air.

We will also be reunited with our fellow believers who were asleep in Jesus. Paul says it without doubt: WE will be with the Lord! Our loved ones had closed their eyes to this world upon death and they will be awakened by their Lord at His return. And we will be caught up together with them in the clouds. Together we will meet our Lord in whom we placed our hope. Together we will see Him face to face as we are glorified with the risen Lord’s glory. Together we will worship the Lamb who rescued us from the eternal judgment and gave us eternal life as a free gift. Thus we shall always be with Him. “Therefore comfort one another with these words.”

Death is pretty uncomfortable—it is uncomfortable to look at, think about, or talk with others about. But for all the saints of God, for those who have been cleansed by the blood of the Lamb, we do not mourn as those who have no hope. We have hope. Our unwavering, certain Hope is based on the accomplished fact of Christ’s resurrection and God’s unbreakable promises. Because Christ rose, we too shall rise and be with our Lord and our fellow believers forever in heaven, and soon our bodies will all be raised and glorified together. This is what Jesus died and rose to give us. Therefore comfort one another with these words!

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

Readings:
Ex 32:1-20 when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain
  or Job 14:1-6 few of days and full of trouble
Psalm 14 The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.”
  or Psalm 102:13-18 You will arise and have mercy on Zion
I Thess 4:13-18 the dead in Christ will rise first
Luke 17:20-30 as the lightning that flashes…so also the Son of Man will be in His day

Sermon for Reformation Day: October 31, 2021 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

Dearly beloved fellow heirs of the Reformation:

You and I are reminded nearly every day that we should cherish our freedom. We are often told that it is our greatest achievement, freedom is something we or someone else has worked hard to get. Our liberties as American citizens came to us at a great price. Our independence, which was won for us by the men and women in the armed forces of yesterday and today who made real sacrifices, it is all something we should treasure.

We think of similar sacrifices as we, the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ, celebrate the Reformation. On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther put up a notice of academic debate, and from that point onward, the Christian Church has celebrated freedom and independence from Roman Catholic superstitions and the iron-fisted control of the pope. Once again, such freedoms were very difficult to attain. Many suffered death by burning at the stake—something that Martin Luther, however, escaped. Others were innocent bystander casualties of violent mob-uprisings and bloody wars. And yet the freedom of the Gospel they fought for is now our most prized possession as Lutherans.

And so we are reluctant to believe it, or we are downright offended, when we hear that this freedom is actually something you receive as a gift. It would then turn out that you didn’t work for it, or possibly that you didn’t need to struggle for it. Saying that our freedom is something that God has already given us would also say that it was for nothing that those colonists fought the Revolutionary War, or that brother fought against brother in the Civil War. If you were to admit that Christ has achieved our freedom for us, then what need did we have of Martin Luther, or all the other players in the Reformation drama?

A gift is really demeaning to your proud sinful nature, if you want to be perfectly honest. It’s almost a game some people play at birthdays and Christmas to try quickly to match each other equally in their gift-giving. And nothing can be more satisfying but also at the same time offensive than when you have given better than what you got in return. Offensive because you know you deserve better and the other person is able to give better than they have. Satisfying because you’ve proven yourself to be the more generous, benevolent soul, and you have won the game of giving.

So God’s gift of freedom that He gives willy-nilly through His Son Jesus Christ is a gift that puts you on the wrong end of the game. It means you are not in control of yourself; you have no way of making your sinful nature proud. If you were free by what you yourself have done, then your freedom is on your terms. Freedom would be what you deserved as a birthright, just like the Jews imagined when they were talking to Jesus. “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone.” They understood that if Jesus were to give the gift of freedom, then they, the recipients, would have to acknowledge that they were in a truly miserable position from birth. Not only were they in political bondage because Palestine was under strict control of the Roman Empire, but they were also in spiritual bondage to sin, death and the devil. The Jews’ claim of lineage from Abraham gave them the bragging rights to freedom in both political and spiritual realms, so they believed. They really earned it and no other ethnicity had those same bragging rights—and the Jewish religion has basically the same pride surviving to this very day.

Remember, though, that this gift of freedom is for you, too, no matter how much you also want to regard it as an achievement. You in your heart know that if your freedom in the Gospel can be thought of in your own terms, then you are independent. You would owe nothing to anybody. It would just be you and Jesus. You would then have every right to come in here, sit in the pew that you have claimed and reserved for years, you then fill ‘er up with the forgiveness that God has to give you as an individual, give just enough to cover your own part, and turn around and walk right out and drive home without having to do anything else. You get all the credit for going to church, and you still have time in the day to do something useful.

That is one kind of freedom, namely, freedom from everyone else. You are an individual, free from sin. This is how you normally think of it when you read the Bible—how does this apply to my personal relationship with God? What are the certain things I must do every day? I must repent of my sins, seek God’s forgiveness, and believe that He has given it to me. And you would be right. Christ has freed each and every individual you out there. You are His child, washed in the blood He shed on the cross and baptized into His name. No one else can believe for you. No one else has control over the salvation that you have. God the Father has specifically forgiven you and given eternal life to you.

But that’s when the devil wants to take over. He wants to capitalize on that individual, one-on-one concept that you have in your mind, and push out everything else. Satan keeps you focused on the time and commitment that you have given, and then he turns your attention to compare yourself against the others sitting in church with you. Someone in front of you has fallen asleep, someone else is always too disruptive; there are too many people who do not give their fair share. Those are the types of things that the devil uses to distract you, to pull you away from your Lord and your neighbor and they make you an isolated individual. And so the good of God’s freedom in the forgiveness of Jesus is twisted and contorted to be your declaration of independence from your brothers and sisters in the faith. In the end, that turns freedom into a bondage that says, “I can now do whatever I want,” but really you are fooling yourself, for you would then do what sin wants and what your Old Adam wants and your freedom would be lost.

The true freedom, the freedom for which Christ died and shed His blood, and the freedom that He lavishes upon you, is not only freedom from sin but also a freedom for living as His new creation. It’s freedom for being a disciple, so that your very existence is for the good of someone else. Because the waters of your baptism not only are your individual promise from God that your sins are forgiven, but they also kill the individual in you and remake you in the image of Jesus, joining you to His Body, the Church. The Body and Blood of Christ in Holy Communion are not just an extra assurance of forgiveness above and beyond all the forgiveness you already get in the rest of the church service. Even more than that assurance of forgiveness is the fact that Jesus joins Himself to you, giving you the perfect holy life and freedom that He is, right into your mouth! And along with Jesus giving Himself to you, He gives you to each and every other person kneeling at the rail with you, who believe and confess the very same faith you do and are joined to the very same Jesus that you are joined to. This is true freedom: freedom for each other.

Rather than a declaration of independence, this freedom for which Christ died and that He alone gives to you is a declaration of dependence on your fellow believers. In this new relationship, you bear one other’s burdens, trials, griefs and difficulties, but also their joys, love, and eternal hope, because those are the things that will last into eternity. The bad stuff will all be gone soon. This is why Jesus denied the Jews of their claim to true freedom by being the descendants of Abraham, because it was only freedom for themselves as individuals. But it also applies to you. If the freedom you have from the promises of the Lord is only your individual freedom from sin, then it really isn’t the true freedom Jesus is talking about, the freedom for serving those around you without expecting anything in return. If you don’t have this freedom for, you never really had the freedom from to begin with.

Martin Luther wrote that as a Christian you are completely free, subject to none—that is the first kind of freedom that I talked about, freedom from sin and death. But he also balanced it with the freedom for, saying that the Christian is also in a new type of bondage, a servant to all in the love given through Jesus Christ. In this understanding of freedom, there is still forgiveness, especially for you. Your sins of selfish pride and individualistic attitude are wiped away, and God remembers them no more. And as you live in true freedom, freedom for each other, remember that you do such nice things not because you have to put in your time like it was community service, but because there is nothing more free and natural than to help someone else. Jesus has won the eternal life that you could not earn. His freedom is yours, and when you sacrifice yourself for the good of someone else, something that your heavenly Father wants you to do in the first place, you still get rewarded, even when you had nothing to do with it! Test Him in this, He says, give up a little of yourself for others in whatever way you can, and you still get hundreds of times back what you gave. That is the true freedom of the Gospel: countless blessings above and beyond the forgiveness that is already yours.

So, fellow redeemed, the Church of the Reformation, stand fast, therefore, in the freedom by which Christ has made you free. Cherish it, not because you worked for it, but because it is God’s gift to you. For you are no longer under the yoke of bondage, but you are free for the benefit of one another, and you wait for the promised freedom of heaven, when you will be set free from the grip of sin, death and the devil for good. Thanks be to the Truth, our Lord Jesus Christ!

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

Sermon for the Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity: October 24, 2021 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

The Evangelist St. John doesn’t want us to forget about Cana. When, after His night meeting with Nicodemus, Jesus returns from Jerusalem to that hilltop city in Galilee, the miracle of today’s Gospel, of the father’s son made well, is meant to remind us and connect it to Our Lord’s first miracle, when He turned water into wine.

That is a strange miracle, and if you think about it in one sense, changing water into wine was one of the least practical if not the most impractical works Jesus performed, and certainly the most given to abuse. The wedding guests were well drunk on the ordinary stuff when Our Lord provided more and even better wine. Its beauty and delicate vintage were lost on most of them. They just wanted to keep their alcoholic buzz going, and it didn’t matter what kind of booze did the job.

Here in the second Cana miracle, when Jesus healed the Capernaum nobleman’s son, that seems much more practical. This is the sort of miracle Americans like. The kid was sick, dying, so heal him. That is real. That is important. That is not at all like making fancy wine in order to waste it on drunks. It makes about as much sense as if you were to give a Maserati to an Australian Outback bushman.

Yet John insists that he sees a connection between the two miracles. He practically begs us to explore it. And the wine miracle is the more significant from his standpoint because it gives meaning to the healing and not the other way around. Every trickster miracle-worker claims to heal people. Only Jesus produces superfluous wine of the greatest quality and gives it to people who don’t and can’t appreciate it.

We can see some similarities. Both miracles had the goal of producing laughter and joy. A healthy child would cause more joy in the noble father’s household than when his son was sick, and it is written somewhere that God has given wine to make glad the hearts of men. Jesus didn’t just show pity for a sick kid. It is pity also for the distraught, at-the-end-of-his-rope father. The house has gone silent with fear and regret, and Jesus will restore its laughter, much like the giving of wine.

During the wedding in Cana, Jesus had a rebuke for His own mother, St. Mary. “Woman, what has that to do with Me? My time has not yet come.” Yet when the nobleman requested for Jesus to heal, He unleashes against the whole crowd: “Unless you people see signs and wonders you will not believe.” Yet St. Mary responds in faith, telling the servants, “Whatever He tells you to do, do it,” which is always good advice, so long as He is always Jesus. The man of Capernaum likewise responds with faith. John says the man “believed the Word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way.”

Notice also a very slightly noticed but greatly significant alliance in these miracles. They both are immediate miracles that Jesus performed, but they include something of a delay in them and there’s some element of distance. At the wedding the servants are told to put water into the ceremonial washpots and then take that same water to the master of the feast. The master tastes the miracle wine, without knowing what happened, and assumes the bridegroom made a huge mistake. In the second miracle, the Word of Jesus instantly heals the nobleman’s son way down the hill in Capernaum, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. But there is no internet connection, telegraphs, or even smoke signals. So the boy’s attendants in Capernaum don’t know how it happened. They only know that it did happen and at what time. They might have thought the nobleman doesn’t need to go find a miracle worker because one is no longer needed.

You can catch in both Cana miracles that Our Lord is reluctant to be a miracle worker, but He’s more explicit about that in the second. Indeed, there is something like disappointment or frustrated irritation in His voice as He says: “Unless you people see signs and wonders you will not believe.” It’s the kind of anger you get from a mother, perhaps–it feels like she’s yelling, but she doesn’t even have to raise her voice.

That makes us wonder, why wouldn’t Jesus want to do these miracles? Wouldn’t He instead be glad to step up and flex His God-muscles, if that will mean that more people will believe in Him? Wouldn’t that be the way you would like to think of Jesus in your life?

But there’s no need for you to be a PR agent for God. He doesn’t need your help. In fact, it is this exact unbelieving tendency to want to apologize for God, or explain Him away, that is the most responsible for heresy in the history of the Church. It is also blasphemous, as though you make yourself to be nicer than God is. Don’t do it.

In any case, the fact remains, the Lord did not really want to heal the nobleman’s son or provide wine at the wedding. But in both cases, He relented and performed those miracles anyway. He is moved to act because of His compassion. He is like a mother who tells her child “no, you can’t have a candy bar,” who then gives her child a candy bar anyway.

And here’s the difference, though. We fallen parents do that because we are weak. We are wore down. We want the kids to be quiet and quit their begging. We do it, but then we resent it, and wish we hadn’t. We wish we were more consistent, more patient, better parents. Or we do it because we feel guilty, because we know life is hard on these kids, we messed up somewhere along the way, or we don’t spend enough time with them or because we know we’ve just not been the parents that we should be. Or just because we want the kid to have some joy in his life and are hoping that somehow we can buy that for him with this candy bar. We do it because we are weak. The children beg, nag, and act shamefully, and our response is wrong and unhelpful.

Our Lord is different from us. We beg, nag, and act shamefully, worse than children throwing a fit, but His compassion is legit and has no weakness. He has no guile. He is selfless. He does not want to be known as a miracle worker, not because He lacks compassion or doesn’t think we deserve it, but because He does not want to rot our teeth, to use the candy analogy. That is to say that if He performs too many miracles He will spoil us and it will not be for our good. If He performs too many miracles we will lose sight of His ultimate mission and our real need. We will demand a bread king, one who meets only our daily bread temporary needs, whether they are about our health, wealth, or relationships, a Savior who looks and acts like we would and lets us sing only our favorite songs in church and makes us feel better about ourselves just as we are. Selfish sinners. That is a well-worn path to Hell. And Jesus is too wise to lead us down that way.

The healing and joy that Our Lord brings is not so much intended for this life as it is for the next. The joy we have now is anticipatory, a breaking-in of the real joy that will be. We rejoice based on the forgiveness of sins we have now and the promise for the future when not only will we be pronounced holy, but we will also be holy and sinless in every way. Our justification will match our sanctification.

The Lord Jesus Christ, Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, Creator of all things, has come into our human flesh to be a Sacrifice. He has come to suffer a bloody death, to become sin and a curse, to be forsaken by His Father as punishment for our sins. This is the Word that you need to believe: “Your son will live.” It is true for all the baptized, even if some of them have died and are buried. This is the word that Jesus speaks to you still: “You and your children will live because I live and I have overcome death.”

That’s what you need to take home with you today from the Cana miracles. Because that is a Word that brings comfort and joy in a world that you already know is still full of chaos, temptation, pain, and death. Jesus lives so that you and your sons will live.

Jesus bestows the wine of His Holy Spirit that makes glad the hearts of men in the forgiveness of sins for He has reconciled all the world to His Father in order to have you. “Whatever He tells you to do, do it,” says St. Mary, prototype of the Church, icon of motherhood, first of the saints. “Whatever He tells you to do, do it.” Today, He tells you, “Fill the Chalice with wine this time, not water, and take it to the Bride, not to the master. For I give her my best vintage: I give My very own Blood that was shed for her in a Holy Sacrifice, a guilt and a peace offering combined in one. You put in wine. The Church drinks Blood, she drinks of My Holy Spirit because I have made with her a New Covenant. Her sins are forgiven and she is joined to Me that I might give her sons.” And as Jesus said to the nobleman in Cana, not far from the famous wedding hall, so He says to you today at this very hour: “Your sons will live.”

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

Readings:
Gen. 1:1—2:3 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth
Psalm 8 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers
Eph. 6:10–17 Put on the whole armor of God
John 4:46–54 Go your way; your son lives.

Sermon for the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity: October 17, 2021 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

Whenever a prophet appears on the scene, it means that it is a critical time for God’s people. It is a critical time because that prophet’s message is basically this: “God’s judgment is just around the corner, and time is running out for you to repent and turn back to Him.” It is not a happy message. Rather, it is dark and foreboding and it stings you with the fear of the Lord. Its weight is meant to crush you so that there is nothing left for you to claim. If you had happened to live during the time of one of God’s prophets, he would usually tell you that God is about to punish His chosen people for turning away from Him. There is no comforting word that ever comes from the mouth of a prophet until God’s people have heard that harsh message: stop your sinning! They don’t preach the Good News of God’s mercy until His Law has cut the hearers’ hearts in pieces and condemns them for the sinners that they really are.

Isaiah certainly had that message for the people who lived in and around Jerusalem over 700 years before Christ. How urgently did the Lord announce His totally free invitation! “Come, you thirsty, come to the waters and drink freely!” “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread?” “Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near.” God told Isaiah that the people of God do not have to suffer His punishing wrath. You can turn to Him and be saved! Our Lord is a God of compassion and He will pardon those sinners who turn to Him. But if you continue in your godless ways and reject the One who made you His own, you will soon be destroyed. A foreign army will cut you down and trample you underfoot. If you don’t end up killed then you will be deported to a land you’ve never known with almost no chance of ever coming back again. This is none other than God’s judgment and you will not escape it. That was what Isaiah had to preach.

Obviously, no one in the Old Testament would have liked to be a prophet. Their message is never easy to proclaim. Moses had pleaded with the Lord, using one excuse after another and then finally saying, “Please send someone else!” before he actually went to Egypt in obedience to God’s command. Jeremiah complained that he was only a child and that he didn’t know how to speak in front of God’s people as a prophet. One man after another is thrown into the task of going to sinners and telling them that the time of God’s judgment is near.

But not only is proclaiming the message a difficult task for a prophet to do, the response to that message usually makes it even worse. People with itching ears who want to hear only what sounds good have a real problem with hearing about their sin. Deep down, whether you realize it or not, you also don’t want to be stung with the fear of the Lord. For that would mean that you have failed, that you are not better than those other “hypocrites” and “sinners” whom you know. That would mean that the good things you do contribute nothing to your standing before God. To hear and believe God’s Word spoken by His prophet is nothing more than giving up on helping yourself and trusting in Christ instead to save you. Nobody is ever ready for a prophet’s harsh message, and some may even try their hardest to keep that message quiet.

And so, prophets will be persecuted for the sake of God’s Word. According to a Christian tradition, Isaiah was said to be murdered by being sawn into two pieces, as mentioned in Hebrews 11:37 but without specifying who that might have been. God sends one servant after another into His vineyard, and the workers continue to beat, kill and stone them. But not only did God not stop sending preachers at crucial times pleading with His people to repent, He then sent Jesus! His death, and the deaths of every prophet who preached before Him, these deaths were none other than the Lord’s doing. Every time we remember it, it is marvelous in our eyes. Isaiah himself says about Jesus: “It was the will of the Lord to crush Him.” (Is. 53) As it happened to the prophets, so it also happened to Jesus.

For our Lord, just like His prophets, appeared at a critical time, too. According to God the Father’s own design, just like in the parable, He sent His Son. The message Jesus preached sounded like that of the prophets through whom He preached in time past. He also preached that God’s judgment was right around the corner. And yet here was the difference: God’s final, once-for-all judgment was not going to fall on His sinful people, but instead it would destroy Jesus as He stood in their place. With His crucifixion only days away, Jesus spoke with urgency in His voice to call sinners to repent of their own ways, to stop sinning, and instead trust in Him to take away their sins. My thoughts are not your thoughts. I desire for you to live, not die, says the Lord. Jesus wanted those who were rejecting Him and planning His death to give up on trying to please God by their own good deeds and instead receive His free forgiveness and absolution. It was truly a critical time for God’s people—it was indeed the fullness of time. For God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that He would get the punishment and we would have God’s righteousness and good favor.

Fellow citizens of heaven, this is a critical time for you! God’s judgment is right around the corner, and time is of the essence. The day of God’s final verdict is at hand. All those other times when God handed out punishment, those were really the first installments of the great Last Day, the Second Coming of Christ that will soon be here. I tell you now, be ready for that day! Stop your sinful thoughts, words and deeds that test the patience of your heavenly Father. God’s punishment is still very real and we have every reason to fear His wrath. Why? Because it is all too easy to reject God’s Word. It is all too easy for you to say, “I know all this stuff already.” But do you believe it? Can you defend it if someone challenges you? All who refuse to believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins will be deported to the permanent punishment and damnation in the everlasting fire of hell. This would have been your future were it not for Jesus, who took your place and He already suffered hell for you.

So if you are crushed under the weight of your own sin and you realize that there is nothing within you that pleases God, then the sight of Jesus despised and rejected, hanging on the cross—this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in your eyes. Your sins are all paid for, and your guilt is taken away. The coming day of God’s judgment is a day when you will finally see your Lord face-to-face and He will welcome you with open arms.

Though you were torn down and destroyed by the law and God’s condemnation, you are now replanted as a new vineyard by the Gospel. You are an heir of eternal life, a citizen of heaven. Christ has made good on the promise that God will abundantly pardon. You as a fruitful branch are connected to Jesus the true Vine, and He uses you to bear good fruit in His vineyard, the Church. The very body and blood of Christ feeds you and waters you, and you are grafted into Him. Jesus has planted you Himself and you are the vineyard of His good pleasure. He gives you His Holy Spirit, so that by His power working in you, you can then, instead of sinning, serve others whom God has put in your path and so bring glory to Him. You had no ability within you to do good things, but it is Jesus and His Holy Spirit within you that bears the good fruit, in whatever responsibility in life or calling that God has given you.

Hear God’s Word from the mouth of His holy prophets and receive what it gives. God’s judgment is right around the corner—so do not reject His message. Believe in Jesus Christ, His Son, who was sent to tear you down and destroy your sinful pride and replant you as His own vineyard, a Garden in which He delights. For the Son who was sent to the vineyard and killed—He is no longer dead. That is the happy Easter message, your punishment is gone. And joined with Christ, you too shall rise from the dead to be with Him on that last judgment day.

Until that time you have your Lord and Savior here in front of your very eyes, giving you His life-giving body and blood and proclaiming forgiveness to you. You are the vineyard of the Lord, and He has promised to take care of you until the great harvest day.

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

Readings:
Isaiah 55:1–9 Ho! Everyone who thirsts, Come to the waters
Psalm 27:1–9 that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life
Eph. 5:15–21 redeeming the time, because the days are evil
Matt. 22:1–14 as many as you find, invite to the wedding
  or
Matt. 21:33–44 This is the heir. Come, let us…

Sermon for the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity: October 10, 2021 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

The very fact that you are here today, the reality of your sitting in this holy place in the presence of God is truly a miracle. More likely than not, the fact that you have faith in Jesus Christ and are not lost in despair and unbelief is in some way due to the efforts of others. It all started with your parents, for they heeded the Divine command to protect life even as that life, your life and body, was forming in the womb. Perhaps also it was those same people who trusted in the salvation of their Lord that is found in the waters of Holy Baptism. Because of the faith that the Holy Spirit created in their hearts, they brought you to the font so that you would receive that same washing of rebirth and renewal for yourself.

Perhaps, though, other people besides your natural parents were involved, and because of their love for you and their desire for you to have faith, that’s what made it possible for you to be near Jesus. A few of you may have wandered and strayed from the Christianity you had embraced as a child, and thanks in part to a devout and faithful mentor, Christ your good Shepherd brought you back into His fold.

What could you possibly owe these spiritual fathers and mothers in thanksgiving for such a great and lasting gift? Nothing, really. For it was God working through them who did everything. He was the one who gave you the faith that receives His gifts of forgiveness, life and salvation. They were His instruments. Of course, because of their faith in Christ, they prayed for you, and took time and other personal resources so that it all could come about, but they could not believe for you. Really, all they needed to do was to bring you near Jesus and He did the rest.

For this is exactly how God’s kingdom comes among us, it is how He gives us His Holy Spirit so that by His grace we believe His Holy Word and lead godly lives both here in time and hereafter in eternity. This does not happen automatically, there is no angel dropping down out of heaven to cram salvation down your throat.

Nor is it because of your personal choice, as if God would leave your eternal fate solely up to your own decision. In His Word, in Baptism, in Holy Communion, your Lord is with you, drowning the sinful Old Adam that you are and raising you back to life as a new creation. He gives the gifts and He creates the faith in your heart that receives these gifts. His salvation is truly yours, full and free from the mouth of Jesus.

And those who brought you near this Jesus, this wellspring of salvation, they may never even realize what God did through them. I would guess that a few of you can think of at least one time when you were surprised that you actually “got through” to someone whom you were carefully and prayerfully working on. Whether you are aware of it or not, your heavenly Father has created you to be His instrument to bring others into His presence. He has placed you in your specific calling and vocation in life to do this very thing—whether you are a mom at home, a student at school, a worker on the job or a retired grandparent. Every day, God sets people in your path as it were for you to bring them near Jesus.

Has there been a time when you failed to bring someone before the Lord when you had the chance? Maybe it seemed too hard or you were just too busy to take the time necessary. Your prayers for people such as these have often wavered and eventually you forget all about them. Perhaps you felt that they didn’t deserve your constant attention. They were unresponsive to your efforts or ungrateful one too many times and rather than recognizing your concern, they treated you like dirt and so you decide it’s all right now to give up on them; all the while telling yourself that it’s not worth the effort anymore.

Attitudes such as these are part and parcel of your sinful human nature, your flesh that would follow your own lead rather than submit to God’s will. As a sinner, standing on your own before God you are not like those four men who opened the roof of that crowded house and lowered their friend to Jesus. You are instead the paralytic, unable to overcome the sin and doubt that renders you unable to move. You can do nothing to change your debilitated situation. Even if you are helpful and do good things for others, the pride in your heart puffs up and you remain spiritually crippled. You can try to lead others to believe that you are righteous, caring, fully committed to your church and family—and you may convince them. But to God, who sees all and will judge all on the Last Day, you by yourself are able to please Him and keep His commandments just as much as that paralytic is able by himself to break the world record in hurdles. It’s simply not going to happen.

However, it is to a paralytic such as you that your Lord Jesus speaks these healing words: “Your sins are forgiven.” Who can forgive sins but God alone? Indeed Jesus Christ is God alone. Only God alone, the Son of Man, can make the paralytic walk again. He is God who alone lived a perfect life in total obedience to the Father’s will. He is God alone who was fully committed to rescue you in your sorry state. He is God who went to the cross—alone—and took the full punishment for sin that you had deserved—He is God alone.

And so, He alone has authority on earth to forgive sins, and following His resurrection from the dead, He proclaims that daily He has compassion on you, He treads your iniquities under foot, and He casts all your sins into the depths of the sea. Each day you die and are buried together with Him in Baptism, and each day you arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever. His forgiveness is healing even for you. You are no longer paralyzed in your sins, but freed from them. You are free to do what you’ve been created to do: that is, love God and serve your neighbors, thinking of their every need, and bringing them near the healing hand and life-giving mouth of Jesus.

Whenever you hear the healing word of Jesus, He is near. If you hear in this place that your sins are forgiven, then I urge you to believe it, because Jesus is here speaking with all His authority behind it. If you hear that the bread you eat is the Body of Christ and the chalice you drink pours forth His precious Blood, then say Amen to God’s promise and His gift.

The Son of Man’s authority to forgive sins is exercised in this place on earth up to this very day, and God willing, it will until the Lord returns in glory on the Last Day. As Jacob said after his vision of the ladder to heaven, this truly is none other than the house of God, the very gate to heaven. We find out later in the Bible that this ladder, this connection between God and Man, is Christ crucified Himself.

And so give thanks to Jesus for those faithful believers in your life who brought you near Him. Give thanks for our church, our schools and other organizations whom God uses to do this sort of thing on a regular basis. And remember, your Jesus heals you with His forgiveness. He who is able to give life and strength to the paralytic bids you arise, sins forgiven, your disease taken away.

He did not let the sun go down on the Father’s punishing anger that Good Friday without achieving full reconciliation with you. That anger has turned away, now all God has toward you is love, you have put on the new self, and you now have an ever-renewed love for your neighbor. And as the paralyzed man went home that day healed and renewed, you will be sure one day to go to your home in heaven, and gladly await your own resurrection.

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

Readings:
    Gen. 28:10–17 a ladder was set up…its top reached to heaven
    Psalm 84 O LORD of hosts, Blessed is the man who trusts in You!
    Eph. 4:22–28 put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man
    Matt. 9:1–8 which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise and walk’?

Sermon for the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity: October 3, 2021 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

You know, there’s a lot of stuff to learn in the Bible. All those 66 books, from Genesis to Revelation, yield a mountain of content that truly takes a lifetime to absorb and reflect upon just a part of it. Those Pharisees, the most frequent nemeses of Jesus’ teaching, tend to look at the Bible and see a jumbled list of rules. In fact, their rabbis numbered 613 different laws out of the Scriptures, and categorized those commandments carefully in a hierarchy that was absolutely dizzying. Why all that effort? Each of them wanted to be able to say, “I’m a good person. I am doing just what God wants me to do.” That meant they also had to justify or make excuses for their words and actions when they might be called into question. You see, sometimes keeping one law put you in danger of breaking another law, and so they were constantly searching: what was the one Commandment that would supersede all the others? And once they identified one, of course there was another expert who could impeach it in favor of another more important statute. To the Pharisees, knowing God’s Word was all about keeping the outward rules well enough to earn a passing grade from God.

Do you ever find yourself thinking like that, and then being on the defensive and trying to justify yourself? You lose your temper and let someone have it and then justify yourself by thinking, “At least I’m in church on Sundays, unlike others I know.” I speed sometimes, but there are others who are always going faster and running the stop signs. I could probably do more to help others around me, but God knows how busy I am. Because we are self-centered by nature, it is very easy to see the Bible as God’s rules which we had better keep if we want to get to Heaven. The thinking is: “It’s all about me.”

Jesus’ answer, however, points in a completely different direction. Instead of seeing individual trees in the forest of laws, Jesus perfectly described the whole forest: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind…You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

It’s all about love. First of all, there is the vertical love for God. This is not a part-time, half-hearted love. This is a complete, all or nothing devotion. Think of what it means to throw your heart into your work or a project at home. It’s the first thing that comes to mind when you wake up. You give it all the time and effort you possibly can and you don’t mind. It is the last thing in your mind before you drift off to sleep. The Law commands all-out love for God above all else all the time. Along with that is the horizontal love for one’s neighbor, that is anyone whom we can help in any way. It is not the warm feeling we get when someone does something nice for us, but rather wanting to do good for another and then doing it.

