Children of Light: A Meditation on John 12

Then Jesus said unto them,

Yet a little while is the light with you.

Walk while ye have the light,

lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in

darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.

While ye have light, believe in the light,

that ye may be the children of light.

Having been approached now by Greeks, Jesus began to teach His disciples about the universality of His saving work for mankind, and that His work was nearly complete.  His walk to Calvary would include His suffering and death, but by Him being lifted up, all mankind would be drawn unto Him.  Jesus taught His disciples that He was not just the Savior of the Jews, but the Savior of all people, of all times and places.  He is the Light of God come into the world, that all might live through Him.

It is a sad reality, that both in Jesus’ day in our own day, people prefer their darkness to His Light.  John makes it clear earlier in his Gospel why this is:  because people are evil, and they prefer the darkness which cloaks their evil, rather than being exposed in the penetrating Light of God.  The natural state of man in his fallen condition is to flee the Light of God, hiding in his own guilt and shame.

This Light of God is not some abstract concept, however—it is a Person.  Jesus Christ is the Light of the World which no darkness can overcome.  As the eternally begotten Son of the Father, Jesus is the Word Made Flesh who dwells among us, full of grace and truth.  He is the Light which called forth the world by the power of His Word; called forth Abraham to be the father of many nations; called forth Moses to lead His people out of bondage; called forth David to be king of Israel; called forth the Prophets to preach faith and repentance to His people; called His disciples out of the world and made them Apostles of His everlasting Gospel; and shall call all people from their graves on the Last Day.  Jesus is the Light that never fades, and He has given us His Light by the power of His Word, that all who would believe in Him might live forever in Him.

While our sinful nature may feel more comfortable in the darkness of our sin, Jesus makes it clear that dwelling in the darkness apart from His Word, leaves us comfortably ignorant of where we’re going.  Bumbling about in the dark, we stumble into tragedy and suffering without understanding why, and craft plans for our lives that never seem to work out.  Apart from Jesus’ Word we don’t really understand where we came from, where we are, or where we’re going.  We don’t understand our own worth as created in His image, and so human life becomes devalued and manipulated.  We don’t understand our purpose in the present moment, and so we cast about for meaning in our lives.  We don’t know what may happen tomorrow, and so we fearfully chase fleeting promises of life extension, or despair into depression or suicide.  Apart from Jesus’ Word, the pain of a pointless and meaningless life drives many to dull their minds with addictions of every kind—from drugs and alcohol, to sex and power.  Without the Light of Jesus’ Word, human life is void of principle or merit, and mankind descends ever deeper into depravity and despair.  The darkness of life apart from Jesus is a ghastly fate, and yet one far too many will choose, all to hide from the judgment of their sin.

Into our darkness, Jesus sends the Light of His Word, so that we might be drawn to Him.  To be sure, His Light reveals our own sinfulness and unrighteousness by the power of His holy Law, so that our mouths might be stopped from any appeal to pride or self justification.  But in that blessed Light of His Word also comes a gift of infinte worth:  it is His grace and mercy, the forgiveness of sins which He won for us through His Holy Cross.  While the Light of His Law strips us bare from all our sin and pretension, the Light of His Gospel heals our wounds, washes us clean, and clothes us in His own righteousness.  There in the Light of Jesus Christ, we hear His Word of Holy Absolution, making sinners who were dead in their trespasses and sins alive again as forgiven and free saints.  There, in the Light of Jesus’ Word, we are made whole and made new, born from above by Water and Spirit, so that His Light and His Word might dwell in us richly forever.

Ultimately, to hide in the darkness of our sins and to flee the Light of Jesus’ Word, is to rush blindly and headlong into the judgment of hell.  It is only delusion that thinks we can escape the Eternal One who is both Creator and Judge.  Fleeing from the Light of Jesus’ Law and Gospel in this world, leaves us in a perdition that can no longer see the Gospel of forgiveness, but can only feel the eternal heat of His burning Law, forever consuming the one who prefers wickedness and darkness to His blessed Light.

Jesus came not to condemn the world, but to save it.  His Light has pierced our darkness, that all might be called to eternal life in Him by faith and repentance in His Holy Word.  The judgment of those who refuse Him is not by His desire, but it is His Eternal Word which shall judge them.  Today Jesus calls to you, and to me, and to every person who will ever walk the dark roads of this fallen world, to come unto His Light by His Word, where He offers His free gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation earned for you by His own shed blood.  By the power of His Word, hear Him speak so lovingly and plaintively to you, as He spoke to His disciples before His Passion:

Yet a little while is the light with you.

Walk while ye have the light,

lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in

darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.

While ye have light, believe in the light,

that ye may be the children of light.

Amen.

They were afraid: A Meditation on Mark 10, for the 5th Sunday in Lent

For all the soft minded, incoherent sentimentality of our age, the Scriptures remind us that an encounter with God is an unsettling event.  People of every age and place are masters at crafting their own understanding of what the world is, and how it should work.  Sometimes the constructs of our imaginations are more lucid, and sometimes they are just a jumble of prejudices and desires.  Our own human reason, as demonstrated by the history of philosophers both great and small, is a slave to our broken nature, and as such tends to reflect the sinful and broken predilections within us.  When we encounter God (or perhaps better, when God condescends to encounter us,) our own incoherence and sophistry melt in the radiance of His eternal Truth.  Such is the case with the disciples, in Mark chapter 10.

In verses two through twelve, Jesus is confronted by Pharisees who tempt Him with a question of divorce.  Jesus shattered their ridiculous legalizing, teaching them about the sacred created nature of marriage, and the simple yet awful reality of adultery.  In versus 13 through 16, the disciples rebuked children from approaching Jesus, because they thought adults were more worthy.  Jesus destroyed their presumptions about their own worthiness, and taught them that the faith of children is what they themselves will need for salvation.  In verses 17 through 27, the rich young ruler came to seek salvific wisdom from Jesus, and Jesus told him to sell all he had, take up his cross, and follow Him.  To the shock and fear of his disciples, Jesus told them that those who love riches will be unable of their own power to be saved, but that with God alone all things are possible.  In verses 28 through 31, the disciples approached Jesus with their sacrifices, thinking they would be applauded, but Jesus told them that many who are fist will be last, and the last will be first in the Kingdom of God.  To cap off all these unsettling teachings, Jesus led His disciples toward Jerusalem in versus 32 through 34, explaining to them that He will suffer and die at the hands of both Jews and Gentiles, rising again the third day.  Nearly all of the disciples’ preconceptions about God had been dismantled… but there was another yet to be destroyed.

In verses 35 through 44, we have the peculiar story of James and John, asking to sit at the right hand of Jesus when He comes into His glory.  The text does not give us the motivation for this request, but Jesus’ answer seems to indicate that the disciples were angling among themselves for primacy.  While James and John at least had faith that Jesus was indeed the King of Glory, they appear to have had a very wrong-headed understanding of what that Kingdom entailed.  They asked to sit at Jesus’ right and left hands, in essence, asking to have the honor of being Jesus’ next in command.  The rest of the disciples grumble, either out of anger for the brothers’ audacity, or their own frustration for not having asked first.  But Jesus takes their bickering over honor, prestige, and place, and turns it into yet another disquieting and unsettling teaching moment.  After James and John respond that they feel themselves tough enough to endure whatever suffering and death Jesus was about to suffer (the cup of suffering and the baptism of death Jesus would suffer at Calvary for the sins of the whole world,) Jesus tells them they will indeed have suffering and death to endure, but places of honor in the Kingdom of God are for those to whom God has ordained it.

Not only does Jesus shatter the presumptuous expectations of the disciples who think they can angle their way into places of honor by their own works, collusion, and merit with a brief but piercing reminder about the election or predestination of Almighty God, but Jesus goes on to teach what true elevation in the Kingdom of God is based on.  He gathers them together, so as to teach them:

Ye know that they

which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise

lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority

upon them. But so shall it not be among you: but

whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister:

 And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be

servant of all.  For even the Son of man came not to

be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a

ransom for many.

Far different from any sinful inclination of man, who seeks power for his own glory and benefit, the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven is the one who is the selfless servant of all.  Jesus, to whom is given all power and authority, in heaven and on earth; to whom is given the Name which is above every name; who shall come again in glory to judge both the living and the dead; whose Kingdom will have no end:  this same Jesus is the one who gave His life as a ransom for the whole world.  Jesus, the Almighty and Everlasting King of the Universe came not be served but to serve.  As the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, Jesus teaches His disciples that their sinful and selfish understandings of power have no place in His Kingdom.  The marks of His great saints will be selfless service, humility, sacrifice, love, compassion, mercy—all the things which powerful men despise.

Encounters like these with Jesus can be terrifying, because they reveal us for the twisted wretches we are, all the way down to our core.  They strip us of our philosophical propositions and any measure of self justification.  In His presence, every knee bows, and every tongue confesses.  But in this encounter with Truth, the Law having stripped us bare of any hope in our own personal merit, Jesus’ holy and everlasting Gospel speaks resurrection life into all who will hear and believe Him.  It is for us, broken and lost sinners, that Jesus has come in love and mercy, shedding His own blood to save us.  It is for us, deluded and self righteous, that Jesus ascends to the mount of Calvary to suffer and to die.  It is for us, willfully ignorant and confused, that Jesus bears His Cross to redeem us.  It is for us that Jesus rises again, and sends His Gospel of salvation by His Holy Word.

An encounter with Jesus is sure to be unsettling, but it is such an encounter that truly saves us.  Jesus will take from you everything you thought was of value, so that you might receive His true riches.  He will take from you your pride, your avarice, your lust, your covetousness, and nail them to His Cross, so that He might give to you forgiveness, life, and salvation.  For there is nothing that is lost by the Christian in this world that is not returned purified and greater, both in this world with persecutions, and with eternal perfection in the world to come.  Hear the Lord of Life as He comes to encounter you through His Holy Word.  Let your fear be washed away in His grace and mercy forever.  Let go of the sinful things which have no enduring value, that you may receive freely by grace though faith the wonders of His true and abiding riches, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Lifted Up: A Meditation on Numbers 21

There are more than a few enigmatic passages in the Old Testament, and this short story of the serpents is one of them.  The people of God grew weary of their manna from heaven, were tired, thirsty, and ill-tempered.  In their frustration with their circumstances of wandering in the desert, they accused God and his servant Moses of unfaithfulness, and despised the gifts God gave them.  They spoke evil of their food and providence, and even of the liberation God gave them from their Egyptian oppressors.

The spiritual condition of a people that will curse God and His gifts is dire, indeed.  God knows what we often forget, which is that we are dead in our trespasses and sins, unable to save ourselves from death, hell, and the power of the devil.  In our own power, and by our own corruption, we are slaves to our demonic oppressors, and to the wickedness which infects us to our core.  Apart from the grace and gifts of God, we are lost and without hope, destined for an eternity of torment in the lake of fire.  And so, to guide the people back to Himself as their only source of salvation and eternal life, God sent upon the people deadly serpents.

These serpents went throughout the population and killed many.  We should not withdraw ourselves from the gravity and grit of the text—God Himself sent a plague of poisonous snakes that killed many of His people.  Whether it was for judgment against their unbelief and cursing of His grace, or as a sign to others that they might not speak the same evil against their saving God, we must remember that our God is Holy, and reserves all judgment unto His own authority.  He is the Judge of all Creation, the King of the Universe.  It is tempting in our soft minded age to forget that all authority in heaven and earth are His, and that all evil is an affront to His holiness.

Under the plague of serpents, the people cried out in faith and repentance to Moses, begging him to pray to God for their deliverance.  In this the Law of the serpents accomplished its first task, presenting the people with a clear knowledge of their sin leading to death, and driving them back to God as their savior from sin and death.  To these repentant people, God spoke through Moses once again a word of Gospel, and established a means by which the people might be saved.  God had the people erect an image of that same fiery, deadly, poisonous serpent, so that anyone who looked upon it might be cured of their deadly wound.  In this, a Means of Grace was lifted up in the midst of the people, that the people who were dying in their trespasses and sins might live by God’s grace through faith in Him.

Of course, while the judgment and deliverance of the people of Israel accomplished great spiritual recovery for them some 3500 years ago, we know that this writing’s primary purpose is to point the people of God in every age and place to Jesus Christ.  God is not primarily teaching us about snakes, images on poles, or even that He will always bring about plagues on people who despise Him.  Rather, even as He brings about His Law and Gospel upon His people Israel, He points His people of all times and places to His Son who fulfills the Law and gives the Gospel in His own divine Person.  We, like the snake-bit people of Israel, are dead and dying in our trespasses and sins—not only moving through a physical death, but a spiritual death whose end is hell forever.  Amidst this great throng of suffering and dying sinners, God lifts up His Son upon the Cross, so that all who would believe in Him might not perish, but have everlasting life.  For God did not send His Son to that Cross, into our suffering and death, to condemn us, but rather that by Him we might have salvation from our suffering and death.  Our problem is that we are justly condemned already, suffering rightly under the condemnation of the Law, and in desperate need of a Savior.  Jesus takes that Law upon Himself, suffers and dies in our place, that we might rise unto eternal life in Him.  In the very Person of Jesus, hanging dead upon that Cross, lifted up for all the world to see, is the perfect sermon writ without words:  the Word Made Flesh, who is to us both Law and Gospel, calling everyone to Faith and Repentance through His Vicarious Atonement. 

As our Lenten journey through the deserts of sacrifice and self denial continues, we are reminded by the witness of God through His ancient people, not to grow weary of our God and His gifts.  We are called to acknowledge the curse of the Law justly written in our own sinful flesh, leading us ever closer to the day of our own physical death.  We are called also to behold the Means of God’s Grace for dead and dying sinners such as ourselves, which is Jesus our Lord and Savior lifted high upon His Cross.  Our Lord Jesus Christ is the only satisfaction for the curse written into our sinful flesh, and our only Gospel hope for eternal life.  Here, at the foot of His Cross, we receive from the Lord of Life the fruits of His suffering and death, given to us freely in His Word and Sacraments, and received freely by faith in Him alone.  Here, there is no room for the boasting of human merit, but only praise and honor for our Savior alone.  Here, we find ourselves in blessed communion with God our Savior, and the whole host of heaven, saved by His grace.  Here we find courage and strength for the days of our pilgrimage in this world, as our sojourn presses ever closer to that day when our faith is made sight.  Easter and the Promised Land lay before us.  Take heart, dear Christian. Amen.

The Ten Commandments: A Meditation on Exodus 20, for the 3rd Sunday in Lent

When Luther wrote his catechisms during the Reformation period, he had several objectives in mind.  As a theologian, doctor of Holy Scripture, and tip of the spear for articulating Biblical truth against the ridiculous accretions of man-made philosophies in his time, he was certainly able to present wonderfully complex arguments.  His published works on the Freedom of a Christian, his Commentary on Galatians, and his Babylonian Captivity of the Church are only a few of his marvelous treatises.  In fact, the full set of his writings have not yet been translated into English, but Concordia Publishing House is currently offering up through volume 77.  Luther, however, was not interested in his catechisms being complex works of theological might.  Rather, he wanted to give the people simple digests of the Word of God which could be quickly committed to memory, and deeply meditated upon for the entire life of the Christian.  Luther was even given to say, that he himself would never tire of meditating and praying upon the catechism—not because he wrote it, but because of the fundamental and eternal truths of Scripture which it contained.

At the beginning of his catechism are the Ten Commandments, taken from Exodus chapter 20.  Luther was a scholar well versed in Biblical Hebrew and Greek (he translated the entire Bible into his native German) but he saw, as many other church fathers before him, a succinct summary of God’s Law in these Ten Commandments.  One of the brilliant insights Luther had during his time, was that while people managed to confuse and complicate God’s Law endlessly, adding to it or subtracting from it to please their own appetites or intellects, God is actually quite clear in what he demands of human beings.  As Moses came down Mount Sinai with the Law and read it to the people, there was no confusion about exactly what God expected of them.  While these Ten Commandments received certain expanded treatment throughout the books of Moses, the Law itself was simple and fundamental (so much so, that Jesus could summarize it perfectly as complete love of God and selfless love of neighbor.)  Here is that simple Law:

You shall have no other Gods.

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

You shall remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy

Honor your father and your mother

You shall not murder

You shall not commit adultery

You shall not steal

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor

You shall not covet your neighbor’s house

You shall not covet your neighbors wife,

manservant or maidservant, ox or donkey,

or anything that is your neighbor’s.

