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Exaudi

5/28/2017

Ezekiel 36:22-28; 1 Peter 4:7-14; St John 15:26-16:4
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

This Sunday, the Seventh Sunday of Easter, is sort of an in-between day. It marks a unique period in the life of the disciples, between the Feast of the Ascension and the transition to the Feast of Pentecost. The moment of separation from their Lord is but a few days back. The promise of the new Comforter, Helper and Guide is still to be realized. The Lord Jesus has ascended, the Comforter has not yet descended. Exaudi. From the introit. Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud. Leave me not comfortless, orphaned, alone. Hide not Your face from me.

And so the Gospel text takes us back, one last time these last three Sundays, to the Upper Room; to the night of our Lord’s betrayal, when He washed the disciples’ feet and instituted His Holy Supper. He prepared them for what to expect, what was to come: He would be betrayed and arrested, handed over to wicked men who would beat and abuse Him and finally end His life. But they could also expect His resurrection from the dead on the third day and His ascension to the right hand of the Father.

Before He ascended, Jesus instructed them to remain in the Holy City, awaiting the promise of His Father, the Helper, better translated, the Comforter, whom He will send. This is God the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and Son, who descends upon them at Pentecost. He bears witness to Christ the crucified and raised, the God-Man and One Mediator between God and man, whose bloody once-for-all Sacrifice atones for the sins of the whole world.

But it is precisely the world in which they will have tribulation. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. Perhaps a modern rendition may say it this way: “They will put you out of the Church, taking away your tax status and religious freedom. Indeed, whoever kills your livelihood and silences your speaking in the public square and suppresses your right of conscience will think he is offering service for the greater good.”

Indeed it was the Jews who put the Apostles and the early Christians out of the Synagogues. Maligning them, silencing them, persecuting them. Peter and James were beaten by the Sanhedrin and told to cease preaching in the Name of Jesus. But they did just as the Premiere Apostle wrote, Rejoiced insofar as they shared in Christ’s sufferings. Saul sought to capture followers of the Way and return them to Jerusalem to stand trial.

The Jews did these things to their own, but it was the Roman state who killed the early Christians, thinking they were offering service to their pagan gods. Rome sacralized her state and deified her Caesars. The delicate Pax Romana was maintained by the appeasement of the gods and the peace they allowed. This peace was based on sacrifice. Not a gruesome, animal offering, but the simple pinch of incense offered by all good citizens to the genius of Caesar as the revered savior and liberator of Rome. It was a nod of the head and a bend of the knee that the Emperor was to be obeyed and tolerance was the highest virtue. So long as one publicly stepped in line, acknowledging the values of the State, one could believe whatever he wanted in his own head.

The Christians refused. This was an act of sedition. Therefore Christians were called “atheists” because they refused to worship the Roman gods. They were known as “subverters” of the State because they refused to sacrifice. They were called “traitors” because they would not acknowledge the genius of Caesar. To confess Jesus is Lord was an act of political treason. Traitors must be dealt with. They paid with their lives.

The persecution of the Christian Church is a matter of faith. You may not see it, but it is real. It takes many forms. From the bombing of skyscrapers and pop concerts which target the general public, to slaughtering of French priests during Mass and the beheading of confessing Christians on Egyptian beaches. Your brothers and sisters in Christ are resisting to the point of shedding their blood. You have not yet endured this. You may. And it will come at the hands of those who believe that killing you because you are a Christian offers service an worship their god.

But it isn’t merely Allah, the false god of Islam. It may also come by the followers of the State deities: Fascism, Scientism, Secularism. Your livelihood may be sacrificed on the Altar of Tolerance in an effort to appease the national deities and the genius of the Emperor. St Peter was right nearly two thousand years ago: The end of all things is at hand.

So what sort of people ought you to be? How shall you endure? How shall you be prepared for the persecution that is to come, for the persecution that has already come? How do protect your children, prepare their hearts and guard their minds against the thought police and the tightening restrictions of the state and the enemies of Christ? Learn your catechism. Pray the Psalms. Read and digest the Scriptures. The entire of Epistle, in fact, both letters of St Peter offer wonderful comforting advice, but today he says, Be self-controlled and sober minded for the sake of your prayers.

That is, neither acquiesce to the anti-Christian demands of the state, but also do not give in to willful sin. Guard your hearts and minds, keep them back from presumption and self-justification. For it is not merely terrorists and statists who excuse their wicked behavior assuming it is done in true service to God. We are guilty of such presumption as well.

You have heard the saying, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” We convince ourselves that if we intended to do the right thing that somehow our sins and failings are less problematic, less horrific. “Oh, he meant well.” As if that makes any real difference. We try to justify our behavior with sentiment. Jesus shows the foolishness of this way of thinking in today’s Gospel when He says, The hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. Does it really make it any better that someone is intending to do a good and holy work when they kill a disciple of Jesus? Of course not! In fact, it often makes it worse. The same standard is applied to us. The truth is, most of our sins are done with good intentions, too. We have this idea that engaging in our own particular sins may actually be for the good, that is can be justified in our case, that it will make things better. It will satisfy us or relieve us and it won’t really hurt anybody.

We give in to metaphors; like, “I’m just bursting to get this gossip out.” Or, “I’m just bursting with sexual desire and I need some outlet.” Or, “I’m just bursting with these angry feelings and I need to vent.” Well, we’re not steam kettles. We don’t need to vent. We need to repent. Do not comfort yourself with the thought that you were trying to do something good when you sinned, or that your heart was in the right place. This is nonsense. Sentiment. Its self-justification and not the way of repentance and faith. The reality is that sin begets sin. When we give into such things it doesn’t alleviate our lust or anger or greed or pride. It feeds it. It leads us to justify our behavior. It hardens our hearts. All our good intentions only lead to hell.

Repentance is needed. Stop trying to justify yourself and instead look to Christ alone who can justify and save us from hell and put us right again. He may have gone away, ascended to the right hand of the Father, interceding for you as the God-Man, but He has not left you alone. He has not left you as orphans. He has sent His Holy Spirit, the Comforter, to help you and lead you and guide in the way of truth.

Note, then, how the Holy Spirit guides and comforts the Apostles and the early Church, for it is the same manner in which He guides and comforts you: The Spirit of truth will bear witness about Me. That is, He will preach into your ears and into your hearts the vicarious atonement of Christ for you. How He who knew no sin became Sin for you. How His death conquers and defeats your death. How He crushed the head of the Devil, destroying His power over you, over your heart and mind and conscience. The Spirit of Truth speaks this truth to your troubled conscience, forgiving you all your sins, strengthening you in body and soul amid danger and persecution and sword.

I know it seems like a moot point that the Holy Spirit speaks to your ears and heart all the while the world and Christ’s enemies are attacking and destroying your body. Your brothers and sisters are dying around the world for the Name of Jesus and the Holy Spirit just keeps preaching in the Word through the Office of the Ministry of His Gospel in the Church. But this is your greatest need. Not food or clothing, 501c3s or even freedom of religion. For this is the fulfillment of the promise of the Lord through Ezekiel: I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statues and be careful to obey my rules. Tertullian, 2nd Century Church Father, was right: “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” Do not fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell (Mt 10:28).

For the issue facing Peter and James, Tertullian and Polycarp, Luther and the reformers, your brethren around the world, and even you, if one of sacrifice. To whom and what shall you sacrifice? Burn the pinch of incense to the state and sacrifice your ethics, your conscience, your beliefs. Sacrifice on the altar of tolerance and inclusivity and you’ve slaughtered your faith. Or sacrifice to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has ransomed you in love? As it is written, I appeal to you, brethen, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (Rm 12:1-2).

This is what “rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” looks like in the new, divine economy and kingdom of Christ who has sent His Holy Spirit upon you. This is the simultaneous “yes” that submits to the authority of the emperor as put in place by God and “no” that renders a higher obedience to Christ the Lord as supreme. Our entire life must be, as Luther expressed, an eternal Lord’s Prayer in which our principal desire is for God to deliver us from evil.

The Christian martyrdom of the either the first three centuries or the last two centuries, is not to be seen as the fate of the powerless, but as a witness, a true marturia, before the State and the world, of the eschatological reality of Christ Jesus’ return from the right hand of Power to judge both the living and the dead and deliver to each according to what he has done in the body, whether good of evil (2 Cor 5:10).

For though we are in the in-between time from Pentecost to the Second Advent of Christ our Lord, He has not left you alone. Behold the right hand of the Father, His arm, strong to save, is the very Word and Sacraments, where Christ is present, by His Spirit, to deliver to you the work of His salvation on your behalf. This is His intention, to create and sustain faith by His Spirit through these means, in those who hear the Word. His good intentions toward you do not fail. Rather it lifts you up to a new and real life.

This is what His ascension means. Firstly that His Sacrifice upon the Cross is true service to God and is acceptable to Him. But also that by receiving Jesus to His side, the Father also receives you to His side. For you are in Christ; members of His body. In welcoming Jesus He has also welcomed and accepted you. You know the Father and are known by Him in Jesus Christ. You live in the in-between but you have enteral life, the forgiveness of sins, mercy and grace, the gift of the Spirit and heaven itself, right now.

He has heard your cries and has not hide His face from you. He was with you from the beginning. He loved you to the end. He shall be with you, never leaving or forsaking you, until the Last; when He shall raise you from your graves to dwell in the true Land He promised to your fathers. You are His people. He is your God.

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

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Ascension of Our Lord

5/25/2017

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2 Kings 2:5-15; Acts 1:1-11; St Luke 24:44-53
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

He led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up His hands He blessed them. While He blessed them, He departed from them and was carried up into heaven. He lifted up His hands. He showed them His scars. As it was on the night of Easter in the locked upper room, the Crucified One showing to them His hands and His side, revealing the scars of His love for them, the cost of their redemption, so it is at His ascension to the Father. He goes as the Victor over death and the grave. He ascends, to be sure, as the Resurrected One.

But the fullness of His identity, the revelation of the Christ as presented in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms, is not in the majesty of His Ascension, but it is made known in the glory of His Cross and Passion. His Resurrection unpacks the meaning of His crucifixion. His Ascension is the coronation of the Crucified One.

For He who stretched out His hands for you upon the Cross, offering up Himself to the Father as the Sacrifice of Atonement for all your sins, is the One who lifts His hands in blessing upon His disciples and upon you; justifying you with His own righteousness, raising you from death to life with Himself, and anointing you with His Spirit by His Word.

Thus He gives Himself to God as the true Man and He gives Himself to you as the one true God. And in Him, both God and Man, heaven and earth are bound together in perfect harmony. He who descended from heaven, was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made Man; who was crucified, dead, and buried, who rose on the third day according to the Scriptures, is the self-same One who ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty. He is your Lord and your God, your Savior, your Brother, your Advocate and only Mediator; Jesus the Christ, the Crucified One.

This is His Word spoken to you, that everything written about Him in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. He opens your minds to understand the Scriptures by the preaching of His Word through those whom He sent as witnesses, His apostles, upon whom His Spirit was poured out. But not only them, then also the men who have followed after them in His Office of the Holy Gospel, who unfold the Scriptures in your midst for your hearing and faith and forgiveness and life.

His Word has gone forth from Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, to Rome, to the New World, the Third World, to Africa and Asia, and to all the world. As His Word goes out it does not return to Him void, but accomplishes the purpose for which He sends it. Thus does it gather disciples of Jesus together into one Body, the Church, into the Holy City of God, the New Jerusalem, where the Lamb who was slain yet lives is not only the Priest and the King, but He is also the Temple of God among men, the Light that illumines the New Creation, and both the Bridegroom and the Wedding Feast of the finest Wine and richest Meat.

