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

Have you ever met an indifferent farmer? I would think it would be quite difficult in that line of work not to care about what’s going on in the fields, what the weather is doing, when seed time and harvest time will arrive and so forth. To be sure, there can be a handful of bad farmers, and they are thoroughly gripped in fear and anxiety over losing everything, since they are so self-deceived that they can control everything about farming, yet when reality hits home and the natural struggles and frustrations set in, they cannot cope with it and they yearn with great longing to be rid of the whole business. Most good farmers are well aware of now “not-in-control” they really are, they do their best, do a little venting of frustration with like-minded compatriots, and proceed as best they know how, not presuming that their own efforts can manipulate too much of what’s already going to come out in the end, no matter what. To us with our busy schedules, that may look somewhat like an indifferent attitude, but in fact these good farmers are keeping their minds on the most important things, not letting them get crowded out by the side-stuff or the things they cannot control.

I think this may be a big reason why Jesus uses fishing and farming so many times to describe the work of the Church’s ministry. As former fishermen, or maybe fish harvesters, Peter, James and John as well as their dad Zebedee would have been well aware of being not-in-control of their results. Witness the first and last catch of fish that they hauled in thanks to Jesus’ miraculous words. Both times they had caught nothing all night, then boom! The jackpot of all yields. If at any time these gentlemen in the fishing vocation had imagined their techniques and personal willpower and persistence would amount to a hill of beans, when it came to bringing in fish, then utter anxiety and unbridled frustration would have taken them over.

So I then ask you: in your daily life both in your vocation and as part of Christ’s Church on earth, are you indifferent? Do you think or act in such a way sometimes that what Jesus has to say to you in His Word matters neither here nor there? Then let the parable of the sower of seeds instruct you. Because God’s true and perfect Word cannot let you remain indifferent. The seed that Christ the sower plants will sprout, but your faith will die and you risk getting thrown into the eternal fire if you keep yourself disconnected from the nourishment He provides you. Indifference to doctrine like that is downright dangerous for your soul.

Or is it possible that you have been overcome in anxiety? Do you see the things to which you look for strength falling down around you, so that it concerns you to the point of despair? Will my family hold together, should tragedy strike? Will there ever be fruitful reconciliation with that other person now that we’re avoiding each other? Will the Church live on to see another day in the increasingly tenuous situations in which we find ourselves this day and age? If that is the case in your heart, then remember from the parable that the seed of God’s Word grows you know not how, and perhaps you could consider yet one more analogy, this time coming from the Apostle St. Paul.

Paul made tents, and also possibly constructed shade awnings for marketplaces and sports venues. As he traveled far and wide as an Apostle in a relatively short time, he could have paid his way at least partially by means of his first trade. Whether he continued tentmaking or not, he wrote comforting words to the Christians in the Greek city of Corinth by speaking of our life in the flesh in this present world as dwelling in a tent. Mind you, this is not the fun, temporary summer diversion that gets somebody out in nature, curled up in a sleeping bag, separated from the canopy of stars (and the occasional rain shower!) by a mere layer of Scotch-guarded cloth. Paul’s words in this context imply that a tent is an inconvenience, a lesser-desired situation than a sturdy, well-built house. People, including fathers, enjoy camping partly because they know deep down that they don’t have to remain living that way! When a tent is all you have for a long period of time, then it starts to become a burden. You then yearn for thicker walls, air conditioning, and far less biting insects.

Now, the Corinthians were facing great trials as a new church. In their young history as a Christian congregation, they had been attacked by party factions, pagan infiltration, and even a notorious sexual indiscretion within their own membership. Paul had heard all about this and wrote his two epistles to them, and perhaps some other letters, to answer their many difficulties, sometimes chastising them with divine Law, other times comforting them with the Gospel. It is clear that he could identify with what they were going through, and described it perfectly, saying, “In this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling…” Life wasn’t getting any easier for these new Christians, and many of them were being driven to despair because they could not control what was happening to them, and they were seeing no end in sight. They were yearning for something better than that inferior tent in which they were living.

Is that feeling any different for you? Don’t you find yourself longing for something better? Are you groaning under the burden of this inferior tent? Whether it’s the limitations of the physical body, signs of illness, handicap or age, or struggles in vocation or human relationships, or even spiritual battles against evil and falsehood; no matter what, sometimes life would seem so much better if you were rid of this temporary tent. Paul himself, especially in the epistles of his later age, spoke of his desire to depart this life and be with Christ, for that is much better (see Phil. 1:23). Yet even if it isn’t specifically death you are thinking about, there are other ways you may be tempted to try in order to grant yourself some relief.

Notice, however, the advice that Paul does give to the Corinthian congregation. He never chides them for “groaning” in their tents, that is, letting their heart pour out in prayer to God and in mutual consolation toward one another. Here he includes himself, groaning right along with them, even speaking of himself and his colleagues in ministry as “beside ourselves” or out of our minds, yet due to his office and responsibility as a preacher of the Word to his hearers, Paul knows there also comes a time when he must adopt a calmer perspective and be, so to speak, “in our right minds for your sake.” Just like the farmers and the fishermen who commiserate amongst themselves, yet when they speak to someone on the outside, such as myself, it doesn’t sound quite the same, not because they’re hiding anything from me, it’s just I wouldn’t be able to empathize quite as well as I would if I were in the same situation.

Yet there still is a warning that you should take care to note from St. Paul. In your moments of yearning and groaning in this world’s tent, you should not forget where your courage and confidence comes from. In other words, in your praying and even complaining to the Lord, don’t neglect His rock-solid promises to you in His Word. The Lord’s own personal guarantee, the deposit or down-payment toward His greater blessings that are to come, is all yours because the Holy Spirit was poured out on you when you were baptized. Because when ordinary water combined with God’s Word and was applied upon you in the name of Father Son and Holy Spirit, then your mortal and sinful being was swallowed up by Life. You were then assured of a greater dwelling, of being further clothed, that is, having a better physical body at the time of the resurrection of the dead, being fully rid of sin for good, once this short time of battle against the flesh comes to its completion.

When you forget these wonderful things, you lose your God-given confidence, and you try to fill its place with a self-centered or idolatrous confidence in something other than God. You prefer make your home in the body, the temporary, worldly things that you can see and experience here and now, but due to your sinful nature, when you’re at home in the body, you are away from the Lord. In a sudden urge to control whatever is happening to you, you end up either deceiving yourself, throwing your hands up in despair, or retreating into a numbing indifference. For whether it is indifference or anxiety, it is still the same problem, the same sinful rebellion we stage against God and choose our own way. Even upstanding, well-meaning Christians may think they need to work harder at cultivating a holy life in themselves, but the sin they keep seeing at the worst possible times creeps out and the devil uses it to accuse and cause further frustration and discouragement. Just ask the fishermen and farmers how tough it is to stay positive. Maybe this has affected you at certain times in your life.

But do not fear. God has prepared you for this very thing. Do not doubt that He Himself has washed you clean and pure. Confess your sins to Him, use your pastor in private confession if you want, pour out your soul in personal prayer to your heavenly Father, as Paul and even our Lord Jesus Himself tended to do. Reject walking by sight, by what you experience and feel, and return to faith and trust in your Savior, who has promised He will not let you go, despite what appearances may tell you. Keep your mind off the side details and remember the more important things. Rejoice that in Christ, and you have been “in Christ” ever since the day you were baptized, you are a new creation. You have been set free from the old, passing away world that is like an inferior tent. Rather, the new has come for you, a piece of the future heavenly dwelling laid out on this table for you to eat and drink from the Body and Blood of Jesus your Savior. And with this confident faith in Him who died for all, you also have been given true Christian love for all. It is impossible as a new creation merely to live for yourself or remain indifferent, but rather you serve your neighbor, not because you need to do these things to please God, but because it is now your greatest honor that as a forgiven sinner whether farmer, fisher, tentmaker, or baptized Christian, you are perfectly pleasing to God, and you are headed from this earthly tent to a heavenly dwelling, a house not made with hands.

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

Readings:
Ezek. 17:22–24 I, the LORD, have brought down the high tree and exalted the low tree
Ps. 1 like a tree planted by the rivers of water
2 Cor. 5:1–17 the Spirit as a guarantee … we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ … in Christ, he is a new creation
Mark 4:26–34 as if a man should scatter seed … … a mustard seed

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

The strong man first crept through the lush terrain of paradise as he sought out his innocent prey in a “search and destroy” mission. He saw the man and the woman standing there in the garden. He knew he’d have to fight them with great tact and subtlety, for a full frontal assault would probably fail to entice them over to his side. So the strong man turned his attention first to the woman as he approached her in a serpentine sort of way. He spoke to her lovingly and reassuringly—using the words of his greatest Enemy, the Stronger Man—twisting those words until they sounded enticing and attractive. Then he outright contradicted them.

In this battle, the woman fell first, while the man followed closely behind her, all because of the strong man’s persuasive forked-tongue. He spoke to them lie after lie, and passed each one off as a Word better than God’s Word. Suddenly, right there in the garden, this strong man found God, His greatest Enemy, standing face to face with him—looking no less powerful or glorious than He had ever looked—and that in spite of the rebellion in progress. Because the strong man’s Nemesis was hardly weak of Himself, on that day His countenance and words told the story of both wrath and mercy, sin and grace, Law and Gospel.

There in the Garden of Eden, on the same day as the strong man’s victory over the highest of all creatures, his enemy the Stronger Man began to outline His battle plan. God didn’t bother to conceal His strategy, nor did the devil accidentally overhear it. Rather He boldly and openly declared this plan directly to the Serpent, to the strong man himself. He said to him, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed. He shall crush your head, and you shall bruise His heel.” This was not some sort of hopeful wish or blustery trash-talking. Rather, God spoke a promise. In fact, He spoke The Promise. He spoke it directly to the devil, and He told him exactly how one day he would be utterly defeated.

Of course, that strong man would have you think otherwise. He’d like you to believe that it’s he who has the power—not just over you but over all things—that it’s he who tempts you away from the Lord God and His good and gracious will. When you’re sick or in despair, it’s that satanic strong man who whispers in your ear to try to convince you God has no real love for you. He tries to convince you that you no longer have any need for God when life is good, and that he’s the one who’s given you everything you have. He makes sin and temptation so enticing, then goads you to leave the Word behind and decide for yourself what’s good and right for you. This has been his effective strategy from the beginning, and you were bound to his power.

For although he knows he’ll never win the war, the strong man’s desire is to lure and keep from Christ as many of us as he can—as he goes down in defeat. The strong man’s greatest pleasure, then, is when he’s able to entice one of God’s own to leave the kingdom and be lost with him forever. On the surface it almost sounds ludicrous that anyone would follow this strong man. But just consider our world around us. See how many have already forsaken the one true God in favor of the devil. Just think how many might be lost in the future to his damning lie. Then, finally, take a look at yourself and heed God’s warning: You’re no match for the strong man. That’s why you have to keep your eyes focused on the promise God made to us all in the Garden of Eden that day: that the Seed of the woman would one day come to do battle with the strong man—that the strong man would bruise His heel like a cowardly serpent hiding in the weeds waiting for his prey—but more importantly, that the Seed of the woman would crush the strong man’s head in fulfillment of the promise. In other words, that the Seed of the woman would be the Stronger Man.

You no longer have to look forward in time to the fulfillment of that promise made in Genesis 3:15. No, we rejoice that this Stronger Man has already come. The promised Seed of the woman was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and born of the Virgin Mary. He’s Jesus, and He’s clearly the Stronger Man that He was talking about. He healed a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath. By mighty words and deeds He’s proven Himself to be that promised Savior, the Son of God, and the Stronger Man. That’s why the Scribes and Pharisees—those unwilling to repent and place their trust in Him—instead conspired together in hopes of destroying Him. He was “too good to be true.” Or more like, for those Pharisees, He was too good to be tolerated!

And so the strong man, the devil, went about his guerilla warfare of attacking the Stronger Man. He incited Jesus’ own people to doubt Him, and thus they came to take Him away, believing Him to be out of His mind. “He has Beelzebub,” they said, and “By the power of demons He casts out demons.” That was the exact opposite of the truth. He was no slave of the ancient serpent. He hadn’t come to bring people to hell for Satan, but to defeat that strong man once and for all. He asked: “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand… No one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods,” Jesus reminded them, “unless he first binds the strong man. Then he can plunder his house.”

The Stronger Man, you see, is no slave of the devil, but He came instead to bind him, tie him up, and rob him of his power over you. In fulfillment of His Word He came to tie up the satanic strong man and plunder his house and goods. How did He tie up the strong man—and how does He plunder his house? And here’s the genius of this amazing victory.

It’s not what we would have expected, because His power is made perfect in weakness, the Stronger Man fulfilled the ancient promise and defeated the devil by submitting to death on the cross. He suffered for the sins of the world. He bore upon Himself the wrath of God for the iniquity of us all. He trusted that even though on the cross the Father would forsake Him and judge Him for our sin, He would also raise Him to ultimate victory. We must continually point out to one another, and also to the world, that the strength and power of Christ the Stronger Man is His death. That’s how He ties up the strong man. He suffers for the sin of the whole world and dies, but death cannot hold Him in the grave. By His resurrection He shows that it’s the strong man who’s really been bound, and that Satan is the one who finally has no power at all!

Death, then, is how the Stronger Man accomplished his victory, and He plunders the house through the forgiveness of sins. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Stronger Man, has stolen you away from Satan by taking your sin away. He died for it on the cross, and now He freely offers forgiveness to you through the Word you hear today. In the Divine Service week after week, He continues to plunder the strong man’s home with glorious shouts of victory. Whenever you hear Christ’s words saying, “I Baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Those few words—together with a splash of water—sweep away the devil and his hold on you. With words of forgiveness announced through His called pastors, He regularly proclaims to you how you’re forgiven of all of your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Your sins are loosed from you like broken shackles, and the strong man is bound. And, of course, the Stronger Man has yet one more battle cry: “Take and eat, this is My Body…take and drink, this is My Blood…given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins.” Where Christ is, you see, the devil must flee, for a divided house cannot stand.

This rescue is yours to believe and trust in, but Christ the Stronger Man doesn’t force His forgiveness on anyone. He simply offers it as a free gift and as a statement of His love. Yet the devil twists even this. He still convinces people that, while the Lord offers grace, they ought to refuse His gifts and go their own way, believe what they want to believe, do what they want to do. “This,” the devil whispers, “this is true freedom!”—when really it’s slavery of the worst kind.

Those who forsake God’s Word, you see, give up on forgiveness itself. The person who says he has no need of worship, the Word, or Communion is actually saying that he has no need for the work of The Holy Spirit! This, as Jesus says, blasphemes the Holy Spirit, and a rejecter of God will not be forgiven, and not because God isn’t merciful or He’s mad at them, but it’s because the unrepentant sinner is saying “No!” to the very mercy God offers.

Though the devil has already lost the war, he still longs for you to return to his house, and with him suffer his defeat and condemnation forever. He whispers in your ear that you’re no match for him, because, after all, he’s the strong man. And he’s right! You are no match for him! Compared to you, he’s still much too strong for you to defeat. But the fact is, while the devil may be the strong man, our Lord Jesus Christ is the Stronger Man. By Christ’s death, Satan’s been bound and rendered powerless. Today in the forgiveness of sins, Christ has once again plundered the devil’s house. He triumphantly says: “You are no longer dead in sin. I died for you. I’ve forgiven you. My kingdom is yours, and you are Mine.”

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

Readings:
Gen. 3:8–15 And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking
Ps. 130 My soul waits for the Lord
2 Cor. 4:13—5:1 we have a building from God, a house not made with hands
Mark 3:20–35 if a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. … whoever does the will of God is My brother…sister…mother

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

Did you know that most Jews enjoyed observing the Sabbath? You might have thought at first that, with all the restrictions and all the things that one could not do on the Sabbath, that this weekly observance would be resented by those who were forced by their religious traditions to stop everything they had going on in the week and do nothing, or at least it would be next to nothing. But the Sabbath, also known as Shabbat, is actually embraced and treasured by the devout Jew. I read a little bit from an interesting book that Senator Joe Lieberman recently published in which he describes in detail his family’s Shabbat rituals and encourages people of all faiths to adopt a kind of rest from everyday work. He admits that there were some Friday evenings when he had to walk four miles home in downpouring rain when he had to stay at the Capitol after sundown and his orthodox Jewish Sabbath tradition forbade him even to ride in a car during those sacred hours. He stunned a reporter who caught him buying flowers every week for the Sabbath dinner table, and she assumed he was the most romantic congressman in Washington. One of our own members grew up in a Jewish home and she recalls very fond memories observing Shabbat, taking a break from ordinary life and enjoying all that God has given out of His bountiful goodness. She also recalled those embarrassing moments when friends would confront her at school and ask her why she was not allowed to answer the phone on Saturdays. The Sabbath was sacred, and oddly enough, the strict discipline it required seemed to most Jews to be a joy.

Then you see these Pharisees constantly hounding after Jesus on the Sabbath, wagging their fingers as it were and telling Him what He cannot do on this particular day of the week. It doesn’t appear from this reading that they would have enjoyed the Sabbath day at all. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to conclude that they hated Jesus more than they loved Shabbat. Yet Jesus seemed to do most of His great healing works specifically on the Sabbath. The Bible records at least seven occurrences when this question of healing and restoring on God’s Holy Day pops up. Notice how Jesus heals here: he told the man with a withered hand just to stretch it out, and it was healed, again, on the Sabbath. What do the Pharisees then do? They boil with anger against the Messiah who had struck them silent with His undeniable logic and they make their plans to kill Him—it’s not at all the joyful response that the rest of the crowd had!

The two places in the Old Testament that establish the Lord’s Commandment to observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy are in Exodus and in Deuteronomy. Each place gives a slightly different reason for having the Sabbath. In Exodus, the reason is tied to our Lord’s Creation of the world: “For in six days the Lord your God created the heavens and the earth… and rested on the seventh day.” But the second time around, in Deuteronomy, Moses makes the people of Israel recall another big act that the Lord has done—He saved them. “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.” This was what we heard in our Old Testament reading today. These two mighty works are what we focus on whenever we gather for worship, or when we study God’s Word on our own: God made us and He saved us for everlasting life. Both of these are tied to the rest that He has graciously decided to give us, that is, our Sabbath rest.

The Sabbath Day, you must understand, is not just a mere bygone relic of Old Testament history. Nor is it only the peculiar social oddity of certain people who have a different religious heritage than we. The Sabbath Day turns out to be not a day at all, but it is our Lord Jesus Himself, who has come among us in the words of forgiveness we hear Him speak to us. Sabbath isn’t our taking time for church or other acceptable holy activities, really, but it is Our Lord blessing us with a little piece of what we can expect when this life is over and our final burdens of life are laid down, and we will be with the Lord in His new creation after He returns at the end of time. We have rest not because of how diligent we were with our talents, time and treasure, but it’s because we received a precious gift from the Lord who wanted to give to us out of His rich abundance. How can you not enjoy and constantly look forward to that, and make it the most important thing in your life? That would be my challenge to you today.

You know, Jesus made a powerful statement here that sometimes we overlook because it sounds so simple and logical: the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. That is a good thing for us sinners! For if man were made for the Sabbath, and it were not the other way around, then the Sabbath would entirely depend on how well we kept it. Our works would have to be the cause of our everlasting life, and the forgiveness earned by Jesus when He died on the cross would turn to dust. We would be lost forever, since God’s Law continually condemns us for not measuring up to the requirements our Heavenly Father has imposed upon us in the Ten Commandments. If man were made for the Sabbath, the third Commandment would still be about what day you worship and how perfectly you worshiped. We would be following the Jews and the Seventh Day Adventists to a despairing end for us all, because no one, with us included, would be able to find their way to eternal life.

But oh, how blessed it is that the Sabbath was made for man, and more than that, rejoice that Jesus, the Son of Man, is Lord of the Sabbath! That means He’s not just in charge of a particular day, and we acknowledge Him that one day and leave the rest of the week to make ourselves into our god. No, Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath and He created the Sabbath of forgiveness, of everlasting mercy, of rest for your souls that are weary with sin, with hurt, with guilt, with all our burdens that you could never carry. But Jesus has already said to you: Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you… Shabbat– rest! He’s the Lord of the Sabbath, and the Sabbath is His gift to you, a cup overflowing with forgiveness and life!

Yes, taking a break after a long week of work has a practical benefit for your body, as you can read in those popular books. It may be worthwhile to you to follow that advice for sanity’s sake and turn down those temptations to make every time away into a “working vacation.” Yuck! However, the greater point is the spiritual benefit that is not only for your body, but for your soul as well. No matter what day is set aside, what makes it a Sabbath and a holy rest to the Lord is to believe in Jesus, who created you and saved you. It is easy to be impressed with the high level of devotion that is exhibited for us by the orthodox Jews, the pious Seventh Day Adventists, even by the Christian runner in the movie Chariots of Fire, who wouldn’t compete in the Olympics because he would have to run on a Sunday. But all that intense devotion and self-sacrifice falls flat if there’s no faith in Jesus that trusts in His gift of the forgiveness of sins.

The Pharisees’ short-sighted criticism of Jesus is easy for us to point out and ridicule, but that self-centered, legalistic, sour-faced approach to the Sabbath and all our worship of God is found inside each one of us. We make a whole lot more out of the efforts we do and the sacrifices we make, about do this, don’t do that, while at the same time we are tempted to disregard or resent the greatest of Sabbath gifts that is right here in front of us. We have been trained in the six days of our toilsome work to be impressed by results, by measurable successes, by outdoing one another to get ahead. But on the Sabbath, which now in our Christian circles is better called the Lord’s Day, it’s completely the opposite. Instead we are called upon to deny ourselves and our hard-working, sacrificing, constantly doing human nature and turn our complete attention to Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath who has graciously come among us. When it comes to God’s gifts, don’t just do something, sit there! Receive, and not work, for in receiving from Jesus what He wants to give you, that is the greatest way to worship and observe your Sabbath rest.

Imagine yourselves walking with Jesus and alongside those disciples in the grain field. Pick the grain that stands here today for you. King David and his men were famished with hunger and they needed the priests’ holy bread to sustain them on their God-pleasing journey. On this table laid out before you today is an even greater bread of Christ’s presence; it has come to you without toil or price tag. You are hungry, exhausted with the burdens of your previous week, but even more burdened with sin and the weight of what this world keeps throwing at you. Your hand may not be withered and useless, but your soul has been shriveled up with all that has caused you anxiety and pain. Stretch out your hand to take the blessed gift of forgiveness, and you shall be restored! Observe Shabbat, not merely in your outward actions and reverent routines, whatever practices you may choose to do, but most importantly, with a joyful heart that is eager to receive forgiveness from Jesus, and with that forgiveness, reconciliation and renewal for another week that your heavenly Father lays before you in the work He has given you to do for your neighbor. Rejoice! Your Lord has made you and He has saved you. Jesus is your Sabbath, and His perfect rest is yours now, and eternal, uninterrupted enjoyment of God’s gifts is yet ahead.

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

Readings:
Leviticus 24:5-9 the showbread
I Sam. 21:1-6 David and the showbread
Ex. 20:8-11 Remember the Sabbath day
Mt. 11:28-30 Come to Me all you who labor

Deut. 5:12–15 Observe the Sabbath Day
Ps. 81:1–10 I answered you in the secret place of thunder
2 Cor. 4:5–12 we have this treasure in earthen vessels
Mark 2:23–3:6 The disciples pluck grain on the Sabbath … Sabbath was made for man … man with withered hand

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

The prophet Isaiah’s world was unraveling before him. By his time, the once-proud united kingdom under Kings David and Solomon had already been fractured for two hundred years. Almost right after that split, the northern kingdom of Israel fell deep into idol-worship and the evil ways of foreign overlords like Queen Jezebel. And among the faithful people that were left down south in the tribe of Judah, even they were starting to fall away from the Lord. And then as if anything worse couldn’t have possibly happened, King Uzziah suddenly died. King Uzziah was a good king. He followed what the Lord said and governed well as God’s representative in the Kingdom of Power. He reigned fifty-two years, starting from the age of sixteen. He was the only king Isaiah had ever known up to this point.

But then came a dark day in the history of King Uzziah’s reign. The book of Second Chronicles unfolds the fateful story. King Uzziah defiantly took the burning incense pot from the altar of incense right in the middle of the temple. He proceeded to violate the worship of God and nullify the Lord’s grace when he disregarded the warnings of Azariah the high priest along with 80 other priests who tried to get in his way and stop this terrible thing. As the king’s anger flared against God’s holy servants there in the temple, the Lord Himself stepped in and right then and there He afflicted King Uzziah with leprosy that broke out on his forehead like a special-effect in a sci-fi thriller movie. When this happened they rushed him out of the temple, and he went willingly without resistance, and for the rest of his life, King Uzziah suffered the effects of his disease and his gross disobedience against God. He was never allowed to set foot in the temple again. He had to hand over his rule as king to his son, and was left in the leper’s quarters to die alone and in disgrace.

All of the kingdom of Judah was stunned. Isaiah may well have been, too. This beloved king, this great moral anchor of the land, had one brief fit of self-centered pride that turned him against the Lord Whom he had so faithfully served in the past. If King Uzziah could fall to such depths, what hope would there be for the rest of the nation? There seemed to be a crisis on the horizon. All hope would soon be lost for the people of God. When this king whom God deposed in shame finally did pass away, Isaiah the preacher faced a very uncertain future. This once faithful people was getting increasingly corrupt and their lips had already become unclean. If they found themselves in the presence of the Almighty God, there would quite literally be hell to pay.

Not even a year had passed by yet, and suddenly Isaiah is confronted with what could have been his worst nightmare. It is likely that he’s in the temple; he could actually be not too far from the very spot where the Lord’s holy anger broke out against the king. Then the magnificent glory of the Triune God appeared to Isaiah right there where he stood. High and lifted up He was on the judgment throne, with the flowing kingly robes filling up the massive temple building. Imagination itself is too shallow to take in this glorious sight. The burning, white-hot angels, known as the seraphim, were singing the unending song of heaven right in Isaiah’s hearing. This song of heaven whose words you know: Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Sabaoth, heaven and earth are full of your glory.

Isaiah may at first have been stunned with wonder and amazement. But it was only a moment. Evidently, when you see the almighty power of God, the blinding light of perfection shines on your sinful, imperfect heart. That’s what happened at least to Isaiah. Immediately, he was painfully aware of the guilt of sin, not only Isaiah’s sin, but the sin of the entire people as well. The uncleanness was evident on the lips, as the prophet pointed out, because hidden sinfulness becomes quite plain when the sinner opens his mouth. The Apostle James (3:7-8) wrote something very similar to this: “Every kind of beast and … creature can be tamed by mankind, but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.” A rebellious insurgent such as this has no business dwelling in the presence of the Lord of Hosts.

The same is true for you. Since you are a sinner, as am I, God’s holy law gives you no right to enter His courts. You may have the freedom of religion and assembly as a citizen of this country, but your thoughts, words and deeds provide clear evidence that you would rather be enslaved to the passions of your own heart and flesh, serving the every sadistic whim of Satan instead. Your lips are unclean because there are those whom you have hurt with your words. Trouble and crisis seem ever on the horizon. Your world may be unraveling before your eyes, whether it is a direct result of your own sin, or perhaps because of somebody else’s sin. It’s as if nothing worse could possibly happen. Isaiah’s nightmare is playing out in real life when you compare yourself to the righteous, perfect, unattainable standard of God’s law. In the prophet’s own words: Woe is you for you are lost, you are undone.

But all of a sudden, a wonderful thing happens. Isaiah saw it himself. A seraph stops singing the heavenly song for a moment. At the Lord’s command, this bright angel heads for the altar of sacrifice and brings from it a burning coal with tongs. He touches the prophet’s lips. The burning kills and cleanses at the same time. Those beautiful words spoken by a messenger of God resound in the sinner’s ear: Your guilt is taken away, your sin is atoned for. Isaiah is set free. He is given a vocation with which he gets to do that which is pleasing to God, and with willing heart and voice he exclaims to the Triune God: “Here am I! Send me!”

Is it any different with you? It isn’t, except in your case, your loving heavenly Father did not make a mere angel stop singing momentarily to bring you a lump of coal. Instead, He allowed His only-begotten Son to go forth out of heavenly glory and put on human flesh; the creator of time and space now subject to these things. Rather than carrying a pair of tongs, Jesus instead bore down under a heavy cross, but with that cross was the infinitely heavier burden of your sins and the sins of the whole world. His death under the burn of God’s judgment is the perfect atoning sacrifice that truly belongs on that altar, for it is the only death than can pay the price to buy you back your freedom. Instead of burning your lips with holy fire, your Savior crucifies your sinful nature, and drowns it in the water of your Baptism, so that just as Christ was raised through the glory of the Father, so you may be raised from your death, and walk in the newness of divine life. That’s what those words, “assumption of humanity into God,” mean in the Athanasian Creed: Jesus did not stop being God the Son when He became Man, that would be conversion of the divinity into flesh. But rather, He did restore the divine image to mankind so that you may have perfect unity with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. His called messenger, the servant of the Word, announces this declaration sent straight from God’s judgment throne: Your guilt is taken away, your sin is atoned for. Holy, Holy, Holy is the Three-in-One and One-in-Three God.

And just as Isaiah was given a vocation in which he may serve according to God-given talents, you have been given your calling as well. Note that you do not have the same vocation as Isaiah, yet there’s some little corner of this vast world that God has created where you are already qualified and called to do what He declares to be holy work. Concerning this place in life that the Lord set aside for you, He has set you free from your sin so that you too may respond, “Here am I! Send me!”

The world may still crumble around you. Terror and crisis may still be your lot in this life. In fact, persecution may increase because of Satan’s bitter opposition to the Truth. But one thing is most certainly true: A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. (Psalm 91) Why? Because you have the Lord’s eternal Word to strengthen you. You have Christ crucified so that your eyes may be comforted by the ransom price paid in your place. Hope is not lost. You have Jesus’ Body and Blood to touch your lips with forgiveness, and the song of the angels in the liturgy to lift up your hearts away from this sinful world and unto the Lord. Celebrate the Holy Trinity with Isaiah and with all the host of heaven, because saying the Athanasian Creed may be a mind-numbing, tongue-twisting experience now, but the eternal salvation that it stands for is awesome beyond what words can express.

Blessed be the Holy Trinity and the Undivided Unity. Let us give glory to Him because He has shown His mercy to us!

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

Readings:
II Chronicles 26 King Uzziah
James 3:7-8 No man can tame the tongue.
Psalm 91 A thousand may fall at your side…
Is. 6:1–8 Here am I! Send me
Ps. 29 The voice of the LORD is over the waters
Acts 2:14a,22–36 God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.
John 3:1–17 unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

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

It was back at Christmas time that you heard about God who came in human flesh to dwell among us. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, not only could identify with us in our sins and our temptations and our frailties, but He took those very weaknesses from us and put them on Himself. As we walked through the seasons of Lent and Easter, we observed yet again that He died and rose from the dead in order to bring you back into the warm embrace of God your heavenly Father. Since December, Jesus, only Jesus was the focus of every reading from His inspired and inerrant Word this church year, and only by God’s help, Jesus the One and Only Savior is and remains the focus of every sermon.

But scattered here and there in those numerous familiar accounts about Jesus, there was the Holy Spirit. He was always working somewhere in the background. Jesus Himself was conceived in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit. The third person of the Holy Trinity descended in bodily form like a dove when Jesus was baptized at the Jordan River. The Spirit even accompanied Christ while the devil was tempting Him in the wilderness. In many other accounts, the Holy Spirit is there, but always behind-the-scenes.

Now, the tables are turned, so it seems. The Holy Spirit is coming with His most impressive appearance yet, and amazing things are happening to those disciples gathered in that one place. There is a mighty rushing wind, tongues of fire resting on them, and they were speaking God’s Word in all kinds of languages. Now it’s the Spirit’s turn to be front-and-center. After all, the day of Pentecost is the birthday of the New Testament Christian church! You have heard about Jesus and you know He has taken away your sins. Now it’s time to give the Holy Spirit some time in the spotlight. It might even help if some of those amazing things the Spirit does could happen right here, right now. How ’bout it?

Not so fast, preacher. You’re not getting this one past us! There is no change of roles for the Father, Son, or Holy Spirit. Even on Pentecost Sunday, Jesus, only Jesus is still the focus. You don’t dictate to God how He does His job. The Holy Spirit, then just as now, only brings to your attention the Son of God who became flesh and is made known to you as Christ the Crucified. He, even the Holy Spirit Himself, does not speak on His own authority. Those disciples did not remind their hearers of the miracles they could do: the healing, the speaking in other languages, and so on. Nothing is recorded in any of their sermons in the Book of Acts or their Epistles that those outward, fantastic, marvelous works of the Holy Spirit are now the main thing. And the Bible certainly says NOTHING about requiring these “signs of the Spirit” before anyone is considered a Christian, whether you call them “born again” or otherwise. In fact, the Apostle Paul says that even if he could do all that fancy talking and speak in other languages, it wouldn’t matter at all if he did not proclaim the love and forgiveness of God for sinners. When all is said and done, the Holy Spirit is still in the background. He is still going to point you to Jesus, only Jesus.

And Jesus Himself tells you what the Holy Spirit does: He will convict. He will convict the world of three things: sin, righteousness, and judgment, and this only when the words of God, as preserved and written down without error in the Bible, when these words are proclaimed in the mouth of God’s called servants for the whole world to hear.

First, of sin. The Holy Spirit reminds the world of sin not because you can do anything about it. In fact, He speaks the Law of God to you to make you realize you have broken it and that for your punishment you are to be separated from heaven forever. The Holy Spirit must accuse you to death from God’s Law, accuse you of your sin against His Holy Word, but it doesn’t end there.

Secondly, He convicts of righteousness. The Holy Spirit announces the verdict—but, contrary to what your mind would expect—the verdict upon you is innocent. This is not because God changed His mind or decided to overlook your death sentence. No! It’s because your death sentence has been served in your place. Righteousness is defined as absolute perfection in God’s sight—it’s something you did not have and only Jesus had. But He credits that righteousness, that perfection, to your eternal account and the dividends, namely forgiveness and life together with God, are yours as His gift.

Finally, there’s judgment. The devil, the ruler of this world, stands judged. If you refuse God’s gift of free forgiveness and hope instead that you’ve done enough good deeds to save yourself, then the judgment is hell. But for you who believe in Christ and hold fast to Him, the judgment is Heaven, resurrection of the body, life everlasting. And the Holy Spirit speaks of these three things: sin, righteousness, and judgment, when He proclaims to you Jesus, only Jesus.

This Jesus He brings right to you and places Him into your ears. The Holy Spirit takes the Body and Blood of Christ that was shed long ago and far away and feeds Him to you in your own mouth. And this Holy Spirit that convicts of sin, righteousness and judgment, the Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son, He brings your prayers before the Father. Because you are baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and because Jesus has ascended to the Father’s right hand, God hears your prayer in any situation, in any trouble, doubt, or blessing that you may experience.

By the Power of the Holy Spirit, you hear Jesus spoken, out of the perfect Word of God, and into your ears today, and you hold fast to Christ your bridegroom. For He has cleansed you and made you His beautiful bride, without spot or wrinkle. He made His vow to you that He will not forsake you—and to seal that vow, He gave the gift of the Holy Spirit. And His greatest promise to lead you to eternal life forever in union with God will come to fulfillment thanks to, you guessed it, thanks to the work of the Holy Spirit.

Come, Holy Spirit, give us Jesus, and bring us at last to the Father.

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

Readings:
Ezek. 37:1–14 Valley of the dry bones
Ps. 139:1–16 I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Acts 2:1–21 We hear them speaking in our own languages the wonderful works of God
John 15:26–27; 16:4b–15 when the Helper comes…He will testify of Me.

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

The twelve disciples had an important decision to make on that suddenly lonely hill following Jesus’ ascension into heaven. There they stood, looking up into heaven, tracing with their eyes the trajectory that His glorified body took, but then witnessed the cloud that came up from below Him and hid His body from their sight. It must have been a while, because it took two men dressed in white to break their intense, searching silence and startle them with their question, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand here looking intently into heaven?” And although it would have been comforting to know that Jesus would return in the same way those apostles saw Him ascend, there had to have been the question, whether it was said or left unsaid, “Now what?”

They could have done lots of possible tasks, and some of them could have been quite useful. Their statement of mission could have been quite clearly written out and each apostle could have walked away with their own specific job description. And there could have been something good that might come out of an organized plan like that. Or the followers of Jesus could have remained paralyzed, looking upward, completely disregarding the entreaties of the two heavenly white-robed gentlemen. The Lord could not be seen anymore. The temptation could have been there to put somebody else in Jesus’ place and simply follow him as if nothing changed. It could have been like when you head out on your vacation and you ask somebody whom you trust to pick up the mail and water the plants. Is that what Jesus is asking us here? We already know that the Lord will return, but what do we do during this time when we don’t see Him with us?

These questions are quite appropriate for us on an occasion like this- not to mention Mother’s Day! Ascension is past, but Pentecost is not yet. This is the Sunday “in between.” The Paschal or Easter candle is temporarily extinguished. This Sunday on the liturgical calendar can give you the impression or feeling that most Christians experience in their day-to-day lives. Is Jesus gone? Did He leave me with instructions while He’s up there somewhere enjoying His vacation? Hasn’t He noticed that I’ve got my struggles here on earth, or is He too busy to listen to my prayers? Isn’t He aware that nations and economies, churches and Synods are in desperate need of His help at a time like this? The Lord answers these questions and more with his directions for His disciples, now apostles, as recorded at the end of the Gospel of Luke. A little bit before His ascension, Jesus reminded them of the “promise of my Father,” speaking about the coming Holy Spirit, and He specifically instructed them, “stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

What the apostles did in those few days between Ascension and Pentecost is written for you in the rest of Acts chapter 1, as was just read. They followed the directions of Christ the risen and now ascended Savior. They did not decide to take matters into their own hands, for they did not suddenly imagine themselves to be in charge, now that they couldn’t see Jesus. They recognized that Judas’ betrayal had cut into their original God-given resources by a full twelfth, so by following the clear direction of Scripture, they filled his vacated office with another apostle, namely Matthias. They stated unmistakable qualifications, presented the candidates, then as indicated by the prayer they prayed, left the choice in the hands of God, who knows the hearts of all, and Matthias joined the eleven. That order of business, along with their continual praising God in the temple and worship of the ascended Lord Jesus, was what occupied their time until Pentecost came.

How simple it is! Just wait until the Holy Spirit comes. Replace a vacant position, and worship God, telling of the kingdom of God that has come in the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. That’s it. Sounds so passive; it doesn’t have any human initiative or ingenuity in it. Where are the programs? Where are the mission statements and great plans to cover the globe with good news? Where are the blueprints for their impressive buildings to stand as permanent testimonies to the saving Gospel message? They had none of those things, at least not yet. What they had, though, was the Father’s promise. They had the promise of Jesus that, “Lo, I am with you always even to the end of the age.” (Matt. 28:20) They had the Lord’s own breath breathed upon them together with His command to forgive the penitent and retain upon the impenitent. All the other things, as important and helpful as they can be, are secondary. They know that the church depends completely on its number one priority, and that is God’s Word and the Holy Spirit, who comes to us through that Word.

That’s where we often go wrong, in thoughts if not also in actions. What the disciples did in these unique and crucial first days can instruct us very well today. The secondary stuff that we have now gets in our way to such an extent that we can often forget the priority of the Word. We would like our human institutions, our buildings, and policies to be better put-together, and that’s all well and good, and may even be necessary, but we dare not crowd out the Church’s one foundation, which as the hymn sings is Jesus Christ her Lord. The Holy Spirit is here among us. We are not as alone as those first followers of Jesus were, looking up into the sky on Ascension Day. We’re not left here on this earth, taking messages for Christ on some “While You Were Out” notepad. Yet you may have acted as though this were still an “in between” time for you; as though God has not yet fulfilled a promise that you thought He had made to you. Perhaps the secondary things, the added blessings of your heavenly Father, have become your highest priority over His Word and promise to you. Trials and struggles have pushed you to doubt God rather than to turn to His Word, praying to Him for what He has already promised to give.

Let the forgiving breath of Jesus remove your doubt and comfort you. You are not alone, you have been washed clean and reborn as a member of the kingdom of God, the Body of Christ. We all must rely on the name of Jesus no matter what life will throw our way. You are called by His name, which is the name the Father bestowed upon the Son, and together with the Holy Spirit, that same name is combined with water in Baptism. You call on this very name when you pray in any situation, both in good and bad times. You are not in some “in between” time, the same way the disciples were, because Jesus is with you, not in your imagination or your intangible “religious thoughts,” but He’s really here in flesh and blood because His Word promises it. Many Christians long for this connection with Jesus, yet they unfortunately are not taught that He has provided what they are seeking. He is here in His Word of Truth that you hear preached, He is here in His Words that are combined with the bread and wine, for He promises that they truly are His Body and Blood given for you for the forgiveness of sins. He has provided all of these things, and you didn’t have to make any of it up. Sure, there are secondary things and added blessings that none of us deserve, but most important of all you have that all-important Word of Christ’s promise from the Father.

Let the Priestly prayer of Jesus in today’s Gospel, John 17, be a comforting word for your soul on this day. Just as a God-fearing mother would pray every day for her child, our Lord prayed for you, for you are His Bride the Church, a congregation of saints who gather together to hear the Word of truth preserved for us by His Apostles. He continually prays for the Father to guard you from the Evil one, and those in the world who will hate you on account of the Word. He prays for your sanctification in the truth. That means that the cleansing and forgiving Word of Christ that you hear in church, and privately from the pastor and from the forgiveness you receive from your fellow brothers and sisters in the faith, that same Word renews you in the image of God and makes you a holy people, consecrated and set apart from the sinful world in which He has placed us temporarily. These things Jesus accomplishes for you now simply by speaking the Gospel to you. The Holy Spirit offers your sometimes feeble prayers before God’s throne, for as St. Paul assures us, “We do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words… [and] the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” (Romans 8) Being a saint, and therefore receiving the benefit of intercession by the Holy Spirit, is not a status toward which you and I work to attain, rather it is a privilege of sonship that you already have by Divine decree. Believe with all your heart that your Savior prays and works daily in His ascended glory for your forgiveness and holiness and growth in faith, until the time comes when you depart this life and join Him.

So in between then and now, you have an important decision to make. Of course, it’s not the decision to believe or not, because you couldn’t have done that—the Holy Spirit accomplished that miracle for your sake. Rather, the decision is whether you dare or not to take hold of the gift you have been given, and trust in the Gospel alone for your salvation and your Christian life, rather than going on like before, looking just to yourself. Do you decide to confront your sinful nature head-on, rather than making excuses to sin? Do you confess the unpopular truth that God still sticks to those things called the Ten Commandments, and that Jesus did everything to save you? There is nothing to fear as you live in this sinful, hateful world, and deal with sinners, including yourself. For no matter how often you have stumbled and fallen, and though you do not see Him, your Jesus is still here to pick you up, and the promises of His Word guarantee it. Why stand and look intently up at the sky? Why look for your Lord in those secondary places where you won’t find Him? He’ll come again, and with glorified and restored sight, you will most certainly see your Lord soon. But in the “in between” time you have been given, look to His Word, His baptismal font, His altar table, His called servant of the Word with forgiveness on his lips—these are the places you’ll find Jesus now. They are the constant fountain and lifeblood of the Church and a more than adequate answer to the question, “Now what?”

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

Readings:
Acts 1:12–26 Let another take his office
Ps. 1 Blessed is the man who walks not… like a tree planted by rivers of water
1 John 5:9–15 He who has the Son has life
John 17:11b–19 that they may be one as We are

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

How good are you at guilt techniques? Can you turn on a burden of shame upon other people just like a faucet? You could just hear it; maybe I’m destined to wield it myself in the future. Why are you doing this to me? Look at all the opportunities and advantages I have given you, and this is what you go and do! Can’t you show any kind of respect or gratitude for all I’ve done for you? Oh, yeah, many of you know how to turn it on, and some of you on the receiving end have figured out that it’s just a trick and you’ve worked some sort of detour around the guilt trip.

This other side of the guilt-laying coin, of course, is something I’ll call minimum satisfaction. If you figure out the least amount of effort that it takes to fulfill a requirement, then you’ve effectively short-circuited the shame. Come on, just eat three more peas and then we all can have dessert. Can’t you get up and dress yourself like a big boy for mommy? Or the teacher says, if you don’t want to read the extra credit book, you don’t have to! And it goes on from the home and school room to the work place, where the general feeling might be that one’s productivity isn’t going to get rewarded, so everyone finds out the most creative way to pass time without getting anything done. Minimum satisfaction even afflicts the church. Our budget is so bleak! One could complain. What’s the least we can do and still get by as a Christian organization? Surely I can “opt-out” of my promised giving to the Lord! He would understand that I need the weekend time or the money for other things. How few a number can there be of our willing volunteers before things start falling apart? It doesn’t come as easily to our human nature to think the other way, like: what potential do we have by God’s grace to do some great things in His kingdom? Or: What creative way can I use my talents for someone else’s good? The temptation to minimum satisfaction is rather strong in all of us and it gets in the way, and it leaves the feeling like there’s no solution in sight. Why is that?

Techniques of guilt and the automatic response of doing the least to fulfill an obligation are both related to the same thing: the Law. The Law is all about requirements, what we are to do, and not to do. Transgressing the Law brings about punishments and consequences. You cannot escape getting measured up against its demands. The guilt that the Law imposes upon you is not a game or a technique. It’s got real teeth in it, so to speak. No minimums are going to be accepted. Full payment is due now, no exceptions! You would agree that such harsh words would be words of the Law.

Now recall the words of Jesus in the Gospel of John: As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. …This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

Now I ask you: Is this the language of the Law? Are there threats or punishments connected with these words? Where are the teeth to enforce the requirements? Such things are nowhere to be found. Jesus is not using the language of the Law as He is speaking to His disciples, and to you, these words. It’s often misunderstood that He might be laying a guilt trip on you, that you might make Him really upset if you don’t follow what He says. That’s because the Law, and guilt trips and minimum requirements for satisfaction are all that your sinful human nature knows and recognizes, as does mine. When you hear these words of Jesus, what He says is quite literally from out of this world, and so you are led to think that Jesus is setting down new laws and requirements just as soon as He pays for the punishment and condemnation of the first Law. That’s what leads so many people, including Christians, to misunderstand that the Christian faith is only about doing good things, and following a certain code of conduct, and being good people with cheery attitudes so that Jesus will smile on you and reward you with success and prosperity.

That clouds these blessed words of Jesus and strips away their true power. Your Lord is not imposing laws and requirements on you. He is not making you feel guilty so that you can turn around and work out some sort of minimal response to get Him off your back. You hear this quite often: Will you accept Jesus into your heart? Is He Lord of your life yet? What have you done to prove your Christian faith or put it into practice? You should show your gratitude to Christ after all He’s done for you. And so it’s just another guilt technique that you’ve seen before, and quite frankly at one time or another, this makes the one, true faith out to look no different from any other man-made religion. But that’s not the proper understanding of what Jesus is saying. It’s not what He’s about at all.

What your Savior is doing in His words in the Gospel of John is giving you your freedom: right here, right now. Just by speaking His powerful Word, He is crucifying and killing your sinful human nature, then He raises you up as a new creation, made in the image of Christ. He removes the shadow of guilt that hangs over you and unlocks the slave’s handcuffs that continually force you to do only the minimum necessary requirements. All the Law’s threats and punishments and condemnations are removed from you and pressed down along with that thorny crown on the bleeding head of Jesus. To put it another way, He accomplished both blessings for you: first, He fulfilled not the bare minimums, but your Lord kept every commandment perfectly, while acting in your place and for your benefit. Secondly, He accepted the guilt that belonged to you, and He paid the debt you owed, but could never repay.

The Law makes slaves, the Gospel makes friends. And what does Jesus say? No longer do I call you servants (or slaves); but I have called you friends. You did not choose Me or single Me out. Instead, I chose you; I singled you out that you would then go forth into your individual callings in life and bear fruit that will abide. And whatever you ask, it will be given to you. There are no conditions, nothing to take these blessings back. There are no contract stipulations for you to fulfill; it’s all from Him to you.

It all sounds easy. That’s because it truly is! There is no effort necessary for you to make it happen because Jesus did it all. He even sent His Holy Spirit so that God would place the faith in your heart enabling you to trust Him and receive His forgiveness and all the blessings of heaven. Look all you want for minimums and loopholes and you won’t find them because this isn’t about the Law. The Gospel is all about what God has done for your sake, and it would be silly to look for minimums when there are in fact no requirements at all! When Jesus says to keep His commandments, He’s not demanding anything of you so that you would have to earn His love and blessings. The epistle (1 John 5) says clearly, God’s commandments to Christians are not burdensome. His commandment rather is to believe in Him, and with this new commandment He gives you the ability to keep it. You did not have any possibility within yourself to believe in Jesus, but you have received that as a gift in the water of Baptism. The same body and blood of Christ that took away your sin now strengthens you in keeping His commandment to believe.

Now here is where the Christian holy life and love for each other comes in, not as your requirement to fulfill to God, but instead it is the natural result of what God the Father created you to be in the first place. It was just last week when you heard Jesus say, I am the Vine, you are the Branches. These verses today from John 15 simply explain this mystery in practical, everyday life. You have been restored and reconciled to the Lord because the Law no longer stands in the way. Now that same restoration and reconciliation branches out in your everyday calling as you interact with other people whom God has placed in your path. Your love for them that is expressed in prayer, words of encouragement, or helpful deeds are what Jesus is talking about when He says you are going to bear fruit.

Think again about the vine, the branches and bearing fruit. The fruit of love and good works that you produce did not make you a branch; it was the other way around: you are a branch connected to Jesus the Vine, therefore you produce the fruit that He enables you to produce. So, the things you do as a Christian do not make you a Christian, nor do they improve your standing with God. It’s the other way around: God, through Jesus Christ, has made you His very own. Therefore, by His Holy Spirit you can go forth and do not the bare minimum, because there’s no requirements to minimize. There’s no threat of a guilt trip to prod you along. Instead, you have the freedom to love as He has loved you; to give up your very life if that’s what will help your neighbor.

But if it’s so easy, then why aren’t all Christians more like this? What makes my life as a new creation so difficult, if I have nothing to do to add to my faith? What makes it hard is not that your faith isn’t perfect, because in fact everything your Lord gives you is perfect. Rather the problem is still the resistance of your stubborn sinful nature. It’s going to keep on working against you, even though you continually crucify it with Christ, which is what you do when you confess your sins and receive forgiveness in the gifts that God provides for you here. It is necessary for you to dominate and control that part of you that is still opposed to God’s love and mercy. But since you cannot do that yourself, you have the wealth of the Father’s grace in Christ Jesus to overcome and finally win the victory that your Savior has already achieved for you.

There is no need to look at the setbacks, the deceptions, the sufferings you’ve had to go through. Don’t look at what you don’t have among all of God’s blessings. Martin Luther once pointed out that Adam had countless trees to choose from, to satisfy his every hope and desire, but temptation to sin blinded his and Eve’s eyes so that all they could see was the one thing they could not have. So even though you see obstacles in front of you, do you dare to receive all the riches of grace that God has laid out for you? Do you suppose it might just work out if you believed the liberating Gospel word of Jesus that now enables you to love one another? Remember His words last week, He is the Vine, you are the Branches, and so you are free to abide in Him. He can’t wait to produce the fruit of love in you that He’s been planning on since before the world began!

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

Readings:
Acts 10:34–48 God shows no partiality Peter at Cornelius’ house
Ps. 98 The LORD has made known His salvation
1 John 5:1–8 this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments
John 15:9–17 abide in My love … love one another as I have loved you

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

How much fruit is your life bearing? Jesus’ key words today are “I am the Vine, you are the branches.” That can be pretty intimidating when you first look at them or hear them. How can you not think of sometime, somewhere, when your life was not as fruitful as God’s law intended. Since you are connected as branches to Christ the Vine, what kind of fruit have you yielded – good things, important things, beneficial things, eternal things – or merely temporal, earthly things? And, if those things you achieved are, in fact, “good,” have you considered why you did them? Was the good you did, done to glorify God, or just yourself – and, will they stand up under the intense scrutiny and examination of the Judge of all? All of that, as you know deep down, concerns whether it really is good fruit, or not.

And what about our Church? How fruitful have we been as a Church? What have we done collectively – and what have you done individually – to “advance” the work of our Savior? What fruit have you borne in His name? And again, why have you done the things you’ve done – is it for our heavenly Father, or for yourself? Who can you think of that is not helping like they should, and should be chopped off as “dead wood”? How can someone determine that in the first place? When you read or hear the words of our Gospel, at first you don’t tend to hear any good news Gospel message at all. The initial reaction is to look inside, to assess oneself, and even pass judgment on others.

However, that would be a disastrous misuse of Jesus’ words. Analyzing yourself and your own fruit-bearing, or condemning your fellow Christians for their lack of fruit, so far as you can see—none of this is in alignment with “I am the Vine, you are the branches.” Jesus is not giving us some new commandment to bear fruit, but simply to remind us that as Christians we have been given a precious gift over and above the forgiveness of all our sins—we have, in addition, the continuing gift of the Holy Spirit who ensures that we abide and remain in our Lord.

But, you may ask, what about all those statements we just heard in the Gospel itself, concerning the fruit we are to bear? Did you happen to notice that there’s actually only one command that required action? And that command has nothing to do with our bearing fruit, but with abiding in Jesus. That may sound like a petty, hair-splitting distinction, but in fact it is quite important and it needs to be strictly correct. When Jesus speaks of His Father as the Vinedresser, who’s doing the work? Not you! The only One doing anything here is God. You’re not being asked to concentrate on the amount and kinds of fruit your life ought to bear, because there’s something more important to focus attention on – that is your connection with the true Vine, who is Christ. After all, the farmer or rancher doesn’t first get concerned about how large their harvest or yield will be, but instead, he or she concentrates on the condition of the plants, the health of the animals that are going to bring forth the result. If the plants or cows are healthy, then healthy fruit, a good crop, or wholesome milk products will be the natural result.

In one of Aesop’s fables there is a farmer, who, on his deathbed, tells his sons of a treasure buried in his vineyard. Well, you can imagine what happened when he died. His sons went out and dug up the entire vineyard looking for the buried treasure. But they didn’t find a thing. However, that year the vineyard bore its best crop ever – and all because of the extra cultivation the ground received while the sons were digging all around the plants. The inheritance the farmer left to his sons was that they would receive a bountiful harvest from his vineyard thanks to the work they were meant to do anyway.

Instead of concentrating on the fruit your life bears, the how much and why, you ought rather stay attentive to the Who: to Jesus’ reminder that the Holy Spirit keeps you firmly connected to Him, the “true Vine” – for only the true Vine can give the branches what they need to bear much fruit. Only those who stay connected to Christ – the true, life-giving Vine – are able to bear godly fruit in their lives. But how does one stay connected to that Vine? It simply happens to those who remain in Jesus and His fruitful Word. And remaining in Jesus and His Word, by the way, is what Confirmation and professing membership in a Church is all about, and by God’s grace we may look forward to more adults and young people being prepared to promise to do just that.

Everything is tied together by this Word of God, this Gospel of salvation, this Good News of God’s love and how it comes to sinners. It’s Christ’s Word heard in His Church, read in your home, and placed in your heart as you hear it over and over again in Liturgy, hymns, readings, sermons, and prayers. And when you consider what it means for you to abide in Christ – and Christ in you – how can you not be reminded of the Sacrament of the Altar, where Christ’s true body and blood become one with you as you eat and drink it? To be sure, we must never forget that the words of Jesus that we heard today about the Vine, He originally spoke as He was making His way from the upper room where He instituted this Sacrament.

Another image used that might cause us discomfort is the idea of pruning and cleaning. Jesus teaches here that every single branch has to be pruned if it’s going to stay healthy. Fruitless branches, hypocrites who outwardly appear connected, but really aren’t, will be cut off in God’s judgment and thrown into the fire. They don’t bear fruit. They don’t believe. The Vinedresser has to cut them off, for they are no longer useful, indeed all they do is hinder the rest of the crop.

That’s why Jesus says here that even fruitful, believing branches have to be cut, cleansed, and pruned. Even believing Christians abiding in Christ have to be pruned from time to time so that they bring forth the fruit God desires. In the original, the words “pruned” and “clean” are the very same. So reread verse 3, thinking of yourself as a branch: “Already you are pruned because of the word that I have spoken to you.” God alone is the Worker working in you with His Word of forgiveness, and the fruit borne in your life is a gift. It isn’t something you produce, but what the Holy Spirit produces in you, by keeping you connected to Christ the Vine. If God desires fruit-bearing plants, then it’s up to Him to prune them so they remain healthy and flourish.

Even though we are Christians, we still understand, none of us is perfect. We possess salvation, a new nature, and have a new man living inside us, yet the old man of sin inside us is very much alive. That’s precisely what must be pruned and cut back from us. But that sinful old man isn’t always visible. He lives deep down inside the very depths of your flesh. You need to stay healthy and alive, so that sinner inside has to be continually cut back. And to do this, God uses His Word, which cuts deep into your heart to bring you to repentance of your sins and keep you in the faith. The Vinedresser’s Sacrament of His Son’s true body and blood feeds you His forgiveness and gives you the strength to endure what you’re going through. And God also reminds you through the affliction, suffering and pain we all experience in pruning, you must rely on Him for all things. God’s desire is that you realize He is the One at work in your life accomplishing His will—the will that you stay connected to Christ the Vine.

What about that person who tries to get by without Christ? Jesus says, without Him you can do nothing. He doesn’t mean you can’t be “successful” as the world views success – or that you can’t accomplish a great many things that might benefit others here in this world – but that in the most important things – eternal things – you can do nothing without Him. Even if you turn out to be a very successful person in the eyes of the world, without Christ your life will amount to nothing. For if you don’t remain in Him and Him in you, you’re like a branch that withers, is cut off, picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. And that’s what Satan would like more than anything – to cut you off from the true Vine, that you stay away from the Church, that you no longer hear God’s Word, that you stop praying, and that you no longer receive the Lord’s Supper to sustain you. And if Satan has his way, the end, for you, would be eternal death and hell.

But when you remain in Christ, you have everything. No matter what happens, your life will be fruitful. You’ll still need pruning from time to time. But in Christ you’ll have everything you need. Though the fruits of your life may not be visible to you, God knows your heart and what your heart needs. He is the One who lifts up those who quietly abide in Christ’s Word and says to them: “You have produced fruit – yes, much fruit.” As a branch abiding in the true Vine, Christ is at work in you, accomplishing all things for His good pleasure and to the glory of His Father. So, whatever the fruit of your life might be – whether spectacular, hidden, impressive, or obscure – that fruit is God’s doing – and in His eyes it is “much fruit.”

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

Readings:
Acts 8:26–40 an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip … of whom does the prophet say this?
Ps. 150 Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.
1 John 4:1–21 Beloved, do not believe every spirit…beloved, let us love one another…
John 15:1–8 I am the true vine

“Come, Holy Ghost, Creator Blest” (LSB 498/499) For centuries those words were sung at Pentecost (this year celebrated on May 20), asking the Holy Spirit to reside among the faithful and bestow His sevenfold gifts. What, exactly are we to expect from the Holy Spirit? Why were there so many powerful and wonderful signs of the Spirit’s presence in the earliest years of the New Testament Church’s existence? Why are those exuberant signs not present among us in the Church today? What caused this change in the Spirit’s work? Can we even be confident that we today have the Holy Spirit working in our midst? Will we even know when or if He has departed us?

Thinking about Pentecost can often leave us with more questions than answers. It doesn’t make matters any better for us when we hear about Christians who claim to have rediscovered the fiery, flashy special effects of Pentecost in their own gatherings. These are people who belong to Pentecostal churches and movements within other established denominations. People who have claimed the special gifts (“charisma”) of the Holy Spirit are sometimes called “charismatics.” Their apparent success at a “higher level” of Christianity makes us wonder, at the very least, whether or not we have the Holy Spirit working in us, especially if we do not witness the effects of direct Spiritual involvement in our lives, like they seem to enjoy. If we don’t observe the Holy Spirit working these mighty signs among us, then that makes us wonder whether we have assurance of our own salvation, another of the Spirit’s gifts. We get confused when we are told that our “mere” water Baptism, especially if it occurred in infancy, needs to be improved upon by some different, somehow more effective “Baptism of the Holy Spirit.”

Pentecost and the Scriptures that teach us about the Holy Spirit all help put these questions in perspective, and set our worries at ease. Jesus taught His disciples in John 15 and 16 about the Holy Spirit as our Helper, a Comforter who strengthens our faith in Jesus, and opens the Scriptures that we read, study and hear preached to us in the Divine Service. The account of the first Pentecost assures us that when we believe in Jesus and His sacrificial death for our salvation, then we have the Holy Spirit and all of His gifts. Fullness of His grace is depicted in the symbolic number seven (as in “seven-fold gifts of the Spirit”). Our Baptism with water, in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, follows our Savior’s own command to His Church (Matthew 28) and so with that comes the certain promise of the Holy Spirit. No further action is required in order to give us the Holy Spirit, like the misguided fanatics claim. We have the assurance of forgiveness and the full holiness of Christ granted to us through God’s Word, and God’s Word is not going to change.

