Just Say μὴ γένοιτο

Romans 6:15-23

Preached at Kraemer Chapel – Concordia Theological Seminary – Ft. Wayne, IN

4 May 2012

 

Old Adam always gets it wrong.  He can’t help himself.  He’s a fool, an idiot, a loser.  He suffers from a god delusion.  He thinks he’s a god who knows good and evil.  And when it comes to the law and the gospel, forget about it.  He never gets it right.  When he hears the Law, he tries to justify himself with his own legalisms and loopholes and pious works which aren’t nearly as good as he imagines they are.  And when he hears the Gospel, the good news of God’s grace in Jesus for sinners,  he turns it into a license to sin!

Old Adam hears, “Where sin abounds, there grace does much more abound.”  And he says, “Hey, let’s sin even more!”  He hears, “You are not under Law but under grace,” and he says, “Hey, I’m free to sin!”  Old Adam’s a brawling, arrogant, drunken, gluttonous, philandering, egocentric, self-idolizing self-justifying party animal who thinks he’s a god. If they ever make a movie about him, they’d probably cast Will Farrell or Charlie Sheen for the part.

Have you ever met him, that old frat boy Adam?  I have.  I meet him every time I glance in the mirror, and he leers back and winks and says, “Let’s party, dude!”  You’ve met him too.  I know you have.  And you’ve probably noticed that you can’t seem to et rid of him.  No matter what you do, party boy always shows up.  He needs to die.

He can’t be fixed, and he certainly doesn’t respond to education much less nagging from mother.  He hasn’t cracked a book since he bit into the knowledge of good and evil.  He’s beyond renovation, rehab, or repair.  You may be able to dress him up for Sundays and patch up his manners for polite company, but deep down Old Adam is the frat boy he always was, whose sole aim in life is to serve the law of Sin.

 The problem is that Old Adam hasn’t gotten the baptismal memo.  The Divine Coroner declared him legally dead.  His baptismal death certificate has been signed, sealed and delivered.  He’s been crucified in the body of Jesus, the second Adam.  He’s been buried with Jesus through Baptism, drowned in a deluge of forgiveness.  He’s legally dead, but he lives in denial.

Baptism precipitates a crisis. The crisis is that there are now two versions of you – one in Adam, the other in Christ, an old you and a new you.  One is legally dead to Sin; the other is alive to God in Christ.  But the problem with all things forensic is that it takes time for the Word of God to have it’s way.  And God, for whom a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day, isn’t in any screaming hurry.  

This call for faith and patent endurance.  You have to endure old frat boy Adam all the days of your life.  You’re stuck with him until you die and he dies.  What’s worse is you have to work with him, actually through him.  Everything you do, literally everything, is done in, with, under and through your old self who is looking for any excuse to sin.   Simul justus et peccator.  A Christ-like saint in a frat boy suit.

The apostle Paul calls the old self a “body of death.”  He must be threatened, coerced, punished, bribed, curbed, mirrored, instructed to cooperate, and it kills him.  Holiness just doesn’t suit him.  He’d rather slave for Lord Sin.  But as Jesus said, “You cannot serve two masters.   You will love the one and despise the other; and you will serve one and hate the other.”  Jesus was talking about God and Money.  St. Paul is talking about Lord Sin and Lord Christ.  Only one gets to be Lord, and it’s not Sin.  You are dead to Lord Sin.  You are alive to God in Christ.  You are freed from slavery to Sin.  You are now servants of Christ, slaves to righteousness, which is the only way to be truly free.

Old Adam doesn’t get that.  He doesn’t want to get it.  He wants nothing to do with it.  He thinks freedom means “Let’s sin and let grace abound.”  He needs to shut up and die.  One little word can fell him.  Well, two actually.  Me genoito!  It always sounds better in Greek, doesn’t it?  Not just a pietistic, moralistic, nannie slap on the wrist.  Me genoito!  This is an emphatic “absolutely not” “may it never be” “Hell, No!”  You’re baptized.  You’re dead to those twin losers Sin and Death.  You’re alive to God in Christ Jesus in whom your old self was crucified, died, and was buried.  And don’t let that old frat boy tell you otherwise.

 

Shall we sin that grace may abound?  Of course not!  Me genoito!

Shall we sin because we are not under Law but under grace?  Me genoito!

 

Oh, how Old Adam hates that word “no”!  You can see that  the face of even the smallest, cutest, most angelic and “innocent” child when it hears that word “no” and gives you a look that says, “I can’t believe what I just heard!  How dare you say ‘no’ to me  You’re talking to a god!”  You can see the palpable progression from denial to bargaining to anger to depression.  Grief.  Loss. Death.  You can see it in your own face when you’re denied something you want more than anything.  I deserve it.  I’m entitled to it.  I’ve worked hard for it.  I’ve earned it.  This job, this grade, this call, this position, this income, this life.  What do you mean “no”?

Lord Sin pays out his wages.  “The wages of Sin is Death.”  Lord Christ gives out His gifts.  “The free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.”  Old Adam gets what he deserves,  a baptismal Me genoito! that kills him, mortifies him, shuts his mouth, demands his obedience, and literally “me genoitos” him to death.  That’s why the “old you” hates the Law and why the “new you” delights in it. 

You are baptized.  That makes you dead to Sin and alive to God.  Crucified with Christ, buried with Him, raised with Him, glorified with Him, destined for resurrection to eternal life with God in Christ.  You now have the mind and will of Christ at work in you.  You have been freed from the dominion of Lord Sin and have become slaves of God, servants of righteousness, destined for holiness and life.

For freedom Christ has set you free; do not submit to the yoke of slavery.  Sin is slavery.  Put Old Adam in his baptismal place.  Drown that loser.  Don’t just say “no.”  Say Me genoito!  I am baptized into Christ.

In the name of Jesus,  Amen

An Open Letter

This came my way the other day and I thought it worth passing along.  A truly sacramental and incarnational missiology cannot overlook the importance of a physical presence on our college campuses.  We once had that vision, but now it seems we no longer do.  Here’s a student who gets it.

  An open letter to the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod Concerning Campus Ministry

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

In the last chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus tells Peter, “Feed my sheep.” This is the mission of the Church. She exists to proclaim the Word of God to those who do not believe and to feed believers with the precious Word and the Sacraments. Every Christian needs these precious gifts, and every unbeliever needs to hear the gospel of salvation found in Jesus Christ. Just as the Great Commission applies even to babies, so also it applies to college students. 

We need God’s gifts just as much as everyone else. If anything, we need them more, because most universities concentrate the attacks of the world. Many liberal professors, in all fields, attack Christianity. Some universities actively fund programs encouraging promiscuity among students. Universities across the nation are attacking Christian and pro-life groups. We need to hear the right preaching of the Word and to regularly receive the Sacrament if we are to resist these attacks.

Jesus said, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” (Matt 18:20). God is everywhere, yet it is at church, where we gather for Word and Sacrament, that He gives us His special gifts. The Word of God is always powerful, even when read alone, but God commanded us to meet together that we may hear the Word preached and receive the Lord’s Supper. At church, we not only hear the gospel of the forgiveness of our sins, but we also taste and see that the Lord is good. This is why we need campus ministries, that we may not only read the Word, but see our salvation and feel it on our tongues. It is to church that we go to receive the forgiveness of sins, the strengthening of our faith, and life everlasting. Without these blessed gifts, how can we hope to resist the assaults of the world, the devil, and our very own flesh? Apart from these, how can we remain in the faith?

College students need churches. Even more wondrous than having a church to go to is having a church on campus to go to. Colleges seek to fill us with knowledge and make us grow. This knowledge is good, but it does not bear fruit for salvation. The vinedresser gave fertilizer and tender care to the fig tree, so that it would bear fruit and not be cut down. So too do we need pastoral care and the preaching of the Word, that God may give us growth. Without the Word of Truth, we too are in danger of being cut down. Is it not fitting and proper that alongside the knowledge school teaches us, we should receive Him who is Wisdom incarnate? Many wolves love to gather on college campuses. A campus chapel is the sheepfold in the midst of the wolves, and this sheepfold is watched over not by hired hands but by the Good Shepherd. Though every congregation has problems, it is churches that are the green pastures and quiet waters where He restores our souls. 

Protect our campus chapels that we may have these green pastures and quiet waters in the very midst of the prowling grounds of the enemy. That we may flee from those who would attack us, cling for mercy to the altar of the Lord, and receive the body and blood of the Shepherd who laid down His life for us.

Campus chapels are a wonderful blessing from God, because there we may receive His gifts in the midst of those who attack us. There on campus, we can behold the font and make the sign of the cross in remembrance of our baptism. We can see the altar and recall Christ’s sacrifice. In the middle of a hostile university, we can hear, see, and taste our salvation. Glory be to God for gifts such as these!We go to college as adults, yet we are still learning. The college years are some of the most formative years of our lives. Though we are adults, are we not still your children? Though we are not little, let us your children come to Him. Please do not hinder us, for the temptations of this world are new and many, and the way of righteousness is narrow. Do not cast us out alone into the darkness, but send us pastors who give us the word that is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.Though many of us leave behind our earthly parents, do not take from us our Mother the Church. The gates of hell shall not overcome the Church, so may it be also for us. When the assaults of the world, the devil, and our flesh assail us, let our Mother be near at hand to tend us. For She does not merely give kisses and bandages to our wounds, she gives us eternal life and salvation through Christ’s own true word and His holy, precious body and blood. 

We need the Church to care for us more even than a newborn baby needs his earthly mother.The closer we are to a church, the easier it is for us to be cared for. Though God is always watching over us, His pastors cannot be. If you take from us our campus chapels and draw our pastors away from us, the harder it is for them to tend us as their flocks. That is why campus chapels are so important. Though the Church is not a mere building, the building is the heights on which the watchman watches. If you remove the heights, the watchman cannot watch as well. We are sheep most apt to stray. When we have a pastor on campus with us, it is much easier for him to go after the lost sheep. I beg you; do not let Satan use distance to keep us from church. Preserve it in our midst.

It is not professors or textbooks, but Christ alone who has the words of eternal life. Let us hear these words, for Paul says in Romans, “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” (10:14-15). Do not draw pastors farther away from us, but send them ever closer. Do not make them go far to reach us. Instead preserve our campus ministries, so we may sit at those beautiful feet and hear the good news that preserves us in the faith.

All people are like sheep and apt to stray, yet we college students are even more apt. The temptations are so great that over forty percent of youth leave the Lutheran church between confirmation and college graduation. A few will go to other denominations that do have strong campus ministries, but most will leave the Church altogether. How many more of us will be lost if we are without churches for four years? I beg you; give us pastors to guard us. Satan prowls like a roaring lion. The world hunts us like a pack of wolves. Our own flesh seeks to kill the new man within us. Protect our campus chapels and promote our campus ministries, that our pastors may guard us well. For what use is a guardian who is not present when someone needs protection? Do not let distance harm us and keep us from the Church. Instead come running as anxious as the loving father, to rejoice that we your prodigal children have returned unto you and to give us your gifts.

 

In Christ,

Phillip Fischaber

 

Happy St. Valentine’s Day

A little something from 2009:

 

 

My wife and I have an agreement since our courtship days.  No Valentine’s Day!  No store-bought chocolates, no overpriced flowers, no syrupy-sweet cards, and definitely no jewelry.  This was her idea, by the way, and I was more than willing to go along with the program.  It’s one of the reasons I married her.

 

Valentine’s Day appears to be one of those baptized paganisms.  Plutarch (that’s Mestrius Plutarchus who lived between 46 and 127 AD – for all you kids in public school) described the Roman festival of Lupercalia, which fell on Feb. 15th this way:

“Lupercalia, of which many write that it was anciently celebrated by shepherds, and has also some connection with the Arcadian Lycaea. At this time many of the noble youths and of the magistrates run up and down through the city naked, for sport and laughter striking those they meet with shaggy thongs. And many women of rank also purposely get in their way, and like children at school present their hands to be struck, believing that the pregnant will thus be helped in delivery, and the barren to pregnancy.”

It was the “running of the bulls” meets the college streakers of the 70’s.  I’m a bit concerned about the “shaggy thongs,” but I digress unnecessarily.  You get the point.  Lupercalia was a pagan fertility festival. According to one source, on Lupercalia a young man would draw the name of a young woman in a lottery and would then keep her as a sexual companion for the year.  (And you thought Mardi Gras was bad.)  Pope Gelasius I (492-496 AD – that’s how long he was pope, not how long he lived) dumped a bucket of ecclesiastical ice water on Lupercalia for obvious reasons and declared February 14th to be the feast of St. Valentine.

So who was Valentine?  Well, you actually have three guys to choose from.  According to the New Advent Encyclopedia, my on-line source for all things Roman Catholic, there are at least three different St. Valentines in the martyrologies.  One was a priest at Rome, another the bishop of Interamna (modern Terni, in case you haven’t made summer vacation plans yet), and the third some guy in Africa that no one knows much about.  As the story goes, Valentine got in trouble with Emperor Claudius II, allegedly over Claudius’ prohibition of marriage for young men because he needed more soldiers.  (It appears that emperors, like their modern day counterparts, can never get enough troop strength.)  Valentine got tossed into prison, where, legend has it, he fell in love with the jailor’s daughter and wrote her a little love note on the way to his execution.  And the rest, as they say, is history.  Sort of.

The Roman Catholic Church bumped St. Valentine out of the canonical hall of fame back in 1969, but the Lutheran Service Book managed to squeeze him in on its list of Commemorations.  (I’m not kidding; it’s on page xii.)  Geoffrey Chaucer, the patron saint of computer spell checkers, is responsible for the first written association of Valentine’s Day with romantic love in his Parelment of Foules (1382) (that’s “Parliament of Fools” for those of you who don’t read old English on a regular basis):

For this was sent on Seynt Valentyne’s day
Whan every foul cometh ther to choose his mate.

Pardon the spelling, but that’s the way they did it back in Chaucer’s day.  This was before Microsoft Word and the spell checker.  Just read it aloud, and you’ll get it, more or less.  On the day the birds search for a mate, somewhere in the middle of February, (which seems a bit chilly for avian romance, but hey, I’m not a bird), a letter of love was sent from a lover to his beloved.  And that, kiddies, was more than enough romance for Hallmark to turn the feast of St. Valentine into a multi-million dollar romantic dynamo.

As you can probably tell, my wife and I don’t invest heavily in the stock of romance.  We never did.  We both come from a line of practical people who didn’t have the time, energy, or money to engage in fantasy.  We prefer the long, slow simmer of marital love, seasoned over 17 years of life together with laughter, play, passion, friendship, respect, honor, and fidelity.  Romance may get the ball rolling in the beginning but it doesn’t have nearly enough mileage to get a couple through the long haul much less out of a ditch.  Don’t think we aren’t passionate about each other.  We are.  But passion doesn’t require roses and a box of chocolates to prime the pump.

Historically, people got married for really good reasons – political power, land, money, and a herd of sheep.  Marriages were generally negotiated between fathers and the couple more or less played the marital hand that was dealt them.  I know people who are in arranged marriages, and they seem to fare much better in the marriage game than most of the folks I know who married for romance.  It was the Victorians, with their lace and lavender, that brought romance into marriage, causing otherwise sane people to expect to be swept off their feet by someone with whom they share a bathroom every morning.  

Romance is a religion, holding out the prospects of perfection for a price.  It’s a grand illusion that there is a special somone out there made just for you, a soul mate, your match made in heaven.  When you realize that the person you are married to isn’t that one, the absence of romance leads directly out of what might otherwise have been a perfectly serviceable marriage.  One of the things I hear all the time from couples in trouble is, “We need to rekindle the romance in our marriage.”  Hearing that, I know they are headed for disaster.  Romance is the last thing they need.  The pursuit of romance leads either to affairs or divorce court.  What the unhappy couple needs is a dose of maturity and the happy realization that life moves grandly on to better things after senior prom and the wedding day.  Enduring marital love consists in giving not getting, in faithfulness not fireworks.  The romantic mystery ends the morning he or she crawled out of your bed, which is precisely where all “romance novels” come to their end.

Walking by the local supermarket today, I noted the grim faced, determined young men dutifully clutching their bouquets of flowers, looking like St. Valentine on the way to his martyrdom.  I can only imagine what judgments await them at the close of the day.  As for me and my house, we’ll settle in to a nice home-cooked meal at our own banquet table and the easy ongoing conversation that is our marriage.  We’ll light a couple of candles, open a nice bottle of wine, probably a Cabernet, and raise a toast to St. Valentine, whichever of the three he may have been.  May they all rest in the peace of Jesus.  

I hope it’s true that St. Valentine went to his death defending marriage.  We could use more of that kind of passion today.

Immanuel

IMMANUEL – Isaiah 7:14

 

Immanuel – God is with us.

A word-sign for a fearful faithless king

Inspecting his aqueducts

and negotiating for Egyptian horses

to defeat his enemies.

 

Fear not, Ahaz!

In nine short months

the time it takes a maiden to conceive and bear a son

you will know Immanuel.

Be still and know that I am God.

Trust the Word-sign.  

God is with you..

 

We fear too in our faithlessness

Shoring up our leaking portfolios

and striking strange alliances

to ward off those dreaded foes called

Sin and Death.

 

And in the still of Christmas night

the prophet’s voice rings out again

echoing in the depths of our insecurity:

“A Virgin will conceive and bear a Son”

Fear not!

Immanuel!

God is with you.

 

©2011 William M. Cwirla

Bethlehem

BETHLEHEM (2001)

 

 

God works hiddenly and quietly

 Subversively toppling thrones and kingdoms

 With nothing stronger than a Word

 Whose sharp-edged syllables gnaw at false foundations

 Until the walls come a-tumbling down

 And everyone says, “Have you heard the news?”

 

 

We expect a God big and mighty

Our higher power above, our heavenly superhero

Able to leap our expectations in a single bound

Our great big Santa in the sky.

Give us daily bread and lots of cool stuff,

And thank you in advance for your cooperation.

 

But God appears barnyard born

An infant older than the stars

Who was when there was not a thing.

The Word through whom all things were made

And in whom all things hold together still.

The Virgin’s Son, Creator, King.

 

He chooses for His birthing place

Not Jerusalem or Rome

But Ephrath’s Bethlehem

A shepherd’s town, the runt of Judah,

Whose name means “house of bread.”

Living Bread!  Maranatha!

 

As shepherds watched their flocks at night

And Bethlehem fell sound asleep

The little shoot from Jesse’s stem

Nestled at His mother’s breast

And sighed a deep, contented sigh.

God with us in Bethlehem!

 

 ©2001 WM Cwirla

O Come, All Ye Faithful

Some reflections of a Christmas past.  Thanks to my friend Henry V. Gerike for sending this to me.  From Christmas Garlands, Ed. By O. P. Kretzmann, Chicago: The Walther League, 1950. Authorship of the following is presumed to be O. P. Kretzmann’s, although without certainty.

 

Adestes Fideles

Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, but, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price (Isaiah 55:1)

 

OH, COME, ALL YE FAITHFUL!

It really was—and is—a strange and small place for such a great gathering. There was the first cry of a baby and the sound of angels singing—band both were the signal for a crowd of people, uncounted and countless, to come to the mange to touch and see the life and heart of God. The earliest arrivals were a few shepherds, but they were soon joined by a magnificent company, the poor is spirit and the lowly of heart, kings and emperors and scullery maids and little children, philosophers and scientists and grandmothers and babies with a sign and water on their forehead—the most catholic gathering in the history of mankind. The manger is the place for the family reunion of the Church. The invitation to the reunion has many forms—“Oh, come, all ye faithful”—“Ho, everyone that thirsteth”—“Come unto Me”—“Come, let us see”—but is is always the same warm, compelling kindness which brings the unnumbered host of the years since Bethlehem to the Child. This is where we belong. This is really the home of four wandering hearts. This is the lighted lamp in heaven’s window.

Now, as Christmas comes again, I am writing this in a world of disunity and fear. Many of my generation have no home, and they are lonely in the dark. They see ghosts and shadows in the night of their confusion, and they hate the strange and fearful things that are abroad in the dusk. They have some demonic dogs in their hands—bombs and planes and guns—and somehow they feel that these may bring them peace and a little happiness, just a little before their dark world blows up in an unearthly and final flash of light.

They are wrong, of course. The things they fear in the night, crawling and flying and touching their stricken souls, are very real; but the manner in which they want to drive these hateful things away is unreal and bad. Above all, their fear of one another—of other members of the human family—can drop away only at the family reunion to which they are once more invited in 1949. “Oh, come, all ye faithful” is an invitation, not only for saints, but above all for sinners. And that is what we are, terribly and stubbornly, now in 1949.

Many of us will be home for Christmas. The house will be warm and lighted. There will be a tree and toys and children singing and music from the far corners of the earth. But it will mean very little, even all this joy, if it is not an echo of another homecoming with God’s family at the manger. He wanted us to come that first night, lying still under the roof of a stable. He still wants us to come, and since we really have no other place to go to see God, we had better come quickly and quietly.

Surely, now in 1949, the world’s inn is noisier and more crowded than ever before. It would a bad place to stay this Christmas Eve. But the manger! The great company there, the faithful, stand quiet and forgiven, the joy of heaven in their hearts and the peace of God on their faces. With happy eyes they see the dusty rafters as the dome of heaven and the manger as the cradle of the Eternal, the straw on the floor as the Milky Way under His feet, the angels still singing, as they have these many years: “Oh, come, all ye faithful!”

O Emmanuel

December 23
Isaiah 7:1-8:10; Matthew 1:18-25 

O Emmanuel, our King and our Lord, the anointed for the nations and their Savior: Come and save us, O Lord our God.

“God helps those who help themselves.” It sounds biblical. Some people think it comes from the Bible, but it doesn’t. It’s actually unbiblical, even anti-biblical. God helps the helpless, those who cannot help themselves. God saves those who cannot save themselves.

We confess this in one of our liturgies of confession. “We are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves.” If God helps only those who help themselves, then we are in a heap of trouble, because when it comes to sin we are powerless to help ourselves. Prisoners can do nothing to free themselves. God must come to us to help us. He must reach down to us, we cannot reach up to Him. God must come and be with us.

The promise of this last night of Advent is the promise of Immanuel – God is with us. Immanuel was the word-sign spoken by Isaiah to a panicky king. Ahaz’s enemies had struck an alliance. Rezin, the king of Syria, and Pekah, the son of Remaliah, the king of Israel had struck a deal. Ahaz was the odd man out. He cut a deal of his own with Tiglath Pileser, the king of Assyria. That would prove to be Ahaz’s undoing. Assyria would be like a flooded river pouring over its banks, sweeping away Judah in the process.

Isaiah tried to warn Ahaz, and encourage him that God was with Him. “Rezin and Pekah are nothing but smoldering stumps under the foot of God’s judgment. They have a plan but it will not stand and will not come to pass. You must trust Yahweh; take Him at His word. But if you will not believe, surely, you will not be established.” Isaiah offered a sign to Ahaz, though Ahaz refused. It was the sign of Immanuel. “The virgin is conceiving and bearing a son and shall call his name Immanuel.” In nine months Ahaz would know that God was with them. In ten to twelve years, before Immanuel knows right from wrong, Rezin and Pekah would be history. Immanuel would eat curds and honey. Good and bad news rolled into one. Agricultural land would be laid waste. Crops destroyed. But there would still be plenty of milk and wild honey. Wilderness food. It is back to the wilderness for God’s people. But God is with them.

Isaiah had a son. His name, written in stone on a large tablet was: Maher-shalal-hash- baz. “The spoil speeds, the prey hastens.” Destruction is at the door. There are always two sides to God’s being with us – destruction and salvation. Immanuel and Maher-shalal-hash-baz. He is with us to save, and He is with us to destroy whatever gets in the way of His saving us. When we pray “Thy will be done,” we call upon God’s good and gracious will to save us. We are also calling Him to break and hinder every will that opposes his good and gracious will, including our own. The Lord kills in order to make alive. He brings down in order to raise up. He crushes in order to create anew.

God’s last word is not death, but life. Not Maher-shalal-hash-baz, but Immanuel. “The Lord is with you,” the angel said to Mary. And the Virgin conceived and bore a son. Jesus. Immanuel. God with us. The fulness of God dwelling in a human body. True God and true man in one Person. The Word made flesh, living among us.

God has drawn near to us in His Son Jesus. No longer may we speak of God way out there somewhere or way up there in heaven. He is Immanuel, God with us. He is the God who gets involved. The God who puts on the uniform and plays the game. He doesnʼt sit by watching us make a mess of things. He doesn’t watch helplessly from his throne heaven while we destroy each other here on earth. He sets down his crown, takes off his royal robes, puts on the work clothes of a servant. He takes on our humanity. And in our humanity He humbles himself to death on a cross. Immanuel works and weeps and suffers and sleeps and bleeds and dies. He is with us in every facet of our lives. Nothing is left out of His being with us to save us.

The signs of Immanuel are all around us. Advent calls us to them and invites us to see them anew. Where is God with you to save you? In the water of your Baptism. There He is with you to make you His own – the Spirit descending, the voice of the Father, Jesus at your side, with you always to the end of the age. You are joined to Jesusʼ death in Baptism, and He is joined to you.

He is with you in the word that speaks forgiveness to you. “He who hears you, hears me,” Jesus said of those He sent. “Do you believe that my forgiveness is Godʼs forgiveness,” the pastor asks the penitent. That is the Immanuel question. Do you believe that God is with us in this? To hear this forgiveness as God’s forgiveness? Such a gift Immanuel is to arrange to speak with us in a way that we can hear Him!

He is with you in His Supper, His very body and blood, born of Mary, sacrificed on Calvary, raised from the dead, enthroned in heaven yet humbly mangered in bread and wine for you. There is no greater His being Immanuel for you than for you to eat His body and drink His blood.

Jesus is Immanuel, the only Immanuel there ever was, the only one there ever will be. When He appears in glory, He will be the same Immanuel who came by the Virgin, who laid in a manger, who died for you on the cross, who come to you now in His Baptism, Word, and Supper. The good news, on this last night of Advent, is that you are never alone as one of the Lord’s baptized believers. God is with you. Immanuel.