Sermon for the Commemoration of Saint Michael and All Angels

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Jesu Juva

“Victory!”

Text: Daniel 10:10-14; 12:1-3; Revelation 12:7-12; Luke 10:17-20

 

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

What’s worse? The war you can see or the war you can’t? The war you know about or the war you don’t? There are wars, and then there are wars. 

We’ve all seen pictures from the war in Ukraine, the devastation, loss, and hardship. But what of other wars and civil wars in other parts of the world that go unreported and unseen, yet are no less horrific? 

There are culture wars that have been taking place in our country and world, which have also inflicted harm on many. Some of this war we knew, but some was waged under the radar until exposed during the pandemic and the shut downs. 

That there is war in our world should not surprise us. We are reaping the wages of sin and the Scriptures are clear this is how it will be. And that it will not get better as the Last Day draws ever closer, we are not progressing into a ever-better world and society - it will, in fact, only get worse. Nation against nation, people against people, culture against culture, faith against faith. 

Underneath it all, behind it all, is the evil one. Using and deceiving to get his way. All this that we see in our world is not just selfishness, not just greed, not just abuse of power, not just the failures and foibles of men and women, but evil. The evil one working in different ways, using different means, to wreak havoc. For he wants only evil. Evil that rages against the good, that will not tolerate Scriptural truth, that divides and alienates, and that wants only to annihilate Jesus and His Church. 

Which sounds very depressing and bleak, does it not?

But do not despair! Because of this, too, the Scriptures are very, very clear: who has won and who will win. And it is not evil or the evil one! No matter what it looks like or seems like in our day and age. It is Jesus. Satan has been on the attack from the very beginning, but the victory will not be his. He attempted to deceive Jesus in the wilderness and through the so-called religious leaders of the day - he tried to overthrow Him with his superior intellect and cunning, but could not. He tried to overcome Him with worldly power - the threats of Kings Herod and Governor Pilate, and then crucifixion, but could not. Even his most powerful and fearsome weapon of all - death - could not win. Jesus did. And when the Last Day comes, that will be a victory seen and known by all.

But what we see and know until that Day is what we heard in the reading from Revelation: the great dragon, the devil, who has been thrown down to the earth, is not happy about that, is not happy about his defeat, and is filled with great wrath against all good, all truth, all who belong to Jesus. His time is short, we are told. But not short enough. Short according to God’s time, not ours.

And a great dragon is fearsome! The Russian army amassed on the border of Ukraine is fearsome. The threat of nuclear weapons is fearsome. And an enormously and completely evil one, unseen by us but described as a great dragon wanting to consume you is fearsome. As it should be. You should not take him lightly. You should think no sin just a little sin, no lies just little lies, no deceptions or distortions of the truth of no consequence. They matter. They are his weapons to wear you down, lure you away, and plant in you an evil, spiritual cancer to take over in you.

But though we should not take him lightly, neither should we cower before him. Remember and remind him constantly of his defeat! When he was cast down and out of heaven. He thought he could have it all and wound up with nothing. The good angels, the faithful angels, winning that war. And protecting us still. He will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways we sang in the Gradual from the Psalm. And they do. Guarding and protecting us in unknown numbers of ways and times in a war we know but cannot see. But God knows. Thank God for His angels who are faithful to Him and serve us.

And yet it is not only angels who cast down satan and overcome all his works and all his ways. We heard in the Holy Gospel today of the disciples Jesus sent out. He sent them out as lambs in the midst of wolves, it says. He sent them out with nothing - no moneybag, no knapsack, no sandals, it says (Luke 10:3-4). Now, we’re not told what they thought about their prospects as they went out like this, but today we heard their shock and amazement when they returned. It worked! The Word worked! The demons are subject to us in your name! To us puny humans. Who’d a-thunk it? The Word of God more powerful than anything on this earth.

We should know that. Shame on us when we don’t, when we doubt, when we forget, when we leave this most powerful weapon in the drawer, on the shelf, on the sideline of the battle, and try to fight with our own strength. And we’re shocked and amazed when we lose? Look at the mess we’ve made of marriage, of sexuality, of gender, of religion, of churches, of families, of so many things in this world because we’ve left God’s Word in the drawer, on the shelf, on the sideline of the battle. Because we’ve been told: You can’t use that weapon here. You have to use some other weapon. Well of course they’ll say that! If there’s a battle between a tank and a handgun, of course the one with the handgun will try to level the field, even the odds, and get his opponent to fight with a lesser weapon - who wouldn’t!? Yet how foolish for the one with the tank to agree. Or, how prideful and arrogant. 

But we’ve done that. Out of foolishness? Pride and arrogance? That we don’t need the Word? That we can do it ourselves? And we’re shocked and amazed when we lose? Really? And if you think satan not behind that, the great dragon not behind that, that God and satan are off fighting somewhere else and just watching us fight this one . . . well, you haven’t been paying attention. 

As we heard today, it is by the blood of the Lamb and the power of His Word that we conquer. We have no weapons that can do anything in this fight except those. And if you leave them thinking you don’t need them, you’re going to have satanic tank tracks all over you! And we all have those scars, don’t we? From our own sin and rebellion and stupidity. And from the sin so others. 

But when we are wounded and scarred in the battle, the powerful healing of God’s Word is applied. It is powerful in this way, too. This is the Word of God given us to wield today. The balm of absolution - not only spoken here, but as you forgive one another. The promises of baptism - that God hasn’t left you at the mercy of the dragon, but adopted you as His child and sends His angels to watch over you and protect you. And the nourishment of the Body and Blood of Jesus which restores our strength in this battle that goes on and never seems to end. The blood of the Lamb and the Word of God give us the life we need to go on.

So the disciples Jesus sent out were angels - not in the sense of a supernatural being, but in the other meaning of that word, as a messenger. One armed with the Word of God. And the Word they spoke no less powerful than the Word the supernatural angels are armed with. For notice: the result was the same. In Revelation, God’s angels casting down the evil angels, and in Luke the demons are subject to them in Jesus’ name. Jesus and His Word win, satan loses. That’s the way it was then, is now, and will be also on the Last Day. The Scriptures are clear: we know who won and who will win.

But this is no mere earthly victory. That would be pretty sad if we had victory and hope only for this world and life. And, in fact, Jesus tells us what really to rejoice in: do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. That there is an eternal victory and life waiting for you. That there is forgiveness for your sin means also that there is life for your death. That is what no angel could have ever done for you - only Jesus. And He did, taking your sin upon Himself on the cross for your forgiveness, and then rising to life from death for your life. That you, too, rise to live a new and eternal and victorious life. A new and victorious life you are already beginning to live now by virtue of your baptism into Jesus’ death and resurrection (what we know now), but which will be fully and finally yours on the Last Day (when we will see it). But as we know with wars that are real but not seen, so it is with our new and eternal and victorious life - it is real, even if we cannot yet see it. And it is yours, for Jesus promised. He died for you, He baptized you, He absolves you, He feeds you, and He will not lose any His Father has given to Him. No one will snatch you out of His hand (John 10).

So we have much reason for joy, even as the battle rages on. We should not be shocked and amazed, but confident. Satan wants to blind us to the truth, but we know the truth and will proclaim it. Satan wants to deceive us into thinking he’s much more powerful than he is, but we know the truth - that while we are no match for him, he is no match for our Saviour. And satan wants to bargain with us as to what weapons we should use, but we have only one and it is enough. More than enough. For by the Word the world was created. By the Word life is given. By the Word satan is cast down. By the Word we are given new life. By the Word we are lifted up. By the Word mere water becomes a flood that swallows up the dragon, and mere bread and wine the food of immortality. 

So today we thank God for the angels who protect us in this battle, but even more for the Word that saves us. The Word made flesh, the Word proclaimed, and the Word that will raise us up on the Last Day when we will be shocked and amazed, and rightly so! At the life and joy and perfection and glory of a new heavens and a new earth and a new and eternal life. The Scriptures are very clear on this. Even in the midst of this battle, that is the victory Jesus won, and the life He has provided, and the future that is waiting, for you. 

In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

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Jesu Juva

“Be Like the World? Yes! Only Better”

Text: Luke 16:1-15; 1 Timothy 2:1-15

 

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. When time is short, your priorities change. What you would have put off, you no longer do. What you thought could wait no longer can. What wasn’t so important to you suddenly now is. You know you should have fixed your sump pump and now your basement is flooding. You know you should have stopped at the gas station and now you’re out of gas. You know you should have started that assignment earlier . . . now you’re just hoping to get something, anything, done to hand in or present. It can be more serious than that, though. Like when it comes to matters of your physical health, life and death stuff. That test, that procedure you know you should have had. But most of all, really, though I don’t think we often think like this, is when it comes to matters of your spiritual health. Spiritual life and death stuff.

So when the manager in the parable today heard these words, Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager, his life changed in a heartbeat. Desperation set in. What he thought was so important suddenly wasn’t any longer. Charges had been made against him that he was wasting his master’s possessions. And the word for wasting there is the same word Jesus had used in the parable He told right before this one, the Parable of the Lost Son, sometimes called the Prodigal Son. This situation is even worse, though, for that younger son was wasting his own possessions, but the manager was wasting his master’s. But for both, desperation made them change. The Lost Son went home. The manager now did what he could to take care of his future.

So since he was not strong enough for manual labor and was too proud to beg, he starts slashing the accounts of those who owe his master. Whatever time he has left, he’s going to use to his advantage and make friends who can help him. Now some scholars think the manager had been padding the books to enrich himself and that’s what he was slashing. Or maybe he was just manipulating the accounts in other ways. But either way, the end result was the same: friends. Friends who, he hoped, would take care of him the same way.

But I think it must have been quite a surprise to him when not just those who owed his master, but the master himself speaks well of him! When the master, who not long before this had believed the accusations made against him and fired him, now commends him! For what he did was very shrewd, or prudent or practical or wise. And the world is like that. The world knows the world’s ways. How to get along. How to get ahead. How to use the system to get what you want. We do it, too. Maybe some do it more than others, maybe some play the game better than others, but we all know the game. 

So Jesus’ question for us today is this: how come you’re not like this spiritually? 

For the day is coming when the Master of all, the Lord of all, is going to call us to account. Charges of sin brought against us. For wasting the gifts given to us. The gifts of life and health and wealth and faith and all that our Lord has so abundantly blessed us with . . . and what have you done with it? Have you loved the Giver with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength? Have you loved your neighbor? Or have you loved you? Have you loved being at ease? Have you loved having a big bank account? Have you loved sinning and not really been too concerned with your spiritual health and wealth? The Scriptures in your home gathering dust. Prayers left unsaid. Your baptism a distant and oft forgotten memory. The new day gifted to you each morning taken for granted? Your husband, wife, children, parents, friends, left to fend for themselves? Your wants, your desires, your pleasures, your hopes, your dreams all that matter? 

And then what happens when you are called to account for all this? 

Now, in the parable, it might have sounded a bit funny that the manager who was fired still had time to cook the books - why would the master do that? Well, it’s not meant to be a true story, but to teach us something about our situation. And that your day of reckoning is coming. And maybe sooner than you think. So how should you be living? If you knew that day was coming for you tomorrow, or next week, or even next year, would that change how you live today? I think it would. When time is short, priorities change. When time is short, we start doing those things we should have been doing all along. If there’s still time.

We don’t know what happened to this manager after this. Were his efforts successful? Was he taken care of? Was the master so impressed with his shrewdness that he kept him on? Or did it all not work, and the manager left to live out his days lonely and broke? We don’t know. But what we do know is that’s not how our heavenly Father wants us to live - in uncertainty about our future, if we’ll have enough time to change. I can tell you right now with absolute certainty that if it were up to us, if it were on us, we don’t have enough time and our future is not a bright one. 

So how good, then, that there is someone who took our debt to our heavenly Father, and didn’t cut it by a half or three-quarters - though that would have been generous enough! But still not enough. So the faithful one, the one who came and did exactly and perfectly what His Father wanted, 100%, took our debt and paid it for us. 100%! And He didn’t dishonestly just cancel it - He paid it, with His death on the cross. And when that debt was paid, Jesus said tetelestai, which means, it is finished (John 19:30). But did you know that’s the exact same word that was used in those days to write on the accounts when a debt was fully paid off? Tetelestai. The debt is finished. Paid in full. Written on your account with the blood of Jesus, the Son of God. No matter how enormous your debt, or the debts of all in the world, the death of God’s Son and our brother, Jesus, more than enough to pay it all. You are free.

You heard it again this morning in the absolution. And you’ll receive it again in the communion of Jesus’ Body and Blood. Because our heavenly Father doesn’t want us to live in fear or uncertainty and thus selfishly concerned about our salvation. No! He wants us to live in joy and confidence in Him and His love, that our future is secure, and thus be able to live for and be concerned about our neighbor. 

You see, the manager who slashed the debts owed to his master did so hoping to make friends who would take of him. But when Jesus paid our debt in full, while He did so to make us His friends, He did not do so in the hopes that we would take care of Him. He doesn’t need anything from us! So, He said, if you’re grateful to Me for what I did - and why wouldn’t we be! - take care of your neighbor. Use all that I’ve given you in this world to make friends  - and not just for this physical world and life - but who will welcome you into the eternal dwellings. So that they’ll be there, too. Help them be there, too. For the time is short. Maybe shorter than we know.

So you’ve been richly and lavishly forgiven - forgive others! Stop selfishly holding onto grudges and bitterness and anger. Their debts tetelestai. Finished. Paid in full. You’ve been blessed in baptism to be a child of God - so pray! Pray, as Paul told Timothy and his churches, that all people be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. For that’s what your Father desires and wants than anything else. That they know their debts are tetelestai. Finished. Paid in full. And what else? What else have you been given in this unrighteous world and life - that is passing away and isn’t going to last - that you can use to help your neighbor? And especially for them to be with us in the next, righteous world and life that is eternal. Desperate times call for desperate measures. And while you aren’t desperate, they might be. And the time is short. Maybe shorter than we think. Maybe it’s time to change how we live . . . for their sake? To love as we have been loved? That our confidence and joy may be other’s, too? That when they Last Day comes, they, with us, will NOT hear the voice of a master calling us to account, but the voice of the Father welcoming home His sons and daughters, into eternal dwellings. That’s what Jesus has done for us. And so how we get to live now. Shrewdly. Wisely. Faithfully. Freely. Like the free son and daughters we are.

In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

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Jesu Juva

“The Joy of Finding and Being Found”

Text: Luke 15:1-10; Ezekiel 34:11-24; 1 Timothy 1:5-17

 

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

Searching. Searching for sheep. Searching for a lost coin. Searching for people. You’ve searched for things, for people. You know what that’s like. You know the worry, the frustration, and you know the joy of finding.

Today was a day that a great searching began. September 11, 2001. Once the dust cleared in New York after the towers collapsed and here after the Pentagon crumbled, the searching immediately began. At first, it was a searching to rescue any who might have survived and were still clinging to life in the rubble. No one knew for certain how many people that might have been, how many were in or around the buildings, how many were missing. Estimates ranged from hopeful - just a few thousand, if not all had arrived at work yet, and many of those who had had managed to escape, to fearful - upwards of tens of thousands if the towers and Pentagon were full. 

The searching was frantic and desperate at first. If there were any survivors, surely their injuries would be grave and they wouldn’t be able to survive long. The searching was hard. The piles continued to burn, making it difficult to breathe. The rubble was enormously heavy, and there was so much of it. In all, twenty survivors were found and rescued, and there was great joy when they were. 

But even after the time had passed when anyone could have survived and been rescued, the searching went on, only now it was not a rescue, but a recovery operation. The workers were no less diligent in their searching, day and night, to find the family members, friends, and loved ones who had perished that day. And many were found. Some whole, most not. But some never found, an absence that still causes grief and sadness today.

But there was more than one searching that started that day, September 11, 2001. The other was the searching for the man and the people responsible for this act. The man and the people who rejoiced, not mourned, all the death that day. This search was no less diligent. In fact, it continued on for a much longer time than the months it took to go through and clear the piles. They searched for years. They searched in different countries and cities, they searched caves and tunnels, they would not give up. When some of the men were found, and then when the man at the head was found and killed, there was much rejoicing all around the country. A large crowd gathered in front of the White House, as well as in cities and homes across the country, to celebrate with great joy.

Searching. Searching for sheep. Searching for a lost coin. Searching for people. Jesus searching. For you. For each and every person buried and lost in this world of sin and death. This world of destruction and hate. Jesus wants not one single person to be lost in this rubble. His is a rescue, not a recovery, searching. To rescue us to live before the searching stops, before it is too late. That we come out of this world alive and live a new life. And for every person that is found, for every sinner who repents, there is great rejoicing in heaven.

Two searches began on September 11th. Two searches that were the same, but at the same time different. For the first was a searching in mercy and love. To save any and all lives that could be saved. But even after that, the searching was to help the grieving by finding their loved ones. 

The second searching was quite different than that. It was a searching for justice, for vengeance. It was a searching not to save life, but to punish and perhaps take the lives of those who had themselves taken so many lives. 

Jesus’ searching is, of course, a searching of the first kind. A searching not to mete our justice for what you have done, but a searching of mercy and love. Of a shepherd, a very good one, searching for His sheep, as Ezekiel explained. Not to reprimand them for wandering off - and maybe for wandering off AGAIN! But to feed them and give them drink. To bring them back home and to a good pasture. To bind up the injured and strengthen the weak. A searching Jesus did not just for a few years, while He walked this earth, but ever since Adam and Eve fell into sin and He came to the Garden in search for them and called out for them, to Paul, whom Jesus found and pulled out of his life of opposition and persecution of Jesus and His Church, to today, as He works and searches through His Church and His people in this world. To find people buried in the rubble of their lives. To find people who are trapped in sin - like all the sins Paul mentioned in his letter to Timothy. To find people and give them life again. So in the two parables we heard today, Jesus is the Shepherd searching for His sheep, and the Church is the woman acting in the same way, searching for her lost coin. And both rejoicing when the lost is found.

The Pharisees and scribes were not rejoicing though. They were grumbling whenever Jesus found and rescued and pulled out of the rubble another sinner. The Pharisees and scribes were save yourself kind of folks. Pull yourself out of the pile folks. Some worth saving, some not, folks. Justice folks, not mercy and love folks. 

Now, there is a place for justice. We do not live in a lawless world, a wild west where everyone does what they want, it is every man for himself, and do what is right in your own eyes. Jesus Himself would speak of justice and the just retribution for sin. There is a price to be paid.

The searchers who combed through the piles after September 11th came to realize this. Long days of hard and exhausting work took a toll on their bodies. Breathing in air filled with toxic dust wreaked havoc on their lungs. But it wasn’t just the physical toll - there was a mental toll as well. Knowing the death that was in those piles. Seeing and hearing grief everyday for so many months. And if their bodies didn’t break down, their minds did. This was true also of the military and those folks searching for years to bring those who did this to justice. Many lost their lives in this searching.

And for Jesus, too, the Good Shepherd searching for His sheep, there was a price to be paid. And Jesus paid it. He took responsibility for all the sin, all the rubble, all the death, all the chaos, all the grief caused by our sin.

Here’s how one of our hymns puts it:

Our rebel will wrought death and night. 

[Or collapsed this perfect world, because]

We seized and used in prideful spite Thy wondrous gift of liberty.

We housed us in this house of doom, 

Where death had royal scope and room,

Until Thy servant, Prince of Peace, breached all its walls for our release.

Thou camest to our hall of death, O Christ, to breathe our poisoned air,

To drink for us the dark despair That strangled our reluctant breath. 

(LSB #834, vs. 2-3)

When we look around at our world, it may not look so bad. But that’s because we don’t know what it was like before sin, the way God created it and intended it to be. But when He looks around at our world, He sees a scene far worse than September 11th. Far more destruction, far more hopelessness, far more death.

So He came. To search and to save. And to pay to price, giving His own life in the process. On the brutal cross. His life for yours. And when He searches for you, He doesn’t ask where you are from, what color you are. He searches for and wants to rescue and save all people. And when He finds you in the rubble, He doesn’t ask how bad a sinner you are, and then judge whether you are worth saving or not. He saved you. In a sense, He took your place under the rubble so that you could be free. Forgiveness we call it. The great exchange, Luther called it. Jesus getting our place and we getting His. Jesus paying the price for us who could not pay, who could not set ourselves free, who could not get out of the rubble. And every time a sinner is found and rescued, there is not only great rejoicing by the one who is found and pulled from the rubble of life, there is great rejoicing in heaven, too.

For another lost one is now washed clean in the waters of Holy Baptism. Another lost one gets to hear those words of absolution: I forgive you all your sins. Another lost one is fed and nourished and strengthened here with the food of Jesus’ Body and Blood. Gifts that are here for us every week, and realities for every day of our lives. Maybe we’re spoiled. Maybe we take it all for granted. But we shouldn’t. We shouldn’t when we know what it cost Jesus, the price He paid to set us free. That the joy of heaven be our joy as well, both when we receive those gifts, and when those gifts are given to others. Even the worst of the worst. Like Paul, who confessed that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. Words that could be, should be, ours as well.

And when they are, when we know the joy of being found and forgiven, rescued and saved, baptized, absolved, and fed, when what we deserve is to be left in the rubble to die . . . when we know that joy, of being found, we then join in the search. Or perhaps better to say: Jesus uses us in His search. That we might know not only the joy of being found, but the joy of finding, like the woman in the second parable Jesus told today. 

So you who have been buried under and burdened by sin - sin you have committed that brought consequences down on yourself, or sin that has been committed against you that has buried you - you’d still be there, were it not for your Good Shepherd. You’d still be there, hoping for a way out. You’d still be there, hoping for life. Hoping for someone to move that rubble from off you and reach a hand down to you and pull you out. And Jesus has. I forgive you, He says. And His Gospel is for you to breathe again. And His Supper is for you to be strengthened. And while you rejoice in this, in these gifts He freely gives, He does even more. 

And then you go back out to the rubble, when you walk out those doors. To a crumbling world. A world crumbling under sin and death, trapped in evil ways, more crashing down every day. Violence, hate, deception, mutilation, selfishness. And longer buried, you can be the hand that reaches out, that reaches through the rubble; the hand of help, the hand of hope, the hand of forgiveness. It might not be easy; in fact, it will probably be very hard. But when you lift up another, when you forgive them, when you reach out to them in their gloom, when you are a hand of hope, not justice, there is also joy. Not only for the one you reached out to, but for you. And in heaven, too. The angels rejoicing over them, and rejoicing over you. 

Or as we sang in the Introit earlier:

You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;
O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever!

In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon for the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

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Jesu Juva

“Bad Choices, Good Decisions”

Text: Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Luke 15:25-35; Philemon 1-21

 

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

What was the last bad choice you made?

Maybe it was what you ate for breakfast this morning that isn’t agreeing with you now. Or maybe it was skipping breakfast and now you regret that decision. Or maybe it was that impulse buy you made and now you’re having buyers remorse. Or maybe it was that you agreed to do something that you really don’t want to do but now you have to go through with it.

Most of the time, when we make a bad decision, we may regret the decision we made, but in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter all that much. We get over it. We’ll make a better decision next time. We’ll learn from our mistakes, our bad choices. Hopefully we will, anyway.

But some bad choices have a more lasting effect.

I learned just last week of a young man, the son of a friend of mine, who - just a little over a month ago now, in an effort to get a better picture of a waterfall - got too close to the edge and fell to his death. That was a bad decision he can’t get back. Or something that we often hear in the news: the person who had a few too many to drink, got behind the wheel of his car anyway, and in a car crash killed or maimed someone. A bad decision that can’t be taken back.

So what of the decisions we make concerning God? How would you categorize them? Are they decisions of little consequence or of great consequence? And however you answered that question, does your life and the decisions you make on a daily basis match up with that answer?

So maybe we think that not going to church every Sunday, not reading the Scriptures, not praying, not living according to God’s Word and will isn’t really that big a deal - in the category of what you had for breakfast this morning . . . But is that true? Or are those decisions a bigger deal than we think or know? What if you knew that this Sunday was going to be the last chance you had to be at church and to have the Lord’s Supper? Would that change your decision?

Think about this, too: can lots of small bad decisions add up and eventually end up in one really big bad decision? Can not going to church every Sunday, not reading the Scriptures, not praying, and not living according to God’s Word and will end up with the loss of your faith? If so, those really aren’t little things at all, are they? And in reality, are more like us creeping closer and closer to the edge of the precipice, and one more step . . .

One of the responsibilities of fathers and mothers is to teach their children how to make good choices, good decisions. To think about the future. To be aware that decisions made now, though they may seem small and insignificant, may have serious consequences later. It’s an important job, and not an easy one.

Today we heard in the Old Testament reading of Moses doing that with Israel. He is about to die. Israel is on the border of the Promised Land for the second time. The first time, they made a bad decision and did not go in, and it cost them a whole generation of people and forty years in the wilderness. Now they’re back, and father Moses is trying to teach his children to make a better decision this time. The book of Deuteronomy is Moses going through the history of Israel - the good, the bad, and the ugly - and there was a lot of ugly! Israel had made a lot of really bad decisions, some of which had severe and lasting consequences. But now, he says, choose life! Choose life by walking in the ways of the Lord and worshiping Him alone. Have no other gods. Don’t fear, love, or trust the things of this world more than Him. For only in the Lord is good and blessing and life. 

And Jesus is doing the same thing in the words of the Holy Gospel that we heard today. Count the cost, He says, of following Him. Which are not words meant to keep or discourage you from doing that! But to make you think: What is important to me? And why? Is that what really matters? Am I going to be happy about this decision twenty years from now when my situation changes? Questions which then lead to this question as well: What is the cost of not following Jesus?

And Jesus uses two examples: of building and fighting, so let’s stick with those. 

Lots of people are busy building - building their lives, building their careers, fulfilling their dreams, and like a tower, that takes a lot of work. But, Jesus asks, are you able to complete it? What if you fall short of your dreams, what then? What if your career gets short-circuited, what then? And when it comes to your life, are you able to construct a life that will last forever, even overcoming death? How much are your dreams, your career, your life going to cost you? Is it worth it? Is that a good decision?

Then Jesus speaks of fighting which, for Christians, would translate into fighting evil. Are you able, on your own, to do so? Do you know the size of the enemy coming against you? Do you know their strength, their methods, their craftiness? Do you think you’re able to withstand the assaults of the evil one coming against you? Is that a good decision?

Those are bad choices. Trying to go through this life by yourself, on your own. Trying to build your own life and future. Trying to fight your own battle. But how often do we make those choices? Or how often do we make not an all at once, big decision about that, but lots of small decisions about those things that add up to a big deal. That are like creeping closer and closer to the edge of that precipice? We didn’t mean to fall off!

So it’s not that Jesus doesn’t want everyone to follow Him - He certainly does! But if you love your family more than Him, then if you have to choose between something your family wants or what is God’s will, that’s going to lead you to make a bad choice. Or if you really want something for your life, or you’re most concerned with advancing your career, or think you can go it alone for a while and I’ll worry about Jesus later . . . you’re going to make bad choices. Choices that might not seem like a big deal now . . . but maybe they are?

So, Jesus says, whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. That’s a pretty strong statement. But think of it this way: in order to pick up the cross you have to put down whatever else it is you’re carrying; whatever else it is you’re clinging to; whatever else it is you’re putting before Jesus in this world and life. It’s not that Jesus doesn’t want you to love your family - He does! The word for hate there doesn’t mean the emotional, I hate you, kind of thing; it means to put them before Jesus. It means to make decisions to please them even if those decisions displease God. If you’re doing that, things aren’t right, are they?

So to bear your own cross, to pick up the cross, is to put down your way of doing things, your way of thinking, what you think is most important and that you cannot live without, and live by way of the cross.

Now that’s an odd statement and one that really doesn’t make any sense! To live by way of the cross. Because crosses were meant and designed to kill, not give life! But there is, as you know, one cross that does, in fact, give life. Not because of the cross, but because of the one who hung on it, and after being killed, rose to life again. The one who took your sin, all your bad and wrong decisions and actions and words and desires, took them to that cross and had them all crucified with Him there. To set you free from them so that you can live. Not a life of regrets and second guessing about the past, but looking forward to a glorious future with the forgiveness of your sins. A future not of your making, but of His making.

Jesus knew that cost. He knew when He came into this world that He would leave it in this most horrible and gruesome way. But He knew it would be for you. To bear your sin and guilt so you wouldn’t have to. To die that you might live. So as great as it was, as steep as it was, Jesus paid that cost. His blood for your forgiveness. His death for your life. His condemnation for your freedom. And then rising from the dead, the cost paid in full, you too rise from being dead in your trespasses and sins to a new life. 

So to take up your own cross, to put down what you are carrying, to live that new life . . . how do you do that? Where exactly is that cross? Well it is where Jesus put it for you: in the font. That’s where you die and rise with Jesus. So for us, to take up our cross and put down what we are carrying is to repent of our sins, remember that I am baptized, and receive that forgiveness and new life Jesus has for me and promised me and gives me. And not just to repent of our sins here, though that’s important. But I would say, that’s the easy part. But that repenting of our sins here, we also learn to repent of our sins out there, to repent to one another. Which is hard. But again, important. And that with the forgiveness we receive here, to also forgive one another.

So to take up your cross is to die to yourself, to you being your own god, to you being number one, and to live a new life. That new life is a gift that cost a great deal, even more than you can imagine! But that was bought for you and given to you. Think of the gift you’d most like to have in this world, and it doesn’t even begin to come close to this one. 

But good doesn’t mean easy, and it won’t be easy. Crosses never were and never will be. We heard the story of Philemon and Onesimus today. Onesimus the runaway slave who stole from his master, Philemon. While away, on the lam, Onesimus is baptized. He receives a new life. He dies and rises with Jesus. But that was the easy part. Now, Paul says, you must go back. Put down your freedom and go back and repent. And Paul sends this letter with Onesimus to tell Philemon the same thing! Put down your anger, your right for revenge, and forgive Onesimus. Both of you, live a new way! The way of love and forgiveness. The way of laying down your old life because you’ve been given a new one. For your old life isn’t going anywhere and is going to end. But your new life you will live forever. 

And here’s the thing: whatever you put down in this life to take up the cross, you get back even more than you gave up. Maybe you don’t see it or realize it at first, but ask some old Christians, some who’ve been at this for a long time, who’ve been through the trenches and for whom life hasn’t been easy - and they’ll tell you. For when everything else in this world and life go away - your sight, your hearing, your strength, your popularity, your health, your status, your followers - you’ll still have Jesus in the end. He’s the one who isn’t going anywhere. And He’s here for you today, with His forgiveness and life, and here with His Body and Blood to feed your new life. Time spent here, in His Word, in prayer, and receiving His Body and Blood - those are decisions you will never regret. And decisions that will impact the rest of your life, too - in good ways. And following Jesus through life to death now, we will follow Him through death to life forever.

In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.