Homily for the Nativity of Our Lord-Christmas Day (2018)

"Our Divine Dwelling Place"
John 1:1-18

Christmas and home just go together. Bing Crosby made the words famous in 1943, and Michael Bublé still croons them: “I’ll be home for Christmas / You can count on me.” Other well known pop singers title their holiday album “Home for Christmas” or sing songs such as “Christmas Is Coming Home.”

Home is a treasured thing, to be sure. We pray that our homes may be “a shelter for the defenseless, a fortress for the tempted, a resting place for the weary, and a foretaste of our eternal home” with God Himself (LSB Agenda, 70). Home is not just a physical space; it gives us roots, identity, security, a sense of belonging, and a place of emotional wellbeing. At home we can laugh without being shy, and our tears can dry at their own pace. Our feet may leave our homes, but not our hearts. As someone once quipped, “Home is a place you grow up wanting to leave, and grow old wanting to get back to.”

Treasuring home and longing for home, though, are much more than sentimentality. They go to the very core of our being as God’s created people. We are created to be at home with the living God. He is our truest and best home. But we come from a long line of people looking to leave home, strike out on their own, and even run away from home. Sure, Adam and Eve were given their eviction notice from the Garden of Eden and compelled to leave, but truthfully they had already run away from their true home—from God Himself—by eating that piece of fruit. Thus “The world was made through Him, yet the world did not know Him.” Even when “He came to his own,…his own people did not receive Him.”

So the real reason for this season, and this day especially, is us homeless waifs. We wander through life searching for meaning and purpose on our own. We look for some place…any place…and some way…any way…to belong, to be accepted, to feel at home in this fallen world. But since we have left our true home, who is God Himself, our searching is vain and our wandering is aimless. We pile all of our worldly goods of self-sufficiency and self-determination into our rusty, beat up shopping carts with squeaky wheels as we wander through this fallen world. The homelessness of our human fallenness actually leads us to view our cardboard shanty town dwellings as though they were fabulous mansions. But we know they’re not. And we cannot escape the isolating illness of our sin, nor can we avoid the biting cold of death.

So the Word of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, left His eternal home to bring us in out of the cold. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.” He was in a face-to-face relationship with God the Father from eternity. ”And the Word was God.” The Word Himself was and is the same divine essence as the Father. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” He took on our very skin and bones, our body and soul, eyes, ears, and all our members. “Dwelt among us” can also be translated “tented among us” or “tabernacled among us.” But this was no temporary “tenting” or “dwelling.” The Son of God did not become flesh only to disrobe Himself of our humanity when He was done with it. Nor did He cease dwelling among us when He ascended to the Father’s right hand.

“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” in order to bring us in out of the cold of our sinful rebellion. He became flesh to bring us home to God for all eternity—home where we receive His healing for our disease of sin; home where we may bask in His life-giving warmth, shielded and delivered from the coldness of death.

Moses proclaimed this homecoming long before Christmas: “The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms” (Dt. 33:27). He also teaches us to pray, “Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations” (Ps. 90:1). We even get to see what God’s dwelling place—our true home—looked like in Moses’ day. It included bases and frames, poles and pillars, and skins and cloth placed over them. In its central room was the beautiful golden ark with the mercy seat on top. Here’s where “the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.” Here’s where and how the LORD would be with His people throughout their journey in the wilderness and into the Promised Land. Though they were wandering, they were still at home, because God was their divine dwelling place.

Even when God’s people became homeless in Babylonian exile, God still wanted to bring them home to Him. Ezekiel proclaimed God’s promise of homecoming: “My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord who sanctifies Israel, when my sanctuary is in their midst forevermore” (Ezek. 37:27-28). That promise came somewhat true when the people returned to their own land. But it became completely fulfilled when the Word became flesh.

You see, when the Word became flesh to dwell among us—to bring us home—He came to bring us the fullness of His grace and truth. “And from His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” Gifts abounding more than under any Christmas tree and more enduring than any we can unwrap last night or today. Forgiveness for our many doubts and misplaced priorities. Life to combat the coldness of death. And salvation as the best gift of all from the Word become flesh who came to die on a cross. To all who believe in His name, He gives the right to become children of God—children in God’s home, both now and for eternity.

Oh, we do not have that right by our own birth, but we do have it in the rebirth Jesus gives by water and the Spirit. We do not have that right by our own bloodline, but we do have it through the blood of Jesus, both on the cross and at the altar. We do not have the right to be in God’s home as His children by the will of our flesh or any other human plan or design. No, we only have this right because “of God.” The Word of God. The Word who became flesh and remains flesh. The Word who dwelt and still dwells with us. “In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit” (Eph. 2:22).

On this Christmas 2018, we find ourselves a bit homeless in our own building—gathering in a basement auditorium doubling as a sacred sanctuary. Despite appearances, though, we are still at home in our divine dwelling place—not the brick and mortar, but in our flesh and blood Savior. And even as we eagerly await returning to the sanctuary, we are even more eager in anticipating our eternal home. It’s the home the Apostle John heard promised for all of us: “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God’” (Rev. 21:3).

Today as we celebrate our Savior’s Incarnation, and as we enjoy our various family traditions, we rejoice in our divine dwelling place. We are home for Christmas. We can count on Jesus. Amen.

Homily for the Resurrection of Our Lord - 2018

"He Is Risen! The Wound of Death Is Vanquished!"
John 20:1-18

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Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

It does not matter how many times you encounter it, it never feels natural; it never feels right. Death always feels wrong. Something inside does not accept that we will not hear that voice, see that face, touch that hand, experience that laughter ever again. The grief counselors can talk till they are blue in the face about how death is simply a part of life; how we must accept it as inevitable and “natural.” But death is never natural. We never accept it. We never will.

Mary did not accept death. Oh, she had no doubt that her Lord, her Teacher, was dead. She had witnessed the horror of it. Standing beside His mother, she had seen the light die in His eyes as He hung gruesomely upon the cross. She had seen them take His limp body from the wood, heard the horrid sound as they pulled nails. He was dead. She had no doubt of that.

But it was not right. She knew it was not right. And she simply had to touch Him again. She just knew that she had to see that body again. But the body was gone. She had run to tell Peter and John. They checked it out and told her she was right: yep, the body was gone. Big help they were! Then they left her, but she remained. She did not know what to do, where to go, to whom to turn. So she just stood there and started to cry.

Not the easy, gentle tears of the merely sad. No, Mary wept the gut-wrenching, full-voiced sobs of the grieving. Death. It wounds not only those it takes from us; it also wounds those who are left. And sometimes it wounds us so badly we think it will kill us right then and there. Mary knew something of that as she sobbed and looked into the tomb.

But something was different now. The tomb was not empty after all. There were angels there, clothed in white. One was sitting where the Lord’s head had been, one where His feet had been. Even though Mary’s sorrow could never shake or destroy their joy, they are concerned for her. “Woman,” they ask, “why are you weeping?”

Jesus’ death was such a given that she did not say, “Because my Lord is dead.” Instead, her answer was, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.” Not knowing where the body was, was tearing her up. Death was horrible enough, but not being able to find the body? Not being able to tend it and give it proper care for burial? She had to know where Jesus was, to see Him once more, to touch His body once more. How else could she face tomorrow? How else could she face the rest of her life?

The magnitude of Mary’s grief shows itself when a conversation with angels does not even faze her. So she straightens up and turns and almost runs into the One who had never been far from her, the One who stood right beside her in her grief—even though she did not realize it. He gently asks, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?”

Hope rises in Mary’s heart. Is it the gardener? Perhaps he is the one who moved her Master’s body. “Sir,” she cries, “if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away.”

Was it her tears that blinded Mary’s eyes that morning? Was it the grief of her heart that made all the world seem to move in slow motion—unreal and phantom-like? Then it all changed when He said one word. He called her name: “Mary.”

“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me” (John 10:27), Jesus had said. Although she had not recognized Him before, at the sound of her name, Mary’s heart pounded, she caught her breath, and she moved the hair from her face and stared in awe, in terror, and in joy rising like a flood.

“Rabboni!” she cried. “My teacher!” And she lunged for Jesus and held His feet. Beyond hope, beyond her wildest dreams, there He stood. Not a ghost. Not a spirit. Not an illusion or merely some wishful thinking. Her Jesus—flesh and blood, the wounds still visible, but transfigured, shining in glory. Her Jesus!

And the tears came again, but this time a different kind of tears. These were not the sobs of despair; these were the tears that flow from a cup that runs over with joy. It was a tender moment, but the joys were only beginning. Jesus had work for Mary to do, a mission for her to carry out. He sent her first to His apostles to give them the message that He lives and that He is preparing to ascend to His Father and their Father, to His God and their God. Death was not the end of Him, and so it will not be the end of Mary or of the disciples.

Nor will death be the end of you. Nor will it be the end of those you love who have died in the faith. Jesus has changed forever how we live, how we grieve, and how we die. Oh, we still feel in our bones how wrong death is, how unnatural it is, and we hate it with a passion. But Jesus has transformed it into something we never have to fear—never again. By His death and resurrection, Jesus has wounded death itself. He has dealt it a mortal blow from which it will never recover. He came out of its stinking gullet alive again, never to die again. And His promise to Mary, to His apostles, and to all of His baptized children is that He will bring each and every one of us through the hole that He punched in death’s gullet. He will bring us into the home that He has prepared for us with His Father.

And so, to strengthen your faith in His resurrection victory, Jesus continues to put into your dying bodies His Body that was on the tree, atoning for all your sin; His Body that was in the tomb, sanctifying your grave; and His Body that Mary held in the garden that first Easter Day. He pours down your throat the very Blood that He shed to wipe out the sin of the world; the very Blood that is and gives eternal life even now. And He reminds you that it is all for you. And He whispers to each of you, “Just as death could not hold Me, so it will not hold you, My child. You have been baptized into My undying life. I will bring you out of death just as I came out of it—alive, never to die again. And then the celebration will really begin!”

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Homily for Easter Vigil - 2018

"This Is Our God"
Easter Vigil Readings

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In the early 5th century, Augustine, the head pastor at Hippo, proclaimed the mystery of this night in a short, poetic homily:

Brothers and sisters, we know and we hold with firm faith that Christ died for us but once:

the just for sinners,
the master for slaves,
the free for captives,
the physician for the sick,
the happy for the wretched,
the rich for the needy,
the seeker for the lost,
the redeemer for the sold,
the shepherd for the sheep,
and—what is the most awe-inspiring of all—
the creator for the creature;
keeping to what he always is,
handing over what he became;
hiding as God,
appearing as human;
life-instilling by his power,
dying by his weakness;
unchanging in divinity,
pained in the flesh.

What Augustine proclaimed in the 5th century, we still celebrate in the 21st.

The God who said, “Let there be light” has now brought the light of His Son into our lives so darkened by sin and death. The God who created all things has now recreated us and now prepares us for His new creation.

The God who judged the wicked world with a flood and safely brought eight people through water has now drowned the Old Adam in us and brought us safely through the waters of Baptism, joining us to the death and resurrection of Jesus our Lord.

The God who led His people out of Egyptian slavery and rescued them from Pharaoh’s pursuing army has now brought us through the Red Sea of our Baptism, is now leading us through the wilderness of this fallen world, and will one day lead us into His eternal Promised Land flowing with the milk and honey of His beloved Son’s life and salvation.

The God who sent His only Son into the world to die but once and rise again from the dead as “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 15:20) now invites us to “come, buy and eat!” He bids us to delight ourselves in the rich food of His forgiveness and life and salvation. As we hear the proclamation of Christ being raised from the dead, our souls may live once again, even when we mourn the loss of loved ones, even when we face our own falling asleep. “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22).

