Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand.

These words of Scripture from today’s Gospel were included very distinctively in a famous speech by Abraham Lincoln. The year was 1858 and the United States were just on the brink of erupting into the Civil War. The hot issues at the Republican Convention in Springfield, Illinois centered around slavery, and in his address, Lincoln quoted this Bible verse to make his point that the Union could not remain half-slave and half-free. It only seemed logical: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

It’s more important for us today, though, to consider how the original speaker, Jesus, uses these words. Who’s house is He talking about? The Jerusalem leaders accused Him of something very serious—they said Jesus was in league with the devil, and that by the power of Beelzebul (which is another name for Satan) He drove demons out of people. Rather than call them out right there on their blasphemy, Jesus instead exposes their wrong-headed logic: “How can Satan drive out Satan? If Satan is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand?” Jesus is talking about the kingdom of the devil, and He says that Satan would surely fall to oblivion if his house were divided against itself.

Why should Jesus concern Himself with the devil’s house? Is Satan really that powerful? He certainly has been around a long time. This constant battle between Satan and the Son of God has been around since Genesis 3, when humanity and the whole world fell into sin, thanks to the Serpent’s lies and crafty power over Adam and Eve. Here in God’s blessed creation, Satan gained a foothold and started setting up his house of doom. Our Old Testament reading recounts for us another skirmish between those two enemies that took place in 1446 B.C. when God sent Moses to Pharaoh in order to demand that he “Let My people go.” Ten times Pharaoh denied, ten times Egypt was ravaged by plagues, the original catastrophes of Biblical proportions as you may hear them still called every now and then.

As he did earlier in Genesis, when the devil convinced Adam and Eve that they could be like God just by eating the fruit of the forbidden tree, he’s constantly using the tactic against you too, feeding you the delusion that you can get along much better without God calling all the shots. Satan tricked Pharaoh through his court magicians that these divine plagues were just tricks that anyone with magical skills or contacts with evil spirits could perform. Turn your staff into a serpent? We can do that! Turn the Nile River into blood—that’s an old one. Thanks to the devil’s work, our human race has turned into a house divided, for it was he who convinced human beings that they should attempt to declare their independence from God. And when sinful human creatures declare their independence from God, they quickly turn on each other as well, as we’ve seen all too clearly these days.

Do you think you’re safe from this evil scheme? Does your baptism somehow protect you from the assaults of the devil? If you think so, you should guess again. Satan works the hardest against those who are not his. He can divide those in a Christian house against each other just as easily as he could anyone else. But he doesn’t stop with messing up your relationship to God and with other people. The devil also attacks your very self and actually creates a civil war within you.

The Apostle Paul describes this inner conflict in his letter to the Romans: “For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I desire not to do, that’s what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I desire not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.”

What’s true for Paul is also true for you. As a Christian, you want to do what pleases God and helps other people, yet you actually do the very opposite. That’s the war between good and evil also going on within your flesh—a war instigated by the devil himself. And what’s more, he has an ally in your own sinful human nature, a traitor that would make even Benedict Arnold blush. It’s the sin that dwells in you, it’s in your very nature, causing you to divide yourself against God and feed your own lusts and desires. It’s that part of you that says you’d get along much better without God calling all the shots. Your heart is a house divided, and if the devil and your sinful self had their way, you would not stand.

You know how the devil is often portrayed—a funny red guy with horns and a pitchfork, a voice in your left ear trying to out-shout the angel on your right that tells you to do the good thing. Satan is not a made-up idea or practical joke. He is real, and as First Peter says, like a roaring lion he seeks those whom he may devour. He is what Jesus likened to a strong man who vigilantly guards his possessions against any who are out to take them. By his crafty lies and deception, he seeks to take possession of you, turning you into a house divided against yourself and against God. We have no ability in and of ourselves to oppose him—Satan truly is strong…far stronger than we are.

However, in this parable, Jesus only likened the devil to a strong man in order to point this out: He is the stronger man, the one who actually has bound Satan and plundered him for all he’s worth. Though we have given in to temptations and disregarded God’s will, Jesus stood up to the crafts and assaults of the devil. He prevailed without falling into sin—for our sakes. God has always had the upper hand in these battles with the Evil One. Remember that Pharaoh was convinced that his magicians could match the plagues that Moses dished out? Then the gnats and the flies started attacking in unprecedented swarms, those magicians could only admit the truth: This is the finger of God. Their snake-staffs were swallowed by the serpents made from Moses and Aaron’s staffs. Even they could see that every time God faced off with the devil, that God would always win. Though we, following our deceived sinful nature, would rather side with the devil and only think for ourselves, Jesus took it upon Himself to rescue us from the slavery that placed us in the house of Satan.

Our rescue was certainly a show of divine power, because Jesus destroyed the power of the devil once and for all. Yet at the same time, it looked the opposite—like the devil was the one who would emerge victorious. With Jesus and what He’s going through as we read in the Gospels, we don’t see cataclysmic plagues unleashed against the bad guys and our Savior’s boot pressing down on the devil’s neck. In fact, the ultimate death blow in this war that had begun at the dawn of time was when Jesus humbled Himself to the point of death, even death on a cross!

He chose to bind your sins to Himself and forced God the Father to be divided against His own Son—after all, who was it that said, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” The rejection and scorn, suffering and dying of His crucifixion, these were in fact the very cords that bound up Satan and rendered him powerless and divided. Now with the strong man tied up, Jesus the Stronger Man robbed his house, taking back you and me, the poor souls who were once lost in our sins and slavery. Once we were rightfully accused of sin and rebellion, of doubt and hypocrisy. Now we are in Christ, the risen and victorious Savior. It’s your emancipation proclamation– You are free!

Now that you are released from the devil’s kingdom and made a part of the Kingdom of God, you are no longer a house divided from Him. Instead, Jesus took great pains to unite you as one with Him and with your fellow believers. He does some binding on you, too, a different kind of binding. Christ binds you close to Himself in faith that is His gift to you, and He binds you to your neighbor in love, so that you may fulfill each other’s needs. Jesus calls you His brother, sister and mother, because you believe in Him and by His grace perform His will, not as a requirement but as a response. Blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it.

Renounce the devil, and all his works and all his ways. Resist his evil schemes and deceptions. Instead, turn in faith to your Savior Jesus, who called you out of darkness and into His marvelous light. Do not remain a “house divided” within your soul. Drown that confederate rebel sinful nature in the waters of your baptism into Christ, a baptism that still lives on to make you grow in your Christian life. You are not a possession of Beelzebul. He has no power over you. Instead, you belong to Jesus and your sinful division is mended because of His word of forgiveness.

