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A story is told of when King George V of Britain paid a visit to the city of Leeds, England. Elaborate preparations were made for his coming. Excited crowds filled the streets to wave and cheer. There was a large elementary school in Leeds with a playground parallel to the railway line.  His majesty agreed to wave to the boys and girls as the royal train passed by on the last day of his visit. The boys and girls crowded to the playground wall  overlooking the railway. Soon the train moving slowly , emerged from a long tunnel and gradually drew alongside the playground. Then the king himself emerged from the royal coach and stood on a small platform where all could see him.

He wore no purple crown or purple robe but was dressed in a plain suit, just like an ordinary man. From his jacket pocket he plucked a bright handkerchief with which he waived to the cheering children. All too soon the train glided by and disappeared. Then the cheers subsided into silence, except for one little girl who was crying. One of the teachers asked her why she was crying. The little girl said that she wanted to see the king and all she saw was a man.

When the crowds saw Jesus ride into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, they saw a man- a man who was dressed and looked as ordinary as any other man. Yet this was no cause for disappointment.  For it was no ordinary man who was riding into Jerusalem that day. It was the King of Kings, who became man to save us human beings.  His purpose entering Jerusalem was not to wow the crowds with his majesty, but instead his resolute purpose was to die. He knew that once he entered the gates of Jerusalem there was no turning back.

In our gospel lesson Andrew and Phillip talk to Jesus about some Greeks who wish to see Jesus. Jesus answers as if this request is only about curiosity of those who want to see the majesty of a king. He answers the two disciples: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.  Jesus also reveals his state of mind on the brink of his betrayal:

 ²⁷ “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. When Jesus entered Jerusalem he knew the hour was at hand, he knew there was no turning back now.

Brothers and sister in Christ, there is no turning back now. Today is Palm Sunday and we see that there is no turning back from the course Jesus set his face toward. Following the entrance into Jerusalem is always the sequence of events that leads to the cross. 

For Judas, once Satan had entered into him, there was no turning back from his intention to betray Jesus.  He already took the 30 pieces of silver, he already set in motion an apparent final scene for Jesus to face in Jerusalem during Passover week.

Jesus for his part knew what was in man, he knew emptiness and evil is in the heart of mankind, he knew the suffering and punishment that awaited him. There was no turning back, because he was faithful.

We hear in our Old testament lesson from Isaiah a conversation of the Son to the Father. The Lord God has given me  the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary.  

Jesus became man, he took on the tongue of those who are taught by God, he became the same as us. He did this so that his words would be words we knew and understood, so they would sustain us in our weariness.

 Morning by morning the Son has his ears awakened to hear from the Father. This is a description of  the Son learning the scripture day by day. Jesus learned the scriptures and the Father’s will for Him.

Jesus is obedient to this will that he should suffer at the hands of sinful men- “The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious; I turned not backward.” The obedience of the Son is so great that he gives his back to those who strike, and his cheek he leaves unprotected. As the disciples were taught “But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” 

But this suffering ordained by the Father is never without purpose.  All through it the Son indicates: “The Lord God helps me, therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know I shall not be put to shame.”

The Son is steadfast in his obedience and his determination because he knows that the Lord’s help is with him through it all. It is just as the gospel of Luke records about Jesus: “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.”

The Son declares: “I know I shall not be put to shame, He who vindicates me is near. Behold the Lord God helps me; who will declare me guilty?” The Son is not afraid of the accusations of Satan the ancient foe. He says: “Let us stand together” This means let us face each other one on one, let us stand in court and let the chips fall where they may, for the Father will vindicate the Son and declare Him perfectly righteous and without fault.

There is no turning back now because we follow this Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. We seek to abide in Him and grow in Him, we seek spiritual maturity. Because to go back to old ways of sin would be to disown him. Here on Palm Sunday, it is especially clear that there is no going back, Jesus has called us to follow him.  Jesus has called us to maturity in our faith.

This is the Father’s will that we achieve a maturity of faith.  That is why the Holy Spirit inspired St. Paul to write: ⁵ Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, ⁶ who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, ⁷ but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. ⁸ And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. ⁹ 

Often in our Christiana faith we want only the glory of God as found in the Transfiguration, or in the Triumphal entrance into Jerusalem, and then the joy of Easter.  But if that is all we see, we miss our salvation.

Forgiveness and eternal life look also like the rest of Holy Week. A weakened body and a bloody man, his back shredded by the whip that plows out furrows of flesh with each lash.  Do we see this as part of the story of our salvation too?  

If you miss Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, you will think less often of the betrayal of Jesus, and the suffering of Jesus, you may not see how he emptied himself and humbled himself to suffer in our place.  But there is no going back for the mature Christian, you need to continue the story, you should see the road of sorrows Jesus walked, the via dolorosa.

Let us listen to the warning Jesus gave in our gospel lesson after he taught the hour had come for the Son of man to be lifted up: “The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going. ³⁶While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.”

Brothers and sisters in Christ, here in this fourth Sunday of Lent we are blessed with an abundance of themes about light triumphing over darkness. From our Epistle lesson:  ⁸ for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.

From our Old Testament reading:  And I will lead the blind  in a way that they do not know, in paths that they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground.  These are the things I do, and I do not forsake them.

And last but not least from our gospel reading: We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. ⁵As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

In the scripture darkness does not only mean evil, but also being lost and not getting anywhere, darkness is futility. And as we will see as we dive further into our gospel reading from John chapter 9, people in darkness are often not aware that anything is even wrong. This is because darkness in the scripture means going without the light of God’s truth, it is living in a constant lie and deception.

Likewise in the scripture light means more than just goodness and freedom from the bondage of evil. Light also means knowledge of truth. To walk in light is to walk in knowledge of God’s Word, following God’s law instead of the rule of sin.

Psalm 36 describes that we see because God first gives us light as a gift of his steadfast love.  “For with you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light.”  We see because God gives us the light of his truth. When we try to find clarity and purpose in our lives outside of the purpose in God’s Word, when we try to light our own path, we are only walking in the darkness of our sin.

In our gospel lesson Jesus is asked about a man born blind from birth, if his sin or his parent’s sin led to this disabling blindness from the start in this man’s life.  But Jesus corrects their line of questioning in trying to always find someone to blame for sin. He gives them the light of God’s truth to see how foolish it is to look for reasons why others deserve afflictions and why we don’t.

The disciples are caught up in  the question of what went wrong for the man born blind, and Jesus turns their attention from the man’s blindness to his healing mercy. Jesus made mud with his saliva and anointed the man’s eyes with this healing mud. He commanded the man to cleanse himself in the nearby pool of Siloam. The result is that the man came back seeing for the first time in his life. Jesus came to take away the spiritual darkness of the world, and what better way to show that then the sight he gave to this man born blind.

Greater than the gift of restored sight, Jesus gave the blind man the gift of an amazing sign that pointed to the fact that Jesus is the Son of God.  Every time the man woke up in the morning he opened his eyes to what for so many years was darkness.  Everything he saw, was a testimony to the blessing Jesus gave to him.     

The man’s role as a living witness to the light of Christ continued as word of what he reported about Jesus spread and the Pharisees sought after him for questions.  The Pharisees wanted to use the man to somehow testify against Jesus.  But he had nothing negative to say about Jesus.   

He simply shrugged off any accusations that were made against Jesus by pointing out: ‘all I know is that I was blind and now I see.’ 

After this and other clear statements about Jesus they reject him and cast him out of their sight.  They jeer at him “You were born in utter sin.”

The Pharisees assumption in this thinking is that you get what you deserve.  Those who have blessings in life must have deserved them and those hardships likewise must deserve the punishment of misfortune.  Many in our culture believe this today as well in the form of a belief in karma- what goes around comes around. 

In fact we ourselves can fall into this blindness as well, as it is easy to adopt some of the common sense assumptions of Karma, that if we do the right things in life it will go well with us, and if not we will pay the price.  This thinking can lead us to the blind delusion that we can secure our own salvation in life through making the right choices.

But this is not how God works.  Jesus quickly denies any thinking about personal sin as the cause of inherited misfortune for the man born blind or anyone else.  God gives us gifts not according to what we have earned, not according to some universal law of karma- but instead from the foundation of his steadfast love.   

We heard in our Introit, “My eyes are ever toward the LORD, for he will pluck my feet out of the net.”  Although this man was born blind, he looked to Jesus in faith. He followed Jesus’ instructions to go and wash, and he spoke the truth of what Jesus had done for him. His eyes were now toward the LORD because Jesus had delivered him both from his blindness of his eyes and the blindness of his sins.

We all know the hymn Amazing Grace.  “I once was lost, but now am found, was blind and now I see.”  How beautiful when God’s Word lifts the darkness of our lives with the light of Jesus.  How beautiful when we repenting of our sins that weigh us down and cloud our vision, we see New Life in Jesus!   

Our Lord spoke to the disciples about how he had come to do far more than restore sight to one blind man- but instead to over take the spiritual darkness of this world with his light.

⁴ We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. ⁵ As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

In this world there are always those who reject the light. In fact we are surrounded by those who live in the darkness of this world and in spiritual blindness. People will always cast doubt and skepticism on what is good and what is of God’s design and purpose for this world.

We heard in our gospel reading the sad irony of the darkness the Pharisees lived in, where they point to their own false righteousness and point at the sins of others. They try to look at apparent circumstances such as the fact that the man was born blind, and they give their theological interpretation that this was a punishment for his sin.

The same self righteousness is at work today when someone looks at the church in pessimism and says, look at all of the hypocrisy and failed lives people have in the church.  People conclude the church has nothing godly in it, that it is not the light of the world- that they are as much a light to the world than anyone else, that their darkness should be celebrated.

The restoration of sight to the man born blind was an undeniable miracle. Nobody would pretend to be blind his whole life until adulthood. The Pharisees take the most clear and apparent sign you can imagine that Jesus is sent from God, and they try to cast doubt, they cannot believe he was really born blind so that they ask to talk with his parents.

This is the same thing those who live in darkness do. They claim the world is billions of years old because they are unwilling to see the clear evidence of creation all around us, or listen about the six days of recorded in Genesis. They cast doubt on the origins of the books of the Bible, as if other writings were rejected by the church in a conspiracy to advance one version of the truth and suppress another.   

Even within the church people trivialize God’s Word and hand pick which things they want to be true teaching of God, and which teaching in the scripture that they want to call merely past cultural practices that we have evolved past. As a result, you can find erring church bodies permitting and condoning all kinds of immorality and evil that the scripture clearly speaks against.  

Still others hold beliefs about being a Christian that separate them from the light and truth of God’s Word because they don’t believe Christian faith is meant to be manifested through a church. They see church as part of society and their own private study of the Bible as a more pure practice of the faith.

This pride leads to all kinds of walking in darkness as it means doing what is right in your own eyes without the correction or guidance of a pastor and fellow members of the body of Christ. And most importantly it means rejecting the way in which Jesus has designed to come to us in Word and Sacraments in the gifts of worship.

Jesus is the light of the world, and that which leads us away from his truth leads us into darkness. To follow in the light of Jesus is walking a road less traveled in this world. It takes courage and it takes faith to keep our eyes open to the truth of God’s Word.  Together let us walk this path, let us walk in the light. Amen.

What do you see when you look at the cross? Do you see that God loves you and that in Jesus you have your salvation? Or do you see in the cross a standard of living life that you cannot live up to? Are you like Nicodemus, seeking to find just the right direction for how to live your life?  Trying to figure out how you can control things just right to get the life you want?

Lent is a time to look to Jesus and see the beauty of the LORD. The Gradual verse for the season of Lent comes from Hebrews “Come let us fix our eyes on Jesus the author and perfector of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of God.” 

What is the beauty of the LORD? The beauty is in Jesus’ selfless love toward us.  The beauty is seen in the bloody and gory picture of the Son of God humbled to the point of death on the cross. The beauty is not that we as the church are so twisted that we elevate images of blood and gore- but it is what Jesus’ suffering represents that allows us to see him lifted up on the cross, and gaze on the beauty of the LORD.

In our gospel lesson Jesus helps Nicodemus to see that if you want to see God’s kingdom you need to stop looking to yourself and look for what God reveals to you of His mercy.

Nicodemus came to Jesus looking for understanding of what he was seeing from Jesus- he wanted to know how Jesus performed these signs.  Jesus catches him off guard by telling him that in order to see the kingdom of God he must be born from above.

Jesus was teaching him about Baptism as a summary of what it means to receive spiritual life by the power of the Holy Spirit. Nicodemus does not get it, he is looking for much more tangible explanations, things he can see. He wants to visualize the need to be born again to where he protests that you cannot re-enter your mother’s womb.

Nicodemus is fixed on those things that humans can accomplish and he struggles to understand the work of the Spirit which you cannot see.  In his quest for understanding what Jesus is teaching, Nicodemus does not need to use human reason and logic to learn how to do what sounds impossible.

Instead, all he needs to do is listen to Jesus and let him show how the impossible is made possible.  Although Nicodemus cannot picture being born again, he can see Jesus.  He can listen as Jesus tells him about how life in the kingdom works, as Jesus proclaims to the world that he is the Son of God.

Jesus references that he must be lifted up- just as Moses was instructed to lift up the serpent in the wilderness. Jesus is talking about the deliverance the Lord offered to the people of Israel after their disobedience. The people of Israel grew impatient along the journey to the promised land. They questioned Moses why they even were there.

“Did you bring us out into the wilderness only to die? We were better off in Egypt in slavery to Pharaoh.”  They were ungrateful for the food that the LORD provided for them. After a period of time they began to say of the Manna “We loathe this worthless food.”

You can hear this account as simply part of Israel’s history and part of the background for today’s gospel lesson. But there is more. This narrative account of the history of Israel tells us something important about Nicodemus and about us.  As Nicodemus approached Jesus to talk to him at night- looking for answers, and as we approach our life each day- it is of greatest importance how we see things.

In the book of Numbers the people saw only their own complaints and did not see the deliverance that was right before them. In not seeing the promise of deliverance, in ignoring the promise of a Savior the people departed significantly from God’s favor. They were lost in their sin.

We see from the book of Numbers that the punishment for their sin was quick and severe. The LORD sent fiery serpents among the people and the bites were killing the people. This is a terrifying picture of the consequences of sin. The pain and the fear the people experienced was unbearable so that they asked Moses to pray to the LORD to take away the serpents.

There in the wilderness the people could no longer pretend they could save themselves. When they complained to Moses they thought they could make things better for themselves, but now they saw fully how perilous the journey is without the LORD’s help. 

The LORD was merciful to them and provided a unique means of deliverance. Moses was commanded to make an image of the very fiery serpent that was killing the people and put it on a pole, and simply looking at this bronze serpent the one who was bit would not die but instead live.

The bronze serpent, the image of the people’s punishment for sin would by God’s grace serve as the people’s deliverance. What looked like a graven image commemorating the destruction of the people was by God’s grace a symbol of their salvation.

This is how the Lord deals with us, his love and faithfulness turns our greatest failures into instances of our salvation. 

Jesus on the cross is a visual representation of the price of the sin of the whole world. And looking at Jesus’ death on the cross in faith we live.

At that time from an uninformed earthly perspective Jesus as the Son of God could be seen as someone who has come to be the instrument of our destruction. This would be the punishment you would expect for our sin. If anyone has a reason to destroy us, it would be the Son of God.

Yet God did not come to condemn the world, but God loved the world in this way, that he gave his Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

As Jesus was raised on the cross, naked, bloodied and humiliated, his suffering was the greatest reason yet to condemn the world. But instead, just like the serpent on the pole, the symbol of man’s disobedience to God became the symbol of God’s salvation for the world.

In faith and trust we look to this symbol in faith- day in and day out, until the time at last when Jesus takes us home. Just as we sang in the hymn Lord Thee I Love with All my Heart. “That these with joy my eyes may see, O Son of God Thy glorious face, my Savior and my fount of grace.”

In the meantime we have our brothers and sisters to care for, and to encourage that they also look at Jesus not as the one who comes in terror as the King of Kings, but kind and good with healing in His wings.  

Like Nicodemus we are still prone to look at God’s Work in the world wrongly, to miss seeing Him rightly. Hearing God’s Word, receiving His gifts in worship can become an aspect of life that we undervalue. As if we are just going through the motions.

We need to pray for ourselves and for our brothers and sisters in Christ, that they do not take their eyes of Jesus, or begin to see worship as a chore in the manner in which the people of Israel began to see the manna from heaven.

If faith should become a chore, all of a sudden people are looking to themselves instead of the Lord. All of a sudden decisions in life are made that separate more and more from God.

Think of how many people have grown up and learned God’s Word in this very place, who stopped attending worship, who said no thank you to the Lord’s promises in the gospel, no thank you- I will have a go at it on my own.

What dark and empty paths has Satan led people on who allow church to just be a background part of life, and make life decisions according to what is popular in our culture- who live life as if God’s Word has not changed anything in their life. 

As the church we mourn how commonplace it is for people to take their eyes of Jesus and his life giving cross and go after the sorrows of this world.  We mourn the heartache and sorrow that comes to our brothers and sisters in Christ as a result of lives devoted to sin and a lost sight of Jesus.

May this mistake not be so common among us. Like Psalm 121 celebrates: “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD who made heaven and earth.”  Indeed as we fix our eyes on Him and he will keep us from all evil.

Today in worship we hear once again from our Lord’s teachings on the Sermon on the Mount. This far into Matthew chapter 5 we are past introductory comments and definitions of what it means to be a follower of Jesus and who we are to the world as his disciples. Now we are into the heart of the sermon, and its teaching over the life of discipleship. Just in time for Valentines day, Jesus is speaking about the heart. He confronts us with the sin that is in our hearts, and the folly of trying to live up to God’s Commandments with only keeping up exterior appearances. 

When Jesus says you have heard that it was said to those of old- he is not speaking specifically about the scripture, but rather the interpretations of scripture made by scribes and pharisees who have prided themselves on being experts on keeping God’s law. “You have heard that it was said, but I say to you” Jesus is teaching that it may be popular to talk about keeping the commandments in terms of what you need to do to get by- but he is here to tell us now that there is a proper way to understand the commandments that has to do with not only outward actions, but what is in your heart.  

If you don’t murder anyone or say anything in public against anyone- then nobody will see the hate in your heart you have toward one of your brothers. If you don’t commit adultery and stay away from inappropriate physical contact from someone who isn’t your spouse- then nobody will accuse you of committing adultery. If you make the right oath about obeying God as your top priority, it is going to seem like you are loyal to the Lord, even if in your heart you have other loyalties that you are secretly keeping.

But all of this is just external appearances. Jesus is teaching us that there is more to it than just our appearances. Certainly, it is a good start to not commit the actual act of murder or adultery- even if you felt such temptations at one point or another. But keeping away from such serious offenses is only the start- not the whole of keeping a commandment.

A common thread in American Evangelical type churches is the belief that the gospel is intended for the lost, but not something Christians need to hear over and over again. There simply is not the emphasis that we hold in which the gospel comes to us on a regular basis as a gift from the Lord to give forgiveness and comfort to the believer day in and day out.

Instead, they believe that once you have heard the gospel and repented, then your role as a Christian is to live the part of a faithful Christian. You read the Bible and go to worship as a discipline and an accountability to continue succeeding in the life of righteousness, forsaking the quest of fulfilling your sinful desires.

By this way of thinking it is all or nothing- either you are a true Christian or you are a backslider who has fallen away and needs to be saved again.

You can find numerous life stories people have shared about how this quest of following the external model of appearances of righteousness can be destructive. Churches that see the role of Christians to stop sinning once they have received the gospel create the conditions for such attention on external righteousness. Do all the right things in life, look the part, and your life will go well. And when things do not go well a person might feel that it is because they have not followed the Lord well enough.

Unfortunately, this approach to faithful living leaves little room for receiving the forgiveness of Jesus in Word and Sacrament and in the gospel. Instead, the goal is to keep on striving to make your obedience to the Lord better in word and deed. The more you strive the more you expect the Lord will bless your life, and when something doesn’t work out, when a career fails or a marriage fails because of your faults, then you wonder what you have done wrong and whether you really have what it takes to follow Jesus as well as you should.

The life of seeking external appearances can lead to the crisis of faith, when you start to question how well your life appears. Which means instead of trusting in Jesus you have trusted in how well you have lived your life with the Lord’s help.

Knowing what is in man and knowing our foolish strivings to earn our salvation, Jesus breaks our attempt to live outwardly righteous. He shows us that in our heart we still sin and break all of the commandments. 

And yet he still loves us and forgives us, and gives us new hearts so that we can learn to live in righteousness at the heart level. He did this by putting his heart into our salvation, by paying for each and every one of the sins that come from our evil hearts by his own blood. His blood has paid for every promise we broke, every act of adultery, and every harsh word of hatred. He gives us the gift of declaring our corrupt hearts as pure and righteous before the Father.

This gift of faith we receive is not to show off to God or one another, but instead is given to us so that we would have true life in Him and that we would respond out of grateful thanksgiving for the salvation He gives to us.  A salvation he assures us of every day when we remember our baptism, remember that we are new creations in Christ.

The appointed verse for this morning comes from Ephesians chapter 5: “And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”  This is the true meaning of living in love. This is what we should be celebrating on valentines day, walking in love as a grateful response of God’s unconditional love to us that Jesus offered himself as a fragrant offering.

When we fix our eyes on this love, we are able to live in righteousness as the Lord designed for us.  We walk in love in response to what Jesus has done for us.

Without righteousness in our hearts we are not keeping any of the commandments- regardless of any outward appearances we might project. We are responsible for these failures- even as we are not able to keep them, we are still responsible. That is why Jesus says that we should first lose an eye or a hand than have our whole body thrown into Hell.

But of course, you cannot keep from sinning by getting rid of part of your body. Because it is really the heart where sin comes from- not the eye or the hand.  

 We need Jesus to give us new hearts, and indeed Christ gives us pure hearts.  Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to transform our hearts. “Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within me.”

The sinful nature continues to sin, yet the new heart is able to love your neighbor, honor your spouse and treat others with honesty and integrity.  And no matter what kind of spiritual rut you find yourself in, Jesus offers you a new start, forgiveness, grace and favor through his blood shed for you.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, love yourself and love others with the new heart the Lord delights to give to you. Delight in the goodness of the Lord to you this day. Amen.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, how wise do you feel? How confident do you feel in your knowledge of how things in the world work and in your understanding of God’s Word?

How successful do you feel?  Do you ever feel like you are behind in the world, that you are basic and operating at an elementary level? Do you envy others out there who seem to be doing better than you?  For some it is hard to be truly confident in this world if you do not have years of experience in a field or the recognition of a PHD degree.  

We began our worship service with Psalm 1 which describes a contrast between the one who walks in the way of the Lord and the one who walks in the counsel of the wicked.  This familiar Psalm helps us to see that the difference in the world is not between those who do well for themselves and are blessed with talent and success and those who are not.

Instead, there is the choice whether to follow the wisdom of the world or the wisdom of God. We heard in our Epistle reading: ¹⁸ For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. ¹⁹ For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” 

The wisdom of God is called folly by the world. People think it is foolish to trust in God for your well being, to put your trust in a God that you cannot see. People think it is foolish that God would send his Son to us to die on the cross.  People celebrate human wisdom and persecute those who do not bow down to it.

They persecute because the truth of God’s Word threatens them and makes them feel inferior. They pressure Christians in response to their insecurities, desiring to make Christians feel embarrassed and apologetic over the teaching of scripture and the wisdom of God.

But Paul celebrates this great power of God, that his wisdom which looks like foolishness to the world is the power of God that brings Salvation.  He says give me this foolishness of God any day of the week.

Looking at the world we live in, we see how often the wicked seem to prosper. We see how self assured people are who live by the values of our world and with scorn toward those values that come from God’s Word.

God promises that this wisdom will be destroyed. This wisdom will face the ultimate reality check when the Lord returns and the earth is destroyed.  The wisdom of the world cannot stand for even a moment against the judgement of the Lord.

Fortunately, we are not doomed to live by this fleeting wisdom. Our wisdom as God’s people is a wisdom that sees a bigger picture about how God’s kingdom always comes first, and how blessed we are to be a part of this kingdom.

Psalm 1 shows that the wisdom of God is built on a difference between the righteous man and the wicked. The righteous is learning and growing from God’s Word while the wicked scoff at God. Blessed is the man who walks in the Lord’s way, who meditates on His word day and night, who prospers in all that he does.

This is a way way that none of us can truly walk.  If we try and try with unrelentless commitment to reach this righteousness- we are only worshipping our obedience and our determination. However good our intentions, we fail to live in righteousness as bound as we are by our sinful nature with it’s selfish desires and motives.  

 Jesus alone is that righteous man of Psalm 1, he is the fulfillment of the Psalm. He alone is obedient to the Father’s will and without sin, he alone is free of the curse of original sin. He alone is blessed with a perfect union with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

 And he came to bring us to that restored communion with God. He brings us to this state of blessedness because he joins us to him, he leads us to walk in the way of righteousness by becoming our life. That is our wisdom that we choose over the world’s wisdom- to never lose sight that Jesus is our righteousness.

This is the wisdom to see that our glory is to humble ourselves and follow Jesus- not exalt ourselves. How foolish it is trying to build up your own reputation, when you would only be gaining something for the moment in this world. Instead the Lord leads us to seek treasure where moth and rust cannot destroy.

As we live by God’s wisdom we face persecutions and hardships that we would otherwise not have faced. And yet we are still blessed. The persecutions only serve to humble us and lead us to follow Jesus more purely.  

We face difficulty in our personal individual lives- but this does not mean we are cursed. The cross transforms difficulties into blessings, refines us through our trials through the wisdom of God. We are blessed because the cross is placed on us and with the cross we have the promises of life everlasting that the Son of God brings to us.

In our society we might think of someone who is blessed by how many friends or how much money is made, how long a life and how healthy and problem free.  But these are the world’s ideas of blessings.

How much greater than wealth that perishes and fame that fades are the blessings of God’s kingdom.

As God’s people, the church we enjoy fellowship with the body of Christ.  A fellowship where the mercy of Christ defines our relationships, not power. We live in a society where you are expected to always apologize and repent of your sins to the consensus of the world’s wisdom, and never receive forgiveness.

How much different is life in God’s kingdom where you will not be abandoned if you let people down or disappoint people one too many times. Instead through confession and absolution we have in the church a way to bring restoration to strained relationships, and every day a new start as new creations in Christ.

Jesus taught, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. We are blessed as God’s people with a knowledge of the truth of what is good and right in life. We know what it means to walk the way of righteousness, we know that it is all about repenting of our own sins and finding in our Lord’s promises forgiveness and hope.  This knowledge of the way of salvation means that you can look at the world differently and not see everything around you as a temptation or as an annoyance to your own superiority. 

In contrast the life ruled by sin has a distorted view of the world in which you do not see your own sin, and in which you do not see God. Through the blessings of God’s kingdom, we are the pure in heart, and we can see God. We see God in receiving the gifts of the gospel in worship, where we are renewed and refreshed and live in hope.

We see God as we receive his body and blood for our salvation. We see God when the victory Christ has won for us gives us a confidence that we are one in Him, we are his own possession, wonderfully made, for His glory, and blessed beyond what we could ever imagine for ourselves.

There are indeed two ways to live in the world and two different wisdoms to live by. May the Lord always keep us wide unto salvation, even unto the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. 

Brothers and Sisters in Christ, it is important that we are here this evening. The  Christmas Eve service is the first vigil of the appearance of Jesus in the world that we celebrate on Christmas. Celebrating Christmas here in the church is of great importance as we focus on our faith reception of the amazing gospel truth that Jesus is born for us.

The world may celebrate Christmas in its own way, but to the world the birth of Jesus does not matter. Instead, the world focuses on the Christmas Spirit developed by stories, where love peace, generosity and caring are seen as what Christmas is all about.

  “Give the gift of love” -one department store advertised with a banner across the ceiling conveniently placed near the jewelry department.  To the world Christmas is clearly about giving and about Jesus in a footnote type of way.

Our Epistle reading tonight from 1Titus uses a different slogan about Christmas: “For the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation for all people.” This is a message well beyond generating sales figures or lifting up family togetherness. This is a message of the world changed through and through by the abundant gift of God’s grace in the Lord Jesus’ appearance among us in his birth at Bethlehem

St. Paul’s letter to Titus does not center the definition of Christmas on how we give to one another over the season of good cheer or what Christmas magic we can spread to our neighbors. Instead, the focus is on what God does for us in the birth of Jesus, and what his birth was for.

The birth of Jesus is of immeasurable significance because it brings salvation for all people.  Not just to the Jews or the very religious people, but for all people. “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them light has shone”  Christ was born and Christ died on the cross so that all people could no longer walk in deep darkness, but could instead through God’s perfect wisdom, see the light of salvation in Christ.

Verse 12 continues: bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self controlled upright and godly lives in the present age,

The birth of Jesus is of tremendous significance in how we live our lives. Because of the birth of Jesus, ungodliness and worldly passions that the world approves of and celebrates, we chose not to celebrate- for we chose to worship God rather than man. We recognize that if we live according to the passions of the world, if we do not follow how Jesus trained us to live, then we would be acting as if Jesus’ birth is just an extra bonus about our lives that gives us the opportunity for a nice holiday once a year.

The scripture makes clear that the appearance of Jesus is not just a special birthday for us to celebrate, but the key to our salvation.

 “For unto you is born a Savior who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David!”

We receive the gift of a Savior who is the anointed one, who fulfills the scriptures, who is before all things , and in him all things hold together. Who is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, who is preeminent in everything, and in whom all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.  

 The birth of Jesus is a gospel gift to us, yet we would be taking the gift for granted if it did not reach us with great thankfulness and gratitude and hope for the way we live our lives.  

The world goes on living with life priorities as if the Savior long promised of old, of the line of David was not born, as if God did not come to our world, as if the great light had not come to those who walked in darkness. When we immerse ourselves in God’s Word the things people find so important outside of worshipping our Savior appear so trivial and petty.  

Instead of rejoicing in the undoing of the curse of sin and paradise restored by the relationship with God restored as Adam and Eve were destined to have, people instead try to find in Christmas their own false idols to celebrate. 

Unbelievers seek to create paradise for themselves- but this is always temporary and fleeting and disappointing. The world says there is no time like the present to make your dreams come true. The best laid plans of man are always an insult to what God has planned for us through the riches of His kingdom.

We are called by God not to make things happen, but instead as our reading from Titus continues: “to wait for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.”

We are called to worship and adore the God who gave himself for us to purify for himself a people for his own possession to do good works.  The birth of Jesus is of greatest importance to us because it purifies us to live as God designed.

The birth of Jesus was not so that we would be obligated to do good works in Jesus name. Our worship life as Christians is not about fulfilling obligations. Worship as obligation is the focus of the church down the road that will not meet tomorrow morning because they feel they have put their time in with their production of a worship service tonight.

We are here celebrating Christmas in church not out of obligation, but out of eagerness to receive the Lord’s gifts. And in receiving His gifts we respond in faith out of zealous desire for good works that comes from thanksgiving of all the Lord has done for us.

Tonight, we celebrate that the grace of God has appeared! We will continue singing and celebrating this great news. The grace of God has appeared, “unto us in a born in the city of David a Savior.”

This is a time not to fulfill obligations, but to be glad and to rejoice in what the Lord does for us: as we prayed in our Collect prayer. “O God, you make us glad with the yearly remembrance of the birth of your only begotten Son”  

And our joy is not just for the purpose of being happy and lighter than usual this time of year as an end in itself. Our gladness is a way to be vigilant and ready to behold Jesus when he returns to become our judge.

We are going to sing “Away in a Manger” yet tonight and “From Heaven Above to Earth I Come.”, and “Silent Night” to help us put our joy into flesh, to build memories of joy and celebration at what the Lord has done for us, and to prepare for the celebration of Christmas, and prepare us to wait in hope for the day when our Lord shall return, so that we may with sure confidence behold him when he comes to be our Judge.  Amen.