The tasks ahead for Christ and His Church

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Sermon for the Ascension of our Lord

Acts 1:1-11  +  Mark 16:14-20

Between Mark’s Gospel and Luke’s account in the book of Acts, we get a pretty well-rounded picture of the time Jesus spent on and off with His disciples after He rose from the dead. Mark condenses it all into a single account, as if it all happened at once. But Luke makes it clear that the various things happened over the course of 40 days, between Resurrection Sunday and Ascension Thursday, as Jesus instructed His disciples about the tasks that Christians would be carrying out after His departure, during this time between His Ascension and His coming again. But if we pull together other sayings of Jesus, and of St. Paul in his Epistles, we see an outline of the tasks ahead, not only for the Church, but for Christ Himself after His ascension.

After Jesus had convinced the eleven apostles on Easter Sunday (and the week after) that He had truly risen from the dead, He immediately began giving them instructions for the tasks that awaited them in the days ahead, following His Ascension. One of those instructions, which applied only to the apostles and believers at that time, was this: To not depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, “which,” he said, “you have heard from me. For John baptized with water; but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

Now, this was, by far, the easiest task Christians would have to do: simply wait. Wait to be “baptized” with the Holy Spirit. Why did Jesus call it a baptism? Not to replace water baptism, since, before His ascension, He Himself had instituted water Baptism and connected a promise of salvation to it: Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And it wasn’t to institute a “second baptism” that all Christians are to undergo. No, this would be a special gift, the gift of the Holy Spirit, given on the Day of Pentecost, ten days after the Ascension, a gift that would “bathe” them, be “poured out” on them, which is what the word “baptize” really means. But once the Spirit was poured out on the Church, from that time forward, water Baptism included the gift of the Holy Spirit. This is what St. Peter promised to the crowds on Pentecost, “Repent and be baptized…and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” This is why Baptism is called the “washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,” and why the baptized are said to be “born of water and the Spirit.” We’ll say more about that two Sundays from now.

At that point, the apostles still didn’t understand the tasks Jesus was leaving to them, or the tasks He would be doing. Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? His answer is important. It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father has established by his own authority. It’s not for you to know the timing of God’s plans for the future. Imagine, if the apostles had known it would be some 2,000 years or more before Christ would return. They weren’t supposed to know at that time that earthly Israel would never have the kingdom restored to it, how the nation of Israel was going to keep rejecting the Gospel of Christ, for the most part, and would therefore fade into irrelevance. They weren’t supposed to know that yet, because it would have hindered their preaching to Israel. They weren’t supposed to understand fully how the kingdom of heaven was actually going to incorporate Jews and Gentiles into a new and spiritual Israel, which is the Holy Christian Church. They weren’t supposed to know how God would turn disasters into blessings, or persecutions into growth for the Church. They understood these things eventually, with the Holy Spirit’s guidance, but not yet. It wasn’t their task to know those plans or to plan for those things. It’s not for us to know the timing of God’s plans, either, or to figure out the methods the Lord will use to direct the events of the earth for the building of His Church. That isn’t your task.

It was their task, as apostles, to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, to be my witnesses, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. It was their task, and it’s still the Church’s task, to baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, to teach all nations to observe everything Christ has commanded you, to “do this,” to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, “in remembrance” of Him. It is every Christian’s task to “watch and pray,” to be “sanctified in love,” to “lead holy lives,” to be “imitators of God, as dearly loved children.” It is your task, as Paul writes to the Thessalonians, to “wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.”

All those tasks have been given by Christ to His Church to carry out during this time between His Ascension and His coming at the end of the age, all with the presence, strength, and guidance that His Holy Spirit will continue to provide. And it’s more than enough to keep us busy until Christ comes, whether it’s very, very soon, or whether it’s not during our earthly lifetime.

But He will come. He promised it, and so did the angel on the day of Christ’s Ascension. After Jesus was lifted up into the sky and hidden from the apostles’ sight, two men, two angels, in white clothing stood by them. And they said, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing here looking up into heaven? This same Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

What does it mean that Jesus was “lifted up” and “hidden from their sight”? It means that Christ, the Head of the Church, would no longer dwell visibly with His Church, which is His body. And yet, the Head hasn’t been severed from the body, as if the Church were now decapitated. He remains the Head, firmly attached to His body, only invisibly. He is by no means far away. On the contrary, St. Paul wrote to the Ephesians, He is the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things. And, God gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

But what are some of the tasks ahead for Christ, our Head? Well, they’re all summarized by the phrase, “seated at the right hand of God.” As Mark writes, So, then, after the Lord had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. As we just heard from St. Paul, that’s not a “place” or “location” where Christ is enclosed, far away from us. It’s a position of power and authority as Christ “fills all things.” Paul says in Ephesians, God raised Christ from the dead and 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 what does He do with that power and authority? His first task was to pour out the gift with which He had promised to “baptize” His apostles. As Peter said, Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear.

What else does Scripture tell us about Christ’s tasks at God’s right hand? St. Paul comforts the Romans with this truth: 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. That means that all who repent of their sins and look to Christ for forgiveness and deliverance from God’s righteous judgment have an Advocate before the Father at all times and never need to fear, as long as they keep looking to Christ in faith.

Jesus Himself had told His disciples earlier about one of His tasks after His ascension: In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. Even now, Christ Jesus, seated at the right hand of the Father, is fulfilling this promise, seeing to it that you are guarded and guided through this life, seeing to it that you have everything you need to persevere in the faith, including access to the Means of Grace, to Word and Sacrament, so that you reach the mansions of heaven, as long as you use those means and don’t despise them.

In order to provide you with the Means of Grace so that you safely reach that place He’s preparing for you in heaven, the ascended Lord Christ also carries out another task. Paul writes, When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men…He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. The existence of pastors is no accident, and no human design. The ministry exists in the Church because Christ gives it from the right hand of God as His tool and instrument for creating and strengthening faith. As Peter says, God has exalted Christ to His right hand to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins, so that, even though the ministry is carried out by men and the Church is built and nourished and preserved through the ministry of men, Jesus could rightfully say, on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. He even confirmed the preaching of the original ministers He had sent by empowering them to perform miraculous signs, as you heard at the end of the Gospel: They went forth and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them, confirming the word with the accompanying signs.

Finally, the ascended Christ carries out another task in which we can take great comfort. Psalm 110 says, The LORD said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool.” And Paul adds in 1 Cor., For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. Do you see the enemies gathering against the Church of Christ? They’re everywhere. The devil rages. The world grows fiercer and fiercer. It’s as Isaiah prophesied:       Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away; for truth has stumbled in the public squares, and uprightness cannot enter. Truth is lacking, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. But at the right hand of God sits the ascended Lord Christ, who invisibly wages war against His enemies, so that, although they devise evil and carry out wicked plans, it must all serve for the good of those who love Him, until He conquers every enemy at His glorious return.

So truly you have nothing to worry about, nothing to fear. Your Savior reigns at the right hand of God, faithfully carrying out His tasks. So instead of worrying, instead of trying to figure everything out, just go about your own God-given tasks and wait just a little while longer. When all the tasks are finished, Christ will come again, and the reckoning will begin, and those who are still found as living stones in His holy Church will finally see the Head of the Church, to whom you’ve been united through faith all this time. And the Church and her Head will live together as Bride and Groom, happily ever after. It’s a true story. Believe it! And rejoice! Amen.

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Pray to the Father, because He loves you!

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Sermon for Rogate – Easter 5

James 1:22-27  +  John 16:23-30

The National Day of Prayer came and went again this week in our country. You probably didn’t even notice, and that’s okay. The president is required each year to sign a proclamation, calling upon the citizens of the United States to pray for our country. But, who can pray? Whose prayers are acceptable to God, and whose prayers are an abomination to Him? Jesus answers those questions in today’s Gospel, for this Sunday that is historically called “Rogate Sunday” which means “Pray!” or “Ask!” Because the Church didn’t need any human Congress (or king or president) to pass a law telling us to pray. We have the only encouragement we need, coming directly from the Lord Jesus. Let’s reflect on His words in today’s Gospel.

First He mentions a different kind of asking: In that day, you will not ask me anything. “That day,” if you look back a few verses, is referring to the joyful day that begins with His resurrection from the dead and continues until the end of the world. During this time, Jesus says to His disciples, “You won’t ask Me anything.” What does He mean?

First, remember that Jesus’ disciples had been asking Him many things already on this Maundy Thursday evening, starting with Peter’s objection, “Lord, are You washing my feet?” Then, “Lord, who is it who will betray You? Where are You going? Why can I not follow You now? How can we know the way to where You’re going? How is it that You will manifest Yourself to us, and not to the world?” And then there was the question they wanted to ask, but they were too ashamed to keep asking questions. “What is this He says, ‘A little while’? We don’t know what He’s saying.” Question after question. Because they understood so little of what He was saying to them.

Many things Jesus said to His disciples on that night were rather cryptic. As He says here in our text, I have spoken these things to you figuratively. He was intentionally not saying things plainly, because things still had to play out in a certain way over the next few days. But after His resurrection from the dead, and especially after the Holy Spirit came on the Day of Pentecost, they wouldn’t be so confused anymore. They wouldn’t have to keep asking Jesus about the things He had said. The Spirit would teach them, and then they, through their preaching and writing, would teach us! It’s through the Holy Spirit that Jesus kept His promise to His disciples, The time is coming, however, when I will no longer speak to you figuratively, but I will tell you plainly about the Father. They wouldn’t be asking Him questions anymore. First, because, after His ascension, Jesus wouldn’t be there with them in the room anymore, as He had been until this time. But that’s okay. He would tell them about the Father, even after His ascension, through the teaching that the Holy Spirit would do.

But there’s another kind of asking that Jesus wants them—and us!—to do. 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!, Jesus says. Pray! Ask the Father for things. And do it “in My name,” Jesus says. And He will give it to you. That’s a promise. But everything hinges on what it means to ask “in Jesus’ name.”

It doesn’t mean tacking on the words “in Jesus’ name” to the end of our prayers. “Father, I ask You for $1 million, in Jesus’ name.” Don’t expect to receive $1 million. In fact, don’t pray that way at all, because it’s a lie. You can’t ask for money in Jesus’ name. Why not? Because it’s not something Jesus taught you to pray for, nor is it something for which Jesus Himself ever prayed. To ask in Jesus’ name means to ask as if Jesus were the one asking the Father for it. You’ve heard the acronym, WWJD? “What would Jesus do?” Here it’s WWJAF. What would Jesus ask for?

You don’t have to guess. You just have to know Jesus from the Gospels. And from all of Scripture, for that matter, especially the Psalms. You have to know how He prayed, what His will is, how He has taught God’s people to pray all along. And how did Jesus pray? With perfect, childlike trust in His heavenly Father, trusting in His goodness, trusting Him to hear, trusting Him to care, and trusting in His wisdom to do what was best.

Knowing the Lord’s Prayer helps you to pray in Jesus’ name, because He’s the one who taught us how to pray. When Christians pray the Lord’s Prayer, we’re always praying in Jesus’ name, which means we have Jesus’ promise that the Father will grant our petitions.

When we pray for any of the things God has promised in His Word, for the things He’s told us He wants us to have, we’re praying in Jesus’ name. And when we pray for things that God hasn’t told us He wants us to have, for example, when Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane that the Father would take that cup of suffering away from Him, we add, together with Jesus, “yet not my will, but Your will be done.” And so we are praying then, too, in Jesus’ name.

But a very important part of praying in Jesus’ name is knowing and trusting in Jesus as the One who came forth from the Father to be our Savior, as the one who is true God, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit. An atheist can’t ask for anything in Jesus’ name, just as no non-Christians can pray for anything in Jesus’ name. Their prayers are unacceptable to God the Father, who is well-pleased in His beloved Son and who is filled with righteous anger toward those who reject His beloved Son.

What’s even worse than trying to approach the Father apart from Jesus is when a person who has no faith in Jesus attempts to pray to God, using the name of Jesus as a disguise for his own wickedness. So, for example, when the current president of the United States, who, by his own words and actions, has proven himself to be an unbeliever, claims to know the Lord, He is taking the Lord’s name in vain. When he quotes from Holy Scripture, as he did this week again in proclaiming the National Day of Prayer, when he speaks of his Christian faith, he is breaking the Second Commandment and committing the sin of blasphemy and the sin of deception. Yes, those are strong words, strong accusations. But the current president (and, to be frank, the vast majority of those in his political party, along with a sizable number of people in the other political parties as well), openly opposes the Lord Jesus Christ and His teachings, even as he tries to deceive people into viewing him as a Christian. But the Father sees the truth. He sees their impenitence, their unbelief, and their hardened hearts. And He shuts His ears to anything they ask of Him.

On the other hand, to those who believe in Jesus, this is what He says: In that day you will ask in my name. I am not telling you that I will ask the Father for you. For the Father himself loves you. See what Jesus is saying here! You shouldn’t think of God the Father as a distant being out there in the universe. Nor should you think of Him as an angry Judge, or as someone who’s so busy He doesn’t have time for you. He is an angry Judge toward sinners who remain in their sin and impenitence. But to you who have loved and believed in Jesus, whom the Father sent to save you from your sins, the Father is not angry, or distant, or unapproachable. On the contrary, Jesus reveals this amazing reality: the Father loves you.

Now, this isn’t the same word used in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world.” That’s a different kind of love, a love that seeks to help people not because of who they are but in spite of who they are, a love that drives God to do good even to the wicked, to sacrifice His Son even for His enemies, in order that they might become His children. No, here in this text the word for “love” is the love of befriending, the love of friendship, of common interests, of “liking” and appreciating someone. And Jesus says to His disciples that God the Father has that kind of love for them, for you, because you have loved me, Jesus says, and have believed that I came forth from God. “You have loved Me.” Same word. The Father not only accepts us through faith in Jesus. He has befriended us because we have befriended Jesus. We consider Him our friend. We appreciate who He is and why He came, and so His Father smiles on us and appreciates who we are, too.

Of course, who we are is who He is making us to be, by His Spirit. It’s the Father who draws people to Jesus, as He said earlier in the Gospel of John: No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him. So if you love and believe in Jesus as the Son of God who was sent from the Father to be your Savior, then it’s because the Father drew you to Him by His Spirit in the first place. And now that He has drawn you, and called you by His Gospel, and brought you into the Church of His beloved Son, He wants you to know that He loves you, and that you always have His ear. You should never think that you can’t approach God the Father with a request, whether big or small. You should never think that He’s too busy, or that He doesn’t care, or that you aren’t as important to Him as other people are, as if you needed to pray to them, to the “important people,” so that they could go to the Father on your behalf. No, if you love and believe in Jesus, then the Father loves you and tells you to ask, in Jesus’ name, so that you may receive, and so that your joy may be full, because the God of heaven has given you free access to Him. Now just remember to use it! Amen.

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The Lord demands that we acknowledge the truth

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Sermon for Midweek of Easter 4

Isaiah 46:1-13

Throughout Jesus’ state of humiliation, from His conception to His burial in the tomb, God revealed to us His humility and His meekness. But meekness and humility are not His only traits. In Isaiah 46, the LORD “boasts” about Himself, in a sense. We usually think of boasting as something negative, as a character flaw. But it’s not a flaw when our God does it. When He speaks of His greatness, He’s simply speaking the truth, and, at times, defending the truth against those who don’t wish to accept it, against those who worship false gods. Such is the case in this short chapter, where the Lord demands that we acknowledge the truth of His greatness in actually doing something to deliver His people, unlike the false gods of the nations.

We meet two of the false gods in the Babylonians here in Isaiah 46: Bel and Nebo. Bel was one of their important gods. You see his name reflected in “Belshazzar,” the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar who was eventually overthrown by the Cyrus the Persian. He’s also known as Marduk, as he’s referred to in the book of Jeremiah. Bel was their sky-god and the supreme ruler of the gods. Nebo or Nabu was another Babylonian god, the son of Bel and the god of wisdom. You see his name reflected in the name Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king who destroyed Jerusalem and took the Jews captive in the first place. What does Isaiah say about Bel and Nebo?

Bel bows down, Nebo stoops; Their idols were on the beasts and on the cattle. Your carriages were heavily loaded, A burden to the weary beast. They stoop, they bow down together; They could not deliver the burden, But have themselves gone into captivity.

Normally it’s people bowing or stooping down before their god. But, in utter shame and disgrace, the statues of Bel and Nebo would be the ones “bowing down” to the Lord, because, when the Persians came in and conquered Babylon, they took the Babylonian statues of their gods and laid them face down on a cart pulled by animals through the city, as a display of shame and disgrace. The Babylonians had hoped in their gods to deliver them and carry them to victory, but instead their gods were carried away into captivity, as the Lord predicts in these verses.

“Listen to Me, O house of Jacob, And all the remnant of the house of Israel, Who have been upheld by Me from birth, Who have been carried from the womb: Even to your old age, I am He, And even to gray hairs I will carry you! I have made, and I will bear; Even I will carry, and will deliver you.

Now the Lord reminds what’s left of the people of Israel who He is, who the true God is. He reminds them: I have upheld you from birth. I gave birth to you, I’ve carried you since that time, and I will still be the one carrying you in your old age. We can certainly apply those beautiful words to how God carries individual believers in His fatherly arms. But these words are spoken here directly to the nation of Israel as a whole, as God’s “son” to whom He had “given birth” by choosing Jacob and making him in a great nation, how He preserved that nation through slavery in Egypt, through the conquest of Canaan, through all the bitter enemies who had threatened them and through all the wretched kings who had ruled over them. The Lord was the One who had carried them, as on eagles’ wings, and He promises to keep doing it “even to gray hairs.”

And He did, returning them safely to the land of Canaan, delivering and carrying them through still more hardships in the coming centuries, all the way up to the coming of Christ. At that point the Israel that has God’s promise of continual deliverance is not a biological nation, but a spiritual one. It’s to His Holy Christian Church that this promise now applies, to whom God speaks, “Even to gray hairs I will carry you! I have made you, I will carry you, I will deliver you.”

“To whom will you liken Me, and make Me equal And compare Me, that we should be alike? They lavish gold out of the bag, And weigh silver on the scales; They hire a goldsmith, and he makes it a god; They prostrate themselves, yes, they worship. They bear it on the shoulder, they carry it And set it in its place, and it stands; From its place it shall not move. Though one cries out to it, yet it cannot answer Nor save him out of his trouble.

Here’s another example of the gods being carried instead of being able to carry. People carry around a bag of gold. They hire someone to make a god out of it. Then they carry around their god on their should, set it up, and leave it there. It doesn’t move. It can’t move. It doesn’t lift a finger to help them, even if they cry out to it really loud. But no one has carried the Lord around. He is the one who carries His people. And He does move to deliver them. He acted in history to save Israel from Babylon. But more than that, He acted in history to descend to the earth in the Person of His Son, whose every action was the movement of God to save sinful mankind. Seriously, to whom will you liken God? To whom can anyone compare Him?

“Remember this, and show yourselves men; Recall to mind, O you transgressors. Remember the former things of old, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure,’ Calling a bird of prey from the east, The man who executes My counsel, from a far country. Indeed I have spoken it; I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed it; I will also do it.

Acknowledge the truth, God says to His people, especially to those who had been denying it. He is the only true God, the only God who actually speaks to His people, who acts for His people, who delivers His people, and who told them ahead of time that He would do it, from the deliverance from Egypt, which He had told Abraham about ahead of time, to the conquest of Canaan, to the captivity in Babylon, to the return from captivity (which God alludes to here again as He calls His “bird of prey from the East,” that is, Cyrus, to defeat the Babylonians), to the birth, life, death, and resurrection of the Christ. What is it that separates Christianity from every other religion? It’s the fact that Christianity is based on truth, that which agrees with reality. It’s a historical religion, with historical writings, and with a God who has acted in human history and who even became a part of human history.

“Listen to Me, you stubborn-hearted, Who are far from righteousness: I bring My righteousness near, it shall not be far off; My salvation shall not delay. And I will place salvation in Zion, For Israel My glory.

Listen to Me, God says. He demands that unbelievers set aside their stubbornness and acknowledge the truth. He is the true God. And interacts with His people and comes to their aid. He placed salvation—His Son, the Christ—in Zion. And now He places His salvation in the spiritual Zion, in the Church that preaches the Gospel of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Here in His Church, here through His Son, God offers His salvation, to you, and to all! That’s the truth! Amen.

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The Holy Spirit, the Truth-Teller

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Sermon for Cantate – Easter 4

James 1:16-21  +  John 16:5-15

As we said last week, these weeks leading up to the celebration of Jesus Ascension into heaven focus on His words spoken in the upper room, before heading out to the Garden of Gethsemane. He’s preparing His disciples for some of the challenges we’ll face in the world, before He returns at the end of the age. And the greatest help that the Church will have during this age is the help of the Holy Spirit. People today think wrongly of the Holy Spirit as a feeling that moves through the building, or as a divine whisper in the ear, or as a burden on the heart. Or, people think that the Holy Spirit is here to enable people to speak in tongues or perform some other miracle. But the role of the Holy Spirit, according to Jesus, has nothing to do with those former feelings, and very little to do with those latter signs. At first, on the Day of Pentecost and at various times during the lifetime of the apostles, the Spirit’s presence was accompanied with mighty outward signs of His presence. But those signs were never His primary work. Jesus talks about two of the main works of the Holy Spirit in today’s Gospel, and these works continue throughout this New Testament period. They’re vital for the Church in this world. There is a work He does toward the world, and there is a work He does toward the Christian, and both revolve around truth-telling, because the “Spirit of truth,” as Jesus calls Him in today’s Gospel, is the true Truth-Teller.

Jesus begins by comforting His disciples in today’s Gospel. They were sad to hear that He would be going away (speaking, again, about His ascension into heaven, which would take place within 43 days). But He assures them, 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. Here we run across this title of the Holy Spirit, which means “Helper” or “Intercessor” or “Advocate” or “Comforter.” It can even have the sense of “Attorney,” and that’s essentially the work that Jesus describes in the next few verses. The Holy Spirit is like an attorney representing Jesus’ disciples, like a prosecuting attorney who makes His case against the unbelieving world.

When he comes, he will convict the world regarding sin, and regarding righteousness, and regarding judgment. Regarding sin, because they do not believe in me; regarding righteousness, because I go to my Father and you will not see me any longer; regarding judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. The word “convict” here means to speak the truth against someone, to speak the truth revealing the crimes someone has committed. And that’s what the Holy Spirit does toward the unbelieving world, not as a voice calling down from heaven, but through the preaching of the Word of God that is carried out in the world. The Holy Spirit, Jesus promises, will be working when God’s Word is preached, speaking the truth, whether the world accepts it as truth or not.

He will convict the world regarding sin, because they do not believe in me. The truth-telling Spirit speaks the truth against the world concerning their sins, because people deny their sinfulness before God. They refuse to accept God’s judgment about what’s right and wrong. And so the Spirit of truth comes along and reveals the sins that the world refuses to recognize: the sin of worshiping false gods, the sin of atheism, the sin of making up your own religion and your own “truth,” the sin of badmouthing other people and ruining their reputation, the sin of lying, the sin of coveting what doesn’t belong to you, and all the sexual sins that the world indulges in.

But the greatest sin revealed by the Holy Spirit is to not believe in Jesus as the Christ and as the Savior of the world. It’s the greatest sin, because Jesus is the Father’s greatest gift to the world, because when a person repents of his sins and believes in the Lord Jesus, all his grievous sins are washed away. But where there is no repentance and faith in Christ, then all a person’s sins are still charged to his or her account. And there will be no escaping the truth on the Last Day.

He will convict the world regarding righteousness, because I go to my Father and you will not see me any longer. The truth-telling Spirit will speak the truth against the world concerning righteousness, because no one knows what it truly is. People have their own ideas of righteousness. All the people fighting for the climate, or fighting for a woman’s right to have an abortion, or fighting for illegal immigrants, or defending homosexuality or drag queen shows, or engaging in angry, violent protests—all these people think their causes are righteous, making them righteous. But they aren’t.

Or take just your average people of the world, who do the best they can in the world. They work hard. They don’t bother anyone. They take care of their families. And many think they’re righteous because of that. But the truth revealed by the Holy Spirit is that true righteousness, the kind that God recognizes, begins with worshiping the true God and serving Him only, fearing, loving, and trusting in Him above all things. It continues with honoring His Word and the preaching of it. True righteousness then continues with loving your neighbor as God defines love. True righteousness is wrapped up in Jesus Christ, who is called in Scripture the Righteous One. It isn’t to be found in anyone else, including ourselves. It’s to be found in Jesus whom we don’t see, because He has gone to the Father, but whose ministry is still offered to us in Word and Sacrament. Here is righteousness and the forgiveness of sins, in the Gospel of Christ crucified, risen, and ascended. But the world won’t seek God’s righteousness there, and so the Spirit of truth speaks against the world’s idea of righteousness.

He will convict the world regarding judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. The truth-telling Spirit will speak the truth against the world when it comes to judgment. Not only do people claim that their sins aren’t sins. Not only do they claim to be righteous. But they also try to convince themselves that they won’t have to face God’s judgment in the end, that there is no divine judgment. There is only the here and now. But the prince of the here and now, the devil, is already judged. And God’s judgment will come upon this world, and each individual will face God’s judgment when we die. If you’re found at the judgment to be on the side of the prince of this world, then you will share his fate. But if you’re found to be taking refuge by faith in Christ Jesus, then you will stand in the judgment, and you’ll share in the victory of Christ the King.

Now, all of that will be going on during this entire New Testament period, that work of the Holy Spirit, revealing the truth to the world about the futility of unbelief. The world has tried and will try to silence that truth, to not let it be spoken or heard. But the Spirit will see to it that the truth is told, no matter what.

The other work of the Holy Spirit highlighted here by Jesus is His work among the Christians themselves. When he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth, for he will not speak from himself; but whatever he hears, that he will speak, and he will reveal to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take of what is mine and proclaim it to you. That work was first fulfilled among the apostles. The “speaking” that Jesus refers to here isn’t an audible kind of speaking, but the “speaking” of opening their minds and helping them to understand the meaning of the Old Testament prophecies, and of the words of Jesus Himself, allowing them to preach and teach, and eventually write down in the New Testament Gospels and Epistles, not their own ideas about what it all meant, but the truth of what it all meant. The truth-telling Spirit would “guide them into all truth.”

The Holy Spirit still carries on that work in the hearts and minds of Christians, helping us to understand the Word of God, to hear the truth and to recognize it as truth. But notice the Spirit’s focus: “He will glorify Me,” Jesus says. The Spirit isn’t out there giving random guidance about life, or about the future. He’s guiding us to know Jesus rightly and so to glorify Him in truth. That’s one way you can tell that the modern Pentecostal teachers are false teachers, because they put so much emphasis on the Holy Spirit that Jesus becomes almost an afterthought. That does not bring glory to Him. It’s also how you can tell that all these modern Christians going on and on about modern Israel as God’s chosen people are following a false spirit, not the Holy Spirit. It brings no glory to Jesus to express Christian solidarity with a nation that rejects Jesus and His Word. On the contrary, such teachings rob Christ of His glory and mislead countless Christians to minimize Jesus, and to support unbelief and earthly-mindedness instead.

But if we rely on the truth that the Holy Spirit has already told, the truth recorded in Holy Scripture, then we will not be so easily misled with the guidance of a false spirit. The better we know the Word of God and listen to the Word of God, the better we’ll be able to recognize and follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

There are other works of the Holy Spirit that we’ll talk about over the coming weeks. But for today, give thanks to the Lord Jesus for these two works of the truth-telling Helper: first, for His truth-telling against the unbelieving world, which is the enemy of Christians. How do we deal with this enemy? Not with hatred. Not with anger. Certainly not with violence. But by relying on the word and power of God the Holy Spirit, who enables us to speak the truth in love, and who will see to it that the truth is heard, if not always believed. And, second, give thanks for the Spirit’s truth-telling among us, guiding us to recognize which teachings are true and which ones aren’t. We will face many challenges in these days leading up to Christ’s return, challenges from the unbelieving world, challenges in understanding God’s Word rightly amid all the false teachings and unbelief surrounding us. But we will also have the continual presence of God’s Holy Spirit, the Helper promised by Jesus. Rely on His help, and give thanks for it! Because the truth will prevail in the end! God will see to it.  Amen.

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For enlightening the Gentiles and for glory to Israel

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Sermon for Midweek of Easter 3

Isaiah 45:14-25

Every Sunday, after Communion, we sing the Nunc Dimittis, where Simeon praises God for revealing to him the Christ, who is the salvation which God had prepared before the face of all peoples, a light for enlightening the Gentiles and for glory to His people Israel. What we have in our verses this evening from the second half of Isaiah 45 is essentially saying the same thing as Simeon. It’s God’s promise to bring the Gentiles into His plan of salvation and to bring glory to Israel in the process.

Thus says the LORD: “The labor of Egypt and merchandise of Cush And of the Sabeans, men of stature, Shall come over to you, and they shall be yours; They shall walk behind you, They shall come over in chains; And they shall bow down to you. They will make supplication to you, saying, ‘Surely God is in you, And there is no other; There is no other God.’ ”

God has just informed the captive Israelites in Babylon that He will surely be sending Cyrus to deliver them back to their homeland, back to Jerusalem and Judea. But with their return from captivity would come even greater blessings. He mentions Egypt and the surrounding nations here, coming over to Israel, yielding to Israel, humbling themselves before Israel, pleading to them for a place in Israel. Why? Because “surely God is among you, and there is no other God.”

The Egyptians here are symbolic of all Gentile nations. And the coming over to Israel is also symbolic. This is not God promising Israel an earthly kingdom to which all the secular governments of the world must submit. He’s promising that the Gentiles would come into God’s Church and seek salvation in the only place where it was to be found: among the people of Israel, from whom the Christ would come. And the Gentiles would acknowledge Israel’s God—including Jesus Christ, the Son of God—to be the true God.

Truly You are God, who hide Yourself, O God of Israel, the Savior!

This is the confession of all of us who have come to Israel, to the people from whom Christ came. We Gentiles have recognized Israel—Old Testament Israel—to be God’s chosen people, who preserved His Word and His religion long enough for Jesus, the world’s Savior, to be born. We have rejected the pagan gods of our pagan ancestors and have come to know the true God as the One who revealed Himself to Israel. In that sense, He is a God who hides Himself. Yes, He reveals many things about Himself in nature, things that all the Gentiles could recognize: that He is all-powerful, wise, kind, righteous, and eternal. But the true God can’t truly be known except to the extent that He reveals Himself to us in His Word. Part of His governance of the world included hiding Himself from the Gentiles for a time, and even now He remains mostly hidden from all men. But He revealed enough of Himself to Israel that both they and we could know a small part of His greatness, and all we need to know about His plan to save us through His Son, Jesus Christ, who is a light for enlightening the Gentiles and for bringing glory to Israel.

Isaiah continues: They shall be ashamed and also disgraced, all of them; They shall go in confusion together, Who are makers of idols. But Israel shall be saved by the LORD with an everlasting salvation; You shall not be ashamed or disgraced forever and ever.

The Lord assures Israel that the Gentile idolaters, including all who had oppressed them in the past, would be put to shame, that the victory of the unbelievers would be temporary, while the salvation of Israel through the coming Christ would be eternal.

In the next set of verses, God assures the people of Israel that He means what He says about this plan of salvation, for enlightening the Gentiles and for bringing glory to Israel.

For thus says the LORD, Who created the heavens, Who is God, Who formed the earth and made it, Who has established it, Who did not create it in vain, Who formed it to be inhabited: “I am the LORD, and there is no other. I have not spoken in secret, In a dark place of the earth; I did not say to the seed of Jacob, ‘Seek Me in vain’; I, the LORD, speak righteousness, I declare things that are right.

The Lord did not create the heavens and the earth in vain, for no purpose. He made them so that the earth might be inhabited. In the same way, He hasn’t been telling Israel for the last thousand years to seek Him in vain, for no purpose, so that He can abandon them now. No, they’re about to find out that their trust in Him was well-placed when He carries out this plan of salvation, for enlightening the Gentiles and for bringing glory to Israel.

“Assemble yourselves and come; Draw near together, You who have escaped from the nations. They have no knowledge, Who carry the wood of their carved image, And pray to a god that cannot save. Tell and bring forth your case; Yes, let them take counsel together. Who has declared this from ancient time? Who has told it from that time? Have not I, the LORD? And there is no other God besides Me, A just God and a Savior; There is none besides Me.

The Lord’s words here to “you who have escaped from the nations” can be applied equally to Israel, who was about to escape from their captivity in Babylon, and to the Gentiles who have escaped from their captivity to idolatry and have found the true God among the people of Israel. God challenges them all to compare Him with the idols of the nations, and to recognize that He is the only true God, the true Governor of the world, and also a righteous God and a Savior God, who isn’t like the gods that the nations worship—gods that demand sacrifices for their own benefit and honor. No, our God instituted sacrifices among the people of Israel for their benefit, to make them aware of their sins, so that they might one day put their faith in God’s great sacrifice of His own Son on the cross. Truly there is no God or Savior besides Him.

Finally, God calls out to all the world with this saving invitation, “Look to Me, and be saved, All you ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. I have sworn by Myself; The word has gone out of My mouth in righteousness, And shall not return, That to Me every knee shall bow, Every tongue shall take an oath. He shall say, ‘Surely in the LORD I have righteousness and strength. To Him men shall come, And all shall be ashamed Who are incensed against Him. In the LORD all the descendants of Israel Shall be justified, and shall glory.’ ”

This grand invitation goes out to all mankind: All are invited! All are welcome! Come, and acknowledge the Lord God of Israel as the true God! Acknowledge His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, as your Savior from sin! Come and bow down before Him in faith, and you will be grafted into the believing descendants of Israel. In Christ you will be justified and glorified! But, if you will not, if you, whether Jew or Gentile, refuse to believe in this God and in His Son Jesus Christ, understand that whoever sets himself against the Lord will bow down before the Lord Christ, not in worship, but in shame.

The invitation was there already in the Book of Isaiah. But it wasn’t until the days of old Simeon that the Lord actually brought His salvation into the world, and by God’s grace, Simeon recognized it as he held the baby Jesus in his arms. Here it was, the salvation that God had promised so long ago through the prophet Isaiah, the One who would be a Light for enlightening the Gentiles and for bringing glory to the people of Israel, the One before whom every knee will bow, the One in whom all the spiritual descendants of Israel, both Christian Jews and Christian Gentiles, will be justified, and will glory! Amen.

 

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The sorrow will be temporary

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Sermon for Jubilate – Easter 3

1 Peter 2:11-20  +  John 16:16-23

Today we begin a five-week stretch in which we hear the Gospel, every week, from a portion of John’s Gospel, chapters 14-16. These chapters in John all recount some of Jesus’ final words to His disciples before His arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, all spoken from that same upper room where He celebrated the Last Supper and instituted the Lord’s Supper with His disciples. The suppers are finished. And Jesus spends these precious last moments preparing His disciples, not just for the next three days, but for what life would be like after His ascension. The help of the Holy Spirit would be essential for His Church going forward, and He’ll talk about that help in the other texts we’ll consider in the coming weeks. But in today’s Gospel, Jesus is specifically preparing His disciples for a time of sorrow they’d have to endure, a “little while” of not seeing Him. But the main thing He emphasizes to them is that this time of sorrow would be temporary, and that their sorrow would, soon enough, be turned to joy—joy so great that it overshadows all the sorrow that came before. These words were spoken for their benefit, but they were recorded in Holy Scripture for our benefit. So let’s consider the text.

“A little while, and you will not see me. And again, a little while, and you will see me, because I am going to the Father.” They didn’t understand what He was talking about, and they were afraid to ask, so He goes on to explain, although still in a somewhat cryptic way. Jesus said to them, “You are asking one another about what I said, ‘A little while, and you will not see me. And again, a little while, and you will see me.’ Truly, truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy.

There are two fulfillments of Jesus’ words here. The first little while, the first time of sorrow His disciples would experience, would be the next 72 hours or so. Within a few hours, Jesus would be taken away from them, arrested, tried, convicted, tortured, tried again, tortured again, convicted again, crucified, and buried. During that time, Jesus’ disciples would be the most sorrowful they had ever been or would ever be, because Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, was actually dead, and they thought it was permanent. If only they had believed these words Jesus had spoken to them! But they didn’t. And so they were sorrowful, while the unbelievers in Jerusalem rejoiced that they had finally gotten rid of that troublemaker, Jesus of Nazareth. The disciples would be sorrowful right up until the moment Jesus appeared to them again, in that same upper room, on Easter Sunday evening. Then they rejoiced when they saw the Lord, just as He said they would.

The second “little while” of sorrow wouldn’t be as little as 72 hours, but it also wouldn’t be as sorrowful, because for the rest of their lives, they knew and believed that Jesus was alive and reigning at the right hand of God. That’s what Jesus actually meant when He said that He was “going to the Father.” He was talking about His ascension, which would take place 40 days after He rose from the dead, His permanent removal of His visible presence from this earth—permanent in the sense that He wouldn’t be making any more appearances until the very end of the age, when He returns to this earth for judgment. For the rest of their earthly lives, Jesus’ disciples wouldn’t see Jesus again.

That time of separation from Jesus wouldn’t be pure sorrow, like it was when Jesus was dead and buried, but it would have its share of sorrow. And remember, we’re talking here only about the sorrow that Christians have because they’re Christians. All people have sorrow in this world because of sin and its consequences. But Jesus was talking about the kind of sorrow that affects Christians only, while the unbelieving world goes on rejoicing. What would Jesus’ disciples face in this world after He departed and went to the Father? They would face brutal opposition from their own countrymen and from the Gentiles. They would face torture and imprisonment, ridicule and mockery, slander and lies. Eventually they would witness the Roman empire turning against them and their fellow Christians with a vengeance. They would watch, or hear about, one another being put to death, one after the other, for carrying out the mission Jesus had given them. What’s more, while they lived, the apostles would witness even false brothers quickly start to introduce false teachings into the church and would have to spend a good deal of time stamping out the fires of heresy. There would be plenty of sorrow during that “little while” of the rest of their earthly lives.

But as soon as they closed their eyes in the sleep of Christian death, they would see Jesus again. They would be with the Lord in Paradise, just like the thief who died next to Jesus on the cross, where they still are today, nearly 2,000 years later. And their joy has known no end.

Jesus compared their sorrow to that of a woman in labor: “A woman has sorrow when she is giving birth, because her hour has come. But as soon as she gives birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish because of her joy that a human being has been born into the world. So it is that you also have sorrow now. But I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.”

Now these words of Jesus apply just as much to the Christians living after the time of apostles, maybe even more, because we’ve never seen Jesus at all. All we’ve known is this time in between Jesus’ ascension and His eventual coming again. By the miracle of God’s Holy Spirit, working through the preaching of the Gospel of Christ, we’ve come to believe in Jesus, without seeing Him. We believe that His words were faithfully recorded in the Bible, and that everything He said is true. We’ve been brought to repent of our sins, to trust in Him for the forgiveness of sins, and to hope that He is indeed preparing a place for us now in the heavenly mansions, so that when we close our eyes in the sleep of Christian death, or when He returns to judge the earth—whichever comes first—we will see Him and rejoice.

But that also means that our entire life on earth is a “little while” of sorrow. Not pure sorrow, because we know that Jesus is alive, that He has conquered death for us and will return for us. But there’s sorrow, nonetheless—real sorrow, because the world hates Jesus even more now than it did back then. It hates the truth and loves the lies that the devil spews. So the world rejoices that Jesus is unseen during this time. It means that the lies can grow and evil can fester in the world largely unchecked, and it has! The infection has almost completely ravaged mankind, as it did leading up to Noah’s flood, and that causes Christians no end of sorrow, just as righteous Lot, Abraham’s nephew, was tormented from day to day by seeing and hearing the lawless deeds of those around him in the wicked city of Sodom.

What are some of those sorrows? What things torment our souls?

First of all, we’re grieved by our own sinful flesh. The world rejoices to indulge in every sinful pleasure and activity, and to place one temptation after another before our eyes, but the Christian is grieved by temptation, and by his own sins, and yearns to be rid of them. But that sorrow is temporary, because this sinful flesh is temporary. One day we’ll shed it, and we’ll see Jesus, and that sorrow will be replaced with pure joy.

We’re grieved by the world’s largescale rejection of truth itself, and the embracing of lies. The lies are everywhere (and we point them out often precisely because they aren’t recognized as lies by the rest of the world): the lie of evolution and a billions-of-years-old universe has swept the world and practically consumed it as it shakes its fist at its Creator and claims, “You didn’t put this here! We don’t have to serve You!” There’s the lie of homosexuality as something natural and good. There’s the lie of transgenderism and the crushing pressure to accept it. There’s the lie that sex is free, and free of consequences, and free of responsibility. There’s the lie that the little child growing in her mother’s womb is a disposable clump of cells, and that preserving some degree of baby murder is a good thing. There are the lies of the politicians, the lies of the media, the lies of those who want to make Christianity into the greatest evil ever unleashed on this planet, because it robbed pagan cultures of their pagan worship practices and spread the “harmful” doctrine of Christ everywhere. Add to that the persecution of Christians, and the tyranny of corporations and of governments—including our own—which is now turned most acutely against Christians, and that will not change. Add to that all the false doctrines that have flooded the outward Christian Church, to the point that many Christians aren’t even Christians anymore, according to a Biblical definition. These things affect us. They affect our children. They’re painful, and they make it, sometimes, almost unbearable to live in this world of sorrow for the Christian.

But I think many women would say the same thing about the pains of childbirth. Painful, sorrowful, almost unbearable—until it’s over. And a child is born. And all the pain was worth it. Even forgotten, in a sense. That’s how it will be for believers, too. The sorrow is temporary. Temporary, not because eventually the Christian Church will succeed against the world and take over the world and convert the world to Christianity. No, temporary, because we will see Jesus again. You only have to live through the sorrow of this world for a several decades, at most. Then you’ll see Jesus. The world doesn’t have much longer to exist. Then all people will see Him. This sorrow will have an end, and knowing that, with the certainty of faith, will help you get through it.

What else will help you get through the sorrow? Well, you have the promise of the good Shepherd, that He is still with you, walking with you even through the valley of the shadow of death. You don’t see Him. But He tells you He’s there, and He doesn’t lie. And He promises that He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear.

What else? The ministers whom Christ sends you and the fellow Christians God places around you. These are gifts of God, like the doctors and nurses in the delivery room, to help you make it through the little while of sorrow.

What else? You have the Word of God, which is living and active, sheltering you and strengthening you with dependable truth. You have the promises attached to Holy Baptism. You have a special kind of presence of Jesus, His very body and blood, given to you in Holy Communion, so that He becomes a part of you, even now when you don’t see Him.

All these promises and gifts will enable you to push through the sorrow, to lean into it instead of running away from it. They will enable you to rejoice in the future that’s coming, just as a woman in labor, at least a part of her, can rejoice in the child who is about to be born. And these promises and gifts of God will even enable you to choose sorrow and suffering, when necessary. Because, yes, the Christian is often confronted with a choice, with many choices throughout one’s life. Do the right thing and face suffering for it, or do the wrong thing, or keep quiet, in order to avoid suffering and sorrow. St. Peter reminds us, in today’s Epistle, that doing the wrong thing to avoid suffering is simply not an option for the one who wants to be a follower of Christ Jesus.

So in those moments, whether long or short, when the sorrow begins to overwhelm you, remember Christ Jesus, crucified and risen from the dead. Just as His time in the grave was temporary, so will your sorrow be. The Lord promises that, soon enough, you will see Him. And your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you. Amen.

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God has raised up the heavenly Cyrus

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Sermon for Midweek of Easter 2

Isaiah 45:1-13

On Sunday, we heard the Gospel about Jesus as the Good Shepherd. That title fits Jesus, not only because it describes so well His relationship with believers, but because it identifies Him as the Son of David, the great Shepherd-King of Israel, and as the LORD God Himself, as He reveals Himself in Psalm 23: The LORD is my shepherd. The title of shepherd is also most fitting for Jesus, because He is the true deliverer of Israel of whom Cyrus was a symbol. If you recall from last week, Isaiah 44 ended with a prophecy about the Lord’s “shepherd” named Cyrus, whom we identified as Cyrus II, also known as Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, whom God chose and sent before he was even born to return captive Israel from Babylon to Judea. We meet Cyrus again here in Isaiah 45:

“Thus says the LORD to His anointed, To Cyrus, whose right hand I have held— To subdue nations before him And loose the armor of kings, To open before him the double doors, So that the gates will not be shut.  So God referred to Cyrus as His “shepherd” in the previous chapter. Here, you noticed what He called him? The Lord’s “anointed.” And you know what the Hebrew word for anointed is, don’t you? It’s Messiah. The Lord says to His Messiah, Cyrus. Now, that word Messiah is used for several offices in the Old Testament. It’s used for prophets, priests, and kings, and it’s also used for the furnishings of the temple, which were anointed with the special anointing oil prescribed in the Law of Moses. But here the Gentile ruler named Cyrus is called the Lord’s anointed—anointed, not literally, but figuratively. That is, he was solemnly chosen by God and set aside for the special purpose of delivering His people from captivity.

You can see, then, how Cyrus was a type or a pattern of the coming Messiah, the Christ, the true Anointed One of God, sent to be both Shepherd and Conqueror, to deliver God’s people from our captivity to sin, death, and the devil and to shepherd us safely through this life. Some of the prophecies in this chapter are specific to Cyrus and Old Testament Israel, but most of the prophecies here also apply to Christ and the New Testament Church.

God promises to go before Cyrus and make the crooked places straight, removing all the obstacles to his conquest of Babylon. That’s the exact same thing God promised to do for the coming Christ by sending the forerunner, John the Baptist, to make the crooked places straight through the preaching of repentance. God promises to break in pieces the gates and the bars of Babylon. But in Daniel’s prophecy about the statue Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream, it’s Christ’s kingdom that breaks in pieces all the kingdoms of the earth. Here God says that he holds the hand of Cyrus and has called him by name. But in Isaiah 42 those same words were spoken, not about Cyrus, but directly about the coming Christ, “I, the LORD, have called You in righteousness, and will hold Your hand; I will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people, as a light to the Gentiles.”

The only thing said here that can’t be applied to the Christ is the phrase, “though you have not known Me.” Cyrus didn’t know the God of Israel. He didn’t serve the Lord intentionally. But Christ certainly knew the Lord as the eternal Son of God, as the one who is, as John writes, “in the Father’s bosom,” who is true God by nature. And He did serve the Lord intentionally, as we heard just this last Sunday, “I lay down My life for the sheep.” And a few verses later, “No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father.”

Rain down, you heavens, from above, And let the skies pour down righteousness; Let the earth open, let them bring forth salvation, And let righteousness spring up together. I, the LORD, have created it. You may not remember this, but that verse serves as the Introit for the 4th Sunday of Advent. Rain down, you heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness. Let the earth open and bring forth salvation. It’s a picture of Christ, isn’t it?, who both came down from heaven as the Lord our righteousness, and who was also born from the earth, born of a woman, to be the salvation of mankind.

“Woe to him who strives with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth! Shall the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ Or shall your handiwork say, ‘He has no hands’? Woe to him who says to his father, ‘What are you begetting?’ Or to the woman, ‘What have you brought forth?’ ”

Here God scolds Israel for all their past doubt, all their disagreement with how He rules the world, including His plan to allow them to be conquered by the Babylonians and taken into captivity. It really is arrogant for the created thing to criticize the Creator, like a lump of clay that thinks it’s smarter than the potter, that thinks it has the right to know the potter’s plans. It doesn’t. The Creator has every right to make what He wants and to use it how He wants to. This text serves to humble us all and to expose our arrogance for thinking that we should have some say in God’s plans, or, even worse, that we have the right to criticize His plans.

In His mercy, God has revealed many of His plans to us. He didn’t have to, but He did. He revealed to Israel the reason for their captivity and the general outline of His plan to rescue them from it. He has revealed to us the general reason for the suffering and death that we endure. But He has also revealed much of His plan to save us through Christ. As for the present chaos of this world, we don’t need to know God’s plan. We just need to trust that it’s good. And as for the future, God has revealed enough of that, too, to give us hope and sustain our faith. Let that be enough.

Thus says the LORD, The Holy One of Israel, and his Maker: “Ask Me of things to come concerning My sons; And concerning the work of My hands, you command Me. I have made the earth, And created man on it. I—My hands—stretched out the heavens, And all their host I have commanded. I have raised him up in righteousness, And I will direct all his ways; He shall build My city And let My exiles go free, Not for price nor reward,” Says the LORD of hosts.

Even though God doesn’t have to reveal His plans to us, His creatures, He tells us to ask Him, in this case. He wants us to know. The one who designed and stretched out this universe has chosen to focus His attention on His chosen people, to raise up an earthly savior for Israel—Cyrus, who would decree freedom for the captives. But as we’ve seen, that earthly savior was a symbol of the heavenly Savior, of Jesus Christ, who has decreed freedom for those held captive by sin, death, and the devil. The Lord designed and maneuvered the first four thousand years of human history to bring about Jesus’ birth, suffering, death, and resurrection, and has been working tirelessly for these last two thousand years to make sure that you and I had our part in the Savior’s kingdom and in His work of building it. God has raised up the heavenly Cyrus to save His people and has given you a place in His kingdom. Now trust the rest of the Lord’s plans for you and for this world, and know that the heavenly Cyrus will soon return to deliver God’s people from every form of captivity. Amen.

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The Good Shepherd’s shepherding, past and present

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Sermon for Easter 2

1 Peter 2:21-25  +  John 10:11-16

St. John’s Gospel includes many pictures to help us understand the Lord Jesus better. He is the Word of God, who was with God in the beginning and who was God. He is the Bread from heaven, the Light of the world, the Door of the sheep, the Resurrection and the Life, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He is the Vine, and we the branches. It’s the Apostle John who also records the words of John the Baptist, identifying Jesus as the “Lamb of God” who takes away the sin of the world. But, how is He like a lamb? We learned that on Good Friday as He died on the cross and became the sacrificial lamb, the substitutionary sacrifice for the sins of the world.

But in another sense, Jesus is not like a lamb at all, because when a lamb is slaughtered, it has no say in the matter. A lamb doesn’t choose to be slaughtered. It doesn’t lay down its life for anyone. Its life is taken from it by others. It’s an involuntary victim. Not so with Jesus. In today’s Gospel, Jesus pictures believers in Him as sheep and Himself as Shepherd. I am the good Shepherd, He famously says. He is the good shepherd who voluntarily laid down His life for the sheep, and who also took up His life again in order to keep caring for His sheep for all eternity.

I am the good shepherd, says the Lord. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. He calls Himself good in contrast with the bad. The bad shepherd, the “hireling” as he’s called in our Gospel, is not the owner of the sheep. He doesn’t care about the sheep. He’s a hired hand who’s only out there in the field tending the sheep because it’s a way to make money. He stays with the sheep as long as it’s convenient for him, as long as it’s not too much trouble. But if danger comes, he’s looking out for himself. He sees the wolf coming and abandons the sheep and flees. And the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. The hireling flees, because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep.

Who is the hireling? He’s every shepherd or “pastor” who looks out for his own best interests ahead of the safety and security of the flock entrusted to his care. And there have been many, many of those over the millennia. But Jesus is not like them. The sheep are His. They belong to Him. And He does care about them.

Who is the wolf? He is the devil. And he has power over people because of sin, power to accuse them before God, power to hold their guilt over them, power to drag them to hell. And no one could be free from his power, because no one is without sin. No one is righteous, no, not one, the Psalm says. And as Isaiah wrote, we all like sheep have gone astray. We have turned, each one, to his own way.

When did we last hear those words? We heard them on Good Friday. Why? Because, as Isaiah’s prophecy continues, the LORD has laid on Him—on Christ, our good Shepherd—the iniquity of us all. Now tie those words to Jesus’ words: The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. Willingly. Intentionally. Voluntarily. In fact, He came to earth in the first place for the very purpose of confronting the wolf and laying down His life so that the sheep might be saved. He laid down His life in every way, by living His life, not for Himself, but for us, and by giving His life on the cross for us. The Son of God took on our flesh and lived among us as both God and Man. He devoted His life to serving us by preaching the truth, the truth about us as sinners and about Him as the One who freely forgives sins to all who trust in Him. He laid down His life as the atoning price for our sins, and not only for ours, but for the sins of the world. You should picture your Good Shepherd bleeding and dying on the cross. That’s what it meant to see the wolf coming and to stand His ground for the sake of the sheep, so that He might be attacked and killed in their place. The good Shepherd laid down His life for the sheep.

Of course, you should also picture Christ, your Good Shepherd, risen from the dead, perfectly healed and alive again on Easter Sunday—healed, though He kept the marks of His crucifixion, the nail prints in His hands and the spear print in His side, as He showed them to Thomas in last Sunday’s Gospel. Those are the scars of the Shepherd from His battle with the wolf, and even as He wants you always to remember His resurrection from the dead, so He wants you always to remember His crucifixion, so that you never look at sin lightly, or take for granted the price that was willingly paid for your redemption: the holy, precious blood of your Shepherd.

Jesus’ life on earth, and His innocent death, and His glorious resurrection are His great shepherding acts in the past. But He isn’t done shepherding His sheep. He has more shepherding to do. As you know, it was never Jesus’ plan to stay on earth in visible form and to shepherd His flock, from Jerusalem or from some other place. Imagine how sad that would be! A Shepherd who lived on the other side of the world from where you are, who had only so much time to spend with each one of His sheep. No, the Lord had a different plan for this New Testament era, with a different form of shepherding in mind.

Jesus says in our Gospel, I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will hear my voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd. But that “bringing” into the one flock didn’t happen, or at least, was far from being finished during Jesus’ life on earth. This is the bringing the Good Shepherd does through the shepherds whom He has been sending into the world since Easter Sunday and whom He will continue to send until all the sheep are found who are to be found, until the whole flock is gathered into the One Holy Catholic—that is, Christian—and Apostolic Church.

So it is Jesus who sends the shepherds, which is the meaning of the word “pastor.” Jesus said to Peter, “Feed My lambs. Shepherd My sheep.” And as Paul writes to the Ephesians, Christ Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry. That means that every pastor of God’s Church is placed exactly where the Good Shepherd wants him, in every time and in every place, so that Christ might preach to men through the humble service of men, so that He might gather His sheep, minister to His sheep, forgive the sins of His sheep, and preserve them in His flock through that very same preaching and through the administration of the holy Sacraments.

So, too, it is Jesus who brings the sheep, who went looking for each and every one of you, who brought you into contact with His Church and with His Gospel, who brought you—or will bring you—to Baptism and to faith. I know My sheep, He says, and am known by My own. He knew you from before the foundations of the world were laid, and He knows you still. Even if no one else on earth truly knows you, He knows you—who you are, what you need, what you’ve done, and what you will do. And He also knows all who will believe in Him as His Spirit calls them through the Gospel, even if they don’t yet know Him. There is still time to know Him! The invitation still goes out, to everyone!

And now, as St. Peter wrote in today’s Epistle, the Lord calls you to do good to others and for others, just as your Good Shepherd did, and to be willing to suffer for doing good, just as your Good Shepherd was. That means living as the light and salt of the earth. That means taking this Christian faith seriously, living a life that stands out in the world, that stands out in goodness and kindness and generosity, that shines with truthfulness in all things, that honors God’s Word above all things. You will suffer in this world if you live like that. But then, you’ll just be walking in the footsteps of your Good Shepherd, following behind Him wherever He goes, first to shame and then to glory.

May the voice of the Good Shepherd ring in your ears today and every day. You know Him. Now follow Him. He will make you to lie down in green pastures. He will lead you beside still waters. He will restore your soul. He will be with you as you walk, even through the valley of the shadow of death. And He will follow you with His goodness and with His mercy all the days of your life, and you will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Amen.

Source: Sermons

The big announcement of redemption

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Sermon for the week of Easter 1

Isaiah 44:21-28

Now that we have finished our review of those key Holy Week and Easter chapters of Isaiah, chapters 52, 53, and 54, we can go back to looking at Isaiah’s prophecy in order again, and we’ll stay in order through the rest of the church year. Before Holy Week began, we covered the first 20 verses of Isaiah 44, where, above all, God excoriated and mocked the idolaters and revealed just how foolish it is to worship something that you’ve made with your own hands, to worship anyone or anything besides the only true God, the Lord, the actual Creator of the heavens and the earth, the who has revealed Himself in the Bible and who pledged Himself to the people of Israel, in order that He might accomplish His eternal purpose of bringing His Son into the world to save sinners.

We’re reminded again in these verses that the phrase “My servant” in Isaiah’s prophecy sometimes refers to Israel as a nation. Sometimes it refers to the ideal Israel, to the Christ, the perfect Servant of the Lord, who would rescue Israel, the imperfect servant of the Lord. It clearly refers to Israel here in these verses.

“Remember these, O Jacob, And Israel, for you are My servant; I have formed you, you are My servant; O Israel, you will not be forgotten by Me! I have blotted out, like a thick cloud, your transgressions, And like a cloud, your sins. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you.”

God speaks here to the people that He has formed, whom He has been cultivating since the time of Jacob. They seem to have been forgotten by God, as He has allowed them to be held captive in Babylon for 70 years, although He has explained them many times the reason for their punishment. But now, God says that He has blotted out their transgressions. That is, He will no longer hold them against Israel, would not keep punishing Israel in captivity. He is ready to show mercy to them and rescue them from their captivity.

Of course, this blotting out of transgressions points ahead to the great rescue that God would accomplish through the Christ, the blotting out of transgressions that takes place, not just for Israel, but for all baptized believers in Christ Jesus. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you. Return to me in repentance and faith, God says to all people, because I have sent My Son to die for your sins. “Return to Me,” or, as Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5, “Be reconciled to God!”

Sing, O heavens, for the LORD has done it! Shout, you lower parts of the earth; Break forth into singing, you mountains, O forest, and every tree in it! For the LORD has redeemed Jacob, And glorified Himself in Israel.

Why should the whole heaven and earth rejoice at God’s redemption of Israel from slavery in Babylon? Why should the whole universe’s happiness revolve around Israel’s rescue from Babylon? For two reasons: First, because it brings glory to the God of the universe, who prophesied this rescue and who would surely be able to carry it out, no matter who opposed Him. And just as importantly, God’s saving act of returning Israel to the land of Israel means that the Christ can come to Israel, as promised! And the Christ would be a blessing to all mankind, because He bore the sins of all and invites all to return to God through faith in Him. That’s why all the earth should rejoice at the birth of Christ and at the resurrection of Christ, not just on the holidays we’ve chosen to commemorate those events, but throughout the year and throughout our lives.

Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, And He who formed you from the womb: “I am the LORD, who makes all things, Who stretches out the heavens all alone, Who spreads abroad the earth by Myself;

The Lord is getting His people ready for a big announcement. To do that, He reminds them who He is. He is the LORD, the great I AM. He is “your Redeemer,” the One who has always looked out for you and rescued you, even from your own sins. He’s the one who formed you, who knew you as a people and as individuals from the beginning of time. He’s the Maker of all things—the sole maker of heaven and earth. So what’s the big announcement from Israel’s Maker and Redeemer?

Who confirms the word of His servant, And performs the counsel of His messengers; Who says to Jerusalem, ‘You shall be inhabited,’ To the cities of Judah, ‘You shall be built,’ And I will raise up her waste places; Who says to the deep, ‘Be dry! And I will dry up your rivers’;

God always confirms the word of His prophets and messengers whom He has sent. Both Isaiah and Jeremiah were such messengers. And they both prophesied, by God’s Holy Spirit, that Israel would be taken into captivity in Babylon and eventually released. Well, the prophecy of captivity had certainly been fulfilled. And now the other part will be also. He goes on,

Who says of Cyrus, ‘He is My shepherd, And he shall perform all My pleasure, Saying to Jerusalem, “You shall be built,” And to the temple, “Your foundation shall be laid.” ’

Here it is. Here we come to it. The big announcement: The very name of the future King of Persia, Cyrus, who actually would say that very thing to Jerusalem, “You shall be built.” And to the temple, “Your foundation shall be laid.” Cyrus II of Persia issued that very decree in 539 BC, after conquering the Babylonians, who had been holding Israel in captivity for 70 years. We’ll see Cyrus’ name repeated in the next chapter. And, understand, Isaiah wrote these words 100 years or so before Cyrus was even born.

As you can imagine, that’s a huge problem for those who don’t believe in God, who deny the inspiration of Scripture. Such a detailed, accurate prophecy of future events is impossible. In fact, this is the main reason why unbelieving scholars simply deny that Isaiah was the author of these chapters of Isaiah. Since detailed prophecy is impossible, they say, therefore, this prophecy must be fake.

But did you catch that other description God gave to Himself? Who frustrates the signs of the babblers, And drives diviners mad; Who turns wise men backward, And makes their knowledge foolishness.

All the “wise men,” all the “knowledgeable men” of the world who refuse to believe God’s Word are turned backward; their knowledge is made foolishness by God. On the other hand, for us who believe that the God of the Bible is the true God and that the prophets were inspired by God the Holy Spirit, this isn’t a problem at all. In fact, it’s one of the many things that cause us to stand in awe of our great God, who holds past, present, and future in His hand and does as He pleases with them, who knows all things and guides all things to conform to His good plan for those whom He has chosen.

And as we’ll see next week, Cyrus himself, God’s “shepherd,” was a type, a pattern, of the coming Christ, whom God would send, not to rebuild the city of Jerusalem, but to build a Church throughout the world, a Church made of up sinners who have believed the Lord’s promise of redemption and forgiveness through faith in Christ Jesus, the Lord’s true Shepherd, who will guide His people out of the captivity of this corrupt and crooked world into the New Jerusalem that will come down out of heaven from God. That’s God’s biggest announcement. And it can’t happen too quickly! Amen.

 

Source: Sermons

If Christ is not risen…

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Sermon for Quasimodogeniti – Easter 1

1 John 5:4-10  +  John 20:19-31

As St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, If Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty…If Christ is not risen, then your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. We could add to that list. If Christ is not risen, then Jesus was a liar. If Christ is not risen, then He is not the Son of God, not the King of anyone, not your Savior from anything. If Christ is not risen, then evil truly does triumph in the end.

Those thoughts must have hit Jesus’ disciples like a ton of bricks on that first Easter evening. In their minds, there was no “if” about it. Christ had not been raised. Being raised from the dead, especially on a permanent basis, wasn’t a thing, even though Jesus had prophesied that very thing on several occasions, even though the women had seen Him alive that morning, even though Peter, apparently, had seen Him already, too. In a way, it’s hard for us to comprehend how they could still be in disbelief. But that’s only because we have gotten so used to this story. And we have seen how the Church of the risen Christ has spread throughout the world—spread, largely, by men who believed so strongly in the resurrection of Christ that they were willing to abandon their homes, willing to be hated by their countrymen, willing to be tortured and killed for His name’s sake. We haven’t seen the resurrection, but we’ve most definitely seen the effects of it. Those first disciples had only the word of Jesus, and of the handful of people who had seen Him that day—which should have been enough! But wasn’t.

So they were gathered together in that locked upper room, fearing the Jews, because if the Jews could crucify Jesus, they could certainly crucify His disciples. And they weren’t wrong! The Jews eventually did persecute Christians and have them stoned and imprisoned and put to death. But the only reason to fear any of that is, if Christ is not risen.

Or, if you don’t know or believe that He’s risen from the dead, which was the case with most of Jesus’ disciples on that first Easter day. But unbelief and fear were soon replaced by astonishment and joy when the Lord Jesus appeared out of nowhere in the midst of that locked upper room and said, Peace to you!, and showed them His pierced hands and side, no longer painful wounds, but signs of the death that had now been overcome.

Peace to you!, or Peace be with you! More than just a Jewish form of greeting. On the night before He died, Jesus had told His disciples, Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. If Christ is not risen, then that peace that He left with them and gave them is worthless. But if He is risen, then it changes everything. It means that God is reconciled to sinners through Christ, that we have peace with God through faith in Christ Jesus. And, since Christ is risen, He is able to maintain that peace forever and ever. What do you think it means to have peace with the God of the universe? What do you think it means to have peace with the One who holds the keys of eternal life and the keys of eternal condemnation?

Speaking of keys, Jesus said again to the apostles, Peace to you. Then He said, As my Father has sent me, so I also send you.” We’ll get to the keys themselves in a moment. First, how had the Father sent Jesus? The Father had sent Him to accomplish a mission. Several missions, actually. He was sent, for example, to die for our sins. But that mission was accomplished. Jesus wasn’t sending the disciples to do that. What was the mission, then? It was to reconcile sinners to God, just as St. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5, God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. Through Christ’s preaching, God the Father was reconciling sinners to Himself, calling them away from their sins to faith in Christ Jesus. The apostles were ministers like that, sent like that. More than ministers. Ambassadors for Christ, sent out in His name to reconcile sinners to God. That’s how Jesus proceeded to send them, the authority Jesus went on to give them:

And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit.

Jesus wasn’t at that moment breathing the Holy Spirit onto the disciples. (Remember, the word “spirit” means “wind” or “breath”). He was showing them, vividly, that He would soon (50 days from then, actually) send the promised Holy Spirit upon them in a special way, to enable and empower them to carry out this ministry in His name, which is summarized in what He said next: If you forgive the sins of any, their sins are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, their sins are retained. This is basically a restatement of what Jesus had already said to His apostles earlier: I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. The apostles were sent out with these keys, with this office of the ministry, directly by Jesus. The ministers after them are sent by Jesus through the call of the Church. But the ministry is the same: to preach the Gospel, to baptize and forgive the sins of those who repent believe, and to pronounce judgment and the non-forgiveness of sins to those who don’t believe.

Now, the ministry of Christ, the ministry He has given to men, includes preaching and teaching the whole counsel of God. It includes teaching people the story of the world, from creation to the coming of Christ in humility to His coming again in glory at the end of the age. But the message centers in the preaching of repentance, which would be useless without the authority to forgive the penitent. And Christ’s authority to forgive sins to the penitent is useless, if Christ is not risen from the dead.

So Thomas was still in a bind. He wasn’t there to see Jesus alive again, or to hear Him speak. Worse, even though every one of the other ten apostles gave him their eye-witness testimony, he refused to believe and spoke those bitter but famous words of unbelief: Unless I see the nail prints in his hands, and put my finger into the nail prints, and place my hand into his side, I will not believe.

Now, if Christ is not risen from the dead, then a person certainly can’t be faulted for not believing in something that isn’t true. But if it is true, if Christ is risen from the dead, if He who has never once lied to you did exactly as He said He would do, and if the people you trust most in the world are all assuring you that it is true, that Christ is risen from the dead, and you still refuse to believe, whose fault is that? It isn’t God’s fault. Or the fault of the witnesses. It’s your fault.

Thomas, on this occasion, exemplifies the atheistic scientific age in which we live. I just watched an interview with a man who is trying to cheat death itself. He believes that, with the right scientific measurements and the right diet, suggested by science, and with the right scientifically developed therapies, he can solve the problem of death. When it was pointed out to him that Christians think they have already solved that problem, through faith in the risen Christ, he replied, “Show me the evidence.”

Dear friends in Christ, God has shown mankind a lot of evidence, both of His existence and of His faithfulness to His promises. But I ask you, when has it ever been enough? Adam and Eve walked with God and yet still rebelled against Him. Noah’s sons walked off the ark God told them to build and within a generation their offspring worshiped pagan gods. The Israelites who walked through the Red Sea on dry ground were worshiping a golden calf within two months. The Jews saw miracle after miracle from Jesus and still kept insisting. “Show us a sign! Show us the evidence that You are who You say You are!” You and I can see the universe in all its complexity, the human body and the human mind in all their wonder. We can comb through the Bible and see how everything that’s verifiable in it has been verified and yet the vast majority of the world continues to insist, “Show me the evidence!” The problem has never been a lack of evidence. The problem has always been blind unbelief.

So you can’t blame God for refusing to perform when people have demanded it of Him, can you? “Show me the evidence!” over and over again, even as they completely ignore His Word and His faithfully-kept promises. No, God chose not to reveal the risen Christ to everyone. As Peter says in the book of Acts, God raised Jesus up on the third day, and showed Him openly, not to all the people, but to witnesses chosen before by God, even to us who ate and drank with Him after He arose from the dead.

Thomas was one of those chosen witnesses, so Jesus mercifully showed him the evidence He demanded. Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put your hand here and place it into my side, and do not be unbelieving any longer, but believing.” And Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” And then Thomas, and the rest of the apostles, went on to become witnesses in all the world of Christ’s. And the only evidence they were given to pass on was their own eye-witness testimony, combined with the words and promises of God in Holy Scripture which pointed to Jesus as the Christ. And that would be enough to convince everyone who could be convinced.

Jesus said to him, “Thomas, because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed.” In other words, blessed are you when you stop demanding more and more evidence, when you hear and believe the Word of God, which is the word of all the witnesses who saw the evidence firsthand, from Moses to the apostle John. More than that, it’s the word of God. Let it be enough! As St. John wrote,  To be sure, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that, by believing, you may have life in his name.” If Christ is not risen, then it doesn’t matter what you believe. But if He is, then it matters more than life itself. So believe in Christ Jesus, risen from the dead. Put all your hope in Him. Because He is risen, and one day you will see Him, too, just as Thomas did. All men will see Him. And all who have believed, all who have been born of God, who have already been victorious over the world by faith, will sit down with Jesus at a feast that will never end. May God grant that we be among them! Amen.

Source: Sermons