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” It is true for us as a free country, and it is also true for us as Christians, now that we are free from the bondage of sin, death and the devil. Because of Christ, Satan’s kingdom has been divided and his eternal judgment has come, but we on the other hand stand united in our Lord and share in the everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness that God has in store for us. Thanks be to stronger man Jesus, for He bound strong man Satan, and released us from his prison. Now you are in God’s house unto eternity.

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

Readings:
Ex. 8:16–24 the magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God.”
Eph. 5:1–9 be imitators of God as dear children
Luke 11:14–28 blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!

Wednesday, March 3, 2021 by Pr. Stirdivant

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

You have heard Jesus often say the phrase, “O ye of little faith,” in the Gospel records. Seldom does He speak of someone having great faith, but that’s exactly what he does when He finally answers this Canaanite woman, a Gentile who clearly belongs outside of God’s holy nation of Israel. Or does she?

This conversation that the woman has with Jesus is an excellent description of prayer as our Lord Himself has directed for us to pray. We approach our Lord on our knees as it were, begging for His undeserved mercy. We sinners can claim no right to the full portions of His love, however even the table scraps from His holy Table are more than enough to feed us for eternal life. When all our life and our experience seems to be telling us that Jesus is avoiding us or even punishing us by turning His face away, we can still confidently lay claim to His definite promises in His Word, and we can know for certain that He will always hear our prayer and answer as He wills for our own good. Martin Luther wrote in the Catechism, “We are neither worthy of the things for which we pray, nor have we deserved them, but we ask that He would give them all to us by grace.” (Lord’s Prayer, Fifth Petition) That’s what this foreign woman did, and Jesus responded, “O woman! Great is your faith! Be it done as you desire,” and the demon left her daughter at that very hour.

How come she can have it so easy, though? Doesn’t God know that my prayers don’t get answered like that in real life? Is this Bible story meant to tell me that I don’t have great enough faith, because I still have these unresolved problems? You may have friends like Job had, that is, those who surround you, sometimes comforting you, sometimes lending you a listening ear, but at other times they’re trying to diagnose your ordeals as something that’s wrong with you; something you need to do better in your life so that God can bring you the peace that you desire. Then this story of the Canaanite woman is thrown in—see,
you need to keep asking God in prayer and never give up. You need to commit your life to Him more earnestly as a disciple, and not just a casual believer. Your faith needs to be great. You need to believe in the power of prayer from the bottom of your heart. You need to be like Peter and get out of that boat walking on the water!
But such encouragement, however well-meaning it might be, often has the opposite effect, and you could feel driven away from God, despairing of His answer, or any answer at all. You even sing the words, “We should never be discouraged, take it to the Lord in prayer,” but all you see in your mind is that disapproving little finger wagging, no, no; you’re not trusting in Him.

At those moments, you certainly are feeling the full effect of God’s condemning law. You can tell quite clearly that you haven’t measured up to His commandments, that you haven’t fulfilled your daily calling in life, family and society the way He wants you to. Your prayers may have dried up. We may feel anger inside that the Lord has taken His sweet time in getting back to us, but even deeper down we can find a possible reason why we shouldn’t expect anything but trouble, hardship and punishment for our sin. It is that impossible perfect standard of righteousness that puts out the forbidding hand, and calls us what we really are, a miserable dog. Nothing more to do than to get shoved out of God’s presence, head down, tail in between your legs. How spiritually uplifting is that? Who would ever wish for that kind of Christian life?

But it is precisely in those kinds of depths, when you’ve totally given up on anything you’ve got with you, when you’re so tapped out spiritually that you’re too ashamed to talk to any other Christian about it. That’s when the Lord is near, when He’s ready and eager to hear your prayer, ready to bestow great faith in your heart. For that’s when you acknowledge that of yourself you are weak, and in that very weakness, Christ shows you He is strong. This is the proper lesson to learn from the Canaanite widow who dared to approach Jesus. Her persistence with the disciples, and later with Jesus Himself, bore witness not to any self-confidence that she had inside. Rather, her motivation came both from a loved one’s need, namely that of her daughter, and the Word of God that she had heard concerning Christ the Lord, the Son of David. By God-given faith worked within her by the Holy Spirit, she trusted that Word, even more than when she experienced that initial rejection from the Savior’s own mouth.

Jesus immediately recognized His own handiwork when He commented on the Canaanite woman’s great faith. He noted the power of His own death and resurrection that energizes all Christian faith and prayer. In a strange twist that only God can do, it was Jesus within that woman praying unceasingly to Jesus to have mercy on herself and requested healing for her daughter. You can see why Jesus responded with such amazement, because in the midst of her weakness, this woman wielded the very power that He already gave to her!

You should take note of this, too, that is, your confidence in the Lord comes not within yourself, it comes from Christ, who is pleased to dwell within you and pray with you, even when you don’t feel the strength to pray yourself. When you pray, remember it’s Jesus doing the praying, which is obvious when you think about the Lord’s Prayer: it’s not your prayer to keep to yourself, it’s His prayer for you to pray with Him and with one another, and even at those times when you’re praying alone. That’s the way you acquire great faith and live a vibrant life of prayer. If you keep trusting in yourself, and insist it’s your own positive-thinking that will get you through your struggles, then you’ll remain disappointed, because you will still struggle against your sinful flesh with its impure desires. But Christ and His prayer are perfect; it uses God’s own powerful Word, so it accomplishes whatever He says.

When you offer your requests both for yourself and for others, recall Jesus and all His prayer as He made His way closer to the cross. In your weakness and suffering, remember He has gone through it too, and He is with you to bear your burden for you on His shoulders. Admit your sins, confessing them to the Lord, and they’re gone. Be comforted that as a baptized child of God, you have bathed in the cleansing Blood of Christ, and you appear in God’s sight as clean and clothed in white as snow. Whenever you think of Jesus on the Cross, His bitter death and His glorious resurrection, be reminded that all of this and more is your heavenly Father’s gift to you without any condition, except He has commanded you in faith to ask for it, and ask in abundance!

