Beautiful Feet - 5th Sunday after Penetecost

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, July 13^th, A+D 2025
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, South Dakota
Beautiful Feet

Grace Mercy, and peace to you from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 

   Beauty is seen with the ear. 

   So, this is a Higher Things conference-week sermon, which always presents a number of special challenges.  As usual, there are lots of things we could talk about in our readings, from the good Samaritan, to the lofty language of Colossians, to that review of the law and we heard in the Old Testament.  There’s also lots of thoughts and ideas for teaching, swirling around in my head from the worship and the preaching and the singing and the teaching that went on at the Higher Things conference at Concordia University in Seward, NE.  And of course, I could just talk about Joy and Bergen, Sonja and Logan.  But that wouldn’t be all that interesting cause they pretty much just behaved wonderfully, and we had a great time,

   Higher Things conferences are all about the truth of Christ’s Gospel.  What is the truth of His gospel? What is the real reality of that good news?  This morning, we are going to consider this, not by using anything in particular from Higher Things, or even from our three readings, although we will get into them eventually.  But, I want to focus on the Gradual that I read between the Old Testament and Epistle readings.  Particularly, on that first line:  “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news.” This comes from Paul in Romans 10 who gets it from Isaiah in chapter 52.  As a good Lutheran will do, we will simply ask the question. “What does this mean?”  What exactly did Paul and Isaiah mean by this?

   It’s helpful perhaps to break it down a little bit, so maybe the first question we could ask is who brings the good news?  Well, that’s the Sunday school answer, isn’t it? It’s Jesus.  But not just Jesus.  Jesus and those who are with Him are the ones who bring the good news, each according to his or her vocation.   Jesus’ vocation, His calling from the Father is to be the one and only Savior.  The Apostles special calling from Jesus is to be the foundation stones of the Church, and to record the Scripture of the New Testament. There are also pastors, and deacons and missionaries. They have special callings to be good-news-bearers.  There are also parents, who are called to bear the good news to their children.  There’s all the family members, as we speak the gospel to each other.  And friends and coworkers, and wherever God places us.  Every Christian has a calling to speak of Jesus and to give the reason for the hope that we have. 

   But as we think about that, and as we think about all the people who God calls to speak the good news, we do need to ask the question: “Are our feet really all that beautiful to look at?”  Even just consider the feet of Jesus the Savior Himself.  He walked around in sandals in the dust, his feet undoubtably weren’t really all that great to look at.  So, what are Isaiah and Paul trying to tell us when they say that those feet truly are beautiful? 

   All the feet of those who bring the good news are beautiful, of course, because of the message, because that’s how things work in this fallen world.  If we want something truly be beautiful, especially for an eternal basis, we need to apply that Gospel, the Good News to it.  And so the beauty of their feet is heard in the ear of their hearers. 

   So, we know who’s bringing the good news and how it is that their feet are beautiful.  But, what is this Gospel? What is this Good News?  Now we might take for granted that we all know the answer.  I think all too often that does happen, and so we again and again we repeat the answer, being very careful to guard this truth. What is this good news? Well, of course this good news is the way of salvation.  It is expressed in many ways in the Scriptures.  At our youth conference this last week, it was spoken of in terms of Jesus making All Things New.  All that is broken and ruined in this fallen world, including us, will be made new.  This is the Way of salvation.

   How does it work?  Here we get into the challenges of living in this world as a sinner, even living in this world as a redeemed sinner: it’s natural for us to wonder about how the way of salvation works.  We worry about how that way of salvation works because the threats of the Lord‘s law are serious, they are eternal.  It is Natural to be like that lawyer, and to wonder how it is that this way of salvation comes to us.  The lawyer is even a more obvious example of the way that we all are somewhere in the back of our minds.  Even though we are baptized believers we still like to think that we must do something to earn salvation. The lawyer asked specifically, what must I do to inherit eternal life. We have the thought in our heads that we must be required to do something.  Certainly it can’t be for free.

   All of these ways that we wonder and worry about our salvation reflect our gut expectation that we must earn it in some fashion.  This is our expectation because that’s simply the way that daily life works. Life works this way no matter what area you want to talk about: you must do and give in order to receive. There is no free lunch in this world.  If you want to be successful at work, you must work hard. If you want to do well at school you must follow the rules and do good work.  If you want to be loved by your neighbors, you should love them first.  This is how this world works, and there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with this.  It’s quite fair that we should do something to earn something.

   There is nothing intrinsically wrong or unfair about this arrangement, but there is a big problem, of course, which is that sin infects us. Our sin has ruined this way of doing and receiving that is really completely fine.  If sin had not entered into the world, we would naturally do things in love for our neighbors and we naturally receive back from them all that we needed.  But what we do naturally now is not so wonderful.  What we do naturally now is try to get and not to give.  What we do naturally now is to be selfish and not to be loving as God has called us to be. We know we can’t do it and yet we still haven’t lost the idea of self-justification. It’s just that the ability to achieve that justification, that rightness with God, this we do not have.

   So you might ask the question why, then, since we can’t achieve this justification, since we can’t justify ourselves, why does God still say so much about us doing the right things?  Why does he spend chapter after chapter and Exodus and Leviticus giving rules for how Israel was to live, not to mention Jesus and Matthew chapter five and six, not to speak of many other places. 

   Why does God call us to do so much, as we see in the Old Testament reading?  Don’t glean your fields right up to the corners and you leave some crop behind for the poor and you love your neighbor as yourself and you do good to him. It’s really a description of true social justice discussed, of how God‘s people should live together, discussed in our Old Testament reading.  In our epistle Paul talks about calling the Christians to live in a manner worthy of the calling that you’ve received.  Even after we become Christians we still have that burden of a certain way to live.  Why does God keep bringing this up, when He knows that we can’t achieve it? 

   Well first of all God speaks about how we should be and how we should live because it’s good and right.  This is the blessed life: to love your neighbor as yourself and to love God above all things.  It’s good and right, and the closer we can come to it, the better life in this world will be.  But, most importantly, God speaks about His law and His requirements and how we should live because we have to be separated from that innate idea, that false hope, that we can justify ourselves.  And, in this regard, Jesus’ exchange with the self-justifying lawyer is a wondrous thing.  It is maybe the best example in all of scripture of Jesus separating a self-righteous person from that false idea, that false hope. 

   I want to read again just the first paragraph of our gospel reading.      And behold, a lawyer stood up to put [Jesus] to the test, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" [26] He said to him, "What is written in the Law? How do you read it?" [27] And he answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." [28] And he said to him, "You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live."

   God‘s expectation for the way that all people should live, summarized clearly and perfectly, from the word of Moses quoted by this Jewish lawyer.  But the lawyer can’t just accept it.  He wants to justify himself.  I think there’s a partial admission in what he says next that did he know he really couldn’t do it, that he really didn’t have the ability to love his neighbor as himself.  Certainly his next words give proof that he doesn’t have the heart that God requires, the heart that naturally loves what God loves and wants to help all those around him.  He hears God‘s command to love his neighbor as himself, he even speaks God’s command, but He wants it to be limited. He wants to cut it down. He’s willing to try hard to love his neighbor, but he wants that list of neighbors to be a little narrower.  So he asks, “Who is my neighbor.” Can I cut it down to people I like?  Can I limit it to people who are easy to love? 

   He hasn’t heard the beauty of Jesus words. So, Jesus takes it farther and responds with the story of the good Samaritan.  In this story Jesus is of course, giving an example of a wonderful person who gives selflessly to someone he doesn’t even know.  But, most importantly, Jesus ratchets up the requirement. Jesus makes it clear to the lawyer, and to us, just how difficult, just how expensive is God‘s call for us to love our neighbors. Jesus even goes on to disparage people that we would naturally think are holy and good.  A priest, who serves at the altar of God’s Temple, and the Levite, whose whole life is dedicated to taking care of that Temple. They are of no use. They’re not good neighbors.  Neither of them measured up to God‘s command to love their neighbor as himself.  They had excuses, probably, they didn’t want to become unclean before they served.  But God wants people to be saved. He’s not as concerned about perfection in his temple as he is about the perfection of love. 

   Jesus then goes on to paint the picture of a truly righteous man, and rub it in a little more.  He uses the example of a Samaritan as the righteous one who is the good neighbor.  This is extra hard, because the Jews hated the Samaritans.  As you might remember, the Jews and the Samaritans were cousins, the Samaritans are the leftover Jews from the 10 tribes of Israel, who were exiled from their land.  Most of them were exiled into a Assyria, and disappeared.  But, some were left behind in the land, and  intermarried with the pagans around them.  Then they took the teaching of Moses and they contorted and twisted it so they had a version of the Jewish faith of the faith of Israel, but everything was changed around.  The Jews hated their half-blood cousins.  So, to twist the knife, Jesus chooses a Samaritan and lifts him up as the one who truly loves his neighbor.  This is the standard: not just loving your family, not just loving people you like, not just loving people who are difficult to love.  Love also strangers, you’re your enemies, love people who are dying.  This is much harder, because they will require a lot out of you.  Jesus says, “do whatever it takes to love the people that God puts in front of you in your life.” This is the standard Jesus teachers. 

   After revealing what a good Samaritan does, and Jesus turns to the lawyer and asks: “Which of these three proved to be a neighbor to the man who was dying on the side of the road.”  We notice the lawyer couldn’t even say the name Samaritan.  He simply says the one who showed mercy.  Well, Jesus allows this weak answer, this avoidance of saying the name, because He is now going for the kill-shot: “You go and do likewise.”

   Did you see the Gospel with your ear in this story? Did you hear any good news in what Jesus said to the lawyer?  That’s the question we started with, what exactly is the Good News? What is this message of salvation?

   One character in the story certainly receive good news, right?  The man lying half dead on the side of the road, he received a free gift.  He was about to die, and a stranger comes and rescue him, washes his wounds with oil and wine, binds him up and puts him on his own animal, to carry him to an inn, and takes care of him.  He provides for his future care and promises to come back and take care of him again.  So the wounded and the wounded man, he’s the one who certainly received good news.  In this we see that the Samaritan is not only lifted up by Jesus as an example of how you should fulfill the law of loving your neighbor, but Jesus is also of course giving us a picture of Himself, a demonstration of the gospel.

   The good news is that Jesus is your Good Samaritan, the one who was rejected by his own people, by the people of Israel, by His own Jewish tribe.  But he came and is the good Samaritan who came and found you and me half dead on the side of the road.  He did all that it took to save us.  He took our wounds and our sins and our problems on Himself and carried them to His cross to wash them away forever.  And He has come to you and to me.  He has washed you at the font. He’s healed you of all your wounds.  He carried you to an inn, giving you a place to be safe in his love until He returns.  That place of course is His church, a place to be gathered and continue to be served by Jesus our Good Samaritan.  So, Jesus truly is the one with beautiful feet. Jesus truly is the one who has given this good news in His own life, death and resurrection.  And then has He has His good news carried on to others.

   Our feet may not be all that attractive; we don’t need to test that out.  But the feet of every gospel speaker are beautiful for what they bring to our ears and for what you bring to the ears of others.  Beauty is seen in the ear of the one who hears what our Good Samaritan has done for us and for all people.  Hear this, see this: you have been washed, you have been cleansed, you have been healed. You have been carried to the inn that is the church of God, given a place to wait for His return.  So, you can rejoice, you can rest, and you too can serve your neighbor because you know that your Good Samaritan to serve you perfectly, in the Name of Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.  

God's Comfort - Sermon for the 4th Sunday after Pentecost

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
July 6^th, Year of Our + Lord 2025
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, South Dakota
God’s Comfort 
Isaiah 66:10-14, Galatians 6:1-18, Luke 10:1-20

Audio of Sermon available HERE.

   "Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all you who love her; rejoice with her in joy, all you who mourn over her; that you may nurse and be satisfied from her consoling breast; that you may drink deeply with delight from her glorious abundance."

   God is not shy with the metaphors He chooses.  He equates His promised salvation with the comfort of a nursing baby, drinking his fill, satisfied and safe in his mother’s arms.  I don’t talk like this; do you?   And yet, I think we all get it.  We all understand the intensity of the comfort the LORD describes through the image of a nursing infant. 

   How is it that we all understand?  Is it merely by observation?  Is it simply that we have all seen a baby nursing and immediately could sense the intensity, comfort and beauty of the connection between mother and child?  Or is it more personal?  We don’t remember nursing, but is there somewhere in our brains a hidden memory of our infant experience, that infuses our thoughts and emotions so thoroughly that we nod knowingly at this passage from Isaiah?    

   Lisa Smith delivered her twins a couple weeks ago, Carlee June and Claude August.  Everything was going fine, and Shelee’s family was in town, so I didn’t go right over to see them.  But I was thinking about getting to meet them, and now so are most of you.  I was eager to go see the babies, and talk to Elliot about his new baby sister and brother.  And now I have received one of the many perks of the office of the ministry, as I was able to visit the Smiths last Thursday.  Elliot wasn’t around, but Carlee and Claude wrapped their tiny fingers around mine and slept beautifully, as Lisa, her mom and I discussed plans for their Baptism.  It had been a while since I’d been around newborns, and twins to boot.  They are a wonder.      

   The eager anticipation so many of us feel at the opportunity to meet a newborn goes along with our innate grasp of the LORD’s nursing infant metaphor.  There is something precious and miraculous and peaceful about a new human being, born into this world, precious, miraculous and peaceful at the same time it is stressful and messy and frightening.  Parenting newborns is both one of the hardest parts of life, and also the very best. 

   Of course, not everyone is so comfortable and enthused about interacting with infants.  As a youngest child, I didn’t get to learn all about it on a younger sibling, so 12 to 20 year old David was not so eager, not so poetic, not so comfortable around infants.  And that’s o.k., as long as we don’t stay stuck there.  For the good of our souls and the future of our nation, not to mention the growth of the Church, everyone should learn how to hold and care for a baby, because this is how we learn to love them.  And loving babies makes us more like God. 

   Inexperience is a legitimate reason to not be enthused around infants.  They are tiny and fragile and it takes a bit to learn how to hold and care for them.  But there are darker reasons people avoid babies.  Infants force us to stop focusing on ourselves and give them our attention.  Babies, with all their needs, inconvenience us from time to time.  Infants, which we have all been, may remind us that we were once helpless.  For those who think it through, infants also remind us of the return to increasing dependency that we will all experience, if we live long enough.  As we gather two days after the 249^th anniversary of the founding of the United States of America, the virtues of independence, freedom and autonomy all ring in our ears.  Does a red-blooded American want to be like a helpless nursing infant?  Are we too proud to embrace the reality of our need, of our dependence on God? 

   You don’t need to answer me.  But this is precisely the problem that Jesus diagnoses in the three Galilean villages of Chorazin, Bethsaida and His second hometown of Capernaum.  All too many proud Jews, Jesus’ own people, rejected the saving message of Christ, precisely because He was describing the saved like needy newborn babies. 

   It’s not just that Jesus’ hearers were confused by His teaching on Baptism, like the Pharisee Nicodemus was, when he came to Jesus at night to learn from Him.  Upon hearing about the new birth of Baptism, Nicodemus asks, “How can one be born again, can he crawl back into his mother’s womb?”  (John 3)  Impossible!  Uncomfortable to think about.  Nicodemus was confused, but many Jews understood, consciously or unconsciously, that the Gospel Jesus preached was offensive in what it says about human capacity and goodness.  The way Jesus taught, always laying bear the sinfulness of all His hearers, pointing to His Cross as the solution, and promoting the helplessness of a newborn as the ideal of true faith in God, this teaching was and still is offensive, for what it says about mankind, about you, and me, and every descendent of Adam.  Jesus declares that we utterly lack capacity to make ourselves right  before God.  And that stings our pride.        

   Many of His countrymen, by and large quite religious people, were nevertheless offended by Jesus and His doctrine.  So, most rejected Him.  Pride-of-self, confidence in one’s own goodness, is the great danger to the religious.  Self-righteousness can lead us to reject God’s miracles, to reject His true messengers, and to finally twist His teaching, His Law and His Gospel, distorting them into a horrible lie that condemns both the proud teacher and his hearers. 

   And comparing the faithful to helpless newborns is not the end of God’s scandalous teaching.  Jesus takes it further, all the way up a rocky hill to a Roman Cross.  Jesus’ death is the ultimate condemnation of humanity, the ultimate pride-crusher.  Here is what we deserve.  Here is what it takes to save the likes of you and me, the necessary solution for every sinner. 

    In terms of achieving God’s standards and making ourselves righteous, we are helpless, like newborns.  But it’s even worse, of course.  We are not only helpless, we are culpable.  We are guilty; we are by nature enemies of God.  We have absolutely no room to boast. 

    Except.  Paul, after calling the Galatians to humility and selflessness, exhorting them to gently restore each other when anyone falls into transgression and sin, goes on to deny the right for the Christian to boast, with one exception.  But far be it from me to boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. 

    The “upside-down-ed-ness” of the Gospel flips our perspective again, as the very thing that most crushes our pride-of-self becomes the one thing that we rightly boast of: God did that, for me.  Christ Jesus went through that, to have me for His very own.  The victory of the Cross and the Resurrection, this is the gift that God delivers to me, delivered to me in my Baptism, renewed each time I confess my sins and hear His forgiving Word of Absolution, received in my mouth in the mystery of the Holy Supper.

    It is painful to hear and accept the truth about our sin, our unworthiness.  It is also hard to believe the forgiving message of the Cross, that the same God who hates our sin and promises just punishment, also took our sin upon Himself, in order to comfort us with His mercy and love.  Hard to believe, but joyful to trust, an eternal comfort we begin to rely upon, once the message remakes and restores us.  This Gospel message is recorded throughout the Bible, in words like “He who knew no sin became sin for us, so that, in Him, we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21) 

    And again, “for the joy set before Him, (the joy of having you for His very own), Christ Jesus endured the Cross, despising the shame, and (resurrected from the dead and ascended on high, He) has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:2)  Or again, “this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and gave His Son as the propitiation, (the atoning sacrifice), for our sin.” (1 John 4:10)

    This is the promise that gives us sinners comfort, comfort like that of a nursing newborn, cradled in her mother’s arms.  This is peace like a river, the promise that both changes our eternity, and our today.  Knowing and resting in the comfort of Christ, floating in the river of His peace, means both that our destination is the glory of paradise, and also that our current days are changed.  For we still live in this world, with all its problems and failures, but we are also alive, already, in the world to come.  For we are joined to the risen Christ by Baptismal Faith. 

    Now, here’s a question: This life, lived in the comfort of the Gospel, the life lived floating on an innertube down God’s River of Peace, what does this life look like?  Well, the life that flows from the Cross looks a lot like the life lived by the One who went to the Cross, on our behalf. 

    Life floating in the River of God’s Peace looks humble.  Christ Jesus, the Son of God, humbled Himself and entered this messy world, in order to save it.  So also Christians are necessarily humble, for our salvation is not our achievement.  We live humbly, and we live in this messy world, as long as our Lord desires, knowing that each day is another day of grace for us, and another day God would love others through us, always seeking to draw them toward Jesus with the Word of hope.  And that Word is best received when the speaker proclaims in humility, not from arrogance or superiority. 

    The life of Christian comfort is thankful: Our Savior gave thanks as He transformed the Passover into the Holy Supper.  At the Last Supper, Jesus spoke of and made promises based on His own suffering and death, which would begin in just a few hours.  A serious and frightful moment, anything but comfortable.  And yet Jesus, at that moment, gives thanks, before He breaks the bread.  He gives thanks before He blesses the Cup.  Jesus was thankful, even on the night when He was betrayed, because the salvation of sinners is the desire of God. 

   So also, Christians live thankfully, for we know more than anyone just how much our God has done for and given to us unworthy sinners.  Christian life is the thankful life, and is especially the life that returns regularly to the thankfulness meal, the Eucharist (that’s what that funny word for the Lord’s Supper means, give thanks, thanksgiving). 

   The life lived floating in God’s River of Peace is gentle.  For God did not treat us with the severity that we deserved; rather He has treated us with the gentleness of a mother, caring for her newborn.  So also we are gentle, especially when our calling includes restoring a brother or sister in Christ who has fallen into error, or when we are called to speak the truth in love to an unbeliever.  We speak the truth, in love, with gentleness and respect, seeking to prepare the soil, that the Holy Spirit might plant a seed of faith. 