The reason why these questions about the Holy Spirit can cause us some concern is that we at times have a tendency to doubt anything so fully free as the Gospel truly is. How can our Father’s love be given to us so freely? How is it possible for the Christian life and faith to be so easy to receive, and yet so many people fall away from it? The Law constantly tells us we don’t deserve it, and the Law is, of course, right in saying that. But do not fear. Pentecost is a great blessing of assurance to you that the Holy Spirit will invigorate the Church that holds to the truth of Jesus Christ in every age. We may not see the exact same “special effects” of the Spirit’s presence as the Apostles experienced, but we should not seek them out or assume that they must come. We will leave that matter up to God, and in the mean time, we will treasure the truth of His Word, that gives us all that we need to know about Jesus Christ our Savior, and the life that is ours in His Holy Name. Thank You, Holy Spirit!

Yours, in Christ’s service,

Pastor Stirdivant

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

Wolves and sheep are, you might say, wired differently. Wolves look to devour and to consume their prey. Sheep, on the other hand, look for cover, and run away for protection. They cower, they readily acknowledge the wolf’s ability to destroy them. Wolves are aggressive. Sheep are timid. Wolves, while they tend to travel in packs, are really quite independent most of the time. They can fend for themselves. Sheep, on the other hand, are communal. They are dependent on the flock, and as a flock all of them are dependent together on their shepherd.

It wouldn’t be right for a shepherd to allow wolves to enter into the sheep’s pen. For sure, the wolves would love it! If the sheep could think, they’d have to wonder about that shepherd who would allow such a thing to happen. What kind of a shepherd would do that, anyway? What kind of a shepherd abdicates his responsibility to his flock, thinking it’s okay to allow his flock to be devoured by their arch enemy? What kind of a shepherd puts his own well-being above that of his flock? Think back to the Old Testament about King David. He was a shepherd before he became a king. He ascended to the throne after having dispatched with Goliath, that giant enemy and blasphemer of Israel. Before facing Goliath, David tried to persuade Saul that he was, in fact, up to the task. Saul was reluctant to send David into battle because he was so small. In fact, Saul was a tall man, so his personal armor was so large that it engulfed the youthful David. David, of course, chose to forego the armor and to fight Goliath with the simpler tools of a shepherd: the rod and staff, and don’t forget the slingshot and stones.

In his momentous effort to convince Saul to assign him the task of slaying the giant, David countered Saul’s skepticism with evidence as to why he, of all people, should be able to go up against Goliath. In his defense he drew on his experience as a shepherd, faithfully tending to his flock in the fields. He said, “I, your servant used to keep [my] father’s sheep, and when a lion or a bear came and took a lamb out of the flock, I went out after it and struck it, and delivered the lamb from its mouth; and when it arose against me, I caught it by its beard, and struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both lion and bear; and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, seeing he has defied the armies of the living God.”

Such powerful words from a little shepherd boy! Those words demonstrate that David was bound to his flock in the same way that he was bound to uphold the honor of the living God. He spoke from deep conviction within. He had a vested interest, you see, in the precious things that he defended. As a young boy David’s flock was his life. He could no more let a bear or a lion take one of his sheep than he could let that same bear or lion attack him without a fight. David, you see, was a true shepherd, one of the good ones, because he had more than a casual interest in the flock. In fact, He was willing to put his life on the line to save his flock from those who would destroy it. A mere hired hand, he was not.

It isn’t at all uncommon today for the flock of God, the Church, to be attacked by wolves. Sometimes those attacks will come from outside of the church and they will be quite evident, and even the sheep are moved to stand up together and oppose it. Other times, though, attacks can come from inside the church. In fact, Jesus warns that sometimes wolves will sneak in. “Beware of false prophets (He says), who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.” (Matt. 7:15). Certainly the attack that comes from within is much fiercer than the one that comes from the outside. The great danger posed by the wolf, the false prophet, is that he seems to pose no danger to the physical wellbeing of the flock. The flock grows quite accustomed to the wolves’ voice in its midst for the sheep sense that there’s no immediate danger, no threat. The wolf’s words seem harmless. His false teaching can seem acceptable, often it even sounds right. But, finally, as is the character of wolves, having disarmed his prey, at the right time he devours, he consumes, as the souls of God’s people are led astray into the wilderness to consume the poison of false teaching.

Jesus warns us at length in this parable about following such a false shepherd. In fact, He doesn’t refer to the false prophet in John 10 as a shepherd at all. Rather, he is a hireling. You could call him a “rent-a-shepherd.” When he sees danger on the horizon he leaves the sheep to fend for themselves because he has no vested interest in the welfare of the flock. And sadly, the sheep, having followed the voice of the hired hand, have walked too far into the path of danger.

Faithful is the shepherd who defends the flock against such heretical teachers, even though his words may be taken as an affront, as an offense to “ecumenical ears,” that is, people who favor no distinctions of belief whatsoever so that everyone, it is hoped, will get along. The early confessors of our Lutheran Church saw fit to include this portion of God’s Word, from John chapter 10, when they discussed the need for pastors to teach what is right, but also for them to expose what is wrong. The Formula of Concord says, “In order to preserve the pure doctrine and to maintain a thorough, lasting, and God-pleasing concord within the church, it is essential not only to present the true and wholesome doctrine correctly, but also to accuse the adversaries who teach otherwise. ‘Faithful shepherds,’ as Luther states, must both pasture and feed the lambs and guard against wolves so that they will flee from strange voices and separate the precious from the vile.'” We need more pastors who see this as their solemn duty, and are called, rather than just hired so that the congregation is the flock that has been given into their pastoral care and responsibility. They above all else need to emulate Christ, the Good Shepherd.

But how good is the Good Shepherd? Which person today would be more likely to be called “good” by most people? Is it the firefighter facing a blazing building or hillside? A police officer running towards, not away from, danger? Or the football player using his freedom of speech to opt out of showing respect for the flag? And yet of those three, all of them sinners, you couldn’t tell who was really good on the inside. Most everyone wants to say of themselves, I am a “good” person, at least more good than others. God’s Word, of course, tells us otherwise, “for we all like sheep have gone astray, everyone has turned to his own way.” We wouldn’t have needed baptism, if it weren’t true that we were born afflicted with sin, and that we do sins of thought, word and deed every day. That is hardly good. We need to acknowledge that we are sinners, or else we would deceive ourselves. We the sheep need a Shepherd.

Jesus says, I am the Good Shepherd. He emphasizes the word “Good.” No other good that we can think of, nothing comes even close to the Good that Christ our Shepherd is. As a shepherd, Jesus is, of course, the greatest. He instills faith into the hearts of called pastors, His servants of the Word to lead His flock faithfully as His under-shepherds, to defend the flock, to fight off wolves. Most importantly, though, the Good Shepherd Himself gives to His faithful servants His soothing Gospel voice of forgiveness of sins, even as He does what is necessary to protect the sheep for life lasting to eternity.

Jesus’ “goodness” as a shepherd goes even further. He was sent from the Father to become one of the sheep that He might suffer and die for the sake of the sheep. This is not putting on sheep’s clothing in an act of deception; this is our Shepherd actually becoming a lamb for the slaughter, all for our sake. Yes, you would have looked for Jesus to act more like brave young David, and take up the shepherd’s weapons to slay the wolves that attack you each day, but instead Christ offered Himself in weakness to the wolves so that you might go free. Avoid preaching or devotion books that tell you to do this or that as an improvement to your standing before God. But when you hear words about substitution, as in Jesus’ life being given for your life, or about God’s strength being found in weakness and the cross, then you can rest assured that you are hearing the true voice of your Good Shepherd. From this one, clear voice, you have your sins forgiven, and you have all the other blessings that come from the forgiveness of sins, namely life and salvation, and as we say together in the creed, you have also the future blessings of resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come. That’s the voice of our Good Shepherd, He is the good beyond all that is good, and His goodness is yours free of all exceptions, conditions and strings. Any other voice is that of a hired hand, a wolf whose employer is the Evil Foe. His is the voice we heard in the baptism today and His is the voice that will sound out an affirmation of that baptism for those who will make a public confession of their faith. They are joining our Communion, our flock in which we depend on one another and promise to believe the same thing together, the full teaching of Jesus our Good Shepherd. Thanks be to Him who gave Himself as a lamb to be slain and now lives and reigns in Divine glory to all eternity!

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

Readings:
Acts 4:1–12 the stone rejected by you builders no other name under heaven
Ps. 23 The LORD is my shepherd
1 John 3:16–24 we know love, because He laid down His life for us
John 10:11–18 I am the good shepherd