And though your chastened heart, who along with the Canaanite woman sees yourself as no higher in the Lord’s house than a dog, and after considering your own sin, you would be content with only table scraps, you have been promised much more. Yours is instead a lavish feast of God’s forgiveness. You were once an outcast, even worse than a Canaanite, but by Christ’s sacrificial blood you have been brought near to His holy presence as His blessed child and heir of His guaranteed promises. May His unfathomable grace give you great faith, so that you ask for yourself and for your loved ones not the temporary things that your sinful nature wants, but the Holy Spirit and His gifts, which your Father in Heaven knows you need.

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

Readings:
Gen 32:22–32 a Man wrestled with him until the break of day
Psalm 121 I will lift my eyes to the hills
1 Thess. 4:1–7 This is the will of God, your sanctification
or Rom. 5:1–5 having been justified by faith, we have pace with God
Matt. 15:21–28 even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters table

Good Shepherd Lutheran – Yucaipa, California
February 24, 2021 – Midweek – Lent I
✝ ✝ ✝ ✝ ✝ ✝ ✝

Whoever said God was watching us from a distance, didn’t appreciate or take too seriously the fact that the very Son of God came down to earth and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit. God became one of us, one with us, one who went through trials, struggles, disappointments, fears right alongside us. Watching us from a distance was the last thing God wanted to do. So He sent us Jesus, who is our Great High Priest.

What is a Great High Priest? Let’s go through that in reverse order.

First, a priest. God spoke to us in our fallen, sinful world right from the very beginning. He also right from the start selected certain go-betweens to serve as His representatives to all. Adam was the selected priest for Eve and their children. Moses was the designated representative for the wandering Israelites until his brother Aaron became a priest. Pastors are ordained to speak God’s Words and apply them in ongoing pastoral care. You have been consecrated as a priest, too; only your priestly work is specialized in your own vocation with your own set of neighbors that you serve.

God uses His priests to speak His words of Law and Gospel, warning and comforting, discipline and love to all who would hear it. His priests also offer their lives up in service as a sacrifice of sorts that serves to the benefit of those to whom God has given them. You are doing a priestly work when you pray for those who are sick, or for those who need God’s special touch of forgiveness and life in their souls. Jesus is a priest for a very important reason. A human being can only be a representative or substitute for another human being. Jesus has our same flesh and blood as we do, yet He is without sin. That too is a necessity of being a priest—purity. Either the priest has to be cleansed and made pure (that’s true for you or for me), or in the case of Jesus, the priest already is completely pure.

Second, He’s a High Priest. Jesus is not specialized, in a manner of speaking. His priestly work extends generally to all people everywhere. He is above all other representatives that God has selected because He is God Himself. There is not one human being who has ever existed that Jesus has not known their struggles or their cares. Not one person is outside of the love of God extended to mankind through the sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross. As High Priest, true God and true Man, Jesus alone has the right to forgive us and claim us as His very own, because He did all the work to make that forgiveness and redemption happen. Not just made it possible, Jesus accomplished it perfectly for our sake.

And that brings up the Third part, the Great High Priest. Jesus as High Priest accomplished our salvation and on the third day He rose from the dead. He ascended in full divine glory to heaven to announce our heavenly destiny is assured. Our place in the Father’s house is being prepared as we speak. No other high priest will do. Jesus is our Great High Priest. Because of Him we have two huge, monstrous results of sin removed and done away with. Those two obstacles are fear of the devil and shame before God—they’re gone!

Fear is the devil’s only weapon that can attempt to gain traction on us. Our sinful, self-centered human nature fears that God might be hiding something from us. “Did God really say?” was the devil’s attempt to plant fear and doubt in Eve’s and Adam’s mind, as we read this week from Genesis 3. We can easily fear that God doesn’t have a good outcome in mind for us. The suffering we must endure seems like God has turned against us. The devil preys on those fears and we take our sights off of Jesus. But when we turn to Jesus and trust in His work for us as our Great High Priest, that removes our fear of the devil, or the fear that the devil uses to keep us separated from God. He says, “Love casts out fear.” Love is God’s own assurance that He will always be with us. In Christ we have God’s assurance of our forgiveness, renewal of our heart and our certainty renewed in the life of the world to come. With the fear of the devil removed, we have renewed confidence as we trust in God no matter what fearful events may occur in our lives.

Our renewed confidence testifies to another obstacle that has been removed, and that is shame before God’s almighty judgment. We deserve to be shamed with everlasting punishment and separation from God. But Jesus Christ stepped in and endured the entirety of that punishment and that shame. Jesus knew no sin, He was sinless, but He who knew no sin, became sin for us, so that in Christ we might become the righteousness of God. The Father actually punished Jesus as though He were a sinner, in fact, since the sin of the whole world was laid on Jesus’ shoulders, He was punished as though He were THE Sinner. So great was the payment, the atonement, that Jesus offered to the Father as the price for the removal of our shame, that there remains nothing left for us to do in order to be able to stand without that shame or stain of sin clinging to us anymore.

We may feel that shame or iniquity in certain moments of our lives. The devil will try to remind us of sins of our past and attempt to convince us that those sins are too great, or that there’s some catch to the free offer of God’s grace. There’s somehow no way for you to be forgiven, so you may be led to believe. But none of that is true. Jesus is your great high priest. He was the great high priest when He fought the devil’s temptations in the wilderness for you. He is your priest now as you eat and drink the sacrifice of His body and blood in the Sacrament of the Altar. He will remain your priest as He intercedes for you to the Father, bringing to His loving ears your every prayer in His name. Rejoice in Jesus, your great high priest. Because of Him, you have your forgiveness guaranteed. You have no more need to fear the devil. Your shame of sin before God has been removed and you are in His eternal good graces. God does not watch you from a distance. He is right here with you now and always!

In the name of the Father, and of ✝ the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pr. Stirdivant

Notes

The Lord be with you!
The Latin title for the First Sunday in Lent (borrowed from the first word of the Introit, “When he calls”) is Invocabit. Now has begun our journey with Jesus as He draws nearer to the cross in order to die for our salvation. Before He offers up His life for ours, He allows Himself to endure the attacks and temptation of the devil in the wilderness. Because Jesus withstood the devil with His own very words written in Holy Scripture, we also have His power over the attacks of Satan. Our evil foe has no power over us, as Martin Luther instructed us to pray morning and evening.

Let us pray the collect for Invocabit:
O Lord God, You led Your ancient people through the wilderness and brought them to the promised land. Guide the people of Your Church that following our Savior we may walk through the wilderness of this world toward the glory of the world to come; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen.

Genesis 3:1–21
Satan took the form of a serpent, a creature that God had made, in order to corrupt and curse all creatures, pulling them away from God’s good pleasure. He approached Eve with his first temptation, even though Adam was also with her. Satan lured them both with the God-created goodness of the fruit, combined with the twisted lure for them to be like God. The merciful Father had not withheld every tree from His precious human creatures, but the knowledge of good and evil turned out not to be likeness to God at all, who is only good. Thankfully, along with the curse comes our first pronouncement of the Gospel promise in the Bible: verse 15. Jesus is the “seed of the woman” who will crush the head of the devil, even though He would suffer the enemy’s heel strike on the cross.

2 Corinthians 6:1–10
Satan’s temptations come in many forms. If he cannot lure us with good-looking things, he can attempt to tear us away from God through difficult trials in our life. Yet it is also true that suffering is God’s very own means of holding us closer to Him. We must constantly heed the appeal that the preachers of the Word make to us: be reconciled to God. This is our Lord’s true desire and it can only be fulfilled when we hear His Word and believe it with God-given faith. The faithful workers of God not only speak the Word, but demonstrate it with lives that have been formed in likeness to Christ.

Matthew 4:1–11
Jesus began His visible ministry on earth with His baptism, but then immediately He went into the wilderness in order to face impending starvation and temptation at the hands of the devil. Three times the adversary attacked Him and three times Jesus responds the same: It is written. Even when the very comforting Psalm 91 is misused as a way to trip Him up, Jesus has an answer from the very Bible that He Himself caused the prophets to write. That same powerful Word of God is our effective weapon against the attacks of Satan in our own life. We are, however, not left to ourselves to try to do battle with Satan on our own, for because Jesus vanquished the Foe on our behalf, we are confident that in Christ we have already prevailed.

Here’s hymn 562, stanza 6:
    We thank You, Christ; new life is ours,
    New light, new hope, new strength, new pow’rs.
    This grace our ev’ry way attend
    Until we reach our journey’s end.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
Amen.

Pr. Stirdivant

Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent: February 21, 2021 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

All the Lord’s ways are mercy and truth (Tobit 3:2). That sounds pretty straightforward, easy to believe, right? God does all of that good stuff. I want the good stuff, so I believe in God. That’s a very shallow way to think of faith, but sadly, it is quite popular in our culture. Many Christians, including Lutherans, can get lured into believing some form of the idea of Karma. I know the name “Karma” comes from the Hindu religion, so right away you can perceive that it’s off-base somewhere in its philosophy, but really, all you’re concerned about is some kind of justice that’s gotta be out there in the world. That somehow those bad people are going to get what’s coming to them. That if you do enough good things, that you’ll get your reward eventually. I know that’s a tantalizing thing to believe, and it gives you great mileage in making you feel good when everything in your life seems cruel and unfair. But there are times when even Karma is not going to give you relief. There is no promise from God’s Word that backs up a hope that Karma, or whatever you call it, will settle everything. There is a promise from God’s Word about Jesus, and it is only in Him that we find God’s mercy and truth, yes, and even His justice.

Most Christians are very puzzled by the Gospel report of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness. If He couldn’t sin, then why was He tempted? If our Lord was going to do battle with Satan, then why didn’t He strike him and his minions down with a walloping battle assault? All this fasting He did, suffering, hungering and quoting Scripture words seem so weak, so unassuming. If you tried that, you would be laughed off as defensive and wimpy. What did Jesus do to deserve such disgraceful treatment? The idea of Karma would make no sense here! And wouldn’t it be better for the Lord to bring an end to all suffering, or at least to shield His own children more effectively and absolutely from the assaults and crafts of the devil? We are exposed to all the tricks of the ancient enemy, and it doesn’t make logical sense that we feel left out on our own in this world. But the Lord’s logic exceeds our understanding. His foolishness is wiser than our wisest wisdom. And His ways are not our ways. For all His ways are mercy and truth.

And that is how we must hear today’s Gospel of our Lord’s temptation, His testing. Not as some mythical story of good versus evil. Not as the first skirmish in the great battle between God and the devil. And certainly not as an example for what techniques and weapons we should employ when we fight our own battles, what courage we should muster, and what perseverance is required when we battle the devil, our own sinful flesh, the world’s various temptations it throws at us, our physical infirmities and the demons that torment our heart and mind.

This is a story of Our Lord’s mercy. He gives clear evidence that He has, and that He will, freely engage and beat back the devil for us. We don’t have that assurance whenever we assume that some justice out there in the great big universe is going to come around in our favor someday. Jesus shows that His promise to be for us is not an empty promise. He pointedly enters our fray, and immerses Himself in our misery. He put on your flesh, He fought your battle against the devil and sin. And He proves that He can and has overcome not just some evil forces, but the very devil that taunts and haunts you. He won your victory.

What you have heard today, then, is the beginning of your salvation. For until now in the Church Year, the continuing story since Christmas has all been promise and expectation, pledge and hope. But when the Spirit that came to Jesus at His baptism shoves Him out into the wilderness, when the Father inserts His Son into the middle of the devil’s playing field, plopped him down into Satan’s video game, when the Lord makes Himself vulnerable to demonic and diabolic tricks–then He begins to come through on His promise; then hope becomes real; and then the Word and pledge for your forgiveness and everlasting life comes true.

Yet you still may be tempted to hear this story as history-a true event, of course, but it took place long ago and it has meaning today only because it changed the course of events way back then. But the Lord’s mercy is not mere history. And His ways are not simply past events to set the world straight, or just evidence to prove that He can do it.

When Our Lord enters the wilderness to battle Satan, you must see that the Lord is entering your own wilderness. Not just some deserted place in Judea, but the desolation of your own heart and mind—all that hurts you, all that you have used to afflict others, that is what the Lord enters, makes His own, and suffers. As the Psalms continually pray, the Lord plants Himself squarely in our muck, our slimy pit, our mire and the filth we have made. He sits in the dust and ashes with us. He descends to the lowest part of our personal hell. He wraps Himself in the things that trouble us so deeply that we cannot find the words to confess or explain them. That is our wilderness. And there is Our Lord, in the midst of it, taking on our devils, fighting back our demons.