The God who sprinkles us clean in the pure waters of Jesus’ death and resurrection now cleanses us from our all our idols and misplaced devotions. He now gives us a new heart and a new spirit, a heart of flesh that beats with His Spirit, “the Lord and giver of life” (Nicene Creed). As He joins us to Himself, He also joins us to one another to dwell together as His redeemed, enlivened people.

The God who caused breath to enter and enliven the dry, dead bones of His exiled people, giving them new sinews, new flesh, and covering them with new skin, now renews us. In the middle of this valley of the shadow of death, we too are dried up by the effects of sin and death; we too lose our hope when illness, injury, and death strike us or the ones we love. Apart from Jesus we too are clean cut off from the God who loves us. But now that Christ has died and is risen, God puts His Spirit within us and we shall live. He places us in the land He has given, and we know that He is our Lord of life.

The God who allowed Job to be afflicted with loss of property, loss of family, and loss of sound health now gives us the same firm faith and confident confession of that ancient one: “I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will stand upon the earth.” And even though our flesh, or the flesh of our loved ones, may be thus destroyed by death, that last enemy, yet in our flesh we shall see God. It’s not enough to say when we die that our body goes into the ground and our spirit goes to be with Jesus. The story of God’s salvation does not end there! With ancient Job we confess “the resurrection of the body” (Apostles’ Creed). Just as Jesus rose in the body, we too will rise in the body. “Christ the firstfruits, then at His coming those who belong to Christ” (1 Cor. 15:23).

And the God who protected and sustained the three young men even in the midst of the blazing, fiery furnace—by being with them in the midst of the flames—now protects and sustains us in the midst of this world so hostile to the Gospel. Whether the blazing flames are individual temptations, trials or losses, government sponsored attacks on Christians, or a culture careening out of control toward the cliff and speeding to its own fiery demise on the rocks below, our risen Savior is still with us in the midst of the flames. In the end, because all things are subject to our risen Jesus, the fire has no power over our bodies. The hair of our restored heads will not be singed. Our white cloaks of Christ’s righteousness will not be harmed. No smokey smell of sin or death will follow us into the age to come.

This is our God—our risen Lord Jesus—who brings life and immortality to light through the Gospel.

The two Marys and Salome thought they still had to anoint Jesus’ dead body for burial. They fretted over the stone covering the tomb’s entrance. And were they surprised to see that entrance wide open! Then they saw that young man—full of life and vigor, supremely fit and healthy, an image of the new creation! What he told them, he also tells you: “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.” Yes, that happened; Christ died for us but once. But “He has risen; He is not here”…in the tomb, that is. He died but once, but now He lives! And so will we. So will all we love who have departed in the faith. No longer in the tomb, our risen Lord is with us, giving us His life, leading us to His new creation.

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Homily for Transfiguration - 2018

"Transfigured"
Matthew 17:1-9

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Make no mistake about it. When you see Jesus transfigured on the mountaintop, you see your own glorious future. You also will be transformed and transfigured. But also, don’t doubt this: it will be a rough, dark road to get you there.

This glorious sight of Jesus outshining the sun itself is no random event, no mere magic show. Jesus is not just showing off His divine glory. No, this event is intimately connected to what happened six days earlier. Jesus had asked His disciples who they confessed Him to be. Peter spoke up for all of them: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16). “Well done, Peter!” Jesus said. “You’re confessing the faith that My Father has given you. Believe me, I will build My church on that very confession.” Then Jesus spoke of going to Jerusalem, suffering many things, being killed, and then being raised on the third day. We accept the words well enough, but Peter strongly objected: “Never Lord! How can you even think that?” So Jesus countered and corrected Peter: “Get behind me, Satan! … You are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man” (Matt. 16:23).

We, like Peter, love the picture and promise of radiant glory. We’re not so sure about the harsh reality of gloomy suffering—not for Jesus, and certainly not for ourselves.

So when Jesus is transfigured—revealing Himself as the very source of all light and glory—He seeks to comfort and sustain His distressed disciples. Suffering? Death? Cold, dark grave? The mere thoughts of such things, let alone going through them, lay us flat like a boxer giving a gut punch followed by an undercut. Jesus knows His disciples are laid flat by His prediction of the Passion. He wants to encourage them and sustain them. It’s as if Jesus is telling them, “Yes, it will be dark and deadly. Yes, you too will be shaken to the core, as well as opposed, hunted down, imprisoned, even executed just for confessing Me. But let not your hearts be troubled. Here is what lies on the other side of suffering and death, both Mine and yours.”

You see, this was not the first time that Jesus was transfigured and transformed. He has been the radiant, brilliant source of all light and glory since before the beginning of time—along with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Then, when the time was right, the Son of God actually transformed Himself by taking on our human flesh and blood. In taking our humanity into Himself, He transfigured Himself—He hid Himself—in humility.

So when Jesus predicts His passion and death, He’s simply unveiling what lies further back in the deep dark recesses of His glory—His suffering in the garden, His arrest, His trial, His bearing the cross to Golgotha, the pounding of spikes into His hands and feet, the lifting of the cross into its place, and the weight of His body hanging from wrists nailed into the cross beam. This is the Son of God completely revealing Himself. This is His real glory—suffering so to redeem and forgive us sinners who had fallen from our glory. It’s on the mount called Calvary that you are transfigured.

Peter, James, and John basked in and soaked up the brilliant glory of Jesus transfigured. Peter even wanted to extend his mountaintop experience with a bunch of tents. Moses and Elijah, though, were there for a different purpose. Yes, they are heroes of the faith—Moses the icon of the Law and Elijah the representative of the prophets. Yes, Moses’ skin shone with a most incredible suntan after his time on the mountain with God. Yes, Elijah was taken to heaven in a fiery chariot, and hence did not taste death. But Moses and Elijah were also there as fellow sufferers with Jesus. Consider the many times God’s people rejected Moses with their complaining over things as mundane as food and water. Remember the times that Elijah had to flee for his life from the government out to get him or the time he took on the many prophets of Baal. The same people rejected Jesus. On top of that, Moses and Elijah appeared to speak with Jesus about His “exodus”—His soon-to-come suffering, His pending Passion (Lk. 9:31).

With all of this darkness and gloom hanging over the disciples, they desperately needed some encouragement, some hope, some promise. That’s why Jesus shone brighter than the sun—just a small glimpse of what lies ahead. That’s why the Father’s voice boomed from the cloud: “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to Him.” That voice still bids us to listen to Him, and Him alone. And we find that voice speaking ever so clearly in the Scriptures. After all, here’s “the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.”

Here’s what awaits all who follow Jesus—first, the suffering and dying of a fallen world; then, the glory and radiance of new life with Jesus. It’s the way it works since we humans first transfigured ourselves from God’s holy people into the devil’s sinful slaves. We should have had the brilliance of a trusting, loving relationship with God all along. Instead, we chose the nakedness of self-centered shame. Instead of being clothed with God’s glory, we had to settle for being covered by garments of animal skins.

But Jesus has come to reverse all that. He’s the new Moses as He leads us out of our slavery to sin and death and into the Promised Land of His mercy, forgiveness, and eternal life. He’s the new Elijah—surpassing all the prophets—because He alone has the words of eternal life. He is transfigured on one mountain, but on a different mountain—the one called Calvary—He accomplishes your transfiguration. He transforms you from sinners to saints, from people suffocating in death to people breathing the very air of life.

Make no mistake about it. The transfiguring and transforming continues. He who was transfigured from humility back into glory now comes transforming Himself in the bread and wine of His holy Supper. And with that Meal, He begins and continues transforming our lowly bodies to be like His glorious body. “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18).

So we live patiently and trustingly, awaiting that day when our own transformation will burst forth with brilliance. Much like putting up with the inconveniences of renovating an organ or soon a sanctuary, we bear with those things that are not yet set right—the crosses we bear, the sorrows we endure, the losses we suffer. But as we live patiently and trustingly, we draw strength and resolve from our transfigured Lord of glory. He sustains us. He gives the promise, the hope, the courage.

And so we can be people of life in this world of death. By God’s grace in Jesus, we can resist being conformed to this world. Instead, we are transformed by Jesus renewing our minds, by discerning what His good and acceptable and perfect will is. We can rejoice with those who march for life year after year. We can work with those who help mommies and daddies to keep their babies as well as teach them how to be better parents. We can run into the muck and the mess of our culture of death—this culture bent on snuffing out lives in the womb and shortening the lives of those who suffer or become frail with age. You see, our Lord of glory gave those people their very lives. He wants to protect their lives. He wants to transform them to eternal life too.

Our transfigured Lord reveals Himself to be the Lord of life in the face of death. This glorious revelation sustains us and gives us hope and courage as we journey through the valley of the shadow of death. Through Jesus’ transfiguration, “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom. 8:16-17). Amen.

Homily for Trinity 18 - 2017

"Do You LOVE God?"
Matthew 22:34-46

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Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” … Do you love God? I don’t expect anyone here actually to say, “No, I rather hate God.” Who in their right mind would say that? But do you really LOVE God? Are you completely devoted to Him? Is He the One you think and daydream about all the time? Is there no one else on earth with whom you would rather spend your time than with God? Is there nothing that you’d rather do than be with God, talk with Him, enjoy His stories, and just revel in His company?

Or is God just Someone we learn about in Catechism class or Bible class or sermons? Learn about Him, but keep Him at a distance. Stick Him under the microscope of our quest for religious knowledge or in the petri dish of our fascination with things spiritual. Is God little more than an intellectual pursuit, once a week or whenever we happen to think of Him? Do we merely learn to say the right words about Him, such as He’s all-present, or all-powerful, or all-knowing? Is God simply Someone we talk about when we want to sound religious? Or do you truly LOVE God?

The Pharisees certainly claimed to love God. But when He came to them in the flesh, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, they put Him to the test. You see, they did not want this God, the One who took on our human frame to free us from sin and death, to get too close to them! They did not want God to get too personal or too intimate. So they tested Jesus: “Which is the great commandment in the [Torah]?” They wanted to reduce all five books of Moses to the bare minimum. They wanted a bumper-sticker slogan that would fully capture the law of God.

We fallen creatures like to do that. We like to defang God’s law—render the Doberman harmless. One speaker called it the “religion of St. Minimum.” What’s the least that I have to do to get by? How often do I really have to go to church? How often do I really need to pray? How much money do I really have to give? How much do I really have to know? What’s the bottom line? What's the bare minimum? The religion of St. Minimum tries to keep things practical, painless, and puny. It delights in loopholes. It bargains with God to be “fair.” “So, Jesus, what’s the one commandment that we really need to keep?” But that’s not love. What boyfriend, fiancé, or husband could get away with telling his sweetheart, “I only want to spend the minimum amount of time with you”?

Jesus sensed the trap. He knows what’s in our hearts. He knows how we like to twist and turn, and wiggle out from under God’s commands. So He gives not one, but two greatest commands. The first one: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” That’s the Hebrew way of saying, “Love God with every last fiber in your being; hold nothing back.” Then Jesus said, “And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The two go together. You cannot claim to love God if you don’t love your neighbor. When you do love God, you will naturally also love your neighbor whom God gives you. So Jesus does boil God’s law down to a minimum in these two simple commandments. But they are far from minimal in shaping our life. Love God with your whole being; and love whomever God puts next to you.

If you’re still looking for a bumper-sticker slogan, you can distill God’s law down to one four-letter word: L-O-V-E. As St. Paul said, “love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. 13:10). But we even have troubles with this word “love,” don’t we? For one thing, we think love is a feeling, a warm-fuzzy on our insides. But love is not a feeling. Love is a deliberate action of our will toward another person. When we love God or our neighbor, it does not mean that we have certain feelings about God or our neighbor. Sure, feelings are there with us, but love is not essentially a feeling.

Another trouble we have with “love” is that we think it’s something that we “fall” into. We fall into ditches and holes filled with mud, but we don’t fall into love. Besides, falling means losing your balance, losing your control. Love is not an out of control, loss of balance experience; love is a deliberate action of our will toward another person. To love means deliberately to turn ourselves toward another person. One commentator explained it this way: “[Jesus] opens the hearts of believers, like flowers to the sun, to their living posture. We were made for love…. [Jesus] does not so much give an activity that can be calculably done as he gives a direction to face” (F. D. Bruner, Churchbook, 794). The Bible describes love in self-sacrificing terms: “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor. 13:4-7).

How do we love God and neighbor? Let’s count the ways. We love God by having no other gods in our hearts, by giving God our whole-hearted fear, love, and trust. We love God by using His Name in worship and prayer, and by giving glad attention to His Word. We love God by honoring the authorities He has placed over us, starting with our parents; by caring for the health and well-being of our neighbor’s body; by upholding marriage in the way we conduct our sexual lives; by helping our neighbor improve and protect his possessions and income; by upholding our neighbor’s reputation and not participating in gossip or slander; by being content with what we have rather than continually wanting what we don’t have. These are just some of the ways that we love God and our neighbor.

And so we reflect God’s love toward us—the way the moon reflects the light of the sun, or the way a polished mirror reflects the light that strikes it. When God first made Adam and Eve, they perfectly reflected His love. They were created in the “image of God.” God is love, and Adam and Eve were perfect reflectors of God’s love. But their rebellion ruined the mirror. Our self-centeredness and inborn desire to be little gods in place of God has distorted the reflection of God’s love. Just as fingerprints and gunk smudge the reflection in a mirror, so our sinfulness has destroyed our reflection of God’s love.

Do you LOVE God? Do you have wholehearted love for God, sacrificing your all for Him? Do you love your neighbor as yourself? You know you don’t love like that. Not even Mother Teresa loved like that. And here’s why we need the question that Jesus used to test the Pharisees. “What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?” The Pharisees knew that the Messiah, the Christ, would be a blood descendent of King David. But there’s more to the Messiah than a royal bloodline. He is also David’s “lord.” As David said in Psalm 110: “The LORD says to my Lord: ‘Sit at My right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.’” The Messiah is David’s son, a human being, but He is also David’s “Lord.” He is both God and Man, begotten of His Father from all eternity and born of the virgin Mary. Jesus is talking about the mystery of His Incarnation. In Him God has become man. And in Him humanity is recreated and renewed. In Him people are restored to be what God intended them to be. He came to restore the image of God to our fallen race. He loves God with His whole heart, with His entire being, with His whole mind. He loves His neighbor as Himself.

St. John said it well: “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation—the means of forgiveness—for our sins” (1 Jn. 4:9-10). Jesus loved us to death on the Cross. It was the deliberate action of His divine-human will toward us loveless, unlovely sinners. In Baptism we receive God’s great love in Christ’s death and resurrection. In Holy Absolution, our Lord keeps telling us, “I love you by forgiving you.” And consider the great feast we’re about to enjoy. Here Jesus puts His own Body and Blood into our mouths so that we can love God with our whole being and love our neighbor as ourselves. After the Meal, we’ll even pray that God would “strengthen us…in faith toward [Him] and in fervent love toward one another.”

“We love—both God and neighbor—because He first loved us” (1 Jn. 4:19). Jesus’ death and resurrection free you to love God and one another. You no longer have to love; you get to love. We don’t love God in order to obtain His love; we already have His love in David’s Son, Jesus. Now we get to love God with every fiber of our being and we get to love our neighbor as ourselves, reflecting the love that our Lord has given to us. Amen.