Proverbs 25:6-14; Ephesians 4:1-6; St Luke 14:1-11
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

When a man falls into a pit, you help him. That’s the Law. When a man falls into a pit, God helps him. That’s the Gospel.

Jesus is at a dinner on the Sabbath, a day on which work was prohibited. The other guests at the Sabbath dinner, especially the Pharisees, are watching Jesus closely. To see what He will do when confronted with a sick man. If Jesus denies him, He is not compassionate. If He heals him, He breaks the Sabbath law by working when He should not. Or so the allegation goes.

But the charge is really a trumped up one. The rabbis had already dealt with such problems. For example, the laws seemed to conflict when it came to circumcision. Circumcision had to be done on the eighth day after birth. But what if that day fell on the Sabbath?  The circumcision took priority. The same was reasoned for other medical or rescue work. The Talmud, that rabbinic commentary on the Torah, reasons: “We know that the duty of saving life annuls the Sabbath.”  

If an ox falls into a pit on the Sabbath do you not pull him out? And not only you, but you gather your friends and neighbors, perhaps employ the labor of another ox, dig and pull, and rescue the ox from the pit. By the end of the Sabbath you’ve done more work than a normal day, but still haven’t violated the Sabbath.

So when Jesus says, Which of you having a son or an ox that has fallen into a pit on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out? they have no answer because Jesus is following rabbinic reasoning: this man’s needs annul the Sabbath law. Only Jesus adds the caveat of “a son,”  not a donkey. Not a beast, but a man. Not an animal, but a child. Who would leave him in the pit?  This is how Jesus cares for His creation. Not only how He loves the man with dropsy, but also how He even loves the Pharisees who are sadly blinded by their pride.

You see, there is a symbolism going on that runs through all of Jesus’ teaching: this sick man is a symbol of the human race. The theme comes up again and again: the Prodigal Son wandered away, squandered his inheritance, became enslaves and starving. That’s a good picture of death. Wandering far from our heavenly Father’s Home. The prodigal is you. He is all mankind. The Good Samaritan must rescue the man who was robbed, beaten, and left to die in the ditch.  

And that’s you, too. No matter how strong you are now, no matter how young you are now, no matter how wealthy or happy or successful you are now, you end up in a pit. You end up in a grave.  

But even before that, and what puts you there, is the contagion within you. The sickness that fills you with anxiety and dread. What makes you slave to your lust, a slave to your hunger. The passions that drive you to drink too much. That urge you to move in with your boyfriend. The passions that expel unwholesome words from your mouth, making you impatient with your husband or your children. Pride is the first sin. It is the sin of that ancient serpent, the devil. And in sinking his fangs into Adam and Eve, he has infected the entire human race.

When you act selfishly, when you give in to your anger, when you regard yourself higher than others, that is pride. That is when you are doing precisely what Jesus identifies in the Pharisees.  Even the small thing like their choice of seat at the dinner table reflected the condition of their heart, and yours, full of pride, wanting the praise and respect of others. Every one of us is the creature at the bottom of the pit.  

Our only hope of rescue is One who will come into our pit, come breath our poisoned air, come absorb our infection in Himself, come enter our hell to effect our rescue. That is the work of our Lord Jesus. The only One who can help. The only one who has compassion on His poor creatures as His dear children; as sons in the pit on the Sabbath. You can’t pull yourself out by your boot straps. But He humbles Himself to exult you. He stoops and makes you to sit with kings. A man falls into a pit and God helps him. That is the Gospel.

So what was the Sabbath for? Well the first Sabbath, the seventh day of creation, indicated the perfection of creation. Even the closing of each day with It was good was an indication of the perfection of God’s handiwork according to His Word and will.  Not only was it good as opposed to bad, but is was good for it was in perfect harmony with God’s will.  

But once sin was introduced into the creation, and with it death, the Sabbath was given not as rule for pleasing God, but as a blessing. A day off from work is not a burden to be kept, but a gift to be received.  

But there is something deeper in the blessing of the Sabbath: God works where you cannot. God supplies what you lack. He works on the Sabbath. He feeds the 5,000. They do nothing but receive. He commands His children not to gather manna on the Sabbath, for He would feed them. When people gathered anyway, the sin was not in working. The sin was in not trusting that God would do what He said. The sin was in not recognizing that God is the worker. God is the Creator. Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. And the Lord of the Sabbath works on the Sabbath.  

He works for you and in you today, as He gathers you here to the wedding feast. Which seat do you chose? Its not about which pews in which we habitually sit. Its about how you approach the King. In humility? Or pride?  

Pride seeks everything - including heaven and God Himself - on one’s own terms. Humility seeks everything, especially heaven and God Himself on His terms. Pride glorifies the self. The rugged individual, the achiever, the self-made man, the independent woman. Humility glorifies God and abandons every personal claim to self-righteousness.  

The confession of sins puts you in the right place. You naturally want to put yourself up higher, but the confession puts you in the pit,  sitting in the ash heap with old Job, scrapping our sins with a potsherd, lamenting the day of our birth. And that’s right where we belong, poor, miserable sinners belong. You cannot pull yourself out. But God does. He bends down low in the absolution, extends His arm, and raises you, His dear children, out of the pit on the Sabbath day. This is not only the work of Jesus, this is the work of the Blessed Holy Trinity, even as you are forgiven all your sins in His Name. The Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  

He came among us and He took the low spot - not just to set us an example. Oh, He is an example, but He is much more. He did it because He wanted us to have glory. He looked at you and thought, “This one is precious and it would be the joy of My heart to see the holy angels serving him. To see her sitting at the table in my Father’s kingdom as a beloved daughter. To see him filled with the joy of my Father’s love.”

You see, He was humble because He didn’t look at Himself - He looked at you. He did everything that He did so that you could be exalted and blessed and lifted up. Amazing! To give you the seat of honor at His Father’s table, He chose the seat of shame upon the cross.  To cleanse you with living water, He bled. To pour out on you His Holy Spirit, He gave up His Spirit on Calvary’s Tree. To supply you with life-giving bread, He gave up His flesh to death.

In everything, then, He humbled Himself so that you might be lifted high.  That’s the miracle our readings celebrate today. You have a God who is humble!  Always looking out for you and not for Himself. A God looking out for Himself would never have gone to the Cross.

But do you see, then, He lifts you up - all the way up to His humility! He invites you into the joy of His way of life where the focus isn’t on you, but on His Father and the people He has seen fit to surround you with. He lifts you up so that you can be humble with Him, focused on others. Noticing when someone’s hurting, grieving, heart-broken. He frees you from the obsession with yourself and your own little world. He would make your heart a chalice to hold a few drops of this world’s blood and tears.

His Supper frees you for that, dear Christians. He bodies and bloods you one to another, members of one body, sharing one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, with one God and Father of all, over all and through all and in all. You don’t look at each other the same way again after sharing together in this Feast. You walk away from it, delighting in the honor He has bestowed on your brothers and sisters - praying for and seeking out those who are not with us - and how He has given them a seat of glory in His presence. And you’re invited too!

But it doesn’t stop here. Out you go into the world. Out to all those still stuck in the pit, trapped in sin and death. In Christ you are freed to take the low place, that is, freed to focus on them. To notice them in their hurts and to offer to them the joy of a place with you where a nail-scared hand wipes away the tears forever.
If a man falls into a pit and you pull him out that is the Law. But our message to a world in death is not “Be better! Try harder! Pick yourself up!” Rather, “There is a Better One, the Good One, who joined us in this pit. He Himself suffered here and has raised you up. He now invites you to join Him saying, Fried, go up higher.

Come forward, then, dear children, move up higher to the wedding feast of the Son of the King who feeds you on Himself, His flesh and blood, out of the pit, out of death, raised to eternal life, never to die again. Watch and listen closely. He bestows this immortal gift to you. For when a man falls into a pit, God helps him. That’s the Gospel. And it is for you.  

In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Psalm 30; St Luke 7:11-17
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

When the Lord God formed the man of dust from the earth, He could’ve attached some impressive looking wings. But instead, God gave him these funny-looking things called feet. The Lord could’ve made man to fly, but instead He made him to walk. Heavenly beings, like Michael whom we heard about on Sunday, are associated with the skies. Man is associated with the earth. The dust. The dirt. So Adam walked.

And it was a good walk that he took in the Garden of Eden. For with every step he took on the virgin earth, Adam’s bare feet felts his origins and the life-giving goodness of his Creator. For God had taken man from the stuff he was walking on. Breathed into that dead pile of dirt life. Perfect from head to toe, Adam walked the walk of the perfect man.

But it wasn’t long be before his walking became a death march. It wasn’t long before his life became one long walk to the grave. For that perfect walker quickly went astray. He wasn’t content to be a walking, talking creature. Adam desired to be like God. So he walked to a tree from which God had forbidden him. He thought God much have been holding something back. That there was something else. That God wasn’t telling the whole truth. But it was just as the Lord said. On the day you eat of it you shall surely die. And in Adam and Eve being driven out of the Garden they led all of God’s walking, talking humanity to the grave.

They were driven eastward, bearing the curse of death. Their walk was different now. They would walk within the valley of the shadow of death. With every step death stalked them. Fear surrounded them. Terror dogged them. They refused to heed God’s blessed Word and so they were cursed. They no longer feared, loved, and trusted in God above all things. They now lived the rest of their days in a world that was against them all the way to the grave.

And that is the death that dogs you too. The fear that seizes you. The terror that buffets you. That is the cruse that is also in you. It courses through our veins, dear Christians. That is why we find it so easy to shove God’s commandments aside - You shall have no other gods. You shall not misuse the Name of God. Remember the Sabbath day - and walk to the beat of our own drummer. This is why we live for ourselves, afraid to live for others. And why what makes living with us, sometimes, no walk in the park.

This is why we find it so difficult to go out of our way and serve others. Why we’ll walk all over others just to get our way. Its not the death surrounded us, dogging us. Its the death in us. The curse in our veins. And this is why we have joined that long walk of revel humanity to the grave. That long march east. Where Adam has led all of rebellious man.

A long march east also happens to be the direction that they were going in Nain. Archaeologists have found a large cemetery just east of Nain. That is where that weeping crowd was walking.

And there was a widow who had just lost her only son. The curse of death hit her hard. Not only had she lost her husband, but now she also is carrying her son to the grave. No wonder she wept. Her son was more than a son. He was her lifeline. He would've provided for her. Given her a roof over her head. Kept her clothed and fed and cared for. He was more than a son. He was a savior to his widowed mother.

Yet consider, beloved, the drama that makes us glad. They are going east, but someone else is coming from the East. Someone coming from the other direction. This procession of death, this long train, Satan out front with Adam and Eve, this widow’s son in line, you brining up the end, this procession was about to collide with a very different procession.

Its common courtesy to allow a funeral procession to have right of way. Not today. On these narrow streets of Nain there is One who going to put a stop to this march of death. One who will bring glands into this bitter scene. Joy into this sad spectacle.

Who will it be? An angel flying from the east to do a miracle? A heavenly being coming to flex his power? No, because no matter how majestic or powerful, no matter how fast those heavenly being are, they cannot give life. St Michael and his angels are awesome, but only God can give life to dirty men. Isaiah says it this way, Who is this who comes from Edom, in crimsoned garments from Bozrah, He who is splendid in His appeal, marching in the greatness of His strength? “It is I, speaking in righteousness, mighty to save (Is 63:1).

The One who helped this day was not an angel with wings. But the God who took on feet. Who walked the ground of the earth cursed by your sin, to bless and give you life. He set His feet toward destroying death forever. To stop Satan dead in his tracks. To do what He did in the beginning when He breathed life into Adam. To do what He did through the prophet Elijah when He revived the son of the widow of Zarephath.

Christ is doing what He does so well. He gives life to the dead. He imparts joy in the midst of sadness. To redeem man from the afflictions of the devil. As you sang in the Psalm. To speak His Word of comfort into sadness, depression, terror, despair, doubt, the perils of death, and similar poisonous, fiery darts of the devil.

This is why He came. Adam wandered off to a tree that brought death. But Christ our Lord purposely set His feet to go to a Tree that would bring life to the world though it would mean for Him. The Tree of the Cross is where His beautiful feet were nailed in order to heal your straying feet. Where His legs bore the heavy weight of your sin and guilt. Where His lungs would be filled with your poisoned air, so that He could breathe the breath of life onto you.  

He didn’t consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, so that you might be everything to Him. He was carried to the grave, His mother Mary weeping and His disciples having fled. Only for Him to triumph and bestow life on the dead.
In seeing Jesus’ feet you see the feet of God. The God who walked with Adam in the cool of the day. And seeing His heel, you see the fulfillment of the One promised to crush the head of Satan.

That’s what He does for the widow at Nain. And He does no less for you. He stops death dead in its tracks. He shows compassion by speaking and by touching. He speaks His Word of Gospel comfort to the widow: Stop weeping. And then He touches the open coffin. For He has come to extract the poison of death from you and draw it into Himself. In exchange He gives you His purity and righteousness.

This is what He does for you. He gathers you to Himself to speak a Word of Gospel, to forgive all your sins. Then He touches you with His Body and Blood in His Sacrament, bestowing on your His life and righteousness, feeding you the Medicine of Immortality which raises you from death. Even though you walk with Him through the valley of the shadow of death, you fear no evil. For your sins are forgiven. All of them!

And you are given to join that great mass of truly alive people called the Church. We march through this world following Christ our Head. We stare into the grave, laughing with St Paul, mocking death, for we know its power has been destroyed and life and immortality are brought to life!

Because that widow tonight is a picture of the Church, is she not? The Church is a weeping Church. Torn apart by false preaching. Divided. Unfaithful and ambitious men are often her leaders. The doctrines of God are treated with contempt. The Commandments thrown out and rejected. She seems so weak and without hope. The Church’s own sons and daughters forget and abandon her. Hardly support her. Consider her insignificant and despise her. No wonder she is pictured as a widow. It seems like her son is taken away and gone forever.

But be glad. Stop weeping. For God comes again to His weeping Church and gives her back her Son. He does so at this Altar where Christ’s crucified and resurrected Body and Blood are presented and given to you again to forgive your sins. To enliven your hope. To give you courage under trials. Joy in the midst of sadness. And to teach you anew of the unfathomable goodness of God who does not just let you wander in this wilderness, but gathers you around Himself as His people.

We process through this world as God’s pilgrim people. Once we were not a people, but in Baptism we were claimed as His people. Despite the fact that we have not walked the walk, His grace always goes before and follows after us. We walk in the newness of life. A life that can never die. A life that is planted in you. The very life of the One who comes as the Sun rising in the east to give light and life to those in darkness and in the shadow of death and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Daniel 10:10-14; 12:1-3; Revelation 12:7-12; St Luke 10:17-20
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

St Michael and All Angels Day is awesome! The hymns, both text and tune, steel us for the battle. The readings, peeling back the curtain to behold but a glimmer of the spiritual realm usually hidden from our eyes. Its like some ancient prequel to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

You’ve got Satan, the Accuser, in cosmic battle. Hellbent, like Thanos, at destroying . . . everything. He will never be a god. He has his army with him: the terror of the night, the arrow that flies by day, the pestilence that stalks in darkness, the destruction that wastes at noonday. You heard them in the Psalm. A grotesque horde of demonic foes ready to do his evil bidding.

And then Michael, the Archangel, the Chief Angel, the Great Prince. Marvelous and powerful. He’s like Thor and Cap and Vision all rolled into one. Wielding his spiritual weapons, no doubt a hammer and a sword. And he has his Avengers. His angels fighting against the ancient serpent, the devil, Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. And they throw him down. Body slam him t the earth along with his army. Amazing!

Even if you’re not tracking with the analogies or don’t like comic book superhero movies, you’ve got to admit, this is really cool. In fact, this is better than cool. This isn’t myth or fantasy, legend or fable. This is spiritual warfare. This is real. Really real. It is utterly sensational and spectacular.

The trouble, dear Christians, is that we long for the sensational and spectacular. We are fascinated by speculation about demons and soul ties, intergenerational sin and spiritual strongholds in our environment, demonic possession and methods of exorcism. And that type of speculation plays into the hands of Satan. He uses the pornography of evil, with its promise of religious knowledge and power, to promote idle curiosity and unhealthy fascination.

The spiritual warfare in which you are engaged is not nearly as spectacular and sensational as described in Daniel and Revelation. It’s much more pedestrian. More mundane, though equally serious. Where does this spiritual battle take place? Where is the battle field? Woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!

The devil attacks the Word of God. He will attack the source, the means, and the goal of the Word. This means he attacks within the heavenly council where the Word is spoken, in the Church where the Word is preached, and in the heart where the Word is received by faith.

That heavenly council, where the Lord sits enthroned, is what St John is given to see in his revelation. Isaiah saw it as he was serving in the Temple (Is 6). Jeremiah says that the mark of a true prophet is that he has stood in the council of the Lord (Jer 23:18, 22). In that heavenly court there is a conversation between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That conversation is what the prophets are to preach on earth. Requests are also made and heard here. These are the prayers of the Church, like in Daniel. Your words have been heard and I have come because of your words.

This is not only a throne room, this is where the celestial worship happens. Angels and saints falling down before the Lord and singing His praise. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth, heaven and earth are full of Thy glory.

But this throne room is also a courtroom. Recall the beginning of Job. There is an assembly of the holy angels and Satan also comes before the throne of God. He’s the accuser, the prosecuting attorney, who tells the Lord, “Job only believe because You’ve made his life so easy.” He attacks the source of the Word. He accuses us before God in heaven. He attacks that heavenly verdict that you are righteous and holy.

But there is comfort for you as well. Right before our text today, St John sees the vision of a pregnant woman. This is Old Testament Israel waiting for the promise of Genesis 3:15 to be fulfilled. This woman is pregnant with the Messiah. The dragon is waiting to devour the Baby when He is born. The Child is born. The dragon fails. The Child is caught up to God and to His Throne (Rev 12:5). In this one phrase is not only the birth, but also the life, ministry, teaching, crucifixion, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus!

What happens next is just amazing. Jesus bring His victory, His Blood, His triumph over sin, death and the devil with Him into the heavenly throne room. And there is no longer an place for the devil. There is nothing for him to do. No accusation to bring against sinners that has not been answered by the atoning sacrifice of Christ on the Cross. Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the Blood of the Lamb.

Imagine it like this. You’re on trial before God. Satan is the prosecuting attorney and he brings your sin before the court. As soon as he tries to admit evidence of your guilt, Jesus, your Advocate, your Defender, stands and says, “Objection: that sin is forgiven.” Every time the devil tries to bring an accusation against you, Jesus is there on your side: “Objection: that sin is died for. Objection: I suffered for that sin already. Objection: My Blood covers that sin. Objection: I carried that sin away.” The death of Jesus stands as the evidence of your righteousness. The Blood of Jesus is the chief witness in your case.

When Jesus, the Lamb who was slain, from before the foundation of the world, but behold He lives, enters the throne room with His Blood, war breaks out in heaven, and the victory of the crucifixion and resurrection are brought to bear against the devil. You heard it in the Second Reading this morning! And Jesus references it in the Gospel: I saw Satan fall like lighting from heaven. Amazing! The ancient serpent has been cast out of heaven. The devil would love to attack the Word of God at its source, where it comes from the mouth of God, but he can’t.

So where does he attack the preaching of the Word? Woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short! He doesn’t want God’s Word to get to you. He doesn’t want it to be pure when it reaches your ears. He wants to snatch the Word of the Lord right out of the air on its way to the ground of your heart. He attacks the church, the pastors and teachers. He attacks the doctrine. He attacks the hearer and the hearing of the Word. He makes it hard for you to go to church. He makes it hard for the church to endure.

Ever wonder why Sunday mornings are so difficult? Why waking up and getting to church seems way harder than it ought? You get up and go to work, to school every day, but for some reason, Sunday is just tougher? Ever wonder why listening to a sermon is so hard? Or why things are difficult in the church? There never seems to be peace, but always trouble? People are fighting or arguing. The Word of God is always opposed. And getting our ears and our hearts to the place where the Word of God is proclaimed is spiritual warfare.

The preaching and teaching of God’s Word is the supply line for the Christian life. Its the ammunition, medical supplies and food for the Church Militant. All of our spiritual blessings and benefits are delivered to us through the Word. The forgiveness of sins is won by Christ’s death upon the Cross. But the forgiveness of sins is delivered to you in the Word. That’s why Satan seeks to disrupt and disarm it.

And that’s why Jesus tells the seventy-two, I saw Satan fall like lighting from heaven. They had just returned from preaching and teaching. Just returned from proclaiming His Word. Healing the sick. Raising the dead. Casting out demons. Forgiving sins. The demons are subject to them in His Name, by His authority, because in His stead and by His command, they, as servants of the Word, are forgiving sins! The Word of the Lord transports the victory of Jesus on the Cross through space and time and carries it right into your conscience!

Its no wonder, then, that the devil attacks the Word, the preaching, the Church. Saving faith cannot survive without the regular hearing of God’s Word, read and preached. Going to Church, gathering together by and around the Word, is more important now than it ever was. And it will become even more important the closer we are to the End. What did the loud voice say? They loved not their lives even unto death.

This is because, dear Christians, of the third place the devil attacks the Word. In your conscience. He comes to tempt and confuse. He comes lying and deceiving. That is what he is. A liar and a murderer. He tries to steal away the life-giving Word and replace it with the tares of false doctrine and empty spirituality.

He wages war in your heart. He wants to give you a bad conscience. He doesn’t care what kind of bad conscience. A prideful one, a hardened or calloused one, a despairing one, an indifferent one. It makes no difference to him. All are consciences shaped by the devil’s lies. He just wants to rob you of a good conscience by the Blood of the Lamb and the Word of His testimony, that is, His martyrdom. His death for you.

Jesus gives you a good conscience, a working and clean and comforted conscience. The Law shows us what righteousness and love look like and how we should live. It shows us that we are sinners in desperate need of salvation. The Gospel forgives your sins through the death and resurrection of Jesus. The Holy Spirit teaches and moves us to love and bless our neighbors. This is how the Lord gives you a good conscience, a repentant and faithful conscience.

To the world it doesn’t seem all that spectacular and amazing. Its rather mundane and ordinary. Maybe even foolish and stupid.

But rejoice, dear Christians. For Christ Jesus has so constituted the service of men and angels in a wonderful order. He will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. Hold fast to Him in love. He will deliver you. Call to Him. He answers. He will be with you in trouble. He will rescue you and honor you. With long life He will satisfy you.

For in the end, Jesus, the Lamb, stands on the battlefield of your conscience. He triumphs over sin, death, and the power of the devil. The victory shout of His crucifixion echoes in the good conscience, It is finished! The skull of the serpent is crushed.

In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

St Matthew 6:24-34
LSB 725 Children of the Heavenly Father
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

If there’s any creature in God’s great wide creation that should worry, its the birds. They live on the edge of life and death. They’re small. Cats and foxes want to eat them. Bigger birds like hawks want to eat them. A billion birds a year die from flying into windows. Thousands more die flying near wind turbines. No doubt you’ve found one lying dead in your backyard. They don’t know where their next meal is coming from. They have to build a new place to live every year. If there’s any creature that should worry, it’s the bird. But they don’t.

That’s why our Lord instructs us to look at the birds of the air. Actually, He says it stronger than that. He actually says, study the birds. He holds them up as our catechists! They are to teach us! And what do we learn when study them? Creatures that live by faith. Creatures that don’t worry. Don’t get anxious. Creatures that don’t forget they have a Father in heaven. Creatures that do what we don’t - get up everyday expecting nothing but good from their Creator. Look at the birds, our Lord says.

But what do the birds think when they look at us? They must think we are very strange creatures.

We sit in our homes with cupboards bursting with food, a stuffed refrigerator, and enough food to scrape some into the garbage. And yet, we still worry whether God will take care of us in the future. What strange creatures we must be to them! We have closets bursting with clothes and shoes, more than we can ever use, and yet we fret about whether we can expect good from God in the future. What strange creatures we are.

God has gifted us with life and health. Yet we’ve infected ourselves with a form of death called anxiety. It takes years off our lives. It swipes hours of needed sleep. The preacher to the Hebrews says that Jesus partook of flesh and blood like us so that through death He might destroy the devil and deliver all who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery (Heb 2:15). The power of death is the fear of death. That fear of death, that anxiety, that apprehension, is a demonic bondage.

Our Lord says to us, don’t be anxious. Don’t worry about tomorrow. But telling the likes of us not to worry is like telling us not to think of green elephants. When Jesus says, Don’t worry, He’s not so much instructing us, as He is exposing us. What do the birds look down and see when they study our daily lives? Creatures with little faith and little trust in their heavenly Father.

So, out with the truth. Confess that those little birds put our faith to shame. Confess that our worry is worship of the devil and sin against our Father who art in heaven.

But do not fear. For what matters is not what birds think then they look down at us. What matters is what the Father thinks when He looks down to you. What does the Father see when He studies you and sees how little faith you have in Him? He sees someone who in no wise deserves His goodness, but out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, still provides for all your needs of body and soul. Of daily bread and all. Including, among other things, devout and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, self control, good reputation, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.

The truth is He looks down and sees people who do not seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Yet He seeks you by sending His Son and giving you a kingdom. Because He looks down in mercy. He looks down in compassion and love. He looks down in kindness. He tends and nourishes His own. Spares them from all evil things.

What did the birds see when they looked down at Jesus, God’s Son in the flesh? They saw the very Person of Faith you needed. Your Substitute. They saw One who never worried, never fretted, was never rushed, never stressed, never got even a little nervous though His mission was to die on a Cross for all your faithless fears. He was the One who prayed to His Father, trusted His Farther, was devoted to His Father and loved His Father in all circumstances. They saw One whose faith put even the pious birds’ to shame.

His faith and His faithfulness, dear Christians, is exactly what you need. And that is precisely the faith that God in mercy has created in you. And that faith He reckons as righteousness in His sight.

Birds are valuable to God. He made them. He provides for them. But you are more valuable. What does the preacher to the Hebrews say? He shared in our flesh and blood. He did not take on the nature of birds to redeem birds. But He took on your nature, your fallen flesh, to redeem you. You are so valuable, in fact, that He not feeds you from your kitchen pantry. He fed His Body into the jaws of death so that you might be fed heavenly Food from this altar.

You are so valuable to Him that He not only gives you to drink from your faucet. He opened up His veins at the Cross that His Blood which flowed out might answer for your mistrust of the Father and then flow into the chalice you now drink, quenching your thirst for righteousness.

You are so much more valuable to Him than birds that He not only fills your closets with clothes. He goes to the Cross to be stripped of His clothes, stripped of His dignity, stripped of any earthly help, that He might die for your lack of trust. That He might rise again and come forth from the tomb, to give out the robes of righteousness from His heavenly closet. Just as He did in your Baptism.

God looks down on you in love again this evening and not only pours out His Son’s blood for the forgiveness of your sins, but also pours out His Spirit upon you. In His Spirit do you walk, as St Paul writes to the Galatians, saying, Walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh (Gal 5:16). That word “walk” has a military ring to it. More like “march.”

So there you go. You have the Holy Spirit. You have the very Lord and Giver of Life dwelling within you. You have the power of the resurrected Life within you by the Spirit. So don’t process through life like a bunch of slump-shouldered worriers that makes birds sigh. We live by the Spirit. We march through life, the snares of death surrounding us, with the confidence that our Father in heaven has and will continue to provide for all our needs of body and soul. “Though He giveth or He taketh, God His children ne’er forsaketh; His the loving purpose solely to preserve them pure and holy” (LSB 725:4).

In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Ezekiel 2:8-3:11; Ephesians 4:7-16; St Matthew 9:9-13
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

He has no lines in his own book. The author, humanly speaking, of the first Gospel, says nothing. St John at least refers to himself, but does it sort of creatively, as “the beloved disciple;” “the one whom Jesus loved.” Literarily you’re supposed to find yourself there. You, the reader, are to understand that you are “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” And so be read into the text.

But St Matthew doesn’t even do that! He tells his own story, to be sure. You heard it this morning. Being called from the tax booth. But he does it in such a way that he directs all attention away from himself and onto Jesus. He’s the main character in this evangel, not Matthew. This is His book. The bible of the genesis of Jesus Christ, Son of David, Son of Abraham. That’s how he starts. Matthew 1:1. This apostle and evangelist, begins the first book of the New Testament, recalling everything from the Old in two words, Biblos geneseos, the Bible of the Genesis, of who? Of Jesus Christ.

So when this Jesus, whom Matthew puts before you today, says Go and learn we’d best do what He tells us. He sends the Pharisees, and us, to school again. Relearn the basics. Relearn the A-B-Cs of God. You are never too old to study the catechism. To back to the beginning. To be a child. And the first thing that Jesus lays down is what pleases God above all else. Mercy. Not sacrifice.

“But just hang on a minute,” you and the Pharisees protest. “Sacrifices weren’t our idea. They were Yours.” Aren’t entire Old Testament books - Leviticus say - devoted to God given and explaining the what and how of the sacrificial system to His people? He has some pretty strict rules about where and how to offer these sacrifices. Doesn’t the Psalm today even highlight the keeping of these sacrifices? Teach me, O Lord, the way of Your statues and I will keep it to the end. Give me understanding, that I may keep Your Law and observe it with my whole heart. Your rules are good. I long for Your precepts (Ps 119:33-40).

Listen again, Go and learn what this means. “I desire mercy and not sacrifice.” A direct quote from Hosea. The prophet who condemned Israel for thinking that God wanted mere obedience to ritual law more than the practice of mercy. But He doesn’t say that sacrifice was worthless. He said what pleases God, above all, is mercy.

We are always wanting to let our love for God come unglued from love for the neighbor. We wish that we could have a relationship with God independent of our relationships with other people. George Jones’ refrain is the ballad of the Old Adam. “Me and Jesus, we’ve got our own thing going. Me and Jesus we got it all worked out.” Well, sorry, but there is no just “me and Jesus.” Getting Him means getting all His brothers and sisters, too. The whole family. Your neighbors. Remember, the One who said, “Love Me with everything you’ve got,” is the same One who said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

So, no, He won’t accept from our hands a “sacrifice.” That is, anything we do for Him or give to Him. If our hearts are not merciful toward others. Merciful toward all the people He has placed around us. Its not that He doesn’t want the sacrifice. Its that the sacrifice that pleases Him is a sacrifice offered by a heart filled with mercy. One bursting with kindness toward others. We may all be different parts of the body, as St Paul’s writes to the Ephesians, but the commonality between us all is not only the Head, which is Christ Jesus, but the heart, established blameless in holiness (1 Thess 3:13), consumed with mercy, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

That’s the problem the Pharisees have with Jesus. He’s eating with the tax collectors. He sitting down and whiling away the hours together with all the wrong sorts. Even having a good time, laughing with them over food and drink, all the while telling them about His Father and an unconditional love. “Sacrilege!” They cry! “That’s just not done. You don’t defile and demean yourself by associating with the likes of them. Jesus, what are you doing?”

And here comes the answer: “I am the Doctor attending to the sick. I don’t worry about catching something from them. My only concern is to heal them.”

The Pharisees think: “But you might catch something from them. You might. You might catch their uncleanness. You might die.”

The answer: “Hmm. So I might. So I shall. Their disease will kill Me. Yours too. I’ll catch “sin sickness” from you all. But that won’t stop Me from being merciful. Mercy doesn’t calculate the outcome in regard to self. Mercy only asks what the other needs. And then mercy acts. Mercy is being there for others, whether or not being there is a danger to yourself. Much less an inconvenience. I have come among you in mercy. I came to heal. I came to save. So, yes, you’ll find Me right here in the hospital. Right where the sick are. They are my clients. The broken, the bruised, the battered ones. Those who’ve been hurt and torn up by sin. My heart is filled with pity for them. I have come to do something about their sorry state. I’ve come to befriend them. I’ve come to heal them. I’ve come to save them and set them free.”

And He looks at His detractors long and hard. He says, “I only came for the sick and the sinners. Will you admit to being one? Will you own up to needing the healing I come to bring? Aren’t you tired of the sorrow of sin yet? Will you check into My hospital? Go and learn: mercy, not sacrifice. Come, let Me heal you too.”

And the day came when the sin-sickness seized holy of the heavenly Doctor. The day came, a dark day full of rage and fury, when He was stretched out and fixed to a Tree. And there is all your uncleanness. All your sorrow. All your rebellion and sin in His Body. All the sin-sickness of the entire human race is coursing through His veins. And that sin that leads to death killed Him. His contact with us. His breathing our poisoned air and touching our foul uncleanness fall took Him down. Our Physician died.

And there, beloved, you see the mercy of God. Mercy and not just sacrifice. It truly was mercy and so it was the acceptable sacrifice. A sacrifice that the Father received and rejoiced in because it was given entirely and wholly from a heart of mercy. The Divine Physician made the ultimate sacrifice out of mercy.

And so the Father raised Him up! Early that first Easter Day death was undone. Its power over the human race broken once and for all. Broken by the merciful sacrifice of God’s only Son. The debt completely paid by His priceless, precious Blood.

And He did it for the likes of St Matthew, a traitor to his own people. A sell-out to his Levitical birthright. He took that man, called him from raking in the money to giving away the full and free forgiveness of sins to all people. The Church is indebted to St Matthew, humanly speaking, for his Gospel. His is the only one in which we hear of the struggles of Joseph, admonished in a dream to take Mary his wife. From his pen we have the full account of the Beatitudes. From his pen we have the full version of the Our Father we are used to praying in the Divine Service, in the Daily Offices, at home. Only in St Matthew’s Gospel do we have the Trinitarian Name used in Holy Baptism.

Matthew, whose name means “Gift of YHWH,” truly is a gift of Christ Jesus to His Church, as you heard from St Paul. When He ascended on high He led a host of captives and He gave gifts to men. He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints, for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ.

Thus does St Matthew continue to bestow his gifts, by the inspiration of the Spirit. Thus does he continue to present to you the Doctor from heaven, Jesus Christ, who comes to give mercy. He still spreads the Table. He still invites the most disreputable sorts, sinners who need His mercy, to sit down with Him and eat and drink. He still touches us - the same Body and Blood that touched and healed Matthew and others long ago. It’s only a foretaste. Only a tasting room for heaven, where the healing is final and the sorrows forgotten and the feast never ending.

Follow Me! Jesus said to Matthew. And he got up and left everything to follow Him. To sit down at Table with Jesus. Follow Me! He still cries. There’s room at His Table. A place for you. Follow Me! You invite with lips given to sing His glory, tongues His mercy to proclaim. Welcome the outcasts and undesirables. The sinners just like you. Don’t be afraid of their sin. Welcome them home. Jesus has dealt with sin like theirs. He’s dealt with you. His forgiveness is for them even as its for you. Follow Me! He says, “Into a life of mercy and so a life of acceptable sacrifice. Follow Me and I’ll lead you all the way Home.”

