SEXAGESIMA SUNDAY 2021

The Ministry of the Word (Ministerium Verbi) is the appropriate phrase for our little gallery below: Pic #1 is Sowing the Seed: Scene from the Parable of the Sower from the Illustrations for Bible Stories (Religion Tract Society c.1890);

Pic #2 was a common thing between OSU's Woody Hayes and an official, illustrating "those on the wayside" as Woody's words go in one ear of the referee and out the other;

Pic #3 portrays the Law preparation (harrowing) of the ground in order that it might receive the Gospel Word;

and, Pic #4 shows that the ministry of God's Word may be efficacious, not only among the hearers but even among te youngest readers of the Living Voice of God.

This brings me to this morning's address:

“Sowing the Word of God” (Read Luke 8:4-15) Luke 8:11-15 NKJV

Luke 8:11 “Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. 12 Those by the wayside are the ones who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. 13 But the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away. 14 Now the ones that fell among thorns are those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity. 15 But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience.” NKJV

My Christian friends: As I have mentioned before, concerning the office of the public ministry and the work of the church, the usual imagery that is talked about is shepherds and sheep. The word pastor itself means shepherd and comes from the Latin meaning “to feed.” But now, Jesus uses a different picture. This imagery He now uses is of the pastor as a farmer; one who is a sower of seeds throughout the world.

The best sower possible is Jesus the Word Incarnate. Jesus, if He were just an ordinary preacher, might have said to His disciples, “Look here, I have come to save the world and already the effects are so great that the floodgates of people’s hearts are opened wide and eagerly receive My words!” But this was to be to the contrary to the actual effect. So, then. what comes forth from Jesus’ very mouth is the hard parable of the sower and the seed. It is especially this parable that shows the fate that awaits the Word of God in a land of famine. We are therefore talking today about preaching (the ministry of the Word) and planting.

The poet, Robert Frost, penned “The Strong Are Saying Nothing.” The opening line is apropos for today’s text:

The soil gets a rumpling soft and damp,

And small regard to the future of the weed.

The final flat of the hoe’s approval stamp

Is reserved for the bed of a few selected seed.

The Lord breaks up the soil of man’s heart with the hard plow of His Law. God Himself prepares the soil to receive the seed of the Gospel message so that man might become a fruitful harvest. In this seed is the germination of what we call faith. Such faith weathers the storms of life only by discerning God’s will and only by trusting in God’s providential care.

Jesus knew that many of the people gathered at the Sea of Galilee merely admired Him for His parabolic style of preaching and for the many miracles He worked. He knew that many might have just wanted to hear something new talked about without taking to heart what was being said, much like today when people flock to hear exciting television preachers with no thought that they must repent and receive Christ by faith and faith alone; and Jesus knew these people who would not receive His message of salvation were losing their souls and entering into eternal perdition. Jesus, therefore, interprets the parable of the sower for us saying that it was to both reveal and to conceal the truth: It was to reveal truth to those who desperately sought it, and to conceal the truth from those who so earnestly despised it. As our Lord said, “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, that ‘seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand.’”

So just what is so hard to understand about this parable? It is the fact that the sower sows the seed in places that just doesn’t make sense. It’s a poor use of resources, to pass out the Word of God upon places and people that will never hear to understand it. Sow it where it will matter, we might say. Sow the seed of the Word where there are good hearts and a fertile soil for growth. Did not Jesus talk about throwing your pearls before swine? Was it not Jesus who said in Matthew 7:6, “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your pearls before swine lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you”?

Dr. Luther says about the ones along the wayside: “The first group are those who have heard the Word, but do not really understand it. These are not the bad people on this earth but the greatest, cleverest, holiest, and also the largest group…They also want to be regarded among “the first” and live among us in the Christian congregation and partake with us of Baptism and the Sacrament. But their hearts are carnal and remain so. They do not absorb the Word; it goes in one ear and out the other. The seed on the path does not penetrate but lies on the top of the path; for the path is beaten down hard by the feet of men and beasts.”

If you were the owner of this farmland you would have told the sower to only dispense the seed where you were sure it would have a chance of growing. You might say, “Follow the science!” You might take soil samples, sowing surveys, and get everything nicely and carefully into neat little rows: That makes much sense to those who “follow the science.”

But that is not how the parable is explained. In this parable, the sower tosses the seed out like it is free, which, in fact it is; and, he doesn’t give any consideration where it falls. In other words, he is a careless farmer. He sows not caring that there may be a famine in the land, a famine of the Word of God, but caring only that there may still be people who might be receptive to the Word.

Now this is what really makes many uncomfortable about this parable: When you hear this parable, your natural response is going to be something along the lines of “thank God that I am good ground, and not a thorny mess like everyone else.” Basically, this is how Pharisees are when it comes to the spiritual understanding of the Gospel.

The point of this parable is that God’s Word goes out into the whole world; God’s Word goes out to all, just like God’s mercy goes out to all. No one is excluded from the great work of God in bringing salvation and eternal life to the world. But there is even more in this gift that God gives to us: For Christ Himself is the seed in this parable. Jesus once said of Himself, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.” Jesus is the Seed, promised to Eve so many years ago. “I will put enmity between your seed and her seed...” so God said to Satan in the Garden.

The sower has many paths used to travel to and from places in his field. The path is beaten down, hard and smooth. These paths are intended for the sower to travel in his field; it has not been turned over, or plowed, by the Law of God. Nevertheless, still some seed fall upon it whereupon Satan, who is represented by the birds in the parable, eats up the seed as it lies on the top of the hardened surface. Because of man’s natural resistance to anything spiritually good, he too cannot have understanding. For the Law must break up the ground in preparation to receive the Gospel Word, namely, the forgiveness of sins.

In addressing Law and Gospel, Article IV on Justification, in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, reads: “But to believe is to trust in the merits of Christ that for his sake God certainly wishes to be reconciled with us. Likewise, just as we ought to maintain that, apart from the law, the promise of Christ is necessary, so also is it needful to maintain that faith justifies. For the law does not teach the free forgiveness of sin. For the law cannot be performed unless the Holy Ghost is first received. It is, therefore, needful to maintain that the promise of Christ is necessary. But this cannot be received except by faith therefore those who deny that faith justifies teach nothing but the law both Christ and the gospel being set aside.”

Friend, Christ Jesus is the Seed who was crucified on the hard and rocky soil of Golgotha. He is the One who bore the heat of the day, the heat of God the Father’s wrath for your sin. He is the one who bore the insults, the derision, the constant plotting and sneaking about of those who sought to destroy him like vultures swooping down upon their prey when it is dying. This is Jesus, my friend, who bore all things and endured all things for you.

The pastor is not to be concerned with whether or not God’s Word is to take root; he is rather called to disseminate the Word of God, casting it here and there only trusting that God’s Word, as He says, will be efficacious. “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8 9), and also, Isaiah 55:10 11, “For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.”

Still other seed, Jesus explains, “fell upon a rock” where the soil is very shallow. It is a fact that in Palestine, rocky ground usually had a layer of soil only an inch or two deep at the most. The seed would spring up quickly because the soil was warmed just as quickly by the sun, but it also dried up quickly because its roots were very shallow and couldn’t obtain the necessary moisture. This explains those Christians who are the most excitable. The adrenaline rush of the novice Christian who joyfully displays his conversion “experience” and receives God’s Word is truly amazing. He quickly exclaims how much his life has changed and is just as quick to give great testimonies for God. But then it is just as amazing to see an abrupt end to such enthusiasm because his knowledge of salvation doesn’t grow, and his faith soon dries up. This is most notable when the roots aren’t given the constancy of Word and Sacrament. It should not be surprising then that confessional Christianity doesn’t have great growth rates. Bible study rightly dividing both Law and Gospel; and Christ-centered public worship has no appeal to the human flesh as does the entertainment and man-centered fun worship services of the churches of today.

America, with its great abundance, is dying for lack of the true Word of God for which there is a spiritual famine that kills eternally. God has sent a famine of His Word, as prophesied in Amos 8:11-13, today throughout the world. Christians don’t understand the significance of why churches preach only good news and fluffiness, while the Word, the entire counsel of God, Law as well as Gospel, is missing. People have no use for the Gospel truths, those old certainties, anymore because they don’t want to admit that they are sinners, deserving the wrath of God, and if perchance God’s wrath should come their way the earthly government will come to save them and make all things right.

Finally, for those of us who have been Christians for many years after our baptisms, we may not like to think of ourselves as being thorny soil; however, in this world we often play the part. Here, Jesus directs our attention to the fields of Palestine where thorns were an after growth of thistles which grow abundantly in every wheat field. They grow more rapidly than the seed of grain; absorb most of the moisture and nutrients of the soil; and will eventually shade even the wheat from the sun itself. So it is with us that the worldly concerns can choke out the very desire we once had for the Word of God. We most certainly can become so involved in daily mundane things, such as making a living and taking care of our bodies, even in these days of a pandemic, that we ignore our souls and their spiritual needs, even our eternal lives are forgotten.

You cannot save yourself, and you cannot escape the cares of this day, even some distractions may take your attention away from this very sermon. You cannot do it, and any thought that you are so much better is just so much foolishness on your part. But our gracious God is the One who grows the most miraculous crops in the most unusual of places. He has grown a crop of salvation in your once heart of stone; hard, distracted and bird-plucked as it once was. God, who created all by the Word of His mouth, has created faith in you by the power of His Word.

Now here is a miracle that is worth remembering: God has watered that seed of faith, that seed is Christ in you. He has watered it with Baptism, and He gives it the finest of nutrients in His own body and blood in the Sacrament of Holy Communion. He also gives you sunlight, the bright Sun of suffering, so that you may grow in faith. He knows however, as Jesus is the Master Farmer, how much heat of suffering you can bear, and He gives you no more than you are able to receive so that you may continue to grow.

So, the preacher, the sower is to be careless but faithful in disseminating God’s Word. Martin Franzmann wrote in our hymn for today: “Preach you the Word and plant it home; To men who like or like it not. The Word shall still endure and stand when flowers and men shall be forgot.” And his last verse gives us great assurance: “Preach you the Word and plant it home and never faint; The Harvest Lord who gave the sower seed to sow will watch and tend His planted Word.” Amen.

SECOND SUNDAY after EPIPHANY 2021

 

The phrase "Love and marriage" summarizes the littler gallery below: I introduce to you Pic #1 which is the artwork entitled "Beloved" by the late Amy McCutcheon. Her theme is written "His banner over me is love" - Song of Solomon 2:4; Pic #2 is from the 16th century German artist, Hans Sebald Beham, "The Wedding at Cana" (Circa 1520); Pic #3 reverts to the Old Testament Song of Solomon, with the beautiful contemporary art of Columbus, Ohio native, Cody F. Miller. He has this to say about his wonderful work: "Biblical love is the revelation of God Himself" and, lastly is Pic #4 known as "Adoration of the Mystical Lamb" by the Flemish artist Jan Van Eyck, showing the great love the Lamb of God had for His Church by the shedding of His blood.

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This brings me to this morning's address:

“Changing Water into Wine: The Glorious Manifestation”

John 2:1 11 On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.2 Now both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding.3 And when they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.” 4 Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.” 5 His mother said to the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it.” 6 Now there were set there six water pots of stone, according to the manner of purification of the Jews, containing twenty or thirty gallons apiece.7 Jesus said to them, “Fill the water pots with water.” And they filled them up to the brim.8 And He said to them, “Draw some out now, and take it to the master of the feast.” And they took it.9 When the master of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom.10 And he said to him, “Every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when the guests have well drunk, then the inferior. You have kept the good wine until now!” 11 This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him. NKJV

My friends in Christ: God speaks through John as he records for us a heaven on earth, speaking to us of water, wine, and the wedding feast that our Lord Jesus graces with His presence. God’s word also speaks to us of another wedding feast — a heavenly feast that is yet to come. In the wedding feast at Cana, Jesus was present as an invited guest; in the feast yet to come, He will be present as the Bridegroom. At both wedding feasts, the glory of Christ is manifested. In the wedding feast at Cana, the glory of the Lord is miraculously shown, by virtue of the Son of Man changing water into wine, and what the disciples see strengthens their faith in Christ. In the feast yet to come, we too, will behold His glory with our own eyes.

Throughout Scripture the people of God are portrayed as the Lord’s bride. The central theme of the often misunderstood book of the Bible, the Song of Solomon, is the relationship between the Messiah and God’s people that is comparable to the loving relationship of a man and a woman, a bridegroom and his bride; and yet the central theme of another prophet, Hosea, is of spiritual whoredom, that Israel has been unfaithful to her faithful Lord and Husband. These same themes are found throughout the Old Testament: Israel is portrayed as the Lord’s chosen bride but as one who is constantly unfaithful. Yet in all of this, the Lord himself is faithful. He does not abandon His people; He promises that He will remain faithful and will bring about their reconciliation.

The prophet Isaiah records this promise of the Lord: “No longer will they call you Deserted, or name your land Desolate. But you will be called Hephzibah which means “My delight is in her” and your land Beulah [translated “married”]; for the Lord will take delight in you, and your land will be married... As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.” (Isaiah 62:1-5)

This promise was fulfilled in Christ. At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, followers of John the Baptist became perplexed that the people were beginning to follow Jesus rather than their teacher, John. When they complained about this, John responded by saying: “He who has the bride is the Bridegroom; but the friend of the Bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the Bridegroom’s voice. Therefore, this joy of mine is fulfilled.” (John 3:29) He who has the bride — He whom the people of God are following — is the Bridegroom. Here, John specifically identifies Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah, the Christ. The Bridegroom has come. And already the bride for whom He came is being drawn to Him. But the betrothal is not complete during Jesus’ earthly ministry. At that time, a woman’s preparation prior to a wedding would include bathing in water and being clothed in new wedding garments.

Preparation was also needed for the bride of Christ. How this was accomplished is described for us in the fifth chapter of Ephesians. There, in a section devoted to marriage, Saint Paul writes: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So, husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies.”

Although we, by our fallen sinful nature, are not worthy to be Christ’s bride, Paul writes that Christ loved us and gave Himself for us. He died for us, that we might be His bride. St. Paul explains that Christ gave Himself for us that He might present us to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle but holy and without blemish. Jesus takes us, who are clothed in the filthy rags of sin, and makes of us a pure and holy bride, adorned in the spotless white of a pure, innocent virgin.

How does God accomplish this miraculous transformation? According to St. Paul, having given Himself for us, Christ now sanctifies us and cleanses us by the washing of water with the word.

It is in this washing of water with the Word of God, the baptismal regeneration, that Christ washes us clean. We are clothed with the garments of salvation, arrayed in the robe of righteousness (Isaiah 61:10) — not because of any merit or worthiness in ourselves, but because Christ adorns us in His perfect righteousness. He who has suffered for our sins gives us His righteousness; He who has paid the price for our impurity gives us His perfect purity, which we simply receive in and through faith alone. That is how Christ prepares us so that we might be presented to Him as His pure and holy bride.

This is what we sing about in the popular hymn “The Church’s One Foundation”:

“The Church’s one Foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord;

she is His new creation by water and the Word;

from heaven He came and sought her to be His holy bride;

with His own blood He bought her and for her life He died.”

Luther preached on the Wedding Feast at Cana, and the water in the pots made of stone as were the tables of the Law. Dr. Luther said: “The water in the pots is the contents and the substance of the Law by which conscience is governed, and is graven in letters as in the water pots of stone...To turn water into wine is to render the interpretation of the Law delightful...Thus the right interpretation and significance of the law is to lead us to the knowledge of our helplessness, to drive us from ourselves to another, namely, to Christ, to seek grace and help from Him. Therefore, when Christ wanted to make wine He had them pour in still more water, up to the very brim. Then comes the consoling Gospel and turns water into wine. For when the heart hears that Christ fulfills the law for us and takes our sin upon Himself, it no longer cares that impossible things are demanded by the Law...Water is no longer in the pots, it has turned into wine, it is passed to the guest, it is consumed, and has made the heart glad.”

(Luther’s Church Postil for the 2nd Sunday after Epiphany.)

And this is what Martin Luther saw as the servants who listened and did what Jesus told them, namely, “And these servants are all preachers of the New Testament like the apostles and their successors. The drawing (the wine) and passing to the guests is, to take this interpretation from the Scriptures, and to preach it to all the world, which is bidden to Christ’s marriage.”

What has happened to such servant preachers today within the Christian churches and especially within the Lutheran Church? These churches serve everything to their guests but the finest wine, which is the pure Gospel. God help us!

Mary, in today’s Gospel, encourages those servants to do what her Son says, and the Old Testament for today states emphatically, “The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet...Unto Him ye shall hearken.” (Cf. Deuteronomy 18:15-19) Have they not believed and therefore have spoken that their Christian guests have been washed in water and the Word, that they are the bride of Christ, and yet the wedding celebration is still to come? If our preachers serve up other than the best wine, what do they offer to those who desire to taste the Gospel’s message?

I invite you to take a good look and inspect an unfaithful servant’s gospel, of the likes of those which are representative of the new U.S. Senator from Georgia, the Reverend Raphael Warnock. His first name is rather ironic since Raphael means “God heals.” Those who pretend to be servants of Christ always serve the inferior wine since they have perverted the pure Gospel of our Lord (not having listened to Him) and totally confound the roles of Church and State. Many preacher/servants, therefore, are merely social workers (and Marxist ones at that) who do not know how to heal the broken hearted and those kept imprisoned by their own flesh, sin, and the devil.

But listen to how it actually is: In two of His parables, Jesus portrays the last day for the Christian as the time of a wedding celebration. In both parables, Jesus Himself is the Bridegroom. Those who join Him in the wedding celebration are described in one parable as those having oil in their lamps. That is, faith in their hearts and in the other parable as those wearing the wedding garments He has provided, namely, the robe of Christ’s righteousness that He freely gives in Word and Sacrament and that we receive through faith. In other words, it is those who receive the free gift of Christ’s righteousness in faith that will join Him in His marriage feast.

This is also seen in the book of Revelation, where God reveals that the marriage feast of the Lamb comes at the end of time, and the Bride of the Lamb is revealed to be the Church. And so we live already as His bride, but still awaiting the marriage feast in His kingdom that knows no end. We wait. We don’t have to worry, but we are to be confident that our faithful Lord will come for us to take us into His kingdom of glory and welcome us to the great wedding banquet.

Meanwhile Christ is bringing even more people into this body, the Church. He does this in Holy Baptism — washing them in water and the Word, just as He has washed you — especially through the proclamation of the Gospel, which creates faith as the Word of Christ crucified is heard. As St. Paul wrote Titus (3:4-6), “But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior.”

In the wedding at Cana, Jesus miraculously provided wine for the wedding celebration. And at the wedding feast to come, you will personally join Christ in partaking of the fruit of the vine. On the night that He was betrayed, after instituting His Holy Supper, Jesus said to His disciples: “I tell you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father’s kingdom” (Matthew 26:29). As faithful Christians, you earnestly desire that day. In the meantime, Christ has given you a foretaste of the feast to come; a little heaven manifested here on earth. He has given you not only wine to drink — but something much more precious. In the Lord’s Supper, our Lord graciously serves you by giving you not only wine, but wine that is miraculously united with His true and essential blood. It is as the Lord says to you through Saint Paul in the tenth chapter of First Corinthians: “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a communion in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a communion in the body of Christ?”

It is also little known that in the Song of Solomon, God associates wine with His love. For example, there the Lord’s bride expresses her joy in the Bridegroom with the words, “He brought me into the house of wine, and his banner over me is love.” Our translations actually use the words “Banqueting house” but the literal translation from the Hebrew is “house of wine” Beth-aiyin. In the Lord’s Supper, we are given a gift of His immeasurable love — not only wine, but along with wine the blood of Christ that has been given for us in the greatest act of love ever known, His shed blood upon Calvary’s Cross.. Christ bought us with His blood, He has washed us in His blood, and now He feeds us with His own body and blood.

All are invited to the wedding feast. But there are those who refuse. And there are also those who first receive the good news in faith — receive the wedding garments prepared for them in faith — but then turn away, abandoning their heavenly Bridegroom, preferring to live in a state of spiritual adultery. They find themselves staying away from church and no longer interested in studying God’s infallible Word, and eventually find themselves void of faith. These people will not enter into the feast but will be cast into everlasting darkness. But for those who by faith receive the white robe of righteousness from Christ and who are found faithful at the end, there is the sure promise of everlasting joy and peace that awaits them.

Through Jesus’ body and blood given for you in the Lord’s Supper and through the Word of the Gospel, Christ continually washes and brightens the spotless wedding garments in which He has so lovingly and freely clothed you in holy baptism. In this way, Jesus manifests His glory to you as He graciously strengthens and preserves you in the one true faith unto everlasting life. Amen.

THANKSGIVING DAY 2020

 Thankfulness and being thankful in good times and bad is aptly displayed in the 1940's Americana art of Norman Rockwell. With the little gallery below I now would like to offer my address for Thanksgiving Day 2020:

“Giving Thanks to Jesus Glorifies God” Text - Luke 17:11-19

11) Now it happened as He went to Jerusalem that He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. 12) Then as He entered a certain village, there met Him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off. 13) And they lifted up their voices and said, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” 14) So when He saw them, He said to them, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And so it was that as they were went, they were cleansed. 15) And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, 16) and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks. And he was a Samaritan. 17) So Jesus answered and said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? 18) “Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?” 19) And He said to him, “Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well.” NKJV

My Christian friends: This Thanksgiving Day is especially important to observe since the world is so set against being thankful for anything during this pandemic. Nevertheless, showing gratitude for what we have glorifies God. Being grateful is recorded in the Bible, such as the offering Noah gave to the Lord after the flood. Noah, the “preacher of righteousness,” built an altar to the Lord immediately after he and seven of his family came off the Ark after the great, universal flood.

After the landing of the Mayflower at the Plymouth rock in 1620, prayers of thankfulness that glorifying God was most notably held in America’s history of 1621, “after the ingathering of the first harvest in the new world,” Governor Bradford of the Plymouth Colony invited the pilgrims to keep “a day of prayer, praise, and thanksgiving.” It may surprise some people to know that our Thanksgiving Day was neither a religious holiday declared by the Church nor by the Church’s Head, Jesus Christ, but it is a holiday legislated by civil governments in this world.

By an act of congress, November 1, 1777, it declared that the third Thursday in December would be a national Day of Thanksgiving. Later, on October 3, 1863, President Lincoln, by an act of congress, set aside the last Thursday in November to be our National Day of Thanksgiving. Nevertheless our United States Government nowhere states and should never command that anyone is to render worship or gratitude to any god, or even the true God, our Savior Jesus Christ, who is the One who has given us every blessing we have both physical and spiritual.

Colossians 1:16, simply declares that “by Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him and for Him.” True gratitude, friends, cannot be legislated but only comes by faith! It is faith, faith by hearing the Word of God, that brings people to Jesus. It is that faith that makes people come to worship Jesus on a regular basis simply out of gratitude for what He has done and still does!

Faith will even move people to come to Jesus and the heavenly Father in order to receive some special blessing, such as the ten lepers who came for healing of the body, crying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” But the test of genuine faith comes from the fact that a person is so humbled that not only he begs for mercy but that he would come back to the source of mercy to render thanksgiving. This type of grateful faith is received also from the Holy Spirit, through the Word of God. It is a faith that not just humbles the heart but also lifts up the heart in order to render sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.

St. Ambrose said it best when he stated that no duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks. What a shame it was for the Church in Jesus’ day that only one of the ten lepers was so moved with gratitude to return and offer thanks to Jesus, his healer and redeemer. What a shame for the Jews that it had been the Samaritan, a half-breed of the dispersed ten tribes of Israel, despised of the Jews, who displayed such gratitude. It is not surprising that Jesus quotes the prophet Isaiah (29:13), saying, “This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.”

Today, in most cases, people don’t even honor Jesus with their lips (with the exception of the mainline Christian churches who do so only for the sake of tradition.). Case in point: In years past, the NEA (National Education Association), one of the most powerful union groups in the U.S., issued a letter in which was said that Thanksgiving Day is a time to reflect and give thanks for our multi-culturalism. What’s even worse is the Marxist-socialists are bent on what is now commonly known as Cancel Culture (Kultur abbrechen, for you German pilgrims). And this Cancel Culture is directed against Christianity in particular this Thanksgiving.

Luther, however, believed that true thankfulness, which glorifies God the Father, is rendered through Jesus Christ. Dr. Luther, in lecturing on Galatians 1:3-5 said:

“In their writings the Hebrews make it a custom to mingle praise and thanksgiving, a custom observed both by the Hebrews and by the apostles, as is evident very often in Paul. For the name of the Lord should be held in great reverence and should never be mentioned without praise and thanksgiving, which are a certain kind of worship and divine service. In secular matters, when we speak the name of a king or a prince, we make it a custom to do so with some nice gesture, reverence, and genuflection. Much more should we bow the knee of our heart when we speak about God, and we should mention the name of God with gratitude and the greatest reverence.”

Many people today only bow the knee in an act of defiance and hatred and if they feigned any reverence to our Lord, it would certainly be rejected by our Sovereign. As it is written in Romans 1:21, “For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him.”

Maybe Jesus was thinking along these lines when he asked the Samaritan, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?” We need to be ever mindful of Jesus’ question when we start to become negligent of our worship practices. Have we not been healed and delivered from sin, death, and the devil? Would we not then want, out of a thankful heart, to worship as often as we can with other believers? It is not enough to assemble only on the appointed holidays such as Thanksgiving Day, Easter and Christmas.

Many don’t understand the real significance of Christ. It is like the morning of December 18th 1903, when the Dayton Journal (Ohio) carried bold headline letters on the front page, “STORES FILLED WITH CHRISTMAS SHOPPERS!” But there was not even one word concerning the historic flight of their two local boys, Orville and Wilbur Wright that took place at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Lorine, the youngest brother of the fliers, had tried to inform the Dayton press, upon receipt of a telegram. “Fifty-seven seconds, eh?” yawned Journal staffer Frank Tunison. “If it had been fifty-seven minutes it might be a news item.” Such was the clueless, ingratitude of good news displayed upon receipt of the historic flight.

Just think of how insignificant the birth of Christ was to the worldly people at that time. Now think how insignificant this particular Day of Thanksgiving is to all those who feel they don’t owe God any gratitude for the lives they still live in this day of grace. Gratitude, as defined by Henry Ward Beecher, is the most painful thing to bear, next to ingratitude. Reason may tell you that you have worked hard to get what you have and God had nothing to do with the work and progress you have made. You might just continue to accumulate even more before you die. But then what? What does it profit you, then, as Scripture says, if you have all that and yet lose your own soul? “Then beware, lest you forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage” (Deut. 6:12).

Luther defines gratitude this way:

Gratitude always merits the receipt of more; ingratitude drains the fountain of divine goodness. Gratitude consists of more than the expression “I thank you, Lord God.” It also involves acknowledging first that it is a gift of God, that a person knows that peace, which today holds sway here in Germany, a type of government, and the security that allows one to marry are pure gifts of God. It is a gift of God to have a king and a state and the pest without poison, etc. After all, Satan wants the air polluted, all the land burdened with pestilence and death. That this does not occur is a gift of God. We have so many kings and peoples, so much produce, food, and property, purely out of His goodness. This gratitude consists not only in our words alone but principally in our acknowledgment of the blessing we have received. Those people are rare who make such an acknowledgment. Thus no one gives thanks, nor do people pray. Even those who pray with their mouth do not make this acknowledgment. Gratitude must be involved with prayers because one must confess the gifts he has received. ( Lectures on 1 Timothy 2).

But let’s look to the more cheerful side of the subject. We all have seen the beautiful autumn colors God has given us. Inside, we can smell the aromas coming from the kitchens, which remind us that God has indeed given us a bountiful harvest. For all that, and for the farmers and ranchers of our land, we also owe a debt of gratitude and continually give thanks to the Lord. For our spouses, for good children, for good friends and a godly government we should give thanks. But most of all we should be grateful to Jesus for gathering His church family together who have trusted in their Savior; for all that they have and for heaven itself when we must part ways; or until Jesus comes again to take us to our harvest home.

Lastly, look to the amazing saying of Jesus to the prostrate, worshiping Samaritan: “Rise and go, your faith has made you well!” Again, were not all ten lepers healed? This miracle was done for them specifically to show them that Jesus was the promised Messiah and that God was among them bringing salvation to the world. Yet the other nine were so involved with formalism, in such a hurry to show themselves to the priests (even as Jesus had directed) in order that they could soon be reinstated into society.

The gang of nine refused to understand the significance of the Healer; the gang of nine failed to see what saving faith meant to them. The Lutheran Commentator, R.C.H. Lenski, postured that “Whatever outward arguments this one (leper) had with the other nine (lepers), the decisions were due to something inward. In the heart of the one, out of the faith that made him too, cry to Jesus for mercy, and out of the word of Jesus that had healed him, something was born that was not born in the hearts of the others, something that drew him back to Jesus in spite of the decision of the other nine to go on, something that could not draw the others because it was not born in them because they grasped only at the healing and not also at the Healer.” The other nine could see nothing else but the precepts of the law and therefore refused to return to give thanks out of gratitude to the Healer Himself! The majority isn’t always right, you know. Lord, save us from such a heart as theirs.

2 Timothy 2:13 says, “If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.” In those words we should draw some comfort since one to actually become ungrateful to the real source of all blessings. Dear friends, remember that all people, good and bad, benefit from the blessings of God. All ten were healed...but! Jesus did all His works to glorify His Father, and just as the Son and the Father are One, it is our place to give all honor and glory to the Father through His Son our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Nevertheless, the ones who are truly thankful are the ones who have felt the weight of their sins lifted from their shoulders through knowing the forgiveness of sin freely given them in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. This is the true thank offering rendered by FAITH unto God; this is the FAITH which continues to heal the soul until the last Day when Jesus takes us to be with Him in our Father’s heavenly home. This faith, indeed, makes the believers well. Amen.