Invocavit—Covered: Fasting, Concupiscence, and Christ’s Obedience
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Some of y’all heard me make this point on Ash Wednesday, but I wanted to share it again this morning: there are more words of our Lord explicitly instructing us to support our church and pastor from our means, and to help those around us in need; more words from our Lord expressly telling us to pray; and more explicit words from our Lord to fast and to exercise ourselves in self-restraint and self-discipline, than there are words that tell you to go to your pastor for private confession and absolution.
There are zero that tell you to do that second thing. Confessing sins privately to the pastor to receive individual absolution is found nowhere in the Bible. The closest you get to it is in James, where it says, “Confess your sins to one another,” but that doesn’t say, “Confess your sins to your pastor.”
And yet we retain this tradition as Lutherans—this laudable tradition received from the Christians who have gone before us—private confession and absolution to the pastor and from the pastor. We received that from the saints that have gone before us as an effective aid against sin and a consolation for a bad conscience. Private confession is a wonderful exercising of the Office of the Keys, which was clearly established by Jesus in passages like John chapter 20.
And so we retain private confession and absolution as an exercising of those Keys. The sins where the guilt or the shame still sticks around; the sins that you keep falling into; those besetting sins that maybe drive you even to the point of despair; the sins that you doubt might even be forgiven if people heard them out loud—private confession and absolution is a perfect place to take those.
You have no reason—you who repent of your sins and desire to do better—have no reason to doubt the absolution that’s applied to you here in corporate confession and absolution. It is just as valid and just as certain. But when we as Christians can struggle in our flesh with particular sins, private confession and absolution is a valuable weapon against it.
It’s an opportunity for you to hear your pastor say, “Yes, the Blood of Jesus really washes away even that sin, and completely purifies you.” So we have good reason to retain this tradition, but it is a tradition. The Lord did not explicitly institute the practice of going to private confession to your pastor.
What about fasting? Does it fall into the same category as private confession and absolution—that it’s this merely laudable tradition with biblical foundations, like private confession flowing from the Office of the Keys in John 20? The reality is that Scripture tells us about Jesus fasting. Like we just heard, Jesus Himself gives us clear instructions on how to carry ourselves and what our mind should be focused on when—not if—we fast. Jesus said that His disciples would fast when He was no longer with them.
When Christ’s disciples asked Him why they weren’t able to cast out a particular demon, He said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”
In Acts 13, we’re told that the prophets and teachers in Antioch, as they ministered to the Lord and fasted, were told by the Holy Spirit to separate to Him Barnabas and Saul for the work to which He had called them. Then, having fasted and prayed and laid hands on them, they sent them away.
In Acts 14, after Paul and Barnabas had been preaching to the converts in Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, saying, “We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God,” the Scriptures then tell us that they appointed elders in every church, and then prayed with fasting and commended them to the Lord in Whom they had believed.
In 1 Corinthians 7, St. Paul gives really valuable instruction about marriage and how husband and wife should love and honor each other. He forbids the husband and wife from withholding themselves from one another in that conjugal unity, from withholding themselves from each other. He goes so far as to say that the body of the wife belongs to the husband and the body of the husband belongs to the wife. He then says this: “Do not deprive one another of these things except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer, and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”
Just as an aside, I’ve heard that verse used to say why you might want to be “one and done” about having children—that this is an example of that. But I don’t think that the people I’ve talked to that have used this verse went and prayed and fasted by mutual agreement. But he says: prayer and fasting—prayer and fasting by mutual agreement.
In the Old Testament, God commanded a yearly fast on the Day of Atonement. So this is one that He actually commanded—the Day of Atonement: “This shall be a statute forever for you: in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict your souls,” or deny yourselves—this is the fasting word—“and do no work at all, whether a native of your own country or a stranger who dwells among you. For on that day the priest shall make atonement for you, to cleanse you, that you may be clean from all your sins before the Lord. It is a Sabbath of solemn rest for you, and you shall afflict your souls. It is a statute forever.”
And besides this commanded fast, there are examples all over the place—this sermon would go even longer than they already go if I were to list them all—of David and other prophets and the whole people of God fasting for various reasons, various circumstances: some lamenting sin, some begging for help in time of need, some mourning the loss of loved ones, and the like.
While there is a clear difference between private confession and fasting—one is talked about in the Bible, the other isn’t—when it comes to the amount of God’s Word, while there is a difference here, there is a clear similarity, I would say, in the fact that both have fallen into disuse among us, by and large.
While it is unfortunate in both cases that this is true—it is unfortunate that private confession has fallen into disuse among us, and fasting—it’s both unfortunate. Okay, that’s true. But one is actually commanded by God in the Old Covenant that has been fulfilled in Christ, and commended to us by the Lord Jesus, given to us as an example by the Lord Jesus, and given to us as an example by the apostles—and it has still fallen into disuse. I think that’s pretty baffling.
On Ash Wednesday, I spoke about one side of why Christians might fast or deprive ourselves from all sorts of things, or just practice self-restraint voluntarily. It was really hot in the church building, or the building we were using, and so I used this example: there are the afflictions that God lays on you outside of your control, and then there’s the voluntary discipline. You voluntarily drove to service this morning, but you didn’t know what the temperature was going to be in here. It was really hot in that building. It feels nice in here, but both are commanded by the Lord: patiently enduring those afflictions laid on us by Him, and voluntarily exercising ourselves and subjecting our flesh, disciplining our flesh.
It comes from verses like Jesus saying, “Watch yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and overindulgence,” or St. Paul saying, “I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I’ve preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.”
Our own Lutheran Confessions say that in addition to the afflictions and cross that our Lord lays on His Christians in this life outside of our control, quote: “There is also a necessary voluntary exercise of purposely depriving ourselves for a time.” These exercises—depriving ourselves of money, time, or energy in order to do more good for others; depriving ourselves of sleep and time to pray and read the Scriptures more; and depriving ourselves of food or certain foods or certain drink or certain other things that are not sinful in themselves, like how much we might use our phone or how much we might watch TV—that these exercises are to be accepted, not because they are services that justify, that make us right before God, but because they are assumed to control the flesh, should overindulgence overpower us and make us secure and unconcerned.
This effort at mortification, or disciplining of our body, should be constant because it has God’s permanent command. That’s the Confessions. These exercises of almsgiving, prayer, and fasting, and other Christian disciplines are to be performed by Christians so that neither overindulgence nor laziness may tempt him to sin, and so that we would be prepared for spiritual things, carrying out the duties of our station in life—Paul as a preacher and an apostle, us in all our various callings.
But there is another reason that I want to share with you this morning for Christian discipline being exercised in our lives. In our Old Testament this morning, you heard the true historical account of Adam and Eve listening to the voice of the devil, who came to them as a serpent and got them to eat from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They violated God’s one prohibition given to them. He told them that if they ate of this tree, they would die. The devil told them they would not die, but they would be like God, knowing good and evil. They believed the devil and disbelieved God—and they did die. And into the entire world came sin and death.
The Scriptures tell us: through one man, sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because all sinned. Through this sin of Adam and Eve, all mankind falls under eternal condemnation. We are conceived and born in sin, and we are by nature children of wrath. We are spiritually dead and despise God without His Holy Spirit being given to us. We by nature seek to worship the creature and created things rather than the Creator of all things visible and invisible. And because of this, unless God does something about it, we will die not only physically, but we will also die eternally, existing in a place of everlasting torment and shame. That is what’s going to happen without God doing something about it.
God spoke words of punishment to these three—the serpent, Adam, and Eve—but He also showed them the promised redemption when He cursed the serpent, when He said, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”
But He also shows them and us the nature of how this promise—how this crushing of the serpent’s head—will be fulfilled in the last verse of the Old Testament that we read this morning: before casting them out of paradise, the Lord God made Adam and Eve tunics of skin and clothed them—covered them up. Before the fall, Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed. After they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they became aware of their nakedness and were ashamed. They quickly sought to hide themselves; they covered themselves with fig leaves. And then when they heard their loving Creator’s voice, the noise of Him in the garden, they hid themselves from Him, their Lord.
After this, as He’s casting them out of the garden because of their sin, and casting them out so that they would not eat from the tree that would give them immortality—so that they would be stuck in their sin forever—as He casts them out, He covers them with animal skins. That means that He had to kill something and cover them up—cover their shame. And in this way, He shows them and us what He will do to remove our shame and guilt and make a way for us to be in His presence again forever.
On our own, we are doomed. If we are cast out into the wilderness like Jesus was, we would not stand long against Satan’s temptations. I can’t imagine going forty days and forty nights—it’s hard enough going one day without eating. And that’s something we ought to think about. That is the thing I want to point out to you: one of the big major reasons of exercising disciplines like depriving yourself of something you like—it’s not sinful in and of itself, but purposely depriving yourself of it.
Think about something as simple as going without food for a day—not fasting intentionally, but simply not getting a chance to eat. Time got away from you. How quickly irritability rises; how easily patience disappears; how strong the craving becomes. And you’re not in danger of dying—it was only a day—but your flesh acts as if it’s some sort of emergency.
And when this happens, something important is being revealed in us—whether we’re pining for food or pining to get our phone out and doomscroll, whatever it might be—it’s revealing something in us. When we voluntarily give things up that are not sinful in themselves, like a meal or sweets or entertainment or some other comfort, we begin to see restless desires that are always there under the surface. This is concupiscence. It’s an effect that we inherited from the sin of Adam and Eve. It’s sinful desires—even in the Christian. After you’re baptized, after you’re born again, you have this old man: sinful desires, concupiscence. And that hunger, that pining that drives you in these cravings, it reveals that that is always lurking under the surface—that it is not gone in this life. That’s what it can expose for us.
It’s humbling because it shows you that sin is not only a matter of outward actions. Even if we refrain from wrongdoing, the inward corruption remains. We still want to do it, and wanting to do something evil is evil. The sinful nature is still alive—still craving, still resisting God. This is why God the Father had it in His heart—even as He foreshadowed, in covering Adam and Eve with animal skins—He had it in His heart to send His Son to be obedient and perfectly righteous in our place.
“For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.” You who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ—like our memory verse this week—you have put Him on like clothing, like vestments; you are clothed in Christ. When the Father looks at you, He does not see a child of wrath. He doesn’t see someone who, after going twelve hours without food, will yell at people. He doesn’t see that. He doesn’t see the person who, even sitting in church, maybe is getting a little anxious because they really want to look at their phone. He doesn’t look at you and see that. You have been baptized and trust in Christ for salvation. He sees His perfect Son. He sees His Son’s perfect obedience. He sees His Son’s baptism for you. He sees His Son’s perfect fasting for you. He sees His Son’s perfect victory over the devil’s temptations for you—His Son’s perfect life for you, His innocent suffering and death, His victorious resurrection from the dead for you. He sees that like you were wearing it as a cloak.
Your shame—even the sinful flesh and its desires that still cling to you in this life—are covered. They’re not covered by animal skins. You are clothed in the garments of salvation and the robes of righteousness, which is Christ and His Blood.
When you struggle against sin, or you just struggle against giving up chocolate or something else you might’ve decided you were going to give up during Lent—when you struggle against these things—remember the struggle against sin: that it is a struggle; that there is a part of you that wants to sin, and that part of you is damned and will rot away. Remember that when you struggle against sin, when you endure cross and affliction laid on you by the Lord against your will, outside your control, and when you take up voluntary exercises of discipline—you will feel very keenly that sinful flesh and old Adam in you. When you are reminded once more of this, remember that Christ covers all of your sins, which still dwell in you in this life and always will until you go to the grave. He has covered it with His complete obedience.
When you put your trust in the Lord Jesus and what He has done to save you, God gives you the credit for Christ’s obedience—His perfect obedience—without any of your works being added to it. Your sins are forgiven, and they are covered, and are not charged against you by the power of the Holy Spirit. Each of you Christians calling on the Lord for help in faith are born anew and justified and acquitted of all charges.
But this doesn’t mean that after you have been recreated, no sin or unrighteousness clings to you anymore in this life. Our struggles—affliction, discipline from the Lord, and voluntary disciplines—show us that sin will still cling to you until the grave. But your status as a new creation—justified and acquitted of all charges against you for your sins by faith—means that Christ covers all your sins with His complete obedience. What you feel is unfinished in you is completely finished in the Lord Jesus. That’s what covers you. It’s finished in Him.
The Holy Spirit’s work—making you new and justifying you—Christ covers you. It’s complete.
And the Lord Jesus doesn’t just cover you. Sometimes pejoratively it’s, “We’re a pile of dung and He’s snow on top of us and the dung never changes.” That’s not it. We are completely covered, and we enter into eternal glory on the basis of being covered by Christ. But even as we’re covered, the Triune God dwells in us and causes us to bear fruit—causes us to change—from complete and utter dung into Christ, to be like Him. We shall be as He is.
He—the Lord Jesus—as He covers you in your struggle, covers you and shelters you, He will also, through His Holy Spirit, continually dwell in you to work the beginning of the fulfilling of the Law in perfect obedience, and He’ll bring that to completion on the last day.
Until then, when Satan, the world, and your flesh trouble you, as you work out your salvation in fear and trembling, remember that it is God Who does work in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. He, no matter what, shall cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge. His truth shall be your shield and buckler. Because you set your love on Him, He will deliver you. He will set you on high because you know His Name, and His Name has been placed on you in Holy Baptism. You will call upon Him and He will answer you. He will be with you in trouble. He will deliver you and honor you. With long life He will satisfy you and show you the salvation He has won for you.
Let us pray. Lord Jesus, the highest cunning and practice of the devil are aimed at leading us into unbelief and doubt regarding Your grace, or into presumption, pride, and wicked desires, as well as the lust of the world. So grant, O gracious Savior, that we would constantly strengthen and confirm our faith with the comfort, power, and balm of Your Word, so that it would not diminish, but rather, as a strong shield, would extinguish all the fiery arrows of the wicked one. Grant that we may well use the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, with constant watching and prayer, so that we would not sin against You or test You through presumption, spiritual arrogance, or other cleverness, but rather would honor and call upon Your heavenly Father alone and serve Him in Your Name. For You live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one true God, now and forever. Amen.
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