Category Archives: Lent

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Palm Sunday – “Palms to Passion” (Philippians 2:5-11)

A-38 Palm Sunday (Jn 12.12-29)Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen. The text for the sermon is the Epistle, which was read earlier.

Today is a day filled with mixed emotions. The day begins with Jesus entering Jerusalem just before the Passover feast. St. John records, “The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!”” The people seem earnestly happy that Jesus is coming and even praise Him as the King of Israel. Finally! After three years of non-stop preaching and teaching, of healing the sick and performing miracles, the people see Jesus for who He is: the King of Israel. But lest we get too excited, we need to figure out what kind of king the people think Jesus is.

The Messiah had been promised for a long time coming, in fact, He had been promised from the near beginning of time. This gave the people plenty of time to make themselves familiar with what the Old Testament Scriptures had to say about the coming Messiah. The Old Testament gave a good start for a description of who the Messiah would be yet it wasn’t complete, it wasn’t enough. There needed to be more. And so through the generations, the description of the Messiah was expanded until the people knew what the Messiah would look like at a single glance, that they would be able to identify Him with no sort of trouble or confusion.

At first glance, it sounds as if the people got it right. But John tells us, “The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness. The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign.” It seems as if this is a potential letdown. The people come to meet Jesus because He raised Lazarus from the dead. There were some in the crowd who acknowledged Him as the Messiah, but there were plenty who did not have that thinking.

The scribes and Pharisees saw nothing that screamed Messiah about Jesus. He was the Son of a lowly carpenter. He didn’t come from a great line of kings or leaders so it was impossible for Jesus to be a great king who would boot Roman rule from Jerusalem. For those reasons and more, Jesus was dismissed as being the Messiah. But there was more to Jesus than meets the eye.

As we look at our Epistle text this morning, Paul has an important message, a message that was not widely held then and unfortunately is not widely held today either. Paul encourages us to have the same mindset as Jesus, but he knows all too well the mindset of sinful human beings. We are full of selfish ambition and conceit, looking to our own self-interests rather than that of our neighbor. This attitude is nothing new, as it harkens back to our first parents in the Garden. It doesn’t fear, love, and trust in God above all things. It doesn’t love our neighbor as ourselves. Rather, it is all about us and what I get out of it.

While the selfish mindset is what comes natural to us, Paul tells us that we should have another mindset, that of Christ. Listen again to what St. Paul says: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” We are not called to be selfish, but to model our lives as Christ did and serve our neighbor. But our service cannot compare to that service of Christ. He possessed all glory from eternity and yet He laid it aside for a single purpose – to save us.

If you want to see just how much Christ love sinners, one only need to look at the manner in which He died. He humbled Himself to death on a cross. You might wonder the significance of that manner of death, but it is significant. Death on a cross was reserved for criminals, as we see the two criminals who were crucified with Jesus. Death on a cross was reserved for the guilty and yet Christ was innocent of all charges made against Him.

Today as we celebrate Palm Sunday, we also celebrate Passion Sunday, as we see in our Gospel reading. We go from the people celebrating and welcoming Jesus into Jerusalem to the people mocking and despising Jesus. And throughout all of this, what is that our Lord does in return? He remains silent. He takes the mocking and despising. He takes the beating and scourging. He willingly goes to the cross. He dies. The very direction in which His whole life went was toward emptying Himself. He emptied Himself finally of His very life. And yet says Paul, in the very mystery of that life, in the self-giving of the Son of God in the flesh, on the cross, God has turned the whole universe around. He has opened up for man a new way to live.

When He prays in the Garden, He prays for you. He is your High Priest, preparing to offer Himself as the Sacrifice for sin. He doesn’t want that cup of suffering; but for you He prays to His Father, “Not My will, but Thy will be done.” Even today, exalted by His Father, what does He do? He prays for you, intercedes for you: “Father, these are your redeemed, and I have bought them with My blood. Hear their prayers and save them.”

When Jesus stands silently before the High Priest and, later, Pilate, He silently accepts all the accusations and the blame in service to you. The accusations are false, of course: the sins are not His. But the sins are yours: and so He takes them. He takes the blame and does not defend Himself, because He’s taking all of your sins to the cross—to serve you. And so the Son thus declares, “No, Father, do not judge these people for their sins. Judge Me for them instead.”

And that is what the cross is about. In service to you, the Savior suffers far more than physical torment and death. He suffers His Father’s judgment for your sins and for the sins of the world. He suffers hell there for you. “Greater love has no man than this, than to lay down His life for His friends,” He once told His disciples, and there is no greater love or service than His cross in your place. Do not miss, by the way, that the Father is serving you at the cross, too: for rather than judge you for your sin, He gives His Son in your place, for you.

That is your Savior—the Son of God who makes Himself of no reputation and becomes obedient to death on the cross for you. By His death, you have life. By His grace, you are now set free to serve others—you are set free from sin to serve as God created you to.

You have the mind of Christ, because Christ joins Himself to you. He speaks His Word of grace, renewing your Baptism and declaring you remain His child. He gives you His body and blood, and so He is with you always. He is with you always to serve. And solely by His service to you, you are sure that you are forgiven for all of your sins. In Jesus’ name, amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus, amen.

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Lent 4 – “From Blind to Sight” (John 9:1-7, 13-17, 34-39)

A-34 Lent 4 (Jn 9.1-41)Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen. The text for the sermon is the Gospel, which was read earlier.

Everyone likes to play the “blame game.” The rules are easy: take no ownership of your actions and place the blame on anyone and everyone but yourself. Now that the rules have been explained, we see the game being played in today’s Gospel reading. Jesus and His disciples are passing through a region and come across a man blind from birth. The disciples knew of the man’s condition and asked Jesus a simple question: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” The game has now been set up. Who is to blame for the blindness: the man, his father, or his mother? Clearly the reason why the man is blind is because someone sinned. Now the question is who was it.

The question was difficult. If the man’s own sin caused his blindness, how could he have sinned so bad while in the womb to cause this? If his parents’ sin caused it, that seemed unfair that the effects of their sinful actions should be passed on to their offspring. Still, the disciples thought that one or the other was true. It was a commonly held belief, so they didn’t think of any other possibility.

How easy is it for us to play the blame game. When things don’t go our way, we want to blame it on someone else rather than own up to it. The blame game is nothing new. It was first played out in the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve sinned. When God asked about their eating from the tree, Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent. Neither wanted to confess that they were the ones who ate, regardless if it was due to the serpent’s twisting of God’s Word.

Jesus, in talking with His disciples, chooses not to play the blame game. Instead, He reveals the reason the man is blind: “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.” All of this is done according to God’s divine plan. Now if you are the blind man and you heard this, it would be quite natural to wonder how your blindness might cause the works of God to be made manifest.

It’s hard to see how something negative like this can be used to God’s glory. How can anything negative be used to God’s glory? That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it? We can understand how good things work to God’s glory, but how do bad things work to God’s glory? Clearly Paul was mistaken when he told the Romans, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” 

Let’s test Paul’s statement. Israel faced all sorts of bad that would lead to God’s glory. When Israel turned to other gods, some sort of evil would befall them and they would repent of their wicked ways and return to the God of Israel. When Israel travelled in the desert for 40 years, it would be to God’s ultimate good, as He would give to them a land that would truly be theirs, a land flowing with milk and honey. Though many if not all of the prophets of old met with an untimely death or sort of persecution, the message of God was proclaimed through them and many were brought to saving faith in God.

The ultimate act of evil turned to good was nothing short of what happened to our Lord. The perfect Son of God took on human flesh and blood, entering into a world of sin and death. Things only get worse from this point on. For three years, He traveled the surrounding area proclaiming that He was the promised Messiah of long ago, that He would lay down His life for the lives of the sinful people that He is living amongst. Few understood, but many were quick to persecute Him, seek to put Him to death. Ultimately, they would succeed. On Good Friday, He would be nailed to a tree of death and laid in a tomb to rot as a heretic in the eyes of many.

If left up to the Pharisees, that’s exactly what they would like to happen. With Jesus out of the picture, there is no one to threaten their sphere of influence, no one to question their teaching as being right or wrong. Everything can go back the way it was three years earlier and everyone can move on with the lives again. However, that is not the way things are going to play out.

As Paul said, “All things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” With the death of Christ, all things are working for good. Christ would do what He said He would do: He would come, live a sinless life, be crucified and rest in the tomb for three days. After three days, He would be raised from the dead. Very few truly believed He would do what He said that He would do. But the people believing or not believing in what Jesus said doesn’t make it any less true. Christ did all that He said He would do. He defeated sin, death, and the devil. He gave His life so that God’s creation would not die eternally. He died so that you would live.

Today we see the blind man made to see again to show the glory of God at work. By Christ’s hands, the man went and washed and came back seeing. This is terrific. This is wonderful. This is a cause to rejoice. However, that’s not how the Pharisees see it, for you see, it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. God’s law forbade work on the Sabbath and the Pharisees had a lot of traditions about what constituted work on the Sabbath. The problem was that most of these traditions were based on human opinions and not on the Word of God. According to the man-made tradition of the elders, Jesus had just violated the Sabbath. This caused a severe contradiction. If Jesus violated the Sabbath, then God would not give Him the authority to give sight to the blind. Nevertheless, according to their traditions, Jesus had worked on the Sabbath, but God had given sight to the blind anyway.

This man who had been born blind received much more than sight from the Savior. The Holy Spirit worked faith in his heart. He understood that he was a sinner and could not save himself. He learned that Jesus was not just a prophet, but that he was the Lord of the prophets and even more. He was the fulfillment of all the prophets. When Jesus Christ died on the cross, rose from the dead, and showed Himself to His disciples, this man saw that his sins died with Jesus Christ and remained in the grave when Christ rose.

The Lord does forgive you, and the Lord has not forsaken you. Jesus declares in the text, “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Though He has ascended into heaven, Jesus remains in the world, as near to you as the means of grace. He remains the Light of the world, saving you from the darkness of sin and death. Where He added His Word to mud to make the blind man see, He added His Word to water and gave you faith to see in your Baptism. Where He sought out the healed man to speak again His saving Word, He still speaks His saving Word to you, to strengthen your faith so that you might believe in the Son of Man. He feeds you His own body and blood, so that His work of faith might continue to be displayed in you.

Our Lord doesn’t play the blame game when it comes to sin. The Lord makes this answer perfectly clear: He declares that He has come into this world of darkness to shine the light of His grace upon you. He has gone to the cross to die for your sin, and He is risen again to deliver you to everlasting life. In Jesus’ name, amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus, amen.

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Lent 3 – “Living Waters” (John 4:5-26)

A-32 Lent 3 (Jn 4.5-26)Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen. The text for the sermon is the Gospel, which was read earlier.

Things with Jesus are never without controversy. Today’s Gospel account is no different. Jesus had revealed Himself as the Lord by His first miracle in Cana. His disciples had put their faith in Him after seeing His glory. But Christ had not come just to educate a select group of people in the truths of eternal life. He had come for all people. Although He spent a greater share of His ministry seeking the “lost sheep of the house of Israel,” He never neglected an opportunity to share His Word with the non-Jewish community.

Our text demonstrates Jesus’ love for all people, a love which finally led Him to Calvary. He had been in Jerusalem where He had cleared the temple. He had discussed the miracle of rebirth with Nicodemus. He then withdrew from Jerusalem, carrying on His work in Judea. When His enemies noticed the crowds of people listening to Him, Jesus withdrew from Judea, the seat of hostility, and returned to Galilee.

“And he had to pass through Samaria,” John records. The most direct route lay through Samaria, but most Jews took the longer route through the Jordan Valley to avoid Samaria. The Samaritans were half-breeds, who accepted Genesis to Deuteronomy as their Scriptures, but also kept many of their heathen ideas. The Jews despised the Samaritans and avoided them at all costs. But Jesus “had to pass through Samaria.” John doesn’t say that Jesus could have gone through Samaria or that He could choose to go through Samaria, but rather that He had to go through Samaria. The Savior went through this countryside on a search and rescue mission.

Christ, in love, singled out a Samaritan woman. Her past was tarnished. She had destroyed her life. Her guilt was overwhelming, but He approached her in love. He patiently led her to see in Him more than a tired, thirsty Jew. She saw in Him the Christ, the one who could cleanse her from her sin. She became a believer, for Jesus’ powerful words drew her to faith.

