Blessed Thanksgiving to you in Jesus Christ!

A couple of weeks ago before our Sunday Bible Class we recited the 4th petition, and I thought, this would be good to review for Thanksgiving…so let’s do that. Please open your hymnals to page 324 or go by memory and you can follow along.
Give us this day, our daily bread.

What does this mean? God certainly gives daily bread to everyone without our prayers, even to all evil people, but we pray in this petition that God would lead us to realize this and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving.
What is meant by daily bread?

Daily Bread includes everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house home, land, animals, money, goods, a devout husband or wife, devout children, devout workers, devout and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, ser-control, good reputation, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like…. Of course, this list of earthly needs and wants which God provides of His bounty could go on and on.

And speaking of lists that is one of our Thanksgiving Traditions is to go around the table and each one of us in our family is to speak a short list of things that they are thankful to God for. Of course, it is not exhaustive, because if we had to, we probably could never list everything that God provides because there is always more that we are not even aware of. That is kind of what the explanation of the 4th petition is: a reminder that God is the source of All the good in this world. The list is humungous as to what He provides for our earthly needs…not only to you and me and all believers, but He even provides it to evil people, to unbelievers. He is just that generous and loving even to His creatures who won’t acknowledge Him!

But what else is the point of this prayer and explanation? It is to not only to be overwhelmed at God’s generosity and say: “wow!” The point is not to think that the point of the 4th petition is that we can or should ask for anything and everything from God as though we would encourage covetousness or envy. As though it is ok to make another kind of list: a list of what “I wish you would give me God”, this is what I want, what I think I need, what would help me believe in you.

As we ready to celebrate this National Day of Thanksgiving, where hopefully we acknowledge and give thanks to God for all His blessings, we all know that the world has been and will increase its encouragement toward covetousness and envy. What do you want for Christmas? Look at these sales! Here are some things that you don’t have, that you didn’t even know you wanted until these sales, but you want them now, right? We only have so many or there is a time limit. So start planning during Thanksgiving or earlier, or earlier, for all the black Friday sales going on throughout November and beyond!

The church makes a list of what God has provided, the world makes a list of what you must provide for yourself. The church assures you that you are not defined by your material ownership, the world says that you are defined by what you own or do not own, that you are missing out unless you pursue what everyone wants. God through His church declares that you are His treasure and He desires that you be grateful and desire His gifts and His love. And with salvation in Christ along with simple food and raiment, we can be therewith content, the world declares that you can and should never be content with what you have; that greater treasures must be pursued, worked for, stolen, grabbed, and there is no end to the madness.

Why is there this madness? Unbelief. A loss of humanity and perspective comes with a lack of faith in the true loving God. Unkindness, bitterness, greed, envy, covetousness, wrath, lust, and all the cardinal evils of the original fallen flesh will be the ultimate motivation of humanity, without God’s love in Christ. Unbelievers have no hope beyond this world, so they madly pursue what they can here. They do not believe in a God who provides, but that they must provide for themselves or they will be victimized by “missing out”.

Then we too, are tempted, What do you have to be thankful for? Things are hard. Look at what God “hasn’t” provided. Why kid yourself? Live for the now. Challenge God, make that list of “gimme or else I won’t believe”. Or ok, just this one day, be thankful, while keeping one eye on the advertisements. Get busy, working, planning, rushing, stressing, the other 364 days of the year. Oh dear friends, brothers and sisters, this is the handiwork of Satan whispering madness to the flesh.

The 4th petition points out that God is generous according to His will and mercy. We should give thanks tonight and tomorrow, but not only then. “We pray in this petition that God would lead us to realize this and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving.” We can and should be “Thanksgiving” every day. Not only for our daily bread which provides only for our bodies. But we can and should be thanking God because He has provided that which gives true life to these bodies now and forevermore. We need this grace more than any other gift. Though we do not probably give thanks daily for all these daily spiritual and material gifts, we certainly “daily sin much and surely deserve nothing but punishment”.

So we rejoice that God provides even physical gifts even for unbelievers, and those unworthy, because we too, are unworthy and all to often live and believe as those who have no hope beyond this life. But we do.

God in His infinite mercy has provided a sacrifice, so that we may be pardoned. This is of course, God giving of Himself, His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, was sent to live in complete trust, faith, and obedience during His earthly life. Giving thanks always to His Father before His feeding miracles, Yes even when instituting the greatest and most important Thanksgiving meal: the Eucharist. He who was going to be treated most unfairly, gave thanks to His Father. He who was to be crucified as the innocent Lamb of God, gives thanks that He can and would redeem the world by His flesh given as in the bread, and the pouring forth of His flesh as given in wine. This meal which brings us the very gift of Christ’s all atoning sacrifice which is forgiveness of sins, life and salvation, is rightly called the Eucharist. Which is the giving of thanks for God’s good gift. God has provided a Savior, and now He spreads a meal for us to give thanks to Him approaching as forgiven ones for the sake of the server and the one served Jesus Christ.

We indeed have so much to be thankful for. Through Jesus Christ, death is overcome, our sins are forgiven, we have life in His name. We have been washed in Holy Baptism and given His righteousness to celebrate His victory for you and me. And yes, He also provides all the other things that our bodies need and usually many of our wants too. Let us daily and many times throughout the day, return to Christ in prayer and thanksgiving praising God for all His benefits: His gifts of daily bread and the bread which comes down from heaven so that we may have eternal life in Jesus Christ’s name. Amen.

Pr. Aaron Kangas

For this 2nd last Sunday of the church year, we hear that at the last there will be a separation and separating. We actually separate things all the time. In baking and cooking sometimes we have to separate things like the yolk from the white in an egg and as we approach Thanksgiving some you may even tasked with doing this very thing. While doing laundry, we separate clothes according to color or by fabric. Also, Farmers have to separate the seeds of the grain from the rest of the plant or chaff while harvesting. This is very biblical: the wheat and the chaff. Fisherman using nets separate the desirable or legal fish from those that are not legal, or desirable, or big enough. And here in today’s Gospel we have the separation of the sheep and the goats.

This simile that Jesus uses, He uses to illustrate the reality that on the last day there will be a separation. A separation between people who otherwise may appear similar. They are separated even as sheep and goats are separated. As they are separated, we learn that some will be separated also from the presence of the Son of Man and sent away to eternal punishment, but the righteous on the other hand will be gathered and ushered into eternal life.

Yet in Romans 8 St. Paul asks the question: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?” and then he answers it: “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Who or what can separate people from Jesus Christ? It isn’t hardship or trouble. It’s unbelief. But also those things which can lead to unbelief: earthly success, pride, and laziness just to name a few.

Quite often earthly hardship drives believers ever closer to faith and reliance upon the grace of God and His generosity. Instead of these troubles separating people from the Lord, they are drawn ever closer to Him. Leaning on Him, receiving from Him His generous grace upon Grace, forgiveness, hope, and strength in Jesus Christ. Therefore, in response to God’s grace, by faith they are generous in their lives. Generous in offerings, generous to their families, neighbors, and coworkers as their faith grows in Christ.

Today’s text is a gut check. It is a warning. As we talk about the end of time and the judgement of the world. We have to ask, “Am I a sheep or a goat”. What will I hear proclaimed at the last day?

We Lutherans and all Orthodox Christians proclaim that salvation cannot be earned. That good works cannot redeem us. That we are saved by grace through faith alone. As we believe so shall we be saved.

But here is the problem: the human flesh. You and I in our fallenness have a tendency to abuse either the Law on the one hand: thinking that we can earn salvation by our goodness ‘or having heard the Gospel we tend to abuse the Grace and gift of God.

People are saved by faith alone, but faith is never alone. We cannot say that we have faith and willfully go on sinning. We cannot say that we believe and willfully stay away from God’s Word. We cannot say that we love God and then be cruel and merciless even to our brothers and sisters in Christ. It is a dangerous thing to challenge God in His patience. And to challenge the strength of one’s belief in God by going on sinning to see how long that connection of faith can sustain itself until it snaps and one is fully separated from Jesus already in this life by their unbelief. Faith does not disappear all at once. It can be squeezed out day by day, week by week, year by year. Until there is none left. If in the public realm one is living their life no differently from the pagan unbelievers, they should ask: am I even a believer anymore?

