Fishers of Men: A Meditation on Matthew 4 for the 3rd Sunday after Epiphany

 From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, 

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

 

And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers,

Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother,

casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. 

Then He said to them, 

“Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

They immediately left their nets and followed Him.

 

St. Matthew notes in the 4^th chapter of his Gospel a prophecy of Isaiah fulfilled, which was that people who sat in deep darkness had seen a great light.  That Light was not just a general enlightenment or sense of progressive social improvement, but the Word of God Incarnate walking, talking, and teaching among them. The Light of Christ broke through all forms of darkness to reach the individual mind and soul of everyone who would listen to Him, liberating them from their demonic fetters to sin, death, and hell which the devil held over them after their Fall.  Jesus was not just a philosopher or political activist, nor was He a revolutionary.  On the contrary, Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of David by human ancestry and heir of the Davidic Throne, yet also the Son of God begotten of the Father before all ages, and through whom all things were created.  The Kingdom of the Son of God is eternal, His throne unassailable, and His power absolute.  When the Light of Christ entered the world as the Word Incarnate, it was the greatest Light the creation had witnessed since the dawn of creation itself, veiled in the humanity received of His blessed mother, which he assumed into His divine Person, for the salvation of the world.

 

As the Light of Christ is never separated from the Father and the Holy Spirit, who together form the divine community-in-unity as the Most Holy Trinity, so the Light of Christ in the world does not dwell alone.  Jesus knew and ordained His disciples from before the foundation of the world, yet in the fullness of time, He walked along the lakeshore and called two to Himself:  Simon, who would later be called Peter, and Andrew his brother, both fishermen by trade.  Jesus’ calling to them rings out:  Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.  Recognizing the Light which had come to call them, both Simon Peter and Andrew left their fishing tackle on the shore, and followed Jesus into a mission that would become the pivot of the ages.  While the covenants with Noah, Abraham, and Moses would prepare and safeguard the people of God in the ancient world, they were ultimately preparing His people to receive the fullness of salvation in the Lamb of God who took away the sins of the world.  Peter and Andrew were now conscripted into that monumental series of events.

 

Even so, it was Christ alone who satisfied the wrath due to mankind for their fall into sin, and Christ alone who rose victorious over sin, death, hell, and the devil on Easter morning.  Only Jesus was and is and ever shall be the Eternally Begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth, and only Jesus would stand before the Father on behalf of the world as Prophet, Priest, Sacrifice, and King.  Only Jesus was the Master to His disciples, as only Jesus was the True Vine into which all living branches must be grafted.  The disciples were not called to accomplish or re-accomplish the unique work of Christ and share His glory, but to live in the gracious victory Christ’s work provided to them, receiving the forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and salvation from every enemy of man.  Living in that salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone, they were raised up to make disciples of Jesus from all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe everything that Jesus first taught His disciples.  The mission was not to add to Jesus’ work for the salvation of the world, but to bring others to the Savior while living in His Salvation.

 

Many ages past, and our age in particular, can lose focus of these truths.  To be made fishers of men is not to dream up new initiatives, new methods, new persuasions, new doctrines, or new political structures, as if human ingenuity would add anything to the Eternal Word or the Gospel Testament He wrote in His own Blood.  Rather, to be made fishers of men by the King of the Universe is to bear witness to the love of God in Christ Jesus; to preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins in His most holy name alone; to be good and faithful stewards of the Mysteries of God given to the Church as His Word and Sacraments; to live and to love one another as Christ first lived and loved us.  Jesus’ disciples become fishers of men because they abide in Christ and His Word, and that Word moves through them with the power of the Holy Spirit to bear witness to the salvation Jesus offers to everyone who will turn and follow in Him.  The fishers of men whom Jesus raises up are not merely engaged in political, economic, or sociological enterprises, but like the holy angels, are sent to show forth the wonders of God’s love and grace to a dark and dying world, each according to his vocation.

 

And that is the beauty and mystery of the Church’s history across the ages, despite her sins and failings:  it is Christ who dwells in her as He dwells in every baptized Christian, His Word and Spirit raising them up into a newness of life which cannot help but testify of what great things God has done for them.  Some He makes pastors and teachers, others evangelists and missionaries; but most He makes into faithful fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters of every good and noble trade or profession, each singing out with their unique voices the love of God which has saved them.  Thus by the grace of God in Christ Jesus alone, are we all made fishers of men, that the world may see that great and eternal Light, believing and living in Christ unto ages of ages in eternal His Kingdom.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.

Follow Me and Feed My Sheep: A Meditation on John 21 for the 3rd Sunday of Easter

So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter,

Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these?

He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee.

He saith unto him, Feed my lambs.

 

John 21 culminates St. John’s Gospel with an appearance of Jesus to His Disciples in the course of their normal daily vocations by a miraculous catch of fish at His direction, and a sending of the Disciples into a new vocation of tending His people.  What Jesus had told them earlier in His ministry about making them fishers of men, He now accomplished by shifting their focus from merely secular vocational duties into spiritual vocational duties.  Their previous professions, though good and wholesome and useful, would take a back seat to their higher vocation to bear the Word of Christ, and to feed His people by it as He had fed them.

 

In the course of this teaching, Jesus took St. Peter aside and helped him see what would motivate such selfless service:  the selfless, sacrificial love of God reflected in them.  Peter seemed not to fully understand this immediately, though his life demonstrated it later in the Book of Acts and his own Epistles:  the agape love of God, a selfless and sacrificial love made clear in the Cross of Christ for the sins of the world, was met by Peter with claims of philo, or brotherly love.  Eventually, on the third interrogation, Jesus condescended to Peter’s brotherly affection with the same direction:  feed my sheep, tend to my people.  This is what Peter would do, as he grew into the love and mercy and grace of Jesus, and after the Holy Spirit fell upon them all at Pentecost.

 

As if to demonstrate Peter’s continuing need for guidance, Jesus rebuked Peter’s curiosity into the future fates of the disciple who betrayed Jesus, and of John who reclined with Jesus at the Last Supper.  Since Jesus had just indicated that Peter would end his life aged and weak, at the mercy of those who would martyr him, Peter turned his interest to the fate of other disciples.  In a kind of hyperbole, Jesus asked Peter what business it was of his, if Jesus intended John to never die at all—something other gossipers would turn into a false legend that John had to correct.  The lesson for Peter, as for all those with more curiosity about other people than their own responsibilities, is to simply follow Jesus.

 

And that was the Easter message John left at the end of his Gospel:  Follow Jesus!  His Word alone would give life, as Jesus alone was the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  Only Jesus had accomplished the Vicarious Atonement for the sins of the whole world, and only Jesus had demonstrated His full humanity and divinity by dying and rising from the dead, just as He said He would do.  Jesus alone is the full revelation of the agape love of God which lifts our best attempts at brotherly love into an entirely new reality, and gives His people hearts and minds to serve Him by caring for each other.  None other than Jesus was the Savior of the World, the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords—and no one else should more capture the curiosity and focus of a disciple of Jesus, than Jesus Himself.

 

In this Easter season, the Church is called once again to follow unreservedly the Risen Lord; to hear His Word, receive His gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation, and to love each other as Jesus has loved them.  Such a resurrection of our fallen hearts, minds, and souls is a greater miracle than abundant fishing, and by His Word and Spirit we are made to serve Him in His image, as each sinner-saint works out his own salvation in Faith and Repentance before the same Savior—a salvation that comes to all by grace, through faith, in Christ alone.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.

 

Now is the Judgment of this World: A Meditation on John 12 for Palm Sunday

And Jesus answered them, saying,

The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die,

 it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

He that loveth his life shall lose it;

and he that hateth his life in this world

shall keep it unto life eternal.

If any man serve me, let him follow me;

 and where I am, there shall also my servant be:

if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.

 

Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say?

Father, save me from this hour:

but for this cause came I unto this hour.

Father, glorify thy name.

Then came there a voice from heaven, saying,

I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.

The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it,

said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him.

 

Jesus answered and said,

This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes.

Now is the judgment of this world:

now shall the prince of this world be cast out.

And I, if I be lifted up from the earth,

will draw all men unto me.

