Power in the Blood

 Jesu Juva

Revelation 7:9-17                                      

 November 1, 2026

All Saints’ Day    

Dear Saints of Our Savior~

        Every Sunday morning your pastor does something reckless and risky.  Every Sunday morning, I vest myself in white.  A white alb, or a white chasuble, or a white stole, or a white surplice—there’s always something white to be worn when you’re a pastor. And white is risky, of course, because white is the most stainable color. 

And white is also the color for this day—All Saints’ Day.  Today we remember the saints who now rest from their labors—all those made holy through faith in Jesus—who are now with Jesus.  This is the church’s Memorial Day.  On this day we name our dead before the Lord with tear-filled eyes, but firmly believing what is said about them in the Scriptures:  They are blessed.  They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 

        Today’s reading from Revelation seven gives us a sneak peek into heaven—gives a glimpse of the glory which the dead in Christ now enjoy.  St. John sets the scene:  After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.  Gathered around God’s throne is a crowd too big to count—a crowd that dwarfs the hundreds of thousands who gathered in downtown Milwaukee on Friday.  This is a diverse crowd—different languages and nationalities—but a crowd united as one in their worship of the Lamb who was slain. 

        But it’s what this heavenly host is wearing that always grabs my attention:  They are wearing white robes.  White—because they have been covered in the righteousness and holiness of Jesus.  White—the most stainable color.  Keeping a white robe white is a full-time job (in my experience).  Everything stains it:  a drop of wine, a smudge of make-up from some huggable member, or even just the grit and grime from two hundred handshakes per Sunday.

        But let’s take this talk about stains to a deeper level.  Stained clothing is an unfortunate occurrence.  It happens to the best of us.  Like spilled milk, there’s no use crying over stained clothing.  But there is a different kind of stain which is a crying shame.  The worst stains we bear are hidden from the naked eye.  You can’t see these horrid stains; but you can feel them.  The greasy smudge of sin disfigures us right down to our core.  Our idolatries leave a mark.  Our adulteries leave a spot.  Our loveless living leaves us soiled and sullied.  The hurt and harm we dish out leaves behind an area of discoloration.  The gossip that we slop around in taints and tarnishes everything and everyone.  Our sin contaminates and corrupts us to the core.   

        The stains that sin creates are the most stubborn of stains.  Good luck getting rid of those stains.  You can work and scrub and scour and soak and bleach.  Like Shakespeare’s murderous Lady Macbeth, we claim a white heart even with blood-stained hands:  Out damned spot!   We know her plight (and her fright!)  The stain of our sin carries consequences.  It has the potential to separate us from God—to deaden our faith—to keep us on the outside of the pearly gates—which is a dreadful place to be.

        So let’s look again at those saints who dwell on the inside—so that we who bear sin’s damning stain might one day join them.  Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?”  I said to him, “Sir, you know.”  And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation.  They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

        Every white-robed resident of heaven—every saint of our Savior—has come through what is called “the great tribulation.”  Some see that “tribulation” as a reference to the intense suffering to be endured by Christians who are still living in this world’s final days.  That will certainly be a “great tribulation.”  But please notice that the elder who speaks is referring to all the white-robed residents of heaven.  All these “are coming out of” the great tribulation (present tense).  This tells us that every saint of God in heaven has endured some dimension of this “great tribulation.”  We all have our share in this suffering.

        This great tribulation is the battle you wage daily against sin.  It is the persecution, the temptation, the suffering, the crosses you carry because you are one redeemed by Christ the crucified.  This tribulation often leaves you with a weary heart, and tear-filled eyes, and, inevitably, a sin-stained soul.  But rejoice and be glad, because every white-robe-wearing resident of heaven has experienced it.  This life can be filled with terrible tribulation—things that are unfair, unjust, and painful.  This tribulation is real and unavoidable.

        This is why we celebrate All Saints’ Day.  This is why we dare to turn our gaze inside heaven’s gates. Because we need to see how that multitude has gone through the great tribulation you are now enduring.  The difference is: They have come out.  They have exited.  They in glory shine.  They are finished with sin and its stain—finished with tears, finished with death.  How?  Based on what?  How did they get from here to there—from tribulation to jubilation?  From sorrow to eternal joy?  Sir, you know.  Madame, you know.  They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 

        On its face, it sounds ridiculous that something could be made white through blood.  In our experience, blood creates stains; it doesn’t remove them.  But not so with the Lamb—the Lord Jesus Christ.  For the blood of this red-blooded man was shed in sacrifice for you—for you and every stained sinner.  The blood of Jesus removes the stubborn stains that nothing else can erase.  Sin’s damning stain can only be cleansed away by the blood of Jesus. 

So, confess those stains.  Repent of those blemishes.  Wash your robe!  Let the blood of Jesus shed on His crucifixion cross do its cleansing work in you.  Let yourself be whitened and brightened in preparation for that day when you too will leave behind this great tribulation to shine like stars in the kingdom prepared for you since before time began.

        The blood of Jesus is THE perfect stain remover.  Not even a trace of sin’s stain is left behind where the blood of Christ has carried out its cleansing work.  His blood can make the foulest clean.  There’s power in the blood—wonder-working power.  And that precious blood of the Lamb—with its wonder-working power—is poured into your sin-parched lips right here for the forgiveness of sins.  Real blood, for real sins, for real cleansing, and real life that lasts forever.  Here at this altar you are whitened and purified in the blood of the Lamb in His Holy Supper.

        Blessed are you on this All Saints’ Day.  Yours is the kingdom of heaven.  In your struggle against sin, be comforted:  Your sinful stains are lifted away in the cleansing blood of Jesus.  Your time of tribulation is nearly over.  (The exit is just ahead.)  Rejoice and be glad.  Great is your reward in heaven.

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

Be Still and Know

Jesu Juva

Psalm 46                                                       

October 25, 2026

Reformation Sunday     

Dear saints of our Savior~

        God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.  So begins Psalm 46—which our choir sang this morning.  This Psalm was Luther’s inspiration for his most famous hymn, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.  Both Psalm 46 and Luther’s hymn boldly declare that the Church of Jesus Christ will endure forever—that the gates of hell will not prevail against her—that the Kingdom ours remaineth—despite threats, persecutions, false teachings, and assaults on all sides.

        Psalm 46 has rich theology; but the geology seems all wrong.  The Psalm speaks of mountains—moving mountains, shaking and quaking mountains, mountains falling into the sea.  Those aren’t the mountains I know.  Most mountains are quite immovable.  They’re not going anywhere.  They are lasting landmarks.  Our Psalmist was apparently no geologist.

        Then again, this Psalm, like all the others, is poetry—poetry with power and purpose.  It’s poetry in service of the gospel.  And what counts in this poem isn’t the literal, geological detail.  No, these mountains are metaphors.  They signify something else.  Mountains stand for strength and stability.  So, when mountains are moving and shaking and quaking, something’s not right.  It’s just like in real life when all that we look to for stability and security fails—when our whole world gets turned upside down, and our carefully crafted normalcy devolves into chaos.

        When the sturdy mountains in your life start moving, well, then you’ve got trouble with a capital T.  When a loved one dies, when the job is terminated, when people you love wander from the faith or reject it altogether—or, when you yourself come face to face with the depth of your own depravity—this is chaos. This is when the earth gives way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea.

        But precisely then, Psalm 46 teaches us: God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.  Precisely then we learn that our real source of strength and support is not the people or the things or the money.  It’s not the “goods, fame, child, and wife,” as we sang earlier.  “Though these all be gone, Our victory has been won.  The Kingdom ours remaineth.” God Himself is our refuge and our strength—our mighty fortress, our trusty shield and weapon.

        Do you believe it?  Is this the God in whom you trust when your world caves in?  Is this the God you turn to when an ocean of evil and a sea of sin threaten to sweep you away?  Or is there some other god—some idol that you cling to like a life preserver?  In this Psalm God calls us to repent of our idolatry.  He calls us to let go of whatever prevents us from fearing, loving and trusting Him above all things.  He says, “Be still and know that I am God.”

        Be still and know that I am God.  That’s one of the most valuable sentences in all the Scripture.  Because what usually happens when calamity strikes and our world gets turned upside down?  Well, we think that we have to fix it.  We think we have to call the shots.  We think it all depends on us to make things better—our works, our words, our strength, our intelligence.  We think that our clever calculations can do the trick and make the difference.  But God says: Stop.  Be still.  Know that I am God. 

        Put away your idols and let God be God.  What does that mean?  It means be still and stop telling God what to do.  If you need help, pray for help.  If you need rescue, then pray for rescue.  If you need healing, then pray for healing.  But don’t limit your petitions by dictating the details of the help and healing you need.  Trust Him.  Trust that He knows best how to help—and believe that He wants to help.

        Let God be God; and let you  . . . be still.  Be still and stop trying to be god in the place of God.  Stop trying to control everyone and everything.  Be still and know that the results are in God’s hands—not yours.  Your job is simply to be faithful—to hear His Word and keep His Word—and then to sit back and watch the wonders God can do. 

        It calls to mind that scene in Exodus where the Israelites have hightailed it out of Egypt only to find themselves in a situation of absolute peril and calamity.  Pharaoh and his chariots were closing in from behind, and the Red Sea waters loomed ahead.  Their options were death . . . or a return to slavery. 

But Moses told them:  “Fear not, stand firm, [behold] the salvation of the Lord, which He will work for you today. . . .The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent” (Ex. 14:13-14). And so the Israelites went their way in silence and awe; and watched the Lord’s deliverance unfold.  The Lord triumphed gloriously, the horse and rider thrown into the sea. 

        In the same way, we stand at the cross of Jesus and witness our own rescue.  We witness the nails and the thorns in silence and awe, knowing that by His wounds we are healed—by His blood we are saved.  In Jesus alone we are rescued and delivered.  All of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  All of us have tried our hand at being god in the place of God.  And for that there is hell to pay. 

So be still, and see what Jesus has done.  He has carried your sin and guilt to the cross.  Jesus is your refuge because He knew no refuge on Good Friday.  Jesus is your strength today because on Good Friday He used up every last ounce of His strength to deliver you.  He was exalted on the cross so that you might be exalted to His heavenly kingdom.

        Psalm 46 tells us that the Lord is “a very present help in trouble.”  Those words tell us two things.  First of all, there will be trouble.  You can expect it—mountain-moving, earth-shaking, heart-pounding trouble.  But you do not face it alone.  Your God is a very present help in times of trouble.  And just what is this help?  His good gifts and Spirit:  In the preaching and proclamation of His Word, in the cleansing sentence of holy absolution, in the new birth of Baptism, and in the bread that is His body and the wine that is His blood.  These are the good gifts through which God is pleased to work in you—to support you and deliver you in time of trouble, and to give you eternal life.

        This is the river of Psalm 46—the “river whose streams make glad the city of God.”  It’s not a literal river, as we think of rivers.  It’s a metaphor.  It’s something better.  It’s a river of blessings—a river of forgiveness—a river of living water welling up to eternal life.  And it flows from the cross of Jesus Christ, right through this altar and this pulpit, right into your ears and your mouth and your heart.

        Reformation Sunday is all about the Savior and His good Gospel gifts—the help He provides in time of trouble.  There was a time in human history when the Savior and His gifts were all but lost—when satanic lies had all but erased the truth of God.  Christians lived in fear of Jesus the judge.  Forgiveness was bought and sold in the church.  Heaven was something you worked for and earned—but you could never be sure if you were good enough to get there.  When it came to salvation, the church’s message wasn’t “be still,” but “good luck!”

        Today we remember the miracle God worked in those dark days—how a man named Martin was made to see, “the just shall live by faith.”  And with that glorious gospel truth the church of Jesus Christ was renewed and restored.  Still today the Reformation miracle endures.  And we will not fear.  God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.  Come hell or high water, falling mountains or surging seas, the Lord Almighty is with us.  The God of Jacob is our fortress.  The Kingdom ours remaineth. 

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

 

Lambs among Wolves

Jesu Juva

St. Luke 10:1-9                                            

 October 18, 2026

St. Luke, Evangelist       

Dear saints of our Savior~

        Christmas is just now 68 days away.  If you just can’t wait to unpack your Nativity scene with the holy family, the shepherds, the stable, and the angel—or if you find it heartwarming to hear a group of little children singing, “Away in a manger,”—or if you yourself love to belt out Gloria in Excelsis Deo—well then, today let’s remember and give thanks to God for the man who made it all possible: Saint Luke, the Evangelist.

        The Holy Spirit inspired Saint Luke to write one third of the entire New Testament, including his detailed account of the Nativity of our Lord.  It is exclusively in the Gospel according to St. Luke that we hear angels singing, “Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth good will to men.”  It’s only from Luke’s pen that we know about the shepherds, the manger, the inn, and that Quirinius was governor of Syria when Jesus was born.  Luke alone gives us Mary’s Magnificat and Simeon’s Song about departing in peace.  Christmas would be quite different—in fact, the entire Christian faith would have a big, gaping hole—without the “good news” written down by Saint Luke.

        There’s one theme that permeates Luke’s gospel. That theme was spoken by Jesus at the home of Zacchaeus the tax collector:  The Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 19:10).  Seeking and saving the lost—that’s the beating heart of the good news according to St. Luke.  Luke makes clear that’s why Jesus was born in Bethlehem—that’s why angels sang at His birth.  That’s why Jesus was crucified, died and was buried—why He rose again on the third day—why He ascended to the Father’s right hand.  Jesus came to seek and to save sinners.

        That seeking and saving continue today.  You and I are proof of it.  For wherever there are sinners—wherever there are sheep without a shepherd—wherever there are prodigal sons and daughters—there you can be sure that Jesus is seeking, Jesus is saving.

        But today’s Holy Gospel reminds us that, before there can be a seeking and saving, there has got to be a sending.  Sinners can’t grope their way to God by their own reason or strength.  Someone must be sent to them.  There must be a sending of men to preach and proclaim the good news about Jesus.  All Scripture is breathed-out by God and is useful.  But all Scripture must also be preached and applied to the hearts of men and women everywhere.  This is why the Savior who seeks and saves the lost is also in the sending business—sending pastors and preachers to proclaim:  The kingdom of God has come near to you.

        About this time every year I remember how the Lord sent me to you, here at Our Savior.  For it was right around Columbus Day that I accepted the call and came here to visit with my family for the first time.  Fall colors were blazing.  Leaves were falling like tongues of fire as we walked down the block to Richards school to get our children enrolled.  It was exciting and scary and overwhelming.  But in, with, and under all that, the Lord Jesus was sending—sending me to you, so that His work of seeking and saving the lost might continue in this place.

        When Jesus sent out the seventy-two in today’s Holy Gospel, He told them: I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves.  You have to wonder what the seventy-two thought when they heard that.  Note the danger.  For we all know what can happen to lambs among wolves.  And Jesus sends them out practically empty-handed—no moneybag, no knapsack, no sandals, no wolf repellent, nothing.  Like lambs among wolves—like kibble for carnivores.

        Because the wolves will be watching, Jesus sends the seventy-two out two by two.  There’s some safety and security in numbers.  That’s why you shouldn’t be a solitary Christian.  Never separate yourself from the Communion of saints.  Believers who think they can get by on their own—privately, apart from the church—are like a lone lamb.  That’s what the wolves look for.  You don’t have to watch too many nature shows to know what the outcome will be for the defenseless, solitary, little lamb.  That’s why in His sending of the seventy-two, Jesus sends them in a fellowship, a team, a communion with one another.  That’s also why He’s called you into this congregation.

        St. Luke tells us that when Jesus was born, the angels sang about peace—peace on earth, good will to men.  That’s also the message Jesus gave the seventy-two to proclaim:  Whatever house you enter, first say, “Peace be to this house.”  These sent-ones are ambassadors of the Prince of Peace.  This is so much more than just a fond wish or a sappy Hallmark greeting.  This peace comes from the cross of the Crucified One, a peace the world cannot give—resurrection peace—a peace that surpasses our understanding. 

        You yourself have received that peace.  You are receiving that peace today as God’s sent servant places God’s Word in your ears and places the body and blood of God’s Son on your lips, saying:  The peace of the Lord be with you always.  The peace you receive here is the peace of sin forgiven and heaven opened.  With the peace of Christ reigning in your heart, you (like Paul) can fight the good fight.  You can finish the race.  You can keep the faith and claim the crown that awaits all who trust in God’s beloved Son.

        Jesus told the seventy-two He sent to say these nine words:  The Kingdom of God has come near to you.  That sentence probably summarizes every sermon I and my fellow “sent ones” have ever preached.  The kingdom of God has come near to you in God’s Son, Jesus Christ—in the words of His promises, in the splash of His baptism, in His holy absolution, and in His precious body and blood.  That’s how God’s kingdom comes to you.

        And take note of this too:  God’s kingdom comes.  We don’t build the kingdom of God.  We don’t make it succeed or fail.  We proclaim it.  We preach the kingdom, and God Himself gets the results.  We proclaim, but God builds.  The kingdom of God is not built on our efforts but on God’s efforts, not on our works, but on Christ’s works, not with our blood, sweat, and tears, but with Jesus’ blood, sweat, and tears.  He does the work.  Those He sends announce, “It is finished.” And you—you simply believe it.  The Lord Jesus has sought you and saved you.  And He has sent me—to you—to preach that good news.

        The Lord Jesus has not specifically called and sent you to preach the gospel.  But He has called and sent you to do other important work.  You have your own callings, your own vocations as parent or grandparent, son or daughter, citizen, student, neighbor, worker, or friend.  These callings also require risk and sacrifice.  You may sometimes feel like a lamb among wolves.  And often we’d rather not do the very thing God has sent us to do.  But know this:  Wherever Jesus sends you, there He will bless you.

        That’s how it was for Saint Luke.  Luke wasn’t a preacher like Paul.  He was a historian and a physician.  As Paul’s execution drew near, Luke alone was there, attending him, comforting him.  Because, in the end, we are all beggars, only able to receive and believe the great good news that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.  Luke was by Paul’s side as a physician of body and soul.  The Lord used Luke in mighty ways that have enriched our lives and strengthened our faith.  Because of Luke, you can know for sure:  The kingdom of God has come near to you.

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