Daily readings November 29-December 5

Daily Lectionary

November 29 Isaiah 5:1—25; 1 Peter 1:1–12
November 30 (St. Andrew) Isaiah 6:1—7:9; 1 Peter 2:13–25
December 1 Isaiah 7:10—8:8; 1 Peter 3:1–22
December 2 Isaiah 8:9—9:7; 1 Peter 4:1–19
December 3 Isaiah 9:8—10:11; 1 Peter 5:1–14
December 4 Isaiah 10:12–27a, 33–34; 2 Peter 1:1–21
December 5 Isaiah 11:1—12:6; 2 Peter 2:1–22

NEXT WEEKS LESSONS:
POPULUS ZION—THE SECOND SUNDAY IN ADVENT

The Day on which our Lord will return is a “great and dreadful Day” (Malachi 4:1–6). For He will come in a cloud with great power and glory. To the wicked and the proud, it will be a Day of judgment that will “burn them up.” The signs preceding this Day will bring them fear and fainting. But to those who believe, who fear the name of the Lord, this Day is one to look forward to and rejoice in. “Look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near” (Luke 21:25–36) Christ our Redeemer is coming; the Sun of Righteousness is bringing healing in His wings. Let us, then, give attention to the words of the Lord, which do not pass away. Let us through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures (Romans 15:4–13) be strengthened in our hope by the Holy Spirit and watch diligently for Jesus’ coming. Then, by God’s grace, we shall escape all these things that will come to pass and stand before the Son of Man.

Collect
Stir up our hearts, O Lord, to make ready the way of Your only-begotten Son that by His coming we may be given to serve You with cleansed minds; through the same Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Old Testament: Malachi 4:1–6 [The great and dreadful day of the Lord]
Epistle: Romans 15:4–13 [The God of patience, comfort, and hope]
Holy Gospel: Luke 21:25–36 [Your redemption draws near]

Advent 1 2009 Sermon November 29, 2009

Advent 1 Matthew 21:1-9 November 28-29, 2009

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Even if our spirits are willing, our flesh is weak. It is terribly difficult to subdue, and the things we would not do, the things we hate, those we do. It betrays us again and again. Our flesh is the seedbed of lust, gluttony, and avarice, and all our deepest sorrows come from our own sins.

The years sweep by and retrospect has little to show but a list of crimes, a catalog of lies we've told, of promises we've forgotten, of slander that has risen up out of our hearts. Is it any wonder that our families are so broken? That our lives are so complicated? That the prisons are so full? So too do we see in retrospect the signs of God's wrath and the temporary character of this earth. Terrorists, earthquakes, divorce, and war all serve as warnings of the judgment to come. Nothing on earth is the same today as it was a year ago, if we get one step forward, we still suffer two steps back, all things are in decay, are dying. We are in constant turmoil and change. Death is having its way. Only the Word of God never changes.

This should fill us with fear and reform our behavior, but instead we hatch plans. We can build bigger barns to store our crops. We can delay paying our debts. We can kill our enemies or at least, destroy their reputations.

These plans are vain. Our pretending at wisdom is a mockery of the Wisdom which comes down from above. Repent.

The weakness of our flesh does not abide in our physicality, but in our minds. If you have ever eaten so much that it was hard to breathe or you had to loosen your belt, you have proven that your mind rules your body, and rarely for good. Over eating is not the desire of your body, which begged you to stop, but of your fallen mind, which sought pleasure after pleasure and ignored the clear warnings of fullness and kept eating even though it hurt. It is not the skin and bones that are the problem, it is our personalities, our wills, which crave pleasure and vice. It is we ourselves, in our innermost beings, who are broken and sick, rotten and dying.

For this Our Lord has come. He has taken up the weakness of our Flesh, become one of us, body, mind, and spirit, in order to redeem our fallen flesh, our perverted wills, and our sickly minds. He did not leave you here alone to suffer in your craven weaknesses. He has come to rescue you. He is one of us in every way, but He is not weak. He does not sin. He cannot sin, because the Law is His will. He is the Law and while He is humble, lowly, He is not weak. And notice this: He comes not in the declared-to-be-good flesh of Adam before the Fall or to insert Himself into Eden. Rather He comes in the corrupted flesh of St. Mary. He takes up that which is prone to alcoholism, homosexuality, cancer, weariness, and most significantly, death. He comes in the cursed flesh of Adam's inheritance. He enters into the chaos of our dying lives, to endure our hatred and betrayal, our violence and our phoniness. He is tempted in every way that we are, but He does not succumb or fail. His Flesh is as willing as His Spirit. He endures all that we do to Him without a desire for vengeance or reputation or even success. He endures in perfect love. He is at one with His Father's will. Their will is to give Jesus Christ into death at the hands of sinners that those sinners might be redeemed and live. He comes to steal Satan's prey away by serving as the Victim and Fulfillment of His own unbending Law, that is, of His own unbending and perfect will. He who knows no sin, knows what He is doing, and became sin to make sinners free of sin and death.

That is why He rides the donkey into Jerusalem. He comes to be a sacrifice. That crowd of sinners which adores Him is inspired by the Spirit. Only sinners shout, “Hosanna, save us now!” They carpet His path to the cross with garments and palms. Soon He will not be carried, but will carry the instrument of His death. He will not walk upon carpet but will fall, naked on the rocks. But we are not ashamed and we do not feel sorry for Him. For we are the sinners who need Him to do it. By inspiration of the Holy Spirit we shout, “Hosanna, save us now! Ride on, O Lord. You are the Blessed One who comes in the Name of the Lord, in the Lord's will, with the Lord's Life in Your Blood. You are our salvation, our Savior. Hosanna!”

We are the sinners who shout for the Messiah to be Himself, to save us, to keep His promises. Unlike us, He is not weak. He does what He says. And thus are shouting sinners transformed with a Word. By grace He makes them praying saints, saints whom the Lord loves, with whom He is well-pleased, whose weakness has been washed away, forgiven. Judgment Day is not then a day of wrath to be feared, but a day of homecoming and celebration. For the Lord who came to earth as a Man first in Bethlehem, comes now as a Man, our God, in His Word and Sacraments, and soon He shall come again in glory. Come, Lord Jesus. Come quickly. Amen.

Thanksgiving 2009 Sermon

“Our Daily Bread” 4th Petition of Lord's Prayer
Thanksgiving Eve November 25, 2009
Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church Girard, Illinois

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. On this day set aside by our government for the giving of thanks, we will do so by considering and meditating on the 4th Petition of the Lord's Prayer. So if you would, please turn to the back of your bulletins and answer the questions that I will ask you from the catechism. What is the 4th Petition of the Lord's Prayer?

“Give us this day our daily bread.” What does this mean? God certainly gives daily bread to everyone without our prayers, even to all evil people, but we pray in this petition that God would lead us to realize this and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving.

Let's stop there for a moment. “God certainly gives daily bread to everyone without our prayers, even to all evil people.” Think about what that means. It means that God's goodness is not dependent on your praying. The Scriptures say that He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and He sends His rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. The Lord is good. Period. If you stop praying, He's not going to stop being good. So don't think that your praying is what gets God to do things, as if we can manipulate Him to do what we want. The truth is that very often it seems to be the unfaithful and the unscrupulous who are doing better at acquiring daily bread than Christians! In fact most of Psalm 73 is a lament at how prosperous the wicked often are. And yet the Psalm also confesses trust in the ways of the Lord, who brings down the unrepentant to utter desolation and destruction in the end. So, we don't pray “Give us this day our daily bread” in order to make God do something He otherwise wouldn't.

But that raises the question, “Why should we pray for daily bread at all, then?” We do so because in praying this petition, we are drawn by God to remember that He is the One who gives us our daily bread and all things, and we learn in that way to give Him thanks and honor as our gracious God. God gives us this prayer not for His benefit but for ours, so that we might learn to look to Him for all our needs and trust in Him and cling to Him, lest we forget about Him and turn away from Him and begin trusting in ourselves, to our own destruction. That's the real danger that we face as fallen sinners, isn't it? To think we've gotten where we are in life by our own sweat and hard work and good choices and intelligence. Without God's blessing, none of those things would matter. This is what Moses warns us against in the OT reading, “Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, lest you say in your heart, 'My power and might of my hand have gained me this wealth.’” When we are unthankful, it is because we have forgotten that every good thing that we have in our life is an undeserved gift from our merciful heavenly Father, for which we should thank and praise, serve and obey Him.

One way you'll be able to tell that most people don't really get this point, even on Thanksgiving Day, is in the way they talk about giving thanks. If you listen carefully, you'll notice that while people may talk about what they're thankful for, there's almost no talk about who they're thankful to. There's no mention of the one who receives our thanks, no mention of God or the Lord. Just as Christmas has in many ways become Christ-less in our culture, so also Thanksgiving has become God-less. Sometimes I think when people say they're thankful for something, they just mean they're glad they have it or they feel good about it. So be sure when you talk about what you're thankful for that you say, “I'm thankful to God for this or that.” For ultimately it's not our giving of thanks, but who we're giving thanks to that matters.
Let's continue with the catechism: What is meant by daily bread?
Daily bread includes everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, land, animals, money, goods, a devout husband or wife, devout children, devout workers, devout and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, self-control, good reputation, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.

As I've already been indicating, when we pray for daily bread, we are asking for more than just food. We are also praying for everything that is necessary for us to receive it and enjoy it. It's hard to enjoy your daily bread when you've got rude neighbors or a grouchy spouse or bad health or violence in the streets. And so when we give thanks for daily bread, our hearts and minds should think beyond the turkey and stuffing on the table, and consider also the farmer's field and the weather and the trucker who transports and the baker who bakes and the store which sells and the employment by which we earn our money to buy and civil order in society and so forth. All of this is in God's hands. All of this is what we need and ask for in this petition so that our bodily needs might be provided for.

And yet, we should never forget that this petition comes in 4th place in the Lord's Prayer, not 1st or 2nd or even 3rd. That is meant to teach us something, namely, that daily bread is not the most important thing. First comes God's name, God's kingdom, God's will; and only then comes the daily needs of this life. You see, the Lord preserves and protects life not simply because He created it, but especially in order to save it for eternity. The reason He feeds even the wicked and the unbeliever is so that the unbeliever might repent and believe. That is His will-not just to provide for you for a time, but to have you with Himself forever.
And so our receiving of daily bread is ultimately meant to draw us to the even more important receiving of the Bread of Life, our Savior Jesus Christ. Just as God provides food for both the good and the evil, so also our Lord Jesus died on the cross for all, for the morally upright and for the immoral, for the noble and the shameful, for those who believe in Him and for those who do not. The Lord is good, and His goodness is shown in His mercy toward people like us, that He took the punishment for all of our ingratitude and pride and sinful self-love, and by His suffering and death He forgave us and freed us from eternal judgment. This is the greatest blessing for which we give thanks today, that the Living Bread from Heaven has been given to us, Bread which we may eat of and never die. As Jesus said, “Whoever eats of this bread will live forever. And the bread which I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.” It's no coincidence that we pray “Give us this day our daily bread” in the liturgy right before we receive Holy Communion. For that petition (and indeed every petition of the Lord's Prayer) is answered most perfectly in the Sacrament of Christ's body and blood, given and shed for our forgiveness.

And so our Lord exhorts His disciples and us in today's Gospel: Don't rejoice simply in the fact that the spirits are subject to you, that you have certain spiritual or material gifts. Don't simply give thanks to God for your house or car or job or family. Rather, rejoice especially in this, that He has written your names in heaven by the blood of Christ. You who are in Christ are in the Book of Life. You are saved and redeemed and reconciled to God. You are His baptized chosen ones. And if you have that, you have it all-even if you're struggling to pay the bills, even if your health is failing. In Jesus you have the unimaginable riches of heaven. In Him you have the perfect health of His resurrection life and His victory over the grave. So it is written, “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?” That's how St. Paul could say in today's Epistle, “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every circumstance, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

God grant that Paul's faithful attitude may also be our own, that our prayers and petitions may be filled with thanksgiving to God for all of His fatherly love toward us. “Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, and His mercy endures forever.” Amen.

Sermon for Last Sunday of the Church Year

Last Sunday of the Church Year

Matthew 25:1-13

November 21-22, 2009

Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church

Girard, Illinois

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Ten virgins with burning lamps, one for each commandment. They are pure and undefiled, virgins arrayed in white. But all is not quite what it seems. Only five, one for each book of Moses, are wise. The other five, one for each of the vanities of man, are foolish. But how can we tell the foolish from the wise? They all look the same. They all use the same hymnal. They are all where they are supposed to be. Baptized, gathered around His Word, these ten are the Church Militant. And despite their white gowns, they all fail. All ten, wise and foolish alike, fall asleep. None is as good as she should be, none acts without selfishness. Their spirits are willing but their flesh is weak. They do not keep the watch. The midnight cry comes as a surprise. Five go in. Five are shut out.

Are we wise enough to discern the distinction? Dare we peer into the doctrine of election? If they all fell asleep why are any allowed in? None are worthy. If it is because Our Lord is gracious and forgiving, then why are other five denied? Why are they not given another chance? Does Our Lord's mercy have its limits? We had better pay attention. This is not a parable about the world. This is a parable about the Church on earth. The ten virgins with burning lamps are the Church on earth. Five of them, half, are shut out. They not only fell asleep on the watch but they brought no oil other than that first exuberance of faith, that short-lived burst of enthusiasm. When that was gone, when they gave up hope. The Lord said He did not know them. Here is the reality: they were not Christians -- despite the white robes of Baptism and confirmation, despite the trapping of lamps, despite being there with the Church, despite their strong initial emotions. They foolishly judged by their senses and decided that the delay meant either that the Lord was not coming or that they had plenty of time to prepare and they put off repentance for another day. Fools! Tonight the Lord requires your soul. Your goods will left to someone else. Do not store up treasures for yourself where moth and rust destroy.

The wise also failed. They did not keep the watch. They fell asleep and had to be awakened. But they had oil reserved. Though they failed to stay awake when He was delayed, they did not give up hope. They still believed that He would come. The cry was terrifying for they had failed, they had sinned, they were sleeping and they were caught. There was no denying it. And yet they believed that the Bridegroom was good, that He loved them, that He would accept them. That is the distinction. The wise appear fools to the world. For contrary to the evidence, despite their experience, outside of rationality, even though they know they do not deserve Jesus' love, they believe that He is Lord, that He does love them, and that He is coming back.

They way of faith is lonely and full of doubt. There are so many arguments that assail our minds and senses. The devil is the master of rhetoric. He says, “If Jesus has not yet come, if He did not come in your father's day or your grandfather's day or your great-grandfather's day, if there is no record of His coming ever but for these fragments from 2000 years ago, which could be fantasy or a clever charade, what makes you think He would come now? We have records of the evil that men can do. That is no fantasy. Leave your garage unlocked and your neighbors will steal from you. You should look out after yourself. You need your rest. You need your things. The world has known dictators, tyrants, and sadists. Those are real. You should protect yourself. So also we know about religious phonies, judgmental hypocrites, zealots who start wars and claim their way is the only way, who use religion as power for their own ends. The Islam claims Jesus Christ as a prophet. So does the Mormons. Is that your God? Will you sit here and do nothing but pray and hope and wait for the Lord? What good are you to anyone? You are not even good to yourself. Your Lord supposedly says to love your neighbor as yourself, so love yourself already. Loosen up, have some fun. And if you want to do some good then do something for the poor, feed the hungry, fix health care. Do something. Do not sit around and believe as though that changed anything or helped anyone, and languish for a God the world forgot, a God that never was what He said He was, a God who does not keep His promises. Do not waste your time with His Word or these empty rituals.”

O foolish sinners: repent! You've heard those lies inside your own head. You've calculated and considered. You've checked the odds. You've deliberated against God, seeking a way to have the best of both worlds. That is the way of foolishness. Repent. Be a simpleton, a fool in the eyes of the world, say, “All I know is what the Bible says. I believe it is true. I believe in Jesus. I believe He died for me and rose again and ascended into heaven and is coming back. I believe the exact same thing the children believe. I am no smarter or more sophisticated than they. I will not panic. I will pray. I will go about my life as best I can, living in the grace He gives, asking for forgiveness, eager for the time when I will be free of doubt and fear. And if I am poor now, if I miss a few pleasures of the flesh, if I do not prosper for this foolishness, so let be it. I will wait and believe as my fathers did before me, as my children do after me, and trust my fate is the same as theirs: to be with Jesus forever.” That is the wisdom that is born in Holy Baptism, the wisdom of children and fools, who dare to expect that God is gracious and forgiving, that His love knows no limits.

One more thing. Aesop teaches us the fable of the boy who cried wolf. The boy gets his comeuppance, what he deserves, that is the moral. But what of the village? The wolf was real in the end. Shall we give up hope because of the charlatans and hypocrites who cry that the end is near only to have time march on? Or because of the evils committed falsely in Jesus' Name or the many moral failures of Christians and their preachers? No. The village still needs to be protected. False prophets must be exposed, the people warned and prepared. Do not fall for the devil's distractions and miss the main attack. His goal is that we give up hope. If he can do that through pleasure or beauty, he will. If he can do it through violence and threat, he will. If he can do it through the intellect, he will.

The five wise virgins went in to the bridal chamber as though they never fell asleep. They sinned but they believed. That belief delivered forgiveness to them. They were accepted by the Bridegroom. You also have sinned, but you also believe. You believe in Jesus. You love God. You want to stop sinning and to please Him. You want to be with Him. That is the faith He has given you. It saves you. It delivers forgiveness. It is wisdom. Come then, O blessed of the Father, receive food for the watch, that which strengthens the body and the soul, which restores and encourages hope: the very Body and Blood of Jesus, who loves you, who is coming back.

In + Jesus' Name. Amen.

Daily Readings November 21 - 27

Daily Lectionary

November 21 Daniel 2:1–23; Revelation 18:1–24

November 22 Daniel 2:24–49; Revelation 19:1–21

November 23 Daniel 3:1–30; Revelation 20:1–15

November 24 Daniel 4:1–37; Revelation 21:1–8

November 25 Daniel 5:1–30; Revelation 21:9–27

November 26 Daniel 6:1–28; Revelation 22:1–21

November 27 Isaiah 1:1–28; 1 Peter 1:1–12

NEXT WEEKS LESSONS:

AD TE LEVAVI—THE FIRST SUNDAY IN ADVENT

The new church year begins by focusing on the humble coming of our Lord. “Behold, your King is coming to you, lowly, and sitting on a donkey.” Even as He was born in a lowly manger, so Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a beast of burden. For He bears the sin of the world. He is the Son of David riding to His enthronement on the cross, where He shows Himself to be “The Lord, our Righteousness” (Jeremiah 23:5–8). Our Lord still comes in great humility to deliver His righteousness to us in the Word and Sacraments. Before receiving Christ’s body and blood, we also sing, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” (Matthew 21:1–9) And as we receive the Sacrament, we set our hearts on His return in glory, for “Our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed” (Romans 13:11–14).

Collect for Beginning of the Church Year

Eternal Lord God, our Father, who by Your grace have this day permitted us to enter a new church year, we implore You to pour upon Your church Your Holy Spirit and the wisdom that comes down from above, that Your Word, as becomes it, may not be bound, but have free course and be preached to the joy and upbuilding of Christ’s holy people, that in steadfast faith we may serve You and in the confession of Your name abide unto the end; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Old Testament: Jeremiah 23:5–8 [The Lord Our Righteousness]

Epistle: Romans 13:(8–10) 11–14 [Our salvation is nearer now]

Holy Gospel: Matthew 21:1–9 [Behold, your King is coming to you]

Trinity 23 sermon

“Render to God the Things That Are God's”

Matthew 22:15-21

Trinity 23

November 14 – 15, 2009

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

When we are confronted with our sin, we're pretty good at changing the subject. We know well how to deflect attention away to something else so that we can avoid our need for repentance. Think of the Samaritan woman at the well. Jesus asked her for a drink and engaged her in conversation. When He spoke of the fact that she had been divorced five times and that she was now living together with a guy she wasn't married to, she got all theological and asked Jesus a question about where the appropriate place is for a person to worship. She used religion as a means of avoiding the truth about herself.

The same thing I think is going on in today's Gospel. The Pharisees don't like how Jesus has exposed their sin and their self-righteousness. It is to them that He spoke the most biting of His condemnations, saying “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.” And so rather than repenting of their sin, they try to change the subject to whether or not it's right to pay taxes to an oppressive Roman government. They want to trip Him up and ensnare Him so that they won't have to listen to His Word.

So let us be on guard today against getting sidetracked ourselves. For the main emphasis of Jesus' words is not “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's”-Honor the authorities and pay your taxes (though, of course, that is true). The main thing is this, “Render unto God the things that are God's.”

Give to God the things that belong to Him. Well, everything belongs to God, even your very bodies. And so you are to give Him everything. Compare yourself to this command. Have you given everything to God? Do you manage everything in your life according to God's will and to serve His purposes? Look into these words and see your reflection. It's not pretty. For the truth is that we have looked after ourselves. We have taken for our own pleasure what belongs to God. Don't try to trick Him with clever sounding justifications. Don't think that you will distract Him with what you think are complicated ethical questions about taxes or birth-control, about divorce or war, about how little or how often a person has to come to church to be a true Christian. He sees into the heart. He knows our plotting ways and shallow excuses. He knows our shameful pride, our reluctant, strings-attached gifts, our self-justifying posturing, our half-truths and deliberate deceptions! Who do we think we are? “Render unto God the things that are God's.” Measured against this good law, this perfect wisdom, every single one of us stands condemned.

Repent, therefore. The way of sinners is lawyers and loopholes, doublespeak and political schemes. But the way of God is truth and forgiveness. The Way of God is the sword of the Word, which slices open your heart, so that your sin may be taken away, and so that He may fill you with His mercy, with His goodness, with Himself.

For, you see, just as the coin was given to Caesar because it bore His image, so also the thing that bears God's image was offered up to Him. It is written, “(Jesus) is the image of the invisible God.” He is the image of God “coined” in our human flesh. So it was that Jesus was offered up to God for our sins on the cross, rendered to the Father as a sweet sacrifice. And there was even an inscription placed over Jesus' head at Calvary by an agent of Caesar himself, “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.” What you could not and would not render, God has rendered unto Himself on your behalf! God the Son, Jesus Christ, gave it all, even His life, unto the Father for you. The Innocent has died for the guilty. You are forgiven. Your debt is paid. To render to God the things that are God's is simply to rely on Christ and believe in Him. It is to point to Christ the crucified and say, “There is my salvation. He alone is the offering that wins for me everlasting life.”

And there's more. For our Lord put His own inscription on you, His own Triune name, through your baptism into Christ. On you, whose image is tarnished and corrupted, Jesus stamped the sign of the cross and joined you to Himself. In Jesus the very image of God is restored to your humanity. You are now God's holy coinage, His cherished treasure. His love for you is so great, so embracing, so blind that it encompasses you-not in a generic way, the way that some people love cats or chocolate, but in a deliberate, personal, individual way, as though there were only you, even bothering to take the time to number every hair on your head!

In response to this, the baptized say, “What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits to me? I will offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving and will call on the name of the Lord.” The only thing we can “give” to God is our thanks and praise for what He has first given to us in Christ, to call upon His name in faith and to look to Him for everything. And Romans 12 reminds us that we also “render unto God” by serving our neighbor. St. Paul says, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that your offer your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.”

We offer our bodies like that because we live in the sure hope of the resurrection of the body. We can sacrifice ourselves and our desires in acts of love because we believe that nothing can take away what we have in Christ. The Epistle reminded us, “The Lord Jesus Christ will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body.” By the all-encompassing power of the Lord, these lowly bodies of ours-so fragile and susceptible to all sorts of problems-will undergo a wonderful and mysterious transformation on the Last Day, so that they will be like the glorious body of Jesus after His resurrection. Your bodies will no longer be threatened by all of the troubles and the sin and the death they experience in this world. Rather, you will be immortal in Christ. You will share fully in His Easter victory.

Until then, remember that you are citizens of heaven. You're Americans for this life, but you are royal subjects and heirs of the King of kings for all eternity. Purely out of mercy and love, He rendered it all for you that you may be His own and live under Him in His kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness. Come then and eat the food of heaven. Receive the image of God, the bread of life, the body and blood of your Redeemer, Jesus.

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.