Category: Lectionary Meditations

“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you.” – Isaiah 60:1

The wise men followed the star that shone so brightly, and they brought their gifts of gold and frankincense as Isaiah had predicted (but wait, there’s myrrh!), and they went to where one would expect glory to be – Jerusalem. The Capital. The place with the palace and the temple and the splendor. But that wasn’t where the glory was.

The star arose, and they were led to Bethlehem, where the Light of Light Himself had come, where the Glory of the LORD and His presence with His people was made manifest. Glory was there in Bethlehem, and the wise men rightly worshiped and offered their gifts, but what sort of glory was it?

An infant. A kid. Kids might be cute or cuddly (at least until they make a mess of things), but they aren’t seemingly “glorious”. And certainly not just some kid in some backwater town in the boonies. Yet, right there was glory. There was God present for His people to redeem them.

God’s glory is not shown or demonstrated in outward acts of might. It’s not a “my dad can beat up your dad” sort of glory. Oh, to be sure, God could act that way, but as we were born trapped in sin and bound in Satan’s kingdom, that beat down would have ended up beating us. Instead, God shows His glory in coming to earth in humility to be our brother, to win us the adoption of sons, to make the Father our Father once again. And this is done not through might or strength, but through weakness and humility. It is done through God becoming man – a weak and frail man who would suffer and die, and who would rise again. Rejoice, for the Glory of the LORD has come to you, and He has died and risen for you.

The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers – it is to Him you shall listen

We forget how utterly terrifying God is to sinful man. We can look back on things that happened during the Exodus and think how wonderful it would have been to see all those things, like the pillar of cloud or the pillar of fire. We forget something very important. Everyone who saw it was terrified. Not just awkwardly nervous – frightened out of their minds.

Sinful human beings can’t handle being in front of God Almighty in His power. That’s because God is holy and righteous and all that laundry list of stuff, and we know that we aren’t, and that by rights we ought to be smited into little bitty sinnery cindery bits. And so, God in His wisdom chose to come to His people in alternative means. For a time, there would be prophets – where only one poor sap would deal with the LORD directly and everyone else would get to hear things second hand.

But God did not create you and me to remain at a distance from us. Your Creator loves you and wishes to be with you, and so He decided to come to you Himself in a way that you can actually handle. He would come to you as one of your brothers – He would become man. God and man, one in the same, Jesus Christ – God there with you but as a man in a way that you can handle without terror. God there who can understand the trials the troubles you face in your life completely well and from experience.

With the coming of Christmas, we see God’s patience and wisdom, the lengths to which He will go to be with you. He takes up human flesh and is born of the Virgin Mary, because He is the God who wishes to be with you, to be your God, now and forever.

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins

Comfort? What an outdated word. We don’t want comfort today. You have to have people outraged if you want to them act and bring about change. You need push and prod to keep people on their toes. And so the world doesn’t do comfort today. And we are run ragged in battle after battle, our sanity sacrificed on the altar of someone else’s idea of progress. And in the world it never ends – there will just be something new to be outraged or fight against next year.

Yet, our LORD cries out “Comfort.” And through the prophet Isaiah, He actually tells us what drives all this hectic chaos in the world. Sin drives us. We wish to justify ourselves, we wish to vilify others to make ourselves feel better. Sometimes this is just mere virtue signaling; sometimes actual fights and wars break out. And it’s all sin driving warfare and hatred and fear. It’s sin that we cannot stop or break.

But Christ Jesus has done so. Upon the Cross, the warfare wrought by sin is ended. It is finished. The strife is o’er, the battle done. And your iniquity is pardonned. And should some huckster try to manipulate you or browbeat you with fear, know that Christ Jesus there upon the Cross took up all the weight and burden of your sins. Double it. Twice over. There is nothing left for you to fix with God – He has fixed it for you.

So, comfort. Hear the Word of the Lord proclaiming your forgiveness. Receive the Holy Spirit who comforts you (there’s a reason He’s called the Comfortor) with the Gospel of Christ Jesus, and rest securely in Him.

“You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.”

The topic of the end of the world is normally met with either fear or a nervous-denial induced disdain. Talk of the end can make us a bit shifty and worried, or perhaps we kick up our bravado a touch. The world does love its posturing, after all. However, to be frank, a lot of what gets said about the end is scary. When Malachi says, “For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven…” that’s not playing around. When God decides to end the world, He is going to end it.

But you really ought to read beyond just the bit about the oven. The wicked are going to be burned up root and branch, reduced to stubble. Justice will be done. And don’t over look the promise – those who fear the LORD will go out like a bunch of calves leaping from the stall when finally let loose (which, if you have never seen it, is a joyous and hilarious thing). The end is nothing to fear for the Christian.

Yet, sometimes there can be that nagging fear or worry. We know our own sin, we know the things that make us ashamed, the things we ourselves want avoid with bluster and show. Well, the key to remember, O Christian, that this is talking about the day that the LORD Jesus acts, not you. It’s not about your actions, but Christ’s action for you.

On that great day, that Friday far beyond all others, Jesus acted for your good. He took up your sin, and He destroyed it utterly upon the Cross. Root, branch, stubble – all taken by Christ and done away with. You are forgiven. And when the end comes, whether you are around to see it or whether Christ’s call for you to rise bursts open your casket, you will leap forth with joy and freedom nigh unimaginable.

Because God is the One who acts. He has acted for you upon the Cross, He has acted for you when He washed you in Holy Baptism and bound Himself to you, He acts for you whenever He gives you His Spirit through His Word, and come the Last Day, you will see His action for you in full, forever and ever.

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and He shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.”

Justice and Righteousness are two different things. To be just is to rule fairly, to see that the law gets enforced. Even today our justice system generally deals with punishing crooks. To be righteous means to do that right and good things, the things that just need to be done.

Judah had been having kings that were neither righteous nor just. Wickedness was going unpunished, and the kings weren’t even positively helping folks out. The Lord’s promise of a righteous King, a solid and steadfast branch off of the enfeebled and ever increasingly wicked line of David seemed too good to be true.

And in the short term, it was. Judah is conquered and the line of kings is cut off. Never again would Judah have an earthly king. However, the promise here is for the coming of Christ Jesus, and Jeremiah rightly notes that He will execute justice and righteousness.

We often speak of Christ being righteous – of doing the right things. Healing, feeding, teaching – those are all righteous things. But what of justice? What of punishing the evil doer? You cheer for justice when you are innocent… but what if you are guilty? What if you know your own sin and you that justly deserve temporal and eternal punishment?

In that case, you look to Christ Jesus, who in executes justice in the most righteous way possible – He takes up your sin upon Himself. He punishes the sinner upon the Cross. The Cross is where justice is shown; the fact that it is Christ upon the cross and not us shows Jesus’ righteousness. He will both punish sin and do good to you.

When Jesus comes to execute justice and righteousness, it’s not with military might or a swat team. He comes just with Himself, true God and true man, the lamb of God bearing the sins of the world to the cross to do away with them. Your King is determined to do good for you and to you, and so He redeems you from your sin.

“Five of them were foolish…”

The parable of the wise and foolish virgins is often prone to preachers presenting a lot of allegory. There can be all sorts of possibilities put forth for what the oil is, why the lamps, what’s going on at the feast, why at midnight – on and on and on. Some of that is quite good, but it misses the main contrast that is made between wise and foolish. So, what made the foolish gals foolish?

The wedding banquet was long expected. It was highly anticipated. Everyone knew that it was coming, and these ten young women even knew their role and place at the wedding. And yet, five acted foolishly. They acted as if they weren’t really expecting the groom to show up… ever. It was as though he was utterly unexpected.

Christ Jesus has told us all about how His kingdom comes. Oh, it will come again on the Last Day when He returns, but it comes before that. The Kingdom of God comes whenever “our heavenly Father gives us His Holy Spirit, so that by His grace we believe His holy Word and lead godly lives here in time and there in eternity.” The Kingdom comes through the Word, be it the Word preached, or attached to water in Baptism, or in the Supper. The Kingdom comes now.

Many foolish people disdain these means by which the Holy Spirit is given, the ways in which we are brought into the Kingdom even now. It is as though they don’t expect Jesus to be where He has promised to be. But you have been given ears to hear, and by the working of the Holy Spirit you know that Christ is present in His Word for you, to forgive you your sins and declare you godly for all time. Thus, whenever the Last Day should come, you will be ready. You’re already in the feast, for you are in His Kingdom now by the power of the Word and Spirit.

“The days are coming when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it.”

Jesus spends a lot of time towards the end of the Gospels talking about the end times, the stuff between the resurrection and the second coming. And a lot of it is terrifying. And, it is true, there have been plenty of terrifying times for the Church, and there are places in the world where it is terrifying right now to be a Christian.

But there is another possibility that Jesus addresses about the End Times. It’s one we don’t address that much. The End Times might just be sort of boring where you are at. Not much excitement. No real threats of martyrdom or persecution. Let’s face it, compared to places where Christians are killed, our complaints of “they made fun of us on social media” are sort of lame.

So, what if the End Times, what if our lives are… boring? What if we never get to be the next Martin Luther, what if they never write about us in the ages to come? What if we don’t even get to see any wild and crazy miracles? What if our lives are just the same old same old of Church, of preaching and the Supper for the rest of our lives?

The temptation (and a deadly one) will be for you to just write that off. To get bored with Church, to be bored of the Gospel. To look elsewhere, to look for some sort of God-ish fervor anywhere and everywhere… except where God has promised to be. In His Word. In His Baptism. In His Supper. For you.

Salvation isn’t an action film with explosions or full of special effects done by Industrial Light and Magic. It’s not even our own heroic story. It is a gift given to you by Christ Jesus. It’s what He has done and given to you so you can have a peaceful, restful life, simply enjoying what He has done. Beware of boredom, that would try to steal that from you. Instead, rejoice, because Christ Jesus still comes to you and for you, week in and week out, whether things are simple or terrifying. He remains the same and constant for you.

“Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.”

Jesus heals two women, two daughters in this lesson – and they are quite different. One is a young girl, the other an adult. One lives in a loving house, the other has been isolated and cut off from everyone because of her illness. One is dead and can’t do anything, the other sneaks on up to Jesus while trying not to bother Him.

Jesus loves and cares for them both. Both are healed. The girl lives, the woman’s flow of blood is stopped. Both these daughters are given life and restored by Jesus. And it’s important to note that Jesus is the One who does this.

We can mishear what Jesus says when He says, “your faith has made you well.” We hear the word “faith” and think it’s a description of us – how strongly or firmly we believe. Jesus is not saying, “because you really, really, really believed.” Rather, Jesus is pointing out that He Himself, the One she had faith IN has saved her.

Both these daughters are healed. And as different as they are, they both have Jesus in common. The girl is dead, she hadn’t been doing anything strongly at all when Jesus healed her. And the woman was shy and timid – wouldn’t even be bold enough to speak to Jesus. She just snuck up on Him. It’s not about how great either of these daughters are – it is how great Jesus is.

Likewise, the question isn’t how “strong” your faith is, or how bold you are, or anything else about “you”. You’re a sinful human being; when you look at yourself you’ll find sin. But Christ Jesus has died for you, He has risen for you, and He has declared that you are forgiven and will rise to everlasting life. He has saved you as well. It’s all about Him.

We forget how utterly insane the Beatitudes are. We have nerfed them into pious platitudes about how things might be nice some day. That’s not what’s going on. Consider to whom Jesus is speaking that day. The crowds Jesus saw in Matthew chapter 5 were desperate. They were a conquered people, oppressed by the Romans, facing terrible poverty. But when Jesus looks over this crowd, He does something that is utterly strange.

Jesus doesn’t tell them how to fix things. He doesn’t Dave Ramsey them into better economic advice. Jesus doesn’t start a community organization project or blame the 1 percent or the Colonizing powers of Rome. Jesus doesn’t tell them how to fix anything.

Instead, Jesus says something utterly profound. You are blessed. 9 times. Blessed are the fill in the blank. Do you realize how utterly insane that sounds to the desperate world? Blessed are the poor in spirit – think on that, if you are beat down and crushed by life in this world, if you are downtrodden and spit upon and at the end of your rope – Jesus says that you are blessed. Why? Not because he’s got the three easy steps to turn things around, not because the bad people are going to be punished, not because the new rulers will finally be the right rulers. No – Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Is. Right now. Right now the Kingdom of heaven is yours… and it’s still yours if next year goes better or if it goes worse. It is yours if there is sickness or health, richer or poorer, all those variations. None of them change the fact that the Kingdom of Heaven is yours. You belong to Christ Jesus, and He has given you the Kingdom of Heaven – He has baptized you. You are an heir of heaven, it is yours – and there’s not a thing in this world that can take that away from you. Christ Jesus has given Himself to you, He has shed His blood for you to rescue you from sin and from death and the devil, and His Kingdom is yours. You actually are blessed.

And the rest of the beatitudes run the exact same way. It is wondrous to behold.

“This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you… If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before it hated you.”

It’s easy for Christians to get into fights in this world. Of course it is – the world loves a good fight. It’s easy to pick a group or tribe or team and know precisely who the the people are that you are supposed to hate. And even we Christians are tempted to jump into the worldly fray, all full of anger and us versus them thinking.

But that’s not what Jesus is talking about when He warns that the world will hate you. Hating people, grousing and complaining, biting and devouring them – that has nothing to do with Christ. That has nothing to do with the Spirit and His fruit. Now, loving folks. Being kind and gracious and forgiving, even and especially to the people who don’t deserve it (as if any of us deserve it), that’s Christ’s goal. That’s what He has done for you and us – for while we were yet sinners Christ Jesus died for us.

We are called to love. Think on the 10 commandments in the Small Catechism, all the good things we are to do for our neighbors. Those are things we are to do even for (dare I say especially for) people who aren’t for our “tribe” or opinion. We’re called to love the neighbor.

And you won’t get thanked for it. You won’t be praised for it. And people will take advantage of your kindness and laugh at you for being a sucker and a rube. That should be no surprise. They did the exact same thing to Jesus. But you are a new creation in Christ, forgiven and redeemed. You have life in His name, life that is lived for the good of your neighbor, even the neighbor who doesn’t appreciate it. It will just happen, because in Christ you will bear fruit. You are no longer part of the world’s games of hate and factionalism and disdain, for Christ Jesus has claimed you and redeemed you, and if the world doesn’t like that, so be it. Thanks be to God, you belong to Him.