1 Corinthians 15:20-23

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It’s been a bit of a weird winter here in Minnesota. You get up in the morning and it’s like 20 to 30 degrees outside. You go out, you get your car started, you warm it up, you defrost the windows, maybe you chuck on another layer or maybe even a coat. But then by around noon you get outside and it’s like 50 or 60. You have to take off a couple layers. By the time you get home, you’re probably thinking it’d be a good day to put on a short sleeve shirt, go take a walk. Just kind of bask in this little taste of spring.

There’s a certain sense in which Christ is like one of those little tastes of spring. But he’s more than that. He’s a ray of light, not just from a new season, but from a new creation that we can see in his resurrection from the dead on our behalf. Paul says it in this way in First Corinthians chapter 15,

But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. (1 Corinthians 15:20-23)

There’s a certain sense in which we’re all born into a kind of spiritual winter. It’s cold and dark all around us, in our lives and within us. Outside of us, we suffer. We undergo pain and emotional trouble. And finally death comes to all of us and makes our bodies cold. But more than that, and worse than that, our hearts are also cold and dark. We do not really properly understand or grasp the goodness of God and the goodness of the kind of life he wants us to have, and even when we do understand it, in some degree, our hearts are kind of cold towards it. We don’t really want to obey it. We kind of want to fulfill it a little bit and then get it off to the side so we can get back to doing those things in the dark that we would prefer to do for ourselves, the things we like to do.

And that sort of cold and dark in us if we want to really fix it, it’s not something that we can resolve on our own end. It’s kind of like if you tried to take two pieces of ice and sort of rub them together and hope you get fire out of it, it just doesn’t work. And that doesn’t come from us individually, ultimately, we’re born into this condition. It came from the first man, Adam, who was born in a sort of spiritual spring. He walked with God in light and warmth and love. And yet he and his wife, Eve chose to eat of the fruit God had commanded them not to eat. They sinned against him. They tried to find those things apart from him. And because God is himself, light and warmth and love apart from him, we can have none of those things. We grow cold and dark.

But that doesn’t mean we’re without hope, because the love of God is such that His Son, the second person of the Trinity, entered into the world as its light and as the consuming fire, who took on our sin and death into his own body and suffered it, consumed it therein in his death. But more than that, he displayed the light and glory and love of God in his resurrection on our behalf, so that he’s a sort of taste of the spring to come, so that even now he sends us His Holy Spirit, who comes into our hearts and teaches us to know him. He enlightens us, but he also gives us warmth. He teaches us to thaw our icy hearts and to begin to really love those gifts God has given us.

And even more than that, the day will come when the resurrected Christ shines his light upon us and raises us from the dead. And when we reflect that light and warmth of God, and live in it with him in perfect love forever, by the power of His Son, by the power of His Holy Spirit in us, and for the glory of God the Father. Amen.

Matthew 27:1-5

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I’d like to begin by sharing a text with you from Matthew chapter 27.

Early in the morning, all the chief priests and the elders of the people reached the decision to put Jesus to death. They bound him, led him away, and handed him over to Pontius Pilate, the governor. Then when Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he felt remorse. He brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders and said, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” But they said, “What is that to us? That’s your problem.” He threw the pieces of silver into the temple and left. Then he went out and hanged himself.

Judas is right. He has betrayed innocent blood. He had the privilege of knowing the only perfect man and not just a perfect man. But God come in the flesh. He had that great privilege. And not just as a bystander, as somebody who saw Jesus walk by, but as one of his students, and not just as a student, but one of those 12 who he chose out of his disciples to know him intimately. To be instructed by him directly. To know him not just as a student, but as a friend. He had that great privilege, and yet he sold the author of life into death. Not for kingdoms or for eternal life, but just for 30 measly pieces of silver. It’s a horrific act, monstrous beyond our knowing. And yet Judas is not the only one who’s betrayed innocent blood.

All sin is such a betrayal. Even though Judas’ is more personal, it’s more easy to see how a man who walked with God and talked with him like a friend, how monstrous it is to sell him into death. The same is true of all sin. It’s equally personal. Whenever we lie about another human being, whenever we hate them, when we ever lust after them, whenever we have a temptation to treat them as something light, we are treating one of God’s greatest gifts to us, his image in us as a light or cheap thing sounds like subject to my derision. But more than just the betrayal of treating God’s gift as something of light, every betrayal of sin is also a betrayal of innocent blood. Because no matter how small a moment of sin it is, no matter how little of a thought. It still required the blood of God to be shed for its forgiveness.

And so sin is really something monstrous beyond our knowing. And yet at the same time, despite how great that betrayal of sin is, there is a worse betrayal, the kind of betrayal that Judas commits in today’s text when aware of his sin, he despairs and takes his own life. Because although sin is horrific and monstrous, it is precisely to shed his innocent blood to pay for it that Christ came to earth. Not just to be a friend or a teacher, or to walk among us. In fact, he told Judas and the apostles specifically that he came to give his life as a ransom for many. (Matthew 20:28, Mark 10:45)

So when Judas takes his own life in despair of sin, he’s casting aside that innocent blood shed for him and betraying it in a deeper and more terrible way. If you’ve ever been tempted to follow the same kind of sin that Judas did, when if you ever come to know your sin as truly horrific and to see what it deserves, I want you to know that Christ came down to earth precisely to pay for that sin. He was even more fully aware of it than you, knowing it’s full evil at all times, in a way we only grasp in moments. And still he chose to come and shed his blood for it. So please don’t betray that innocent blood. But cling to it. Look to it for forgiveness and life. And wait till that day when Christ comes again. And you can walk with him face to face as a friend. Amen.

If you are struggling with guilt we would encourage you to speak with a Lutheran pastor. Visit els.org/locations/ to find a pastor near you or send us a message and we can connect you with someone to help.

Revelation 2:17

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My favorite Bible passage is Revelation two, verse 17. It goes.

Let him who has an ear hear with the spirit says to the seven churches. To the one who conquers. I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone. And on the stone a new name written, which no one knows except him who receives it. (Revelation 2:17)

What I like about this passage is it answers some of the basic questions of life. As Lutherans, we’re really good at answering one of those questions, which is sort of how do you sleep well at night? How do you have peace with God? And we’ll tell you that nobody can stack up enough good works. We’ll do enough evil that we can’t really properly be called good. We can’t earn that favor. But Christ has lived a perfect life and died in innocent death in our place to win forgiveness and righteousness for us. And he gives that to those who believe that he’s done it for them.

And so that’s kind of resolved. We can stand before God in righteousness. But a sort of question that follows, that is, why would you want to? What’s the point of salvation? What is it for? What are our lives for? That’s the question, the Christians in Pergamum to whom John wrote this letter were struggling with. They had teachers among them who were saying, yes, God has reconciled us through Christ to himself, but that now we’re just sort of left to find meaning on our own. God doesn’t really care what happens to us after that point. And so these people, they’re going to the pagan temples, they’re eating the nice meat. They can eat there. They’re sleeping with whoever they feel like. They’re just generally looking for meaning in whatever they can grasp, whatever fulfills their desires.

And I think for us, that’s a pretty relatable instinct. We live in an age of abundance. If I want food, I’ll go get whatever I feel like at fast food. One of six different varieties. If I want to gratify my desires of any kind, you know you’ve got the flashing screen that can do it for you. And so I think we’re similarly tempted to find meaning and identity in all these things around us. But God doesn’t want us to do it that way. He cares about how we live and what we do because he, I mean, he died on that account. He died to pay for the evil in what we do. He doesn’t want us to return to it. And so he does say to the Christians in Pergamum and us that if we don’t repent, he will send his sword, the sword of his mouth, against us to drive us back to him.

But he doesn’t just say repent. He also gives these people who are hungry for meaning something to latch on to. He says, I will give to the one who conquers some of the hidden manna, and that hidden manna is Christ Himself. It is the God who is the source of meaning in the flesh, who on the day he returns to us, we will see with our eyes. And when we look at him, who is the source of meaning, we will really have fulfillment, satisfaction from the God who made all of the individual things that please us in this life. And that’s the sort of proper source to look to. But even more than that, even more than looking at the source of all meaning God promises to give to each of us the reason for our own existence. He says, I will give to the one who conquers also a white stone. And on that stone a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it.

This new identity, this righteousness, is something we do have now. Christ covers us in our baptism, and yet at the same time, that righteousness that covers us will one day be our entrance to God Himself. That’s how we get that vision of the source of all meaning. And when we do so, when we look on the God who made us in his image, we will see what image we were made in. We will see what aspect of God we each individually reflect. When I look on God Himself, what I’m hoping to receive is my own name. The reason I exist. The way I’m intended to reflect God. The name which no one will know except for me when I receive it. And that same hope is laid up to you, to the glory of God, from whom and through whom, and for whom are all things. Amen.

Luke 2:29-32

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There’s a man in the temple courts of Israel by the name of Simeon, a man who’s waiting for the comfort of Israel. And he’s not waiting in the way you or I might. He’s a prophet of God. He has the Spirit of God, and that spirit has promised to him that he will not die. He will not see death before he sees the Christ. And when Mary and Joseph come to the temple bearing the baby Jesus, when he sees him, he knows by that same spirit of prophecy that this is the one promised. This is the Messiah of God. And when he sees him, he takes him up in his arms. And he praises God, saying,

Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace in accordance with your word. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which we have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light unto the revelation of the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel. (Luke 2:29-32)

It’s a beautiful song, but that last verse in particular, I find really striking. It’s this image of Christ as light, of a light shining out from the people of Israel for their glory and beauty to the nations, to everybody else, to reveal something to them, and that something is the very glory the God of Israel, the one who has been their God for thousands of years, who has given them salvation and peace, as Simeon describes in the song by first of all, taking them out of Egypt by becoming their God, but also by giving them peace from their enemies, by fighting for them, by giving them a way of being with him in a sacrificial system, all of these things. That’s the God who this infant Christ is revealing, who’s shining out by taking on the body, by taking on a human nature, and coming out of the people of Israel to all people. By taking on flesh to live and die for the sake of Israel, and for the sake of all, to pay the penalty for sin, to suffer it in his flesh, to deliver us from death, and finally to give us peace with God. That’s the infant Christ, that’s who’s shining out of Israel and to the nations.

And it’s been about 2000 years since then, and we still celebrate that event. We still sing like Simeon did, but we also have feasts. We have lights, Christmas lights, candles, we have family celebrations, all of these beautiful things, light and life and joy in this time of year. And yet there’s always the risk in all of those adornments that we lose ourselves in them, that we allow the Christmas lights to over shine the light of the nations and the glory of Israel. That’s a risk for Christians, but it’s especially a risk for those who don’t know Christ or who forgotten him. So let’s remind them. Let’s sing the praises of the light of the nations and the glory of Israel by remembering ourselves, but also by saying, by telling others about that peace and salvation given to us by the incarnation of God in the flesh.

Christ has lived a perfect life and died an innocent death in our place to win forgiveness and righteousness for us. And he gives that to those who believe that he’s done it for them. It’s a strange thing that we celebrate in this time of year at all. It’s so dark and desolate. People didn’t bring light and life and joy into that for no reason. That’s the whole point of the incarnation. That’s how Christmas came to be. So let the people who don’t know the source of that joy know it. Let the glory you have in Christ shine out from you to them, so that Christ may be for them a light unto revelation and your glory. Amen.