REMINISCERE [2015]: Homily

“JESUS COMES THENCE FOR YOU”

Saint Matthew 15. 21-28

REMINISCERE: 1 March Anno + Domini 2015

Fr Jay Watson SSP

In The + Name of Jesus

   Jesus is The God/Man, the Divine eternal, only-begotten of The Father, the fullness of the Godhead in bodily form.  But this enfleshed Immanuel is always in motion and action for you and His other lambs. “Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts (i.e. the regions surrounding) of Tyre and Sidon.”   The Savior is always saving.  The Righteous One is always giving out His righteousness by creating and sustaining faith in His fold.  This Grace is all His work and not yours.  He searches out all lost lambs, even as today He came to Freddy, picked him up, and carried him home.

   You obstruct and resist the Lord’s movement and mission whenever you throw obstacles in the way of His blessed feet.  When you stuff your ears with the world’s wax you attempt to block His soothing Word of release.  When you pull away, turn away, and shun His embrace…you make it harder for Him to place those wounded hands around you in Peace. 

   Stop it!  Repent!  The prayer of this “doing” Christ is the same prayer He always makes to His Father in Heaven as He constantly intercedes for you as your great High Priest: “Father forgive them.” And God always does forgive because you are “In” Jesus and His Father is your Father, and the prodigal is always embraced by the loving Father and restored.  You might think you can run fast the “other way,” away from Light and Life, but the Holy Ghost runs faster.  In reality, that famous mid 20^th century American boxer was revealing a truth about Jesus: “you can run but you can’t hide.”

   Your sins are the result of your sin.  As Adam gave Satan an open invitation to come into paradise and destroy everything (like a foolish, greedy, dupe inviting a vampire into a hitherto safe and impregnable home) so too your daily transgressions allow the devil great feeding grounds…wolves will pick off defenseless and solitary lambs.  True demonic possession can run the gamut from evil pagan rituals, blasphemies, and blood sacrifice, all the way to condescending atheism and active self-blinding of oneself.  If Satan can convince one that God doesn’t exist, he doesn’t have to do anything about his own identity. 

    When one does not belong to Christ, then the devil doesn’t have much to do since all who are not on the bloody path of The Paschal Lamb already are in the dark cavern with that sulfuric brood.  But once a person is marked by The Sign of Messias’ + Cross, washed in the Water and Blood from His Holy pierced side, adopted into The Heavenly Father and made a royal priest—like Frederick—like the 12 year old Canaanite girl—then Satan starts his nefarious attacks. 

   When one is draped in Holy Baptism, and surrounded by the Company of the Saints in Holy Mother Church—Gospelling out Christ—keeping one wet—the devils flaming arrows are extinguished.  Jesus says “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give them eternal life; and they shall never perish; neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand.” [Jn.10. 27-28]  The same hands which He laid upon the little children!  Again says Jesus. “All that The Father giveth Me shall come to me…and I will in no wise cast out.” [Jn. 6.37]

   But prior to Calvary, before the serpent had his “head” crushed by Christ’s Body given and Blood shed for your sins, that old ancient foe created much heartache and horror: “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.”

   Jesus does have mercy. That’s why He came, comes, and always will be with you.  He had mercy on the 12 year old girl, mercy on Freddy, mercy on all His children. 

   It only appears that Jesus “answered her not a word.”  He is The Word and His presence always is “for you!”  Whether for the mother’s benefit, the disciples, or yours… all three…The Christ waited, a bit, and by His actions elicited even stronger faith from the woman by His Holy Ghost “then came she and worshipped Him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’”

   She had been visited by The Word of God and she believed.  The Holy Spirit had given her the greatest gift; a gift even greater than the temporary restoration of her daughter to health.  For with faith, she believed her sins were forgiven; that her daughter’s sins were absolved as well, and she worshipped Jesus as God.  And, she held God to His own promise to be good and merciful and to not abandon His own.  And He never does.

   His Law stings and then slays.  But His crumbs which fall from the table are not crumbs, but the vey Bread of Heaven which descended from Heaven—the Bread of Life found in His good news of forgiveness and life everlasting.

    The woman’s faith was great because God in Christ is good…is God…in the Flesh…in the Word…come now to your “masters’ table.”

In The Name of The Father and of The + Son and of The Holy Ghost

Lent 2015 Midweek Sermon #1

“FASTING IN LENT TO FEASTING IN EASTER”

Genesis 2. 15-17; 3. 17-19,21,24

The Thursday of Invocavit: Lent Midweek Mass I

26 February Anno + Domini 2015

Fr Jay Watson SSP

In The + Name of Jesus

   It’s dirty and sad and it’s only going to get worse.

Welcome fellow Israelites, Sons of God, to Lent. Yes, Lententide 2015 in the Church’s calendar, but more importantly to your desert wandering under The Cross of The Crucified—the brazen serpent upon the pole.  Gaze at Him, i.e. believe, and be healed!

   The Lord is Lord of Life.  The life The Trinity desired for all of you, for Adam, was to be filled with pure unadulterated communion—in all its perfect fullness.  There was to be food so delectable, nourishing, and transcendent, we cannot even speak of it now…we’ve lost the agricultural specifics of Eden’s cornucopia from Genesis 1 and 2…it’s not recorded.  But “oh!” what it must have tasted like!

   How long did your first Father and Mother eat of God’s bounty before their perfidy and treason; before their attempted murder of Goodness and Peace?   How did that manna become “not enough?”

   Not only are the Reformed “off the mark” in trying to do theology in the “inner mind” of The Trinity, basing the world’s working on sovereignty and divine providence, but so too, are all Christians sinful when trying to reason and rationalize the mysteries of creation, Eden, or the fall, apart from what The Lord reveals through Moses in Genesis. 

   Adam and Eve had God’s food to eat. All was good.  And then THEY sinned.  They looked at themselves in a false and distorted satanic fun-house mirror and saw a lie.  They craved spiritual anorexia and bulimia and vomited out the Word!

   You may have foodstuffs on your table every day, three times a day, but you are so hungry for God’s food that you’re wasting away—bodily.  The wages of sin is death.  God never stopped loving and caring for Adam “…did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them,” but Adam returned to the dust nonetheless. 

   Your ingestion of sin is caused by the devilish tapeworm, the “old Adam” parasite within you, craving all that is from the world, the fallen flesh, and the dragon.  Repent.  Turn from this heart/hell burn of indigestion. Or, as The Lord’s spotless Bride has always taught, because He so teaches, Fast!  Fast from sin.  Fast from sin by fighting against daily sins in thought, word, and deed.  Be who you are—new Adams and new Eves in The New Adam, Christ Jesus.  Clothed in His robes, drenched in His Blood—His Life; eating His food—His Body; you fast both spiritually—but actively with your sanctified will struggling to walk The Path.  But you also, especially during Lententide, fast physically to focus and sharpen you appreciation for His Word; and His Word in Holy Supper.

   No professor, teacher, or public speaker wants to give his class or presentation at 1pm…after the lunch hour.  Post mid-day gluttony on carbs and sugar finds most classrooms, auditoriums, and yes, naves, filled with dozing, fat, lazy, and non-attentive warm bodies…i.e. sinners who already shun the Word on their own, and don’t really need any additional help from gorging on offal.  But, fast for a bit, let your stomach tell your self-deluded brain (bondage of the will!) that you hurt, that the emptiness in your pit presages death itself, and then, the spiritual mind that The Lord has placed into your cranium begins to sharpen in focus on The Word…or at least, more so J

   This isn’t a Law, this is Pauline exhortation.

   Eat less, well, that will be good for you and, you’ll die anyway.  But eat less, and read Holy Scripture more carefully and your soul will be fortified for the hard desert wounds and losses to come.  Attend Sunday’s Mass with an empty stomach and though wafer thin, and Australian mediocre, that Eucharistic taste of God’s Body and Blood will be all the more sweet.

   The Lord gives daily bread.  But where do you acknowledge that as His family?  Sure, you pray the Our Father multiple times during the day—hopefully before each meal.  But as His Holy Bride, the Our Father with that typological 4^th petition, is prayed every Mass right before The Verba Christi—the very Words of Jesus in His consecration of bread and wine.  You daily bread is His true Body and real Blood.

   Noah, and all those aboard God’s Ark, were given to eat and be sustained during their watery Lent, their desert of waves and salt, upon the food that The Lord had them set aside.  You too in this tiny Ark, are given to eat—to feast, and given to drink—to be toasted with the Cup of Thanksgiving, the very medicine of immortality and festive nuptial meal of Peace. 

   It’s dirty and sad and it’s only going to get worse…for a while…Lent will end.

   Easter, JESUS for you, with you, and in you, is forever.

In The Name of The Father and of  The + Son and of The Holy Ghost

INVOCAVIT [2015]: Homily

“DESERT WARRIOR OF PEACE”

Saint Matthew 4. 1-11

INVOCAVIT: 22 February Anno + Domini 2015

Fr Jay Watson SSP

In The + Name of Jesus

   You tempt Jesus and it is a sin. Make no mistake; your old sinful nature is called “old Adam” for a reason.  Even as the tempter, Satan, that old evil foe, the snake and dragon first tempted Eve, and then Eve tempted Adam, so too, all sons of Adam and daughters of Eve tempt the Lord’s love and mercy whenever they sin.  When you consciously sin, when you deliberately lay snares and traps for The Lord, you are pushing the Holy Spirit away.  Who will save you from this body of death?

   “Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.”  The God/Man does nothing of His own caprice.  There is no whim, spontaneous lark, or pardon the pun, “devil may care” adventurousness in The Christ.  He came to seek and search for the lost.  He came to crush the head of the serpent.   He will not put His Heavenly Father and the Host of Sabaoth into a position to rescue Him from possible death because of rash and brash courage.  No!   And none of you should ever go looking for the devil or tempt God by demanding His protection for something that the Word does not demand or command from one.  Jesus was “led up of (i.e. by) the Spirit.”  The same Holy Ghost Who had just descended upon The Lamb in the Jordan River, now leads The same “scape-goat” into the desert to be preyed upon.

   Jesus is God.  Jesus did not sin and could not sin. Jesus is man.  Jesus did suffer from the pain of temptations and trials in so far as He was hungry, thirsty, tired, weak, and morally affronted and offended by the devil’s crassness and unctuous lying.  Jesus went into the desert to begin driving Satan back and away from the flock, like a Good Shepherd does when the wolf is spotted.  Jesus was starting a push back which would eventually consign the deceiver into the lake of fire.  Jesus was fixing all things that Adam and you have broken.  Jesus was restoring all things that your first parents and you have perverted and spoiled.  Jesus was obeying where you don’t.  Jesus was keeping the Law where you daily transgress it. 

   Man was made in The Lord’s Image. Man was created with the capability to obey and not to sin.  Giving in to temptation Man destroyed all that was perfect and ushered in a world and age of sin, death and destruction…culminating in hell for all who are outside God’s family.

   Jesus comes this morning into the desert.  The Christ comes to your Lenten land of sweat, tears, aging, sickness, loss, and pain to begin again setting things right. 

   He does what Adam refused to do…live by and on only the Word of God for His food, for His meat and drink.  No forbidden fruit for Jesus; no turning stones into baked bread when He had The Word of His Father, Was/Is the Word-enfleshed, and Was/Is the true Bread which comes down from heaven. 

   Stop grumbling about your daily bread, not your three squares a day plus snacks (your Hobbit gluttony) but the Word of Scripture and The Word of the Sacraments.  Repent for your sugar binges on self, Satan, and the sinful world, and fast from poison and swill.  Feast on Christ the Bread in daily Scripture study and in every Sunday Mass…in every Thursday Mass during Lententide, and in ever more disciplined attendance here at His temple-Table!

   Jesus did what Moses and the Israelites refused to do in their own forty years of desert wandering.  Jesus obeyed.  Jesus met the horned beast eye ball to eye ball.  But the devil is always a counterfeit, and only a hellish mirage, performing tricks and deceitful ersatz “miracles.”  Only the Second Person of The Trinity is true Man while also being True God, in the one person Jesus The Christ.  Only Jesus performed the only work that matters, obeying His Father for your benefit, and fearing, trusting, and loving God above all things.  By relying for His nourishment only on The Word of God, Jesus was loving you and your neighbor with every growl, contraction, and pain in His belly; with every crack in His lips and dry sore on His parched tongue.  Suffering in Love to Love you in deed in the wilderness was leading Him up to the ultimate battle against Satan on the Cross of Calvary.  There too He thirsted.  There too He hurt but not in stomach only, but in hands, feet, head, back and Sacred Heart. 

   Jesus loves you and gives you daily food, clothing, and all matter of sustenance…as He does for the pagan alike.  But man does not live by bread alone and you His brethren live to eternity only on The Word of God which proceedeth out of The mouth of God; out of the Body and Blood of God.

   Come and feast on your Desert Warrior—The Peace that ministers unto you forgiveness and life.

In The Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost

ASH WEDNESDAY [2015]: Homily

“THE TREASURES OF HEAVEN ON THE ALTAR”

Saint Matthew 6. 16-21

Ash Wednesday: 18 February Anno + Domini 2015

Fr Jay Watson SSP

In The + Name of Jesus

   You’re already a hypocrite so don’t think you can avoid having the Law condemn you as Pharisee just because you don’t fast—as a matter of “principle”…yeah, the principle of being an antinomian hater and despiser of proper piety and Church Catholic centuries of salutary discipline.

   “Moreover when ye fast,” says Jesus.  If God says “ye fast” than you know who it is who gets you to avoid the whole issue and be a gluttonous pig.  It’s no coincidence that “Legion” the satanic demon horde inhabited the herd of doomed swine.

   The Law of The Lord is clear: “lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal.”   What is this but a restatement of the twin tables of God’s commands: love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.  Love is giving; not getting.  Love is fearing and trusting God above everything else.  Love is putting your neighbor ahead of your own sinful greed, ego, lust, concupiscence, and desire to dominate.  True obedience is love in action, that is, is Jesus Himself.

   The problem is always you; you as sinner.  It’s a twin dilemma. First you have to know you’re the problem.  Second you have to know your actions are not the solution.  And on top of all that you have to know that your actions, now, as someone who has been rescued and restored by Jesus, are still important and can be both helpful to you and especially to your neighbor.  

   God calls you to repentance as surely as He demanded it of the Ninevehites by the preaching of Saint Jonah.   

   Your sins are not that you don’t “do enough” (you never do what’s really demanded: love perfectly and sacrifice for others) but that you ignore God and despise others. 

   And I’m just not going to go over the Decalogue again or bring up any more examples of specific sinful behaviors.  You’ll just “project” them on to other people and rationalize them away from yourselves because either a) you’re angry with me for some reason and don’t want to listen to ME… or b) you’ve justified yourselves over and against other sinners and “bad people” that you just “know” are so much worse than you are—yeah right.

   God’s Law says what it says and you stand condemned: period!   Equivocate all you want but you’re still getting older, sicker, more feeble, and closer to the grave.  In the grave you’ll be wearing dust and the ash of decay whether you want to or not.  The tomb comes for hypocrites and antinomians; democrats and republicans, co/wo goofballs and confessional Lutherans.  REPENT.   Stop disbelieving and believe.  Your actions will follow your faith and confession.  “The people of Nineveh believed God…and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth…the king sat in ashes.”  Notice that the outward manifestations FOLLOWED the inner Spirit-worked conversions.

    The Lord causes you to repent.   Jesus and His Word of Law, by the work of The Holy Ghost, slay your blackened hearts with the piercings of the 10 Commandments.  Your love does not protect your children or your parents.  Jesus’ love does.  Your love does not keep your dear family and friends from suffering or even from apostatizing.  Jesus love does. 

   Jesus had His garments stripped off and, if not rent, gambled away.  Jesus had His heart rended with grief and then with the sharp head of a spear.

Jesus repented not for His sins, for He was immaculate, sinless, and God in the Flesh; but for your sins He became sin-bearer—Paschal Lamb, The sin sacrifice—“the meat offering and drink offering.”   Jesus had not ashes placed on His beautiful forehead but burial myrrh and a funeral shroud.  Jesus’ Sacred Heart suffered and died for you because of His love and obedience to the Father and His love for you and your neighbors.

    Fast during Lent.  An empty stomach focuses the heart on matters even more important than meat and wine.  Wear ash tonight, physically, and forever, spiritually, so that death is daily before your eyes that the Light of Light, The Way, The Truth, and The Life might be before your eyes.  Your treasure is not inside of you in emotion or inside your brain in knowledge, wisdom and Gnostic “spirituality.”  Your treasure is not in the strength of man’s legs (your works, accomplishments, possessions, and families) or in the strength of the horse…of science and technologies.  Your strength is in the Word.  Jesus is The Word, and He locates Himself for you tonight and every Mass in His absolving Word Inscripturated and in His absolving Word Sacramentally connected to His Supper.

   Jesus places your Treasure—Himself—into your ears and on your tongues.  His heart is given to you in Word, Flesh, and Blood.

In The Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost

Outline Notes for Preachment of QUINQUAGESIMA [2015]

Christ does the gathering

  He gathers the 12 - - The Apostles and all those

   in the Apostolic Faith (Fides Quae)

Christ speaks

  He is The Word—this is a monologue not a Q&A

  He is Author (Finisher & Perfector) not editor,

    collaborator (no synergism)

Christ goes to Jerusalem

  He goes to the City of David not Rome/Cross not

    Glory

  His going is by way of servanthood and suffering

    (both Law Keeping and Sin Bearing)

[the excursus/interruption which is no accident]

LAW

The 12 did not understand Christ’s prediction

   The Pharisees etc. did not understand the O.T

    Your “old Adams” do not understand sin and

     grace apart from Jesus

REPENT & LISTEN (read, mark, learn…)

SO

Christ leads them to Jericho

(ancient walled city of

   (pagan disbelief)

   Satan’s former stronghold that was destroyed by

   The Word under Joshua (walls came tumbling

    down; the gates of hell ripped apart)

Christ goes

to a “certain blind man/begging”

   Bartimaeus (son of Timaeus/time) for the time

   had come. “In the fullness of time” The blind beggar was a motif/exemplar

   of what the Law does and HOW one receives

   GRACE

Christ shows

His Church the perfect prayer:

   “JESUS, THOU SON OF DAVID, HAVE

    MERCY UPON ME”  KYRIE

LAW

You don’t pray as you should. You resist the LAW

   Apply it to others

   Ignore it

   Soften it

   Think confessional rigor is good enough

   Hide behind ‘cheap Grace’

   Pray for Glory not strength (YOUR way not ‘Thy

     will be done’)

REPENT

Jesus heals

  Jesus answers prayers (His way; His time)

  Jesus heals showing the reversal of sin*

  Jesus restores to begin the restoration*

  Jesus heals on the outside to show F.O.S.

    ‘for where there is F.O.S. there is life and

      salvation*   (i.e. looks are deceiving/Cross not

                                                                 glory)

*HOW*

“For He shall be delivered unto the Gentiles (your fathers, you, your trespasses), and shall be mocked (your despising of His word and embarrassment over His weakness) and spitefully entreated (even as you mistreat His other lambs) and spitted on (your daily sins of thought, word, and deed) And they (you) shall scourge Him, and put Him to death.”

That’s How… and the 12 understood none of these things (at the first)

BUT

“…and the third day He shall rise again”

Lent gives way to Easter.

Ash Wednesday will give way to Pascha and Eucharistic FEASTING

“All things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished”

ARE ACCOMPLISHED (It is finished)

Only death needs be defeated by The RESURRECTION OF ALL FLESH AND THE JUDGMENT DAY.

                                          Soon.

Jesus praises His Father and Give Glory to The Trinity by Word, and Word Crucified

Your hands cannot erase His love

SEXAGESIMA [2015] : Homily

“CHRIST THE SEED”

Saint Luke 8. 4-15

Sexagesima: 8 February Anno + Domini 2015

Fr Jay Watson SSP

In The + Name of Jesus

   People gathered together proves one part of The Lord’s parable: He does the gathering.  It’s sad so few understood what He meant: “and His disciples asked Him, saying, ‘what might this parable be’” That illustrates the utter deficiency of reason and works.

   When Christ cried out “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear,” The Word was preaching the twin call of The Kingdom: “repent and believe!”

  The Word works.  It’s not just called Grace it is Grace.  Jesus works.  Jesus is Grace.  Jesus is love for you in action and deed; in result and accomplishment.  He feeds you Law and it tastes worse than the foulest medicine because it is supposed to kill you—to kill the sinner, the “old original fallen nature.”   Chemo targets cancer but His Law targets and slays “old Adam.”   He feeds you seed; over and over and over again.  The seed is His Word which means the Seed is Himself.  He sows it everywhere where His Word is shared to be sure.  And it does what He wants it to do.  Esaias knew that.

   You sin when you think you have some part in the effectiveness and results of Jesus’ sowing.  You don’t.  You can’t keep one elected and predestinated Saint out of His heavenly home.   Repent of your fear and mistrust.  Repent of your anger and bitterness that you don’t see results and can’t count the ones you want to count.   The reason you are so angry most of the time is not because there are reasons to be mad but because you are a sinner and your faith is weak.  Repent and believe Jesus.  The Seed grows His Church, sanctifies it—keeps it holy and abundant in good works. The Seed is the One Who created His church by planting Himself on Golgotha and in the tomb.  The Seed watered and fertilized with His own Flesh and Blood.  The Seed is here now doing the same to this good ground, this hundredfold, these hearing hearts—ears—ears of green grain.  The Seed’s heart was honest and good. He obeyed.  He paid.  He is patient—patient for you. He waits for your repentance and growth because He causes both.

   Thankful you are, by Christ’s Grace, that the devil has not taken Jesus out of your ears, as you daily read the Scriptures; or out of your mouths as you weekly (and even more) receive the Sacrament.  Joyful you are that the Word has not been choked out or dried up by your fickle emotions and daily backslidings, or shunted aside by the trials and temptations of the world’s diversions, sicknesses, and setbacks.

   Jesus The Seed, The Word, has created you, grown you, and gathered you together once again this abundant day.  Dear fruit of The Fruit, come now and receive even more Fruit; for unto you is given the mysteries of the kingdom of God—for forgiveness, life and peace.

In The Name of The Father and of The + Son and of The Holy Ghost

Semper Virgo because Semper Incarnatus Jesus & Semper Agape Jesus

 

Holy Mary

Mother of God

Pray[S] for us sinners

Now

And at the hour of our death

 

 

A Blessed PURIFICATION OF SAINT MARY

&

PRESENTATION OF OUR LORD

Day

SEPTUAGESIMA [2015]: Homily

“JESUS BECOMES LEAST FOR YOU”

Saint Matthew 20. 1-16

Septuagesima: 1 February Anno + Domini 2015

Fr Jay Watson SSP

 

In The Name + of Jesus

   Jesus tells parables. God delights in telling you stories. What does this “say” about The Lord? He loves you like dear children; enough to talk with you, teach you, and love you with His words.

   The Trinity is like unto a story-teller; but what kind?

   The reason “sovereignty” and omnipotence, though true, seem so often “beside the point,” is that they miss the good news.  Indescribably awesome power, glory, and transcendent force, does no good without mercy and compassion.  It’s not good for the man with his hand trapped under the bolder to have a fierce all-powerful blade cut his limb off at the shoulder to free him—no good for keeping his arm and hand that is.  Kings seek to become emperors. Sinners always seek more sinning like stagnant water always seeks the lowest level. Emperors lust to become despots, tyrants and conquerors.  You mirror these traits in your own daily interactions with your fellow man; even your fellow parishioners. You treat others not as neighbors and brethren but as enemies, obstacles, and targets of your hate.  Repent.

   God tells you a story that is true. The omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Triune Lord tells you a story about a Man and His kingdom—a King and His domain.  He uncovers and delivers the truth.  In the simile is the essence. God is not only “like unto a man” but IS Man!

   The parable is Jesus. Jesus is the King God Who is the Man.  His Kingdom is heaven. Heaven is not clouds, the rainbow bridge of Asgard leading to mead halls, Olympus and its human chess-boards, or cosmic nirvana where consciences are absorbed into the “over mind.”  Heaven is the house of the householder.  Heaven is the fruitful vineyard of the vintner—wherein wine produces gladness and olives produce soothing and beneficial oil. Heaven is home, table, and a big comfy couch!

   Jesus is this kind of man. He is the Man who “went out early” to find those whom He chose to find.  You can run and hide. You can refuse His seeking. You can grumble and reject what He gives. But you can’t make Him find you and you can’t participate in the decision to come into His vineyard and His household.  Jesus “hires” in that Jesus saves.

   To be in His vineyard means vocation, and doing the things of His Kingdom, to be sure; but it does not mean you get there, are there, by the chores, duties, and activities.  This is not works-righteousness but being what He has made you to be.

   Jesus went out early to rescue you and secure you.

“‘Father I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am; for Thou lovest Me before the foundation of the world.’” [Jn. 17.24]   The Apostle elaborates: “He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world.” [Eph. 1.4]  The Householder Himself left His house and was “conceived by The Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary.”

   But Adam wanted more. He wanted Himself. Your sinful self wants more. You want what you think “you’ve got coming to you” for all the things you’ve done. To demand your wages because you perceive that you have worked the most, the smartest, the hardest, and have “borne the burden and the heat of the day” is to demand only hell, for the wages of sin is death.

   Jesus says to your “old Adam” “friend, I do thee no wrong.”  He loves you even though you don’t deserve His mercy. He always desires your repentance.  Do not murmur against the “goodman of the house” for He is The God/Man of this your new house—His Church Catholic, your banquet hall and throne room.

   Jesus bore the burden of your sin and the heat of the Father’s wrath in your place. He became the very last and the very least so that you would become first in His Kingdom.  You are not thrust out into outer darkness with what is yours. He ushers you to His very side and gives you all that is His.

In The Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost

The TRANSFIGURATION OF OUR LORD: Homily

“JESUS ADOPTS YOU IN A WONDERFUL MANNER”

Saint Matthew 17. 1-9

The Transfiguration of our Lord: 25 January Anno + Domini 2015

Fr Jay Watson SSP

In The Name + of Jesus

“The lightnings lightened the world; the earth trembled and shook.” This is Law. This is Sinai. This is even “old natured sinners,” Peter, James, John, and you reacting to The Lord’s “Light of Light.”

  What you think you want—lightning miracles, and thunderous power—and what you really need: being found, being washed, being restored, being bandaged and bound up, being covered with balm to staunch the bleeding and pain, being fed, and being given peace at Table and Side.

   Christ’s Transfiguration is not just about how He, the Nazarene, the Carpenter’s Son, is in reality The Second Person of The Trinity—I AM—come to Redeem Israel.  Although to be sure, that is a reality and it should have been impressed upon Peter and the brothers.  This theophany of Christ as God was also not to strengthen Christ’s humanity with a “rah-rah you can do it Jesus” pep talk from the Old Testament heroes.  The Prophet and The Torah writer did on that mountain top what they had always done and will always do: talk about Jesus’ Gospel in His Exodus for you.  They were doing what Paul calls “preaching Christ Crucified.”

   Your sin, because you are a sinner, is that you crave the experience of what James and John must have felt; the excitement, the fear, the transcendence, the unique “specialness” to be there with the God/Man.  That is pride and ego oozing out of your Adamic heart: Repent!  You are a mass of rotting dead flesh in-and-of yourselves…not special one whit.  Looking for excitement or entertainment or empowerment to “come off the mountain and do great things” is all Satan’s lie.  It’s the Exodus of Jesus.  It’s the love, the Grace of Jesus, Who is God, that makes this text not historical but today!  You are no longer dead and blackened husks. You are transfigured IN Christ for He is IN you!  You were and are transfigured—you are + Baptized!

Jesus does the Exodus…the going into your hot desert of sin and temptation and He triumphs by perfect obedience.  When you sinned this last week, and earlier this morning, Jesus kept the Commandments perfectly. He went on an Exodus to Calvary where He made sure you passed through the Red Sea by having His own sea, flood, gusher of His red Blood part your way to Heaven. You were carried over to His sheepfold not on dry land but on His very Body—scarred and punctured and speared.

   How amiable are The Lord’s Tabernacles—His tents.  And what are those tents?   Your bodies are tents of God, yes, but only by way of Christ in Baptism, Eucharist, and Preached Word.  Jesus is the Tabernacled GOD.  When He is IN you and you are IN Him you are His Body because He makes it so!

   O Lord of Hosts Jesus is…Gabriel, Raphael, Michael and legions surrounding Him.  But The Host of your Feast is The HOST in the Sacramental bread which IS His Body Itself.  And yes, your soul WILL faint during the long Lenten week until it finds Sabbath; REST, here in His arms.

  Christ is fairer than the children of men, not that He is Hollywood handsome but in that He is the perfect second Adam—the sinless Man Who is God/Man. The stains which make you ugly He removes with His Blood. His fairness is found on the Tree wherein He’s covered with sweat and dirt and caked in Blood and spittle. And THAT’s what Elias and Moses were talking to Him about!

   Trinitarian imagery abounds: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego; Moses, Aaron, and Hur; Peter, James, and John, Jesus, Elias, and Moses; and the Holy Triptych of Christ, the Baptist, and the Blessed Virgin. Three is perfect harmony and community wherein even “two” falls just a bit short.  For The Lover and His Beloved always desire LOVE between them.  The Groom and His Bride always produce children.

   The Voice (The Father), the Cloud (the same Counselor who helps inform and inspire Peter’s later account in the Epistle), and The Lamb are Trinitarian Godhead.  Jesus is the fullness in flesh for He is The Way, The Truth, and The Life. Jesus raised on high between two malefactors. His Work completed; His obedience now credited; His Bloody Body drawing all His to His feeding side—His Blood and Body.

   Is it magic? Oh yes, it’s the deepest of magic’s for it is true and real: substantive, constructive, originative, generative and constitutive.

   This Transfiguration in Scripture is this morning’s Transfiguration of His brethren, of you, as you are assembled on a mountain in which you never need leave.  You depart the structure called Augsburg for the desert outside yes, but with Christ inside you, The Transfiguration of Jesus’ presence safeguards and preserves.

   You, dear Saints, you are fairer than the children of men for you are now the children of God. Grace is poured into your lips.  Jesus transfigures you and says: “sit thou at My right hand.”  Hallelujah!

In The Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost

The Confession of Saint Peter: Homily

“CHRIST IS THE CONFESSION”

Saint Mark 8.27—9.1

The Confession of Saint Peter: 18 January Anno + Domini 2015

Fr Jay Watson

In The Name + of Jesus: The Christ of God

   Who do you say Jesus is?  If all you can say is that He is God’s Son you’re saying nothing more than a damned Mormon.  If you answer He’s the “Lord” but you do not believe the Biblical content of Kurios as understood by the Saints from Moses, Elias, and Esaias all the way to Paul and John, you’re nothing more than a Nestorian heretic.  No wonder the Blessed Virgin Mary is denigrated by non-denominational Protestants.  Only by knowing Who Jesus is can one appreciate who the Virgin is.

   Philip of Macedon was a powerful warrior and brutal conqueror. He was the father of an even more famous world ruler Alexander…called “great.” The Roman Caesar, be it Octavian when Jesus was born, or Tiberias, when our Gospel occurred, were likewise dominating Lords…masters of all their controllable worlds.  They died. They rotted. They join Judas in perdition.  Who were they?  Most people could care less.  Most people only care about themselves…and maybe their “loved ones” so long as these family members and “retainers” sufficiently comport to their will and build up their egos.  I am talking about you.  You are little Caesars and you count yourselves “great”…at least compared to other men who don’t “fast” (i.e. don’t do what you want the way you want).  Repent!

   If you had to put before the throne of God this morning your own merits of loving, fearing and worshipping Him above all the things rather than what really occupies you during your waking hours…you too would be with Nero and Napoleon in hades!  If you had to stand upon how you treat other people—the things you say about your fellow creatures—who are loved by God—your “chief of sinners” status would be confirmed in the very center of hell.  Repent!

   Hallelujah; you do not have to trust in your own works or person. Your Mediator and Savior is Jesus. And Who do you say Jesus is?

   While the answer comes from Holy Scripture, the Bible is not your Redeemer.  No “King James” or the enshrined-on-high Missoura “synod” ESV is nailed to a cross.  While the Symbols, the Book of Concord 1580, is a compendium of Scriptural Confessions—“Here I stands”—it too is no Justifier.  The Augustana bleeds for no sinner.

   The Confession of Saint Peter’s is his confession to be sure; it came out of his mouth.  This first Bishop of Rome, this “prince of the Apostles” the spokesman for the “12,” is to be rightly honored for his bold testimony.  But the words were not of his work or will.  The genesis and origin of the pronouncement was not from His faith but from God’s Grace.  As Saint Matthew also records the event (Matthew being an eye-witness) Jesus replies to Simon Peter’s confession: “Blessed art thou Simon Barjona; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven.” [Mt. 16.17]

   The beautifully true introduction to Lutheran Worship reads: “Our Lord speaks and we listen. His Word bestows what it says. Faith that is born from what is heard acknowledges the gifts received with eager thankfulness and praise…saying back to Him what He has said to us, we repeat what is most true and sure.” [LW p. 6]

   Peter is simply the polished mirror reflecting like a moon the Light of the Sun the Light of Life—He Who is The Confession.  Jesus is The Confession of The Trinity—of God.

   So then, Who is Jesus and Who do you say that Jesus is? 

   He is not John the Baptist, the greatest human Prophet. He is not Elias, the miracle working resurrector and multiplier of food who went up to heaven without dying. “And Peter answereth and saith unto Him, Thou art The Christ.”  Saint Mark writes “Christos” the Greek word but Peter’s Aramaic or even Hebrew expression reflected the truth of all the Hebrew Scripture—Jesus is Messias!

   And Luther asks “what does this mean?”

   It means that Peter was saying that Jesus was GOD!  Jesus was YHWH, I AM, as He revealed to Moses from the burning bush.  Jesus was The Seed promised Eve, the suffering Servant written about by Esaias, the Ancient of Days spoken of by Daniel, the everlasting Son promised King David.  To be LORD according to God’s Word is to be GOD the Author of said Word!  Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us, and The Word made Flesh!  He in His Person and Work is THE CONFESSION.  You don’t do the confessing Jesus did. You receive the Confession and you repeat it back: “Oh Lord, open Thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Thy praise!”

   When the Apostle writes the Philippians that “Jesus Christ is Lord” he is saying by Holy Inspiration of the Spirit that the Nazarene, the anointed One (Christ) is God.  Until this truth was so perverted, challenged and compromised by Arius and other heretics, the Church of The Lord always so testified.  And after years of battle, persecution, and martyrdom, the Church again confessed, spoke back, with one mouth, what Jesus had first spoken into its heart.  At Nicea and Constantinople, Peter’s Confession—your Confession, THE CONFESSION rang forth until Jesus returns: “I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, begotten, not made. Being of one substance with The Father, by Whom all things were made; Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by The Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried; And the third day He rose again according to the Scriptures; And ascended into heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of The Father; And He shall come again with glory to Judge both the quick and the dead; Whose kingdom shall have not end.”

   With angels and archangels and the whole company of heaven…The Blessed Virgin, Saint Mark, Saint Peter, you now Confess THE CONFESSION by receiving THE CONFESSION—in His true Body and real Blood. “As often as ye eat This Bread and drink This Cup: ye do show, i.e. “confess,” the Lord’s death till He come.”

   This is The Gospel. This is THE CONFESSION.

In The Name of The Father and of The + Son and of The Holy Ghost