Genesis 11:1-9; Acts 2:1-21; St John 14:23-31
Confirmation of Mike, Teri, and Maralise Smith
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

It was on this day, the fiftieth day from the first Easter that our Lord Jesus kept His promise and poured out His Holy Spirit. In a mighty roar of wind and crackle of flame, the Spirit descended and filled the disciples with power. Miraculously they began to speak in languages they had never learned, preaching the mighty deeds of God in Jesus Christ.

When the crowds began to think they were drunk, Peter took to the pulpit and preached the first Pentecost Day sermon. From St Peter’s preaching that day 3,000 souls repented and were baptized! And they continued to devout themselves to the Apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, to the Eucharist and petitions; that is, to the Word of the Lord in the Divine Service. That’s why Pentecost is usually called the birthday of the Christian Church.

But if the work of God the Holy Spirit in Christ’s Church began with great fireworks and drew attention to itself, it has continued quiet and almost unobserved. When the Holy Spirit comes at Baptism there is no wind, no flame. Merely the splash of water and the quiet promise from the Word of God that forgiveness has been given and a kingdom bestowed, together with new birth in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Likewise when the Spirit comes to us through the Word, read and preached, proclaimed in the Absolution, or attached to the Bread and Wine, there is no impressive display. Only the quiet and in-depth work of imparting faith and forgiveness, bringing the comfort and consolation of Christ Jesus.  

It is the quiet, but in-depth, work of the Spirit that Jesus speaks about in the Gospel. Remember the context. This is Jesus’ farewell to His disciples. They are in the Upper Room that night He washed their feet. This is taking place at the Last Supper and as they sing a hymn and walk their way to the Garden where He will be betrayed. He says to them that night, If anyone loves Me, He will keep My Word; and My Father will love him and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me, does not keep My words. And the Word that you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me.

Those are not words of manipulation or intimidation. They are words of comfort and of indisputable fact. We love Jesus as we keep His words. But first, He loved us and gave Himself up for us, an Atoning Sacrifice for our sins. And then, you love Him. And because you love Him, you keep His words. They find a home in your hearts. And as they do, you will know the love of the Father. And the Father and Jesus Himself will come and live in you. This is all because the Words of Jesus are the Words that His Father gave Him to give to you. Not that you need to make tower and a name for yourself, but that He came down to you and gives you His Name, and that by His Name and through His Word, your God lives in your hearts by faith. You are actually His temples on earth.

Still, that sad night, did those words move the disciples to despair? For how wonderful the promise that the Lord Jesus and the Father would dwell in them by the words of Jesus! But oh how hard to remember the words! How difficult to let them sink in and find a home in the soul! To go from the ear to the heart, the heart to the lip and the lip to the life. And now He’s talking about leaving? A little while, and you will see Me no longer? He has the Words of everlasting life, but what will become of those words when He is no longer there? Speaking them to comfort and cheer their hearts? What then?

So Jesus promises them more. These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My Name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. What they could not do on their own - not by the reason or strength, neither remember, nor believe the words of Jesus - the Holy Spirit will enable them to do. He will take the words of Jesus and He will call them again to their minds.

And that He did! Already hear the power of Peter’s preaching on the Day of Pentecost! He boldly cites the prophet Joel and announces this is what’s happening this very day! The Spirit is being poured out on all flesh. On young and old, men and women.

But the Holy Spirit did more than just remind the Apostles of what Jesus had said. He enabled them to understand what Jesus said with penetrating insight. He opened up the Old Testament to them and showed them how it is full of Jesus Christ. How it all points to Him and to His finished word of redemption.

And more, He cause their preaching of the Word to be with power. Not a power and might feared in the awe of the world. But one hidden in the preaching of the scandal of the Cross and the foolishness of the Crucified One. For this is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes (Rom 1:16). Thus, through their preached words He convicted the world of sin and then showed them the righteousness of Christ as God’s remedy for our pardon.

Dear people loved by God, in the precious words of the Bible you have the fulfillment of Christ’s promise to the disciples. The Spirit came on them as promised. The Spirit proved to be a Helper indeed. By His work in their lives they were divinely helped to remember the very words that Jesus Christ Himself had spoken and taught.

And they wrote those words down - again by the same Spirit. They are His words as well as theirs. And He is powerfully active in them. Through the preaching of His Word, God the Holy Spirit still calls and gathers Himself a Church, enlarging it from every tribe and nation and people and language. You are witnesses of this mighty work today in the Confirmation of Mike, Teri and Maralise. He has undone the curse of Babel and gathers His people together in the Strong Tower of Christ’s Church. And He sustains the very life of that Church through the forgiveness of sins for as long as the Church is in this world with the very gates of hell arrayed against her.

That’s why you can take all the programs for fixing this or that that’s gone wrong in the Church and throw them away. They are utterly worthless. That’s also why you can do away with sermons that deal with you and your problems. People like relevant sermons about parenting and marital problems, finances and aging. Dear Christians, if we adjust our preaching and our services so that they tell us about ourselves and no longer about God, Christ, and salvation, are we still the Church of Jesus Christ established through the Holy Spirit? The only thing that sustains and keeps the Church going is the Word of God alone. For there the Spirit of God alone speaks, confronting your sin and giving you forgiveness through Christ’s blood.

Christianity is not so much a religion that tells you about how to get along in this world. It is the truth that tells you who God is, that He created heaven and earth, that He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, as the sacrificial atonement for your sins. That He reveals Himself to you through the Holy Spirit. That He is forever Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Christianity tells you about a world that is beyond anything you can experience in your ordinary environment. Of Life that comes to you from outside of you, that can only be believed by faith, and which speaks of a reality that was here before you were born and will exist after you die. Christianity is a reality in your life when all other realities are being destroyed. Christianity is in fact the only reality in heaven and earth. Everything else are but passing shadows.

In the Scriptures the Holy Spirit has given you a record of what is utterly reliable, absolutely inerrant and infallible, and what it is really real. He will reveal to you that you are a sinner. But He will also, through the Scriptures, read and preached, witness to Jesus Christ Himself, who doesn’t so much give you a better life, but Life itself. Your life being absorbed into the eternal fellowship of the Blessed Holy Trinity.

Fitting indeed, then, for Christ to ends today’s Gospel with these words, Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

Trouble and fear. Two things you have in spades all around you in and within you in this world. Trouble and fear. Two things that can’t hang around where the Holy Trinity makes His dwelling. Where the Father and the Son abide in those who live in the Spirit’s Word, letting that Word find a home in them. There trouble and fear disappear. Not that that won’t come in this world. Of course they will. The catechumen pledges they would rather be martyred than deny the faith!

But in the midst of worldly trouble, God’s people know a heavenly peace. The peace that can only come from the Spirit Himself, filling your hearts. The Spirit who dwells in you as the words of Jesus dwell in your heart. A peace that the world cannot give. A peace that will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, who together with His Father, + in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be glory now and forever. Amen. 

Ezekiel 36:22-28; 1 Peter 4:7-14; St John15:26-16:4
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

This Sunday, the Seventh Sunday of Easter, is sort of an in-between day. The Ascension of our Lord was a few days back. Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit is a week away. Our Lord Jesus has gone to the Right Hand of the Father, but the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, has not yet descended. Today is Exaudi, Latin from the Introit, Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud. Leave me not abandoned, orphaned, alone. Hide not Your face from me.

And so the Gospel takes you back, again, to the Upper Room, to our Lord’s farewell discourse. He is preparing them for what is to come. He would be betrayed and arrested, handed over to wicked men who would beat and abuse Him and finally end His life. They would suffer too. Live in fear. Isolation. But they could also expect His resurrection from the dead on the third day and His ascension and return to the Father.

The Church, in her wisdom, has so ordered these texts as to reiterate the promises of Christ. The promise of His presence in the midst of suffering. The promise that your prayers are heard. The promise of the Comforter. Before His ascension, Jesus instructed the Eleven to remain in the Holy City awaiting the promise of His Father. The Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness about Me. He will testify of the crucified and risen Christ, the God-Man and one Mediator between God and Man, whose bloody, once-for-all sacrifice atones for the sin of the whole world.

But it is precisely in the world in which they will have tribulation. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. In a modern paraphrase, maybe we could render it, “They will put you out of your churches, take away your freedom to gather and threaten your tax exempt status. Indeed, whoever kills your livelihood and silences your speaking in the public square and suppresses your right of conscience will think he is offering service for the greater good.”

It was the Jews who put the Apostles and the early Christians out of the synagogues. Maligning them, silencing them, persecuting them. Peter and James were beaten by the Sanhedrin and told to cease preaching in the name of Jesus. Instead they rejoiced insofar as they shared in Christ’s sufferings. The Jews did these things to their own.

But it was the Roman state who killed the early Christians, thinking they were offering service to their pagan gods. For Rome the state was sacred and her Caesars were deified. The peace of Rome was only maintained at the peace of the gods. This peace was based on sacrifice. All peace is.

Not a gruesome animal offering, but the simple pinch of incense offered by all good citizens to the genius of Caesar as the reverend savior and liberator of Rome. It was a nod of the had and a bend of the knee that the Emperor was to be obeyed and tolerance was the highest virtue. So long as one publicly stepped in line, acknowledging the values of the State, one could believe whatever he wanted in his own head.

Christians refused. This was an act of sedition. They were labeled “atheists” because they refused to worship the Roman gods. They were known as subverters of the State because they refused to sacrifice. They were called traitors because they would not acknowledge the genius of Caesar. To confess that Jesus is Lord was an act of political treason. Traitors had to be dealt with. They paid with their lives.

You will bear witness, Jesus says. The Greek word for witness is marturia. It’s were we get our English word martyr. They testified with their blood. The persecution of the Christian Church did not end with Constantine’s Edict of Milan in 313. It is a real and present danger unknown by most Westerners, especially Americans. You may be experiencing soft persecution. Your brothers and sisters in Christ around the world are resisting to the point of shedding their blood.

You are not yet being killed for your beliefs. You are beginning to be put out of your churches. Perhaps you sense it in your conscience, the conflict between the church and state and the hostility that surrounds you. You may be apprehensive to speak the truth in love, fearing not physical, but still real persecution. Job loss. Public shaming. Private rejection. Devotees of Allah may not take your life, but statists and secularists will take your livelihood. It will be sacrificed on the Altar of Tolerance in an effort to appease the national deities and the genius of the emperor. St Peter was right nearly two thousand years ago: The end of all things is at hand.

But I have said these things to you that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you. I have said these things to you to keep you from failing away. The Helper, the Spirit of Truth, will testify of Me. People loved by God, the Holy Spirit helps you not by freeing you from such persecution and suffering and cross-bearing, but by preaching Christ to you in the midst of such circumstances!

I know it seems like a moot point when you are being crucified upside down, or dragged before the Sanhedrin or called before Senate hearings, or you’re stripped of your livelihood or tax exempt status, or just that your relatives mock you for your beliefs that the Holy Spirit helps by preaching a good, Christ centered, Cross focused sermon into your ears and heart. But this is what you really need.

This is your greatest need. Not food or clothing, face masks or sanitizer, 501c3s or freedom of religion, not even your home or job or life. Your greatest, most desperate need, not only in the midst of suffering and persecution, but at all times, is the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, the full and free forgiveness of all your sins, the comfort of the Holy Spirit and a good conscience. This is not to say that the other things don’t matter. They do. Jesus knows you need them. Your heavenly Father gives them all to you, by His grace, according to His Word and will.

But even when He doesn’t. If your job furlough becomes permanent. If your business closes. If school doesn’t go back in the fall. If your grandmother dies of Covid. You still have what you truly need: the comfort of the Holy Spirit in the preached Word of Christ and His holy Sacraments. You have the forgiveness of sins, eternal life and everlasting salvation in the shed blood of Jesus the Christ, your faithful Martyr and Paraclete before the Father. You have the scandal of His Cross which keeps you from falling away. You have the witness of His apostles and prophets, the Holy Scriptures which make you wise unto salvation! If you have these things, you have the greatest treasure in all of heaven and earth!

In the face of such external persecution or internal suffering, you are able, then, by the conviction of the Spirit and the courage of faith, to confess with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who, when threatened with death by the fiery furnace if they did not worship the golden image of the king, answered, If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up (Dan 3:17-18).

“He will save us from the fiery trial. Or He won’t. Either way, He is the true and living God and we are called, in the obedience of faith, to render service and worship to Him alone.” Such confidence does not come from within, from the will or determined heart or mind, but results as fruit of the promise of the Lord through Ezekiel: I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statues and be careful to obey My rules.

Beloved, this promise is fulfilled in your first martyrdom: your Baptism into Christ’s own martyrdom and resurrection. There the Lord took you from pagan lands and gathering you into His own land, into His Christendom. He sprinkled clean water on you in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. He cleansed you from all your idols and uncleanness. He has given you a new heart and put His Spirit within you. You are a people living in the joy of the Resurrection, the comfort and assurance of the Ascension, and the confidence of the Last Day, though you are surrounded on all sides by slander and betrayal, persecution and death.

This is what St Peter is getting at when he exhorts you: The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. This is true sacrifice and service. This is the liturgy and spiritual worship of the Christian in the face of a hostile and rejecting world. As it is written, I appeal to you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (Rom 12:1-2).

