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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
As today’s Gospel Reading describes, at a documented point in human history, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah, who had grown and become strong in spirit and was in the wilderness (Luke 1:80). So, in keeping with the Old Testament prophecy that the Divinelyinspired St. Luke quotes at the greatest length, John went into all the region of the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. From the crowds John called for bearing fruits in keeping with repentance, according to one’s callings in life. And, as the people were both waiting expectantly and questioning in their hearts whether John might be the Christ, John addressed their expectations and answered their questions by contrasting himself to the One mightier than him Who was coming. John said that that One not only was connected to his water and Spirit baptism but also would execute judgment with unquenchable fire, eternally burning both trees that do not bear good fruit and chaff left on the threshing floor after the wheat has been gathered into His barn. With many other exhortations John preached good news to the people, but John reproved Herod the tetrarch, who both had wrongly divorced and “remarried” his brother’s wife and done other evil things, and Herod literally shut John down by shutting him up in prison (RR). Primarily considering today’s Gospel Reading, we realize that, as for the people then, so also for us today, “God uses those He sends apart from people’s expectations”.
Seemingly strangely, John both calls the crowds that came out to be baptized by him a “brood of vipers” and asks them who warned them to flee from the wrath to come. St. Matthew’s account says John addressed those words to the Pharisees and Sadducees that came out (Matthew 3:7), and elsewhere St. Luke reports that the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the purpose of God for themselves, not having been baptized by John (Luke 7:30). Like the Jewish leaders and all people, our sinful nature and all of our actual sins of thoughts, words, and deeds, committed and omitted, deserve God’s righteous wrath. On its own, our flesh is unable to do anything about that wrath, but God, out of His great love and mercy, sends one man after another to, in fact, warn and thereby enable us to flee from the wrath to come. Unless we prevent Him from preparing His way and making His paths straight, God Himself fills in the valleys and makes low every mountain and hill, He straightens the crooked and levels the rough places. Only as God calls and enables us to repent are we, in the words of today’s Old Testament Reading (Malachi 3:1-7b), able to endure the day of His coming and to stand when He appears.
Some of the people hoping John was the Christ may have had their expectations lowered when John made clear to them that he was not the Christ, but “God uses those He sends apart from people’s expectations”. John pointed to the One mightier than him Who was coming, and that One came! The Second Person of the Blessed Trinity was humbly conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. The country’s former and current first couples may not have known or spoken the Apostles’ Creed this past Wednesday in the National Cathedral (USA Today), but you and I believe and confess what the Apostles’ Creed and the other ecumenical creeds proclaim. The God-man Jesus, the Christ, was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, governor of Judea. He suffered and was buried. The third day He rose again and ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father. And, He will come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead. If all were only willing, all flesh would not only see but also receive the salvation of God!
Our expectations of how God or those He sends should work might be different, but “God uses those He sends apart from people’s expectations”. The reading and preaching of the Word of God points to a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, and Holy Baptism is a miracle of water not that unlike those we heard about in today’s Psalm (Psalm 66:1-12). The baptized confess their sins to their pastors for the sake of individual Holy Absolution, forgiveness from the pastor as from God Himself. And, bread and wine in the Sacrament of the Altar are the Body and Blood of Christ, given and shed for you and for me for the forgiveness of our sins, and so also for life and salvation. In His earthly ministry Jesus ate and drank with sinners like the tax collectors we heard about this morning, and, at this Altar and its Rail, Jesus has table fellowship with sinners like us even today. We might expect God to work in other ways, but these are the ways He chooses to work. As we repent, we seek and receive His forgiveness of our sinful nature and all our sin in all of these ways, and so, in all of these ways, He forgives us freely for the sake of His Son, Jesus, the Christ.
Once we repent and are forgiven, we bear fruits in keeping with repentance. Our fruits do not earn our forgiveness or otherwise save us, but they follow naturally from our forgiveness and salvation. The Divinelyinspired St. Paul in today’s Epistle Reading called them “the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God” (Phlippians 1:211). St. Luke’s account of John’s ministry that we heard this morning uniquely reports how John taught the crowds to bear fruits both in general—such as sharing clothing and food—and in keeping with their specific callings in life—such as those callings of tax collector or soldier. And, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther’s Small Catechism’s Table of Duties similarly describes the fruits of the vocations of pastors and their hearers, government and its citizens, husbands and wives, parents and children, employers and workers, young and old, and everyone in general. Make no mistake about it, God cares about how we live our lives, especially, as we heard in the Old Testament Reading, because how we live our lives affects our neighbors’ lives!
As pastor and people in this place, we have expectations of one another, and, as with John and the people in the Gospel Reading, those expectations might need to be adjusted, maybe raised or maybe lowered. Whether I am your pastor or someone else is, we all do well to remember that “God uses those He sends apart from people’s expectations”. Through His Word and Sacraments, God forgives sin for the sake of Jesus Christ, to a certain extent apart from the character of the individual pastor. What God wants most for us, as with John and the people in the Gospel Reading, is for us faithfully to repent, be forgiven, and do the resulting good works, which bear witness to our repentance and forgiveness. Among those good works is living together in God’s forgiveness of sins, forgiving one another as God has forgiven us. Those who willfully hold grudges against their brothers and sisters in Christ are fooling themselves if they think that they are forgiven, and, when they come to the Lord’s Table in that state, they make matters worse, whatever is worse than already going to hell.
Not so obvious in the English Standard Version of the Gospel Reading we heard read is what appears to be an intentional contrast between John’s reproof of Herod the tetrarch and his resulting imprisonment and John’s preaching the Gospel to the people who repented, were forgiven, and presumably did the resulting good works. To the extent that the messages and responses were different, the difference was in those who heard, not in the God who sent the messenger or in the messenger himself. Nevertheless, I know that I have failed, fail now, and always will fail in various ways as your pastor, and I have sought, seek now, and always will seek your forgiveness. Together or apart, as we live in God’s forgiveness of sins, I am sure that, to paraphrase St. Paul in today’s Epistle Reading, God, who began a good work in us, will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +