Tuesday, November 25, 2014

God is Faithful: A Meditation on 1st Corinthians 1, for the First Sunday in Advent


As we enter the season of Advent, we return with the ancient people of God to a season of waiting and preparation.  Advent is the time when Christians shift their thinking and meditations toward the coming fulfillment of God’s promises in Jesus Christ, particularly as those promises are revealed in His Incarnation.  This marks the beginning of the Church year, as the Church returns in her heart to that time before the first Christmas, as God’s people waited and prepared for the coming of the Messiah.

But waiting and preparing are not particularly strong suits for most people.  Waiting and preparing, means to have patience and self denial—to put aside the desires of the moment, and look forward to something better on the horizon.  Waiting and preparing relies on faith, which believes that something is coming which is worthy of patience and present denial.  Why would anyone wait and prepare for something they didn’t think would really happen?  Even in a practical sense, we know the coming and going of seasons, the potential for natural and man-made disasters, and how many people even adequately prepare for those?  Perhaps we have a neglected coat closet for winter gear, or some canned food in the back of the pantry, but most people have a very difficult time waiting and preparing, even for the things they know are likely to come.

But this is part of our fallen condition, which prizes the self and the moment, over any future reality.  It is a predisposition toward unbelief, disregarding everything from logic, reason, history, natural law, and divine revelation, if it is inconvenient to the desires of the moment.  With little study, we can understand the laws of economics well enough, to know that if we don’t save any money during younger working years, we will have no resources for our older years when we cannot work.  With only a little reflection, we can understand human biology enough to know that one man and one woman produce children, and that such marriages produce the most stable form of family.  With a short contemplation of logic, we can acknowledge the necessary existence of God as the Creator of the Universe, unto whom the whole universe must remain accountable.  And as the list goes on and on, we find in every sphere of human life a kind of rebellion against the Word of God written in nature, in reason, in Holy Scripture, and even in our own consciousness.  It is a rebellion that refuses to wait and prepare for what God has spoken, and rather prefers to spend its resources on selfish and momentary pleasures.  Our inability to wait upon the Word of the Lord reveals our fundamental unbelief in the Word of the Lord, as the sin within us prompts us to reject God and worship ourselves.

And into this weak and sinful flesh of ours, God continues to speak, calling all people to faith and repentance—to waiting and preparation.  While the disciplines of the Church and her calendar year are human constructions, they wisely create for us a rhythm of returning to the things we all need as sinful human beings.  In this season, we are called to examine ourselves in the light of Christ and His Word, and to really believe what St. Paul taught the church at Corinth: 

That in everything ye are enriched by him,
in all utterance, and in all knowledge;
Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you:
So that ye come behind in no gift;
waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ: 
Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be
blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of
his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. (I Cor 1:5-9, KJV)

For the faith to believe in Christ, as Savior not only now but for eternity, comes through the hearing of His Word.  Such faith is not native in us anymore, having fallen into the depths of corruption that soil every human heart.  But by His Word, His Spirit works in us the ability to believe, to trust, to wait, and to prepare.  He creates in us a faith that turns from the dark things of this world, no matter how momentarily pleasurable they may be, so that we may cast our eyes upon the promises of His redemption.  By His Word, He makes of us a fellowship in Jesus Christ, which clings to His Gospel promises of forgiveness, life, and salvation.  By His faithful Word, we are brought to believe and to confess that He is faithful, sending His Only Begotten Son into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

As we enter once more into this season of waiting and preparing, hear the Word of the Lord which calls to you, and creates in you the faith which leads to a love far deeper than the world has ever offered.  Hear the Word which comes to give you life in Jesus Christ, that you may wait upon His promises, and prepare to receive Him as your Lord, your Savior, and your King.  Amen.

Friday, November 21, 2014

You did it unto Me: A Meditation on Matthew 25, for the Last Sunday in the Church Year


Our final Gospel reading for this church year, is the last third or so of Matthew’s 25th chapter.  In this text, we read of Christ returning, raising the dead, separating the good from the evil, and passing judgment upon them all.  Every person that has ever existed will be present at that Great Judgment Day, and every person will give an account of what they have done in the flesh.  There will be no place to hide, as even death will give up the souls that were contained therein; and there will be no middle ground between those who enter heaven, and those who are consigned to hell.  It is a total culmination of all creation, leaving no loose threads or grey areas.  It will be total, complete, and eternal.

In light of that inescapable Day, Jesus sheds some light on the deeper realities of our lives in this world.  As fundamentally selfish and self centered people, we are tempted to live lives that reflect our own priorities, and quite frankly, to ignore any Day of impending judgment.  Enraptured with our own passions and pursuits, we are easily misled into thinking that our lives are all about some oblique sense of self actualization (whatever that really means…) or checking off the boxes on our personal bucket list.  We can far too easily think that our lives only find fulfillment in our chosen line of work, in family, in politics, in hobbies, or in a thousand variations of the same.  We are ridiculously inclined to a target fixation on the things we desire, so that when we achieve them we think we’ve won… and when we miss them, we think we’ve lost everything.  How many people have chased wealth, prosperity, power, or popularity, ultimately only to find a delusion of either self satisfaction or ultimate despair?  How many tombstones decay around the world, with the names of those who took their lives because they despaired of treasures or passions they could not achieve?  How many shattered lives lie in the wake of those who trampled everyone and everything in the satisfaction of their passions?  Far too many, indeed, are the souls lost to self delusion.

Jesus teaches us that our lives are much more than a shallow pursuit of passing fancies.  While we may deceive ourselves into believing that our thoughts, words, and deeds—the things we’ve done, and the things we’ve left undone—impact only ourselves, the deeper truth remains.  Our lives come forth from the source of all Life, and are sustained by Him forever.  We cannot separate ourselves from the Lord of Life even in our death, since our soul never dies.  We are fundamentally a creature of community, first with the God who calls us into eternal existence, and secondarily with all the others whom He has likewise called.  Ignore it all we like, with selfish desires and passions and pursuits, but we cannot escape our relationship to God and His people, anymore than we can escape that Great and Terrible Last Day.  As creatures, our very existence is contingent upon the will of our Creator, and to our Creator we will all one day be summoned.

For this reason, Jesus teaches us, that in so far as we have done or not done anything to the least of His brethren, we have done or not done it unto Him.  The poor man on the street in need of food and shelter; the fatherless child; the widow and the orphan; the sick and the disturbed; the naked and the homeless; the criminal and the prisoner; they are all created in His image, and we are all connected to the same God who gives us life.  When we deny water to the thirsty, food to the hungry, shelter to the homeless, medicine and care to the sick, or compassion to the prisoner, we deny it to our God.  In so far as we serve ourselves and abandon our neighbor in need, we declared ourselves petty gods in the face of the True God, and take for ourselves the worship and service due to Him.  As such, those who live in unrepentant self worship, unfaithful to the Lord of Life, will be cast into the fires created for the devil and his evil angels—where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, and the smoke of their destruction will rise forever.

To sinners like you and I, this should be terrifying.  How many times have we taken for ourselves the time, money, and gifts that God gave to our care, rather than returning them to Him through service to our neighbors in need?  Truth be told, far more often than we realize.  Each and every person on the face of the earth, great and small, young and old, rich and poor, deserve to be separated with the self worshipping goats, and left to burn with the devil forever.  It is a condemnation we rightly have earned, and justly deserve.  It is a sentence written in the faces of our neighbors whom we have spurned and ignored and abused.

But for this selfish and twisted race of ours, the Lord Jesus Christ has come.  He has taken this wickedness of ours upon His own most holy flesh, that the righteous judgment of eternal condemnation might be poured out upon Him alone.  Our blessed Lord and Savior stood between us and the righteous wrath of our just Creator, so that He might be the righteousness we so obviously lack.  He took our place upon the hill of Calvary so that He might trade His goodness for our wickedness, and rising again to show His victory over sin, death, and hell, He returned to us with a Gospel of peace and reconciliation with God our Father.  Jesus comes with His eternal Gospel, that all who believe in Him, living by grace through faith in Him and His Word, might not perish but have everlasting life.  Jesus has come to save sinners like you and me, from the cup of wrath that will be poured out on that Last Day.

Alive in Him, His life flows through us to accomplish His will in this world.  With the love and faith He gives to us, we are empowered to repent of our selfish idolatry, and care for our neighbors as fellow children of God.  With His Word living in us, we become the voice of His Word to all creation, that our lives are not meaningless pursuits of selfish pleasures, but eternal relationships with our Creator and Savior.  We are given a faith, a hope, and a love that flow from Jesus into us, that repenting of our sins, we may rise up to a new life, having new eyes that see both God and our neighbor through the Mystery of Jesus’ Cross.  We see that Day approaching, and we work in faith for the love of God and our neighbor, knowing that He desires the death of no one, but to seek and to save all.  We live and move and have our being in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, so that by faith in His grace, our ears may one day hear, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”  Amen.

