What is confessed in tonight’s sermon is quite simple, yet profound.

It begins by confessing and acknowledging that Jesus is true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true Man. You cannot separate the two natures of the Christ—Jesus is one person, God and man—but you can confess each nature separately.

Jesus is true Man, of that there is no doubt. These past few weeks, Jesus’ human nature has been stressed, perhaps to the neglect of His divine nature. Jesus has a human name, given to Him by His guardian and mother. He has a human frame, assumed in the womb of His mother. He was conceived, born, and grew just like you. He ate and drank, laughed and cried, ran and walk, slept at night, learned the Ten Commandments, prayed the Psalms—He did everything a normal man would do, except what a normal man after the fall does: sin.

But, Jesus is true God. As the angel announced to the virgin, that which was conceived in her would be called the Son of the Highest. Gabriel told Mary that the Holy Spirit would come upon her as the power of the Highest would overshadow her and she would conceive a Son. And because of all of that, the Son she would conceive and bear would be called the Son of God.

Today is the sixth anniversary of my installation as pastor at Christ Our Savior Lutheran Church. Six years! It's hard to believe that I've been here that long. For one thing, it simply doesn't feel like I've been here that long. For another thing, my life has been lived having never spent this much time in one place; it feels weird, in a way—it's not that I'm looking to move, but that I'm simply not used to living as long as this in one place.

When God instituted the holy estate of marriage, He blessed it as a separation and joining. In so doing, it is written, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24) Man and woman separate from their parents, headship changes, authority shifts, and a new home is created. And the manifestation of the estate of marriage, a chief purpose for it’s institution, is the procreation of children. Man has a part to play in the creation, as in marriage man and wife are blessed to make another in their image.

This day and age, that doesn’t always work out. Simply put, since the fall, not all marriages are blessed to bring forth children. Medically, the reasons are numerous, as one person or the other or both are unable to conceive, but they all boil down to one reason in the end: sin. Thankfully, God provides another purpose for marriage—mutual enjoyment and consolation—even as He also provides other means by which a childless couple can care for and raise children.

However, even in marriages that are able to conceive, sin plays a part in that conception. For one thing, there is pain in conception and child birth, as God had cursed the first woman. (cf. Genesis 3:16a) For another thing, there are complications, still, in conception and development of children, as they can be conceived and born with any number of maladies and deformities. But, most atrociously, this sin-sickness, which our Confessions call concupiscence, is passed on from father to child in conception, and the child is a sinner from the moment it is formed in the womb—a child made in the image and likeness of their parents. “I am a sinner like my father before me, and his father before him, and his father before him...”

It was the Sixth Day. YHWH was at the pinnacle of His creative work. He had just made livestock and all creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds. It was good. It was time to unveil His masterpiece, His pièce de résistance: “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness...” (Genesis 1:26a)

God took a little of the virgin, red earth and formed a man from it, then breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. He gave the man the name Adam, after the red earth from which he was formed. A little later that day, God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, took a rib from his side, closed the place up with flesh, and fashioned a woman from the rib. (cf. Genesis 2:7, 21-22)

When Moses was called to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt, YHWH told him, “Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” (Exodus 3:10) Moses, perhaps the greatest person in the history of the Old Testament, responds with excuses. God spoke to Moses, and Moses lists off reasons why that Word cannot be.

• “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” (Exodus 3:11)
• “Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?” (Exodus 3:13)
• “But suppose they will not believe me or listen to my voice; suppose they say, ‘The LORD has not appeared to you.’” (Exodus 4:1)
• “O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.” (Exodus 4:10)
• “O my Lord, please send by the hand of whomever else You may send.” (Exodus 4:13)

Finally, Moses is convinced to do what the Word of God commanded Him to do.

When the prophet Ezekiel was called to proclaim the justice of God to the people of Israel, it almost seems as if he had to be convinced by vision of heaven unlike anything described elsewhere in the Scriptures, spare the Revelation given to St. John. After the frightening vision, showcasing the might and majesty of God over creation, YHWH tells the priest,

Son of man, I am sending you to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against Me; they and their fathers have transgressed against Me to this very day. For they are impudent and stubborn children. I am sending you to them, and you shall say to them, “Thus says the Lord GOD.” As for them, whether they hear or whether they refuse—for they are a rebellious house—yet they will know that a prophet has been among them. And you, son of man, do not be afraid of them nor be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns are with you and you dwell among scorpions; do not be afraid of their words or dismayed by their looks, though they are a rebellious house. You shall speak My words to them, whether they hear or whether they refuse, for they are rebellious. But you, son of man, hear what I say to you. Do not be rebellious like that rebellious house; open your mouth and eat what I give you. (Ezekiel 2:3-8)

Rather than just being told what he was going to do and going, one can read the vision as being that little extra nudge that Ezekiel needed to heed the Word of God.

And there’s Jonah—obstinate Jonah. This prophet was told to go to the land of Nineveh and proclaim the judgment of God to the people there: “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me.” (Jonah 1:2) What does Jonah do instead? He flees to Tarshish, as if to hide from God, perhaps in the hopes that God would send someone else to Nineveh instead. But God had none of it. A great storm arose and tossed the boat on which Jonah had booked passage. Knowing that he was the cause of the boat’s problems, he pleads with the crew to throw him overboard, which they finally do. “Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.” (Jonah 1:17) After being vomited by the fish, Jonah makes his way to Nineveh, proclaims the Word of God there, and the city repents, much to Jonah’s surprise and dismay.

What about Zecharias? Here is a priest, no less, someone who should know the Word of God when it comes to him, one would think. He is well advanced in years, but childless; his wife Elizabeth is barren. It was his turn to serve in the temple, and as he was doing so, the archangel Gabriel appears to him and tells him that Elizabeth is pregnant. “You will call his name John.” (Luke 1:13) The priest asks, “How shall I know this?” He gives excuses how this cannot be: “I am an old man, and my wife is well advanced in years.” (Luke 1:18) You can almost hear him scoffing and mocking the angel. For not believing the Word of God sent to him, Zecharias is made a mute until he names his son John.

The prophet Zechariah declared, “Behold, your King is coming to you, Lowly, and sitting on a donkey, A colt, the foal of a donkey.” And so it is, that as He makes His way to Golgotha and the cross, Jesus enters Jerusalem looking like anything but a king. He is atop a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Is that any way for a king to make an entrance? Perhaps it is for a king in the line of David. As David neared death, his eldest living son, Adonijah, decided to declare himself king. But David was reminded of his promise to name Solomon his successor. So the elderly king declared,

Call to me Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada. Take with you the servants of your lord, and have Solomon my son ride on my own mule, and take him down to Gihon. There let Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anoint him king over Israel; and blow the horn, and say, “Long live King Solomon!” Then you shall come up after him, and he shall come and sit on my throne, and he shall be king in my place. For I have appointed him to be ruler over Israel and Judah. (1 Kings 1:32-35)

The priest and prophet did as the king commanded. Solomon rode to his coronation on a donkey—a mule, the translation says. These words are repeated two more times in 1 Kings, underscoring the importance of the event, not only of Solomon’s coronation, but also, as some speculate, Solomon’s ride upon a donkey. Though there is no other textual evidence of the practice, they assume that all of the kings in David’s line rode to their coronations upon a donkey or mule, as if to connect themselves and their reigns with David and Solomon beyond their blood succession.

It’s the parable of the ten virgins. Five of them were wise, and five were foolish. They had gone to the house of the bridegroom to celebrate his wedding, but he was delayed in returning. This is what distinguished the wise virgins from the foolish: the wise had oil in their lamps to last through the wait, the foolish had none.

On the outset, it seems a silly example. Who goes out into the night, not expecting to be back home soon, without oil for their lamps? That’s like hopping onto the interstate for a long road trip with your gas tank near empty. That’s like trying to use your computer, tablet, or phone to watch a movie with almost no charge left on your battery. That’s like trying to do your day’s work without having eaten breakfast and without eating lunch—on an empty stomach. Well, for the sake of what Jesus was trying to teach, that’s exactly what five of the virgins did. They went to wait for the bridegroom to return without bringing enough oil for their lamps. No one could be that foolish, right?

“When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.” This text can be one of great terror for you or one of great comfort. It all depends on how you hear it. And how you hear it depends on whether you are a sheep or a goat.

For, when Jesus returns on the Day of Judgment, all people will be divided before him, like sheep and goats. Jesus will welcome the sheep on His right into everlasting life. The goats on His left, on the other hand, will be commanded to depart from His presence into everlasting fire.

In 168BC, the Seleucid king Antiochus Epiphanes IV led an attack on Egypt. He was one in a line of kings who ruled a third of the empire that Alexander the Great had created; after his death, his empire was split into smaller kingdoms, one of which was ruled by the Seleucids. Anyway, Antiochus was blocked before entering Alexandria by a single Roman envoy. This envoy, drew a line in the sand, encircling Antiochus, and warned him that if he crossed the line without a pledge to withdraw from Egypt and Cyprus, he was effectively declaring war on Rome. Antiochus decided to withdraw.

However, while he was busy in Egypt, a revolt arose in Jerusalem. A rumor had spread that Antiochus had died in his campaign against Egypt. A deposed high priest took this opportunity to gather an army and sack Jerusalem. The high priest that Antiochus had put into the office fled the city to save his life. As the army found out, however, Antiochus did not die, and he retaliated in 167BC, restoring his chosen high priest and killing many Jews.

Additionally, Antiochus outlawed the Jewish religion and rituals. He set up a statue of Zeus in the temple and sacrificed swine on the altar. So was fulfilled the words of the prophet Daniel: “And from the time that the daily sacrifice is taken away, and the abomination of desolation is set up, there shall be one thousand two hundred and ninety days.” (Daniel 12:11) The right sacrifices were taken away and an abominable sacrifice set up in their places. It was the abomination of desolation. For this reason, many equate Antiochus with the eleventh horn on the beast of Daniel’s prophecy.

A fact of life in this, our little congregation, is that there are very few funerals. Since I have been here, I’ve only buried two, though we’ve lost three. As is usually customary on this day in our churches, we like to commemorate our blessed dead from the past year, and thank God for the life that they were given, both here on earth and in eternity in Christ. But we have had none this past year.

So, we count all of our blessed dead among the many. And we rejoice with St. Job that, like him, they will see God. (cf. Job 19:26-27) With their own eyes they will look upon the face of God and live! Sin is gone, done away with, for the sake of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. They have all passed from this vale of tears and sorrows, from death to life, from this temporal existence to eternity.