Except Ye Repent: A Meditation on Luke 13, for the 3rd Sunday in Lent

And Jesus answering said unto them,

Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the

Galileans, because they suffered such things?

I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.

Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam

fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above

all men that dwelt in Jerusalem?

I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent,

ye shall all likewise perish.

He spake also this parable;

A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard;

and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none.

Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard,

Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree,

and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?

And he answering said unto him,

Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it,

and dung it:  and if it bear fruit, well:

and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down.

Nearly 500 years after inheriting a Reformation theology (often boiled down to the phrase Justification by Grace through Faith in Christ Alone,) it is important to remember just what kind of faith the Reformers preached from the Scriptures.  What Luther and his companions preached and taught as saving faith (a faith which received the grace of forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation, and thereby justified the sinner before a pure and holy God through the shed blood of Jesus Christ) was in harmony with the whole of Scripture, including this teaching from Jesus in Luke 13.

The idea of a faith which was nothing more than intellectual assent to theological or historical points, and which did not work itself out in the life of the Christian in real and tangible ways, was just as condemned by Luther as it was by Roman Catholics, the epistles of St. Paul and St. James, and the very mouth of Christ Himself.  Remember that Luther, as he built his catechisms for the education of pastors and families, began it with a remembrance and explanation of the Ten Commandments, calling all people to repentance from evil and into good works of love and duty toward the neighbor.  Luther was keenly aware, as were the Fathers and Doctors of the Church from antiquity, that a faith which justified the sinner before a holy God through Jesus Christ, is a faith which by the power of the Holy Spirit turns from evil toward the good; i.e., a faith which lives in repentance, and cannot be divided from it.  Any pretence of faith apart from repentance was rightly considered a farce that would save no one, anymore than it would save the fig tree in the parable above.

The great question on repentance that emerged in the Reformation was not the necessity of repentance to accompany saving faith, but how and to what effect repentance was exercised.  Was a person to practice repentance so as to achieve and grow their faith, or would faith as a gift from God lead and empower a person to authentic repentance?  While it may sound like a finely nuanced question without significance, the way it is answered can have a dramatic impact on the heart of a person.  If one were to think that the only way they could receive a saving faith (and/or saving grace) is to work harder in repentance to achieve it, they would quickly realize that their own resources were far too weak for the task.  As fallen human beings, all people are constantly inclined toward evil, with every waking moment drawn toward pride, avarice, lust, covetousness, idolatry, hatred, murder, and every other vile pursuit under the sun.  The fallen nature simply isn’t capable of working true repentance, because at root the fallen nature trusts neither God nor His Word.  Our fallen nature might be able to do pious looking things, make prayers and sacrifices, or even do heroics which seem righteous in the civic realm.  On its own, however, the fallen nature cannot cure the deep root of its own sin:  the deadly poison which is so entangled in both body and soul that no remedy of man can extract it.  To surmise that one can achieve saving faith and grace through one’s own works of repentance is nothing less than to conclude that man can ascend unto God of his own free will, disdaining the Cross of Christ as unnecessary or extraneous.

So it must be concluded that saving faith which receives saving grace, must itself be a gift from above just as St. Paul teaches—and that such saving faith will bring forth as a gift the repentance which attends it.  How does God give such great and wonderful gifts to mankind?  St. Paul shows us this, too, when he declares emphatically that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.  It is what descended into the first darkness of empty chaos to bring light and life to the cosmos, and is that which continues to descend into the darkness of fallen human hearts to breathe light and life into the saints.  His Word comes to us as Law which shows us the clear delineation between good and evil, and as Gospel which declares us forgiven of our evil for Christ’s sake.  The Law which shows us our sin and calls us to holiness brings us to despair of our own ability to save ourselves, and yet the Gospel heals our despairing heart with the love and mercy of Jesus who takes upon Himself our justice so that He might give to us His grace.  Thus it is the Gospel of Jesus Christ which raises up sinners who are dead in their trespasses and sins, and lends to the Law a new light; a light by which the Christian may walk in love by faith as the Holy Spirit empowers them to trust and live in the Word of God.

As you read the words of Christ anew this Lent, let their Law and Gospel wash over you once again.  Hear the Lord your God speak the truth that without repentance, like all other unrepentant sinners before and after you, there is no end for you except death and hell.  Yet in the righteous terror of that Law hear also the Gospel which declares you righteous and forgiven for Christ’s sake, and by the power of the Holy Spirit put your living trust and faith in that Word unto everlasting life.  There raised up unto a new life you’ll be given a new nature which can hear God’s Word and abide in it by faith, resisting all the temptations of the evil one and working toward the pure love of God and neighbor.  And if you yield to your fallen nature and thereby fall again into deadly sin, hear the Law and Gospel once more, so that you may be converted back unto the path of life.

Just as there is no saving faith apart from true repentance, so there is no saving faith which rests comfortably in unrepentant sin.  But the remedy is always close at hand for us all, which is the Word of Christ constantly calling us to receive His free gift of forgiveness, life, and salvation—a gift which always accompanies His gifts of faith and repentance.  Hear Him calling to you today.  Repent and believe the Gospel.  Amen.

O Jerusalem: A Meditation on Luke 13, for the 2nd Sunday in Lent

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,

which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee;

how often would I have gathered thy children together,

as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not!

Behold, your house is left unto you desolate:

and verily I say unto you, Ye shall not see me,

until the time come when ye shall say,

Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.

It is easy to look back on 1^st century Israel condescendingly, for having missed all the signs and wonders prophesied by the ancient Prophets which were fulfilled in the coming of Jesus Christ.  How could they have had the responsibility of guarding and living by the Holy Scriptures written by Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David, Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and all the other Prophets and historians who by God’s Holy Spirit composed the Hebrew canon, and missed the great Messiah whom they all pointed to?  How could the people of God miss and reject the foretold coming of God Himself, in the Person of His Beloved Son sent to save them from sin, death, hell, and the power of the devil through His Vicarious Atonement for them?  Indeed, how can a people who call themselves by the name of the only true God, bound together by His Eternal Word and Spirit, be unwilling to receive His Word Made Flesh for their very salvation?

As those questions circle in our minds, they spiral closer and closer to our own souls.  If these questions can be asked of the ancient Israelites, they can be asked of us as well, because the people of God today descend through the same history as those who have come before.  How is it that Adam and Eve, created without sin, chose to reject God and His Word, bringing death and slavery upon the whole world?  How is it that Cain rejects God and His Word, so as to murder his brother?  How is it that the whole world rejects God and His Word, so that it is destroyed in the deluge, saving only Noah, his family, and a nucleus of all the kinds of animals through the Ark?  How is it that the people led by Moses out of slavery in Egypt reject God and His Word, so that an entire generation is left to wander and die in the wilderness?  How is it that the Israelites settled in Canaan reject God and His Word by embracing the pagan gods of the land, bringing cycles of destruction upon themselves in successive generations from Philistines, Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, and Romans?

They did so in the same way that the people of God rejected Him and His Word in the time of the Apostles and thereafter, creating schisms, heresies, and apostasies through tyranny, pride, and every sort of vice.  In every age of the people of God, that same community has found ways to reject Him and His Word as they constructed and surrendered empires, built and looted sanctuaries, waged victorious and hopeless wars, raised and lost fortunes.  The reason it happened across our entire history down to our day, and why it will continue to occur until the Lord comes on the Last Day, is that the people of God are sinful and broken creatures just like everyone else in the world.  It is a universal human condition to be fallen and tempted to every kind of evil, with none greater than our nearly irresistible temptation to reject God and His saving Word.

But the love of God presses through our sin, our temptation, and our pride to breathe life and love into His people.  That same saving Word that become flesh and dwelt among us, which was nailed to a Cross by His own people so that He might be the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, comes to every soul in this broken world to bring His healing gifts of forgiveness and eternal life.  He knows that there will be those who will continue to reject Him, to dishonor Him, and to persecute the ones He sends in His Name by His Word.  But in the midst of all the pain and suffering and death, He knows that His Word is still the only hope this sin-sick world has to escape eternal hell.  He knows that neither politics, nor philosophy, nor science, nor art, nor literature, nor any other human pursuit will lift mankind out of their hopeless estate, because what is born of sinful man cannot rise above its parents.  But His Word, which is the ground of all truth and existence, of all life and good and virtue, can reach down into every human heart so that they might have a new life born from above—a life which is breathed out by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, transcending the brokenness of a fallen world and enduring forever by His grace—a life that can only be received by faith in the One who speaks it into existence, and maintains it by grace unto eternity.

As it was from the beginning of our fallen creation even unto our own day, the most hostile place in the world to be is where the Word of God is preached, believed, and confessed.  There the Word comes to save sinners, and there the Word condescends to be abused, persecuted, and rejected by those it has come to save.  There you will find the ruins of Jerusalem, like an icon of dead and dying churches, where the bodies of the saints and martyrs lie entombed beneath the feet of the people who murdered them for their witness.  There you will find broken families and broken nations, where the blood of the faithful has watered the grass of forgotten meadows or been washed down the sewers of forgotten streets.  But there, in the midst of the calamities of rejection and the murder of innocents, you will also see the Word of God do its most amazing work.  There, in the blood of the martyrs and the proclamation of the persecuted saints, you will see the Holy Spirit breathe new life into dead hearts, inspiring a living faith in the Savior which has eyes to see beyond the suffering and death of a fallen world, to a new dawn of a new creation built upon divine love and forgiveness and compassion.  There you will see Almighty God heal the sick, give sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, speech to the dumb, and life to the dead.  There, in His Word and Spirit, you will see Christ both dead and risen for the salvation of the whole world, coming again in glory to bring to completion what He won for us on Calvary and declared before the cosmos on Easter morning.

Do you look around you, and wonder why your Jerusalem seems left to you abandoned and desolate?  Do you wonder why your nation, or your church, or your family, or even your own soul is dying?  It is not because your God has abandoned you, but because you have abandoned God.  His Word never left you—it still calls you away from the paths of dead and into the paths of eternal life, where there is forgiveness and pardon for all who will repent and believe the Gospel.  Turn and hear Him speaking to you by His Word and Spirit.  Lift your eyes to see the Word Made Flesh who comes to seek and to save even you.  There you will behold the miraculous mystery of His salvation, and the life He has given for the life of the whole world.  Hear Him.  Believe, and live.  Amen. 

Times of Trial and Testing: A Meditation on Psalm 91 for the 1st Sunday in Lent

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High

Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress:

My God; in him will I trust.

Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler,

And from the noisome pestilence.

He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt

thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.

Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night;

nor for the arrow that flieth by day;

Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness;

nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.

A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand;

but it shall not come nigh thee.

Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.

Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge,

Even the most High, thy habitation;

There shall no evil befall thee,

neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.

For he shall give his angels charge over thee,

to keep thee in all thy ways.

They shall bear thee up in their hands,

 lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.

Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder:

the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.

Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him:

I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.

He shall call upon me, and I will answer him:

I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.

With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.

Psalm 91, appointed for this first Sunday in Lent, is a good meditation for those preparing to enter a time of trial and temptation.  While the circumstances of people’s lives don’t always synchronize with the Church’s historic calendar (i.e., some people are mourning during Christmas over various struggles or losses, while some are rejoicing during Lent for particular blessings or providence,) the pattern of the Church’s year disciplines the faithful to remember all of what God’s Word reveals to His people—whether we’re ready to hear it, or not.

I have always found warnings of impending trial and tribulation unsettling, as I suspect many people do.  They usually come to me when life seems pleasant and predictable, when I’ve become comfortable in enjoying the leisure of hearth and home.  When my stomach is full, my health is sturdy, my mind is clear, and all feels right in the world, I cannot help but hesitate when I hear words of judgment, pain, suffering, and sacrifice.  The sinfulness in me which is attached to all the passing wonders of this good but fallen creation, struggles to place God above all things in my heart and mind.  Those pleasantries I enjoy, which are not evil in themselves, become evil to me when I turn them into idols I am unwilling to let go of.  Good food, good whiskey, and good motorcycles only become unclean when my own uncleanness perverts them.

This is why testing, trials, and tribulations are a blessing to us, even though we wince and recoil at the prospect of entering into them.  Like a drug addict who doesn’t want to let go of the chemical which is killing him, every sinner shudders at the prospect of losing their grip on the sins which are poisoning them into death, hell, and the power of the devil.  And like various addicts, it is easy for a person addicted to one drug to be condescending or pharisaical toward the addicts of drugs they think inferior.  The sinner who is bound to pride may look derisively upon the sinner bound to lust, or the sinner bound to greed may disdain the sinner bound to hatred, but every sinner bound to every sin is imbibing the same poison and moves either more or less slowly toward the same inexorable end.  While some sins may have greater or lesser visible consequences in this world, and some may have greater or lesser condemnations in the world to come, the reality of hell is universal and inescapable for all who will not repent and believe the Gospel.  Only the insane irrationality of sin-sick minds can love the poison which is killing them, and turn judgmentally upon those who are dying by different variations of the same poison.

This is why we need Lent before Easter, just as we needed Advent before Christmas.  We sinners, who all too quickly and easily become comfortable in our sins, condemning our neighbors while rationalizing our own faults, need to be reminded that there are greater and higher realities than the passing fancies of a temporal life.  Like every addict we must remember that our sickness is always prone to resurgence, and we are in constant need of the Medicine of Immortality which our Lord Jesus Christ delivers to us through His Word and Sacraments.  Daily we are called to drown that old addicted nature of ours, and rise up in the new life which Jesus Himself pours into us through His Blood shed upon His Cross.  Daily we are called to the humility of faith which receives the pure gift of the Gospel, and repentance which turns with contrition from our sins toward the holiness of our God.  There in His grace by faith, we will see the terrifying yet just judgment of God falling all around us, but we will only behold it with our eyes—for the Blood of Christ will cover His People like the blood of the Paschal Lamb once covered the Hebrews in Egypt, even as the Angel of Death descended.

In Lent, we are called to remember that we are sin addicts, unable to save ourselves from the poison which courses through our veins, nor the judgment which rightly comes upon the whole world—and that we are no greater or lesser than the other addicts whom God calls through His Gospel to receive His saving, healing Means of Grace.  Together we come from east and west, north and south, and from every walk of life to mortify the lusts of our addiction in the waters of Holy Baptism, and receive the saving balm of grace through Absolution and the Eucharist.  May we join our fellow addicts at Christ’s Altar to receive in humility, faith, and repentance the medicine which He gives to save us all, and pray in fervent intercession for the people of the whole world to escape the judgment which is quickly coming.  Amen.

This is My Beloved Son: A Meditation on Luke 9, for the Sunday of the Transfiguration

And it came to pass about eight days after these

sayings, he took Peter and John and James, and went up into

a mountain to pray.  And as he prayed, the fashion of

his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white

and glistering.  And, behold, there talked with him

two men, which were Moses and Elias: Who

appeared in glory, and spake of his decease which he should

accomplish at Jerusalem. But Peter and they that

were with him were heavy with sleep: and when they were

awake, they saw his glory, and the two men that stood with

him.  And it came to pass, as they departed from him,

Peter said unto Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here:

and let us make three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for

Moses, and one for Elias: not knowing what he said.

While he thus spake, there came a cloud, and overshadowed

them: and they feared as they entered into the cloud.

And there came a voice out of the cloud, saying,

This is my beloved Son: hear him.

And when the voice was past, Jesus was found alone.

