The Church Endures Apostate Bishops: A Meditation on Acts 1

Who among us has not lamented the failings of our leaders?  Be it political or churchly, when our leaders fail us, it is often quickly on our tongues to curse them, spite them, slander them, or despair because of them.  In the political arena, whether it is the ruling king, or some kind of parliament or congress, unfaithful leaders can do a great deal of harm, even to the destruction of the state.  History is littered with examples of nations that have fallen, some never to rise again, because of poor leadership.

But the Church and the Secular Government, have different promises and commands from God.  While the state has no promise to endure, often rising and falling relative to their respective practical wisdom, virtue, and strength, the Church has the promise of Christ that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.  The Church, unlike the state, shall abide forever—even unto the end of the world.  And so, while faithless and vain leaders can wreak havoc on the Church like they can on the State, they can’t cause the whole Church of Christ to fall.  They might destroy a local church or congregation, or even large swathes of areas with apostasy, false teaching, heresy, abuse, and more… but they cannot destroy the Church.

For nearly 2000 years, the Church has continued, despite poor leaders and destructive bishops.  Before the New Testament Church emerged at Pentecost in 33 AD, the Old Testament Church persisted since the covenant with Abraham somewhere around 2000 BC… and from the beginning of time, as God made His covenant with His people at Creation.  From the dawn of history, we have the recorded Word which God sent to His people, which called, gathered, enlightened, and enlivened them by grace through faith in Him.  That Word did its work in ages of mass apostasy, even when Noah and his family were all that were left of the household of faith; in the times of the Patriarchs, the slavery in Egypt, the time of the Exodus, Conquest, and the Judges; the times of the Kings, the divided Kingdom, and the great Captivities; the time of the return to Jerusalem, of the Maccabean revolt, the domination of the Romans.  In every time and place since, God has continued to send His Word to His people, to gather them in His promises by grace through faith.

In our reading from Acts, the Apostles wrestle with what it means to have one of the 12 whom Jesus chose, be an apostate and traitor.  Their solution, is to call and ordain another witness to the Word—a witness to Jesus Christ—to take Judas’ place.  They could do this, because they knew the Church was not built upon the Apostles, but upon the Word of God.  The Apostles were witnesses and servants of the Word, given life and authority by the Word, to proclaim the Word to the whole creation.  Judas certainly did a lot of damage as he was thieving from the common purse, and eventually taking sides with the murderous Pharisees and Saduccees, but he could no more destroy the Church as He could keep Jesus in the grave.  The Word of the Lord endures forever.

Even so, in our day, we suffer with poor leaders.  We have bishops, pastors, and people in various leadership positions, who know the Word of the Lord, but reject it.  We have whole councils of congregations, dioceses, regions, and church bodies that reject the Word.  We have abusers of children, traitors to Christ, who have infiltrated our Churches, sometimes attaining positions of power and influence.  We have leaders who have taken their place with the persecutors of the Church, of Christ, and His Word, preferring the fellowship of the world which is at war with God.  We have leaders that, as in every age, will fulfill the ancient observation, that the road to hell is lined with the skulls of unfaithful priests and bishops.

But how can the Church endure our age of apostasy and unbelief, of evil and wickedness in high places?  The same way it has for over 4000 years, and will until the end of time:  by the power of the Word of God.  Our leaders today, as in every day, are not masters of the Word—they are called to be servants of the Word.  They can no more destroy the Church in our day, than Judas could destroy it in his day.  The Church of Jesus Christ will endure, because His Word will endure.  Wherever the People of God gather around His Word in faith, there is the Church.  When one leader falls, another will be raised by the power of that same Word.  And as with any servant of the Word, if they remain in faith they remain in grace—but if they surrender to the devil in unbelief, they will be cut off.  Always and everywhere, the Church is found where Christ and His Word gather them together.  And regardless of all the pomp, costumes, rituals, and dignitaries, if the Word of the Lord has departed, that gathering is not the Church.  In all things, the Word of the Lord is what defines, establishes, and preserves the Church.

So should we remove from our midst false teachers and bishops?  Absolutely, and with great vigor.  If a particular fellowship is so enthralled by their false leaders that they cannot or will not remove them, should we gather together where the Word is taught purely and genuinely?  Most certainly.  Should we despair when false teachers and apostate bishops guide whole fellowships to become the Whore of Babylon, siding with the secular and demonic powers to become drunk with the blood of the saints?  No.  We must not despair of anything the devil, the world, and apostate leaders cast against Christ and His Holy Church.  We must remember, that we live by grace through faith in the Son of God, communicated to us by His Spirit through His Word.  His Word will endure forever, as will all those called, gathered, enlivened, and sanctified by it.

Even if you find yourself like Noah in your local community, give thanks for the Word that blesses and keeps you by grace through faith.  If you are part of a larger faithful fellowship, give thanks for the Word that blesses and keeps you in that fellowship.  And always remember, that Christ and His Word cannot be defeated by sin, death, the devil, or even by hell itself.  The Word that keeps you by grace through faith in the Son of God, shall abide forever.  Amen.

The Spirit Whom the World Cannot Receive: A Meditation on John 14

In our Gospel reading for this week, we continue with the dialogue John records of Jesus and His disciples before He goes to His Passion.  Beginning in verse 15, Jesus tells His disciples:

“If you love Me, keep My commandments.  And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—  the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.  I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.”(NKJV)

Jesus teaches His disciples, that to love Him is to keep His Word—a Word that is as simple as believing in Him and loving each other, and as complex as the whole witness of Holy Scripture.  Faith and Love are the marks of His people, given to them by His own grace, love, and mercy, so that the disciples become branches of His Vine.  They live, because He lives, and gives His life to them.  To remain in the love of Christ, is to remain in Faith and Love.

Of course, if we look at this from our sinful human perspective, it will cause us to despair.  Who among us has the recourses in himself to keep all of Christ’s Word?  Who believes without doubt, every Word that has come to us from God, every second of our lives?  Who loves without end, preferring not only insult and injury but even death itself, to save or preserve our neighbor?  In reality, we have weak faith at best, and tepid love, preferring to love ourselves and our own opinions more than anything else.

This frightening disparity between what we are able to do, and what God calls us to do, is what causes us to despair of our own works, merit, or ability before God.  When we see the Father manifested through the Son, we see what perfect Faith and Love look like.  We see the Son who not only keeps every Word of His Father, but is Himself that very living Word.  We see the Son who not only loves the Father, but casting aside His own divine prerogatives, lays down His life for the life of the world.  Jesus is the full measure of God’s call to every man, woman, and child to believe His Word and keep it.  And there is no way we can meet that standard, as people born in sin and depravity.

But then, we are not called to rely on our own resources, either to believe or to love.  While Jesus was the perfect keeper of the Law, that was not His primary mission.  Rather, His mission was to fulfill the Law for our sake, so that by His sacrificial death and resurrection, He might give to us His own victory over sin, death, and hell.  What we cannot do, He has already done through His Cross. What we cannot believe, He has already brought to completion.  Where our faith and love are decrepit and twisted, His Faith and Love have overcome all things.  This is His Good News, His Holy Gospel, to every man, woman and child upon the face of the earth:  that we are saved by Him, through Him, and in Him.  He is our Faith, and our Love.  He is our life, our sweetness, and our hope.  He is all that we are called to be, and cannot attain.  He is our victory, and our life that cannot die.  He alone is our Savior.

And it is for this reason that He has sent the Comforter to us.  His Holy Spirit, who comes to bear witness to Christ through Word and Sacrament, bestows to us faith to believe this Holy Gospel, and divine love to give to both God and our neighbor.  The Holy Spirit comes, not to glorify Himself, but to glorify the Father through the Son… and the Father and the Son glorify the Spirit, as He works the salvation of all who will hear the Word of Christ, receive His Faith and Love, and live as branches grafted into His Vine.

While the Holy Spirit comes to all through Christ’s Word, not all will receive Him.  Some will hear Christ’s Word of Law and Gospel, and rather than receiving the free gift of grace, they will return to their evil darkness, spurning the light.  The world which rejects the Word of Christ cannot receive His Holy Spirit, nor can it believe or love unto eternal life.  Though the Holy Spirit is sent to all, even as the Word of Christ is preached to all, the Spirit will not stop anyone from blaspheming Him.  If the darkness of hell is what we want, an eternity of despair and darkness unilluminated by the beautiful light of Christ’s Word, He will not force us into heaven, or into communion with the Holy Trinity, the holy saints and the blessed angels.  The world that rejects the Word of Christ cannot receive the Holy Spirit, and cannot be the disciples who live through Jesus.

