Kassie, her mom, and I went to Memorial Lutheran (LCMS) in Houston this morning. Driving into the parking lot, I noticed right away the spaces for visitor parking. Nice touch. We walked in and were greeted immediately by a very friendly woman.

The service began with a procession as the hymn “Christ Sits at God’s Right Hand” was sung. The congregation reverently faced the crucfix. One of the associate pastors presided; the order of service was from LSB, Divine Service, First Setting. We sang “This Is the Feast,” which I am no fan of, but other than that the service was reverently conducted and the people were pious. The presiding minister did not rush through the Verba, chanting slowly and deliberately. Communion was distributed in a manner confessing the doctrine of the real presence. I was at peace.

Unfortunately, the readings were from the Vatican II lectionary, so I missed the traditional lessons and hymns for the last Sunday of the Church Year. But the sermon, by the Senior Pastor, Scott Murray, was excellent. He preached on the resurrection of the body, doing a beautiful job of making it personal (referencing poignantly his own father’s death) yet solidly Biblical. 

Their cantor, Janet Muth, played the organ very well, and the choir was well-prepared and sang appropriate liturgical music. The congregation sang well, including an extremely confident participation in the difficult creedal hymn “We All Believe in One True God.” It was a pleasure to worship there. I am almost always disappointed when I go to church on vacation, and today I wasn’t, even if I do have to read the Parable of the Ten Virgins myself later.

Afterward we toured the administrative and school facilities. Newly renovated, the building is stunning. An outstanding parish hall designed for teaching and music, a state-of-the-art kitchen, a youth room perfectly designed, with television screens throughout informing the congregation of coming activities. This is a confessional Lutheran congregation that clearly gets the importance of having attractive, clean facilities designed for teaching and fellowship. I kept repeating to myself, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s church facilities.”

On the way out, I noticed a bunch of parking spots marked “Reserved for seniors.” Classy.

So, today I met an old friend from college for coffee, the brilliant jazz pianist Pamela York. Leaving there, Kassie and I were driving from downtown Houston towards Katy to visit relatives, and we just happened to be driving past Lakewood “Church,” the scene of Joel Osteen’s many crimes against the Word of God. So naturally we had to stop and pay homage.

Osteen’s name is emblazoned everywhere, but I’ve noticed all around Houston the names of pastors are extremely large - often as big as the name of the church itself. Hideously fascinating.

This woman in a Houston restaurant was wearing a camoflage baseball hat with rhinestones in the shape of a cross. Part of the awesomeness of the iPhone is you can snap a pic like this very sneakily.

Sent in by a parishioner who wishes to remain anonymous.

I have no patience for hymns that have nothing Christian about them. Take this stinker from LSB (#789) by Albert F. Bayly:

Seriously, what prevents a Muslim, a Jew, or a Unitarian from singing that? We will never sing it at Immanuel! Never, I tell you.

There. I got it out of my system.

It’s never good to be on the left. The left is where the goats are. Today, Jesus tells us about the Day of Judgment. When Jesus, the Son of Man, “comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them … as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.” We don’t want to be on the left.

The goats are condemned because, Jesus says, “I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.” These words of Jesus appear to confirm what we instinctively think: a person gets into heaven by feeding and clothing the poor, and visiting the sick and incarcerated.

And indeed, being a Christian does involve a life of charity, doing works of mercy. Jesus says, “Be merciful, as your Father is merciful.” It is also written, “Whoever gives to the poor will not want, but he who hides his eyes will get many a curse.” The words of Jesus are clear: “Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.” The Fifth Commandment says, “You shall not murder,” and the Small Catechism elaborates on it, “We should fear and love God so that we do not hurt or harm our neighbor in his body, but help and support him in every physical need.”

On the last day, the Son of Man will divide the sheep from the goats. These two groups are called “the righteous” and the “cursed.” So, if we just feed the poor, clothe the naked, and visit the sick and imprisoned, we’ll be among the righteous, right? We gravitate naturally to the Law, and suppose that Jesus too is giving us a list of ethical qualifications for righteousness. The cursed are just those who didn’t do enough good works to balance out their selfishness. We naturally hear the Law and think that way, and we also like it. We want a list of things to do. “I am a good person!” we tell ourselves, assuming that the donations we gave to charity, and the few bucks we tossed in the offering plate, will cover us. But we could always do more, so it’s nice to get this list of things to do from Jesus: give food to the hungry, take in strangers, visit the sick. Do your part, “give something back,” “pay it forward,” that’s what being a Christian is all about.

Or is it?

There are problems with that way of hearing—or rather, mis-hearing—what Jesus is saying. First, if the Christian religion is just about being a nice person, there’s no real reason to be a Christian. There are plenty of Jews, Muslims, and atheists who help people out and give to charity.

But second, boiling the Christian faith down to doing nice things contradicts the overarching message of the Word of God that you can never do enough nice things, and that the nice things you actually do are, in God’s eyes, as filthy rags. Being a good person isn’t enough in the sight of God. You have to be better, far better than a good person. You must be perfect as God is perfect, the Law demands. Your righteousness must exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees, those supremely scrupulous keepers of the law. Whoever keeps the whole law, and yet stumbles in one point, is guilty of all. A man is not justified, declared righteous, by any works of the law, the Scripture says.

So if being that good is the standard – being perfect – then I have to conclude for myself that I cannot qualify. And even if you cannot see it in yourself, I have bad news for you: you don’t qualify either. Not even close. You haven’t done all that the Law requires outwardly, and those times that you did, you grumbled and complained about it inwardly. You have been envious of your neighbor’s goods and situation in life, you have told lies to make yourself look better, you have been greedy, you haven’t been sexually pure, you haven’t trusted God in your vocation as a spouse or a single person, you have dishonored those in authority over you, you haven’t paid full attention and taken to heart the Word of God, you haven’t prayed as you should, and you have feared, loved, and trusted in created things and in yourself ahead of God.

No, if salvation came by feeding the poor or clothing the naked, you would have to throw away the Lord’s Prayer, where we pray, “Forgive us our trespasses,” not, “Remember our good works.” There would be no reason to baptize Carson or Caedmon this morning.

So, what does this Gospel mean? Listen again to the words of Jesus: “Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.” Who are Jesus’ “brethren”? Sometimes, “brother” just means a male sibling. In some places in Holy Scripture, “brethren” is used for all Christians. But in Matthew’s Gospel, we see another use of the word “brethren” frequently occur. When Jesus rose from the dead, He told the women at the tomb, “Go and tell My brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see Me.” These “brethren” are the Eleven Apostles, the twelve that Jesus chose minus Judas, who tragically hanged himself. Then, when these Eleven meet Jesus on the mountain in Galilee before His Ascension, Jesus says to His brethren the Apostles, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” Jesus’ brethren, then, are those charged to preach the Gospel to all nations. The Apostles are Jesus’ brethren, as are those who follow the Apostles in the Office of the Holy Ministry, who continue to baptize and teach the words of Jesus, making disciples of all nations.

Jesus had said earlier, “This gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” Now, today, we hear that all nations are brought before the Son of Man in judgment. Today’s Gospel reading takes place at “the end,” the last day. “All the nations will be gathered before [Jesus],” and they will be judged according to how they received Jesus’ brethren. Did they receive the Apostles of Jesus when they came preaching His Word? Did they receive the ministers, the pastors who came preaching the good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection? Or did they ignore them and pay them no heed? Did they repent? Did they become disciples through Baptism and teaching? Or did they ignore the Word preached to them by Jesus’ brethren?

To receive the minister, you see, is to receive Christ. Not that the minister is anything special in his person. The branch is nothing apart from the vine; the minister is nothing in himself. But coming, as he does, by virtue of the office that Christ has placed him in, when he speaks the Lord’s Words, he speaks them in the stead of Jesus and by the command of Jesus. The ministers are Jesus’ brethren, and Jesus says that receiving them is to receive Him, for He has authorized them to act on His behalf, to speak His Word, to forgive and retain sins, to give to the disciples His body and His blood. Jesus says to His brethren the Apostles, “He who hears you, hears Me, and he who rejects you, rejects Me.”

Elsewhere the Lord says to the Apostles, “Whoever receives you receives Me, and whoever receives Me receives Him who sent Me. The one who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and the one who receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man’s reward. And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.” Here, Jesus says that receiving His Apostle will be regarded as receiving Jesus Himself; but He goes on to add that those who give to these Apostles, these “little ones,” the “least of these My brethren” – whoever gives to them even a cup of cold water will receive a reward. The cup of cold water is not a good work to gain entrance into heaven; it is a sign that the hearer believes the good news of Jesus preached by His brothers, the Apostles, and so does what the Word says: shares all good things with his teacher.

Jesus has sent out His ministers, His brethren, to proclaim the good news of forgiveness to you. He has even given to them this promise: “If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” And so the Small Catechism testifies that, “when the called ministers of Christ deal with us by His divine command, in particular when they exclude openly unrepentant sinners from the Christian congregation and absolve those who repent of their sins and want to do better, this is just as valid and certain, even in heaven, as if Christ our dear Lord dealt with us Himself.” By the pastor excommunicating, or forgiving, the Catechism says that Christ our dear Lord Himself is working and acting.

This means that, while my name is on the baptism certificate, I didn’t baptize Carson or Caedmon today. Jesus did. All that the mortal eye beholds is my hand pouring water, my mouth speaking, but the eye of faith sees the hand of Jesus blessing and pouring the water, and God Himself speaking and receiving the children to Himself.

So the minister’s job is to get out of the way and let Jesus speak and work. A pastor who tries to make himself “relevant” is making a mockery of God and blaspheming Him. It is God’s service, not mine. The Lord’s Service has nothing to do with what kind of music you like or what makes you feel good. It’s not about my personality, and it’s not about your felt needs – we are all here to receive the means of grace, hear what God’s Word has to say, receive what God wishes to give to us.

Today God gave to Carson and Caedmon new birth by water and the Holy Spirit. Today, Jesus gives to the communicants at this altar His true body and blood for the forgiveness of sins. When I pour the water and speak the Words, when I dish out the bread, I am nothing, a littlest of “little ones.” But Jesus says that when you receive what I am giving you, and you receive me, you aren’t receiving me but Him. It’s Jesus who baptizes you, Jesus who forgives you, Jesus who communes you, Jesus who saves you – and it will be Jesus who raises your dead body from the earth and speaks soothing and forgiving words to you at the judgment. I am the least of Jesus’ brethren – but in the office of the holy ministry, Christ has placed His promise. So don’t look at me, or whichever man is wearing the stole and chasuble, but look at the office and rejoice at what Jesus is doing to you and for you there.

So to sum up, we don’t have a lesson about doing works of mercy in today’s gospel, although we should do good to our neighbors, feed the poor and clothe those who are cold and unsheltered. A Christian is merciful and should love his neighbor as himself. But today we hear about what will be required on the last day, the day of judgment. And what is required is faith in jesus, who gives you His gifts through His lowly brethren, little ones, ministers who come giving you Jesus’ words and Sacraments. It’s all about Jesus, who gives you His forgiveness through them. So receive it with repentant joy, and wait for those happy words which will be spoken to you at the last day: “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

“Man who is born of a woman is few of days and full of trouble.” Job is not only talking about himself in those words; he is talking about us. Our days are numbered, yet in our folly we don’t count them correctly. Your days are determined; the number of your months is with God; He has appointed limits for you that you cannot pass. And so the fear of death that every man experiences is not a fear of pain in dying, but pain in life escaping, slipping away. Like a flower, man blooms, then withers and decays. Like the leaves of an autumn tree, so beautiful in vibrant color, only to fall to the earth, destined to be carried away and burned or buried.

So our lives are slipping away, and we do not experience life as we would like; and the advertisements we see, and the representations others give us of their lives, fill us with envy, covetousness, regret. No one has the home, spouse, children, and job he would exactly like, and so our experience of life is marred by regret, anxiety, and a sense that time is running out. Our days are full of trouble because of the sins we commit, and the sins committed against us. And sometimes we suffer for reasons unknown, unexplained: Job lost his children and property; Sarah, Hannah, and Elizabeth were childless for many years, shedding tears and suffering ridicule on account of their barrenness; and all experience the creeping of mortality, gradually robbing the body of sight, sound, memory, and mobility, until breath is choked out and warmth gives way to death’s icy chill. “[Man] comes out like a flower and withers; he flees like a shadow and continues not.”

But there is something greater to be feared than the death of the body. The Son of Man is coming, and He comes to judge. Which means your sins, the secret sins that you have kept hidden from others will come to light. You imagined, with the passing of time and the lack of immediate retribution, that God Himself had forgotten. But they have been recorded, and as the lightening comes from the east and flashes in the west, so will it be, when suddenly you are set before the Lord of heaven and earth; and you will be judged. And who can withstand the severity of that judgment?

“Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?” Job asks. He’s talking about birth. All children are born sinful, because no one can bring a clean thing out of an unclean; no mother can bring a clean child from her unclean body; no mother can bring a sinless child from her sinful self. No mother, that is, except the one mother who conceived without knowing a man, the one mother whose Son was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Of the entire race of man, of everyone born of woman, there is only One who was not tainted with the guilt of original sin, and who Himself committed no sins.

And so in that day of judgment, the day that is surely coming for you, you cannot hope to stand on your own goodness. Put no trust in your own merits; the Psalms teach us how to pray, and today they put on our lips these words: “Have mercy on me, O LORD…. In You, O LORD, I put my trust.”

That is how you go to sleep each night; that is how you go to your death; that is how you go to the judgment: putting no trust in your own merits, you place all your trust in Christ the Lord. All your trust is in His merits, His righteousness, His resurrection, His pardon, His blood, His life.

So St. Paul told you this morning not to be ignorant, uninformed, about those who have gone before you to the judgment. They died in Christ, he said, meaning they died as part of the one, holy, Christian and apostolic church, they died believing that in Jesus they had received the one Baptism for the remission of sins, they trusted in Christ’s merits and not their own, and so they died looking for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. All that is what St. Paul summarizes by saying they are dead “in Christ.”

Which means, they are not really dead. He calls them “asleep,” for that is what they are. Their souls are with the LORD, and their bodies sleep in the earth, and will awaken again on the last day.

Do you want to know what Christ will say to you on the last day? His verdict has been put into the mouth of his ministers, with the words “I forgive you all your sins.” That is the verdict that we cling to, that is the judgment we trust, so we may die unfearing. “Since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep…. and the dead in Christ will rise first.”

Have you ever noticed the language that people use when someone has died? They speak about the person going to “a better place,” the body as a “shell,” and generally using non-Christian language that has no foundation in the Word of God. But we have this pattern from the Holy Scriptures: “Encourage one another [comfort one another] with these words.” What words? Words about the death of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus, and the return of Jesus, when the dead in Christ will rise in their bodies, and those who are still alive will join Him in His kingdom. “Encourage one another [comfort one another] with these words.”  “And so we will always be with the Lord.”

We are at the Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity; there are twenty-seven, and these last weeks bid us think about our death, our judgment, and the end of all things. As we observe the world around us, it is becoming increasingly godless. The murder of children, born and pre-born, is an acceptable moral position in our culture; marriage is held in low regard; the Word of God held in contempt and the Sacramental worship our Lord established and the Church passed down to us is being abandoned by Christians in droves. The end of all things seems closer than ever before.

But the end of all things is for the Christian a thing of joy, for the redemption of the world will soon be brought to completion. And in these last days, as sin abounds and the church abandons the faith, there is but one thing for us to do, as Jesus spells out in the Gospel: “Wherever the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered together.” Meaning, wherever the carcass, the body of Jesus is, there the faithful will still gather together, receiving His life-giving body and cleansing blood. And so, living from the Sacrament, whether we live or die, we belong to the LORD, and so we will always be with the Lord.

Dear saints of God in Christ Jesus, baptized by water and the Holy Spirit unto sanctification and salvation: Today we observe All Saints’ Day. We often think of a saint as an exceptionally good person. The word “saint” simply means “holy one,” and Jesus describes one who is holy in today’s Gospel: one who is poor in spirit, meek, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, merciful, pure in heart, a peacemaker.

Do these things describe you? No – they condemn you. You aren’t poor in spirit, your aren’t meek, you don’t hunger and thirst for righteousness, you aren’t merciful, you aren’t pure in heart, you aren’t a peacemaker. Perhaps you are some of these things some of the time, but whoever keeps the whole law, and yet stumbles at one point, is guilty of all of it.

And yet – the Bible speaks of ordinary Christians as saints. For example, St. Paul addresses his second letter to the Corinthians, “To the church of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in all Achaia.” But the very people he calls “saints” are at the same time rebuked for being greedy, gossiping, lustful, selfish, and for taking each other to court. That doesn’t seem very saintly!

Nevertheless they are holy, not because of what they have done, but because of what they have received. They are holy because they have received Christ’s holiness, are joined to Christ’s righteousness, are in communion with Him by receiving His own body and blood. He sanctifies us, i.e., makes us holy. He does it, not us. And it is His holiness we receive, not our own we manufacture. God’s Word calls Christ Jesus “He who sanctifies”: “Both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren” [Heb. 2.11].

So, Holy Scripture calls you a saint; God views you as a saint, as one who has received the holiness of Jesus, His righteousness, in the forgiveness of sins. But that holiness is not yet complete, or made perfect. You know this, or ought to. Your thoughts and desires are soiled with sin. Even amidst worship and the Holy Communion, your thoughts roam to what is impure, lusting, filled with greed and envy, anger, doubt, pride; and sometimes you dare to be bored with the holy things of God. No, the holiness that God has declared about you has not always manifested itself in you.

So the Word of God calls you to become the saint that you are, become whom God has declared you to be. This is why we listen to Holy Scripture, and should read it throughout the week, because “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” “Become complete” – meaning you are not yet complete. You are holy, because God has declared you holy, but that holiness has not been made complete in you – and your dirty little secret is that you don’t always really care. You are too wrapped up in fear about the economy, concern about the elections, thoughts about your investments and career, your health, and fulfilling your earthly desires.

But the Holy Spirit has a different plan, that we would grow up from being spiritual children into maturity. It is written that God gives us the ministry of Word and Sacraments to equip us and build us up,

“till we all come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness by which they lie in wait to deceive, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ” [Eph. 4.13-15].

How does that growing up and becoming complete happen? It doesn’t happen by setting goals and making plans. If you want to accomplish an earthly goal – start a business, go to school and get a degree, change careers, buy a car or a house, you will need to set goals and make a list of tasks. But becoming a saint is not something you can achieve in that way. You cannot achieve it at all. In the same way that God made you a saint – by imputing to you the righteousness of Jesus, by giving you His holiness and forgiving your sins because of His crucifixion – in the same way He makes you complete and perfect, as you live more and more not from your own strength, but from the strength of the absolution when you come to confession, from the strength of Christ who dwells in you Sacramentally, whom you partake of each Divine Service.

The one thing all the saints that we remember on All Saints’ Day have in common is this: they are dead – dead in this world, that is. Today we remember the martyrs, the holy witnesses in every age who testified to the Gospel by their death. And we also remember those dear to us who have gone before us in the faith. We call them saints because they died in Christ, and thus are freed completely from sin and death.

And this is what we need to take away from this day: You become a saint by dying. Christianity is not about living, but about dying. My job as your pastor is not so much to teach you how to live, but to prepare you to die. Because you gain your life only by losing it. We have the treasure of the Gospel in the earthen vessels of our bodies, St. Paul says, “always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.” Everything that the world counts as gain, we count as dung, that we may know Christ and the power of His resurrection; the Christian desires to be conformed to Christ’s death so that we might attain to the resurrection from the dead [Phil. 3.10f].  It is in dying that we live [2 Cor. 6.9]. You become a saint by dying.

Christianity is not a tool to prosperity. Just the opposite: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” But as I said, those words, and all the Sermon on the Mount, will damn us if we see them as a program to be accomplished, tasks to check off. These sayings of Jesus that all start with “Blessed” describe Jesus Himself, and then you in Him. Jesus fulfills them, as He fulfills all the Law for you. And now, as a saint, as a holy one of God, they are being worked in you. We can sum up all these sayings in today’s Gospel this way: “Blessed are those who die in Jesus, for they shall live.”

What will it mean for you to die? You will stop trusting in your false gods of money and power, health and leisure. You will die to your desires, die to the passions, die to sin, die to everything this world has to offer. And so you will be prepared for your last hour when you go into surgery, when your mind becomes feeble and you can no longer remember, when your body becomes frail and you can no longer walk or lift things. And then you will have only one thing to say, the words we should be practicing now: 

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me, a sinner. 

If I live without you, I am dead; but if I die in You, I live.

For You alone, O Jesus, have conquered death. 

In Your death I died; and in Your life I will live. 

Therefore let me not live for this world and its vainglories. Give me Your grace that I might die to the world and live in You, and bring me through the grave to life in the paradise of Your kingdom.

In You will I live, in You will I die, and Yours will I be forever.

For those of you new to Lutheranism, it is our custom to celebrate Reformation Sunday on the last Sunday in October. Despite the fact that we have a picture of Luther preaching on the cover of the service folder, the Reformation really isn’t about Luther, and the Lutheran Church isn’t about Luther. Luther was merely – well, there really isn’t anything “mere” about Luther. His personality was larger than life, which can overshadow his real importance: that he was merely a humble instrument of God, a preacher of the kingdom of heaven. On Oct. 31, 1517, Luther nailed the Ninety-five Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. These theses begin, “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent,’ He willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” Luther was a preacher of repentance. Luther was merely a preacher of God’s Word, a preacher of the kingdom of heaven.

Luther simply followed in the train of John the Baptist, the greatest preacher of the kingdom of heaven. Girded in camel’s hair, he showed that the kingdom of heaven comes not in finery. With a diet of bugs and wild honey, he showed that the kingdom of heaven comes not in a high life of fine dining. With the desert for his home, he showed that the kingdom of heaven is not in expensive accommodations. With his preaching, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” he showed that the kingdom of heaven is found only in humility, lowliness, the turning away from sin to live for God alone. With his baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, he showed that this path of repentance was open to all, irrespective of what you have done, be you harlot, drug dealer, murderer, adulterer, or even if you have been an apathetic suburbanite more concerned about your investment portfolio, career, and social life than going to confession, saying your prayers, and growing in faith and piety. John the Baptist proclaimed God’s truth that His kingdom is open to all, be they high or low, rich or poor – but that the mark of this kingdom if repentance and bearing the fruits thereof.

Now some reject this preaching of repentance. We live in a world where sexual immorality is celebrated, where tearing the limbs from unborn children and crushing their skulls is called a choice? But the truth is, there is a part of us that rejects repentance, too. We claim to love the triune God, but are in truth obsessed with the gods of this world, its sin, its situational ethics that justifies wrong-doing. Confessing your sins on Sunday morning, are you serious about amending your sinful life on Monday morning? Repent, and bear fruits worthy of repentance.

Today’s Gospel reading comes at a time when John the Baptist is in prison for daring to tell King Herod that his adulterous life was sinful. “The kingdom of heaven suffers violence,” comments Jesus on John’s incarceration, “and the violent take it by force.” John’s life is taken by force, his head removed at the request of a dancing girl. But violence could not stop the great repentance movement that the LORD, through John’s preaching, had begun.

Christ Jesus, our Lord, whom John had pointed out as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, continued to preach repentance, inviting sinners such as Matthew and Zacchaeus, sinners such as the adulterous woman at Jacob’s Well and the woman caught in adultery, calling tax collectors and murderers to repentance. Our Lord called them to leave the broad path leading to destruction, and walk the narrow path that leads to life. Jesus preached the kingdom of heaven, the love of God for all men and His forgiveness for sinners. But Jesus was not just a reformer, revolutionary, example, or teacher. Jesus Himself was and is the kingdom of heaven, come in the flesh.

But, “The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.” They seize Him, do violence to Him, whip Him, pummel Him, slam thorns into his brow, nail  Him to a tree, thrust a spear into His side.

That is how the world responds to the call to repentance. That is how the world treats her God, who comes in love, offering peace, saying, “Come now, and let us reason together; though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.” The world wants none of it. The world’s kingdom comes with soldiers and weapons of war. In this world, kingdoms uphold their glory and exercise their might by force, and leaders come into power with smooth words and empty promises. The proud and cunning rule, while the kingdom of heaven suffers violence.

But the kingdom of heaven is not violent. The LORD’s kingdom is a kingdom of martyrs, a kingdom where the other cheek is turned, where one does good to one’s enemies and prays for his persecutors.

These two kingdoms are engaged in a great struggle, from the days of John the Baptist until now, from the day that Satan sought to raise up a kingdom against God’s kingdom of love and mercy. These kingdoms are in a great struggle; on the one side the kingdoms of earthly pride and the reign of the devil, and on the other side, the kingdom of heaven, abiding in humility and repentance.

The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. The kingdom of heaven suffers violence in this world, and as Reformation Christians, we stand up and are counted willing to suffer the world’s hatred, and even the scorn of other Christians because we hold that, as our Confessions say, “the Word of God is and should remain the sole rule and norm of all doctrine, and that no human being’s writings dare be put on a par with it, but that everything must be subjected to it.” We are Lutherans not because we follow Luther, but because we hold to the same opinion that Luther held, that only the Word of God rules in the Church, not popes or councils or synods; the source of doctrine only comes from the Scriptures, not a convention or commission, not any human tradition or assembly. We are Lutherans not because we follow Luther, but because Luther stands in the long line of those preaching in the mode of John the Baptist: “Repent!” and, “Behold, Christ Jesus, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world!” Put not your trust in princes or popes; put not your trust in your works, feelings, experiences or decisions. In Christ Jesus alone can we trust and hope. Luther and the other reformers simply continued the great repentance movement that began with John the Baptist, a repentance and reforming movement that looks only to Jesus, to the grace He won for us.

The church doesn’t need a program (or even a grass-roots movement!). The church doesn’t need visions or convocations or meetings. No political action can save the church. No fundraising campaign can save the church. The church stands or falls by the doctrine found in the Word of God, the doctrine that we are justified, declared righteous, entirely by grace through faith, apart from the deeds of the law. The church needs to continuously reform, we all need to be constantly returning to that doctrine in which alone is our life. The church needs to continuously reform by hearing the united voice of Paul Gerhardt, John Gerhard, Martin Chemnitz, Martin Luther, of Gregory the Great, of St. John Chrysostom, of Augustine of Hippo, of Ambrose of Milan, of St. Paul, of John the Baptist, all crying out to us from across the ages: “Repent! The Kingdom of God is at hand!” Reformation begins anew when you and I turn from our sins, hear the Word of God, and lead holy lives according to it.

It will not be easy. It may involve suffering violence. Certainly it will involve not being glorified or deemed successful in this world. Those within the church itself will oppose real reformation. They always have. Luther was called a heretic and outlaw by the leader of Christians in his day. Jan Hus was burned at the stake. John the Baptist was beheaded. Most of the Apostles suffered martyrdom. But we are called to take up the cross and follow Jesus, who suffered violence. And it is precisely in that violence, the violent seizure and crucifixion of Jesus, wherein our hope and joy is to be found. From His cross comes our life. The sins for which we repent are paid for on His cross. The sinner that I am is nailed to the tree. the sinner that you are is drowned in Baptism, pierced and spit upon in Jesus. On the cross, the kingdom of heaven suffered violent, and the violent took it by force, the violence lost, the devil was defeated, your sins atoned for, death undone, peace with God once more is made.

That is what the Reformation is about – God’s free gift to you there, in Jesus on the cross willingly suffering violence in your place. So let this Reformation service not be a mere historical observance. Let the Lutheran doctrine, which is the truly catholic doctrine, the Christian doctrine of the Scriptures, live on today by the reform and repentance which is renewed in our hearts and lives today.

And let us tell a world of violence about the kingdom of heaven. Let us tell a world deluded into thinking that there are many paths to salvation that the one and only path has been opened to us in Jesus. Let us tell a world which, despite nearly five hundred years of Reformation teaching still thinks God accepts us on the basis of our own works, that salvation is only by grace through faith in Christ Jesus. Let us tell the generation to come the mighty deeds of our Savior. Let us be steadfast in God’s Word. Let the Reformation live among us, through lives of repentance!

Today, Reformation is not a doctrine or a subject. Reformation comes freely to you and in you through the reforming, redeeming, renewing Body and Blood of your only Mediator and Redeemer, Christ Jesus the Lord!

Our wonderful interim school administrator, Mrs. Margaret Zensinger, had a pricless quote the other day: “Of course we have contemporary worship music at Immanuel. It’s called ‘Ralph Vaughan Williams.’”