The Sun Also Rises

Jesu Juva

St. John 19:30                                                      

April 3, 2026

Good Friday                 

 Dear saints of our Savior~

        The day is almost over.  We have come to the setting of the sun, and we look to the evening light.  Many people enjoy these evening hours.  They find the setting sun to be inspiring—maybe even a little romantic.  The kaleidoscope of colors splashed across the sky brings out the artist in all of us.  At other times, though, the sunset simply signals that another day is done and completed—it is finished.  But most of the time, we pay no attention to this daily occurrence.  The sun sets.  The sun rises.  So what?  We’ve seen it thousands of times.

        But Adam had not seen it—not on his very first day of life in God’s good creation.  Can you imagine what it must have been like for the first man on the first day of his existence?  As Adam scampered through the garden of Eden, discovering all the marvels God had created, the glorious sun had warmed Adam’s skin and illuminated all the wonders of the sinless, sparkling world.

        But there’s some ancient speculation concerning Adam’s first sunset.  Adam didn’t ooh and ahh over that first setting of the sun.  He instead became overwhelmed with fear because he assumed that the beloved sun was going away for good.  To him, that virgin sunset was not poetic, pretty, or even routine; it was terrifying.  All through the black hours of that night Adam wept as if he had seen the sun lowered into a distant grave, never to rise again.  Only when the eastern sky began to blush with the first blue hues of dawn did Adam grasp what you and I have always known:  The sun also rises.

        Now, Adam’s first encounter with the darkness is simply the stuff of legend; but even this legend contains a kernel of truth about human loss.  For I suspect that many of us know the horror Adam felt at his first sunset.  You know what it’s like when your own “sun” vanishes, and your life descends into darkness.  When you stand in the cemetery to bury a loved one—when illness ravages your body or your mind—when you are mired in the shame, regret, and guilt of your own sordid sin.  In times like those, the light goes out and your life is swallowed by shadow.  And it seems like the darkness will never disperse.

        As you try and steer through those dark times, there is some comfort in the assurance that your “sun” will rise again—that it’s always darkest before the dawn—that loss and gain, like sunrise and sunset, are just a pattern for life in this world.  One season following another, laden with happiness and tears.

But when the sun disappears in your life, the very best comfort is found in remembering that day when the sun—the real sun—the star at the center of our universe—did, in fact, disappear:  Good Friday.  On this holy day, as Jesus hung from His cross, the sun failed.  The light went out.  Darkness covered the face of the earth in the middle of the afternoon (not unlike the plague of darkness that preceded Israel’s exodus from Egypt).  And this Tenebrae service—by design—calls to mind the darkness of those hours. 

Of course, the darkness is a minor detail of Good Friday. The darkness draws us into a deeper truth.  The darkness of Good Friday ultimately shows that you never dwell in the darkness alone.  There’s Someone by your side who has survived the deepest darkness.  Jesus was born into this world in the cold and in the dark, unwelcomed by the world He came to save.  He knelt in darkness on the night before His execution, wrestling with the thought of His impending death, feeling such weight and pressure that His sweat became as drops of blood.  He hung suspended in an unearthly darkness for three hours, impaled on a Roman tool of torture, forsaken by friends—and even by His Father—until He spoke His final word:  It is finished.

When you are surrounded by the darkness and shame of your sin, you need to know that Jesus has joined you in that darkness.  And, even better, Jesus has done something about it.  It is finished.  The darkness of our sin is banished.  With this final word Jesus announces the fulfillment of all that He was sent to do for us and for our salvation.  It is finished.  Completed.  Perfected.  Mission accomplished.  No loose ends for us to tie up, no missing pieces for us to puzzle over, nothing to be added, subtracted, multiplied or divided.  It is finished.  The redemption price is paid in full.  The world’s sin—including yours—is atoned for.  The Law of God has been fulfilled.  The wrath of God has been appeased.  There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1).  It is finished.

As surely as this day will end and the sun will set, Jesus’ saving work on your behalf is done.  You can’t add to it by the good you do.  You can’t undo it by the evil you do.  You can only believe it . . . and receive it.  For it is finished.  Yes, Jesus is draped in darkness.  But this scene is not scary.  This is no cause for sadness.  This is love!  This is how we know what love is:  Jesus Christ laid down His life for us (1 John 3:16).  He is with you.  He is for you. 

In the darkness you are not alone.  Jesus is a God who knows darkness firsthand.  From the night of His birth until the day of His death, He felt its cold chill.  He is the One beside you during your lightless hours.  You may not always feel Him there.  There may even be times when you do not want Him there.  But there He is and there He will abide; for you are baptized—baptized into Christ—baptized into His death and resurrection.

When Jesus died His disciples must have felt like Adam at his first sunset.  They must have grieved and mourned in fear.  It must have terrified them that their Friend, who called Himself the Light of the World, was dead and gone, buried in the darkness of the tomb.  But the sun also rises. At sunrise on the third day broke the light of life.  The Son that died did also rise.  In Jesus, even the darkness of the grave is no more permanent than the darkness of this night.  The body that dies in Christ will also rise again.  Because Jesus’ saving work is finished, your life will never be finished.  You will live and reign with Him—in an eternal life with no more darkness, only light, only love, forevermore.  It is finished. 

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

 

Come!

 Jesu Juva

St. Matthew Passion                                        

March 29, 2026

Sunday of the Passion                                       

 Dear saints of our Savior~

        We’ve never done it that way before.  Someone once labeled that phrase as the seven last words of the church—the church that never changes.  We’ve never done it that way before.  You who are members of this church—you don’t get to use that line very often.  This isn’t the church of change.  Things are perfectly predictable around here, even on this Sunday of the Passion and palms.

        That we should hear an extended account of our Lord’s Passion from one of the gospels is nothing new for this Sunday.  But, that your voice should help to proclaim and announce these ancient words—that’s new.  That you are drawn into the drama—that you give voice to the deeds of the disciples—that you take your place right next to Judas and Peter and Pilate and all the Passover pilgrims—we’ve never done it that way before.

        I hope you didn’t enjoy it.  I hope it made you uncomfortable and uneasy.  I hope it disrupted your carefully crafted normalcy.  Holy Week is always a call to be uncomfortable—to step away from your padded pew and the serenity of stained glass—to ponder a passion like no other.

        When Johann Sebastian Bach set the entire Passion of St. Matthew to music, he started it all—he set the stage for everything we just heard—with an invitation:  Come!  The first word sung by the singers—the first word called out by the choir—is that word:  Come!  It’s an invitation to leave behind our petty problems and regular routines, and take our place in the Passion of our Lord Jesus, to save us.  What is your place in the Passion of Jesus?  Where do you fit in?

        Come!  You can start by measuring your generosity toward Jesus against the woman who wastefully anointed Jesus with priceless perfume.  She poured out every last ounce of this liquid of love.  It was an expensive, extravagant act that fed no poor and sheltered no homeless.  But it prepared Jesus for His burial.  How do the gifts we offer to Jesus measure all the thanks we owe?

        Come, sit at the table with Jesus and the Twelve.  Hear Jesus warn that someone will betray Him.  Join the chorus of innocence voiced by every man present:  Is it I?  Is it I?  Surely not I?  Yet, you know.  You know that it could be you.  You know it has been you.

        Come, watch, and pray with Jesus in the Garden.  See His sorrow.  Watch His struggle.  Your prayers always falter and fall short, but not Jesus.  He prays perfectly: Thy will be done.  And He prays it knowing the terrible toll that God’s holy will will exact from His flesh. But watch out, for your eyelids are getting heavy.  Your strength is gone.  Your spirit may be willing; but your flesh is weak.

        Come, and weep bitterly with Peter.  For you too have said: I don’t know the man—and you have said it under circumstances far less threatening.  Carelessly, casually, we have all distanced ourselves from Jesus when it seemed like the prudent thing to do, or when we deem the opinions of other people more important than being faithful to Jesus.

        Come, and make your political calculations together with Governor Pilate.  What should you do?  What do the polls say will increase your popularity?  On whose hind quarters should you plant your lips so as to consolidate your power and prestige?  Forgive yourself, absolve yourself, wash your hands in a deluded display of innocence—even as, deep down, your guilt and shame remain.

        Come, and place yourself in a prison cell with Barabbas.  It’s where you both belong according to the strict standards of justice and of God’s holy law.  You and Barabbas deserve what you’ve got coming.  But then, suddenly, Jesus gets what you’ve got coming.  God’s innocent Lamb will be crucified in your place—while a guilty, craven criminal is acquitted and set free.

        Come, and take your place in the fickle, feckless crowd of Passover pilgrims.  Deep down, they just want to be entertained.  They want to be wowed.  Show us what you’ve got, Jesus!  But don’t you dare disappoint us.  That crowd cries out that the blood of Jesus should be on them, and on us, their children . . . And it is!  Cleansing blood that whitens and removes every sinful stain.

        Come, and stand with the Centurion.  He saw what they did to Jesus.  He heard what they said to Jesus.  He heard our Lord’s cry of dereliction:  My God, my God.  And when the sun disappeared, and the earth shook and the rocks split, the centurion could not help but confess: Truly, this was the Son of God!

        Let the invitation go out from here:  Come!  Take your place in the Passion of our Lord.  For only then can you know that your sin made it all necessary.  And only then can you see that Jesus Christ is not only the Savior of sinners, but your Savior.  He humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross.  He now lives and reigns in glory, working all things for your eternal good.

        Holy Week is underway.  Come!

        In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Martyrs of the Bible: James

 Jesu Juva

Mark 10:35-45/Acts 12:2                               

 March 25, 2026

Midweek Lent 5                                         

Witness with James

Dear saints of our Savior,

        Martyrs of the Bible.  That’s been our theme for these midweek Lenten services.  Of course, the number of martyrs in the Bible is actually a small number.  The number of martyrs in the Bible is tiny compared to the number of martyrs who are not in the Bible—men and women who lost their lives for the sake of Jesus long after the Bible was completed.

        Tonight’s martyr—St. James—he barely makes the cut.  His martyrdom is barely mentioned.  Even though this “James” was one of the very first apostles called by Jesus—even though James was an eye witness to so many key events of our Lord’s ministry—and even though James was the very first of the Apostles to be martyred—the account of his departure barely registers in the book of Acts.  You heard it earlier:  [Herod] killed James the brother of John with the sword.  And that’s it.  That’s the entire account.

        After all the ink spilled a few chapters earlier about the martyrdom of Stephen, it seems strange how streamlined the death of James gets reported by comparison.  Now, while we can’t read too much into that, I wonder if James’ martyrdom was somehow expected or anticipated.  Maybe people saw it coming.  Maybe it was not a surprise.  Maybe James’ fate to be the first of the Twelve to be baptized in blood was something of a foregone conclusion.

        Why do I suggest that?  Well, let’s back things up by a matter of months. . . .

        One thing you can say for James and his brother John:  they took Jesus at His word.  Ask and you shall receive, our Lord famously said.  So, James and John asked for what they wanted with the full expectation of getting it: Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.  No hem-hawing around.  No pious pleasantries.  Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.  Simple enough.  Straight to the point.

        It’s tempting for us to wag our fingers at these two brothers.  But notice that Jesus doesn’t scold them outright.  He does have a few words of correction, all right; but it was the other ten disciples who got ticked off.  They were the indignant ones—perhaps because they coveted those glorious seats for themselves but didn’t have the gumption to ask.

        In response to their request that day, Jesus said:  You do not know what you are asking—no idea.  And in a sense, we’re all together in the same boat with these two “Sons of Thunder.”  For like them, we do not know what to pray for as we ought.  We are like toddlers on Ticktock throwing tantrums, demanding more sugar, more screen time, more attention.  We want what’s easy and comfortable and successful.  And if it’s not asking too much, we wouldn’t mind a little more money, a nicer car, and a successful season for the Brewers.  It’s true, like James and John: We do not know what we are asking.

        But even though James and John were told “no,” Jesus didn’t chew them out for making that request.  They may have been immature.  They may not have known what to ask for. But they got one thing right:  They knew who to ask.  And that’s important.  For even if we don’t always pray piously for all the right things in all the right ways—what matters is that we ask Him.  What matters is that we know and believe that God is indeed our true Father, so that with all boldness and confidence we may ask Him as dear children ask their dear Father.

        The request of James and his brother may have been audacious and over-the-top; but when you make such requests in faith—just know that those prayers are heard and answered.  He may give you what you ask for.  Or He may give you something better—something better for you.   

        To James our Lord would give indeed the cup from which He Himself would drink and the baptism with which He Himself would be baptized.  To the lips of James would be pressed the chalice of martyrdom.  James would receive a baptism of blood.  The sword of Herod baptized the body of James.  He was first of all.  He was number one.  He shared in the true glory of Jesus.  He was the first of the Twelve who died as a witness to Him who died and rose again.  And in that, James finished the race in first place and received the crown of glory that does not fade away.

        Did James get what he asked for?  He certainly received an answer to his request.  What James requested was to be beside his Lord Jesus.  He wanted to sit not twelve seats away, not six, but right there at His right hand.  And Jesus gave him something better.  For not only was James beside Christ, he was in Christ, and Christ was in James.  James was conformed to the death of Jesus.  He died in Him and is now forever with Him who is the resurrection and the life.  He was crucified with Christ, such that he no longer lived, but Christ lived in him.  James was able to give his life as a witness to Him who gave His life as a ransom for many—as a ransom for you.

        St. James shows us that our prayers are heard, that our sins are forgiven, that what God ordains to give us is always, mysteriously, good.  In fact, He gives you Himself.  He has given you a wet and wonderful baptism with which to be baptized—in which you are buried in the tomb with Him and raised up together with Him.  He holds a cup to your lips and invites you to drink of the blood given and shed for you, for the forgiveness of sins.  He has given His life as a ransom for you, so that now you are His own.  He has bought you at a price.  You are His and He is yours.  And nothing in heaven or on earth can change that.

        In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Martyrs of the Bible: Stephen

Jesu Juva

Acts 6-7                                                           

March 18, 2026

Midweek Lent 4                                      

Witness with Stephen

 Dear saints of our Savior~

        It’s easy to romanticize and fantasize about life in the early church—especially about the good ol’ days of the church’s infancy, immediately following our Lord’s Ascension and the Day of Pentecost.  Everything was so new, so pure, so fresh.  The church was growing by leaps and bounds.  There were signs and wonders and miracles happening left and right.  The power of preaching and the Holy Spirit seemed unstoppable.

        But tonight we learn that those first days of the faith were actually filled with problems and troubles.  The reality of the early church was quite different from what we might imagine or dream it to be.  It’s all laid out for us in the early chapters of the book of Acts.  And even those early pages are stained a crimson color.  From those pages there can be seen an unmistakable trickle of blood.

        That blood belonged to Stephen, who was an unlikely martyr.  He made for an unlikely martyr because he wasn’t an apostle.  He was a deacon.  He wasn’t on the front lines; he worked behind the scenes.  He went to work for the church precisely because the church (even in her infancy) had problems and conflicts.

        The apostles were delighted to hand over their headaches to Stephen and six others.  These deacons, led by Stephen, were problem-solvers and peacemakers.  They were full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom. 

Already there was griping and grumbling in those post-Pentecost days.  Certain widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of food.  Stephen was sent to solve that problem and fix those logistics.  Lesser men might have been overwhelmed with despair and frustration.  Lesser men might have lost heart.  But Stephen went to work for the church precisely because there were problems and conflicts.  And Stephen wanted to be part of the solution. 

        What about you and your life in the church?  Do you want to be part of the solution?  For the church is still beset with challenges, problems, troubles, and crosses.  It’s so easy to say, “That’s not my problem.  That’s not my job.”  It’s so easy to point out the problems.  It’s so easy to complain and grumble about what doesn’t work right.  Against that chorus of complaint came Stephen, singing a different tune, full of grace and the Holy Spirit:  problem-solver, logistics expert, peacemaker.

        Jerusalem’s Jewish Council quickly began to view Stephen as a threat—a threat that needed to be neutralized.  They arrested him and charged him with speaking against the Temple.  And this charge had just enough truth to make it stick.  For Stephen wasn’t just running a meals-on-wheels program.  As he fed those widows and took care of the poor, he was apparently always telling the good news about Jesus.  Stephen declared that the temple in Jerusalem was no longer God’s dwelling place on earth—that since the Word became flesh—since God’s Son, Jesus, became man and dwelt among us—God’s presence was no longer confined to a place, but to a person:  Jesus, the Christ.

        It was this point that got Stephen into trouble—his claim that God’s presence was found in Jesus, and no longer in the temple.  Jesus, too, had spoken of His own body as a temple that would be destroyed and raised again in three days.  Stephen was confessing that the real temple was now wherever Jesus gives Himself to us—and for us.  Jesus once mourned over Jerusalem and laid bare the desire of His heart to gather her people together as beneath the wings of a mother hen.  “But you were not willing,” He said.  “See, your house is left to you desolate.”  And, without Christ, the temple/house of the Jews was indeed desolate.

        This beautiful truth about the presence of Jesus was rejected by the Sanhedrin.  They resisted the Holy Spirit and sought to kill Stephen for the truth he spoke.  Our own sinful natures also work against this truth about the presence of Jesus in our lives.  Your Old Adam works overtime against the Holy Spirit, seeking to substitute other things in place of Jesus:  Human relationships, human pleasures, human pride, human wisdom.  The devil can and does use all of these things to get us to grind our teeth and stiffen our necks to the truth of God’s Word and the gift of His real presence here in His church.

Stephen lived and died believing and trusting that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life—that where two or three are gathered together in His name, Jesus is among them.  For Stephen, this meant that, at the moment of His death, he was welcomed into the presence of Jesus for all eternity.  The angry lies were told for only a brief time.  The outrageous accusations were heard for an even shorter time.  The bruising stones rained down on him for just a matter of minutes.  But for Stephen, the presence of Jesus was to be enjoyed forever and ever.

God sent His Son to live and die and rise again so that you, too, might enjoy the presence of Jesus forever—so that this very day in this very temple Jesus Himself can absolve you of your sin, place His promises in your ears and heart, and feed you with heavenly food.  That’s what it meant when Jesus breathed His last on the cross, and the curtain in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.  It meant that the dividing wall of your sin was done away with by the death of Jesus in your place.  Now there is no division between you and Him.  No separation.  No condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

        Jesus Christ has opened the gates of heaven for you, just as they were opened for Stephen.  Through faith in Jesus you can know for certain that, as your eyes close for the final time, you will see it.  You will see what Stephen saw—the Son of Man in human flesh standing at the right hand of God.  Even stone-throwing, teeth-gnashing, stiff-necked sinners like us—cleansed by the blood of the Lamb—even we will see what Stephen saw.

        God grant us daily to unstop our ears for this reason.  God grant us to confess our faith for this reason.  God grant us to forgive our enemies for this reason.  God grant us to fall asleep in Jesus with this confidence.  By His life, death, and resurrection, Jesus Christ has opened heaven for you.

        In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.