That is the Lord’s mercy. As you are hearing the Gospel today, that’s what’s going on in your heart to create it new again. I’m not lecturing about Divine blessing coming down mysteriously from on high. No philosophy of Karma coming around and rewarding good and bad as if there were some necessary balance between those two. I don’t give you simple words of comfort, vocal sounds that are psychologically proven to settle the mind and ease the heart. This instead is what you’re getting today, right now: The Lord Jesus becomes your sin, bearing your infirmities and weaknesses, washing them away in your Baptism and Absolution, enduring your grief, living your hell, dying your death. All the Karma that the universe can muster came crashing down on His shoulders, requiring Divine Justice solely from His nail-pierced hands!
And in the midst of that, He says, as the hymn sings:
    Hold fast to Me,
    I am your Rock and Castle;
    Your Ransom I Myself will be,
    For you I strive and wrestle;
    For I am yours and you are Mine,
    And where I am you may remain;
    The Foe shall not divide us.
That is the Lord’s way. And there is the Lord’s mercy for you. Not in some spectacular-looking battle between the forces of good and evil. But Jesus is right there in your wilderness, battling your devils, fighting back your demons, undoing your messes, and holding you so tightly to Himself that hell, death, devil and anything else cannot and will not snatch you from His hand. It looks to us like losing, but really, our Lord, the Word made flesh, quoting the written Word that you have today in your hands, He has won! The Bible does tell you so.

That is how you should hear today’s Gospel. For it is not just another religious story. It is the Lord sending His Son to have mercy on you. It is the Lord’s Word and sure mercies overcoming your greatest fears. It is the Lord placing Himself squarely between you and the things that threaten to undo you. It is the Lord giving you more than what Karma can ever give you—you have His strength where you have no strength. It is the Lord enduring and persevering even though your hopes fade and your faith wavers. Never fear, for all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth.

And if that is not enough when you are really suffering a trial, remember as well that there are the holy angels who minister not only to Jesus, but He sends them also to serve you. Once, you were alone and without hope – helpless before the threefold enemies of your old sinful nature, this fallen world, and the devil. But now, with all the hosts of God’s kingdom, you too are able to sing with joy the words Martin Luther penned so long ago in celebration of the blessed victory of the Savior for us all:
    “Though devils all the world should fill,
    all eager to devour us,
    we tremble not, we fear no ill,
    they shall not overpower us.
    This world’s prince may still
    scowl fierce as he will.
    He can harm us none, he’s judged; the deed is done;
    one little word can fell him.

    The Word they (our enemies) still shall let remain,
    nor any thanks have for it.
    He’s by our side upon the plain (of our battle)
    with His good gifts and Spirit.
    And take they our life,
    goods, fame, child, and wife,
    though these all be gone, our victory has (still) been won.
    The kingdom ours remaineth.”

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

Readings:
Gen 3:1–21 Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?’
or 1 Sam. 17:40–51 he chose for himself five smooth stones from the brook
Psalm 32 I said I will confess my transgressions to the LORD
or Psalm 118:1–13 for He is good! For His mercy endures forever
2 Cor. 6:1–10 now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation
or Heb. 4:14–16 we have a great High Priest…let us hold fast our confession.
Matt. 4:1–11 If You are the Son of God…

Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

Return to the LORD your God!

Readings:
Joel 2:12–19 rend your heart and not your garments
or Jonah 3:1–10 the people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast
Psalm 51:1–19 Purge me with hyssop, and I will be clean
2 Peter 1:2–11 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to lie and godliness
Matt. 6:(1–6) 16–21 do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing

Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

Readings:
1 Sam. 16:1–13 Arise, anoint him; for this is the one!
or Is. 35:3–7 Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees.
Psalm 89:18–29 I have found my servant David
or Psalm 146 Do not put your trust in princes
1 Cor. 13:1–13 … but have not love, I am nothing
Luke 18:31–43 Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!

Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

The Word of God is a doer. When most people think of the Word of God, they think of the Bible, a Good Book, an informer to mankind of what God wants us to know. That leads to the popular acronym for the letters in BIBLE: Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. I must tell you, as easy as that is to remember and fun as it is to share, the Word of God is much, much more than just instructions. The Word of God is a mighty, active doer, a creator, and even a preserver. If the Word of God were only instructions, then there would be no need to believe in it and put your whole trust in the Word of God. You would just follow the instructions, the seed would be sown in your heart, and the plant would grow—all would be well. And yet, we know that life as a Christian can get more complicated than that, so we need the Word of God to do for us and within us the mighty work that God has given His Word to do.

First, the Word of God is a seed. Even though it looks tiny and insignificant, a seed is a miracle of life. You can have a clump of cells smaller than a poppy seed, but that is still a baby girl that has started to grow in her mother’s womb. The Seed of the Word of God comes to someone who is born a sinner, dead, cold, lifeless in the spiritual sense, and in that barren environment brings to life a forgiven, redeemed, holy believer. This miracle is called faith, and it can only be created by the Word of God.

It was our heavenly Father’s great pleasure to call you out of the spiritual darkness called sin and death and bring you to new life. That was what the Word of God as a seed did in your heart. When you were baptized, and remember baptism is the Word of God joined together with water, when you were baptized not only were your sins and just punishments removed, but you were also made a child of God, a receiver of many precious gifts, forgiveness and eternal life being at the top of the list. This forgiveness was declared upon you in a particular form of the Word of God that is called absolution, and it was paid for by the suffering and death of Jesus Christ on the cross. Your promise of resurrection of the body and life everlasting was guaranteed when Jesus rose from the dead. This forgiveness and life is not given to you just once, but constantly, week after week, as you come to the Divine Service for the Word of God in scripture and sermon and as you eat and drink the Lord’s Body and Blood in Holy Communion. Our Lord constantly plants the seed of His Word in your heart and He intends for it to grow and produce fruits of good works that give Him glory and help the neighbors that God has given into your life.

Secondly, the Word of God not only plants faith in Christ within your heart, but that same Word waters, maintains and grows that faith for the rest of your life unto the life everlasting. Think about that story Jesus told about the sower casting seed over all kinds of soil. He explained the parable immediately afterward, saying these different soils are different people who have differing responses to the same Word. But I would challenge you today to think of those different soils as they occur within your soul. Sure, you may be hearing and meditating on God’s Word now and it produces great fruit in your heart. Your neighbor, your child, your loved one is benefiting from those good works that God has used you as His instrument to perform.

However, there are also times in your life when your soil is of a different quality. Sometimes we become callused to the Word of the Lord; too familiar this great gift and so our fear, love and trust in our heavenly Father doesn’t take deep root. Other times the cares of this passing world distract us from the Word. We get worried and concerned about our world’s political leaders; we get caught up in who said what and who wants to do yet another crazy, yet very predictable act of robbing our freedoms. Satan is constantly active all around us, threatening to choke out the seedling of our faith like a nasty thorny weed that appears unwelcome in the garden. Our nearly year-long pandemic has surely tested our mettle in not a few areas of life, but has it helped or has it hindered your growth in the Word of God?

What can you do when your soil is not as productive as it should be? What is the way that will improve your relationship with your heavenly Father and bring you closer to Him? The answer is the Word of God. And it’s not like those billboards that say, Are you scared? Jesus can help. Of course He can help, but how exactly? What really helps is repentance. What do I mean by repentance? For that you can turn to the catechism: Consider your place in life according to the Ten Commandments. Have you been self-serving, rude, quarrelsome with others? Have you failed to fear, love and trust in God above all things? The sharp, two-edged sword of the Word cuts deeply into you, revealing the sins that you have done, even down to the very thoughts of your heart. Without the powerful doer that is the Word of the Lord, you would be powerless to change your heart and be the fruitful, productive soil that would cause God’s good seed to grow.

And when you realize that God’s Word not only plants your faith in you but also nourishes it when times in your life are not going as well, then you understand the true power of that Word. Not only are you informed about Jesus and the sacrifice He made for you on the cross, but you also are taken up into His resurrection from the dead, forgiven of all your sins, consoled in your mourning heart, strengthened and preserved in the one true faith unto life everlasting. The Word of God does it all for you, beginning and sustaining your life-saving trust in Christ for eternal life. You were dead, but through His Word Jesus called you back to life, breathing His blood-bought forgiveness into you, and then you breathe out the same Jesus-filled forgiveness to your family members and neighbors who have sinned against you. This brings great pleasure to your Creator, for this is exactly how He made you to be and to act in accord with His Will.

The Word of God flows from God to us and back to Him again, as Isaiah sang. It’s just like rain coming down from heaven, watering the earth, flowing together into whatever body of water our Lord has designed to collect that rain as a sort of congregation, if you will, be it a small puddle like our church is or a vast and wide ocean. Then that water of God’s Word is spent in good works and returns to the Lord who gave it in order to complete the cycle that will not be halted until the end of time itself. If anyone can appreciate the precious resource that is rain for our land, it would be we who live in a land often ravaged by drought. Let us also appreciate just as much, yes, even more, the precious Word of God that He allows to rain down upon us, granting us the seed of faith, as well as the nourishment of that faith that leads to the good works of love that we owe to one another.

Next week we will begin the season of Lent on Ash Wednesday, which is not only a six-week preparation for Easter, but also a deliberate exercise of our hearts and bodies in repentance. If our observance of Lent only consists in making promises to modify our diets, cut out meat or sweets or renew whatever New Year’s Resolutions that we broke in the first week of January, then the whole point would be lost. What would truly make Lent a useful practice of repentance for you is, in addition to those outward disciplines and personal training, to focus your attention on the Word of God. Recall its great power to reveal your sins, but also the even greater power to wash those sins away in the flood of forgiveness that streams to you from the pierced side of your Savior Jesus Christ. He has planted His Word in you. He will even use His Word to cultivate that faith He has created in you. He will also bring your life to its completion, His good work that you are in His sight, on the coming Day when the final harvest will be gathered in and the eternal life we’ve been promised is realized in full. May the Word of God be for you from this day forward not only a talker, but a doer. His Holy Spirit has made it so.

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

Readings:
Is. 55:10–13 My Word…shall not return to Me void
Psalm 84 Even the sparrow has found a home
2 Cor. 11:19—12:9 My grace is sufficient
or Heb. 4:9–13 let us be diligent to enter that rest … Word of God…sharper than any two-edged sword
Luke 8:4–15 A sower went out to sow

Sermon for the Week of the Epiphany of Our Lord: January 3, 2021 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

When this week we celebrate our Lord’s Epiphany, it’s almost too easy for us to fix our attention on either the Magi themselves or the gifts they bring, rather than the One who received their gifts. How many of these wise men were there? Were they really kings from Africa, Iran, or China? What was the going rate for the values of gold, frankincense and myrrh on the commodities market? We are curious not only because the Magi and their gifts were unique, exotic and mysterious, but also because that’s where we sinners in our fallen state naturally focus in. What I mean is that when we pay attention to the Magi, the gifts, the sacrifices they make to bring them, or simply, the manner in which they worship the little boy Savior, then that provides us an opportunity to elevate our offering, our stewardship, our sacrifice, and the way we worship Jesus.

But the gold, frankincense and myrrh aren’t really at the heart and center of the Magi’s visit, because our offering, our self-sacrifice and the way we worship, even the way we pray, should never be the heart and center of the Gospel message. What is most important is what Our Lord does and who He is. That God chooses to assume human flesh, bear our sin and be the whole world’s Savior, those things alone ought to elicit from us an offering and sacrifice – a glorious heartfelt worship which matches and exceeds anything the wise men may have brought to Jesus. And it’s not just how we respond to Jesus’ gift of Himself, because ultimately our response, offering and worship mean nothing and get us nowhere. To be sure, these things are good, simply because they are nothing other than the life and love of Jesus lived out through us in a way that simply receives what He chooses to give.

That’s the lesson of the Magi – that the focus must be taken off of them and directed toward Jesus alone. They would agree with John the Baptist: He must increase, we must decrease. The Magi and their gifts remind us that our offering and worship are not an equal this-for-that response to anything, but simply a reflection of what God is doing in and for us. The account of the Magi calls us away from our paltry contributions and our frenzied way of worship, and turns our heads around instead to the Gift of the Christ Child who is at work in us – not in what we do, but in who He is and what He gives and bestows by His Gospel in preaching and the God-given Sacraments. Consider how Herod wanted to worship Jesus – not by receiving from Him, not by exalting the gift He brings, not in the Liturgy of the Gospel, but in a way which he only thinks is good and right. Herod’s selfish worship began when he heard the confession of the Magi. However, instead of drawing him to Christ to receive His gifts, Herod’s heart was hardened so that his false “faith” rested not in the promise of the Gospel, but in what he determined was a threat to his own position and power. And that led not only to Herod’s destruction but also to the needless, heartless massacre of many innocent children.

