Sermons

Psalm 23
Acts 4:1-12
I John 3:16-24
John 10:11-18

Almighty God, merciful Father, since You have wakened from death the Shepherd of Your sheep, grant us Your Holy Spirit that when we hear the voice of our Shepherd we may know Him who calls us each by name and follow where He leads; through the same Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.
 

FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

“I Lay Down My Life for the Sheep”
Psalm 23; John 10:11-18

The Introit for today does a masterful job of helping us put into practice what Jesus taught us last Sunday.   If you remember, the Gospel last week was Jesus’ appearance to His disciples on the day of His resurrection.  We heard Him say to His disciples, “These are My words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.:  then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.

The Introit is usually taken from the Psalms, the hymnbook of the Old Testament church and a living part of our heritage through Jesus Christ as well.  Today though, the antiphon that I sang at the beginning and the end of the Introit is taken not from the Psalms, but from the Gospel, the Gospel reading appointed for this Fourth Sunday of Easter. [Jesus said]: “I am the good shepherd.  I know My own and My own know Me, and I lay down My life for the sheep.”  Then together we sang what is probably the most well-known and loved of all the Psalms: Psalm 23. 
“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.”   From childhood to old age, God’s people in many different times and places have been comforted by this Psalm.  It has been the source of many Christian hymns, including the one we just sang (LSB 709).  It gives expression to the ongoing joy and peace we have in knowing that the LORD is with us through all the varied circumstances of our lives here on earth.  It also leads us to anticipate eternal life with God and His people in heaven.   And it does all of this in the “shepherd and sheep language” that was so very personal to King David, the Spirit-inspired author of the original poem.

David lived a thousand years before Christ.  We first meet him in the Scriptures when he’s just a young boy, keeping watch over his father’s flocks outside a little town called Bethlehem.  Israel had chosen a king for herself so she could be like all the nations around her.  The king the Israelites chose was a man after their own liking: tall, dark, and handsome, with a good military record.  But King Saul did not do the will of the LORD.  So God sent His prophet Samuel to Bethlehem in Judah, to the house of a man named Jesse.  There Samuel saw Jesse’s oldest son Eliab and thought, “Surely this is LORD’s anointed, the one He has chosen to be king.”  But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him.  For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.” (I Samuel 16:7)

Eliab would not be the next king of Israel. Neither would his brothers Abinadab and Shammah.  Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, but the LORD chose none of them.  Finally Samuel asked Jesse, “Are all your sons here?”  And  he said, “There is still the youngest one; he is out watching the sheep.”  When David came in, Samuel noted that he, too, was good looking like his brothers.  But it was not his outward appearance, it was God’s word of approval that led Samuel to anoint David: “Arise, anoint him, for this is he” - the next king of Israel.

David became familiar with the workings of the royal court when he was hired to play his harp for King Saul.  In addition to being a sturdy shepherd boy, he was also an accomplished musician, as we can see from the Book of Psalms, many of which are attributed to him.  Although David would become a mighty warrior and a wealthy and powerful king, he would never forget where he came from: the fields of Bethlehem, where he used to keep watch over his father’s flocks. 

We don’t know at what stage in life David wrote the 23^rd Psalm – whether he was still tending the sheep at the time or already tending to the weighty affairs of national government.  In any case, in Psalm 23 David clearly relates the Lord’s care for him - all the days of his life-  to his own care for the sheep which had been entrusted to him by his father Jesse.  “The LORD is my shepherd,” he says.  He provides me with everything I need.  Just as a shepherd’s chief duty is to find green pasture and safe water for his flock, so the LORD God of Israel cares for the needs of His people.  He provides us with daily bread and everything that belongs to the support and needs of our bodies.  But beyond that, David says, “He restores my soul.”  The people of God’s pasture, the sheep of His flock, are not dumb beasts who live out a few short days here and then end up as mutton chops.  We are created by God in His image and likeness.  We are made by God to live in an eternal relationship of love with Him and with one another. 

Many people today are so intent on providing for themselves all the benefits of life that are available in a prosperous nation like ours that they are starving themselves to death spiritually.  God gives His people pastors, shepherds under Christ, for this very  purpose: to keep before our eyes the need for spiritual food.  True life is more than outward appearances.  True life includes the need for a living relationship with God our Maker and Redeemer,  a relationship that can only be had by feeding on the Gospel of Jesus in Word and Sacrament and responding to that Gospel with prayer, praise, and thanksgiving. 

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the true and only path of righteousness.  We are justified – made right with God – not by our own works, which are both good and bad.  We are justified – made right with God – by the perfect life and work of Jesus Christ, who loved us and gave Himself for us.  We are justified – made right with God – by the innocent suffering and death of Jesus Christ, who laid down His life as the atoning sacrifice for our sin and the sin of the whole world.  It is Jesus who shows us the way back to the Father from whom we all, like sheep, have gone astray. (Isaiah 53: 6)  He Himself is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  No one comes to the Father except through Him. (John 14:6) 

When God swore on oath that He would send the world a Savior through one of Abraham’s offspring, He swore by His own name, for there is nothing greater than the name of the LORD.   If God had not kept His promise, if He had decided to abandon us in our misery and death, He would not have been a faithful shepherd.  He would not be true God, the source of everything good.  He would have denied Himself and destroyed His name – His reputation as the Merciful Redeemer of His people.  It is for His own name’s sake that He sends His beloved Son Jesus into the world.  If we are unfaithful, God is faithful; He cannot deny Himself.  God is love.  He will do whatever it takes to rescue us from sin and death.  And that means He will not spare His own Son, but offer Him up for us all on the tree of the Cross.  The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.

 “Show me your ways, O LORD, teach me your paths,” we pray with David in another of his psalms. (Psalm 25:4)  And Jesus Christ - God in the flesh - is the answer to our prayer.  Remember how the disciples reacted when Jesus was arrested?  “They all forsook Him and fled.” Remember where they were on Easter morning?  Hiding behind locked doors for fear of the Jews.  What if they had remembered all that Jesus had taught them?  “The Son of Man will suffer many things….and on the third day rise again.”  What if they had remembered the words of the 23^rd Psalm:  “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for you are with me.”? Yet all of these things were forgotten when they were confronted with the uncertainty and terror of persecution and death.  In this dead and dying world, we, too, will all have to face persecution and death in one form or another.  And these words from David’s psalm should be of even greater comfort to us, who know the outcome of the suffering and death of Jesus: His resurrection on the third day and the Spirit-given confidence that “neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38)

There was a time in his life when David stood in a valley where everyone else was afraid to go. (I Samuel 17)  “King Saul and the men of Israel were gathered, and encamped in the Valley of Elah, and drew up in line of battle against the Philistines.  And the Philistines stood on the mountain on the one side, and Israel stood on the mountain on the other side, with a valley between them.  And there came out from the camp of the Philistines a champion named Goliath of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span – about nine feet tall…And the Philistine said, ‘I defy the ranks of Israel this day.  Give me a man that we may fight together.’  When Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid.”

Only the shepherd boy David was willing to do battle with Goliath.  He walked into that valley armed not with the armor of Saul but with five smooth stones and a slingshot.  The Philistine said to David, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the field.”’  Then David said to Goliath, “You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.  This day the LORD will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head.  And I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the LORD saves not with sword and spear.  For the battle is the LORD’s, and He will give you into our hand.”  David would single-handedly defeat this fearful giant.  When his stone met its mark, Goliath fell, and David used Goliath’s own sword to cut off  his head.

Our Good Shepherd Jesus Christ faced a much more powerful enemy than David did.  And yet He did not shrink back from the battle.   His battle was not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.  His battle was against Sin, it was against Satan, it was against Death.  Sword and spear are powerless in such a battle.  Only the LORD’s anointed, armed with the Word and promises of God, can defeat such enemies as these.  In great weakness and meekness, Christ single-handedly fulfills everything that is written about Him in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms.  And in the end, the Lord our Shepherd saves us by turning the devil’s own weapon against him.  Christ Jesus destroys death by His own death. 

The same LORD who gave David the victory over Goliath, the same LORD who brought His fearful and grieving disciples into joy from sadness on the day of His resurrection, is and  remains our Good Shepherd.  In Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, Great David’s Greater Son continues to guide and govern the whole Christian Church on earth with His peace and His power.

The rod and the staff of His holy Word continue to lead and guide us into all truth; continue to defend and protect us from sin and death and every evil.

He prepares this Table for us as the feast of victory over our enemies.  This is His body; this is His blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.  Where sin is paid for, Satan is defeated and death no longer has any power over us.

In Holy Baptism, the Lord’s Anointed now anoints us with His Holy Spirit, marking us with the sign of His cross, giving us the all-powerful name of God as our own, and we are called to be Christians, those anointed to follow where Christ the Good Shepherd leads. 

Some of you were literally anointed with oil here on Maundy Thursday.  Others have been anointed by your pastor in times of sickness or distress – a tangible reminder of the temporal and eternal blessings that attend you throughout your life in Christ.  Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd.  I know My own and My own know Me,  just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.”  Through Jesus Christ, your cup overflows – with all the joys, all the sorrows of following the LORD through life. You have received and will continue to receive an overabundance of God’s blessings, not because your deserve it, but because God is a faithful, good, and merciful shepherd to His sheep.  “By this we know love, that He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.”  (I John 3:16)  The “cup of blessing” which we receive here today, is intended by God to overflow into the lives of others.  As St. John urges us: “Let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.” 

(I John 3:18)

The truth is that our days here on earth are numbered.  The more we realize that, the more we will make use of the opportunities God gives us to hear His Word and to serve one another in love.  We will realize our lifelong need for the Good Shepherd God gives in His Son Jesus Christ. 

Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd…For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it up again.” When your days here on earth draw to a close, and death looms fierce before your eyes, remember David and his battle with Goliath; remember Jesus and His victory over death and the grave.  Then pray again with steadfast faith the final words of the psalm: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”  This is God’s promise to you, “the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.” (Psalm 95:7)   And God is faithful; He will surely do it, for His own name’s sake.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit;

As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever.  Amen.

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Psalm 4
Acts 3:11-21
I John 3:1-7
Luke 24:36-49

O God, through the humiliation of Your Son You raised up the fallen world.  Grant to Your faithful people, rescued from the peril of everlasting death, perpetual gladness and eternal joys; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.
 

THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER

“The WORD is Living”

Luke 24:36-49

The Gospel for today brings us back to Easter evening, when our risen Lord Jesus first appeared to His disciples.  They had heard from the women that His tomb was empty; two disciples had just arrived from Emmaus claiming to have seen Him; but it was all too much for them to comprehend.  Now Jesus Himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”  But instead of being at peace, they were frightened, thinking He was a ghost.  He invited them to see and touch the marks of the nails in His hands and His feet.    And we’re told that they still did not believe – but now because of their joy and amazement.

Perhaps that’s how some of us feel after celebrating Easter again this year.  The resurrection Gospel, the beautiful truths proclaimed in our Easter hymns, the Crucified and Risen Christ appearing among us through His Word and Supper.  It’s really all too much to take in at once.  And so God’s Word and Spirit invite us to come back here again and again - week after week, Sunday after Sunday - to hear more, to understand more, to believe more of the amazing good news of Jesus Christ – crucified and risen from the dead.  Easter cannot just be a day for us.  The resurrection of our Lord is life for us.  In Him we live and move and have our being.  God the Father, who created us, has redeemed us by the blood of His Son.  And He has breathed new life into us by His Holy Spirit through the preaching of the gospel.

Jesus comes to us again today with those wonderful words, “Peace be with you,” assuring us that He is indeed risen from the dead, and that through Him we have peace with God the Father Almighty.  And these are not empty words.  The Jesus who appeared to His disciples was not a ghost and His peace is not an illusion.  The same Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified, died, and was buried, is the same Jesus who rose from the dead, talked and ate with His disciples, and now lives and reigns to all eternity with our Father in heaven.  This is the same Jesus in whose name we are gathered again today.  This is the same Jesus who promises to be with us always even unto the end of the world.  This is the same Jesus who continues to make His presence known among us through His Word and Sacraments.  Truly amazing.  No wonder we have such a hard time believing everything we celebrate on Easter.  Perhaps it would be easier if we could see Him, touch Him, and eat supper with Him like those first disciples did.

The disciples were certainly fortunate to have seen the risen Lord face to face, but today’s gospel reminds us that they really have no advantage over us.  What Jesus showed His disciples and what He tells us again today is that He is nothing other than the Word of God come to life. What Jesus shows us by His resurrection, is that He is truly the living and eternal Word of God who was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.  He is the Gospel Word in the flesh and this Gospel is the “power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.” (Romans 1:16)

Jesus told His disciples, “These are My words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”

The Old Testament Scriptures speak to us about of Jesus.  He is the One who gives meaning and life to everything that was recorded by Moses, David, and the Prophets.  Without Jesus, the Old Testament would be nothing more than a dusty old textbook of ancient history, culture and poetry.  Only when Jesus opens our minds to the truth that is written there, can we understand that the Scriptures are the living and enduring word of God.  They are as vital for us today as they were for the twelve apostles, for all the believers who came before them, and for all who have come after them.

Only through the Crucified and Risen Christ can we understand the real message in the Bible narratives many of us learned already in childhood: about Adam and Eve, Noah and Abraham; Moses and the children of Israel, King David, and all the others.  Right here in today’s gospel Jesus tells us clearly what we should be looking for when we read or hear these Holy Scriptures.  Here He gives us the key to understanding the whole Bible.  He tells us: “This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in His name to all nations.”  From beginning to end, the Bible is about Jesus.  Whenever you read or hear the Bible ask yourself these questions: “How does this Word of God show Christ to me?  How does this particular Word of God call me to repentance and the forgiveness of sins which are mine through Jesus’ death and resurrection?” 

Jesus preached this same message throughout His ministry, but there were many in Israel, especially among the religious leaders, who would not believe Him.  He told these people “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about Me,  yet you refuse to come to Me that you may have life…Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set.  If you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?”  (John 5:39-40, 46-47)

The religious leaders who rejected Jesus understood Moses only as a lawgiver.  They saw the Ten Commandments as their source of salvation.  In their blindness they could not see that the law was given to show us how impossible it is for us to save ourselves, how necessary it was for God to send His only Son into this world to bear our sin and be our Savior. 

Even today there are many people who diligently study the Scriptures and yet miss the whole point.  They do not see Jesus in the Old Testament.  They see only a set of rules for holy living.  In many cases they deceive themselves into thinking they can keep these rules and earn God’s favor by observing the law.  St. Paul describes these people in 2 Corinthians chapter 3.  He says: “to this day when Moses [the Old Testament] is read a veil covers their hearts…because only in Christ is it taken away.”

Jesus Christ opens our minds to the truth of God’s Word.  Through Him we realize that we can never save ourselves by obedience to the Law of Moses.  “Whoever keeps the whole Law and yet offends at one point is guilty of breaking it all.” (James 2:10) The Law of Moses does not encourage self-righteousness; it condemns us to death.  But in doing this, it urges us on to discover the true source of our salvation and the salvation of the whole world.  Through Jesus Christ our eyes are opened and we see that it is by His life, His death, and His resurrection that we are saved.  Through Jesus Christ our eyes are opened and we see that this Gospel of forgiveness and life in His name was God’s plan from the beginning.  It is promised, preached, and proclaimed in all the Scriptures: in Moses, in the Prophets, and in the Psalms. 

Our Crucified and Risen Lord Jesus is the Seed of the woman who crushes the devil’s head in Genesis 3:15. 

Our Crucified and Risen Lord Jesus is the Lamb who was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquity in Isaiah 53. 

Our Crucified and Risen Lord Jesus is the Shepherd who leads us safely through the valley of the shadow of death to dwell in the house of the Lord forever as we pray in Psalm 23.  And on and on…

This is what Jesus means when He says the Old Testament speaks of Him.  The Old Testament is not merely a record of laws and death, it is also the record of God’s love and mercy - the living and life-giving Gospel that is literally brought to life through Jesus of Nazareth.

We read in the first chapter of John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning…and the Word became flesh and lived for a while among us.” 

This is what the apostles tell us throughout the New Testament: In Jesus Christ, the Word of God came down from heaven to take on sin, death, and Satan in our place, destroying their power by His death and proclaiming His victory to the world by His resurrection, proving Himself to be the Son of God, none other than the one written about by Moses and David and the Prophets.  We are witnesses of these things.  We have seen and testify that He is the Christ.  We are telling you these things so that you, too, may believe and have eternal life

The disciples of Jesus would not be founding a new religion, they would simply be proclaiming the fulfillment of what had been promised in the Scriptures: “the Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in His name to all nations.”  The disciples were eyewitnesses of these things and this is the message we must look and listen for as we read their testimony as well.  We heard Peter testify in the first reading for today: “…You killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead.  To this we are witnesses…what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He thus fulfilled.  Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out.”  And in the Epistle, John calls us to leave behind the life of sin and to live as God’s beloved children, for that is what we are.  Repentance and the forgiveness of sins in the name of Jesus: this is the sum and substance of the entire Bible, both Old and New Testaments.  This is the one and only message which the one, holy, Christian and apostolic Church is called to proclaim – today, tomorrow, every day. 

Maybe some of us think the Church’s message to the world could be enhanced or verified by having Jesus appear among us visibly as He did for those first forty days after Easter.  Maybe then we ourselves would no longer doubt God’s Word.  Maybe then our unbelieving friends, relatives, and neighbors would believe what we do.  But let’s remember Jesus’ description of the rich man in hell who wanted to warn his brothers.  He asked Abraham to send the beggar Lazarus back from the dead so his brothers would repent.  But Abraham replied, “They have Moses and the Prophets…If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” (Luke 16:29,31)

We too, have Moses and the Prophets, and now also the testimony of the Apostles.  This is the Word of the Lord.  And through this Living Word of God, Jesus Christ speaks to us today just as surely as He stood and spoke to His disciples on that first Easter.  Through the Holy Scriptures Christ continues to speak to us, granting us the same forgiveness, the same peace the disciples received when He returned from the dead to eat and drink with them.  Through the Holy Scriptures Christ continues to invite us to eat and drink at the Table where He gives Himself to us as living food and drink. And through the Holy Scriptures, the Christ continues the ongoing mission of spreading the good news of His death and resurrection to all nations whenever we speak or hear His Word. 

On one of the first missionary journeys, the apostle Paul met a man named Timothy.  Timothy had been raised by a devout Jewish mother and grandmother.  His father was a pagan.  Paul later wrote two epistles to Timothy, who became one of the first generation of pastors to follow after the apostles.  Like us, Timothy never had the privilege of seeing the risen Lord Jesus Christ during his lifetime on earth.  But among many other things, Paul reminded Timothy of this: “From childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.  All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

Through the Holy Scriptures, God has also made us wise unto salvation. Paul said it well in his letter to Timothy: “He saved us and called us to a holy calling not because of our works but because of His own purpose and grace, which He gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” (2Timothy 1:8-10). 

Through the Gospel of Jesus Christ and by the power of His Holy Spirit, this faith also produces good works in us, each according to our calling.  And it prepares us for the day, when together with Timothy, Paul, and the Twelve, together with Moses and David and all of the Prophets, we will see with our own eyes what we believe according to His Word:  Christ has risen from the dead.  God the Father has crowned Him with glory and honor.  He has given Him dominion over the works of His hands; He has put all things under His feet. (Gradual for Easter, Matt. 28:7; Heb2:7; Psalm 8:6)   God keep you in His Word and truth until faith gives way to sight.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

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SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER

“The Voice of our Risen Lord”

John 20:19-31

Did you know that this Second Sunday of  Easter is traditionally called Quasimodogeniti ? That’s a big Latin word that simply means, “Like newborn babies”.   That name is taken from the first word of the Introit for today, where the apostle Peter urges us, “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that buy it you may grow up to salvation – if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.” (I Peter 2:2-3). 

On this Second Sunday of Easter, the Church calls upon us, her children, who have been born again to a living hope through the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, through the washing of Holy Baptism, to grow in our faith and life by nursing on the pure milk of the Word.   The gospel of our Lord’s death and resurrection – this is our food and drink in the new life we have in Christ.  For Christians, the resurrection of our crucified Lord is not a day in our life, it is our life.  And our life as Christians is not lived alone.  It is lived in the context of this gathering - this weekly gathering – where we meet with our risen Lord and receive His gifts.  That’s what “church” really is: the gathering of all those who believe and trust in the Lord who laid down His life for us, only to take it up again, the gathering of all those who hear the Word of God and keep it. 

At the center of today’s gospel stands the very word by which bring life to those who were dead in trespasses and sin.   Here Jesus gives to His Church what we now call the Office of the Keys.  A key opens a door; a key also locks a door.  The Office of the Keys opens the door of eternal life to repentant sinners; it closes the door of eternal life to the unrepentant as long as they do not repent.  On the evening of His resurrection day, Jesus told His disciples - the ones He would send into the world with His resurrection message - “ If you forgive the sins of anyone,  they are forgiven; if you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld.”

Jesus’ disciples are gathered behind locked doors on the night of His resurrection.  We assume they are gathered in the same upper room in which they gathered on the night in which He was betrayed.  The disciples are gathered on this Sunday evening in fear. They have many questions and few answers.  From this same Gospel of St. John, we already know that John and Peter have been to the empty tomb.  They saw the grave clothes still lying there, but no body.  John tells us he saw this and believed.   Mary Magdalene also reported to the disciples that she had seen the Lord.  But there were still a lot of questions left unanswered that Easter evening. Where is Jesus now, since He is not in the tomb and not with Mary?  What will the Jewish leaders think and do when they find the tomb empty?  What about Pontius Pilate – how will he react to all of this?  What will happen to Jesus’ disciples once all this becomes known? Will they be called in for questioning or worse?  Although some believe at this point that Jesus is risen from the dead, that Easter night, they met in fear.  They gathered behind locked doors and tried to figure out “what next?”

Suddenly Jesus appears.  He doesn’t knock.  He doesn’t enter through the door.  He is simply and suddenly there.    Is this a mirage?  Is it a vision?  Is this some kind of frightening encounter with the spirit world?  No.  Jesus not only appears,  He speaks: “Peace be with you.”  And He not only speaks, He shows them His hands and His side.  He displays the wounds which won the forgiveness of sins for them, for us and for all the world.  They see Him.  They hear Him.  They touch Him.  This is no mirage.  It is the Lord!  They were glad when they saw Him.  Jesus is  back just as He said, “A little while and you will see Me no more, and again a little while and you will see Me.”  (John 16:16)

Yes, Jesus is back and Jesus is here to stay.  Christ is risen and will never die again. “Lo, I am with you always, to the very end of the age,” He promises (Matthew 28:20).  He is here with His body in front of His disciples, and that too will not change.  Christ is here, the one and only and entire Christ, God’s son, true God and true Man, soul and body, humanity and divinity.  He is here to stay, but the manner in which He stays with His disciples is about to change.  He will no longer be confined by space and time to one certain gathering of disciples. From now on the Church will exist in many places at one time. It will no longer be confined to one upper room in Jerusalem, it will spread across all times and all places, to the ends of the earth and to the end of the age.   And Jesus will be there – be here – for all of us.  To do this, Christ will ascend into heaven in His body, His human nature together with the divine nature.  And He will be seated, true God and true Man at the right hand of the Father.  The right hand of the Father is the place of unity with the Father.  It is the place of victory, but it is also the place of God’s own authority.   And just as the authority and power and rule of God the Father is everywhere at the same time.  So now, Christ, the Son of God, seated at His right hand, will be everywhere in His body and His human nature as well as His divine nature.  He will be among His disciples wherever and whenever they are gathered.  “Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there I am in the midst of them,” He promises (Matthew 18:20) But how will this happen?  That’s the point of today’s Gospel.  That’s what Jesus has come to tell them.  That’s what Jesus has come to tell us so that we know where to find Him today.  Jesus came to His disciples physically and visibly, proving that He is truly risen from the dead, that in Him sin is paid for and death has no power over us.   They see His wounds; they recognize Him; they rejoice in Him.  And then He tells them how He will remain with His Church in all times and places.  He gives His chosen witness both His position and His own voice. 

He says, “As the Father has sent Me, even so I am sending you.”  Here He specifically ordains these men to be apostles.  The word “apostle” means “the one who is sent.”  It means the one who is sent by a person with that person’s authority and with that person’s message.  Jesus it telling them, “As I have been sent by My Father in heaven to live with you, to teach you, to redeem you by shedding My blood, so now I am sending you into all the world to preach the gospel – the good news of peace with God through My suffering and death, the good news of life with God through My resurrection from the dead and the gift of the Holy Spirit.  You will do what I have been sent to do, to speak for the Father, to reveal the Father, to restore His wandering sheep.  You will now proclaim to them and give to them the forgiveness which I have won on the cross so that sinners may be restored, the lost may be returned, and the gathered people of God may be guarded and protected.” 

As His Church is gathered, Christ is saying, “I am there in the midst of her through this apostolic office, the office of proclaiming the gospel in Word and Sacraments.”  How will we know He is here?  We will hear His voice through the word spoken by His chosen apostles and the ministers who follow them.  “My sheep hear My voice,” our Good Shepherd says.  By His grace He gives His voice to those He chooses to feed His sheep and His lambs.  The one who has been given authority over all things says to His apostles, “Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive the sins of anyone, they are forgiven; if you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld.”

This is the unchangeable truth of God’s Word: even today, when the apostolic voice speaks these words, “I forgive you all of your sins,” this is not the opinion of a man, but the voice of our risen Savior, enlivening us, raising us from the death of sin by His life-giving Spirit.  It is this gospel, this great commission, this ordination granting the authority and the voice to preach in the stead and by the command of our Lord Jesus Christ, that enabled those frightened disciples to come out from behind locked doors and head out into the world.  It is this gospel of the ongoing presence of the crucified and risen Christ among His people that enables us to preach the good news without fear to the world in which we live.

And so we are here again today, not locked behind closed doors, but gathered around our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives to silence all our fears, who lives to wipe away our tears.  Like those first disciples, we bring the fears and doubts and anxieties of life to this gathering, and week by week Jesus speaks to us the peace-giving, forgiveness-granting, Spirit-bestowing good news of His death and resurrection.  When we gather here we are in good company, for we are among those of whom our Lord says, “Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe.”  “For today among His own, Christ appeared, bestowing His deep peace, which evermore passes human knowing”  (LSB 487:4)  

“The Lord breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive the sins of anyone, they are forgiven; if you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld.”  “When the called ministers of Christ deal with us by His divine command, in particular, when they exclude openly unrepentant sinners from the Christian congregation, and when they absolve those who repent of their sins and want to do better, this is as valid and certain even in heaven as if Christ our dear Lord dealt with us Himself.”  The Voice of the Risen Lord Jesus continues to be among us today, forgiving sins, and bestowing on us all the benefits of His death and resurrection.  The living Voice of the Gospel marks the place where He is to be found today.  Our Lord Jesus Christ lives in the midst of His people.  Here sins are forgiven, here peace with God and with each other is proclaimed, here the door of heaven is opened to all who believe. 

Through holy absolution and the preaching of the Gospel, and through the Holy Supper of Christ’s Body and Blood, we, the newborn children of God continue to taste and see that the Lord is good.  Through these we grow up to salvation, the salvation that will be fully known by us when Christ returns in glory.  On that day all those who have died in Christ shall rise from their graves, His people who are still alive shall all be changed, and together we shall be made like unto His glorious body. 

Until then, Christ is here among His own.  We have His Word on it.  Our gatherings for Divine Service are the upper room all over again.  We are safe. We are secure.  We are forgiven. We are at peace with God, with ourselves, and with one another.  And we are equipped by God for every good work to do His will.   Christ is risen. Christ is with us - that we may have life in His name.  Amen. 

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Psalm 16
Isaiah 26:6-9
I Corinthians 15:1-11
Mark 16:1-8

Almighty God the Father, through Your only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, You have overcome death and opened the gate of everlasting life to us.  Grant that we, who celebrate with joy the day of our Lord's resurrection, may be raised from the  death of sin by Your life-giving Spirit; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and  forever.  Amen.
 

THE RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD

“Let Fear Give Way to Joy”

Mark 16:5-8

For us, this festival of Easter is one of the happiest days of the year.  Even when we are not blessed with a beautiful, sunny and spring green day like today, we celebrate!  We know and believe that Christ is risen and that makes all the difference.

For many of us, the Resurrection of our Lord is the culmination of a spiritual pilgrimage of sorts from Ash Wednesday, through the Forty Days of Lent to Palm Sunday, and through the sad but necessary events of our Lord’s suffering, death, and burial.  You’ll have to forgive us for being a little bit overjoyed today, but we’ve been waiting for this day for a long time.  It is truly the high point of the year for those whose lives are shaped by the rhythm of the church year.  We can never look at Sunday – any Sunday - as just another ordinary day.  This is the first day of the week, the day on which our Lord rose from the dead.  And because He lives, we shall live also.

None of this was going through the minds of the women who went to Jesus’ tomb that Sunday long ago.  They were in mourning.  The one whom they had hoped would redeem Israel had been crucified. He was dead and had been hastily buried before the beginning of Sabbath.  And now that the Sabbath day was over, they were trekking to His tomb to complete the task of anointing His body, in accordance with the burial customs of the Jews.

Their biggest concern that morning was how to get into the tomb.  It was a cave, with a large wheel-shaped stone rolled in front of it.  How would they ever move that thing?  But as they drew near to the tomb, a new concern arose: the stone was not where it was supposed to be.  Someone had rolled it away from the entrance of the tomb.

Now fear gripped these women.  They came to the only logical conclusion.  Someone had robbed Jesus’ grave. Their fears increased as they entered.  Someone was in there – but it wasn’t Jesus!  It was a young man, dressed in a white robe, “and they were alarmed.  That’s probably putting it mildly.   Matthew identifies this young man as an angel and says he was a bright as  lightning.  He was from among those of whom David says, in Psalm 104:4, “He make His messengers winds, His ministers a flaming fire.”  Luke writes that there were two of them, but this doesn’t conflict with what Mark is telling us.  Mark wants us to remember only the preaching-angel, the one who spoke to the women, because he speaks also to us.

“Don’t be alarmed,” he says.  He is not here to frighten us, but rather to bring us a joyful announcement: “You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.  He has risen; he is not here.  See the palace where they laid Him.”  The women had seen this place before.  They had been there on Friday, when Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus had taken Jesus’ body down from the cross, wrapped it in and linen shroud and laid him in the tomb.  Now they were here again, but Christ’s body was not.  They saw with their own eyes that He was no longer in the grave but had risen to life.

Finally the angel commanded them to announce this news to the fear-filled disciples, and especially to Peter.  If we remember the events of this past week, we’ll know why Peter is mentioned specifically.  Out of fear, he denied Christ vehemently at his trial.  “I don’t know the man,” he said.  How could he ever be forgiven for a statement like that?  But because of his great sin, God more richly allows him to be comforted after his repentance.  He specifically commands that the resurrection of His Son be proclaimed to Peter as a testimony to all repentant sinners of the marvelous, incomprehensible kindness and mercy of God.  All this is done so that none of us may ever be afraid to confess our sins, thinking they are too great for god to forgive.  Christ died for all and the benefits of His resurrection extend to all who believe this.

The angel also reminds the women of the promise which Christ had given the disciples, that He would go before them into Galilee after His resurrection.  The disciples need to remember this, for in a few days they would indeed meet their risen Lord back in their home territory, at the Sea of Galilee.  From there He would send them to preach the message of repentance and forgiveness throughout the world, including in our home territory, wherever we may be.

This first Easter sermon by the angel was one over which the women should have greatly rejoiced.  But, they quickly fled from the grave, overcome by trembling and terror.  They said nothing to anyone because they were afraid.  At the same time, Matthew tells us that their fright was now beginning to give way to joy and that they were beginning to see the sunshine through the fog of grief and fear.  They did tell the disciples all that had happened at the tomb, but as they went, Christ Himself met them to strengthen them on their way and reinforce the message of the angel.

In the third chapter of Genesis three persons came together to bring about our fall into sin: the devil, who appeared in the form of a snake; the woman, Eve, who believed the announcement of the devil and proclaimed to her husband the lie that they would become like God by eating from the forbidden tree; and Adam who allowed himself to be misled so that he consented to sin, leading the entire human race to be contaminated with sin and death.

Now once again, three persons come together in the resurrection of Christ: Christ, the second Adam, who rises from the dead and life and immortality to light by the gospel; a holy angel, who proclaims the truth of Christ’s resurrection to mankind; and these women, who with one voice announce to their men the joyful news of Christ’s resurrection.

In this way Christ’s resurrection is shown to be a sure and certain sign that everything we lost through Adam has been restored again through Christ Jesus.  St. Paul proclaims this in Romans chapter 5:5 when he says, “For if many died through one man’s trespass, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many.”

And Peter, the man who wept bitterly over his denial of Christ, writes in his first epistles that through the resurrection of Christ, given to us in Baptism, we are able to live with a clear conscience, no longer afraid that the Fall into sin by Adam and the sins which we ourselves have added to it, condemn us to death and hell.  Instead, Christ’s resurrection is a sure and certain witness that sin has been atoned for and our lost righteousness has been restored.

The resurrection of Christ is a revealed testimony that He has powerfully conquered all our enemies.  Therefore, it is written about Him in Isaiah 42:13: “The LORD goes out like a mighty man, like a man of war He stirs up His zeal;  He cries out, He shouts aloud, He shows Himself might against His foes.”

What sort of enemies does Christ have?  His enemies are our enemies because He became our Brother.  These enemies are four: Death, Sin, the Devil, and Hell.  These enemies caused God’s inheritance in Paradise to be trampled underfoot, but here in this garden, where Christ arose from His tomb, Paradise is restored to us.

In His suffering, these enemies confidently gripped Christ.  In the resurrection, He comes back from the slaughter  shows Himself the victor.  In I Corinthians 15, St. Paul uses the words of the prophets to taunt our enemy Death and proclaim the victory of Christ:  “Death is swallowed up in victory.”  “O death, where is your victory?  O death, where is your sting?  The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.  But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Since Christ is risen from the dead, we can only conclude that the devil and all his power has been overcome.  With perfect love our Lord drives out all fear.  In the risen Christ our fears give way to joy.

Therefore the Christian Church joyfully sings on this feast day:

It was a strange and dreadful strife

When life and death contended.

The victory remained with life,

The reign of death is ended.

Holy Scriptures plainly saith

That death is swallowed up by death

Its sting is lost forever.  Alleluia!  (LSB 458:4)

From now on, what is promised in Isaiah 25:8 is fulfilled:  He will swallow up death forever.  The resurrection of Jesus Christ is a solid reassurance for us that He wants to uphold us steadfastly in the faith and give us the final victory over sin, death, devil, and hell.  Just as Christ arose from the dead, from now on He never dies; death has not more dominion over Him (Romans 6:9)  So also we, who are members of  the risen Christ through faith, have received a new life and become participants of this victory which Christ has won.  Thanks be to God.  He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!  Amen.

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Psalm 118
Zechariah 9:9-12
Philippians 2:5-11
Mark 14:1-15:47

Almighty and everlasting God, You sent Your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, to take upon Himself our flesh and to suffer death upon the cross.  Mercifully grant that we may follow the example of His great humility and patience, and be made partakers of His resurrection; through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spiriit, one God now and forever. Amen
 

PALM SUNDAY  - SUNDAY OF THE PASSION

“He Humbled Himself”

Philippians 2:5-11

The Word of God before us declares an astonishing truth about this man who rides into Jerusalem on a borrowed donkey.  Jesus is no ordinary man.  He is God in the form of a servant.  As the eternal Son of God He is enthroned in heaven from all eternity.  He is omniscient (knowing all things), omnipresent (present everywhere), and omnipotent  (all-powerful).  He truly deserves “all glory, laud, and honor.”  It robs nothing from God to call Jesus equal with the Father with respect to His divinity (Athanasian Creed).  And yet He makes Himself nothing.  He takes on the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

The eternal son of God becomes incarnate – as human as you and I.  But the incarnation of our Lord is no vacation.   Christ our Lord does not come into our world out of curiosity or boredom– to see how “the other half lives.”  He does not ride into this world like a prince demanding praise from his paupers.  He makes Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  From the beginning He is clothed in weakness, poverty,  and humility.  We first find Him “wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” (Luke 2:12)    And His humiliation only increases from there.

The sinless Son of God submitted Himself to the law of circumcision when He was only eight days old. (Luke 2:21)  As He grew, He submitted Himself to the authority of a pair of sinful parents named Mary and Joseph (Luke 2:51).   And in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberias Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee (Luke 3:1)…He submitted to a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins (Luke 3:3, 21)  although He was without sin.  Christ, the Lamb of God came  -  not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.  (Mark 10:45)

And “give His life” is what He will do.  He humbles Himself to enter Jerusalem riding on a donkey, a donkey not even His own.  He humbles Himself to be betrayed by one of His own disciples.  He allows Himself to be arrested and dragged before the high priest.  He silently accepts the false accusations and verbal abuse they throw at Him.  He speaks only to proclaim the truth that He is the Christ, the Son of God.   And then the abuse turns physical.  They beat Him; they spit on Him; they slap Him in the face, but He does not strike back.

He endures a trial before Pontius Pilate that makes a mockery of Roman justice and human decency.  But once again He doesn’t lash out at those who accuse him falsely.  He doesn’t deal with them according to their iniquity or treat them as their sins deserve.  And when the coward Pilate has Him lashed with a scourge in a twisted attempt to gain sympathy from the crowd – He receives the bloody stripes on His back without a word.  In all this, He remains a servant, a servant to His Father’s will.  And His Father’s will is this: that He become obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

And why is this the Father’s will?  Because the Father also desires to serve you,  to save you from your sin.  Dear brothers and sisters, do not forget that this humiliation and suffering and death are for you.  They are caused by you and your transgressions against God’s holy Law.  They are endured and accomplished for you, for your forgiveness and life. 

So the Savior Son of God serves to the point of death on a cross, submitting to His Father’s good and gracious will for your salvation.  And what does the Father do?  He honors His beloved Son.  He raises Him from the dead and highly exalts Him.  He gives His Son the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. 

Why will every knee bow?  Because Jesus proves to be the true and faithful Servant.  Those who believe in Him are servants of God by His grace, and they rejoice to serve and worship Him now and eternally.  Those who refuse to bend their haughty and unrepentant knees now will also acknowledge Him on the Day of Judgment.  He is the One God gave to take away the sin of the world, but they will have chosen eternal death and suffering in hell rather than eternal peace and life with God through Jesus Christ.

God is by nature a Servant.  Have this mind among yourselves also.  God created us in His image.  He created Adam and Eve to serve one another.  He created you to serve, even as He is by nature a servant.  It’s sin that has destroyed that image.  It’s sin that prevents us from serving one another as we should.  “Through love, serve one another,” the holy apostle urges (Galatians 5:13).   This servitude is not extracted from us by the whip of the Law; it is produced in us by the joy of the gospel, the good news that in Christ, God has served His whole creation by taking the debt of sin and the death we deserve on Himself. 

God has not called you to be Christ – to suffer and die for your own sins or the sins of anyone else.  That debt has been paid; that sacrifice has been made; that death has been died, once for all, by our Lord Jesus Christ (Hebrews 9:12, 26).  God has not called you to be Christ, but He has called you to be a Christian – to follow Christ as you carry out the callings in life He has given you. The two verses immediately before our reading say this: “Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.  Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”  This is the mind of Christ.   The same mind which is yours in Christ Jesus.

If some of you think that the events of Holy Week are irrelevant to life in the real world, you’d better think again.  The humiliation of Christ, His servanthood, His suffering, and His death have everything to do with your relationship with God and with others – your spouse, your children, your parents, with anyone who is called your “neighbor”.  In Jesus we have peace with God, forgiveness of our sins, and a life that endures forever.   In Jesus we have peace with one another, forgiveness for one another, and we share in a life that goes far beyond the few short years we spend together here on earth. 

We all have suffered the consequences of relationships that are not lived out in the mind of Christ.  Whether it’s family or friends or work or church, your sinful nature will always have you saying, “I want things to work in my favor.  I don’t want to help and serve so much as I want to be helped and served by others, and when I do help and serve, I want the glory, the laud, and the honor for myself.”  

This week, as we survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died, our Lord calls us to pour contempt on all our pride.  See in the humble service of Christ the true nature of God: God is love.  To serve His own creation, He came to share our flesh and blood, and in sharing our human nature, He became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Only the Gospel of Jesus and His Servanthood can give us any peace, any comfort, any hope, any desire to do what truly pleases God and serves our neighbor in love.  This is our salvation: Not that we can somehow atone for our sins by a life of service to God and to each other, but that the Son of God has atoned for our sins and the sins of the whole world.  He became a Servant for our sakes.  He remains a Servant for our sakes, even as He now rightly reigns in heaven as our Lord.  And in serving us, He makes us a new creation.  He gives us a mind like His, a mind that no longer lives for self, but for Him who loved us and gave Himself for us on the Cross.  In His Name.  Amen.  

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Psalm 119:9-16
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Hebrews 5:1-10
Mark 10:35-45

Almighty God, by Your  great goodness mercifully look upon Your people that we may be boverned and preserved evermore in body and soul: through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.
 

FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT

“Our High Priest Forever”

Hebrews 5:1-10

March 25 puts us at exactly nine months before Christmas.  On this day the church recalls the Annunciation of our Lord.  Nine months before the birth of Christ, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth.  There he announced to a virgin named Mary that she was to be the mother of Christ, the Son of God. 

As Christ, the Lord’s Anointed, Mary’s son Jesus holds a three-fold office: Prophet, Priest, and King.  A prophet preaches, proclaims the Word of God, both Law and Gospel, and confirms the truth of what is preached with miraculous signs.  A priest prays and offers sacrifices on behalf of the people.  A king – at least a good king – rules for the good of his people and guards and defends them from their enemies.

The prophetic office of Jesus was center stage during the Epiphany season.  We heard Him preach the good news of the kingdom, calling sinners to repentance and faith.   And He backed up His preaching and teaching with signs – miracles that made it clear that none other than God was at work in Christ Jesus.

Easter and Ascension will bring Christ as King to the forefront.  Having conquered death by death, Jesus ascends to His rightful place at the throne of God, there to rule eternally for the good of His Church.

It is during Lent that we most clearly see Jesus in His office of priest.  More than once we have heard Jesus withdraw from the crowds in order to pray.  And the season concludes next week with the Holy Week of His suffering and death – a sacrifice like none other – offered to God His Father on our behalf.

On Palm Sunday, Jesus rides into Jerusalem as the Son of David, in anticipation of His coronation in the Jerusalem above.  He will His preaching and teaching ministry on earth by preparing His disciples for the day of Judgment and for the ministry they will carry out in His name until that day.   But all of this will fade into the background as the week draws to a close and we see Jesus, our Great High Priest, offer Himself up for the sin of the world.

The work of the priesthood in Israel revolved around prayer and sacrifice.  God chose the sons of Levi for this special work, and the high priests were to be from the family of Aaron, the brother of Moses.  Twice a day one of the priests would enter the Holy Place of  the Temple to offer incense along with the prayers of the people.  Once a year the high priest would enter the Most Holy Place with blood to atone for his own sins and the sins of the people.  But every day there were sacrifices being offered on the great altar in the courtyard, and endless stream of bulls and goats and lambs being offered to fulfill God’s law and to proclaim God’s gospel.  The wages of sin is death, but God in His mercy was sparing the lives of His sinful people by allowing them to shed the blood of beasts in their place.  All this pointed back to Abraham, whom God provided with a ram who died in place of his son Isaac.  All this pointed ahead to the day when Christ the heavenly Lamb would offer His life on the cross, and God would provide the whole world with a Savior and Redeemer.  If you remember, we sang about that last Sunday:

Not all the blood of beasts

On Jewish altars slain

Could give the guilty conscience peace

Or wash away the stain.

 But Christ, the heavenly Lamb,

Takes all our sins away;

A sacrifice of nobler name

And richer blood than they.  (LSB 431:1,2)

Jesus our Great High Priest will do something no priest of the family of Aaron would ever dare to do.  He will lay down His own life for the sins of the people.  The priests themselves were in need of redemption.   It was the chief priests of Israel who, out of jealousy and fear, hatched the plot to kill Jesus.  John records the course of their conversation in chapter 11: “What are we to do?  For this man performs many signs.  If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”  But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all.  Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.”  And then John, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit interprets these events for us:  [Caiaphas] did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.  So from that day on they made plans to put [Jesus] death.  (John 11:47-53)

“It was the Lord’s will to crush Him” (Isaiah 53:10)   “The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”  (Isaiah 53:6b)

“He was like a lamb that is led to the slaughter” (Isaiah 53:7), and the priests of Israel are conspiring to bring Him there.  Our Lord will not die in the Temple.  His own body is God’s holy Temple, His dwelling place with us here on earth.  He will not be offered on the Altar.  The wretched cross, the place of public execution, will be the place of His sacrifice.  All this our Lord knows when He wrestles His Father’s will in the Garden of Gethsemane.  “In the days of His flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to Him who was able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverence.”  God’s will for Him included torture, pain, mockery, and death by crucifixion, but it also included His resurrection from the dead and eternal life in the kingdom of heaven.  For the joy set before Him, Jesus endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.  (Hebrews 12:2)

Jesus was, is, and always will be our High Priest, the Priest who offered His own life to release us from the guilt of sin and the bondage of death and hell.   The epistle to the Hebrews emphasizes this like no other book in the Bible.

Hear again how Jesus is compared and contrasted with Aaron and the priests of his family:

Like Aaron and the Levitical priests, Jesus is one of the people.  Although He is true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, He is also true man, born of the Virgin Mary.  Because He is one of us, “He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward.”  He does not come to condemn us, but to save us from our sins.  Jesus knows our every weakness.   Hebrews chapter 4 comforts us with these words, “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, het without sin.  Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in t time of need.”  (Hebrews 4:15-16)

No one takes the honor of priesthood for himself, it is given by God.  Just as Aaron and his sons were called by God to the priesthood of the Old Testament, so Christ the Son of God was called to a new priesthood, a priesthood “after the order of Melchizedek.” That’s a reference to Psalm 110, but who in the world is Melchizedek?  Hebrews chapter 7 reminds us, on the basis of Genesis 14, that Melchizedek, was the king of Salem during the time of Abraham.  His name means, “king of righteousness” and Salem means “peace” so he is also the “king of peace.”   We hear nothing of his origins or what happened to him after he met with Abraham, yet he is serving as priest of the Most High God (Genesis 14:18)  long before Aaron was ever born.  And so, “having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God, he continues a priest forever.” (Hebrews 7: 3)

The priesthood of Aaron and the men of Levi came to an end.  Caiaphas and the others would have their way with Jesus, yet it was not their will being done, but God’s will.  The Son learned obedience through what He suffered.  He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2: 8)  But God our Father has exalted Him by raising Him from the dead and making Him the source of eternal salvation to all who hear His Word and do what it says: Repent and believe the gospel.  “Turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus.” (Acts 3:19-20) 

In the Sacrament of the Altar we receive with repentant joy “the salvation accomplished for us by the all-availing sacrifice of [Christ’s] body and His blood on the cross.”  (LSB 161)  Here Jesus, through the ministers of His Church, gives to His people the refreshment that can only be found in knowing that our sins have been atoned for, our debt has been paid, we have been redeemed from sin and death by the blood of Christ, the Lamb of God.  And when the final Easter dawns, and we shall see our Lord Jesus Christ with our own eyes in the resurrection of our bodies,  we will recognize Him still as our Great High Priest, for He bears in His own body the marks of His crucifixion, no longer in pain, but in the eternal glory of His eternal priesthood.  Amen.

_______________________________________________________________________________

FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT

“God Made Us Alive Together with Christ”

Ephesians 2:1-10

How about this weather we’ve been having!  With temperatures about twenty degrees above average and no snow on the ground it’s sure hard to believe it’s still officially winter.  The crocuses I planted in our front yard are in full bloom.  From the dead of winter, the new life of spring is awakening all around us.

You may not realize this, but the word “Lent” originally meant spring – the lengthening of daylight.  In the church it has become a season of spiritual renewal - a time of penitence intended to reawaken in us the joy of the new life we have through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  With that background in mind, we hear St. Paul proclaim this good news in the epistle appointed for this Fourth Sunday in Lent: “You were dead in the trespasses and sin in which you once walked…but God, being rich in mercy…made us alive together with Christ.”

That’s baptismal language, isn’t it?  Just a few minutes ago we spoke of the daily significance of baptism, the gracious water of life by which God has given us rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.  Having been born again of water and the Spirit, we live a new life:  a daily dying to sin through contrition and repentance; a daily rising to new life through faith in Jesus Christ and the gospel of His forgiveness.

The key word in this reading – and also in the hymn we just sang is “grace” – the gift of God’s mercy in Christ Jesus.  “By grace you have been saved,” the Word says.  “By grace you have been saved through faith.  And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.”

Dead people have no power to raise themselves to life.  And that’s what we were: spiritually blind, dead, and enemies of God.  This is the sad description of all mankind since the fall into sin.  “You were dead in the trespasses and sin in which you once walked.”  You were following the course of this world, a “deathward drift from futile birth” as one hymn writer describes it (LSB 834:1).   This is not the meaningless life God intended for us when He created us.  This is the life we chose for ourselves when our first parents rebelled against God’s good and gracious will and trusted the word of the old evil foe. 

It does no good for us to curse Adam and Eve and maintain that things would have been different if we had been there in the garden to do battle with the devil.  Look where Peter’s boasting got him when he vowed, “I will never fall away.” (Matthew 26:33)  We all like sheep have gone astray; we have turned – every one  - to his own way.  (Isaiah 53:6) The curse of disobedience has fallen on all.

We, too, must confess that we have time and again followed the “prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience”   While Paul is addressing adult converts - including himself - when he says, “among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind,” he could just as easily be describing us.  Like the Israelites who longed to return to slavery in Egypt, we too have been tempted to return to the life of sin from which our Lord has freed us by His grace.  And more often than not we have consented, given up and given in to the devil’s tempting voice.  The devil does not give up on us once we become Christians.  If anything his campaign against us intensifies.  Jesus knows our every weakness; so does Satan.  That is why we must flee for refuge to God’s infinite mercy when we are tempted and when we fall.  “[We] were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.”  The Old Adam in us rears his ugly head again and again, so that the entire life of a Christian is one of contrition and repentance – sorrow over sin and returning to God to hear the all-gracious and all-powerful word of forgiveness in Christ.  This alone can sin destroy.  This alone can lead us out of death to life.

“Return to the Lord your God for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.”  (Joel 2:13) .  And this is how he demonstrates His love: He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)  God sent His Son to death to give you life.  God sent His Son to the cross to raise you to the heavenly places.  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.

How did all of this happen? By grace you have been saved.   It was a gift.  “When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteous, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior.”  (Titus 3:4-6)

We said that when we confessed the gospel of Holy Baptism; and we sang it again in our hymn

By grace God’s Son, our only Savior,

Came down to earth to bear our sin. 

Was it because of your own merit

That Jesus died your soul to win?

No, it was grace, and grace alone,

That brought Him from His heav’nly throne.  (LSB 566:3)

Our salvation is a gift of God’s grace.  We are raised from the death of sin by the work of God alone.  We live a new life by grace, through faith in God alone.

Life is a gift.  The crocus bulbs I planted have no power to grow on their own; I have no power to make them grow.  God is the source of all life and growth.  So also with our new life in Christ.  The sinner has no power to set himself free from bondage to sin and death.  Those who are dead in trespasses and sins cannot create in themselves a clean heart and a right spirit.  You have been saved by grace through faith – and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not the result of works, so that no one may boast.  “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” (I Corinthians 1:13)     We give God all honor and praise for our salvation. 

When Jesus released a man from the power of many demons He said to him, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you and how He has had mercy on you” (Mark 5:19)  To this our Lord has also called us – to a life of good works that declare the praises of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.

We are God’s workmanship.  He has made us what we are: His creation, redeemed from sin and death by His Son, sanctified by His Holy Spirit in Holy Baptism to live a new life.  By grace, through faith in Jesus Christ, we no longer walk this earth as those who are dead in trespasses and sin, passing from spiritual death through physical death to eternal death.  God, being rich in mercy has made us alive together with Christ.   We who have been buried and raised with Christ in Baptism walk this earth in newness of life.  By grace, through faith in Christ, we will pass through the gate of physical death to eternal life, so that “in the coming ages God might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

In the mean time, we have a purpose in life!  Good works, “which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”  While our works and conduct have no worth in gaining salvation, we who have been given new life by God’s grace through faith, “bloom where we’ve been planted.”  The Ten Commandments give us more than enough to do; the Creed gives us more than enough to believe and proclaim, the Lord’s Prayer gives us more than enough to ask; Baptism gives us more than enough to rejoice in; Confession and Absolution gives us more than enough to find comfort in; and the Lord’s Supper gives us more than enough to give thanks for as we receive a lifetime of spiritual blessings in this world and a foretaste of the eternal joys of life with God in heaven.

Spring is about new life.  So is Lent.  God renew your faith and life during this holy season, that by His grace you believe His holy word and live a godly life, here in time and also in eternity.  For Jesus’ sake.  Amen. 

Psalm 19
Exodus 20:1-17
I corinthians 1:18-31
John 2:13-22

O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy, be gracious to all who have gone astray from Your ways and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of Your Word; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
 

THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT

“The Word of the Cross is the Power of God”
I Corinthians 1:18-31

What good is preaching any way?   We live in a world where talk is cheap.  We live in an age where the debaters are politicians who promise the moon but cannot deliver.  We live in an age where the scribes are newspaper reporters and other media hounds who revel in recording for us the scandals of Hollywood, Washington, Wall Street, and Main Street.  We live in an age where the “wise” are those who are market savvy and image conscious but care little about the substance of what they say and do.  In many ways, words have become worthless. 

But the apostle Paul says preaching is different.  Preaching that proclaims the cross, that is.   Here the promises of God are delivered to mankind.  Here the record of our sin is erased.  Here the substance is supremely more important than the style.  For “what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.” (IICorinthians 4:5)  We preach Christ, and Him crucified.       

What good is preaching?  The gospel of Jesus Christ  is a foolish thing, at least in the eyes of the world.  And so our preaching will always be seen as foolish  as well.  What can words do?  Especially words that proclaim something as ludicrous as the cross.  The world will always despise preaching and God’s Word, and sometimes we Christians fall into that trap too. Preachers are tempted to lose confidence in the Word they proclaim; people are tempted to lose confidence in the Word they receive.  It all seems so powerless in a world run by Hollywood, Wall Street, and Washington.  It all seems so pointless is a world where knowledge is power and everybody on Main Street seems to know everything. 

But knowledge is not wisdom.  A Google search may give you access to information about anything you can imagine, but it cannot make you wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.  Only the Holy Spirit can do that.  Yes, the Internet can used as a tool to proclaim Jesus Christ and Him crucified.  It can also assist the devil, the world, and your own sinful nature in leading you to “false belief, despair and other great shame and vice.” (Catechism, Lord’s Prayer)

In every age there are those who think they know better than God how we ought to live.  These people are sometimes called wise, sometimes called scribes, sometimes called great debaters.  By God these people are always called sinners. These people include you and me.  The wisdom of God is enshrined for us in the Holy Ten Commandments. They set before us God’s good and perfect will. They are the wisdom of God.  “Do this and you will live,” God promises -  but we don’t and without the gospel of Christ we won’t. 

Each time we sin we’re really saying, “I am wiser than God.”  I know what’s best for me, and it’s not what God says.  The devil convinces us like he convinced Adam and Eve that to know good and evil is better than to know good only.  And so the wisdom of God is tossed aside for a lie: “you shall not surely die…your eyes will be opened” (Genesis 3:5), you will be enlightened, you will gain wisdom by ignoring the Law of God.  And so in the darkness of our minds we choose to go our own way, the way of self-preservation, which leads instead to self-destruction.  The self-chosen way that ignores the wisdom of God in the Ten Commandments always ends in misery, sorrow, heartbreak, and eternal death.    In the end, the wisdom of the world proves to be very foolish indeed.

St. Paul quotes from the prophet Isaiah (29:14) when he says, “It is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’” The smug smiles of the worldly-wise are wiped away when death comes knocking at the door and every sinner is called to stand before the judgment seat of God.  Then the words of this world’s wisdom will fail and every mouth will be silenced.

But there is another way:  the Way of the Cross.  God is not content to abandon us in our foolishness.  “Since the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.”  God loves His fallen creation.  He calls us back from our foolish wandering to serve the only-wise God.  He is the source of our life in Christ Jesus, whom He made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption. 

God sends His only Son into the world to rescue us from sin, death, and Satan in a way the world could never imagine. God uses death – the death of His only-begotten Son - to destroy death, to pay for sin, and to send Satan to the place he belongs.  This is what we preach: Christ crucified: God saving the world by hanging on a cross. 

I don’t think we realize just how offensive and shameful the cross really was in the ancient world.  To us it represents something very important and precious to us.   We Christians rally around the cross like we Americans rally around our flag.  On Good Friday, I plan to carry a cross down Broadway again.  It’s always interesting to see people’s reactions, but I have yet to see anyone turn away in revulsion or flee in terror.  We forget too easily that in the ancient world the cross was an instrument of torture.  In crucifixion, the Romans had perfected a method of execution that prolonged the agony of dying as much as possible.  Only criminals and rebellious slaves were crucified.  To Jews, the crucified Jesus would have been a “stumbling block” a scandalous and revolting obstacle  to believing He is really the Christ, the promised Messiah.  The Jews were expecting the Messiah to come in power and great glory.  If Jesus is the Christ, the promised Messiah, how can He possibly be hanging on a cross, for Moses teaches that every who hangs from tree is cursed by God (Deuteronomy 21:23). 

For the Gentiles, too, it made no sense that a crucified criminal would be held up as Savior of the world.  The first-century BC Roman statesman Cicero expressed the Roman abhorrence of the cross when he wrote, “May the very name of the cross be absent not only from the body of Roman citizens but also from their thinking, their eyes, and ears.”

Jews demand miraculous signs; they want a Messiah who does miracles. Greeks seek wisdom; they want a God who has a way with words.  But through the preaching of the cross, God calls both Jews and Gentiles to Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.  In Him the “foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”  

On the cross, Jesus made a fool of Himself by submitting completely to the will of His Father in heaven.  He humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross.  Through Jesus Christ, God has redeemed us from the curse of the Law.  He Himself became a curse for us by hanging on a tree – so that in Him the blessing of Abraham might come to Jew and Gentile alike.  (Galatians 32:13-14)

As He hung from the cross, the priests and the scribes mocked Him saying, “He saved others; He cannot save Himself.  Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.” But self- preservation is the wisdom of this world, not the wisdom of God. Jesus Himself taught us “Whoever would save his  life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and for the gospel will save it.”  From the cross, Jesus rejects the demand for a sign.  He loses His life and ends up saving both Himself and us! The religious leaders of Israel, who were so intent on preserving their own lives and the positions of privilege that they rejected the promised Messiah, are now dead in their graves, awaiting the Day of God’s wrath and judgment without faith in Christ. 

But one of them, a man named Joseph of Arimathea, was a believer in Christ.  When Jesus died he boldly asked Pilate for His body.  He laid the body of Christ in his own tomb, where it rested until the day of resurrection.  

At the cross, the weakness of God proves to be stronger than men.  The Roman soldiers did their worst to Christ, adding the torment of words to the torture of His body.  And yet when it was finished, one of them who saw how He died confessed “Truly this man was the Son of God.”  And then the lifeless body of  Him who was wrapped in swaddling cloths and laid in a manger was wrapped in grave clothes and laid in a tomb.  Both the Jews and the Gentiles did their best to keep Him there, but that tomb could not hold Him. On the third day He rose again from the dead. 

This is Jesus’ answer to the sign the Jews demanded of Him.  This is Jesus’ response to the philosophers of every age who mock the wisdom of God’s Word and promises.  As the old saying goes, “Talk is cheap; it’s the doing that counts.”  Jesus has done what none of us could ever do.  He was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried.  And third day He rose again just as the Scriptures said He would. 

What good is preaching?  In the beginning, God spoke and what He said happened.  There was light and there was life.  On the cross God spoke again and what He said happened.  There was forgiveness and complete payment for the sin of the world, the devil was defeated and death lost its power.  In His Church God continues to speak and what He says happens.  The Holy Spirit calls us by the gospel, enlightens us with His gifts, sanctifies and keeps us in the true faith – all through the preaching of Christ crucified.

While the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, to us who are being saved it is the power of God.  All true Christian preaching leads us to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.  All true Christian preaching leads us from the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ to the day of our own resurrection. 

What good is preaching?  Since the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.  The gospel of the death and resurrection of Christ is foolishness to those who are perishing. For us who are being saved  it is the power of God.  For by this same Jesus, we who were dead in our trespasses and sins have been made alive together with Christ (Ephesians 2:5)  And just as the Son of Man laid down His life only to take it up again, so we believe that He will raise us up from our graves and give us eternal life.  The strength of God will be made perfect in our weakness.  The wisdom of the world will fade away, but the Word of the Lord will remain forever.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen

 

Lent Midweek 2

“The Answer is Jesus: The Lord’s Prayer”

I wouldn’t call it a “running joke”, but it is an ongoing chuckle among pastors and Sunday School teachers.  It’s happened more than once that the youngest children in a Sunday School class will get into the habit of answering “Jesus” no matter what the question is:            Whose birthday do we celebrate at Christmas? Jesus

   Who died on the cross for you?  Jesus

   But then…

      Who went into the Ark before the Flood? Jesus

      Who parted the Red Sea? Jesus

While these answers may initially strike us as funny, Jesus, our Teacher, would caution those who think they know better: “See that you do not despise one of these little ones.  For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 18:10)   And calling to Him a child, He put Him in the midst of them and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you turn and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.  Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”  (Matthew 18:2-4)

On Ash Wednesday, we heard the Lord’s teaching regarding prayer.   He taught us how the prayers of His true disciples differ from those of hypocrites - religious “actors” who mask their sinful thoughts and desires with pious deeds.  First of all, we should not pray in order to be seen and praised by others.  Prayer is conversation between us and God.  In prayer, we respond in faith to the words and promises of God. The reward of prayer is not earning the praise of men, but receiving the blessing of  God through His Son Jesus Christ.  “Your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”  (Matthew 6:6)

The other instruction which Jesus gives regarding prayer is this: “When you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for heir many words.  Do not be like them, for your Father know what you need before you ask Him.”  (Matthew 6:7-8)  Our prayers do not convince God that He should help us.  He already knows what we need.  True prayer is the result of us being convinced by the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the Gospel, that God is our true Father and that we are His true children “so that with all boldness and confidence we may ask Him as dear children ask their dear Father.”  Through the Word of God, Law and Gospel, God our heavenly Father speaks to us. In prayer, we children speak to Him.  And when we pray, we can pray confidently, when in child-like faith we say back to God what He has said to us, for this is most certainly true.

Pray then, like this:
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name.  Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.  And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” (Matthew 6:9-13)

We are taught by God’s Word that God hears our prayers and answers them.  Our Lord invites us, “Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you and you shall glorify me.” (Psalm 50:15)  In teaching, God the Father speaks through His Son and all the children answer.  In prayer, the children are speaking and the Father answers through His Son. So consider this the next time you pray the Lord’s Prayer: Jesus is God’s answer to everything we ask.

To call God “Father” to begin with, reminds us that we are His children by adoption, the rebirth that takes place by water and the Spirit in Holy Baptism.  We are also brothers and sisters of the eternal Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, and inheritors with Him of the kingdom, the power, and the glory of God.

The first thing we ask is that God’s name be kept holy among us.   God’s name is kept holy by how we teach and by how we live.  But how will this be, since we all approach the throne of grace as sinners – people who have not honored God’s name with our life and teaching?  The answer is Jesus.  He came and taught God’s Word in its truth and purity. He came and lived out God’s Word in its truth and purity.  And by His holy life and His innocent suffering and death, He has atoned for our sin and the sin of the whole world.  It is through Jesus Christ, God’s Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with Him and the Holy Spirit, one God, that we live before God in righteousness and purity forever.  It is through Jesus Christ that God’s name is kept holy among us also.

It is also through Jesus Christ that God’s kingdom comes among us.  “After John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’” (Mark 1:15)    The kingdom of God comes when our heavenly Father gives us His Holy Spirit, so that by His grace we believe His holy word – the word calling sinners to repent and believers to rejoice in Jesus our Savior.

Through Jesus Christ, God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven.  This we see most clearly in the agony of Jesus in the garden.  He knew the suffering and death that lay ahead of Him – it was all prophesied in the Word of God.  And yet, as the faithful Servant of God, He humbled Himself, made Himself nothing, and became obedient to His Father’s will.  The prophet Isaiah writes, “It was the will of the Lord to crush Him…but He was wounded for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His stripes we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:10, 5)   Through His Son Jesus Christ, God breaks and hinders every evil plan and purpose of the devil, the world, and our sinful nature; through His Son Jesus Christ God strengthens and keeps us firm in His Word and faith until we die.  This good news is proclaimed to you every time you receive the fruits of Jesus’ suffering and death in the Lord’s Supper:  “The body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ strengthen and preserve you steadfast in the true faith unto life everlasting.  Depart in peace.”

Through Jesus Christ, God gives us each day our daily bread.  Now how does that work?  Well, for 5000 men plus women and children it meant that Jesus literally took five loaves of bread and two small fish and fed them all.  Jesus is the Word incarnate.  By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made  (Psalm 33:6) and He upholds all things by the word of His power (Hebrews 1:3).  No wonder then, that Jesus spends His public ministry proclaiming the Word and undoing the damage that sin has caused to His good creation.  He fed the hungry, healed the sick, drove out demons, and raised the dead. 

What is more,  Jesus reminds us that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God (Deuteronomy 8:3; Matthew 4:4)).   He said “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to Me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in Me shall never thirst…For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will but the will of Him who sent Me.  And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given Me, but raise it up on the last day.  For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:35, 38-40)   In every way, the answer to our asking for daily bread is Jesus.

Jesus is also God’s answer to our prayer for forgiveness.  From the cross He prayed for us, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34)  And for His sake God forgives us all our sins.  The gospel of God’s forgiveness not only changes are standing before God in heaven; it also works a change in our hearts toward one another.  Why should I forgive you when you sin against me?  The answer is: Jesus!  If God holds nothing against me through His Son Jesus Christ, if God holds nothing against you through His Son Jesus Christ, how can I hold anything against anyone else, for whom Christ has also died?  Through Jesus Christ, God forgives us our trespasses even as we also forgive those who sin against us.

Through Jesus Christ, God rescues us from temptation.  We heard that on the first Sunday in Lent.  Jesus was tempted by Satan in every way we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15).  Through Jesus Christ, God will not let us be tempted beyond what we are able to endure, but along with the temptation will provide a way of escape (I Corinthians 10:13).  Through Jesus, God guards and keeps us so that the devil, the world, and our own sinful nature do not deceive us or mislead us into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice.  It is when we underestimate the enemy that we fail.  It is when we try to go it alone that we fail.  When we hide ourselves in the wounds of Christ, when we put on the full armor of God, when we flee for refuge to the infinite mercy of God, the devil flees confounded and his flaming arrows are extinguished, we become as dead sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus, and our sinful nature is crucified, dies, and is buried with Christ in the word and water of our Baptism (Romans 6:3-4).

Finally, through Jesus Christ God delivers us from every evil of body and soul, possessions and reputation.  In the end our Good Shepherd who has so faithfully led us and fed us here on earth, will lead us safely through the valley of the shadow of death to dwell in the house of the Lord forever.  (Psalm 23)

In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus teaches us to pray like little children, children who trust their heavenly Father in all things.  And the same Lord who teaches us to pray is God’s answer to our prayers:  Jesus.  “For all the promises of God find their Yes in Him.  That is why it is through Him that we utter our Amen to God for His glory.”  (II Corinthians 1:20)   We sing the hymn (LSB 766).

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BLESS THIS HOUSE
Sunday January 22, 2012
The Nativity scene has been transformed into an Epiphany scene: three wise men offering gifts to our Lord Jesus Christ.  This reminds us that the wise men were not present on the night of our Lord's birth.  They came from the great distance and were led by a star to Jerusalem and then to a house in Bethlehem." Going into the house they saw the child with Mary His mother, and they fell down and worshiped Him (Matthew 2:11)".  One of the traditions associated with Epiphany is the blessing of homes.  In parts of Europe, the people or their pastor use chalk to write the sate and the letters CMB over their doorways like this 20+C+M+B+12.  The numbers are the year, the letters are the initials for the traditional names of the three wise men.  Casper, Melchior and Belthasar.  But they are also the abbreviation for the Latin phrase Christus mansionem benedicat,  "Christ bless this house."  


God bless your house this Epiphany season and may it always be a welcome home not only for your family but also for your Lord Jesus Christ.. 

Psalm 47  Acts 1:1-11
Ephesians 1:15-12
Luke 24:44-53

Prayer: Almighty God, as Your only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, ascended into the heavens, so may we also ascend in heart and mind and continualy dwell there with Him. who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

THE ASCENSION OF OUR LORD

“He Ascended to Draw Near to Us”

Luke 24:44-53

When you think of the most important days of the year, what comes to mind?  For most Christians, the most important days for the year are Christmas and Easter.  Yet, in times past, Christians would not have answered only with Christmas and Easter, but also with the Ascension of our Lord. 

Ascension Day for Christians sometimes has been seen as a bittersweet moment.  On the one hand, Jesus received all authority in heaven and on earth, which shows that he has saved us from sin and death.  On the other hand, the Ascension marks the time when the “bridegroom is taken away” (As Jesus says in Mark 2:20).

The tension between rejoicing over Christ’s victory over sin, death, and the devil and a sense of loss because the “Bridegroom is taken away” resulted in one of the greatest controversies in church history – the controversy over Christ’s presence in the Lord’s Supper.    

Jesus’ bodily ascension into heaven and the Words of Institution, “Take eat; this is My body,” created an apparent contradiction in some people’s minds.  Until the 16^th century, the majority of Christians simply believed Christ’s words, namely, that He ascended into heaven and still provides His body and blood for Christians to eat and drink in Holy Communion.  The explanation of how He accomplished this was not in the forefront of most people’s minds.

The Roman Catholic Church attempts to explain how Christ can be simultaneously in heaven at the right hand of the Father and on the altar in the Lord’s Supper.  While Lutherans reject their doctrine of transubstantiation – that the substance of bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of Christ – we do not deny the words of Christ: that here Christ gives us His body and blood to eat and to drink for the forgiveness of sins.  Lutherans simply confess what Jesus said in His words. 

Other Protestant groups, however, not only reject transubstantiation, they also reject the belief that Christ truly gives His body and blood to eat and to drink in the Lord’s Supper. They deny that the very body and blood of Him who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered and died on the cross, rose on the third day, and ascended into heaven are present here to forgive, renew, and strengthen us in faith, hope, and love.  Reformed Christians reason that since Jesus’ body is in heaven it cannot be on the altar to eat and to drink. The key to their argument is Jesus’ ascension to the right hand of God, which is seen as creating a separation between Jesus and His Church on earth.

The ultimate point in this discussion centers on how we understand “the right hand of God.”  Is the right hand of God a physical place in heaven located next to the heavenly Father’s throne?  Or, as Luther and the Lutheran Confessions teach,  is the right hand of God equated with what Jesus said in Matt. 28:18: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me”?  When the right hand of God is understood as “all authority in heaven and on earth,” Christ’s ascension into heaven does not contradict the His words instituting the Holy Supper.  In fact, this understanding is the only one that allows Jesus’ words to give us what He says and promises:  This is My body…this is My blood…given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.

Jesus’ ascension into heaven marks not the distance of Christ from His people on earth, but rather His nearness to us.  While Christ may not be visible to us in His body, as He was to His disciples during His three-year ministry on earth, He is accessible to us in His Word and Supper.  Here, although hidden from our sight, Christ gives to us the very same body that ascended into heaven and now “sits at the right hand of the Father,” in other words, has all authority in heaven and on earth.  I am His and He is mine, the foe shall not divide us.  As we look forward to that day when He returns in glory and we shall see Him face to   face, He comes to us, abides with us and strengthens and preserves us in the true faith.

This Ascension Day, recall what Jesus accomplished for you. When He ascended into heaven He received all authority in heaven and on earth so that He can draw near to you and deliver to you what He has promised.  Recall how His ascension means that Jesus is not far from you, but so close that He puts His very body and blood into your mouth for the forgiveness of your sins.  Draw near to Him who draws near to you!  His ascension means He can do exactly what He promises when He says, “Surely I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.”  Amen