Saint Peter's Evangelical Lutheran Church
2525 E. 11th Street Indianapolis, IN
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Exaudi

6/2/2019

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Ezekiel 26:22-28; 1 Peter 4:7-11(12-14); St John 15:26-16:4
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

Today may be the seventh and last Sunday of Easter and the Sunday after the Ascension, but the readings and hymns and liturgy are already tilting toward the Feast of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit is everywhere!

In the Old Testament reading, Ezekiel foretold of the heart-transplant that God would effect in His people. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Which is to say, the problem with us is that we are not fully human. Not the way the Lord intended us to be. And the only way to become fully human is for our Lord to effect a change at the very center of our willing, our desiring. Right within our hearts. 

This change He promises to effect through the sprinkling of clean water upon you - think Baptism - which sets you free from your false trusts, free from slavery to your idols and ideologies, and humanizes you by the gift of the Holy Spirit whose indwelling causes you to want to walk in God’s statutes and to obey His just decrees. 

He also says, You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be My people, and I will be your God. This is bigger than the promise that Israel would dwell in Palestine again after her exile. What is the original land given by God to your fathers in this world? It is Paradise! Where your first parents walked with God and He with them. Where He was our God and we His people. And everything was gift from the hand of the Lord received with rejoicing and praise and love. 

This is the Spirit’s work within you. He teaches you to live again in this world as a bit of paradise restored. This isn’t run away and hide, hole yourselves off from society, Benedict Option style. This is living as victors in this world in which you have tribulation where He transforms even your heartaches and sorrows into gifts as He humanizes you and helps you to bear one another’s burdens. 

Already you hear how this connects with St Peter’s Epistle. But first, hear from our Lord Christ. When the Paraclete comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness about Me. The Spirit, the Helper, the Advocate and Paraclete, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, Jesus says He μαρτυρησει περι εμου, that is, He martyrizes about Me. 

The Holy Spirit bears witness. He speaks. He preaches. And about only One thing. Not Himself. And not you. He wants to talk only about Jesus. He wants to bear witness about Christ and all that is yours by faith in Him. The Spirit wants to open your eyes and your hearts and your minds to see that there is more in Jesus than in all the world outside of Him. 
St Paul says it this way to the Corinthians, We have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, that we might know the things freely given us by God. And he goes on to say how the Holy Spirit does this: We impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual (1 Cor 2:12-13). 

The Spirit bears witness to the life and love and forgiveness and hope and salvation that is in the Son of God, the Man born of Mary, the Man hung on the Tree and raised from the dead, the Man now ascended into heaven and even at this moment sitting in our human flesh, at the right hand of the Father. The Spirit witnesses to the Man who is fully Man, showing us that be Human is to live under the righteousness and forgiveness this Man brings and to be in communion with Him who alone is fully human, fully alive. 

The Spirit tells this, proclaims it, preaches it. But where? Jesus says to His disciples, And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning. The Spirit is at work in those who have seen and heard Jesus, those whom He sets into the Apostolic Office of the Holy Ministry, who speak in His stead and by His command. This is where the Spirit proclaims and preaches these things. Through Pastors!

But not only there. For the self-same Holy Spirit of Christ is at work within you. And He wants to talk. Not about Himself or about you. But about your Jesus, your Hope, your Life. He helps you confess this before the world!

But our Lord tells them in advance that this world - which rejected Him, His life, His love - this world will not welcome their witness, nor your confession. Indeed, the days are coming, Jesus says, when whoever kills you will think he is offering up worship to god. Not the true and only God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - but the their notions and ideologies about god. Their philosophies and worldly gods. They will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor Me. 

Anyone who does not know Christ Jesus does not know the Father. Muslims do not worship the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ by another name. There is no other name under heaven by which men may come to the Father. The Muslims worship their father, the devil. St Paul writes, What pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God (1 Cor 10:20). But its not only false religions. Even the areligious are religious. Luther says that in whatever we fear, love, and trust, that is our god. Few worship demons, but many, including ourselves, idolize the State, the 2nd Amendment, the politico-philosophical realm, all sorts of things that are meant to be received as gifts from the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

For anyone who comes to know the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ by the work and Word of the Holy Spirit knows that the Father is not served by making others miserable, by bringing hardship and grief to their lives. That’s the world’s way, the way of our hearts of stone that go their own way, churning out their own idols, like a little factory. This is not the Lord’s way.  

The Lord’s way is as you heard in the Psalm: Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within Me. Cast me not away from Your presence, and take not Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation,and uphold me with a willing spirit. 

All that you sing not only today, but every Sunday after hearing the Spirit’s Word read and preached, receiving His work in you to bring you to repentance and faith once more. Returning you to the clean waters of Holy Baptism and sprinkling you anew, cleansing you from all your idols and ideologies. To call, gather, and enlighten you with the gifts of Christ Jesus. To daily and richly forgive all your sins and keep you in the true faith. This is the Spirit’s way. 

And this is the way which St Peter points out in the Epistle. The End of all things is at hand. End, here, means the fulfillment, the culmination of all things, the perfect humanity that stood forth in the Man Jesus Christ, who s also the Eternal Son of God. He is the End as He is the Beginning, the Alpha and Omega. And since He is the End, the telos, the purpose of all things, the Apostle urges you to be self-controlled and sober minded for the sake of your prayers. 

He exhorts and invites you to a better way, a better life, a participation in the divine life. To pray together in the Spirit and with Christ, your Great High Priest, who sits at the right hand of the Father and never ceases to intercede for you. This is the very meaning and joy of life itself. A joyful life lived in Christ, which in place of hatred and contempt which silences the confession of  Him, St Peter urges, above all, keep loving one another, since love covers a multitude of sins. If we live in union with Christ, His life must be our life. And His life doesn’t expose and shame, but gracefully covers the wrongs done and pleads for the forgiveness of our enemies. 

Show hospitality to one another with our grumbling. If we have union with Christ, who has opened up His Father’s house to us and made it our own, we must open up these earthly homes we call our own to each other and extend the same sort of welcome to one another that our Father in Christ by the Spirit has given to us. 

As each has received a gift use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace. The gifts are manifold, but they are all there for others. The Spirit puts them into your lap, into your hands, for the benefit of others, to be used for their good. This is the beating work of the heart of flesh and not of stone; hearts in which the Spirit of God is at work, a life lived for others and not merely focused inward upon ourselves. 

In order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. This is the driving force of the Spirit’s witness and work to you, and His work in you - the glory of God the Father through Jesus Christ by the Spirit. That you be swept up in the doxology, the holy praising and holy living of God’s joyful people. From this we fell in paradise. To this the Son came to restore us. For this the Spirit now desires to work within you that you may dwell in the land that God originally gave to our fathers; a paradise of plenty, where all is experienced as gift from the hand of the blessed Holy Trinity - Father, Son, and + Holy Spirit - to whom be glory now in the Church and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
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Ascension of Our Lord

5/30/2019

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2 Kings 2:5-15; Acts 1:1-11; St Luke 24:44-53 
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen. 
Our Lord gives, by His Spirit, the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms. More than that He gives, by His Spirit, light to read them. He opens them. More than that He opens, by His Spirit, your mind, your νουσ, your understanding, your imagination, even, to believe. He invigorates your study of His holy Word, that by due diligence and right discernment, you may establish yourselves and other in the holy faith. 

What was the mind of Moses, the hope of Elijah, the sight of Isaiah? That the Christ, God’s own Messiah, the One anointed as the Savior must, that is, of divine necessity, suffer and die and on the third day rise again from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His Name to all Gentiles, beginning from Jerusalem. 

The Gospel began, as it always does, with the preaching of repentance. St John stood in a wild place and exposed the dark hearts of men by the light of God’s Word, that they would turn from sins and through themselves upon God’s mercy. Literally, that they would μετανοια, they would change their mind. Or, more accurately, have it changed, by His Spirit, through the preaching of His Word for the forgiveness of sins. 

Now the Gospel begun is complete. Christ has fulfilled it in His suffering. He has ended the Father’s wrath, hell’s demands, Satan’s accusations, and the cry of justice against us. There is good news for men because Jesus died; because Jesus became sin and a curse, a worm and no man. Our sins have been pushed into Him and He was pushed off the edge into Gehenna in our place. It is finished. It is fulfilled. It is over, done, complete and perfected. There is peace for the angels to announce to the shepherds.

Now that the sacrifice long foretold is complete, Christ Jesus solemnly and emphatically insists that repentance for the forgiveness of sins must, of divine necessity, be proclaimed in His Name as the great fact of New Testament preaching. St Luke writes in his second book that through such preaching, the Church is to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in Christ Jesus (Ac 26:18). 

Such preaching brings about a change of mind, a repentance which leads to saving faith by the forgiveness of sins. And in the forgiveness of sins men are made to see and hear and read the Holy Scriptures, to know God in Christ as the fulfillment and purpose of all creation. This is how the Scriptures were opened to the Apostles; how, by God’s grace and His Holy Spirit, they were given to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them. This is how, by His grace and Holy Spirit, they are opened to us. And this is because of Christ’s Ascension on which you now build. 

Our Lord’s will is constant. His Word endures forever. He has sworn and will not change His mind. He sends forth from Zion His mighty scepter. Which is to say, fallen men are in constant need of a preaching of repentance; an exposure of our complicity and selfishness, a warning of impending death, and an invitation to that which is better, nobler, true and good. You are not God. You do not make the rules. Just because you think something is so does not make it that way. Our minds deceive us and are deceived. We have not behaved in ways that are honorable or just or good. we have looked the other way. We have cheated. We are traitors to our own cause, in league with demons, perverts, deviants, sycophants, liars, braggarts, and hypocrites. 

Repentance is needed. Now and always. Submission to His Word. Stop making excuses. Do not seek to have your sins justified. Seek instead to have them forgiven, removed, and counted against Him, that His good works, His righteous cloak may be placed upon and cover you. 
Among other things, the Ascension of our Lord teaches us that He doesn’t justify sins. He doesn’t wink and nod. He doesn’t understand or simply realize that to be human is to be a sinner. This isn’t true. Christ Jesus is now and always will be fully human, true Man, but He did not sin. What He does, by ascending as a Man to the right hand of the Father, is declare sinner to be just for His sake, as beneficiaries of His sacrifice, recipients of His ransom and vicarious victors of His substation. 

God has sent His Christ for you. He is historical. He lived in the time of Pontus Pilate. He is Incarnate, conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, bone of our bones, one of us, flesh for hell’s roasting fires. He has suffered, been mocked by soldiers and priests, rejected by family and friends, betrayed by disciples, crucified, executed as the King of the Jews, and is risen from the dead. 

All of this was divinely necessary and predicted. But what is always shocking and unexpected is in His mercy He is not angry. He does not hold a grudge. He appeared in the upper room and His disciples were afraid, but He comes speaking peace and breathing His Holy Spirit to change their minds and open up the Scriptures. 

All this He has done for you. He was sent by His Father not only for sins, not only for the Father’s will, not only to defeat the devil and to show that He possesses all authority in heaven and on earth, but He was also sent for you. To rescue you, to pull you out of the flames of judgment, to redeem you for Himself, to forgive your sins, to seat you with Himself in the heavenly places. He could be angry, but He isn’t. Nor does He indulge your sins. Rather, He is Victor over death, your Champion and Hero, your Ascended God-Man. And through His Word, by His Spirit, He invites you to a change of mind, to participate with Him in the life that has no end.

Forty-three days after it was finished, He lifted His nail pierced hands and blessed His disciples. And while He was blessing them, He rose into the air and was engulfed by a cloud so that they could no more behold Him with their eyes. St Luke says, He presented Himself alive to them after His suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. But this was distinct. He would come and go from them, suddenly from the invisible world into the visible, using now, after His humiliation, His divine attributes as true God even as He is true Man. But not this time. He did not simply vanish from their sight as though He was about to return. This time He withdrew in a different way. As they watched, He rose up into the air. He was indicating to them that He was no longer with them as before, that those occasional and supernatural appearances, given after the resurrection, were now at an end. The two angels in white testify to this. 

Yet they were not sad, for we read, And they worshipped Him and returned to Jerusalem wth great joy. 

This is not the little while before the Cross. Nor the little while since the Resurrection. The disciples now knew that though their eyes did not see Him, they still enjoyed His blessed presence forever. He promised them, I am with you always, even to the end of the age (Mt 28:20). He is not absent. The Ascension of our Lord is not to be thought of so much as His going away from us into heaven, but bringing heaven down to earth. 

For His humiliation is over. He now uses all of His divine rights and powers. He is still a Man, always and forever, but He fully exercises all His divine attributes. In this the angels have peace to announce to the shepherds. The flames of hell have lost all claim to us, so also they can no longer roast Him. He is Man, but now risen, ascended, glorified. He opens the kingdom of heaven to all humanity, especially to those who believe. 

That is why the apostles and we have great joy. They and we have Christ in His sacramental presence. In this He is closer now than ever. The Scriptures are opened and the gift and promise of the Father in the Holy Spirit is given, to them and us. This is why we extinguish the Paschal Candle tonight and will move it to the Baptismal Font for Sunday. On Good Friday the extinguishing of candles symbolized Jesus’ departure. Not tonight. It represents His change of state. The ascended Christ is with us always, in the baptizing, the teaching, in the breaking of the bread. He is present to the end of time, as St Matthew says, in the apostolic ministry. 

This is why the Apostles go to the Temple, to Church, to continue the work of Moses and the Prophets now completed in Jesus, to preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins in His Name in the shadow of the torn veil. There they point to the Mercy Seat, no longer hovering over the Ark but now in the risen and ascended Body and Blood of Christ, given to His children to eat and to drink. 

Your Lord and Master is not taken away from you. Do not keep quiet. You have been raised with Christ. Seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Lift up your hearts and set your minds on things that are above, and draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, to receive mercy and grace in your time of need (Col 3:1-2; Heb 4:16). 

Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!) Amen. 
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Rogate

5/26/2019

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Numbers 21:4-9; James 1:22-27; St John 16:23-33
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

Whatever you ask of the Father, in My Name, He will give it to you. Whatever you ask. Well. What do you want? What do you lack that would make you happy? And if you had it, would it make you truly content? Whatever you ask, Jesus says. So, what do you want?

If we are honest with ourselves what we want is very often far removed from what we need. And certainly far from what our Lord wants for us. Earthly desires captivate our hearts. Our eyes are fixated on carnal things. Our anxious minds, our grumbling mouths, reveal our failure to fear, love, and trust the Lord our God above all things. To live as faithful children, knowing that He will supply those things that are needful for us. 

So it was with the children of Israel. Like you, they were discouraged. They complained. The old complained. The young complained. They all complained. This account of the fiery serpents is the seventh account in Numbers of the grumbling and complaining of the children of Israel. A trip that should have taken them 40 days took 40 years because of all their complaining! Its not as though they lacked any signs and promises of the Lord. He spared their camp of the plagues, their water of blood, their children from the Angel of Death. He led them out of slavery by a pillar of cloud, brought them safely through the Red Sea by the strength of His arm, and defeated their liked foe, Pharaoh and his army, drowning them in the sea. Still, they complained. The flesh always does. 

They accused God of being a murderer: Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? They accused Him of being a tyrant: There is no food and no water. They accused Him of holding out on them: We loathe this worthless food. There is it. Its the same as it was back in the Garden with the parents of all humanity. They did not want the food God gave, His provision for the journey. They did not trust His promises. Their hearts are greedy and their prayers have faltered. 

What about you? What do you want? How are your worship and prayers?

Today we are exhorted to pray. Rogate. It simply means “ask,” that is, “pray.” So when you hear Jesus say to His disciples, Whatever you ask, He means, whatever you pray. In the alternate Epistle for this Sunday St Paul outlines the four types of prayer: First of all then, I urge that supplications, petitions, intercessions, and thanksgiving be made for all people (1 Tim 2:1). Supplications are asking for ourselves. Petitions are what you do when you prayer the Our Father. Intercessions are prayers on behalf of others. Thanksgivings are exactly that, giving thanks to God for His provision of daily bread for the body and soul. 

St James is similar, but phrases it a little differently, Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. To be a “doer of the word” is to pray. Christian character and virtue, behavior that is according to God’s Word and will doesn't come by gimmicks or slogans or by resolute setting of the human will. It comes in prayer. That is how God’s Word is done, how you do God’s Word: You pray. God’s Word on your lips makes you a doer of God’s Word. He speaks, and then you speak His Word back to Him. 

But we deceive ourselves. Its not that we don’t pray for the right things, or for frivolous things, or for little, trivial things. We just don’t pray! Maybe its fear of messing up. Or fear of saying the wrong thing. More likely its that our flesh is weak. And we’re too tired, too rushed, or too confused. Confused by Pop Evangelicalism which pervades our thoughts about prayer and our speech. We think pray originates in us. Bubbles up from the heart or the spirit or wherever.

Prayer originates in the death and resurrection of Jesus, who says, In the world, you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world. He has overcome the world. But you are still in it. You have tribulation, you know this. You also have prayer, of which you are reminded again today. 

And the model for Christian prayer is the Garden of Gethsemane. Our Lord asked that the Cup be removed. It wasn’t. Even as the Father would forsake the Son on the Cross in order to be with us, so also He denied the Son’s request in the Garden in order to grant our requests. The Father’s will is that all men repent and be saved. That all the world be reconciled to Him. That all creation be sanctified and returned to Him. The Father loves the Son in the Son’s laying down His life to fulfill His will and in His taking it up again. 

But what was finished on the Cross has not yet been completed in time. Not all the elect yet believe and are baptized. 

Jesus Christ is the Victor over the world. He has defeated the last enemy, death. He is alive out of the grave to bring us to His Father’s side. Yet tribulation continues while God delays the last judgment and the angels retrain the destructive winds, in order to get all His children to safety. 

And you are His child. Never does Scripture call us “adults of God.” Always children. Baptized into Christ. The fullest and most personal, revealed name of God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - has been inscribed upon you. You are clean and forgiven. You are acceptable to God. He makes Himself available to you through that Name in prayer. 

For you always pray as a child to her father. Perhaps sometimes you come on bended knee, afraid of His wrath for your sins. Or you address Him as “Almighty Creator,” or even “Judge of the World,” yet even then you come because you have been washed in the blood of the Lamb and made clean. You know that He loves the Son and in the Son He loves you and has bestowed His Spirit upon you. 

Do not be discouraged, dear ones. You are surrounded by fiery trials, both without and within. Your weak flesh is constantly lurking you into doubt and despair. The devil would lead you into great shame and vice. To be sure, you are attacked by these things. You are in the world. You have tribulation. But take heart. Your Jesus has overcome the world. Martin Luther said that this is how God makes theologians: through meditation and study of His Word, prayer in Jesus’ Name, and temptation and affliction. Through these your mettle is tested and your spiritual armor is strengthened. 

For you who care about the truth and purity of God’s Word read and preached, right doctrine, faithful practiced, and boldly confessed, you are a theologian, a priest of our heavenly Father’s royal priesthood. Thus are you given to pray. To hear God’s Word, hold it fast in a heart made honest and good by that selfsame Word, and then to pray it back to God in all times and without ceasing. 

On this side of glory you always pray from the Garden of Gethsemane, that is, from the way of the Red Sea of your baptism, in the wilderness, in the shadow of Mount Hor, Your flesh is always impatient. Take heart, for Christ, who was made the Serpent of your Sin, was raised up on the pole of the Cross that you may see and believe. That you may pray as He has taught you, always as dear children asking your dear Father: for small things, big things, personal things, seemingly outrageous things. Intercede as Moses did for Israel or as Queen Esther entering the throne room of the king to plead for her people. Your Father delights in you. 

It is good, right, and salutary that you petition our Father that your fiancé be converted, that you find a pious spouse, that your sons and daughters finely godly spouses, that your children and grandchildren return to their baptismal faith. Its okay to pray that your wife control her temper, that your husband help out more, that your kids stop bickering. Pray not merely for kings, but those elected officials, even if you didn’t vote for them.  Pray for your team to win, your car to go fast, your holiday weekend to be restful. It is okay to pray these and all sorts of other things, precisely because the Father loves you on account of Christ.

Above all, pray that His Kingdom come among you by His Word, through His Spirit, in faithful preaching and teaching. Pray that He bestow His righteousness upon you - the righteousness of Christ - through faith and that you become not a doer of the Word and not a hearer only. Pray that His will be done, here on earth among men, as it is by the angels in heaven. Pray according to the Ten Commandments, which are the good and gracious will of God for you, your children, and family. Pray the Psalms, for they are both God’s Word to you and your prayer to Him, inspired by the Holy Spirit and prayed by and in Christ. Such prayers are pleasing to your Father in heaven who commanded you to pray, has promised to hear you, and even gives you the very words.  

Take heart in your tribulation, dear children of our heavenly Father. For as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so has the Son of Man been lifted up in His death upon the Cross, which is the answer to all prayers, even before we asked.  You may not always get what you want, but you always get what you need.

Laid before you this day is bread for the journey. It is not worthless, but is the very Manna of Life, the Body of Jesus Christ, given for you, together with His Blood poured out for the many for the forgiveness of sins. His Eucharist. His Thanksgiving and the answer to your prayers offered to you, that you may eat and drink, believe and live.  

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.
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Cantate

5/19/2019

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Isaiah 12:1-6; James 1:16-21; St John 16:5-15
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

Dear people loved by God, as it was last Sunday, so once more, dear friends, the Holy Gospel takes you into the upper room that fateful night. The night of bestowal and betrayal. The night of humility and dishonor. The night when our dear Lord Jesus was betrayed into the hands of evil men, hauled before cruel leaders, and viciously hoisted upon the gruesome Tree, derelict and still to bleed and die before all the world.  

Just the thought of those horrific events fills your hearts once more with sorrow. Knowing that His obedience to the will of His Father and His love for you, put Him on that Cross; that life-giving, death defeating, torturous plank. St Paul writes to the Galatians that through his preaching, it was as if Christ Jesus was crucified before their very eyes. You are given to see the same, not only through the Word, but in sacred art, such as the Weimar Altarpiece print we dedicate today. Thus it is that your song, this Cantate Sunday, is again, as always, tempered with sorrow over a love unknown. Your Savior’s love to you. Love to the loveless shown that they might lovely be.  

In addition you have the daily sorrows of your guilt and shame, your struggles against temptation and addiction, your besetting sins sinking deep into your flesh, wounding your very souls.  Examine yourself. Own up to it. You are convicted of sin. You feel guilty because you are guilty. And this is the gracious work of the Holy Spirit, as our Lord Christ declares. He will convict the world concerning sin. 

And it is indeed gracious. For the convicting work of the Holy Spirit is the will of God, who through His Word, read and preached in the stead and by His command of our Lord Jesus Christ, brings you to repentance.  

You heard from the prophet Isaiah regarding the return of the exiles from Assyria. Our Lord had used the armies of this pagan nation to punish the wickedness and sin of His own people. He showed them the seriousness of His wrath; the fury of His anger. He allowed His people to be hauled off into captivity, to be put to death, and for Jerusalem to lay desolate. But He would restore them. He would bring back His remnant, His chosen faithful. And they will say in that day: “I will give thanks to You, O Lord, for though You were angry with me, Your anger turned away, that You might comfort me.”

The Lord does not caste off forever. He does not willingly afflict and grieve His people. His Holy Spirit convicts you of sin, cuts you to the heart, and slays you, in order that He may heal you, restore you, comfort and help you. This is the proper and joyous work of the Holy Spirit, beloved, upon your heart and conscience. He not only convicts you of sin, He also convicts you of righteousness. This is a righteousness not your own. It is imputed. That is, bestowed upon you,  by grace, through faith, by the preaching of the Word of His Gospel of the forgiveness of all of your sins. This is where the Holy Spirit is at work.  

Through the Word, read and preached, by the Office of the Holy Ministry, the Holy Spirit proclaims, that is, preaches to you the righteousness of Christ, which is for your comfort. He preaches the righteousness of your one Mediator and Atoning Sacrifice, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who bears away the sins of the world. Who by His death has destroyed death. Who brought Life and Immortality to light. The Lamb who was slain, yet behold, He lives. As depicted in the other piece of sacred art we dedicate today: The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb from the Ghent Altarpiece by Jan Van Eyck. The Christian Church of all ages is called and gathered by the Holy Spirit around the Lamb. Come and see what God has done; He is awesome in His deeds toward the children of man (Ps 66:5). Sacred art, stained glass, crucifixes, icons and architecture preach more memorable sermons than any pastor. They are splendid gifts. 

Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights. Jesus Christ, Light of Light, very God of very God, is the Good and Perfect Gift, bestowed upon you from above by the Father and Who bestows the Holy Spirit, not only at Pentecost, but from His Cross and after His Resurrection. He hands over the Spirit in His death. He breathes the Spirit upon His Apostles after His Resurrection.

For the truth is, dear Christians, (one and all rejoice) you and I would know nothing of the person and work of Jesus Christ, the God-Man and one Mediator between God and man, who atoned for the sins of the whole world, apart from the preaching and proclamation of the Holy Spirit, sent from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and Son together is worshipped and glorified.  In a sermon on this same text, Dr Luther taught, 
    Here Christ makes the Holy Spirit a Preacher. He does so to prevent one from gaping             toward heaven in search of Him, as the fluttering spirits and enthusiasts do, and from             divorcing Him from the oral Word or the ministry. One should know and learn that He             will be in and with the Word, that it will guide us into all truth, in order that we may             believe it, use it as a weapon, be preserved by it against all the lies and deception of the             devil, and prevail in all trials and temptations. The Holy Spirit wants this truth which He             is to impress into our hearts to be so firmly fixed that reason and all one’s own thoughts             and feelings are relegated to the background. He wants us to adhere solely to the Word             and to regard it as the only truth.  And through this Word alone He governs the Christian             Church to the end (AE 24:362).