This then is your home, your place of rest, here in the heart of this city. This is where you live because this is where Christ is, both with you and for you, bestowing the promise of His Father upon you, His Spirit, through His Word. As Luther preached on this day in 1523, “Christ is here by us and therefore is seated in heaven, so that He can be close by us; we are thus by Him up there and He is by us down here: through the sermon and the Supper He comes down, and thus, by faith, we come up” (Peters, Creed, p196).

Beloved, you are baptized into Christ. And that means not only His Cross and Resurrection are yours, but also His Ascension, too; His Spirit and His Father, and His place within the Holy of Holies. So when you eat His Body and drink His Blood here, within His Church on earth, you live and abide with Him in the Bosom of the Father in heaven. You already live in the true divine Life for which you have been created by the Holy Trinity. For you are in Christ, your Temple, continually praising God with great joy.

It is not as though your life on earth now, lived under the Cross, is pleasant or easy. But you know that! For you wait, with all creation the consummation of all things: the resurrection of the body and the revealing of the sons of God. When He who was taken into heaven shall return from heaven. You long for that and pray for that! Saying, Amen! Come, Lord Jesus! Continue, dear ones, to do so, in the bold confidence that Christ our Lord has borne the Cross for you and conquered in the fight, and that His resurrected and glorified Body is already the Firstfruits of your own sure and certain resurrection and ascension.

In Him it is already finished. And it is for you, as the Sacrament declares.

The fact that He ascends as the Crucified One, and that He serves you by the ways and means of His Cross, means that all the seasons of hurt and heartache and hard things shall not be able to destroy you, nor separate you from Him, from His Life and His Love. But, by grace, actually help to heal you and save you and bring you to heaven. For He works repentance in you, and disciplines your mortal flesh, in order to bring you through suffering and death into faith and life with God. These are times and seasons fixed by your dear Father in heaven, who loves you for the sake of His Son, and has given you His Spirit.

Thus you are His witnesses in whatever station He has placed you. Remain there. In your own skin, in your life and occupations on earth. Fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, husbands, wives, workers, friends. You are already clothed with the mantle of His righteousness come down from heaven by way of water and His Word. You have the full and free forgiveness of sins proclaimed to you in His Name.

Thus do you testify to what you have heard and seen - the crucified, risen, ascended Lord and Christ, come to you by way of His Word and Supper, blessing you with His life and salvation, forgiveness and love, here in this poor life of labor.

For life in this fallen world is one of constant separations, which cut you off from family and friends. Whether by death or disease, by accident or atrocity, by adventure or adversity, ailment or age, your relationships and connections are constantly being changed and eventually they are ended.

But the Ascension of your crucified and risen Lord Jesus proclaims a permanent place for you, and perfect peace with God. It does not change. It cannot be taken away from you. Nor is it far away from you now, but up close and personal, a very present help at all times, in every trouble, and a source of genuine great joy in the face of everything that confronts you. It is here for you in the Temple of God, given and poured out for you to eat and drink. It is here for you in the hands of Christ Jesus, with which He blesses you, feeds you, absolves you, signs and seals you as a Christian, a child of God.

It is His hand that shall raise you up at the Last.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

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

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Rogate

5/21/2017

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Numbers 21:4-9; 1 Timothy 2:1-6; St John 16:23-30(31-33)
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

Whatever you ask of the Father, in My name, He will give it to you. Whatever you ask. Well. What do you want? What do you lack that would make you happy? And if you had it, would it make you truly content? Whatever you ask, Jesus says. So, what do you want?

If we are honest with ourselves what we want is often very far removed from what we need. Earthly desires captivate our hearts. Our eyes are fixated on carnal things. Our anxious minds, our grumbling mouths, reveal our failure to fear, love, and trust the Lord our God above all things; to know that He will supply those things that are needful for us.

So it was with the children of Israel. They were discouraged. They complained. Its not as though they lacked any signs and promises from the Lord God. He spared their camp of the plagues; their water of blood, their children from the Angel of Death. He led them out of slavery by a pillar of cloud; brought them safely across the Red Sea by the strength of His arm, and defeated their wicked foe, Pharaoh and his army, by drowning them in the sea. Still, they complained. The flesh always does.

Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness. Our souls loathe this worthless bread! There it is. We loathe the bread from heaven, the manna of our Father, the divine sustenance He has provided for the journey. They did not trust in the Lord God and His promises, and so their hearts are greedy and their prayers have faltered. What about you? What do you want? How have your worship and prayers been?

Today we are exhorted to pray. Rogate. It simply means, “ask,” that is, “pray.” So when you hear Jesus say to His disciples, Whatever you ask, He means, whatever you pray. St Paul says, First of all then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions. The Apostle names the four types of prayer: supplications, that is, asking for ourselves; petitions, such as the Our Father, intercessions, which are prayers on behalf of others, and thanksgivings, giving thanks to God for His provision and daily bread. Elsewhere St Paul exhorts Christians to pray at all times and without ceasing (1 Thess 5:17). There is nothing more basic to the Christian faith and life than prayer.

But our thoughts and hearts and ideas betray us. They are soiled with sin. And we do not know what to pray for or how we ought to pray. How, then, shall we begin?

Our Lord Himself must teach us. Prayer in Jesus’s Name begins with God’s speaking and our listening. The Father addresses you and reveals Himself to you in the Person of the Word, His Son, our Lord, in whom and by whom you know and see the Father. This is not a figure of speech. You know God as Father only by way of His Son, in whom you have received adoption as sons by His grace. All other descriptions of the Kingdom of God are figures of speech. A vineyard. A field. A flock of sheep. The kingdom of God is like these things. But the Kingdom of God is instantiated in a Man, the God-Man, Jesus Christ, the only Son of the Father who has made Him known.