In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Psalm 40; 1 Peter 3:13-22
LSB 756 Why Should Cross and Trial Grieve Me
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

If you were able to rate the entire calendar year of 2020 thus far the same way you can an Amazon purchase, how many stars would you give it? Half? One? Probably no more than two, right? This year has been unique in the lives of many. Everything is in upheaval and turmoil. Uncertainty reigns. Some have become soft fatalists, attributing just another crisis or event to the calendar date. “Ah, well, its 2020.” Christians may even be tempted to think that nothing like this has happened before.

Not so fast. Go reread Ecclesiastes. There is nothing new under the sun (Ecc 1:9). 2020 may be your personal year from hell, but 250 wasn’t great either. Especially for Christians living in the vast Roman Empire. And particularly for those in Carthage, modern day Tunisia.

After a series of military victories, Decius became Roman Emperor in 249. Wanting to revive Rome’s “Golden Age” under Trajan, he made many changes to the political infrastructure. He restored the Colosseum, reinstated the ancient office of censor - a position of absolute power which oversaw public morality - and revived the traditional Roman religion.

Concerning the latter, after he himself made the annual sacrifice to Jupiter on January 3, Decius issued an edict ordering all citizens throughout the Empire to make sacrifices to the gods. He was trying to unify the vast realm through a loyalty oath. Nevertheless, this was the first time that Christians faced Empire wide legislation forcing them to chose between abandoning their religious beliefs and death.

To be sure, the edict didn’t target Christians, specifically. It ordered everyone in the Empire, with the exception of Jews, to sacrifice to the gods and the genus of Caesar. It was sort of like mask mandates. You didn’t have to believe in it or even agree with it. I was just something everyone had to do for the good of all. Practically what it meant was to burn a pinch of incense and say, “Caesar is Lord.” Do that in front of the magistrate and you received a certificate called a libellus, certifying that the holder had made the requisite sacrifice.

If you were caught without this certificate you could be arrested, have your property seized, possessions confiscated, and potentially executed for treason.

You didn’t actually have to deny Christ the way one did with the edict of Pliny the Younger in 112. But Christianity was not exempt because it was not considered to be a religion. Christians were called a-theists, atheists, because they refused to worship the Roman pantheon of gods. Because they disapproved of abortion, homosexuality, pederasty, misogyny, and a host of other “morally acceptable” Roman practices. And worse, they didn’t quietistically keep to themselves, but sought to convert others to their way of thought and life - a better way. For all this Christians were deemed socially disruptive, dangerous, and seditious. No exemption for you!

So, why not burn the incense? Its only a pinch. Why not get the libellus? You didn’t have to agree with it. Just go through the motions. Rome wasn’t worried about what you believed in your head or even what you did on Sunday. Just what you said with your mouth. Make the oath. Be a good citizen. Keep your property, your goods, your life.

Except Caesar isn’t Lord. Jesus is Lord. He is the only Son of the true God, the righteous King under whose merciful provision you live. In your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make an apologia, a testimony and witness to the truth of the Gospel, to anyone who asks you for the reason for the hope that is in you.

So who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? Plenty of people! That’s why Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, first fled when the Decian persecution came to his hometown. Others fled with him. But some stayed. Their homes seized. Their property confiscated. Their lives taken in martyrdom for refusing to follow the edict.

But others who stayed did submit to the edict. They burned the incense. They said the oath. They got their libellus. They loved their lives in this world and so kept their property and their limbs. They did it to protect their families. Their livelihoods. They did it out of fear. Cross and trials are hard. Its easier to acquiesce, to justify and equivocate.

The edict was enforced for a year. AD 250 gets less than a star from faithful Christians. Decius died in 251 and his edict died with him. Many Christians came out of hiding. Others had been buried. Some of those who had lapsed or apostatized tried to return to the Church. And Cyprian was faced with a dilemma.

Consider this situation on a congregational level. Some Christians fled and hide, lapsing in their confession. Others had denied Christ, buried the incense and kept their lives. Others stayed, faithfully refusing the oath. And among those many were tortured or martyred.

Two little girls are friends from the same congregation. Closer than sisters. One’s parents burned the incense, got the libellus, saved their skins. The other’s refused and paid with their lives. Do you just let the apostates back ignoring what they’d done? Do you refuse to grant them fellowship in the Church for the rest of their lives? Decius may not have specifically targeted Christians, but Satan sure got what he wanted. He managed to disturb and disrupt peaceful Christian communities, causing trauma that, in some cases, lasted for generations. Only a year long, the Decian persecution became known in the collective memory of the Church an episode of monstrous tyranny.

Cyprian walked the middle way between severe strictness and simply ignoring what they’d done. He helped forge a penitential discipline that would welcome them back as members of the Body of Christ and yet only fully restore them after they had given suitable demonstration of their faithfulness to Christ. That is, I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation; behold, I have not restrained my lips, as You know, O LORD. I have not hidden Your deliverance within my heart; I have spoken of Your faithfulness and Your salvation. They made the good confession. They suffered for righteousness’ sake. They suffered for doing good according to God’s will.

For your suffering and persecution and trouble are a benefit, not a hindrance, to you, dear Christian. They are catechesis. Our Lord is instructing you. Molding and shaping you. Forging and refining you as gold in the furnace, seeking to consume your dross. “Why should cross and trial grieve me? Christ is near, with His cheer; never will He leave me. Who can rob me of the heaven that God’s Son for me won when His life was given?” (LSB 756:1)

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the Righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the Spirit. This is Peter’s answer to the problem of suffering. Christ also suffered. The call to be a Christian is the call to suffer. The call to follow Jesus is the call to walk His way of suffering. If we follow Jesus, we are carrying a cross. Christ the Righteous One suffered for the unrighteous to bring us to God. We have been brought to God. Our sins are forgiven. We are redeemed. We belong to the Lord.

That’s why Peter can say, have no fear of them. Death is worshipped by fear. Pain and suffering are worshipped with fear. The devil wants us to loose hope, to despair, to cause our faith to wither and die. He wants us to lapse. To apostatize. It’ll make our lives easier. It’ll spare us pain. And probably sorrow. But it won’t give us a good conscience.

A heart prepared by fearlessness, a calm trust in Christ, who suffered for us, a good conscience, these are all gifts of the Gospel. And they come through fellowship with Christ’s death through the flood of Holy Baptism. For baptism saves you. By joining you in faith to Christ’s saving suffering and victorious death. Jesus doesn’t say, “You’ll make it through persecution. You’ll endure trouble.” He says you are blessed when you are persecuted, blessed when you are reviled, blessed when the enemies of God speak evil against you on His account. He says, Rejoice and be glad (Mt 5:10-12).

