Fifth Sunday of Easter – John 16:5-15

The conviction our Lord tells His disciples about in John chapter sixteen is a different kind of conviction than you and I are used to hearing about. Saint John, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, uses the verb “to convict” in the sense of drawing something into the light and exposing it.

You’re probably not happy about the Holy Spirit drawing your sin into the light of God’s conviction and exposing it before the world, let alone yourself. The confession of sin at the beginning of the Divine Service doesn’t seem like a great way to start corporate worship. You would expect a big production number like TV variety shows used in the 1960s and 1970s. You would expect a positive start to our Savior meeting you here in Word and Sacrament with joy. Instead it’s the downer of admitting before our heavenly Father and everyone else, especially your family and other loved ones, that you are “by nature sinful and unclean”. You have not loved God with your own heart. You have not loved your neighbor as yourself. You justly deserve temporal and eternal punishment.

The Holy Spirit does not leave you twisting in the wind of judgment. He directs your ears and your eyes to Jesus Christ, Who forgives you all your sins. He directs your attention to the words from my mouth. It’s not my forgiveness I speak to you, but God’s forgiveness. Pastors like me get the privilege of telling you the truth about sin and forgiveness, the truth that we sing in the hymn “Chief of Sinners, Though I Be”, whose first stanza continues, “Jesus shed His blood for me, died that I might live on high, lives that I might never die. As the branch is to the vine—I am His and He is mine.”

To forgive your sins is to declare you righteous. Jesus says the Holy Spirit will convict the world concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer. Being convicted of righteousness does not sound comforting. Consider, though, that the Holy Spirit convicts by drawing something into the light and exposing it. Your righteousness, when it is revealed to you, is like a polluted garment, as the prophet Isaiah nicely calls it. No one looks good wearing a polluted garment. In Baptism, however, your polluted garment is changed. It is taken off your body, washed clean in baptismal water, and put back on you as a spotless, perfect, and holy garment. The thing about that clean garment is that it has been washed in the blood of Jesus Christ. A garment washed in blood should turn scarlet. It turns white, pure white, holy white, perfect white. What a mysterious, yet salvific washing!

How would you know this unless someone came into your midst and told you this is true? Someone has come into your midst: a pastor. Pastors are sent to tell you the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Saint Paul calls those in the apostolic ministry servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. That’s what Vicar Sinatra has been learning to do during his time among us. The day is drawing near when he will be under divine orders to convict a congregation of sin, righteousness, and judgment. It’s a humbling task, but a noble task, a conviction that even a pastor like me stands under because he, also, is a sinner in need of the righteousness that is outside himself.

The Holy Spirit, sent by Jesus on the Day of Pentecost, convicts the world concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. Good news at last, right? Finally, no more convicting me of sin or of my polluted righteousness. The bad guys get sent to hell and the good guys go to heaven. In a crass way that’s correct. There’s much more to judgment, though, than being good or bad.

Jesus says the ruler of this world is judged. The ruler of this world is Satan. His task is to drag you away from Jesus and His righteousness by any means necessary. The task is easier than it seems. All it takes is one moment when you do not hold God’s Word sacred or gladly hear God’s Word and learn it. The next thing you know, you walk hand in hand with Satan, despising preaching and God’s Word.

Let’s hear it again: the ruler of this world is judged. The foe thought he won when Jesus hanged on a tree. Yet the foe did not believe that the King of Kings and Lord of Lords would suffer and die for the sake of His people. The foe did not believe that he is the one being mocked and scorned in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The ruler of this world is judged. Your judgment in Christ Jesus is innocent. Your death is a Sunday afternoon nap. Jesus lives, and you shall conquer death. That’s the message that brought my family much comfort last weekend as we laid my mom’s remains to rest in the sure and certain hope of a resurrection of her body. You might say the pastor convicted us of judgment because the ruler of this world is judged.

It’s not so bad to be convicted. The Holy Spirit, in preaching, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper, brings the mysteries of God to the light and shows them to the world. Blessed are you as you believe in His conviction, for your sin is forgiven, you are righteous in the Father’s eyes for Jesus’ sake, and you are judged worthy of eternal life. Because Jesus lives, you live.

In Memory of My Mother

Josephine Elizabeth (Snyder) Juhl died Tuesday, April 16th, in my home town in southern Illinois. She was 90. Mom had dementia the last several years of her life. The last 4-5 months were rough. She died suddenly, but her death was not unexpected.

My mom is the oldest of 12 children…a 13th child died stillborn. Five of her siblings are still alive. Grandma was 14 when my mother was born. Grandpa was an alcoholic, spending most of his time in a tavern rather than at home. A divorce occurred when my mom was a teenager. Mom quit school after ninth grade to stay home and help raise her siblings.

My dad grew up in the next town east of my mom’s home town. Mom said that dad was “conceited” but they dated for a while and, suddenly, were married in 1951. I didn’t figure it out until later in life but the sudden marriage was because my mother was pregnant out of wedlock with my oldest brother. My dad’s Missouri Synod Lutheran pastor for some reason refused to marry them, but the Missouri Synod Lutheran pastor in the county seat would marry them. In spite of the rough beginning, they were married 67 years and had five children.

If there is one word to describe my mom’s upbringing and the first several years of her marriage, it is POOR. My father worked hard but money was scarce, especially with mom giving birth to four children in the span of five years. My maternal grandfather drank most of his paycheck so mom didn’t have much growing up. The one thing she had, however, was her baptism. She told me her best friend Christine was getting baptized, so she wanted to get baptized, too. My mother was baptized as a teenager on September 10, 1950.

My father drove a truck for the “bughouse” in Lincoln, IL. The “bughouse” was a state hospital where children with severe physical and mental defects were kept isolated from the public. My father saw a number of the children of Thalidomide. He saw other things that made his skin crawl. My father ultimately lost his job in early 1961 due to a new governor being elected…his was a patronage job. Dad then started working for a lumber yard in my mom’s home town. His pastor encouraged him to move to southern Illinois. SIU-Carbondale was booming. Carbondale was booming. He could make a living for his family. So dad applied for a job at a lumber yard in Carbondale and was hired on the spot. Mom packed. Dad worked. They built a home in Carbondale. Then dad was promoted to manager of a newly purchased lumber yard in my home town 20 miles north of Carbondale. They moved to Du Quoin in 1967. My childhood home was built in 1968. By 1971 all my siblings were teenagers. My oldest brother was married Thanksgiving weekend that year. But mom was hiding something from almost everyone.

She was pregnant. Pregnant with me.

Almost fifteen years after my sister’s birth, along came me. My mom was almost 39 years old. Empty nest was imminent. Now they had one more person for whom to care. It took my dad many years to understand why this happened. It was hard for him to accept. My mother, however, dug in, like usual, and cared for me.

I was not an easy child to raise. I was book smart beyond my years. I was an old soul. When my childhood home went up for sale and the family held an estate sale, my sister showed me a book called “The Strong Willed Child” by James Dobson. My mother secretly read it when I was young. I know that I tested my mom’s patience on a daily basis. More than once did I receive a paint paddle across my rear end, or the wire handle of a flyswatter across the back of my calf muscles.

In spite of my ornery ways, my mother was my greatest advocate. She couldn’t believe that the public school system wanted me to undergo psychological testing in first grade because I couldn’t jump rope. She threatened more than once to remove me from public school and homeschool me, something only the “hippies” in Carbondale did back in the early 1980s. She called my junior high principal about me being physically bullied and threatened with bodily harm if I ever told anyone about me being bullied. The principal called me into his office the next day and wanted me to name names. I did. He told me I would not be bothered again. I wasn’t. All I know is that it was a closed door phone conversation between mom and him. You didn’t cross my mother. If you did, you wouldn’t cross her again. You can ask my ex-brother-in-law about crossing my mother and being on the receiving end of her Irish temper.

My mother also talked me out of dropping out of college. By the last semester of my senior year at SIU I was burned out. I was also feeling the pressure of possibly going to seminary to study for the Ministry. I told mom one night that I wanted to drop out. I could take time off and finish my last semester later. She told me to stick with it. She told me I’d be sorry if I dropped out, even while working 30+ hours a week as a radio disc jockey. I stayed in school. I graduated. I waited four more years and then entered seminary.

My dad told me that mom couldn’t go into my bedroom for several weeks after I moved into the dormitory at Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne, IN. She missed me that much. She held it together at our farewell; it was dad who cried. She was scared I would be placed in California or New York for my first call. I was placed 65 miles northeast of home. She was satisfied. Mother ALWAYS cooked biscuits and gravy for my first and last meals at home when I arrived and before I left for Ft. Wayne.

When dad retired and wanted to be involved in Laborers for Christ, mom was reticent to go. Mother did enjoy Laborers for Christ and adapted to travel trailer living for a few years. They made lifelong friends, many of whom await the Day of Resurrection now with my mom and dad.

She was happiest on the couch after her housework was done, drinking a diet lemon-lime soda, watching a movie, or Perry Mason, or Law and Order (she loved detective shows), or Murder She Wrote, or the seven hour Saturday afternoon block of Westerns on CBN back in the 1980s. Before her dementia diagnosis she read just about every book Janette Oke wrote…and then some. There were at least three bookshelves at home that were full of books my mother had read. When I was about six years old she took up crocheting. Afghans appeared at the speed of light. My mother was a keen Yahtzee player. The dice game is mostly dumb luck with some strategy, but my dad said that we were going to take my mom to Vegas and get rich the way she played Yahtzee. She taught me how to play rummy. She sat through playing all the game show board games I got as a kid. She even tried Pac-Man on my Atari 2600. When I didn’t take to a Rubik’s Cube, she took it from me and proceeded to solve it. She even took my Rubik’s Cube perpetual calendar and used it until the ink wore off the squares!

My mother excelled at hospitality. My best friend from seminary, Tim Hahn, spent Thanksgiving and Easter with us for three years. Tim always looked forward to eating my mom’s home cooking. Mom made the bed, fixed the meals, did the dishes, and cleaned up without a word of griping. Hospitality was her love language…and she loved a lot of people. She even took care of her father the last four years of his life…perhaps the happiest four years on this earth he had.

About a decade ago the family noticed that mom was not herself. Dad postponed at least one of my family’s attempted trips to southern Illinois by telling me that mom just wasn’t up to having company. He finally came clean around 2017 by telling us that mom had dementia and it was time to sell the house and move into assisted living. You could start to see the light in her eyes fade as time went by. She starting repeating herself. She forgot names. She was easily confused. Things got worse when my father died in 2019. I remember taking her back to the assisted living facility to give her a rest a couple days before dad died. She came out, stared bullets at me, and said, “Someone is going to have to tell me what the hell is going on?” My mother NEVER, EVER used foul language. She hated crude talking, despised smoking, and was a teetotaler because of her father’s alcoholism. My dad’s death confused her even more. She thought she had to find her own apartment and go back to work to take care of “these kids”. She thought she saw me as a toddler more than once around my sister’s house. She was often stuck in her teenage years, confusing my sister Brenda for her late sister Shirley. It finally came time to put her in a dementia care facility.

I last saw mom last year at Thanksgiving. She had swelled thirty pounds heavier with water weight. It wouldn’t be long before she would fall and break her wrist. The light had almost gone from her eyes. She barely knew who I was and had no idea who my children were. I still loved her. She’s mom.

Now she is at peace, resting in Jesus. I can only imagine my father waiting for her, probably wanting her to find something he lost or help him accomplish a task. I will see her again in the Resurrection. I look forward to that happy reunion in the life everlasting.

The last gift she bought me for a birthday or Christmas was a set of stoles and chasubles. Every time I wear them, I think of her. Mom always took care of her children. She took care of me, even in her riper years. Then we cared for her the last few years of her life. Now Jesus eternally cares for her.

Third Sunday of Easter – John 10:11-16

(Christopher Juhl, Payten See, and Spencer Serwe are confirmed this Sunday.)

Christopher, Payten, and Spencer: There’s something I’ve been hiding from you all this time. I wish I would’ve told you this a long time ago. It might have saved you from the years of going through confirmation instruction. Then again, telling you now might make you come back for more. What is this piece of secret information?

The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Jesus doesn’t say Pastor Juhl lays down his life for the sheep. Jesus doesn’t say you lay down your life for the sheep. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, lays down His life for the sheep. You are one of Jesus’ little lambs, even if you aren’t that little anymore. There was a time when you were little. I know for a fact that my son Christopher once was little because I was in the birthing room at St. Mary’s Hospital in Kankakee, Illinois when he was born. I’ve been an eyewitness to him growing up in two parsonages in two states. Payten and Spencer, I’ll take your parents’ word that once you were little. Now you are growing up right before our eyes. No matter how big you grow, no matter how much more your brain develops, and no matter where life takes you from this moment, one thing remains true: The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

I wasn’t actually hiding this truth from you. You’ve been learning it since the first time you were brought to a church building. You’ve been hearing it in sermons. You’ve learned it in Sunday School. You were marinated in it through your years of confirmation instruction. Two of you took the first Communion option so you’ve been eating and drinking the Good Shepherd’s true body and blood for some time now. Christopher will receive that opportunity for the first time today. Hearing it, believing it, living in it gets to be as comfortable as flannel pajamas on a cold winter’s night. When this truth gets too comfortable is when Satan strikes.

All your life you’ve heard that when things go bad, then Jesus is your Good Shepherd. That’s true. As we’ll sing in one of the Communion distribution hymns: “You have promised to receive us, Poor and sinful though we be; You have mercy to relieve us, Grace to cleanse, and power to free. Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus, Early let us turn to you.” The operative word in that hymn stanza is early. When life is going great, when it feels like the world sits in the palm of your hand, that’s when Satan starts the whispering campaign. “Look what you’re doing. Look how everything is going your way. Look how smart you are, how talented you are, and how many friends you have. Look at you. You don’t need Jesus. You don’t need St. Peter’s Lutheran Church. You don’t need Christianity. You’ve got this.”

You’ve learned during our time together on Wednesday afternoons that Satan knows your trigger points. In C.S. Lewis’s Narnia tales, Susan Pevensie, Queen Susan the Gentle of Narnia, is no longer a friend of Narnia by the end of the final book in the series. She’s become more interested in lipstick, pantyhose, and parties. She grew up. You might say she no longer sees herself as a little lamb. It happens more often than not after a day like today. All of the families present today can tell you stories of family members who no longer see themselves as sheep of the Good Shepherd’s flock.

The situation for them, and for you, is not hopeless. The operative word once again is early. Listen for those moments when Satan starts to work on you. He might use a friend, or even, God forbid, a family member. He might find you when you are most confident in yourself. There’s nothing wrong with self-confidence. When self-confidence becomes your idol, however, remember that word early. Don’t wait. Turn to the Lord even in good times, for He has provided you with everything that supports your body and your life.

Turn to the font, where Christ washed you clean from sin and gave you a share in His kingdom. Turn to the pulpit, where Christ crucified and resurrected is proclaimed and applied to your life. Turn to the altar, where Jesus meets you in His body and His blood under bread and wine, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. These places are where you receive the benefits of the Good Shepherd laying down His life for you.

Jesus is certainly there in bad times. Jesus, though He may be hidden among your future accolades, is also there in good times. He’s the One Who blesses you with every good and precious thing, be it earthly or heavenly. The most important accolade Jesus bestows on you, though, is “child” or in today’s case, “lamb”. No matter how old you are, you’ll still be a child or a lamb in the eyes of our Savior. Don’t consider it an insult. Consider it an honor to be God’s own child. Consider it a blessing to be a lamb led into the evergreen pasture of His kingdom by Jesus the Good Shepherd, Who lays down His life for you.

Martin Luther on the Work of the Holy Spirit

But how does [the Holy Spirit] do this, and what is the trick He uses to change the heart and make it new? He does it by proclaiming and preaching the Lord Jesus Christ, as Christ Himself says, “When the Comforter comes whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me” [John 15:26]. Now, we have often heard that it is the Gospel which God sends to be preached in the world and to be spoken to everyone, because no one can be made righteous through the Law; rather, he only becomes worse. That is why He sent down His dear Son to die and shed His blood for our sins; we were unable to get free of them by our powers and works.

However, it is necessary that what is preached also be believed. God gives the Holy Spirit to push that preaching into the heart so that it remains and lives there. It is surely true that Christ has done everything, taken away sins, and conquered everything, so that through Him we are to be lords over all things. The treasure lies there in a heap, not yet distributed or applied everywhere. Therefore, if we are to have that treasure, the Holy Spirit must come and put it into our hearts, so that we believe and say, “I also am one of those who are to have this treasure.” Then this grace is offered through the Gospel to each one who hears it, and he is invited to take it, as He says, “Come to Me, all you who are burdened” (Matthew 11:28), etc

Church Postil for The Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-13). AE 77:327-328

Sixth Sunday in Lent (Palm Sunday) – Zechariah 9:9

Holy Week is not for the faint of heart. As a child I was not a fan of Holy Week. The altar stripping. The book slamming. The darkness. The passion reading. It’s enough to put the fear of God into someone, no matter their age. As I grew in years, however, I discovered the thread of joy in the midst of the ceremony. The thread of joy is in Saint John’s quote from the prophet Zechariah: Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!

Hold on to Zechariah’s words as you hear Jesus mount that colt. He is about to enter Jerusalem to accomplish what Adam, Eve, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, Gideon, Samson, Samuel, Jesse, David, Solomon, and countless others never saw with their eyes but believed in their heart and soul would happen. Messiah would come to accomplish redemption. Messiah would come to stomp the head of the serpent. Messiah would shed His blood, the blood that speaks more than Abel’s blood; the blood that speaks more than the blood of beasts on Jewish altars slain.

Hold on to Zechariah’s words when you consider your own sins. It was your sins, and mine, that sent Jesus to Golgotha. His birth, His life, and even this moment before our ears today is the reason the Son of God takes on flesh. His passion, suffering, death, and resurrection were not a plan B option hastily taken to interrupt a life of perfect righteousness that serves as your example. All that Jesus does from His birth in Bethlehem to Calvary, the empty tomb, and ultimately to Bethany is for you, for your sake.

He knows you are not able to redeem yourself from sin. He does it for you. He knows the shedding of your blood has no cleansing power from sin. His blood does. He knows you are not perfect. He knows you are by nature sinful and unclean. His death on your behalf is like a bear hug just for you. He hugs you, taking your imperfection, your profane way of life, and your unrighteousness upon Himself, exchanging all these things for His perfection, His holiness, and His spotless righteousness. No sin now clings to you, for Jesus Christ answers for all your sin. Jesus suffers all that you deserve because of sin. Jesus reckons you righteousness, and our heavenly Father sees you in Jesus as innocent.

Fear not, daughter of Zion. The events that unfold in Holy Scripture for us this week are not meant to scare you. They are meant to show not only the depth of sin, but also the depth of God’s righteousness for you in Jesus. This is not a week to be a part-time Christian. This is a week for paying attention. This is a week for being here with your fellow members of the body of Christ. This is a week for contemplation. Think about sin, yes. Think about rescue from sin, absolutely yes! Are the events we hear in Saint Matthew’s passion awful? Indeed they are. Now think about them without fear. Consider these words inspired by the Holy Spirit as if the ink on Matthew’s scroll is not yet dry. When you hear them with fresh ears, you’ll come to the conclusion that theologians discover anew every year: What an amazing Savior we have!

We call Jesus our friend, and that He is. What is more, Jesus is our Savior. It is rare that anyone is willing to die for someone who isn’t a spouse or a child. You are a child of God. Jesus, God’s only-begotten Son, is willing to die for you. If the shoe was on the other foot, you would have reservations about going through with it. Jesus has no reservations. As Paul Gerhardt wrote in the hymn, “A Lamb Goes Uncomplaining Forth”: “Goes patient on, grows weak and faint, To slaughter led without complaint, That spotless life to offer; He bears the stripes, the wounds, the lies, The mockery, and yet replies, ‘All this I gladly suffer.’”

“All this I gladly suffer.” That’s another way of saying what Zechariah says: Fear not, daughter of Zion. Jesus is going through all this for you. What great cost, but what great benefit! Instead of the burning lake of fire, you receive a place at the everlasting banquet table in Paradise. Fear not, daughter of Zion. All this Jesus gladly suffers.

Fourth Sunday in Lent – John 6:1-15

(Homiletical surgery performed from 2016)

The little boy with five barley loaves and two fish in the wilderness harkens back to Elisha in Second Kings chapter four purifying a poisonous stew. After Elisha purified the stew, a man came from Baal-shalishah, bringing the man of God bread of the firstfruits, twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. And Elisha said, “Give to the men, that they may eat.”But his servant said, “How can I set this before a hundred men?” So he repeated, “Give them to the men, that they may eat, for thus says the Lord, ‘They shall eat and have some left.’”So he set it before them. And they ate and had some left, according to the word of the Lord.

In John chapter six there is a παιδάριον. The word means “little child” and it is a derivative from the word that describes how someone is being reared and educated to be an ideal member of the city. In Greek culture, one who is trained in παιδεία would possess intellectual, moral, and physical refinement. The child received a liberal arts education, not to mention training in wrestling and gymnastics. You might say a παιδάριον is a physically, morally, and spiritually well-rounded individual. The young child, perhaps with his parents, is prepared for the inevitable.

The disciples are caught unprepared. Two hundred denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little.Sounds like the excuse in Second Kings chapter four: How can I set this before a hundred men?

Woe to you when you are unprepared! My friend, the late Rich Laue, liked to quote the movie “Heist”, “I wouldn’t even tie my shoe laces without a backup plan.” Yet you tie your shoes every day and are still unprepared for what could happen. You love to sing and talk about God’s providential care, yet when that care is late you change your tune and tone. There’s not enough money. There are not enough resources. It’s too far to buy what you need. It’s too late in the day to go buy what you need. You are not prepared, even though you think you have everything figured out.

King David sings in Psalm 122, I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord!” Here you are, and you’re still not as prepared as you could be. You can read the Psalms all you want before the start of the service, you can make a spiritual inventory to prepare for the forgiveness of sins, and you can even fast, pray, and give alms all you want. Yet when those words fall from David’s pen about being glad to enter God’s house, you’re still not prepared. Your thoughts are elsewhere. Your concentration lags. You’re be thinking about lunch. You’re counting the minutes until I’m done preaching. The silent inner monologue playing in your head never stops, especially when you’re sitting in a pew.

What is the big deal about words, water, bread, wine, and a man dressed in fancy vestments in a church building? Jesus uses these things from His Father’s creation to do wonderful things. He catches you unprepared for His providence and His spiritual care, but in being caught He still provides, forgives, and strengthens you. Elisha says concerning the bread of the firstfruits, Give them to the men, that they may eat, for thus says the Lord, “They shall eat and have some left.” The Lord is never slack in His promises. He keeps His perfect record intact as twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain are enough to satisfy a hundred men with some left.

The little child, the παιδάριον, teaches the adults something about being prepared. Andrew’s bringing the boy to Jesus seems like a million to one shot, but Jesus himself knew what he would do. The boy is in the right place at the right time with the right amount of what is needed. Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted.And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.”So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten.

If Jesus can do that for five thousand men, what more can He do for you, O you of little faith! The refreshment Jesus provides for you here pales in comparison to what we will hear Him do. Jesus provides everlasting refreshment as He gives you His perfect righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, while taking on your sin, death, and hell. Jesus bears all this willingly for you. Jesus is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world. He comes to make that peace for you. Only He is able to climb the mountain to make the ultimate Passover sacrifice for your salvation. Only He provides you with forgiveness and eternal life.

Hence all fear and sadness! For the Lord of gladness, Jesus, enters in. No backup plan necessary.

First Sunday in Lent – Matthew 4:1-11

(Homiletical surgery performed from 2011.)

Luther’s explanation of the Sixth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer in the Small Catechism begins with four amazing words: “God tempts no one.” If God tempts no one, then why are we tempted?

Holy Scripture gives us two answers. First, God allows our faith to be tested in order to bring us closer to Him. In four weeks’ time, God willing, we will hear the Lord’s testing of Abraham by commanding him to sacrifice Isaac. Next Sunday, God willing, we will hear Jesus testing the faith of the Canaanite woman.

Second, temptation comes from our spiritual enemies in order to lure us away from God and His ways. Why would God want to test our faith? This sounds like schadenfreude on our Lord’s part. Schadenfreude is a German word that doesn’t really have a good translation to English. The closest we get is “taking pleasure in someone else’s pain.” God testing our faith seems like a cruel game. It’s as if God thinks, “Let me stir the pot of life to see you squirm.”

Not so. The apostle James writes, my brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience…. Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. What’s so joyful about our faith being tested? Testing produces patience. Patience in trials and temptations is a handy thing to have, especially when we’re being attacked by the devil, the world, and our sinful nature.

Jesus was patient for forty days and nights in the wilderness, neither eating nor drinking. At the end of forty days, the devil comes looking for Him with many temptations. Three of them are highlighted in Matthew chapter four. Satan goes after three things that easily ensnare us: hunger, protection, and power. All these are our desires that we sometimes think God withholds from us for His pleasure and our pain.

One look at our expanding waistlines shows our love for food. The Corinthians had the same problem. Saint Paul writes in 1 Corinthians: All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. Foods for the stomach and the stomach for foods, but God will destroy both it and them. Just because we can eat doesn’t necessarily mean we should eat.

Just because Jesus can make stones become bread doesn’t mean that He should, especially when Satan is the one giving orders. Our Lord’s response to Satan’s request is written in Deuteronomy: Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. God calls us to repent of eating bread that doesn’t satisfy while fasting from the Living Bread that comes from heaven.

Luther’s Small Catechism teaches us to pray each morning and evening: let your holy angels be with me, that the evil foe may have no power over me. Legions of angels watch over God’s precious children. Yet we think we are abandoned by God when Satan tempts us or when God allows our faith to be tested. We ask, “Where are you, God? Where are those holy angels I pray about every day?”

When we pray lead us not into temptation, we are not praying for temptation in order that God rescues us from being tied on the railroad tracks of life while the steam engine bears down upon us at breakneck speed. Jesus answers our foolish thoughts and desires the same way He answers Satan’s foolish request for Him to throw Himself off the high point of the Temple: You shall not tempt the LORD your God. God calls us to repent of believing that He wants you to lead you into temptation.

The explanation to the First Commandment teaches us we should fear, love, and trust in God above all things. Satan claims a kingdom that is not his. God created the heavens and earth, and everything in them. Satan took mankind into slavery by making Adam and Eve believe a lie. Jesus tells the Pharisees: When [Satan] speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. We do not pray “Satan’s kingdom come” or “My kingdom come”.

Jesus answers Satan’s foolish request, Away with you, Satan! For it is written, “You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.” God calls us to repent from making yourself the center of the universe, with Satan whispering what you should do next in your ear.

When we hear Jesus rebuff Satan three times under extreme duress after fasting for forty days and nights, we rightly believe that we couldn’t do as He does. Repentance and self-denial begin with confessing that we are not the Christ, the Son of God. Martin Luther directs us to our hope in the midst of temptation:

With might of ours can naught be done,
Soon were our loss effected;
But for us fights the valiant One,
Whom God Himself elected.
Ask ye, Who is this?
Jesus Christ it is,
Of Sabaoth Lord,
And there’s none other God;
He holds the field forever.

If we want to be eternally blessed by the battle of our Savior over Satan, nothing more is demanded of us than that we play the part of a believing spectator. The main thing we learn from Christ’s temptation is to believe that Jesus battled for us, in our place, for our freedom from sin and salvation from the devil. When we know and feel our sins weighing down upon us, we look to our Savior, the Champion from the branch of David, the Lion from the tribe of Judah. He holds the field forever. He has conquered in the strife between death and life.

Who is on the Lord’s side? asks Moses after the Israelites were caught in their sin of making the golden calf. We are on the Lord’s side. He has won the battle over sin, death, and hell for us. He has made us His own children through water and the Word. He nourishes us in the preaching of His Word and the eating and drinking of His Body and His Blood. He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty…under His wings you will find refuge.

Quinquagesima – Isaiah 35:3-7

When you compare Isaiah’s prophecy in chapter 35 to Jesus’s words to His disciples in Luke chapter 18, you wonder if the two men are talking about the same thing.

Isaiah sounds like he is preparing the hearer for combat. Strong hands. Firm knees. Be strong. Fear not. God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you. Jesus sounds like He is putting the fear of God into His disciples. See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise. Strong hands become weak, firm knees start knocking, weakness and fear make our hearts thump in our chests. This is not what we have been prepared for.

We are not alone. Saint Luke tells us the disciples understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said. They, too, were unprepared for what was to come. Of all people, the disciples should have known what Jesus told them. This is now the third time over nine chapters of Luke’s gospel that Jesus predicts His death and resurrection. It’s not as if our Lord is springing a pop quiz first thing in the morning on them. They have had time to be prepared. Yet everything Jesus tells them seems to make no impact.

Unlike the disciples then, you and I today have the hindsight of a couple thousand years. In the case of Isaiah’s words, it’s 2,700 years. So we’ve had time to strengthen ourselves for what lies ahead. Still we are not ready to be earwitnesses once again to death and life contending in that combat stupendous. One look at the rest of Isaiah’s words in today’s Old Testament reading gives a hint as to why we might not be ready.

Isaiah commands us to be strong and fear not because the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped. It’s no wonder that Jesus heals a blind man immediately after telling His disciples for the third time what is about to happen. The disciples, sojourners with our Savior for three years, still don’t get it. The blind man sitting by the side of the road cries out Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me and puts the disciples to shame in his cry of mercy. He can’t see Jesus, but He sees Jesus better than the Twelve see Him. He sees Jesus as Son of David, a Messianic title. Only the Holy Spirit working through the preached Word could imprint this title on the heart of a believer. He sees and believes without seeing, yet believing. Blessed is he!

Blessed are you, for even in your fear and trembling before Isaiah’s and Jesus’s words, you also see without seeing. You were not there that day. You are not an eyewitness of Christ’s miracles and His preaching. You, however, have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place.

So did the disciples. They had the prophetic word in the flesh! They didn’t need a Bible, let alone a scroll, to see and hear the living Word, and yet they didn’t understand a word of it.

If you look again at the disciples in Luke chapter 18, you’ll see yourself toward the back of the crowd. I’m back there, too. We’re all confused because our reason and all our senses expect Jesus not to say what He says. When He does say it, our nerves kick in and it’s fight or flight time. All the disciples except John succumbed to it and fled Jesus. You, also have had times when you have run away from Him. I can name many times when instead of turning to Him in prayer, I turned my back on Him and tried to find my own way.

Jesus suffers, dies, and rises from the dead for your sake for this reason. He knows you’ll fail. He knows you’ll desert Him. Jesus knows you’ll shake your head at the whole thing and think He’s crazy for going through with it. Jesus goes through with it because He loves you in spite of yourself. That’s grace. That’s one-way, unconditional love; a gift from God the Father just for you.

This one-way love from above strengthens weak hands and makes firm feeble knees. This one-way love from above says to anxious hearts, “Be strong, fear not!” Today Jesus declares these words to you through Isaiah in order to open your ears and your eyes, as well as to steel your courage. You get a front-row seat once again to hear Jesus suffer everything His people and the Roman Empire could throw at Him, even death on a cross, and rise from the dead triumphant over Satan and the grave. All these things He does for you. Yes, you.

Hands, firm. Knees, stable. Eyes and ears, seeing and listening to Jesus at work in His Word, in baptismal water, with bread and wine in His true body and blood. He will come and save you. Believe it for Jesus’s sake.

Second Sunday after Epiphany – John 2:1-11

Robert Mondavi Vineyard in Yountville, California has a patch of ground that is considered to be one of the best vineyards in Napa Valley, maybe in the United States. The vineyard is over 150 years old and is called “To Kalon”, a Greek word that translates to “the beautiful”. I’ve enjoyed a couple of bottles of Robert Mondavi Cabernet, in which one-third of the grapes are sourced from the To Kalon vineyard. I’m not a wine enthusiast but I know enough to tell you that the wine tastes beautiful.

What makes wine like that taste so beautiful? Certainly the variety of grapes used. The land on which the grapes grow, the terroir, is very important. Whether or not the grapes are blended from different vineyards or are sourced from one particular place also makes a difference. For a Christian who responsibly enjoys God’s gift of wine, however, a beautiful wine has a beautiful Creator behind it; a Creator Who makes all things beautiful and for our own good.

The water made wine in John chapter two is literally called beautiful by the master of the feast. It is “good” wine in English, but in Greek the adjective is “kalon”, the same word for Robert Mondavi’s prize vineyard. Usually the “kalon” wine is served first. Once everyone is in a party mood the “kalon” wine is switched out for the not so beautiful wine. Not this feast. Not this host. Not this Savior.

Mothers do not want to suffer the indignity of running out of food. Moms seem to cook too much food to make sure there is enough for everyone. She would rather you eat leftovers for days, even weeks, rather than run out of potato salad, deviled eggs, or hamburgers.

Jesus’s mother leaps into action as a good mother does. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” No one will control the only-begotten Son of God, not even His mother. Jesus’s time is yet to come. His hour of glory will occur upon the cross, not at a wedding feast. Yet mom believes Jesus will do something about the situation as she tells the servants, Do whatever he tells you.

It is often agonizing to wait for Jesus to do something for us. As the hymn says, we take it to the Lord in prayer and it’s as if Jesus isn’t listening. The answer must come on our time, not on His time. The answer always comes according to His time, and His time is always the best time. While we wait for His time, we do as He bids us. We wait, often with impatience, but nevertheless with patience. We watch, as His answer or His return may happen when we least expect it. We pray, both here in the Lord’s house and at home, for Jesus is not a Lord Who is confined to a church building. Jesus dwells in our homes as we read the Scriptures, pray for our needs and desires, and sing hymns to praise His beautiful deeds of forgiveness and salvation.

Jesus helps in His time, and the time isn’t long after mom asks Him. There are six stone jars present for the purification rites of the Jews. Water is ladeled out of the jars to clean cups and plates and other utensils as God has commanded His people to do. Somewhere between being ladeled out of the jars and entering the mouth of the master of the feast, Jesus does something beautiful to the purifying water. Jesus bends the laws of nature that His Father created. Jesus brings joy out of sadness. Jesus cares for the needs of wedding guests. His time is always the best time, and now is the best time of all.

Saint John writes, This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. Mary’s son, Mary’s Lord, shows Himself to be God’s Son, the Lord of heaven and earth, at a wedding feast. The sign did not happen with a divine hand dropping from heaven pointing those present to Jesus among His disciples with His mother. No voice from heaven shouted, “Hey, watch this!” Though His hour had not yet comes, Jesus gives you a glimpse of what is to come by changing water into wine.

What is more, John ends His account of the wedding feast with these words: And his disciples believed in him. Jesus’s disciples believed in Him because they saw the good thing He did for all those present and wanted you to remember it and they remembered it. Not everyone saw what Jesus said or did, but the servants did. Perhaps it was a servant who told John this story and John wrote it down so that you and I have it today. It doesn’t seem like much to make beautiful wine at a wedding feast but to the disciples it was everything. Jesus brings joy wherever He goes, whether a wedding feast, Lazarus’s gravesite, or a locked room the night of His resurrection day. Jesus does beautiful things with ordinary things. Even though you didn’t see it as the disciples saw it, you heard it, and now you believe it. To your ears, in your mouth, and in your life, this Good News is To Kalon, the beautiful thing from the beautiful Savior.

Christmas Day – John 1:1-14

Saint John takes us back to the beginning, back to when there was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word brought all things into being. In Him was life, and the light was the light of man. Man was formed from the ground. The Word breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.

The Word often showed Himself to His Father’s people as light. The Israelites saw the Word as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night as He led them from Egypt to the Promised Land. Along the way it was time to build a temporary home for the dwelling place of God among His people. Our heavenly Father gave Moses specific instructions on how and what to use in building the tabernacle. Then came the day that the tabernacle was complete and the Lord visited His people. The cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle…. For the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel throughout all their journeys.

Many years later the Word came to rest in the temple that Solomon built as the abiding presence of God among His people. The priests brought the ark of the covenant that once rested in the tabernacle into the Most Holy Place in the temple. When the priests came out of the Holy Place, a cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord.

The Word, the light, remained in the temple in spite of the Israelites constant flirtation with false gods. God’s chosen people cheated on Him as they bowed the knee to their affluence, their prestige, their pride, and to everything else that made them look as if God had not set them apart from other nations as His own. The prophet Ezekiel received a vision from the Lord that showed him what was going to happen because of the Israelite’s infidelity. Then the glory of the Lord went out from the threshold of the house, and stood over the cherubim. And the cherubim lifted up their wings and mounted up from the earth before my eyes as they went out, with the wheels beside them. And they stood at the entrance of the east gate of the house of the Lord, and the glory of the God of Israel was over them.

The Israelites went from the realms of glory among earthly nations through a split into two nations. The northern tribes were conquered by the Assyrians. The light faded into obscurity among them. The southern tribe of Judah was conquered by the Babylonians and taken into exile. Jerusalem was left in ruins.

Ezekiel asked the Lord God: Will you make a full end of the remnant of Israel? The Lord God responded: I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel. And when they come there, they will remove from it all its detestable things and all its abominations. And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my just decrees and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. The light was nearly dimmed, but still flickering among the tribe of Judah.

Judah returned to the Promised Land, rebuilt Jerusalem and the temple, and waited for the promise of Messiah to be fulfilled. Many more forgot the promise over time. The Greeks and finally the Roman Empire conquered them. A puppet king was placed over them. When the light seemed to have been all but extinguished, when half spent was the night, or so it seemed, the time became full for the Light of the World to come among His people.

The prophet Zechariah looked forward to that day. Not merely Jews would welcome the Word when He comes to His people. Many nations shall join themselves to the Lord in that day, and shall be my people. And I will dwell in your midst, and you shall know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you.

He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Light has come. The Word becomes flesh. The promise is fulfilled. The hope and fears of all the years are met in Jesus, Immanuel, son of Mary, promised to Joseph, born in a stable, laying in a manger, seen by shepherds, and adored by Magi. The witness of John the Baptist is true: This was he of whom I said, “He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.” John was not that light, but pointed to the light as a witness of the light.

How can someone eternal, someone begotten of His Father before there was the heavens and the earth, someone prophesied for millennia, someone seen in pre-incarnate ways by Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and many others, be born as a human being implanted by the power of the Word spoken by the Holy Spirit into the womb of a virgin whose betrothed is of the house and lineage of David? This question is the greatest mystery of Christmas. It’s not a mystery that is solved. It’s a mystery that is believed.

Christ the Savior pitches His tent among us for me. Christ the Savior is born to die for my sins and be raised for my justification. Christ the Savior’s heel is bruised for me. Christ the Savior stomps the head of the serpent for me. The Word becomes flesh for me. The Light of the World shines on me. He is mine. I am His. He lives. I live. He fills me with His grace and truth. He glorifies me with His glory that shines above all men. He prepares a place for me in the kingdom of heaven, where I will live with Him forever.

All this, for you, because the Word was there in the beginning, and the Word desires to be in communion with His people. O come, let us adore the Word made flesh as He dwells among us in His proclaimed Word and in His Supper! Rejoice and be glad, beloved, for the Light still shines! Merry Christmas!