This is why St James, in His epistle, places such emphasis on the hearing of the Word. Let every person be quick to hear. Why? Because, as you know, faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ.  

This is not only the Word from Christ, but it is the Word that is of Christ. His righteousness and mercy, His love and forgiveness, His peace and joy. For this is what the Holy Spirit does: He take what belongs to Christ Jesus, and He declares it, that is, He preaches it to you.  Christ Jesus in His innocent suffering and death took what was yours - guilt, shame, disobedience, sin, and death, and He bestows upon you, by His Spirit, all that belongs to Him - peace, reconciliation, obedience, forgiveness and life.

What was won and attained at the Cross of Christ is delivered to you by the Holy Spirit. Through the Lord’s Word and the Lord’s Preaching He pushes the forgiveness of sins into your ears and hearts, atoning for your sins, taking away your guilt. Through His ministers He proclaims it directly to your conscience in the Holy Absolution. He heralds it over you in Holy Baptism. And He declares it to you in the Sacrament of the Altar. 

This is how He comes to you, how the Holy Spirit is made known. Not in feelings or emotions as Luther mentioned and the Enthusiasts and the American Evangelicals teach. He’s not known in the shiver in your liver or the burning in your bosom. He does not grant the forgiveness of sins in the beauty and grandeur of nature or the stillness of a perfect sunrise.  The Holy Spirit is heard and known, He comes, in the preaching of the Word of the Cross of Jesus Christ and Him crucified for sinners. The climax of this work shall be at Pentecost and then go out to the ends of the earth. But it begins, the Paraclete is bestowed as the Son goes away to His death and hands over the Spirit to His Father, receives Him back in His resurrection from the dead, and then breathes Him onto the Apostles who are sent to forgive sins in His Name.  

This is how the water is drawn from the well of salvation, as Isaiah proclaimed.  

And this water of Christ’s righteousness and life bestowed upon you springs up with joy and bursts out in prayer and praise and confession and song. Sing praises to the Lord, for He has done gloriously. Shout and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.  

This is the work of the Holy Spirit not only in the Office of the Ministry and the means of grace, but this is the on-going work of the Spirit in the lives of you faithful and just people. You speak to one another, as St Paul admonishes, in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Don’t believe me? What did you just do? You sang one of the greatest Lutheran chorals ever written: Dear Christians, One and All, Rejoice. It is a ten-stanza hymnic sermon! You proclaim the fullness of the Word of God, His Law and His Gospel, to one another in song.  

The psalmist says, Once God has spoken; twice have I heard this: that power belongs to God (Ps 62:11). Twice is it heard because you proclaim it to one another! With the comfort with which you yourself are comforted, you comfort one another. You speak words of forgiveness and peace.  You confess the faith together, rejoicing in the unity that is yours by the Holy Spirit. You sing with one accord, the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.  

This is your joy and privilege, dear Christians, transformed in heart and mind, to live in faith toward God and love toward one another. This is the effect of the implanted Word, the Gospel Word of forgiveness, which is able to save your souls, and works in you love and charity toward others.  

Do not fear, dear ones. Though Christ has gone away, but He has not left you. He has sent His Spirit who preaches the living Word of God in Law and Gospel to you. And He declares to you that the ruler of this world is judged. Satan is cast down. Death is defeated. Alleluia Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!) 

And you know what is to come: “On the Last Day the Holy Spirit will raise you and all the dead and give eternal life to you and all believers in Christ. This is most certainly true.” Amen. 
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Jubilate

5/12/2019

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Isaiah 40:25-31; 1 Peter 2:11-20; St John 16:16-22
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

They misunderstood much that fateful night. Why He washed their feet. Of what true greatness consists. Of prayer in the garden and obedient sacrifice. His true glory and exodus to the Father. Minds consumed by selfishness, hearts warped by sin, and consciences timid with guilt cannot comprehend the things of God. Indeed they are folly to them. What does He mean by ‘a little while?’ We do not know what He is talking about. 

But having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. Listen how, in true, sacrificial love, our Lord Jesus tenderly and compassionately catechizes His disciples. He prepares them for the future. He gently instructs them in what is to come. With an oath He prophesies concerning their plight. Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. 

For in a little while, mere hours, He will be violently taken from them. Clapped in chains, prodded with clubs and swords, their dear Lord Jesus will be hauled before the Sanhedrin, then before the governor, then before the Tetrarch. 

Finally, He shall be brutally killed by vengeful men who sought His life. He will be splayed out on the Cross like some grotesque trophy of their evil machinations. This is what sin has wrought. Our sin. Amen, I tell you, the devil and the world will mock and rejoice; laughing as they dance on the grave of our Lord. They will think they have won. But the disciples of Jesus will be consumed with grief and guilt, sorrow and pain. 

The little while of three short days will feel like an eternity. Remember how He met the two on the Emmaus Road? Remember how their hearts were downcast, despondent, as their eyes were kept from recognizing Him? How they spoke with hollow hope and dashed dreams. We had hoped that He was the One to redeem Israel (Lk 24:21). Had hoped. Its gone now. Our hope is clean cut off. My Lord, my Hope has been slain. His lifeless Body was laid in the tomb. It is now the third day, since. . . Some women in our number claim to have seen Him, but . . . They trail off in hopelessness. What’s the point now? How shall they go on?

Consider how our Lord cares for these two, Cleopas and probably Peter, but they might as well be you and your friend. He confronts their grief with the conviction of His Word. He draws them out of themselves, out of their depression and deep sorrow. Still hidden from your sight, He draws you away from your own hearts to the comforting truth of His Word. O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into His glory? All the Scriptures testify of Him. He sends you men to interpret them to you, for your good, for your comfort and joy. 

This is what He did for them as they lived in the little while between Good Friday and Easter, then between Easter and the Ascension, and the Ascension and Pentecost. You now live in this little while between the Ascension and the Eschaton, between His returning to the Father and His coming again to judge the living and the dead. You do not see Him. He is hidden from your sight. And so you are filled with sorrow. 

Sorrow over your sin, against which you fight and wrestle each day, but cannot seem to shake. You endure grief and pain, heartache and loss. They say time heals all wounds, but the days tick by they still feel as fresh as ever. You weep and lament. And truly the world rejoices. It continues to rejoice! For your Jesus has gone away. And they mock and ridicule. They say, “Where is His coming?” Nothing seems to change. Everything stays the same. And the heart of man and the evil of the world seem to grow worse.

St Peter knew of such grief and sorrow. His congregations and fellow Christians struggled with anguish and pain, fear and turmoil. They had been ransomed from their futile ways, redeemed by the precious blood of Christ which brought them out of death and the destruction of the ungodly and wicked. And yet they were surrounded by a world continually rejoicing that it had killed God and now lived in open rebellion to His Word. Beyond this even their own flesh hounded and attacked them, arousing the passions and tempting the soul.

Do you not live as they? Centuries removed, geographically distant, yet culturally reminiscent.  Are you not struggling to live as sojourners and exiles, as strangers in a strange land? Asking yourselves, “How do I obey authorities who are hostile to what I believe and how I live?” Do you not discipline your body in order to keep your character and conduct among the pagans honorable, that you may not stoop to such degradation and cynicism? Are you not called to live as salt and light in the world, that others may see your good deeds and give glory to you Father who is in heaven? Is this what you are asking yourselves, “Why does it have to be so hard? Why does it feel as though the whole world is against us?”

Beloved, your Christian live of faith and love is not easy. As you await this little while until your Lord’s return, you are inundated with temptation and vice, sin masquerading as virtue, lies paraded as truth, a world which seems increasingly hellbent on its own self-destruction, and no end in sight to the madness and confusion. You cry out with the psalmist, How long, O Lord? (Ps 90:13). 

Listen to the words of the Apostle as he has written elsewhere, Do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance (2 Pt 3:8-9). 

The little while passed for the disciples. Three days. They saw Jesus again. They put their fingers in the marks of His hands. They placed their hands into His side. He ate and drank with them. He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. Their hearts rejoiced with exceeding joy as they beheld the Lord, crucified and risen, alive from death forevermore. 

But what about you? You wait during this little while. Two thousand years. How long, O Lord? You wait. And as the song says, “The waiting is the hardest part.” Mr Petty knew. 

But more importantly, your Lord Jesus knows. Isaiah says faith is waiting. Even youths shall faint and be weary; and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength. Faith is waiting on the promises of the Lord. Trusting in His Word and the certainty of His truth. 

You await the redemption of your bodies and the consummation of the close of the age, the resurrection of perfected, glorious, immortal, pain free, sorrow less, joyful bodies and hearts and minds. You await these things and hasten the coming of the day of God through innocent suffering, by unjust mockery, as maligned evildoers, always living as people who are free, servants of God. 

For this is the manner in which our Lord Jesus went to the Father: by way of His Cross and Passion, through innocent suffering and death, unjust beating, treated as an imposter and evildoer, yet as the truly free Servant of the Lord God. For the joy set before Him, Christ Jesus endured the Cross, despising the shame. That is, for the joy of your redemption He is abandoned and neglected, having His cries unheard by the Father, yet refusing to let go, clinging in faithful obedience to the Word and promise of His Father. Until He hands over His Spirit and then is raised from the dead in joyous victory. 

But you see Him again! Not only in the Parousia, riding on the clouds of heaven, coming as a thief in the night, dissolving the heavenly bodies and exposing the works of mankind. 

Beloved, you see Him as He is made known to you in the preaching of His Word and the breaking of the Bread. For you live in the little while not only between the Ascension and the Second Coming, but in the little while of last Sunday to today, between the days of the Lord when He comes to you by way of His Preaching and His Supper. You live from and between these little whiles when you see Him and your heart rejoices. 

For though He has gone away, He has not abandoned you, but is with you and gives you to share in His life and love and joy, here, in His Divine Service. The world may mock and deride and scorn. You may ask, What does this mean? But through gentle catechesis and in care and love our Lord serves you here. Consider how the liturgy of heaven is permeated with sin-destroying, Easter joy, as Christ Jesus catechizes you and serve you in compassion. 

You confess your sins and there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents (Lk 15:7). In faith you receive the absolution, the joyous pronouncement that you shall not die, but live in and from the joyous resurrection of Christ Jesus.  
You sing Psalm 66: Jubilate! Sing for joy to God! Sing the glory of His Name!  Tell of His wondrous deeds! The Easter Alleluias invade and permeate the song of the Introit.

And then the readings, Isaiah leading the way, the joyous promise that even in the midst of suffering and sorrow, the LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not grow faint or weary. He gives power to the faint, and strength to those who wait on Him in faith.

The Psalm and Epistle far from being bleak and dower, admit the sorrow and difficulties of this present age, the reality of the effects of sin, and speak comfort: For this is gracious thing, when mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly, even as Christ our Lord did.

We can’t neglect the Easter sequence hymn, that expanded Alleluia, “Christians to the Paschal Victim.” “Christ is arisen, so let our joy rise full and free; Christ our comfort true will be!” This leads right into the Gospel - a little while and they saw Him, back from death to life, passing through that narrow ascent of the grave to life and immortality, their hearts rejoicing and joy abounding!  

After the readings and the sermon, you sing with King David, Restore to me the joy of your salvation. And again, in the Prayer of the Church, in joyful thanksgiving you make your petitions to the Father through the Son in the Spirit. And by the self-same Trinity lift up your hearts in joy unto the Lord, taking the Cup of Salvation and joyfully calling on the Name of the Lord.  

In the joy of sins forgiven and life and salvation bestowed, you give thanks to the Lord for His goodness and mercy that endureth forever. He puts His Name upon you, Father-Son-Holy Spirit, blessing and keeping you, granting you His peace, and so too all the other fruits of the Spirit: love, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control, and joy!  

Do you see? This is a joy that cannot be manufactured. It cannot be conjured up or faked. And it cannot be chased down, caught, and contained. As we race through the Divine Service we aren’t chasing an elusive joy, but rather the source of all joy: Jesus Christ and the full and free forgiveness of sins that comes in His shed blood. In a joy that cannot be taken away, faith clings to Christ, who for the joy set before Him endured the Cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the Father (Heb 12). 

You, beloved, are the joy of the Lord. The joy for which Christ Jesus endured the Cross. The joy for which He ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father, and intercedes for you.  The joy for which He will come again and take you to be with Him. You will see Him again, your Jesus, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! 

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Quasimodo Geniti

4/28/2019

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Ezekiel 37:1-14; 1 John 5:4-10; St John 20:19-31
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Beloved in the Lord, why are you here? What are you looking for? Whom do you seek?

Is it answers to the plaguing questions which haunt your life? Why did he have to die? What will they do now, now that their marriage is broken? Will she ever forgive me? Can I be whole again? 

Why are you here? Whom do you seek? Is it a better version of yourself? To be a more faithful husband? A more dutiful wife? To have a less selfish character? To live sacrificially? In true repentance? To be free from besetting sin and lingering doubt?

Whatever you are looking for, whomever you are seeking, you will not find them staring into the dark abyss of the grave. For that is what you find when you look within yourself. A tomb. Deep and cold. Dark and menacing. Death lurks around every corner and within every shadow. 

On Easter Vigil we heard from St Mary who stood weeping outside the tomb. Today’s Gospel narrative is really a continuation of that story. The Twelve, St Thomas and St Mary all run together. She longed for hope. She was looking for her Lord. He was not in the grave. He was not among the dead things, among the scattered refuse of those broken by the Law and feeling its sting deep in their bones, sucking out the very marrow of life itself. They have taken my Lord and I do not know where they have laid Him. Where is the place I may find Jesus? How do I lay hold of him?

For this she must turn from the grave. Turn from death and sin and doubt and despair. Turn around. 

The Greek word for repent, μετανοια, means, “to turn around, to change one’s mind, to abhor your errors and misdeeds, to be contrite over sin and have sorrow for it.” It is to turn from sin and death and behold Jesus standing with Life Eternal. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” 

It is an essential question for the Evangelist and beloved disciple, St John. What are you looking for? Whom are you seeking? And this very question from the lips of Jesus bookends this entire Gospel, as it were. Recall the beginning of the Gospel, when the Baptizer was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as He walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this and they followed Jesus. Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, “Whom are you seeking?” (Jn 1:35-38). 

The Johannine question, the Easter question, before us, dear Christians, is, “What are you looking for? Whom are you seeking? Where do you find the crucified Lord Jesus Christ?”

And the Evangelist is answering it for you. He is not in the tomb among the dead things. He is no longer in the grave. You must turn from the deadly curse wrought by the Law. You cannot find Him within. Neither in your heart, which is a valley of dry bones, nor within the righteous deeds of the Law, which is but a graveyard filled with dried up corpses. Repentance is needed. Metanoia. To turn and live. 
For the risen, but crucified Lord Jesus is found exactly where He appears to His disciples on that first Easter eve. He is in His Church. Coming and standing among His fearful and downtrodden disciples, those who have been battered by their sin, who cower in misplaced fear, who are seeking and searching in all the wrong places. He comes among the likes of you. And the Son of Man prophesies over your dry bones, He speaks the Word of the Lord over your deadly flesh. Peace be with you.  

Beloved, this is an absolution! It is the declaration of victory accomplished in the war between heaven and earth. Life and death have contended, in that combat stupendous. The Prince of Life who died, reigns immortal. Peace be with you, is the declaration of that victorious, eternal reign. It is His life-bestowing, creative Word, which accomplishes the purpose for which He sends it and does not return to Him empty.

As He breathed the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, upon Adam in the beginning, so now, the Second Adam, raised up from the earth in His death and resurrection, draws you to Himself by the preaching of His Word and bestows His Holy Spirit upon you in that self-same Word. He whose hands scooped up dirt to lovingly form Man are the same hands that were pierced by the nails of our narcissistic, self- righteousness. Those are the same hands He shows to His disciples, still bearing the dazzling trophies of His love, the signs of true Peace and real Fellowship. 

These are the same hands which He invites Thomas to inspect and to touch. For the one who is called the Twin, is your brother. He is like you. He is looking for the same thing is you. Answers to his questions, “Why did He have to die?” “Can I be whole again?” He was seeking that which you seek. To be a faithful and obedient child of God, living in repentance and trust. And unless he saw the One who was nailed to the Tree, the One who side was ripped open by the soldier’s spear, the One who bled and died for him, he would never believe.

How could he? How can you? Unless you have the self-same One? Unless you too encounter the risen, but always Crucified Christ Jesus, as He comes to you by His Word and Spirit, through His Sacraments, in His Church, how can you believe? 

Indeed you cannot. Not by your own reason or strength. You cannot find what you are looking for or Him whom you are seeking, nor even come here, apart from His life-breathing Holy Spirit, whom He has placed within you as He washed you with water and His Word flowing from His pierced side. Put out your finger, beloved, and touch the Baptismal Font. It is the scarred hand of your risen, yet always crucified Lord Jesus, here for you. 

By this life-giving stream from He who is the Resurrection and the Life, you share in His victorious death. You have been born of God. You believe and are baptized. You overcome the world, with all its doubt and pain, with all its lingering questions and uncertainties. Here you have the One who testifies to you by water and Spirit. Here you have the One who sends His men to prophesy to you, to speak peace to your dead bones and bring them the Word of Life once more; to open graves and heaven, to forgive sins and calm troubled consciences. 

Put out your hand, beloved, for in it He places His risen, but always crucified Body. He is not among the dead things. But gives His life bestowing Body and Blood into your life-less, dead bodies, that you may live. This is He who came by water and blood - Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. 

Like St Thomas, He does not reprimand or reject you. He invites you. Come and see. Listen and believe. Receive Him who receives sinners. Receive Him who puts Himself here, in His Word, by His Spirit, among His Church, with His Sacraments, that you may find Him. 

Turn away, beloved, for you are not trapped within the tomb of death nor lost in the darkness of your own heart. You have not seen, and yet, by His grace, you have believed. The Spirit, by the Word, has testified to you. You believe and have life in His Name. You are in the right place, o sons and daughters of the King. Christ is here for you.

In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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Resurrection of Our Lord - Easter Day

4/21/2019

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Job 19:23-27; 1 Corinthians 15:51-57; St Mark 16:1-8
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Pastors see lots of death. There was a pastor in England about 400 years ago named John Donne who saw a lot of death. Sickness, fever, contagion, plague. So he wrote a poem about death. One of the most famous poems in the English language. It’s numbered Holy Sonnet 10, but its known better by its title name: Death, be not proud. 

But a good question is, Why not? Why shouldn’t death be proud? Just look around you. To the human eye it looks like he never loses. He gets all of us and our loved ones. Why shouldn’t he stand tall and thump his chest at little?

“Death, be not proud?” Why not, Pastor Donne? We fight him but he never loses. We fight him with mammograms, air bags, and brisk walks. With fight him with hair color, cholesterol screening and avoiding McDonald’s. Some people now freeze there bodies. Others have taken to incorporating tech and robotics in a way to pass on their consciousness. But nothing works. Stave it off for awhile, he’ll still win. Death is patient. Life expectancy might be doing up, be he doesn’t mind. If he doesn’t get you at 80, he’ll get you at 90. 

“Death, be not proud.” But shouldn’t he be? Death is Lord in our culture. Lord Death you might call him. He commands respect. Remember how the Israelites considered God’s Name so sacred and so holy they wouldn’t eve utter it? So they figured out other ways to say the same thing out of respect. That’s what we do with death! Fallen asleep. Gone to a better place. Passed on. We don’t even like to say the word! Or think about it. We don’t even have mortuaries or funerals anymore, we have parlors and celebrations of life. 

Death is Lord. We live in a culture of death. Death is seen as the answer to problems. That’s why suicide rates are skyrocketing. That why “Right to Die” legislation is being pushed and fourth-trimester abortions have been legalized in several states. Because death is seen as the answer. The cure. The solution. Its not. 
“Death be not proud?” Why shouldn’t he be? Death even casts such a wide shadow. We live in it. From the time we are conceived and born he haunts us. He scares us. And he gets us to live scared and fearful of the future. We say that fear and worry is normal, its only human. But all fear is sinful because it’s self-regarding. Fear is always concerned with one’s self. Therefore its always sinful and always self-centered. Just another form of death, you might say. 

Death be not proud? Why wouldn’t he be?

Why? Why could Pastor Donne right a poem that mocked death? Why? Because of what happened this day. Death is proud. And his jaws are greedy. But today we hear the truth about how he went too far. He bit his teen into the One who is Life. The One who calls Himself the Resurrection and the Life. Our crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ, who shows us why death has no reason to gloat. Because Jesus rose from the dead to show us that death has been defeated. That He is Lord.

Death and Life have contended in that combat stupendous. The Prince of Life who died, reigns immortal. 

That’s why Jon Donne wrote a poem mocking death. That’s why Job taunts death, For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!

This is why the angel preaches to the Church: Do not be alarmed. Fear not. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen. He is not here. 

And this is why St Paul mocks death when he says, O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? Death we now mock you. Because our Lord has come in the flesh and we know exactly where that sting went - right into His hands, His feet, His side.

So get off your high horse, O Death. Be not proud. Because our Lord Jesus humbled Himself and rode a lowly donkey into Jerusalem to face you down on a Cross and destroy you forever. Stop your strutting, O Death, for Jesus has come to stagger to a Cross and answer for all our faithless worry with His Blood. O Death, stop thumping your chest, for the chest of God has been wrapped and laid in a grave and on the Third Day rose again that we might get a glimpse of our future. So that when our chest, our legs, our perfected bodies come forth from the grave on the Last Day, we too will see with our own eyes and laugh with derision at you, O Death. 

“Death be not proud.” We taunt you. You are defeated. We mock you this day and on the day of our earthly death when we are laid in the grave. For even there you haven’t won. O grave, you are dead, empty, and have lost all claim on us. Jesus lives. You have no victory. No sting. Even there we are not dead, because all who believe in Jesus Christ never die. They are with Him always even in death, waiting with Him in Paradise as we wait to be reunited to our bodies on the great Day of the Resurrection. 

For now we believe it, but on that Day we will see Death’s defeat. On that Day the dead will rise, everyone out of the grave, alive, will spring forth and face the rising Son. No one, no, not one, will stay in the grave. You have lost, O Death. 

They will be divided, sure. The sheep and the goats, the chaff and the wheat, the unbelievers and the believers. For the living, risen God is not like Lord Death. He claims no dominion by power, even though power is rightly His. He does not force Himself. He will not steal. He does not demand. Those who do not want Him, who choose you, O Death, who chose to remain in hell, to turn back to the grave, to persist in impenitence and make for themselves their own way, by their own laws, with their own culture where Death is Lord and just wants them to “happy” and understands and rejects those old, moralistic attitudes of the Hebrews. 

Yes, they’ll get what they want: They can go to hell. They will be raised only to be returned, to go with what is just, what is theirs, to go back to Lord Death. 

But to all who believe in Christ Jesus, who are baptized into His death and resurrection, who eat and drink His crucified and risen Flesh and Blood, who hear and trust His gracious Word of forgiveness. For them, O Death, you have no reason to be proud. Jesus has conquered you, you bitter tyrant. The Lord of Life will bestow on them what they do not deserve and didn’t earn, but is given by His perfect life and immaculate grace. Oddly, the last will be first and the sinner will be saints. They will go with their God, their true Lord, with Jesus, into heaven to enjoy there the reunion of the ages. 

For now, those people live in, but not of, this culture of death. They live as people who are free. As people whose bodies are indestructible, immortal, and soon to reign in the new heaven and the new earth with the Lamb who was slain, yet lives, and is worthy of all blessing, honor, glory and might. 

Death be not proud, though some have called you
Mighty and dreadful, for you are not so;
For those whom you think that you overthrown, die not, poor death, 
Nor can you kill me.

Death be not proud. Jesus has defeated you. 

In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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Holy Saturday - Easter Vigil

4/20/2019

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St John 20:1-18; Various Texts
Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Tell us, dear John, beloved disciple of our Lord, who who leaned on His breast during the Supper, what did you see? You ran to the tomb with the first among the Apostles, disbelieving. Though arriving first, you waited in deference for your elder. He went in. He too saw the saw the linen clothes and the face cloth, folded, lying in its own place. Only then did you enter. You saw, you believed. But you did not yet understand the Scripture. So you and Peter returned home. 

But Mary, you remained. You waited. Like Abraham of old, you hoped against hope. Tell us, O Mary Magdalene, out of whom were driven seven demons, What did you see? The tomb of Christ who is living? The glory of Jesus’ resurrection; bright angels attesting, the shroud and napkin resting? But your Lord, your hope, you did not at first see. 

Yet you lingered in the garden. You hoped, you wished, but still you could not let yourself believe. And so when He whom you thought to be the Gardener asked why you were weeping, you replied, Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him and I will take him away. 

And then He spoke your name: Mary. The voice of your beloved! And at once you knew! Your heart thrilled. You believed. You saw. You fell to the ground and held His feet until He said to you, Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Who is this? Whom did you see and behold? 

You saw He who walked in the Garden with your first parents; your true Bridegroom from whose side you are now fashioned and formed. Who clothes you with the garment of righteousness made from the Lamb of God who was slain to the sins of the world. 

You saw He who is the true Ark and ferry of Life, safely brining passage to His Church through the flood of the Father’s wrath; raising you up in Himself from death and destruction all around, and now, from whose riven flesh pours out new Life for the new creation. 

You saw He who went before and followed after Israel, the Angel of the Lord who defended His people from the tyranny of Pharaoh and the destroyed the armies of Egypt, fighting for His people and ransoming them with unmoistened foot, who now brings you safely through the sea of your Holy Baptism drowning all your foes. 

You saw He who gathers now into the good Land of His Church. He who sprinkles you with clean water and cleanses you from all your idols. You saw He who is your new heart and bestows His Spirit within you. 

You saw, dear Mary, He who came back from the belly of the earth, three days rest in the tomb, fulfilling the time of Jonah, and by whose Sacrifice caused the Father to relent from His fierce anger so that you may not perish. 

You saw, O Magdalene, He who strode in the fiery furnace with the three young men, the Son of God, who was bound with your sins, but now walks freely from the flames, unharmed by death, bringing you life and light and peace. 

Tell us, so that we too, this night, may know that the burning of our hearts, the confidence, the hope, the rediscovery that Christ indeed from death is risen, our new life obtaining! Tell us, that our joy may rise full and free, Christ, our resurrected Lord, our comfort true will be. Tell us, Mary and John, Peter and James and all the apostles, you on the Emmaus Road, tell us, Paul and the 500, tell us, all you witnesses of the resurrection, tell us, that we too may join in the chorus that with exuberant hearts has through the ages cried out to one another ever since the very first days you yourselves have said it:
Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! 
Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! 
Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.
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Good Friday - Tenebrae Vespers

4/19/2019

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St John 19:1-42
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen. 

On Holy Monday, as the world watched the great cathedral of Notre Dame of Paris burn, we heard from St Peter’s First Epistle: He Himself bore our sins in His body on the Tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls (1 Pt 2:24-25).

Tonight you realize that the blessed Apostle is referencing the prophet Isaiah. Referencing, not quoting, because the word St Peter used, translated as “stripes” in the old King James Version or “wounds” in the ESV, is actually in the singular. It is the word for wound or welt. A deep gash. 

The Roman lash was a mop-head of leather straps embedded with bits of bone and metal. Our Lord’s back wasn’t striped with many different cuts. It was one, giant gaping wound. As the flesh was ripped away from muscle, the muscle itself was lacerated and torn. His lungs weren’t working. His kidneys failing. All of this before He endures asphyxiation and extreme fatigue upon the Cross. Even if they hadn’t crucified Him it is likely that He would have died from the scourging. 

Isaiah said that His appearance was so marred beyond human semblance and His form beyond that of the children of mankind, kings shut their mouths because of Him (Is 52:15). Our Lord Christ, the wholly Innocent One, is so gruesomely beaten that even Pilate is shocked by the cruelty. Behold the Man is as much a description for the sake of the crowd as it is a confession.

But what sort of evil could cause a man to do this to another man? Even narcissistic psychopaths have their limits. And then, having opened His back in this way, as He is bleeding and dying, in complete agony in front of you, barely able to stand up, to take Him to the barracks, slap Him, spit in His face, and press a crown of thorns down into His skull. How is this sort of cruelty even possible?

In all of this everyone is surprised by Jesus’ actions. Peter is ready with the sword to go down fighting if need be. But he doesn’t know what to say or do about the Man who meekly gives Himself up as a Lamb into the lion’s mouth. For all his bravado, he is undone by the meek face of Jesus, looking at him in disappointment tinged with sorrow. 

Judas, too, probably expected Jesus to resist arrest, to defend Himself in some way. But when He is condemned and sentenced to death the betrayer is overcome with remorse and succumbs to ungodly despair. And in one unforgivable moment spills his guts upon the cursed earth. 

Even Pilate is surprised by the silence of the Lamb who makes no answer to the accusations leveled against Him. None of these charges should stick. He’s not guilty. But He refused to defend His case. But the Prefect was just as complicit as the crowds. Water, apart from God’s word, cannot wash away his sins. 

Perhaps what is most astonishing, though, is that Jesus knew such things were going to happen to Him. He knew. And yet He willingly goes to Jerusalem. He gives Himself over to His betrayer and captors. He receives the verdict, though it is all a sham. He endures the flogging. He is nailed to the Tree. He goes all the way to death. And He does it all willingly!

What are we so think or say about such a Man? Is He hell bent on some kind of suicide mission? Is He intent on throwing His life away? He’s had a lot of followers on and off along the way, but He’s managed to alienate many if not most of them. Public opinions rise and fall like election polls; the crowds tend to be fickle, their loyalties shallow. They’ll eat His bread, but drink His blood? That seems a bit strong.

Even His own family has already feared at times that He has lost His mind. And hasn’t He been telling His dozen or so disciples that He’s going to Jerusalem expecting to be condemned and put to death? And remember how He responded when Simon Peter objected to that prospect? He spoke of His coming death as a necessity, a given, and as the very purpose for which He has come into the world. He has clearly said that He will lay down His life into order to save others. 

So, is Jesus suicidal as He enters Jerusalem and His way for the Cross?

By no means! He is not despairing, but confident and faithful. He is not crazy, but trusts in His God and Father. He is not giving up hope, nor abandoning His vocation, but proceeding in the way that His Father has set before Him. He sets His face toward Jerusalem and with steeled resolve and unyielding faith toward God and fervent love for you, He goes to the Cross to accomplish the salvation of mankind.  

And remember what it is that first brings Jesus to Jerusalem before the start of Holy Week - the death of His dear friend Lazarus. And when the disciples attempted to dissuade Him from returning to Jerusalem on account of the Jews who were just now seeking to stone Him, Jesus said to them, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him. After saying these things, He said to them, Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, I go to awaken him. The disciples presumed He meant rest. Therefore He told them plainly, Lazarus has died and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe (Jn 11). 

For your sake I am glad. Knowing what lies ahead - all the betraying and denying and beating and killing - knowing all this, Jesus is glad! For your sake. For the joy that was set before Him, He endured the Cross, despising the shame (heb 12:2). Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted (Is 53:4). 

The fallen world, Judas, Pilate, Peter before the Resurrection and Pentecost, even you according to your sinful flesh, cannot make sense of this Self-Offering, this Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross. Sure, you can discern, to some extent, the self-sacrifice of duty, of those who put themselves in harm’s way to save others: soldiers, police, firefighters, chaplains who run into burning cathedrals to rescue relics. We call such men heroes. But in our fantasies and delusions we don’t want this kind of savior - a bloody Corpse on a garbage dump outside Jerusalem. We like our heroes to don capes and carry hammers. 

What the fallen world and our corrupt flesh doesn’t recognize, nor can it really even know, is the true glory of the Crucifix. It does not see the bullet that Christ takes, the bomb He smothers and absorbs with His Body. Matthias Grunewald depicted the Crucified One covered in sores, lesions, marked and scarred with our sin, like on the bulletin. 

But reason does not realize the ransom He pays to redeem the world from complete and utter destruction; the hideous strength of bearing the worlds infirmities. The Crucifix seems to be not the faithfulness of duty, but the foolishness of idiocy. Not the glory of a heroic rescue from danger, but a futile waste, a misguided effort, a failed mission, a dismal loss. No beauty. No adoration.  

Or, at best, the world might think of the crucified Jesus as a Martyr for some cause. His death is some fervent emotional plea to tolerance and niceness. We want our heroes handsome and witty, with personal demons and emotional angst. But the Self-Sacrifice of the Son of God disguised in the shame and bloody gore of the Crucifix is sheer folly to us. And seemingly inconsequential. Therefore, the holy evangelist St John, quoting the prophet Isaiah, says, Lord, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? (Is 53:1)

But St John goes on to say that Isaiah said these things because he saw the glory of the Christ and spoke of Him. So descriptive, so precise, so accurate was the prophecy of Isaiah that his text is sometimes called the Gospel according to Isaiah. For He speaks of the glory of the Christ. The Lord high and lifted up, seated in glory upon the throne of His Cross, the prophet standing on the train of His robe as it filled the Temple. It was a glorious death, a powerful weakness. A salvation despised and rejected by a world that cannot comprehend and doesn’t want it. 

But to you who are being saved: Christ the crucified, the power of God and the salvation of God. The Lamb who is slain, who atones for your most vile and repetitive sins, rescues you from the clutches of death by His own gruesome and horrific death.

Because He knew. He knew the price and paid it anyway. It was the will of God to crush Him; He has put Him to grief. The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed (Is 53). All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself (2 Cor 5:18). For our sake He made Him to be Sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor 5:21). 
Martin Luther once wrote, “The right way to reach a true knowledge of Christ’s sufferings is to perceive and understand not only what He suffered, but how it was His heart and will to suffer.  For whoever looks upon Christ’s sufferings without His heart and will therein must be filled with fear rather than joy.  But if we can truly see [by faith in His Word] His heart and will in it, it gives true comfort, trust, and joy in Christ.”

He was led out to the garbage dump and quarry that is Golgotha. The abandoned, imperfect stones cut for the Temple strewn about the earth. One likely providing support for the very Cross on which our Lord died. The true Stone, the One rejected by the builders, now made the head of the corner, the keystone on which everything is held, in heaven and on earth. 

Including you! Behold the life giving Cross on which hung the Salvation of the world! Do not hide your face, but rejoice with repentant joy, at the Sacred Head now wounded. He is yours. And you are His. You are under His royal train, cloaked in His own righteous robe. You are covered in the holy, precious Blood that streams from His riven side. His innocent suffering and death avails for you. This is your consolation, your shield, when you must die. 

For this is agony turned into victory. The Father accepted the Sacrifice of the Son. All that remains is burial. Burial . . . and resurrection. His first. And then yours. Your Shepherd and Bishop shall lead you the verdant pastures of the resurrection, for He has absolute power over death. 

Good Friday is not a funeral for Jesus. Golgotha now holds out the hope of victory by the Resurrection of the Lamb who was slain, yet behold, He lives! Rejoice, dear Christians, you who have been marked by your Lord’s crucifix. He has born your diseases and carried your infirmities. He has conquered. He divides His spoil with you. Your Alleluias are nigh. 

In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 
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Good Friday - Chief Service

4/19/2019

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Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9; St John 18-19
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

It is made clear throughout the Holy Gospels, especially by the evangelist St John, that the Passion of the Christ was undertaken and accomplished voluntarily by the Son of God. Done so out of His great love for the Father and out of His own divine love for an entire world of poor, miserable sinners. 

He is handed over to His Cross and Passion according to the good and gracious will of God in accordance with and fulfillment of the Old Testament Scriptures. 

Jesus lays down His life willingly and freely, graciously and lovingly. He bears the sins and iniquities of the entire world. All the grief and sorrows. He endures the judgment, condemnation and fierce punishment of the Law, the entirety of the wrath of God against all sins, even the eternal damnation of hell, all compressed into those hours of His Passion. 

So it is that, yes, by His stripes you are healed. 

But this healing of your body and life from sin, death, and hell and the gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation in Christ Jesus are actually administered and bestowed upon you as a medicine of immorality in the Gospel-Word and Sacraments of Christ jesus within His Holy Christian Church. These means of grace are the life-giving Fruits of His Holy Cross and Passion.

The Evangelist is directing you to hear and receive the Passion of the Christ and to embrace the benefits of His Passion by faith within the Church on earth. How? By giving attention to the preaching of His Word and by partaking in His Holy Sacraments. For the Cross and Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ will do you no good apart from faith in the Ministry of His Gospel. 

Consider how St John points you to this life of the Church and indicates that it is the place where the Passion of the Christ is now given to you for life in Him.

Firstly, the way that Jesus gives His Mother to the disciple whom he loves and His beloved disciple to His Mother. Neither St Mary nor St John are identified by name, but they stand at the foot of the Cross as living icons of the Church herself and of all the disciples of Jesus. 

The Church is here entrusted to the Apostolic Ministry of the Word. The disciples of Jesus, the children of His God and Father, are then entrusted to His Church on earth. As St Mary conceived and gave birth to the Son of God by the Word and Spirit from the Father, so does the Church conceive and give birth to the children of God by the preaching of the Word of Christ and by the washing of water with His Word and Spirit in Holy Baptism. You have received that new birth from His Church and are a disciple whom He loves. 
It is also within His Church on earth that Jesus speaks His Word openly for all the world to hear and believe, or to reject to their own demise. Just as Jesus declared before the high priest that He had always spoken openly in the synagogues and the Temple, so does He continue to speak in the congregations of His Christian Church by the Ministry of His Gospel. This is where He preaches. Where and how you apprehend Him, not with violence, but by faith.

The Crucified One speaks to His Church from the Cross, by the Word of His Cross, which is the preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins in His Name. By this preaching He pours out the Holy Spirit upon His people from the atoning Sacrifice of His Crucifixion. Otherwise, apart from the Atonement of His Cross and Passion, you would never be able to receive the Holy Spirit and live, since you are sinful and unclean, unrighteous and unholy.

But when Jesus finished His work of redemption, He brings it to perfection by giving up His Spirit from the Cross. Or to say it how St John does, He hands over the Spirit.

Thus from His Cross He breathes His Holy Spirit upon you, in order to give you life with God in your body and soul, by the Word of forgiveness that He speaks through His servants of the Gospel who are sent in His Name and stead. St John makes this abundantly clear in the next chapter of his Gospel as we’ll hear again on the Second Sunday of Easter. For now, consider that Jesus, in handing over the Spirit, is giving the Office of the Keys to His Church on earth for the binding and releasing of sins with His own authority.

Along with the Spirit, St John also describes and emphasizes that Jesus pours out the water and blood from His wounded side in the accomplished fact of His Sacrifice. Not only does the Evangelist testify to this event here in the Holy Gospel, he refers to the triune testimony of the Spirit, the water and the blood in his First Epistle! Again, we hear more about this during Easter. 

Even beyond all of this, the Evangelist draws the connection between the sixth day of the first Creation, when the Lord caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep and from his side crafted the Woman and brought her to the Man to be his bride. So now, on the sixth day of the New Creation, on this Good Friday, Christ, the Second Adam, enters the sacred sleep of death upon the Tree of His Cross, and from His side His holy Bride, the Church, is born from the water and the blood of her dear Bridegroom, Jesus Christ. 

The Church receives her entire life from the Body of Christ, even as she lives in His Body and becomes one flesh with Him. She is both cleansed and covered by the washing of the water with His Word, like a Bride made ready for her Husband. And she is enliven and sustained on her pilgrimage by the Spiritual Drink of His holy and precious Blood. So it is that her children are born from the waters of the font and nursed on the Blood of Christ at His Altar. 

In fact, as St John is almost at pains to point out, is it impossible to think or speak rightly about the Sacrifice of Christ, the Passover Lamb of God, without also considering the sacred Meal of His Body and His Blood. For He not only dies in the place of sinners, but He calls them to newness of life in His crucified and risen Body and feeds them with the Fruits of His Cross. He feeds you with His won Flesh and Blood. 

The Evangelist not only makes this point here, but from the very beginning! Sometime subtle, but always persistent, Jesus is the Passover Lamb through the Holy Gospel. Already in the preaching of the Baptizer you have heard this! Jesus is the Lamb of God who is not only sacrificed for the sins of the world, but His Flesh is given for the life of the world to be eaten by His disciples in faith. 

This is heightened by St John’s seemingly different timeline - Jesus is crucified as the Passover lambs are being sacrificed! And in fulfillment of the Scriptures, not one of His bones is broken. 

Do you see? You partake of the Cross and Passion of Christ Jesus by participating in His Supper, by eating the Body that was crucified for your transgressions and raised for your justification and by drinking the Blood that was poured from His side to cover and protect you from death. You are gathered here, to the Father’s House and the family of God in Christ Jesus, within His Church, to celebrate the Feast which binds together His disciples from all nations in the one Body of Jesus Christ. 

Finally, consider the Cup which Jesus receives from the hand of His Father, which He drinks for us men and for our salvation. It is for Him the Cup of wrath, of judgment and suffering and bitter death. He drinks it to the dregs in order to remove its deadly and damnable sting for you and for all. 

But in drawing that Cup through His Sacrifice on the Cross, He then fills it with His own precious Blood, which He now pours out for you and for the many for the forgiveness of sins. It is the New Testament in His Blood. It binds you to God in Christ not for punishment, but for communion with the Holy Trinity. 

By the Cross and Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Cup of wrath and judgment and death has become for you the Cup of Blessing which we bless in and with His Name. And this Cup of the Lord now runneth over with His forgiveness and life, poured out for you in peace. 

As you take the Cup of Salvation and call on the Name of the Lord, you give thanks and praise to God through Jesus Christ that in His tender mercies you partake from the Fountain of His crouched, risen, and ascended Body. You feast at His Table in His House under the shelter of His Cross. And so shall you abide in Him and He in you unto life everlasting. 

In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 
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    Pr. Seth A Mierow

    Lutheran. Confessional. Liturgical. Sacramental. By Grace.  Kyrie Eleison!

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