Yesterday was the annual feast day for the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. On the cross of Christ, what looks to our physical eyes like defeat is in truth the victory of God. By His willing sacrifice, Jesus destroys the power of sin, death, and the devil, and draws us into communion with Himself and with one another. The cross alone restores us to God, rescues us from the prison of self, and makes us members of His holy family. Through the Word, the Sacraments, and the life of the Church, the fruits of the cross—light, life, love, and forgiveness—are given to us again and again. Listen and rejoice in the power of the cross, which gathers us together as the children of God.
How are you maderight before God? Jesus tells the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector to answer that question. While human reason assumes the Pharisee’s outwardly righteous life makes him justified, Jesus reveals that it is the humble tax collector who is declared righteous. The Pharisee’s prayer is full of self-congratulation, whereas the tax collector’s simple plea—“God, be merciful to me, a sinner”—is grounded in faith and dependence on God’s forgiveness alone. True humility is not a human achievement but a gift from God, worked through his Word. Ultimately, God answers our plea for mercy through Christ, who in humility bore our sin on the cross and in turn gives us his own righteousness. Christians daily make the tax collector’s prayer their own, trusting not in ourselves but in God’s promise to forgive and grant us Christ’s righteousness through his merciful means of grace. Listen to the whole of Fr. Suelzle’s sermon for Trinity +11 below.
From fig tree to martyrdom, Bartholomew’s life is a testimony that the power of faith rests not in us, but in Christ who calls and keeps us.
Saint Bartholomew—also called Nathanael in John’s Gospel—shows us what it means to be seen and known by Christ. At first he was skeptical when his brother Philip told him about Jesus. But when Jesus revealed that He already knew him, Bartholomew confessed with bold faith: “You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”
That same pattern holds true for us. Left to ourselves, we remain under the shadow of sin and death. But when Christ calls us by His Word, when He joins us to Himself in Baptism and feeds us at His table, we are brought from shadow to light, from doubt to confession, from death to life. Like Bartholomew, we find that our faith does not rest on our own strength but on Christ who first knows us.
Tradition tells us Bartholomew carried the Gospel as far as India and Armenia, where he sealed his witness with his blood. He was not remembered for seeking his own greatness but for pointing always to the greatness of Jesus. His life and death remind us that the treasure we carry is Christ Himself, and that even in our weakness the Gospel is the power of God for salvation.
May God grant us, as we pray in the Collect for this day, to love what Bartholomew believed and to proclaim what he taught: that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, who still comes among us as the One who serves.
All Saints Lutheran Church and School 