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Three Persons, one God, one way of salvation

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Sermon for Trinity Sunday

Romans 11:33-36  +  John 3:1-15

We celebrate today as Trinity Sunday. As you know, the word “Trinity” is not in the Bible. Therefore, some people argue, neither is the teaching about the Trinity in the Bible. Or, as other people argue, we believe in the doctrine about the Trinity even though the word Trinity isn’t in the Bible, and, therefore, we should also believe all sorts of other doctrines that aren’t in the Bible. Both arguments are flawed.

The word “trinity” itself is actually nothing special, nor was it invented by the Christian Church. It comes from a Latin word that simply means, “threeness,” just as the word “unity” means “oneness.” The doctrine of the Trinity isn’t as mysterious as people make it out to be. The Bible speaks, in very simple terms, about our God having a Threeness quality, and a Oneness quality—a threeness of Persons and a oneness of Essence or Being. God isn’t three Beings working together as one, nor is He one Being split into multiple parts. He’s one undivided essence. One God, not three Gods, with one mind, one will, one purpose. But there is also a threeness quality to this one God, a threeness of Persons, clearly revealed in Scripture, especially in the New Testament, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Both qualities of our God describe who He is, and so it’s vitally important that we know and confess both His oneness of essence and His threeness of Persons, always keeping both qualities in view.

The threeness or “trinity” of God is presented to us very simply today in the Gospel you heard from John chapter 3. Like the rest of the Bible, these verses don’t use the word “Trinity” even once. And yet, the doctrine of the Trinity is revealed there—specifically, how the three Persons of the Holy Threeness have an integral part in the salvation of sinners.

If you were here on Wednesday evening, you heard the verses that come right after today’s Gospel, John 3:16-21. Today you heard the context of those verses. Nicodemus, who was a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin, came to Jesus at night to have a quiet conversation with Him. Rabbi, he said, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you are doing, unless God is with him. Now, Nicodemus wasn’t speaking for all the Jews, and certainly not for all the Pharisees, who concluded that the signs, the miracles, Jesus was performing proved that He was in league with Beelzebub, with the devil! But for his part, and speaking for at least a few others, Nicodemus drew the right conclusion from Jesus’ miracles. They proved that He had come from God.

But Nicodemus didn’t realize just how right he was, that Jesus had “come from God.” He thought that Jesus had come from God like the other prophets who were sent by God. The prophets “came from God” in the sense that, at some point in their life, God called them to speak to Israel on His behalf. But the Person of the Son of God wasn’t called at some point in His life. He existed already in the beginning with God the Father. He is the “only begotten” Son of the Father, born of the Father in eternity as light is born of the sun. He was in heaven with the Father, and then He literally came from the Father’s side, as a Man, into the world. As Jesus says later, No one has ascended into heaven, except for the one who came down from heaven, namely, the Son of Man.

But Jesus doesn’t spend any time explaining how He had come from God, or anything about His relationship with God except to state that He is the Son of God, and the Son of Man. What He focuses on is how Father, Son, and Holy Spirit work to bring about man’s salvation. How can a person be saved? How can a person escape eternal condemnation? How can a person enter the kingdom of God?

Truly, truly I tell you, unless a person is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Now, many people today are so ignorant of the truth, so far removed from the Christian religion, that they don’t even believe there is a kingdom of God, much less care to see it. But the truth is, seeing or entering the kingdom of God is the goal of human existence. It’s God’s ultimate purpose for mankind, after mankind was banished from the kingdom of God because of our sin, because of Adam and Eve’s choice to rebel against their Creator. To enter the kingdom of God is to be reconciled to God, to be accepted by Him again into His house, into His family, into His kingdom. To enter the kingdom of God is to escape from the devil’s kingdom and from everlasting death. Only two possibilities exist: either one is a subject of the devil’s kingdom, or of God’s kingdom.

And the only way to see the kingdom of God, Jesus says, is to be born again. Born a second time. That’s because, your first birth wasn’t good enough. You aren’t good enough just as you are. Apologists for homosexuality like to point out that they’re “born that way.” Well, that’s the problem—a problem that all people share. The way you were born is unacceptable. Why? Because “flesh gives birth to flesh.” And that flesh, that sinful nature that we’ve inherited from our parents, and they from theirs, isn’t clean, isn’t pretty, isn’t innocent, isn’t even neutral. It’s wicked, twisted, and corrupt. By nature, everyone hates the true God—the One who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. No, Jesus says, you have to be remade, become an entirely new person in order to see the kingdom of God. And that new life can’t come from you, as little as a tiny baby can give life or give birth to him or herself.

Nicodemus didn’t understand that Jesus was talking about a spiritual rebirth. He thought Jesus was talking nonsense, as if a person had to go back into his mother’s womb and be born again. But Jesus explains: Truly, truly I tell you, unless a man is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Those who have been born of the flesh have to be born again of the Spirit. “Water and the Spirit,” a reference to one of the primary tools the Holy Spirit uses to give that new life and new birth, Holy Baptism, which is, as St. Paul calls it, a washing of rebirth and renewal in the Holy Spirit, the washing of water by the Word. The Person of the Holy Spirit is the one who works faith in our hearts through the Word, as it’s preached by itself, and as it’s connected to water in Holy Baptism. The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. Yes, the Spirit gives life through the Word, but Jesus connects that word with water, emphasizing the great gift that the Holy Spirit gives in Baptism. Baptism comes with the promise of rebirth, the forgiveness of sins, being clothed with Christ, the promise of resurrection to a new, spiritual life now, and the promise of a future resurrection to life everlasting.

But what is it exactly that the Spirit draws us to, turns the eyes of our hearts to, brings us to trust in? To what does Baptism connect us? Jesus explains that to Nicodemus: As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. This is why God the Father sent God the Son into the world. This is what God the Holy Spirit was teaching Israel all along in the Old Testament Scriptures and what He now preaches to our hearts through the Word of the Gospel: Just as Moses long ago made a bronze serpent and lifted it up on a pole, at God’s command, so that the Israelites who had been bitten by venomous snakes (as a punishment for their grumbling against God) might look up at it and be mercifully healed by God from the venom that was killing them, so Jesus, the Son of Man, had to be lifted up on a cross, so that all those who were destined for eternal death might look to Him in faith and be saved—look to Him, no longer hanging on a cross, but preached in the world as the One who was crucified, who gave His life on the cross, preached in the world as the One whose death on the cross we are connected to, in the eyes of God, through the Sacrament of Holy Baptism, where the name of God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is placed on the baptized, where the one who once was lost in Satan’s kingdom is rescued and given entrance into the kingdom of God by a new spiritual birth.

And that’s the goal of our one God, who is three Persons. That’s what the whole history of the world has been about. It’s why the world hasn’t been destroyed yet, in spite of people’s multiple attempts to bring the wrath of God down upon themselves with their godless behavior and their endless idolatry, with their refusal to believe the Word and to amend their sinful lives. God the Father knows that He has children who have yet to be born, and to be born again of water and Spirit, sinners who will become His children, by the work of God the Spirit, who will bring them to the knowledge of God the Son, that they may not perish but have everlasting life. And there we see the Trinity in all its simplicity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit diligently carrying out the plan of our salvation.

Don’t try to comprehend the Holy Trinity. Instead, believe what the Scriptures have revealed about our God, and rejoice that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have granted you the blessing of Baptism, the blessing of faith, and the new birth into His kingdom. And just as God’s goal and purpose for mankind is our eternal salvation, so let it also be the goal of your life, to enter, and then to remain in His kingdom until Christ comes again, living in love as holy children of God within His kingdom even now, and urging the lost to enter His kingdom, too, to know and believe in the one true God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To Him be the glory, both now and forever. Amen.

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God loved the world in this remarkable way

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Sermon for Midweek of Pentecost

Acts 10:42-48  +  John 3:16-21

Most people who believe in a god at all believe that God “loves” people. But ask them, how does He love them? What does it mean that He loves them? What does it look like? Most will describe a god who cares so deeply about people that He just wants them to be happy. God “loves” people by approving of them, just as they are. He would never condemn anyone for being their “true self.” He would never command people to obey Him, and He would never make any laws in the first place that conflicted with their own ideas of right and wrong. No, they think, God loves all people just as they are, and His only standard, His only law, is that people are supposed to be free to do whatever they want, whatever makes them happy. And, of course, in the end, He welcomes everyone into heaven.

Of course, you know and I know that such people believe in a false god, in an idol of their own making, crafted in their own image. The true God is indeed a God of love, a God who loves more deeply and more fully than anyone can fathom. But He defines love much differently than the world does.

In John 3:16 ff., Jesus tells us plainly, simply, directly what God’s love looks like. “God so loved the world.” That phrase doesn’t mean “He loved the world so much.” It means, “He loved the world so, in such a way, in the following way.” In other words, Jesus is about to tell Nicodemus, with whom He’s speaking here in John 3, in what way God loved the world. Here it is. Ready? He gave His only-begotten Son. Now, that’s not the end of that sentence; it’s not the complete answer, but it’s the first part of it. God loved the world—the fallen world, the sinful, corrupt, selfish, me-centered, devil-serving, headed-to-hell, already-condemned world, including you and me—in such a way that He gave His only-begotten Son. You know how much is packed into that saying. The Father planned all of human history so that His Son, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, might be “given” to us sinful men as a man like us, “given” to our race forever, in order to seek and to save that which was lost. More than that, the Father gave His beloved Son specifically and intentionally to suffer and to die on a cross for us. God loved the world in that way.

But the sentence goes on with the purpose of that giving. God loved the world in this way, that He gave His only-begotten Son so that, for the following purpose, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. God the Creator, the One against whom all mankind had rebelled, had placed a judgment of death upon our race after Adam and Eve’s sin, because their sinful, corrupt, self-centered, self-idolizing condition passes down to all their children. But that same God chose, of His own freewill, out of His own indescribable love, to sacrifice His beloved Son on the cross, by the hands of those who hated Him, so that all the sinners in the world could escape from that death sentence and live eternally with Him, by believing in His beloved, only-begotten Son. That’s the “condition” for spending eternity with Him. You have to believe in Jesus; you have to want Jesus for a Savior; you have to want to be saved through Him alone.

Of course, we’re so far gone by nature, we couldn’t even believe in Jesus on our own. And so the God who sent His Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved, also sends His Holy Spirit into the world, to call sinners by the preaching of the Gospel, to persuade sinners, to enable sinners to believe in His Son. He wants us to believe. He enables us to believe. But He doesn’t force anyone or compel anyone to believe. He enables us to believe, while still allowing us not to.

For the one who believes in Christ Jesus, the sentence of condemnation and death is removed here and now. He who believes in Him is not condemned. For the believer, the guilty verdict is changed to innocent in the courtroom that matters most, the one that determines where a person spends eternity. The brand of “sinner” is changed to “saint.” The sentence of death is changed to life. And the status of enemy of God is changed to child of God.

For the unbeliever, nothing actually changes. Do you hear that? Nothing changes. He who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. The unbeliever is already condemned. Condemned on the basis of the sins he has already committed and the sinful, godless condition in which he was born. Condemned, because he refused the path of justification that God provided for him, and laid out for him, and invited him to. The mind of the unbeliever is so arrogant that they despise justification by faith alone in Christ, and then still have the audacity to accuse God of being unjust for not saving them in some other way, in the way of their own choosing.

And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. This is the condemnation. In other words, this demonstrates God’s righteousness in condemning them. God sent His Son, who is the Light, who is Truth, who is Goodness, who is Love personified, into the world to save the world. And most men preferred darkness, preferred ignorance, preferred lies, preferred that which is twisted and ugly and evil to that which is righteous and beautiful and good. They preferred the false freedom that the devil offers to the true freedom of God. Their condemnation is clearly deserved.

For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God. Think of the tax collectors and sinners. While they were determined to live in sin, they avoided and hid from God’s Word and the ministry of it. But God’s Word moved them to acknowledge the truth, to reconsider their sinful choices, and then Jesus invited them to come to Him for forgiveness, and they came, and repented, and believed, and then, as believers, they stopped living in sin and started living according to the truth. Believers are not afraid to have the light of Christ shining on us, because our past sins have been cleansed by Christ and our present life is not one of practicing sin, living in sin, clinging to sin, but of daily contrition and repentance, if we are genuinely believers in Christ.

On the other hand, consider the Pharisees. They were happy to have the people of Israel view their works. But when Jesus came and exposed their hypocrisy and the lack of mercy underlying their works, they hid from Him, and even hated Him. They refused to acknowledge the truth, that they were sinners and that Christ was the Savior sent to save them.

What has changed? People still love to pat themselves on the back and think of themselves as good people, as “loving” people. But when God’s Word exposes them as sinners, when God’s Word exposes their “love” as a lie, they hide from Christ and remain in the darkness. They’ll talk all about God’s love, until it’s proclaimed to them that God loves them in such a way that He sent His only-begotten Son into the world to suffer and die for their sins, so that they might turn away from their sins, and from all their idols and false saviors, and believe in Christ alone for salvation. When that message is proclaimed in the world, then it becomes clear who the ones are who truly know and appreciate the love of God. They are the ones who repent and believe in Jesus. In them—in you who believe! — the Holy Spirit’s work has had its intended effect, and God’s purpose in sending His Son into the world has been fulfilled. In them—in you who believe! — the Holy Spirit continues His work of guiding you away from sin and toward the works that are fitting for saints, because you have been born of God and have come to know that God loved the world in this remarkable way, that He gave His only-begotten Son, so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Amen.

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God’s Spirit brings us into the heavenly harvest

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Sermon for the Day of Pentecost

Acts 2:1-13  +  John 14:23-31

On the day of His resurrection, which we celebrated 50 days ago, the Lord Jesus appeared to His apostles, breathed on them, and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit!” By breathing on them, He was picturing for them what would happen on the Day of Pentecost, when He fulfilled that promise that He had repeated to them many times between Maundy Thursday and the day of His ascension, that from the right hand of God He would send the Holy Spirit down upon them, to dwell with them, to dwell with the Holy Christian Church on earth, until the end of time. Today we celebrate the fulfillment of that promise!

It’s no accident that the giving of the Holy Spirit happened in connection with the Day of Pentecost, just as it was no accident that Jesus died and rose again in connection with the Passover. Both of those festivals were major Old Testament feasts. The Passover pointed to the redemption of Israel through the blood of the Lamb. Pentecost, on the other hand, also known as the Feast of Weeks, pointed to the harvest that was made possible by the Passover Lamb.

Let me explain. The Feast of Weeks was originally a sacred harvest festival, one of the mandated feasts of the Old Testament, for which all the men of Israel were to travel to Jerusalem to present their offerings to the Lord seven weeks after Passover ended, giving thanks to Him for the harvest that He enabled the Israelites to reap in the Promised Land of Canaan. Their journey to the Promised Land began with the Passover in Egypt and the sacrifice of the Passover lamb, after which they were led by the Angel of the LORD through the wilderness to the Promised Land, which they conquered by God’s power alone, and where they enjoyed the bountiful harvest—the bountiful, blessed life—that God gave them there, for as long as they remained faithful to His covenant. The Feast of Weeks, then, was a celebration of that bountiful, blessed life in the Promised Land—a life that was purchased for them with the blood of the Lamb.

Jesus, the true Passover Lamb, was slain to redeem Israel, and all people, from slavery to sin, death, and the devil. But this Passover Lamb rose from the dead and ascended to the true Promised Land of heaven. It has already been “conquered.” And there, a blessed harvest awaits all the faithful, the bountiful, blessed, eternal inheritance that God has in store for His Holy Christian Church. The guarantee of it, and also the One by whose help the Christian Church will be built, and by whose help Christians will be preserved in the true faith unto life everlasting, is the Holy Spirit of God, who was poured out on the Church on the Day of Pentecost, 50 days after Easter, in connection with the Feast of Weeks.

The Feast of Weeks had brought Jews from all over the Roman Empire back to Jerusalem. Those who remained faithful to the God of Israel gathered in their synagogues every Sabbath Day, wherever they lived, but made that special journey to Jerusalem three times a year, even those Jews who lived in other countries and spoke the languages of those countries. Meanwhile, Jesus had told His apostles to stay in Jerusalem until they received the gift of the Holy Spirit. And so they did. They waited, not knowing exactly how or when the Spirit would come. The events of today’s Epistle reading explain how it happened. There were three signs of His coming.

The first was the sound of a mighty, rushing wind, like the sound of Jesus breathing on His disciples on Easter Sunday, but on a much grander scale. Unlike Jesus, who came as a man, whom everyone could see with their eyes and touch with their hands and hear with their ears, you can’t see the Holy Spirit or sense Him with any of your five senses. The word “Spirit,” as you may recall, means “breath” or “wind.” Jesus had once said to Nicodemus, The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit. Like the wind which you can’t see, but you can see its effect on the things around you, so it is with the Holy Spirit. His presence can’t be seen or felt except by the effect He has on things around you. In order to make it clear that He had indeed come upon Jesus’ disciples, as promised, the Spirit made His presence known by the sound of a mighty, rushing wind.

The second sign was the appearance of tongues as of fire, resting upon each of Jesus’ disciples. Years earlier, John the Baptist had promised that the Christ would baptize His disciples “with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” This was it. Not the kind of fire that burns or devours. But the kind of fire that purifies, the kind of fire that spreads, the kind of fire that makes a person zealous for the kingdom of God and courageous to persevere in the midst of trials.

The third sign of Pentecost was the sudden ability of the disciples to say things in other tongues, not the gibberish that Pentecostals brag about, but the very languages of the Jews and Jewish converts who were born in other countries, but who were present in Jerusalem at that time. As we learn later, from Paul’s epistles, this wasn’t an ability to actually communicate in those languages, like when you learn a new language. It was, instead, the outpouring of God’s praises in someone else’s language. The speakers didn’t even understand what they were saying. And the point of this sign is obvious. The Gospel is intended for everyone, for every nation, tribe, language, and people. Long ago, at the Tower of Babel, God confused the languages of men to divide them, to separate them into nations, that they might each go their own way, because, when they had worked together, they had only defied God and increased in wickedness. So He separated them and focused only on one nation, on the nation of Israel, to have mercy on them, to reveal Himself to them, to send the Christ to them.

But that focus is done now. Now that Christ has come and given His life as a ransom for many, now, as of the Day of Pentecost, God will turn His attention to all nations and have His Gospel proclaimed to them in every language. No longer would there be a dividing wall between Jew and Gentile. Now God would call everyone, everywhere, to repentance before the Day of Judgment, during this New Testament period, during this time of grace that is swiftly coming to its close.

And so, with the fire of Spirit-worked courage, with the fire of the Spirit’s enlightenment, with speech that was given to him by the Holy Spirit, the apostle Peter stood up and began to preach to the crowds of Jerusalem that had gathered around the disciples, attracted by the strange noises they were hearing and the strange sights they were seeing. The signs were not the purpose of Pentecost. The preaching was.

Peter went on to explain to the people what the signs meant, that they were the fulfillment of God’s promise to pour out His Spirit upon His sons and daughters in the last days. But it was Jesus Himself, Peter said, who had poured out the Spirit, from the right hand of God—the same Jesus who had lived and walked among them in the land of Israel, the same Jesus who had tirelessly taught the people, doing good and performing miraculous signs, the same Jesus whom they, through their leaders, had crucified and put to death, but whom God the Father had now raised from the dead and exalted to His right hand, declaring Him to be both Lord and Christ.

Now, Peter’s words, all by themselves, had no possibility of convincing those crowds in Jerusalem of anything. His words, by themselves, had no power to reach down into the hearts of the hearers, so that they were cut to the heart, believed what Peter said, and were made sorrowful and afraid. But the Holy Spirit was present there, working through His preaching, entering into the hearts of the hearers and working there repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus. Men, brothers, what shall we do? Repent, Peter said, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And about 3,000 of them did repent and believe and were baptized on that same day. Their sins were forgiven, and they entered Christ’s Holy Christian Church.

But Peter promised more than that. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call. The call to repent, the invitation to be baptized, the promise of the forgiveness of sins and of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, goes out to all nations, to all people everywhere. It isn’t a promise that the visible signs of the Holy Spirit will accompany everyone who is called. It’s a promise that the Spirit will dwell in the heart of every believer, that He will comfort, guide, encourage, strengthen, and embolden every believer, that He will testify with our spirit that we who believe in Christ Jesus are, indeed, children of God, and that our Savior, the Lord Jesus, will surely return for us, because even now He’s placed His Spirit within us.

Like the wind, you can’t see the Spirit dwelling in and among us. But you can see the effects of the Spirit, as you can see the effects of the wind! Where the Word of God is purely taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered, there is the Holy Spirit. Where there is genuine repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus, where there is a desire to hear and submit to His word, there is the Holy Spirit. Where there is boldness to confess the Lord Jesus, where there is love for God and works of love for one’s neighbor, there is the Holy Spirit, working invisibly, but powerfully, to gather the harvest into the Christian Church and to guard the harvest there until Christ comes to claim it, and to bring us in the great heavenly harvest that awaits—that truly bountiful, blessed, eternal life.

So rejoice today in this harvest festival, in the gift of the Holy Spirit, who still dwells among us after all this time. Rejoice in the Holy Spirit, and the faith and love that He has worked in each believer here. And pray in the Spirit that the Lord will bless the work of His Spirit among us, as His word is preached, as His Sacraments are administered, and as each Spirit-filled believer walks with the Spirit throughout this life, in unity around the Word of God, with zeal to live each day for the glory of God, and with joy in knowing that God Himself dwells with us, because He has given us of His Holy Spirit, who has made His home with us, just as Jesus promised. Amen.

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God’s promise to justify and to sanctify

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Sermon for Midweek of Exaudi

Romans 8:29-39  +  Ezekiel 36:25-27

Israel’s return from captivity in Babylon is prophesied in Ezekiel chapter 36. God promises to return them to their land. But He promises to do much more for them than that. Here, in the three short verses before us, God’s plan is revealed—His plan to turn Israel, finally, into the people they were always meant to be. His plan to justify them, and to sanctify them, by His Son and by His Spirit.

The Son of God, the promised Messiah, is not specifically mentioned in Ezekiel’s words. But He’s there beneath verse 25, together with the Spirit of God: Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. The whole picture of sprinkling unclean people with clean water in order to cleanse them comes from the Law of Moses. That’s how a ceremonially unclean person was to be ceremonially cleansed. If, for example, a person touched a dead body, the Law considered that person ceremonially unclean until he was sprinkled with the water of purification. And if a person wasn’t sprinkled with that water and tried to approach God’s tabernacle in his unclean state, he was to be cut off from Israel, permanently excluded from the people of God.

If touching a dead body made a person ceremonially unclean before God, how much more did idolatry make a person truly unclean! There’s nothing morally, inherently wrong with touching a dead body. That was a ceremonial picture God used to teach Israel about uncleanness. The true uncleanness that makes a person unable to stand in God’s presence is sin, and idolatry is the chief sin from which all other sins flow. And the Israelites had been guilty of it in spades. So the people didn’t only need to be purified for ceremonial purposes. They needed the forgiveness of sins.

That forgiveness could only be purchased through a true atoning sacrifice. Not by the ceremonial sacrifices of animals, but by the actual sacrifice of Substitute that was worth the lives of every sinner. Only the sacrifice of the Son of God could actually atone for their sins.

And only the preaching of the Gospel and the purifying waters of Holy Baptism could apply the Christ’s atoning blood to those who needed God’s forgiveness. As the writer to the Hebrews says, Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. That pure water that actually cleanses our consciences is the water connected to God’s promise, He who believes and is baptized will be saved.

So Ezekiel’s words are a prophecy both of the sacrificial death of the Son of God and of the Holy Spirit’s working, through the Word and through the water of Baptism, to cleanse the Israelites—and all people! —of their idolatry, and of all their sins. It was a prophecy of justification, which would be brought about by the Son of God and by the Spirit of God. Not the justification of the whole nation of Israel, but of those in Israel who would be brought to faith in Christ Jesus. Not of believing Israelites only, but of all sinners who would hear and believe in God’s promise of justification through faith in the Lord Jesus.

That’s what the next verse is talking about: I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Israel’s old heart, and your heart and my heart by nature, was made of stone. It didn’t listen to God’s word. It was determined to believe what it wanted to believe, to worship how it wanted to worship, and to pursue every sinful pleasure, every prideful thought. But God promised Israel that He would give them a new heart and a new spirit. Not magically, not by zapping it into them, but through the preaching of His Word, of His Law and His Gospel, He would bring them to repent of their idolatries and all their stubborn rebellion, and to become new people, with new desires, and with a new love—a love for the God who gave His only-begotten Son into death for their sins. In other words, He would create a new man within them.

And that new man who would be created would no longer walk according to the flesh, would no longer turn to idols for help, or ignore God’s word and God’s commandments, but would truly love the Lord, love His word, and be eager to walk according to His commandments, as we see in the third verse of tonight’s lesson: I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. What Ezekiel is describing here is what we usually refer to as sanctification, the Holy Spirit’s ongoing work of turning believers into people who lead holy lives, who walk according to God’s commandments. Sanctification always begins simultaneously with justification, and it must continue throughout a person’s life. If it doesn’t, if you don’t want to walk in God’s statutes, if you don’t struggle against the Old Man and his evil desires, if the Spirit of God is not working within you to keep God’s commandments, then you don’t have justifying faith, either. But if you, as Christians, no longer view sin as something desirable but as something detestable, because God Himself detests it, that’s the work of God’s Spirit within you. If you are determined to please God and not yourself, that’s the work of God’s Spirit within you. If you love the word of God and are eager to submit to it, that’s the work of God’s Spirit within you.

Again, this is not a promise that every Israelite would be justified and sanctified. Those who didn’t want God’s Spirit dwelling in them would not be forced to become temples of the Holy Spirit, just as those who didn’t want to be baptized wouldn’t be forced into Baptism. What we have here in Ezekiel is a gracious Gospel promise that would be extended to Israel, and beyond Israel, in connection with the coming Christ. It’s a promise of spiritual deliverance of those who were once bound in sin, and of Spirit-worked godliness in those who formerly were ungodly and idolatrous.

And it’s important to notice who is in charge of all this. It’s not you, or I. It’s God who does it to you and for you. It’s God who justifies, on the basis of Christ’s atoning sacrifice. It’s God’s Spirit who converts unbelievers and changes them into believers, who takes sinners and turns them into saints. As for those who remain unconverted and unbelieving, they have only themselves to blame. Because, as Ezekiel prophesies in tonight’s reading. God offered purification and a new spirit to everyone, on the basis of Christ’s atonement, which would also be for everyone. Don’t let God’s promise pass you by! Embrace it, and rejoice in it, in God’s plan to justify you and to sanctify you, by His Son and by His Spirit. Amen.

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The testimony of the Spirit, the apostles, and all Christians

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Sermon for the Sunday after Ascension

1 Peter 4:7-11  +  John 15:26-16:4

On Thursday, we heard the promise Jesus made to His apostles just before He was taken up into heaven. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. The promise of the coming of the Holy Spirit was a promise that Jesus repeated over and over again to His apostles, beginning on Maundy Thursday, as you heard in the Gospel. So it was also with the instructions that Jesus gave to His disciples just before He ascended into heaven: And you will be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. That was also something that Jesus repeated on various occasions and in various ways. Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. Go and make disciples of all nations. The Spirit’s testimony was promised; the apostles’ testimony was foretold. The salvation of sinners, the entire building of the New Testament Church, hinged on that twofold testimony, a testimony that still goes out into the world today, through those who have believed the testimony of the Spirit and of the apostles. That’s you and I, isn’t it? But there is also a warning label attached to this testimony. So let’s dig into this testimony a little bit and receive the Lord’s teaching about it.

But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me.

One of our members recently asked why our lectionary seems to be jumping around John’s Gospel, out of order, during these weeks after Easter. The answer is that, the further away from Easter and the closer to Pentecost we get, the more the readings focus on the coming of the Holy Spirit. And that makes sense. Because, for as vitally important as Jesus’ resurrection is for our salvation, the work of the Holy Spirit is what brings the truth of Jesus’ resurrection to the world for this entire New Testament period. That’s why Jesus calls Him the “Spirit of truth.” He testifies to the truth. “He will testify about Me,” Jesus says. The Spirit’s testimony is the truth about Jesus. As the Spirit who proceeds from the Father, as the Spirit whom Jesus sends into the world, the Holy Spirit knows and has witnessed the whole truth about God, and about God’s plan of salvation, which centers on Jesus. And so, after Jesus’ ascension, the testimony of the Spirit would be God’s gift to the apostles, to the Church, and, by extension, to the world.

How would the Spirit of truth testify about Jesus? He would do it in three ways. First, He would testify through the signs and wonders that happened on the Day of Pentecost and that were seen here and there among the Christians of the first century. The miraculous ability to speak in foreign languages, special visions, prophecies about the future, healing miracles, things like that. The Spirit would be responsible for all those outward signs, testifying to the truth that the Gospel of Jesus, preached by the apostles, was true.

There is a second testimony of the Spirit, in the hearts and minds of the apostles, enabling them to teach (and to write!) about Jesus accurately. The Spirit of truth, who understands the truth about Jesus perfectly, guided the apostles into all truth, just as Jesus said He would do. He also emboldened them to preach the Gospel of Jesus with Spirit-worked courage and conviction—just as He had done, by the way, with the Old Testament prophets, as Peter writes: the Spirit of Christ who was in [the prophets] testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.

Then there is the testimony of the Spirit in the hearts of the hearers of the Gospel as He works through the preaching of the Word, enabling the hearers to both believe and understand the Gospel of Jesus, that Jesus truly is the Christ, the Son of the living God, that He truly died as the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world, and that He is the one Mediator between God and Man, who reconciles sinners to God through faith in His name. As Paul writes, No one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. And again, The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, enabling us to cry out to God as our dear Father.

But the Spirit’s testimony is always, always connected to the testimony of man’s preaching. As Jesus says in our Gospel, And you also will testify, because you have been with me from the beginning. Peter’s preaching, His eyewitness testimony, was the main event of Pentecost. The preaching of the Gospel of Christ was the main event at the house of Cornelius, too, where Peter preached, and then the Holy Spirit testified with miraculous signs, showing that Christ’s salvation was also for the Gentiles.

But notice, these words aren’t spoken directly to all people, or to all Christians. They’re spoken to the apostles who were, as Jesus says, “with Me from the beginning.” The apostles were the eyewitnesses of Jesus’ life, of His teaching, of His demeanor, of His attitude, of His suffering, death, and resurrection. Theirs and theirs alone is the eyewitness testimony. The rest of the Church is built on that initial, first-century testimony.

You and I are not called by Jesus to “testify” in the same sense, to the same things, because we aren’t eyewitnesses of those things. What we are witnesses of, the testimony we can provide, is the testimony we have received from the Spirit, through the apostles. We can testify to the faith that has been given in that testimony. We can and should tell the world that we have been convinced that the apostles’ testimony is true, and that Jesus is risen, and reigning, and returning. That’s a testimony we give in the world with our words. And it’s also a testimony we give with how we live our lives. But when we invite people to church, when we invite people to know the Lord Jesus, we’re not inviting them to come and hear our personal testimony. We’re inviting them to come and hear the testimony of the Holy Spirit, through the testimony of the apostles (and prophets), because, by the work of the Holy Spirit, we have been convinced that this testimony is true.

But as the apostles were about to go out and testify before the world, Jesus wasn’t about to deceive them. He told them plainly what would happen as the result of their testimony. And what He told them wasn’t pleasant.

They will put you out of the synagogues. Yes, the time is coming, when whoever kills you will think he is rendering service to God. They will do these things because they have not known the Father nor Me.

Jesus knew that the majority of the Jews would not believe the Spirit’s testimony, or the testimony of the apostles. He knew that the Sanhedrin would haul them off to prison and beat them. He knew that Stephen would be stoned to death by the Jews, that James would be put to death by Herod’s sword, and that His apostles, and His Christians in general, would face opposition and persecution by the hands of both Jews and Gentiles. And maybe the most bitter pill to swallow was the fact that they would do it in the name of “service to God.” They would think that God wanted them to put these Christians to death. Why? Because even though they claimed to believe in the God of Israel, their actual god was a false god. Because, as Jesus says, They have not known the Father, nor Me.

And yet, the apostles, knowing the hardships and the suffering that lay ahead of them, still waited for the promised Holy Spirit after Jesus ascended into heaven, still testified in Jerusalem, and Judea, and Samaria, still went into all the world and preached the Gospel to every creature, because they had the testimony of the Holy Spirit, that Jesus is Lord, and that, even though they would die for that testimony, they would receive a greater prize in eternal life.

Now, you and I won’t be put out of any synagogue, because we don’t attend a Jewish synagogue. But the testimony about Jesus that we believe, the testimony about Jesus that we confess in the world, with our words and with how we live our lives, still draws hatred from Jews and Gentiles alike (if we’re doing it right!), and sometimes even from those who claim to be Christians. What’s popular in the eyes of the world, what seems nice in the eyes of the world, is almost always the wrong way, the wrong thing. So prepare to suffer.

Maybe you remember one of the confirmation questions that our confirmands are always asked to answer: Do you intend to continue steadfast in the confession of this Church, and suffer all, even death, rather than turn away from it? That’s a serious question, and it deserves a serious answer. As Jesus says often in the Gospels, He who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.

What will the result be if Christians don’t testify to the truth about Jesus, both with our words and with our lives? Well, some Christians will always be out there providing that testimony. You can be sure of that. The Holy Spirit will see to it that the Gospel is never completely silenced in the world. But when other Christians fail to testify, or testify to one thing with their words, but to a different thing with their behavior, then the world, and even other Christians, will be exposed to conflicting testimonies, and that’s always harmful. It’s tragic how many young people have been raised by Christians who only give lip-service to the truth of Christ, but whose lives conflict with what their lips confess, leaving the young Christian susceptible to the false doctrine of those who seem to be more “genuine,” but whose teachings actually lead away from the Lord Jesus. So guard your testimony, both for your own sake and for the sake of those whose lives you touch. Daily repentance, faith in the Lord Jesus, who has rescued you from sin, death, and the devil, and lives that honor Him. Hearing the Word and receiving the Sacraments. Being the same Christians at home and in society that you profess to be here in church. Let these things be your daily concern, your ongoing testimony, if indeed you have received the testimony of the Holy Spirit.

And what will be the result when Christians do give such a testimony? God will be glorified, the name of Jesus will be exalted, and the Church of Christ will be built. And you will suffer, but only for a little while. May the Helper, the Spirit of truth, grant you all the help you need, to believe in the testimony about the Lord Jesus and to confess Him before the world, no matter what the earthly consequences may be. Amen.

 

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Celebrating Christ’s mission accomplished and work ongoing

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Sermon for the Festival of the Ascension

Acts 1:1-11  +  Mark 16:14-20

Today’s festival is one of the major festivals of Christ in the whole Church year. It ranks right up there with Christmas and Easter in importance. And yet, believe it or not, I still run into Christians, even Lutherans, who don’t know much about the Festival of the Ascension. So let’s make sure that everyone here, and everyone watching or listening, never (or never again) falls into that category!

As we learn in today’s reading from Acts 1, Jesus appeared on and off to His disciples over the course of 40 days after His resurrection on Easter Sunday. Twice that we know of in Jerusalem, twice that we know of in Galilee, and probably on several occasions we don’t about. He gave them final instructions about the kingdom of God, and about the coming of the Holy Spirit, telling them to wait in Jerusalem until the Spirit should come upon them with power. And then He met with them one last time, on the Mount of Olives, just outside Jerusalem, where Luke tells us that He lifted up His hands and blessed them, and as He was doing that, He was lifted up into the sky, He “ascended” into heaven until a cloud hid Him from their sight. And then, He was “gone.” Gone, in the sense that they never saw Him again. No one on earth ever saw Him again, except for the first martyr Stephen, who was allowed to see Jesus standing at the Father’s right hand before he died, and the apostle Paul, who was called and trained by Jesus directly.

Now, why is that something to celebrate, Jesus being “gone”? Well, as we heard Jesus say a couple of Sundays ago, it was to the Church’s advantage that He went away, because from heaven He would send them the Holy Spirit, who would accompany all the disciples of Jesus everyone in the world at once, whereas, when Jesus walked the earth, He only walked in one place at a time. The Spirit’s work is what would build the Church over the next 2,000 years.

But we celebrate the Spirit’s arrival on the Day of Pentecost, ten days from now. That’s not mainly what we celebrate today. Today we celebrate two things, mainly. We celebrate our  King’s victorious return to His heavenly Father after accomplishing His earthly mission. And we celebrate the beginning of the reign of Christ the King at the right hand of the Father.

That first thing, the King’s victorious return to His heavenly Father, is relatively simple. It doesn’t require too much commentary. Repeatedly Jesus tells His disciples that He was sent by God the Father, that He came from God the Father and would return to God the Father, that He had come down from heaven and would eventually return there. What does that mean?

Well, you and I don’t start out in heaven and then come down to inhabit our bodies. We don’t start with God and then return to God. The rest of us start to exist when we’re conceived. But th eternal Son of God was in heaven prior to His incarnation as a human being. He existed with a divine nature only, like the Father and like the Holy Spirit, without human flesh and blood, without a human nature at all. He “came down” from heaven by means of the incarnation, when He was conceived and took on a human nature in Mary’s womb, a human nature that coexists with His divine nature in one undivided Person, as the One who is both God and Man. That’s how He came down. And then, as both God and Man, He returned to the Father at His ascension. And He returned, not in defeat, but in victory, not in humility, but in glory. Because He had accomplished His mission, the mission which God had planned before the creation of the world, the mission on which the Father had sent Him some 34 years earlier. Jesus had led a perfectly holy, righteous, and sinless life. He had loved God and man without fail. He had tirelessly preached and ministered to the people of Israel, and to a few non-Israelites. He had suffered and died for the sins of mankind and had risen again. The mission was finished successfully. The reason for His coming down to earth was accomplished. Mission accomplished. Time to return to the Father.

And when He did, He received the glory He deserved. Glory as the Son of God, and also as the Son of Man. On the night before He night, Jesus prayed, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was. That was His glory as the Son of God. But after accomplishing His mission to provide redemption for fallen man, He received glory also as the Son of Man, to whom saints and angels sing: Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honor and glory and blessing!

And so we join our voices today in glorifying Christ the King, who accomplished His earthly mission to earn mankind’s salvation as the Son of Man, and who has now returned home victorious.

The King’s earthly mission was accomplished, but His heavenly work goes on. And so today we also celebrate the beginning of Christ’s work that He carries out at the right hand of God.

You heard in today’s Gospel that the Lord Jesus was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God. That’s a fulfillment of Psalm 110, which begins: The LORD said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool.” It’s also a fulfillment of what Jesus said to the Jewish Sanhedrin as they were about to sentence Him to death: I say to you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.

What does it mean that Jesus sits at the Father’s right hand?

It isn’t a literal location relative to the Father’s literal location. There are those who claim (mainly the Calvinists and Reformed) that Jesus is physically located in a single place in heaven, from which He cannot move, and from which He certainly cannot cause His true body and blood to be present with the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper. But they teach falsely. Yes, Jesus has a physical body. But the Father doesn’t! So how can Jesus sit at the right hand of the Father who has no physical hands? How can Jesus be restricted to a location next to the Father who has no physical location? No, to sit at the right hand of God means something else.

Sitting at the right hand of God means that Jesus has been exalted to the highest place, as both God and Man. It means that He has been given all authority in heaven and on earth. As Peter writes, Jesus has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him. Yes, it means that He has come into His kingdom and has begun His reign as King, with all things in the universe placed under His feet, under His rule.

And what does that reign include?

Jesus once promised His disciples, On this rock—on this confession of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God—I will build My Church. But that building only began to take place after His ascension. From the right hand of the Father, as part of His reign over all things, Jesus is building His Church.

He does that building through the office of the ministry. Jesus Himself is the Chief Minister, the High Priest over God’s Temple. As it says in the book of Hebrews, We have such a High Priest, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a Minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord erected, and not man. He Himself is working through earthly ministers whom He has sent and continues to send, as Peter said, God has exalted Him to His right hand to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. Through the preaching of Peter, through the preaching of all genuine ministers, through the Sacraments that Jesus instituted before His ascension, Jesus is the one, at the right hand of God, giving repentance and forgiveness, working through His Spirit to bring people to repent of their sins and to trust in Him who was delivered up for our sins and raised for our justification.

And as people are brought to faith, the Lord Jesus, sitting at the Father’s right hand, also justifies and intercedes for believers, pleading with the Father on our behalf. Paul writes, It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.

What else? Paul writes that the Father seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. So Jesus reigns as King. He reigns over all things, even over all “principality and power and might and dominion,” that is, the demonic forces of evil in the spirit-realm. He reigns over every government, over every institution, over every individual, over every germ, over every cell in our bodies, over nature, over gravity. He reigns invisibly. He reigns behind the scenes, until He returns to the earth. But we know for certain that every decision this King makes, whether we can see it or not, is for the good of His Church, as the head of a body makes decisions that are good for its own body.

Finally, remember what Jesus said to His disciples on the night before He died. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. At the right hand of the Father, Jesus is preparing a place for every member of His holy Church, so that our home is ready when He returns in the same way His disciples saw Him go, visibly, coming down from heaven once again, for that final judgment that will mean eternal joy and peace for all who have believed in His name.

That, my Christian friends, is what Jesus’ ascension means for us today. It’s a celebration of Christ’s mission accomplished and also the beginning of His ongoing work, His work whose focus is our salvation. That’s what it’s about. And that’s why we celebrate it, and will continue to celebrate it, on the Thursday that always falls on the 40th day after Easter. Amen.

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Pray to the Father, who loves you

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Sermon for Easter 5 – Rogate

James 1:22-27  +  John 16:23-30

We’re focused on prayer today. There are countless examples of prayer in the Bible, and many passages in the Gospels in which Jesus teaches His disciples to pray, and how to pray. We have a wonderful teaching tool concerning prayer in the 3rd Chief Part of Luther’s Small Catechism, the part on the Lord’s Prayer. But this 5th Sunday after Easter, Rogate Sunday, is the only Sunday in the historic Church year whose Gospel touches on prayer. So we’ll use this opportunity both to hear again what Jesus teaches us about prayer, and to take to heart His encouragement to pray and to ask.

Let’s start with how we use certain words. The word “pray” in Scripture has a couple of different uses. It can mean simply to “ask.” I pray God for a pleasant outcome. I pray you for a glass of water. There are certain words in Hebrew and Greek that simply mean, “ask.” But that’s not how we normally use the word in English anymore, nor is it the main word for prayer in the Bible. Normally, “to pray” means to speak to God, which is the same as “calling upon” God or upon the name of God, for any and every purpose. And there are three basic purposes for praying to God. To confess one’s sins to God, to praise and thank God, and to ask God for something, either for ourselves or on behalf of others.

Psalm 51 gives us an example of confession within a prayer. David cries out to God, “For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight.”

Jesus shows us how to give thanks in a prayer. He says in Matthew 11, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. Yes, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight.”

Then there are those many, many examples of prayers that ask God for something, making requests of God. “Lord, have mercy!” is the simplest but most all-encompassing request a person can make. All seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer fall into this category, where we approach our Father in heaven with seven short and simple requests, where we ask Him for things that we need. A single prayer may well include all three things: a confession of our sins, a request for God’s mercy and forgiveness, and a word of praise for God’s abundant mercy, faithfulness, and forgiveness in Christ.

To whom should we pray? When the word means simply to “ask” someone for something, that word is used in the Bible for both God and men. You can ask God for mercy, you can ask the king for mercy. Elijah could ask God to send rain, or Jesus could ask the Samaritan woman for a drink of water. But the regular word used for “prayer” in Scripture, for calling upon the name of someone, for “invocation,” is always and only used for praying to God (or to false gods). In the Old Testament, it was always and only the LORD to whom Israel was supposed to pray. In the New Testament, Jesus teaches us to pray to “our Father in heaven,” and the vast majority of examples of prayer in the New Testament are prayers to God, in general, or to God the Father in particular. But prayers to Jesus are also prayers to God, so occasionally the apostles also speak of “calling on the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord.” Either way, “to pray,” in Scripture, is to call upon the name of God—or someone whom you perceive to be God. And it’s, therefore, by definition, an act of worship.

This is important, so we we’re going to spend some time on it. You know that, some time after the Scriptures were written, some teachers arose within the Christian Church who began to teach Christians to pray not only to God, but also to others, to the souls of certain saints in heaven. Here are the reasons why that’s a problem:

First, the Scriptures, and Jesus Himself, already taught us to whom we should address all our prayers: to the LORD God alone, to our Father in heaven, or to the Lord Jesus, who is also God, and the one Mediator between God and man. All prayers, like all forms of worship, are to be given to God.

Second, we have no command or permission from God to call upon the name of anyone else.

Third, we do have commands from God forbidding any attempted communication with the dead. The Bible refers to that as witchcraft or sorcery or necromancy, and God says that He hates all such practices.

Now, the argument is made that praying to Mary for help, or asking for her intercession, is no different than asking your Christian friend for help, or to pray for you. Paul asks the Ephesian Christians to pray for him, doesn’t he? But Paul doesn’t pray to the Ephesians to ask for their prayers. He writes them a letter, which they can read with their eyes and hear with their ears, where they can read of his request and then pray to God for him. That’s vastly different than trying to communicate with someone who has died. And the argument is made that the souls of the departed are not dead but alive! Well, that was just as true in the Old Testament, as Jesus says about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and yet, through Moses, God still forbade His people from trying to communicate with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Fourth, we have no reason to believe that any departed brother or sister in Christ is able to hear a single prayer or request, much less the prayers of Christians from around the world. Think about that. Why can God hear the prayers and petitions of Christians anywhere in the world? Because of His divine attributes. Because God sees the heart. He is omniscient, omnipresent, and eternal, which means He’s outside of time. As the Psalm says, O LORD, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether. But none of that is true of our departed brothers and sisters, including Mary, including the apostles. To imagine that a departed brother or sister can hear the whispers from a single person’s lips, or can (simultaneously!) hear the prayers of thousands of Christians around the world, is to ascribe divine attributes to that departed brother or sister, and that is nothing short of turning them into gods, which is nothing short of idolatry.

But finally, praying to or invoking anyone besides God is a waste of time, because we have God’s own repeated promises to hear our prayers and to help us in the day of trouble. And that’s the part of today’s Gospel that I would have you focus on. Jesus says to His disciples: Truly, truly I tell you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give you. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full. Ask the Father, Jesus says. Ask Him! Ask Him directly! Only do it “in My name.”

What does that mean? It doesn’t mean just adding a perfunctory, “In Jesus’ name” to the beginning or end of a prayer. It means praying to God the Father as one who believes in the name of Jesus, who trusts in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, sent by God the Father to be the Savior of the world and the one Mediator between God and man. It means holding up to God the Father not a single work of our own, not a bit of worthiness on our part, but only the merit of Jesus as the basis for His mercy and help. It means approaching God the Father as Jesus Himself approached His Father, with heartfelt thankfulness, with perfect trust in His will, asking for the things that Jesus taught us to ask for, as in the Lord’s Prayer, and also asking for things that we want, but only if it’s what He wants for us, as our wise and gracious Father. All of that is included in praying in Jesus’ name.

And why will the Almighty God and Father hear us and grant our requests? (This may be the most amazing part.) Because the Father himself loves you. The word for love here is special. It’s not that usual Greek word for love, agape, the word for God’s heartfelt care and concern for people, as in, God so loved the world. No, here it’s the Greek word philos, the love of friendship, the love of finding something attractive in another person, not in a romantic way, but in a friendly way, where people share common interests, where you like to be around certain people because of their character, or their good reputation, or their personality. What is it that makes God the Father like to be around us? Jesus told His disciples. The Father loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came forth from God. God the Father gave His most precious gift to the world, His beloved, only-begotten Son, to be our Savior, to teach us who God is and, most of all, to reveal His mercy and love toward sinners, and His fervent desire that all men should be saved, saved through faith in Christ Jesus. The Father is the One who drew us to Jesus in the first place, through His Word, by His Spirit, and who persuaded us to believe in Him, and to love Him. And then, amazingly, because the Father has first drawn us to Jesus, the Father is now drawn to us in love as those who love Jesus, because everything centers around Him.

Now, because the Father loves you, who love Jesus, that’s why you should ask Him. That’s why you should pray to Him. Because He’s not some distant, hard-to-please, needs-to-be-convinced-to-care kind of God. He loves you! He’s eager to hear from you! He’s just waiting to answer your prayer, to give you what you ask for in Jesus’ name. What’s more, He deserves an apology from you when you sin against Him, doesn’t He? Have you ever thought about it that way, about what God deserves? He also deserves your praise and thanksgiving. He deserves your worship. He deserves your prayers.

And so, because of our great need, because of the great needs of those for whom we pray, because of the powerful enemies we have in this world, because of God’s command and promise, because of God’s love for you who believe in His Son, and because God deserves our worship, our prayers, and our praise, pray, dear Christians! Pray to the Father who loves you! Ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full! Amen.

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Yes, sing to the Lord!

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Sermon for Midweek of Easter 4 – Cantate

Isaiah 12:1-6  +  2 Corinthians 5:14-21

This last Sunday, the 4th Sunday after Easter, was called Cantate Sunday. Cantate—sing!, from the Introit, Oh, sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done marvelous things. In line with that, in the reading you heard this evening from Isaiah 12, the prophet also calls upon Israel, including Christians, to “sing to the Lord.” And he spends the six short verses of this chapter giving us the inspiration behind the song.

He begins, In that day you will say. In what day? In the day he just described in chapter 11. In the day when there comes forth a Rod from the stump of Jesse, when a Branch grows from his roots, upon whom the Spirit of the Lord would rest in fullest measure. This Rod, this Branch, this “Root of Jesse” would grow, and would judge in favor of the poor and the meek. He would slay the wicked with the breath of His mouth, and rule over God’s people in righteousness and in peace. Not only that. He would also stand as a banner, as a tall flag, summoning people, gathering people to Himself from all the nations, Jews and Gentiles, all coming together and rallying around Him, resting in Him, and conquering all their enemies through Him.

“The day” Isaiah is talking about is this entire New Testament era, the era that began with the birth of the Rod, the Root, the Branch of Jesse, the Lord Jesus, who was born of Mary, descended from and a legal heir of David, the son of Jesse. He’s talking about how the Spirit would rest on Jesus. He’s talking about what St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians about in tonight’s second lesson, how God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their sins against them. That’s a reference both to the suffering and death of Christ, which were the reconciling price required to reconcile sinners with God (in other words, the atonement that Christ made for sin), and it’s a reference to the ministry that Jesus carried out, calling sinners to repent and to come to Him for rest. He is the Reconciler of God and man. He is the One who brings us God, the offended party, and man, the offending party, back into harmony, back into fellowship. His sacrifice as our Substitute was the price of reconciliation. His ministry of inviting sinners to be reconciled to God through Him is the manner of reconciliation.

And that’s a ministry that goes on and on until Christ comes again. The “day” of Isaiah is still happening as the ministry of reconciliation continues, as Christ continues to serve as a banner for the nations, as He continues to gather people from every nation into His Holy Christian Church. The “day” is still happening, when Christ reigns over His Church in righteousness. And the “day” will be complete when Jesus comes back to destroy all the enemies of His people, and to bring us into the perfect rest of the new heavens and the new earth.

That’s “the day.” And in that day, Isaiah says, you will say: O LORD, I will praise You; Though You were angry with me, Your anger is turned away, and You comfort me. Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid; ‘For YAH, the LORD, is my strength and song; He also has become my salvation.’ ” Therefore with joy you will draw water From the wells of salvation.

Who is the “you”? It’s those with whom the Lord was angry. That applies to the impenitent sinners in Israel, but also to the rest of the world. As Paul writes to the Ephesians, we were all dead in sins and trespasses. We were all “children of wrath” by nature. But because of Christ’s sacrifice and because of Christ’s ministry of reconciliation, God is no longer angry with those who take refuge in His Son. Instead, He comforts them. He has saved them, by grace, through faith in the Lord Jesus. These are the ones who will praise the LORD in that “day” of salvation. These are the ones who will sing to the LORD, because they know Him, we know Him, to be our strength and our song. We know Him to be our Savior from sin, death, and the devil, who willingly suffered and died for our sins, who reigns in righteousness now and who will soon return to redeem us from every evil. This is the reason why Christians sing to the Lord.

Isaiah not only tells us why we will sing. He also gives us some of the lyrics of the song. In that day you will say: “Praise the LORD, call upon His name; Declare His deeds among the peoples, Make mention that His name is exalted. Sing to the LORD, For He has done excellent things; This is known in all the earth. Cry out and shout, O inhabitant of Zion, For great is the Holy One of Israel in your midst!”

What do we sing? What message do Christians proclaim? “His deeds.” God’s deeds. That includes His great deeds of creation, providence, and preservation. It also includes His deeds of salvation, Christ’s deeds of suffering and dying for all men, God’s desire that all men should be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth. And, yes, it also includes His deeds of judgment against the enemies of His blood-bought people.

And where do we proclaim His deeds? “Among the peoples.” Among the nations. Wherever you live. Declare the excellent things that God has done, and declare it, not as a chore, not as a heartless lesson for the lecture halls, but with joy. The joy of the Gospel must accompany our song. If we stop and think about the destruction toward which we were headed, and the lengths to which our God has gone to make sure we were saved from it, if we stop and think about the love of Christ for sinners like us who deserve nothing from Him but wrath and condemnation, then we won’t be able to help but sing for joy for the marvelous deeds of the Lord. Amen.

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The Holy Spirit will be your Advocate

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Sermon for Easter 4 – Cantate

James 1:16-21  +  John 16:5-15

On the night before He died, Jesus told His disciples that He would be going away, referring to His ascension. They had spent the last three years or so by His side, being led by Him, being instructed by Him. All they had to do was listen, learn, obey, and follow. But all that would change after Jesus’ ascended into heaven. After that, they would graduate from the seminary, as it were. They would be the ones doing all the teaching and preaching. They would be the ones interpreting Scripture and explaining the will of God, explaining the things Jesus Himself had said—things which they often didn’t understand themselves while He was with them! And they would be doing it, not only among their fellow Israelites in their homeland of Israel, where people at least had a knowledge of the Old Testament and were awaiting the promised Messiah, but also in foreign lands, among the Gentiles, who had a completely different—and wrong!—understanding of who God is, who practiced a false and pagan religion. How on earth could they possibly take over this ministry if Jesus was going away?

I tell you the truth: It is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. Jesus promises His apostles a Helper, the Helper, whom He Himself would send to them after His ascension, a Helper who would take over for Jesus, in a sense, except that, instead of preaching to the world directly, as Jesus had done, the Helper would be working through the preaching and through the ministry of the apostles. The Helper, sent by Jesus, would be the One doing the actual building of the Holy Christian Church.

Let’s talk about the title “Helper,” since this is the first time we’re running into that name in our lectionary this year. It’s a word used only by the Apostle John, in his Gospel and in his first Epistle. In 1 John, he actually uses the word for Jesus, where it’s usually translated, “Advocate”: If anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous One. The imagery of the word is of someone who is called to your side to help you, to speak up for you, like an advocate or an attorney does in the courtroom, who counsels and encourages you, who advocates for you, someone who’s both by your side and on your side.

In heaven, we have an Advocate like that, as John says. Jesus is that Advocate. He died for our sins. And He rose again in order to justify before God all who believe in Him. He is also at the right hand of God, interceding for us before the Father. But here on earth, the One who speaks for us, the One who Advocates for us, the One who is on our side, is the Holy Spirit—the Spirit whom Jesus poured out on His apostles on the day of Pentecost. We’re going to be hearing more about the Spirit over the coming weeks. For now, we focus on the help Jesus promised in today’s Gospel.

He will show the world its fault concerning sin, and concerning righteousness, and concerning judgment. Concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to my Father and you will not see me any longer; concerning judgment, because the prince of this world is judged

He will show the world its fault. Other translations of that word are “convict” or “reprove” or “rebuke.” I like the simplicity of showing someone his fault. The Helper will show the world its fault, will show the world where the world (as in, the unbelieving world into which the apostles were being sent) is wrong, wrong in three specific ways.

He’ll show the world where it’s wrong concerning sin, because they do not believe in me. People are generally wrong about sin. They tend to think of sin as some terrible thing that other people do. They think they can engage in every kind of immorality, nastiness, violence, adultery, selfishness, etc., but it’s what “those other people are doing” that’s truly sinful. They think they get to define what sin is, and they think they can avoid having their sins charged to them if they do enough good things to outweigh the bad things. But the Helper will show the world where it’s wrong concerning sin, how God is the One who defines sin in His Word, how sin infects everything they do, and even who they are by nature. They’ll deny it, but the Spirit will not relent. He’ll show them where they’re wrong, and most of all, because they do not believe in Jesus. He’s the only One who wipes out sin. The one who repents of his sins and believes in Jesus has no sins counted against him, because he’s justified not by his own works but through faith in Christ Jesus. On the other hand, every human being who does not believe in Christ Jesus for the forgiveness of sins is and will be charged by God with sin. And as the Scripture says, the soul that sins shall die.

He’ll show the world where it’s wrong concerning righteousness, because I go to my Father and you will not see me any longer. People are generally wrong about righteousness. Most people tend to think of themselves as righteous people, at least righteous enough. They think that just about any actions they do are justified, because they have good reasons for the things they do, or because their feelings led them to it. How can their feelings be wrong? They think their righteousness before God is something they already have, or is something they can achieve. But the Helper shows them where they’re wrong. Jesus is mankind’s only Righteousness. We have none of our own. And He has gone to the Father; He has ascended into heaven. So man’s only access to righteousness, man’s only access to God is through the ministry that Jesus has left behind here on earth, the ministry of the Spirit, the ministry of the Gospel, where God has decided to bestow righteousness on us through Holy Baptism and through faith in His Son, where God has decided to grant us access to Him through Holy Communion, where the body and blood of His Son are truly present. You want righteousness? You can’t have it apart from Jesus, and that means, you can’t have it outside of His Holy Christian Church, where the ascended Christ has placed the ministry of Word and Sacrament.

Finally, He’ll show the world where it’s wrong concerning judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. People are worried about all sorts of things, but not nearly worried enough about God’s judgment. They think they’ll escape it. Many think it will never even happen. They’ve aligned themselves with this world and live for this world. But what they don’t realize, what the Helper reveals, is that the devil is the prince of this world, and that all who live for this world, will also die with this world, and will be punished eternally, together with the devil himself. The only hope of escaping the judgment that’s coming on the world is through repentance and faith in Christ, now, while there’s still time. People aren’t afraid enough of the day of judgment that’s coming. But the Helper will show them where they’re wrong.

But, as I said, He doesn’t do that directly, He does it through the preaching of the Word of God that the Church began to carry out on the day of Pentecost and has been carrying out ever since. It doesn’t mean that the world will accept the Spirit’s rebuke. For the most part, it won’t. Nevertheless, the rebuke must go out. And the Christian Church must and will continue to teach the truth concerning sin, and righteousness, and judgment, even if the preachers of the truth should be again as few as they were at the beginning, where only eleven men in that upper room with Jesus on Maundy Thursday were charged with bringing this truth to the world. Think about that, how impossible it would have been, except for the help of their Advocate, the Holy Spirit of God.

Jesus speaks in our Gospel of another way the Helper would help His apostles. Not only would He help them to preach to the world. He would also help them to understand the truth that had to be preached. When he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. What an important promise that was! As we said, the disciples often didn’t understand the things Jesus taught them. How could they teach others? The Spirit, the Advocate, the Helper would guide them.

Now, this was, first and foremost, a promise made to the eleven apostles. They would form the foundation of the New Testament Church. Their teaching would dictate the doctrine that all Christians are to believe and confess until Jesus returns. So in their preaching and teaching, and, just as importantly, in their writings, they had the promise of divine guidance and inspiration from the Holy Spirit.

That’s why the true Church has always believed in the principle of Sola Scriptura, that Scripture alone—the inspired writings of the Old Testament prophets and New Testament apostles—are the only source of Christian teaching and the only standard by which all other teachings must be judged. That’s why we reject any teachings that don’t have the inspired teaching of the apostles as their source.

But, as the apostle Peter promised, all baptized Christians would also receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, not to contradict the apostles, not to add teachings that the apostles never taught, but to grasp the meaning of the truth that the apostles left behind for us, guided as they were by the Holy Spirit.

Of course, as you know, Christians now exist in dozens of “denominations” and have broad disagreements about what that meaning is, when it comes to several articles of doctrine. Those disagreements never come from the Holy Spirit. He is always pointing toward the truth, and pointing, specifically, toward Jesus to glorify Him. No, all those disagreements always come from the outside, always come from the devil, trying to sow discord and false doctrine into the truth of the Holy Spirit, as men either refuse to believe, in context, the words as they are written, or insist on adding content of their own that isn’t derived from Scripture.

How can we deal with such a situation? How can we identify and cling to the truth? Only by relying on the help of our Advocate, the Holy Spirit of God, who has been given to us, too, as Jesus promised. We have diligently studied the words that the Spirit inspired, and also the witness of the Church from the beginning, and, by the Spirit’s help and guidance, we have come to know that which we believe, teach, and confess, and we’ve also identified many of the teachings that do not agree with the Scriptures, and, therefore, cannot come from the Spirit of God.

Still, it’s a daunting task, to confess the truth in a world that promotes so much that is false, to show the world where it’s wrong, when even many “Christian” churches insist that we’re wrong, to be a tiny little church, with a quiet little voice in the world. It feels very lonely at times. That’s why it’s essential that we cling to Jesus’ promise in today’s Gospel. Because He hasn’t left us alone in the world. He has given us an Advocate, to speak up for us, to guide, comfort, and encourage us—an invisible Advocate, yes, whose voice you can’t hear with your ears. But if you believe in the risen Lord Jesus, whom you can’t see, then believe also in the Advocate whom He promised to send. Our work in this world is simply to believe and to confess the truth that has been revealed to us in the Word of God. The Holy Spirt is the One who will work through it, as He sees fit, to glorify God in Christ, and to build His Holy Church. Amen.

Source: Sermons

Hope for the sorrowful

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Sermon for Midweek of Easter 3

Lamentations 3:18-26

A little while and you will not see Me. And again a little while and you will see Me…You will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy. We heard on Sunday how Jesus prophesied to His beloved apostles the sorrow they would experience for a little while, followed by joy that would be far greater than the sorrow ever was and that would, at least eventually, be permanent.

Sorrow is nothing new for mankind. Sorrow is nothing new for the Christian. Since the Fall into Sin in the Garden of Eden, sorrow is part of the divinely pronounced curse on mankind. The final and complete remedy for sorrow will come when the risen Lord Jesus comes again. Until then, sorrow will still exist, and we learn from the words of the prophets and apostles, not how to escape it, but how to deal with it, and how to look beyond it.

Sorrow is something that the prophet Jeremiah knew all too well. He lived at one of the worst times a believer could ever live in, during the years leading up to and including the destruction of Jerusalem. He witnessed the nation of Israel, which, at that time, was synonymous with the Church of God on earth, utterly disintegrate from within—spiritually, politically, morally, and socially, and then he watched it fall to foreign invaders. And all the while he found himself in a very small minority of people who were still faithful to the God of Israel, while practically all his neighbors had turned away, and were tired of hearing his preaching. Even as I describe Jeremiah’s situation, it strikes me how similar it sounds to our situation today, as we live in the dying days of a republic, and, really, of the world.

And so we get into Jeremiah’s book of Lamentations, which includes three separate laments. The first two chapters are the lament of Jerusalem for herself, Jerusalem personified as a woman, as a virgin daughter who is being justly punished for the sins of her children. So Jerusalem’s lament isn’t a complaint. It’s simply a recognition of how badly things have gone for her because of her own sins and transgressions. She recounts all the disgrace and shame and ruin that she has suffered from unfaithful people within and from unbelieving Babylonians without. This is what it looks like to receive just punishment for one’s sins: utter devastation, being on the receiving end of mockery, abuse, and ridicule; homes in ruin; people literally starving in the streets; dead bodies everywhere.

But that was Jerusalem’s lament for herself, because her people, including her kings and priests, had abandoned the Lord God and turned to idolatry and “self-help” solutions, away from God and His Word. Jerusalem’s lament applies especially to those Christians who have actually abandoned the faith, who have become Christians in name only, or to those Christians who are suffering because of their own sins.

As for Jeremiah, his personal lament begins in chapter three, where our verses are taken from. Jeremiah had been a faithful prophet. He had not abandoned the ways of the Lord. He had not followed the people into idolatry or apostasy. And yet he, too, was suffering greatly. He, too, had to live through the fall of a nation, even though he wasn’t to blame for it, and in addition to that, he had to suffer shame and persecution for preaching the truth God sent him to preach. So his words apply especially to those Christians who are suffering, not directly because of their own sins, but because of the sins of others.

That doesn’t mean they’re sinless, or that they don’t deserve to suffer. The only sinless One who ever suffered was the Lord Jesus. No one’s heart is pure by nature. All people have earned eternal condemnation. But not all suffering and sorrow are punishment for sins. When we suffer because of the sins of others, we call it “discipline” or “testing.” And when we suffer for Christ’s sake, we call it “the cross.”

So it’s in that context of a believer in God, a child of God, being sorrowful and having to suffer for the sins of others, that our text begins. Jeremiah writes: And I said, “My strength and my hope Have perished from the LORD.” He said that after recounting, in the first 17 verses of chapter 3, the many ways in which the Lord had caused him to suffer. And, yes, even though it was the fault of the impenitent and unbelieving, it was still the Lord who caused Jeremiah to pass through it rather than rescue him from it. At the end of it, Jeremiah felt like he had no strength left, no hope left from the Lord. He was near despair, which is utter hopelessness. That’s how he felt.

But he also knew that what he felt wasn’t quite true (which is often the case!). If it were true, then there would be no point in going on, and certainly no point in praying. But he does go on to pray: Remember my affliction and roaming, the wormwood and the gall (that is, the bitterness I have had to endure). Remember! It’s not as if the Lord forgot anything. He isn’t capable of forgetting. The cry for the Lord to remember something is a cry for sympathy, a cry for compassion. Because, of all the attributes of the Lord, mercy or compassion is the one that is triggered by us, triggered by our wretchedness, or by our need and our inability to help ourselves in our need. Asking God to remember our neediness or our wretchedness is a way of asking Him to have mercy on us.

My soul still remembers and sinks within me. Jeremiah can’t forget the things he has been through. He remembers, and it still pains him, how the pagan Babylonians had ravaged the capital city of God’s kingdom, how his fellow Israelites laughed at him, rejected the word that God gave him to preach, and then persecuted him and threw him in a pit, and eventually dragged him off to Egypt instead of letting him live in peace under the Babylonians. He doesn’t deny the suffering he’s been through. He remembers, and his soul sinks.

But, again, he knows it’s not the whole story. This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope. Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. This is the answer to sorrow. This is the remedy and that which restores hope, to recall to our minds the LORD’s mercies, the Lord’s compassions. Plural. Because it’s not just His attribute of being merciful and compassionate, which He is, but it’s all the many evidences of His mercy and compassion throughout history and throughout our lives. Those mercies are inexhaustible. They’re new every morning. Many of them have been recorded in Holy Scripture. Some of them we have witnessed here together at Emmanuel. And some of them you have individually seen in your own life, how the Lord has shown mercy to you, how He has upheld you in hard times and brought you through them in His faithfulness to His baptismal promise to you, to forgive you your sins, to save you, to be your God, and to work all things together for your good.

“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I hope in Him!” My “portion” is hard for us to grasp without understanding what a portion meant to an Old Testament Israelite. An Israelite’s portion was the piece of land in Israel, in the territory of the Promised Land, that each person or each family received as an inheritance. It belonged to no one else, only to that family. It was given to them by God as part of the inheritance He had promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, given through Moses and Joshua, for that family to live there forever. They had a claim to it. It was their most treasured possession. It was their heritage that they received and then passed on to the coming generations. Well, here Jeremiah speaks as the Psalmists often speak. He calls the LORD Yahweh His portion, which is like saying his treasure, the thing he treasures more than anything else in the world. He has the LORD as his own God, the God of his past, present, and future, the God who has promised that the sorrow will soon be replaced with everlasting joy. Therefore I will hope in Him!

Therefore you should hope in Him, too, because, in Holy Baptism, the same LORD gave Himself to you as your portion, as your heritage. You can call Him your own, even as He calls you His own beloved child. And if He is your true treasure, and if no one can take Him away from you, then even if you lose everything else, you still have your true treasure. And so you have reason to hope, and to rejoice.

The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, To the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should hope and wait quietly For the salvation of the LORD. Yes, a part of hope, by definition, is waiting. Waiting for the Lord to do what He has promised to do. Waiting for the sorrow to be turned into joy. Waiting is hard. Waiting quietly is perhaps even harder. But sometimes there’s nothing you can do about a problem, and waiting is all you can do. Well, it turns out that waiting is all you need to do. Waiting, and seeking the LORD while you wait for His help. Seeking Him in His Word and Sacraments. Seeking Him by seeking to walk according to commandments while you wait for His salvation to be revealed. You may have to wait a while, but remember what Jesus said in Sunday’s Gospel. It will only be “a little while.” And then you will see Him. And your heart will rejoice. Amen.

 

Source: Sermons