God does not need angels. He is not dependent upon them for anything. That is clear from Scripture. When the children of Israel were feeling the clutches of Pharaoh and Egypt’s mighty army, God did not send a legion of angels. He acted entirely alone to lure the troops into His trap and end the threat against the people of His promise. God does not need angels. But He wills to use them.
When some of the heavenly host led in open rebellion against God and His rule, the Lord sent His angels against them, led by the general of the angels, Michael. The Lord could have acted on His own but willed to work through angels to banish from His heaven those who rebelled against Him.
God does not need angels. He does not depend upon them to be the mouthpieces of His Word. God thunders the heavens or speaks through the still small voice and His Word is revealed to us. He does not need the ministrations of angels but He wills to use them. When Abraham and Sarah first heard the promise of a son in their old age, it was through the voice of an angel. When Blessed Mary found favor in the Lord’s sight, the angel Gabriel spoke the Word into her womb and Christ tabernacled within her. When the Savior’s first cries filled the silence of the Bethlehem night, angels responded with the song: Glory to God in the highest and peace to His people on earth. When Jesus was left weak and weary after fasting 40 days and tempted by the devil, angels ministered to Him. When St. John the Divine was given the grand revelation of heaven’s glory, angels were sent by God to deliver this picture to him. God does not need angels but He wills to use them.
God does not need angels. He does not need their worship. Though the Scriptures insist that this is the greatest duty and delight of the angels, God does not need this worship. He is not weak and does not require constant affirmation. He is not vain and does not expect to have His ego stroked. But it is God’s will that angels worship Him on earth and in heaven. And so they do. And it is His will that we worship Him. And so we do.
St. John records in Revelation how myriads and myriads and thousands of thousands of angels worshiped the Lord saying with a loud voice: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.” Jesus says Himself that on the day when He comes in His glory to bring to completion all things, the angels shall fill the sky giving terror to unbelievers and relief to the saints. God does not need angels but He wills to use them.
God does not need a pastor. If you were stuck on the desert island all by yourself, your faith could survive without the benefit of a pastor. But God wills to work through pastors. What God could do is not as important as what God has done and promised to do. He has promised to work through men to address His people with His Word, to wash them in baptismal water, to absolve them of their sins, and to set apart bread and wine to be the flesh and blood of Christ and distribute it to the faithful. It is stupid and senseless to daydream about what God might do. You have been given the concrete of what He has done in Christ, what He wills to do, and how He wills to do it. God does not need a pastor but you do and so He has willed to establish the office of the holy ministry which I have exercised among you for nearly 32 years and for over 44 years since my ordination.
God does not need marriage. He made all things from nothing and man from the dust of the earth and woman from his rib. But God has willed to order His creation through a man who leaves His father and mother and cleaves to his wife. God does not need a wife but I did. He gave me a wife not to cook or clean or do laundry but to complete me and through our life together to bring children into this world. The first revelation of adult manhood is that I am alone and that I need who God has willed to complete me in the woman whom He makes my wife. God does not need marriage but He wills that the family and its center be His merciful love.
God does not need a congregation. He could have drawn people to Himself directly and individually without the messiness of a church and opinions and conflicts and votes. God does not need a church but you do. He willed that you come to Him through the fellowship of the redeemed, through the common life of our baptism, through the preaching that takes place here, through the absolution that is pronounced upon all the penitent, and through the common meal of His uncommon flesh and blood in bread and wine. God does not need the Church but it is His will to have it and He knows that you need it.
God does not need you. He does not need what you have whether that be money or talents or skills or wisdom or power. The Lord does not save you because He wants or needs something from you. It does not matter how brave or smart or experienced or rich you are, God is the only one who is self-sufficient. But it is His joy to love you, to save you, to have you join Him in His work, to fight the good fight of faith where you are, and to live in peace and unity by the Spirit.
The Lord’s good and gracious will delivers to us what He does not need but we do:
• angels to encamp around His people, to guard them in all their ways, and to minister to them so that they may be kept to everlasting life...
• pastor to serve God’s people with the gifts of God through the means of grace and to shepherd them away from the wolves of false doctrine...
• congregations where the family of God is bound together in the blood of Christ to forgive each other and bear one another’s burdens...
• marriage and family where Christ opens the heart of husband and wife and their fruitful love multiplies and fills the earth...
In case you did not get the point, God does not need anything. He did not have to create but in love sought a people to love. God does not need us but we need Him and His gracious favor and will. So from His gracious love He has supplied us with angels and pastors, congregations and families, and with the power of His forgiving love to keep us in His faith and fear to everlasting life. The angels and all the rest of creation do not need to be told this but you do. You need to know why the Lord has made you, surrounded you with His love and favor, forgiven you by the blood of His Son, put a pastor before you to serve you with His gifts, brought you into the Church to live out your life of faith, and ordered your life as husband, wife, father, mother, and children in the home. God does not need these but we do and now it is our grace and privilege to praise Him, angels, archangels, all the company of heaven, the faithful gathered in our midst, all creatures and every created thing. In the holy Name of Jesus. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment