God Gives into Empty Hands

 

Jesu Juva

St. Matthew 5:1-12                                                       

January 29, 2023

Epiphany 4A                             

Dear saints of our Savior~

          Last Sunday we heard Jesus begin His public ministry.  We heard Jesus call His first disciples.  “Come, follow me,” He said, “and I will make you fishers of men.”  Those disciples walked away from everything they knew best—left behind comfortable careers and steady work as fishermen—gave up paychecks and pensions and a predictable plan for life.  And if you don’t find that astounding, then consider what it would take to get you to leave behind your salary, your security, your predictable plan for life.  The first disciples left it all behind for the sake of Jesus.

          Did they know what they were getting into?  Did they understand who Jesus really was?  No, they certainly did not.  These men were disciples of Jesus; but they had no idea what it meant to be disciples of Jesus.  Thankfully, they didn’t have to wait long to begin learning about discipleship.

          That’s what today’s Holy Gospel begins to unpack—what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.  In Matthew chapter four Jesus called disciples to follow Him

in faith.  In Matthew chapter five (today) Jesus begins to preach and teach just what it looks like when men and women follow Him in faith.  Jesus speaks nine beatitudes—nine statements of blessing.  These beatitudes served two purposes:  They were, first of all, an introduction to the entire Sermon on the Mount (which we will be hearing in weeks to come).  But secondly, these beatitudes gave a glimpse—a preview—into the life of discipleship.  Want to know what a disciple is and how a disciple lives?  Then listen to the beatitudes.

          The beatitudes show how disciples face the troubles of today while facing the future with hope and confidence.  They teach us how to live in the difficulty of the “now” while never losing the joy of the “not yet.”  To really “get” the beatitudes try to remember what it was like on the last day of school, back in second or third grade.  On that last day of school, you were still in school.  There were still rules and expectations and report cards.  But I always had a smile on my face on that last day of school because I already had one foot firmly planted in summer vacation.  Baseball and swimming and sleeping late hadn’t yet begun; but in my mind, I was already there.  I was living the present in the hopeful expectation of the future.  My “now” was being heavily influenced by my “not yet.”  In a manner of speaking, you could say that, for the disciples of Jesus, every day is like the last day of school.        

          “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” Jesus said, “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  This first beatitude functions like an introduction—a summary, really—of all the rest.  Jesus’ disciples mourn.  They are meek, they hunger and thirst for righteousness, they are persecuted peace-makers.  But at the top of the list, Jesus says, they are poor—poor in spirit.

          To be poor in spirit is more than just being humble.  And it has little to do with how big or how small our paychecks may be.  To be poor in spirit is to be a beggar before God.  In our affluent culture we don’t know much about begging and beggars.  After all, we have county hospitals, social security, food pantries and homeless shelters to keep people from having to beg.  Beggars are those who have absolutely nothing—those who are completely dependent upon the goodness and generosity of others for their very existence.

          To be poor in spirit, then—to be a beggar before God—is to stand before God empty-handed—completely dependent upon Him for life and salvation and everything!  No merit of our own.  No goodness in us.  No snazzy resume full of spiritual feats and accomplishments.  No credit for attending long church meetings.  No receipts for offerings given.  No gold stars for church attendance.  No tally sheets for how many times you shared the faith with someone else.  None of that.  The poor in spirit—the disciples of Jesus—are beggars.  They don’t say, “I thank You, God, that I’m not like other men.”  But in their emptiness they pray, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

          St. Augustine once expressed it this way.  He wrote: “God gives into empty hands.”  Disciples with full hands are not disciples at all.  Hands that are full—full of self, full of pride, hands tightly wrapped around money and entertainment and pleasure and sin and shame and vice—those are not the hands of the poor in spirit.  Those hands are not “blessed” by Jesus.  Those hands will never be the hands into which God can give Himself and His mercy and forgiveness and salvation.  And be forewarned that Jesus (in His drastic mercy) sometimes takes it upon Himself to empty our hands for us.

          Beloved in the Lord, disciples of Jesus, open your hands.  Unclench your fists.  Admit your spiritual poverty.  Jesus has a word for people like that.  He calls such poor, spiritual beggars “blessed.”  Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.  It is precisely when you have nothing that Jesus gives you everything.  Into your empty hand Jesus has placed His nail-scarred hand.  And that is everything—faith, forgiveness, mercy, purity, peace and joy.  Those are the goods Jesus gives away to His poor, empty-handed disciples.  Yours is the kingdom of heaven, not because you’ve achieved it—not because you’ve earned it—but only because Jesus has given it into your hands as a gift.  Jesus achieved it.  Jesus earned it.  Jesus emptied Himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross.  His poverty makes you rich.  His poverty makes you blessed.

          To be blessed is to be saved—to be safely secured—to be anchored to the grace of God through faith in Jesus.  Blessed are you, Jesus says.  But you should also know that to be a blessed disciple of Jesus doesn’t mean a happy, care-free life in this world.  To borrow from my earlier analogy, you’re still “in school.”  Playground bullies threaten to pummel you.  Homework and expectations and evaluations threaten to overwhelm you.  Temptations of every kind swirl around you minute by minute.  While the rest of the world rejoices over recess, the disciples of Jesus are mourning over sin and its effects in this dying world.  While the rest of the world adopts an aggressive, me-first attitude, the disciples of Jesus live under the cross in meekness.  While the rest of the world gorges itself in gluttony, the disciples of Jesus hunger and thirst for righteousness.  They are merciful.  They are pure in heart.  They don’t stir up conflict, but work to make peace.  And they are persecuted, because this world cannot long tolerate these who are blessed by Jesus.

          It isn’t easy being a disciple of Jesus.  But Jesus calls you blessed.  He invites you to face the troubles of today with the promises of tomorrow in mind.  And what are those promises?  You will be comforted.  You will inherit the earth.  You will be filled with righteousness.  You will be shown mercy.  You shall see God and be called sons and daughters of God.  The kingdom of heaven is yours.  It doesn’t get any better than that.

          The last day of the school year was a day of joy and gladness because you knew what was ahead.  In the same way, Jesus says, “Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven.”  Already in Holy Baptism you were joined to Jesus.  You will go where He has gone.  Already today in Holy Communion you will receive a foretaste of the heavenly feast to come.  Today in the Divine Service, heaven breaks in, heaven spills into time and space, the “not yet” works its way into the “here and now.” 

          “Now” is where you are.  And where is that?  Well, now you are blessed.  Now you can rejoice and be glad.  Now you are an empty-handed disciple of Jesus—poor in spirit but rich in grace.  Now you can live in the absolute confidence that school is almost over—that an eternal summer of joy and feasting and happy reunions is about to begin—for the sake of Jesus Christ our Savior, who gave Himself for you. 

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

Look to the Lamb

 Jesu Juva

St. John 1:29-42a                                                          

January 15, 2023

Epiphany 2A                                       

Dear saints of our Savior~

          Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.  It’s the gospel in a nutshell.  In one, simple sentence John the Baptizer perfectly summarizes the mission of Jesus Christ and the entire Christian faith.  Everything else you can say about Jesus or Christianity is really just an expansion of this one singular sentence:  Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.

          To behold is to look—to fix your eyes on one person in particular.  Jesus is, therefore, a “beholdable,” visible person.  The Word has become flesh and dwells among us.  People saw Him, touched Him, heard Him, ate with Him.  You cannot behold a myth or a legend or a fictional character.  But John could point His finger at a man and say, “Look at Him.  He’s the Lamb of God.”  Jesus is a real historic figure—a man who left His footprints in the dust of history—whose death and resurrection is the pivot point of all human history.  Jesus is God in the flesh—God with a human face.

          Notice what John is doing when he says, “Behold.”  John is turning the attention away from himself to Jesus.  Jesus must increase.  John must decrease. 

John had disciples who followed him.  But he pointed those disciples to Jesus.  Andrew had been one of John’s disciples, but he followed John’s pointing finger and looked to the Lamb.  Andrew then found his brother, Simon Peter, and brought him to Jesus.  That’s how the Christian faith grew and spread—that’s how the Christian faith still grows and spreads:  people pointing other people to Jesus and saying, “Look to the Lamb!”  Don’t look at me.  Don’t direct people to look at you and your life and how blessed you are.  Lead them to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

          And by the way, when you hear “lamb,” think “sacrificial lamb.”  Today we think of lambs as cute little wooly white animals, bounding around the barnyard—something for the kids to play with at the petting zoo.  But in the Bible, “lamb” means but one thing—sacrifice.  That’s what lambs were good for.  Their throats were slit, their blood was poured out on the altar.  Their bodies were roasted and consumed. 

          Remember when Abraham was taking his little boy, Isaac, to sacrifice him?  Remember Isaac’s question as they were walking along?  “Where’s the Lamb?  Where’s the Lamb for the sacrifice?”  And remember how Abraham said, “The Lord will provide the Lamb?”  Jesus is the Lamb of the Lord’s providing. 

          And remember when the Israelites were slaves in Egypt, and how the angel of death came calling for the all the firstborn on one dark and terrifying night?  Remember how it was only the blood of a lamb on the doorposts of the Hebrew homes that meant that death “passed over?”  Jesus is our Passover Lamb.  He’s our substitute, our stand-in, His life given in exchange for your life.  His blood now marks our door.

          The idea of a blood sacrifice seems almost barbaric to modern ears.  The notion that an animal had to be bled to death in order for a person to be right with God is downright offensive to many people.  You certainly can’t say that no animals were harmed in the making of the Old Testament.  Why do people object to the idea of a blood sacrifice?  Because it shows us our sin.  It shows how deeply flawed we are.  It shows how, by nature, we are so corrupt, that only the shedding of blood can make things right between us and God.  And the only reason that blood sacrifice doesn’t continue today is because of Jesus, the Lamb of God, whose blood cleanses us from all sin.

          This is why Christians more and more are looking to the crucifix instead of just a plain cross.  There’s nothing wrong with a plain cross—a cross without a Christ.  But a plain cross is no longer a distinctly Christian symbol.  Disaster relief comes from the “red cross.”  Makeshift crosses are used to mark scenes of car accidents and other tragedies.  Pop stars wear crosses as part of their bling.  Even in our polluted culture, it’s still cool to wear a cross, especially if there’s some celebrity cleavage to go with it.  But put a corpus on the cross—add the Christ to the cross—and it immediately and unmistakably becomes the highest symbol of Christianity.  Behold the Lamb of God.  See Him on the cross and contemplate that in those wounds you are healed.  The Lamb of God comes with a cross because that’s what lambs are for—they die for the sins of others.

          Notice that this Lamb dies for the sin of the world.  It’s “sin” in the singular; not “sins” in the plural.  In the church we tend to focus a lot on our sins (plural)—all the thoughts, words and deeds of ours that are contrary to the Law of God.  But all those sins (plural) are only symptoms of our sin (singular).  Sin is the condition; sins are the symptoms.  We Christians often focus on symptom management—trying to overcome specific besetting sins that really trouble us.  But the bigger problem is the underlying condition—the original sin in which our mothers conceived us. 

          Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  Not sins.  Sin.  Jesus deals with the underlying condition.  He goes for the source of the problem.  Jesus doesn’t simply take up our sins, He Himself becomes the Sinner.  Jesus becomes sin for us.  This innocent, spotless, sinless Lamb of God takes up our sin.  And He bears it all away. 

          Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  Not only our sin, but the sin of the world.  Not potentially, not theoretically, but actually.  Not just for some, but for all.  Christ didn’t come as God’s Lamb only to save the religious few, but to save the world.  He didn’t simply come for Israel, or for the church, or for you if you choose to believe in Him.  He is God’s Lamb for the whole world.  This means that every sinner is included in this Lamb.  Every person you meet has been died for by Jesus.  There’s no room for talk of how Christ died for you if you do this or that.  No, Christ died for you.  Period.  It is finished.  Believe it.  Receive it.

          God’s Lamb is for the world.  God wants the world to know about His Lamb—to trust in Him.  For in this Lamb exclusively is forgiveness and resurrection life.  You have all that in Jesus.  And what Jesus does for you, He wants to do for all.  We are called to be like John the Baptizer, pointing and proclaiming to the world that Jesus is the Lamb of God. 

          That’s our purpose here at Our Savior—to tell the good news about Jesus just like Andrew did for Simon, like John did for his disciples.  The world needs to hear it—is literally dying to hear it.  The world needs to know that there’s no person so bad that the Lamb of God did not die for them.  And there’s no one so good that they can do without the Lamb of God.  Who do you know who needs to hear that?  Who do you know who needs the Lamb of God?  Who has God placed in your path so that you can invite them here—so that they can look to the Lamb in faith?

          You can get no closer to the Lamb of God than when you come to this altar for the Lord’s Supper.  The liturgy teaches us to recognize the body and the blood of the Lamb.  For centuries, Christians have sung to the Lamb of God (the Agnus Dei) right before the distribution.  Why then and there?  Because the Lamb of God is here in bread and wine to take away your sin—to have mercy on you—to give you peace.  The altar recalls Christ’s sacrifice—when He gave His life for yours—when He took your sin and made it His.  The body of the Lamb and the blood of the Lamb are here for you.

          Behold the Lamb of God who takes away your sin.  And if He takes it away, it’s no longer yours, but His.  In the Lamb, your sin is no longer your sin.  Jesus has owned up to all of it.   He has taken that sin away.  The blood-free, shrink-wrapped, nicey-nice religion of this world is no remedy for your sin.  Only the real blood of sacrifice, shed at the cross and poured out at this altar will do for you.  Sin and sacrifice are messy business, but thank God you have perfect cleansing in Jesus—the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. 

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

Revelation, Consecration, Preparation

 

Jesu Juva

St. Matthew 3:13-17                                                      

 January 8, 2023

The Baptism of Our Lord   

 Dear saints of our Savior~

          The Baptism of Jesus takes up just a few verses in the gospels.  St. Matthew’s account which we heard today is the longest account.  And it’s only five verses.  But packed into those five verses is a surprising amount of good news.  That’s why we never let a year go by without celebrating and unpacking what happened that day at the Jordan River.  Jesus was baptized.  And that baptism is three things: revelation, consecration, and preparation.

          Jesus’ baptism is—first of all—revelation.  It reveals wonderful things that we wouldn’t otherwise know.  The Father’s voice from heaven lets the cat out of the bag:  This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.  This ordinary man named Jesus—the carpenter’s son—Mary’s kid who grew up in Nazareth and took over His father’s carpentry business—this is the only-begotten Son of God.  Begotten of His Father before all worlds.  Who would have known it?

          You wouldn’t have known it.  I wouldn’t have figured it out—not by looking at Jesus or by chatting Him up over a cup of coffee.  There was no glowing halo above His head.  No soundtrack of angelic music to announce His arrival.  There was nothing about Him that would identify Him as otherworldly.  You would have passed by Jesus on the street or in the grocery store without giving Him a second thought.  Nothing in His appearance said “This is the Son of God.”  That fact was hidden—buried beneath His humble humanity.

          For thirty years Jesus lived in obscurity up in Nazareth.  To our ears, “Nazareth” sounds like a place of glory and grandeur.  But Nazareth really wasn’t much.  People lived there and worked there and went to church there, but it was a town that generated few headlines—good, bad or otherwise.  For three decades Jesus lived a perfect, sinless life.  He perfectly loved His heavenly Father, kept the Lord’s name holy, kept the Sabbath, honored His parents, did not murder, commit adultery, steal, lie, or even covet.  You would have thought Him to be a decent guy—honest—but nothing more.

          And then one day when Jesus was about thirty years old, He came down from Nazareth and went down to the Jordan where John the Baptizer was doing

his thing.  Jesus stepped into the water, shoulder to shoulder with all the sinners who heard John’s cry for repentance.  Jesus waded into the muddy water and stood before His cousin John to be baptized.  John was stunned; he tried to talk Jesus out of it.  “I need to be baptized by you,” John said.  True enough.  John was a sinner while Jesus was sinless.  John was a son of Adam while Jesus was the Son of God.  John, like us, needed to be saved by Jesus.  But before that could happen, Jesus needed to be baptized by John.  “Let it be so now,” Jesus said, “It is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”

          Then an amazing thing happened.  Well, three amazing things actually:  The heavens were opened, the Holy Spirit descended like a dove, and the Father’s voice declared Jesus His beloved Son.  This is a revelation like no other.  All three persons of the Holy Trinity together declare that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God, the servant who comes to suffer for the sins of His people.

          Jesus’ baptism is a revelation; and your own baptism reveals something too.  Jesus’ baptism revealed His true identity; and your baptism reveals the heart of who you are:  a child of God, born again from above by water and the Spirit.  Your baptism reveals that you and Jesus belong together.  Or don’t you 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—a life with Jesus, a life in Christ.  Your baptism reveals this about you—as surely as a voice from heaven or a descending dove.  You are united with Jesus in His death and . . . united with Jesus in His resurrection.  And the certainty of that is your Baptism.

          Jesus’ baptism is revelation; and that baptism is also consecration.  Consecration is a word that has a pious, religious ring to it, and that’s probably why we almost never hear it these days.  To be consecrated simply means to be set apart for holy work.  Jesus’ baptism consecrated Him to begin His ministry of preaching, teaching, healing, and proclaiming the kingdom of God.  Jesus is still dripping wet with baptismal water when He sets off to do battle with the devil, and then to get busy with the work His Father had sent Him to do.  His baptism was consecration.  It gave Him His marching orders for ministry.

          That’s how it is for you and me too.  Your baptism is your consecration.  You too have been set apart for holy work—the holy work of your vocations and callings.  Your baptism has shaped you for the hard work you do in this congregation, in your family, on the job, and in your neighborhood and community.  Your baptism is the proof that God has plans for you—that you are men and women on a mission—people with a purpose in this world. 

          When you ignore your God-given mission—when you despise those callings—when you refuse to do them—when you put yourself first and foremost, you are sinning against God.  When we take the easy, wide path to suit our own desires—when we decide to go on sinning because Jesus has promised forgiveness—then we are denying our baptism, rejecting our God-given status, and making a desecration of our consecration. 

          That’s what St. Paul meant when he asked in Romans 6, “Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?”  Shall we live as if we were never baptized—as if we were not children of God, consecrated for holy work and holy living?  By no means! Paul declares.  It cannot be that way for you.  Does Jesus’ suffering and death for you mean so little to you that you will live as if it never happened?—as if the blood and thorns and nails mean nothing to you?  By no means!  That’s not who you are.  You are dead to sin.  You are alive to God in Christ Jesus.  You are consecrated for holy work.  You are baptized!

          Jesus’ baptism was revelation and consecration; and Jesus’ baptism was also preparation—preparation for His sacrifice.  Jesus’ baptism was a washing in preparation for His death.  His baptism set Him squarely on the road to Calvary and crucifixion.  He is God’s suffering servant of whom Isaiah spoke—who was pierced for our transgressions, wounded for our iniquities, who bore our sins and carried our sorrows, by whose wounds we have eternal healing.  Without that sacrifice, heaven could never be opened for us, the Spirit would not descend upon us, the Father would never declare us to be His sons and daughters.  But with that sacrifice there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

          Jesus’ baptism was preparation for His death; and your baptism is also a preparation for your death.  At your funeral we will first and foremost remember not your sparkling personality, not your many achievements, not your devotion to the Bucks, Badgers or Packers.  No, at your funeral we will first and foremost remember that you are baptized into Christ—that you have been united in a death like His so that you will certainly enjoy a resurrection like His.  Jesus was baptized for you—to fulfill all righteousness for you, so that you might become the righteousness of God.  Jesus became our sin in His baptism, so that we become His righteousness in our Baptism.

          Jesus was baptized to reveal, to consecrate, and to prepare a washing for you—your own blessed baptism.  In your baptism you were washed by water and Spirit to die and rise again in Jesus.  To you heaven is opened.  You are God’s beloved child.  With you He is well pleased. 

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

Named & Circumcised

 

Jesu Juva

St. Luke 2:21                                                                   

January 1, 2023

Circumcision and Name of Jesus              

Dear saints of our Savior~

          And at the end of eight days, when He was circumcised, He was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb (Luke 2:21).

          That may very well be the shortest Holy Gospel reading of the entire church year.  It’s one little verse, easily overlooked in Luke’s lovely account of our Lord’s birth and infancy.  But Luke was also a fine historian; and this verse demonstrates his careful attention to detail.  Up until this verse, Luke doesn’t

refer to Jesus by name.  In Bethlehem’s manger, He is simply a swaddled, nameless newborn.  When the shepherds visit, they don’t ask the first question that most of us would ask at the birth of a child:  What’s his name?  He didn’t have one for His first week outside the womb.  But on this day—the Eighth Day—He is named Jesus.  And along with that name, He gets the mark of the Covenant: He is circumcised.

          While the rest of the world is nursing a new year’s hangover, making resolutions for 2023, or just settling in for some college bowl games and parades, the church sets aside this day—the Eighth Day of Christmas—to celebrate the name and circumcision of Jesus.  And unless you are Jewish, this seems like a really weird thing to celebrate.  In fact, a less experienced preacher would likely seek to avoid this delicate matter altogether—or perhaps do damage to the piety of some by leading off with a few questionable jokes or a reference to a bad Seinfeld episode.  Far be it from me.  Your piety is safe.

          The significance of the 8^th day goes all the way back to Leviticus (nothing funny in Leviticus).  In the Old Testament, there was absolutely no notion of delaying—or waiting—to circumcise until the child was old enough to decide for himself.  There was no concept of an “age of accountability.”  But rather, on the eighth day of life, every baby boy born in Israel received the sign of the covenant and became a son of the covenant, an Israelite.  And together with that new identity, he also received his name.

          As it was for every baby Jewish boy, so it was for Jesus.  He is given the name Y’shua, Jesus, which means, The Lord saves.  As the angel announced to Joseph, “He will save His people from their sins.”  And how will He accomplish this?  How will He save His people from their sins?  By becoming obedient to the Law, by becoming a son of the covenant, by becoming an Israelite, by shedding His blood, and by freeing those held captive by sin and death.  This is precisely why the Son of God became flesh and was born.  He was “born of a woman, born under Law, to redeem those under the Law.”  And right then and there, on the eighth day of life, Jesus goes under the knife and accomplishes His very first act of obedience, with a lifetime of obedience to follow.

          Obedience can be painful—a lesson Jesus likely learned on the eighth day.  This day affords us the chance to put a dagger in the heart of that heresy in the children’s Christmas song.  You know, about how, “the little Lord Jesus, no crying He makes.”  I doubt that was true when He laid in the manger.  And I doubly doubt that was true on the eighth day when He experienced in His flesh what it means to be “under the Law.”  But we should consider this pain a prelude—a prelude to the cross.

          To fully understand the significance of this day, it’s necessary to know this about Jesus:  He is the Second Adam.  He is all of humanity in one Person.  He’s the stand-in substitute for the entire human race.  He embodies all of humanity in His own body.  And now, listen to where St. Paul takes this fact in Colossians chapter 2:  In [Christ] you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead (2:11-12).

          Now, the theology in this passage runs deep and wide, so bear with me.  This means that as both God and Man, Jesus can do the impossible.  It means that He is able to embrace others into Himself so that what happens to Him also happens to them—in Him.  This means that you—in Jesus—are also circumcised.  No, it wasn’t done to you; it was done to Jesus.  But being done to Jesus, you were included in His circumcision.  Got it?  We could say that, when Jesus was circumcised, the whole world became a Jew—male and female, boy and girl, it matters not.  And, because we are all circumcised in Christ, it means that circumcision (the painful kind, done by hands)—well, it becomes completely free and optional in the New Testament. 

          In the New Testament we have a new and better gift which unites us with Christ.  Circumcision was a physical way of demonstrating how our sinful flesh—our Old Adam—needs to be put to death.  For you, that now happens in Holy Baptism.  There in that cleansing splash your Old Adam is drowned.  And you are united with Jesus—joined to Him in His death and burial, and raised to new life with Him through faith.

          Many years ago one of our Sunday school teachers was trying to teach about Jesus’ circumcision to a group of children around the age of ten or eleven (and you thought your job was hard).  Afterward, the teacher reported to me how one perplexed little boy had raised his hand with a serious question on the subject of our Lord’s circumcision:  What’s the point? He asked.  What’s the point, indeed?

          I said earlier that His circumcision was our Lord’s first act of obedience, with a lifetime of obedience to follow.  Consider that phrase, a lifetime of obedience.  We, of course, can barely conceive of such a thing.  A lifetime of obedience?  How about just a calendar year of obedience?  For our years and our days are spent evading and avoiding obedience at all costs.  A look back at just the past year for each of us reveals a trail of sin and shame, of breaking God’s commands, of rebellion against God, and of despising those He has placed in our lives to be loved and cared for.  We’ve taken a permanent vacation from our God-given vocations.  While our Lord’s obedience was painful; our quest for pleasure means that we always, always avoid the painful choice of service and sacrifice.

          What’s the point?  Jesus is obedient where you are not.  He was obedient unto death—even death on a cross.  Jesus kept the Law perfectly (beginning at His circumcision) and He does so in your place, in your stead, because you are baptized into Him—connected to Him through faith.  And through that same faith, His perfect obedience becomes yours.  It is your clothing, your covering, your justification before God.  For the sake of Jesus Christ, your Savior—and solely for His sake—you stand before God as though you hadn’t sinned.  You stand before God as an obedient son or daughter of the New Covenant.

          Because Jesus was circumcised for you—because Jesus kept every commandment for you—because Jesus died and rose for you—it means that on the first day of this New Year you are free.  You are free to be who you really are in Christ—free to do good and show mercy to your neighbor—free to serve those around you, laying down your life, enduring pain for the sake of others.  You don’t do this because you need to earn God’s favor, but because you already have it in Christ.  You have nothing in this world left to lose.  And if we only believed that, it would really be a happy New Year, come what may.

          None of us knows what the New Year will bring in terms of health, wealth, and love.  Our times are in the Lord’s hands.  Everything we hope for and plan for always has “if the Lord wills it” scribbled across the page, as St. James says.  But we do know this, and we do have this as our certainty in uncertain times:  We have Jesus’ obedience under the Law, His perfect righteousness, innocence and blessedness.  And we have His Holy Name, the Name by which we are saved, by which He saves us from our sins.

          So greet the swiftly changing year With joy and penitence sincere.  Rejoice!  Rejoice!  With thanks embrace Another year of grace.

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