And it is the hour of His Cross and Passion in which He speaks plainly to you about the Father. He came from God and by way of His Cross, is lifted up from the world and going to the Father. For the Shepherd shall be struck and the sheep shall all be scattered, each to his own home. Abandoned by friends and disciples, true bothers and sisters, betrayed by a guileful friend who ate bread with Him. He will be left alone.

But He is not alone. Though He is forsaken by His God and Father, He will not abandon His faithful Word and promises. For the Father is revealed in the Son and the Son is one with the Father, together in the trinitarian fellowship with the Holy Spirit. He who commends His Spirit into the hands of His Father and thereby reveal the manner in which the Father loves you, that is, in sending His Son to be the atoning sacrifice for all of your sins, receives back again the self-same Spirit in His victorious resurrection from the dead, only to bestow Him upon the Church and His Apostles, in His preached Word.

Prayer, dear friends, begins here, with the inhalation of the Spirit in the Word, which you read, mark, learn and inwardly digest (to mix our metaphors), and then exhale in prayer; speaking back to the Father with your petitions, intercessions, and thanksgivings in the Son and by His Spirit. In Him you have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. For “as soon as God’s Word takes root and grows in you, the devil will harass you, and will make a real doctor (of theology) of you, and by assaults will teach you to seek and love God’s Word” (Luther).

Dr Luther taught that this is precisely how God makes theologians, which is to say, how He forms and fashions Christians - through meditation and study of God’s Word, prayer in Jesus’ name, and temptation and affliction by the devil. Your mettle is tested and your spiritual armor is strengthened. For you, dear Christian, you who care about the truth and purity of God’s Word and doctrine, about it rightly preached, faithfully practiced and boldly confessed, you are a theologian, a priest of our heavenly Father’s royal priesthood. Thus do you pray. From God’s Word and back to God’s Word when assaulted and assailed by the evil foe.

In this way prayer is as natural to the new man as breathing. It is fundamental. Necessary. Significant. Yet how often have you tried to establish some routine, some discipline of prayer and devotion either on your own or in your family, only to find that it becomes harder and harder to keep with it? The truth is that the actual practice of daily prayer does not come easily to us poor, miserable sinners. We are always making a beginning, never completing.

For you still have your flesh hanging about your neck, your sin clinging to your bones until you die. This vile, putrid stench of death lingering in our nostrils, which along with the devil and the world, would turn us from faithful prayer and do not want us to hallow God’s name or let His kingdom come.

That old Adam must be suppressed and mortified in you - daily drown in the baptismal waters - for you to pray. You are no different than the Israelites among whom our Lord sent fiery serpents. So does He send and allow fiery trials, tribulation of various kinds, to befall you. Of which there is no shortage in the world, as Jesus says. Temptation and persecution, some receive the gift of martyrdom, others are called upon to faithfully confess the truth of His Word in an increasingly hostile world; maybe at the cost of their livelihood. This is according to God’s good and gracious will.

Yet He does this not to punish you and drive you from Him in fear and hatred. Rather the opposite. For the Lord your God, your Father in heaven who loves you and disciplines you, desires you to be saved, along with all men. He uses such tribulation in order to strengthen your faith, to turn to Him in prayer, looking to Him alone for all good and every blessing. Take heart. He has overcome the world.

Therefore ask. For the Father loves you on account of Jesus Christ in whose name you pray. You have received the Spirit of adoptions as sons by whom you cry, Abba! Father! You are marked with the Baptismal Name of the Blessed Holy Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - and therefore stand in Christ, as a member of the royal priesthood, approaching the throne of grace will all the boldness and confidence of a dear child.

Which is to say, it is okay to ask as children ask: for small things, for big things, personal things, seemingly outrageous things. Intercede as Moses did on behalf Israel or Queen Esther entering the throne room of the king to plead for her people. He delights in you. And it is good, right, and pleasing to God that you intercede that your boyfriend be converted, that you find a pious girlfriend, that your sons and daughters find godly spouses, that your children and grandchildren return to their baptismal faith. Its okay to pray that your wife control her temper, that your husband help out more, that your kids stop bickering. Pray not merely for kings, but those elected officials, even if you didn’t vote for them. It is okay to pray these and all sorts of other things, precisely because the Father loves you on account of Christ.

Above all, pray that His Kingdom come among you by His Word, through His Spirit, in faithful preaching and teaching. Pray that He bestow His righteousness upon you - the righteousness of Christ - through faith and that such faith produce in you fruits of love and good works. Pray that His will be done, here on earth among men, as it is by the angels in heaven. Pray according to the Ten Commandments, which are the good and gracious will of God for you, your children, and family. Pray the Psalms, for they are both God’s Word to you and your prayer to Him, inspired by the Holy Spirit and payed by and in Christ. Such prayers are pleasing to your Father in heaven who commanded you to pray, has promised to hear you, and even gives you the very words.

Take heart in your tribulation, dear children of our heavenly Father. For as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so has the Son of Man been lifted up in His death upon the Cross, which is the answer to all prayers, even before we asked. You may not always get what you want, but you always get what you need.

Laid before you this day is bread for the journey. It is not worthless, but is the very Manna of Life, the Body of Jesus Christ, given for you, together with His Blood poured out for the many for the forgiveness of sins. His Eucharist. His Thanksgiving offered to you, that you may eat and drink, believe and live. You are not alone, but dwell together with the whole Christian Church in heaven and on earth, which has fellowship in Jesus Christ with God the + Father and the Holy Spirit, to whom be glory, honor, prayer, praise and thanksgiving, now and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

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Cantate

5/14/2017

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Isaiah 12:1-6; James 1:16-21; St John 16:5-15
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

As it was last Sunday, so today. The Gospel places you back in the upper room, on the night of our Lord’s betrayal, on the eve of His death. He has washed their feet; giving them a part with Himself. He has feed them His own Body and Blood, given and shed for the forgiveness of sins. He is soon to return to Him who sent Him by way of His Cross and Passion, in His blessed death and burial, in the handing over of the Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life.

Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren, Christ Jesus is the Good and Perfect Gift from above, who has come down from the Father of light, full of grace and truth. In Him there is no shadow, but He is Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made. Who though He is one substance with the Father, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, and made Himself nothing, by taking on the form of a Servant, through the work of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

This is not mere information, repeated by rote in the Creed. This is for your advantage. He has joined Himself to in flesh and blood in the womb of His Virgin Mother in order to join you to Himself by way of His Spirit in the womb of Holy Baptism, and bestowing upon you His flesh and blood, crucified, risen, and ascended, that you might have fellowship in Him together with His Father by His Spirit.

Though the prospect of His imminent death fills the hearts of His disciples with sorrow, much as it did Elisha as his dear father in the faith, Elijah, was taken from him. Nevertheless, Jesus says, I tell you the truth; it is to your advantage that I go away. It is to your advantage that He goes to the Cross in His innocent suffering and death. This is for your benefit. His death is for you. It avails for you. His crucifixion sets you free from sin and sorrow. His death slays bitter death on your behalf in order that you may live with Him forever.

For unless He goes to the Father by being lifted up in death, the Paraclete, the Helper, the Spirit of Truth, cannot come to you.

Who is this Helper, this Spirit of Truth? This is the self-same Spirit who hovered over the natal waters of creation. The Spirit, by whom God breathed life into the man of dust, Adam. The Spirit, who spoke by the prophets. The Spirit who descended from heaven as a good gift, bestowed upon and remaining with Jesus the Christ, anointing Him the very Lamb of God who bears away the sin of the world. The self-same Spirit who drove Jesus into the wilderness in order to be tempted by the devil in the place of idolatrous and adulterous Israel, to be tempted in your place, and yet to remain without sin.

Our Lord Christ hands over this Spirit, the Holy Spirit of Christ, to His Father in His crucifixion and death, in the faithful obedience of the Son who obeys His Father’s will.

But the Holy Spirit is the Lord and Giver of Life. He who breathed life into Adam in the beginning, likewise breathed new life into the Second Adam, Jesus Christ, and raised Him from the dead on the third day. He is then bestowed in the expiration of the Word that Easter Eve. Where? Once again in the upper room! The Word, sent from the Father breathes out His Holy Spirit upon His sent ones, giving them as gifts to His Church to preach and teach, baptize and be stewards of the Sacred Mysteries, and to forgive the sins of terrified and repentant sinners.

For you and I would know nothing of Jesus Christ, of His person and work, of His perfect life, His sacrificial death, His victorious resurrection and glorious ascension, and His coming again for the final judgment, apart from the preaching and proclamation of the Holy Spirit. In a sermon on this same text, Dr Luther proclaimed,
Here Christ makes the Holy Spirit a Preacher. He does so to prevent one from gaping toward heaven in search of Him, as the fluttering spirits and enthusiasts do, and from divorcing Him from the oral Word or the ministry. One should know and learn that He will be in and with the Word, that it will guide us into all truth, in order that we may believe it, use it as a weapon, be preserved by it against all the lies and deception of the devil, and prevail in all trials and temptations. The Holy Spirit wants this truth which He is to impress into our hearts to be so firmly fixed that reason and all one’s own thoughts and feelings are relegated to the background. He wants us to adhere solely to the Word and to regard it as the only truth. And through this Word alone He governs the Christian Church to the end (AE 24:362).

This is why St James places such emphasis on the preached Word when he says, Know this my beloved brethren: let everyone be quick to hear. That is, quick to hear the Word of Christ read and preached, to hold it sacred, gladly hearing and learning it. For God desires to make Himself known to you in no other way than in His Word. Lutherans have been accused of denying the Holy Spirit because we don’t talk much about Him as the Third Person of the Trinity. That is for good reason. The Holy Spirit doesn’t talk much about Himself. He is the shy one of the Trinity. He directs all attention to Christ, your one Mediator, Advocate, and First Paraclete.

And He does this precisely in the reading and preaching of the Word of Christ and Him crucified, by which faith is both created and sustained. In this preached Word the Holy Spirit convicts you of sin and righteousness and judgment. He convicts you of sin in the proclamation of God’s Law, which is His holy and perfect Word and will for your life. How you live contrary to the will and commandments of God, not properly fearing, loving, trusting and Him above all things; how you speak ill of your neighbor, gossiping and slandering them with your words. How in anger you explode into all sorts of wickedness and filth, both in word and deed.

And it is precisely the Spirit’s work in the Law which brings you to repentance and faith. He works contrition and repentance in you. And He preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ to you. That is, the righteousness of another, namely of the Paraclete Jesus, which is imputed to you through faith. This is the implanted Word, of which St James speaks. Or as the hymn sings, “The Gospel shows the Father’s grace, who sent His Son to save our race, proclaims how Jesus lived and died that we might thus be justified” (LSB 580:1). It proclaims, that is, in the Gospel the Spirit declares and preaches how Jesus’s death justifies you; it makes you righteous by faith.

For the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ, as Christ glorified the Father and the Father glorified His Name in the Son: precisely in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Father glorifies His Name in the Son by the Cross and the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ by preaching His Cross. For the Spirit of Christ takes what belongs to the Son - namely righteousness, salvation, peace, joy, mercy, forgiveness, love, all of heaven itself - and He declares, that is, preaches it to you, that by His Word He bespeaks you righteous.

It is the Spirit of Christ who works in Holy Baptism, hovering over the natal waters of your re-creation, bespeaking you righteous with the Word of Christ in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

It is the Spirit of Christ who is at work in preaching, convicting you of sin in the Law and bringing comfort to your conscience in the Gospel forgiveness of Christ.

The Spirit of Christ is also present and working in Holy Communion, where Christ gives His blood for life, His own divine life, eternal in the Holy Spirit. For this is the “spiritual drink,” by which you are filled with His Holy Spirit (1 Cor 10:4; 12:13).

I know you don’t always feel righteous, or even forgiven, holy, and justified. But the Holy Spirit is not felt, but heard. His Word is true and He guides you in the way of the Truth, that is, in He who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Even as our reason is subjected to Scripture, when we say, “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength, believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to Him, but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel,” so too do we subject our feelings and emotions to the Truth of God’s Word.

Feelings are not bad, but they can get in the way of the Truth of God’s Word. Jesus knows this when He says, I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. The feelings, emotions, sorrow and even pride of the disciples gets in the way of hearing the truth of His Word. So He waits until after His resurrection to continue to teach them of the true meaning of His Cross and Passion, His reconciling death and victorious resurrection.

So to for you. In the lectionary we are brought back to the Upper Room, to hear again the New Song of the Spirit, the preaching of His Word, always pointing back to the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Here then, the nave, this very sanctuary is the Upper Room for you. Here Christ washes you in His Absolution, giving you, once more, a part with Him. Here He feeds you on His Body and Blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. Here, in this Upper Room, He breathes His Holy Spirit upon you in the living voice of His Gospel, read and preached, which the singing of His Holy Spirit, by which He calms your sorrowful heart.

And here, He banishes the devil, the ruler of this world who is judged. For God the Holy Spirit convinces you of these three things: your sin exposed by God’s Law, your imputed righteousness according to God’s Gospel, and that your wicked foe, Satan himself, has been judged in the Cross of Christ and no longer has any claim on you. Again, you don’t always feel this, but indeed you hear it. You must.

To be and remain a Christian you desperately need to continually return to the Upper Room of His Church where His Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. In this Christian church He daily and richly forgives all your sins and the sins of all believers. For by the work of the Holy Spirit, preaching Christ to you in His Word, the Lord God is your strength and your song and He has become your salvation. Shout and sing for joy, you inhabitants of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel!

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

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

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Jubilate

5/7/2017

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Lamentations 3:22-33; 1 John 3:1-3; St John 16:16-22
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

They misunderstood much that fateful evening. Why He washed their feet. Of what true greatness consists. Of prayer in the garden and obedient sacrifice. His true glory and exodus to the Father. Minds consumed by selfishness and hearts warped by sin cannot comprehend the things of God; indeed they are folly to them. What does He mean by ‘a little while?’ We do not know what He is talking about.

But having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. Listen to how, in love, our Lord Jesus tenderly and compassionately catechizes His disciples. He prepares them for the future and gently instructs them in what is to come. Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. For in a little while - mere hours - He will be violently taken from them. Clapped in chains, prodded with clubs and swords, their dear Jesus will be hauled before the Sanhedrin, then before the governor, then the Tetrarch.

Finally, He shall be brutally killed by vengeful men who sought His life; splayed out on the Cross like some grotesque trophy of their evil machinations. The devil and the world will mock and rejoice. They will think they have won; laughing as they dance on the grave of our dear Lord. But the disciples of Jesus will be consumed by grief and guilt, sorrow and pain.

But this is the very manner in which our Lord goes to the Father; by way of His Cross and Passion. He who came from the Father, full of grace and truth, now returns to the Father as He is lifted up from the earth in order to draw all men to Himself. For the Cross is our Lord’s true glory and in its proper light, the joyous icon of our salvation. To paraphrase St Paul, “God forbid that I should rejoice, except in the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ by which the world is crucified to me and I to the world” (Gal 6:14).

For the joy set before Him, Christ Jesus endured the Cross, despising its shame. Having received the Holy Spirit from the Father in His Baptism in the Jordan, the Son, in faithful obedience, has gone the way prepared for Him both in life and now in death. Lifted high upon the Cross the faithful Son goes to the self-same Father who forsakes Him. Though He be abandoned and neglected, His cries unheard by the Father, Jesus will not let go, but clings in firm trust and steadfast faith to the Word and promise of His Father. So that giving up His last breath, He hands over the Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God, back to the Father.

And yet, a little while - three short days- and they see Him again! The crucified and risen Lord Jesus shows them His hands and His side and their sorrow is turned to joy. He breathes upon them the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son; breathing life and peace and joy. For having received the Spirt back in the Resurrection of His flesh, Christ bestows Him upon His Apostles and the Church, in the very Word that He speaks. A spirit-filled, joyful Word of redemption and reconciliation.

It is this Word of Law and Gospel, repentance and forgiveness, that they are sent to proclaim to all creation, says the Gospel of St Mark. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies (Rm 8:20-23).

What does it mean to have the first fruits of the Spirit, yet groan eagerly for the redemption of our bodies? We shall hear more of the person and work of the Holy Spirit in the next two Sundays, but for now, be reminded of this: the spirit-filled Word of the crucified and risen Lord Jesus which He breathed on His Apostles that first Easter eve, is the self-same Spirit and Word which bespeaks you righteous, spoken by His pastors. For Jesus Christ, the firstborn of the dead, has given to His Church on earth the keys to forgive sins, to open the gates of heaven, to dispense the gifts of the Resurrection and the victory over death and the grave. What could be more joyous?!

And yet, you await the redemption, that is, the consumption of the close of the age, and the resurrection of your perfected, glorious and immortal bodies. Right now you feel the sore effects of sin and the curse of all creation. You feel it in your own bodies, not only in illness and disease, of loved ones being taken from you or you being taken from your loved ones, but also in your disordered desires; your unwanted lusts of the flesh, the warring of your conscience against temptation and sin. Even your very heart - which ought to rejoice in the Resurrection of our Lord Christ - condemns you of your sin.