And so, even in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, we are called to the same courage that Jesus calls His first century disciples to.  We are called to hear the Word of our Savior, by which we receive the promise of the Holy Spirit, who takes our paltry human faith and love, giving to us instead the Faith and Love of Jesus.  We live by a faith not our own, and love with a love not our own, saved by a grace that is not our own, given to us by a Savior who has rather made us His own.  We receive His Holy Spirit through His Holy Word, and live by His power and grace.  But if the world scorns you for your life in the Spirit, your Faith and Love given by Christ through His Word, even so, be of good cheer—you are in the very best of company.  For it is here, in this place, scorned by the world’s unbelief and wickedness, that you find the eternal blessed communion of all the saints in light:  the very eternal communion of the Most Holy Trinity.  The works of darkness, together with those who keep them, will pass away.  But the Word of the Lord Jesus Christ, and those who live by it, shall abide forever.  Amen.

The Priesthood of All Believers: Meditations on 1st Peter 2

If there were any doctrine of the Reformation that has proved more practically helpful, and at the same time more universally calamitous, than this teaching drawn from St. Peter’s first epistle, I struggle to remember it.  Particularly in our day, the churches of the Reformation are shattered apart into all kinds of sects and schisms driven by misunderstandings of this doctrine, to the point that even historically stable Reformation churches are disintegrating.  Since this subject comes up in our pattern of readings for this week, I thought it timely to properly discuss what St. Peter does, and does not, teach regarding the Priesthood of All Believers.

First, what does he say?  As Christians, you are an holy priesthood, a peculiar people, an holy nation.  You have One High Priest, Jesus Christ, who has become for you both the Sacrifice that saves you, and the One who offers the Sacrifice on your behalf to the Father.  Jesus is your High Priest, offering Himself for the sins of the whole world, and giving His gifts of mercy and grace to His people through living faith in Him.  And so it is clear, that in whatever way Christ’s people are priests, it is different from the way He is High Priest.  While Jesus offers up His life for the life of the world, we who are redeemed offer up our sacrifices of prayer, praise, and thanksgiving.  All our sacrifices are in gratitude for His most holy Sacrifice.  Everything we have to offer, we know comes first by His grace, so that none of us may boast of what we give.  Just as the branch cannot boast against the Tree for the fruit produced through it, so the individual Christian priest cannot boast against Jesus and the fruits of His Sacrifice made manifest through us.  He is primary, and we are secondary.  His priestly Sacrifice is efficacious for the salvation of the world, and our sacrifice is a response of faith to His magnificent work in us.

In this way, the whole Christian people is a priestly nation.  Through Christ, we have access to the Father.  In Christ, we have been given the Holy Spirit.  By Christ, our prayers are heard, our praises received, and our thanksgiving acknowledged.  Alone we are nothing but sinners condemned to eternal death, but in Him we live, and move, and have our being.  We reflect His glorious light—we are not lights of our own.  And in this way, our whole life becomes a sacrifice to God through Christ our Savior.  We become His living stones, built together into one people, One Holy Church that shall abide forever by grace through faith in Jesus.  His Word enlivens us, and we live in and through it.  We bear witness to Jesus and His salvation for us and the whole world.  We pray for all, give praise for all, offer thanksgiving for all.  And since our whole life is sacrificed to God, all our work in our various vocations becomes hallowed, too.  The Christian brick layer, soldier, banker, businessman—all are living witnesses to the Living Lord.  All are priests, under the authority and grace of the Great High Priest, Jesus Christ.

What this does not teach, is the abolition of the pastoral office, since Jesus established that, too, with His Apostles.  While all have their vocations, and all receive their universal priesthood through Water and the Word in Holy Baptism, the general witness of Christ’s people is not quite the same as the specific witness of the under-shepherds that our Chief Shepherd sends out to tend His people.  There is an Office Jesus established in John 20, to preach the Gospel, to forgive and retain sins, and administer His Sacraments.  This office of oversight has been called various things over the history of the Church:  Presbyter (and the shorthand term of Priest for Presbyter, which sometimes caused confusion,) Elder, Overseer, Bishop, Pastor, and still more.  But regardless of the terms used for the pastoral Office, or the Office of the Keys, there is still an ordained and holy office established by Jesus for the preaching, teaching, and administration of the Gospel.

What is important to remember, is that the Priesthood of All Believers does not negate the Pastoral Office, anymore than the Pastoral Office negates the Priesthood of All Believers.  Christ calls all His servants, all His people, to be witnesses to Him and His Gospel, through the lives they lead in their particular walks of life.  From this baptized priesthood, Christ also calls particular servants to shepherd His people.  Christ works through His Church to call, ordain, and send those who have learned what is necessary, and been examined for faithfulness to the Prophetic and Apostolic witness of Holy Scripture—those who fit the model that St. Paul gave to St. Timothy and St. Titus, as he instructed them to appoint pastors for the churches he had planted. 