   The Christian life is a life that flows from receiving God’s comfort, and then flows into sharing that comfort with others.  And so St. Peter exhorts us: like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation. (1 Peter 2:2)  And Paul teaches us that God comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. ⁵ For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ.  (1 Cor 1:4-5)  

   As Americans, just two days out from the 4^th of July, we may or may not struggle with God’s choice of the nursing infant metaphor.  But perhaps the LORD knows our need better than we do.  Which brings us to the 72.  Luke helpfully includes this bit of Gospel history, establishing the fact that the pastoral ministry which the Apostles of Jesus established was not an idea the Apostles dreamed up. 

   After Christ ascended to God’s right hand, the Apostles went out and preached the Gospel.  As the Spirit converted unbelievers, the Apostles planted churches.  Peter, Paul and the rest of men whom Christ chose as foundation stones for His Church then started appointing other Christian men to serve as pastors, deacons and missionaries.  Through this work, along with their writing of the New Testament, the Apostles ensured that the ministry Christ had established would go on after they died, and they established its form.  There is a challenge in this, however, if you only read Matthew, Mark or John’s Gospel, because they don’t tell us that Jesus instituted a ministry beyond the 12.   Now, that He desired this is implicit in much of what Christ taught.  Still, it is a blessing that Luke included the explicit event, when Jesus chose 72 others, not to be Apostles, but yes to be missionaries, evangelists and preachers, serving in the same tasks as the 12.  And indeed, Jesus gives the highest endorsement of their ministry, telling the 72, “he who hears you, hears Me.” 

   This was a needed endorsement, because the chosen spokesmen for God are never all that impressive.  After all, the LORD only has sinners to work with.  Nevertheless, God chooses to work, with authority, through His Word, spoken through the feeble and fault-filled men who occupy the pastoral office. 

    The 72, like the 12, are called into a great adventure, proclaiming God’s coming kingdom, healing, casting out demons, preparing the way of the Lord.  They go speaking peace, for the comfort of every soul they encounter, a peace that is real, and freely given, but too often rejected.  They do great things, by the Holy Spirit’s power, and upon their return, they are rightly excited.  But, as we began today talking about comfort, worked for us by God, so also, Jesus concludes this passage about the 72 with the most comforting advice, for them, and for us. 

    After they regaled Jesus with their exploits, and after Jesus celebrates the fall of Satan, caused by their preaching, He then points the 72 back to the proper reason for joy, the real comfort of every Christian.  “Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”   This is the true comfort and joy of every Christian. 

    And how did names of the 72 get written in heaven?  How did your name get written in heaven?  Not by your hand, to be sure, but by the nail-scarred hands of Jesus, writing in blood to reserve your place with Him, forever.  This is our true comfort, in good days and bad, and also the Good News that sets us free to speak of Christ and share His love. 

 Let us pray:  Merciful God, grant us faith and wisdom to rest like nursing babes in the comfort of the promises you have given to us in Christ Jesus, today, and forever and ever, Amen.      

 

Dressed for Life, Clothed in Christ. Sermon for the 2nd Sunday after Pentecost

 Second Sunday after Pentecost, June 22^nd, A+D 2025
Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches 
Custer and Hill City, South Dakota
Dressed for Life, Clothed in Christ

   What are you wearing today?  Did you spend a lot of time deciding and preparing what to put on to come to church?  Or did you grab the first clean outfit you saw?  Are you happy with the way you look in your clothes? 

   Popular sayings about clothing abound.  In the 16^th century Erasmus of Rotterdam coined the Latin phrase: “Vestis virum facit,” which gives us the saying “the clothes make the man.”  Similarly, ZZ Top taught us that “every girl’s crazy ‘bout a sharp dressed man.”  And there’s the mantra of wedding planners everywhere: “It’s all about the dress.”  Clothes matter.  In the Year of Our + Lord 2025 the decline of formality in Western culture means flip-flops, shorts, spandex and sweat pants are now worn almost everywhere.  But still, most people are concerned with the message their clothes communicate, even if that message is: “I’m too cool to worry about fashion.” 

   Read your Bible with your ear tuned to textiles, and you’ll realize proper clothing is a big deal to God, too.  Outside the Garden, after the Fall, the LORD Himself became the first true clothing designer, and also began the chain of sacrifices that would lead to the once-for-all sacrifice of Calvary.  Adam and Eve’s pitiful attempt to make coverings out of leaves would not suffice.  Unnamed animals gave their lives, as God made clothing to cover the shame and nakedness of the now sinful man and woman.  From that dark day forward, proper clothing has been a primary need for all of us. 

   In the Law of Moses we hear much about clothes, including some commands that are strange to us, such as the prohibition against mixing linen and wool.  And of course, the LORD specifically warned against men dressing to try to look like women, and women dressing to look like men.  (Deuteronomy 22:5-11)  You are who God made you to be, which is a gift, even in this fallen world.  The grateful creature dresses the part God has given him or her. 

   Aaron and the priests who followed him in service in the LORD’s Tabernacle and Temple were covered in rich, complicated and endlessly symbolic clothing, to cover their bodies in such a way to enable them to properly serve in the LORD’s house.  (Exodus 39)  This priestly clothing was a foreshadowing of the robes of righteousness that God would provide to all His people.  (Isaiah 61)  Clothing matters to God, but ultimately the rules about physical clothing point us to a greater reality.  As Jesus said, Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; but I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. ²⁸ But if God so clothes the grass in the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, how much more will He clothe you? You men of little faith! (Luke 12:27-28) The God who provides us with the clothing we need today has richer garb in mind for us. 

   And yet, in this life, proper clothing is essential.  Indeed, taking away the gift of being able to properly clothe oneself is high on the list of the tortures the Legion of demons inflicted on the man from Gerasene.  As much as current society idealizes nudity and near-nudity, in the real world, nakedness is a problem.  Ever since Adam’s sin filled the world with thorns and sharp-edged rocks, it hasn’t been great to try to navigate life with too much exposed skin.  The sun which gives life can also burn and blister us.  When winter defeats the warmth of the sun, exposed skin is threatened by frostbite and worse.   

   On a sandy beach, or pool-side, or in the climate-control of a cowboy bar or a nightclub , we can get away with being out-and-about with most of our skin exposed.  Sort of.  But setting aside the spiritual issues of wearing too little, what if you can’t get out of the sun, or you need to work, to search for food, run away from danger, or just weed-whack the yard?  To do these things with little or no clothes invites a lot of pain.  Sun burn, poison ivy, scrapes, cuts and bug bites, not to mention cat-calls, taunts and worse threats from evil people: being caught out in the world with insufficient clothing is a problem.   

   And so we pity the demon-possessed man, living naked, amongst the tombs outside Gerasene.  Perhaps in his more peaceful moments, kind-hearted neighbors, who were also no doubt tired of seeing his nakedness, brought him something to wear.  But then the Legion overpowered him again, and the man tore his clothes to shreds.  Naked and tormented, living among the dead, it seems the Gerasene Demoniac’s life offers us a little picture of Hell.

   We wear clothes because our skin is easily wounded, and for the sake of modesty.  To deny the importance of clothing is to deny the reality of this fallen world.  All people have ample reason to dress properly.  And, as Christians, we have access to deeper wisdom, which shapes the way we clothe ourselves.   For we know that sin and the trouble it brings are real, and that clothing is a gift from God to help mitigate their effects.  But we also know that we have been redeemed by God, our souls and our bodies are precious to Him.  In our Baptisms we have “put on” Christ, literally, “clothed ourselves in Him.”  So also, in Christ we have the promise that someday we will be re-made, body and soul.  We will spend eternity rejoicing over the reunion of our souls and our bodies, made perfect in heaven.  The promise of this future glory also shapes the way we dress today. 

   How do Christians dress?  What kinds of clothing do we avoid as Christians?  Well, by faith in Jesus, our minds are renewed, and so, as with the rest of our lives, we seek to reflect His Way in the way we dress.  We might wear a Cross, a Baptismal shell, or a Luther Rose pin as a decoration that confesses the Gospel. 

   We avoid dressing in ways that make statements contrary to Christ and His teaching.  Intentionally taking on the appearance of evil?  Displaying the symbols of false religions or old fashioned paganism?  No, not for us.  A Christian’s clothing does not celebrate death or violence.  If we choose to have words on our clothes, we consider what those words communicate.  And Christians, male and female, avoid dressing in sexually provocative ways. 

   I’m not suggesting we need to go around in gunny sacks, nor that Christians shouldn’t seek to look good.  Young women of all ages will continue to be beautiful, and young men will continue to be handsome.  Putting beautiful clothes on the wonderful bodies God has given us is good and right, within reason.  But Christian wisdom puts limits on the way we display our God-given beauty to the world.  For we know that the beauty of the human body is closely tied to sexuality, and sexuality is a gift that God has given for one man and one woman to celebrate within marriage. 

   If our clothes, worn by men or women, are too form-fitting, or if we expose too much of our bodies, we are taking something that is meant to be private, and making it public.  Christians are wise to protect the privacy of the things God has given to be shared in the one-flesh relationship of man and wife.  Christians rightly dress for the public with their spouses in mind, either the person whom they have already married, or the husband or wife you don’t know yet. 

   This guidance is helpful for those married now, or for those who will be married someday.  And, at a deeper level, it is also wisdom for every Christian, even for those who God never calls into the vocation of marriage.  All of us can and should shape all our choices, including our clothing choices, thinking of our heavenly Bridegroom, Jesus Christ.  We dress as Christians because we are redeemed, wise, and free, all because of the surprising clothing choices that our Bridegroom made, with us in mind. 

   God’s Son made His first surprise clothing choice when He dressed Himself in human flesh.  The eternal Son laid aside the glory of heaven, and dressed Himself to be our Brother.  He was the “new wine, found in the cluster” that Isaiah spoke of.  Our Old Testament reading started with the LORD’s frustration and anger at His people Israel, who continually failed to fulfill their call to be God’s faithful people. 

   Still, as Isaiah concluded this morning, despite her idolatries, God never abandoned or destroyed all of Israel.  The LORD spared Israel, despite her habit of putting on the shabby outfits of whatever idols her neighbors worshiped.  God spared Israel because of the “new wine, found in the cluster.”  This is Isaiah’s poetic way of referring to God’s irrevocable choice to take the human nature of the Savior from the descendants of Abraham.  The Nation of Israel had been adorned as a Bride by the LORD, favored beyond all nations, chosen to be the people from whom God would take on human flesh, as He fulfilled His promise to crush the serpent’s head.  Not even Israel’s serial unfaithfulness could prevent the LORD from fulfilling this Promise.   

   After He took on human flesh and was born of the Virgin Mary, God’s Son, Jesus continually suffered in His body.  Born in a barn, His first outfit was swaddling clothes, and He had a feed trough for a crib.  Jesus exposed His body to the elements, as He fled with Joseph and Mary to Egypt, to escape the murderous jealousy of Herod.  Growing up as a builder’s son likely meant Jesus knew what it was to work in dirty, sweaty clothes. 

   As He began His ministry, Jesus exposed Himself to the temptations of Satan, and then lived as a wandering preacher, with no home in which to rest His head.  He touched lepers and had intimate conversations to save prostitutes.  He stripped down like a servant boy to wash His disciples gnarly feet, on the night when He was betrayed. 

   He exposed His divine skin to torture, and was dressed in royal robes so the Roman soldiers could mock Him.  Finally, He was stripped naked, His clothes becoming booty for His executioners.  He was crucified, His uncovered body nailed to a tree, for us, and for all mankind.  Hanging on the Cross, He was exposed to the sun, to the world, to more mocking and shame.  Then He was exposed to the darkness, and to the unimaginable fury of God the Father’s wrath against human sin.

   He did all this, so that you could be clothed in His righteousness, in your Baptism.  His naked suffering takes away your shame.  His innocent death takes away your sin and guilt.  The shameful and unjust way He was treated results in your honor, as God through Jesus claims you as His beloved child, by the washing of water with the Word.  His new life, in which sin, death and hell have been defeated, is His gift to you.  The story of shame turned into glory, the life Christ lived for you, this becomes the shape of your new life, the clothing of your new, redeemed reality.  It is also the subject of the best gift you can give to anyone: to help them hear of the clothing choices Jesus made, and to put them on in Holy Baptism. 

   All that Jesus has done for you and all sinners is foreshadowed in the freeing of the demon-possessed man from Gerasene.  After the expulsion of the Legion of demons, we find him clothed and in his right mind, eager to follow and serve Jesus, who had defeated all his demons.  Our problem with sin and the devil and his demons may not seem as dramatic as that of the man from Gerasene.  But we are no more capable of defeating the devil on our own.  And so, in mercy and love, what Jesus did for him, He does for all sinners who hear and are rescued by His powerful Word of forgiveness. 

   Consider the new life we see in the man from Gerasene, after Jesus rescued him.  He stays close to Jesus.  He gladly accepts the gift of good clothes, both for covering his body, and also the gift of being clothed, covered, justified, by the Righteousness of Christ Jesus.  Denied his desire to follow Jesus in His ministry, he goes home and follows his Lord’s instruction, telling the whole city what Jesus had done for him.    

   Jesus has eternally new clothes for us.  His infinite righteousness, won at Calvary, and revealed at the Resurrection, has been shared with us, through the miracle of Holy Baptism.   

   You are clothed in Christ.  Your life is hidden and safe with God, because you are His heir, you are in His will, and His inheritance lasts forever.  You and all who trust in Christ will spend eternity in the perfect white robes of paradise.  Rejoice in your beautiful garments, today, and forever and ever.

In the Name of Jesus, Amen. 

