DECEMBER 2024
DECEMBER 2024
1 December 2024 - Advent 1 - Isaiah 2:1-5
Please listen with me to these words from the second chapter of the Prophet Isaiah, beginning at the first verse:
The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.
So far our text.
Today’s news reports are filled with troubling accounts of violence and conflict in this world. In Europe, the war between Russia and Ukraine drags on, with horrible loss of life. Suffering and death persist in the middle east, in the destructive war between Israel and Hamas.
And today’s news reports do not focus only on unsettling events that are occurring overseas. The cities of our land are chronically afflicted with crime and lawlessness.
Rooted in political and ideological differences: tension, hard feelings, anger, and sometimes even violence, characterize many personal relationships in our country, as well. Why is the world like this? Why are we like this?
People in general wish for peace and harmony with others. But people in general never seem to achieve this wish, and they seem easily to succumb to temptations to act in ways that are contrary to this wish. Why is this?
According to God’s Word, the reason for such violence, conflict, tension, and hard feelings - and for all the other evils that we experience in our damaged world, and in our fractured relationships - is, quite simply, the sinful corruption of the human heart. As recorded in St. Matthew’s Gospel, Our Lord tells us:
“Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.”
And as much as the higher part of our human reason would desire peace and harmony in this life, we cannot, by our own strength or efforts, shed our lower sinful nature, or cleanse ourselves of that corrupt nature.
Our inborn sinfulness is like the tin cans that boys used to tie to the tails of puppies. No matter how hard we try to run away from it, and leave it behind us, our sin sticks to us, and follows us wherever we go.
Organizations like the United Nations may from time to time be able to do some good, in minimizing some of the violence between nations. But ultimately this violence will remain.
Conflict, tension, and anger will not be completely erased from the human experience, for as long as the human race exists in this world.
“But what about God?”, we might ask. If there is a God in heaven, doesn’t he care about these problems? If God is all-powerful, can’t he do something about the violence and conflict in the world, and about all the suffering and anguish that are caused by this violence and conflict?
Some atheists have concluded that the existence of such human sinfulness in the world proves that God does not actually exist. That is foolish reasoning, of course.
What human sinfulness proves is that sinful humanity does exist. Human sinfulness does not prove that a holy God does not exist.
But even so, doesn’t God care about the violence and conflict that exist in our world, and in our lives? Can’t he do something about it?
Well, remember what Jesus tells us. Evil thoughts and murder - indeed, all human cruelty and all human conflict - proceed from the human heart.
The problem is inside of us. We are not just the victims of human wickedness. We are perpetrators - collectively and individually. We are all a part of the problem, because we are all infected by the sinful corruption from which these evils arise.
St. Paul soberly reminds us in his First Epistle to the Corinthians that “in Adam all die.” And he reminds us as well, in his Epistle to the Romans, that “sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.”
Some may have the idea that God should use coercive methods, physically to prevent people from saying and doing bad things to each other. There is a certain appeal to that wish.
If I am about to be the victim of a crime, I suppose I would be happy if a supernatural power would descend from heaven, and physically restrain the hand of my assailant. But I would venture to say that God does indeed externally restrain evil much more often than we realize.
Who knows how many bad things would have happened to us, that did not happen; or how much violence would have been perpetrated against us, that was not perpetrated: due to the fact that God sent his angels to protect us from these hidden dangers, at various times in our life?
The reason why we don’t know about these supernatural interventions, is precisely because these interventions did occur! And nothing bad happened.
But God does not intervene every time. The history of human warfare, and our own personal history of conflict with other people, prove this.
I believe that one of the reasons why God does not step in and externally prevent every potential act of violence, is because it would not be a real solution to the problem, but would instead hide and mask the real problem.
When violent criminals are thrown into prison, there is the benefit to society of their violence now being contained. Incarceration prevents them from causing further harm to law-abiding citizens.
But when a criminal is put into prison, his heart stays the same as it always was. If his heart was filled with anger and violence when he was physically free, it will still be filled with anger and violence when he is physically restrained.
In regard to the anger and violence that afflict the human race as a whole, God is not satisfied simply to tie a straight jacket around this problem, or just to treat the external symptoms of this problem. His agenda is to get into the human heart, and to change the human heart.
And the tools and methods that God uses to solve the problem of human conflict, at its root, do indeed have the ability actually to work in the human heart, for the accomplishing of this goal.
In today’s text, the Prophet Isaiah looks forward to the age of the Messiah - that is, the age in which we live. With the use of some beautiful imagery, he describes what God will do - what God is doing - to heal our human brokenness, and to correct our human destructiveness.
“For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”
When God’s law goes forth out of Zion, to all nations and to all people, one of the first things it does is to reveal to us the underlying stimulus of our conflict and antagonism with each other: namely, our conflict and antagonism with God. St. Paul writes in his Epistle to the Romans that
“The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.”
So, while outward violence is in a sense a consequence and symptom of man’s inner anger and animosity toward his fellow man, that inner anger toward other men is itself - in a deeper sense - a consequence and symptom of a deeper spiritual pathology: namely, anger toward God.
The sinful human heart is subconsciously angry at God, and hostile toward God, because God is both a threat and a rival to the sinful human heart.
He is a threat, because he judges and punishes sin, and therefore judges and punishes the sinner. And he is a rival, because sinful man - who is turned in on himself - worships himself as an idol.
In fallen humanity’s sinful pride and self-centeredness, fallen humanity cannot stand to hear the First Commandment, or to be told that we must fear, love, and trust in a different god - other than ourselves, and our own greed and ambitions - above all things.
But when the Word of the Lord goes forth from Jerusalem - to all nations and to all people - what that Word also does, is reveal to the human heart that the Son of God died in Jerusalem. Jesus came to Jerusalem, and he died in Jerusalem, to put an end to our anger and idolatry, our conflict and violence.
In his suffering and death in our place, Jesus diverted God’s well-deserved wrath away from us, and onto himself. And he crushed down and pushed back our impulse toward self-worship, by restoring us to fellowship with the true God.
The Word of the gospel - the message of the cross - does not just suppress our outward sinful behavior, and physically restrain us against our will. The Word of the gospel penetrates to our heart, and transforms our will.
The glad tidings of Christ’s salvation recreate us in the image of Christ, and unite us to the resurrection of Christ, who now lives his life in us.
The gospel brings pardon and forgiveness, for our old life of inner and outer conflict. And in the new birth of the Spirit, the gospel brings a new nature to us, and a new life of inner and outer peace. In his First Epistle, St. Peter comforts us with these words:
“You have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; for ‘All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.’ And this word is the good news that was preached to you.”
There are way too many people in this world who harden themselves to the Word of God. They do not receive the law of the Lord.
And so they are not set free from their inner slavery to anger and hatred. They still perpetrate outward acts of violence and conflict. The are not liberated from the blindness of their idolatry of the self.
In their continuing violence, they testify to their deep need for God’s grace: a need that they sadly refuse to see and acknowledge. But also in their continuing violence, they vividly remind us of what we have been rescued from, by God’s grace.
In an indirect way, the violence and anger of the unbelieving world prompt us to remember, and to be thankful for, the way in which God has diverted us from this pathway of destruction: as he calls us instead to walk in the newness of life that has been given to us in our baptism into Christ’s death and resurrection.
We do still struggle against the lingering impulses of the old nature - which continues to lurk inside of us; and which carries out a life-long insurgency against the new nature that God’s Spirit has birthed within us. The old nature, in its desperation, tries to overturn within us the peace of God that passes all understanding, which is ours in Christ, by faith.
But God, and the peace of God, fight back. Whenever you show love and compassion for your neighbor for the sake of Christ, without waiting for your neighbor to show love and compassion for you first, this is a sign that God has won a victory in you.
Whenever you find yourself forgiving an offense that has been committed against you, rather than bearing a grudge; or whenever you find yourself apologizing for an offense that you have caused, rather than justifying yourself, this is a sign that the Lord’s peace is with you.
By the power of his Word in the minds and hearts of men, God in Christ “shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples.” In the midst of human conflict, God shows his people a better way than the way of the world, the flesh, and the devil.
Jesus calls you, and impels you, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; and to love your neighbor as yourself. In the words of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, we “walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.” And as St. John writes in his First Epistle, “We love because he first loved us.”
This love, which suppresses and supplants the envy, suspicion, and jealousy of your sinful nature, flows out from God himself, as he abides within you.
By the gospel of his Son Jesus Christ, in you God has broken through and halted the destructive pattern of anger and violence that infects sinful humanity as a whole. And for each of us - one person at a time - he has indeed shown us a better way: and in Christ has given us a better way.
In our personal relationships with others, we shall, as it were, beat our swords into plowshares, and our spears into pruning hooks. We shall not lift up our sword, and shall not learn war any more. We will instead remember the encouragement of the apostle Paul, given in his Epistle to the Ephesians:
“Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”
In our reconciliation with God, we are reconciled to each other. In Christ, the Prince of Peace, we are now a part of a kingdom of peace.
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways, and that we may walk in his paths.” Amen.
8 December 2024 - Advent 2 - Malachi 4:1-6
Fire. Heat. Sunshine. Light.
These are familiar images. Especially at this time of year, these images resonate with us in positive ways: as we wish that we could replace the cold temperatures we endure during a Minnesota winter with more heat, and replace the darkness of our short days with more sunshine.
But sometimes these kinds of images do not have a positive association. A warm campfire around which we sit with friends is great. But the hot flames of a fire that burns down a barn or a house - perhaps killing livestock or people in the process - are not great at all.
In the first part of today’s reading from the Prophet Malachi, these kinds of images do not have a positive association. There, God uses this kind of imagery to illustrate his judgment against unbelief and evil:
“For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, and all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be stubble. And the day which is coming shall burn them up,” says the Lord of hosts, “that will leave them neither root nor branch.”
What is pictured here is an intense fire. It does not simply singe the plants with which it comes into contact. And it is not limited just to the destruction of the part of the plant that is exposed above the ground. It is, instead, a thorough, raging inferno, which burns like an oven, with its intensified heat.
Such a fire reaches down into the root of the plant, and thoroughly destroys it. When a conflagration like this consumes the land and everything in it, nothing will survive. This is the way God wants us to understand the nature of the judgment that he will bring on the wickedness of sinful humanity.
In one sense, this prophecy points forward to the final judgment day, at the end of the world. All humanity is warned here of the fate that awaits the proud and all who do wickedly - those who rebel against God, who ignore him, and who defy him.
In the chapter of the book of Malachi that immediately precedes the chapter from which today’s appointed lesson comes, we can see some descriptions of exactly what God is talking about. The doers of wickedness of whom the Lord speaks are such as these:
“I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, [and who oppress] the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.”
There is quite an assortment of offenses here, involving various forms of betraying others, deceiving others, mistreating others, and taking advantage of others. God judges these things very severely.
The Lord also accuses those who have “robbed” him, through their stinginess and greed. Again, we read:
“Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you.”
I suppose this will give all of us something to think about the next time we write out our Sunday offering checks.
When you contribute toward the Lord’s work, and toward the support of the Lord’s house, don’t think that you are giving God something that he doesn’t already own. You are, instead, exercising the privilege that your Lord has given you, to participate in the important work that he is accomplishing through his church - in our community, in our nation, and in the world.
But those who close their purses to these needs, show that they have also closed their hearts and minds to the Lord’s voice. Therefore these words of warning are delivered from on high against them.
God also tells us what he means in his declaration of judgment against those who are “proud”:
“Your words have been hard against me, says the Lord. But you say, ‘How have we spoken against you?’ You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God. What is the profit of our keeping his charge, or of walking as in mourning before the Lord of hosts? ... Evildoers not only prosper, but they put God to the test, and they escape.’”
In other words, the proud - in their pride and arrogance - observe that those who defy God, and disobey him, seem to get away with it. Nothing bad happens to them. So, of what use is it to be reverent and submissive before the Lord, or to govern our lives according to his law?
But on the day when Jesus returns visibly to judge the living and the dead, all will have to give an account of their actions. St. Paul writes in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians that
“We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.”
But in another sense, according to a more immediate application of the section of Malachi that was read today, the burning that it describes can be seen as a reference to the judgment that God’s law brings even now: when it encounters and suppresses the sinful nature that resides in each one of us.
Insofar as you are still proud before God in your attitudes, and insofar as you yourself still think, speak, and do wickedly, you too are the object of this purging fire.
The Lord says through Malachi: “Remember the Law of Moses, My servant.” When you repent of your sins, and ask the Lord to cleanse you of those impulses that lead you to sin, you are asking him to burn away the arrogance and evil that still reside in you.
You are asking God to destroy the power of sin within you, so that you will become, instead, a person who remembers both the Ten Commandments, and the Messianic promises and foreshadowings that are everywhere embedded in the Mosaic Law.
This purging process doesn’t always go smoothly. In fact, it never does. The old nature resists it every step of the way.
The roots of our sin bury themselves ever deeper into the soil of our pride and self-justification, to try to avoid the destructive heat of the flame. The old Adam within each of us has a very strong survival instinct.
But within the Lord’s redeemed and regenerated children, the old Adam will not ultimately survive. God is faithful. He will give us the mind of Christ. He will conform us to the image of his Son.
Fire. Heat. Sunshine. Light.
Today’s lesson from Malachi also uses these kinds of images in a very positive way. It goes on from its warning about the hot fire of God’s judgment, to a different kind of message: a message of hope and joy for those who do in fact repent of their sins, and humble themselves before the Lord.
“But to you who fear My name the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings.”
Martin Luther’s comments on this passage are so helpful that I doubt that I could improve on them. So, I will just let him speak to us:
“Indeed, a new Sun will shine... It is the Sun of Righteousness, who justifies, who sends out the sort of rays that make men righteous and free from their sins, who drives out every harmful attitude of fleshly lust. Those rays are the Word of the gospel, which penetrates hearts, and [which] is seen...only by the eyes of the heart, that is, by faith.”
“[The Sun of Righteousness] shines by the Holy Spirit. It shines day and night. Clouds do not hinder it. It is always rising. ‘It will rise for those of you who fear’...the name of God...; that is, the humble, those who are not presumptuous, those who do not trust in their own works but recognize that they are sinners.”
“There will be salvation and protection under the shadow of Christ. Such, then, is the reign of Christ, that he himself is the Mediator and Protector, the way a hen protects her chicks from the hawk. Therefore, let everyone who wants to be safe from the wrath and judgment of God seek refuge under the wings of Christ. ... Under the Law there is weakness and condemnation; under the wings of Christ, under the gospel, there is strength and salvation.”
“The Sun [of Righteousness] rises when the gospel is preached. One hides under the wings when he believes. Therefore, although you may be a sinner, yet you will be safe when you flee for refuge under his wings. You will not fear death. The lust of the flesh will not overpower you.”
So far Luther.
Jesus, the divine Son of the Father from heaven, who shines upon us on earth, is indeed this Sun of Righteousness. He is, of course, righteous in himself - perfect in every way. But he does not hoard his righteousness for himself, just as the literal sun - around which the earth orbits - does not hoard to itself all of its hydrogen.
The literal sun, with its continuous hydrogen explosions, keeps the earth illuminated and warm. Likewise, Christ’s righteousness continuously bursts forth upon us, and shines down into our hearts and minds. His righteousness covers us and our unrighteousness completely, as we trust in his mercy. And we bask in its brilliance, in the presence of almighty God.
The beams of righteousness that shine upon us through the gospel are also able to heal us of our spiritual infirmities. Mental health professionals tell us that literal sunshine is actually one of the best treatments for clinical depression.
Those who suffer from depression are usually told to spend more time outside during the day, since the sunlight will benefit them both physiologically and psychologically. Jesus, the heavenly Sun of Righteousness, brings healing to our souls, as his light descends to us in his Word and Sacrament.
He lifts us from sadness into the joy of eternal life. He soothes our troubled consciences with the peace of his forgiveness.
In a few minutes we will have yet another opportunity to step outside the earthly house of shadows in which we now live, and to go, as it were, into the brightness of the Sun. As we partake in faith of the body and blood of Christ for the forgiveness of our sins, it will be a time of sacramental “high noon” - when the Sun of Righteousness shines on us more brilliantly and more intensely than at any other time.
And in this most intimate encounter with our Savior, we will nestle once again under the protection of his wings, to be comforted and healed.
Fire. Heat. Sunshine. Light.
Every day, God burns away the sin and death that lingers within us, refining us with the fire of his love. Every day, God shines the light of Christ upon us, and into us, to illuminate the darkness in our minds, and to bring warmth to the coldness in our hearts.
We close with these words from the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, where St. Paul writes:
“What we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Amen.
15 December 2024 - Advent 3 - Isaiah 40:1-11
There is something inside every human being that gives him or her an innate desire to live, and to avoid death for as long as possible. Indeed, the quest for immortality is one of the recurring themes of the human imagination.
It is reflected in history. In the sixteenth century, Ponce de Leon engaged in a serious search for the mythical fountain of youth, which he thought might be in Florida. The quest for immortality has also been an oft-repeated subject dealt with in science fiction books and movies.
All of this resonates with the deep human instinct to stay alive. That’s why people run away from mortal danger. That’s why people who are drowning or suffocating struggle for air.
And even when people do acquiesce to the fact that they will have to die someday, they still try to put that inevitability off for as long as they can. Huge amounts of money and effort are invested in medical research and medical treatment, so that many diseases that used to kill people, today no longer do so, and people do live longer.
That’s not a bad thing. But even with the best of medical science, people do not live forever.
That being the case, people very often try to achieve at least a symbolic kind of “immortality,” through leaving a mark of influence on other people, on institutions, or on the larger society, that will endure beyond their mortal lives.
Authors and composers hope that people will still be reading their books, and listening to and performing their music, after they have died. Artists hope that people will still be admiring their paintings and sculptures after they have departed from this life.
And how often do we hear about the “legacy” that a president or political leader wants to leave - in the country and in the world - especially as his time in office is winding down?
And who does not find some satisfaction in the thought that after I have passed away, my existence as a human being will not be forgotten, because a monument will be erected in my honor; a plaque on the wall will bear my name; or a street, a building, or a ship will be named after me?
In today’s Old Testament lesson, through the Prophet Isaiah, God has something to say to all of this: to all of these fears and insecurities; to all of these proud aspirations and desperate efforts. And as you, too, in your own way, share in these fears and insecurities; and in your own life imitate these aspirations and efforts, God has something to say also to you:
“All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, because the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass.”
When is the last time someone told you that you are like grass - here today, gone and forgotten tomorrow? That might be taken as an insult, if another human being told you this.
But when God tells you this, you need to listen. And you need to understand why this is so.
Adam, our earliest ancestor, was created to live forever. He was given ongoing access to the tree of life, which would continually rejuvenate and preserve his life and health.
But Adam was also warned by the Lord that if he ever ate from a certain forbidden tree - the tree of the knowledge of good and evil - he would die. We know what happened. He ate from this tree, and he died.
Spiritually, he died immediately. Physically it took a little while, but he did eventually die in that way, too. And his body returned to the dust from which it had come.
In Adam’s death, we also died. As his future descendants, we were all in Adam, dying in Adam. And because of Adam, we die now. We all die. Adam is in us, dying in us.
The wages of sin is death, as St. Paul soberly teaches. The wages of Adam’s sin is human death: human suffering, human disease, human mortality. The wages of your sin - your own willful concurrence in your ancestor’s rebellion and disobedience - is your own death.
It wasn’t supposed to be that way. But it is that way.
Humanity was not supposed to be like grass: fading and withering, dying and perishing, gone and forgotten after only a few decades of toil and struggle on this earth. But humanity is like grass.
You, as a child of Adam, in your sinful nature, are grass. And nothing you do - none of your immortality projects - will change that.
Someday your heart will stop, and your lungs will be emptied of breath. Your flesh will rot, and your bones will disintegrate. And, your monuments will crumble, your books will gather dust, your music will go silent, and your name will be forgotten in this world.
Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all its sons away;
they fly forgotten, as a dream dies at the opening day.We go on to read in Isaiah:
“The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.”
Unlike fallen human nature, the Word of God will never falter or fail. God’s Word will never perish, crumble, or come to an end.
It might almost seem that in this passage, God is cruelly amplifying our misery, “rubbing in” our mortality and pushing our faces in it. But that’s not why God presents this contrast, between the death of sinful human existence, and the life of his eternal truth.
God’s Word is true and alive forever not just in itself, or for itself, but God’s Word is true and alive for you.
And when his Word - his life-giving message of regeneration and resurrection - touches you, enters you, and fills you, it makes you alive forever. You become immortal, not of yourself, or from your own proud designs, but in God.
Jesus Christ is the divine Word made flesh, through whose death and resurrection the sinful world has been reconciled to God. When God’s Word connects your mind, heart, and soul to Christ, you become reconciled to God personally. And in Christ you become alive personally.
Jesus once said:
“Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.”
Indeed, the whole thought expressed by St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, is this:
“The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
And St. Paul also writes these words, to Timothy:
“God...saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”
In the passage from Isaiah that we have been pondering, the Lord goes on to say:
“O Zion, you who bring good tidings, get up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, you who bring good tidings, lift up your voice with strength, lift it up, be not afraid; say to the cities of Judah, ‘Behold your God!’”
In the prophetic poetry of the Old Testament, “Mount Zion,” and the holy city “Jerusalem,” generally represented the Messianic church that was to come.
In Christ, this holy community, and dwelling place of the Lord, has been established. And we have been baptized into it.
This church is the confessing and worshiping body and bride of Jesus Christ, and is indwelt by the Spirit of Jesus Christ. And it is this church that God here addresses, and exhorts to be the herald of the good news that he wants the whole fallen world to hear.
It is not just the ministers of the church who proclaim the reality of Christ and his life, to a dead and dying world. The church as a whole - in what we together sing and pray, declare and share - bears witness to the Word of God, and to the hope that God’s Word brings to those who believe it.
The church, as it proclaims the message of the life and immortality that God gives through his Son, thereby offers true comfort to those who fear death, and who fear what comes on the other side of death.
The conscience does correctly impress upon people who listen to their conscience, that what they should expect after death is divine judgment, on account of their sins.
But the inviting message that the church proclaims to those whom it thereby seeks to draw to itself - a message that the church itself receives from God - is a message of pardon, forgiveness, and justification in Christ.
When God’s Word of peace envelopes you, and soothes your conscience, the judgment that is deserved, will not be the judgment that is pronounced and poured out. The death that is deserved, will not be the death that is experienced. As we read in Isaiah:
“‘Comfort, yes, comfort My people!’ says your God. ‘Speak comfort to Jerusalem, and cry out to her, that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned; for she has received from the Lord’s hand Double for all her sins.’”
The wages of sin is death. But when the sin is gone, washed away by the blood of the Lamb, and absolved away by the atonement of Christ, then the death - the deeper death - is also gone.
And those traces of death that do remain in bodily mortality - and that even Christians still taste at the end of their earthly life - will eventually be undone.
These remnants of death will be finally vanquished in the general resurrection - of which the risen Christ is the firstfruits - and in the new heavens and the new earth that God will establish for his saints, where only righteousness will dwell.
The crucified Savior whose coming is anticipated in the season of Advent, is the Savior who comes to bring life out of death. The risen Savior who comes here and now, whenever the Word of God comes here and now, is the Savior who offers this life to you, in the midst of your death.
This life - this immortality - cannot be known unless you know him. But when you do know him, through his ever-standing Word, you know this life. Jesus says:
“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”
Our God, our Help in ages past, our Hope for years to come,
be Thou our Guide while life shall last, and our eternal Home!Amen.
22 December 2024 - Advent 4 - Malachi 4:4-6
Please listen with me to a reading from the fourth chapter of the Prophet Malachi, beginning at the fourth verse. The Lord is speaking:
“Remember the Law of Moses, My servant, which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.”
So far our text.
This reading was a portion of the Old Testament lesson two Sundays ago, which I preached on that day. But today I want to focus in on a different section of that text.
Something called the “generation gap” emerged in our society in the 1950s. Before this time, younger people and older people listened to the same music, engaged in the same kinds of recreations, and were basically interested in the same kinds of things.
But in the 1950s, teenagers began to listen to a style of music - Rock and Roll - that their parents and grandparents didn’t listen to. Teenagers began to do other things too, that were unique to their generation, and that differed from what older generations were doing.
A separate teenage subculture came into existence. And ever since the 1950s, the young people in each up-and-coming generation likewise develop their own unique subculture: oriented largely around their preferred style of music, but involving their distinctive attitudes and actions in other areas of life as well.
Social analysts started out describing the unique characteristics of the so-called baby-boomers, as compared to all the generations that came before them. Then these scholars went on to study and describe Generation X, then the Millennial Generation, and now Generation Z.
For America, this is a new phenomenon. In earlier times, all the age-groups that were alive at the same time, basically shared the same culture, and had the same outlook on things.
The generations were more integrated and were not really distinguished from each other in very many ways. Their beliefs and values were basically the same.
As a general rule, before the 1950s, young people tended to imitate their parents’ values, and follow their parents’ lead in how they thought about things, more often than not. But starting in the 1950s, young people in much larger numbers began to rebel against their parents, and against their parents’ beliefs and priorities, and in these areas began to be influenced instead, primarily, by their peers.
In the days of John the Baptist and of Jesus, among the people of Israel, there was also something like a “generation gap” in effect - although this “gap” covered a wider breadth of time.
The generation of Jews who had returned to the Holy Land from their exile in Babylon, was a generation that was serious about serving God, about worshiping him in his temple, and about reestablishing a presence for the Lord’s people in the promised land.
They were devout and spiritually-minded: willing to give up the conveniences they had gotten used to in Babylon; willing to pull up stakes; and willing to start all over again in a different place that had been left in ruins seventy years earlier.
They were filled also with a vigorous Messianic hope, anticipating that before long God would send them a new and special king, a new and special prophet, and a new and special priest, to usher in for them a full restoration of their relationship with their Savior God.
But how did things stand with the Jewish people at the time of John and Jesus? Some of the Jews - the Herodians - had aligned themselves with the attitudes and culture of the Romans, and had been taken over by a spirit of compromise and rationalism. Others were among, or were influenced by, the Pharisees, and had been taken over by a spirit of legalism and self-righteous judgmentalism.
The living Messianic hope that dwelled in the hearts of their ancestors, who had followed Ezra and Nehemiah four centuries earlier in restoring the temple and the nation, was now hard to find. The hearts of the people were oriented toward various things, but not toward the actual Word and promises of God in Holy Scripture.
And so John the Baptist was sent to this nation, at this time in history, to “turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers.”
John the Baptist was not the same person as the ancient prophet Elijah, in a resurrected state, as some people thought. But he was a prophet who had come in the spirit of Elijah, to preach God’s Word with the same kind of boldness and authority that had characterized the ministry of Elijah - at another time in Israelite history when the hearts of the people had wandered far from the Lord.
The people of Israel would be prepared for the Messiah - who was coming soon - only if they were to become spiritually-minded: with humility before God’s law, and with a living hope in the glad tidings of the Messiah’s imminent appearance and saving work.
They would not be ready if they remained enmeshed in worldviews that tied their hearts to earthly values and priorities; or that deceived them into thinking that they were already in a position of moral superiority as they were, without the need for anything further from the hand of divine grace.
And so, as the forerunner of Christ, John preached a firm and forceful message to this nation, to jar the people from their complacency and their self-satisfaction. And he preached a message of divine forgiveness, and of a new beginning with God under his grace: for all who repented of their sins, and who in faith received the baptism John was sent to offer.
The reality that would soon burst upon them was the coming of Christ. But they were not yet tuned into this reality. So, God’s Word was brought to bear against their unbelief, in the various forms that this unbelief took, so that through God’s Word, God’s Spirit could work in them a true repentance and a true faith.
The “generation gap” that exists in our society, which I have already talked about in its cultural manifestations, also manifests itself in an increasingly noticeable indifference to God, faith, church, and religion, on the part of younger people, in comparison to the older generations.
The baby boomers were the first ones to begin abandoning the church. Each succeeding generation, in ever larger percentages, followed suit - so that now, the number of young people in Generation Z who identify themselves as atheists, or as holding to no religion, is larger than the number who believe in God and practice their faith.
It would seem as if we need another John the Baptist, to call people to repentance and faith, and to “turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers.” Indeed, we could use another John the Baptist to turn the hearts of everyone to God’s grace in Jesus Christ: the Messiah who has come, and who comes still whenever his gospel is proclaimed.
But just as Jesus comes whenever his preached and sacramental Word comes, so too does the original John the Baptist still speak to us. As we hear in today’s reading from the Gospel of John the apostle, John the Baptist still tells us:
“I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord.’”
On judgment day, when all people from all nations stand before the throne of Christ, those who represent the younger generations of today’s society in our country will not be exempt from the need to give an account of their lives. Their lack of faith in Jesus now, is not going to make Jesus go away.
But today’s young people are also not excluded from the admonition, and the invitation, that is issued to all people by John the Baptist - and by every prophet and apostle who speaks to us, by divine inspiration, from the pages of Holy Scripture. All generations, and people of all ages - from one to one-hundred - who are tired and discouraged in their souls, are invited to the embrace of Christ, who says:
“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
All generations, and people of all ages, who are blinded by the concerns of this world so that they cannot see what is eternal, are invited to the clarity that is brought about by the Word of Christ, who says:
“I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”
All generations, and people of all ages, who are alarmed and frightened by uncertainty and doubt, are invited to live by faith under the protection of Christ, who says:
“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”
Christmas is a wonderful time to experience the reunion of parents and children in a shared faith, as the hearts of all men are drawn to the loving and forgiving heart of God. God reveals his heart for humanity in the coming of his only-begotten Son in human flesh.
No young person in our society who has drifted away from God’s Word and from God’s church, is younger than the babe of Bethlehem was on the night of his birth.
If the divine Lord Jesus Christ - even in the manger - was not too young to love you, then you are not too young to receive his love - and to receive the redemption from sin and death that his love procured for you in his eventual death and resurrection.
And if the angels who appeared to the shepherds - who were thousands of years old and immortal - were not too old to rejoice in the birth of humanity’s Savior, how much more is it the case that we who are only a smattering of decades old, and who are able to claim Jesus as that Savior, can rejoice in his grace toward us.
And we can rejoice also in the opportunity we have not only to trust in him for our own salvation, but also in God’s name to invite the young people we know to come home with us: to come home to the stable; to come home to the mansions of heaven; to come home to the church that Jesus is building and preserving on earth, for as long as the earth remains.
“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers.”
Amen.
24 December 2024 - Christmas Eve - Luke 2:8-12
Christ is born! Let us glorify him!
“Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”
Approximately one year ago, the Pew Research Center issued a comprehensive report on religious affiliation and religious practice in America, based on extensive polling, research, and analysis. Pew found that 22% of Americans identify themselves as “spiritual but not religious,” or SBNR.
What does this mean, exactly? Well, it might mean something a little different to different people.
But the basic contours of this self-description would usually be that an SBNR person does have a sense for the supernatural, and is conscious of a divine force of some kind. How personal that divine force is will vary.
But almost everyone who claims to be SBNR has an aversion to what is generally described disdainfully as “organized religion.” For SBNR people - that is, those who understand themselves to be “spiritual but not religious” - their grasp of the divine, and their sense of how the divinity relates to them and of how they relate to the divinity, begin and end inside of themselves: in their own minds and thoughts, in their own emotions and experiences.
There is no divine authority outside of them and beyond their personal opinions, holding them to account to an objective moral standard, to which they must conform. There is no divine benefactor outside of them and beyond their subjective feelings, offering gifts and heavenly blessings that they need to receive, to make up for what is lacking inside of themselves and in their own inner spirituality.
The shepherds in the fields near Bethlehem, on the night when Jesus was born, were definitely not “spiritual but not religious.” For sure they were not this, once they were addressed by the angel.
When the angel told the shepherds that he was bringing them “good tidings of great joy which will be to all people,” the first thing he included in those good tidings was that there had been born to them “in the city of David a Savior.”
A Savior? Those who are “spiritual but not religious” don’t usually feel a need for a religious Savior who would come to them, from outside of them.
To admit the need for a Savior is to admit failures and flaws, missteps and mistakes, that have resulted in harmful consequences that the SBNR person cannot repair on his own, and from which he cannot save or rescue himself.
But the shepherds had no problem with the idea that they needed a Savior. They knew that an objective evaluation of their lives from the outside, in the light of the Ten Commandments, would certainly expose many lapses and transgressions on their part. They had no delusions to the contrary.
God’s external law measured them, and found them wanting. They did not measure themselves by the standard of their own internal spirituality. They knew that such a process would be a self-evaluation characterized by self-deception and self-justification.
And they were excited and overjoyed to know - based on the outside testimony of the angel - that the Savior they needed had now come - to a town close-by no less!
As simple shepherds, they almost certainly would not have had a carefully worked-out theology of messianic redemption and vicarious atonement. They would almost definitely not have been able to predict what kind of life and death was going to unfold for the babe of Bethlehem in the years ahead.
But they knew - deep down they knew - that there was something about that baby, and something in that baby, that they needed: something that would save them from their guilt before a righteous God, through divine forgiveness; and something - someone - who would save them from their alienation from a holy God, through divine reconciliation.
It’s also interesting to see that when the angel told the shepherds where the baby was, and what anyone who might go to see him would find, he didn’t need to tell them explicitly to go to Jesus. But he knew that they would go.
The angel’s announcement pulled them to go, and pushed them to go. The angel’s announcement lifted up their faith, beyond a contemplation of their own doubts and fears, and drew their faith toward something higher and greater.
The shepherds were not SBNR, who thought that they might be able to have a “Jesus experience” that began and ended only on the inside - within their own spirituality. No.
The angel had not told them to look for the Lord inside their hearts. He had directed them to look for Christ the Lord, so that they could properly worship Christ the Lord, in a particular newborn baby, lying in a particular manger. And so they said to one another:
“Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.”
And as St. Luke reports, “they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger.”
I don’t know how “organized” their walk to the manger was, but it was definitely a “religious” walk. They went physically to a specific place where something important was waiting for them. They went there to find something for their souls that they would not have been able to find just by consulting their own experiences and emotions.
The birth of Jesus, with everything that this birth meant, broke into their lives - and into their souls - from the outside. The salvation from sin and death that came to them from Jesus, came to them from the outside.
A Christian spirituality - which these shepherds had in a nascent form - is a spirituality that is able to receive what God gives. A Christian spirituality - which is a religious spirituality - is not a spirituality that brings into existence out of itself, or for itself, its own salvation, its own enlightenment, or its own eternal hope.
These things, and so many other marvelous things, come to us from God. From God, and not from ourselves, they then enter into us - sometimes even surprising us with how wonderful they are - through an external revelation and proclamation that delivers to us something new, and something necessary.
The 22% of the population who understand themselves to be “spiritual but not religious” have a hard time understanding the meaning of Christmas. And that is because the meaning of Christmas includes the truth that the God who created us all, exists outside of us all.
He speaks to us through angels and prophets, through apostles and preachers, telling us things that we would not otherwise know, but that we need to know. And his pardoning and healing grace comes to us as he gives himself to us - in the person of his only-begotten Son - in specific moments of human history, and in specific places.
The Christmas story in particular is indeed real history. The Christmas story does not begin with the kind of fairy-tale phrase that often introduces myths and legends: “Once upon a time in a land far, far away.”
Rather, the story begins with a declaration of who the emperor and regional governor were when these things happened - which was the way real events were dated by chroniclers in the first-century Roman empire. And the story tells us that these things happened in a very specific, real place - a place that can be visited today - in the city of David.
The Christian faith as a whole, as God touches us and engages us in and through that faith, is filled with such concrete, objective moments. I was baptized on Easter Sunday of 1962 in a specific church in Germantown, New York.
This past summer, during my trip to the northeast, I visited for the first time the church elsewhere in New York in which my father was baptized on April 2nd, 1939, and in which my grandmother was baptized on April 16th, 1933. I touched the font from which the washing of regeneration had been poured upon them - in a way that the shepherds may have touched the manger in which their Savior slept.
These baptisms did not arise from our inner spirituality, or from the inner sense of the divine that we had devised in our own minds with our own imaginations. These baptisms were gifts from God, originating in him and in his fatherly love, and bestowed upon us from the outside.
God made promises to us, and God invited us to believe these promises for a lifetime and into eternity: promises of forgiveness, life, and salvation; promises made to penitent and redeemed sinners; promises made to God’s adopted and regenerated children.
I don’t know if I would categorized all of this as “organized religion,” but God certainly has organized his way of bringing his grace to us through the means of grace. He does it through earthly means, and through other people, in concrete places and at specific times.
That’s what God was doing on the first Christmas, for the shepherds. That’s what he is doing for you and for me on this Christmas, and in the service that is being held in this place right now: where his Word has been read, and where the message of Jesus Christ, born to save us, has been sung and celebrated for us: so that all of us can hear it, believe it, and receive it.
“Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”
Christ is born! Let us glorify him! Amen.
25 December 2024 - Christmas Day - Luke 2:10-11
EXORDIUM:
Christ is born! Let us glorify him!
Today is the festival of the Nativity of Our Lord. It recalls the day in Bethlehem, so many centuries ago, when God’s Son entered into this world, and set out on his life’s journey as humanity’s Savior.
God’s Son had, of course, been a part of the human race since his conception. He was already the divine-human Lord of heaven and earth when he was still in the womb of his mother Mary, growing and developing according to the human nature that he had taken from her.
But now, as he is born, he begins to be accessible to those whom he came to save. He was accessible to the shepherds, who came to his manger throne to adore him. He was accessible to the wise men, who would soon be on their way to worship him.
As he grew to adulthood, and began his public ministry, he became accessible to the people of Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem, where he preached and taught. And as a living Savior, whose death for human sin was followed by a glorious resurrection from the grave, Jesus is accessible to us now as well.
The most common popular term for this festival in the English language, is “Christmas”: that is, the mass of Christ. It is indeed a day when it is especially appropriate for the church to celebrate the presence of the Lord among us - and the gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation that he bestows upon us - in a mass, or a divine service.
As we gather around his Word and Sacrament, Jesus speaks to us in his gospel and in his absolution. Jesus blesses us in both soul and body - nourishing our faith and our own resurrection hope - by sacramentally bestowing upon us his true body and blood.
Jesus, the newborn king and the reigning king, is indeed accessible to us in these wonderful ways today. And Jesus is accessible to all who would hear his voice, heed his words, and believe his promises.
And so, as we today joyfully celebrate his birth, and his continuing presence among us, we sing the festival hymn, number 142, “Rejoice, Rejoice, This Happy Morn.”
SERMON:
As recorded in Chapter 2 of St. Luke’s Gospel, the angel announced to the shepherds near Bethlehem:
“Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”
During the Christmas season, nativity scenes are often put on display in homes, in churches, and also outdoors and in public spaces. Figurines or statues of the animals and people who were at the stable on the night of Jesus’ birth are set up in these displays.
A donkey or two, a cow or two, and a sheep or two, are always included. Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and the shepherds are also always represented. Quite often, the wise men from the east, who brought gifts to the Christchild, are also portrayed in figurines or statues in these Christmas creches.
Those who are familiar with the chronology of the Biblical events surrounding the birth and childhood of Jesus know, however, that the wise men were not there on the night when Jesus was born. Probably about two years passed between the birth of Christ, and the visit of the wise men.
So, in spite of the sentimental familiarity that is attached to statues and figurines of the wise men being included in a nativity scene, the wise men were not really there on that blessed night. For the sake of historical accuracy, the wise men should not actually be in a nativity scene.
In this sense, they are not a part of the Christmas story. But in another sense, they are.
When the wise men did finally come to kneel before the Son of God, they came from a distant land - from a non-Jewish land. They were gentiles.
But they came to Bethlehem to worship the divine child who had been born to be a king for all nations, and to be the Savior for all people. That’s what the angel said to the shepherds, when he appeared to them on the night of Jesus’ birth.
The good news of Jesus’ birth is good news for everyone - Jew and gentile alike. The wise men, who were drawn by the star to come, eventually, to worship their Savior, were therefore already included, in this way, in the Christmas story.
They were not physically there yet. But they were already there in the mind and heart of God.
Their names were written between the lines of the message that the angel was sent from heaven to proclaim. “All people” included them.
And, “all people” includes you as well! A figurine or statue representing you has never been included in any nativity display. As a matter of history, you were not in Bethlehem on the first Christmas, at the stable where Mary laid her baby in a manger.
But by means of the proclamation of the angel, you, too, are a part of the Christmas story. The Christmas story is, of course, not about you. It is about Jesus. But it is about Jesus for you.
Jesus came to be the Savior for all people - because all people, trapped in the darkness and corruption of a universally-inherited spiritual death, needed a Savior. And God loved those who needed a Savior so much as to send them the Savior they needed.
Jesus came to be your Savior - because you need a Savior, and because God loved you so much as to send you the Savior you need.
This is why the birth of Christ is “good tidings” for “all people.” This is why the birth of Christ is good tidings for you.
Jesus came to redeem us all, and to buy us back from the power and guilt of sin, with the price of his own blood. He came to redeem you, and to claim you as his own.
He came to restore you to fellowship with God, through the forgiveness of your sins. By faith in the righteous and holy Babe of Bethlehem, you are now justified and counted as righteous before God.
“For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God; and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,” St. Paul tells us.
All of us, in ourselves, do fall short of the glory of God. But the glory of God is still proclaimed by the angels in this Christmas celebration, because Jesus, and all the promises connected with Jesus, do not fall short of that glory.
On the night of Christ’s birth, the world became a different kind of place than it had been. And it will never be the same again.
It is now a world where God’s real but hidden glory is present in the person and work of his Son; and in the Word and Sacraments that his Son has entrusted perpetually to his church. It is now a world where God’s mercy is always available to everyone, through the gospel of Jesus Christ.
If anyone with a troubled conscience ever asks: “Is there a Savior for me, who can set my heart and mind at peace?” - the answer of the angel in the Christmas story is always “Yes!”
If anyone, in fear and doubt, ever asks: “Is there a Savior for me, who can assure me that God knows about me, and cares about me?” - the answer of the angel in the Christmas story is always “Yes!”
If your conscience is telling you that you need the Lord’s mercy; and if you know that your sins have created a barrier between you and God that needs to be broken down, then be of good cheer! God, in his infinite compassion, was thinking about you, when he sent his Son to this earth.
If you sense today that you are distant from God, and alienated from him; then rejoice in the good news that is proclaimed to you! You have been redeemed by Christ.
The Savior who was born in Bethlehem, was born to live for you, and to die for you; to win you back to God, and to restore your fellowship with God through the forgiveness of your sins.
Your sins are forgiven in Christ. You are clean, and God is at peace with you.
In particular - for those of you who are communicants - the divine Savior who came for the reconciliation of the world with God, and who entered into the world in the stable of Bethlehem, is the same Savior who comes today for your personal reconciliation with God, and who mystically enters into you, in his Holy Supper.
He who came as a Savior on that holy night, and whose coming was announced by a heavenly messenger, still comes today as a Savior. And the earthly messengers whom God has called to be his ministers here and now, likewise announce his coming, here and now:
“This is the true body of Christ, given for you.” “This is the true blood of Christ, shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.”
And more broadly speaking, when the angel spoke to the shepherds of the good news that would go forth to “all people,” all of you were included. “All people” includes you: whoever you are, whatever you have done, and wherever you are in your relationship with God right now.
In the Christmas story, God gives you a new chance for a new beginning. God offers you a new life, and a new hope.
You were not physically there 2,000 years ago. But you were there in God’s mind, and in God’s heart. In this sense, therefore, You were in the Christmas story. And the Christmas story, today, is in you.
“Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”
Christ is born! Let us glorify him! Amen.
29 December 2024 - Christmas 1 - Matthew 1:18-25
In today’s Gospel from St. Matthew, we are told that Joseph was a just man - or, what would be a better translation, a righteous man. This description of Joseph’s character applies to more than one aspect of his life.
First, it means that he was an honorable and moral man. He had not committed fornication with his fiancee Mary.
The time when they would be allowed to live together as husband and wife had not yet come. And so Joseph, as a righteous man, had not been intimate with her.
Exercising this kind of moral discipline was important for a pious Jewish man like Joseph. It demonstrated respect for the institution of marriage, as God ordained it.
And it demonstrated respect for God himself, whose will in these matters was considered to be more determinative for how a man should conduct himself, than his own unbridled urges.
Not everyone in Joseph’s day felt this way, of course. His contemporaries in the non-Jewish Greco-Roman world certainly knew how to indulge their impulses for sexual adventurism, of both heterosexual and homosexual varieties.
But this was not how things were among the Jewish people. This is not the way Joseph thought. As a genuine believer in the God of Israel, this is not the way Joseph lived.
Joseph was a righteous man. And because he was a righteous man, specifically in this way, he knew that he was not responsible for Mary’s untimely pregnancy.
Since he had had nothing to do with getting her pregnant, he assumed that she had been intimate with another man, and had violated her pledge of marriage to him. And so, he decided to break off the betrothal - which, according to the Jewish understanding, would have had the force of a “divorce.”
But another aspect of what it means for Joseph to have been a righteous man, is evident in the fact that even under such circumstances, he was going to do this quietly and discreetly. He had every reason to feel that Mary had deeply insulted and humiliated him by her actions. But he was not going to be vindictive or vengeful in response.
He was not going to expose her to public shame. Joseph, as a righteous man, was a kind and decent man - even to Mary, at a time when he was quite certain that she had betrayed him.
We are so different from Joseph, so much of the time, aren’t we? We live in a sex-drenched society. Our commitment to sexual purity - in thought, word, and deed - is no doubt significantly lower than his was, even though God’s standards have not changed.
And when we perceive someone to have betrayed us, or publicly embarrassed us, we do not hold back in “getting even,” and in making sure everyone knows who the “bad guy” was in that matter.
It is said: “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” It could just as well be said that hell hath no fury like a man scorned, or humiliated, or made a fool of, before his friends and neighbors. But Joseph was not like this.
He did value his reputation, and he did seek to honor and obey God in the way he lived. But he did not guard his reputation with arrogance and pride.
When he felt that his reputation was being threatened, he did not lash out in anger against the one whom he perceived to be the offending party - in this case, Mary.
At this point, as Joseph was contemplating the discreet and quiet divorce he planned to get, God communicated something to Joseph - by means of an angelic visitation in a dream - that he certainly did not expect to be told. Matthew reports:
“But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.’”
The explicit meaning of this is obvious. Mary’s pregnancy was the result of a miracle. Joseph was assured that Mary had not betrayed him after all. She, too, was an honorable and righteous person, and Joseph should therefore go through with the marriage.
But there was another message for Joseph, that was implicit in this angelic announcement. When you read between the lines, God was basically saying this:
“Joseph, son of David, I am asking you to take care of this very special woman, and this extremely special baby. And so I am asking you to take the blame for this pregnancy, in the eyes of your friends and neighbors.”
When it became known in the community where Joseph and Mary lived, that Mary was pregnant - before the time when she should have been - the people in the community would have started watching Joseph, to see what he was going to do.
If he had separated from Mary, and called off the marriage, then everyone would have concluded that he was not to blame. His reputation would have remained intact, even as Mary’s would have been severely damaged.
But if he did not break up with Mary, and if he instead followed through with the wedding plans, then everyone would have concluded that he and Mary had sinned. It would have seemed to everyone that Joseph was tacitly admitting as much, by staying in the relationship, and by raising the child who had been conceived outside of wedlock as his own.
Nothing that Joseph could have said would have changed that perception. If he had tried to explain that Mary’s pregnancy was by the Holy Spirit, and that the child was the Son of God, it would only have made things worse.
No one would have believed him. The townspeople would instead have become even more annoyed at him for compounding his guilt, by making up what they would have seen to be a blasphemous and impossible story, instead of just taking the blame for his sin like a man.
We can assume that Mary had tried to tell Joseph the same thing, before his dream. But he didn’t believe her. That’s why he was planning a divorce - before his dream. So, Joseph knew that his friends and neighbors wouldn’t believe him, either.
Joseph was a righteous man. He had not done anything wrong in his relationship with Mary. In his own conscience, he knew this.
But when God asked Joseph to take Mary as his wife, according to the original plan, he was thereby asking him to put himself in the public position of being seen and judged not to have been a righteous man.
And Joseph was not going to be able to justify himself before others, or reclaim his formerly good standing in the community. He was going to have to bear this burden without complaint. In silence he would carry the weight of a publicly-perceived guilt for something he actually didn’t do, for the rest of his life.
The sin of fornication was going to be imputed to him and pinned on him. But this was the way it had to be - in order for Mary and her baby to be properly loved and cared for.
In his humble submission to God’s loving will, even at the sacrifice of his public reputation as a righteous man, Joseph showed himself truly to be a righteous man.
When God became one of us, he became one of us at the very beginning of a human existence. Emmanuel - God with us - lived with us as a human being, from conception to adulthood.
The divine Son entered this world as a baby, in need of the kind of protection and upbringing that would be afforded him by a righteous man.
God wanted that man to be Joseph. And Joseph dutifully accepted this divine calling - for the benefit of Mary, and for the benefit of Jesus.
The angel of the Lord had said to Joseph: “She will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”
In a way that he may not have realized at the time, Joseph’s actions, and his obedience to God, foreshadowed what Jesus was going to do someday, to save his people from their sins.
Jesus - who was without any sin of his own; and who was himself a just and righteous man in the absolute sense - allowed all human sin to be imputed to him and pinned on him: all fornication and adultery, all slander and lying, all greed and envy, all hatred and murder.
Before the tribunal of the law of almighty God, Jesus - the Son of God - allowed himself to be thought of as guilty of these sins, and many more such sins.
And he did not try to justify himself, or shake off this burden that God the Father had sent him into the world to bear, according to his calling as the world’s Savior. Jesus needed to be smeared with all of humanity’s sins, and to carry those sins to the cross, so that by his death in our place all of those sins would be atoned for.
“Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth,” as Isaiah the Prophet reminds us.
This was all a part of God’s plan for making you to be a righteous person, like Joseph: in your moral behavior, as a disciple of his Son; but even more so in your standing before him in his Son, covered with Jesus’ righteousness, even as Jesus had been covered with your sins.
St. Paul writes: “For our sake [God] made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Jesus took your sins to the cross and died for them there. And Jesus forgives your sins. His forgiveness, you receive by faith.
And now, as a fruit of that justifying faith, you know how to act when God - through your calling - asks you to bear an undeserved shame, and to protect others by taking the blame for things you have not actually done.
As a Christian, it is not the most important thing for you always to be seen by everyone as right in all your actions. As a Christian, you are not governed by such a consuming and selfish pride.
You know that it is more important to have a clear conscience before God, than to be well thought of by all other people.
This means, therefore, that you will sometimes endure unfair and undeserved criticism from people, because of how you handled a situation that your critics think they understand better than they actually do.
You may need to keep a confidence - to protect others from embarrassment, or to prevent others from being hurt - so that you cannot tell your judgmental critics what they would need to know, in order to know that you did the right thing after all. So, you will bear their negative opinion of you in silence.
Joseph was a righteous man. In his standing before God by faith, in his moral standing before his neighbors, and in the kind and gentle way he treated people, he was righteous.
And, when God called him to do it, he was righteous also in his willingness to be thought of as unrighteous, in order to fulfill a truly righteous purpose for the benefit of others: namely, Mary and the boy Jesus.
In Christ, you too are given this kind of righteousness. In Christ, you too are called to this kind of righteousness.
With the Lord’s help, we seek to live in a way that honors God. With the Lord’s help, we seek to live in a way that serves our neighbor, and protects our neighbor, even if it is at the cost of our reputation among people who misunderstand us.
But most of all - as this is illustrated for us by Joseph’s example - we humbly rejoice in Jesus’ willingness to bear our sin under the judgment of the divine law, and on the cross to be thought of and treated by his Father in heaven as if he were as sinful as we actually are; so that in Christ, and according to his mercy, God now thinks of us, and treats us, as if we were as righteous as Jesus actually is.
Amen.