The ancient church as they looked at this text from Matthew, believed that the people being separated in this passage did not represent believers and those of the world. The group from which these people, these sheep and goats are being separated represented the visible church here on earth. For there are many now and many throughout the ages who said they were believers, who may have been baptized in the church, who may have attended every Sunday, but did not believe. And because they did not believe, really, they had had no fruits of faith. They were not loving to Christ’s brothers and sisters meaning fellow members of the church. It is easy enough to adopt a child in Africa, but how difficult is it to listen to the needs and concerns of those within one’s own congregation and communion and then help? At the last day our hearts and thought will be revealed, but even now our lives today give an indication of the status and health of our faith and salvation. Martin Luther in a sermon on this very text once said: “In this way the distinction between sheep and goats is already made in this life, so that everyone can perceive it in himself and must also let it be noticed outwardly. Those who do not have faith will certainly do neither of these things: they will not take comfort in the grace of Christ, nor will they plan to practice mercy.”

So, have you as a baptized child of God, shown the love and mercy to your brothers and sisters that you could and should? Are you generous and good stewards of your time and talents? Have you planned and followed through in doing this good to the glory of God and to the good of your neighbor? Or have you been wasteful? Have you joined yourself in the wickedness of this world and the desires of your flesh? Have you been separating yourself from Christ Jesus and His Word? Have you known someone absenting themselves from this congregation, or caught up in a sin of any kind separating themselves from God and yet haven’t for the love of them exhorted them in humility to repent?

It is good to examine ourselves and our shortcomings. How can we ever know where by God’s grace we can improve unless we do this? How can we not but become lazy in our faith, or become proud in ourselves unless we take the time to examine ourselves.
Then we find, that we have failed, we have been more goatish in our witness and in our voice than sheepish. So, let us repent of our sin. Let us confess unto the Lord our points of weakness, our cold and selfish ways. And pray by God’s Grace not to deliver us according to our sin, but to forgive us for the sake of that same Son of Man who will come to judge the living and the dead. Though we have separated ourselves, it is God who through Jesus Christ gathers us again. And so, we are here, and I as your pastor announce that Jesus Christ died for those sins. That you are forgiven for His sake. That by His Holy Spirit you can indeed make plans to serve Him and glorify Him, to amend your ways, to show mercy to others in His name and succeed by His strength. But first, receive His love and mercy and strength.

Be reconciled to God and to each other, and be strengthened by Christ’s body and blood given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins. You receive the righteousness of Jesus Christ here and so you are declared righteous. You receive His mercy. Then go with joy from this place rejoicing in the treasure of salvation that is yours now for the sake of Jesus Christ. Make plans to do good, and follow through, and it will become a habit propelled by the Holy Spirit working through the Gospel. Then showing love and mercy may become part of who you are so that you might no longer even realize that you are doing it. Living by faith. Living in His joy having drunk deeply from His well of grace streaming from the side of Jesus Christ crucified and raised. God will give you this strength and faith to live for Him, until that day, when you shall stand before Jesus Christ, and He will say: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” And indeed, nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord forevermore. Amen.

Pr. Aaron Kangas

Today we begin today the Last Sundays of the Church Year. There are, in fact, only 3 Sundays left before we begin the season called Advent which marks the start of a new church year. As we approach the end of the church year and the beginning of Advent and a new year, we turn our attention to Christ’s second or final advent, that is, His triumphant coming back to the earth to judge the living and the dead which will bring about a new aeon or time for the church: the time of triumph and eternal glory. Therefore, with our Scripture Readings, we turn our eyes upon those things that have to do with the End Times. In the Holy Gospel we hear Jesus preaching to His Disciples on the Mount of Olives outside Jerusalem during the Holy Week just before His crucifixion and resurrection. In many ways these sermons are His last will and testament and teaching to them before He would be glorified and then ascended before them into heaven. These are words to pay attention to for every generation, but to those of us in this generation and time, many of Christ’s words seem to be coming true even now, therefore the end, we imagine must be coming nigh.

Jesus said, “If anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There!’ do not believe it.  For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.” Yet, this is what we have heard so often. With “new prophecies”, those speaking of raptures and hidden returns of Christ, and the like, it is easy to see with a biblical lens how busy the devil has been in the world. He has been multiplying all kinds of false religions and denominations and false prophets and false teachers throughout the world. All around us are many voices claiming to speak for Christ.

How confusing it is for a poor, bewildered soul! How can you know which voice is the right one? They are so deceptive, these false voices. They use the name of Christ. They teach from the Bible, or at least from parts of it. They seem like good, loving men and women, so loving, so accepting, so just. It seems so difficult to tell the true voices from the false.

But Christ has warned you in advance. There is no room for excuses. Those who are wise by learning from the Scriptures should be able to discern where the true Christ is and where the false christs are.

So. I tell you: Do not look for signs and miracles. There are many counterfeit miracles to dazzle your eyes. Do not look for visions and angels, for angels of light may actually be satan in disguise. Do you not know that Satan can easily deceive the eyes and ears, he knows the hearts and minds of men and women. Therefore even signs and wonders of space people, UFOs, and aliens could be satanic manifestations to cause people to doubt God’s Word.

Do not think that truth must be held by those who seem most pious and godly. It is easy to make a show of righteousness by the flesh. Remember that good works in the eyes of the world, no matter how spectacular and amazing they seem, are nothing in the eyes of God without true love and faith.

Where is Christ? Where is He to be found? Is he everywhere? Anywhere I want or don’t?

On a Sunday morning, many people go looking for Christ, here, there, and everywhere. Some say, “He’s in my heart, so I can worship God in my pajamas at home.”  Some say, “He’s in nature, so I can worship God by going hunting.” Some say, “I can watch the man on television, or read my favorite book. Anything that teaches prosperity or fearsome law, or a church that excuses my sin or just makes me feel good.”  Many just through up there hands and say, “who knows? Who cares?” So very sad, because He will come to judge in terror, but in the meantime, He comes with hope, healing, and teaching.

The devil is very tricky in using the flesh and the world to keep people from finding Christ where He is for them with all His wonderful grace and truth: that is in a right-teaching church. The devil tells us, such churches seem boring, cold, and lacking in good works. “Surely God is not there, with these hypocrites” they say. But you – seek out Christ where He has promised to be.

If the deceptions in the world were to continue forever, then even the elect of God would eventually be deceived and led astray. Therefore, God will cut this time of deception short.

For now, we must be discerning. We must avoid the smooth talk of deceivers. We must avoid the easy paths of false shepherds. We must avoid lawlessness which brings the coldness of hearts and agnostic unbelief.

We must go to where Christ where He truly is, where the Holy Spirit works through the words of Jesus Christ. We may not even recognize at first but later say, “Did our hearts not burn within us while He talked with us, and opened to us the Scriptures?

For He is here today. He is speaking now. He is wherever His Gospel is spoken in purity and truth.

This is why the devil tries to tempt you away by saying, “He is here! He is there! You must, run and find Christ elsewhere!” The only thing the devil cares about is to get you away from this House and this Word. If he tempts you away, then you have not found Christ, but lost Him. Mind you, the devil is a master at his job. He blinds the eyes and dazzles the senses. He knows a thousand tricks to harden men’s hearts. His illusions and false signs never feel evil, but they feel good and wholesome and godly. Many have been deceived, and led astray. Many are not following the Word of God, but their own hearts. They place their own emotions upon the throne of authority, where Christ and His Word should be.

But flee to the mountain. Go to the one Rock of salvation that can save your souls. Build your house upon the one solid foundation that can never collapse.

Dear brothers and sisters, blind yourselves to all things in heaven and on earth except this one thing: The Gospel of Christ and Holy Scripture. See and hear only that, and the devil will not be able to lead you away.

This is the real, pure doctrine: that we are redeemed by Christ from our sins, from death, and from satan by His death and resurrection. We are planted in the kingdom of God through the Word and faith and made free from all manmade law. We are no longer under the condemnation of God’s Law because Christ has come to us, He has spoken to us and given us faith. No man, whoever he might be, can enter into the Kingdom of God through the works of the law nor be made free from sin, but only through Christ. Where this Gospel is preached, there is Christ.

As the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather. Except that the Greek “aetion” means eagle. Therefore as the world is freaking out and going where there is no Christ but only falsehood, may you be found where Christ gives His Body and Blood. As eagles feasting upon the crucified and raised corpse of Jesus Christ for strength. There He is. Even now as we eat and drink where He is, it comes to pass:
“they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
    they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
    they shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31
He gives us wing and freedom of strength over the troubles and woes of sin and death where He gathers the true church already even as the angels will come and gather us at the last day. In this one place on earth, more than any other, Christ dwells. Here He is now. In no other place does He bring His presence here in this way, in bread and wine. Only on the last day will He manifest Himself in a greater way. As St. paul declares in 1 Corinthians “as often as we eat this bread and drink this cup, we show the Lord’s death until He comes.”

Here is Christ! For you!

We have too often been absent, and too often been half-hearted or distracted. Although we know that this is where Christ is, we have let other things be more important than Him. We have sought out other “christs”.

Yet for all our disobedience, He still seeks and calls us and saves us. Bringing us back to the font, back to absolution, back to the fold, to His body, the true temple of sacrifice and reconciliation with God. To the place where Jesus Christ promises to come to you with His power and glory perceived by believers of each generation until He comes again in full power and glory when the whole world shall see it and cry out in woe.

But we, we shall rejoice in that day. Our salvation will have come to full revelation in that day. We do not fear the end, but we use this time to speak and witness to a world of lawlessness and lovelessness of the law and love fulfilled for life eternal in Christ. To a turbulent and dying world, we point to the true Christ where this Savior truly is now. In His peace we remain. We know where Christ is, and we pray to remain in this life, steadfast in being brought to where He is, crucified and raised for the forgiveness of our sins.

When He returns, with the glory of God and the flash of lightning and the thunderous voice of the Archangel, then you will be found where Christ is. If you are gathered with Him in this life, then you will be with Him forever and ever in the life that is yet to be fully realized. In death, in life, in eternity, He is your forever. He has marked you as His own possession, and He will never let you go.

In Jesus Christ’s name. Amen.

Pr. Aaron Kangas

Today we observe the feast Day of All Saints, where we celebrate the victory given to all the Saints who from their labors rest. We give thanks to God through Jesus Christ for their confession of faith and lives here on earth and pray that we too might be remain faithful and be brought to that eternal rest through Christ.

By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, John had a vision of that eternal rest. He saw the saints in heaven. He saw what it takes to make a saint, that is, a holy one.  One of the elders speaking to John tells John the exact process for making a saint. The elder said, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” 

The blood of the Lamb is the blood of Jesus Christ as John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! The Apostle John wrote, [1 John 1:7] “The blood of Jesus [God’s] Son cleanses us from all sin.” The writer of Hebrews said, “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”  

Therefore, becoming “holy ones” or saints, comes only from the holiness of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. It comes by the washing of regeneration and sprinkling in Christ’s Blood in the pure waters of baptism as the merits and righteousness of Jesus Christ and His sacrifice for sins on the cross are applied to His people by faith.

The world has the idea that saints are declared to be Saints because of their own good works or in the Roman Catholic church the designation “saint” is given only when a very pious and holy person dies and then after a drawn out process involving miracles in that person’s name the pope must designate that person a saint. This too is not the biblical definition.

Sainthood cannot be achieved by a good effort and nobody can confer it upon themselves. In this life all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. Instead, sainthood is conferred from outside ourselves. It is given by God through His Grace for the sake of the perfect life, and the innocent suffering and death of Jesus Christ our Lord and savior. 

If we were to call ourselves saints according to the world’s idea of sainthood, we would be pointing to our own accomplishments and the world would be right to call us arrogant and self-righteous. If we were honest, even all our loved ones who have gone before us in the faith who now rest were imperfect in their earthly endeavors. But if we look at how sainthood is conferred according to the Bible, then we see that it is given by God’s grace despite the failings of mortal men and women. People are declared holy for the sake of the work and grace of Jesus Christ crucified and raised. It is in Him that Christians glory for what He has done, that He has redeemed them. That He has taken our polluted garments and washed them by His blood.

When we say that someone is a saint in the Biblical sense of the word, we are simply saying that the Holy Spirit has worked faith in them – that they believe that the Son of God took on human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ and earned the forgiveness of sins for them with His holy, precious blood and His innocent suffering and death.

Does the description of a saint sound a lot like the description of a Christian? It should. All Christians are saints and all saints are Christians.

When we talk of all the saints as one large group of believers, we are really talking about the Holy Christian Church. The Holy Christian Church is sometimes also called the Communion of Saints.

This Communion of Saints spans two different worlds. Here on this earth, in this life, we are the Church Militant. We continue to struggle against temptation, the devil and our flesh in this sin soaked world. Even though Jesus has defeated Satan with His death on the cross and His resurrection from the dead, Satan still tries to wrest the victory from God’s children by tormenting and tempting them from the confession of Christ’s name. This is why we are the church Militant, we are yet in this life upon the battlefield. We would be defeated, except as we sang last Tuesday, “for us, fights the Valiant One”, Jesus Christ is our Mighty Fortress who fights by our side and continues to give us strength and power as He feeds and empowers us through His Word and Sacraments by the forgiveness of our sin so that we may reach the goal and receive the victory by faith in His name.

Cheering us on, though not able to clearly see our struggles, is the Church Triumphant. The Church Triumphant is made up of all those saints who are already gathered at the throne of the Lamb, who are now at rest from this earth’s labors. They are now without sin, without hunger, without misery, without tears, because the one called the Lamb is their Shepherd – who leads His lambs to living fountains of water. All memory of pain, death, sin, sickness, poverty, hunger, persecution, and hatred are wiped from their eyes along with their tears.

Even though this church spans two worlds, there are not two churches: there is not one here on earth and another in heaven. We “believe in one holy Christian and apostolic church.” The oneness of the church is not destroyed even by the separation of death. For where Jesus is, there are His saints – those here on earth, and those who have “come out of the great tribulation” of life in this world.

The church on earth and the church in heaven are united around the throne of God and in the presence of the Lamb through faith in Jesus Christ. When we gather around the altar on Sunday, we know that our deceased relatives and friends who have likewise “washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb” are right there with us. When we sing “Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world”, we sing along with the countless Christians of every age. When we chant “Holy, holy, holy”, we do so with billions of the faithful from every time and place. And when we come before the Body and Blood of the Lord, we are joined with those whom we love and remember but can no longer embrace. We are not only in the presence of Jesus, but are also surrounded by this great cloud of witnesses, this host arrayed in white, those who fall on their faces night and day in worship before the Lord Himself.

So, it is proper that we praise God for the men and women of faith who have gone before us. It is appropriate that we honor the work that God had done in their lives to give them saving faith in Jesus Christ, and through them served others including you and me. It is good to give honor to those who have preceded us into the Church Triumphant.

When we honor the redeemed, we are also honoring the Redeemer. The saints who are holy in God’s eyes testify to the only One who is eternally holy: our Lord Jesus Christ. It is His blood that covers our sin and allows us to stand in His presence. It is being baptized into His death that gives us a white robe. It is His Word and Sacraments that usher us already into the throne room and gives us a foretaste of eternity where we will never again suffer or be unhappy.

What then shall we do while we wait for our turn to leave the battle of this world and enter the rest our Savior has prepared for us? Let us live humbly before our God, in service to Him and to our neighbor as He has served us with His salvation here.

Remember the Savior promises never to leave us or forsake us. So live by His grace and the forgiveness of sin given through faith in Jesus Christ. Be fed and forgiven through His Word, be empowered by His Spirit to confess His name in worship and in your vocations to His glory.

Though we live in a mortal body decaying with sin, these bodies will be raised and made new. Though our worship is imperfect, it will be perfected. Though our voices may crack and are imperfect now, they will one day sing in perfect harmony with the angels in eternal glory. 

We who believe are already saints, holy ones. By His death on the cross, the Lord Himself clothes us with His righteousness, and through His resurrection He will one day shepherd us to everlasting life. In that blessed place we will experience the eternal joy of God’s presence along with the rest of the Communion of Saints. Amen

Pr. Aaron Kangas

Today is Reformation Day, also called “the eve of All Saints”, or Halloween. 506 years ago, an Augustinian friar and professor at Wittenberg University named Martin Luther posted 95 theses in Latin for theological discussion concerning the sale of indulgences on the castle church door. These statements which were concerned with answering what is true repentance?” and how can forgiveness of sins be bought or sold? This is what began what we now call the Reformation of the western church.

