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

It may at first sound strange when you think of it. You have just last weekend celebrated the gift and fruits of work and labor, by taking a day off from working and laboring. God Himself thought of that idea, for when His days of creative labor were completed, He “sabbathed,” that is, stopped what He was doing and rested, admiring the work that was done and pronounced it, “indeed very good.” So it really isn’t that strange when a day is set aside to commemorate work by not working, even though that day may have lost its intended meaning, at least according to the average person you may ask. If Memorial Day and all it stands for gets drowned out by the opening of pools and the beginning of summer vacations, then Labor Day doesn’t seem to have a chance at all when it typically comes to a screeching halt. One time I was out with the police, and they caught some kids up to no good, and when they were asked why they had the itch to be destructive to the property of a complete stranger, all they could come up with was a shrug and, “I guess because it was Labor Day and there was nothing to do.”

Lest we forget, labor, that is, our diverse God-given vocations through which He provides for ourselves and our families, is itself a gift that is showered upon us by our heavenly Father. Times of increased unemployment seem to make such a gift seem a bit more precious due to its scarcity, but like all gifts, the more it’s in abundance, the more that it tends to get ignored. We come across this problem around Thanksgiving time, too. Perhaps you’re familiar with an attitude like: For what should I be thankful? I have what I have due to my own hard work. This attitude can even claim the support of the Bible verse, “He who will not work, will not eat.” (2 Thessalonians 3:10) And although King Solomon found himself in despair of anything here on this earth “under the sun” having any meaning at all, at least he could say amid all the pessimism that you find in the book of Ecclesiastes, this observation that he writes about one’s particular labor is definitely more cheerful: “Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot.” (Ecclesiastes 5:18)

Yet even this can leave us focused on what we have done, on the results and fruits of our own labor. Even in our thanksgiving to God for His gift of labor, we can become self-centered. Daily we all come under the Apostle James’ chastisement which is none other than God’s law condemning us, for we neglect that brother or sister who is in a true physical need and we merely say, “Go in peace,” and, “Hope you have a good life. I just can’t help you right now.” Indeed, you or I could boast about keeping the whole law, yet we would fail in one point, and we would be no better off than any other sinner. I couldn’t presume myself in my heart to be any purer than those juvenile delinquents I met, even if I could reason with myself saying I would never do such a thing, and they deserve whatever punishment they got. No matter how hard you try, your own labor is going to fall short. The work you do will be tainted with the self-serving sinful nature that you inherited from Adam at birth. To be sure, it will not always look sinful to you or to others, but that’s part of the deception. Even the things you do that earn high praise from your fellow men, the Lord still knows your heart, and considering it all on its own, He is not pleased. There is nothing in God’s law to fall back on. Your work, your labor that is done from a heart dead and opposed to its Creator, is worthless and laboring for nothing.

You’re not alone, and that’s part of the good news. For there are two individuals who also were dead to God and opposed to Him, yet they were blessed. Here in the Gospel coming from Mark 7, there is not the woman who pleaded to Jesus, but rather her daughter who had the demon, and the deaf man, who didn’t come himself, who couldn’t even speak for himself, and was brought by others to Jesus for healing. Who did the work? Who exerted the labor? The woman who prayed? The friends who begged? No, on all counts! It was all Jesus. It was Jesus from beginning to end, Jesus the source of healing, Jesus the sole Savior and Helper. Meditate on these words from the Gospel, each one of them, this week: “He has done all things well.” I repeat, All things! That’s the rest of the Good News!

It was by His labor, which took Him the bitter way all the way to the cross, that the sins our labor caused were all forgiven. By His work, and His work alone, the trash heap that is your work and mine is converted into a glorious, laudable accomplishment over which the Father will say to you, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant! Enter in the joy I have prepared for you!” He has done all things well. Just as by His perfect and powerful Word He created the world, gave His blessing, then rested, so also by His Word that carries with it the power of the Resurrection, He declares you, no more a sinner, but a saint washed in the blood of Christ, and blessed with the promise of the Comforter, the Holy Spirit.

Though your ears were stopped to His Word, His personal touch and “Ephphatha” opened them along with your lips, so that your mouth could declare His praise. Though the demons of this world attacked you and led you astray to follow your own desires, He dismissed them, perhaps even upon the prayer and pleading of others asking in your place. He has done all things well. His labor is what counts because His labor alone is perfect. He once did a miracle here and there and could hardly find a place to hide Himself. Now He hides Himself in the Word of Scripture, the Water of Baptism, and the Bread and Wine of Communion, and in those hiding places He’s doing even greater work than before, yet He’s often ignored even worse than the true meaning of any particular holiday.

But ignored or not, your Lord Jesus Christ continues to do all things well. He continues to give you the fruits of His labor. By humble faith, you are now content to be a dog under the table eating crumbs, yet by magnificent grace, you are invited as a precious child to be fed richly from the Father’s own hand. You don’t have any work to do to gain that privilege, because it is already yours. Yet it pleased the Lord nevertheless to give you work to do while it is day, to labor while your life lasts on this earth “under the sun.” This too is not a contradiction, because even though the heavy yoke of your sin has been taken off, Jesus still says, Take My yoke and learn of me, for My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” He has taken on Himself the task of salvation, and has given you other, much smaller tasks, but nonetheless still important ones that He works through you.

Your first task is to pray. You’ve been given access to the Father, now exercise that privilege and use that access and bring your needs, and bring those others who need Him, just like the foreign woman brought her daughter in prayer, and the friends who literally brought the deaf man. That’s your most important labor for others, because you are still leaving it in the hands of Jesus to do the actual work. In praying for others, there’s the least likelihood for your sinful nature to creep in and screw it up. And just like the woman didn’t know if her prayers did any good until after she went back home, your prayers and the people for whom you pray are left in the hands of the Lord, who has done what is best already before you ask. Remember, He has done all things well.

And finally, along with your prayers, remember to enjoy first the fruits of your Savior’s labor, relish His abundant forgiveness for you and your fellow sinners, and then to take delight in the labor He has given you to do for the sake of your family and others. Faith without works is dead, and because of Jesus, you have been given both faith and works together as His gift to you. Everything you do for others becomes by faith a holy task, a Christian labor of love that you could not do on your own, but rather that your Lord does through you. Do not remain left in despair and meaningless vanity, even when you’ve had, as we all have had, “one of those days.” He has already healed you of the illnesses of sin, selfishness, partiality and idleness. The law’s condemnation and the terrors of your past cannot touch you. He has done all things well. And because He has done all things well, you may rejoice this day, this “sabbath day” of rest and for the rest of your life, thanking God for the gift of Christian labor.

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

Readings:
Is. 35:4–7a then the eyes of the blind shall be opened
Ps. 146 Do not put your trust in princes
James 2:1–10, 14–18 but if you show partiality … I will show you my faith by my works.
Mark 7:24–37 Syro-Phoenician woman; healing of the deaf man

Watch out for “Emergents”!

If, after the hot, dry summer that we have had, you are still persuaded to keep taking care of your lawn, then you are probably very familiar with the term, “emergent.” When you apply a “pre-emergent” fertilizer and weed killer, you are making a pre-emptive strike against those nasty weeds before they sprout up and start causing a real problem on your prized, green turf!

The Emergent Church is a phenomenon, especially occurring in America, that seems to have some similarity to weeds in a garden. This is not a new church body or denomination. The Emergent Church is more of a way of thinking that is influencing large church bodies and in some cases, taking over the whole “yard” of religious expression. You could try to write it off as a passing fad (and it might end up to be just a fad) but people who espouse the Emergent philosophy are causing confusion in an already theologically weak society.

While the Emergent Church does not claim to have a leader, there are several authorities who have written books that have been very influential, even among some District Presidents of the Missouri Synod. While there are varieties and differences among these theologians, and in spite of the fact that they shy away from an expressed statement of belief, there are still some common themes that identify Emergents.

It is claimed that the Christian Church in our world today needs to change. The Internet, cell phones, 24-hour news channels, and post-modern thought are all cited as threats to the traditional concept of going to church, listening to a sermon, believing all the same thing, and learning from the same, old Bible of long ago. People today are more prone to pick and choose what they believe. Someone else may have a different way of getting to know God than I do, so I can’t tell them that they are wrong if they don’t agree with me. Churches are discouraged from taking a stand on moral issues like homosexuality or assisted suicide because that just makes people upset and they go somewhere else to worship.

If something challenges what Church was all about in the past, then that is what the Emergent Church wants to embrace with open arms. What makes Lutheran leaders fall for them is that their principles seem to be taking over in the popular “leadership conferences” that promise boosted church attendance and giving, especially if they emphasize not just “joining a church” but “becoming disciples,” which tends to overemphasize the Law against the Gospel. Absolutes like “heaven” and “hell” are replaced with terminology that touts a sort of “faith journey” in which someone discovers for themselves what God feels like to them. The concept of God the Father punishing Jesus on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins (as clearly described in Isaiah 53:4-6; Matthew 27:46; 1 John 2:2 and Romans 3:25) is denounced as “divine child abuse”! What is so deceptive about the Emergent Church is that to untrained ears, their message sounds so affirming and welcoming, easy to incorporate with open-minded contemporary thought, without any ancient doctrinal details to bog one down.

When Emergent theology first broke on the scene in the 1990s, the Bible took a back seat to a believer’s personal experience and discipleship, because these subjective sources of truth were held as more important than an authoritative text. This is what an Emergent theologian named Rob Bell wrote in the book, Velvet Elvis: “The Bible is a very holy and sacred book… one can make the Bible say anything she or he wants it to. …An accurate guideline to assist you in your interpretation is to ask yourself for the meaning. …When people say that all we need is the Bible, it is simply not true.” (Note the intentional reversal in the phrase, “she or he”- it’s another favorite practice of these teachers.)

Yet as the movement takes hold of a greater percentage of church thought, the Bible itself has become a means by which Emergent leaders promote their thinking. They have rewritten the Bible so that it matches the pattern of their theology and renamed it, The Voice. It was not based on a translation of the Greek and Hebrew, but rather a recipe of chopped up Scripture with interpretive comments mixed in. They are taking away key words like “Christ” and “forgiveness” and replacing them with what they say are easy-to-grasp terms like “Liberator” and “acceptance.” Their advertising says that The Voice is “the easiest Bible in print to understand.” The problem is, though, it is no longer the Bible!

Just like the weeds in the lawn, the Emergent Church needs our attention, so that its way of thinking does not lead us astray from our God who has revealed Himself in Jesus as we know Him from the ancient, historical Scriptures, rather than from our personal feelings. People need to know the truth, especially because if you look into your own heart, you will not find God but your own sinful nature instead. Even in our ever-changing world, the unchangeable doctrine of the Gospel of forgiveness is exactly what poor, miserable sinners like you and I need.

Yours, in Christ’s service,

Pastor Stirdivant

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

You have probably heard, Seeing is believing. In practice, I don’t know about you, but I’ve heard the phrase more often employed using the negative, as in: if you don’t see it, then you shouldn’t believe it. Granted, it is essential for us even in everyday life to seek out diligently for ourselves what is actually true, before we can count on it. When a bill comes in the mail and you are overcharged, then you have that immediate instinct and urge to get on the phone and demand that they give you proof that you absolutely have no choice but to pay the increase. Until you receive a sufficient demonstration of fact, merely taking someone’s word for it simply will not convince you. You need to see it before you’ll believe it. I lived about a third of my life in the Show-Me State, Missouri—and the people there come by their state motto honestly.

You aren’t alone in thinking that way. Elijah found it hard to believe in God’s mission for him. This mighty prophet of the Lord scored a major victory over the prophets of the false god that Israel worshiped. But he also earned permanent status as evil Queen Jezebel’s public enemy #1. She would stop at nothing to search for Elijah and destroy him immediately. He would then, just after today’s Old Testament reading leaves off, complain to the Lord that he alone was the only believer left in the whole land, at least that’s what he felt. God answered him, though, with the shocking fact that He personally knew of seven thousand people in Israel who had never worshiped anyone but the Lord God Almighty. That’s what you would call a “sleeping giant,” which, by the way, I think we still have something similar in our country. Such a multitude of faithful believers would never have occurred to Elijah, because he simply didn’t see them for himself.

You may remember also that Thomas said, “Unless I see and touch the wounds of the resurrected Lord, I will never believe.” Now, of course, since Thomas was called to be an Apostle of Jesus Christ, it was essential for him especially to see Jesus risen from the dead. Otherwise, he would not have been qualified for that particular vocation in the Church. However our Lord wanted to make it clear for you and me and all believers that the true blessing is found in hearing the Gospel Word of forgiveness, paid for by His precious blood, rather than in demanding proof and seeing it in order to believe it.

In our Gospel for today, just after He fed the 5000 and walked on the stormy Sea of Galilee, Jesus here takes an unexpected turn from the idea of seeing is believing and He says instead: believing is eating and drinking! This portion of the Gospel of John needs a few moments of our reflection because there are two basic ideas, two streams you could say, flowing side by side, and soon they are about to converge together into one thought.

The first one is about seeing. Our Lord is eager to have you think differently about what it means to look upon Him, and therefore believe in Him. As I said before, our idea of seeing Jesus involves obtaining some proof that will satisfy the occasional weaknesses in our faith. That would be seeing Him, and yet not believing in Him-same problem Thomas had. Perhaps you think you’ll finally “see” Him when all that the Bible teaches starts making perfect sense in your mind and all your questions are answered. You also hope for the time when you can completely and convincingly share your faith with others and they will have nothing to reply that will make you feel embarrassed. We are right there with that one disciple who later asked Jesus, Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us. You have a Show Me state? Here’s your Show-Me disciple!

But when Jesus talks about seeing, or looking upon Him, there’s something different going on. When you look to your Savior as he describes to the crowds here in John 6, you are actually trusting in Him as your Savior. You look to your Lord, because you have become convinced that all other lords, including the lord you make of yourself, will miserably fail and you will be worse off instead of better. The psalmist had this spiritual seeing in mind when he wrote, “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” You lift up your eyes, not in an imaginary way, like some people assume this verse means, but in order to see, fully see with great confidence in your heart, that the Maker of heaven and earth, the One who long ago sent ravens to feed Elijah in the desert, is the very same God who came to you, the Father who through the work of the Holy Spirit draws you to Christ His Son. Jesus is not a mere thought, nor a clever churchly concept of love just to mimic Him and try your best. He is a God who at one time in world history came to be seen, touched, heard. And even though now your eyes cannot physically see Jesus and demonstrate with proof for yourself right here in front of you, nevertheless you may still, even today, look to Him, believe and be raised up from death on the last day.

Here is where we join this together with a new meaning of eating and drinking, our Savior’s second stream of thought. Keep in mind the recent miracle of multiplied bread and fish, and note how the crowd of 5000 so enthusiastically follows Jesus, but all they are looking for is someone to feed them some more food. You may have met some little guy I know who is all about getting more and more to eat. It might seem, at first, that most of the crowd got it wrong. They were not following Jesus for the right reasons. And while that’s true, you still need to take a deeper look at it. There is something here actually that they didn’t get wrong, something that Jesus wants to encourage in them and fan into greater flame for their eternal good.

For the whole reason why Jesus desires to call Himself the bread that gives life to the world, is so that believers may diligently, maybe even desperately, search Him out and seek their complete nourishment from Him. You have to commend this multitude for so quickly catching up to Jesus and the disciples. It took a very long time for everyone to get into boats and sail directly across to the other side of the lake. But there they are, back in the city of Capernaum, and no longer out in the vast, open, grassy hillsides where they ate their miraculous meal. For these few days, this crowd has set everything in their lives aside and wrapped their entire attention around this one Man who is teaching them these words.

That’s what Jesus is talking about when He says our faith is eating and drinking. When the Holy Spirit plants faith in our hearts through Baptism, that same desperate hunger emerges within us, longing for Jesus to fill us up. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness? Yes! That’s not only about constantly wanting to do good things for others, but first and foremost our hunger and thirst is for Jesus, who gives us His righteousness. That’s what the Bible calls a status of perfection and full acceptance to God as a replacement for our sins that had kept us away from Him. We were far away in rebellion; now we’ve been brought near. And we know only Jesus can give those great gifts to us. That’s what makes it the same as looking to Him to provide for me forgiveness, all my earthly daily bread needs, and peaceful reconciliation with my neighbor who sinned against me.

Seeing is eating and drinking! And both of these, as Jesus talks about them in this Gospel, mean your faith as it was planted in you in Baptism. When you look to Jesus and see Him as the one and only Savior in whom you may trust for ultimate resurrection and victory, then at the very same time, you are eating and drinking Him into yourself, along with the promise He will not lose you, nor leave you behind when the final day arrives. Though your eyes themselves now do not see Him in the way you had hoped, there will come the time when He will appear and you will see Him face-to-face, faith will give way completely to renewed and perfected sight, and all questions, if there are still any, will be fully answered. Until that time, you believe in Him, which is to say you look to Him, which is also to say you eat and drink Him, and thus live forever.

Not the thought of Jesus, not even the example of Jesus, but the flesh of Jesus, His real, true God and Man in one person, flesh is our bread that gives us this life. Totally for free. The real flesh-and-blood Jesus is the One to whom we look, the One true bread and drink for whom we continually hunger and thirst. In this new way, a spiritual way that only Christ can grant you as you are drawn in by the Father, you are eating His flesh and drinking His blood whenever you hear or read His Word, whenever you pray or lead your life in the calling that He has given you. And to seal that eating and drinking of His flesh as a guarantee of life within you, Jesus adds yet another way for you, this time a Sacramental way, in which He miraculously puts His Body and Blood in blest reality, under bread and wine, into your mouth, and that is at Holy Communion. Yes, eating His flesh and blood is the same as looking to Him in faith at all times, but here at this Altar you also come at our Lord’s invitation for yet another opportunity to have His resurrection and life life joined to your body, and yours to His Body the Church.

Seeing is believing? That may be needed for the things of this dead world that are sure to fail you. But with Jesus, it can be better said, for those who believe, seeing is eating and drinking—Him.

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

Readings:
1 Kings 19:1–8 Elijah’s flight into the wilderness
Ps. 34:1–8 The Angel of the LORD encamps
Eph. 4:17—5:2 be renewed in the spirit of your mind
John 6:35–51 the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes…

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

You heard the Israelites grumble about two things they so dearly missed: meat and bread. Barely a month and a half had passed, according to Moses’ record, since the Passover night when they escaped Egypt. What a miracle that was that night when over two million men, women, children and animals picked up and walked toward the desert. Then on another evening that multitude walked across the Red Sea floor as though it were dry ground, with towering walls of water standing up on either side in the moonlight. The best chariot cavalry of Egypt? God drowned them when He made the waters of the sea flow back to normal. Then the Hebrews ran out of water, and the water they found was undrinkable, only then God commanded Moses to throw a tree into the spring to make the water wholesome and even sweet tasting. But all those miracles weren’t good enough for the children of Israel.

Instead they grumble, they murmur; it’s fairly obvious that they have thrown out all faith in the one, true and living God. They groan after meat and bread, pots of flesh, all you can eat while they were living in servitude to their Egyptian overlords. Never mind that while they were in Egypt, they all complained about being in slavery, too. Evidently, freedom wasn’t all it was cracked up to be for these tribes of Israel, because now all they can think about is to go straight back to their pagan taskmasters. Of course, they must have wanted freedom, even though they wanted it their own way. Only at this point, out there in the wilderness with their stomachs growling, freedom or no freedom, we just need our meat and bread, meat and bread. Moses and Aaron, give us our meat and bread!

That’s hardly the model prayer for us to emulate, would you think? Making demands and driving the appointed servants of the Lord to the brink of exasperation. But it sounds just as demanding when we pray the words “give us this day our daily bread” in the Lord’s Prayer. Now that’s simply because Jesus gave us these words to pray so that we would sound like the desperate beggars that we really are. We already know from personal experience that not everything seems to happen on earth the way it does in heaven, at least not until Christ comes. Why is that? In reality, Evil is all around us and we urgently pray every day so that we would be delivered from it. Therefore we need this bread right away, emphasis on this day, or else we would wither away and die.

So what’s the bread that we need? What is so urgent for our sustenance that we are forced to plead for it and demand an immediate response? The Israelites thought it was meat and bread that they desperately needed. The multitude of 5000 who received meat and bread in one of Jesus’ most spectacular of miracles wanted more. What’s on your mind right now that you would need so badly that your very existence is threatened if you don’t have it? Is it that job or that raise? A little extra to pay off that debt? Is it another couple of weeks’ breathing time before you have to go back to school? Could it be that you desperately crave peace in your home and family or at the work place or at church?

Martin Luther started a list in the catechism that seems to go on and on explaining what could be meant by daily bread. But even he noticed that there is more to it than the material blessings that he could think of.

For Jesus Himself encourages you to think past all those worldly things, even if all you’re doing is giving thanks to God for His providence. But don’t excessively dwell on blessings by themselves, just as you are not to concentrate on your problems. Listen to how Jesus says it: Do not labor for the bread that perishes. It would help you understand this if you right away thought about the manna in the wilderness for those Israelites. It was considered work and labor for them to gather that gift bread each morning. But when the Sabbath came around each week, God gave double on Friday so that they could still enjoy the day of rest and observe it as the Lord commanded. And you know there’s at least one rebel in any group, and someone in that huge crowd in the desert tried to gather more to last into the next day, but it didn’t work. Do you remember what happened to the extra manna? It spoiled and stank and was creeping with bugs. That bread perished because of the faithless response of disobedience to the commandment.

Do not labor for the bread that perishes. That is a command from Jesus that puts faith in your heart and makes it strong. For when you hear these very words from Jesus, just like you are doing right now, your Savior is assuring you that He has already given the worldly blessings to you, according to what you need. You will not need to labor, that is, bear an impossible burden, for that temporary bread. Why? Because those blessings come free from the hand of your heavenly Father, even if they look to you as if they were wages due. And as you receive these gifts, remind yourself constantly that they will not last forever. Remember that above and beyond all of this, there is something more important, something that will last forever.

That something is Jesus. “The bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world,” writes John the Evangelist, quoting Christ. He is the full and final answer to your prayer that asks for daily bread. What do you do to receive this bread? Do you perform some feat worthy of the Peace Prize? Do you pray a “sinner’s prayer” that asks Him to come into your heart? Do you clean up your act and promise never to smack your brother ever again? No, these things don’t give you Jesus the bread of life. Not even your act of coming to church faithfully, strictly speaking that is still something you do, and it never is good enough. Rather, you get this heavenly bread because by God’s grace He enabled your stone cold and unbelieving heart to believe in Him, and so all He has to give will come to you as well. This explains the strange and seemingly contradictory words in John where Jesus says, “[Labor instead] for the food that endures to eternal life,” and then immediately adds, “[this food] the Son of Man will give to you.” This means the labor you are to do for God is, “believe in Him whom He has sent.”

More important than feeding the hungry, more important than telling the good news, way beyond any priorities that the world around you may impose, most important above all is to have faith in Christ. Now, all other good and loving works, like feeding the hungry, telling the good news and giving offerings, proceed from faith. That means, once you believe, God creates you anew in the image of His Son and He has placed the desire in your heart to serve Him by providing help to your neighbor and enabling you in your individual calling to follow faithfully what He commands. You couldn’t do this by yourself, but now you have the Holy Spirit doing such good things through you. Jesus gave Himself to you to the point of utter sacrifice on the cross for the forgiveness of all your sins. You see that plain as day pictured for you on the crucifix. It is that tree of sacrifice that makes sweet the water of salvation that refreshes your soul. You now get the opportunity to sacrifice yourself, whether it’s in the realm of time that you spend, or money, or anything else that would be of help and service to your neighbor.

Jesus gives Himself to you in the Word of God that you hear and read. He first joined Himself to you at your baptism, then He offered His body and blood that (often) stands here on the altar ready and waiting to strengthen you in body and in soul to life everlasting. He is the bread of life sent straight to you and for you directly from heaven. Since you have received Him in faith, all the words about daily bread come into clear focus. For once you have Jesus, then you also have all the blessings that He brings, including forgiveness and eternal life, as well as worldly and temporary blessings. And you will see all these gifts in their proper perspective, just as Matthew records Jesus saying the ever-popular proverb: Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. (Mt. 6:33)

You may have done your share of grumbling recently, perhaps though not specifically for meat and bread. Like God’s people of old, you will still have your sinful flesh that doesn’t appreciate the blessings of God, or at times rejects them outright. Don’t kid yourself into believing that you don’t face these temptations or as if you can control them when they do come. Difficult times will certainly come every once in a while that test the firmness of our trust in Jesus. It will sometimes be hard to determine that you have all you need. But whether you think you have your daily material needs adequately supplied or not, know this for certain, that by faith you most assuredly have daily bread already, for you have Christ the bread of life. You shall not hunger, nor shall you thirst for anything else.

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

Readings:
Ex. 16:2–15 What is it? The manna in the wilderness
Ps. 145:10–21 All your works shall praise you, O LORD
Eph. 4:1–16 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all
John 6:22–35 I am the bread of life.

How dull and plain life would be if the seasons never changed! No matter how much you might prefer one particular season of the year, you probably would get tired of it if it never ended. Most of us like to see variety in one way or another, and the changing seasons of the year offer that variety to us, and at least give us something start up a conversation. Each season has its own attraction and charm and, by the time you get tired of one season, there’s always another one coming sooner than you think.

Not only our world around us, but also the Church has changing seasons of the year. As we gather to worship, we notice the Church moving through one season into another, each with its own unique message, and each with its own mood. As a result, worship is not monotonous, but vibrant and always renewing from week to week. As one season draws to a close, the next one comes in its own special way.

The Church Calendar informs us of the different seasons in the Church’s liturgical year. The seasons of the Church Year are closely related to the seasons of nature, but sometimes they are independent of each other. A Calendar like the one in the very front of the hymnal tells us when each season of the Church Year is to begin and how long it is to last.

The Church Year is divided into two main parts. The first part is focused on the life and ministry of Christ while He was still visible in the flesh on this earth. During this part of the Church Year we partake of the important events surrounding our Lord, from His birth in Bethlehem, till the time He ascended into heaven and gave His disciples the Holy Spirit. Since significant days like Christmas, Good Friday and Easter happen during this part of the Church Year, it is commonly called the Festival Half. In the non-Festival half, which covers most of the summer into the fall, the festivals are not as big, but no less important. It is also known as the Time of the Church. This is usually the time when the Church focuses on how the life, the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus feed and strengthen us as the Body of Christ.

In response to the various moods expressed throughout the liturgical year, the Church has chosen over the years to use color, among other things, to help bring out the special mood of each season. The paraments that decorate the altar, pulpit and lectern in the front of the Church change colors from season to season. This excursion will take a brief look at each liturgical season and the unique features that it offers us as God’s gathered people.

Other customs also reflect the mood of the season. For instance, during the solemn, penitential season of Lent, some churches do not include many flowers and the congregation does not sing or say the word Alleluia, only then at Easter they pack the place with lilies and sing 10 alleluias with every hymn! Of course, there is a different message from God’s Word for each season, and each Sunday has its own Scripture readings, hymns, prayers and so forth.

If we become aware of these different seasons and what they are all about, our participation in the Church Service will carry more interest and lead to a greater understanding of God’s mysteries.