Saturday, November 15, 2014

Remembering Jesus as Judge: A Meditation on Matthew 25


In many ways‎, our modern western churches seem to forget this image of Jesus. It is, however, Jesus who gives this image of Himself to His disciples. After spending chapter 24 and the first half of 25 teaching about the destruction of Jerusalem, the end of the world, and the final coming of His Kingdom, Jesus now prepares His disciples for the Final Judgment. 

It is easy to understand why people are uncomfortable with all this. Judgment and destruction are direct challenges to what we image is our own personal sovereignty. If I want to live according to my own rules, my own passions, my own ideas, and seek my own "fulfillment" or "self actualization," the idea that anyone would enter into my life and judge me is galling. Our whole society has been propped up on the idea that each person is sovereign, accountable only to themselves, with some exceptions for directly impinging other people‎'s sovereignty. This is not how our Republic was established, but it is the depth to which we have largely descended. 

It should be no surprise then, that our churches are full of people who think and act as if they are little kings and queens, themselves sitting in judgment over everything in creation. We demand our own programs, our own music, our own forms, our own liturgies, and our own space.   We want services that pander to our age and our interests, that make us feel good and point us to other pleasures. Is it any wonder why so many of our churches look like rock/pop/folk concerts? Is it any wonder why we have people on "worship committies" and "boards" and "councils" all trying to make the services of the church reflect their own interests and conforts? Is it any surprise, when "sermon series" point people to their own prosperity and proclivities? Such churches reflect the image of the people and pastors within them.

But the problem is deeper. These little insurrections against form and content point to a deeper rebellion against Jesus and His Word. For our Lord established His Church with Himself alone as both its Head and Cornerstone, with its purpose to deliver His grace to His people through His Word and Sacraments. In His Church, He alone is sovereign, and His Word alone rules all. Only Jesus is the eternally begotten Son of God, and only He has suffered, died, and risen from the dead for the sins of the whole world. Only Jesus rules His Church through His Word, speaking to every person of every age His Law and His Gospel. Only Jesus is King, and only Jesus saves.  We who have been blessed to enter into the fellowship of His Church, are merely stewards of His Word. 

And Jesus reminds us that only He is the Judge of the world -- of the living and the dead. By His Word the sheep will be separated from the goats, and by His Word the evil will enter the fires of hell ‎while the righteous enter eternal bliss. By His Word alone was the world made, and by His Word alone will the world be brought to an end. Our opinions, our pursuits, our lusts, our desires-- all will be judged by His Word. 

So we are reminded that we live not by our own words or our own ways, but by His Word alone. The vanities of our short lives are ridiculous and vapid in light of eternity, just as our pretense to think ourselves sovereign is preposterous before the face of the King of the Universe. But our King has come to seek and to save us all, lost in our own delusions of grandeur and wallowing in our own self centered crapulance. He has entered our world which He created good and we corrupted, so that He might bring His saving Word to us.

And what is that Word? Faith to cling to His promise of salvation through Jesus crucified and risen for you; Repentance that turns from every false word of the world, the devil, and your own sinful flesh, to embrace His Law and Gospel. For at the end, when this brief life is over, you shall stand before the great and only Judge. There, before His eternal throne, with all delusions and pretenses torn away and all fleeing or escape now impossible, you shall be judged by His Eternal Word.   There, you shall either be saved by His grace through a living, loving, repentant faith in Him and His Holy Gospel, ‎or you shall be condemned by your selfish, unrepentant and unfaithful heart before His Holy Law.  

This judgment that comes, both at the end of the world and the end of our lives is coming surely. For the Word of the Lord that has called all things into existence, has declared that coming Day of the Lord. Behold, He is coming quickly.  Hear His Word. Repent, believe, and live. Amen.

Monday, November 3, 2014

The Wise and the Foolish: A Meditation on Matthew 25


The parable Jesus offers of the 10 Virgins can seem enigmatic on its surface, and over the centuries has certainly seen its share of allegorical interpretations.  What is the significance of the virgins?  Of the oil?  Of the lamps?  Of the bridegroom?  Of the wedding feast?  Of the virgins falling asleep at a late hour?  Of the shut door?  Many attempts have been made to find deeper meaning in the details… some better, and some worse.  But like most parables Jesus uses to teach His disciples, they aren’t really intended to be studies in agriculture, politics, or wedding planning.  They are meant to teach the people something that points them to Him.