When you reform something, you don’t start from scratch. You conserve what you can and you fix what you can’t. A true Reformation tends to be conservative. It’s like pruning a perennial or trimming a tree. You don’t dig out the whole plant and put another in its place, nor do you whack down the whole tree to the root. You prune selectively, skillfully, carefully. Luther did not intend to split an already fractured church. Nor did he intend to start a new church, as if such a thing were possible. This was not about shaking a defiant fist at the Pope, though he did do a bit of that later on, nor was it about breaking away from the big bad Catholic Church, nor was it, as the radical reformation believed, so that some new pure church could emerge from the impure Catholic. This was supposed to be, and always is, about reformation. Correcting what is wrong, conserving what is right.

And so it is today. The Church is always and ever being reformed: including the “Lutheran church”, even this church. Every part of the church. It’s not simply a once and done deal where you can rest on your laurels. As long as there is sin and weak humanity, there is always going to be error, drift, a little sideways current or wind that blows the Church slightly off course. That’s true for each of us justified sinners too. We are ever in need of reformation. It’s not about once saved always saved. Our Baptism is not a one time thing but a daily thing, a daily dying and rising, a daily repentance and justification, a daily reformation by God’s Word. That is what the Reformation was all about: God’s Word.

Jesus spoke to the Jews who HAD believed in Him. They used to believe, but not anymore. There’s no once believed always believing security here. You dare not take the gift of faith lightly. What went wrong? Did God fail? Did the Word fail to do its faith creating, sustaining, enlivening work? No. The people refused. They had turned from the Word. Faith is born of the Word, is fed by the Word, is sustained by the Word. And without the Word, faith dies.

Jesus said, “If you abide in my Word you are truly my disciples.” But to be a disciple is to abide in the Word of Jesus, that is, to remain in the Word, to exist in the Word: being connected to Jesus by hearing His Word and having His Word have its way with you. The same word “abide” is used in Jesus’ saying of the vine and the branches. A branch abides in the vine and draws life from it. Cut off from the vine, the branch is fruitless and dead. Cut off from the Word, faith is fruitless and dead too.

There is a promise for those who abide in the Word of Jesus. “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Jesus Himself is the truth. His Word is truth. To abide in the truth is to abide in Jesus, which is the only place in which a sinner may abide and live before God.

The truth is that we are sinners. Not simply ones who commit sin, that is, do bad things, think bad thoughts, or say bad words. It goes much deeper than that. We are slaves to Sin with a capital S. “Whoever sins is a slave to Sin.”

Do you sin? Well, in case you’re not sure, the commandments say that you do. Do you fear, love, and trust in God above all things? Do you use the name of God rightly in worship and prayer? Do you gladly hear and learn God’s Word? Do you honor father, mother, and other temporal authorities? Do you help your neighbor in every need? Do you keep marriage pure and encourage others to do the same? Do you help your neighbor protect his property? Do you defend the reputation of others by putting the best construction on everything? Do you desire what doesn’t belong to you? Are you content with what you have?

The truth is that you do not abide in God’s Word as you should and therefore sin, and when you sin you are therefore a slave to sin, just as Israel was once a slave in Egypt, but then fell into the slavery of idolatry again and again: a fact that the Jews in the Gospel text seemed to have conveniently forgotten. They took God’s grace for granted. You’re freed from slavery, and forget the slavery and get enslaved elsewhere. “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone.” How soon people forget. That’s pride talking, and an unusual form of pride. The worst form of pride which is spiritual pride. It’s receiving a gift and then acting as if you’d earned it all along. Or forgetting entirely that it is a gift, and so also forgetting the giver.

We are born enslaved, captive to Sin and Death. We cannot free ourselves. We’re stuck. And any attempts at self-liberation only make matters worse. When we honestly look into the mirror of the Law we find that it’s a magnifying mirror. Even things we thought were OK, even those places where we felt self-justified turn out to be so riddled with sin we barely recognize the good. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. The mere fact that we sin in our thoughts, words, and our actions reminds us that we are slaves to Sin.

A slave remains for a while, a son remains forever. The Word of God in His Gospel is that which frees us. The Word made flesh, the Son of God came down to us trapped in slavery to sin. The Son joined us in our humanity. The Son stood side by side with the slave to free us. He paid the price. He redeemed us. He lived the Law flawlessly without Sin. He was not enslaved by Sin, He was Lord over Sin. Yet as Lord, He came under the Law that accuses us, that holds us accountable, that silences us before God, and condemns us to eternal death. He took up our Sin and our Death and He nailed it all to His cross. The Son became the slave so that the slave might become the son. And if the Son sets you free, you are free as free can be.

That’s what Martin Luther discovered when He looked at the cross of Jesus and for the first time in his life saw mercy rather than merit. Undeserved kindness rather than an example to follow. When he heard that phrase “the righteousness of God” and recognized that this was not something you worked for by the Law but it was something given as a gift by God’s Word in Jesus Christ through faith. The Law drives you to Jesus seeking mercy, which is what it’s supposed to do. The Law is there to shut every mouth so that no one can boast before God. The Word of the Law prepares us to receive, in joy, the Word of the Gospel. Jesus Christ died upon the cross, so that you may be set free from the enslavement to sin, flesh, and the accusations of the Devil.

There is power in God’s Word. Power to rebuke the devil and His ways. Power to rebuke our pride. Power to embolden us by the forgiveness of sins given freely by Grace in Jesus Christ. The Word which we hear in Baptism, in Holy Absolution, in the Lord’s Supper, in the study of God’s Word, in catechesis, in our hymns, our liturgy. The Reformation was not about adding to God’s Word. It was about magnifying God’s Word: magnifying Jesus Christ and His rescuing freeing act of redemption. Showing that there is power in the Word to convert, to change, to grow strong and steadfast, because it is all about Jesus Christ and God’s will for your salvation.

Martin Luther, the Wittenburg theologians and the faithful reformers ever since have tried to promote biblical literacy, a knowledge of Scripture, how to read it, to find the power therein. It is this through which God causes personal repentance, forgiveness, and reformation and recreation in His Holy Freedom: Law, Gospel, Jesus Christ. It is this Word which causes Satan to fall. He cannot accuse us or lead us astray if we are steeped in and abiding in the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ.

In Jesus you are free. Free from the Law’s condemnation. Free from enslavement to Sin. Free from Death, free from the torments of the Devil whose power has been destroyed. You are free to live before God as a justified sinner. Free to serve your neighbor in love. The slave is made a son, a child, an heir. Should you doubt this and wonder if it applies to you, remember that you are baptized. Baptism is your adoption paper. You were a slave but now you are a son, a daughter with the full rights of sons. You have a place at the table. You have a permanent place in the house to abide with your Lord and Savior as He abides with you in His Word, His Divine Service, His absolution, His body and blood in the bread and wine.

Therefore, abide in that justifying Word, and you are a disciple of Jesus. Abide in that Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, and you are forgiven. Abide in that Word, and you are free, and will remain free, for “if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” In Jesus Christ’s Name, Amen.

Pr. Aaron Kangas

“Go, your son will live”. This prognosis which Jesus spoke to the official whose son was near death was not exactly what that official wanted to hear. No, he had wanted more than a nice word. He wanted signs, He wanted Jesus to come to his home with haste.

This official lived in Capernaum which was approximately 16 miles from Cana. His son was ill and dying, but when this official heard that this same Jesus who changed the water into wine was back from Jerusalem, he had hope. Yes, it would be a 2-3 day journey to get there and back, and to leave his son and family during such a time would have been painful, (I mean what if his son died while he was gone) but maybe, this Jesus person could help.

So, the official hastily journeyed and arrived to see Jesus, asked him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. So, Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” 

This phrase speaks to people of all times. The Gospel of John tells us that many were interested in Jesus because of the signs done by Him. They were able to suffer through to listen to His preaching from time to time, but only because they expected a payoff of beholding the spectacle and wonder of some new miraculous sign of healing, of changing water to wine, or something else. Sadly, our human nature has a faith that is conditional towards each other and towards God as well, “what have you done for me lately?” Give me proof that you care, so that you can earn my care in return.” “God, you still haven’t healed my illness, you haven’t improved my finances, you haven’t brought about world peace,”… or whatever expectations we place upon Him.

We are selfish and our doubt and our conditional “faith” is really unbelief and is therefore sinful. God’s Word should be enough for us, but it rarely is. God spoke creation itself into existence, so if He tells us that He loves us, that we don’t have to be anxious, that He knows our needs and will provide for them, why isn’t it enough? Because since the fall into sin by our first parents, we still wonder, “Is God’s Word really true?” We don’t trust God. We are born separated from Him by our sin, predisposed to selfish impulses, prone to doubting everyone else’s motivations because we know our own impulses. There have been times when we have trusted people and they have let us down.

God tells us: that “you will live” “you are saved” “You are precious to me” on account of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection paying for our sins, yet, we wonder: “is there room for doubt? How can I know for sure, unless God is constantly proving His love through signs of success and earthly blessings”.

To Jesus’ declaration regarding signs, the official did not deny his desire for a sign and for Jesus to drop everything and take care of his problem, but he said to Jesus, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”
“Go, your son will live.” What did the official think in response? He didn’t plead with Jesus, “no, come on, you must come with me!” He didn’t curse Jesus, himself, or swear oaths, or try to make deals. No a miracle happens…I don’t mean the healing of the official’s son. The miracle is here: “The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way.”

He believed the word spoken by the Word made flesh in Jesus Christ. The same Word that formed the earth, and brought life to flesh, now speaks and as Jesus speaks here in Cana, new life, new hope is created as we are told the man believed the word, and the response of faith to that word is to trust and go as he was told.

Then as he traveled, it is possible that he began to doubt again. As he anxiously neared Capernaum, his servants met him and told him that his son was recovering. So he asked them the hour when he began to get better, and they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” The father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” And he himself believed, and all his household. 

He undoubtedly told his family all about Jesus, the time when Jesus said that the son would live, and so on. Then they all believed. And as the father, son, other family and servants believed in Jesus, then there is greater significance to the phrase, “your son will live” because it points to living as opposed to dying: As in Jesus’ words in John 11:
“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”
The never dying refers to the fact that faith in Jesus Christ makes it that people may taste of death in this life, but they will never truly see and experience true death, meaning eternal death and punishment. Why? Because of Jesus, because of the greater and greatest sign that He performed so that you may believe and have life in His name. That sign is the sign of the cross where Jesus died for you. What has God done for you lately? He continues to forgive you your sins, He continues to reach out and comfort you in your sin and its curse of pain, suffering, amidst a world that is truly dying in unbelief and despair. He has taken that sign of the cross and placed the power of God’s loving sacrifice upon you in Holy Baptism where you were washed and a miracle has taken place. As we sing LSB hymn 593: “See this wonder in the making”
“Here we bring a child of nature, Home we take a new born creature, Now God’s precious son daughter, born again by Word and water.”

Dear friends, you are now a son or a daughter of God, by virtue of faith worked by God creating Word through its preaching and as it works through Word and Water, Word of Absolution and confirmed in His Word with wine and bread with His own body and blood. You, oh son, you oh daughter will live! Behold the signs which bring healing and confirmation of His love and testimony to you.

The official’s son may have been healed, but that does not mean that he never got sick again, that he was not persecuted later on, and that his body never died. That again is the power of Jesus declaration to the official and to you. You will live: forever. If you are sick, you may be healed in your body, but you have been healed of your sins, even if your body wears out, you will live, forever. Because Jesus Christ has conquered death. In His death, the bite of death and darkness has been dulled. Satan, the world and the flesh may try to bring you back into doubt and despair, but that is why we come here. Why we receive from the Lord, His gifts of grace, His signs of victory in Christ. So that as St. Paul says, Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

By faith we can put on the whole armour of Christ and leave this place ready for those daily battles, facing them head on. Rebuking and resisting, because it is God’s power, the power of His word, which is in us and all around us and the devil, the world, and our own flesh cannot overcome it.

And when we falter, we return to Christ, to Church, and we are healed and outfitted again until the day that the battle for us ceases, when we join the church triumphant about whom we will talk more next Sunday. Yes stand firm in the faith of Christ crucified even as you go on your way. You will live eternally for Jesus Christ’s sake, Amen.

Pr. Aaron Kangas

If we were invited to a great celebration and party for someone like a king or queen or president we probably and immediately ask: what should I wear? Imagine if this were to a wedding banquet? Even with regular weddings you probably wouldn’t just come as you were, you surely wouldn’t want to dress in your dingiest and dirty clothes. You would want to wear something nice and special. Why? Because to wear grimy clothes to such an event shows disrespect and disregard to the inviter. But what if you didn’t have to worry about it, if that royal host actually provided the clothing to wear? You wouldn’t even have to worry about choosing or deciding what would be appropriate, you wouldn’t have to worry about buying something or being offensive. Just wear what is provided. It would be a generous gift for just being at the party. We would praise their generosity and receive that added gift and wear it gladly, wouldn’t we? Well I would think so.

Something similar happened in today’s Gospel lesson. Jesus told a parable of a king whose son was getting married. Of course, a marriage is something worthy of celebrating, and he had long before invited many people to come to this wedding. But when the time for the wedding feast, virtually none of those who had been invited showed up. When the king sent his servants to find out “what was going on?”, some of the people who were invited merely shrugged off the messengers. They all had something else to do that they thought was more important. What is worse, is that some even beat and killed the messengers. Almost unbelievable.

Remember the one inviting wasn’t just some guy down the street, this was the king. The ruler and governing authority. The reaction of the people wasn’t caused by a slight disagreement of a sense of priorities, it wasn’t that they knew that the food and celebration wouldn’t be fun. No, the reactions of the people was outright disrespect, even hatred for their king.

But why did they hate this king? It sounds like from the parable that he was loving king, a king who was generous and patient, providing for his people, yet the ones initially invited despised him for his generosity to the point of killing his messengers.

This parable is talking about God the Father, His Son was Jesus, the time of celebration was the time of salvation and the redemption of the Bride by the Bridegroom in the life and sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The subjects of the king who had been invited but rejected it were the Jews: many who also beat the prophets of God and killed many prophets sent from God.

The king still wanted to serve and give and celebrate so his servants gathered many people from the roads, the passersby, those travelling through the countryside, many who were probably not citizens. This represents the gathering of the Gentiles, the non-Jews into the Christian Church. But even among those who were brought in there was a disrespect and disregarding of the king and his generosity. It didn’t have to do with whether people were good or bad in their state when brought in, for it says that the servants gathered and brought in both the good and the bad. It had to do with the wedding garment. The clothing.

The king had provided for his guests a wedding garment so that all the people regardless of their background, their situation previous to being admitted would no longer be seen based on that but now would be equally dressed in royal celebration garments. The king provided for them, they were probably made of wonderful material, more comfortable than anything else, a person has the privilege of being at this feast, why would they wear something other than what was provided? Why would a person insist on wearing your own clothing? Pride in themselves and disrespect or distrust of the king.

It is very interesting that this text comes around in the 1 year series near the celebration of the Reformation because it speaks very closely to one of the primary abuses of the Western church in the days of Martin Luther.

You see, the wedding garment provided represents God’s the righteousness of free grace and mercy in Jesus Christ. The garment of His righteousness won for believers in His redeeming work of salvation when He died on the cross as a payment for sins; so that those who have been bad and somewhat good (yet all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God). According to the Law, all are unworthy of coming into the presence of God because of their wretched rags of sin and pride. But Jesus died so that ALL could be saved and become citizens and guests covered in His blood and righteousness in order to celebration the feast of this victory and marriage of Christ, the Bridegroom with the Church His bride. This royal garment of righteousness is given in baptism, and daily washed in repentance and the remembrance of Christ’s promise in Baptism…but a person can reject this garment. A person can add to it or discard it, and decide that they would rather wear the garment of their own righteous deeds or their own sin.

This was really the battle that was raging at the time of Martin Luther. The Roman catholic church at the time of Luther had failed in proclaiming the grace and mercy of God through Jesus Christ. They did not see the garment of Christ’s righteousness to be an elegant wardrobe. They insisted, that people should add to it, they should add to it their own works, their offerings to Rome, their pilgrimages to holy sites, their prayers to the Saints, and their purchases of indulgences, or permission to receive forgiveness because they paid the price with cash.

Now if that isn’t pride and a slap in the face of the king, God the Father, and the free grace and sacrifice which He provided in His Son, I don’t know what is.

Yet this is the natural state of people: Jews, Gentiles, Lutherans, pastors, laity. We all so often take God’s grace for granted and want to wear the garments of our own design. Either we want to wear our deeds and magnify ourselves in our piety and our own holiness. Or we may make instruments of God’s grace like baptism, the Lord’s Supper into works to point to our own obedience as though God’s grace isn’t enough and it isn’t His work, it’s MY work, too often we have to add our decorations; our interpretations on His Word and grace which are not biblical and do not point to Christ. People may even make attendance at church as a thing of pride, rather than an opportunity to attend the presence of the king and His Son, receiving from Him His gifts for our good.

The other side of wearing garments of our own design is that we just not care about God and His invitation and His gifts at all. We see attendance at church as something that we do “if” we have nothing else to do. Or many will just stop coming all together because they don’t see that invitation by the king as a privilege and a source of joy. “I have other things to do” or “I don’t need it”. Or I would rather keep wearing the “lived in, beat up” shreds of cloth that the world wears and my sinful flesh enjoys.

When we sin, we are discarding the clothes of righteousness provided by God. We are saying “God, you may be the king of the universe, but I will do what I want when I want to. Take me as I am, if you love me, or don’t. I don’t care, I just gotta do what I want right now. That crucifixion of your son, well that’s nice, it makes it so that I can sin right here and now so your grace can abound by forgiving me later, right?”

OH, I don’t know how God puts up with us. If we were treated the same way as we treat God in His grace, we would be same angry and bitter. Honestly, that is what we deserve. WE don’t deserve multiple chances of repentance and forgiveness. We deserve the troops of the king to come and seize us and throw us into the place of punishment with weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Therefore, let us repent of the dirty shredded clothing and garments of sin of our own making, and plead for the sake of Jesus Christ, mercy to cover over our bodies of sin. To remove our pride in ourselves and the world, and put on instead the gentleness, humility, and joy of Christ’s righteousness.

This was the message that God planted into the mouth of Martin Luther and His messengers of the Reformation. Return to Christ. Don’t put on any longer those inferior garments of our own making, there are no shortcuts, nor is there room for pride.

Let us instead rejoice in the Word of God, let us be clothed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ which is far better, greater, and more splendid than any other clothing. Let us sing unto the Lord and praise Him for His generosity and His salvation which has come to us freely, saving us from eternal destruction.

Then let us attend and celebrate the feast and banquet of His victory with not with a spirit of pride, but gratitude. being filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ and the Truth which He teaches. Jesus Christ has died for your sin, we have been clothed with His righteousness the most splendid of garments. He has risen from the dead so that we may walk in His wisdom and the newness of life, into His presence in thanksgiving and joy to rest in Him, being fed the greatest of food and drink: Himself, being comforted and strengthened now and until we receive this feast in full at the last for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Pr. Aaron Kangas

In the Gospel text today, Jesus heals a man who was paralyzed, but even more than that: He first forgave the man his sins. So, which was the greater or should I say, which was the more important gift? The forgiveness of sins.

The Scribes recognized that it was a big deal that Jesus said that He forgave the man His sins. “Blasphemy” they thought. Nobody can forgive sins, but God alone. Jesus, being God in the flesh, knew their thoughts and called them out. It is easy enough to say the words: “your sins are forgiven you” but not actually have the authority or power to forgive sins, so the healing that Jesus performed actually backed up the power and authority that Jesus had to forgive sins of those brought to Him with faith. So, Jesus forgave the man, raised him from his paralyzed and helpless condition and the man gathered his bed and walked home.

One of the objections that people outside our confession have to what we as Lutheran do, is this: forgiving sins. Not just the “I forgive you for sinning against me” that every person can and should do, but specifically how we begin the Divine Service. The confessing sins to the pastor whether it be here altogether in a corporate way, that is, as it is said together, or to confess one’s sins to the pastor in private the pastor then speaking Absolution (that is forgiveness in the stead of Christ) is very strange to many in other church bodies. Many people react to this like, “wait, how can a man forgive sins? Why do you have this thing that you go through where a pastor says specifically “I forgive you your sins”? “Is that man making himself like God?” “Can’t only God forgive sins?” Well, that’s right that only God can ultimately save us and forgive sins against God and our neighbor. Does that mean that a pastor who says these words is putting Himself equal to God or placing himself in the place of God? Is a pastor telling people that he has power to forgive and not forgive as though he were God? Is the pastor doing this by his own authority?” That there is the key. Is a Pastor forgiving by his own authority or is he proclaiming it by an authority higher than himself? Any pastor who thinks that he is equal to God or Christ Jesus, or who thinks that he can just forgive sins or not forgiven sins, whenever, however, and to whomever based on his own whims or feelings, is of course, wrong. But what goes on in the absolution is not by my authority. I, Aaron Kangas, am nothing. It is the authority given to me to pronounce and announce this absolution to repentant sinners by God through Jesus Christ, as Jesus said to the Apostles on the night of His resurrection: “He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld’.”

A pastor is the Lutheran church Missouri Synod does not take on this responsibility or office on his own. He is not to assume the office of his own choosing. He doesn’t just start preaching or forgiving sins, because of his authority, because he has a gift of gab or because he knows Scripture. At least that should not be the case, and mistakes still happen, bad men get into office, and godly men may fall into temptation and fall from that position or simply burn out.

But we believe and confess that God calls and brings men into the office of pastor. He uses what we call a “mediate call”. Mediate means that God uses means He uses others to bring this about. Another pastor may see that a particular man has talent, ability, a faith and might want to consider the possibility and so he suggests and may encourage that man to pray about it. Then if he does follow to see what is God’s will, he must be interviewed at the seminary from the beginning and throughout his studies and then finally before he graduates. Then God uses what we term the “calling process” which involves many people, District Presidents, committees, etc. as you know. But by prayer, ultimately God uses a congregation to call a man who has been approved to serve them, and is then ordained and installed, or just installed if he has already been ordained. But a pastor is subject not to the congregation first and foremost, but rather to God and His Word to serve them faithfully with that same Word and the gifts that God gives which bring with them God’s forgiveness of sins.

Why then does a pastor proclaim an “absolution”? Because just as the act of salvation has to come from outside humanity’s dead in sin condition, faith and forgiveness must also come from outside of us. Faith is created by the Holy Spirit working through His Word and Sacraments which proclaim and deliver the benefits of Christ’s sacrifice and victory over sin to those infected, infested and paralyzed in the bondage of sin. This action of God to us from the outside or objective reality, to us personally or subjective is powerful stuff because it reminds us that the assurance of God’s love is not based on the quality of our obedience, the “sincerity” or constancy of our emotions, or whether or not things are “going well”. Living with our fallen flesh, in a sin-plagued world, we need this outside assurance and proclamation of a hope and promise bigger than ourselves.

However, the Devil works quite often by drawing people into themselves looking for assurance from within ourselves. He uses our tendency to pride: pride in our works, our desires, our own thoughts of righteousness…convincing us that we don’t need God or the church or to hear the forgiveness of sins. Or he will plant doubt and insecurity into people if they internalize their salvation and confuse the Law and doubt the Gospel. “I am a sinner. How can God love me? Can this sin truly be forgiven? I believe, I think, but how can I know this forgiveness is from God and for me?”

That is why God uses these objective (that is, outside of us) means. To draw us outside of ourselves. We are otherwise paralyzed, dead in our trespasses and cannot help ourselves. Without forgiveness, without God’s healing touch of His Word and sacraments coming from outside our own self to raise us from our sins, we will remain paralyzed in our sinful condition. That is why, much as the paralyzed man in the Gospel text needed to be brought to Jesus, and God used His friends, we needed somebody outside ourselves and God used that somebody else to bring us to Jesus. So we were brought to His Word in Holy Baptism, to His Word of forgiveness, where the Lord raised and healed us by in Christ Jesus. Our sins were placed upon Him crucified and raised to pay for our trespasses, and His righteousness placed upon us.

Throughout our lives, as we wrestle against our flesh, the devil, the world, and we fall into temptation, the Holy Spirit moves us to examine ourselves and repent anew and the Pastor from week to week speaks the absolution, Christ’s forgiveness of sins: “I forgive” “for you”, not by his own authority but as the mouthpiece of Jesus Christ by His authority, to assure repentant sinners, that God’s love and forgiveness is an objective unchangeable truth accomplished through Jesus Christ for the repentant believer in His death and resurrection. They don’t have to wonder “Am I forgiven? Do I feel forgiven? How can I know?”

That is why I as the pastor say, by the authority given to me, by Jesus Christ, forgive you your sins in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is God’s forgiveness. In His name. The same name into which you were baptized and brought from unbelief into belief. From death to life. The same powerful name of the Trinity which brought you here to move you to see your sin, your need for His grace, and then gives it to you: In your ears in Absolution and preaching, over head in your baptism, to daily remember it, and into your mouth in the bread and wine with Christ’s true body and blood. All so that you can know that this forgiveness of sins is for you. That it is Real. This Word is Jesus speaking to you. You have been baptized, you have been repented, you are now forgiven in His name and by His authority. Both outside and in. All doubt: now flee away. Have confidence in that forgiveness of sins proclaimed not because of me as your pastor, but have confidence in the power and authority to whom I point: Jesus Christ crucified and raised for you.

Your sins are forgiven you. Receive His gifts. Arise! in Jesus Christ’s name. Walk by faith and confidence in Him by His Holy Spirit. As you have been brought to Jesus also be ready for God to use you “to bring” other people to Jesus: in your vocations as parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, students, teachers, coworkers, whatever. Speak with confidence what God has done for you in Jesus Christ. Bring them here, to hear that Word. To be served by Christ through the ministrations of the pastor in baptism and absolution, and when they are ready and able to confess the holy things here offered, then also the Holy Supper of Christ’s victory. Through these truths God will keep you healthy in faith and confidence in Him, as He comes to you, to His church, until Christ comes again at the last to carry us to our eternal home to live Him in His joy, His righteousness and purity forever, in Jesus Christ’s name, Amen.

Pr. Aaron Kangas

What do you think about the Christ? What you think about Christ is the key to entering heaven. We are saved by faith, but in what and in whom? Who is that Christ?

Christology, that is, the study of “who is Christ?” is not just an exercise for pastors and professional theologians, but for you. It is closely connected to the previous question in the Gospel text that the Pharisees asked Jesus. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And He said, Love God and love your neighbor.

Love is the summary of the two tables of the 10 Commandments. Many people would say, “well I have tried. I have done better than others.” Maybe others would say: “Well, do I really need to? Isn’t God merciful, loving, and all that, anyway?”
What does that even mean to love?

In the biblical sense: love is not just an emotion but an outpouring activity. It is that to which you are willing to give of yourself, your all.

Whom do you love above all? Is it God? If you are honest, it has not been God. It has not been your neighbor. It has been yourself and the things of this world.

How does that fit into the subject of Christ? Nobody has loved God and their neighbor as they should have, and if you admit that you have not loved God or your neighbor, then you should also know that you deserve God’s wrath. You have sinned and you deserve eternal damnation, and you should repent.

This is where the Christ comes in. The One who came to do what we humans could not. This was the whole message and purpose of history throughout the Old Testament and the prophecies God sent: to point to, to lead to, Christ. Who is the Christ? A man? A god? “Somewhere in between?”

A survey before the pandemic in 2020 found that 52% of Americans believe that Jesus was a great teacher but not God. 30% of those considered Evangelicals agreed that Jesus was only a great man and teacher and NOT God. 40% of those who see themselves as Christians, believe that Christ was created by God; that He may have had some God-ness in Him, but Jesus the Christ was a creature!! These numbers are terrible and I am sure have only gotten worse.

If you think that Jesus, the Christ, was created by God, that He was only part god, or that He wasn’t God at all, you are wrong and that thinking has serious consequences.

The false teachings about Christ are very old. At the time of Jesus there were misunderstandings and false beliefs. In the early Christian church, “Christology” was at the root of all heresies and arguments. We see it today in the major disagreements between denominations. Most don’t even realize it. There is a “What do you think about the Christ?” problem. They may in their creeds confess that they believe that Jesus was the Son of God and true God and true man, but then they turn right around and in their practice and in their teaching effectively deny that Jesus is true God and true man.

Let us take the Sacrament of the Altar as an example. Most Protestants will say that the “Lord’s Supper is just an ordinance,” a law that Jesus said to do. They do not believe that Jesus is present in the bread and the wine with His body and blood. It is true that they may say that Jesus is there in a spiritual sense, but they deny that His flesh or His blood could be present in a sacramental but very real way. Why? Because they have a weak Christology.

Now wait up. Don’t get upset. Hear me out. Again, I am not saying that they are not Christian, but their dogma is dangerous. The reason why they cannot say that Jesus is there in that “real more than spiritual presence” is because Protestant/ non-Lutheran theology has been heavily influenced by the false teaching which says that “the finite cannot comprehend the infinite.” (repeat) What that means is that they believe that because Jesus was true man, His human body cannot be in many places at the same time. His body is ascended but to a literal location and that location alone. Therefore, in this belief system, the sacrificed and raised body of Jesus Christ cannot be present in the Eucharist meal in many places around the world at the same time. In this, they are actually limiting the Divinity of Jesus. They are saying that Christ cannot be where He says He can be and promises to be. Ultimately, they are confessing that the literal body of Jesus has not been given the full exercise, glory, and power of Christ’s Divinity even now that He has ascended into heaven. The problem really is finite human reason which limits the Divine mysteries to formulas of philosophy.

This is the problem for all of us, when we go above and beyond Holy Scripture which gives us all the objective truth that we need. We can comprehend God only by understanding Him through Jesus Christ who is God Himself.

Jesus the Christ is true man according to the flesh, Son of Adam, son of David all the way forward to son of Mary. Why did the Christ have to be true man?

Get ready, because here comes a list:
1st: It was necessary that He be true man and have a human body and soul, in order to do what we could not: namely keep God’s Law here in time, in the flesh, overcoming all temptations without falling into sin.
Secondly: It was necessary, that the Christ be fully man, to receive in His righteous and perfect flesh, the full penalty of the sins of mankind: receiving in His own bodily flesh, God’s righteous wrath upon sin, allowing Himself to die upon the cross.
Thirdly, it was necessary that He be True man so that He would then rise bodily from the dead, rising from the grave to show that His sacrifice was acceptable payment for humanity’s sin. Also, in His resurrection, we see the hope and promise for all those who believe in Him, a literal resurrection of the body with the soul.
Fourthly it was necessary for us, that we recognize that Jesus in His body had human needs, feelings, and we can be further assured that He and God know what we are going through in the human experience.

But what about His being true God, why must we reject limits to His power or the denial of His Divinity?
It was necessary that Jesus was and is true God equal to the Father and the Holy Spirit, because:
As true God, Christ was able to be born without original sin.

As True God, Jesus was able to endure all bodily torments, temptations, and sufferings in His earthly life, even death on the cross, without sinning.

As True God, His sacrificial death on the cross could pay the sins of the world.
Having been exalted in Heaven as True God and True man: Jesus Christ now reveals God to us in all His love and mercy.
  As true God, Christ had and has authority to judge and forgive sins.
As true God, Christ is able to be with us and believers, spiritually, but also physically according to His promise. 

As true God, Christ hears the prayers of His people and intercedes for us before the Father.
As true God, Christ rules over creation and the Church.

For a time, Jesus had humbled His divinity during His earthly life and ministry, not fully exercising it but now that He has been crucified and raised, He glorified that earthly body by assuming it into the Divinity: giving unto His earthly body all the power, glory, and authority of His Divinity as He showed even in His resurrection appearances. He still retained His earthly flesh and blood: eating with the disciples and being able to be handled and touched. But He showed His mastery over physical law, by rising before the stone was rolled back from the tomb, by appearing on the way to Emmaeus, vanishing only to appear in the locked upper room with the disciples, twice… among other appearances.

You cannot separate Jesus from God. You cannot separate God from Jesus. Can Jesus as the Son of God be present without His body? No.

You cannot separate His Divinity from his humanity. This is what we confess in the creeds and the Formula of Concord. This is biblical. It is right here in the text of Matthew as Jesus is speaking. This is what Jesus was trying to get the Pharisees to see. Scripture is clear. The Christ which David foresaw was both true God and true man. His natures not separated nor mixed but unified by His Divine power. This we confess once a year in the Athanasian Creed: Although Christ is God and Man; he is not two, but one Christ. One; not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh; but by assumption of the Manhood into God. One altogether; not by confusion of Substance; but by unity of Person. God and Man is one Christ; This is the catholic/universal faith; which except a man believe truly and firmly, he cannot be saved.