To this Law, God adds both blessing and curse:

For I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the

iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and

fourth generation of them that hate me; And

shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and

keep my commandments.

Understanding both God’s Law and its corresponding blessings and curses is critical for the Christian, or for anyone who would desire to be a Christian.  To know what God expects of His creation, and the judgment God offers relative to those expectations, describes the fundamental relationship between God and men.  Scripture teaches us that there is only one God, and we are not Him—rather, we are His creatures, and we are accountable to Him as the Creator.

A little meditation upon this simple and fundamental Law will by necessity reveal some very simple and fundamental truths about ourselves.  We are guilty, both in part and in whole.  We have not loved God above all things, and made idols of things we trust more than Him.  We used the Lord’s name shamelessly, as we wear it upon ourselves, yet live in ways that profane Him.  We scorn preaching and the sacraments on the Lord’s Day, often hoping to get out of it as soon as possible, even if we go.  We have not honored our fathers and mothers, nor many other appointed authorities in society.  We have murdered each other through hatred and unforgiveness.  We have become adulterers and fornicators, perverting God’s good gift of sex by our thoughts, words, and deeds.  We have taken what is not ours, when we should have protected our neighbor’s goods.  We have taken our neighbor’s honor and good name, when we should have protected it.  We have lusted after our neighbor’s estate and his people, desiring them for ourselves.  We are wicked and evil before the Law of God, finding in that glaring and unsparing light of righteousness, that we are the inheritors of the curse.  We are fallen, unable to return to a state of grace.  We are broken, dead, and dying, in desperate need of a Savior.

This is the chief work of God’s Law in this sinful world:  to show us our sin, and to lead us to our need for a Savior.  It strips us bare of our presumptions and pride, revealing us for the broken and rightfully damned people we really are. In the Law we see God’s holiness, and reflected in that perfect mirror is our own lack of holiness.  Before God and His Law, we find that there is none who is righteous—no, not even one.  Here before the tutelage of the Law, we learn our lesson well:  on our own strength, works, intelligence, cleverness, merit, or good intentions, we have no hope at all.

But the Law as our school master serves more than simply slaying us.  It points us to our absolute and total need for a Savior.  In this glaring and terrifying light, we learn that Jesus is our only hope, our only salvation, and our only life.  In the holy and righteous Law of God we are sent fleeing to the wonderful grace, mercy, and forgiveness of His everlasting Gospel.  For in Jesus, and Him alone, is the full weight of the curse poured out for our transgressions, so that by His stripes we may be healed.  There, at the foot of His Cross, we find not only the payment of the curse for our sins, but the forgiveness and justification which come through His shed blood for sinners like you and I.  In His resurrection we find the promise of our own triumph over sin and death, as He extends to us the Gospel promises of a Law fully satisfied.  In Jesus alone we find the fullness of the curse atoned, and the fullness of the promise extended.

It is in this Gospel grace that the Christian rests, knowing by faith that God is reconciled to him through the blood of His Only Begotten Son.  In this wonderful life of forgiveness, blessing, and hope, the Christian can now turn his eyes back to the Law as a remembrance and a guide.  No longer under the curse of the Law, we can embrace and love it for the holy thing that it is, and the holy reflection of our holy God who saves us.  The Law becomes something we can love and pursue, rather than something we fear and flee from.  Forgiven and free by grace through faith in Christ alone, enlivened by His Holy Spirit, we can by faith strive to love God with our whole heart, soul, strength and mind, and love our neighbors as our ourselves.  We strive not for the promises and blessings of the Law (already won for us in Christ,) nor do we strive to avoid the penalties and curses of the Law (already paid for us in Christ).  Rather we respond in love, keeping the Law with all our strength, because of the love first poured out to us through our Savior Jesus Christ.  The Law becomes swallowed up in the love of God worked out through His Gospel, so that we might be raised up in Jesus to live out the good works of faith He has preordained for us from before the foundation of the world.

In this penitential season, hear the Word of the Lord as it comes to you in both Law and Gospel, letting it have its way with you:  that the Spirit of the Living God might slay you in your sins, stripping you of any deluded hope that you may save yourself, only then to raise you up to an eternal newness of life by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.  Amen.