As this special service explores each season, look especially for its associated color. That will be the color you find draped on the altar, pulpit, lectern and on the stole that the pastor wears. Today, a reading, collect prayer and hymn selection from each season will lead us through each of the Church’s seasons.

Advent

The Church Year begins with the season of Advent, which means “coming.” It includes the four Sundays that precede Christmas in which we prepare to celebrate the coming of Jesus Christ into the world. As we look forward to the day of His birth there is, of course, much cause for joy and gladness. But there is also shame and penitence. John the Baptist, who was the last great prophet who pointed to the coming of the Savior, says each Advent to us what he said to his disciples: Repent! The Son of God comes to humble Himself and take on your sins, shortcomings, and sicknesses. Turn from your wicked ways and believe in His forgiveness! The royal and penitential color blue reminds us of our need to be sorry for our sins, but also to look forward in expectation to the second coming of our King, this time not as a baby in a manger, but as the Lord of heaven and earth receiving His children into eternal life.

Zechariah 9:9, 16-17

Advent 1: Stir up Your power, O Lord, and come, that by Your protection we may be rescued from the threatening perils of our sins and saved by Your mighty deliverance; for You live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

LSB 357 1, 3, 7

Christmas

Christmas is one of the greatest days in the entire Church Year. It is the birthday celebration of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. At Christmas we set aside the restraints and penitence of Advent as we burst forth with holy joy. God has kept His Old Testament promise. The Son has entered time and space in the form of a lowly newborn child. This Baby of Bethlehem will do for us what we could never do for ourselves—He will set us free from sin and bring us back into communion with God. The wonder and the thrill of God’s love at Christmas is everywhere. The color white, which is always used in connection with Jesus, reflects His radiant glory and testifies to the holy joy that He inspires into our hearts. Of course the chancel is specially decorated for Christmas—and it would seem like something’s missing if there were no greenery, Poinsettias and a Christmas tree up in front. Following the manner that days are reckoned in the Bible, every festival in the Church Year actually begins at sundown the evening before, and Christmas Eve is a perfect example. The Christmas season itself lasts for 12 days, from December 25th to January 5th.

Luke 2: 6-14

Christmas Eve O God, You make us glad with the yearly remembrance of the birth of Your only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ. Grant that as we joyfully receive Him as our Redeemer, we may with sure confidence behold Him when He comes to be our Judge; through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord

LSB 380 all

Epiphany

Epiphany follows right after the Christmas season, beginning on the 6th of January. Epiphany means “revealing” or “showing forth.” During this season we ponder the different ways in which Christ was revealed to the world as God and Savior. The first showing forth was to the Wise Men, or Magi by means of a star which guided them to His manger-crib. Later on Christ revealed Himself through His Baptism, His miracles, especially when He changed the water into wine, and through His preaching. His most splendid revelation was at the Transfiguration. The day of Epiphany begins and ends using the dazzling color white from the Christmas season; but in between the color is green, the color of foliage, growth and life, suggesting our spiritual growth as a result of our Lord revealing Himself to us in His Word and the Sacraments.

Matthew 2: 10-11; Luke 9:28-33, 35

Transfig O God, in the glorious transfiguration of Your beloved Son You confirmed the mysteries of the faith by the testimony of Moses and Elijah. In the voice that came from the bright cloud You wonderfully foreshowed our adoption by grace. Mercifully make us co-heirs with the King in His glory and bring us to the fullness of our inheritance in heaven; through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord.

LSB 396 1-3

Lent

After Epiphany the mood of worship changes abruptly. Joy gives way to penitence as we begin to commemorate the suffering and death of Jesus Christ. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent. The season reaches its climax on Good Friday and comes to an end at sundown on Holy Saturday, the day before Easter. As we recall the depth of Christ’s agony at the hands of Pontius Pilate and on the Cross, we are compelled to remember that He went through it all out of His love for us and His desire to free us from our sins. As we especially humble our hearts and gather for worship more often during Lent, the color purple signifies our penitent mood.

Philippians 2:4-8

Lent 3 O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy, be gracious to all who have gone astray from Your ways and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of Your Word; through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

LSB 430 1-3, 5

Good Friday

On Good Friday, we commemorate the day God in human flesh gave up His life for us. The altar is either covered in black or it is stripped bare. Our every word and action focuses on the cross, on our bleeding Lord and the events of that all-important day of the world’s history. But there is nothing morbid about this concentration on our guilt and our Lord’s suffering. For that suffering and death is the source of great relief and strength to us. Through His bitter agony and death Christ removed our guilt and paid for the forgiveness of our sins. As we see Him as pictured on the crucifix bleeding and dying, we are looking at the price of our salvation.

Luke 23:33-46

Almighty God, graciously behold this Your family for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be betrayed and delivered into the hands of sinful men to suffer death upon the cross; through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord.

LSB 451 1-3

Easter

Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Though every Sunday is in its own way a celebration of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, on Easter Day, Christian hope and joy reach their highest point, for this is the day on which our Lord rose from the dead. Easter is the only Church festival that is not on any fixed day, but rather it occurs on a certain Sunday each year between March 22 and April 25. The color changes to white, which remains during the entire seven-week Easter season. As we stand before the empty tomb we discover along with the faithful women and the disciples that Christ’s death was not a tragic failure but rather a glorious success. We realize that He entered suffering and death as an Innocent Victim, but He fought as a mighty warrior who has gained the victory over death and Satan. Faith in the Christ who is risen brings us tremendous joy because the victory that He won on this great day is also our victory. His resurrection paved the way for our resurrection into eternal life hereafter.

Matthew 28:1-7 (please stand)

Almighty God the Father, through Your only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, You have overcome death and opened the gate of everlasting life to us. Grant that we, who celebrate with joy the day of our Lord’s resurrection, may be raised from the death of sin by your life-giving Spirit; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

LSB 457 all

Ascension

Forty days after Easter, Christ concluded His visible ministry on earth when He ascended into heaven, where He as true God and true Man sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty. Prior to His ascension He said, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Though we no longer see His physical body, He is still here in a hidden, mysterious way—through His Holy Spirit in the preached Word and in the Holy Sacraments. Ascension is a day of triumph and joy as Christ, our Redeemer and the conqueror of sin, leads the grand procession to heaven, a procession that we follow also to our true home.

Acts 1:9-11

Almighty God, as Your only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, ascended into the heavens, so may we also ascend in heart and mind and continually dwell there with Him, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

LSB 494 1, 3, 4

Pentecost Day

The fiery color red belongs to Pentecost, which means “the fiftieth day.” On the fiftieth day after Easter, Jesus Christ sent His Holy Spirit upon His disciples, just as He had promised. Appearing in tongues of fire that rested upon them, the Spirit filled these first preachers with courage and strength. Immediately, Jesus began to preach through their many mouths, and thousands from all nations who had waited for their promised Savior believed. The Holy Spirit has never left Christ’s people, and He has been the constant intercessor for us before our Lord, and our never-failing source of inspiration and zeal. God the Holy Spirit uses the called and ordained ministers of Jesus Christ to preach the powerful Word to His chosen people. For this reason, the red color of Pentecost is also reserved for the ordination and installation of a man into the Office of the Holy Ministry.

Acts 2:1-4

O God, on this day You once taught the hearts of Your faithful people by sending them the light of Your Holy Spirit. Grant us in our day by the same Spirit to have a right understanding in all things and evermore to rejoice in His holy consolation; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord.

LSB 498 1-3, 6

Trinity

After the celebration of Pentecost, the Festival half of the Church Year comes to a close. The very next Sunday after Pentecost is the feast of the Holy Trinity, or Trinity Sunday. The words Trinity and Triune both mean “three-in-one,” and this all-important doctrine of God we confess especially in the Athanasian Creed. On this day we remember that the God who revealed Himself to us in Jesus Christ is the same God who created us and all things, and who dwells in our hearts. The one God is worshiped in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as
represented in the triangle icon. The color white is the symbol of Christ and the divine glory revealed in the Holy Trinity. The Trinity reading from Matthew is AKA the Great Commission.

Matthew 28:16-20

Almighty and everlasting God, You have given us grace to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity by the confession of a true faith and to worship the Unity in the power of the Divine Majesty. Keep us steadfast in this faith and defend us from all adversities; for You, O Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, live and reign, one God, now and forever.

LSB 507 1, 2, 4

Season of Pentecost

The last and longest season in the Church Year includes all the Sundays after Pentecost. Some local churches number the Sundays after Trinity because they follow the one-year cycle. In either case, the color is green to signify the new life and growth that Christ has achieved for us and continues to work in us through His Word and the activity of the Holy Spirit. This is the time of the Church, and the time in which we are reminded to be rooted in our Lord so that we may bear fruits of service for the benefit of our neighbor. In the late fall, as the Church Year draws to a close and the farmer looks to the gathering of the harvest, the Church proclaims the Last Things: the saints who have gone before us on All Saints’ Day, the Return of Christ, the Last Judgment, and the life everlasting.

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Blessed Lord, You have caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning. Grant that we may so hear them, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them that, by the patience and comfort of Your holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

LSB 644 all

Offering

Church Festivals

Scattered throughout the seasons of the Church’s liturgical year there are also single days and dates that she does well to observe, especially if they happen to occur on a Sunday. Most of these special days commemorate certain Saints. They recall to our minds some of the great Christians of the past. Many of these days borrow the red color of Pentecost to signify the work of the Holy Spirit in their words and deeds as well as the color of their blood that was shed while they lived out the suffering and persecution of Jesus in their own bodies. We in the Lutheran Church follow the correct understanding of the Holy Scriptures when we teach that we do not worship these saints or pray to them. However, we do praise the Lord for the wonderful works He had allowed them to do by His grace, and we pray that God would likewise give us a bold faith.

Revelation 7:9-10

LSB 517 (stanza 4)

Kyrie & Lord’s Prayer

Almighty and most merciful God, the protector of all who trust in You, strengthen our faith and give us courage to believe that in Your love You will rescue us from all adversities; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Father in heaven, in mercy You have given us Your revealed will and counsel in the Holy Scriptures. Grant that as we hear and proclaim Your Word throughout the Church Year, we may be led to repent of our sins against You and receive forgiveness and Your gift of eternal life. Dwell within us in the flesh and blood of Your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, and by the power of the Holy Spirit may we dwell in You now and forever.

O Father of mercies and God of all comfort our only help in time of need. Look with favor upon Your servants… Assure them of your Mercy, deliver them from the temptations of the evil one, and give the patience and comfort in their illness. If it please You restore them to health, or give them grace to accept their affliction.

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

Once I attended a graduation ceremony when I was a student at the Seminary. Many lay people from the surrounding community often attend this celebration, and I figured the two women seated in front of me were long-time regular attendees of Seminary festivities like this. When the doctoral degrees were being awarded, there was one in which the graduate’s thesis was announced that it had proposed to study the role of women in the church. One woman snickered to her friend in my hearing, “Must have been a short paper!”

Okay, despite all of today’s useless noise about the subject, the Bible’s teaching stays the same: women can’t be pastors. As Confessional Lutheran church bodies like the Missouri Synod, the Lutheran Church of Latvia, Siberia, Madagascar, Ghana, Australia, Argentina and others teach, women shouldn’t take roles of spiritual leadership that God has already assigned for certain qualified men to do. God’s Word is abundantly clear about that. But, Holy Scripture, as well as God-given reason and good sense, together state just as clearly that women are precious in God’s sight, and their unique gifts and service for the church and for their neighbors are irreplaceable. The Book of Proverbs ends with an excellent chapter that praises and exalts “a woman who fears the Lord,” making special mention of those to whom God has given the blessed and holy vocation of wife and mother. By dark contrast, societies around the world that have rejected the light of Jesus Christ tend also to demean and debase women. Churches like the ELCA and the Church of Sweden and most other Lutheran state-controlled churches, those that have adopted the heretical practice of female clergy, have also eventually ventured into paganism, earth-goddesses, and using the word “She” in reference to an ever-changing and, in their mind, self-improving God.

And then there’s the fascination with Mary Magdalene. Andrew Lloyd Webber writes a big role for her in the Broadway hit “Jesus Christ, Superstar.” She figures quite prominently in the story of the fictional and anti-Christian book and movie, The Da Vinci Code. Some unbelieving scholars go so far as to suggest the fantasy that Mary Magdalene was Jesus’ wife or girlfriend; others only are bold enough to say Jesus regarded her as the leader among His disciples. None of these things about her grasp even a shred of reality as it has been revealed to us in the Bible, and all of them do this holy woman a great disservice.

According to the Gospels in the New Testament, Mary Magdalene had seven demons. She was under total domination by the forces of darkness, as the number seven depicts in other parts of the Bible. At the hearing of Jesus’ powerful, Divine Word, those seven spirits were released from her, and she followed Jesus along with other women, a few of whom had some wealth to share, as they accompanied the disciples whom Jesus later called to be His preachers.

In the Gospel reading you just heard, Mary Magdalene was specially listed as one who came to the tomb of Jesus, even though the other Gospel writers tell us that other people had accompanied her at first. Due to this account that has been preserved for us in God’s Holy Word, Mary Magdalene is given the honor of being the first among believers to see Jesus risen. She was also entrusted to relay the good news to the disciples, which she announced joyfully, having the dawn of forgiveness shining anew in her heart.

But that early morning, as you know, did not begin with joy and expectation, the smell of flowers and blinding sunshine cascading through stained glass, like we are accustomed to here at Easter. It began with unfinished work to do, with the cloud of death choking every glimmer of hope. Mary and her female companions were risking their lives to perform what they thought was one last tender gesture of respect and love for Jesus—to bury His body properly with the traditional spices, and perhaps say a few appropriate prayers. Then when the tomb was discovered empty, with the stone rolled away, sorrow must have turned even darker, to utter dread and a downward spiral of bewilderment. Not only has she lost her Teacher and Friend, but as a good student she knows that with a dead Lord, she is a goner. It means to Mary that she would still be dead in her sins. Those demons will soon be back with a vengeance. Could you imagine what you would feel if you knew such a horrible existence was just waiting to pounce on you yet again?

John, in his divinely inspired telling of the Easter story, notes that there was a time when Mary was alone, weeping, speaking first to the angels stationed in the tomb, then to the mysterious gardener. Could any light pierce or penetrate this complete darkness that had suddenly returned to a woman who had been so captured before?

Jesus said to her, ‘Mary.’ That’s it! That’s what needed to happen to bring light into the hopeless darkness! Jesus called her by her name and that makes all the difference. Mary knew the Voice of the Good Shepherd when He called her by her name. Good Friday grief is fully replaced by Easter Sunday joy. Jesus said to her, ‘Mary’ and Death’s sadness gives way to Life’s gladness. In this way, Mary Magdalene properly stands according to the Bible as the flesh and blood symbol for you, the church of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. For you have been rescued from the utter darkness of your sins, and lifted up from your dreadful weeping, all because Jesus called you by name. For you, along with Mary, rejoice at this comforting Voice of Jesus, and you confess who He is, as Savior and Teacher, calling out to Him in prayer.

The Christ who died on the cross for you, to pay the price to save you from eternal darkness, rose from the dead so that He could impart His eternal light of forgiveness upon you. When you were baptized, heaven was opened, clouds were parted, God called your name, and so His face began to shine with the love He had for you from the very beginning. As you heard His Word, whether it was all your life, or only just recently, His countenance was lifted up in a new dawn and your demons were put to flight, never to return in domination ever again.

Even though the disciples would be the chosen Apostles sent to all the world, and they would be the ones who would preach and proclaim the Good News, Jesus specifically chose this woman, Mary from Magdala on the Sea of Galilee, to help and support them. They really needed her, not for her to preach to her own congregation, but to provide assistance for the church according to her own God-given gifts. To be sure, Mary’s help and support probably

was better at the time than if Jesus had sent twelve male messengers from the empty garden tomb. Yes, she was doubted; the men thought she was telling tales or the grief was making her delusional, but that’s how the Gospel is still treated with disdain in our world. We heard a few weeks ago God’s own reminder, My power is made perfect in weakness. In her former demon-possessed life, Mary Magdalene most likely was marked and avoided in her community. Yet this time, armed by a Spirit-filled boldness, she would proceed undeterred.

Such a thing could happen to this day. Very well-respected church leaders could throw out the Bible’s message for their own pet projects. Nevertheless, the humble, unassuming yet powerful message of forgiveness will not be darkened. Sometimes, a godly lay woman’s kindness and baptismal faith is what the Church needs to remember who the true Lord, the Bridegroom, the Good Shepherd, really is. The light of Christ still will shine, even when many reject it for what their itching ears would rather hear. Rejoice, all you who are baptized into the name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit! Rejoice along with Mary Magdalene who first saw the Savior alive, because your demons are gone, your sinful darkness is past, and the light of Christ has risen upon you.

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

Readings:
Proverbs 31:10-31 A woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.
Acts: 13:26-31 In him we have obtained an inheritance
John 20:1-2, 10-18 to Mary Magdalene: go to my brothers and say to them ‘I am ascending…’

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

If there was one thing that would have frightened King Herod, it was that John the Baptist was somehow raised from the dead. Thanks to a drunken stupor while entertaining both political friends and foes, a dance that was likely pleasing to the male eye, and thanks to a sinister plot of a vindictive woman, Herod woke up one morning with a headache, a dead prophet and a head staring at him from a bloody platter. The memory of John was still haunting Herod enough as it was. Now it seems this Baptizing preacher is miraculously raised from death, and bound to come by the palace for another round of guilt-inducing sermons. King Herod knew John was right about his sinful, adulterous marriage. He was told to repent, just as John told everyone, but this politician under the spell of Queen Herodias had allowed Satan to pluck up the seeds of the Word that God had planted in his heart. He was glad to hear about the Gospel of God’s kingdom, and the coming of the Savior, but he just loved his lifestyle, which is to say, he loved sinning, way too much. So instead, he pacified his wife and tried to keep John as safe as he could in a prison near the Dead Sea.

We live in a world of false comfort. We are clothed with fine, soft clothing and fare sumptuously every day. Our mutual funds may fluctuate more than we want, but such wealth would be unimaginable a generation ago: think of the cell phones, laptop computers, and air conditioning, of course, but then you go into the kitchen: there you find popcorn poppers, computerized refrigerators, waffle irons, double boilers, cappuccino machines. The pioneers who settled this land were lucky if they didn’t have to share forks! Anyway, John is a good man for us in our luxurious existence. He is a man obsessed. He cares for almost nothing, least of all gadgets and convenience. He cares not even for decent food or clothing. He cares only for the Savior to come, the One whose sandals he is not fit to untie, but Whom he will anoint by Divine Command. He will anoint Him for a crown of thorns, for a throne erected between two thieves, for a Kingdom whose glory is found in the death of its Prince. In the anointing, in that Holy and first of all Baptisms, heaven opens to sinners, the Father speaks, the Spirit descends, and the Son begins His journey toward our redemption.

Nonetheless, John’s message sounds mean to our sensitive, modern ears even as it did to Herod’s. It is harsh because he will not waste your time to be nice. He will not coddle you. He has not come to try out his flawless rhetoric to “make a point” but he gets right to the point. He won’t tell cute stories or show you funny videos, or promise more money in your pocket. He is not trying merely to “make you think.” He is not being clever or poetic. He will not manipulate your emotions or “set the mood.” He is not a reed blown about in the wind of human opinion. He despises the urge to be interesting or engaging. He’d even fail the Seminary preaching classes! But on Jordan’s bank stands a man obsessed. He cares only for the wrath and judgment to come, doing the work he has been given to do before the night comes when no man can work. He wags that bony finger of his in your face, stands too close, breathes his nasty locust breath upon you, fixes his steely gaze,
eyeball to eyeball, and says, “Repent! Repent now, before it is too late. Turn from yourself and your worries. Cease your self-obsession, your concern for your rights and honor. Don’t let the thoughts that try to condemn you have the last word. Be filled with the Spirit, die and rise again with Christ, hear the Father’s adopting words. Be Baptized and live!”

John is the ultimate preacher of the Law. And that is so often our excuse for ignoring him. Our fallen flesh tends to think, “Well, he preaches Law but I need to focus on the Gospel. John was all about ‘fire and brimstone’ and calling people out when it’s none of his business how people live, but I am a nice, gentle, kind person. I want to help people. I am not like John. I am like Jesus.” Okay, but then you should actually try reading the Gospels and pay attention to what Jesus says. There is a reason that the Gospels summarize both John’s and Our Lord’s preaching with the same sentence, “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.” They may have done similar actions, but of the two, Jesus is more stern, more fierce, more demanding. He is not some wimpy little do-gooder. He is bold and brazen. He even got angry! He is not afraid to pick up a towel and water and wash His disciples’ feet. He is not afraid to defy the priests and the governor. He keeps awake to pray. He does not fall into temptation or excuse sin. He is not afraid to look weak or to suffer. Finally, He is clearly the only One ever not afraid to die. If John is obsessed, Jesus then must be a maniac.

Like it or not, the Law is God’s Word. It is His revealed will for man but man cannot obtain it. False law, not the kind John preached, is actually quite nice. False law takes many forms, but at its most popular it is a guide for good living or secret hints on how we might please God, earn His favor, and get ahead. False law says there can be other definitions of marriage. The real Law came from John’s mouth, and also ultimately from Jesus. It is damning. It hurts; it kills. It drives us to our knees. But it is it is good. It needs to be preached, so it would open our eyes to the reality of how helpless we are. The Law made even King Herod stop and think for a while.

John preaches the Law because he is a prophet of the Most High. That does not mean that God sent him to make the people feel guilty and sad or to scare them. He was sent to tell the Truth. And that Truth can only comfort those who own up to their smelly feet and let Jesus wash them. John comforted them. In repentance, Jesus Christ, the Salvation of mankind, is known. John delivers forgiveness through preaching and baptizing into Jesus. The Law he preaches is not the goal. It sets our hearts up to hear the Gospel, the Good News of God’s intervening love that caused Him to take up our flesh.

The tender mercy of our God is not in removing the Law, but in fulfilling it. It accuses us. It drives us to the edge of despair. With Isaiah we cry out, “Woe is me for I am a man of unclean lips.” With Peter we beg, “Depart from me Lord, for I am a sinful man.” We acknowledge the goodness, the holiness of the Law and our abject failure regarding it. But then, at the Word of Christ, the Law, which hounded us, departs. It is satisfied in the perfect life and death that Jesus lived and died in our place. Suddenly, there is no one to accuse you. The Lord helps you up, embraces and kisses you, and bids you come and be a guest at His Table, to sit down next to John and all the others who believe and testified until death. Your sins are removed. Your past, your shame, your guilt are no more.

Unlike John, Jesus really did rise from the dead, not to make you fearful like Herod was, but to set you free. He wipes away your tears and fills those places left empty and abandoned inside you with Himself. His hair, His skin, His bones, that Body pierced, dead and buried, back to life, with God’s judgment now satisfied, is placed into your once unclean lips and they are cleansed. You are healed. You are whole. The Blood of the Lamb is poured down your throat and into your heart. You are clean. You are one with Him. You abide in Him and He in you. You are His. You enjoy a Holy and perfect Communion.

That was what King Herod rejected. It was the blessed, sweet Gospel that came right along with John’s stern demands for repentance. He heard that he couldn’t have a wife who was also his sister-in-law as well as his niece. And the devil, using other people’s anger, incited him to kill John, since he can’t ever kill the Gospel. But when the guilt started coming back to the king’s conscience, just like it might be for you when you recall a sin you’ve done in the past, Herod felt helpless, like there was nothing by which he could undo this day of reckoning. The risen John the Baptist could pop in any day now and announce my condemnation, and I wouldn’t have an answer back.

Thanks to the Gospel Word that you hear today from your Lord and Savior Jesus, you need not face that helpless, condemned feeling that’s stronger than any normal feeling. You may have days where everything good that Jesus does for you sounds like it is tearing you down with shame instead of lifting you up. Like you are not good enough. But those thoughts need not haunt you anymore. You do have God’s unchanging Word that says Jesus was good enough and He took your place. He gave you His place. Really, you are not condemned—you are safe and secure in your heavenly Father’s arms. Because of this Good News, John leaped for joy in his mother’s womb at the presence of his Savior. He also died in joy too, even though it was also a sad, unjust tragedy. He was branded a fanatic, but it was the Word of God that kept him tied to the message of the Gospel and eternal life. Give no anxious thought to what tries to dominate you in the here and now. The persecution from the world is not worth comparing to what lies ahead. Your life, as well as your death, should it come before Christ returns, will in the same way as John the Baptist bear witness to your Lord who gave up His life in order to make you His own.

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

Readings:

Isaiah 6:1-9 Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts
Luke 5:1-9 …a great number of fish, and their net was breaking…

Amos 7:7–15 the LORD took me as I followed the flock
Ps. 85 Restore us, O God of our salvation, And cause Your anger toward us to cease.
Eph. 1:3–14 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ….
Mark 6:14–29 Martyrdom of John the Baptist

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

Jesus was the man to whom the prophet Isaiah refers when he writes: He was despised and rejected. (Isaiah 53) And Jesus was despised and rejected no more strongly than among His own people. In the very city of Nazareth, in which the Son of God grew up as Mary’s Son, He received one of the worst welcomes. They thought of Him as the “kid who lived down the block.” They could not accept the miraculous wonders that came from the Words of His mouth and the laying on of His hands. Only a few people, perhaps they were desperate for help, but they were the ones to whom God gave faith to receive His healing. So Jesus speaks His rebuke: “A Prophet is not without honor (‘not without’ means He is well-liked), except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.”

He says this not so that you’d feel sorry for Him. The Gospel according to Mark tells us Jesus marveled at His fellow Nazarenes’ unbelief, but this isn’t like it hit Him unawares. He knew, He even decreed through the ancient prophets that many would reject Him, even those people He might have thought He could trust for support. He was the one who told Ezekiel, I am sending you to the stubborn and obstinate people of Israel. They will refuse to hear you, but you are going to preach to them anyway. Although it won’t look like you’ll have success, you’re going to give them My Word. For Jesus, the Prophet above all other prophets, the One who gave the Holy Spirit to all the prophets of the Old Testament, He is still not without honor. This means that He will receive the honor that is rightfully due to Him, just not from the place you would think.

Instead, Jesus receives honor from the weak, the desperate, and the sinful. They are mentioned even in the Bible account merely as a parenthesis: as if it were to say, the whole population of Nazareth rejected Jesus, oh, and by the way, He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. Now, important people can give honor, but these people who barely get a mention have little more honor than a stray dog. But I tell you—these people are the ones we should pay attention to! Those who believe in Him are not the ones who think they can have it their own way. They understand that Christ came as a doctor not for those who pretend they are healthy, but for those who acknowledge that they are incurably sick. They’re desperate for healing and nothing else matters to them.

That is who you are. You regularly admit here in this place that you are a poor miserable sinner. You know you have no choice but to confess that you have the bad habit of lashing out in anger or frustration against your friends and the loved ones in your own family. Perhaps it’s just in your thoughts or online communications. You realize that, because of your sins, you have no claim on the Lord, no reason why He should love you as He does, except that the Lord Himself came to rescue you from your debilitating sin. And by that, He is honored.

For Jesus Christ, Son of God and the Son of the Virgin Mary, set aside all His heavenly honor and power and humbled Himself, but not just when He became a human being. For He could have come as a mighty king, arrayed in finer wealth than King Solomon and Bill Gates combined. All honor in heaven and earth could have been laid at His human feet while sitting in glory on every earthly throne—and it still would have been a humbling experience for the Eternal Son of God the Father. But, He humbled Himself further than just becoming a man—He became a “man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” (Isaiah 53) He became the lowliest of men, the miserable, suffering servant of all people. He not only set aside His eternal crown as King of the Universe, but He also replaced that crown with a crown of thorns.

And finally, it is on the cross that you see your Lord who is worthy of all honor. Christ crucified; this is your Lord in all His ironic glory. It is also the glory and honor that He chooses to give to you. It may not be His will that you are successful in earthly things. He may have other plans than for you to get that job or promotion that you’ve been hoping for, that big goal that you’re setting your heart on. But that doesn’t mean that you didn’t pray hard enough or that He doesn’t love you. He can say to you much like He said to the Apostle Paul, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness. And His will is going to continue as it has in this dying world even if our magnificent plans never materialize, whether it’s a revived Sunday School or a standing-room-only church attendance, or offering plates overflowing. That doesn’t mean that our Lord would not bless these things and use them to do His will in spite of sinful people like all of us, myself included, who love to meddle and put in our two cents’ worth. Reports from the mission field in places like Madagascar amaze us at how God’s work is being done among millions of Lutherans in a whole different-looking way than it is over here, but it is no more and no less the will of God in either place. We also rejoice in the fact that the far-flung mission field has saved us the travel trouble and has come right here in our own area!

You see, Christ does not need us in order for Him to receive His honor. Following His death on the cross, by which He destroyed the devil and murdered death itself, He rose from the dead in magnificent glory and almighty power. And then, when He comes straight to you, the sinner, He holds out His nail-marked hand and says, Your sins and your rebellion against me are all forgiven! Be free, and allow me to fill you with my flesh and blood and make you my holy temple. I will revive and restore your sin-sick body and soul with my glorious and vibrant resurrected body and Spirit. And for you simply to receive such a gift from your Lord Jesus is really to give Him all honor in heaven and on earth. For it is not your holiness and good deeds nor your involvement in worship that renders Him honor, even if you were the holiest and most pious. Instead, He is truly honored when you say Amen, it shall be so, Amen, the gift is received.

And so, you too have the honor that belongs only to Jesus, because He dwells in you and you in Him. You have His honor because you have His Word, His all-powerful Word. It is the same Word that He gave to those disciples whom He sent out to teach right after the story of His rejection. You would think that those twelve preachers would be discouraged right after that negative encounter happened in Nazareth. And no doubt that those apostles faced plenty of rejection themselves. Many of them would suffer the ultimate persecution of martyrdom, not long after Jesus ascended into heaven. But they had God’s Word on their lips and in their hearts. And right away Christ was accomplishing through those men the same things He was doing Himself. So you, as God’s holy people, have that same powerful Word entering your ears this very day. And as you receive that Word and all the forgiveness, life and salvation that that Word brings, your Lord is honored and glorified.

God continues to give His Word into the mouths of His New Testament prophets and servants of the Word. Many new pastors are being ordained this summer. They too will learn that honor will come from the most unlikely of places, but most of all it springs from the Word that they will have no other choice but to preach and from the Holy Sacraments that they must administer following the commands of Jesus. Without this, they would have no honor, even from the poor souls they seem to help, because without the Word of God they would be no better than missionaries of the devil. But through all the trials, and despite the many and various “thorns in the flesh,” they may have to suffer, Christ’s honor and power will be made complete and perfect in the weakness of this world. As a despised and rejected Christian who boasts not in yourself but in the power of God hidden in weakness, you too will be not without honor.

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

Readings:

Isaiah 53 Surely He has borne our griefs

Ezek. 2:1–5 you shall say to them ‘Thus says the LORD God!’
Ps. 123 as the eyes of the servants look to the hand of their masters, … So our eyes look to the LORD our God,
2 Cor. 12:1–10 a thorn in the flesh … My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.
Mark 6:1–13 A prophet is not without honor…out two by two

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

The Book of Lamentations comes from a very dark time in the history of God’s people. This was when God finally punished His people for all their wickedness, for all those generations who bowed down to idols and went chasing after other gods. He sent an army from another country to defeat their forces, destroy the city of Jerusalem, including the temple, and carry off survivors into exile. It is an ancient funeral song, a song that mourns the profound loss these people experienced.

What did it mean for these people that their temple was leveled to the ground? It was much more than a severe economic loss, even considering all the tons of gold that King Solomon had used as though it were wallpaper in this massive building, not to mention the gold and bronze altar and lampstands. It cost the people more than their pride, more than their ethnic identity. This was the Temple: God’s set aside place to be with His people. Through the temple and its sacrifices, the Israelites received God’s forgiveness for their sins, and through the temple, God heard their prayers. But not anymore—this connection with God seems to be all gone, and His people are lamenting. The words of Psalm 90 could have come to mind as the foreign army ransacked the place, words like “We have been consumed by Your anger, O Lord, and by Your wrath we are terrified.” They felt consumed, eaten up, by God’s dreadful punishment.

Yet Jeremiah, the writer of this funeral song, changes his tone. Today’s reading from Lamentations follows a section where the author seems to hit rock bottom in utter despair. At such a dire moment, when nothing seems to make sense, when questions are left unanswered, when you feel consumed by the problems of this life, that’s the moment when you see God’s promises come through. When you place your hope in Him alone, you see that His mercies are new every morning, and though He causes grief, yet He will show compassion.

For God’s great love for you is not located in any specific building anymore like the temple. It is located instead in a person, Jesus Christ, the Son of God sent from heaven to be our Savior. Only His sacrifice on the cross can pay for your sin and the sin of the whole world. All the blood of lambs, goats and bulls that was offered at the temple building was a mere shadow of the true blood of sacrifice, the blood that flowed from God’s own wounds as He was nailed to that cross. Only one drop of that precious blood is all that is needed to take your sins away and restore you to life with God. But Jesus has poured out that blood generously upon you ever since you were baptized.

You see, God the Father had every right to punish you, just like He punished the Israelites. He took away their temple and had the invading Gentiles carry them off into exile. You have sinned against your Lord, too—but it is even deeper than the bad stuff you do. You are a sinner, corrupted with this disease ever since you were conceived in your mother’s womb. It is your human nature to think of yourself first, to set up barriers against other people, especially members of your own family, and whatever peace you want, well, that has to be on your terms or it’s no peace at all. You, like your ancestors Adam and Eve before you, are not normally content simply receiving God’s love.

And this is also why you and I tend to see bad things in our lives and setbacks as God’s punishment. You may have questioned to yourself, what have I done wrong to deserve all of this? Why doesn’t my family get along together? Why is life so difficult for me, and not for some other people? In short, you feel consumed, eaten up by the reality of life. Have you been in a similar position to the synagogue leader Jairus, the one who came to Jesus pleading for the life of his daughter? He was frantic, fighting through the crowd that had assembled at the lakeshore, he didn’t care if Jesus was going to be troubled or not—he wanted his twelve-year-old to see the age of thirteen. That’s what mattered to him.

Or think of the sick woman who came up to Jesus as He was walking through the crowd to Jairus’ house. Twelve years of constant blood discharge, and all the suffering and doctors she endured-that would be a health care plan none of us would like! Not to mention that her feminine issues banned her from God’s house, due to ceremonial uncleanness. It would be very easy for her to think that the merciful Lord had excused her forever from His mercy!

Then the horrible news reached Jairus—your daughter is dead. And this was the part that hurt the most—why trouble the Teacher any further! First of all, Jesus never told Jairus that He was troubled. Someone else labeled Jesus incorrectly. That was the unbeliever, whoever it was. That was the person who didn’t take Jesus seriously, that all His miracles were just games or psychological tricks. His Word didn’t seem to that person to be powerful at all. It is hideous to think that you and I have treated our Lord this way, but in our fears, anxieties and outright sins, we too have told others, don’t bother with Jesus. He’s not going to help you. I’m not sure I want to help you. I doubt I can do anything to help myself! This is too much like carrying a cross. I don’t like it.

And that’s because you try to rely on yourself and your strength and your ideas of what God does. I do too. When your efforts fall flat, then you get that terrible feeling that even God Himself can’t get you out of this one. Sure, you may certainly try to make it work on your own for a while, but in the end you realize that there is nothing you can do to avoid a life under the cross.

But the cross is where it all makes sense. On the cross you see your Savior Jesus and what He has done to rescue you from this world, and even from your sinful self. Through Christ and Him crucified, you find out the good news that Lamentations has it right after all: “Because of the Lord’s tender mercies, we are not consumed, His compassions fail not.” This saying is not just some trite motto that you can recite over and over again and you’ll start feeling better. You can truly say in any trial or trouble that you are not consumed because the Son of God was punished.

He was consumed by Divine anger and punishment in your place, for your sins. The life under the cross is your joy instead of your burden—and not merely because you’ve had a simple “attitude adjustment.” Your sinful “Old Adam,” as it’s often called, is killed, drowned in the water of your baptism. You, as a new Man (and I mean Man with a capital M, meaning Christ Himself who is permeated within you) you as a new Man rise each day from that watery grave to live a new life in righteousness and holiness before God. He sees not your rotten, sinful self but He sees His own Son Jesus standing there whenever He looks upon you.

When the woman was healed of her bleeding problem, Jesus stopped and looked for her. He didn’t want to embarrass her or even make an example. He wanted to encourage her growing faith so that it would remain centered on Him. That’s why you need to keep coming to Jesus for your healing, and bring others in real life as well as in your prayers for them, so that our Great Physician can heal them, too, in body and in soul. When Jairus was devastated with the news of his daughter’s death and the despairing words, why trouble the Teacher?—Jesus comforted him with, “Do not fear—only believe.” This illness would not consume the little girl. It would consume Jesus instead on the day when He was nailed to the cross.

Your God, the Blessed Holy Trinity, desires to dwell within you as His Holy Temple. Again, no building is going to do; your Lord wishes to be closer to you than that. And so He who spared you from being consumed, He who offered up the sacrificial temple of His body on the cross now invites you to consume Him. Eat up your Jesus with your ears in the Gospel word that you hear this day. Come with joy to this holy table (whenever you have the blessed opportunity) to eat His body and drink His blood in one confession of the true faith with one another. For by the Lord’s tender mercies, you are not consumed. And yet as you consume Him, you have the strength and faith from Him to face any earthly trial and cross. You can then trust in the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of your frail body and the life everlasting as your gift that can never be taken away.

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

Readings:
Psalm 90:3-12 we have been consumed by your anger v.7

Lam. 3:22–33 They are new every morning; Great is your faithfulness
Ps. 30 Your brought my soul up from the grave.
2 Cor. 8:1–9, 13–15 the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia
Mark 5:21–43 Jairus’ daughter; woman with the flow of blood

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

O People of God, fellow-citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem! John the Baptist was born into this world for you! In this wilderness of disease and destruction, in this morass where you hear there’s no real truth, just people’s personal opinions, you must listen more carefully than ever for a clear, pure voice speaking out. You need a preacher who is not afraid to tell you how it really is for you, no matter how much it might hurt. And considering that we’re all miserable sinners and every day we battle the desire to serve the self, most often the truth is going to be painful to hear. But someone who stands as a spokesman for God, then decides to change what he says based on how it might go over, such a preacher will do you no favors.

What you need is a preacher, a “voice crying out in the wilderness,” a “prophet of the Most High.” You need to listen for the pure words of Law and Gospel for the forgiveness of your sins. The church cannot afford to have a reed that is shaken by the wind. Instead, you are much better served by a man called by God who preaches the same, unchanging Word, whether he fits your ideal “mold” or not, whether or not you can easily get along with him. You must hear from this preacher’s voice the clarion call to repent! You desperately need John the Baptist, because your need for repentance is urgent.

Through this bold, yet quirky man of God, the Lord fed His people with His wholesome Word, even though his own body was sustained by a meager diet of locusts and honey. John’s preaching was really the voice of God Himself, and God’s people of all times and places hear His voice and follow Him, even into the forbidding wilderness, where he was given his pulpit. Now, the hymns and readings today may sound to you like they’re out of place—that’s understandable. We associate John with the season of Advent, because his message is the perfect preparation for the coming of Christ in the flesh, whether as the baby of Bethlehem, the mighty Judge at the end of time, or in hidden form under bread and wine today at the altar. But you and I are sinners all year long. We constantly need to repent.

All sorts of people came to listen to John in his lifetime, and he didn’t care what public opinion was of him. He stayed focused on the Word of God that he was called to preach, and on His Lord Jesus Christ in whom he delighted, even from the time when he was still a fetus in his mother’s womb. This faithful shepherd in the wilderness preaches “a baptism of repentance,” meaning that his preaching and baptism was doing something in the hearts of all who listened. His Holy Spirit-inspired words were leading people to turn away from their sins and receive God’s forgiveness that is freely given in the waters of Holy Baptism. All who listen to this baptism-oriented preaching to this very day are pointed to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. John preaches to you, too. You have been baptized. Repent, be ready to receive Jesus, even though it’s still six months from Christmas Eve.

The world around you in the light of God’s Law is nothing but wilderness, and your own sinful nature within you is a spiritual wasteland, full of unbelief and despair. The word of God coming from the mouth of John is the food and drink that you need to live. Repent, confess your sins and receive Jesus who comes to you today, and who will come again at the Last Day.

“Comfort, comfort,” that’s what God also says through His preacher to you, His people. That means all is not lost. Be comforted, you who mourn. Be comforted, you who are anxious and in need of our Lord’s loving hand. For you cannot deceive yourself into thinking that things will get better all on their own. You cannot imagine that you can pull yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again. You are attacked daily by the devil’s sharp arrows accusing you of your sins and trying to convince you that God does not care. By yourself you could not withstand such a barrage. But be comforted, God does care for you, and not because you now finally do what God wants you to do, but because He has reached out in mercy to you, poor miserable sinner that you are. He loved you too much to leave you alone to do whatever your human nature wanted or believe whatever was just your own opinion.

God will comfort you, this you can know for certain. However, be aware that you will not feel comfortable. Remember, it is the Lord’s comfort, not the comfort you expect from this world. You can work and struggle to achieve a comfortable way of life for you and your family. You could look for comfort in all sorts of things that you think will make your life more fulfilling, but in the end it’s all an illusion. You won’t reach lasting comfort in these things—only God out of His undeserved mercy and love—only He gives you true comfort in His Word.

But consider the comfort that He proclaims to you—it sounds strange falling on human ears. In Isaiah 40, the Lord informs us that the preacher we need talks about iniquity, the guilt that is left over from sin. It is the sense of God’s judgment hanging over you because He is righteous and holy and you are sinful and unclean. Talking about your sin surely doesn’t give you any comfort. Who wants to be reminded of the wrongs they have done in the past? God’s call to repentance sounds harsh, too. Turn away from your sins, you haven’t lived with the constant attitude that God is first in your life. Too often, other things have taken His place, but your complete trust needs to be in Him alone. At first hearing, the comfort of God doesn’t sound comforting at all.

However, by talking of sin and iniquity and the need to repent, God is constructing a straight, level road in the rocky, forbidding wilderness where you are. The reason why you need to hear and admit that you are by nature sinful and unclean is so that you would be truly comforted with these words: Your sins are forgiven. Your iniquity is pardoned. You are the spiritual inhabitants of the New Jerusalem, our Lord’s heavenly kingdom of peace and you have received from the Lord’s hand double for all your sins. But double what? Double the punishment? No, certainly not. The punishment is already gone—that has been laid upon Jesus and paid in full for you on the cross. Instead, it is double the grace: first, that your sins are taken away and the slate is clean, and second, that Christ joins Himself to you and in God’s sight you are just as holy and righteous as He is. That is what it’s all about: receiving from the Lord’s hand double blessing in exchange for all of your sins.

Rejoice, you are sinner no more, because John was born for your repentance, then the time was perfect for Jesus to be born for your salvation. You have found food in the wilderness—it is the comforting words of God’s forgiveness given to you through Jesus Christ. The Lord is your shepherd; he is feeding you in the wilderness through John the Baptist, just as He fed His people of old. The same baptism of repentance that John preached, the baptism that forgives your sins, this gift of the Holy Spirit is what you can claim for your very own inheritance. This baptism is none other than the Lord’s comfort to them and to you that sins are forgiven and God’s people are rescued from the devil’s wilderness, saved from the deadly snare of unbelief.

Your Lord Jesus gives you real food and drink every time you kneel at this altar and eat His Body and drink His true blood. This is not spiritual “comfort food” or merely a fine reminder that everything will be all right. This food brings true comfort, the comfort that comes from sins that are forgiven. Your heart is really turned around so that you love and trust in God above all things. This is the food that sustains you in the wilderness, and ushers you into the blessed presence of your Savior. Though you may find yourself at times in a spiritually barren wasteland, attacked by the constant temptations of the devil and plagued with worry and despair, you will not starve, you will not be harmed. The Lord is your shepherd and you shall not want—you shall lack no good thing. You are His sheep, and you are precious to Him because He has washed you in the saving waters of Baptism and made you His own. God is constantly concerned over the health and safety of your soul and body. He will not let go of you. And through His called servants of the Word, He will guide you with His Word and promises in the paths of righteousness, through the wilderness of this life, that you may dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

So you see, you are blessed to have John the Baptist come into this world for your benefit. In him you have a humble servant of God who loves you enough to proclaim to you the truth, even when it hurts. Confess your sins, renounce the devil and all his works and all his ways, for no matter what time of the year it is, you can never have Christmas-style joy without Advent-style repentance. Soon the highway through the wilderness of this sin-stricken world will be complete. And when the glory of the Lord is revealed, and all flesh finally sees it together, you will then fully know the riches of God’s heavenly grace that are your hidden possession right now.

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

Readings:
Is. 40:1–5 Comfort my people … voice of one crying in the wilderness
Ps. 85 Mercy and Truth have met…Righteousness and Peace have kissed.
Acts 13:13–26 to you the word of this salvation has been sent
Luke 1:57–80 Nativity of John the Baptist

Job 38:1–11 Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge? … Where were you …?
Ps. 124 Our soul has escaped as a bird from the snare … the snare is broken
2 Cor. 6:1–13 We…plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain.
Mark 4:35–41 windstorm … in the stern, asleep…