The Bible is all About Jesus – Not You.

There is a great temptation to read the Bible as though it is about you. To be sure, this is an easy thing to do, after all, the Bible contains God’s Law, which, tells us what to do and what not to do. In the end, the Law in fact shows you how you’ve messed up in living the life that the Lord intends you to live. In light of this, our sin, the Bible is read as a guide, a “how to” book on life. This is evident on the book shelves of Christian book stores that contain such volumes as, “Your Best Life Now” or “What Would Jesus Eat?”

The trouble is, the Bible is not a diet manual, nor is it a book intended to teach you about how to live the best life possible here on earth. The Bible is in fact all about Jesus.

In John 5:39 Jesus tells us, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me.” In Luke 24:27, as Jesus taught two disciples form Emmaus we learn, “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”

The Bible is really all about Jesus, for the Holy Scriptures are God’s written revelation of Himself to us. In the pages of the Bible, the Lord is Himself telling us who He is, and what He has done for us. This becomes good news, and frees us from the trap of thinking that salvation is about our doing of what God says. Our salvation is secure in the one who took upon Himself the work of restoration. By Jesus coming into the flesh, His life, from birth to death, to resurrection was about doing everything according to the Law, and doing it all for you.

In Jesus then, that is, by faith in Jesus we who are broken by the sin of this world and life, we who labor under the burden of our failures and sins find comfort and hope. Jesus has fulfilled it all for you. And by virtue of your baptism into Him, has given this perfect fulfillment of the Law to you.

St. Luke, as he shows us the journey of the infant Christ to the temple, makes it perfectly clear. Jesus does everything according to the Law, that by faith in Him, you may enjoy comfort, peace, and hope.

Therefore, transformed by this love of God, we live by faith. This faith trusts the forgiveness of Christ in His Word, and lives as one redeemed by Jesus Christ the crucified. That is, lives as one who loves God, and loves their neighbor as themselves.

Word of Man, or Word of God?

Advent has become a time of great confusion. What is it really all about? What exactly are the 12 days of Christmas? Are they the 12 shopping days before Christmas Eve? What is going on with all the advent hymns? All around us we see Christmas lights, and gift shopping, while at church we are not singing about Bethlehem and shepherds, bus John the Baptist, and judgement.

The challenge is that we as a Christians people have let the culture lead, rather than let the Word of God lead. Advent was never intended to be a commercial endeavor, much less was the celebration of Christmas meant to be a time of stuff. Rather, Advent was meant to be a time of reflection on what is the central teaching of the Bible, the teaching of repentance. While we hear that there is one who is checking to make sure all the little boys and girls have been nice and not naughty, lest they have a sock full of coal, instead of joy, repentance, and the Word of God draw us away from us, away from our doing, that we may receive from God His gifts of mercy, the forgiveness of sins won by Jesus, given by Word and water, and received by faith.

After receiving the implanted Word, and being overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, conceiving the messiah in her womb, Mary went to visit her cousins in the hill country of Judah. Maybe she wanted to talk to a pastor about the visit form an angel, for Zechariah was a priest, who served the Holy God in the temple. Maybe she wanted to confirm the good news of Elizabeth’s own pregnancy. Whatever the reason, the voice of the mother of the Lord caused the baby in the womb of Elizabeth to jump for joy. Joy, for the long awaited seed has come, and soon the peace and rest of God would be given.

In response, Mary, drawing from her mother in the faith, Hannah, sang the magnificat. These words remind us that God works in reverse. He takes that which is low, disgraced, worthless, and by His Word, only out of Fatherly, Divine goodness and mercy raises up the poor, and fills the hungry with good things. We who are sinners find in Jesus hope, joy, and life. Advent is about Jesus.

The Word Eternal

In 1 Peter chapter one the Apostle reminds us that, “as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:15-16)

The manner in which you live this baptismal life gifted to you from Jesus does matter. St. Paul in Romans says that to go on sinning once we have been called by the Holy Spirit to faith in Jesus is an impossibility. In truth, it is the very height of ingratitude to give lip service to the Gospel of Jesus, and then go on in willful disobedience to His Holy Word. Rather, we are called to be Holy, that is, to fight against temptation, the world, and our own sinful flesh, and strive to live according to the precepts God has given us in the Bible.

As you well know, this is a fierce, hard fought battle. Daily we sin much, therefore daily we need to hear the Word of Christ’s forgiveness. Our sin is such that we are driven back into the Word of God, for there, in the pages of Holy Scripture we encounter Jesus, whose mercy is new every morning, and whose grace will not fail to grant us forgiveness by faith in His promise. The strife we face drives home all the more our desperate need to be in the Word. To purposely study what God is saying, that the devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh may not steal away the treasure of Christ from us. As St. Paul reminds us in Ephesians 4, we are called not to grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by falling into sinful words, actions, and thoughts. Rather, our calling to keep Jesus Christ as Lord, and trust all the more in His forgiving love.

The point us, all our lives we are directed to the Word. All that we see in this world is dying. Even you are dying. What you thought was essential for you to live when you were 5 years old is not even remembered when you are 80. The distraction of entertainment, and the action packed schedules of families has left us surfing through life. Never diving into the greater meaning God has given. Never stopping to think of how I may better serve my neighbor with the love Jesus has served me with.

What is eternal – what will last forever is the Word of God. Even as all things fade and wither, the Word of the Lord shall last forever.

Change and the Climate

Just about two months ago, I read that science is now saying that the earth will reach a point of climate destruction in 12 years unless extreme and drastic measures are taken. All of the solutions to avoid this 12 year time frame were one form or another of giving government total control of or lives from what we eat, to where we live, to how we earn a living, to what we can and cannot say. Three weeks later, in the same vein the 12 year time frame was reduced to 8, or 5, or maybe it was 3. No one seems to know exactly.

This climate change hysteria, as I tend to think of it, does get one thing correct – the world will one day come to an end. The Bible has long warned of this. Only, instead of being man-made, it is God Himself who will return and judge the living and the dead.

In light of what can been seen as serious questions, how are we as Christians to react? How can we both love the Lord our God, and love our neighbor as ourselves?

First, let us find comfort and hope in the truth of Jesus. Jesus has carried our sins to the cross, rose from the dead in victory, and holds all history in His hands. Jesus will work out all things for the good of His church, for the proclamation of His Word, and the good of those whom He loves, and has given the gift of faith.

Second: The climate has always changed, and will always change. What is more, humans have always effected it, and will always effect it. For us as Christians, then, this is a question of stewardship. How can we best use the gifts of God in His creation to care for others? This includes living in such a way that we do not purposefully pollute the earth, after all, one of our neighbors we are called to love are the future generations yet to come.

Finally, let us be ready to share the hope we have in Jesus. Let us live in the habits of faith, and in so doing, let us confess Jesus as Lord.

Jesus is coming. His Word warns us, and instructs us on how we may stand before Him at the last. The answer is faith. Faith in the Word of Jesus.

Anticipation

Your life is full of anticipation. Some good, some bad, yet we always seem to be jogging from this to that, from one expectation to another.

The Bible is also a book about anticipation. As God made humanity in His own image, His anticipation was an eternity of working together, to make the good creation better as God’s man, and God’s woman cultivated the garden.

God, in His full knowledge of all things also anticipated another, less joyful occurrence. God saw that Adam and Eve would fall to temptation, and trust in another word, not from the mouth of the Lord, and what was created very good would in fact become broken.

It is out of this sorrowful brokenness wrought by human sin and rebellion that another anticipation is found. Amongst the shards of a broken creation God spoke a Word of promise, a Word of restoration. To a world darkened by death, to a humanity consumed with self, God would send a Divine seed of woman to destroy evil and make all things new.

The anticipation of this promise is traced on page after page as the Bible continues its narrative journey through the true history of God’s saving covenant. Cain becomes a symbol of destroyed anticipation. Seth becomes a humble reminder that God will act in His way and in His time. Abraham’s adventure leads to Egyptian slavery that leads to Red Sea redemption. Judges flows into a flawed monarchy that ends in exile.

The anticipation of God’s redemption is the thread that leads God’s people to stand on a Sunday watching a humble son of a virgin mother ride a donkey into royal David’s city. The people were longing for the king to come and bring rest. This Jesus did, in His way, and according to His plan. Rest from sin, death, and darkness comes through blood. Blood shed on a cross set up outside the city, where those who are sinners must be cast, for this Jesus has borne our sin, has carried our iniquities, and by His own blood has set us free. Has cleansed us from all that separates us from God.

And now we who are the faithful baptized live in eager anticipation of Jesus return. Jesus is coming, therefore let us rejoice and be glad, for our redemption draws near.

The Boy who Cries Wolf

The parable, “The Boy Who Cries Wolf” is a warning for us to tell the truth, for if we prove ourselves to be untrustworthy, or prone to pranks, when danger actually comes, we will find ourselves in the belly of a wolf, for no one will heed our cry for help. To “cry wolf” is a metaphor for someone who continues to warn of danger that never comes. It is used to describe a news media that keeps warning of mass destruction just around the corner to gain ratings, a warning that ends up being false.

The Christian church has been plagued by many who “cry wolf” regarding the return of Jesus. Not that long ago we were told by a popular preacher that the many blood moons, and even the latest eclipse is a sure sign that Jesus is soon to return. A whole religious group, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, were founded on the idea that Jesus was coming to judge the living and the dead in October of 1914. (Incidentally, 1914 was the year St. Mark Lutheran church was founded.) The result of all this “crying wolf” is that fewer and fewer people are paying attention to the season. Just as Satan wanted, fewer are now watching and waiting for the return of Jesus. Too many have shouted the false news of Jesus’ return.

Of course, any who are paying attention to what the Bible has written can be surprised by this. Jesus Himself told us that there will be many who claim to be him, who raise a false alarm of His return, “Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There he is!’ do not believe it.” Matthew 24:23 According to these Words of Jesus, these things are yet another sign that the day of His return is coming.

What the Bible does tell us is that this final day is coming, and that those who wish to be saved from the wrath of God that is to come are to find refuge in the arms of Jesus. We are to receive oil for our lamps in the Word of God, preached, and delivered in the Sacraments. In this devotion to the Scriptures, we spiritually watch and wait for the true coming of Jesus. What is more, we are better prepared to recognize those who “cry wolf” and those who speak the truth of God’s Word. As the Bible says, your salvation is near. Rejoice, and be glad!

Forgive us Our Trespasses

In Matthew 18 Jesus lays out for His disciples, those who by the Word are called to trust in His Salvation, the word we are to do in loving our neighbor as ourselves. As God has forgiven us, so are we to live in forgiveness. So, in a step by step process, Jesus lays out what we are to do when someone sins against us. It is clear by these Words of Jesus that our goal as the faithful baptized is not vengeance. It is obvious that our goal as the people of Jesus is not personal justice. Rather, our thoughts and actions, and words are aimed at the salvation of the one who has sinned against us. This is in fact the goal of church disciple that those who live contrary to the will of God, and live in sin against His most holy Law, would b called to repentance and faith in Jesus. That their sins, just like your own sins, would be forgiven.

Then Peter asks an interesting question. He wonders how often are we to forgive this brother or sister who sins against us. This is a good question. Experience tells us that if we simply forgive over and over again the one who hurts us, we are inviting them to keep hurting us.

Jesus’ answer, however, doesn’t address this concern. His answer shows the full and complete forgiveness we have from God in the cross and resurrection of our Lord. We who are sinners, whose daily lives, words and actions are soiled by the stain of iniquity, we find daily, and richly the full forgiveness and peace of Jesus in His Word. Therefore we are to share this same full forgiveness and peace seven times seventy times.

This is not to say we are to allow others to use and abuse us. This our Lord hates. Rather, it is to find ourselves centered on the forgiving truth of Jesus. By His Word are we made new, and by this same Word do we direct our brothers and sisters to the Lord of salvation.

This is what we pray for in the 5^th petition of the Lord’s Prayer. As we are forgiven in Christ, so are we called to forgive. As Jesus freely, and without reservation cleanses us, so are we to share this with all those around us – even those who hate us. As you forgive, do are doing nothing less than giving Jesus to your neighbor.

The God who Saves

To have a god means to place all our hopes, needs, deeds, in fact, all things of our lives into the hands of this god, and make no mistake, all people in fact worship a god, worship by faith. For Christians, we worship the true God who has revealed Himself in the pages of the Bible, and in the flesh and blood of our Lord Jesus. For others, their faith is placed in any number of other gods who demand human works and obedience in order to curry favor, and win gifts. For others still the claim of faith in no god at all is in fact the biggest leap of faith there is. This materialist humanism leaves one trusting only in what the eye can see, or the ear can hear.

Christians worship the God who saves.

This salvation comes in the self-giving of our God. At the very beginning we hear of the God who, by His Word alone, orders all things that life may arise and thrive. In this pre-flood world, in the very clay created out of nothing this God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit makes humanity in His own image, and gives His own Spirit as soul and life to the man and the woman. God gives, and life blossoms.

This same God, the God who gives salvation, gave His own son Jesus into the flesh of His own beloved creatures. He who made humanity in His image Himself becomes this image, that in this Son of the Most High, by the giving of His lifeblood on the cross of punishment and sin, we are given life again. A life freed from sin. A life lives by faith in Jesus.

Jesus, that is, faith in Jesus then is the highest of all faith, for it is by the Word of Christ that we are made new, restored to the life of blissful grace the God who gives gave at the beginning, and will give again to those who trust in Him.

Our Lord, in His earthly life and ministry, leading up to His self-giving on the cross of our salvation demonstrates both the power of His Holy Word, and what this Holy Faith we have been given does as He meets a relative of Hared in the city of Cana. (John 4:46-54) Jesus speaks, and by the breath of the Lord of life, a man is brought to faith, and by the Word alone a sick child is made whole, healed. This same gift is ours. By the Word of our Jesus are we made whole by the gift of faith.

The Divine Service

Each week, as the church is gathered into the Divine Service to hear the Word of God, and to stand before the blood soaked altar of Christ, heaven and earth meet. During the Divine Service, by the pure grace and mercy of our God through the merits of Jesus, heaven comes onto earth, and our voices of prayer and praise are mingled with the deathless song of all the saints in heaven who have gone before us in the faith. Jesus comes to feed us with His life given Word, and the precious Body and blood given and shed on the cross.

As we celebrate the Feast of All Saints, this reality is driven home. This festival is a day to remember that all the faithful baptized on earth, and in heaven remain members of the same body, the church, and together receive the gifts of Jesus.

This day is bitter sweet. The bitterness comes in the reminder of death. First, the death of those we love, and are resting in their graves, and second our own death. While it is not necessarily pleasant, it is none the less good for us to remember this curse of death that we may repent of our sins, and cling ever more to Jesus our Savior.

The sweetness of this day then comes in the remembrance of the death of Jesus Christ our Lord. On the cross extended hung the only Son from heaven, the pure Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. The death of sin is absorbed by this Lord of life. As we daily face earthly death, we Christians do so in the glad confidence born of faith in Jesus. Death cannot appall you, for you have passed through death with Jesus, and in the Waters of Holy Baptism you have been made alive with Christ. Nothing can separate you from the Lord who passed though death, and the grave to find you in your low, sinful estate, and raise you up by the Word of the Gospel, the Word of forgiveness.

This sweetness continues as we remember that the saints who have passed through this earthly death, are no longer subject to the pains, temptations, and sufferings of this life. Resting form their labors, clothed in White, they now live in the joy of the presence of Jesus. For this, we give thanks to the Lord.

Story of the Gospel

Through 66 books, written by 36 authors, covering 1600 years of human history, the Bible has one unified story. It is the story of the God who made all things, and who saves all things by the giving of Himself. The story of the Bible is the story of the Gospel.

Of course, with the Gospel comes the Law. The God of creation, whose Word brought light, and life also orders all things according to His will. He Law then is a reflection of this divine order, giving by the divine maker that we creators made in His image and blessed by His grace may live happy, prosperous lives. God’s Law is good, if, for no other reason that it comes from God. However, because of human sin, the Law seems bad, because the Law condemns us for our sin. To avoid this humanity has done one of two things. First is to simply ignore what God says, and live as though there is no God, or invent a god of your own choosing. One who will, not surprisingly, look, act, and speak just like you do. Second is to lower the standard of the Law, and act as though you can in fact keep it.

Such was the European Christian church in the late medieval, early renaissance era. People were taught not only that they were capable, all on their own, of keeping the Law, but that they must do exactly as the church, pope, and bishops say in order to be spared from purgatory, or hell. It is in this crucible of Law without the central story of the Bible, of God’s saving, self-giving love centered in Jesus that the reformation was born.

Going back to the source of all teaching, the Bible, Martin Luther quickly learned that no human can in fact save themselves by doing works of the law. The Law rather showed us how far we have fallen from the grace of God, and how much we need to be rescued. Wrestling with his own doubt and fears of death and hell, Martin Luther, by what he read in the Holy Bible, found Jesus.

In Jesus’ cross the love of God is on full display. In the death of Christ the salvation of humanity is given. In the resurrection of Jesus the victory over sin, and death and the devil is complete. By faith in Jesus the Christian receives these gifts, and lives by faith. Faith in Jesus, and love for one’s neighbor. The reformation was and indeed is all about Jesus.