Beloved, God is greater than your heart. See what kind of love the Father has given to you, that you should be called the children of God; and so you are. The reason why the world does not know you is that it did not know him. Beloved, you are God’s children now - adopted as heirs with Christ through the womb of Holy Baptism - and what you will be has not yet appeared; but you know that when He appears you shall be like Him, because you shall see Him as He is.

The “little while” and the “because I am going to the Father,” to which our Lord Jesus refers are not only references to His Cross and Passion, but also to His Ascension and enthronement at the right hand of His Father. Beloved, we live in the “little while” between our Lord’s ascension and His second Advent. And the Church, in her wisdom, has so arranged the lectionary to place this Gospel text before our eyes and ears this Fourth Sunday of Easter in order to strengthen and sustain you as you live between the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and the resurrection of all flesh; in this “little while” as you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, experiencing sorrow without and within; living in the already, but not yet of this poor life of labor.

For though our Lord Jesus has gone away, He has not left you. And He has not taken your joy from you. All the First Article gifts of creation - the beauty of nature, the shining of the sun, the goodness of food and clothing and feeling the wind on your face as you race your bicycle down the sidewalk - all these are given for your joy and enjoyment. But there is more. As the Psalm sings, His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor His pleasure in the legs of a man, but the LORD takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His steadfast love (Ps 147:11).

Though He has gone away, He has not abandoned you, but is with you and gives you to share in His life and love and joy, here in His Divine Service. Do not misunderstand what happens here, beloved, asking “What does this mean?” with confusion. Only consider how the liturgy of heaven is permeated with sin-destroying, Easter joy, as Christ Jesus not only teaches you, but comes to serve you in compassion and love.

You confess you sins and there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents (Lk 15:7); and receive the absolution, the joyous pronouncement that you shall not die, but live in the resurrection of Christ Jesus.

You sing the verses from Psalm 66: Jubilate! Sing for joy to God! Sing the glory of His Name! Tell of His wondrous deeds! - the Exodus, the manna, and now the Cross and Passion - and the Easter alleluias invade and permeate the song of the Introit.

And then the readings, Jeremiah leading the way, the joyous promise that even in the midst of suffering and sorrow, the Lord will not cast off forever. Though He cause grief, He will have compassion according to the abundance of His steadfast love.

The Psalm and Epistle rejoicing in the gifts Christ gives, even in the midst of suffering. More than that - even rejoicing in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance and so forth. Endurance and the other virtues are desperately needed while living here below.

We can’t neglect the Easter sequence hymn, that expanded Alleluia, “Christians to the Paschal Victim.” “Christ is arisen, so let our joy rise full and free; Christ our comfort true will be!” This leads right into the Gospel - a little while and they saw Him, back from death to life, passing through that narrow ascent of the grave to life and immortality, their hearts rejoicing and joy abounding!

After the readings and the sermon, you sing with King David, Restore to me the joy of your salvation. And again, in the Prayer of the Church, in joyful thanksgiving you make your petitions to the Father through the Son in the Spirit. And by the self-same Trinity lift up your hearts in joy unto the Lord, taking the Cup of Salvation and calling on the Name of the Lord.

In joy of sins forgiven and life and salvation bestowed, you give thanks to the Lord for His goodness and mercy that endureth forever. He puts His Name upon you - Father-Son-Holy Spirit - blessing and keeping you, granting you His peace, and so too all the other fruits of the Spirit: love, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control, and joy!

Do you see? This is a joy that cannot be manufactured. It cannot be conjured up or faked. And it cannot be chased down, caught, and contained. As we raced through the Divine Service we aren’t chasing an elusive joy, but rather the source of all joy: Jesus Christ and the full and free forgiveness of sins that comes in His shed blood. Faith clings to Him. Not to joy.

Does He not say, I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice? Joy is the fruit that springs from faith laying hold of Jesus Christ, even as He presents Himself to you here in His Service through His living Word and His Body and Blood. So it is that even in the midst of sorrow, faith lays hold of Christ, and according to His mercy and strength, has joy. As the author to the Hebrews writes, Therefore, let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the Cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God (Heb 12:1-2).

You, beloved, are the joy of the Lord. The joy for which Christ Jesus endured the Cross. The joy for which He ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father, and intercedes for you. The joy for which He will come again and take you to be with Him. You will see Him again, your Jesus, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.

In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

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Christian Funeral: Lorenz O. List

5/3/2017

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Ezekiel 34:11-16; Romans 8:31-39; St John 10:11-18
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

Becky, Junior, Kurt, (Kylee, Luke,) family and friends of Lorenz, dear lambs of Christ from St Peter’s: Grace, mercy, and peace be multiplied unto you from God our Father who raised Jesus Christ, our Good Shepherd, from the dead.

So many questions. How come? How could he do this? What was he thinking? Were there signs? Should I have seen them? . . . Why? Why did Lorenz take his own life? How could a husband, father, brother, friend, leave his loved ones alone like this?

I wish I could answer those questions for you. I can’t. I’m sorry. Of suicide, Dr Martin Luther once declared, “I am not inclined to think that those who take their own lives are surely damned. My reason is that they do not do this of their own accord but are overcome by the power of the devil, like a man who is murdered by a robber in the woods” (WA Br, IV 624-25). I agree with Luther’s assessment.

We are inclined not to take seriously in our day the power and work of the devil. We ignore him as some carry-over of a medieval system of superstitious belief. A phantom meant to scare fools and children. He is real. You see and experience his destructive rage all around you, both without and within: pestilence and famine, ware and bloodshed, sedition and rebellion, lightning and tempest, all calamity by fire and water; sudden and evil death, are all crafts and assaults of the devil. We pray against him in the Our Father, as our Lord has taught us; And lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from the evil one. For he prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour; to deceive into false belief, great shame and vice. To attack with every evil of body and soul, possessions and reputation.

