Christocentricity: Everything Always Centered-on Christ Crucified - Sermon for the 4th Sunday after Epiphany

4^th Sunday after Epiphany
January 29^th, Year of Our + Lord 2023
Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches
Custer and Hill City, South Dakota
Christocentricity:  Everything Always Centered-on Christ Crucified

     Christocentricity.  That’s a five-dollar word if I’ve ever heard one.  Christocentricity.  Shouldn’t use big fancy words in a sermon, I’ve been told, although this one is kinda fun to say: Christocentricity.  Big word.  But not that hard to figure out, and really important.  Eternally important, actually. 

     You probably already understand it.  ‘Christo-’, well,
the ‘i’ is short rather than long, but ‘Christo’ must have to do with Christ, no?  Correct.  And ‘-centricity,’ that must mean centered-on, right?  Yep.  Christocentricity means centered on Christ Jesus.  Pretty simple.  Simple, but profound.  Because this word describes all reality.  Certainly the reality of Scripture.  But even more, the reality of all blessed living, the reality of history, the reality of reality, of the “I AM” and all the “It is-es,” ever since Creation, now today, and forever and ever, Amen.    

     Everything centers on Jesus.  Light shines and gravity keeps you grounded, 
electricity flows and living things grow, because of Jesus, and His love for you and all humanity.  To be sure, the Father and the Holy Spirit come with Jesus.  Indeed, They rejoice to connect to you through Him.  And of course, this centrality of Jesus is hidden in this world.  It is revealed to humble hearts, and rejected by self-assured elites.  We know better now, proclaim the proud and the great, people need to leave this God superstition behind. 

     But despite the hatred and resistance of so many centers of human power and wisdom, the Church of Christ lives on, and the Gospel is still the story of stories, that never goes away, that will never go silent, because Jesus will be Jesus, forever.  Christ is the center and the motor of all that matters, for He reveals God and His truth to us, the truth that creates reality.  The truth which is declared quite clearly in our readings this morning. 

     Christ Jesus says in John and Luke that all of Scripture speaks of Him, and we see this in Psalm 1, which provides us with our Introit this morning.  Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.  Without downplaying the truth that we are called to live like this blessed man, we also know clearly, from our lives and from the Bible, that Psalm 1 can only be truly spoken of Jesus.  Similarly, the end of our reading from Micah is Christocentric, because only Jesus the eternal Son of God made flesh has perfectly done justice, loved kindness and walked humbly with His God. 

     Jesus in the Beatitudes, those strange blessings with which He starts the Sermon on the Mount, is not explicitly speaking of Himself.  And He is certainly teaching, His disciples then and us today, what Christian life should look like.  But Christ’s self-description becomes obvious when we compare these Beatitudes with the rest of His story, as we remember that Christ was blessed as He mourned, weeping outside the tomb of Lazarus, and as He showed mercy to countless sick and oppressed people.  The Blessed One poured out the poverty of His spirit in the Garden of Gethsemane, contemplating the suffering of the next day.  Jesus, the powerful miracle worker, chose blessed meekness, refusing to respond to the slaps and spit, blows and insults that rained down on Him from Pharisees, Priests and Roman soldiers.  His blessed hunger and thirst for our righteousness was so strong that He endured utter persecution, and punishment, finally suffering the rejection of His Father, to pay our debt.  And by this, Jesus is the Peacemaker, the one who has made peace between sinners and God His Father. 

    And so we see that Christocentricity has its own center, which is the Cross, the  heart of the heart of the matter, which St. Paul makes abundantly clear to the Corinthians.  The Word of the Cross, the folly of Christ crucified, is a scandal of weakness for law-loving Jews, and foolishness to world-wise Gentiles.  The Cross is always rejected and ridiculed by self-important people.  But God’s foolishness is true wisdom, and God’s weakness is true power, the center of God’s loving plan of salvation.  And so without the Cross, you have not Christ.  And if you have not Christ, there is no true strength or wisdom. 

     But, for those weak fools who embrace the Cross by faith, Christocentricity delivers all things, today, and forever and ever.  For in the Wisdom of the Cross we guilty, unholy and enslaved sinners find a voice to boast, in righteousness, holiness and redemption from slavery, all received as free gifts, through faith in Christ Jesus, our Lord.  

     We boast in the historicity of Christocentricity, in the blessed fact revealed to those who devote themselves to the Bible.  Those immersed in the Word learn that the whole narrative, which is to say all of history, is about Jesus.  The whole narrative, from the Creation in Genesis on to Micah and Malachi, drives toward Christ and Him crucified, the Center of all things.  And the story from the Incarnation, from the first Christmas onward, flows from the blood that ran down that blessed tree. 

     We can and should marvel and boast in the historicity of Christ as the center of all things. 

   Sadly, as we live in the Word, as the Holy Spirit’s Truth rings in our ears and fills our heart, it also collides with the reality of our lives.  And in this collision we gain grim clarity about the necessity of Christocentricity.  The call to holy living fills the first Psalm, and the instruction of Micah that we are to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly before our God.  The LORD places very real expectations on His people, here and in hundreds of other verses, expectations which make our need obvious.  Honest self-examination always reveals how we fail, how badly we need the fruit of the Cross, every day. 

     Yet even here, in the pursuit of the sanctified life, the life of love and good works to which we are all called, Christocentricity still reigns.  Because Jesus doesn’t abandon us to fend for ourselves in holy living.  Good thing, too, because that would be a disaster.  No, Jesus has bound Himself to you and me and every baptized person.  He is always with you.  And so, when you find yourself failing, ignoring your calling to walk in the way of righteousness, when you see sin and desire it, Jesus is with you.  He taps you on the shoulder and asks:  What are we doing here?  How did you end up on the edge of a cliff of an angry outburst?  Why have you given your eyes over to peruse the temptations of the world?  Why are you about to take that pill that you no longer need for your physical pain, or drink that drink that will make you lose control?  Why are you following along the path of the wicked, following the crowds on the wide easy road to sin, sorrow and condemnation?  Jesus gets your attention however He must, and says: “Let’s get out of here.  Now!” 

     You are torn.  Your old Adam, the sinful nature that continues within you, is pulling hard.  Know for certain, dear Christians, that the feeling of resentment towards God for His warnings and corrections is coming from your sinful nature. 

    Look to Him who calls you back from the edge.  Look to Jesus, and focus on the hand that reaches out to pull you back from the precipice of unbridled sin.  See that hand, which still bears the mark of the nails, and flee to Him.      

     Knowing our need for Christocentricity, our ongoing need for God’s personalized warnings against sin in our daily lives, this bitter need leads you back to the gift of Christocentricity.  For the very thing you need most, repentance from sin and a renewed connection to Jesus, this is the very thing that Christ most loves to give to you. 

   This is the daily, blessed reality of Christocentricity, of understanding that the true Center of all things is Christ.  Knowing this, you also begin to understand the blessing of centering your heart, mind, activity and devotion on the reality of Jesus, every day.  For Jesus lives, to forgive and to bless.  Center yourself on Him, and He will forgive you, restore you, and re-center your life on truth, beauty, blessing, and peace, today and forever. 

     That you would not center your life on Christ Jesus is a demonic temptation.  To this the world and our own sinful flesh constantly call us, sometimes hiding their temptation under otherwise good things.  Demons whisper things like: “Doing fun things with your family is just as important and just as Godly as coming to Church.” 

   “No, it is not,” says Jesus.  “But I will bless your family fun, by first blessing you by my Word and Sacrament.”  Christ with His love pulls you in, to give you life.  Satan and his minions pull you out, the centrifugal force of antichrist, trying to pull you away from your Savior, and into death. 

     Fix your eyes on Jesus, the Center of Faith.  Be wise to the lies of the world and your own sinfulness.  Repent, and return to the Center.  Put yourself and your loved ones in close proximity to Christ.  Come to His altar.  Fill your ears and your days with His Word.  Be amongst His people.  Seek Him where He has promised to be found, and His Wisdom and Power will guard and keep you. 

     Your closeness to the One who is the Center of everything will also change your life.  Christocentric living will fill you with love and energy to find blessing in strange ways, especially in the midst of difficulty.  And Jesus will bless you to be a blessing, to be merciful, in a world that desperately needs mercy, to proclaim the peace of God, which passes all understanding, and saves sinners, the peace of God which will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, your Center, your Lord, today, and unto life everlasting, Amen. 

The Lord’s Love for Human Life, Sermon for the 3rd Sunday after Epiphany and Sanctity of Human Life Sunday

Third Sunday after Epiphany, and Sanctity of Human Life Sunday
February 22^nd, Year of Our + Lord 2023
Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches
Custer and Hill City, SD
The Lord’s Love for Human Life
Psalm 22:27–31, Isaiah 9:1-4, 1 Corinthians 1:10-18, Matthew 4:12-25

    How much does the Lord of the universe love human life? 

   On this 50^th anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision, Christians in America are
trying to find their footing in a new context.  In 1973, seven men in black robes “discovered” that a woman’s right to privacy included the right to have another human growing in her womb to be killed, thereby overturning laws in many states that sought to protect all lives, including babies in the womb.  Last year in the Dobbs decision, five men and one woman, still wearing black robes, returned the question of abortion to the various states. 

   The Supreme Court has overturned Roe, changing the context of the fight for life in these United States.  The political debate has now fractured fifty ways, and lawmakers who live and work much closer to their actual constituents are grappling with the competing claims of this highly emotional fight.  This is of course not a pleasant debate.  But I do believe our new context, the new situation, is an improvement over the reality imposed from on high when I was six years old.  The 50 million or so babies aborted in the U.S. since 1973 would likely agree.  Effectively influencing the men and women who represent us in Pierre is much more possible than influencing the men and women who supposedly represent us in Washington, D.C.   I mean, one of my state representatives is also my local grocer. 

   But political victory is not the goal of Christians.  To be clear, we are free to work within and use the political reality we live in as part of our fight for life.  The Apostle Paul used his Roman citizenship to good effect, to counter the attacks of Jews who sought to kill him, and also to land himself in Rome, for the sake of furthering the spread of the Gospel from the greatest seat of power of the ancient world.  We as citizens of a democratic republic are also free to exercise our political rights as we work to protect human life.  But while seeking political victories may be part of our strategy, this is not our goal. 

   Our goal is God’s goal, simply that killing an innocent human life would be unthinkable.  Thou shalt not murder, and so we don’t.  A simple, but very lofty goal.  Indeed, since we Christians know the reality of human sinfulness, including our own clinging fallen nature, we recognize that there has never in all of history been a human society that properly valued life.  And it is very doubtful there ever will be, before Christ returns. 

   But in tandem with our God-given goal that all should hear and be saved by the Good News of free forgiveness in the blood of Christ, we also seek a world where each human life is cherished and protected, from womb to tomb, from conception to natural death.  Our ultimate goal involves changing hearts and minds, which is much harder than winning politically, but also has a much longer term and broader effect.  Changing hearts and minds for life will positively impact individual people, both those fooled by and those targeted by the death-seeking lies of Satan.  Changing hearts and minds for life will also make our world a much better place to live.   

   Every year around Januray 22^nd, Lutherans for Life offers a varity of resources to celebrate Life
Sunday, indeed, a whole bunch of ways to observe a whole “Life Week,” as LFL seeks to fulfill its mission of “equipping Lutherans and their neighbors to be Gospel-motivated voices for life.”  Lutherans for Life is a great organization, and I encourage you to check out and use the resources they offer.  But, aside from their 2023 Life Sunday image, on the front of your bulletin, and their informational insert, we are not using LFL’s special materials today, not using their suggested readings, theme or sermon.

   I instead chose to stick with the assigned readings for the 3^rd Sunday after Epiphany, because I want you to understand that all of Scripture is “for life.”  The God who inspired the writers of the Bible is always and entirely the lover of human beings.  God is so pro-Life that we can take any set of assigned readings and any context we live in and speak at length about the various ways the Lord reveals and expresses His love for human life. 

   I want us to be so skilled in recognizing God’s love for life, even in non-obvious passages and difficult situations, that we can always be Gospel motivated voices for life, in the fourth week of January, and the first week of August, and every day.  Christ Jesus is constantly working for the good of human life, and so by our union with Him, we should be too. 

   So let’s take a few minutes to consider today’s readings, and our context, and see just how much, and also the various ways that God loves human life.

   Loving humanity is God’s nature, part of His character.  You probably caught that in the “For Life” responsive reading we spoke earlier.  Great indeed is God’s steadfast love toward us, which we can see in the world He has created for us, in the miracle of the body-and- soul life He has given each of us, and in the blessings of love and family and life together.  Every day we are alive, and every good thing we have are evidence of God’s faithful and forever love.  This faithfulness of the LORD endures forever.

   In the Introit we heard:  All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you. Posterity shall serve him; it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation; they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it.

   The Righteous and Holy Lord loves to bless us, and so also receive our worship, as we respond in thankfulness and praise.  God actually desires the worship of every person, to the ends of the earth.  This loving worship can be seen, in an imperfect miniature, in the love that flows back and forth between parent and child.  Parents love to care for the child, and the beloved child in turn loves to show their affection and love for mom and dad.  Even more so God, who daily showers innumerable blessings upon us, wants to enjoy the same loving relationship with every person to the ends of the earth, including unbelievers and enemies.  He even blesses the unbeliever along with the believer, in many ways, inviting them through His bountiful goodness to learn which and what kind of God is their true benefactor, so that He can bless them even more, by saving faith.  

   From Isaiah we heard that “there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish.”  The Lord’s love is such that He cannot bear to see His people be sad.  He acts to bring His people from gloom to joy, from darkness to light, from lies to truth.  The Lord thus loved Israel in ancient times, and so also He has continued to love the Church through 2,000 years.  His enlightening and encouraging love continues for us today.   And God even wills to grant His love to a generation as yet unborn.  Truly, God loves human beings, the crown of His creation, from womb to tomb, and beyond. 

   Even less than the Lord can bear to see His people gloomy, God hates to see His people oppressed, suffering from enemies.  Now, to be sure, oppression happens, sometimes at the Lord’s direction, because of our unfaithfulness.  But God only uses such persecution to bring us back, to bring us to repentance, and open our ears to hear once again the Good News of God’s love, given to us in Jesus. 

   In the Epistle, Paul teaches the depth and detail to which the Lord has a loving interest in our lives.  God and His ministers don’t even want our lives to be tarnished by quarreling, as St. Paul writes to the Corinthians: “I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. ¹¹ For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers.”  Spiteful bickering can lead to dangerous anger and the perversion of truth.  But even short of this soul-threatening outcome, quarreling is simply wrong, unfitting among a people loved by God. 

   From the Gospel we learn that God’s love for human beings takes a specific shape.  He is working
toward the goal that we live in blessed and faithful communities, congregations, where the love of Christ is shared between believers, and also with the rest of humanity.  This is the loving promise that Jesus made, when He told Peter, Andrew, James and John that He would make them “fishers of men.” 

   God in human form came to these men and plucked them out of one vocation, to place them in another.  Here and throughout the Gospels we hear our loving God use the seeking and capturing nature of dragnet fishing to explain His mission of bringing sinners into the blessing of His Church.  And this work goes on, today, through the Holy Ministry of the Church.   

   With all the struggles of Christian living, the Baptized have often wondered why the Lord leaves us in this darkly shadowed, dying world.  And a big part of that answer is God’s Mission of Love, that He wills to use us in His ongoing fishing expedition for human souls.  We have our struggles, but we are also privileged to have a front row seat to God’s ongoing work of saving love. 

   How persistent is God’s love?  This morning we’ve had the privilege of celebrating along with the angels in heaven over the fruit of Jesus’ love for Cynthia, who has confessed and confirmed her faith today.   God first put His claim on Cynthia as an infant, pouring out His love through the Water and the Word of Holy Baptism.  After a promising start as an faithful child of God, regularly receiving His gifts, Cynthia then went through a time in the wilderness, decades of distance from Christ and His Church.  But the Lord of Life is persistent. 

   Working through the Word, first in Cynthia’s memory, and then through the mouths of the women of Our Redeemer’s Friday Women’s Bible Study, the Spirit of Christ has drawn her back to Himself.  The steadfast love of the Lord endures forever, and we rejoice.  

   The content of that Word, spoken through the women of Our Redeemer, brings us to the final reminder in today’s readings of God’s overwhelming and unstoppable love for humanity.  For the Word that we are privileged to proclaim, on Sundays and Fridays and throughout the week, is not some generic Word of God’s good intentions.  Oh no, the love of God is no bland happy wish.  God’s love has content, foolish content, the ever-surprising story of the way that God has loved us. 

   For it was the the Lord’s love for human beings that led the eternal Son of God into the folly of the Cross.  The seeming folly that the One Good Man, the sinless, Holy Messiah of God, would submit to evil, and die on a Roman cross.  Which Jesus did, in love, for you, and for me, and for all sinners.  And for every sin.  Including the sin of abortion.  This too, is forgiven in the blood of Jesus. 

   The foolishness of the preaching of the Cross is truly eternal wisdom, the ultimate act of love for human life, Jesus’ death, and resurrection, to take away all our sins. 

   God loves you.  And you.  And you.  God has loved all humanity perfectly, in Jesus, the Lamb of God who has taken away the sin of the world.  Praise be to God, and love and joy be to mankind, for the life of Christ.  He is why we are alive.  He is why we are “for life.”  He is our life, today, and forever and ever, Amen.  

  

Called by a New Name - Sermon for the 2nd Sunday after Epiphany

 2^nd Sunday after Epiphany
January 15^th, anno + Domini 2023
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, South Dakota
Called by New Name - Isaiah 49:1-7, 1 Corinthians 1:1 – 9, John 1:29-42

In the Name of the Lamb.

   There's a lot of name calling in our readings today.  The voice of the Messiah speaks through Isaiah, saying: "The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name."

   Paul is called .. to be an apostle of Christ Jesus.  He writes to the church of God that is in Corinth, to those  called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Paul further encourages the Corinthians by reminding them: you were called into the fellowship of his Son. 

   When John, who was called the Baptizer, saw Jesus coming toward him, he gave Him
a new name, calling out for the world to hear:  "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"  We call to this new name every time we celebrate communion and see Jesus coming to us in the bread and the wine. 

   Andrew believes this good news and follows after Jesus.  Then Andrew goes to his brother Simon and interprets the situation through Isaiah, announcing that this Jesus of Nazareth is properly called the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed Savior.  Finally, after Andrew brings Simon to Jesus, our Lord looks at him and says, 
"So you are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas" (which means Peter). 

   Name calling is super important, in the Bible, and in life.  My mother Agnes had a habit that always bugged me, but now I’m rethinking it.  When a new person came to our small Southeastern Montana town, she always seemed to want to categorize them, to define who they were in her mind, to give them a name, figure out who and what kind of person they were.  Agnes seemed unsettled by a new person, until she could define him or her.  Once she had, in her mind, determined who someone was, that was that, and she could get on with her life, choosing to interact, or not interact with the new person, according to their label. 

   It seemed to me that Agnes was a tad rushed and inflexible in her approach.  And that may have been true.  However, these days I wonder if she was also reacting, consciously or unconsciously, to the reality that identity was slipping away from us.  That people over the course of her lifetime were becoming less and less sure who they were.  Or, that people were making up their identity along the way, which makes living in trust with your neighbors difficult. 

   I honestly don’t know what my mom was thinking.  But if my mother had her finger on an identity crisis, she was prescient.  She was like this already when I got to know her in the 1970s.  Now, 19 years since her death, our species-wide identity crisis has broken out into the open, and our society has gone insane.   

   At our best, we homo sapiens name our children with high hopes for their future.  And good parents try to help their children learn how to live up to their good name.  They model and teach, accentuate the positive, and try to help them when they fail.  We celebrate the milestones of life, cry at their confirmations and high school graduations, and expect great things, even when the young people we love struggle.  We hope because we love them.  And this is good and right, even if perhaps everyone would be better off with a bit more honesty and realism when it comes to our children and grandchildren. 

   With young people in general, however, we tend to be more realistic, and way less hopeful.  We lump everyone into giant, stereotyped generational categories, and shake our heads.  Millenials we label as snowflakes and narcissists.  Gen Z has never known a world without the internet, and their lives have been shaped by smart phones and social media.  Which is neither here nor there.  Unless perhaps this new digital environment is related to the frightening statistics concerning the depression, suicide, gender-dysphoria and anti-social behavior that afflict young people today.  And it certainly seems to be the case that screen addiction does play a role in these horrors that plague our young people, and many not so young people.

   I am quite sure that we, the old people who are wringing our hands over “the kids these days,” are guilty of sterotyping and over-generalization.  But as young people leave Christianity en-masse, and the fabric of our society frays and frays, I think we would be insane not to worry about the wildfire of identity crises that we are all living through.  We perhaps should get back to exercising our “call a thing what it is” muscle, for our own good, and for the good of our neighbors.

 

   A theologian of the Cross calls a thing what it truly is.  And the truth is that youth has always been wasted.  Without good guidance and discipline, the young have always tended to make up their own identities in ways that are self-destructive.  So also, adulthood and the senior years are by nature prone to false-identities and dissolution.  Dissipation.  If we are not working to live up to a good name, we will by nature descend to shameful depths of wasteful and pointless living. 

   We today have lots of free time for making bad choices.  But life used to be much harder.  And the struggle to get by, day by day, used to keep people grounded.  Fathers with children who lost their wives a century ago tended to quickly find a new one, because family life was too hard to go it alone.  In our best societal moments, widowed mothers were also quickly tucked into a new familial reality.  Because survival depended on it. 

   We, in contrast, have lived through an unprecedented age of economic prosperity, technological advancement, and ease of day to day life.  So it may be a paradox to us that the daily struggle of life of centuries past created some good results.  Fathers and mothers forced to work hard, outside and inside the home, just to keep everyone fed and warm, children forced to help out, to really work, with their moms and dads and brothers and sisters, this difficult reality of life had some remarkable benefits.  None of us are choosing to voluntarily go back to living without microwaves, electricity and running water.  But our ease of life and abundant free time do not seem to help us know who we are, or live up to a good name.      

   I am sure that exceptions to the contrary abound.  But in total, even though life expectancy was shorter and creature comforts were much rarer a century ago, it seems clear that way more people knew who they were.  Along with being an American, a person was a German Lutheran, or an Irish Catholic, or a Yankee Presbyterian.  Churches were way fuller.  Literacy was highly valued, and many more people truly knew how to talk with each other.  Changing your sex from man to woman or woman to man was understood to be a fantasy, and those who sought to pretend such a thing were vanishingly rare.    

   I don’t want to engage in nostalgia for the good old days.  They weren’t so good.  But if you know who you are, where you belong, and to whom you are important, just because you are theirs, well, then you can endure a lot, and even achieve a lot. 

   Lacking identity, on the other hand, not knowing who you are, is soul-crushing.  And we have as a society systematically dismantled the Church and the Family, the two primary God-given places that souls find a good identity.  Instead of building up Church and Family, we have instead have imbibed more and more of a fantasy culture found on screens.  The lies of the world about who we truly are overwhelm us, and souls become easy targets for those who would twist your identity to gain control over you.  So we should not be surprised that our national fabric is decidedly frayed, and our young people actively choose against Family and Church. 

   What to do?  What am I to do, as a pastor?  And what are you to do, Christians?  Fathers and grandfathers, mothers and grandmothers?  No doubt, we are called to stand up and say something valuable to society.  We do still believe in the power of God’s Word, right?  It is harder to get a hearing for the Gospel today; the crowds are not beating down our doors.  We will need to work to gain the privilege of evangelizing.  And certainly, to be able to speak a true and valuable Word to a society that largely rejects us, we will need to be well grounded in our true identity.    

   So what is your identity?  In what is your identity grounded?  Does your identity show through in your public life?  Your private life?  As Christians and parents, grandparents, citizens and neigbhors, these are all questions our Lord calls us to wrestle with. 

   The Lamb of God calls you to wrestle with your faithfulness to the identity He has given you.  Then, when you have been brought to repentance, He calls you to rest, to rest in His forgiving blood.  And then, to simply be who you are. 

   You are Christians.  You are a man or a woman, baptized into Christ Jesus.  You are
Christian fathers and mothers, children, uncles and aunts, brothers and sisters, according to life God has given you.  You are members of this congregations….  And none of these identities, none of these callings are your achievements.  You are a parent because God gave you children.  You are a son or daughter because God through your parents gave you life.  You are a Christian, because the Holy Spirit has called you by the Gospel, sanctified you, and kept you in the one true faith. 

   Your identity as a child of God comes from outside you, it is a gift.  In fact, you are entirely dependent on the One who calls.  And, in another divine paradox, this dependence is where true peace and confidence and freedom are found.  For He who has called you is faithful, faithful unto death, and beyond. 

   Be who you are.  In your life, in your service to family, neighbors, community and friends, be who you have been called to be by Christ.  And, in your vocations, in your various roles in life, be ready to share this good news of identity with those around you.  Because whatever generation they come from, however messed up their identity might be today, the promise of a true and everlasting identity as a child of God is the promise of Christ Jesus for them, too. 

   Simon received special name from Jesus; he was called Cephas, or Peter.  We might say Rocky.  Jesus gave this new name because He would use Rocky to be a cornerstone of His Church, a leader of the Twelve and of the Early Church.  Peter frequently failed to live up to his special name.  He refused to accept that Jesus would save the world by dying on a Roman cross.  In the High Priest's courtyard, Peter denied Jesus three times, because confessing Him could have gotten Peter arrested too.  Later, during his ministry, Peter put ethnic differences before the Gospel, shunning non-Jewish Christians when influential Jewish Christians came around. 

   But Peter recovered from each of these failures.  Not because he was so good or strong.  No, Peter recovered from his failures, his sins, because time and again the Lamb of God brought him back to his first call.  The call to be a saint, a holy one of God, called to be holy through fellowship with Jesus Christ.  Peter was again and again freely forgiven, and so was made free to start again, to try again to live for the One who had given him new life, and a new name. 

   You and all the baptized have, like Peter, been called into fellowship with Jesus Christ.  God has called you by name, and given you a new name: Christian, holy one, saint.  God is faithful, your sins are forgiven.  Rejoice in your new name, and live free, for your family, for your church, and for the world.  Live free in the Lamb of God, who calls you in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. 

Fulfilling All Righteousness - Sermon for the Baptism of Our + Lord 2023

The Baptism of Our Lord 
January 8^th, Year of Our Lord 2023
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, South Dakota
Fulfilling All Righteousness 

  What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? ² By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?   No, of course not.  We are Christians, baptized believers in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  We do not live in sin.  

   So then, why do we sin so much?

    Recently I was blessed by an unexpected encounter with old friends, a blessing, at least, until I ruined it.  There were four of us, and we share a lot in common, and some great memories.  One of those memories is of a mistake made by one us, we’ll call him Michael.  It was a big mistake, which thankfully had no real consequence.  However, by making this mistake amongst a group of men, Michael’s error became fodder for jokes and teasing.  At some level I’m sure Michael is glad that the mistake could be laughed about, even if at his expense.  But there should be limits, no?  If we are going to retain friendships, there have to be limits to such teasing and joking; the reminders must end. 

    Sadly, when the four of us were together recently, for the first time in years, I didn’t resist the temptation to slip in a zinger, just an indirect reference that took everyone back to the moment of the mistake, now many years ago.  I was hurtful.  It’s a tired old joke that needs to die and disappear.  I know this.  And yet I did it.  How can I, who through Holy Baptism have died to sin, still live in it?  

    Do you find yourself committing the same old sins?  Do you say hurtful things to people, friends or family members, without thinking?  Are there mean things you say or do, to your husband or wife, to your child, or to your brother or sister?  Word choices that cut, an accusatory tone of voice that brings with it a flood of bad memories, embarrassments and guilts that linger on, deep in the soul.  If you at the moment can’t think of anything like this that you do, perhaps you can think of how others do it to you.  And then, how do you respond? 

   Of course, not all the sins that we struggle to escape are relational.  But the hurts we cause to one another are visible, more or less out in the open.  In one sense are worse, because beyond the injury they cause between the two people involved, they also destroy the harmony and peace of everyone around, of the group of friends, of the family, the work group, the congregation, the classroom.  But at least there’s a better chance we’ll be held accountable when we sin openly against another person. 

    Other sins, private sins, are no less wrong, and over time they can be even more corrosive.  Maybe your personality and habits prevent you from openly harming or insulting other people.  But if in your mind you are nursing grudges and imagining revenge, the poison is just as dangerous.  And you, at least for now, are keeping it all for yourself.  Which is good for the rest of us, but it’s really bad for you. 

    Of course, there’s more.  Sadly, private sins of passive reception are endemic in our world today.  What you consume, through your mouth, or your eyes and ears, these things are certainly more and more private, in our world of solitary living, of dining alone, and of tiny screens and earbuds.  It seems we have reduced the idea of America being a free country down to the lowest possible common denominator:  “I am free to fill my mind and soul and body with whatever garbage I want, and you can’t tell me that’s not o.k.” 

   The freedom to pollute ourselves may be our reality, our 21^st century hellscape.  But that doesn’t make it good.  That doesn’t make it acceptable to the God who bled and died to give us the gift of new life through Holy Baptism.   

 

   Is it that we aren’t trying hard enough?  Probably.  Christian apathy about sin must be considered as part of our problem.  And be warned, apathy in the face of besetting sins, of repetitive sins we do over and over, such apathy is not Christian.  The Baptized are called to fight against sin, to discipline our minds and our bodies, to flee from sin, and choose the lonely way of being that weirdo who doesn’t go along with the crowd, the society, or the internet.  Apathy to sin will corrode your faith, and could make you forget and stop trusting in what Christ has taught you, in what He has done for you.   

    In this effort to live as Christians, we do not forget or deny the clear teaching of Jesus that we sinners are saved by God’s grace and action, freely, as a gift, that we receive simply by believing it.  Our works do not save us; Jesus saves us.  But if we turn this remarkable good news into a bland formula for papering over our life of sin, well, that is an eternally dangerous game to play.  

    We dare not think and live like this:  “Oh yes, I’m a sinner, I know, isn’t that unfortunate?  So I’ll be sure to blandly turn to Christ, knowing that He is forgiving, blah, blah, blah…”   The Lord clearly rejects such surface-only religion:  “Their lips cry out to me, Lord, Lord!  But their hearts are far from me.”  If we take this approach to Christian living, we should look forward to a very unpleasant surprise on the Last Day.  Like when the door was shut and the five foolish virgins hear Jesus say to them: “Depart from me, I never knew you.” 

    There’s a saying about Lutherans.  I haven’t heard it in a long time, actually, but back in the day when lots of Americans gave a rip about Biblical teaching, it was a common to hear the accusation against Lutherans that we are just “lazy Catholics.”  That is, we have a high liturgy, and history, and tradition, and we think the Sacraments are something real.  But we use our “grace alone, faith alone,” focus to avoid actually doing anything.  Roman Catholics at least are badgered by their priests to pray to Mary more, and be nice. 

    We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, apart from our own works.  This is true, and must always be proclaimed, because it is the Truth of Christ.  If you ever hear me saying or seeming to say that your salvation depends on your actions, your will, your good works, you as members of the body of Christ and of this congregation have the freedom and the responsibility to call me on it.  Because it is a lie. 

    At the same time, we can’t be lazy.  We can’t live as though how we live doesn’t matter.  We dare not think that God’s forgiveness gives us license to sin.  We are saved in order to be fruitful members of Christ’s Church, overflowing with love.  We poor miserable sinners must be and are saved by grace through faith, yes, but faith is not merely a vague mental assertion.  It is a living trust, created in sinners by the Holy Spirit.   A faith without works is a dead faith.  True faith knows and rejoices in the fact that Jesus is our only hope, our perfect hope, the One who has saved us from living in hell, today and forever and ever.     And such a faith works.  Like the little child eager to help her mommy sweep the kitchen floor, a believer is naturally eager to live as Christ has called us to live.  

    Living as a Christian who is still a sinner, and trying to be a Church which upholds the Truth of Christ, these efforts create quite the quandary.  It is certainly true that the main heresy, the main false teaching that has surrounded Lutherans since the Reformation is the admixture of human works into the formula of salvation.  

    There is the Roman way, which denies Christ is the all sufficient Savior.  Rome falsely teaches that the Christian must pay for a certain amount of their sins with their good works, before salvation is accomplished.  You’ll find out how many sins you missed, and for which you must suffer, when you die and arrive in purgatory. 

    Then there is false way of Decision Theology, which kind of is lazy Catholicism.  This works righteous error boils all of the good works required for salvation down to just one decision.  Just one choice by the prospective Christian, that is, the decision for Jesus, to invite Him into your heart or make Him Lord of your life or some such thing.  Just one work, but it is a big one, and it must be sincere.  You must really commit, they say, truly give your heart, or it doesn’t count.  Which of course is the devil’s loophole, really the gaping hole in your armor that he will continually exploit to torment you.  “Did you really give your heart to Jesus?” 

    And there is the way of the strict Calvinists, all twelve of them who are left, which clearly states that you contribute nothing to your salvation.  But, and this is a very big but, good works must follow for you to prove your election, there’s no other way to know if God has picked you.  No way to God has chosen you, because they deny the reality of Holy Baptism.  This of course invites in the same monster of uncertainty. 

    Christians should reject all these works righteous errors, because they contradict the Bible, and they rob you of peace.  You and I were dead in our trespasses and sins, but God in Christ, by the work of the Holy Spirit through the Word, has made us alive again, by grace through faith in the forgiving blood of Jesus.  It’s easy to see how we Lutherans, who shouldn’t apologize for upholding Christ’s Truth, might fall into the habit of not talking about good works, of de-emphasizing them.  We are surrounded by voices that want to rob Christ of His glory and claim a part of the work of salvation for us sinners.  So we lean the other direction.  And that’s o.k.  

    And yet the Truth of Christ also includes the Scriptural teaching that faith without works is
dead.  A Baptismal faith connection to Christ naturally results in fruit – as in branches abiding in the Vine always produce fruit, the fruits of fleeing from sin and loving our neighbor.  We need to keep front and center the truth that God desires our good works, for real, right now, so much so that He has prepared them in advance, for us to walk in them.  To choose to walk around them is to hack away at your connection to the Vine.  If we are constantly falling into the same old sins, instead of doing good works, if we know all too well the sin of omission, that is, of seeing the good work that God has put in our path, but looking away and walking around it, well, can we say with a straight face that we are Christians? 

    We are caught in a struggle, and it is clear that we fail.  If we do not fail every time, certainly we fail too often.  We sin, and we sluff it off.  We pursue bad habits of imbibing the false teaching of the world, perhaps even while tut-tut-tutting to each other about how the world is going to hell in a handbasket.  But we do not disconnect our eyes and ears, let alone do we fill them up with good and right things.  We do have an alternative.  We can all imbibe more deeply the gift of God’s Word, which He promises will fill us up for life.  True life, right now, the beginning of eternal life that will one day be revealed as a forever and ever glorious celebration.  Such a faithful life will bear fruit.  We can start by doing the easy good works, practicing with those closest to us, choosing to bless and not to curse, to love and not to hurt.   

     If all this talk about your habitual sins and the need for good works has you squirming, a bit uncomfortable, well, good.  If you recognize your similar failures in the failures I have described, that’s a blessing.  If you don’t, you need to examine your life.  Honestly take a look at your thoughts, words and deeds, in comparison to the Ten Commandments.  Take an honest look at your life, even if the picture is ugly.  Consider your walk, even if it means God is going to convict you.  Because that is what you need.  It was certainly what I needed. 

    God used my friend Michael, the one I hurt, to turn me around.  In fact, I only call him Michael because this name means “he who is like God.”  Michael was God’s mask to me, the Lord’s messenger to confront me in my sin.  It wasn’t pleasant.  My friend said nothing about my hurtful words at the moment I said them.  But when a couple days later, in a text, I half-heartedly apologized for the snide remark I made, blah, blah, blah.  Well then my friend was God’s knife to cut me to the quick. “So, why? Why did you do that?  Must I hear about this long ago mistake every time I see you?  Why do you, a baptized believer in Christ, keep doing this?”   

    Woe is me.  “Dear Michael,” I texted back, “I was wrong, I apologize, please forgive me.”  There was nothing else I could say.  Praise be to God, I was cut to the quick. 

    And even greater praises, my friend, God’s instrument, is a Christian.  Michael is a little Christ, who immediately forgave me.  Not because I deserved it, no, but for Jesus’ sake.  For Jesus’ sake, Michael forgave me.  And the resolve to never repeat that sin filled my soul.   

    Consider this God we have.  There was no excuse for what I did, no way for me to wriggle out of my guilt.  This baptized Christian, a called and ordained pastor, no less, had no excuse.  What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? ² By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?    But I sinned none the less.  And yet, despite the offensiveness, despite the hurtfulness of my sin, Jesus used it to draw me closer to Him.  My Christian friend suffered, because of me, which is evil.  But as He does so often, God used something evil for good.  Christ took the opportunity to wake me up, forgive me, and give me a renewed will to live differently. 

    This is also part of what Jesus meant when talked to John the Baptist about fulfilling all righteousness.  Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. ¹⁴ John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” ¹⁵ But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented.  Jesus has fulfilled and is fulfilling all righteousness, all the holiness and goodness and suffering needed to save us.  Jesus not only took all our sin upon Himself and bore it to the Cross.  He not only lived the perfect life of love, fulfilling the Ten Commandments in our name.  He did these things, to be sure, and yet He does more.  Through His Spirit, Christ is also actively out in the midst of His people today, leading us to good works, and also confronting us in our sins, calling us to genuine repentance, so He can forgive us, again, and draw us closer to Himself.  Christ does this, for our salvation, and for the good of our life in this world, and to give a chance for unbelievers to hear the magnificent truth of God’s love, poured out for sinners.  

   This is the promise and the call of Baptism.  God grant that it shape us all, day by day, and forever and ever, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.