How Excellent is Thy Name in all the Earth: A Meditation on Psalm 8, for New Year's Day Sunday

O LORD, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! 

Who hast set thy glory above the heavens.  

Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength

 because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.  

When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers,

 the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; 

What is man, that thou art mindful of him? 

and the son of man, that thou visitest him?  

For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, 

and hast crowned him with glory and honour. 

Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; 

thou hast put all things under his feet: 

All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; 

The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, 

and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. 

O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!

At the turning of the year, it is customary for people to take stock of where they have been, so that they might consider more thoughtfully where they might next go.  TV programs, social media, and periodicals will be full of discussions regarding lists of what was best and worst in 2016, colored by all manner of prejudice and assumption.  There will retrospectives of lives of celebrities, politicians, and those who left their mark upon their communities.  There will be consideration of movements and wars, weather and climate, business and trade.  In all the analysis of researchers and scholars, the pontification of experts and ignoramuses, people will try to understand their lives in the year that has passed, so that they might better peer into the mists of the year on their doorstep, and the future years yet to come.

It is tempting for Christians to fall into this chaos, and thereby be driven like fallen leaves before the shifting winds of fashion and fad.  There is certainly no sin in trying to understand the dynamics of our times-- to reflect upon where we have been, what we have done, and what we have left undone, so that we might better live out our lives in the time left before us with appropriate faith and repentance before our God.  But as we do, we must not fall victim to the vanity which pretends that the course of history lies in the hands of people rather than our Creator.  We were not there when the Lord called forth the universe out of nothing, nor were we there to counsel Him on how His creation should be ordered.  Rather, it was out of His own unsearchable wisdom and love that He brought forth our cosmos, our ancestors, and ourselves, and of His great compassion spoke to us His Eternal Word of Law and Gospel that we might know Him, ourselves, and the world in which He has placed us.  It is God who has ordained both the beginning and the end of all things, and guides the history of His creation toward its future.  It is God the Father who called us forth by His Spirit working through His Word and Sacraments to a living faith in His only begotten Son, that all who believe in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  It is our God, the only true God, who is the ultimate font and foundation of all reality, who seeks and saves the lost, who works out our salvation through the sacrifice of His Cross, and who by His lavish grace gives the free gift of forgiveness, eternal life, and salvation to all who would heed His call.

Remembering this, we should maintain a certain balance and perspective at the turning of the years. We have been given to know the One whose Name is most excellent in all the earth, who has considered our lowly estate and yet made us a little lower than the Holy Angels, and who has given mankind charge to steward His good creation.  We know from whom has come all things, and to whom all things shall return.  We know to whom we are accountable for every idle word and action of our lives, and from whom we receive grace, mercy, and victory over sin, death, hell, and the power of the devil.  We are blessed to know what really matters and what endures for eternity, so as not to be distracted or discouraged by temporary and transient things.  We are people with an eternal destiny, who have been given the Keys of Christ's Kingdom by Jesus Himself, to proclaim the Good News of God's love and salvation for the whole world-- and the freedom of lives restored to communion with Him, which spring forth in His love and compassion for everyone around us.

Has the darkness and confusion of our fallen world left you frightened or despairing, or the endless trails of human speculation left you bewildered and unsure of who you are, and to whom you belong?  In the cacophony of the world's frantic worry and unbelief, turn your eyes once again to Him who calls you by His Word of life and redemption.  Let His love and mercy wash over you once again, that you might see both your history and your future more clearly.  It is you whom He loves, you whom He seeks, and you whom He saves through the life, death, and resurrection of His Son-- you whom He pursues by His grace, that you might be raised up to always pursue Him, and through Him to love your neighbor as He has loved you.  Let the darkness and confusion of the world pass from you sight, as the light of Christ dawns once more upon you.  Hear Him.  Believe, and live.  Amen.

In the Beginning Was the Word: A Meditation on John 1 for Christmas Sunday

In the beginning was the Word,

and the Word was with God,

and the Word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God.

All things were made by him;

and without him was not anything made that was made.

In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

And the light shineth in darkness;

and the darkness comprehended it not.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.

The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light,

that all men through him might believe.

He was not that Light,

but was sent to bear witness of that Light.

That was the true Light,

which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.

He was in the world, and the world was made by him,

and the world knew him not.

He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become

 the sons of God, to them that believe on his name:

Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh,

nor of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,

and we beheld his glory, the glory as of

the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

These opening words from the beginning of the Gospel according to St. John are among my favorite in all of Scripture.  The last surviving of the Apostles whom Jesus personally taught as a Disciple, commissioned on Easter Sunday after His Resurrection, and breathed out His Holy Spirit upon so that He might have power to preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins in His Name, is also the Apostle to whom Jesus gave the care of His blessed Virgin Mother, Mary.  The early histories and traditions of the Church tell us that St. John eventually took Mary with him to Ephesus, cared for her until her natural death, suffered numerous persecutions, and late in his life wrote this Gospel which bears his name.  He had lived to see the impact of the Pentecost and the tens of thousands converted to the faith in those first few months and years.  He saw the rise of persecution against the Apostles, and suffered together with Peter under their whips and threats.  He met with St. Paul, and discussed with him the gift of the Gospel to the people Paul met in his missionary journeys.  He lived long enough to see his fellow Apostles martyred for their witness to Jesus and His saving Gospel, and to see the devil sow seeds of error and division among the new Christian Church.  It is likely that John knew all the writings of the New Testament written by his peers before their death, including the other Gospels and the Epistles which bear their respective names.  He also lived long enough to watch people twist his fellow Apostles’ words after they were no longer around to clarify themselves, and by the power of the same Holy Spirit which inspired them, took up the pen to write further witness to the Truth of Jesus Christ.

Of course, even after St. John finally died, heretical attempts to twist the witness of Jesus, the Prophets, and the Apostles didn’t end.  As there is today, so there was then, countless people trying to turn Christianity into their own vision or tool, so that it fits their own proclivities and desires.  With the death of St. John as the last of the Apostles who walked and learned directly from Jesus, so also closed the canon of inspired and inerrant Holy Scripture—that Word of God which He gave to His specifically chosen messengers, that everyone in the world might know the truth about Him, themselves, and what He had done for their salvation from sin, death, hell, and the power of the devil.  As St. John and his pen went silent, so was completed the formal witness to Jesus which began with God speaking in the Garden to Adam and Eve, continued through the Patriarchs, Kings, and Prophets of the Old Testament, was Incarnate in Bethlehem, taught throughout Judea, was Crucified on Mt. Calvary, was resurrected after three days, and ascended  to the right hand of the Father until He shall come again on the Last Day.  What we have with the closure of the Prophetic and Apostolic canon of Holy Scripture, is the completion of God’s saving Word to all mankind:  the complete witness of Jesus Christ, which the Church is commissioned to preach and preserve until He comes again.

As Christmas now breaks once again upon the world, Jesus the Eternal Word of God, continues to call through the Word of His Holy Scriptures to each and every soul, that all may find rest, peace, and life in His Name.  From the dawn of time until our own, false witnesses and false teachers have tried to twist the witness of Jesus into many things it is not, so as to rob the people of the life and salvation Jesus offers so freely by His grace to all who will repent and believe in His Gospel.  In our day, as in every day that ever was, and ever shall be until the end, the confusion of lies, corruption, and deceit are pierced and scattered by the Eternal Word of God, so that all might hear, believe, and live in Jesus.  No matter what philosophy and theology scholastics and academics prefer, the political or bureaucratic constructs they present, or whatever false visions and prophecies they dream from their own sinful hearts to steal the money and allegiance of men, the Word of the Lord endures forever.  No heresy, no evil, no wickedness can abide in the Light of the Word, and no wicked or ignorant design of fallen men or demons can displace it.  Throughout the rise and fall of nations, the ebbs and flows of history, the Word of God remains.

