A Good Day

Day unto day utters speech, And night unto night reveals knowledge. -Psalm 19:2

It has been my practice over the past several years to think of each day on a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of whether it is a good day.

The only day for me that will ever be a 10 is the day my baptism is completed and I am in the nearest presence of Christ, my LORD. That is the day upon which, according to this world, I die.

If there happens to come a day at 1 or below it will be a day that I, by my own reason and strength, reject Christ Jesus. That is the day upon which, according to this world, I live.

Most days have landed above a 5, but below an 8. Being a bit creative, I tend to take the assessment out two decimals, so today, June 26, 2020 would rank at about 6.89.

All of this raises a question of serious import: What constitutes a good day? Or, as the world puts it, a “nice” day.

Is it a good day when everything goes just as you wished and planned? The question is loaded. What is “good?” What does a day count when there are so many, not to mention an eternity to follow?

The course of history from the beginning is that days mark it out in the biggest way. We have come to mark days out in 24-hour increments, and have even taken time into nano-second considerations.

But who owns time, and where did it come from, and what makes your time good or bad?

For those who are baptized into Christ Jesus, all of time is good, even though by all appearances much of it is bad. The pains of a troubled conscience and the prospect of death, along with certain losses, one would allocate to the bad side of life.

But wait. Since those who are baptized into Christ Jesus are baptized into all of time at once, what appears bad is, in fact good. Why? Because it is God’s creation and time, into which He entered with flesh and blood like yours.

A good day is measured on God’s terms, not yours. It is His aim to love and discipline you in His only-begotten Son, Christ Jesus. This He does just for you, every day.

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The Spoken Words

“What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light; and what you hear whispered in your ear, proclaim upon the housetops. -Matthew 10:27

And just like that, things are looking red. Not the paraments and the vestments which are still green to mark the Ordinary time of the Church, but the letters of the Gospel text this day, spoken by Christ Jesus in your midst.

You have heard of “red letter” versions of the Sacred text, have you not? They are versions where the words spoken directly by Christ Jesus as He went in and out among the Apostles are printed with red ink.

Were it not for the words repeated from the Holy Gospel from last Sunday, namely these eight words, “These twelve Jesus sent out after instructing them,” every single word of today’s Gospel is spoken directly by Christ Jesus. Every word is a red letter word.

It is fitting on this second Sunday in the ordinary time of the Church year to have such a rich and full text consisting only of words spoken by Christ Jesus, for it is by His Word and by His speaking, and His alone, that the Church comes into being and lives and is sustained from day to day and into eternity.

You know, this is why, when the Holy Gospel is read aloud in our midst, we do not sit on our behinds. We stand up. We do not just stand up, but we sing the Alleluia verse.

You confess with St. Peter, “LORD, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Words of eternal life they are. Better than food which perishes.

Today you sang, “Alleluia. Everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before My Father who is in heaven.” This is most certainly true, for by His Word Jesus imparts all things, including Himself, so that you may be brought to the Father and kept there forever.

Red letter words: the Words spoken directly by Christ Jesus, first to His hearers who were the disciples and apostles, and now this day to His Church, where the ministry of the Apostles continues until such time as this age is complete.

We will circle back to these red letter words in a few minutes, but for now what about the other words? What about the other words? What about the black letter words? What about words that do not come from Christ Jesus and do not teach of him?

Do you remember the words that were spoken when you were conceived in your mother’s womb? No. At that time your consciousness was not developed enough to have a memory.

But God remembers, because when you were conceived in your mother’s womb it was together with His express will and Word. You are not an accident. Some speaking took place.

But what was said, and how was it said, when you were conceived in your mother’s womb? Do you think there was a narrator? The manner and method of words is so multitudinous. The ways to express things, as you have now come to learn, is so various.

There is first, second, and third person. There is direct discourse, indirect discourse, and all manner of voices such as making a statement, asking a question, making an exclamation of surprise, giving a command, expressing a wish or desire, all while considering the past, the present, and the future.

There are even things placed before your reason and senses for which you and everyone around you are at a loss for words.

Not only all this, but how many sources have there been for all the words you have been given to hear? What were the first words you ever heard and comprehended? Where did they come from? Maybe it was your Dad, who said in so many words, “Welcome to the world, O little stranger.” Yes. Direct discourse from your Dad. He was talking to you and no one else.

Maybe it was your Mom, who said in so many words, “Hello there, my little love,” directly and only to you.

It is without question that other words were spoken in your hearing even before you were born, but these are probably not words you remember. Nevertheless they also did not go without effect. Words do not sit in a vacuum. They do something, as you well know.

As for the other voices, who are they and where do they come from? Books. Magazines. Newspapers. Movies. Audio recordings. The strangers you encounter from day to day. The people you work with. The friends you keep company with. The people you work with. Your brothers and sisters. Your spouse. Radio and television broadcasts. The internet. And then there are the thoughts that pop into your head. Where do those come from, and whose idea was it to put them there?

Oboy. Are you beginning to see just how many words there are, how many places they come from, how many ways they are expressed, and what effect they have had on you from the day you were conceived in your mother’s womb?

It again is no wonder that, as last weeks Gospel says, “distressed and dispirited” is characteristic of the situation for you and all those around you.

But the One Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit in His mother’s womb, namely Christ Jesus, as your one and only Savior and substitute in every aspect of life and of death, heard and spoke only those words which will bring you to the Father in everlasting joy, so it is His Words, more than any others, that are to cut through all the other voices out there – especially the voices that would drive you to pride, despair, and every kind of shame and vice – His Word and voice cut through all the garbage (as it were) so that you are obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you are now committed: a disciple of Christ Jesus under His Cross together with Him.

Is it not true, that when you hear the words spoken by Christ Jesus, preserved for you and for the whole Church throughout the ages by the Holy Spirit, that when you hear these words they are completely distinct from those other things you hear from day today or think up for yourself?

Where you would think to yourself, “I will stand up on the side of all that is good, true, and right, even if I must die for it,” the fact is, when the Shepherd is struck you would turn tail and run like hell just like each and every one of the disciples did in the Garden of Gethsemane.

It is precisely into scenes such as this, where you would count on your own thoughts and words to sustain you, that Christ Jesus speaks red letter words into your heart by His Holy Spirit: “Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.”

You see, this Christ Jesus, Who has body and soul, has come to save you body and soul with His body and soul. His life. That is what He imparts to you, who were conceived in your mother’s womb under His tender mercies at the beginning, and who are sustained in life to this very day.

Having been utterly abandoned on the Cross for all your sin and transgression, and having been raised from the dead on account of His faithfulness ON YOUR BEHALF AS YOUR SUBSTITUTE, He is able to strengthen and encourage you so that - not by your reason or strength, but by His Word - you may proceed without fear of death or anything man may do to you in this life.

“But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.”

Where you would think to yourself, “I will just go along to get along, live and let live, and not judge anyone, not upset anyone, not rock the boat and float through life with as little pain or trouble as possible,” the fact is that you who are baptized into Christ Jesus cannot make an easy way for yourself.

It is precisely in the face of thoughts such as this, that Christ Jesus speaks red letter words into your heart by His Holy Spirit: “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. You will be hated by all because of My name, but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved.”

You may say, “But Jesus is speaking to his Apostles here. These words are not for me, are they?”

Well, you tell me. What do you hear and what do you see in the world today? Do you and everyone around you confess Christ Jesus before the world without any negative consequence whatsoever, or are those who confess Christ hated and persecuted?

Indeed, it is the latter that is happening. You know it has been this way from the beginning. The righteous are persecuted. Those who cling to the one and only true God are despised by the world.

“Why is that?,” you say, with your own internal direct discourse (or maybe you wonder it aloud together with your fellow Christians). “Why does the world hate Jesus?” O, they do not only hate Him, but they take His words and twist them into excuses for their own shame, or turn Him into nothing more than a nice, smiling man who was a great teacher in His day.

But why?

Because it is the nature of light and of darkness to be opposites, just as it is the nature of sin and holiness to be opposites.

You who have been baptized into Christ Jesus, who abide in Him, and who are taught by Him, who are under the care of pastors sent by Him, you do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and you do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but you present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members – your arms, legs, fingers, toes, mouths, ears, eyes, reason, and all senses - as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

The world hates that, and will have nothing to do with Christ except to crucify Him anew, along with anyone who believes, teaches, and confesses His Name. “If they have called the head of the house Beelzebul (which is in effect calling Him “Lord of the Shit Flies” or “Prince of Demons”), how much more will they malign the members of his household!”

But, as Christ Jesus says to you this day, you need not fear them. The LORD is with you like a dread champion. Your persecutors will stumble and not prevail. They will be utterly ashamed, because they have failed, with an everlasting disgrace that will not be forgotten.

“Therefore,” says Jesus with direct discourse and red letter words, “do not fear them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light; and what you hear whispered in your ear, proclaim upon the housetops.”

Where have you heard that before? What radio or TV show? What work of fiction? What documentary? You have not heard these words anywhere than from the mouth of Christ Jesus, and they are still in effect. From Him you know and have been taught that you, and all that pertains to your body and life in this age, are an open book before God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.

What Jesus discloses to His disciples in that short time where His body of flesh was soaking up the sin of the world with the glory of God hidden under the cross of darkness, this is NOW disclosed, revealed, and proclaimed to every tribe and nation and tongue, so that the great harvest is underway to the present day even unto the end of this age; a harvest which has brought you into the tender care and mercies of Christ Jesus, your Dread Champion who presents you to the Father in His Name and sustains you by His Word and Spirit, red letters and all even as His Word was, is, and evermore shall be.

In all truth, God the Father of our LORD Jesus Christ by His Holy Spirit has made you his own from the beginning, so that He is yours with every blessing, to protect and help you in all need.

Look. The one Who bids you to fear the one who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell has given His soul and body voluntarily into just that condition, not as a ghost, but while garbed in the same flesh and blood you have. This He did not do for His own sake, but for yours.

Having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, you have this gift, resulting in sanctification, that is a separation from the ways of this world of sin and death, AND resulting in the outcome, namely eternal life both now and forever as your God and Savior brings you to Himself.

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A Little Light

“You are the light of the world." -Matthew 5:14a

In many and various ways the Holy Spirit points Christ Jesus to you, and you to Christ Jesus, for Christ Jesus, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit are the One, true God, apart from Whom there is no other, and Who in these last days still shines for you as a light shining in the darkness.

A light shining in the darkness. That is how the Holy Spirit testifies of Christ Jesus through the prophets and apostles, and through your pastors today and now. This is what “Epiphany” means, namely the revelation of Christ Jesus unto the world, attested to you by the Father and the Holy Spirit as the only Son from heaven, come to save you and all people from sin, from death, and from the power of the devil.

In the Holy Gospel according to St. John, the text concerning the wedding at Cana, where Jesus blesses the wedding with abundant wine when the wine had run out, this text is used on the Second Sunday after the Epiphany both in the Three-Year Lectionary and in the One Year Lectionary.

It is a beautiful showing forth of Christ Jesus your LORD who has come to bless you with the abundance of His mercy, which flows forth like the finest of wines and in great abundance.

The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew, appointed for this day, is no different, for what can be more revealing, what can be more life-giving, what can be more public, what can be more abundant in showing forth the only begotten Son of God than for Him, upon seeing the crowds who were at this point following Him - to go up on the mountain upon, sit down, have His disciples come to Him, and then open His mouth and began to teach them?

He is the Only-begotten Son, with Whom God the Father is well pleased. Listen to Him, for He teaches not as the Scribes and the Pharisees, but with authority, for He is God in human flesh, come to serve and to lay down his life.

This He does not do without words. This He does do, together with the words of eternal life, so that you also may hear Him this day and be both saved and comforted in this perverse generation.

Today’s Gospel begins with the tenth saying in what the Church has called “The Sermon on the Mount.” You see, the Epiphany of your Lord happens from Above and comes down to you, as a light for you, a light that shines into your hearing.

So He is literally above the people on this mountain, as it should be. As the law was given to Moses from atop Mt. Sinai, the Gospel this day is given to you first from the mountain in Galilee where these words were first spoken, and then delivered to you from this pulpit, which also, as you can see, is elevated above your pew.

Speaking of elevation, the traditional mountain ascribed to where Jesus speaks these words is on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee, between Capernaum and the archeological site of Gennesaret, on the southern slopes of the Korazim Plateau. Its negative altitude (around 80 feet below sea level) makes it one of the lowest summits of the world. Think of that. A mountain top that is below sea level!

And that makes sense, for the Son of Man came down to seek and to save that which is lost, to shine forth in word and in deed as the one and only perfect sacrifice for the sin of the world, your sin and mine, and to accompany His word for you with words of speech and teaching. More than that, with water, bread, and wine.

He comes down low into the earth not to exalt Himself, but to make payment for your sin and exalt you, to raise you up from your death of sin and trespass, to plant you in his vineyard as you are grafted into Him, to set you free from bondage, to cover your nakedness, to be your rear guard, and to keep you together with Himself in the one true Church until the Last Day.

And what does He say to you this day, this Holy Son of God who is Your Epiphany?

He says, “You are the salt of the earth.” These words of Christ Jesus will remain the focus of our attention until such time as we enter into the prayers of the Church this day.

“You are the salt of the earth.” What does he mean by this? To whom is he speaking? Does he mean this as a kind of compliment? Is he speaking to you as an individual, or is he giving this attribution to a whole bunch of people at once? What does it mean to be the salt of the earth?

Without question, these words apply to all who hear His voice and who follow Him. He is speaking to His disciples, of which there are twelve. He is also speaking to the crowd which by definition is comprised of many people.

By virtue of His Gospel going out into all the earth, He this day and hour is speaking to you as a congregation. He is speaking to you as an individual, and yet you cannot and do not live as an island or as a hermit, so that, whether you know and believe it or not, who you are as an individual is always intertwined with other people of your flesh and your blood.

Moreover, it is plain from the original language, which is able, unlike the English language, so spell out plainly whether “you” means “you” as a single individual, or “you” as in “y’all.” I suppose a good Texas translation would be “Y’all are the salt of the earth.”

And this, dear Christians, is an Epiphany in its own right, for if Christ Jesus had not spoken this and you not heard it, you would be floundering in confusion, thinking yourself to be your own person, dependent upon no one other than yourself, and defined as the devil, the world, and your own flesh would define you.

These words are not spoken as a compliment – you are the salt of the earth. They are spoken by the only Son from heaven who defines you through His baptism of water and speech.

Yes. As it stands, you are defined by Christ Jesus, into Whom you have been baptized, and who declares you first of all to be His own Child, having brought you into the flesh of His death and resurrection, and Who also declares you to be the salt of the earth, which chief attribute and purpose is that of . . . preservation.

True, we commonly know salt as a spice for food and a threat to physical well-being when ingested in excess, but in this case your dear LORD is telling you, y’all both corporately and individually, that you are a preservative in the world.

How can this be? It can be, and is, because God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in your hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

It is you, dear Christians, who tread upon this earth in the sure and certain knowledge, revealed and given to you not in superiority of speech or of wisdom, who are determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.

It is you who tread upon this earth, wherever you are given among men, in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, whose messages and deeds are not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power as you are raised up in the heavenly places in and through Christ Jesus, so that your faith does not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.

It is also you, dear Christians, who tread upon this earth, who speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away; but you speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory; the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood.

This altogether makes you the world’s preservative, not so that you can serve your whims and wishes, but so that God, through you and for you, withholds the judgment of wrath which is well deserved on account of the world’s sin and transgression, and instead acts in abundant mercy through His only begotten Son, given into death for the sin of the world, and raised up from the dead for your justification, allowing you to cry out to God and to be heard through this Christ Jesus alone, Who is your advocate before the Father.

This saltiness is yours because God in His mercy and by His Holy Spirit preaches to you, sanctifies you, and edifies you. He continually makes known to you that He is your only true God, your only Help in time of trouble, your only deliverance from sin and death.

This saltiness is yours because He has taken your heart of stone and replaced with a heart of flesh, the heart of Christ, Who was, and is, perfectly obedient unto the commands of God, seeking Him with His whole heart, not straying from His commandments. He guides you in the way of these commandments, and that makes you, y’all, the salt of the earth.

“But if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.”

Should you despise and neglect the Word of the LORD, then the saltiness will be lost. For there is no preservation or life apart from Christ Jesus Who comes to you only through His Word. There is no good purpose in being trampled underfoot, for what is trampled underfoot is worthless, like chewed up, spit out gum on a Disneyland manhole cover.

So listen. He Who speaks to you from this low mountain is also He Who was uplifted on the cross. This lifting up is for all to see and to know. With a soul exceedingly sorrowful, even to the point of death, He is preserved so that you, believing and being baptized into Him may also be preserved, and be a preserver in the midst of this world for a time subject to futility, but at the last made anew.

Your LORD Jesus has sacrificed Himself for the sin of the world, and in bringing you into His body, He seasons the world with you – yes you, as you are - and with the sacrifice of thanksgiving, so that you live here as life giving members of His body, in love and service to your neighbor and in thanksgiving for all things given you from Above, from the light of the World.

It is He who will preserve you, body and soul, unto life everlasting. It is He who feeds you with His body and blood in this place to that very and. It is He Who will shine forth in you and before men, that they may see your good works, your preserving works, and glorify your Father in heaven.

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