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.

 

Do Not Be Deceived: A Meditation on Mark 13, for the 26th Sunday after Pentecost

And as he went out of the temple, one of his disciples saith unto him,

Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here!

And Jesus answering said unto him, Seest thou these great buildings?

 there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.

 

And as he sat upon the mount of Olives over against the temple,

Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately,

Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign

when all these things shall be fulfilled?

And Jesus answering them began to say, Take heed lest any man deceive you:

For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

And when ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, be ye not troubled:

for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet.

For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom:

and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles:

these are the beginnings of sorrows.

 

But take heed to yourselves: for they shall deliver you up to councils;

and in the synagogues ye shall be beaten:

and ye shall be brought before rulers and kings

 for my sake, for a testimony against them.

And the gospel must first be published among all nations.

But when they shall lead you, and deliver you up,

take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak,

neither do ye premeditate: but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour,

that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost.

Now the brother shall betray the brother to death,

and the father the son; and children shall rise up against their parents,

and shall cause them to be put to death.

And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake:

but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.

 

What began perhaps as a pleasant observation about the grand buildings of Jerusalem, including the rebuilt Temple which was only a shadow of its former glory under Solomon 900 years prior, Jesus used as an opportunity to teach His disciples about the transitory nature of human civilization, and what really matters all the way to the very end of history:  The Gospel.  The Word of God had been at work to seek and to save sinners since man’s Fall in Eden thousands of years before Jesus’ Incarnation, and it would continue working to seek and to save the lost until He came again at the end of the world.  Jesus taught His disciples not to be overly dismayed when the beautiful architecture and present systems of government fall into ruin by consequence of their civilization’s sin and foolishness, because the saving Word of the Lord endures forever, and whoever endures in that Word by faith unto the end, shall be saved by the grace which pours forth through it.  Within a single generation Jerusalem would fall under pagan Rome’s fire and sword, but the Incarnate Word would remain unto ages of ages without end.

 

This lesson is one worth pondering in our own age, as well.  While the citizens of any country might think themselves the pinnacle of human achievement, and their rulers might imagine themselves particularly enlightened more than any other age which has come before them, the reality is that their civilizations will almost certainly fall.  As evil begins to permeate a society, the seeds of its own destruction are sown, and the judgement of the King of the Universe will fall upon it whenever He deems that time is right.  How many great civilizations were in the Mediterranean, North African, and Mesopotamian regions 2,000 years before Jesus, when Abraham was called out of the land of Ur to follow YHWH into a multi-generational covenant that would shower blessings upon the whole world?  Time would fail to recount all the accomplishments of the ancient Egyptians, the Phoenicians, the Acadians, the Assyrians, and the Babylonians—or at least what clues and details history has left us to know.  And what of Greece, Sparta, and Persia?  What of Rome that lasted nearly 1,000 years before its fall?  Outside that Mediterranean crucible lay ancient dynasties in what are presently India, China, and Mongolia, as well as sub-Saharan Africa and northern Europe.  One could spend a lifetime exploring the history of civilizations no longer represented in the modern world, and still not cover them all.

 

How will our great buildings, government, and industries fare 1,000 years from now?  What will be the state of geopolitics, the aspirations of conquerors, or the imaginations of artists?  We do not know, and it has not been given us to know.  Jesus was clear that wars and famines and plagues and tumult would continue in the world until the end; just as it had since the Fall of man in Eden, so it has been since the rise of Christ from the grave.  Man’s response to God and His Word in each generation inevitably reveals their fate, as faith and repentance meet with His grace, while rebellion and evil meet with His judgment.  Our own nation is not yet 250 years old, and whether it will endure for another decade or century or millennium is known only to the hidden will of God—but His revealed will by His Word, is that His Law and Promises will remain by the power of His Holy Spirit until the end of time.  No matter who wins power over our government, or who captains our industries, or who sets the contemporary fads of fashion, the Word of the Lord was before their advent, and will be there long after they are gone.  As Christian citizens of our nation, we work for its wellbeing and pray for its providence before the throne of Almighty God, but we know that blessing and cursing, prosperity and plague, life and death, all come in their times according to His will and purpose for man before His Word.

 

It can be tempting to squint our eyes into the signs and wonders of our age, trying to detect when the end of all things may be upon us.  But the comfort Jesus gave His disciples was not to look forward to the judgment of the world, but to trust His grace and promise in the times they were given.  While Jesus did warn His disciples about the near-term fall of Jerusalem and the long term final judgement of the world, He did not teach them about what would happen to Rome when the Visigoths invaded, or how western kings in Christian lands would respond to the tyrannical and murderous plague of Islam; He did not teach them about rivalries between England and France, Spain and Portugal, Norway and Sweeden and the Netherlands, nor their colonial contests across the seas of the world.  He did not teach them about the rising threats of Marxism with Stalin and Mao, or Fascism with Hitler and Mussolini, even though they would produce the bloodiest world wars in any century of recorded human history.  What He did teach them is that despite all the wars and tumults and cacophony, His people would live by grace through faith in Christ alone, because His Eternal Word made that promise more certain than any human upheaval could displace.

 

In these last days of the Church Year, Christians remember again that Jesus has promised to come again at the end of time to judge the living and the dead, and that His Kingdom has no end.  But the comfort of that knowledge rests in the Promise of Jesus Christ crucified for sinners in our own age, just as He was crucified for the sinners in every other age that has ever been, or ever will be.  The Gospel of Jesus Christ rings out as it is carried to every nation, every hamlet, every village, and testified before both paupers and kings:  that God has so loved every soul in this world, that He came to seek and to save His people through the life, death, and resurrection of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.  It is Jesus, the Incarnate Word, who cannot be removed or displaced by any act of man or accident of history, because it is by Him, and through Him, and to Him that all things which were made, are made.  His Word comes to all, and to all who will receive Him by grace through faith, He gives them the right to become the children of God—born not of flesh and blood, but from above by Water and Spirit.  In this Eternal Word of promise His people both rest and work, trusting in Him who lives forever, and who keeps our lives safe and secure in Him unto ages of ages without end.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.

 

Blessed and Holy: A Meditation on 1st John 3 for the Feast of All Saints

Behold, what manner of love

the Father hath bestowed upon us,

that we should be called the sons of God:

therefore the world knoweth us not,

because it knew him not.

 

Beloved, now are we the sons of God,

and it doth not yet appear what we shall be:

but we know that, when he shall appear,

we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

And every man that hath this hope in him

purifieth himself, even as he is pure.

 

In the third chapter of St. John’s first epistle, he reflects on a central lived reality of all the followers of Christ:  that we are the children of God.  Because of who Jesus is and the work He accomplished on Calvary in His Vicarious Atonement, the love of God could be poured out on all mankind through His Word and Spirit, raising up children unto Himself by grace through faith.  The righteousness man could not achieve on his own, Jesus accomplished via His Incarnation; the satisfaction for sin man could not make on his own, Jesus accomplished by His Cross; the eternal life man could not acquire by His own power, Jesus gave out freely after His own resurrection from the dead.  Thus faith in Christ becomes the fundamental means by which man receives forgiveness, life, and salvation—which is grace—so that he might be raised up to new life, walking in the Word and Spirit of his Savior.  These are the children of God, whom Jesus refers to in Matthew 5 as the blessed, and everyone who finds themselves alive in this blessed hope, continuously purify themselves through repentance and faith all the days of their lives.

 

This is a different kind of definition than many Christians hold today.  In popular culture, saints are often reflected as exceptionally pious or holy, such as monastics and clerics, who regular people hope will pray for them because they think holy people will get God’s attention more regularly.  This idea extends even into the afterlife, where some people were thought to be so holy and blessed in this world, that they must have special privileges in heaven—like the power to impose upon God and bend Him to their will on behalf of lowly mortals who properly petition them.  When the idea of sainthood and holiness are separated from the Doctrine of Justification by Grace through Faith in Jesus Christ alone, the result always seems to be that men judge each other in relation to their own standards of holiness, and bestow sainthood on those whom they most admire.  In history this has been used to bolster political and ecclesiastical claims to power and authority, while also keeping the average parishioner frightfully chasing patron saints to somehow intercede for them and avert the punishment of a vengeful God.

 

But look again at the Apostle John’s description of the unfathomable love God pours out on the whole world through His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.  The world did not know God by their own powers, because their own powers are irredeemably fallen and corrupted.  Instead, as John recorded Jesus’ teaching in His Gospel, For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.  Jesus did not come to bring destruction upon men, because men had already achieved their own destruction by enslaving themselves to sin, death, hell, and the devil.  On the contrary, Jesus is the love of God made manifest to the world—a sacrificial, selfless love that seeks the good of men, rather than their judgment.  Or as Luther would note, those who see God as vengeful and angry, do not see Him rightly, because they are not looking at Him through the Cross of Jesus.  God’s revealed disposition toward man is that of saving love, not desiring to see one soul lost to perdition, but that all might come to a saving knowledge of His Truth.

 

This disposition of divine love permeates not only life in this world, but throughout eternity in His Kingdom.  All the saints on earth are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone, just all the saints in heaven are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone, for as the author of Hebrews describes and St. Paul writes to St. Timothy, there is only one true mediator between God and men:  the Lord Jesus Christ.  Most certainly all the saints pray for each other and for the world in which we live, asking for the Lord of Glory to bestow upon His children His good and gracious will, for God Himself teaches us to pray to Him and seek the good of our neighbors in a love that reflects His own.  But no saint has power over God, in this world or the next, for every saint is saved by Grace and not by their own holiness or righteousness according to the Law—for as St. Paul would note in his letter to the church at Rome, by the deeds of the Law no flesh shall be saved.  There is no place for boasting among the children of God, because they are all saved by Jesus, and together work and serve as beneficiaries of His grace.  The communion of the saints we confess in the Creed each week is not an affirmation of some holy choir far distant from us, but of the whole family of faith wrapped around us, and extending with us into eternity.

 

On this Feast of All Saints, take courage and hope, dear Christian, for the Father has so loved you that He has called you His child, all by grace through faith in His only begotten Son.  Your place in His Kingdom is secure by His work and His power, as the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus stands in testimony to the whole cosmos of His love and grace poured out to you.  Though we pray for each other, even as the saints in heaven pray for the saints on earth, we do not approach the throne of God in fear, but in hope, for the perfect love of God in Christ Jesus casts out all fear from the fellowship of His saints.  And all we who hold such hope, given faith and repentance unto eternal life by God’s good and gracious gift, are purified in the Word and Spirit of Jesus, turning from the dark things of the world and toward His Light and life and grace.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.

 

Freedom in Christ: A Reformation Day Meditation on John 8 and Romans 3

Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him,

If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;

 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

 

They answered him, We be Abraham's seed,

and were never in bondage to any man:

how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?

 

Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you,

Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.

And the servant abideth not in the house for ever:

but the Son abideth ever.

If the Son therefore shall make you free,

ye shall be free indeed.

 

In John 8, Jesus was teaching the Jews who followed Him that they were not as free as they thought themselves to be.  In a practical sense, the Jews were not free from Roman authority, as they were a conquered and occupied land by the time of Jesus’ Advent.  The regular people were not free of the capricious tyranny of their religious leaders, who endlessly made up new laws and promulgated them as the oracles of God, all while fleecing the people of their money and patronage.  Yet it was not these practical enslavements Jesus was speaking to them about, but a spiritual reality that anyone who is born in sin, lives in sin, and dies in sin, is not free, but a slave of the sin they commit.  Every person who submits themselves to sin becomes its servant, and Jesus taught them directly that no servant of sin abides in the Kingdom of God forever.  On the contrary, Jesus as the only begotten Son of God, was truly free and abides in the house of the Lord forever; therefore, if the Son was to make the people free, they would be restored to freedom before God and able to dwell with God in His Kingdom unto ages of ages without end.

 

As with so many things, this spiritual reality is greater than the physical manifestations of tyranny in the world.  No tyrant or human trafficker will live forever, and no unfortunate slave of their evil will suffer forever in their chains.  The human experience of evil tyranny in this world is bounded by the human lifespan, and thus the machinations of evil people and the suffering of the innocent under their rule, is definitionally transitory.  But the spirit of men will live forever, and it passes from this world into the realm of eternity on the day of one’s death.  At that moment, the soul will stand before God as the creature before its Creator, and give an account of all that has been done in their life to that point.  St. Paul in our epistle reading for today from Romans 3 makes clear that no one will stand justified before God on their own merits, because no one has lived a life of perfection before the holy and just Law of God.  Thus the promise Jesus made to the Jews was their only hope:  that if the Son of God as the Incarnate Word of the Father would set them free, then they would be absolved of their sins and welcomed into His Kingdom.

 

And yet, God is both Just and Merciful, Righteous and Gracious; He cannot be what He is not, and He cannot violate Himself as the ground of all reality and existence.  What was due by men by the curse of the Law before God, had to be paid if man could be forgiven—an infinite debt for every soul, paid by the only One who could do so.  No man could atone for his own sins, except to take his just place in hell for all eternity, and neither could he atone for the sins of others.  Only God could pour out a sacrifice of infinite worth to pay an infinite debt, and liberate the souls of men from the curse of their own depravity.  This is what St. Paul calls Propitiation:  that Jesus Christ took the place of fallen men on the Cross, and that His sacrifice as both fully God and fully Man was satisfaction before the Judgement Seat of the Father.  In Christ alone was the satisfaction of every man’s sins, and in Christ alone would the sentence of man’s fall be reversed.  In Christ alone was freedom from sin, death, hell, and the power of the devil—a victory no man could win for himself or his loved ones.  While transient tyrannies of this world may come and go, the eternal tyranny of man’s soul was set free by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, so that all who would abide in Him by Faith would receive His saving Grace forevermore.

 

To what purpose, then, are we set free?  Freedom before God in Jesus Christ is not the libertarian ideal of modern politics, nor the Epicurean dream of self-satisfaction in whatever hedonistic desire may dominate a man’s mind.  To be free of the slavery of evil, is to rise into the freedom of the good—to be an adopted child of God, daily conformed to His image, and sent out to live according to His Word, Wisdom, and Will.  In Christ we are made free, not to follow our own desires and passions into the bleak darkness of our former slavery, but to rise into His righteousness, justice, truth, and mercy.  We are freed from the devil not that we would serve him again, but that we would become in fullness what we were created to be, reflecting in the uniqueness of our person the glories of Almighty God.  Rather than abolishing the Law of God, the Gospel of Jesus Christ affirms it by the shedding of His blood and the Propitiation He has made in our place.  We are not saved from sin so that sin would abound in us, but that we might be motivated with a new heart and a new Spirit to emulate the Love and Truth and Righteousness that our Savior first gave to us.  We are free, once more, to seek the Good, unchained from the slavery of evil.

 

On this Reformation Day, we are called to remember that there is salvation in no other name given under heaven, but by Jesus Christ.  Our freedom from the darkness is not won by the efforts of any mere, fallen mortal, but by the Only Begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.  It is the Word of Jesus that comes to us by the power of His Holy Spirit, that we might repent, believe, and live in His Word, raised out of our darkness and into His marvelous Light.  In Christ alone we stand today in His grace, despite the transient vagaries of this world’s evils, its tyrants, and its machinations, knowing that our redemption passes from this world to the next, where no evil can abide forever.  In Christ alone we are raised to a new life, which seeks not our own pleasures and desires, but works in the love of God and of our neighbors as Christ first loved us.  In Christ alone we are now free to live as the children of God He has made us to be, that we might sing His praises unto all ages without end.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.