And so, if we step back from this parable and look at it like an impressionist painting, the image and subject matter become much more clear.  Jesus begins this parable after having spent the previous chapter discussing the end of the world, and His Second Coming.  Chapter 24 culminates with an admonishment to “Watch, therefore:  for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come,” and an example of faithful versus unfaithful servants who will receive from their coming Lord either blessing or destruction.  It is from this context that Jesus begins his first parable in chapter 24 with, “Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins…”  Jesus interest is not to teach His Disciples about lamps and oil, but rather about being faithful and watchful for His coming.

From this perspective, we can see that the wise virgins took oil with them, and the foolish did not, representing a sense of preparation for the coming of the Lord.  The wise ones were prepared to do their duty until the Lord returned, but the foolish made no provision to either work nor prepare.  And when the Lord finally comes, the wise enter in with Him, and the foolish are left outside, having found no time for repentance or preparation after the Lord’s return.  At His Second Coming there is a decisive moment, where those who have clung to Him by faith will continue to live by His grace now fulfilled, while those who have despised Him in unbelief are confirmed in their judgment.  And great will be the judgment of that Day—for the household of faith, it is bliss forevermore, but for the wicked it is the horror of hell never ending.  His parable ends as it began:  “Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of Man cometh.”

We read and meditate upon this parable as the season of Pentecost comes to an end, and with it, the calendar of the Church Year.  We have walked with Christ through His teachings, learning from His blessed Apostles what it means to be saved by His grace through faith in His Vicarious Atonement for the sins of the whole world.  We have learned what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, alive in and by His Word.  And now we remember that He has called us into His fellowship, to labor faithfully until His return, no matter when that may be.

To be a servant of Christ, is to live by faith in Him—and such faith is always at work, producing by His grace the fruit of His Spirit.  Such fruits of faith do not save us, but they are the necessary result of a living faith, like fruit is the result of a living tree.  Those who abide in Christ’s Word and Sacraments, hearing His Law and Gospel, and responding in Faith and Repentance, will bring forth by His grace the fruits of a living faith.  Such fruitful works are nothing for us boast in, since they are begun and completed in Christ our Savior, but they are marks of the life we have in Him.  They are signs of our living, saving faith.

But all too often, we sound much more like the foolish virgins or the unfaithful stewards, dawdling while our Lord delays His return.  We live far too often as if our Lord Jesus Christ is never coming back, or as if we can live in unbelieving sin until He gets here.  Jesus warns us of the awful dangers of living in such wicked sloth, reminding us that we have no idea when He will return—and as He finds us, so will His judgment be.  If we are found living by His grace through faith, we will be forever blessed; but if He finds us living in wicked unbelief, our place will be with all the wicked, condemned to fire forever.

And how will He find you?  Whether He comes for you at the end of the world, or at the end of your life, you do not know the hour of His coming.  You do not know if you will have tomorrow to find repentance and faith, or even if you will have this afternoon.  You do not know the hour when the Lord of Glory will return for your soul, and as He finds you, so shall you remain.  You do not know when your last day shall be, because He has told you that you will not know.  He has intentionally left this part of your future dark, so that you may cling only to His Word.

But He has told you exactly what you need to live in Him forever.  He has given you His Law that you might understand your sin, and repent of your ungodliness.  He has given you His Gospel so that you might believe in Him and His grace, receiving His mercy and forgiveness.  He has given you His Spirit, so that you might walk by faith and not by sight, bringing forth the fruitful good works of love and compassion He has called you to.  He has filled your lamp with oil, so that you can work by faith every day of your life, and be found at the end alive in Him.  He who has begun the good work of salvation in you, shall complete His good work that sanctifies and preserves you in His grace unto life everlasting.  He has given you everything you need—even the faith that clings to His grace, by the power of His Living Word.

And so He calls to you, even today.  Hear His Word.  Believe and live.  Watch, for you do not know the hour your Lord returns for you.  There is no safe time for sin, rebellion, sloth, and unbelief.  Today, in this very moment, He calls you to Faith and Repentance by His Eternal Word.  Hear Him, before it is too late, and the doors are sealed against you forever.  Amen.