Third to Last Sunday of the Church Year

St. Luke 17:20–37 (Alternate Gospel)

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Pharisees asked Jesus when the kingdom of God would come. This comes as really no surprise since we know the Pharisees were always looking for an outward, visible kingdom. They wanted a new king to restore the ancient throne of David, to throw off the Romans, their Gentile overlords, and to reestablish the visible dominion of the Jewish people. This is one of the reasons why the Pharisees refused to accept Jesus as their Messiah. He just wasn’t the kind of king they wanted.

Jesus disappoints them in this Gospel reading too. He answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed.” It won’t be a visible, earthly kingdom. It won’t have boundaries on the map or wage war over territory. It won’t have a capital city or any kind of human government. Jesus goes on, “Nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.” The kingdom of God cannot be seen by the eye, or arrived at by travel, or entered by any outward, human work. The kingdom of God is hidden, and it’s right here. The Pharisees wanted to see the glorious kingdom of God that will be revealed on Judgment Day. But Jesus redirects our attention. The kingdom of God is already here. And if we don’t pay attention to His kingdom now, then we will never see it on the Last Day.

Behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you. The kingdom of God is wherever its King is. Jesus was right in front of them: teaching, preaching, doing miracles. The kingdom of God was there in their midst. And that’s still the case: the kingdom of God is wherever its King is. The kingdom cannot be observed in an outward manner because Jesus does not rule in an outward manner. Jesus speaks of an inward, spiritual kingdom. It’s a kingdom created by the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the Word. It’s a kingdom of faith, and the only way into this kingdom, the only way to have the kingdom of God in your midst, is to have faith in its King. This is precisely what Luther teaches us in the Small Catechism, on the Second Petition of the Lord’s Prayer: Thy Kingdom come… God’s kingdom comes when 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. This is also what we heard last week, All Saints’ Day: you are in the kingdom of God now. The Church is God’s kingdom, and by Baptism and faith you have already begun the new life of that kingdom: here in time and there in eternity.

Yet, Jesus knows that we would really like to see this kingdom. And He turns to His disciples and says, “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.” We desire to see Jesus, the Son of Man, come in His glory. We are tired of living by faith, because it is not easy.We grow weary of listening to God’s Word when everyone around us tells us it’s a lie. We struggle to keep patient, waiting for Jesus’ return, while everyone else tells us to give up. It is a good desire that we want to see Jesus coming in all His power and glory. But it can also be a temptation to turn away from God’s Word and to look for comfort in what our eyes can see, what our hands can touch, what our hearts can feel. It is a temptation that we would look for answers or salvation in anything besides the kingdom that comes by the Holy Spirit.

So, false teachers will play on that good desire to see Jesus, and they will try to deceive you. They will try to mislead you so you take your attention off God’s Word and put it on something or someone else: on them, on your family, your money, your life, on the thoughts and feelings of your own heart. Jesus warns us, “They will say to you, ‘Look, there!’ or ‘Look, here!’ Do not go out or follow them.” Don’t go looking for God’s kingdom, don’t go looking for answers to your trouble anywhere but in God’s Word. For now, that’s where you find the kingdom and life and everything else. And one day, you will see the Son of Man and His kingdom come. But you won’t have to be told on that Day. It will be obvious: no missing it, and also no escaping it. For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day. Don’t let anyone shake your confidence in God’s Word. You just stick to that, and when it’s time for the kingdom to be revealed, you’ll know it.

Make no mistake, the kingdom of God will not always remain invisible or hidden. But first, Jesus told the disciples, he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. Now, that has happened. Everything that was written about the Son of Man by the prophets was accomplished. For He was delivered over to the Gentiles and mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging Him, they killed Him, and on the third day He rose again (Luke 18:31–33). Now, we wait for the Son of Man to return.

But knowing what has already happened to Him is actually how you enter His kingdom now so that you will be in it at His return. The King of this kingdom laid down His life so that criminals, liars, and idolaters—and you!—could enter and enjoy His kingdom. He wants you in it, even though you in no way deserve it. He bled and died and suffered the worst rejection imaginable, so that you can be raised, and live, and be welcomed into His own palace.

You can only enter this kingdom here in time and there in eternity, if you know this suffering King as your one and only Savior. Remember, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you. By faith in the King you enter it, by faith in His blood you safely remain in it, and by faith in His forgiveness you will be revealed as one of this kingdom’s glorious citizens.

But after teaching the true nature of His kingdom, Jesus goes on to describe the last days of this world. Here is one of the passages where some people get the false teaching of the Rapture. The Rapture is this wrong idea that before Jesus returns in visible glory on the Last Day, He will first return secretly, invisibly, and suddenly take all the true believers out of this world. This means that all the other people on the earth are “left behind.” They get this idea from these verses: “I tell you, in that night there will be two in one bed. One will be taken and the other left. There will be two women grinding at the mill together. One will be taken and the other left.”

But context is always important, and the context of these verses is the Old Testament stories that Jesus is using to illustrate the End Times. Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Who was taken and who was left? The Flood swept away the unbelievers, but Noah and his family were left behind—they were saved from the destruction. Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all. Again, who was taken and who was left behind? The evil sinners of Sodom were taken into death and hell, but Lot and his daughters survived. So will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed. You want to be one of the people left behind! When Jesus returns, it won’t be a secret, and it’s the unbelievers who will be taken away by the destruction, while the believers will be left to live in God’s kingdom.

This is also what we are taught in 1 Thessalonians, chapter 4: For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. Living believers will not be spirited out of this world before the resurrection of the dead. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. No secret coming of Jesus—it’s loud. There is no way you won’t know what’s going on. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. The End Times are simple. No need to confuse things with a secret rapture that’s not in the Bible. Jesus will return. The dead will be raised, we will be changed. All believers will be given their immortal bodies, and so we will always be with the Lord.

Jesus is coming, and this is good news for us. But we don’t know when that Day will come. So, do not cling to this world. Remember Lot’s wife. She turned back to her ruined city and she was destroyed along with it, turned into a pillar of salt. Don’t let your mind and your life be so filled with the goods in your house, or the fields you work, or the games you play, or the position and security you have made for yourself. Be ready to leave it all, whether that happens on the day of your death or the day Jesus returns. This world is coming to an end, including all the good things we have in it. 

Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it. So, be in God’s Kingdom now by losing your life for Christ’s sake, by denying yourself and choosing the things of God. Live now in the kingdom that is in your midst by confessing your sin and receiving the King’s declaration of forgiveness. It’s true that we desire to see His days, we long to see His kingdom. Yet our Lord knows how best to take care of us, and He will do just that in His Church.

So then, why should cross and trial grieve me? Why should the end of this world make me sad? Why should my death cause me fear? The King is reigning and I am in His Kingdom. In this Christian Church our Lord daily and richly forgives all my sins and the sins of all believers. On the Last Day He will raise me and all the dead, and give eternal life to me and all believers in Christ. This is most certainly true (SC, Creed, Third Article).

Come quickly + Lord Jesus. Amen.

The Feast of All Saints

Revelation 7:2–17

1 John 3:1–3

St. Matthew 5:1–12

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

There are three important Mountains in Scripture: Sinai, Calvary, and Zion. The first is Mount Sinai, which was wrapped in cloud and thick darkness, when the Lord came down in fire and shook the earth. On that Mountain, the Lord spoke the Ten Commandments and rightly terrified the sinful people of Israel. We must also go and stand at the foot of Mount Sinai, witness God’s consuming fire, hear His Law, and be condemned to death. Sinai is where we must start on the path of repentance, mourning our sins and fearing God’s wrath. Only by knowing the terror of that mountain can we see our great need for the mercy that God has shown to us on another mountain.  

That next mountain is Mount Calvary. We also know this hill as Golgotha, the place outside Jerusalem for the execution of criminals: “The Place of the Skull”—Golgotha in Aramaic, Calvary in Latin. And it was on this mountain that the same Lord who issued His Law on Sinai, now accomplished His Law and suffered the penalty that He had pronounced upon a sinful world. On Calvary, the Lord Did His work, and met His death; Like a lamb He humbly yielded On the cross His dying breath (LSB 454:3). By His death the world is forgiven and death itself is destroyed. So, we must also leave Mount Sinai and go to Mount Calvary by faith in the Lord who died there. The Word of God brings us from Sinai to Calvary, from the Law to the Gospel, from the condemnation of our sin to the forgiveness of our sin. And by faith in His holy blood shed for us, by faith in His Word of forgiveness spoken to us, we are pardoned and cleansed of all our sins.

This is why we place the cross of Jesus before our eyes—a visual reminder of Calvary. 

Faithful cross, true sign of triumph, Be for all the noblest tree;

None in foliage, none in blossom, None in fruit thine equal be;

Symbol of the world’s redemption, For the weight that hung on thee! (LSB 454:4).

And we follow the processional cross with our feet and with our eyes because our journey does not end at Mount Calvary. 

The cross of Jesus leads us on to the third mountain: Mount Zion. This was the name for the hill where Jerusalem was built, where God dwelt with His people of old in His temple. Zion is the name for the holy city and holy people of God. Mount Zion is the Church. But you can only get to that mountain if you’ve first been to the other two. The road up to Mount Zion begins at Sinai and must go through the cross of Jesus. That’s why the cross of Jesus processes us into the Church, into God’s presence. Because it’s His holy blood that makes us holy ones—saints. We have washed our robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. His blessed death is why we can say, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on (Revelation 14:13).

Now, hear what the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews says in chapter 12 (:18–24): You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new testament, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. If these words sound familiar to you, it’s probably because I say something based on these words when one of our brothers or sisters in Christ dies.

But notice what the writer actually says to his hearers and to you: You have come to Mount Zion. He’s not actually talking about the saints who have died. He says it in the present tense to you: Right now, you have come. Mount Zion is the holy Church, the holy people of God. And it is fitting to use an Old Testament name for God’s people, for they were also part of the Church. This is just like Revelation 7, where the Church on earth is pictured by the twelve tribes of Israel, numbered, drawn up in ranks, the Church Militant on earth.

So, Mount Zion is the name for the Church which includes both the saints on earth and the saints in heaven. Hebrews says, You have come to Mount Zion… and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven. “Assembly” is actually the word for “church”; and the firstborn are those born again in the water of Baptism; and enrolled in heaven means their names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. This is talking about the saints still dwelling here on earth. But the passage also says, You have come… to the spirits of the righteous made perfect. These are the souls who are now free from sin, and resting in the presence and perfect peace of Jesus. This is talking about the saints in heaven. As a Christian, having come to Mount Zion, you have come to both groups: the saints on earth and the saints in heaven, because the Church is one. The Church is the communion of saints and nothing, not space nor time, not even death, can break that fellowship.

Oh, blest communion, fellowship divine!

            We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;

            Yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine. Alleluia! Alleluia! (LSB 677:4).

And guess what? It is okay, in fact it is good, to use your imagination in church for the sake of your worship. When you come to church, you are brought to Mount Zion, because the Lord Himself is here in His Word. This is made even clearer in the Holy Communion when the Lord is here in His body and blood. So, when we say that we worship God with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven, picture that back wall vanishing, and the altar is God’s throne so that we bow in reverence to God and to the Lamb who sit on that throne, and surrounding the altar are the angels and the saints in heaven also bowing, worshiping along with us. Picture this, because it’s real. It doesn’t matter that you can’t see it. You believe it, so act as if you can see it. Our God is real and He is here. Heaven comes down to earth here and now.

This hidden reality is also taught in our Epistle and Gospel readings. In 1 John 3, we are told, Beloved, we are God's children NOW. We cannot see the proof of this yet, because what we will be has not yet appeared. Nevertheless, we know that when Jesus appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is. And in the Beatitudes, Jesus tells us, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs IS the kingdom of heaven. Even though you do not yet enjoy the full comfort of Mount Zion, still, by faith in Jesus, you are in the Kingdom of Heaven NOW.

This means that for us in this life of struggle and sorrow, there is a tension between the NOW and the NOT YET. Right Now, you have come to Mount Zion, you are in the Kingdom of Heaven, you are righteous and holy in Christ, your eternal life has begun. But you don’t see it, you don’t experience it. Not yet… but you will. NOW, you mourn because of your sin, you mourn because of the effects of your sin, you weep because loved ones die and because you will die… BUT you WILL be comforted in the life to come. NOW, you are meek and humble, you are lowly and some will take advantage of you… BUT you WILL inherit the earth in God’s new creation. NOW, you are reviled and persecuted and all kinds of evil is uttered against you falsely on account of your faith in Christ… BUT rejoice and be glad, for your reward IS great in heaven. For NOW, we live in this tension, and we struggle against the devil, this evil world, and our own sinful hearts. 

BUTwhen the fight is fierce, the warfare long,

Steals on the ear the distant triumph song,

And hearts are brave again, and arms are strong. Alleluia! Alleluia! (LSB 677:5).

We can’t give up the fight yet. Another more glorious Day will dawn and we will have our reward.

So, even though that Hebrews passage about Mount Zion is actually addressed to us here on earth, it’s also okay to say those words for those who have died. Because they now see what we only know by faith. You might say that the dead in Christ are higher up on Mount Zion. While we are still climbing on the lower slopes, they rest at the top. The Lord is present with us here, but He has summoned them to His nearer presence so that they may rest in His blissful peace forever (Commemoration of Faithful Departed). And we long to be there too.

But even that is not the end, not for the saints now at rest, nor for us. Death is not the end of the story—not even blessed, holy death. A day will come when Mount Zion is made visible to all. The Lord will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever (Isaiah 25:7–8). In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet… The trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed… Then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” (1 Corinthians 15:52–54). Then, finally, that glorious scene from Revelation 7 will come to pass: that great multitude… from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, will cry out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” Then the Lamb, who was slain and even now is on the throne, He will be our shepherd,  and He will guide us to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.

Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:57).

Come quickly + Lord Jesus. Amen.

The Festival of the Reformation

Romans 3:19–28

St. John 8:31–36

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Scripture Alone! Faith Alone! Grace Alone! You’ve probably heard those Reformation mottos before, but what do they mean? Whenever something big like the Reformation comes along, we can’t help but making a motto, a cliché—something short and easy that we can wrap our minds around. We want something simple so we can easily remember the big message. But there’s always a danger for clichés to go bad. If we just repeat them without thinking, they can be emptied of their meaning. And then you’ve lost what you were trying to hold onto. As another example, last year, for the 500^th Anniversary of the Reformation, our Synod rolled out a new motto or theme: “Reformation 500—It’s still all about Jesus.” That’s not a bad slogan, but it could raise questions like: What about Jesus? Who is He? What did He do? Slogans, mottos, themes, battle cries—they’re not bad, but we can’t forget what they really mean.

Here’s another phrase you’ve probably heard a lot in Lutheran churches: Law and Gospel. You’ve probably heard these words a lot from me, and hopefully I’ve given them the meaning they deserve. But in many cases, Law and Gospel can be boiled down to an oversimplification that ends up missing the entire point. The simple Sunday School meaning for Law and Gospel is usually abbreviated with three letters: S.O.S. The Law Shows Our Sin. The Gospel Shows Our Savior. Now, that’s NOT a bad understanding to have, but what IS bad is if we try to boil it down even more, like this: “The Law shows our sin, and sin is bad, and having my sin pointed out makes me feel bad, so the Law is bad. And the Gospel shows our Savior, and the Savior is good, and hearing about the Savior makes me feel good, so the Gospel is good. Law—bad. Gospel—good.” No. This twists the cliché to mean something it was not supposed to mean.             

This kind of thinking can even twist the meaning of our Lord’s words in our Reformation Gospel Reading: The truth will set you free. If you just think that the Law is bad and the Gospel is good, then you can take Jesus’ words to mean that the Gospel will set you free from the Law completely. So, you’re free from doing good works at all, even free to sin! This bad understanding of Law and Gospel can lead you to suppose: “God loves to forgive, and I love to sin! What a perfect arrangement!” But this thinking destroys both the real Law and the real Gospel. And we’ll come back to those in a little bit.

But how about another cliché or saying, one that you hear from all kinds of people: “God is love.” In fact, it’s a direct quote from the Bible (just don’t look too closely at what else the Bible says right around those three little words). God is love. Sounds so nice. And that’s exactly what many people want it to mean. They don’t really want to say “God is love.” They want to say, “God is nice. He is nice, so you should be nice too.” This is the idea you get when people say, “Can’t we all just get along?” Well, sure, except they don’t really want to get along. They really mean, “Can’t we all just get along without each other and be left alone, so I can do what I want?” Real nice, huh. With this “God is nice” thinking, the Gospel is no longer the power of God for salvation (Romans 1:16), but just a nice example for us to follow. It ends up giving you a God with no Law, no anger over sin, no sin at all, and so also no forgiveness, and no Savior.

God is not nice. He will not leave us alone to go our merry way to hell. He comes after sinners, and He rebukes, He punishes, He gets angry. Because He loves you. Rather than nicely letting us be, God paid us the intolerable compliment of actually loving us. He dealt with our sins, condemning them, punishing them in Christ. Listen to what else comes right after those three little words: God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent His one and only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 John 4:8–10, CSB). This is the cross of Jesus kind of love. Real, self–sacrificial, heart–wrenching, bleeding, dying Love. You can say “God is love” as much as you want, but if you never mention the cross on Mount Calvary, a dead Jesus and a Jesus risen from the dead, then you’ve got no true love, and you’ve got no true God either.

This is what we’ve got to learn when it comes to Law and Gospel also. Keep the S.O.S. idea: the Law Shows Our Sin and the Gospel Shows Our Savior. But get rid of that “Law—bad. Gospel—good” idea. The Law should make you feel bad, or I should say, God’s Law should make you feel convicted, guilty, you should feel judged—that’s its job. But the Law is not bad—it is holy and perfect because it comes from God. You are bad—you are a sinner and through the law comes knowledge of sin. So, where do we go for help? Not “Where do we go to get a good feeling?” but where do we go for rescue? To the Gospel, which shows and delivers to us the Savior. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith. 

Once again, we’ve got to get deeper than the clichés, behind the words “Law and Gospel.” We’ve got to get to the cross of Jesus, where the Son of God Himself bled and died in our place. Jesus was the propitiation, the atoning sacrifice that took all of God’s anger so that we would be spared. Jesus suffering on the cross—that’s the Law, that’s what should happen to you. Jesus crucified for you and you go free—that’s the Gospel.

And the same goes with those other slogans. Grace Alone. Grace because of what? Is salvation God’s free gift to us just because He happens to feel generous sometimes? No. Is there any cost for salvation at all? Yes, but God Himself paid the price and so it is free for us. And Faith Alone. Faith in what? Will faith in anything work? Faith in any god? Faith in yourself? No, only faith in the God who became a man, was crucified, and rose again. We are saved by Grace Alone through Faith Alone because of what Jesus did in His death and resurrection. When we talk, when we sing, we need to keep Jesus and His cross front and center. Notice how our hymns also keep driving this point home:

            Since Christ has full atonement made

            And brought to us salvation,

            Each Christian therefore may be glad

            And build on this foundation.

            Your grace alone, dear Lord, I plead,

            Your death is now my life indeed,

            For You have paid my ransom (LSB 555:6)

And last but not least, there’s that other Reformation slogan, Scripture Alone. The Holy Bible gives us Christ crucified. Those Spirit–inspired words give us knowledge of the salvation that He won for us on Calvary. But does this mean you can get along fine just you and your Bible? No, it’s never “just” with Jesus. The Scripture also gives you the Words of Baptism, so that you are joined to the death and resurrection of Christ; the Words of the Lord’s Supper, so you are fed with His real crucified and risen body and blood; the Words that are preached to you and spoken in the Absolution, so that you hear His declaration from the cross and the empty tomb, “It is finished. Peace be with you. Your sins are forgiven.”

More than any one cliché can explain, the Reformation is focused on the atonement Jesus made for sin. The Reformation still calls us to set our eyes on Christ the Crucified. For that reason, we set the cross before our eyes—a reminder of God’s bleeding, dying love—a reminder of what our faith is all about. 

Today, you followed the processional cross with your eyes. This lovely simple cross was made many years ago by Curtis Heil and it will continue to have a special place in our church. Our congregation has also been gifted with a new processional cross which we will dedicate next Sunday in memory of Carole Eberhart. This cross will include an image of our Savior and the work He suffered for us—simply a more detailed reminder of God’s love. While our crosses may all look slightly different, they all mark this place where the Reformation message is still heard—where the Word of the cross is made known and the Sacraments are given—always leading us on in our faith until, in Jesus’ eternal Kingdom, we bow before that Lamb who was slain and now sits upon the throne of God.

In the Holy + Name of Jesus. Amen.