The feast of the Transfiguration marks a transition from the light and joy of Christmas and Epiphany, to the Lenten walk toward the Cross.  At this literal mountain top experience, Jesus’ disciples are given a vision which would sustain them through a coming time of great darkness and fear.  While Jesus did not need the confirmation of this vision to accomplish the work He was pressing toward at Calvary, He knew His disciples did.

And what specifically did His disciples learn from this vision?  It is interesting to note first that Jesus did not invite all His disciples to the mountain—only the chief disciples, who were Peter, John, and James.  After previously teaching His disciples not to wrangle and bicker about who was to be greatest in the kingdom of God, Jesus does in fact establish order among His followers—an order of service and sacrifice which would continue even after His earthly ministry was complete.  Peter, James, and John would receive this special revelation so as to strengthen both themselves and their brethren, and not to become lords over them.

And what did they see?  Jesus was transformed in their sight to reveal His divine glory, and was conversing with both Elijah and Moses about the work of the Vicarious Atonement He was heading toward.  Both Moses and Elijah were in fact alive and in God’s fellowship in heaven, still actively aware of what was transpiring on earth, and in full cooperation with Jesus’ mission to save the world from sin, death, hell, and the power of the devil.  The disciples see that there is no division between Moses (the great law-giver and author of the Pentateuch,) and Elijah (the great prophet who conquered during the great contest with the prophets of Baal and was eventually swept up to heaven in a fiery chariot.)  Rather, Moses and Elijah (the living icons of both the Law and the Prophets) point to Jesus.  While Moses and Elijah shine with heavenly glory, it is a lesser glory reflecting the great and undiminished glory of Jesus.

Confused, Peter tries to establish equity between Moses, Elijah, and Jesus, by proposing booths to revere them all.  God the Father corrects Peter by taking Moses and Elijah back to heaven, and leaving only Jesus in their sight, while declaring:  This is My beloved Son, hear Him!  For all the glory of the heavenly host, from the holy angels to the saints and martyrs, prophets and apostles, there is still only one voice we should cling to:  Jesus Christ.  True prophets all point to Jesus; true apostles are all sent by Jesus to point others to Jesus; true saints live by grace through faith in Jesus; true martyrs confess Jesus through suffering even unto death; true angels bear the Word of Jesus, and work according to His will in heaven and earth.  In all of Holy Scripture, and the entire history of the people of God from the Creation to the Last Day, Jesus is the center and summit of everything.

This is true, because only Jesus is fully God and fully man, uniting in His one indivisible Person the Most Holy Trinity with the whole human race.  Only Jesus, fully God from before the beginning of time, and yet born of the Blessed Virgin Mary in a particular time and place, could be nailed to the Cross in both His natures to satisfy the just wrath of a holy God against a sinful and fallen world.  Only Jesus could bear the eternal punishment of every wicked soul that would ever walk the face of the earth, and rise again victorious on the third day.  Only Jesus could posses all authority in heaven and earth to preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins to the whole creation, and to give that authority to His Apostles and their pastoral successors in every generation of the Church.  Only Jesus’ Word could make the demons flee, storm the gates of hell and death, granting eternal life to all who would repent and believe His Holy Gospel.  Only Jesus would ascend into heaven to sit at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, until the time was fulfilled for Him to return and judge the living and the dead.  Only Jesus could be the true vine into whom all who would be grafted by grace through faith would live forever.  Only Jesus could be the way, the truth, and the life for all people of every tribe and tongue.  Only Jesus.

For all the glitter and glamour of our times; all the distractions of electronics or drugs or sex; for all the vanities of celebrity and political theater; for all the pomp and tradition of church and state; for all the suffering and death of broken families and broken nations; for all the false prophets and wicked deceivers both inside and outside the Church; for all the misguided hopes and aspirations of sinful people; for all the clutter and confusion and distraction of this fallen world, there is still only one focus given for all to see, hear, believe, and live:  Only Jesus.  Hear the Word of God pierce your own cloud of confusion, pride, sorrow, or despair:  This is My beloved Son, hear Him!  For He comes to seek and to save you, and give you what He knows you need to walk the path before you.  Amen.