Take heart and rejoice in this truth! God loved you enough to join Himself to human flesh for all time. Now and forever. He died on the cross for you. To free us from ignorance and unbelief, rescued from false teaching and all that would cloud the message of who Christ is for you and me. He is your Savior and God!

The blood of Jesus is the blood of God, which pays for your sin and washes it away. It is truly present in the sacrament of the Altar for us to eat and drink. Through His coming to us in His Sacraments, He desires to join us into the fellowship with the Trinity, receiving His holiness, His spiritual gifts, His love. We in turn can love Him and love others here, witnessing to the truth of who He is for the world. A God who does not desire the destruction of all but has sent Himself to be our Savior in Jesus, the Christ. Amen.

Pr. Aaron Kangas

The word Sabbath is rooted in God’s resting on the 7th day following the six days of creation. Genesis chapter 2 says: So, God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it, God rested from all His work that He had done in creation. Sabbath comes from the Hebrew verb “sabat”, meaning to stop, to cease, or to keep. On the Sabbath, then the Jews of the Old Testament were to stop their working and rest. However, the Sabbath is more than cessation or stoppage of labor. Resting in bed all day does not amount to a keeping of the Sabbath. According to Isaiah 58 the Sabbath is to be a delight and joy (Is. 58:13).

The Pharisees in much the same way as everything else, got hung up on the keeping the Sabbath. They were so focused on the rules against work, that they actually made, “resting” a work! They used the Sabbath to exalt themselves in their sense of righteousness. “See how much I am resting, I only took this many steps today, just enough to get to the synagogue and back”. They hired others to work for them and serve them, so they could rest while others worked around them. They forgot the whole purpose as to why God had given the Sabbath.

As the explanation to the third commandment points out: the Sabbath is not just about not working, but it is about worship: about resting in God: the God who does not rest! Receiving from God through the work of the priests and Levites on behalf of the people in the OT and through the Divine Service in the Word and Sacrament in the NT. In the Old Testament on the Sabbath, additional sacrifices were offered (Num 28:9-10) at the temple, and the special shewbread was to be set out “sabbath after sabbath” to signify Israel’s commitment to the covenant (Lev 24:8). There were morning and afternoon services at the synagogue, and in their homes, the Jews would recite scripture and benedictions, that is blessings from God. To help reflect the joyous character of the Sabbath there was a Jewish tradition of eating richly on the Sabbath, (Lev 23), and they were not to fast on that day, and it was forbidden to go about with outward expressions of grief and mourning.

The Sabbath was always a gift. As Jesus would say in the Gospel of Mark: “the Sabbath was made for mankind not mankind for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). In other words, God gave the Sabbath as a gift. His telling them to observe this is what we sometimes call a gospel mandate. This do for your good. Like eat this or drink this, it is good for you. The spirit not the letter. The Sabbath was an Old Testament means of grace a Sacramental giving from the Lord. It was not so much about physical rest as it was an opportunity to receive from Him, grace, mercy, and spiritual rest. Yet, humans seem to be wired to take the gifts of God and make them works. Even today, the Protestants or RC see Gospel Sacramental instruments as our works or evidence of our obedience. But the sacraments, the Word of God, the Sabbath are not objects or instruments of the Law, but instruments delivering God’s grace and mercy and rest from sin, sorrow, guilt, and trouble.

We saw and heard that difference in understanding in this morning’s Gospel. The Pharisees had invited Jesus to come and feast with them, but they were observing Him to see what He would do. It is possible that they arranged for this man who had this dropsy to make an appearance to test what Jesus would do. And what did he do? He showed mercy. This is the true meaning of God’s Sabbath. The keeping of the Sabbath is not about exalting oneself or being lazy or even using it as another work day, but it is a day specifically set aside to receive mercy from God and/or showing mercy to others who need help physically and spiritually. AS Jesus said elsewhere: “it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath”. Just as naturally as one would rescue an ox or a child who has fallen into a well on the Sabbath, so too then Jesus as Lord of the Sabbath, and God in His Word and sacraments act with the interest of life and salvation, for us, and for all people.

This is so important, because we have sinned and cannot become righteous by our keeping of the Law. We dare not try to keep the Law and say that we are more righteous than others. At the same time, we should not abuse God’s gifts as we so often do. Even though the Sabbath is given by God to deliver His grace and Gospel, how often do we see it as a day where church is optional, where we can sleep in, or go do or watch sports? Maybe we see it as an opportunity to do make up work for ourselves that we didn’t get to during the week. But what is an hour or two out of your day to receive that which is needful?

No let us humble ourselves, let us call out from the wells and pits into which we have willfully stumbled and fallen into. Crying out for God’s help to rescue us from our sin, our pride, our messed up sense of priorities.

And Jesus does come to our aid. God sends Him to rescue us from the pit or well of spiritual death into which we have fallen by our sin. Jesus who was and is the exalted son of God, humbled Himself to be joined to human flesh, humbled Himself even further by becoming the servant of all, taking upon Himself all sin and sorrow taking it to the cross and dying to pay the price of your sin and win our forgiveness. The forgiveness of sins which is given here in His Word and His body and blood. This is what we need for our life now and forever in eternity. No other gift and rest will do. No other gifts grant mercy, healing, and forgiveness from God in Jesus Christ. God rested on the original Sabbath before the Fall and in a sense Jesus rested in the tomb on the Saturday after the crucifixion, but that was it! God works on the Sabbath, He works on the 8th day to redeem you by His death and resurrection!

Therefore, do not be like the Pharisees and exalt yourself because you are here and “putting in your obligation of time”. This does necessarily not mean that you are more holy simply because you woke up and made the effort to come here this day and are therefore a better person than those who are not here. Are you here for the right reasons? The best reason is because you know what is here for you. How desperately you need God’s mercy and forgiveness in order to be refreshed and strengthened spirit, mind, and body in Jesus Christ for the new week? If that is not your main reason, then humble yourselves in sincere repentance for your sin, knowing that this is why you need God’s Sabbath grace and rest in Him. This place of all places on earth, is where He promises to give us His true rest as He says, “Come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.” He gives you rest for the work that He has given you to do as His child to do it well and faithfully.

When God created all things and gave unto Adam and Eve the stewardship of creation on the 6th day, he did not put them to work immediately, instead, on the 7th day He gave them a day of rest, a day to be refreshed in His grace to have the right mindset and heart to do their duty well by faith. The Jews saw days beginning with rest at sunset and the mornings followed for the work to be accomplished after the night time rest. This is profound. People: “Rest first. Work after.” That is why even now Sunday is not the end of the weekend, but the beginning of the new week. Why you should every evening have devotions and prayers, remembering your baptism, then go to sleep and rest in Jesus to start your work in the morning refreshed in Him.

Let us see the importance of the rest which God has established for us here in His Word as He comes to serve you through Christ in the Sacraments. This is a privilege to have a place to come and be gathered and be served. This is why you should be concerned by those who are not here. They are not receiving. Without this receiving, their hearts and minds will wear down and their faith will be destroyed as it is exhausted and distracted by the things of this world. This is why you should do all that you can to support this congregation to continue this work of God among you, to rest in Him, and respond in merciful service by faith to your neighbor.

In the meantime, rest up here. Be strengthened. Do not come to church to go through the motions. Come to be healed and strengthened by Jesus and His Word. Desire the same for your neighbors, your fellow church members who are not here today. They need this too. Christ and His gifts are the most important rest, recreation, and gift that we need in answer to the troubles that surround us in this life. If you are or get ill or injured as sin’s curse continues to attack to wear you out, text or call me as your pastor to come visit you and bring you Christ’s gifts for bodily spiritual healing and strength.

So: stop, rest, and listen. Receive. Be forgiven. Eat, drink, and go forth having been exalted and served through Jesus Christ. Refreshed and renewed for the labors of the week, to serve each other in mercy and love, as the Lord serves us as we look forward to the fulfilling of that eternal Sabbath rest with our Savior in God’s heavenly kingdom for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Aaron Kangas