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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.
Recently I have heard more of Pilgrim’s people talking more about our reaching out to our community with the Gospel of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Not only more people’s talking more about but also their actually reaching out more with that Gospel would be great, especially as there are countless people around us in our lives who will spend eternity in hell apart from that Gospel’s leading them to repentance and saving faith in Jesus Christ. (Of course, our having more members in the congregation may also mean more financial support for the congregation, but our outreach efforts never should be first and foremost about money.) In today’s Gospel Reading for the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany of Our Lord, among other things, we hear our Lord tell His disciples, including us, to let our light shine before others, so that they may see our good works and give glory to our Father Who is in heaven. Considering the Gospel Reading, this morning we realize that “God shines our light before others, so they glorify Him”.
The Gospel Reading presents quite a number of things that we could consider this morning, but, given the Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 58:3-9a) and Psalm’s (Psalm 112:1-9; antiphon: v.4) references to light, not to mention our use of the Gospel Reading in this season of Epiphany with its emphasis on light, considering Jesus’s words about shining our light before others seemed to be a good fit. And, that consideration seemed an even better fit, since the purpose of shining our light before others is so that they glorify God, and we at Pilgrim are talking more about reaching out to others in order for them to join us here glorifying God.
Today’s Gospel Reading comes near the beginning of Jesus’s so‑called “Sermon on the Mount”. You may know that that Sermon begins with Jesus’s speaking “beatitudes”, statements about who is blessed, which statements we hear every year when we observe All Saints’ Day, and which statements we also would have heard last Sunday, if the feast of the Purification of Mary and the Presentation of Our Lord had not landed on it. The Beatitudes end with Jesus’s telling His disciples, including us, that we are blessed when we are persecuted and commanding us to rejoice and be glad for our reward is great in heaven. Until then, as we heard today, Jesus went on to say that we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. If we lose our saltiness, then the earth will not be salted. If we hide our light, then the house will remain dark. So, we let our light shine before others, so that they may see our good works and glorify God.
To be sure, our good works are required! Do not think that Jesus came to abolish the Law or the Prophets (the Old Testament Scriptures)! Jesus did not come to abolish them but to fulfill them! But, even Jesus’s fulfilling the Law and the Prophets does not mean that we do not have to do good works! Not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law, including Jesus’s Words about it, even after heaven and earth have passed away and all is accomplished (confer Matthew 24:35; Mark 13:31; Luke 21:33). Apparently, in their personal practice and teaching of others, the scribes and Pharisees were relaxing the Ten Commandments, what they considered to be the “least” of God’s commandments based on their number of words in their Hebrew originals (Michel, TDNT 4:656). But, Jesus went on to personally do and to teach others the full range of those Commandments (Grundmann, TDNT 4:534), especially in the verses that immediately follow, the commandments about murder; adultery and divorce; and false testimony, as we will hear in next Sunday’s Gospel Reading (Matthew 5:21-37). So, we also should do and teach, for, as we heard Jesus say in today’s Gospel Reading, unless our righteousness exceeds that of the Jewish leaders, we will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
There is only one way that our righteousness can exceed the righteousness of the Jewish leaders, namely, when we turn in sorrow from our sin and trust God to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake and so receive Jesus’s righteousness. When we so repent and believe, then we receive both Jesus’s righteousness of actively keeping the law that we fail to keep and His righteousness of passively suffering as the promised sacrifice for our failure to keep the law. Out of God’s great love, mercy, and grace, He sent His Son into our flesh. The life that was in the God-man Jesus was the light for all people (John 1:4). On the cross, Jesus died in our place, the death that we deserved. So, we could sing in the Hymn of the Day that from the cross God’s wisdom shined and broke forth in conquering might, that from the cross forever beams all God’s bright redeeming light (Lutheran Service Book 578:4). God’s redeeming light shines on us, and our sins are forgiven: our sins of thinking that we do not need to do good works, our sins of not doing the good works that we need to do, our sins of relaxing God’s commandments for ourselves and others, or whatever our sins might be. God forgives us all of our sins, and He forgives us all of our sins through His Word in all of its forms.
As the Divinely‑inspired St. Paul describes in today’s Epistle Reading (1 Corinthians 2:1‑16), preaching Jesus Christ and Him crucified is a demonstration of the Spirit and of power and imparts a secret and hidden wisdom of God, spiritual truths interpreted to those who are spiritual, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. Forgiveness is freely given in Holy Baptism, where we are born from above by water and the Spirit and so enabled to enter the Kingdom of God (John 3:5). Forgiveness is freely given in individual Holy Absolution, where not the commandments but sins are loosed both on earth and in heaven (Matthew 16:19). And, forgiveness is freely given in the Sacrament of the Altar, where our hunger and thirst for righteousness are satisfied (Matthew 5:6), with bread that is the Body of Christ and wine that is the Blood of Christ, given and shed for us for the forgiveness of sins and so also for life and for salvation. As we walk in His light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sins (1 John 1:7).
Above all others, Jesus is the light of the world (John 8:12), but, after His earthly ministry ended, in a transferred sense, we who are His followers are the light of the world (confer John 9:5). As Jesus is in us, He works in and through us, so that it is not we who do good works but Christ in us Who does good works. Together we in the Church are the city set on a hill that cannot be hidden from the world, and individually we are lamps on stands giving light to all in our households, families, circles of classmates, coworkers, and friends. We at least try to do God’s Commandments and teach others to do the same, not relaxing them because we think that somehow they are outdated or that, if we do relax them, people will find God and His Church more acceptable. We feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, receive strangers, clothe the naked, visit the sick, come to those in prison (Matthew 25:35-45; confer Grundmann, TDNT 3:545), and do whatever other good works are in keeping with our various callings in life. And, with daily repentance and faith, we live in God’s forgiveness of sins for when we fail to do those things, as we will. As the Old Testament Reading put it, so our light breaks forth like the dawn. Other people see our good works, the evidence of our faith, and so they glorify God (confer 1 Peter 2:12). Or, at least they may glorify God, whether or not they do is not up to us but to God and them, whether or not they prefer to remain in darkness, where their wicked works seem not to be exposed (John 3:19-20).
Want to grow the Church? Simply do good works. Maybe it is not that simple, or maybe it is. Considering today’s Gospel Reading, this morning we have realized that “God shines our light before others, so they glorify Him”. Of course, there is a time and place for organized outreach programs, but such organized programs should not be the extent of our reaching out. God has made us the light of the world, and He calls us to let our light shine before others. As we let that happen, and as we live in His forgiveness for when it does not, we know that, on the Last Day, “we can stand before the judgment seat of God honorably and cheerfully” (Luther, cited by Plass [#3556], p.1113).
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +