Tuesday, December 29, 2015

About My Father's Business: a Meditation on Luke 2, for the 2nd Sunday after Christmas


And when they saw him, they were amazed: 
and his mother said unto him, 
Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? 
behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.
 And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? 
wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?

The story recounted near the end of Luke's second chapter reveals an odd bit of anxiety between Jesus and His earthly parents.  Collating the Scripture's full witness regarding Jesus, we know Him to be the Alpha and the Omega, the Word by which the Father worked in creation, and the One who will come again to judge both the living and the dead at the Last Day.  It seems strange to read a story of Jesus wandering away from Mary and Joseph, their stress over having lost track of the Son of God, finding Him dialoguing with the scholars in the Temple, and eventually submitting to return with His parents-- all at the age of 12.  Of course, this age corresponds to the normal age of young men's acceptance into the life and rhythm of Temple worship, but that hardly explains why this interlude is recorded by St. Luke... Or why the Church tends to read this text in the season of Christmas.

Like Mary and Joseph, people tend to seek Jesus where they expect Him to be, often according to their own plans or desires.  If I am wounded, stressed out, depressed, or anxious, I expect Him to be right there relieving my every suffering-- and when I cannot find Him in that pain, I am quick to panic while wondering where He could be.  When I desire new work or a new home, new clothes or toys or tools, I expect to find Him near me to provide for my aspirations and dreams.  When I am gluttonous, prideful, and dwelling upon the wicked desires of my fallen heart, I expect Him to be far from me with His eyes averted the other way.  In my fallen nature and my fallen mind, I expect to find Jesus being about the work of my own imagination-- either helping me to get what I want, or turning a blind eye to the evils I enjoy.

While there is a sense in which Jesus as the omniscient, omni-present, and omnipotent God is present everywhere and every time, He reminds us through the words of St. Luke that fulfilling men's fallen desires is not the work He is pursuing.  His work is not in fulfilling my every greedy, prideful, or narcissistic desire, nor is it to turn a blind eye to my sin.  His great and abiding work is to be about His Father's business... And we should not be surprised to find Him there, doing this work.

Much of the anxiety we have regarding God, is that we look for Him in all the wrong places, and expect Him to be doing all the wrong things.  Like Mary and Joseph, we expect Him to be in and around us in the mundane things of life, taking care of our temporal needs and desires, and worried about all the things we worry about.  In a way, He's there in all these things, but satisfying the desires and fears of fallen man is not His primary business.  Rather, His business is the desire of His Father, and the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit:  to seek, to save, to redeem, to enliven, to forgive, to transform all mankind back into His image which was lost during the Fall of our first parents.  His work is the saving of the world from sin, death, hell, and the power of the devil, by offering to us the forgiveness, life, and salvation He won for us upon His Holy Cross.

Does Jesus care about your struggles in your family, your job, your neighborhood, and your church?  Most certainly He does.  Does He care about your health, your livelihood, your rest and your recreation?  Yes, He does.  You will find Him in the mundane things of life, giving to you your daily bread, preserving you on your commute to work, and enjoying a cold beer in the shade.  But these are not the focus of His work.  Your comfort in this world is nothing compared to the greatest of needs that you have:  the forgiveness of your sins, and eternal life that transcends death.  In the fleeting years of this mortal life, you may have greater or lesser adversity, more or less abundance; but whether they be lived in luxury or poverty, pleasure or pain, what is the relative nature of these perhaps 80 or so years in this world, when compared to the first ten thousand years of eternity?  Jesus knows that we are created to be eternal beings, each with an eternal destiny.  While in our fallen state we may focus far too much on the temporal aspects of this world, Jesus remains focused on the real and abiding work that saves us forever.

Do you feel anxious this Christmas season, that you have sought Jesus in all the places of your earthly desires, yet seemingly not found Him there?  Do you fear He has left you in your suffering, or abandoned you in your affluence?  Like Mary and Joseph who sought desperately for Jesus for days, looking for Him among their kinsfolk, along the highway, and throughout the city, return to the Temple where you will find Him always at work for you.  There, in the place where His people gather to receive His Word rightly preached and believed, where His Sacraments are administered according to His institution, there you will find Him about His Father's business.  There you will find Him offering His forgiveness of your sins, won for you by His suffering and death.  There you will find Him exchanging your short earthly life of suffering and toil, of passing glories and riches, for the eternal life which knows no sorrow and of glories which never fade away.  There you will find the promise of Christmas renewed each day, as Jesus continues to be God with Us, not simply in our current times of struggle or success, but every day at work to bring us closer to Himself.  There you will find Him working by the power of his Holy Spirit to seek and to save you forever, offering His enduring gifts of grace freely to all who will receive Him by faith.

Jesus is indeed by your side though every moment of your life, sharing in your successes and your struggles.  But His work for you is found most clearly in His labors to seek and to save you for all eternity, where He delivers His gifts of grace to you through His Word.  When your anxieties rise, your worries multiply, or your vision seems compromised by the glitter of passing riches, turn once again to where you know Jesus your Savior is at work for you, and where He has promised always to be found.  There you will find His rest and peace which passes all understanding, and His abiding presence which knows no end.  Amen.

Monday, December 21, 2015

Peace, Good Will Toward Men: A meditation on Luke 2, for the first week in Christmas



And so it was, that, while they were there, the
days were accomplished that she should be delivered.
And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in
swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there
was no room for them in the inn.  And there were in
the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping
watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of
the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone
round about them: and they were sore afraid.  And
the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you
good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a
Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.  And this shall
be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in
swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.  And suddenly
there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host
praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the
highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

Peace and good will are hard commodities to find in our day.  The rise of militant Islam casts its grim shadow over much of the world, even as the darkness of materialism and atheism cloaks the minds of countless others.  The worries of safety in our nations translates into worries of safety in our neighborhoods, as even the fabric of family is unwound by hedonistic pursuits of sexual indulgence and confusion.  Leaders mislead, be they gathered in greater or lesser halls of government, driving the masses into an ignorant slavery to their passions, whipped about by meaningless catch phrases and internet memes.  There is worry for our degrading school systems, and for our children who must duck and hide not only from physical violence, but from idiocy made into graduation criteria.  We have spent the last couple generations unhinging the minds of the people from authentic distinctions between good and evil, virtue and vice, and we are reaping the whirlwind of our folly.  We have brought forth technological marvels unparalleled in human history, which now serve as the prisons of our minds and bodies no longer strong enough to contemplate truth, nor live it out in community.  We drug our children into mollified compliance rather than discipline them into strong adults, and wonder why the world they are building demands benefit without contribution, service without sacrifice, pleasure without responsibility.  We have spent a century eroding our civilization, our nation, our neighborhoods, our churches, our homes, and ourselves, such that we now totter on the precipice of oblivion.

Of course, the common theme in the examination of our fallen state, is ourselves.  The last century has marked an acceleration in man’s attempt to live out his self deification, and fruits of his labors are manifest.  We make of ourselves terrible gods.  We do not bring forth peace, but despair.  We do not create good will, but rather war and destruction.  We bring forth systems of oppression, murder, vice and enslavement upon our neighbors, only later to find ourselves enslaved to the same darkness and death which follow.  Our best attempts to save ourselves and our world by our own power and intellect, result only in the shrieks and howls of the damned—our own voices joining those whom we have persecuted, synthesized into an endless cacophony piercing our ears, our minds, and our souls.  We are not the authors of peace nor good will.  We are the stokers of the eternal fires of hell.

So where is this peace and good will, which the angels sang about so long ago, which was offered to all people?  If God has spoken of His peace and good will to all mankind, has His promise and proclamation failed?  Most certainly not!  What need would we have of peace and good will from God, if we could generate it on our own?  What need would we have of a Savior, if we were capable of saving ourselves?  What need of God’s light would we have, if we were not drowning in our own darkness?

The Good News of Christmas is not that we shall somehow newly discover a human spirit of peace and good will previously untapped, as if all the decorations and carols and festivities could bring forth from us what we have been unable to do from time immemorial.  Rather, the Good News of Christmas is that God Himself has descended into this mess we have made of His world, so that He might make all things new.  While the common theme of our depravity and hopelessness is us, the eternal truth of our salvation is Jesus Christ.  For it is Jesus, eternal Son of the Father and yet born of the Blessed Virgin Mary—fully divine, and fully human, yet without sin—who brings His light into the darkness all around us.  It is He who joins Himself to our humanity, so that He might suffer and die in our place, taking the penalty of our sin and death and hell.  It is He who has nailed our offenses and ineptitude to His Cross, descended to the dead, and risen again to declare His victory over our darkness.  And it is He who gives His new and eternal life to us, that by His grace we may live in Him forever, hearing His immutable Word of forgiveness in the power of His Holy Spirit, which is to us our life and salvation in this world and the next.  This is our peace and our good will—not that we have created it among ourselves, but that God has given it to us in Jesus, calling us to reflect His Word of grace to the world.

And so to all who sit in such great darkness as these times in which we live, God brings you good tidings of greater joy:  for unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.  He has come to do what you cannot, building His eternal Kingdom one repentant and faithful heart at a time.  Hear the Word of the Lord Jesus which calls to you from both His manger and His cross to gather you into His unapproachable light—which breaks into your self-created prison of despair to claim you as His own, granting you life and peace forever according to His good and gracious will. He has come to set the prisoners free, to lead the captives of death and hell to eternal and blessed life.  Hear Him.  Turn, believe, and live. Amen.

Monday, December 14, 2015

All Generations Shall Call Her Blessed: A Meditation on Luke 1, for the fourth Sunday in Advent



And Mary said,
My soul doth magnify the Lord,
And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.  
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 showed 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 for ever.

Mary, the Mother of Our Lord, is probably one of the most abused personalities in all of Holy Scripture.  From the excesses of some of our Roman friends who want to make of her a Co-Mediatrix (a co-mediator) of our salvation with Christ and the primary object of intercessory prayer for the faithful, to our various Protestant friends who are afraid to grant her any dignity at all or perhaps even to mention her in a salutary light, Mary has often received less than proper remembrance.  In our Gospel reading for this Sunday, however, we have recorded a beautiful and inspired song of Mary which helps us to keep things in their proper perspective.  This lovely little song is often called The Magnificat.

What we first learn from Mary’s lips, is that she has been blessed by God entirely apart from her own righteousness or worthiness.  She freely acknowledged even as she magnified and rejoiced in God her Savior, that it is He who had regarded her lowly estate only then to lift her up.  Mary knew that she could not earn what God had done through her, and nor could she earn the honor that every successive generation of Christians would bestow upon her by calling her blessed.  She was not worthy to bear the Son of God, the Savior of the world; to give to Jesus of her own humanity, that God would be incarnate among His people; to be the bearer of God Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.  Indeed, as the wood and gold of the first Ark of the Covenant given at Sinai was unworthy to hold the divine Law carved by the finger of God upon stone tablets, so too was this daughter of Eve unworthy to hold the Lamb of God in whose Body and Blood the New Covenant of salvation would be written at Calvary.  Mary was not worthy in herself to be the Mother of God, but it is God who lifted her up and made her worthy of His work by His grace.

What we learn most centrally from blessed Mary the Theotokos (an early Greek title given to Mary, meaning “God bearer” or “Mother of God”) is that God’s salvation always comes to His people by grace through faith in His Word.  From the Old Testament into the New, God came to His people by His Law and Gospel—His Commands and His Promises—offering the free gift of forgiveness, life, and salvation to all who would repent, believe, and live in Him by faith.  No earthly measures of holiness or grandeur amount to anything before God, who is Himself the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings.  No one who stands before God in pride to justify himself receives anything but condemnation and judgment from His hand.  But to all who humble themselves before Him, acknowledging their own unworthiness, turning from their evil and clinging to His Word by faith, He gives honor and blessing that can never be taken away.

If the Word of God finds you today, thinking that you deserve the Son of God and that you are worthy of His presence in your life, beware and repent—for there is no person since the fall of our first parents who could stand worthy and holy before Almighty God.  You are certainly not worthy in yourself to receive the King of the Universe under your roof, for the Law declares your sin and judgment even in your own heart.

But if the Word of God finds you today, thinking that you are unworthy to receive the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the whole world, be of good cheer—for the King of the Universe is the One who regards the lowly and the downtrodden, and His mercy is upon those who fear Him in every generation.  You are no less worthy to receive the Great and Mighty King under your roof, than the humble Mary Theotokos whom God raised up to bear the Word of God Made Flesh.  And just as Jesus gave Himself to blessed Mary to be both her Son and her Savior, so He gives Himself to you by the Word of His Gospel Promise—washing you in the sacred waters of Holy Baptism, feeding you on His sacrificed Body and Blood in the Holy Eucharist, and forgiving your daily sins by His Holy Absolution.  There, in Word and Sacrament, at the hands and by the mouth of unworthy servants, the Lord of Glory condescends to come to you that you might live by His grace through faith in His Only Begotten Son… just as blessed Mary lived, and yet still lives, glorified in her Son forever.

We are right, on this day and on all days, to follow the injunction of Holy Scripture to call Saint Mary, Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Theotokos, blessed.  We are right to honor blessed Mary because it is God who has blessed and honored her to be the bearer of the Word Made Flesh; and as the mother of Jesus, by extension, the mother of all the faithful who are joined to Jesus Christ by grace through faith in Him alone.  Blessed Mary is to be honored not because she herself is worthy of praise, but because God our Savior has honored her by lifting her up in His grace.  And in honoring blessed Mary, the whole household of faith looks to Christ our Savior, knowing that it is He who lifts up the humble and the unworthy, giving to all His saints the crown of life and victory over sin, death, hell, and the power of the devil.  Blessed Mary becomes a sign of Christ’s love and mercy to the whole world, and so we declare the Lord’s salvation to the humble and the faithful of every generation when we give thanks to God for the gift of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  For the same Christ who saved her, comes also to save us all.  Amen.

Monday, December 7, 2015

What did you go out to see? A Meditation on Luke 7, for the 3rd Sunday in Advent




And the Lord said, Whereunto then shall I liken
the men of this generation? and to what are they like?
They are like unto children sitting in the
marketplace, and calling one to another, and saying,
We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have
mourned to you, and ye have not wept.  For John the
Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and ye
say, He hath a devil.  The Son of man is come eating
and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a
winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners!  
But wisdom is justified of all her children.

A brief survey of what we entertain ourselves with, shows us to be a strange assortment of folks.  From our music to our movies, our games to our hobbies, there’s an endless variety of things we enjoy going out to see.  We post the things we enjoy or stimulate us on social media, and we send each other a dizzying array of communications from various sources—it’s just part of our technologically interconnected lives together.  Often people don’t need to go anywhere to see almost anything, or to communicate with almost anyone.  From the small glowing window on our cell phone, to the larger glowing windows of our monitors and televisions, we can see things in almost every corner of the globe.  But the question Jesus asks of the people around Him regarding John the Baptist (and indirectly about Himself) still applies to us:  What did you go out to see?

Whether we go out in person, or we go out through an electronic portal, we go out to see a great many things.  We see things that are noble, and things that are disgusting—things beautiful and things ugly.  But when we go out to see Jesus, His Prophets and His Apostles, just what exactly are we going out to see?

The question rings in our ears, because we bring a lot of baggage to the quest to see Jesus.  In our sinful pride, there are some who want to see Jesus as a supporter of all our personal goals and ambitions; as our cosmic concierge; as a voice of sympathy for our self inflicted stupidity; as our source of power to accomplish our designs; as our absolution for our unrepentant wickedness.  This wide array of desires people have when they seek Jesus often betray self centered idolatry which lies so deeply in our hearts, and which seeks to bend all things around us to our service.  Of course, those who don’t think they need Jesus, or don’t think he’ll support them in their selfishness, only go out to mock and deride Him, some going so far as to slander Him or deny that He ever existed.  The sin inside ourselves which prompts us to seek or abandon Jesus isn’t what prompts us to know Him rightly—it is the motivation of a sinful heart to enslave Jesus to our desires, or to disregard Him for the pursuits of our own corrupted liberty.

Recognizing this, many theologians over the centuries have observed the Biblical witness that no one actually seeks God rightly on the basis of their own personal piety.  Fallen mankind doesn’t seek God out of faith, because the fallen nature doesn’t really trust God—somewhere way down deep, the sin which infests us cries out against us, and the Law of God which is also written on our hearts speaks out our condemnation.  The sinner doesn’t seek the true God in his sin, because he knows that the true God is his inescapable Judge.  Therefore the sinner, of his own evil resources, seeks out gods who will approve of his sin, distorts or curses the true God, and finds for himself only the company of demons and other wickedly self-absorbed men.  They pipe for God to dance with them, and then ridicule Him when He doesn’t prance to their tunes.  They call for God to mourn with them, and then scorn Him for not placating them while they suffer in the wages of their evil.  The sinner doesn’t seek the true God, because the true God does abide their delusional claims to self divinity.

Fortunately for us, God does not leave our salvation hanging on our ability to seek Him.  Instead, He sends His Prophets and Apostles in the power of His Holy Spirit to bear His Word to us, and ultimately sends His Word Incarnate to seek and to save lost sinners by bearing the weight of our sin upon Himself.  Knowing that we cannot in our wickedness seek God for our life and our redemption, God sends His Only Begotten Son to be our salvation, and to gather unto Himself all who will repent and believe His blessed Gospel.  Yet such a Word of salvation can be fierce and unsettling to sinners lost in their own prideful debauchery.  It will reach unbidden into their darkness, shining the light of truth which dispels all their self justifications.  That Law which annoyingly gnawed on them through their conscience, is now refined into a hammer which shatters every pretension.  Without the cover of dark delusion and the distraction of prideful pretense, the sinner is brought naked and broken before the Judgment Seat of Almighty God—a place in which only deep sorrow for one’s own sin, and complete despair of one’s own works, may abide.  It is not a gentle or kindly place, but it is the necessary place where true conversion begins:  where we are met by Jesus, finally seeing rightly who we are and who He is reflected in the brilliant but deadly mirror of His Law.

But it is here, in this place of broken contrition, of despair for our own ability to save ourselves or those around us, that we are finally met by the awesome and incalculable love of that same true God.  When every false hope is finally stripped away, Jesus holds out the one hope which will never fail, and will never fade:  that by His Cross He has paid your debt of sin, by His dying He has shattered your death, and by His resurrection He secured your life forever.  This gift of grace is not of your doing, not of your seeking, not of your imagination, but it is of His immutable work of love to seek and to save you.

What we go out to see in the world is often just a reflection of our own inner darkness, but what God comes to bring to us is a reflection of His own most marvelous light.  And to you, who have been sought by God, who have heard His Word of Law strip you bear and His Word of Gospel clothe you in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, who live by grace through faith in Christ alone, you are a child of His eternal wisdom, justified by His eternal love and mercy.  Do not be surprised that the world misunderstands you and your saving Lord, or that they seek from God all the wrong things for all the wrong reasons.  That same Word which came to you and called you to life by His Holy Spirit, comes to the whole world, and is reflected through you into the darkness all around you.  That same Word which enlivens and enlightens you to faith in Jesus Christ, seeks to enliven and enlighten every soul which will repent and believe the Gospel.  Yours is not to save the world, for you know already that you could not even save yourself.  Yours is to trust in the God who alone saves, and whose love alone is powerful enough to seek and to save the whole world through that same Eternal Word which saves you.  To Him alone be honor and praise and glory, now and forever.  Amen.