The Pharisees and we too by nature want to pick certain trees in the forest as our favorites—laws which we think we keep fairly well. But when we fail to act from a loving heart, we have already torched the entire forest! “Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it” (James 2:10). It’s foolish then to point to a few smoldering stumps, hang our hopes on them, and say, “It’s not too bad. I’ve done pretty well.” It is all about love in the heart not outward obedience to rules.

It’s all about love, but it is a love which we do not have in and of ourselves. None of us would dare to say before God: “I’ve done it. I have loved You with a pure and perfect heart every moment of my life, and it is evident in everything I have said and done. In love for You I have loved my neighbor and shown him every bit as much, if not more, care and concern than I have for my own wellbeing.” We know better. There is no one good, not a one! “Therefore no one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the Law; rather, through the Law we become conscious of sin” (Romans 3:20). “The soul who sins shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4). It is all about love: a love commanded by God’s Law, a love we don’t have in our hearts, and a love we have not practiced in our daily lives.

That’s why all the Bible, the Law and the Prophets and beyond, hangs on love like coats hanging in the closet. Take away the hooks and hangers, and the whole teaching of the Bible gets confused and ends up on the floor in a jumbled heap! Our salvation is all about love, but not our faulty love for God. Instead the love that matters for our eternal life is His perfect love for us. Notice again what the commandment says: “You shall love the Lord your God.” If God is known as “your” God then there must be a relationship, a connection. He is yours because you are His, named His own when you were baptized. He has made you that. His name “Lord” stresses that He is the faithful God of loving promise. When He promises to help, He does. He reminded Israel of that just before He gave them the Ten Commandments. “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery” (Exodus 20:2)

We have come to know our gracious Lord in Jesus. “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has made Him known” (John 1:18). The Pharisees were looking for an earthly Messiah who would reestablish the golden age of David and Solomon when Israel was politically powerful and economically prosperous. They acknowledged the Messiah would be a descendant of King David according to the prophecies of Scripture. But Jesus showed them from David’s own words that David knew his descendant would be much more than a man. He would be David’s “Lord,” a divine Helper, God Himself.

He would come to establish not an earthly but an eternal, spiritual kingdom. And He would do it with love, not military force. He was born under the Law to redeem those who were under the law. The Law demands perfect love of each of us. Jesus took the place of each of us. In our place He loved the Father with all His heart, soul, and mind. He humbled Himself and was born an infant in the poorest of circumstances. Even though the Lord of all, He obeyed Mary and Joseph, His teachers, and the government. In obedience to His Father He allowed His enemies to arrest and crucify Him. In our place He loved His neighbor as Himself. He laid down His own holy life as the payment for the sins of all people. “This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10). He conquered sin, death, and Hell just as God had promised. When He hung on the cross all the Law and the Prophets hung there too. It is all about love. Through Jesus God sees us as having fulfilled His command to love. He pronounces us holy and pleasing to Him in every way.

Because Jesus has given us the free gift of that love, a day will come when you and I truly will be able to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, and mind, and to love our neighbor perfectly too. We all like to dream of the wonders of Heaven and try to imagine the glories waiting for us there. One of the best things will be freedom from all sin, selfishness, and pride which mar our lives now. When Jesus raises us on the Last Day, our Old Adam will be left behind in the grave. We will finally be free to love God and each other wholeheartedly as we were meant to.

But there is more good news to this message. We don’t have to wait for the resurrection to start loving. Our new life in Christ has already begun, and it grows as we grow in God’s Word. Remember, it’s all about love. When we see that God demands pure and perfect love, not just outward obedience to rules, our sin is exposed and our excuses shot down. When we confess our guilt and throw ourselves on the Lord’s mercy, the Holy Spirit raises us to new life in Christ and produces fruits of love in our lives. Read 1 Corinthians 13 or 1 John for more insights on love’s fruits. John writes: “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.”

Sure, there’s a lot of stuff to learn in the Bible. There are a lot of coats in the closet! But keep in mind that you have the hangers that all those details hang on, and the reason to be assured that all of God’s blessings are yours. It’s all about love: love commanded, love received, and love to live. It’s all about love, and it always will be!

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

Readings:
Deut. 10:12–21 what does the LORD your God require of you
Psalm 34:8–22 Who is the man who desires life
1 Cor. 1:1–9 called to be saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord
Matt. 22:34–46 which is the great commandment in the law?