Category: Lectionary Meditations

By Rev. Eric Brown

“Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.”

Ugh! Jesus, just get to the point! When people bring you a paralyzed guy, don’t waste your time talking about a bunch of forgiveness stuff; get to the point and heal him! At least this is what a part of me thinks whenever I read Matthew 9. There is a part of me that is an utterly impatient and “practical” 21^st Century problem solver. The big problem is he can’t walk, so fix that!

But of course, Jesus is right. The biggest problem in this fellow’s life isn’t that he’s paralyzed. The bigger problem is the fact that he’s a sinner. Imagine all the guilt and shame that could roll around your head when you are left on your own and unable to move. Now imagine there’s no iPads or music or movies to distract you from your guilt and shame. Imagine the isolation, the thoughts that surely God must hate me. Over and against those, Jesus dives right on in to the problem. Take heart, your sins are forgiven.

Sin is still our big problem today. Oh sure, we have so many ways of trying to avoid thinking about our sin. We can be distracted away from it by the entertainment industry, or we can drink it, drug it away. We can go to our social media bubble and find our friends who will like, approve, and validate our every idea no matter how wrong or foolish it is. We have almost limitless ways to try to pretend our sin isn’t there… and yet, that guilt and shame of our sin still pops out, and all too often it hits us, leaving us numb, battered, broken, and even unable to move.

“Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.” That’s still what Jesus says to you. You are baptized. You are His child. Jesus forgives you. Your sin is taken away.

When the grumblers doubted whether Jesus had the authority to forgive sins, He healed the guy to demonstrate who He was. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. If you want to see the real, full Jesus, you see Him go to the Cross. Jesus died for your sins and rose for your sake. When His disciples doubted and feared, the Crucified and Risen Lord showed them His hands and sides and said, “Peace be with you.” When we deal with our fears and doubts and hurts and shames today, we hear His appointed, called and ordained servant hold His Body and Blood before us and say, “The Peace of the Lord be with you always.” Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.

Jesus knows what you need. He knows how you are hounded by sin. He knows this even when you yourself try to pull the wool over your own eyes. And so He will continually call you to His House, and there He will forgive you your sin. That’s what Jesus does; He handles the real problem, handles the things that we can’t. Take heart, my friend – Jesus has forgiven your sin.

Rev. Eric Brown is pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Herscher, Illinois and the co-host of the HT Gospeled Boldly Podcast.

By Rev. Eric Brown

“And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Again! They did it again! Another Gospel lesson, and another question tossed out by people simply to test Jesus, simply to trap Jesus. Again! Another question about a point of Law, another chance to try to complain about how Jesus does this or says that. Tell us the greatest commandment, and we’ll complain how you didn’t pick a different part of the Law. It’s the same old tired game. How many of these sorts of questions will Jesus put up with before He snaps and starts bringing down divine smite upon people?

Apparently the answer is “a lot”. You might guess 77 times or 70 times 7 times, but I don’t think even those are high enough. Over and over Jesus points people to the love that He has for them, points them to the fact that He is the Messiah. This time Jesus answers that the great command is the love God, but this love of God means a second command must follow. Love your neighbor – even the neighbor who keeps on trying to trap you with annoying questions. For Jesus, loving the neighbor means coming down from heaven, being born of the Virgin Mary, being great David’s even Greater Son. It means pointing out God’s love for the world, God’s plan of salvation even to the very people who would arrange for Him to be crucified before the week is out.

You see, when Jesus sums up the law as “love God and love your neighbor”, He’s not watering down the law. He’s not turning it into mere sentimentality or anything like that. Loving the neighbor is hard, because frankly sometimes your neighbor is a jerk. Sometimes they keep pushing and prying and poking and prodding. And oftentimes we use their jerkiness as an excuse to be a jerk right back at them. Instead of loving and serving the neighbor, we so often run the opposite way. We dehumanize them and objectify them; we belittle them or ignore them. Just as they do to us. A nasty cycle of not love but hatred and disdain.

But Jesus is determined to see that His neighbor is loved. He is determined to see that you are loved. And so, He became Man to love and redeem the very people we dehumanize or who dehumanize us. He Himself became the object of scorn and ridicule to rescue the very people that we objectify or that objectify us. He emptied Himself and made Himself as a nothing to win salvation for the people we belittle and treat as nothing or who tear us down. He wins salvation upon the cross even for the sins of the people we’d rather ignore or who ignore us. In fact, He does all of this for you.

Because He loves you. Honestly. Simply. Fully. Even when you’ve done things that are annoying or foolish. He still loves you. Determinedly and doggedly. He will let nothing stop Him from loving you – not sin, not Satan, not death, not the riches of all creation. Jesus loves you. He loves you as Himself. Of course He does, for He has baptized you into Himself. Of course He does, for He gives Himself to you over and over and over again in His Supper.

There will be times when you look at yourself, some stupid petty sin that you have done, and you will think: “Again! I did it again!” And you may be tempted to think that maybe this will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back – where Jesus will call it quits. Nope. That’s not how Jesus works. Over and against all the shame and guilt and anger at yourself that you sometimes feel, Jesus will still love you and forgive you. He truly and honestly loves you as Himself.

Rev. Eric Brown is pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Herscher, Illinois and the co-host of the HT Gospeled Boldly Podcast.

By Rev. Eric Brown

“They were watching [Jesus] carefully.” – Luke 14:1

It was a trap. A cruel and mean trap. They had invited Jesus to Sabbath dinner, not because they wanted Him to enjoy Himself, not because they wanted to spend time with Him, but to trap Him. They were watching Him carefully to see if they could catch Him in a mistake and then crow about how terrible He was. They even went so far as to bait this trap by dangling a terribly ill man in front of Jesus.

Now, none of this bothers Jesus. Jesus does what Jesus does; He shows love and heals the man. He shows love and teaches the Pharisees, even after they go all awkwardly silent and want to ignore Him. Jesus remains the loving Lamb of God sent to take away the sins of the world, even the sins of those Pharisees were plotting against Him.

What are you looking to see when you look at Jesus? What are you hoping to find when you ponder His Word? Something to prove how you are right and the other people are wrong and bad? There are times we want to weaponize the Scriptures and use them against people – but taking the Pharisee’s approach isn’t the point. 

What the Scriptures really show is the real Jesus Christ, your Savior, who sees you at your lowest, your sin-filled-est, and yet in His mercy He would care for you and forgive you, washing you clean in Holy Baptism. He sees you in your humble estate and say to you, “Friend, come up higher” as He calls you to His feast in His own Supper. Jesus isn’t out to get you, even though we all would deserve anything He threw our way. Instead, Jesus looks upon you with favor to give you His peace.

Rev. Eric Brown is pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Herscher, Illinois and the co-host of the HT Gospeled Boldly Podcast.

By Rev. Eric Brown

“Then He came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still.” – Luke 7:14

There are lots of different ways to think of or to describe what Jesus came to do. However, this text in Luke 7 gives us one of the most simple and beautiful ones imaginable. Jesus came to stop death in its tracks.

You have two crowds, two parades barge into each other. Jesus has a crowd following Him, but as He comes to a town called Nain, there’s another crowd. A funeral crowd. A widow has lost her only son, and that crowd is mournfully heading out to bury him. It’s really a depiction of a battle, of two armies crashing together: Christ versus death.

And what does Jesus do, how does He stop death? Jesus walks up and He touches the bier, the thing the body was carried upon. First of all, this wasn’t done. If you were a good Jewish boy you didn’t want to touch a dead body, and you certainly didn’t put your hands on the bier. But what does Jesus do? God become Man takes His Hand, His Body, and sticks it right up in death’s face, stops death cold. And then He speaks a Word, and the dead man hears and rises alive.

This is why Jesus became Man in the first place. Jesus came to stop death in its tracks not just one day outside of Nain, but for good when He was nailed to the wood of the Cross. Jesus rushed headlong into death itself with His own death, and He destroyed death from the inside. He rose on the third day, and thus when He comes again He will say to every single last one of us, even if we have long since died, “I say to you, arise.” And you will. Because Jesus stops death, and in its place gives life.

We often see the power of sin or death at play in this world. We see all sorts of things that are just flat out wrong, and we get caught up and battered by it all. But Jesus does not let them stand. He will put and end to them all, no matter how they have hurt and wronged you, and instead He will give you life. That is His gracious promise He made to you at your baptism, the gift He freely gives you.

Rev. Eric Brown is pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Herscher, Illinois and the co-host of the HT Gospeled Boldly Podcast.

By Rev. Eric Brown

“No one can serve two masters… therefore I tell you.” (Matthew 6:24)

The idea that we cannot serve both God and Money is a favorite one of decision preachers. The fellow will stand up there are draw a line – which are you going to choose: God or Money? He might even demand that you put extra money in the offering plate just to show how much you have chosen God.

I suppose there is a bit of truth there; it is good to give an offering, to give money away. It does help keep money from being an idol; you don’t give an idol away. But it misses the point of what Jesus is talking about here and through the rest of the text. This is not a call to make a personal decision. Jesus doesn’t go on to tell us to choose to live like lilies of the field or birds of the air.

Here’s the hinge. You can’t have two masters. You can only have one master. There can be only One whom you listen to, and Jesus says, “Therefore I tell you.” Jesus is the One telling you how things are and how they are going to be. See what that means? Jesus isn’t asking you to vote for God; Jesus is just flat out telling you that He is your Master.

And that’s a good thing. He’s a good Master. He will provide for you. Oh, there will be troubles and hardships and worries, but He will see you through them. Maybe not always in an incredibly comfortable way, but your Master Christ Jesus excels at seeing you through things. He will provide for you all your days. And even when that day comes, when the troubles or hardships of life do their worst, even when the day comes and you die – your Master Jesus will keep on seeing you through things. He will raise you from the dead and bring you to the life everlasting.

You have a master. His name is Jesus, and He gives you everything – even His own life. He is devoted to you and loves you greatly, and He will bless and preserve you not only all your days, but forever and throughout eternity. 

Rev. Eric Brown is pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Herscher, Illinois and the co-host of the HT Gospeled Boldly Podcast.

By Rev. Eric Brown

“Rise and go your way; your faith has saved you.” (Luke 17:19)

I feel bad for how we treat the other nine lepers. Ten lepers get healed, but only one comes back to praising God and thanking Jesus, and from there we have gotten thousands of finger wagging sermons telling us to be more thankful like the good leper. But here’s the thing we forget. Jesus told them to go to the priest, and they are walking to the priests, and only then are they healed. All ten of them hear Jesus tell them to go, and they went, even BEFORE they were healed. That’s pretty cool. 

But in the midst of all the excitement upon seeing their healing, a healing that takes place then Jesus is off behind them and all their families and loved ones are in front of them, only one thinks to turn back and praise God. And so often we want to categorize the lepers, but the 9 in the bad column and the 1 in the good, but that misses the point. It’s not about whether the lepers are good or bad, the point is how good Jesus is.

The one comes back to Jesus, and he praises God. And Jesus notes that there’s just one – but then He shrugs and looks at the fellow there and says, “Rise and go your way; your faith has saved you.” Rise, stand, go off and enjoy this blessing – because I, Christ Jesus, the One you have faith in, have saved you. And I delight in giving you blessings.

The Leper went to Church. He was gathered to the presence of Christ, and in the midst of his praises, the leper heard the Word of Jesus proclaimed. Life and salvation were given – not just healing of a disease for a lifetime, but salvation unto everlasting life.

God gives blessings. It’s what He delights in doing. And if when you go to Church, you aren’t earning more earthly blessings or what have you. Rather this – when you come into God’s presence, when you hear His Word, receive His Supper, you are given forgiveness and life and salvation over and over again. You are made to understand just how great a giver Jesus. You can’t earn more – Jesus has done it all already for you. And we hear that, and then we rise and go and enjoy the blessings He gives in this life, even until the day Jesus returns and we are raised to life everlasting. This is Jesus’ great love for you.

Rev. Eric Brown is pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Herscher, Illinois and the co-host of the HT Gospeled Boldly Podcast.

By Rev. Eric Brown

“But he, desiring to justify himself…”

He had asked a law question. He has asked what he had to do to inherit eternal life. It was a silly question: you don’t do much to inherit. Someone else dies and then they give you something; that’s not really you doing something. But since this lawyer asked a law question, Jesus pointed to a Law answer – love God and your neighbor.

But here’s the things with Law answers. They are always beyond us. To fully love God, to fully love the neighbor – sinful folks like us can’t do that perfectly or completely. So this fellow, desiring to justify himself as best he could, tries to dodge. “And who is my neighbor?” Who do I get to not love, Jesus? Whom can I look at and say, “this person doesn’t need my love and compassion.” Who are the people that I can safely and happily hate and still feel good about?

And it is then that Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan. There’s a lot of fear and hate in this simple story that we overlook. We forget how scary the man beaten on the side of the road would be. If you saw some dude who had just been beaten by robbers, you’d want to hurry on by to safety too. And then the Samaritan – we are so used to saying “Good Samaritan” that we forget how hated the Samaritans were. If you want to impact, read the story again, but instead of Samaritan think of the sort of person you most dislike – a terrorist or a neo-nazi or antifa or some skin color or sexuality. That’s the impact of the story. Jesus plays upon every fear this lawyer has.

Of course He does. The law doesn’t give you an out. You don’t get to justify yourself by the Law. You don’t get to cut corners. And that lawyer failed, and we fail. We run in fear, we look down upon people with disdain. But Christ doesn’t. He calmly goes and cares for all. He doesn’t fear any robbers who might come; in fact He willingly takes up His cross and suffers, even as He is utterly disdained and reviled by those around Him.

Because while Jesus will give the Law answer on how you can try to inherit eternal life, that’s not really what He’s interested in. He’s interested in winning you eternal life with His death upon the Cross. Winning it for you and for your neighbor, whoever they might be, however you might fear them. That is the depth and perfection of Jesus’ love for God and for His neighbor. That is His love for you which will never fail you. That is what you inherited from Him when He had you joined to Him in baptism. 

Rev. Eric Brown is pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Herscher, Illinois and the co-host of the HT Gospeled Boldly Podcast.

By Rev. Eric Brown

“And taking him aside from the crowd privately, He put His fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue.” – Mark 7:33

The deaf man was probably utterly confused. He couldn’t hear; couldn’t talk either because he was mute. But the people had seen Jesus of Nazareth coming, so they bundled the deaf man up and brought him to Jesus. Think about how confusing and bizarre this could have been for that poor fellow!

But then Jesus pauses and pulls the fellow away from the crowd, away from all that hustle and bustle. Then, privately, directly, Jesus deals with the deaf man. Remember, there’s no sign language. The guy is mute, so he probably doesn’t read lips either. So Jesus deals with him directly – puts His fingers in the ears and pops them out. I’m going to pop open these ears. Jesus grabs the guys tongue – I’m going to fix this thing. 

Do you see what Jesus does here, how gentle He is? He not only is going to do a great and wonderful good for this deaf man, but He takes the time to make sure the guy knows what is going on. Jesus takes the time to explain, come to the deaf man in a way that He can handle so that he is ready to receive Christ’s love.

This is how Jesus deals with you. Jesus has and does and will continually pour His love and mercy and forgiveness upon you, even until He raises you from the dead. But Jesus also knows that life in this world is harsh and cruel and confusing, so He pulls you out and away from the crowd and He deals with you privately, and directly. Of course He does! He’s already baptized you, marking you as His own. So He calls you to His Church, where He has a pastor stick not his finger but the Gospel of Christ Jesus into your ears. Jesus even touches your tongue with His own Body and Blood in the Supper. And why? Not only to give you forgiveness and life, but to do so in a way so that you understand His love for you, so that you aren’t terrified by what’s going on around you in the world.

This week, there will be plenty of strange, hard, and difficult things in your life. They might bug you, but they won’t throw Jesus off-stride. Jesus will still call you aside to come to His house, and there He will place Himself into your ears and upon your tongue, so that you know you have life everlasting in Him.

Rev. Eric Brown is pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Herscher, Illinois and the co-host of the HT Gospeled Boldly Podcast.

By Rev. Eric Brown

“Would that you, even you, had known the things that make for peace” – Luke 19:42

So there is Jesus, riding on a donkey on Palm Sunday with crowds praising Him and shouting Hosanna. Yet, when He comes up to Jerusalem, He weeps. Jesus knows what’s going to happen and is driven to tears. Jerusalem will end up being destroyed. 70 AD by the Romans. It would be and was brutal. Horrific. And so Jesus has sorrow.

But this sorrow isn’t something Jesus has because the people have earned it. It isn’t just because some of those in that crowd shouting Hosanna would probably be killed in that revolt. No, it’s why there’d be a revolt in the first place. By week’s end Jesus would be crucified and Jerusalem would go back to looking for a new and better Messiah, one that would lead the glorious revolution and kick out Rome. Jerusalem didn’t want a Son of David that was a Prince of Peace, they wanted a man of war.

Jesus comes to make peace. That’s His goal. Jesus isn’t out to smack people around. His goal isn’t creating the perfect earthly kingdom or society. He wasn’t marching into Jerusalem to go to war with Rome; He was marching to go to the Cross, because there upon the Cross He made and established true and everlasting peace with His death and resurrection.

The world doesn’t want peace. It thrives on violence and anger, threats and intimidation. We’re supposed to be outraged all the time over everything and hating all the bad people out there. Christ Jesus came to put an end to this, to bring the peace that only love and forgiveness and mercy can bring – and He continually gives you this peace whenever He Himself comes to you in His Word and in His Supper. 

Now, may the peace that surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus!

Rev. Eric Brown is pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Herscher, Illinois and the co-host of the HT Gospeled Boldly Podcast.