In the early 1900’s, the London Times newspaper asked several famous authors to submit essays on the question, “What is wrong with the world?” Now, if you were asked that question today, what would you answer? Islamic terrorism? Rampant drug use and abuse? More and more violent crime? The breakdown of the family? Increasing isolation and loneliness?

Well, one of the authors, a man named G.K. Chesterton, wrote in response to the question “What is wrong with the world?” “Dear sirs, I am. Yours truly, G.K. Chesterton.” Now he could have said many things. But Chesterton, a Christian, knew what was what, and by God’s grace he had the humility to say it: “I am” what’s wrong.

Today we hear a parable from our Lord Jesus about those who would answer the question “What is wrong with the world” in two different ways. One would say some variation of “I may not be perfect, but…” and then list all the ways that he or she is at least not the biggest problem. The other would say, “I am.” The parable is about spiritual pridefulness.

Now what exactly is spiritual pridefulness? Well, let’s start with standard-issue pride. What is that? The dictionary definition positively states it as, “A sense of one’s own proper dignity or value; self-respect.” When does someone become prideful, though? When that sense of value becomes haughty, when someone values themself over others; or sometimes we’ll say, “he values himself too highly”; “he thinks too highly of himself.”

When it comes to spiritual things, now we’re talking about someone’s dignity or value spiritually speaking; that is, truly, value before God. To be spiritually prideful is to think too highly of oneself; to think oneself higher or better or more valuable than another, before God.

The Pharisee assesses himself: ”I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.” Frankly, there’s nothing wrong with this. The problem with the Pharisee is not his fasting or his tithing. It’s not in the strength that enabled him to resist taking advantage of his neighbors, or to resist adultery, or giving in to greed. The problem here is that the Pharisee thinks that he is righteous enough; spiritually strong enough to earn God’s favor; and that whatever his faults and weaknesses are, they are insignificant compared to other people’s faults and weaknesses. Therefore, he is the best candidate to receive God’s love and favor. “Chief of sinners though I be, that guy sure is worse than me.”

That is spiritual pride. Or as Luke puts it: he is one who trusts in himself that he is righteous, and treats others with contempt.

The Pharisee truly lives a good life. He avoids evil, does good, gives away his possessions, trains his flesh for hardship. He avoids sin and he is the better for it: there is no real or lasting pleasure in sin. Don’t believe me? Pick a rock star and read his biography. Debauchery doesn’t lead to happiness. The Pharisee knows this. He has much to be thankful form in this good life that God has blessed him to lead.

But anyone who thinks that he stands take heed, lest he fall. The Pharisee outwardly looks holy and righteous – we tend to think of them as the “bad guys” in these stories but the fact is that everyone would have looked up to them. When Jesus says to “beware of the leaven of the Pharisees” that would have been a shockingly scandalous statement to hear, because the Pharisees were the spiritual superstars of the time.

Anyways, the Pharisee looks holy and righteous outwardly, but inside he is nothing but a rotting maggot-sack of sin and death. And don’t you think better of yourself right now, because you’re nothing better than that, too. Likewise the tax collector, who had lived his own life of sin and debauchery, extorting his own neighbors, living the high life on the backs of all those from whom he collected taxes. The point is this: we ought not trust in ourselves for anything, spiritually speaking, because we are rotten to the core.

Yet Jesus tells this story about these two rotten guys in the temple and one of them goes home justified. Top it all off, it’s the guy that no one would expect.

If you get to pick what sort of a man to be between the Pharisee with honor in the community and a steady job and the Tax Collector of public shame and regret, pick the Tax Collector. For he went home justified. He confessed his sins before God. He trusted in God to cover for him, to receive him by grace, to forgive him. And God did.

Do you want to have worth and dignity before God? This only comes in the righteousness bestowed by Christ on sinners.

The Church has deliberately chosen the Tax Collector for her model of prayer. His actions in the parable are precisely why we typically bow our heads and close our eyes and fold our hands in prayer. We come before God as sinners in need of mercy. We want to go home justified. We do not trust in ourselves or our works. We don’t count ourselves as bad, but not as bad as that guy. No: “Chief of sinners though I be, Jesus shed His blood for me.” That’s the truth.

There’s a flip-side spiritual pride that is sometimes at work in the Church. This is the pride that sort of flaunts just how bad of a sinner we have been, maybe even still are, as a way to showcase just how great the grace and mercy of God are. But sin is harmful, and God explicitly warns us that we should not keep on sinning that grace may abound; likewise that we ought to be warring against sin and not boasting in it, even if it is to show forth the grace of God in Christ Jesus; and we ought not lead others into scandal or sin themselves by our lives.

Instead, we ought to look at that Tax Collector and see him doing nothing but in repentance coming to hear and taste and see God’s mercy, and then going home. And when he goes home we would see him beginning to look, in an outward way, like the Pharisee. Not self-righteous or spiritually prideful, but instead loving the Lord’s words and commandment and wanting to keep them. So he’d be fasting to train his flesh. He’d be tithing of all that he had in compassion for the poor and for the expansion of God’s kingdom, but also to curb his flesh and not be tempted by the mammon. He would resist evil. He would do good.

And we know this to be the case, because even though this parable doesn’t show this, another real-life story one chapter later in Luke’s Gospel does. Zacchaeus, small of stature and climber of trees–and also a tax collector–receives Christ joyfully in his house and hears the wonderful news that he is forgiven and then in his new freedom pledges to give half of all his goods to the poor and to restore fourfold everything he had that was from dishonest gain. He bears fruit in keeping with repentance. ”Today salvation has come this house,” says Jesus. Wonderful. Both tax collectors–sinners–are saved in their houses, that is, where they live.

And this Gospel changes them. They are not perfect, nor better than others. But they are saved and they have the abundant life that only comes from Jesus.

You are sinners. But Jesus has died for you, and today He announces through me that your sins are forgiven. He gives this meal to deliver to you His body and blood for the forgiveness of your sins. When you go home you go home justified, forgiven.

“For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

”Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.”

+INJ+

August is an interesting month. Historians call August the month of catastrophes. World War I began in August. It was in August that Hitler gave the order to invade Poland the next day and start World War II. The atomic bombs were dropped on Japan in August. The Berlin Wall was built in August. Iran invaded Kuwait in August. Katrina happened in August.

And on August 10, A.D. 70, the Romans finished their siege and subsequent destruction of Jerusalem by going into the Temple complex and the Temple itself, razing it all to the ground. Down came Jerusalem, God’s city. Down came the Temple, that sign to all of Israel that the Lord was present among them, that they were His people and He was their God. No more sign. No more hope. ”Not my people” He said.

And this was all warned. This is what the Lord Himself had predicted, as we hear today. ”For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you…”

This was the last of the promises and predictions that the Lord gave to His people Israel. We heard some of His threats in the reading from Jeremiah today, too: that the Lord would let His people dwell in this place – that is, in Jerusalem, in Israel – so long as they would continue to hear the word of the Lord and worship the Lord and live according to His ways, in repentance and faith.

We heard last week from St. Paul, who was talking about all the things that Israel did in the Old Testament and what the Lord therefore did because of their unfaithfulness and wickedness: ”Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.”

In other words, the desire of God that His people would listen to Him, would believe Him, would live our lives according to His will and not in wickedness and selfishness and idolatry, and His threats against those who would instead continue to live in sin and evil and go after other gods and idols; the Lord’s desires and promises and threats, all these are for us, too. These are spoken to us to instruct us.

What does this mean? We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things, simply put. We should not think that because I am baptized or because I am confirmed that therefore I can do whatever I want. We should not think that because the Lord by His abundant grace forgives our sins that therefore we can continue in sin that His grace may abound all the more, that we can keep on sinning because He loves to forgive us. By no means!

In fact we should pay attention to what happened to Israel and recognize it as a sign of the Lord’s wrath over sin and unbelief. Jesus predicts the terrible destruction of Jerusalem would come about. And why does this happen to them? Yes they are sinners. Yes they live wickedly. Yes they have lived unjustly towards their neighbors, towards the poor and the immigrant. But, Jesus says, they are utterly destroyed ”because you did not know the time of your visitation.”

It is not sin that damns. It is unbelief. It’s not the sin of Israel that dooms them but instead their rejection of the Lord and His promises and His Christ. And also you and me, and the whole world. We are born in sin and unbelief, and by God’s grace He rescues us out of it in the waters of baptism, by His promise of forgiveness and salvation for the sake of Christ’s death and resurrection.

Jesus is at Jerusalem to die for the sins of the world. Oh that they would recognize this! Oh that they would turn from their wicked ways and trust in this promised Messiah! Oh that they would have made the temple a house of prayer instead of a den of robbers.

Alas, they did not. God’s judgment comes.

There’s another detail in the reading I want to make sure we see. When Jesus draws near to the city and sees it, what does He do: He weeps. Jesus wept over Jerusalem. God weeps over death and unbelief. He does not want it. He wants sinners to repent, turn from our ways, and live!

The destruction of Jerusalem and the destruction of the unbeliever is the work of God. Over and over we see it in the prophets, the Lord sees the pride of a nation, even of His own people, and He promises to destroy it, to wipe out the people or the nation or the city. The Lord will destroy every attempt of man to be god or to reach up to god. He has pride in His sights and He shoots it down in every place and every land.

God is not some nice guy like the world likes to think of Him. He is holy, and so He is angry at sin and unbelief and pride, and He, over and over in the Scriptures, threatens to destroy pride and punish sin and pour out His wrath on all idolatry and ungodliness.

But He doesn’t want to. God will destroy all forms of unbelief, but this makes Him sad, in fact it makes Him cry. This is why Jesus is weeping over Jerusalem.

Jesus came to save, not destroy; to rescue, not ruin. He came so that the wrath of God over sin could be poured out on Him and not on His people. Jesus came to be killed, not to kill, but the people would not have Him, and so they fled from the refuge so graciously provided and rushed head-long into their own destruction.

So we are warned that unbelief will not remain unpunished, and that the Lord hates pride. But more than that, dear saints, we are comforted. Comforted by the tears of our Lord Jesus because in them we see His heart, what He wants and desires most of all, and that is our salvation.

”This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Those are Paul’s words to Timothy, and they are the truth about God and about what He wants. God wants your salvation. Jesus wants you to live forever with Him. This is why Jesus came, why he lived and died, why He went into Jerusalem: to take away the Sin of the world.

+INJ+

In a time like this, when someone young and with so much promise unexpectedly dies, we just can’t believe it, can’t understand it. Why would a young man like Adam, so full of joy and generosity and love – so clearly hearing the Word of God and holding it fast in a honest and good heart and bearing fruit with patience – why would God call Adam, so full of love, to Himself now?

Adam loved

• his parents
• his brother
• his sister
• his grandparents
• his aunts, uncles, cousins
• his friends
• his church
• being Lutheran
• music
• Star Wars
• Legos
• videogames
• telling jokes
• all sorts of interesting theories
• telling me and anyone who would listen all about the interesting theories he’d been pondering
• inventing things
• telling me and anyone who would listen all about the things that he invented
• taking care of people
• Jesus, his Lord and Savior.

But more importantly – no most importantly – Jesus loves Adam. And this is where we’re going to find comfort and answers. Not in Adam’s love for anything, but in Jesus Christ’s love for Adam.

So let me tell you about Jesus, Adam’s Lord.

Yesterday we heard those wonderful words from John, chapter 3 – the same words on the inside of the casket lid: ”For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. The love of God for the world – and that includes Adam – is what’s going to sustain us today, and in the weeks and months and years to come. Because of Jesus, God’s Son, giving Himself into death for our sins, death has no sting, no power. There is nothing to fear from death, in Jesus. Because of Jesus, God’s Son, conquering death by His own death, we receive all good things from God the Father. Because of Jesus, God’s Son, being raised from death on the Third Day (on that first Easter), we live now in the promise and hope of everlasting life with God, with Jesus, and with Adam.

Adam fell asleep in Christ; he fell asleep in the promise that Christ’s death and resurrection have been given to him; that Christ death and resurrection are Adam’s own death and resurrection. We have confidence in this because God has attached this promise to Holy Baptism and Adam, on December 14, 2003, was baptized in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Gary and Terry, you faithfully, expectantly believed God’s promise and command and brought Adam to the Font in order to be born again in this new birth of water and the Spirit.

Paul writes about this in Romans and we spoke aloud those promises just a little while ago when the pall was put on Adam’s casket. Christ’s death and resurrection – death to sin, alive to God – became Adam’s death to death and promise of everlasting life when he was baptized. ”Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

In Baptism, Jesus loves Adam. The Lord sprinkled clean water on Adam. He took Adam’s heart of stone – now it’s hard to imagine that he had a heart of stone, ever! But we trust in what God tells us about ourselves: we are sinful and unrighteous from the very beginning. ”Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.”

Yet the Lord, by grace and in love, took that heart of stone and gave Adam a heart of flesh. He put His Spirit within Adam so that Adam would live, love, and do the good works prepared beforehand for him to do. A clean heart was created in Adam, and the right Spirit was put within him. All of this is the work of God, the gift of God.

Just over a year ago Adam stood up here at this altar, after being instructed in the teachings of the Christian Faith – although to be honest he knew most of what we covered in catechism class already – he stood up here and confessed his faith in Christ. He said “I believe in God the Father Almighty…I believe in Jesus Christ my Lord…I believe in the Holy Spirit!” ”If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Adam’s confession that Jesus is Lord is a gift of God, flowing from Adam’s Baptism into Christ.

And then faithfully, just about every week – probably every week – Adam came to this Altar and received the Lord’s Supper. He ate the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ given for the forgiveness of sin. Jesus loves Adam: He says, “For you!” Adam said back, “for me!” The Lord blessed Adam with forgiveness, life, and salvation in that meal. Just this past Sunday, about 24 hours before Adam fell asleep in Christ, he gladly ate and drank the eternal-life-giving food that Jesus fed to him.

Thanks be to God, we therefore have confidence and assurance that Adam now rests from his labors in the paradise of heaven, with Jesus, waiting for the last day when in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, Adam will be raised from the dead imperishable and will live in the glorious eternal presence and bliss of life with Christ. All of us who are in Christ have this promise, this hope; and we have this joyful expectation of this being a happy reunion with all of those who have gone before us in Christ, Adam included.

Last Advent, Adam came up to Mrs. Schuermann and me and told us his favorite Christmas hymn: Paul Gerhardt’s “O Jesus Christ, Thy Manger Is.” I’ll close with the last stanza of this hymn:

”The world may hold Her wealth and gold; But thou, my heart, keep Christ as thy true treasure. To Him hold fast Until at last A crown be thine and honor in full measure.”

As Adam sang this hymn, he prayed this prayer. Jesus loves Adam and said, “yes.” The Lord enlivened Adam’s heart in baptism, He fed Adam’s hungry heart with His Supper, and He sustained Adam’s believing heart with His Word. And now the Lord Jesus has given Adam the crown of life in full measure, according to His promise. On the Last Day He will raise Adam from the dead.

Jesus loves Adam. All of these promises, all of what Jesus has done: these are what we must cling to for assurance and comfort. ”The Lord is my portion; therefore I will hope in him.” In the darkest night, Christ’s mercy is our light.

”Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” ”His mercy endures forever.”

+INJ+

Note: Finley Monroe Williams and Ellasyn Reece Williams were both baptized during the Divine Service.

Every day is a great day for a baptism. Yesterday, though, as I finished up this sermon, I was marveling at what a great day today is for a baptism. The various readings and prayers appointed for today, while not specifically about Holy Baptism, nevertheless direct our thoughts to what the Lord did in our midst just a little while ago, and what He did for us when He baptized us and sealed us as His children with the Holy Spirit and ensured that we, his heirs, will receive our promised inheritance.

First, the antiphon from Isaiah 45, which I spoke at the start and end of the Introit:

“Shower, O heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain down righteousness.”

Where else does the pouring out of water onto the Lord’s creation give righteousness but in the blessed waters of the baptismal font? The little bit of heavenly drizzle that fell onto the heads of Ellasyn and Finley a little while ago poured Christ’s righteousness all over them.

Peter tells us about this when he writes, “Baptism…now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ…” (1 Peter 3:21)

Your conscience tells you when you have done right or wrong. Baptism has given you a good conscience – a conscience that is not guilty before God – because in your baptism you have been put into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus died for the sins of the world; in your baptism, you now have been in that death. Jesus was raised to show that sins are paid for, eternal life is given, and righteousness is restored to man; in your baptism, you now are in that resurrection.

Paul tells us about this in Romans 6: “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

So by the shower of Holy Baptism, Finley, Ellasyn, and you are put into Christ’s death and resurrection; you are righteous and holy and you can count the promise of the resurrection into eternal life on the Last Day to be a promise that is for you.

Second, a phrase in our Collect of the Day. The Collect of the Day is the prayer of the day that collects the prayers of God’s people into one that follows the readings assigned for the day. Here’s the phrase: “Stir up Your power, O Lord, and come and help us by Your might, that the sins which weigh us down may be quickly lifted by Your grace and mercy…”

In Holy Baptism, the Lord has lifted away your sins by His grace and mercy. Do you remember the passage from learning the Small Catechism? Luther brings in this marvelous passage from Paul’s letter to Titus: “But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” (Titus 3:4-7)

So even as we pray this prayer, we know that the Lord has already answered it for us. By His power and might He has conquered death and the grave. He has helped us by dying for us. He has poured His Holy Spirit into our hearts so that we would believe that our sins are forgiven and therefore receive the promised eternal life. And He gave all that to you in the Font.

Finally – though I’m sure there’s more – our Gospel reading from St. Luke. Mary goes to visit Elizabeth just after Gabriel has come and told her that she will conceive and bear a son, even though she remains a virgin. And though there’s much to be said about faith being given through the word even to infants – and that certainly is an important promise for us who baptize infants as Scripture teaches! – and we have John the Baptist leaping in the womb, all that we set aside and instead consider Mary for a moment.

Mary, pregnant outside of wedlock. Maybe sent to visit Elizabeth while her parents figure out what to do. St. Joseph has already faithfully listened to the angel and will keep her as his wife. Mary, to all outward appearances, looks shameful and certainly doesn’t appear holy in any way.

But what does Elizabeth tell her, from the Holy Spirit? “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”

What Gabriel had already told her Elizabeth now confirms. Mary is blessed. She bears the Savior of the world in her womb. She will be redeemed from all her sins. He shame and sorrow will be removed. She takes comfort in this and sings her Magnificat because God, in His mercy, has gifted her with faith in His promises. Though she appears shameful and unholy, her conscience has been set at peace by the Lord.

This is also true for you. Blessed are you who believe. You who have been baptized, you have faith. Ellasyn and Finley are called blessed by the Lord, and by us. The Lord’s promises are true for you. You are innocent. You are holy. You are clean, pure, immaculate, complete. The life, suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ stand in your place. All His good and perfect works are credited to your account, and God is well-pleased with and delights in you.

But it may not feel that way. Like a woman just pregnant, it may not show. But it’s true already, whether it feels like it or shows, or not. Finley will be selfish. Ellasyn will throw fits. We all have days where we act or feel like we’re not worthy or don’t deserve God’s love and mercy. That’s when we can remember that God’s promises cannot be broken. He loves us and has made us His children in our baptism into Christ, the Son of God and child of Mary, our Savior from sin and death. “His mercy is on those who fear Him, from generation to generation.” Thanks be to God for that promise. Cling to it always.

+INJ+