Invocavit ("He shall call") First Sunday in Lent

Today's little gallery is taken from the genius of Jacques Jacob Tissot (James Tissot after his move to London in 1871): Pic #1 is his self portrait. Tissot illustrates Christ being tempted by the devil as in Pic #2 where it is written that Jesus is tempted to turn stones into bread; and, in Pic #3 where Jesus is tempted to cast Himself off the pinnacle of the temple; also, in Pic #4 where Jesus is tempted with all the riches and glories of the kingdoms in the world, if only He would worship Satan; and, lastly in Pic #5, after Jesus fought the devil rightly using Scripture, He is ministered to by many angels. 

This brings me to my address for Invocavit ("He will call" upon Me) Sunday:

“The Written Word of God Overcomes Bad Theology”
Sermon Text: Matthew 4:1-11 NKJV
4:1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. 3 Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”
4 But He answered and said, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’”
5 Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’”7 Jesus said to him, “It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the LORD your God.’” 8 Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.” 10 Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.’” 11 Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.

My Christian Friends: George Orwell, the author of 1984, said: “Many people genuinely do not want to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings.” But here in the historical Gospel reading for the first Sunday in Lent is the record of St. Matthew of the temptations of Christ. The Lord Christ who both as true man and true God, God in the flesh, now will feel the temptations of being truly human.

The writer of the book of Hebrews says, “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Knowing this, you are given the lesson as an example of what to do when temptations come your way, and where it is you should look for help.

In the first temptation of Christ, the devil said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” Now it had been forty days and forty nights since Jesus had anything to eat and Scripture said, “He hungered”, so this was a great and fitting temptation with which to begin. I would venture to say that none of us had ever experienced the hunger that Jesus had at this point. All we must do is go to the kitchen and we could at least find a can of soup and maybe some crackers to go with it. Yes, Jesus, being true Man, did experience real hunger to the point that He was hungering with real hunger! Yet many feign being hungry to the point of starving. Esau, the twin brother of Jacob, was such a person. As it is recorded in Genesis 25:29-34:
“Now Jacob cooked a stew; and Esau came in from the field, and he was weary. And Esau said to Jacob, ‘Please feed me with that same red stew, for I am weary.’ Therefore, his name was called Edom. But Jacob said, ‘Sell me your birthright as of this day.’ And Esau said, ‘Look, I am about to die; so what is this birthright to me?’ Then Jacob said, ‘Swear to me as of this day.’ So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. And Jacob gave Esau bread and stew of lentils; then he ate and drank, arose, and went his way. Thus, Esau despised his birthright.”

Jesus would essentially be denying His birthright had He given in to this temptation. And this was the real contention, since Jesus was true God, the only Son of the Father. And as true God He could easily have done that which the devil suggested. Yet, being the Son of God, by taking on human flesh, He was also subservient to His Father’s will. In other words, Jesus was to explicitly trust His Father to provide for His need. And this was the Father’s will, this is what the Father desired of His Son: (Philippians 2:6 8) “Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”

The devil had tried to make Jesus, by His own powers, according to His human nature, to trust in His own will rather than in the will of His heavenly Father. Many a time there is that we are tempted to trust in anything or anyone else but God Himself to provide for our needs. We are to trust solely in the Father’s will for us and not trust in our own will. Too many ordinary people think that in order to be engaged with God that they would have to be saints.

We often perceive hunger and poverty as God unwilling to act, or as Luther thought the devil was saying, “Trust in God and don’t bake; wait until a roasted rooster flies into your mouth!” But it is not God’s will for His people to starve or lack in anything needful. But the Lord doesn’t want us to be self-reliant to the point that we don’t turn to Him in need or give Him thanks in days of plenty.

See how Jesus used the written Word of God to refute this first temptation of the devil. And the answer regarding that Word was found in Deuteronomy 8:3, “So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD.” Thus, Jesus says to the devil “It is written!” Christians learn from Christ to fight the temptation to depend on their own human natures, natures that have been corrupted by Original Sin, to get what they think need.

Now it is that the devil took Jesus up onto a pinnacle of the temple and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, cast Yourself down, For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’” (Psalm 91) Satan is sly for He knows what the entire Scripture he cited says, but he deliberately leaves out the words, “to keep you in all your ways” (Ps.91:11). These words, “in all your ways,” simply mean that if you go outside your way in calling upon the Lord in times of trouble – if you are not kept within all your ways – then it is that you forfeit any claim to the Lord’s protection and providential care. This is what God says He will do for you in Psalm 91:14-16, "Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him on high, because he has known My name. He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him and show him My salvation.”

It is with half-truths and portions of the Bible, taken out of context, which makes for a great majority of false doctrines within Christendom. To fight against this temptation, you need to hold on to and adhere closely to the pure and unadulterated written Word of God.

Yes, learn from Christ to fight this kind of temptation. Jesus knew that the devil simply proposed false doctrine here, therefore Jesus responded, “It is written again: ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God’” (Deut.6:16). Adhere not only to the letter of the written Word but also to the spirit of the Word and you will not succumb to the temptations of liberal pseudo-Christianity and bad theology. You will be able to be victorious over all liberal-socio Christianity. You will also be able to be victorious over the temptation to become part of a one world government and, de facto, a one world religion.

Let the Bible interpret the Bible and don’t let some leader in your church who claims to be a scholar tell you what the Bible says. For, as 2 Peter 1:19-20 tells us, “...we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” Christians learn from Christ to fight the temptation of bad theology and false doctrine by letting Scripture interpret Scripture.

In the next temptation of Christ the devil took Jesus up onto a high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and said to Him, “All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours.” Now you may ask, did the devil had it in his authority to grant Jesus all this ‘worldly’ power? The devil is indeed called “the god of this world” 2 Corinthians 4:4; and “the prince of the power of the air” in Ephesians 2:2. Also it is written in Revelation 12:12 “Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.” And within this “short time” Satan, a spiritual being, was given power to operate within the physical realm of the earth in which carnal man was dwelling.

At first glance one would think that the devil is really very stupid fellow since he was unable to get Jesus to eat when He was starving that somehow Jesus would then give in to the temptation to have all the glory and power of the kingdoms of this earth. However, this was what Satan wished Jesus would do in His human weakness, namely, forget that He, Jesus, was indeed true God, the same essence of His Father, and that it was the devil, and not He, who should be bowing down and worshiping! Therefore, Jesus responds with Scripture by saying, “For it is written: ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve.’”

Yielding to this temptation destroys faith and kills true worship that is to be offered in spirit and in truth. Yielding to this temptation destroys the very adoration of the Triune God Himself. It has been the destruction of many church congregations, even though they still look busy and prosperous much like the Church of the Laodiceans in Revelation 3:14-18. The poison of earthly things and their glory has destroyed many in Christendom. Indifference to Sunday worship because of things is more contagious than the Coronavirus is to the world today. It can and will spread to our children whenever we become more excited about the world rather than the great and glorious powers in heaven that we have in and through our Savior Jesus Christ!

Yes, the world and its powers, including the god of this world, Satan, are very evil and Christians should stay alert to the fact that the temptations to gain great power and wealth may well mean that you forfeit your very own soul. “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” Matthew 16:26. Christians learn to fight the temptation of power and lust for things by worshiping and honoring the only one true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Oh, friends…many otherwise good people have their faith chipped away by sitting under the feet of false teachers and preachers who claim that they are speaking the Word of the Lord and flatter their hearers by smooth talking and a great display of love. But their concerns are of this world and they do grave injustice to the Bible, God’s inerrant and infallible Word.

Remember what Jesus taught, as recorded in John 15:18 19, “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” The joy that you feel in the recreated heart for Jesus and His glories is beyond this world’s comprehension and always will be. Therefore, if you find yourselves troubled by any of these temptations, remember and learn from the Master how to fight them. Say, “Away with you, Satan, for…It is Written!” Amen.

Quinquagesima Sunday 2020

Faith and Mercy connect the dots in this little gallery. Carl Heinrich Bloch tells of the Gospel account for this Sunday, Pic #1 is his painting of Jesus healing the blind man on Jericho's road; Pic #2 is the Greek god Opportunity, Caerus (also called Kairos, i.e. Time), reminding people how fleeting time and opportunity really are; whereas, Pic #3 shows John Bunyan's Pilgrim taking the opportunity to enter the wicket gate seeking mercy for his sins that are a great burden on his back; and, Pic #4, shows God's mercy, through faith in His Son, to all who believe.

This brings me to my address for this Quinqagesima Sunday (the Sunday before Ash Wednesday):

“Faith: A Blind Man’s Opportunity for Grace” Luke 18:35-43
35 Then it happened, as He was coming near Jericho, that a certain blind man sat by the road begging. 36 And hearing a multitude passing by, he asked what it meant. 37 So they told him that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. 38 And he cried out, saying, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" 39 Then those who went before warned him that he should be quiet; but he cried out all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me!" 40 So Jesus stood still and commanded him to be brought to Him. And when he had come near, He asked him, 41 saying, "What do you want Me to do for you?" He said, "Lord, that I may receive my sight." 42 Then Jesus said to him, "Receive your sight; your faith has made you well." 43 And immediately he received his sight, and followed Him, glorifying God. And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God. NKJV

Dear Christian friends: Goethe, the German philosopher and poet, once stated: “Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, and opportunity transient.” The ancient Greeks had a way of expressing the adage that opportunity knocks but once. These Greeks had made a statue of a god named Opportunity (Kairos). This statue stood on its toes with wings on the heals to show how fleeting time is ad how quickly opportunity might pass; it had a wavy long lock of hair in the front so that people might be able to grasp it when opportunity came to them, but it was bald in the back to show that once opportunity passed it could no longer be grasped.

The Gospel text for this Sunday speaks of a certain blind beggar sitting on the side of the road. It would be very hard for any of us to understand the unfortunate qualities that comprised this man; his blindness as well as his poverty. And it is most certainly true that many of us have taken hold of the time when opportunity presented itself to us in education, love, health care, families and friends, laughter and recreational times; opportunities that never once came to this poor, blind beggar. It was only the few coins he daily received from people who took pity on him that gave him some comfort. But opportunity is now going to change his outlook as Jesus relates this story regarding His office as the Christ as well as to instruct us today on important spiritual matters.

Jesus tells us how this man uses his God-given gift of hearing. Scripture says, “And hearing a multitude passing by, he asks what this meant.” The blind man was alert to the opportunity that was coming his way; this was God’s Time for him, otherwise he would have just passed up this “noise” coming his way of being none of his business. Now his faith perceived this great opportunity coming His way and so uses his voice. After people told him that it was Jesus of Nazareth coming on this road, faith causes him to cry out: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” By this manner of addressing the Lord, it was obvious that the man heard of the mighty works Jesus had done. So it was he cried out to Jesus for mercy seeking this great opportunity as it was coming his way.

Others seemed oblivious to this man’s miserable condition and more interested in the passing parade while still others discouraged this man and even told him to shut up and keep quiet! The greater part of the crowd didn’t share the blind man’s faith as he cried out to Jesus or else they, too, would have cried out for mercy if they were to perceive their very own blindness that was worse than the beggar’s, namely, a spiritual blindness. But this blind man, who evidently heard the Word of God that created faith in him, showed a great display of trust as he was being obedient to what the prophet Isaiah said: “Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near.” (Isaiah 55:6) Yet no one, but no one, can call upon God for mercy if his eyes have not yet been opened to the goodness of God’s providential care. It is just as Ephesians 2:1 says, “And you…were dead in trespasses and sins” i.e. dead, spiritually, having no power to either call upon God or grasp at all any opportunity for healing and salvation.

This spiritual blindness is commonplace in our homes, in our schools, and especially in our universities and our government. Spiritual blindness is pervasive as well in the mainline churches in America and institutions that claim to have knowledge of God. What our country really needs is not so much a revival but rather a simple obedience to the truth of God’s Word for the namesake of Jesus Christ. As the Old Testament prophet, Samuel, told King Saul, “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice!”

Many within the Church of Christ rather change the words of Christ’s comfort and grace without God, merely pretending that sickness, infirmities, trials and temptations that come with living life today are somehow not related to the sufferings of all mankind. God understands suffering. Through Christ, God has experienced what we experience: Pain, loss, betrayal, heartache, and persecution. He’s been there; He’s done that. As St. Paul says, Isn’t the whole creation subjected to the futility because of Him who subjected it in hope?

The late Catholic Bishop Fulton J. Sheen related this story in the 1950’s about this same futility that caused a mother and a father to ask their little girl to include her family, with their various afflictions, in her bed-tine prayers one night. And so she obediently prayed: “Dear God, my brother has the mumps; my sister fell off her bike and broke her leg; my older brother has pneumonia; and my daddy just lost his job. So please, Lord, take care of Yourself, because if anything would happen to You we would all be in the soup!” Lord, have mercy.

This blind man had nothing to sacrifice to the Lord and yet he showed a great faith in calling on Jesus while others were telling him to be quiet. In obedience to God’s Word, this man, sitting on Jericho’s road was to seize Opportunity personified. His prayer, cried out loud, was of the same essence of that particular prayer of the tax collector standing afar off in the temple, with his eyes lowered as he beat his chest, saying, “Have mercy on me a sinner!” And who is it that Jesus wishes to see other than the one that admits his guilt of sin? Our text reads: “So Jesus stood still and commanded him (the beggar) to be brought to Him.” In this blind man, our Lord sees the destitute, spiritual blindness of His fallen creation; the same fallen creation that He is on His way to Jerusalem to offer Himself as the pure and holy sacrifice for the world’s sins.

Pertaining to this Gospel, Martin Luther says this about the blind man: ”The spiritually blind, the state of every man born of Adam, who neither sees nor knows the kingdom of God; but it is of grace that he feels and knows his blindness and would gladly be delivered from it. They are saintly sinners who feel their faults and sighs for grace. But he sits by the wayside and begs, that is, he sits among the teachers of the law and desires help; but it is begging, with works he must appear blue and help himself. The people pass him by and let him sit, that is the people of the law make a great noise and are heard among the teachers of good works, they go before Christ and Christ follows them.”

And then Luther says: “But when he heard Christ, that is, when the heart hears the Gospel of faith, it calls and cries, and has no rest until it comes to Christ. Those, however, who would silence and scold him are teachers of works, who wish to quiet and suppress the doctrine and cry of faith; but they stir the heart the more. For the nature of the Gospel is, the more it is restrained the more progress it makes. Afterwards he received his sight, all his work and life are nothing but the praise and honor of God, and he follows Christ with joy, so that the whole world wonders and is thereby made better.”

When the blind man was brought near to Jesus, Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The man saw his opportunity and acted according to faith and said, “Lord, that I may receive my sight.” He took hold of Jesus with his words, knowing that he would not let Jesus go until his prayer was answered. This is how faith reacts when Jesus is near; faith will not let Jesus loose until He has demonstrated His love and mercy that was promised of old. It was through the prophet Isaiah that we have this promise: “Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees” and “the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped; the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the dumb sing…”

Friends, don’t let those of your families and acquaintances dissuade you from your faithful cries to your Lord. Don’t let your lips just sing the Kyrie eleison in the liturgy out of tradition, just another thing to do in our worship services void of meaning without hearing your own cries of “Lord, have mercy upon me; Christ, have mercy upon me; Lord, have mercy upon me!”

The Kyrie itself was a litany prayer of the early church as the business language of the first three centuries was Greek, even in Rome. And even though the Kyrie was not mentioned in the liturgy until the mid-fourth century it nevertheless is the cry of the Church acknowledging the frailty and weakness in need of God’s pity and mercy. It is found in many of the Psalms used even in Old Testament worship; such as Psalm 25:16, “Turn Yourself to me, and have mercy on me for I am desolate and afflicted” and, Psalm 41:4, “Lord, be merciful to me; Heal my soul, for I have sinned against You” and, Psalm 123:3, “Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us! For we are exceedingly filled with contempt.”

There are other Psalms that are a cry for help in times of distress. All cries of Kyrie eleison have one thing in common which the writer to the New Testament book of Hebrews 4:16 tells us: “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” This you can do simply because you have a High Priest, Jesus, who can sympathize with your infirmities as you come to Him by faith that gives you access to His marvelous grace.

Therefore, don’t ever see opportunity as being fleeting because of the many voices of those who try to silence you and stop you from presenting your requests before your Lord. If you feel that Jesus has passed you by, not hearing your cries for mercy, remember this, namely, that traveling through Jericho, Jesus’ eyes were set upon the purpose for which He was born; His face was set toward Jerusalem where He would be tortured and put to a sacrificial death not only for the blind man’s sins but also for the sins of the world. Knowing this, Jesus has not passed you by if you sincerely believe that you are still in this world but not of this world. The road that Jesus was travelling, when the blind man encountered Him, was the road of love; the road that led our Savior to Calvary.

Jesus told the blind man, “Receive your sight; your faith has made you well.” Again, Luther speaks to this point, writing: “Finally, we see how Christ encourages us both by His works and words. In the first place by His works, in that He sympathizes so strongly with the blind man and makes it clear how pleasing faith is to Him, so that Christ is at once absorbed with interest in the man, stops and does what the blind man desires in his faith. In the second place, that Christ praises his faith in words, and says, ‘Thy faith has made thee whole;’ He casts the honor of the miracle vouchsafed what it asks, and it is moreover our great honor before God.” Amen.

I mused over a past devotion that my wife and I read this past January 4th from Rev. John Sander's Devotional Readings From Luther's Works, LutheranLibrary.org regarding Galatians 3:26, "Ye are all children of God by faith in Christ Jesus."

And, yes, upon my meditation I thought how well it applied to show Christians how they should honor and esteem faith in Christ alone when speaking of Justification. It is that way, of course, if it is to be simply Lutheran, I thought.

The excerpt that was brought to my mind from this past January 4th devotion was:
    "...whoever has faith and works cheerfully is a child; for he has received the Spirit of God trough Christ. Now, the apostle names Christ, referring to the faith that believes and abides in Jesus Christ. No other faith is effective, no other faith is the right faith, let one believe in God as one will. Some there are, particularly among our modern high schoolmen, who say: Forgiveness of sins and justification depend altogether on the divine imputation of grace; God's imputation is sufficient. He to whom God does not reckon sin, is justified; he to whom God reckons sin is not justified.
    "Were their theory true the entire New Testament would be of no significance. Christ would have labored foolishly and to no purpose in suffering for sin. God would have unnecessarily wrought mere mockery and deception; for he might easily without Christ's suffering have forgiven sins. Then, too, a faith other than faith in Christ might have justified and saved - a faith relying on God's gracious mercy not to impute sin." [Here I thought how Luther would never have become a "Waltherian" who speaks of some Universal Objective Justification declared by God to the entire world regardless of having faith, or prior to any faith, in Christ.] "In contrast to this deplorable theory and abominable error, it is the apostle's practice to speak always of faith in Jesus Christ, and he makes mention of Jesus Christ with a frequency surprising to one unacquainted with the important doctrine of faith in him. Hence our learned university doctors no longer know Christ..."

As I mused on these faithful words of Dr. Luther I recalled all those "modern high schoolmen" and "modern university doctors" who preached to me that I had to believe in an Objective Justification whereby God had already declared the whole world justified (forgiven their sins) and sanctified in Christ Jesus prior to having faith in Christ (this is stated as Objective Justification in the 1932 Brief Statement of Missouri). I was told that unless I believed that the whole world was declared justified, prior to faith in Christ, that I didn't have the true faith and that I didn't have the real Jesus.

(Above is a representation of the "modern high schoolmen" selling Universal Objective Justification, hook, line, and sinker, in the LC-MS and smaller synods, especially the three pastors of the OLCC)

Luther ends his comments on Galatians 3:26 with these words: 

"It is supremely essential to possess him who has accomplished the purchase for us. Nor is it possible to obtain grace otherwise than though him"

Earlier this year (2020), a young Christian wife and mother had essentially told me I wasn't telling the truth about Universal Objective Justification. She told me, "There's something 'out there' that we have faith in" referring to a declared justification for the whole world. This is exactly the same thinking that my former pastor (who said he can no longer even be my personal friend) had when he told me, "Jim, you just have to have faith to believe it" (i.e. UOJ) This is like saying you have to have faith in some doctrinal statement of C.F.W. Walther, that is not contingent upon faith in Christ, in order to have faith and the real Justification!

To conclude my musings, I would like to quote my pastor, the Rev. Dr. Gregory Jackson, in his book "The Path To Understanding Justification" p.69: 

Your Faith Is in Faith-Your Faith is Not in Christ, It Is in Yourself, You Are Not a Christian- You Are a Faithian

"This attack seems to crawl out of the muck of Concordia Seminary, Ft. Wayne. The hyperbole ignores the real meaning of Subjective Justification, which is agreeing to the notion of world absolution without faith. That is not faith in Christ but making a decision in favor of a dogmatic point. If more people read Luther, they would know that Luther called himself a faithian, more precisely a solafideist - a faith-alone-ist." 

First Sunday after Epiphany - January 12, 2020

“Jesus Attends to His Father’s Business” Luke 2:41-52
Luke 2:41 50 His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover.42 And when He was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast.43 When they had finished the days, as they returned, the Boy Jesus lingered behind in Jerusalem. And Joseph and His mother did not know it;44 but supposing Him to have been in the company, they went a day's journey, and sought Him among their relatives and acquaintances.45 So when they did not find Him, they returned to Jerusalem, seeking Him.46 Now so it was that after three days they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions.47 And all who heard Him were astonished at His understanding and answers.48 So when they saw Him, they were amazed; and His mother said to Him, "Son, why have You done this to us? Look, Your father and I have sought You anxiously." 49 And He said to them, "Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father's business?"50 But they did not understand the statement which He spoke to them. NKJV

Dear Christian friends: In reality this boy Jesus is so aware of His surrounding that it is impossible for Him to be lost. This boy Jesus is the Incarnate God; indeed, the Incarnate Word of God, the creator and ruler of all things. He is very knowledgeable of His whereabouts at all times. However, Mary and Joseph didn’t understand what Jesus told them when they found Him in the temple. Jesus explicitly said to them, “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” That brings me to two basic teachings of today’s text, namely, that you are the one found, not Jesus; and, the Father’s business is that of your own salvation.

This Jesus wasn’t lost at all but was about His Father’s business then, as a twelve-year-old boy, and even today. This Jesus wants you to find Him only where He wants to be found, that is, in Word and Sacrament. And here it is that Jesus is still about His Father’s business.

Jesus, ever since His conception and birth of the Virgin Mary, was, is, and always will be both true God and true Man. The two natures of the person of Jesus Christ cannot and will not ever be separated. Therefore, it wasn’t surprising that Jesus as a 12-year old boy should be found in the temple using great wisdom and knowledge. Jesus was never lost physically; neither lost spiritually; nor intellectually. Regarding Psalm 8:2, “Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have ordained strength, Because of Your enemies, That You may silence the enemy and the avenger,” Dr. Martin Luther commented:
“Jesus the 12 years old sits in the temple in the midst of all the teachers, listens to them and asks them questions, so that all who hear Him have to ‘be amazed at His understanding and His answers.’ The Apostles are also children, foolish and unwise before the world. They do not understand the world’s wisdom and are miserable and poor. But they have the divine wisdom by which they far surpass the wisdom of the world...So now the one confronts the other. The world struts and swaggers with its great power, reason, and wisdom. And He (Christ) says, ‘Strut all you please. All your power, reason and wisdom are dung before Me; I will set babes and sucklings upon you. With their mouths and word they will erect a power and kingdom to spite and mock all your power and wisdom.”

Even the Virgin Mary issued a rebuke to her Son not realizing that He knew where He was and who He was. Human wisdom and reason had told Mary that her Son was lost, but this was not so. Just as true is the fact that you cannot find Jesus because Jesus was never lost, but indeed He continually seeks to find the lost in their own understanding.

Human wisdom is only encouraged by asking the question, “Have you found Jesus?” as if Jesus is somehow hiding from people and toying with their eternal souls. But St. Paul put the record straight when he quoted Isaiah, “But Isaiah is very bold and says: ‘I was found by those who did not seek Me; I was made manifest to those who did not ask for Me.’ But to Israel he says: ‘All day long I have stretched out My hands to a disobedient and contrary people.’” Romans 10:20 21.

If finding the Lord Jesus were to be a mandate of the Law then we would never find Him and indeed be lost forever. Romans 9:30-32 is an important lesson for all of us: “What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith; but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law.” And, of course, “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” (Rom.10:17), not by making a decision for Christ; It is the gift of faith that now recognizes and receives that which was there all along. But now, as Scripture would say, today salvation has come to your house.

St. John is explicit when it comes to who it is that found whom. Here it is that the Biblical concept of being born-again, or born from above, tells that man cannot decide for Christ for he/she cannot have a natural knowledge of whom Jesus really is. Jesus must be received by faith; faith that is given to man through the hearing of the Gospel (Rom.10:17). As John 1:10-13 reads:
“He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

Jesus today is still about His Father’s business of seeking out sinners, of finding the likes of you and me. As the Lord spoke through the prophet Jeremiah, “No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” (Jeremiah 31:34) The New Covenant is therefore not conditional, like the many covenants that had the two-letter word “If” attached. The New Covenant God made with Himself in the sacrifice of His Only Begotten Son on that old rugged cross of Calvary; this New Testament is simply known in the forgiveness of sins for salvation belongs to God alone! For those who are penitent; for those who have been driven to sorrow over their sins, there can be no ifs, ands, or buts in the New Covenant since the preaching of the Gospel brings the Holy Spirit and forgiveness of sins. “Be, therefore, reconciled to God!” as Saint Paul pleaded with the Corinthians and as God’s ministers exhort their hearers today in order to be justified.

And that brings me to the point that Jesus wishes to be found in His Word. Jesus is known in the forgiveness of sins, and where there is forgiveness of sin there is life and salvation, as Luther once said. This is the New Covenant God made with His people and He signed it in blood, by the many stripes and wounds laid upon Jesus, and by the nail prints in His hands, feet, and the wound in His side. In other words, the forgiveness of sins came through the bloody death of Jesus’ atonement on Calvary’s cross, and through that, we know the Lord. Hearing this message of Christ crucified is the way God the Father ordained for everyone to attain righteousness by faith.

Jesus once said in Luke 9:25 26, “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost?” We all need to be reminded where Mary “found” Jesus, namely in the temple transacting the Father’s business. And it is in the Church where the Father’s business today is transacted, the business of Word and Sacrament. It is there where Jesus wishes to be found; in Word and Sacrament. There, Jesus is preached and confessed; there, we are adopted as God’s children and baptize in Jesus’ name; and, there, Jesus’ body and blood are received physically in and with the common elements of bread and the wine. Jesus sets His own table in the Holy Supper for the forgiveness of sins and for the strengthening of your faith.

Jesus is no longer that 12-year old boy, but Jesus still beckons us to come to His Father’s house. Why should we take the time to go to church? Well, for one thing, to encourage each other in the true faith and to keep our eyes open to the fact that Jesus will again return to gather His church to be with Him, as Hebrews 10:25 states: “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.” Also, Hebrews states that Jesus is “The author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2); and, upon that statement, we can see the enormity of the 12-year old Jesus, His incomparable size that could never be lost!

As the Formula of Concord confesses:
“But now since he ascended into heaven, not just like some other saint but, in the words of the apostle (Eph. 4:10), far above all heavens that he might truly fill all things, he is everywhere present to rule, not only as God but also as man, from sea to sea and to the ends of the earth, as the prophets foretell (Ps. 8:6; 93:1; Zech. 9:10) and as the apostles testify that he worked with them everywhere and confirmed the message by the signs that attended it (Mark 16:20).
“Yet, this does not take place in a mundane way, but as Dr. Luther explains, after the manner of the right hand of God…The right hand of God is precisely the almighty power of God which fills heaven and earth, in which Christ has been installed according to his humanity in deed and in truth without any blending or equalization of the two natures in their essence and essential properties… No other human being can do this, since no human being is united in this manner with the divine nature and installed in the exercise of the divine, omnipotent majesty and power through and in the personal union of both natures in Christ, the way Jesus, the son of Mary, is.
“In him the divine and human natures are personally united in such a way that in Christ the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily (Col. 2:9), and in this personal union they have such an exalted, intimate, and ineffable communion that even the angels marvel at it and find their delight and joy in looking into it, as St. Peter testifies (1 Pet. 1:12).”

Do you wish to “find” Jesus? Do you wish to do so in the better Christian manner according to the New Testament? Do you know that the Father’s business is your Salvation? Then take the time to grab hold of Jesus where and when He presents Himself to you! Hear His Word preached on a regular basis; take hold of Him physically in the miraculous, sacramental way of Holy Communion. For if you despise the hearing and preaching of God’s Word, and if you have no desire to commune with Him at His table, then Jesus might certainly be lost to you. Whenever your daily devotions become passé; whenever your schools teach that all the major religions of the world are equally true and valid; whenever your government becomes your civil religion; then Jesus can indeed be lost to you.

Church still needs to be seen as a family affair much like Mary, Joseph, and all their relatives traveled together to go to the temple. Christ’s Church foremost consists of the spiritual and mystical family of all of us present with God the Father, and with our Elder Brother, Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Just see how the Word of God treats what I say on this subject, as I appeal once more to the Book of Hebrews (2:11-13):
For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying:
“I will declare Your name to My brethren;
In the midst of the assembly I will sing praise to You.”
And again:
“I will put My trust in Him.”
And again:
“Here am I and the children whom God has given Me.”

The Lord Jesus Christ is your elder Brother, and all who place their trust in His atoning sacrifice are the children of the heavenly Father. God doesn’t leave us alone to struggle with the faith that gives us access to His grace; to the faith that He Himself has also given us as a gift.

Friends, salvation is of God; and God grants you, His child, the Holy Spirit that sustains your faith. Why is it, then, that you should ever lose Jesus? Amen.


The painting on the left, of the twelve year old Jesus in the temple, is by the 19th century German realist, Adolph Menzel; and, the corresponding portrait on the right is by Heinrich Hofmann, who also painted "Jesus Praying in the Garden of Gethsemane" (arguably the most copied painting in the world).

We'll I've done it again. I will be in facebook jail for posting an uncomplimentary photo of Mohammed. I cannot comment or post anything on my facebook for three full days. This was for my brief protest against those on facebook who continually defame Jesus and the Christian religion:

The Insanity of Walther's Justification without Faith

 The "UOJ advocate" mimics sitting with the one who mimics psychosis.

In Devotional Readings from Luther's Works, compiled by Rev. John Sander 1915/2019 Augustana Book Concern, we find for the Eleventh Day of Christmas, January 4th, this excerpt of Luther:  "Some there are, particularly among our modern high schoolmen, who say: Forgiveness of sins and justification depend altogether on the divine imputation of grace; God's imputation is sufficient. He to whom God does not reckon sin, is justified; he to whom God reckons sin, is not justified."

Martin Luther calls the above a "deplorable theory" and "abominable error."  This is exactly the way the pastors and scholars who follow the UOJ teaching of CFW Walther speak when they say that the entire world has been pronounced forgiven and righteous in Christ before and without faith. Luther went on to say "...it is the apostle's practice to speak always of faith in Jesus Christ, and he makes mention of Jesus Christ with a frequency surprising to one unacquainted with the important doctrine of faith in him." In other words, Luther never mentioned an objective justification outside of faith; contrariwise, Luther said that without the important doctrine of faith "...our learned university doctors no longer know Christ." 
Below are two articles of Polycarp Leyser that are apropos to learning Justification:

Please visit the Lutheran Library Publishing Ministry: LutheranLibrary.org
 

New Year's Day

“The Circumcision and Holy Name of Jesus” Sermon Texts – Psalm 8:9; Luke 2:21 “O Lord, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth!” “And when eight days were completed for the circumcision of the Child, His name was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb.” (NKJV)

Dear friends in Christ: In the late nineteenth century a European diplomat serving in Egypt stumbled upon a rare find—a half-dozen ancient books. The style of the manuscripts ancient Greek handwriting suggested they had been written sometime between 100 and 400 A.D. Their great age and excellent condition made these books valuable, but when scholars turned their attention to the content of the writings they realized the find was one of a kind and quite weird.

The books contained paragraph after paragraph of nonsense words made up entirely of vowel sounds, strange sketches and occult diagrams, and most significantly these manuscripts contained page after page of names. These were the names of gods and goddesses, angels and demons, all pagan names but even a few Jewish ones.

The books contained dozens of magical spells. These were the handbooks of ancient Greek magicians, teaching sorcerers how to harness the power of the supernatural for their paying clients. There were spells for good health, fair weather, and success in love or for your favorite greyhound at the race track. There were curses upon personal enemies, business rivals, and former lovers. And the keys to unlock all of this supernatural power, the magicians believed, were in the names of all these gods and demons. In the ancient Mediterranean world of Greece and Rome, magic was everywhere. It was believed that the power, the very essence of a being resided in its name. And knowledge of a supernatural name gave power. Magicians and common people alike assumed that if they could only learn the name of a god or a demon, they had a chance of manipulating the deity to serve their own purposes. Hence, the spells of ancient magicians often included hundreds of these supernatural names. It was the hope that at least one of these names would hit its target and force a supernatural being to bring about the goal of the spell.

The Old Testament lesson gives us the Aaronic benediction, which we use as the final blessing to end our public worship services. And just what is the subject of this blessing? The name “Lord” (or Yahweh) appears three times, recalling God’s identity as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The full revelation of the name would have to wait until the New Testament. This is the identity of the Lord as one God in three persons. This is what is present in this benediction. And what about the verbs, you English buffs? Do not they all indicate blessings that God places upon Israel? They verbs say that God shall Bless you, Keep you, Shine upon you, Be gracious, Lift up His countenance, and Give you peace. So where God’s name is spoken, there He is present to bless you. His name is His presence, for where His name is invoked, there He is to bless.

The name of God is recalled in the first reference to worship in Genesis 4:25-27, “Then men began to call upon the name of the Lord.” And who are the objects of this blessing?... the people of Israel. Just after this blessing, the Lord said that the priests shall put His name upon the people of Israel, and that He will bless them. So when we hear this blessing at the end of our worship services we know that God is here, lifting us out of the depths of our sin and giving us life in His name. O Lord, our Lord how excellent is Your name in all the earth for You have placed it upon your people to bless them, to keep them, and to give them peace.

Now let us turn briefly to the other significance of the day of first of January in conjunction with the Holy Name of Jesus. Luther gives us some initial insight of his times on the day. Dr. Luther preached in a sermon on New Year’s Day, saying, “On this day it is customary to distribute new year’s gifts from the pulpit, as if one did not have enough useful and beneficial matters to preach about, and it were necessary to hand out such useless tales instead of the word of God and to turn this serious office into a game and a joke. The Gospel demands that our sermon be about the circumcision and the name Jesus, and we are going to observe this. “Let us, first, ask that smart woman, Madam Jezebel, natural reason: Is it not foolish, ridiculous, futile that God demands circumcision? Could he find no other part of the body except this one? If Abraham had followed reason in this matter, he would not have believed that it was God who demanded such a thing from him; to our mind it is always a most foolish thing—there could hardly be a more foolish one. In addition, the Israelites suffered a great deal of humiliation and shame because of it. They were despised by all the world because of it and were almost considered to be an abomination. Moreover, there is absolutely no good in it; what purpose is served by injuring the body? It does not make a person any better, since everything depends upon the soul.”

The name of the Lord is fulfilled in Jesus’ circumcision and naming ceremony in today’s Gospel lesson. Following the instructions given in the Old Covenant, Mary and Joseph went to the local synagogue at Bethlehem on the eighth day of Jesus’ life. Why the eighth day? Some have claimed that it was primarily to make sure the boy was strong enough to handle the bloodshed of circumcision. However, consider this: The eighth day indicates a new creation.

Recall the original seven days of creation, recorded in the first two chapters of Genesis, when God made all that exists out of nothing and by the power of His Word. Later, God again made His creation through the flood, where eight souls were saved by water. And then recall how it is was St. Peter who connects the eight faithful in the ark with holy baptism: “Eight persons were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you” (1 Peter 3:20, 21). So the eighth day is the day that God makes all things new, reclaims His people as His own, and once again brings light out of darkness.

Thus, it was on the eighth day that Jesus was circumcised. In the Old Testament, circumcision was the special mark given to God’s people, His “baptism” by which He claimed His people. On the Law side, the foreskin symbolized rebellion against God. Although Sampson and King David were circumcised, the foreskin was still a reminder that from it evil lusts arose. Sampson failed to recall His circumcision and fell to the seductress Delilah; David forgot His covenant and took another woman to his bed. And even we ourselves may have committed adultery in the heart and desired illicit sex. The foreskin is a reminder that humans and their sexuality have fallen into sin and need to be spiritually circumcised, with a circumcision not made of hands, and to live in the daily circumcision of repentance in the New Covenant. But you still ask, Why was Jesus, as the sinless Son of God, circumcised? It was to keep the law for us. Recall that Jesus was born not to abolish the law but to fulfill the law. We have broken God’s law by our fault, by our own fault. If you think you can keep any law, spiritually, well then just try to even remember the mundane New Year’s resolutions you made just last year. If your experience with these resolutions is anything like mine, they only serve to help bring you to repentance and remind you that no one, but Jesus Himself, can keep the Law. And today should remind you that the fulfillment of the law began with His shedding His blood in circumcision.

Along with His circumcision, the Christ Child was officially given the name Jesus, Savior. This was according to the instruction given to Joseph through the angel that Mary will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. The name of Jesus is the very Gospel. It is the New Covenant form of the Old Testament name “Joshua,” meaning the Lord saves. This was the name of the man chosen to lead the conquest of the Promised Land. And so Jesus, as the new and last Joshua, would lead His people out of the wilderness of sin, through the Jordan of Holy Baptism, and into the Promised Land of Heaven. Left to ourselves, we only rebel against God. On our own, we have gone our own way, been our own gods, and worshiped the various golden calves, and called upon various names to help us. By nature we deserve every punishment the impenitent Israelites received in the wilderness, but the Holy Name of Jesus proclaims that, through this eight day old child, there is indeed salvation. By His perfect obedience (including the passive obedience of His circumcision); His baptism in the Jordan; His temptation in the wilderness; by His suffering, crucifixion and burial; by His glorious resurrection and bodily ascension, there exists no other name whereby there is salvation.

That same Holy Name is given to you in your Baptism. Today’s Epistle reminds us that “As many of you as were baptized into Christ Jesus have put on Christ.” Baptism is your “Eighth Day.” That was the day that God saved you in the Ark of Christendom, which is many baptismal fonts are made in the shape of an octagon, having eight sides. Baptism is the perfect replacement of circumcision, that special means by which you are born from above (or born again) by water and the Spirit. God has claimed you as His very own since you possess the Holy Name of Jesus by virtue of your baptism into His name. And of special interest you should know that baptism is the bestowal of God’s full name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And where His name is spoken, there He is to bless and keep us as His own children.

It’s just like the Aaronic blessing and the circumcision of Jesus. The eternal Son of God is the subject; He is the One who comes to you because you cannot come to Him. You are the objects, the recipients, the ones who become sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. So, the Holy Names of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is inscribed upon your hearts in holy baptism.

And you are here again today to hear the Word of forgiveness in Jesus’ name. And yet there is always some tension in celebrating New Year’s Day of 2020. Some may call it a New Year’s Day worship service and others may call it The Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus. However, I’ve come to see that these two occasions go hand in glove. As the church, we rejoice that the Holy Name is preached for the salvation of souls throughout the earth; as citizens of heaven, we rejoice that “Our God our help in ages past” will be “our Guard while troubles last and our eternal home” (TLH 123 v.8). And the common theme is this: God’s Divine name permeates the entire Christian life, from baptism to eternal life. As the Blessed Virgin Mary herself said, “His mercy is on them that fear Him from generation to generation.”

Unlike the empty and powerless names invoked by those pagan magicians so long ago on the banks of the Nile, the Holy Name of Jesus is truly a name of divine power. The demons of Hell quake at the mention of the name of Jesus. The darkness can hide nowhere from the Light that entered the world at Bethlehem. When confronted by the power of the Incarnation, God’s saving power was made known was given a name, the Name above all names! And the day is coming, my Christian friends, when our Lord will make Death our final enemy, His footstool, and all creatures will join every other being in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, bending knee in submission to the One whose name is above all names – the Holy name Jesus.

“O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth!” Amen.