As we see Jesus interacting with the Samaritan woman, we see Jesus’ human nature at full force, for He arrives wearied and thirsty. John draws our attention to Jesus’ tired condition, for the Son of God truly shares our humanity and understands our needs. When the Samaritan woman first encountered Him, she would have had no reason to suspect He was anyone but a footsore traveler. She would not have spoken to this Jew, but Jesus in His compassion and love drew her to hear His words of life. He began a marvelous conversation that ended with her receiving eternal life. He began it so simply. “Give me a drink.”

For Jesus to converse with her showed how out of character Jesus truly was. She knew the Jews’ racism and discrimination against the Samaritans, and yet this Jew speaks to her. This Jew is unlike any other Jew, that He would be interested in and caring about anyone and everyone, even a Samaritan. God can’t really be like this unless He has an overpowering desire to love us all, down to the last one, even those who are looked down upon such as the Samaritan woman.

It’s a good thing that Jesus is not like all the other Jews. He doesn’t snub His nose at those who are inferior to Him, which would be everyone since He is the Son of God. No, He comes to meet us where we are, in our sinfulness and promises to lift us up out of that sinfulness. He doesn’t do it by means of being a life-coach or motivational speaker to us, telling us how we can do it ourselves. He doesn’t do it by the things of this world. He does it by willingly placing Himself upon the cross. He does so by letting the blood flow from His pierced side into the cup that He gives to you at His Table.

Jesus gives to the Samaritan woman and to all who hear a promise: “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” That promise was given to you in your Baptism, that in that blessed water, your sins were drowned and you died, only to be born again into Christ as a new creation, one that is forgiven and made a part of the family of God.

It all comes down to a Savior. But we don’t have a singular Savior, we have saviors, plural. They’re all the same. At least, that’s how society looks at it. Each church has their particular song and dance — each one has its schtick and list of things that true disciples do. Each one presents a list of requirements for the “real” people of God. Truly, the popular view of religion is that all roads lead to God, so just pick the one with the best ride and prettiest view along the way. Even within the Church, many Christians see all denominations as equally true, despite different doctrines, as if God runs a theological smorgasbord and you can just mix and match and get the same result.

But that thinking is where you are wrong. All roads do not lead to God. All roads do not lead to Christ. All roads do not lead to heaven, despite what the world will tell you. Where all other religions are really the same at heart, Christianity is different. Yours is not a Savior who gathers you at this well in order to tell you what to do. He’s the Savior who has become flesh to live for you, die for you, rise for you. He’s the Savior who gathers you here, in this place, to give you living water — to give you forgiveness and life and salvation. As He did for the Samaritan woman, He offers you the living water of His grace, requiring nothing from you.

We must rely solely upon Jesus Christ to give to us true living water. We will often turn to the things of this world to quench our thirst. These things may quench it temporarily but the thirst will return. This living water that our Lord gives to us is given freely, without any requirement on our part, except that we surrender our sins to the One who takes away those sins.

Your Lord Jesus does not give you gifts to reward you for your holiness, but He gives you His gifts to make and keep you holy. If you were already holy without Him, you wouldn’t need Jesus to give you forgiveness. Jesus doesn’t go to the cross to give you bonus points for your own righteousness, but because you didn’t have any righteousness of your own, Christ died in order to save you.

The Samaritan woman listens to Jesus and tells Him that the Messiah is coming will explain everything. Christ is here, present in His means of grace, just as He promised. When you hear His Word proclaimed, when it is joined with water, bread, and wine, you know that it is Christ saying, “I who speak to you am He.” It is no less than Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to speak His saving Word to you, to declare to you that all of your sins are forgiven. In Jesus’ name, amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus.

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Lent 2 – “God’s Kingdom” (John 3:1-17)

A-30 Lent 2 (Jn 3.1-17)Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen. The text for the sermon is the Gospel, which was read earlier.

It must have been hard to be Nicodemus. Probably one of the hardest things of his life was living two lives – his Pharisaical live and then the life that looked to Jesus. He is open to new ideas and possibilities and independent enough to give Jesus a fair hearing. He is skeptical enough to want straight answers before he commits himself to anything. He is willing to take the risk of breaking step with his colleagues in the Sanhedrin and make up his own mind about Jesus and his movement. He is cautious enough to do so alone and at night. He likes a theological discussion and prides himself in his sensibleness and logic, yet keeps the stakes fairly low by being reluctant to put his reputation or career on the line.

Under the cover of the darkness of night, he goes to Jesus, wanting something more, possibly something more than the Pharisees and all the Sanhedrin can give him. Nicodemus, unlike the other Pharisees, came sincerely seeking the truth. Jesus’ teachings and signs had impressed him. He confessed that Jesus had come from God. He knew so because Jesus did miraculous signs no one could do without God.

As with see with this discourse, Nicodemus correctly states that Jesus is from God and Jesus answers him by saying, “Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Jesus speaks of being “born again.” It’s time to ask the good Lutheran question: What does Jesus mean? Nicodemus clearly didn’t understand because he questioned about being born a second time from the mother’s womb. Nicodemus isn’t the only one to not understand either.

Often in evangelical circles when one speaks of being “born again,” it means that moment in your life when you make that decision to follow Jesus or when you decide to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. However, that is not what Jesus means. Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” With these words of Jesus, He speaks about the wonderful gift of Holy Baptism, that sacred act where God chooses to make us His beloved child, where Jesus redeems us and where the Holy Spirit gives to us faith. Notice that it is the Trinity who is doing the work and not the individual. Being born again as Jesus explains is an act that is done completely from the outside, not the inside.

A person can contribute no more to his spiritual birth than he did to his physical birth. The Holy Spirit must give a person the new birth. The Spirit does this in Baptism. Jesus says God’s Spirit works in the water of Baptism to accomplish the new birth. Through your Baptism, you are brought into the kingdom of God and made part of that great heavenly family, a family with God as our Father and Christ as our Brother.

What Jesus said was profound and Nicodemus was left wondering, questioning what Jesus had said. Jesus spoke of glorious things, of divine things, and Nicodemus thought in terms of his own experience, relying on his own knowledge to grasp what Jesus was talking about. And so Jesus asks him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?”

Nicodemus isn’t alone in his ignorance of what Jesus says regarding the new birth of water and the Spirit. Many are ignorant of what Jesus means. Holy Baptism does something extraordinary, something that we cannot comprehend; yet we accept it by faith. But for as many as accept Baptism by faith, there are just as many who reject it or see it as nothing more than a human rite that a person does to confess their faith, and that’s where it stops. Jesus makes it clear that even as we don’t choose our physical birth, neither do we choose our new birth in Him either. It is God who does the choosing, not us.

We all have a little bit of Nicodemus in us. We are ignorant of what God promises us. We are ignorant of what we have received on account of Christ. We fail to understand what it means to be a part of the family of God. As a teacher of the Old Testament, Nicodemus should have understood the things about which Jesus spoke. Nicodemus knew quite a lot but still did not understand in his heart because he stressed the how instead of the fact. There are still those, like Nicodemus, who insist on explanations about the mysteries of the Spirit rather than taking them on faith and finding in them their great comfort and joy.

Even though Nicodemus doesn’t understand everything that Jesus is saying, Jesus lays out God’s divine plan of salvation – not just for Nicodemus, but for you and me and for all people: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” This does indeed proclaim salvation: heaven is not yours because you have done enough to earn it, but because Christ has done enough to save you. “Enough” did not come cheap, but by His holy, precious blood, and by His bitter suffering and death.

Christ’s death for your sin is your salvation—completely. It is not by your work, but because you have been born again by water and the Spirit. The price is paid in full, the work is done and salvation is yours. With that being said, Satan will always try to convince you otherwise. He will tell you that you’re not good enough. He will tell you that you haven’t done enough. He will tell you that you are unlovable. He will tell you that your sin is too great to be forgiven. The ironic thing about Satan’s argument is that he’s right on every point. But that is where God trumps every argument that Satan has made or could ever make. Even though you are every argument that Satan makes, God’s love for you is greater. His grace and mercy are greater. He sends His Son to the cross, to be utterly forsaken so that He may atone for your sins, that you may be forgiven, and that you may have everlasting life.

All of this was done so that we would have eternal life. He did all this out of love for us, so that we would have life and have it abundantly in His name. This was done for us because we are sinners in need of salvation. We aren’t born with eternal life. Each and every one of us are born into a sinful world and we die in a sinful world. However, because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, we have that gift of everlasting life.

God has created you. Jesus Christ has redeemed you, “not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood.” You have been brought to believe in Him by the power of His Holy Spirit, poured out on you at your Baptism. What a mystery all of this is. We will never understand how this all works in this world. Fortunately, God does not ask us to understand it. He only expects us to believe and even supplies the faith that does the believing.

Christ has died and Christ is risen for you. He does not come now to judge you, to condemn you for your sin. Rather, He comes with grace and salvation, to tell you that you are born again by the work of the Spirit, to maintain that new life by His Word and His Supper. He comes to declare that you are entered into the kingdom of God, because you are forgiven for all of your sins. In Jesus’ name, amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus, amen.

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Lent 1 – “Creation’s Story” (Genesis 3:1-21)

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen. The text for the sermon is the Old Testament, which was read earlier.

Everyone loves a good story. And what makes a good story? Usually, it would start with, “Once upon a time” and end with “And they lived happily ever after.” There is often a situation that needs to be resolved in the story and the main characters are the one who resolve the problem. This morning, we have a story that has all the makings of an epic story, though this story is not a fairytale story, though it will have a fairytale ending.

God’s epic story begins with creation and leads us to the first two people that God created, Adam and Eve. Things couldn’t be better for Adam and Eve. They lived in the Garden of Eden and had everything that they could ever need. They enjoyed intimate walks with God, Creator and creation coming together and enjoying one another’s company. The first chapter of this book is perfect, just as it should be. It’s not until you get to chapter three that things begin taking a turn for the worse.

The opening verse of the chapter sets the tone of how things will be from here on out: “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made.” When you read a verse like that, this sets up for you the problem of the story that will need to be resolved.

When God placed Adam and Eve into the Garden, there was a single, simple rule that must be followed: eat from anything in the Garden except one tree, for when they do, they will surely die. It sounds as if it’s a pretty straight-forward rule with a straight-forward consequence. However, the serpent had something else in mind. With a single question, the problem begins to present itself: “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” Something enters the equation that wasn’t present before: doubt. Up until now, creation obeyed the Creator, no questions asked, and why shouldn’t they? With a simple question from the serpent, doubt comes racing into creation and leads to the problem of the story – creation disobeys the Creator. Adam and Eve eat from the forbidden tree and things are forever changed.

Now the consequence of their actions is made known by God. Eve will experience pain in childbirth. While childbirth can be painful, that doesn’t sound as bad of a consequence as Eve could have received. However, for Adam, the consequence is much more dire, more so in fact that it reaches to all of creation. The worst part of the consequence is the second half of it: “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

It’s here that we reach the climax of the problem in our story: the main characters are going to die. It is because of their actions that they will experience a temporal death. That trickles down throughout all of creation to every man, woman, and child. Because of our first parents, we will experience death. That is more than Satan could have ever expected. He wants God’s creation to simply doubt the words of the Creator. For creation to experience death, that truly is the best thing that Satan could have ever hoped for.

It sounds as if this story isn’t going to have a happy ending. But God already wrote the happy ending into the story and if you blinked, you might have missed it. The happy ending actually comes before the consequences. “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” The happy ending is that you will have life after death! Even though Adam and Eve broke God’s single command, God has the perfect answer to the problem at hand: He is going to send a Redeemer to buy back Adam and Eve. That same Redeemer will buy you back as well, since you are God’s beloved creation.

Listen to what Paul says in our Epistle reading: “For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many…. If, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.”

The happy ending comes through Jesus. The happy ending comes through the main character of the story. While in the beginning it seemed as if the main characters were Adam and Eve, they were only the supporting characters of the story. The main character was from the beginning Jesus, because this story is all about Jesus. It is about the promise of Jesus in the beginning. In the middle of the story, it’s about what Jesus is going to do. Towards the end of the story, we see what it is that Jesus does. We see how Jesus lives the perfect live that God demands and dies the death that you and I deserve. Our death accomplishes nothing while Jesus’ death accomplishes salvation for all who believe in Him.

This story plays itself out exactly as God had planned it. Jesus our great High Priest does all that we cannot. He defeats sin, death, and the devil. He does that by bring tried, convicted, and crucified. On what grounds was He tried? He was tried on the grounds that He was the Son of God, the promised Messiah of long ago come to fulfill the prophecies of old.

While judged as a heretic for making such a claim, it is by the truth of that claim is He able to do for us what He does. As the Son of God, He is able to make atonement to God on behalf of creation. As the Son of God, He is able to clothe us in His righteousness so that we may stand before God as holy and redeemed people. Jesus gives His holy, innocent, precious blood in exchange for creation.

Jesus kept the promise that God made to the serpent. He is the seed of the woman who crushed the serpent’s head. What a glorious victory for Christ and for us. Jesus endured temptation for us and never fell. Although He lived among sinners in a sinful world, He never sinned. He is the Lord our righteousness. With His suffering and death on the cross, He took all our sin to Himself and gave us the righteousness He lived with His perfect life. Because of this incredibly unfair exchange, God examines us and declares us holy and righteous for the sake of Christ.

This story ends with a happy ending. Christ dies, and yet He lives. Creation dies, and yet creation lives. Creation is restored to the Creator, just as it was meant to be from the beginning. We will live with Christ because of His sacrifice for us, so that we may stand before God as His holy and redeemed people. In Jesus’ name, amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus, amen.

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Good Friday–“Death Up Close” (Isaiah 52:13-53:12)

C-50 Good FridayCrucifixes make us uncomfortable—and well they should. We squirm before them, and it has nothing to do with any anti-Catholic bias. It is simply painful to look upon our Lord suffering so and to know the reason for His suffering. We shudder before it. In the darkness of that Good Friday, the totality of human sin—from the first sin of our first parents to the last sin of the last human being alive—all of it was gathered up, pressed together, and then off-loaded onto this Man. He bore the whole weight of it and owned it as His own. Thus He also bore its penalty—both temporal and eternal death.

Look upon His cross. See His wounds, the nails affixing His hands and feet to the beams. See the blood running down His face from the thorns. Behold the quivering mass of His mutilated back as He is forced to rub it against the tree, pushing up against the nails to take in a breath of air. Look, seek, and realize: this wounded Man, dying in agony, is not suffering for a single wrong that He has done. As we have seen, His whole life was only love. He was the only human being who completely loved the Father with His all and His neighbor as Himself. Yet it is because He is love that He is now upon the tree. Love will not leave the sinner in his sin. Love takes that sin upon Himself. Love is wounded to grant us healing. He is offering atonement for all the wrongs that we have done. Yes, it is hard to look a crucifix in the face, but it is necessary, because it is not Christ who deserves to be nailed to the cross, but instead it should be us.

While we should be the ones nailed to the cross, it is impossible for us to be the one to hang upon it. Because of our sinful nature, our death on the cross would mean nothing, for there is nothing about us that can redeem ourselves from the clutches of death. The only way for our sin to be purged is by the death of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And so tonight, we deal with death up close and personal. We do not stand beside a casket of a parent or another family member; instead, we stand at the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ, our Savior. We experience the reality of death, His death. We realize that death does indeed come close – to each of us. Death is the enemy. It would be cold and dark and empty, except that Jesus has come close to us and has faced death in our place.

Though Christ has faced death in our place, it does not mean that we are immune to the effects of death. To live in this world means that we must face death. Because of Jesus, the death that we face is merely temporal and not eternal. He has seen fit to lay down His life for us, even though we are born enemies of God, He still goes to the cross on our behalf to shed His blood to make a sacrifice that is pleasing to God, one that will do what no other sacrifice could ever do: make full restitution to God for sins committed and restore creation to its rightful place with God the Father.

The prophet Isaiah painted a poetic picture of what this Friday would be. He described a Savior, a Suffering Savior, who would stand in our place and experience death up close. For us who are part of fallen humanity, death is justice. It is a verdict that fits the crime. We have disobeyed God and deserve death. But now the Suffering Savior comes near. As Isaiah describes it, “He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief…. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows…. He was wounded for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities…. The LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all…. He was cut off out of the land of the living.”

All of this was done for you, with you in mind. Everything that He bore on the cross, He bore it for you. God the Father forsook our Lord so that you would not be forsaken by God. All of your sins, past, present, and future are nailed to the cross of Christ, because He takes them upon Himself.

Our Suffering Savior knows death up close. He felt the bite of death. He winced at the piercing of the nails. He endured the taunting of the crowd and the unjust accusations. He tasted the thirst of death. He didn’t simply view death from a casual distance. He was no simple spectator. He joined Himself to us and absorbed the blows of the hammer that should have been ours. In His death He carried our sorrows. He came to the scene of our guilt. He stretched out His hands to receive our sins. He looked death in the eye. He left nothing undone. He said, “It is finished.” All was completed; the obligation for sin paid. All was accomplished.

On this Good Friday, we stand at the foot of the cross to view a crucified Jesus. We experience death up close, the death of our Suffering Savior. That is why we train ourselves in life to look upon the crucifix, to behold our Savior’s wounds, to hold them close to our heart, counting them as the most precious treasure we have.

Because of Jesus, we can look into the eyes of death and see not a conquering villain, but an enemy that has been conquered. We can see victory in death. We can find hope in sorrow, for we have a Suffering Savior who experienced death up close and personal and overcame it. Our Lord swallowed death. He tasted it for us, and now we follow Him from death to life. Amen.

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Maundy Thursday–“Best Meal Ever” (Luke 22:7-20)

C-49 Holy Thursday (Lu 22.7-20)Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen. The text for the sermon is the Gospel, which was read earlier.

What is the best meal that you have ever had? I can think of several meals that were great, but I can’t remember what the best meal I’ve ever had was. What criteria goes into deciding what makes a meal “the best” you’ve ever had? Is it the food, the fellowship, the price? Whatever your best meal might have been, it pales in comparison to the Meal that is offered to you this night.

As we focus on the theme of the Lord’s Supper this evening, the evening begins as does any other meal with Jesus and His disciples. They are enjoying the Passover meal, something that has been done before. The Passover was the significant family meal in the covenant between God and His people. The Israelites were initially slaves in Egypt, living under the harsh treatment of the Pharaoh. Their cries went to the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who sent Moses to deliver them. Pharaoh refused to let God’s people go free. Pharaoh depended on Egypt’s gods to lead the country. By sending plagues that overpowered Egypt’s so-called gods, the true God convinced Pharaoh to let God’s people go. The final plague brought judgment on Egypt’s god of life, as the almighty God sent the destroying angel throughout the land, killing the firstborn in each home. God directed His people to hold a special meal centered on a lamb, whose blood was smeared on the door frame. When the destroyer saw the blood, he passed over the house. The people were protected by the blood of the lamb as a substitute for their lives. As a result of this catastrophic judgment on Egypt, Pharaoh let God’s people go. The Israelites celebrated the Passover meal thereafter.

In our text Jesus gathers with His disciples in the Upper Room to celebrate the Passover meal. Jesus was ready for His exodus. During the meal, “He took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is My body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.’ And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, ‘This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.’” Matthew adds “for the forgiveness of sins.”

Jesus instituted a new Passover based on His self-sacrifice as the Passover Lamb. He ends the first covenant and establishes the new covenant promised for the new era. Just as the lamb’s blood served as a substitution for the death of the firstborn, so now Jesus’ blood substitutes for our death. We are set free from our bondage to sin, to malice, and to evil through the forgiveness He earned by taking judgment into His own body. Sin “lets us go,” that is, releases its stranglehold on us. We are free. We are rescued from death and given the certain hope of heaven.

What Jesus does tonight is amazing, in and of itself. But we have to remember when our Lord does this: on the night when He was betrayed. One of His very own disciples is going to betray Him and yet He still does this for them. In fact, He does this for the entire Christian Church. He gives to you His body and His blood for the forgiveness of sin. He does this knowing full well that we will betray Him by our thoughts, words, and deeds. He does this knowing full well that we are enemies of God and yet gives Himself to us freely.

In this new Passover meal God forgives and forgets our past, as far as the east is from the west. Your sins are forgiven in this Meal.

Sadly, and to their detriment, many Christians neglect this Meal. But for those hungering and thirsting for righteousness, this is a Meal of great benefit. Those who struggle with the old sinful nature, who need strength to handle broken relationships, and who seek the wisdom to make decisions are united with Christ through this Meal.

When a person receives the bread and wine in Holy Communion, that person receives Jesus. As He said, “This is My body.” The heart of faith grasps the Word, which puts in the benefit, and then takes out the benefit, namely, all that Christ is according to His Word. The mouth eats physically for the heart and the heart eats spiritually what the body eats physically, and thus both are saved and satisfied by one and the same food.

This Meal—a life-giving, life-renewing, life-changing Meal—is the best meal we will ever have because we are united with Christ Jesus in this Sacrament. God changes us through the power of the Word, but also in this Meal He gives us His compassion, joy, peace, patience, kindness, moral goodness, sense of responsibility, humility, and self-control—all of which are life-giving, life-renewing, and life-changing.

That is what this Supper is about. It is not some institution that God gives only so that we remember, and it is certainly not an ordinance by which He tests our obedience to Him. It is the Father calling His children to dinner so that they might be fed. It is the Passover fulfilled: it is Christ present with us, leading us through the wilderness and feeding us with the forgiveness that keeps us alive in Him.

Christ, your Passover Lamb, gives you the remission of sins in this Supper, for He is present with you in, with and under bread and wine. Where there is forgiveness of sins, there is also life and salvation. And so life and salvation are yours: because you are forgiven for all of your sins.

For you tonight, the best meal has been served: a meal that feeds your soul, strengthens your faith, and forgives you all of your sins. The Table has been prepared and our Lord Jesus invites us to be His guests, to give to us the best meal ever. In Jesus’ name, amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus, amen.

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Palm/Passion Sunday–“Passion” (Luke 23:1-56)

C-42 Palm SundayGrace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen. The text for the sermon is the Gospel, which was read earlier.

In order to get a glimpse of Luke’s account of Jesus’ crucifixion, one only needs to watch “The Passion of the Christ.” While the movie is not fully accurate, it describes the scene that Luke records for us today. The movie focuses more on the beating and torture of Christ, but not why Christ was beaten and tortured. Since death entered the world, it was no longer “good” as God had once declared it. Something had to happen in order for it to become “good” again and that’s where Jesus’ Passion comes into play.

As we have seen throughout this Lenten season, we have a world that is completely infested with sin with no human cure available. The only cure to sin must be a divine cure, and so we have Jesus, who comes as the divine cure to creation’s problem with sin and death.

Days before His crucifixion, the people sat in the temple, listening to the words of Jesus. Perhaps they thought of Him as the Messiah, maybe someone who would set them free from Roman rule. And when asked the question, “Are you the King of the Jews?”, answering anything other than “no” would surely mean death. But death was what was necessary to remove death. It would require death of the innocent to ride death from the guilty, guilty because of a crafty serpent asking if God really meant what He said.

Throughout the beatings and sneering and false statements against Him, Christ was the King. His being king is correct on levels, though they would only have acknowledged one at best. Christ is the King of creation. Everything is under His authority. This fact they would not acknowledge because there was only one king and his name was Caesar. Any king other than Caesar had to be silenced. The rulers of the people, to put down the perversion of Christ and His teaching, saw one mean to do it – death.

To return to Pilate’s question about kingship, Jesus’ answer was simple: “You have said so.” Christ is indeed the King of the Jews. He is the King of the Gentiles. He is the King of the Romans. He is the king of all who believe in Him. He is the King of creation. There was one thing that this King brought that no other king ever could: forgiveness. Paying taxes to Caesar did not bring forgiveness. Roman citizenship did not bring forgiveness. Simply being a Jew did not bring forgiveness. Forgiveness is the gift of God by grace through faith in Christ Jesus.

When the waters of Holy Baptism hit our heads, we were marked as a child of God. Forgiveness comes only through Christ and from no one or nothing else. He plainly says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Faith in anything other than Christ is futile, for it was His body and blood, pierced and broken on Calvary’s cross that defeated death and nothing else.

Time and time again in their mockery did they tell Christ to save Himself. “He saved others; let him save himself.” “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself!” All of them are mockeries of Christ and the salvation from death that He brought with Him. Maybe the greatest bit of mockery was the sign above Christ’s head, “This is the King of the Jews.” Not only does this mock Christ, but also the Jewish people as a whole. It says that if you want a king besides Caesar, here He is, a pathetic man dying on a cross. It mocks the divinity of Christ, His triumph over death and the belief of the people worked by the Holy Spirit. What they failed to realize is that Christ needed no saving because it was He that came to do the saving.

One person, a criminal being crucified alongside Jesus, saw Christ for what He was – innocent. His words were plain, but spoke volumes: “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” While he may have been speaking strictly because they were criminals, his words apply to creation as a whole. We were receiving what our deeds deserved: death. Death came with Adam and Eve but with death came the promise of a Savior.

Death was not meant to be in the equation. It was an unknown variable that set creation spinning a way that it was not meant for it to spin. Through Christ, Satan was defeated and death removed, though we still feel the effects of death.

All of creation is guilty and thus unable to do anything about it. Christ, the only innocent, took the guilt upon Himself in order to make creation innocent.

In the last moments of Christ’s life, the world around Him began to change. The Creator, who took on flesh and was born into creation, is at this moment of death, bringing in new and eternal life, a new creation. With the curtain of the temple torn, it symbolized the completion of Christ’s victory over death, therefore allowing Jesus to commit His spirit into the hands of the Father.

The death of Christ marked the end of creation as we know it. Sin and death no longer have dominion over creation. Satan lost the keys to creation which he wrongfully stole from God through sin. No intercessions by the priests were needed because the greatest intercession was made. No more animals needed to be sacrificed because the sacrificial Lamb was offered. When Christ uttered the words, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!”, He signified that His work was finished, once and for all. Nothing could undo what had just been done.

Through the life of Christ and His Passion, we have received life – life that came at an expense – the death of Christ. The King of the Jews, who “humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross,” died so that all of creation would be reborn in Him, purged from death and made “good” in the eyes of God. This was the way that creation was meant to be and what took place at our Lord’s Passion was necessary for creation to be restored. Today is not a time to focus on the brutality of Christ’s death or death itself, but to focus on what that death brought about – the dying of death and a restored creation. In Jesus’ name, amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus, amen.

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Lent 5–“Rejected Cornerstone” (Luke 20:9-20)

C-39 Lent 5 (LHP) (Lu 20.9-20)Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen. The text for the sermon is the Gospel, which was read earlier.

Today in our Gospel reading, we find ourselves in the middle of Holy Week in Jerusalem, and the people around Jesus is becoming more and more polarized as Jesus moves forward on His mission to save the world by the cross. There are those who continue to follow Jesus to wherever He would lead while there are those who are searching high and low for any excuse to put Him to death. His enemies are doing what they do best by questioning His authority. Surely there must be something that Jesus will say that will give His enemies the proof they need to put Him to death as a heretic.

The question before Jesus is one that has been asked time and time again: “Tell us by what authority you do these things, or who it is that gave you this authority.” Rather than answer this same old question again and with little time before the cross, Jesus instead tells a parable to illustrate who He is. The answer that He gives is not the one that the people are looking for, for He claims to be the cornerstone of our life and our salvation.

The parable that Jesus tells is not a difficult one to understand if you are the Jewish leadership. It is quite unmistakable who is who in the parable: the owner of the vineyard is our heavenly Father. The vineyard is the people of God and it is the Lord who has planted the vineyard. If God has planted the vineyard, then that means that we are His creation and that we are made for fellowship with God. However, if you are one who is listening to Jesus’ parable and are looking for a way to trap Him in His words, then you will surely miss the point of Jesus’ parable.

As Jesus tells the parable, it is clear that the vineyard owner rented the vineyard out to tenants to run in his absence. You would expect that upon his return, the tenants would hand over the vineyard to the owner. Unfortunately, that is not what Jesus says.

As the man send a servant to get some of the fruit of the vineyard, the tenants beat the servant and he returns empty handed. This occurs a second time and the vineyard owner sees same results. He does it a third time and the results are the same. Surely this is not the results that the land owner had expected. In order to stake his claim, the landowner decides to send his son to the tenants in hopes that the something will change. In the end, the tenants refuse to do what is right and kill the son.

The tenants had entered into a business arrangement with the owner to pay Him a fair share of the profits from the vineyard, but when the servants came to collect on behalf of the owner, the tenants abused them and sent them away empty-handed. They even went so far as to kill the Son of the owner in the hope of stealing His inheritance.

Jesus deliberately exaggerated the role of the evil tenants in order to show the awful abuses of the religious leaders down through the years. During various times in Israel’s history, they have worshipped false gods – even in the temple area. At times, they even offered human sacrifices. As far as the prophets were concerned, most of them spent the majority of their ministry behind bars and many of them died at the hands of those who should have honored them. Even the last of the great Old Testament prophets, John the Baptist, lost his head to a ruler’s sword.

As unusual as the tenants are, the owner is even more so. His first servant returned with severe injuries and no fruit. What landowner would not immediately form a group to go after them and at the very least put the tenants in prison? Instead, this land owner sends servant after servant. Then, when the servants return beat up and bloody, he sent His son? Yet this owner sent his son knowing that he would most certainly die.

This is such a picture of God the Father. He patiently sent, not just three, but thousands of prophets to His people. He has every right to wipe us out for the sin we have committed, but He is patient with us instead, as the Apostle Peter wrote: “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”

God the Father has even sent His Son to a violent death like the owner in the parable. God, in His love for us, sent His only begotten Son to die for us in order that we might have a new life. Even as the wicked tenants threw the son outside the vineyard and then killed him so also the corrupt Jewish establishment sent Jesus out of town to die on a cross. 

This parable of Jesus was one of things that had happened and of things yet to come. The people had rejected Him; not only the locals but the Jewish rulers as well. God our heavenly Father has created this vineyard and sends His Son to redeem it, but instead of listening to Him, we put Him to death instead. Not realizing what our Lord was saying, the people exclaim, “Surely not!” and Jesus tells them, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” Instead of listening to Jesus, instead of asking for His forgiveness, Luke records that the scribes and the chief priests sought to put Him to death.

The death of Jesus had to be. His death was the payment for the world’s sin. Sinners treat God terribly with disrespect and irreverence. God gives them daily bread and they fail to be thankful. God gives them things to use in service to their neighbor, and they hoard it for themselves and use it to boast of their accomplishments. God gives them bodies and minds to be used for honorable purposes, and they misuse and pollute them both for temporary pleasure in self-destructive ways. That’s how sinners treat God. But that is not how God treats sinners. He gives us Jesus, for this is how God treats sinners: with patience, mercy and grace. He patiently waits. He continues to send His Word and preachers to proclaim it. He patiently showers you with forgiveness in His Word and Sacraments to keep you in the true faith, even as He patiently gives this dying world more time so that more might hear and be saved.

Jesus, who was the rejected stone, conquered sin, death, and the power of the devil with His holy life, His suffering, His death on a cross, and His resurrection from the dead. He is now the living cornerstone for me, for you and for all who believe. We have a Savior who suffered extreme rejection for us and is now alive. Jesus is the cornerstone that establishes the church forever. In Jesus’ name, amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus, amen.

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Lent 4C–“Prodigal” (Luke15:1-3, 11-32)

C-37 Lent 4 (Lu 15.11-32)Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen. The text for the sermon is the Gospel, which was read earlier.

Children can be such a blessing and they can equally be a curse. They can bring such joy to a parent’s heart and they can also bring such sorrow as well. This has been the case from the beginning of creation. Adam and Eve brought great joy to their Father and then they also brought great sorrow following the fall into sin. Cain and Abel brought joy to Adam and Eve but that joy quickly turned into sorrow following Abel’s murder. The theme continues throughout the Scriptures and that is the basis of Jesus’ parable to the tax collectors, sinners, Pharisees, and scribes.

As Jesus begins the parable, one might imagine that at one time, there was a good relationship between the father and his two sons, or at least we hope. But the younger son has something important to say to his father: “Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.” Allow me to translate for you what this son said. “I wish you were dead so I can get my death benefits from you.” What a crude and outrageous request that the son makes. Jesus does not give us an idea of how old the father is, but whether he is young or old is irrelevant. The son doesn’t care about his father; he just wants the inheritance. I don’t know about the rest of you but if I were to make that request of my father, I would have been knocked into next week. That is not a request that a child makes of his father and hopes to walk away from it. But instead of knocking the son into next week, the father grants the son’s request and divides his property between the two sons. Shortly after that, the younger son leaves.

This son must be feeling really good about himself. He stood up to his father, told him in no uncertain terms that he wished that he were dead in order to receive his inheritance. The father gives it to him, no questions asked, and now here he is with the world at his fingertips. Everything must be going right for this young man! Everything is going well until the son starts to sow his wild oats. At that moment, he went from having the world in the palm of his hand to eating the slop of pigs.

Have you realized who the young son in the parable is yet? It is a person that you are very familiar with, for the young son is you! You are the one who is greedy, seeking what you can from your Father and squandering it. Our heavenly Father has given to us richly. Martin Luther writes in his explanation to the First Article of the Creed: “He richly and daily provides me with all that I need to support this body and life.” He has created us, He has given to us life, He provides for all of our needs and we cannot keep one simple rule: “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”” Instead of abiding by the Father’s command, we squandered all that we had in the Garden of Eden and were forever cast out of it.

As we return to the parable, we see the son living in utter poverty, with nothing to eat but the slop he is feeding the pigs. He realizes that he has done wrong by his father and sets out to return home in hopes that his father would make him like one of his hired hands. He says, “I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.””

Did you hear what the young son said? What is the basis of the speech he is planning to give to his father? It’s the same thing you said a few moments ago: we are sinners that are in need of forgiveness. This is the son’s confession of sins. He knows that he has sinned. He knows that he has broken the Fourth Commandment. He knows that the only thing for him to do is to go and confess his sins and ask for forgiveness from his father.

Isn’t that what we did at the beginning of the service? Didn’t we acknowledge our sin to our heavenly Father? Didn’t we confess how we have failed to keep His commandments and statutes and instead turn to our sinful ways? There is only one thing for us to do: confess our sins, return to our Father, the fountain and source of all goodness, the one who is able to forgive us for all that we have done wrong, all that we have done contrary to His divine Word. We no longer can live off of the slop of sin, for it is keeping us from our Father in heaven. We return to Him in prayer, asking for our sins to be forgiven because we are indeed sinners in need of salvation.

For the young man, as he is on his journey to his father’s home and is still a great distance out, his father saw him and ran to him. What the father does is out of character in many ways. In those days, a man of his stature would not have run because he was considered an elder, a man of certain esteem. Running in such a way would have been embarrassing. Secondly, why would he run after his son who more or less told him he wanted him dead and embrace him? It doesn’t make sense what the father did. But it does make sense because this was the father’s son. Even after all that the son has done in his wasteful life, at the end of the day, this is his son. He doesn’t chastise him for squandering all that he gave him. He doesn’t give him the “I told you so” speech. No, he gives to him the royal treatment: jewelry, clothing, food and drink, a great party – the works.

For you and I, our heavenly Father does nothing short of that for us. He gives to us the “best robe” as we are robed in Christ’s righteousness. You and I receive from God the gift of His name in our Baptism, marking us as those who have been redeemed by Christ. We are given that sonship that the young son had given up before his journey. We receive the fattened calf that was killed for the party, but we don’t receive it in the form of a calf. We receive it in the form of the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. This Lamb of God was slaughtered for us upon Calvary, His blood washing over us to forgive us all of our sins in His sacrifice for us. The words that the father uses in the parable are descriptive of us as well: “For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.” That’s us. Dead in our trespasses of sin, but made alive in the waters of Baptism. The image of God lost upon us in the Fall, but found and restored again by Christ’s death and resurrection.

Wouldn’t it be nice if that is how the parable ends, how our life ends? Unfortunately, there is more to both stories. In the parable, there is still the older brother, the one who did right by his father all these years, never disobeying, always being the “good son.” He reminds his father of the years of dutiful service he has rendered. But his virtue was not rewarded with even a young goat for celebration. Here Jesus is drawing a portrait of the Pharisees and experts in the law. They were proud of the dutiful way in which they observed all of God’s commands. They felt fully justified in criticizing Jesus for His fellowship with sinners and tax collectors. They were not about to join in joyfully celebrating the repentance of a sinner.

Isn’t that us? Aren’t we always making it all about us and what we’ve done rather than what God has done for us in Christ Jesus? Fortunately for us, it is the Father who has the last word in all of this. He is the one who never turns His back on the children who turn their backs on Him. He is the Father who comes running to us after we have run away from Him. There is always hope for the prodigal son and so there is hope for us as well. In Jesus’ name, amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus, amen.