The devil is the wolf, of which our Lord Jesus speaks. He is the great bane of the Shepherd and the enemy of His flock, His dear lambs and sheep. He waits in silent ambush at the edge of the pasture, licking his putrid smelling chops, seeking to pick off a weak, wandering lamb; the injured of the fold.

And certainly Lorenz was injured. He was troubled and tormented. He knew guilt and shame. He wrestled with vices and addictions.

He moved into his mother’s home in her last months, he and his family, to care for Dolores. He loved her. She used to comment that she never though of all her children he’d be the one who would be caring for her while dying. But he was. He did. This doesn’t earn him anything. It was simply the faithful obedience of a son. The love and honor every child owes to his parents.

But caregivers need care too. And whenever I would visit Dolores and bring her Holy Communion, Lorenz would be there too. Confessing his sins. Receiving the Lord’s Absolution. Partaking in the death-defying, wolf defeating Body and Blood of Jesus, our Good Shepherd, which bestowed unto him life and salvation through faith. And he did have faith. He believed. Lorenz lamented his sin, his various struggles with temptation and he hated it. It grieved him in body and soul. And he knew it grieved his Father in heaven. He wanted to do better. And he trusted in the love and mercy of his great good Shepherd, the true Physician of his eternal soul, for the healing balm of His glorious wounds.

What then of this? Of his death? We are taught to pray, again from the Lord’s Prayer, for a “blessed end;” a “good death.” What of suicide?

I cannot mince words. I’m sorry. Suicide is a sin.

But it is a sin which is died for by Christ Jesus, the Good Shepherd, who laid down His life for the sheep. He died for all sin. Pride, anger, adultery, murder, lust, envy, covetousness, idolatry, hatred, lies, slander, gossip, drunkenness, suicide. All of it. Died for by Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

For Christ Jesus died a good death, a blessed death, a noble death. That is what it means to be the Good Shepherd, the Noble Shepherd, who lays down His life for the sheep. This is the authority He has been given by His Father. No one takes His life from Him. He lays it down willingly. He owns the sheep. He cares for them. He sees the wolf coming and instead of running away, He runs toward the enemy, and He gives His own life for them.

The Lamb the sheep has ransomed. The Good Shepherd stuffed the wolf’s disgusting gullet with His own flesh and blood. He stopped the deranged howling of that cruel beast. How? Not with sword or spear, gun or knife. But by offering Himself as a tasty treat for the enemy of His flock. As a defenseless Lamb, laden with the sin of the world, forsaken by His Father, friends, and family. The wolf cannot resist. He swallows Him whole. Chomps down the Shepherd in sheep’s clothing. And he thinks he has won.

But the Lord, our Good Shepherd, burst open the belly of the beast. He emerges victorious. Death is defeated. Satan is conquered. The victory remains with the Good Shepherd who gives abundant life. St Paul writes, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor 15:54-57). Or here to the Romans, we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.

Buffeted and assaulted on all sides, afflicted and torment, in tribulation and distress. Scattered as sheep separated from the Voice of their Shepherd. And truly Lorenz was afflicted, tormented, in distress, scattered.

But the Lord Himself is his Good Shepherd, who laid down His life for him. He sought Lorenz out, first as an infant, when his mother and father brought him to the font, and our Lord Christ bestowed upon Lorenz the heavenly and holy gift of Baptism. There God the Father adopted Lorenz as his own beloved son. For faith is not an act of the will, whether in confidence or distress, good times or bad. And Holy Baptism is not the first act of obedience or merely an outward sign of an inward belief.
Becky, you remember how we walked through the great and wonderful promises and heavenly gift that is Holy Baptism that sad night. You are reminded of it today as we placed the funeral pall over Lorenz’s body. He was baptized into Christ’s death, buried with Him. He shall be raised with Him. God’s promises hold true, even when Lorenz was weak; especially when he was weak.

It is true that at times Lorenz was like the prodigal son, wandering far from home, squandering his heavenly inheritance, but never forgetting his true Father’s House, returning in sorrow and contrition, repentance and faith, to be welcomed home, no string’s attached, as the lost son.

His baptismal identity holds true. Lorenz is a beloved child of his heavenly Father; a dear lamb of his Good Shepherd; sought and found, brought home.

Does this mean once saved always saved? No. Such a tradition of men is untenable and not a promise from God. But it means that Christ Jesus knows the sufferings and doubts of His dear lambs. He knows the weakness of His sheep; that they are terrified in heart and conscience by the howl of the wolf. He knows His own and His own know Him. And there is your comfort in the face of evil death. Christ Jesus, the Good Shepherd, knows His own. He baptized Lorenz. He drown him in His own death for sin - in this very font. He buried Lorenz with Himself and raised him again. Baptism is His authority and work. Not ours. His promises hold true. Even for Lorenz.

God is for him and He is for you. Who can be against you? He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all - including Lorenz - how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things? He shall give you comfort and peace, hope and joy. So many questions. Feelings of doubt and fear, anger and depression. All the answers to His promises are yes and amen in Christ Jesus, the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep.

And He takes it up again. That is, He is raised from the dead, never to die again. This is an Easter triumph and joy that sin and death cannot overcome.

Becky, Junior, Kurt, family and friends of Lorenz, I don’t have all the answers to your questions, but I know this: here is your solace and peace; here, within the fold and flock of the Good Shepherd, within His Church, is where you hear His Voice and follow Him. Here, in the midst of things you cannot understand, He gives you to believe and find comfort in the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.

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

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

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Exaudi

Ascension of Our Lord

Rogate

Cantate

Jubilate

Christian Funeral: Lorenz O. List

Pr. Seth A Mierow

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