The Glory of the Trinity - Sermon for Holy Trinity Sunday

Holy Trinity Sunday 2025     
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, SD
The Glory of the Trinity

   The last words I heard my father say were: “I’m sorry kids.”  My father was, in the words of my brother Bill, “the best dad.”  But he died just before Shelee and I got married.  His last words to us, from an emergency room bed, were an apology that his death would cast a shadow on our special day. 

   My father had, in many ways, spent his life making good things and special days possible for my mom and for us kids.  That his death would tarnish our wedding day made him sad.  His last words revealed that even as his earthly life drew to its end, his thoughts were not only for himself, but also for others.  What a way to go.     

   Now, my family, including my father, was, and is, far from perfect.  Like yours, I’m sure, there have been enough miscommunications, failures and fights to write a Netflix miniseries.  I remember hiding in the corner of the upstairs hallway, watching in awe as my two oldest brothers tried to punch each other senseless.  And don’t ask me about the way the youngest of us five siblings behaved towards his sister and brothers.      

   Nevertheless, there were times, by God’s grace, when you could see a wonderful family in us, as my father served my mother and us kids, as Mom served my father and us kids, and as we kids respected and obeyed and worked for our parents, and even occasionally loved and cared for each other.  It wasn’t ever perfect.  Sometimes the idyllic image of each member serving the others was all but invisible.  But sometimes you could see it. 

   My dad usually didn’t talk much, but he loved to work.  Sometimes he might say very little in the course of a day, but he was always accomplishing something for us.  My mom, on the other hand, loved to talk.  She served as the principal speaker of family plans and policies.  Mom and Dad made decisions together, and then Mom told us how things were going to be.  Dad backed her up. 

   So, we kids usually did what we were told, helping out around the house, at church, and wherever else being a Warner took us.  The result was many good things accomplished, and many special days enjoyed. 

   In a limited and imperfect way, the love of a good family offers us something of a picture of the Holy Trinity, especially as revealed through the Gospel of St. John.  Take a tour through John and pay attention to the words ‘glory’ and ‘glorify.’  You will discover that each person of the Trinity spends their time and energy glorifying the other two.  Like a family serving each other in order to share in good things and special days, John’s Gospel reveals a God where each of the three Persons, within His respective role, serves and glorifies the others. 

   The Father glorifies the Son, by giving all things to Him.  The Son glorifies the Father, by doing His will and speaking His Word.  The Spirit who comes out from the Father is the truth-teller.  Jesus says the Spirit will glorify Him, by reminding the Apostles of all Jesus has done.  Jesus does not speak from his own authority, and neither does the Spirit.  The Spirit takes from what belongs to Jesus, which in turn Jesus has received from the Father.  The mutual love and service of the Trinity is glorious.

   God is love, as each person of the One True God serves each other willingly, unselfishly, and joyfully.  And it is only from God, who is love, that life comes.  The Triune God creates and sustains us and all of creation, because to give, to love, to care for His creation, these things are of His nature. 

   We can begin to consider the nature and relationship of the Trinity by considering all that is best about human families.  But when we consider the perfect love of God, it becomes clear how and why this comparison falls short.  The love of our families falls short.  But, there is no failure to love, no failure to serve in God.  There is no bickering, there are no misunderstandings.  And most of all, in God there is no death to shatter the family. 

    My mom and dad were good parents, and we had a good family life, even though we had our sins and problems.  But eventually, even though I still needed them, my parents died.  They could not continue to serve my brothers and sister and me.   They could not continue to give us the love that we needed and desired.  All too soon, they died. 

   Everyone deals to some degree with a lack of love and care from their parents.  Sadly, some parents cannot or will not love and serve their kids. Sometimes it happens because parents die.  And, whether the need for love is acute, as in the case of a young child, or less outwardly pressing, as in the case of an adult child, still, the inability or failure by parents to serve and to love always hurts the child.

   God created the family as the safe place of love and care.  But, when parents fail to love and serve, and when children fail to honor their parents, loving, serving and cherishing them,  for whatever reason that human family love fails, the members of the family suffer pain.  We see how we fall far short of the perfection of the love of God, revealed in the Holy Trinity. 

   Now, all of this may strike you as an interesting problem to consider.  High and lofty ideas.  Interesting and high and lofty, until anger and fighting, failures and problems burst into our family life.  Most especially, illness and death remind us that falling short of the love of the Holy Trinity is not just an interesting problem.  The day to day threat of pain and suffering, the reality of fear, these can make us doubt the goodness of God.  

   There is a painful paradox that we learn when we have family problems, when we realize our failures, or when death touches us.  It is strange and sad that our families, which teach us to hope for love and life, are all too often also the source of our greatest sorrows.  The good we receive and the potential for good we see in our families makes more bitter the pain caused by our failures.  Because of hurts inflicted on each other, and because of sin and death, we fail to realize the potential we hope for in our families. 

   In this paradox of human family life we begin to see why there is a paradox in Jesus’ life.  Jesus came to show us the Father’s love, to reveal to us the Holy Trinity, to grant us the Holy Spirit, and to enable us to share in the glory of God.  But to do this, in order to give love and life to dying people, and to restore the family of God, the Son had to die in our place. 

   Ouch.  There is always this sharp edge to Jesus’ glory talk in John’s Gospel, because for Jesus, His glory is the Cross.  Jesus came to restore to us the love and life of God, by overcoming sin and death for us, on His cross.  He came to live and die in order to reveal to the Jews, and to all peoples, how deep and high and wide is the love of God.  So great is God’s love that He would give His only begotten Son into the Cross, so that whoever simply trusts in Him would not perish, but live, forever.  Whoever believes that God loved the world in this way will not perish, but will have eternal life, the eternal life that is God, and that God shares with His family. 

   To achieve His goal, to reach His glory, Jesus had to arrange for His own death, and in a particular way.  God’s plan was not for Jesus to be killed as an infant by Herod, nor to be stoned by a mob, nor to be thrown down the cliff of the hill that His hometown, Nazareth, was built upon.  No, Jesus needed to die under the condemnation of His own people, and in a very public execution, suffering under the worst punishment offered by the most powerful government on earth.  Cursed is everyone hung on a tree, declared Moses, (Deuteronomy 21:23) and so Jesus’ death had to be on a Roman Cross. 

   And so, the “just right” time for Jesus to come was when the Jewish people had warped the religion taught by Moses, turning the faith of Israel into salvation by their own works.  This corruption was most famously taught by the Pharisees, but it lurks within each one of us.  The “just right” time for Jesus to come also had to be when the Jews were not free.  The Jews of Jesus’ time, for all their culture and structure and self-importance, lacked the authority to execute their own heretics.  While mighty Rome ruled over the Holy Land and limited the freedom and authority of the Jews, while there was a Roman governor who restricted authority for capital punishment to himself, this was the right time. 

   Into this time came Jesus, God’s Son, hidden under the guise of a wandering rabbi.  The Jews were Jesus’ family, and should have welcomed Him.  But when our LORD preached against the errors of those most prominent itinerant teachers, the Pharisees, He made enemies.  When Jesus came, making Himself out to be greater than Moses, greater even, than Abraham, the great father of all God’s people Israel, Jesus was rejected by His kin.