Losing either of these offices in the Church is destructive, but keeping them in line with Holy Scripture has blessings and promises without number.  With a firm knowledge of the Priesthood of All Believers, we give comfort to the whole people of God that they are heard for Christ’s sake; that they are sent out into their various vocations to reflect the light of Christ to their neighbors; that they are beloved of the Father for the sake of the Son, and that the Holy Spirit rests upon them, sealing them for eternity.  With a firm knowledge of the Pastoral Office, we ensure that we have faithful and educated teachers who bring us the Law and Gospel of God without corruption or adulteration; we will have the Sacraments rightly administered according Christ’s institution and command; we will have shepherds who hold their office in humility and great fear, knowing that they are accountable to the Chief Shepherd for every soul under their care.  Understanding these gifts of Christ, given through His Word, we will not have confusion as one office attempts to take what they are not given, or is derelict in doing what they have been called to do.  Following our Chief Shepherd, we will be built up by His Holy Spirit to the glory of God the Father, as living stones that all fit perfectly together into one great edifice:  The One Holy Church, the very Bride of Christ.  Amen.

The Perilous Path: Meditations on Psalm 23

Of all the Psalms, this short song is often the most well known or remembered.  It is rendered so well and memorably in the old King James Version, that its form is often followed even in more modern translations.  It goes like this:

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:

he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of

righteousness for his name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I

will fear no evil: for thou art with me;

thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine

enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my

life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

As David pens this Psalm under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he sees not only his own plight as a persecuted servant of God, but the ultimate persecution of the very Son of God.  It is Jesus who descended from the peaceful abode of His Father, to walk the paths of righteousness for His Name’s sake; it is He who walked through the deadly valley, fearing no evil, even as He hung dying for the sins of the world upon the Cross; it is He who has set a Eucharistic table before His people in the presence of their enemies of sin, death, devil and hell; it is He who was both anointed, and anoints the heads of His people by grace through faith in Him, such that their cups runneth over with the blessings of life, forgiveness, and hope; it is He who ascended to the right hand of the Father, preparing a place for all His people, that they may dwell with Him forever.

But of course, like David and every person before us, we will have to walk through that dark valley of death.  By our own strength we cannot resist it, or avoid it.  By our own reason and intellect, we cannot calm our fear of it.  Death is not so feeble an enemy, that we can wish it away, or push it back forever.  That dark valley awaits us all, and at a time known only to our Creator, we shall walk into that bleak vale, whether we want to or not.  That journey may come suddenly and without warning, or with premonitions and signs of failing health.  Either way, our feet move inexorably toward that dim horizon, that stands before us as the just consequences of our own sin and evil, begun so many centuries ago by our first parents, and continued with our every wicked breath.

But we are not left to walk that grim path alone.  The Lord is indeed our Shepherd, and He has promised to lead us to good pastures and quiet waters.  He knows this road, because He has walked it.  He knows what perils lie before His people as they sojourn on, because He has suffered them.  He knows the icy flood of death, because it has rolled over Him.  But of course, He also knows what lies beyond that dark and frightening vale.  Before He entered the realm of death and shattered its strength with His own most unconquerable Life, it was a terrifying place of despair and separation from God.  Now, it is the darkness before the dawn of salvation, when the Eternal Light of God breaks forth upon the soul of the faithful, and they see God face to face.

There is no other path to glory, but by grace through faith and repentance in Him.  Only Jesus has won this victory for you, and only He can lead you through the valley of the shadow of death.  Without Him, you are hopeless.  With Him, however, there is nothing to fear.  There is no evil that shall terrify you, for your Lord and Shepherd have conquered them all.  Even as your sinful body reposes in death, your Shepherd keeps and guides your soul, with the promise that just as He is risen from the dead, so shall you rise.  Death is not the final word for you, nor any of the screeching rants of the evil one.  For you, the last word, is the Eternal Word, Jesus Christ your Savior.

And so it is that the Church presses forward through that dark valley, following her Lord, the Good Shepherd, who has given His life for His people.  She marches on, every soul, suffering the trifles and struggles of this life, the sins and recklessness and unbelief of her neighbors, just as her Savior has done.  She follows the voice of Him whom called her out of darkness, and into His marvelous Light.  And she will, every soul, at the last when Light Perpetual shines through the darkness of death, abide in the house of the Lord forever.  Heed the voice of your Good and Saving Shepherd, for He leads you to life everlasting.  Amen.