And we have the bold example of Cyprian to help us here. He came back. He faithfully guided the Church, giving pastoral care and catechesis to the family of God in Carthage. For that is what the Church is, the family of God in Christ Jesus. Cyprian famously taught, “One cannot call God Father who cannot call the Church his mother.” Here, in Holy Baptism, you are born from above in the womb of the Church. Christ is your Brother in the flesh and by the Spirit. His God is your God. His Father is your Father. He does not delight in sacrifice or offering, but has given you an open ear. To receive His Word and instruction, His catechesis in the way of faith and life.

When the next wave of persecution broke out in 256 under Emperor Valerian, Cyprian stayed and was among those who simply refused to sacrifice to the emperor. In 258 he was arrested and beheaded. His only response to the sentence of death was “Deo gratias!” “Thanks be to God!”

Beloved, he is here, along with all the saints in Christ, including your own family, gathered in the family of God in Christ Jesus, around the Table of the Lord. Here the true Sacrifice of Jesus our Lord is given to you in the Sacrament of His Body and Blood. And He who stoops to serve you here, to give you a share in His indestructible Life, has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to Him. To Him, who lives and reigns with the Father + and the Holy Spirit, be glory now and forever. Amen.

Number 21:4-9; 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; St John 12:20-33
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

You did not choose Him. Christ the Lord has chosen you. He has called you to Himself by the poaching of His Holy Cross. To follow Him through death into life. To be with Him where He is. To bear much fruit to the glory of His holy Name.

It is in Christ that you come up to worship at this Feast. At the Feast of His Holy Cross and the Eucharist of His Body and Blood, given and poured out for you and for the many. You come up to worship the Lord in this Feast by and in and through Christ the Crucified. In His flesh He has gone to the Father on your behalf. By and through His Cross He brings you with Him.

The very hour of His glory unfolds against the backdrop of the Feast as you heard from St John. As per the Word of the Lord in Leviticus the crowds have come up to Jerusalem for the Passover. And for the Feast of Unleavened Bread that follows immediately after for a full week. It is one of the several pilgrim festivals in which the people gathered together in one place. The place where the Lord caused His Name and His Glory to dwell. In the Temple.

During these celebrations, on the day after the Sabbath in the week of Unleavened Bread, the first fruits of the year were offered and consecrated to the Lord. Do the math. The first fruits were offered on the Easter Sunday when our Lord rose from the dead! The wave offering of grain was brought before the Lord in His Temple. An unblemished one year old male lamb was offered as a whole burnt offering. A grain offering of fine flour mixed with oil was given. And wine as a drink offering. Until then the people were not to eat anything from the grain of the new year’s harvest. But after the harvest was dedicated to the Lord with the first fruits offering, then they could enjoy the produce of the good land.

Consider this Old Testament Feast with its God given rites and ceremonies in light of the Word that Jesus speaks to you this morning. The grain that was buried in the ground has now, by the grace of God, brought forth a great harvest. Returning the first fruits back to Him, He now opens up His hand to satisfy His people with the bounty of the Land. A land flowing with milk and honey, abundant with bread and wine.

This is the hour when the Son of Man is to be glorified. When the Christ is to be lifted up as the Sacrifice of the Lord in fulfillment of the entire Feast. He is the Passover Lamb. He is the Whole Burnt Offering. He is the Grain and the Drink Offering. He is the First Fruits of the New Creation. He is the Grain buried in the dust of the earth, who, by the Tree of His Cross, now bears much fruit. Fruit which includes you and your life. A life hidden in, with, and under His Cross.

You bear and carry that Holy Cross of Christ as His disciple. It is a foolish and offensive scandal in the eyes of the world. It is foolish and offensive to your own fallen and perishing flesh, too. To your own way of thinking. To your feelings and emotions.

Yet that scandalous Cross is the very power and wisdom of God for the reconciliation, resurrection, and righteousness of the whole world. And for your salvation, too. All because of the crucifixion of Christ. His Body sanctifies the Tree with its branches. His Blood stains it scarlet!

The Body of Jesus, nothing else, makes the Cross holy. Not suffering and death for its own sake. But the suffering and death of Jesus Christ, the Son of God in the flesh, for your sake. That is what sanctifies. Not only His Cross, but His Cross, afixed with His holy Body, which is laid upon you in your suffering. And you bear that suffering in your body in His Name!

His Cross is the power and wisdom of God and the Glory of God because His death upon the Cross is the defeat of death and the devil! It is the judgment of God for the salvation of sinners. Sin is condemned in the Body of Christ upon the Cross. Your sin. Atonement is made by His Blood. You are reconciled to God and justified in His Resurrection.

The Father glorified the Son by the Cross. By His obedience even unto death. The Father glorifies and honors the Son by raising Him from the dead and seating Him at His right hand in the heavenly places. The Son of God returns to the Father by the way of the Cross. So too do all those who follow after Him.

This is how the Father honors disciples from all nations - a true diversity - who follow Christ and serve Him in life and death, in faith and love. This is how it is for you. You’ve been called to repentance and faith. Not just once. But daily. To take up the Cross and follow Jesus through the waters of your Holy Baptism, through death and the grace into the Resurrection and the Life.

The whole world is perishing. Clinging to your life here, in this world, can only end in death. But dying with Christ Jesus, every day, brings you into life everlasting with Him in both body and soul.

This dying and rising in repentance and faith in Christ is what it means to have the Lord as your God. To fear, love, and trust in Him above all things. To worship Him above all gods. To look to Him, to trust in Him for all that you need in body and soul. For every good thing. Entrust yourself to Him, even to the point of death. For in so doing, you gladly receiving all things from His hand, both the Cross and the Resurrection.

In dying to yourself and your selfish ambitions you arise to live before God in the righteousness of Christ. And you bear much fruit for the benefit of others to the glory of His holy Name. Or, to say it better, it is Christ who bears the good fruits of His Cross in your body and life on earth.

Beloved, this is the attractiveness of His Cross, as you just sang. “Faithful cross, true sign of triumph, Be for all the noblest tree; None in foliage, none in blossom, None in fruit thine equal be; Symbol of the world’s redemption, For the weight that hung on thee!” (LSB 454:4) It is not visible to those who are perishing. To them it looks as grotesque and useless as a bronze serpent on a pole. But for all those being saved by grace through faith in Christ? The Crucifix of our Lord Jesus Christ is the power, glory, honor, beauty, and wisdom of God! And by it and from it you bestowed the righteousness of God Himself.

For in the preaching of His Cross, Christ is lifted up before the world. He draws all people to Himself. He draws you. By this Word you follow in the footsteps of Christ to see Him portrayed as crucified before your very eyes in the preaching of His Gospel. This Voice comes for your sake! The thunder of the Law and the sweet message of the Gospel and the ways and means of the Cross by which our Lord calls you to repentance and faith, to die and rise with Him.

By the Holy Absolution this Voice is given you again. In the Holy Baptism and ongoing catechesis of the Word. In the Cross laid on its side as the Sacrament of the Altar is given to you and you remember and proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. These are the fruits and benefits of His Cross. By these are sin and death defeated. By these, the devil with all his assaults and accusations, is cast out of your conscience. In them you are drawn to Christ in faith. And the Father in Him. And together given His Spirit of reconciliation and the hope of salvation.

He does not promise to protect you from pain and suffering, dear Christians. Nor to preserve your body and life in this perishing world. But He does protect and strengthen your faith and life in Him, in order to preserve your body and soul for the Life everlasting with Him.

So come up to where He draws you to Himself and bestows to you His Body and Blood given into death upon the Holy Cross for your atonement. For they are now given and poured out for you here in this Feast of the forgiveness of all your sins. Here, you see Jesus.

In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

2 Chronicles 28:8-15; Galatians 3:15-22; St Luke 10:23-37
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

There stood Adam. A bad man desiring to be considered “good.” There he stood, half naked, on the run, hiding from God behind a tree, guilt all over his face. There was no way he could justify his behavior. But the deepest impulse in his fallen heart was to try. So he did. He said, The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree and I ate (Gen 3:12). Translation: “It’s Your fault God.”

There stood Aaron, a bad priest desiring to considered a good one. But there he stood before an angry Moses. Those hands that were supposed to handle the Holy Things, instead had chiseled the golden calf and blessed the false worship. Caught red handed there was no way to justify his behavior. But the deepest impulse of his fallen heart was to try. So he said it this way, The people gave me their gold. I threw it into the fire and out came this calf (Ex 32:24). Translation: “It’s not my fault.”

There stood that lawyer, guilty as sin. Jesus had just summarized the Law. Love God with your all. Love your neighbor as yourself. But he hadn’t. And he knew it. He was a bad neighbor. But his deepest desire of his fallen heart was to be considered a good one. So he - desiring to justify himself - said to Jesus, And who is my neighbor? Translation: “Just make sure to keep my neighborhood small. Family, friend, people I like and who like me.”

The deepest impulse of fallen man is to justify himself. And its always a pathetic sight. Whether its you trying to justify that bad investment. Another purchase on Amazon. Your eating habits. Your rudeness toward family. Your sin. This is the central impulse of the sinner. We desire to justify ourselves.

We even hear this Gospel of the Good Samaritan and try to justify that we are the Samaritan. We’re nothing like him at all. Its pathetic. The Good Samaritan helped a bitter enemy - Jews and Samaritans loathed each other. We only do what a pagan does: help only those we like, who like us, who appeal to us, are nice to us. And if they stop? Well, then, so do we! And we justify it saying, “Well, she was mean to me first.”

The Good Samaritan didn’t just call 911. He himself touched the man. Applied the medicine. We’d never go that far. The Good Samaritan totally inconvenienced himself, to the point of taking him to an inn, staying overnight with him and promising to pay the innkeeper whatever it too to get the man back on his feet. Our mercy has to fit into our tidy schedules and not interfere with our lives.

According to Jesus’ definition of neighbor, we can’t call ourselves a “Good Samaritan.” Maybe not even a “Good Christian.” How often are we like those Israelites in the first reading? Taking advantage of our neighbor’s misfortune? Thinking that because they’re suffering, it must mean God loves us? Right? The love God requires is a love we’ve never given. Nor ever will. In fact, according to the flesh, we don’t even desire to. So how can we stand here and justify what we’ve been and what we’ve done?

We can’t. So don’t. Don’t stand there like Adam, blaming God. Don’t stand there like Aaron, offering flimsy excuses. And don’t stand there like that lawyer looking for technicalities and loopholes. In fact, don’t stand at all. Repent. And humble yourself. You’re not the Samaritan. Put yourself in the ditch right next to the man who fell among robbers, was stripped, beaten and left half-dead. No matter how small we might try to shrink our neighborhoods, it will never be enough for us to be able to justify our lack of love.

But be of good cheer, beloved. For the Lord has regard for His covenant. God arises and defends your cause. Jesus, in His boundless love, has united Himself to you. And that’s good for you. Because doing good does not make you a “Good Christian.” Receiving mercy is what does. And He has gathered you here again to receive it.

For you are the man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho in the parable. You are a son of Adam who was attacked by that robber Satan. Stripped of his original goodness and left half dead in the ditch. The priest and the Levite, the representatives of the Law, they cannot help. For the Law has no compassion. Like you heard in St Paul’s letter to the Galatians: For if a Lw had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the Law. But Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise of faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

Along comes Jesus, the High Priest of our salvation, able to do for you what the Law could never do - have compassion; give life. He saw your desperate state. A pathetic sight, with no righteousness of your own. Unable to justify the things you’ve done. But Jesus didn’t keep His distance. He didn’t stay away, afraid to sully Himself with your uncleanness. We went down into the ditch and bound up the festering wounds of your sin. He applied the medicine Himself. The Psalmist prays, The Lord stoops and raises the poor from the dust; He lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes (Ps 113:8).

He picks you up, sets you on His own animal, that is, the Lord carries you Himself. He then brought you to an inn, His Church, where He has placed an innkeeper, the Pastor, giving him two denarii, His word of Law to bring you low when you attempt to justify yourself, and His word of Gospel to raise you up once more. Words that will be care for you until the Good Samaritan comes again in glory.

The deepest impulse of your fallen heart is to justify what you’ve done and what you’ve been. Don’t bother. For the deepest impulse of Jesus’ heart was to do whatever it took to justify the ungodly (Rm 4:5). As David sings in the Psalm, Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity (Ps 32:1-2). He has. And He does.

For Jesus came for this purpose: to destroy the works of the devil (1 Jn 3:8). He was the good Man Adam never was. The deepest impulse of His heart was not to hide behind a tree half naked, but to hand on one, half naked, taking into His flesh your ungodliness and dying for it. He rose from the dead to declare you good. He then ascended into heaven because the deepest impulse of His heart was not to be a high priest like Aaron, saying anything to avoid punishment, but to be a High Priest who has cast Himself into the fire of God’s wrath for you and now raises His hands to bless as He intercedes for you.

He didn’t pick and choose who He would love and serve. The deepest impulse of His heart was not to die only for a few, but to die for the whole neighborhood of sinners in the world - even those who betrayed Him, persecuted Him, and crucified Him.

Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. Your father Adam longed to see what you see this morning - the blood of the promised Seed, the crucified and risen Messiah, pressed to your lips. Blessed are the ears that hear what you hear. For Aaron longed to hear such things. “Take; eat, the Body of Christ; Take, drink, the Blood of Christ given and shed for you.”

Think of this Communion Rail, this Table of the Lord, as that ditch where the Good Samaritan comes to you, touches you, applies His healing medicine to you, restores and justifies you.

It’s no wonder that Jesus now says to you, Go and do likewise. For there are others whom our Lord has put in your path. Neighbors laying next to you in the ditch who are not gathered here to receive what you’ve received. Don’t avoid them. Don’t neglect them, passing by on the other side. Go to them. Show them mercy as you’ve been shown mercy. You have been lifted up and set on your feet, so that you can now crouch down to other sinners wrecked by the Law and given them the same mercy and compassion you’ve been shown. For "Jesus’ boundless love toward you seeks to remove all coldness from your heart, that your every act, word, thought be love" (LSB 683).

His Spirit desires to gather you all together here, His congregation which He has purchased of old (Introit), to receive an inheritance that could never be earned, one that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time (1 Pt 1:4-5).

In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.