    In a debate with the Jews, Jesus proclaims, “before Abraham was, I AM”.  I AM is the Name the Angel of the LORD revealed in the burning bush to Moses, the personal Name of God, that was so holy to the Hebrews, they stopped even pronouncing the Word, but replaced it with another when reading the Scriptures.  Jesus claims this Name for Himself, which is to say, He claimed that He, a man born in Nazareth only three decades earlier, was God Himself. 

   The die was cast.  The Jews who heard Jesus’ claim picked up stones to kill Him, but it was not yet time.  Jesus passed through their midst, in order to die another day, in a different way, to die the death that would reveal the glory of God, hidden under shame and suffering.  For the glory of God is to show love and mercy, and the Cross of Jesus is the fount of mercy for sinners.  The Cross is the eternal antidote, God’s solution for our problem with sin and death, His way to bring us back into His family.       

   I began talking about my father, who was the best dad.  He was a good earthly father, not for what he did, but rather for who he was, who God made him to be.  You see, when my dad was in his thirties, he met a girl, and through her he was brought into the Church.  Because of God working through my mom, my dad was baptized.  Because of God working through my mom and dad, we kids were raised in the faith. 

   Because God can work with what seems like very inferior material, even a youngest son named David, I have been given the privilege to serve Christ’s Church, to preach the Good News of the Trinity.   To preach of the God who is life and love, to preach of the God who sought the glory of the cross in order to have you as his very own child.  God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, has forgiven all your sins and failures, He has overcome illness and death.  The LORD has done all this, for you, because His glory is to serve, His glory is to love, to love you, your family, and the whole world, in Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen. 

How to Recognize and Find the Holy Spirit - Sermon for the Day of Pentecost

The Day of Pentecost                                                          
June 8^th, anno + Domini 2025
Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches
Custer and Hill City, South Dakota
How to Recognize and Find the Holy Spirit

 Audio of Sermon available HERE

   How do we recognize the Holy Spirit?  Short of a mighty rushing wind and tongues of fire descending on our heads, is there some way for us to reliably find Him?  These are important questions, eternal-life-and-death determining questions, actually.  Every Christian should be able to answer them clearly.  But, even though Jesus Himself promised to send His Spirit to His Church as a helper, comforter, teacher and encourager, there is not widespread agreement amongst the followers of Jesus about the Holy Spirit.  This confusion and disagreement about the Holy Spirit is sad and distressing.  The Holy Spirit is God, and so, since salvation and joy depend on knowing God as He reveals Himself, we should understand the Holy Spirit as well as possible.  So, on this Day of Pentecost, when we celebrate again the coming of the 3^rd person of the Trinity upon the infant Church, we ask for the Spirit’s help to clear up our misunderstandings and teach us about Himself. 

   The Shy Member of the Holy Trinity.  Some theologians have described the Holy Spirit as the shy member of the Holy Trinity.  That is, the Holy Spirit, despite being God Almighty, does not attract attention to Himself.  Rather, He is described by Scripture as giving glory to the Father by revealing the Son and His great work.  For example, in the Upper Room on the night He was betrayed, Jesus said: …when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. ¹⁴ He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. ¹⁵ All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you. (John 16:13-15)

   The Holy Spirit speaks of the Father and the Son, not of Himself.  He, like the Father and the Son, is eternal, almighty, fully God.  But His joy, the task He loves to do, is to give glory to the Father by revealing Christ Jesus, His Son, and the great work He has done to redeem the world and save sinners.  So, one way we can recognize the Holy Spirit is when we are hearing about Jesus, and the Father, and the free gift of salvation. 

   In His focus on speaking of the Father and the Son, we see that the Holy Spirit is Trinitarian.  From the first words of the Bible, when God created the heavens and the earth and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters, to the Baptism of Jesus, when in the form of a dove He descended and remained upon Jesus, the Father’s beloved Son, to Revelation’s symbolic depiction of the Holy Spirit as Seven Spirits surrounding the throne of God and the Lamb, the Holy Spirit sheds light on the mystery of God, that the one true God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three distinct persons that form one eternal unity. 

   The mystery of God is beyond our full comprehension in this life, but St. Augustine’s fifth century description is helpful.  While no human attempt to explain the Trinity is perfect, Augustine suggests we can think of God the Father as the Lover, the Source of Love.  God the Son is the Beloved, the special object of the Father’s affection.  And we can think of God the Holy Spirit as the Love of the Father and the Son, going back and forth between them.  Always remembering, of course, that the Spirit is not just a feeling or an emanation, but is a distinct person in the Godhead, Himself fully God.  God is love, as the Apostle John teaches us (1 John 4:8), including God the Holy Spirit.  

     Since the Holy Spirit is Love, it is not surprising that He is also Christ-focused, for Jesus is the revelation of the Father’s Love to us.  God wants sinners to be separated from their sin and come into His Love, and so the Holy Spirit seeks always to show the world Jesus.  He must do this, for, as Christ taught His Apostles in the Upper Room, no one comes to the Father, no one comes into His Love, except through Jesus Christ. (John 14:6) 

     This exclusivity of Christian teaching about salvation is hated by many.  That there is salvation in no other god or religion, that only in the Name of Christ Jesus can anyone be saved, this unpopular message reminds us that the Holy Spirit is also always the Truth Teller.  As we heard a few moments ago, Jesus even called Him the Spirit of Truth.  God’s Truth is always unpopular with the world, and, truth be told, is unpopular with all of us, some of the time.  For on this side of heaven, we are still sinners, still prone to preferring the lies of the evil one.  But in Love, the Holy Spirit maintains the Truth, because there is no life apart from the Truth that God has revealed in Jesus. 

    The Holy Spirit speaks through the Word.  The Spirit of Truth has specially delivered His Truth to us in the inspired Word of the Bible.  Working through the Prophets and Apostles who wrote the Old and New Testaments, the Spirit has given, and has maintained through 20 centuries a good and reliable Book that will not let us down, even when it makes us uncomfortable.  The Holy Spirit, as He first did on Pentecost, has continually worked through His Church to provide His reliable Word, most especially through Bibles translated into thousands of different languages, God’s primary tool, His means for reaching out to all nations with the Word of Life. 

     The Holy Spirit speaks intelligibly.  He also can and does intercede for us to the Father, in groans too deep for words. (Romans 8:26)  But for us men and for our salvation, the Word He causes to be proclaimed to people is an intelligible Word.  At Babel, when proud humanity refused to spread out and fill the earth as God had instructed, God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit came down to see their attempt to make a name for themselves, to see the tower they were building to heaven.  Knowing that left unchecked, our pride would close our ears to His Word forever, the Lord confused their languages, terminating the tower project, and forcing mankind to spread out and fill the earth.  The confusion of languages was a necessary trouble, an obstacle to human pride and self-worship, until the right time came to reverse the curse. 

   The Day of Pentecost was that right time, the beginning of the reversal of Babel.  Now that Jesus had achieved free and full forgiveness for all sins, the Good News of this gracious miracle needed to go out to every tribe and tongue and nation.  The miracle of tongues was not a miracle of chaos, but of order.  The Galilean Apostles and Disciples were miraculously given the ability to preach God’s mighty deeds in languages they had never learned, a miracle that attracted a crowd, so that Peter could then preach Christ crucified and resurrected, the One who is received in Holy Baptism. 

     Along with the clarity of the message that the Holy Spirit gave on Pentecost, He has also given clarity to His Written Word.  There are many things that are hard for our weak, fallen minds to grasp in the Bible, and there are some mysteries that we can only understand partially, mysteries that reveal saving truths, like the Holy Trinity, or the fact that Jesus Christ is both true God and true Man, in one person, or that God through human speech and humble materials like water and bread and wine can and does deliver the forgiveness of sins and eternal salvation. 

   We cannot understand these mysteries fully, but we can understand them at a basic, saving level.  The Bible is very clear about who God is, how utterly sinful humanity is, and how Jesus has overcome our just condemnation in His Cross and Resurrection.  Understanding God’s Word requires humility and patience on our part, gifts given by the Holy Spirit as well.  It is a lie of the Devil to say that God’s Word is unclear, or that only certain “gifted” sages can rightly interpret it.  God’s Word is clear.  The children’s song “Jesus Loves me” is incomplete; no one ought to end their growth in faith with this song.  But “Jesus Loves Me” is also correct in a profound way: “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”  Amen, tell me more, Holy Spirit, tell me more. 

   He will and He does.  You do not have to wonder where to go to find and learn from the Holy Spirit.  He has bound Himself to the Word.  Most especially for the purposes of teaching the Gospel, He has bound Himself to the Holy Scriptures, the Prophetic and Apostolic Word of the Old and New Testaments.  This is the “where” of finding the Holy Spirit.  Now, to be sure, the Holy Spirit, along with the Father and the Son, is everywhere.  In Him we live and move and have our being.  But He has not promised to teach us unto salvation in a lovely meadow, a lofty woods, or on a mountain peak.  There is a certain knowledge of our Creator to be found in nature, to be sure.  But, the Truth of our sin, our need, and the glory and grace of God’s victory over our sin, death and over the devil are only revealed in the Word the Holy Spirit has inspired for His Church. 

   The Holy Spirit is outside of us.  At first take, this might seem negative, but the truth is that the “outside-of-us” character and action of God is very good news.  God through His Law and Gospel no doubt has a tremendous impact inside of us, on our emotions, on our understanding, on our wills, and on our very bodies.  But we cannot look for salvation inside ourselves, and indeed we are never told by God to try.  Nor are we taught to listen to whatever spirit we think we are hearing.  Looking to our interior to find God, or listening to whatever spirit is whispering to our hearts, these are spiritually dangerous pass-times.  For we all have powerful opinions and feelings and urges, and not all of them are Godly.  And there are many spirits speaking to us.  Apart from the reliable witness of the Holy Spirit, we are very susceptible to being fooled.  Following our hearts, or our own impression, or our own desires, will lead us away from God and His Kingdom. 

    To rescue us, God comes to us, from outside of us.  He comes with His unique and exclusive message of salvation, revealed in Christ Jesus.  God came down from heaven to Babel, to prevent those souls from cutting themselves off forever from His Love.  God came down into the burning bush, and in the pillars of cloud and fire, and into the Holy of Holies to protect, sustain and guide ancient Israel.  God the Son came down from way outside us, down from glory, and took on our flesh, in order to deliver salvation to us through His life, death and resurrection. 

   And God continues to come to us from the outside, through His spoken Word, to create and sustain the faith that receives Jesus, His forgiveness, and His eternal life.  It is the very best news that God comes to us from outside us, to forgive, restore and love us, inside and out, for today, and forever and ever. 

    A couple more ways to know we are hearing the Holy Spirit.  He is the Sin-Hater.  Through His Word, He defines sin for us, and hates every instance of our rebellion against His will.  God the Holy Spirit hates sin, and any soul who insists on clinging to sin, even denying that sin is sin, such a foolish soul is inviting God’s hatred of sin to fall on them.  If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the Truth is not in us.  And apart from this Truth, no one will ever come to the Father, no one will ever escape His righteous wrath against sin.

   This word of God’s hatred of sin hurts.  Many say it is too harsh.  But this is exactly the work of the Holy Spirit that set up the great harvest of souls on the original Day of Pentecost.  Peter preached the Holy Spirit’s truth unflinchingly, including the worst indictment, that you crucified Jesus, whom God has made both Lord and Christ.  The hearers were cut to the heart.  This is what the proclamation of God’s hatred of sin is meant to do, to lay bare our condition, and the justice of our condemnation, to show us our need, so we are prepared for God’s better Word.   

   For God the Holy Spirit is even more the Sin-Forgiver.  God’s stern word of law is preached for repentance, for bringing souls to know their need for a Savior.  This then, is when the Sin-Forgiving Holy Spirit delivers His better Word.  For if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  To all who repent of their sins and their sinfulness, and call out to God for rescue, the Holy Spirit proclaims the rescue that Jesus has accomplished for all people.  This is the life-restoring Word, the Gospel Word, the radical, Cross-and-Empty-Tomb-centered surprise, that even those who literally nailed Jesus to the tree are still covered by His blood.  For Jesus is the Lamb of God who took away the sin of the world.  All of it.  So, His blood cleanses us from all sin.  (John 1:29 and 1 John 1:7)  By causing our hearts to trust this greatest Word, the Holy Spirit is indeed the Giver of Life. 

   In all this we can see that the Holy Spirit is Evangelical, seeking to deliver the Good News of forgiveness in Christ to all people.  The Spirit is Churchly, establishing and sustaining His congregations all around the world, as the central place of His proclamation, that in turn leads Jesus to be proclaimed beyond Sunday morning.  The Spirit also has a great midweek missionary work, done through all His people.  The Missionary work of the Holy Spirit then leads more people to be drawn to His Sacramental work, where all the Gifts of Christ are delivered through Preaching, Baptism, Absolution and Supper.    

   Finally, the Holy Spirit who forgives and gives life also is the Fruit Producer.  Those good works that God has prepared in advance for us to walk in?  These are revealed and we are empowered to walk in them by the Spirit of Christ.  Faith, hope, praise and thanksgiving.  Love, humility, joy, perseverance in suffering and even persecution.  Love for our brothers and sisters in Christ, love for our neighbors, and even love for enemies.  These all are signs of the Holy Spirit’s ongoing work, for all this fruit speaks of and points to Christ, and to His Father, who sent Him to be the Savior of the World.

   For all of this, the shy Holy Spirit is always at work, through His Holy Word.  In these things, He knows you, and loves you, and so also you know and love Him, today, and forever and ever, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.