If the shattered and disfigured face of modern Christianity leaves you confused and bewildered, you are in good company.  Many are they who promote their own traditions, their own politics, their own philosophies, their own visions, their own books, and in so doing rend into sects the visible Body of Christ on earth.  But regardless of the earthly fellowship in which you find yourself today, it is only and always the Word of the Lord which still calls to you from the expanse of eternity, that you might know the Savior of your soul.  There from that manger in Bethlehem shines the Light which will not go out and will never dim, which takes your sin upon Himself, and satisfies your debt before the only true and holy God.  There in the witness of the Prophets and the Apostles through whom He spoke, do you find the real Jesus calling to you today.  There in the waters of Holy Baptism which He hallowed for the giving of new life, the bread and the wine which He sanctified as His own life-giving Body and Blood, and the Word of Absolution and forgiveness which He gave to His Church for the reconciliation of all who would repent and believe, do you encounter the real Jesus who comes to seek and to save the lost.

If you have lost sight of Jesus this Christmas, look for Him where He promised always to be:  in His living and active Word.  You need not seek Him in the endless visions of self proclaimed prophets, new or old ecclesiastical bureaucracies, or even the beauty of His natural world.  Cutting through all the clutter and confusion and obfuscation, Jesus speaks through His Word to you this day, calling you once again to turn from darkness and rise up by faith to new life in His forgiveness and grace.  Hear Him by whose Word your life has been given to you, and by whose Word your life shall be secured forever.  Believe, and live.  Amen.   

God With Us: A Meditation on Matthew 1, for the 4th Sunday in Advent

But while he thought on these things, behold,

 the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying,

Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife:

for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.

And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS:

for he shall save his people from their sins.

Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled

which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,

Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son,

and they shall call his name Emmanuel,

which being interpreted is, God with us.

The idea of God being with us can bring forth a wide range of responses.  For those who are at war with God and His created order, it might incite terror or hatred.  For those who are angry with God because they blame Him for some unpleasant circumstances in their lives, it might produce repulsion or scorn.  For those who repress their own rational capacity for logic and sanity so as to deny God’s existence, His presence might produce revulsion, shock, and dismay.  For many others throughout the world, the question of their response to God being with us turns on identifying exactly what God we are discussing; from the horrific god of jihadist slaughter, to the pagan gods of witchcraft and sorcery, to the animist gods of folk religions around the world, not every god who is worshiped is one anyone would really want to be present.  Indeed, who would want a thundering Zeus, Athena, or Apollo?  Who really wants to be in the presence of gods who bath in the blood of their victims, show forth the worst kinds of caprice and malice, and barter for the souls of men?  The demonic phantasms of fallen human minds are not the kinds of gods anyone wants to show up for dinner, let alone abide with us forever.

But the God revealed to Joseph and Mary and discussed in our Gospel text is not any dark idea from the mind of man.  This is the God who has been revealing Himself since He created the world in goodness, purity, truth, and beauty.  This is the God who watched man fall by his own free will into sin and rebellion, justly bringing upon himself and the whole creation the pains of death, hell, and slavery to the devil.  This is the God who continued to reveal Himself as not only holy and eternal Law, but also as infinite and unfathomable grace.  This is the God who promised to enter into His creation by being born of the Virgin, taking our humanity upon Himself, that He might suffer and die in our place.  This is the God who so loved the world that He would give His only begotten Son, so that anyone who would repent of their wickedness, hear and believe His Word of divine forgiveness for Jesus’ sake, would not perish but have everlasting life.  This is the God who passed from eternity into time, so that He might be born, suffer, die, and rise again the third day, earning the forgiveness of our sins, life, and salvation in His Name forever.  This is the God who revealed Himself as not only our Creator, but our Redeemer, our Savior, our Father, our Brother, and our Friend.  This is the God, who though He is justly the one and only righteous Judge of all His creation, yet humbly comes to seek and to save the lost.  This is the God, Emmanuel.

Throughout Advent, we continue to light candles as symbols of the growing light which dawns on Christmas Day, commemorating the Incarnation of God with Us for the salvation of the world.  This God, the Eternal Word of the Father made flesh, comes to abide with us, to love us, to nourish us, and to save us.  Rather than a false god who comes only to enslave, abuse, kill, and destroy, the True God comes to give life to His people, and to give it abundantly.  Our Lord Jesus Christ, promised by God, foretold by Prophets, testified to by Apostles, and born witness to by saints and martyrs in every age, is the saving God who comes to abide with His people and to save them from the death and darkness of their evil.  This is the Jesus who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and the only One through whom we may be reconciled to the Father, and empowered by the Holy Spirit.  This Jesus, who alone is fully God and fully Man, is the only God who gives Himself for the life of His world, and the only Name given under heaven whereby men may be saved.

It is this God who came to abide with us through the Blessed Virgin Mary so many years ago, and continues to abide among His people through His Word and Sacraments.  Here in His Holy Church, His people are gathered by His Spirit in faith and repentance around His Word of Law and Gospel, receiving His grace and His abiding presence through His Word bound to His Supper, to His Baptism, and to His Absolution.  Here the Good Shepherd continually breaths life, love, peace, and hope into His people, even as He raises them up by His Spirit to live out his eternal gifts of faith, hope, and love.  Here the love and mercy of God is made manifest to the whole world, as Jesus commissions His disciples to bring His Gospel of forgiveness and reconciliation to everyone is this dark, suffering, and abused world.

As Christmas glows upon the brightening horizon once again, it is good for all people to meditate upon what it means that God would both now and forever abide with His people.  Set aside those things which inspire terror and fear, repulsion and rebellion, so that you might see the love of your Creator in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  Be finished with the dark things of death and destruction, and be freed from the tyranny of a devil who does not love you, and only seeks your doom.  Hear instead the Word of our Lord which calls you to a new life, a new hope, a new love—to a new and blessed eternity in His presence.  Hear Him, believe, and live.  Amen.  

Violence Against God's Kingdom: A Meditation on Matthew 11, for the 3rd Sunday in Advent

 

Verily I say unto you,

Among them that are born of women

 there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist:

notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

And from the days of John the Baptist until now

the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence,

and the violent take it by force.

For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John.

And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come.

He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

Violence against God’s people is nothing new.  While the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob spoke to Moses on Mt. Sinai commanding His people to treat others with justice, love, mercy, and compassion, the serpent who whispered in the Garden so long ago continues to inspire murder, abuse, persecution, fraud, and oppression.  Indeed, it is one of the longest enduring means by which people in this world have discerned the voice of the true God versus the voice of evil imposters:  one voice leads to abundant life, both here and in the world to come, while the others lead to misery and death both here, and in the world to come.  For some crazy, irrational, and delusional set of reasons, the people of this world seem all too willing to submit to the voice of death rather than the voice of life.  But of course, at its root, evil leading to misery and death is always irrational, leading its followers into the same depths of hellish insanity that the devil and his fallen angels plunged into so many eons ago.

In this season of Advent while the Church waits for the coming of her Messiah, we are reminded by Jesus that such waiting is often accompanied by pain and suffering at the hands of wicked people.  Throughout the history of the Jewish people up to Jesus’ time, the Kingdom of God was established as His people gathered around Him through faith in His Word, and was manifest in the physical kingdom of Israel.  That kingdom went through all sorts of persecution over the centuries of its existence; from a more or less faithless and wicked population, to more or less faithless and wicked rulers, to the onslaught of more or less faithless and wicked foreign attackers, the Kingdom of God suffered violence and the violent often took control of its physical manifestation by force.  False prophets, misguided mobs, self-centered clergy, and apostate kings often seized the reigns of power in the Kingdom of Israel, leaving the faithful to suffer at their hands, sometimes for generations.  The pagan kings of foreign nations often oppressed the Kingdom of Israel, sometimes even carrying them into exile, where the faithful waited in persecution and bondage.  Even in the days of John the Baptist and Jesus, the Roman Emperor ruled over the Kingdom of Israel through his puppet vassals who maintained order in both religious and secular matters, leaving the faithful to wait under the tyranny of the Emperor’s boot.

To the people of God in the Kingdom of Israel Jesus spoke His Word, noting that the fate of John the Baptist in prison was iconic of the Kingdom of Israel’s long persecuted past.  King Herod was a wicked and oppressive king, and had arrested John for the sake of his witness to God’s Word against Herod’s adulterous sin.  Later, Herod would have John executed at the request of his illicit lover, so that the witness of God’s Word which came from John’s lips might be silenced with the removal of his head.  Once again, the violent had seized the levers of power in the Kingdom of Israel, and once again, the faithful people of God suffered under their irrational evil.  But Jesus’ Word to the people indicated that something was changing between the era which culminated with John the Baptist’s prophetic witness, and the Kingdom Jesus was ushering in.  While the Kingdom of God was previously mediated to the world through the instrument of Israel’s physical earthly kingdom, Jesus would be wresting control of His Kingdom back into His own omnipotent hands as the only true and rightful King.  Jesus, according to His human nature, was a son of Adam, Noah, Abraham, and David, born of the blessed Virgin Mary.  In this way, Jesus was not just fully human, but fully Jewish—the Son of David prophesied to come, and the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.  He was the long awaited Messiah, the Lamb of God who came to take away the sins of the whole world, and the One through whom the whole world would be blessed as was promised to Abraham.  Jesus was the eternal and authentic King of the Kingdom of God which spans all heaven and earth, just as He was the authentic inheritor of the Kingdom of Israel.  As Jesus the King of all Creation came to His people, He came to set them free of the wicked tyrants who had abused them, reconcile them to His eternal Father, and bless them with His Holy Spirit.  After Jesus’ Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension, the Kingdom of God was no longer bound to a human nation that could be taken by the force of wicked men; rather, it became the fullness of His Kingdom in which the One King, the One Shepherd, ruled His people of every tribe and tongue by His eternal Word, and those people would be gathered together in Him by grace, through faith in Him alone.

For the last 2000 years, the Kingdom of God has continued to be called, gathered, and preserved by Christ’s Word and Spirit, and no one has been able to tear that Kingdom or His people away from Him.  Since the people of God live out their lives and their faith in this physical world, it has sometimes seemed that false prophets, self-centered clergy, apostate rulers, riotous mobs, and even foreign conquerors have tried to take control of it, but none of them can enslave or contain the Word of God.  In the words of Luther’s great battle hymn, “Were they to take our house; goods, honor, child, or spouse; though life be wrenched away, they cannot win the day; the Kingdom’s ours forever!”  That which we receive by the hand of Jesus through His Word and Sacraments, His Spirit seals to us forever.  The Kingdom ushered in by Jesus is one that cannot be seized by the wicked, controlled by the faithless, twisted by the fickle, or conquered by the brutal.  It is a Kingdom marked by faith and repentance which receives forgiveness, life, and salvation from every power of death, hell, and the devil.  It is a Kingdom that has received the promise of every good and enduring gift, and offers the blessing of Jesus’ inheritance to all who are gathered in Him.  It is a Kingdom which endures forever, just as the Word of the Lord endures forever.

As you wait in this time preparation for the coming of the King, have you been persecuted, oppressed, and made to suffer at the hands of wicked men?  Have you faced the violent wrath of tyrants, apostates, and the self-centered?  Have you heard evil men spout the lies of devils, that they have taken the reigns of God’s Kingdom by force or subterfuge, and thus demand your servitude?  Be of good cheer, dear Christian, for the promises given to you overthrow every power and lie of the evil one.  You are sealed in the Blood of Jesus by His grace, held in His omnipotent hands, and preserved in faith unto life everlasting.  You are an inheritor of all His good and eternal things, even as the temporary trappings of this temporal life pass away.  You may wait, but you wait in certain hope, knowing that the promise which secures you in Jesus is greater and more enduring than all the stars of heaven.  You, who may sit in this present darkness, have seen the great and saving Light of Jesus, and even now bask in the healing warmth of His eternal embrace.  Hear the Word of our Lord Jesus Christ come to you this Advent season, that you might believe, be gathered in to Him and His Kingdom, and live in Him forever.  Amen.