In contrast, the wise men weren’t concerned at all with their worship or their gifts, but only with God’s grace and kindness. And that grace and kindness of God appeared to them not as an idea, a sensational feeling, or a grand hope of good things to come for the present world. Rather, God’s Love arrived in human flesh, in the Person of the vulnerable poverty-wrapped Child as He lay in the arms of the Virgin Mary. The grace and kindness of God, you see, isn’t an attitude, but a Person. And it’s not just any Person, but the very Son of God come down from heaven to become the sin that you and I are – and to be the Savior you and I could never hope to be for ourselves.

So, the worship of the Magi wasn’t only that they heard that Scriptural Word, but that they took it to heart and received it as the living, Word in the flesh that it truly is. The Magi believed that the promise of God is both resident in the infant Christ, and also given through His human flesh. And so they set out to find Him, not because they were curious, not because they needed to be fully convinced, and not even because they were willing to give up all they had for the sake of this Child. No, the Magi set out to make the long journey to Bethlehem – following the star in the East – so that they might worship God’s epiphany, which is the same as saying His appearance and arrival – His manifestation and incarnation in the Baby, Jesus, God and man in one Person.

And now it’s time to ask, what was their worship? It may have appeared as though their worship was to give gifts – but really, their worship was to receive. The Magi desired nothing more than to take in everything the Baby Jesus offers – everything the Baby Jesus is. Their faith is what led them to follow the star and not to be dissuaded. Their faith led them to receive this Child as He came for them – and for us all – in the flesh and blood of man. May our faith always lead us always in that same direction! It would be much better for us that we would not be dazzled and drawn away by so many other intriguing, but quickly fading forms of worship! Oh, that we could also have the kind of faith that’s satisfied and gratified not with what pleases us, but simply with what Our Lord is pleased to give and plant within us without measure!

By the preaching of this same Gospel which the wise men heard, and by the leading of the same star and light of the Holy Spirit, you and I have been given this true, right-worshipping faith – a faith which pays attention to the shepherding of Our Lord in the Ten Commandments and leads us away from our own sinful lusts and desires, our own self-pleasuring, and our own self-gratifying ways of worship. This is a faith which calls us to the Christ Child, that gathers us with the Magi, with saints and angels around wherever He chooses to be, that enlightens us so that we trust the Gospel promise more than the Law threat, that cradles us within His body, the Church, and unites us with Him in such a tight, close union that with His flesh and blood He makes a home, lives and dwells within us.

And with that faith comes the Life of Christ in you, a life that gifts you not with money, valuables or deeds, but with your whole life and being as a holy, lively and reasonable sacrifice to God. The sacrifice of God in Christ is now being reflected and lived through you as your God-pleasing worship – as the only proper response to the knowledge that in Christ everything in your life is a yes and an amen to the gifts God desires to give you every day. That’s the lesson of the Magi and the proper focus of the Epiphany Feast. May it be so all through the year and for all the days of our lives, until we meet Jesus face-to-face.

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

White Parament

Readings:
Isaiah 60:1-6 Arise, shine; For your light has come!
Psalm 24 Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD?
Eph. 3:1–12 that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs
Matt. 2:1–15 wise men from the East came to Jerusalem

Notes

The Lord be with you!
Merry Christmas! O Lord, our Lord! How majestic is Your name in all the earth! We have embarked on a twelve-day season that is rich with the joy of God, our Maker and Redeemer, as He came among us in our lowly human flesh. And yet the season is also tinged with the sacrifice of those who loved our Lord to the utmost. Sunday’s readings continue the Christmas mystery, the hidden gift of Jesus with a focused emphasis on His very name, which means the Lord Saves. Jesus is not only who our God is, but He’s also all that our God has done, is doing, and will continue to do unto eternity.

Let us pray the collect for the first Sunday after Christmas:
O God, our Maker and Redeemer, You wonderfully created us and in the incarnation of Your Son yet more wondrously restored our human nature. Grant that we may ever be alive in Him who made Himself to be like us; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen.

2 Samuel 7:1–16
God’s identity and His activity are fused together into one: that’s His name, His reputation, His promise to the people in whom He is pleased. King David desired to honor God’s name with a house built by hands as a token of praise and thanks. The prophet Nathan would have gone along with it, if he were guided only by his own human wisdom; sure, it’s a noble thing to show honor to God, because by faith we’re confident of His mercy and love toward us. But then God revealed to Nathan, who passed along to David, yet a further blessing that took things to an even greater level. David would not build a house, that is, a structure, for God, as his son Solomon would eventually do. Instead, God would build a House, that is, a whole kingdom, for David. This house, this Zion on a hill, would be the Christian Church, dedicated and founded by David’s greater Son, Jesus. Unlike the earthly house that was eventually destroyed (several times in fact), God’s house in Christ would endure forever.

Galatians 4:1–7
The circumcision and naming of Jesus indicate, among many other things, the profound truth that God placed Himself under His own law. He needed to do this in order to procure our adoption into His grace. We have officially and legitimately joined God’s family, and the benefits of that status for us means we have the right and the privilege to call upon God as our own Father in prayer.

Luke 2:21–40
The Christmas Eve Gospel from Luke 2 ended with the shepherds spreading the word about the birth of Jesus. The very next verse continues the Christmas story with the circumcision and naming of Jesus, in accord with God the Father’s plan as it was announced by the Angel Gabriel. The name of Jesus is significant, and it is profound that His circumcision, His first blood sacrifice, accompanies it. How does the Lord save? How does He “Jesus” us? God must shed blood- His own true God and true Man blood. Only now do we fully comprehend what God was up to when He commanded the ritual of circumcision to Abraham so long before. This Gospel is all of one whole verse long on the actual eighth day of the Christmas season: New Year’s Day. Today, we follow it up with another major event in the infant life of our Savior, His presentation in the temple, the ritual purification of Mary, His mother, and the joyful Nunc Dimittis song of Simeon and the praise of the elderly widowed prophetess Anna.

Here’s hymn 358, stanza 13- from Martin Luther’s own Christmas hymn:
    Ah, dearest Jesus, holy Child,
    Prepare a bed, soft, undefiled,
    A quiet chamber set apart
    For You to dwell within my heart.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Pr. Stirdivant

Simeon

Sermon for the Sunday after Christmas: December 27, 2020 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

When Jesus received His name, blood was shed. It was the eighth day that His true God and true baby boy lungs breathed our world’s sinful, polluted air. He was circumcised when He was given His name, and I’ll guarantee you, the Little Lord Jesus—lots of crying He makes! But for Him to receive the name Jesus, the name that the Angel Gabriel announced to Mary nine months prior, that name means God’s Love for us, but for Him, it meant pain and death. The name of Jesus is no mere identifier. It wasn’t used to distinguish Mary’s firstborn from all His other earthly family members, His legal father Joseph, His brothers and sisters. The name Jesus means everything Jesus is and all that He came to do. All the basics of the Christian Faith that we reflect on from the Catechism, namely the Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer—those are all summarized for us in one word, the name of Jesus.

Jesus is our Savior and our Salvation. He is our Forgiver as well as the Forgiveness we have received. He is the Host of the Lord’s Supper, and He is our Food that we eat at this Altar. This is Jesus: He’s Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, All Saints’ Day, the Last Judgment, all of it wrapped up for us as yet another gift from our True Love on this the third day of Christmas. When our Lord received the name of Jesus, He abandoned His legal right to firstborn sonship, placed Himself under His own Divine Law, and gave the full rights of adoption to us instead. The phrase, “we might receive the adoption as sons” sounds too iffy in the English translation. The original states it as a certain, unchangeable outcome for us—because Jesus received His name, your name is now child of God forever! The trade-off was made with no trade backs.

The world and its evil master once had slave ownership of you. The darkness that dominated you was deeper than the darkness of the womb where you began your life. The world’s elementary principles, as we read about in our Epistle, were your fundamental truths of life. Truths like: The moment you’re born, you begin dying. There’s never a free lunch. Never trust a stranger. Try to make the most out of life because what you see in this world is all there is. That was your previous taskmaster. That’s what ruled you with disappointment, despair, and the hammer-blow of destruction from the Law of God that demanded your punishment.

Then you said, Save me, O Lord, by Your name! Save me, with Your Jesus. Take my sin, my hurt, my pain, my misgivings about myself, my anxieties about the future, and carry that bloody burden on Your shoulders to the cross for me! I have nowhere else to turn. I have no other name by which I will be saved. I must turn only to Jesus. All His blood, from the circumcision knife in Bethlehem to the soldier’s spear on Calvary, that’s the name of Jesus for me. That’s how I now have the privilege to call out, “Abba Father” to the God who made me and all creatures, who has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears and all my members and still takes care of them. Jesus is my key to all those blessings and more. When I call out the name of Jesus, I possess right at this moment my forgiveness of sins, my resurrection of the body and my life everlasting—everything I was promised and had handed to me when I was baptized.

No wonder Simeon praised God and proclaimed he was ready to die at the moment he took the baby Jesus up in his arms at the Jerusalem temple courtyard. That location was the place God set aside for His name, as He promised long ago to King David in our Old Testament reading. And no wonder the elderly prophetess Anna flitted with exuberant joy from this person to that person, announcing the end of her fasting and the answer to her constant prayer. Her earthly husband had been long gone, but now she bore witness to the greater marriage of Jesus Christ to His Church, a union that will never be separated, this time not even by death. This is the name of Jesus to these saints and also to you. Israel received its Consolation. Jerusalem was redeemed from slavery. The same has happened for you in the name of Jesus.

There are just a few days left on the calendar for the year that, on average, most people I know would like to forget. As you talk about next year with just about anyone, you’ll encounter a whole lot of hope that’s riding on how 2021 will turn out. Where will the power of that hope come from, do you think? Will we just enter the new year with the same sins, diseases, failures and fears of the old year? How will we get the fresh start that we fervently desire? None other than by the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus, resting confident in His assured pardon, we confess our sins. We admit our wrong doings of thought, word and deed. We abandon our selfish habits with more diligence than when we wash our hands. We silence our hurtful words more often than we put on our masks. If there was anything you knew without a doubt that would protect you from Covid, you would do it. Well, for your spiritual health, which is even more important, call on the name of Jesus, believe that you are saved by His name, for there is your single, absolute guarantee that Satan and this world will not separate you from the love of God.

Thanks to the bloody, salvation-rich name of Jesus, you are not placed under the harsh guardianship of the law anymore. You are now adopted into sonship, with full rights of inheritance that come with the name you’ve been given. You have been made a precious sheep, a lamb of the Good Shepherd’s pasture. The deep darkness, the valley of the shadow of death has forever been brightened for you with Christ the true light of the world. As you emerged from this womb of new birth, you are now governed by new elementary principles, new truths such as, the moment you were drowned and buried in Baptism is the moment when you truly begin living in the life that Jesus came to bring to this world.

The precious gifts of God cannot be bought with money, and they are handed out in His Church for free week after week. In this new life under Jesus’ name, you’ll find the friends who will remain friends even when they don’t have a way to benefit from you in any form. You’ll also find it easy to be that kind of selfless friend to your neighbors whom God has placed in your life. The agonizing, painful, mournful 2020s that we’ll ever come across in this life aren’t worth comparing with the certainties, joy, the confident assurances that God has prepared for you, better than even the best hope for 2021 could ever attain.

Now that the name of Jesus no longer means for Him a painful, bloody execution on the cross, He is glorified with the name at which every knee shall bow and every tongue confess Him as the Lord. As that Day draws ever nearer, He gives His name to you, He places His name on you so that you will receive an undying confident trust in the salvation that He gives to you along with that name. The name of Jesus distinguishes you from the world in which you currently live, a world that wants nothing to do with a Savior from sin, indeed a world that looks with eager expectation and hope toward anyone else but the true Jesus. You’re different, you stand out. You aren’t swayed by the appalling events that tell us the present world is passing away. You have the name of Jesus that far outshines anything this world could regard as good. You have what will last forever.

Today is the commemoration day of John the Evangelist, the one who unveiled himself at the very end of his book as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” And near the end of his book John summarized his ultimate purpose in writing down what the Holy Spirit gave him to write. He said: “Jesus did many other signs… which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.” Now you know a little more about what it means to “have life in His name.” That it means everything Jesus is, and everything He did, and still does, all out of Love for the world, and that name is yours for your life now, next year, for the rest of your life, and for eternity in the life of the world to come. The name of Jesus is how you know without any doubt that you have that life as your very own.

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

White Parament

Readings:
Isaiah 11:1–5 A rod from the stem of Jesse
or
2 Sam. 7:1–16 He shall build a house for My name
Psalm 89:1–8 For who in the heavens can be compared to the LORD?
Gal. 4:1–7 when the fullness of time had come
Luke 2:22–40 Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace