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Lectionary Meditations

Jesus Tells it Like it Is – A Meditation on Matthew 6:24-34

“No one can serve two masters… therefore I tell you….”


 Today we can miss the point of what Jesus says in Matthew 6 because we are a culture intoxicated on the idea of personal choice. We choose and create so many aspects of our lives and are encouraged to do so by society today. I’ve even noticed that when my 1st grader comes home from school having been in trouble, he describes that as “I made a bad choice.” The only thing authority today seems to say is “make good choices”.

Jesus is not calling you to make good choices. This text is not a list of decisions Jesus wishes you would make. This is not advice. Rather, Jesus is stating concrete fact. We don’t get to serve two masters; we don’t get to pick willy nilly between them. We are either driven by the lust for money (or a plethora of other sins as noted in the rest of the sermon on the mount) or by God and His Word. One or the other is driving us.

And having said that, Jesus doesn’t say, “make a good choice.” He doesn’t ask, “what is your decision?” Instead, He says, “Therefore I tell you.” You can’t have two masters, therefore I AM your master, and this is what I say to you. And will all the following, it’s not optional. It’s not “you shouldn’t worry” – it’s “do not worry.”

Jesus tells it like it is. You do not have two masters to choose from. Christ Jesus is your master. With His death and resurrection He destroyed the old masters of Sin, Death, and the Devil. They lie broken and destroyed from the events of Good Friday and Easter. And lest they think they still have power over; you have been Baptized. You have been claimed by Christ Jesus as His own, forgiven and redeemed. You do not belong to sin; you belong to Christ. Your flesh might try to tell you otherwise, but Jesus is your Lord and Master, and He is your Lord and Master in order to forgive you and raise you to everlasting life.

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Lectionary Meditations

He’s Not a Pouter – A Meditation on Luke 17:11-19

“And one of them, when he saw that he was healed…”

It always astonishes me that the lepers head off to see the priests before they are healed. Jesus tells them to go show themselves to the priests, and they go, even though their skin is still nasty and gross. And as they walk, they are healed – it happens without their notice at first.

The workings of God often slide by past us unnoticed. This is true even for us who are Christians. We who ought to be most prepared to recognize the gifts that God gives both in creation and salvation often let them slide by unawares. We don’t continually marvel at all the blessings God gives us simply out of His Fatherly divine goodness and mercy. There are times when hearing His Word or heading to Church doesn’t excite us or astonish us. We so often overlook God, even when He has told us what He is doing in the Scriptures.

And here is one of the key differences between God’s goodness and our sinfulness. I know that if I that I am being overlooked or under-appreciated, I tend to want to pull back on what I’m doing. I’m tempted to “take my ball and go home” as it were. And yet, consider Jesus. He doesn’t pout or sulk. 10 are still cleansed, even if only 1 comes back. This is what Jesus does constantly – He shows love because that’s what He does, not in order to garner praise.

God’s love for you is not determined by how thankful you are. He doesn’t give you more if you promise to praise Him more. Jesus Christ has already done it all, and He still pours out His Word and Spirit upon you. Sometimes we are distracted (and even sometimes distracted by good things) and don’t always focus upon this, but know that His love for you remains constant, and He continues to be your Savior.

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Higher Homilies

What’s Jesus doing?

by The Rev. Brent Kuhlman

Matthew 3:13-17

What’s Jesus doing? Obviously, He didn’t get the memo. Someone call the bouncers before He gets past John and jumps into that water! This is no way to start your ministry Jesus! After all, you’re the Christ!

Stop right there Jesus! John’s baptism is for sinners. For the low lives and losers of the world. For critter crooks who have lots for which to repent. You don’t Jesus. These scum need to have their sins washed away. But not you Jesus. You’re the sinless royal Son of God!

So don’t go there Jesus! You’re not a sinner. You’ve got no sins to confess. The Jordan River banks are full of rotten to the core criminal sinners. This water swarms with the reeky and venomous sins of bottom feeders. You should not be here Jesus! You’re better than this! Hey John! A little help here! Don’t give your consent to this! You just got done calling the religious wig heads a brood of vipers. Surely you can stand up to your cousin. Talk Jesus into baptizing you instead. Thanks for listening, John.

The Lord doesn’t listen to you or me. Won’t be deterred by John. He’s bullish. Goes right ahead and does the unthinkable.

Steps right into that sin-infested water! It reeks of sin! Enough to make you retch! Polluted with every kind of noxious sin from every sinner that John’s baptized. You name it and Jesus is hip deep in it. Idolatry. Adultery. Immorality. Rape. Murder. Theft. Abortion. Cursing. Hate. Greed. Prejudice. Lying. Unforgiveness. Love of the self. Self-justification.

Jesus jumps right into that toxic water! Rancid! Putrid! Rotten! Malignant! With nothing at all to protect Him! No sin resistant water suit. No sin protective goggles. He dives in completely unprotected. His Body is covered with it all.

Downright disgusting isn’t it? We’d never do anything like this. Not even on Fear Factor.

And yet God the Father is delighted. So is the Holy Spirit. Thrilled that Jesus receives this baptism. Elated that He’s washed with this sin-plagued water. That He is drenched in it up to His armpits.

We’re repulsed. We’d run away. The Father attends. The Holy Spirit descends. All heaven breaks wide open. “Here is my Son. I love Him. I couldn’t be more pleased.”

We’d try to save Jesus from this poisonous sin-infected water. After all, this sin-polluted water will kill Jesus!

Precisely! Now you’ve got the hang of it! The sins in the water will kill Him!

Don’t you get it? In His Baptism He’s taking the sin of the world in His Body. He’s going to shoulder it all – soak it all in like a sponge — all the way to Calvary. Where He does His very good Good Friday. Answering for the world’s sins. Dying as the sinner in your place.

He’s come as the Christ to claim all sin as His own in the water. And then take that sin and its full punishment on the Cross. That’s death and hell for Him. That’s salvation for you. Behold, His Jordan River Baptism fulfills all righteousness. Jesus takes your sin — the world’s sin — to do the Good Friday job that only He can do.

No wonder the Father’s not offended. He loves His Savior-ing The World Son as He saviors the world in this particular way.

What a Savior! You are Good Friday-ed and Easter Sunday-ed. You are baptized into Christ’s atoning death for you.

You are holied. You are Holy Spirit-ed. Washed. Reborn. Forgiven. Heaven cracked wide open for you at your baptism. Now listen to what the Father says about you: “For Christ’s sake you are My child! I love you who are washed clean and born again in Holy Baptism! I couldn’t be more pleased with you!”

Aren’t you glad John consented to baptize Jesus in the Jordan? And isn’t it just wonderful that your parents brought you for Holy Baptism? Absolutely!

In the Name of Jesus. Amen.

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Lectionary Meditations

Shut Your Trap – A Meditation on Luke 10:25-37

“But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus…”

So often when considering the story of the Good Samaritan, we forget the setup. There is a lawyer who wants to test Jesus, and he fails. Hard. Jesus shows that his “difficult” question was silly. And this fellow is embarrassed, and he wants to justify himself. He asks a question not to learn but to try to prove how good he is.

The tale of the Good Samaritan is a response to self-justification. Do you want to pretend that you’re good – so, do you risk life and limb for those who hate you, and do you give up all that you have and then take out loans to care for them? Because that’s what the Samaritan does – that’s what we all ought to do. If you want to be justified by the law, if you want to justify yourself, there’s the standard.

And we can’t match it. Jesus holds this up to the lawyer to just get him to shut his trap, to stop his plotting and self-congratulation. You are not good. Period.

And yet, there is One who is Good – God. There is One who is Good – Christ Jesus who comes down from heaven and takes up human life and limb not merely to risk them but specifically to suffer and die for miserable sinners. There is One who gives all that He has to rescue and redeem people battered and broken by sin.

And that is what Jesus has done for you. You don’t need to talk, you don’t need to prove yourself to God. You don’t need to demonstrate anything – because Christ is the One who has done it all for you. He has found you broken and beaten, dead in sin and trespasses, and He gives you life and forgiveness and salvation in His Word. Simple as that, with nothing more for us to say.

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Current Events

The Surreal Life: Suffering Under the Cross

“I can’t believe this is really happening. This is so unreal. I never thought this would happen to me.”

Imagine hurriedly packing what stuff you could into the car and just leaving your home, your job, your friends, your life. Picture yourself riding down the road, unsure of where you are going, or when, how or even IF you would ever return…yet knowing that even if you did, life from that moment on would never be the same. Waking up in a strange place with strange people around you, watching things happen around you from the fringes of life…it all feels very surreal.

Everyone and their uncle has advice for people suffering in these kinds of situations. We hear similar words all the time, and a lot of them even come from well-meaning fellow Christians.

“Don’t worry. God has a plan.” Hello? Did God plan this? I don’t like this plan at all, is there a Plan B? “Things will get better eventually.” You must not understand just how bad things are – I really don’t think I’ll make it to “eventually”. “God is teaching you a lesson, you need to believe harder and live better.” Couldn’t He have just TOLD me this stuff?

We even give ourselves advice in our internal dialogues. “God is punishing you. He’s abandoned you. You don’t matter to Him. Shoot, God may not even exist, how could He let THIS happen to you?”

Like the Psalmist, we shake our fists at God and demand to know why. We cry out and plead to know how long this pain will go on. We become fearful, afraid to trust and let ourselves get comfortable with life again because we’ve learned just how quickly it can change…or end.

We actually think we deserve better. We think we’re pretty good people, for the most part, living decent, responsible, productive lives. It’s those other people over there, the bad people, the sinners who deserve to suffer for their sins.

Oh, wait…I’m a sinner. Everything that I suffer really is my fault, whether my own personally, or as a result of my sins in Adam. That’s why we confess every Sunday that we justly deserve to suffer God’s temporal and eternal punishment. How selfishly idolatrous we’ve been!

How faithless! Now what? We’ve lost everything – goods, fame, child and wife – and then to realize that even our faith has been almost completely misdirected back upon ourselves. What could possibly remain to give us reason to want to wake up for another day?

Let’s be honest. Most days baptism doesn’t mean much to us nor does it play a very significant role in our lives. We just don’t give baptism much thought. But when everything in our lives is turned upside down and we’re trying to find something, anything, to cling to that is stable and not going to disappear like everything else, Christians have been given Baptism.

It is by baptism, the external application of water and the Word of God’s promises of forgiveness, eternal life, and salvation to us, that we receive all things in our lives as gifts from God. In Baptism, God adopts us into His family and makes us heirs of His kingdom with Christ. In baptism, God promises to give us everything that He has given to Christ and to love us as He loves the Son. When we remember that we have been baptized, we remember that God will not punish us as we deserve, He punished Christ for all our sins already. God doesn’t hate us, He hated Christ because of all our sins that He took upon Himself and He made Christ His enemy on the Cross for us. God has not abandoned us. He abandoned Christ for us and for our salvation.

To say, “I am baptized,” is to cling to those promises God gave us in baptism. Faith holds God to His baptismal promises, even when everything in our lives, all the voices of people around us and even within ourselves tempt us to doubt His Word, to curse God and die just to end the suffering. When the only good thing we can find in our days and lives is to be able to say, “I am baptized,” rejoice! You have already been given everything. Things aren’t just going to get better one day when we’re in heaven – all of heaven was given to us in Baptism.

Only by faith are we freed to see even tragedies in our lives as gifts from God. Like the blind man at the well, our suffering under the Law is an opportunity to repent of our sins and be turned once again to the waters of our Baptism. In suffering, strange as it sounds is a chance we wouldn’t have otherwise had to glorify God and bear witness to Christ. Those experiences borne out of tragedy nuance our vocations and increase unique opportunities for the Spirit to reach people with the Gospel. Only faith tells us that the suffering we experience is not condemnation.

You are not just a sister, you are the sister of a developmentally disabled sibling. You are not just a son, you are a son who lost his mother to cancer. You are not just a wife, you are a domestic violence survivor. You are not just a southerner, you lost everything you had to Hurricane Katrina – everything but the one thing that cannot be taken away. You are baptized.

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Lectionary Meditations

Not an Entertainer – a Meditation on Mark 7:31-37

“And taking him aside from the crowd privately…”

Often when we think of Jesus performing miracles, we can think of big, showy things – almost like it would be like a summer blockbuster. Pyrotechnics, giant crowds cheering like mad. And often that was what people wanted.

Yet when the crowd brings a deaf man who can’t talk to Jesus, Jesus doesn’t put on a show for them. Instead, Jesus pulls the man off privately. Then, Jesus communicates with the man – I’m going to pop open these ears here, I’m going to fix this tongue here. See, I’m going to pray now – and “Be opened.” And it was good.

Jesus isn’t worried about entertaining the crowd. He isn’t worried about proving how great He is. When He healed, it wasn’t 1st century virtue signaling. It was personal and direct care for the benefit of the person Jesus was dealing with at that moment. Plain and simple, it was love.

When you hear from the Scriptures that Jesus loves you, that isn’t Jesus trying to impress people or improve His reputation – far from it, His love for you led to Him being crucified by the people of power and status. No, Jesus simply is determined to do what is good for you, to win you forgiveness with His death, to personally call you by name in Holy Baptism, to give you Himself in His Supper. And if the crowds don’t like it, so be it. His focus is you, being your Savior. And that He is.

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Catechesis

Books Every College Student Should Read

INTRODUCTION TO THE CHRISTIAN FAITH

  • Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, rev. ed., first published in 1952, 1996). Amazon
  • On Being a Christian: A Personal Confession, Henry Hamann (Northwestern Pub. House, 1996). NPH | Amazon
  • What Do You Think of Jesus?, David Scaer (Concordia Theological Seminary Press, reprint, 1999). CTSFW | Amazon
  • Why I Am a Lutheran: Jesus at the Center, Daniel Preus (CPH, 2004). CPH | Amazon

CHRISTIAN INSTRUCTION

  • Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions – A Reader’s Edition of the Book of Concord (CPH, 2005). CPH
  • Didache, John T. Pless CTSFW
  • Holy Bible ESV | Biblegateway.com
  • Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation (CPH, 2005). CPH
  • The Book of Concord (Online) BOC

SPIRITUALITY

  • Christian Spirituality: Five Views of Sanctification, Donald L. Alexander (InterVarsity Press, 1988). Amazon
  • Dying to Live: The Power of Forgiveness, Harold L. Senkbeil (CPH, 1994). CPH | Amazon
  • The Spirituality of the Cross: The Way of the First Evangelicals, Gene E. Veith (CPH, 1999). CPH | Amazon
  • Sanctification, Christ in Action, Harold L. Senkbeil (Northwestern Publishing House, 1990). Amazon
    (Look for the new CPH series on Lutheran Spirituality beginning in 2006!)

THE DEFENSE OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH

  • God on the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics, C. S. Lewis (Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co.; Reprint edition, 1994). Amazon
  • History, Law and Christianity, John W. Montgomery (CILTPP, 2002). CILTPP | Amazon
  • Miracles, C. S. Lewis (HarperSanFrancisco, 2001). Amazon
  • The Defense Never Rests: A Lawyer’s Quest for the Gospel, Craig A. Parton (CPH, 2003). CPH | Amazon
  • The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?, F. F. Bruce (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003). Amazon
  • The Testimony of the Evangelists, Simon Greenleaf (Kregel Publications, 1995). Amazon
  • The Whimsical Christian: 18 Essays, Dorothy L. Sayers (Collier Books; Reissue edition, 1987). Amazon
    (See also Mere Christianity above)

BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW TODAY

  • Above All Earthly Pow’rs: Christ In A Postmodern World, David F. Wells (Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2005). Amazon
  • Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church, D. A. Carson (Zondervan, 2005). Amazon
  • Christianity in an Age of Terrorism. Gene E. Veith, (CPH, 2002). CPH | Amazon
  • Christians in a .Com World: Getting Connected Without Being Consumed, Gene E. Veith, Christopher L. Stamper (Crossway Books, 2000). Amazon
  • Discovering the Plain Truth: How the Worldwide Church of God Encountered the Gospel of Grace, Larry Nichols & George Mather (Intevarsity Press, 1998). Amazon
  • Loving God With All Your Mind: Thinking as a Christian in the Postmodern World, Gene E. Veith (Crossway Books, 2003). Amazon
  • Postmodern Times: A Christian Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture, Gene E. Veith (Crossway Books, 1994). Amazon
  • Reading Between the Lines, Gene E. Veith (Crossway Books, 1990). Amazon
  • Testing the Claims of Church Growth, Rodney E. Zwonitzer (CPH, 2002). Amazon
  • The Anonymous God, David L. Adams, Ken Schurb, eds. (Arch Books, 2005). Amazon

PRAYER & DEVOTION

  • A Devotional Companion: Blessings & Prayers for College Students, (CPH, 2005). CPH | Amazon
  • Day by Day We Magnify Thee: Daily Readings for the Entire Year, Martin Luther (Fortress Press, 1982). Amazon
  • Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Augsburg Publishing House, 1970). Augsburg | Amazon

ETHICS

  • Holy People Holy Lives: Law and Gospel in Bioethics, by Richard C. Eyer (CPH, 2000). CPH | Amazon
  • Letter to the Christian Nobility, Martin Luther
  • Losing Our Virtue: Why the Church Must Recover Its Moral Vision, David F. Wells (Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1999). Amazon
  • On Christian Liberty, Martin Luther (Augsburg Fortress, 2003). Augsburg Fortress | Amazon

CHRISTIAN FICTION

  • The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis, Pauline Baynes, Illustrator (HarperTrophy, Boxed edition, 1994). Amazon
  • The Hammer of God, Bo Giertz (Augsburg Books, Revised edition, 2005). Amazon
  • The Hammer of God (DVD), Bo Giertz Lutheran Visiuals
  • The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien (Del Rey Books, Boxed Rei edition, 2001). Amazon
  • The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis (Various editions, 1961). Amazon

THEOLOGY FOR COLLEGE STUDENTS

  • Handling the Word of Truth, John T. Pless (CPH, 2004). CPH | Amazon
  • On Being a Theologian of the Cross: Reflections on Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation, 1518, Gerhard O. Forde (Eerdmans, 1997). Amazon
  • Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton (Various editions, 1908). Amazon
  • Here We Stand: Nature and Character of the Lutheran Faith. Hermann, Sasse (CPH, reprint, 2003). CPH | Amazon
  • Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Harper and Row, 1954). Amazon
  • Luther’s Commentary on Galatians, Martin Luther
  • Luther’s Letters of Spiritual Counsel, Theodore Tappert (Regent, 1995). Amazon
  • Praying for Reform, William Russel (Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2005). Amazon
  • The Bondage of the Will, Martin Luther (Revell, reprint, 1990) Amazon
  • The Fire And The Staff: Lutheran Theology In Practice, Klemet I. Preus (Arch Books, 2005). Amazon
  • The Proper Distinction between Law and Gospel, C. F. W. Walther (CPH, 1986). CPH | Amazon

ABOUT LUTHER

  • Luther: Biography of a Reformer, Frederick Nohl (CPH, reprint, 2003). CPH | Amazon
  • Luther the Reformer, James Kittleson (Augsburg Fortress Publishers, reprint, 1986). Amazon
  • Martin Luther: A Life, James Arne Nestingen (Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2003). Amazon

VOCATION: THE LOST DOCTRINE RECOVERED

  • Faith Active in Love, George W. Forell (Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 1954). Amazon
  • God at Work: Your Christian Vocation in All of Life, Gene E. Veith (Crossway Books, 2002). Amazon
  • Love Taking Shape: Sermons on the Christian Life, Gilbert Meilaender (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2002). Amazon
  • Luther on Vocation, Gustaf Wingren (Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2004). Amazon

SCIENCE AND RELIGION

  • Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, Michael Behe (Free Press, 1998). Amazon
  • Darwin on Trial, Phillip E. Johnson (InterVarsity Press, 1993). Amazon
  • Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? Why Much of What We Teach About Evolution is Wrong, Jonathan Wells (Regnery Publishing, 2002). Amazon
  • Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science & Theology, William A. Dembski (InterVarsity Press, 2002). Amazon
  • The Wedge of Truth: Splitting the Foundations of Naturalism, Phillip E. Johnson (InterVarsity Press, 2000). Amazon

EDITORS’ PICKS

Dive into these twelve short, powerful, recent (or classic) books that make a good study in college. Come up for air long enough to dive into the longer list (see Books Every College Student Should Read). These resources may be available at your church or see the links on the right of each entry for online ordering, reviews, or additional book details.

  • Christians in a .Com World: Getting Connected Without Being Consumed, Gene E. Veith, Christopher L. Stamper (Crossway Books, 2000). Amazon
  • God at Work: Your Christian Vocation in All of Life. Gene E. Veith (Crossway Books, 2002). Amazon
  • Handling the Word of Truth, John T. Pless (CPH, 2004). CPH | Amazon
  • Loving God With All Your Mind: Thinking as a Christian in the Postmodern World, Gene E. Veith (Crossway Books, 2003). Amazon
  • Martin Luther: A Life, James Arne Nestingen (Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2003). Amazon
  • Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, rev. ed., first published in 1952, 1996). Amazon
  • On Being a Christian: A Personal Confession, Henry Hamann (Northwestern Pub. House, 1996). NPH | Amazon
  • On Being a Theologian of the Cross: Reflections on Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation, 1518, Gerhard O. Forde (Eerdmans, 1997). Amazon
  • The Defense Never Rests: A Lawyer’s Quest for the Gospel, Craig A. Parton (CPH, 2003). CPH | Amazon
  • The Hammer of God, Bo Giertz (Augsburg Books, Revised edition, 2005). Amazon
  • The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis (Various editions, 1961). Amazon
  • The Spirituality of the Cross: The Way of the First Evangelicals, Gene E. Veith (CPH, 1999). CPH | Amazon

Note: A good study life is one balanced by a healthy devotional life (not to mention the life continually in communion with Christ and the saints). Devotional books were intentionly left out above, but not for de-emphasis. Your pastor can point you to appropriate devotional and worship literature.

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Catechesis

Exploring the ‘Sanctified’ Conference Hymn- Part 6

Gone the bliss of Eden’s garden, gone the age of sacrifice; ours the time of grace and favor, ours, the call to paradise! Ever, Lord, impress upon us: only You can cover sin – take our worthless self-made garments clothe our shame and cleanse within. -LSB 572, Verse 6

We live in the time of grace, the time of the Church. Unlike the Children of Israel, we believe in the Messiah who has already come and fulfilled every minute piece of the Law. While mankind no longer lives in the perfect garden of Eden, we have no need for animal sacrifices or the ceremonial law that God gave to the Israelites. We live in the time of grace. Everything Jesus did He did so that we may live for God and for our neighbor free from the guilt of the Law. God has given us His Word, His holy sacraments, and the most precious gift of all: the forgiveness of all our sins. We live in the sure and certain hope that all those who are baptized and believe will be raised to new life with Christ in the resurrection! This is our comfort while we are here. God Himself gives us forgiveness and promises us eternal life.

Everything we do now as baptized and forgiven children of God is seen through the blood of Jesus. His blood cancels everything we have ever done and covers us with His righteousness. This thought is both relieving and sobering. We now know that even the things we are most ashamed of, the things we think cannot be forgiven, and the things we try to hide are all paid for. We cannot be so selfish as to think God cannot forgive that one extra special sin that is ‘bigger’ than God’s mercy. No, He forgives ALL sins. This applies not only to our own sins, but the sins that are committed against us by our neighbors. God forgives your neighbor’s sins just as much as He forgives yours. What then can that say about how we should treat our neighbor? We ought to treat our neighbors with grace and mercy knowing God forgives them too. God’s grace is such a wonderful gift that it cannot be contained! Once we have received it, this grace flows out from us sometimes without us even realizing it. We are now free to love, serve, and daily forgive our neighbor as we recognize God’s grace, mercy, and love towards us received through His word and sacraments. We no longer need to worry about how to make ourselves right with God, and that leaves us free to take our focus off ourselves and think about others.

This is not to say that we will not sin, nor is it a free license to go out and sin however we want. We will sin daily because our sinful nature will never leave us this side of heaven. We will constantly struggle with sin and the consequences of living in a post-Fall world. The law of God is still written on our hearts and convicts us every time we go against what God has commanded of us. We must continually remember that Jesus came to die for us and took away the punishment for sins, so even as we continue to sin, we can come before God without the fear of His eternal wrath and repent. Remembering that God took on human flesh, suffered and died the most painful death imaginable also helps us pause and reflect when we are going astray from God’s law. He died, rose, and will come again to judge all of us at the end of the world, so that should make us think twice before we brazenly disobey Him. Only God can forgive our sins and cleanse us from all evil. There is nothing we can do, both good or bad, to get ourselves “back on track.” This is not a game of trying to figure out how much better we can be, nor should we despair when we fail to keep the Law. Instead, let us fix our eyes on Jesus knowing that everything we need for forgiveness, life, and salvation comes from Him. Let us rejoice that we not only receive God’s love, but that we get to share it with all the world.

Categories
Catechesis

On Being “Simul” New Software on Old Hardware

Have you ever tried running new software on an old computer? I have. I have a seven year-old laptop—my trusty old road warrior. I’ve replaced the keyboard, the hard disk, and the logic board, three batteries and a few other spare parts from E-Bay. It’s not my primary computer, which is a desktop, but I try to make the old laptop as compatible as possible. However, I find that the new versions of software just don’t run well on old hardware. That’s a picture of the Christian life. Luther called it being “simul iustus et peccator,” which is Latin for “simultaneously a righteous saint and a damned sinner.” We sometimes speak of our “old Adam” or “sinful nature” and our “new man” in Christ. Old You and New You. Old You is the sinner born of Adam, hopelessly infected with the virus called Sin. New You is the saint born of God, pure and holy. The Scriptures call Old You the “outer man” or the “flesh” and New You the “inner man” or the “spirit.”

The key to understanding the Christian life as it is lived by faith is that New You is hidden “in, with and under” Old You—a Christ-mind operating an Adam-body.

In Baptism, the Spirit has given you a new operating system, new software, New You. You have the mind and the will of Christ. You delight in the Law of God and you desire to do what is pleasing to God. The trouble is that New You is running on Old You’s hardware. As a result, there are the inevitable crashes and glitches.

This is how the apostle Paul describes it: “So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members” (Romans 7:21-23). In other words, New Paul, his “inmost self,” really wants to do God’s will and delights in God’s law. But the hardware for Old Paul, his “members,” refuses to cooperate.

Old Paul has a terrible virus called Sin that causes him to crash every time he tries to do the will of God. Whenever he wants to do good, evil always lies close at hand. He can’t seem to get anything right. Everything he does is infected with sin, even his good works. And what is Paul’s analysis of the situation? “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24)

Martin Luther communicated an amazingly profound insight in a series of statements he drafted for a debate at Heidelberg, Germany in 1518. This was very early in the Reformation—only a year after Luther had nailed his 95 Theses to the church door at Wittenberg. In his Heidelberg Theses, Luther said that everything man does, even when God is working through man, is sin. That’s because the inner man, the new person in Christ, must always work through the outer man, the old person in Adam. In other words, New You must always use Old You’s hardware.

That explains a lot of things. It explains why our works can’t save us. They are always sinful, even when they are good! It explains why faith alone justifies us before God. Only Christ’s works are without sin. It explains why we always seem to mess up, especially in spiritual things, why we can’t seem to stick with prayer or God’s Word, why we’re not glad when they say, “Let’s go to the house of the Lord.” It’s because New You always has to work through Old You. The righteous saint must always work through the sinner. No wonder the apostle Paul cries out, “Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24)

It also explains why we can’t seem to fix ourselves. The Christian life is not about retraining old hardware to run new software. Old You is not fixable; it’s destined to die. Instead, Old You must be forced to go along with the program, at least for the moment. That’s where the Law comes in. The Law curbs, mirrors and instructs Old You to death. It curbs Old You’s behaviors, mirrors sin, and instructs with punishments and rewards, much the way you train an old dog new tricks. And you know how well that works.

Old You’s hardware is simply not suited for holiness. “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven.” Until you come into new hardware in the resurrection, New You’s software is going to have to make the best of trying to control Old You’s hardware.

Does that mean we simply sin to our heart’s content and ask for forgiveness? No! It means that we say “no” to Old Adam, and we bring him under discipline. Even though our new man in Christ needs no Law, our New You uses the Law to threaten, bribe, coerce our old hardware to get with the holiness program. That’s why we set alarms on Sunday for church. The New Adam is glad when they say, “Let’s go to the house of the Lord,” but the Old Adam says, “I’d rather roll over and go to sleep.”

For now you live “simul” by grace through faith for Jesus’ sake as a New You in Christ stuck in an Adam’s Old You hardware. That may not be a pretty sight to those keeping score, but in Christ you are already justified, sanctified, and glorified (1 Corinthians 6:11). You’re just waiting to be rescued from this “body of death” to rise with new hardware to run that Christ-like software.

Rev. William M. Cwirla is the pastor of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Hacienda Heights, California.

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Lectionary Meditations

How About a Little Peace – a Meditation on Luke 19

“Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.”

Beat them into submission. Spread rumors and “facts” about them until they shut up and go away. No, I’m not talking about how we work today in dealing with our “friends” or classmates – or at least I’m not just talking about that. This is how the priests and scribes were hoping to deal with Jesus, and when that didn’t work, they were determined to kill him.

That’s the pattern – someone annoys us, and we try to silence them. That way we’ll have some “peace and quiet” in our lives. And we’ll justify our actions against them – we’ll find some speck that is wrong (or make one up if we have to), and then our campaign against them starts. Most of the time it’s only verbal… but sometimes it gets physical and violent too (maybe more often than we’d like to admit).

Jesus sees all that as He enters Jerusalem, and He laments over Jerusalem. Peace doesn’t come about by silencing all those who disagree with you. Peace doesn’t come by belittling them or grinding them under your heel, and certainly not by the back of you hand. Peace, true peace, only comes by forgiveness. Peace only comes by the forgiveness won when Christ went silently to the cross, bearing our sins as He was belittled, heels and hands nailed to the cross.

So consider your neighbor who is annoying you, or aggravating you? How shall you make for peace – with might of your own? Hardly! No. Instead, by the eyes of faith see He who makes for peace – look at your “enemy” and see one for whom Christ Jesus died! See all the sins that impact you – both your own and those done to you – on Christ Jesus upon the Cross. Because that is reality – that is what Christ Jesus has done. He has won and established peace for you with His death and resurrection.