 

John’s twelfth chapter describes several events surrounding Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem which kicks off the Church’s solemn remembrance of Holy Week.  There we find the Pharisees seeking ways to destroy Him; Lazarus and those flummoxed by Jesus having raised him from the dead; Greek visitors to Jerusalem for the Passover who sought to see Jesus; and crowds that perceived Jesus to be the fulfillment of the Hebrew prophecies of the coming Messiah, but misunderstood both those prophecies and Jesus.  To all, Jesus continued teaching, knowing that many of their hearts were darkened through unbelief, and that no one would really understand what He was there to accomplish until it was done.  Jesus would suffer as a man, though He was fully God, so that the sins of the world—including all those who surrounded Him, misunderstood Him, and even plotted to kill Him—might be restored to fellowship with God the Father, born from above by Water and Spirit unto eternal life, and saved from sin, death, hell, and the devil, all by grace through faith in Christ alone.

 

What Jesus would accomplish by His Vicarious Atonement through the suffering and death of the Cross, would accomplish no less than the judgment of the entire world, together with every evil spirit which ruled and manipulated it since the fall of man.  The King of Glory had come to His people, not to secure a meager political victory or overthrow transient political leaders, but to free mankind from the satanic legions who enslaved their souls in this world and led them into the fires of perdition in the next.  The war Jesus came to fight was not won with weapons of military design, but by the only Sacrifice which could satisfy both the Justice and Love of Almighty God, and rescue all mankind from a hellish fate:  the Lion of the Tribe of the Judah would become the Paschal Lamb, so that Jesus might reign as both High Priest and Final Sacrifice, the only fully divine and fully human Intercessor between God and men.  Jesus’ victory would not be secured by subterfuge and clever strategy, but through His own omnipotent power, His own omniscient wisdom, and His own omnipresent transcendence, all made flesh to dwell among us full of grace and truth.  Though surrounded by many, it is Jesus alone who walked into the spiritual war for the souls of men and came out the eternal Victor—He alone who did what only He could do, all for the love and salvation of His people.

 

In our own day, it is not uncommon to hear the cacophony of voices who misunderstand, malign, or even plot to silence the Word of Jesus.  They come as people with dark minds, both inside and outside the Church, living in a love of worldly life that is alien to the life Christ has won for us all.  In every age there are those who would persecute the Word of Life by embracing the transient pleasures of a culture of death, and in every age the Word of Life remains victorious.  What can any darkened spirit do to those who dwell in God’s providence by grace through faith in Christ alone, but howl and bemoan their own ultimate defeat?  What plotting of global cabals, what fraud of international industrialists, what fecklessness and corruption of local and national leaders can separate the people of God from the love of God in Christ Jesus?  Can even the devil himself, with all his demonic hordes, undo the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus?  Can they undo His descent into hell to preach liberty to the captives?  Can they unseat the Chief Corner Stone whom the worldly builders rejected, but whom God has made the unshakable ground of His Church?  Nay—the infernal ruler of this world has been cast out by the Cross of Christ, and Jesus stands alone victorious.

 

Even so, the temptation to see in Jesus something other than who He is and what He has done to save the world, is an enduring war inside each human heart.  For as long as we sojourn in this fallen world, we will be tempted to see in Jesus a path to personal comfort, prosperity, and worldly acclaim, prompted by a self-serving inclination in our fallen nature, goaded on by the now impotent voices of defeated demons.  Into the misunderstanding, malice, and even deadly suppression of our fallen hearts, the Word of the Lord returns to bring light and life.  By the Word of God Incarnate we hear the Word of God written, and the Holy Spirit working through His Word brings to us life-saving Faith and Repentance.  His Word to us in Holy Baptism seals us in His New Covenant, just as His Word to us feeds us through Holy Eucharist, and absolves us by His Holy Absolution.  Into every soul who will hear Him, He pours grace and mercy, love and light, that where He is, there His servants may be also—both in this world, and in the next.  Such divine love poured out upon us, gives us a love for eternal life in the fellowship with the Author of Life that does not worship the things of this world before the face of our Savior and King.

