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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. (Amen.)
Today continues the Church-Year’s season of Epiphany, with its focus on the revelation of the Son of God in the human flesh of Jesus. As you may remember, we started with the toddler King of the Jews revealed to Gentile Wise Men in part by a miraculous star (Matthew 2:1-12). Then there was the Man baptized by John in order to fulfill all righteousness (Matthew 3:13-17). Last Sunday gave us the great Sermonizer on the Mount (Matthew 5:1-12), Who we continue to hear today, and next Sunday will give us the transfigured Jesus shining like the sun in clothes white as light (Matthew 17:1-9). (Confer Fickenscher, 54; Huenink, CPR 36:1, p.41.) Moving from the beginning of Jesus’s so‑called “Sermon on the Mount” that we heard in last Sunday’s Gospel Reading to the portion that we heard in today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus could be thinking of how His disciples’ being persecuted might make them either be less than who they are or conceal the truth about Jesus (confer Luther, ad loc Matthew 5:13 [1532], cited by Plass [#3556], 1113). So, Jesus tells them that they are “the salt of the earth” and the “light of the world”, and He tells them essentially not to misrepresent Him to other people, so that those other people ultimately also might glorify God the Father in Heaven. Jesus says the same things to us. Considering primarily today’s Gospel Reading, with the help of the Holy Spirit, this morning we direct our thoughts to the theme, “Jesus’s epiphanies through you”.
“You are the salt of the earth”, Jesus says, and “You are the light of the world.” But, salt that has lost its taste is good for nothing, and light that is put under a basket illuminates no one. So, we should not think that Jesus came to abolish—that is, to dissolve or annul—the Law or the Prophets—that is, all of the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament—but we should do His commandments and teach others to do them. As we heard, Jesus originally seems to have targeted the scribes and the Pharisees, the Jewish teachers of the law (NIV, NEB). They made their own countless commandments and essentially ignored God’s Ten Commandments, which were relatively short and did not take up much space on a scroll (Schrenk, TDNT, 2:548-549; Michel, TDNT, 4:656), and the Jewish teachers hypocritically at least thought of themselves as more righteous than everyone else. In what immediately follows today’s excerpt from the “Sermon on the Mount”, as we would have heard in next Sunday’s Gospel Reading, if it were not The Transfiguration of Our Lord, Jesus arguably broadens the application of some of the Ten Commandments to not only the Jewish teachers’ but to all people’s thoughts, words, and deeds (Matthew 5:21-48).
Like the Jewish teachers then, some so-called Bible-believing Christians today, including some so‑called Lutherans, relax some of God’s Ten Commandments, in some cases relaxing them so much, that not only is a stroke of the pen erased but also the whole letter (NIV, NASB, NEB). In the case of classmates or colleagues, extended or immediate family members, or ourselves, even we might relax and so teach God’s Commandments. Maybe we wrongly think that so relaxing God’s Commandments is more loving, or that by so relaxing them we somehow make Christianity more appealing to a world that seems to have lost any sense of right and wrong. Whether fearing and trusting in someone or something other than God, or using God’s Name thoughtlessly, or not making use of God’s Word and all of His Sacraments, whether disobeying authorities like the government, or aborting children, or being sexually intimate outside of a marital relationship, or taking advantage of subscription services like Netflix, or taunting people on social media, or not being content with what God gives us, or something else, we lose Christ’s flavor and hide His light. Because of our sinful nature and all of our actual sin, we on our own have not even the possibility of entering the Kingdom of Heaven.
But, out of God’s great love, the Son of God came in the flesh of Jesus in order both to keep all of God’s Commandments for us and to die on the cross for our failure to keep God’s Commandments. As with St. Paul in today’s Epistle Reading (1 Corinthians 2:1-16), we preach Christ crucified! Jesus fulfills and accomplishes all the “teaching” of the Holy Scriptures, what can be called in Hebrew the “Torah” or “law” in a broader sense, including both the demands of God’s law that shows us our sins and the promises of God’s Gospel that forgives our sins. When, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we turn in sorrow from our sin and trust God the Father to forgive our sin for His Son Jesus’s sake, then God does forgive us: God forgives our sinful nature and all of our actual sin, whatever our actual sin might be. When our repentance is not only outward, as in today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 58:3-9a), then God freely gives us Jesus’s active and passive righteousness, which righteousness of Christ far exceeds the righteousness of whomever we might think is the most‑righteous person. Then, we are able to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and, so forgiven, we have God’s peace and joy. As we heard in today’s Old Testament Reading, then our light breaks forth like the dawn, and, as we sang in today’s Psalm (Psalm 112:1-9; antiphon: v.4), Light dawns in the darkness, Light that is gracious, merciful, and righteous.
That gracious, merciful, and righteous Light dawns on us in the darkness of our sin and death as God’s Word is read to us in groups such as this group, and that gracious, merciful, and righteous Light dawns on us in the darkness of our sin and death as God’s Gospel is applied to us individually with water in Holy Baptism, with touch in Holy Absolution, and with bread and wine that are the Body of Christ given for us and the Blood of Christ shed for us in the Holy Supper. In all of these ways, we are declared and made righteous. In all of these ways, God, in answer to our petition of the Collect of the Day, keeps His family the Church continually in the true faith. In all of these ways, Jesus Christ, Who is the Light of the World (John 8:12; 9:5), gives light to all those who are in the “house”, or “household”, of His Church and so enables us to reflect His light onto those around us who are in darkness.
I was asked by a visitor to Pilgrim this past week about the kind of outreach that the congregation does in the community around it. I readily admitted that we could and should do more outreach than we currently do in the community around us, but my questioner agreed with me that door‑to‑door “cold”, or even “warm”, calls are probably no longer as possible as they once were. Rather, I described to my questioner what Jesus arguably describes in today’s Gospel Reading, namely, our living in our respective vocations and being salt and light to those with whom God brings us into contact, whether strangers at the store, classmates or colleagues, or friends or family‑members. We try both to do God’s Commandments and to teach others to do them, not in a relaxed form but in their fullness, ultimately emphasizing God the Father’s forgiveness of our sins for His Son’s sake by the power of His Holy Spirit. The more that we realize how sinful we are, the more that we can appreciate the forgiveness of sins, which comes to us through God’s Word and all of His Sacraments. As St. Paul writes elsewhere, if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness far exceeds it in glory (2 Corinthians 3:9)! The Holy Spirit can and does use our good words and deeds in order to lead others to Christ and so lead them to join us in glorifying our Father Who is in Heaven.
Thus, the Son of God in the human flesh of Jesus is revealed to others through you, what we this morning have called “Jesus’s epiphanies through you”. At different times we may be more or less flavorful‑salt and reflecting‑light, but, with daily contrition and faith, we remain righteous by grace for Christ’s sake. In the words of today’s Psalm, so righteous, we will be remembered forever, and our horn will be exalted in honor.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Amen.)
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +