Mother Church

Laetare Sunday| Galatians 4:21-31| Pastor James Preus| Trinity Lutheran Church| March 15, 2026

“He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” John 1:10-13

In John chapter 3, our Lord Jesus says to Nicodemus, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.  Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’” (vss 4-7) For a person to enter the kingdom of God, he must be born again. This is because everyone born according to nature is born in sin. This is why St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15, “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” (vs 50) All those born according to the flesh are slaves, because everyone born according to the flesh is born under the Law. The Law enslaves everyone born under it, because it requires works. Yet our flesh never completes the works required by the Law.

St. Paul teaches this via allegory, using the slave woman Hagar and the free woman Sarah. Sarah was Abraham’s wife. God promised to give Abraham a son, through whom He would bless all nations. Sarah was old and baren, so she assumed that God could not fulfill His promise through her, so she gave Abraham her slave Hagar as a wife to bear him a son. Hagar did bear Abraham a son. Yet God’s promise to Abraham was not to be fulfilled through the works of the flesh. God intended to give Abraham a son through Sarah. And He did. This son Isaac is the child of promise. He was born not according to the flesh, but miraculously according to God’s promise to a woman who was baren and beyond the age of having children. Yet, the slave woman Hagar and her son behaved haughtily toward Sarah and persecuted her son Isaac, so Sarah commanded that the slave woman and her son be cast out, lest he inherit with her son of promise, Isaac. And God told Abraham to listen to Sarah’s voice.

Paul teaches us that Hagar corresponds to Mount Sinai, because that is where God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, which is the Law. He also says that she corresponds to that present Jerusalem, because the Jewish people were still in slavery to the Law of Moses. Yet it is not only the Jewish people who serve a religion of works who are still enslaved, but all people born according to the flesh. St. Paul writes in Romans 1, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So, they are without excuse.” (vss 18-20) And again in Romans 2, “For when Gentiles, who do not have the Law, by nature do what the Law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the Law. They show that the work of the Law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them” (vss. 14-15)

What Paul is talking about there is natural law. Natural law is what we know by nature to be right and wrong. And because God has given us all a conscience, we are without excuse, because our own consciences accuse us of doing wrong. So, all flesh, both Jews and Gentiles are born under the Law and therefore, are born slaves to the Law. The Law condemns them for their sin, and so they will not inherit the kingdom of heaven by works of the Law. Their flesh, that is, their natural abilities cannot make them God’s children.

Sarah, however, the free woman corresponds to the heavenly Jerusalem. Her children, like Isaac, are free. They are free, because they are born through promise, that is, they are born again of the Spirit. Those born through promise are free, because they receive salvation from God as a free gift apart from their works. Their inheritance does not depend on how well they have kept the Law. Rather, Christ Jesus has done everything they need for eternal life. He was born of a woman, born under the Law to redeem those who were under the Law, so that they may be adopted as God’s children (Galatians 4:4-5). Jesus fulfilled the Law for us, and He suffered and died for our sins to pay our debt. He has freed us from slavery through His sacrifice on the cross. This is why He says in John 6, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise Him up on the Last Day.” (Vss. 53-54) Jesus speaks this way to show that we can have no life in us unless we have faith in His sacrifice, when He gave up His flesh to be crucified and poured out His blood for our forgiveness.

Abraham did not fulfill God’s promise by having a son through the natural way. Rather, God fulfilled His promise by giving a son to Abraham through his baren wife. The child born of promise was the heir, not the child born according to the power of the flesh. And so, St. Paul uses this story to teach us that we cannot save ourselves by the power of our flesh, but we can only be saved through holding onto His promise through faith. As Isaac was the heir, because he was the child of promise, so we are heirs of God’s kingdom, because we believe His promises regarding Christ Jesus, who won for us salvation.

Our Gospel lesson from John 6, where Jesus feeds the five thousand with just five loaves of bread and two small fish, teaches us that Jesus offers us true food from heaven, which gives eternal life, even the Bread of Life, which is Christ Himself. Our Epistle lesson from Galatians 4 teaches us that Jesus offers us this heavenly food within His Church on earth. Paul says, “But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.” The free Jerusalem above is the Holy Christian Church. By above, Paul does not mean that this Jerusalem is only in heaven, but he means a spiritual Jerusalem. It is like when he says in Ephesians 2, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” (vss. 4-6) Paul says that God has already seated us in the heavenly places. Because the Holy Christian Church is heaven on earth.

When St. Paul says that the Jerusalem above is free and she is our mother, he is saying that the Holy Christian Church is our mother. But what does it mean that the Church is our mother? It means that through the ministry of the Church, we are born again through promise and receive everything we need for our spiritual health and eternal life. Those born of God are born through the Christian Church. St. Paul writes in Ephesians 1, “And He put all things under [Christ’s] feet and gave Him as head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fulness of Him who fills all in all.” (vs. 22) Again in chapter 3, Paul writes that to him was given the ministry to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, “so that through the Church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.” (vs. 10) And again he writes, “To Him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus through all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” (vs. 21)

The Church is the bride of Christ (Ephesians 5). Everything that Christ has, He gives to His Church. The Church is where the Word of God is taught in its truth and purity and where the Sacraments are rightly administered. The Church is where Jesus’ sheep gather to hear that pure Word and receive the Sacraments for their forgiveness and salvation. Through the Church, children are born to God through Baptism. Through the preaching of the promises of Christ, children of promise are born and nurtured. Our Introit for this Sunday has a line from Isaiah 66, which some find awkward to sing:

Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be | glad for her,*

all you who | love her;

that you may nurse and be | satisfied*

from her con- | soling breast. (Isaiah 66:10-11)

Yet we should not be embarrassed to sing this verse. St. Peter exhorts us in 1 Peter 2, “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.” (vss. 2-3) The pure spiritual milk is God’s Word. A newborn infant does not even start trying to eat solid food until he is six months old. That means that all his fat, muscles, beautiful skin, laughs, smiles, crawling, and exploring, the immense growth he experiences, all comes from his mother’s milk. He is sustained entirely by her.

The Church is our mother. It is through her that we receive our spiritual milk, God’s Holy Word and Sacraments. It is through her that we are born of promise, because Christ has given her everything He has won for her. The Church of Christ is free, because she is the possessor of all of Christ’s promises. You are a member of Christ’s Church through faith in Christ. And this faith comes through the promise of the Word. In the Church, you receive Baptism, which is the washing of new birth in the Holy Spirit. You receive the forgiveness of sins through the preaching of the Gospel. You even receive the very Bread of Life, Christ’s Jesus’ body and blood in the Sacrament of the Altar. As a child receives life and everything he needs for life through his mother, so a Christian receives everything he needs from the Holy Christian Church, because Christ has given His Church His promise of salvation.

Yet just as the child of promise Isaac was persecuted by Ishmael the son of the slave woman, so you children of promise will be persecuted by the children of the flesh in slavery. Our Gospel will be mocked for teaching that we receive salvation apart from our works, but through faith alone as a gift. We will be accused of wickedness and of forbidding good works, because we rely on God’s promise. Even your own sinful flesh will try to persecute your new self, born through promise, by telling you that faith in the promise is not good enough, but that you must earn God’s favor by your works. But what does Scripture say? “Cast out the slave woman and her son,” The son of the slave woman may not inherit with the son of the free woman. Flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom of heaven, but only the children of promise. You are not a member of the Church on account of your flesh or your works of the Law, but through faith in Christ Jeus. And not even the gates of hell can withstand this Church (Matthew 16:18).

The Church is free, because she is built on the promises of Christ. Everyone born through the Church is born of God through the promises of Christ. That makes us children of promise, free children of the free woman, children of God and heirs of His kingdom. Amen.