 

As we enter into this high celebration of Holy Week, keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, who alone has entered the deadly fray for you, and for all people.  There you will see your Savior take not only the abuse of earthly malefactors, but the scourging of the whole demonic host, all in an attempt to divert Jesus from the mission for which He had come.  There you will see Jesus stand alone before the Father on behalf of a fallen world, and take upon Himself the justice of divine wrath each soul has earned, so that each soul might rise up in Him and live forgiven and free, forever.  Hear the Word of the Lord as He comes to you this day, declaring His victory over every enemy of mankind, that your life and your victory may be found always in Him alone.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.

 

Rising and Falling of Many: A Meditation on 1st Samuel 1 and Luke 2, for the 4th Sunday after Epiphany

And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother,

Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel;

and for a sign which shall be spoken against;

Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,

that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.

 

In our Gospel lesson from Luke 2, Mary and Joseph presented Jesus at the Temple according to the commands of the Mosaic Law, to redeem the child before the Lord.  Since every male who opened the womb was considered sacred to God, and in particular the first-born male as a remembrance of God’s deliverance of the Hebrews from Egyptian bondage, Jesus was brought to the Temple with a sacrifice to offer in his stead.  What was revealed to Mary and Joseph was that Jesus was sent not to be redeemed before God, but to be the Redeemer of the world, and a miraculous sign by which the thoughts of many hearts would be known.  Jesus, as the Incarnate Word and Eternally begotten Son of God, was the Messiah that had long been foretold and foreshadowed in the Hebrew Scriptures for centuries, as in the stories of the Prophet Samuel.  Yet while Samuel was sent to rescue ancient Israel from political abuse by pagan civilizations, and religious corruption within his own land near the end of the age of the Judges, Jesus was sent in the fullness of time roughly 1,100 years later to rescue His people from sin, death, hell, and the devil.

 

The story of Samuel contains much foreshadowing of Jesus’ later arrival: his birth was an act of God and a gift to his previously barren mother; though sacrifice was made for him, he was not redeemed from service to God, but rather devoted to God’s service entirely; God spoke to Samuel, and Samuel was faithful to the Word of the Lord even when present religious authorities were not; God worked through Samuel to establish the Davidic Kingdom and the rescue of Israel from all their harassing enemies round about them.  Even Eli, who was the priest and Judge who allowed his sons to desecrate their priestly office and lead pious people into sin, recognized the blessing which was upon Samuel, harkening forward to faithful Simeon who greeted the Holy Family in the Temple at Jesus’ Presentation.  Samuel became the last and greatest of the 400+ years of Judges, and an important pivot from an era of tribal chaos into an age of order and promise.  Yet unlike Jesus, Samuel was merely a man in need of the same salvation that all other people required, and in his service to God and the people, he lived out his faith in repentance and hope, always grounded in the saving Word of the Lord.

 

It is a common and repeated problem across history that people misunderstand the purpose of Jesus’ coming into the world, and of the foreshadowing of that momentous event found throughout the Hebrew Scriptures.  Since the dawn of man and our fall into sin, and through the millennia which transpired until Jesus’ time, God promised a Savior to the world by His Word given to the Prophets, and His people looked forward in hope for that Savior.  While many saviors or messiahs were sent by God to rescue His people from the lesser perils of temporal calamity, such as Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Samson, Samuel, David, and others, the true fulfilment of God’s promise of salvation would come through Jesus Christ.  Jesus didn’t overthrow the Romans or their puppet government in Jerusalem, anymore than He would overthrow the religious authorities of the Sadducees and Pharisees.  While Jesus knew that people would need their daily bread and rescue from physical dangers, He also knew the greater danger and oppression of man was that of his sin—an enslavement of the mind and soul to the devil, destined for destruction in the fires of hell forever.  No matter what political or ecclesiastical phenomena were present in this or any age, the real need of man was rescue from his own just condemnation, and reconciliation to God their Creator.  No matter of temporal consequence held even the faintest candle to the consequences of eternity.

 

And so, Jesus came and accomplished His mission of salvation through His Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection.  His Word, as the Word Incarnate, exposed the pride and hypocrisy in the hearts of fallen men, calling all people to faith and repentance that they might live in His grace rather than die in their sins. For Jesus did not come into the world to condemn the world—they had accomplished that all on their own.  Rather, Jesus came to seek and to save the lost, who could not of their own power save themselves from hell.  He became in His life, death, and resurrection, the Sign which would be believed by the faithful even as the reprobate rejected it, so that the true thoughts of all men might be brought into focus.  Jesus forced no man to receive His Light and eternal life, but offered it through His own shed blood to all people, so that the rain of His grace and providence might fall upon the good and the evil alike.  No one could be saved apart from Him, no matter how pious they thought themselves to be, and no one was beyond the preaching of His Gospel of salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone.  While the physical blessings of health, prosperity, and joy in our work are lesser things God would continue to grant according to His wisdom, grace, and measure, the riches of His grace in His Son would be lavishly poured out upon all who would call upon Him in faith.

 

Throughout the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament, the Apostolic Age though the present parish and missionary work of the Church in every land and tongue, the work of the Lord has always been the salvation of His people.  No one is beyond the love of God in Christ Jesus, and no one is beyond the Vicarious Atonement of His blood shed for the sins of all people.  While He will grant the desires of a heart that prefers hell over His fellowship, His desire is that no one would be lost, and that all might come to a saving knowledge of the Truth:  that Jesus Christ has come to save sinners, just like you and me.  Hear the Word of the Lord as it comes to you this day, that you may live in faith and repentance before the throne of the God who has always sought you, will always love you, and will forever give to you the blessings of forgiveness, life and salvation—all for Jesus’s sake.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.

 

Gifts of the Spirit: A Meditation on 1st Corinthians 12 and John 2, for the 2nd Sunday after Epiphany

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant.

Ye know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were led.

Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.

 

Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.

And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord.

And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.

But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.

For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom;

to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit;

To another faith by the same Spirit;

 to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit;

To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy;

to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues;

to another the interpretation of tongues:

But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit,

dividing to every man severally as he will.

 

Though St. Paul is sometimes rough in his admonishment of the saints in Corinth through his epistles, chapters 12 through 14 are a master class in the role and purpose of the Holy Spirit’s gifts to the Church.  Paul began by reminding the previously heathen Corinthians that they were once drawn away by all sorts of spirits into all kinds of incoherent errors, but that the Holy Spirit who indwells Christians is one and the same for all.  Not only does the Holy Spirit bring forth in a person the faith to declare Jesus as Lord, but no one can have such faith apart from the Holy Spirit, since only the Word and Spirt of Christ are effective unto salvation.  There is no Christian apart from the Holy Spirit’s work to create faith in his heart, and no Christian can claim to have some other spirit which is at odds with Jesus.  After correcting this ignorance in his readers, Paul continued to teach that the same Holy Spirit is the author of various and sundry gifts among the people of God, and that all are of the same Body of Christ, with every gift given to each individual for the edification of the whole.  While the Holy Spirit’s administration of gifts among individuals is diverse, He is not divided against Himself, and all that He does is united in His testimony of Jesus and the care of His people.

 

The wedding feast at Cana has a similar point.  While the revelry had consumed all the wine and disgrace might have come upon the patrons of the feast for running out of libations, the real point of Jesus’ turning over 100 gallons of water into the best wine anyone had ever consumed, was to point people to faith in Him.  There was grace for the patrons of the feast, of course, and joyous celebration for the drunken wedding guests (note here that Jesus certainly wasn’t a teetotaler, and was derided by Pharisees later as a “wine-bibber,”) but like His later miracles of healing and even raising Lazarus from the dead, the earthly benefits were not the primary objective.  Everyone who drinks wine and parties today, will be sober later; just as everyone who is healed of a disease today, will be sick or injured again someday.  What is much more important than the fleeting pains and sorrows of this earthly realm, is the condition of the soul which lives forever, either in the friendship or under the judgment of Almighty God.  Jesus knew this, and worked toward the edifying of all who would hear Him, so that the Holy Spirit would work faith unto eternal life in those who would receive Him.

 

Like the people of 1^st century Corinth, a cosmopolitan city full of industry, trade, and wealth, modern Christians also can lose the point of why the Holy Spirit gives His gifts to the Church.  No gift is given to anyone for their own glorification or exultation, anymore than the Holy Spirit exults Himself in the work of creating saving faith in the hearts of those who trust in Jesus through His power… and the Holy Spirit is worthy of all honor, glory, and praise, because He is fully God, together with the Father and the Son, the Most Holy Trinity, unto ages of ages without end.  The gifts given to people by God, are for the glory of God and the care of His people, that others might have that same gift of saving faith in Jesus which surpasses every earthly treasure.  Just as the Holy Spirit works to produce faith and repentance in the hearts of those who will hear the Word of Christ, so, too, do all His various and sundry gifts working through the Body of Christ, testify of the same.  There is no gift given to an individual that is intended for the glory of the individual, though human pride will often try to take honor and glory it does not deserve.  Every gift of God to a person is reason to rejoice and give thanks to God for His providence and grace—not to elevate or celebrate the one through whom God has chosen to work.

 

Also worth noting, is that St. Paul did not provide an exhaustive list of gifts, but noted that each is given to accomplish the good of the whole Body of Christ.  For the farmer and the teacher, the doctor and the preacher, the engineer and the mechanic, the artist and the novelist and the song writer, every gift given to them is to be used for the glory of God and the edification of others.  The work we do to provide our families, care for our neighbors, support our local congregation, defend our country, and every other talent and gift under heaven, are all for the good of our neighbors and the testimony of God’s good will toward men.  God has given to each person His own gifts for the vocational duties He has given them, that they might produce good fruits and accomplish the good works He ordained for them from before the foundation of the world.  Yet chief among those good and salutary works, is the testimony of Jesus Christ crucified and risen for the salvation of the world—that all may come to a saving knowledge of the Truth which seeks and saves everyone who will repent and believe.  Every good gift comes from God, and every good gift is a testimony of His love and grace, pointing toward eternal life by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone.

 

Be of good cheer, dear Christian, for the Lord of Glory has not left His people orphaned in this tumultuous world, but rather has given them every gift necessary to accomplish His good and loving will, through the power of His Holy Spirit which testifies to salvation in Jesus.  Give thanks to God for the gifts He has given you, and see in your neighbor the purpose for which He has given them to you:  that all may be edified and made stronger in faith, receiving the gift of salvation which surpasses every temporal pleasure and every transient desire.  For the Lord has given His good gifts to you for the good of your neighbor, just as He has given His good gifts to your neighbor that you, too, might be strengthened in grace, faith, and life everlasting, all through the Lord Jesus Christ.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.

 

Micah, Mary, and the Magnificat: A Meditation on Luke 1 and Micah 5 for the 4th Sunday of Advent

And Mary said,

My soul doth magnify the Lord,

And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden:

for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.

For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name.

And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation.

He hath shewed strength with his arm;

he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

He hath put down the mighty from their seats,

and exalted them of low degree.

 He hath filled the hungry with good things;

and the rich he hath sent empty away.

He hath helped his servant Israel,

in remembrance of his mercy;

As he spake to our fathers,

to Abraham, and to his seed forever.

 

Roughly 700 years before the Blessed Virgin Mary gave birth to the Incarnate Word of God, the Prophet Micah saw His Advent.  At that time, the Kingdom of Israel to the north was separated from the Kingdom of Judah to the south, and while both had their ups and downs, the north was in much worse shape spiritually, having given themselves over to worship pagan gods and left the Law and Promises of Moses behind.  Micah saw the coming destruction of the northern tribes by Assyria which came in his lifetime, as well as the near-fall of Jerusalem to that same barbaric army.  Yet the calamity God gave Micah to see and speak to the people of both north and south, came also with a promise—that He would send forth His Messiah to save and restore His people, gathering the faithful remnant from the darkness of their oppression, and reigning over them in peace, protection, and providence forever.  While Assyria would not be the last calamity to befall the Hebrew people, with Babylon, Greece, Persia, and eventually Rome all holding sway over them, the ultimate fulfillment of Micah’s prophecy was found in the Only Begotten Son of God, Jesus the Christ.

 

This is what blessed Mary sang when she was greeted by her elderly cousin, Elizabeth.  Elizabeth was miraculously pregnant with the forerunner of Jesus who would be known in time as John the Baptist, about six months prior to Mary’s miraculous conception of the Eternal Word made flesh in Jesus.  Thus we read that John, still in his mother’s womb, leapt for joy at the greeting of Mary, knowing that the Mother of God, the holy Theotokos, had come bearing the long-promised Lord and Savior of the world.  Mary’s prophetic song of joy was an acknowledgement that the prophecies which had come centuries before her time were being fulfilled in the Son she was given to bear.  All the rejoicing and accolades and celebration were oriented toward the coming of the Just One, whose mercy remained upon His faithful people from generation to generation.  The Promises of Redemption made to Adam and Eve in the Garden, to Noah after the great deluge, to Abraham and his seed all the way down to her present day, were being fulfilled in her time.  The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world was come, and in Him all the world would be reconciled to God their Savior.

 

Of course, as in Micah’s time and Mary’s time, plenty of people still rejected the God of all Creation to pursue their own passions, ambitions, and lusts.  In this, Mary’s prayer reflects the truth of God’s salvation in Jesus Christ, that the rich, the self-righteous, and the prideful would be knocked down while He lifted up the poor, the humble, and the penitent; that those who clung to God’s Promises by faith would see His grace and mercy, being fed to fullness on the love and providence of God Almighty, while the unbelieving would be sent away hungry.  Not long after Mary would give birth, the wicked King Herod would butcher the children of her entire village trying to murder her Son, and thirty some years later, the religious and secular authorities would conspire to betray and murder him on a Roman cross.  Yet the machinations of evil men cannot undo the mercies and grace of God, for the weakness and folly of God is greater than the highest summits of fallen men.  What God has ordained since the foundation of the world, that men would be saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in His Son alone, would not be derailed by the works of those who sought to save themselves, or to vainly think themselves masters of Creation.  For what God opens, no man can close—and what God closes, no man can open.

 

And thus the Church remembers the Blessed Virgin Mary as the Mother of God, from whose humanity our Lord Jesus Christ took His own human nature, even as His divine nature was from everlasting to everlasting with the Father and the Son, one God, now and forever.  The humble faith and “yes” of Mary was the counterpoint to Eve’s rebellious “no” in the Garden thousands of years prior, and by the mercies and grace of God at work in her, all generations since have called Mary blessed.  Her title in Greek has been Theotokos, the God-bearer, and there have been none like her since the foundation of the world, and there will be none like her to the end—a unique vessel of God, sanctified by God to the work of bringing forth and rearing the Savior of the World.  The Blessed Virgin Mary asked for no worship of herself, but in her blessed faithfulness bore witness to the Word and Promises of God fulfilled in her Son.  If our Lord’s later proclamation that there was no man born of women greater than His earthly cousin John the Baptist, the Church has remembered also that there has been no woman greater in the history of the world than His blessed mother.

 

As the season of Advent presses inexorably into Christmas, the people of God sing with blessed Mary of the promises of the forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and salvation won for us by her Son, Jesus Christ.  For there is no other name given under heaven whereby the world might be reconciled to God the Father and saved from sin, death, hell, and the power of the devil, but by Jesus Christ alone.  His Word and Work is the life and light of the world to all who will hear Him, abide in Him, and live in Him by grace through faith.  And joined to our Savior by such saving faith, we hear with the Apostle John that we behold in Mary, the Mother of God, our own mother, and that she beholds in us that we are adopted siblings of the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  With blessed Mary the Church sings and rejoices in God our Savior, for He has done great things for us, and reconciled the world to Himself through Christ our Lord.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.

 

 

Return To Me: A Meditation on Malachi 3 and Luke 3, for the 2nd Sunday in Advent

Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me:

and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple,

even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in:

 behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts.

 

But who may abide the day of his coming?

and who shall stand when he appeareth?

 for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap:

And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver:

and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver,

that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.

Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord,

as in the days of old, and as in former years.

 

And I will come near to you to judgment;

and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers,

and against the adulterers, and against false swearers,

and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless,

and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts.

 

For I am the Lord, I change not;

therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.

Even from the days of your fathers

ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them.

Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts.

 

Several hundred years before the advent of Jesus, the Hebrew Prophet Malachi saw the coming of John the Baptist, whose preaching would prepare the people of Israel for the coming of the Messiah.  As the preaching and teaching of St. John the Baptist moved through the people like a fire sent by the Holy Spirit, the hearts of the people were being refined so that they might see, hear, and believe in Jesus unto eternal life.  But like all hard and fiery teaching, John’s call was one of repentance and faith, demanding that his duplicitous and evil generation bring forth fruits worthy of repentance, that faith might be shown to be true.  Like Malachi before him and Jesus after him, John taught the people that if they would return to God, God would return to them.  For a nation like 1^st century Israel, under the tyrannical boot of Rome and the corruption of religious leaders, this call to repentance and faith was hard to hear, but absolutely necessary prior to the Lord’s arrival so that the people would not be consumed in their sinful unbelief.

 

The message holds true in our time, as well.  As the Church prepares for the Advent of Jesus Christ on Christmas Day, she remembers more than a well-documented historical event; she prepares anew for the coming of Christ to each and every soul who repents and believes the Gospel, just as she prepares for His coming again at the End of the Age.  Around the world and in our own land, the corruption of political and religious leaders is rampant, and the people who sit in darkness need the great Light of Jesus Christ.  The ancient world had its tyrants just as we do, though they may dress and speak differently today.  Then, as now, people with power and wealth take advantage of those without the means to defend themselves; politicians cook back-room deals to pad their own pockets, while they fleece taxpayers of their hard earned resources; church leaders sell out the Gospel for political advantage and soft living, guiding souls into perdition rather than eternal life; and people of every station and walk of life follow their lusts, passions, and self-interest while they watch their neighbors suffer.  Then, as now, fiery preachers of repentance and faith are few and far between, often persecuted and martyred by secular forces outside the Church, and by those inside the Church who prefer their comfortable sins over the discomfort of God’s Eternal Word.

 

To us and our generation, in our time and our place, the Word of God which echoes through Malachi and John the Baptist comes, calling every soul to prepare for the coming of the Lord.  To us, as it was in every generation before us and will be to every generation after us, the Word of the Lord will ring out that if we will return to the Lord our God, God will return to us.  But what does it mean to return to God?  Malachi goes on to teach ancient Isreal that they must not rob God of their obedience to His Word, including the just works and tithes which supported the preaching of His Word.  John extrapolated the same when he told hearers to bring forth fruits worthy of their faithful repentance:  soldiers to do no unjust violence, tax collectors to collect no unjust revenues; those who have means to share with those who do not.  The brood of vipers in ages past are like us today, and we need to repent of our selfishness, violence, and corruption as much as they did, because like them we will eventually meet Jesus who will thoroughly purge out His threshing floor of every unrepentant evil.

 

Even so, the promise of Jesus’ Gospel is not fear of the Lord’s pending judgment, but rejoicing in His grace and mercy.  Those who hear the Word of the Lord and keep it by faith, cannot help but bring forth the fruits of repentance which His Holy Spirit indwells us to produce.  The Lord will most certainly return quickly to His Temple, both in Jerusalem and in our own hearts, to purge out the evil which torments our consciences, and gather in His people to His Kingdom.  For those who repent and believe in the Vicarious Atonement of Jesus Christ for the sins of the world, walking in His Word by grace through faith, the judgement Jesus brings is not against us, but for us—His conquest of sin, death, hell, and the devil is all for our good, that we might through Him have forgiveness, eternal life, and salvation.  He is the Refiner’s Fire who burns away the evil which dwells in our own fallen nature, raising us up in His image to live more and more like Him every day.  This is the fulfilment of St. Paul’s prayer for the Christians at Philippi when he asks that their love may abound in knowledge and discernment, where the Holy Spirit works through the Word of Jesus Christ to bring forth in us what we could not bring forth ourselves:  the true love of God, working out in true works of love for God and our neighbors.

 

This Advent, the Word of the Lord calls to every soul, that if they will return to Him, He will return to us in grace, mercy, restoration, and reconciliation.  For the will of God is that no one should be lost in their rejection of His love and grace, but that all might come to a saving knowledge of Him through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  We are the ones to whom His refining fire comes to burn away our evil, that we may repent and believe unto eternal life, gifted with an alien righteousness and divine love that can be born in us by the Word of Jesus alone.  Hear the Word of the ancient Prophets and Apostles as they come to you this day, and know for certain that when you return to the Lord your God, He most certainly will return to you, bringing forth in you a true love which abounds in true knowledge and true discernment, alive in His fellowship unto ages of ages without end.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.