For the Lord is your Light and your Salvation. Whom shall you fear? The Lord is the Stronghold of your life. Of whom shall you be afraid? Jesus says, Do not fear those who can kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. Rather, fear Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell (Mt 10:28). Fear Him, yes. But also love and trust in Him above all things. For He has sent the promised Holy Spirit upon you. He preaches peace into your ears and heart by His external Word. He grants you a good conscience in the vicarious death, life-giving resurrection, and glorious ascension of Christ Jesus.

As you live in the in-between time since Pentecost until His Second Advent, hold fast His Word and the promise of His Holy Spirit. He is your Redeemer, your Armor and heart’s dear Hope.

And behold, Food for your journey, Rations for your fight, the Strength of the Lord and the Medicine of Immortality, the Body and Blood of Jesus, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins. This is nourishment in both body and soul. Without Christ’s faithful Divine Service to you, you cannot live.

So come, dear Christians, eat and drink and do not fear. You are His people and He your God. Remember that He still says to you, “I love you. I forgive you. I shall keep you from falling away. You are blessed for My Name’s sake. Rejoice and be glad, dear child, you share in My sufferings. You shall also share in My eternal glory.”

In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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

First they were red, then they were dead. That’s the order of how it happened in the wilderness when God brought judgment on His people. You heard what happened in that horrible scene from Numbers when God’s patience ran out. He sent fiery serpents that bit the Israelites. He sent them. Not the devil. God did! Into their bloodstream went the venom and then their bodies turned red with burning heat. Then they died.

This causes us trouble. We take offense at it. That God would afflict His people in this way. First they were red, then they were dead. That’s what happens when an offended God chastens those who continue to defy Him, who murmur against Him and His plan. Who don’t pray very much, but instead grumble and complain a lot. Who tempt God by not fearing Him, not trusting Him. Who question His plan. First they were red, then they were dead.

We are not much different than those Israelites in the wilderness. Will we ever be convinced that God knows what He’s doing? Will we ever trust that His ways, His means, His purposes and solutions are always beneficial? No. As long as we have that serpent’s venom in us, that dead flesh inherited from Adam - and that’s all our lives - we will continue to worry and fret and lean on our own fallen wisdom. We will always struggle to believe that the Food, the Manna He gives us from this Altar is the most precious and healthful thing in the world.

In our society the symbol for medicine and health care is a serpent on a pole. That symbol could not be more inappropriate and false. That symbol does not come from the Bible. Not from this text. It comes from pagan mythology. From the Greek god Asclepius. The truth is that a serpent doesn’t mean healing. That’s why the Israelites were so resistant to Moses’ admonition to look at it and live. For from the beginning of history, a serpent meant death, meant the power of sin.

Perhaps nowhere is the devastation of sin evident than in the difficulty that we have with prayer. This is why we struggle to fear and love God. To pray to Him with confidence. To trust His plan. Because that snake the devil has gotten his fangs into us too. Unbelief beats from our hearts and courses through our veins. Just like Adam, the father of humanity, we fight against the creaturely dependance we have upon our Creator. Not just in the spiritual realm, but the physical as well. Every moment everything we receive, both physical and spiritual, is from His fatherly hand. Even life itself.

Repentance is needed, dear Christians. Repentance and faith, both worked by God the Holy Spirit, through the Word, as you heard last Sunday. For the God who sent the snakes to bring His people to repentance, is a God of mercy who hears the prayers of His chastened people, His repentant people, and He acts. His compassion always moves Him to action.

He heard their cries and sent them a great Mediator, Moses. He was, above all, an intercessor, a man of prayer. The Lord God heard his prayer. And He sent help. He commanded Moses to make a serpent and put it on a pole. But not just any old serpent made of any old material. It was to be a serpent made of brass or copper because it was to be reddish, reflecting the flesh of the sick and dying who were red and burning with heat because of the bite of the fiery serpents.

God planned it out to that their healing was to be found in something that was a reflection of their condition. As though that serpent on the pole bore their redness, their disease. And when they looked up at that red serpent that Moses made by God’s command, the poisonous venom that was killing them was rendered harmless. God’s promise was attached to that unusual remedy, that image of their destruction, hoisted on a pole. And whoever looked at it did not die, but lived, because God was merciful.

People loved by God, let your joy rise full and free. For God still works today in the same way. Yes, He still uses cross bearing and suffering to test us, to turn us in repentance toward Him, in prayer and supplication. And He has heard your prayers for mercy. He has acted. He has sent you a Mediator better than Moses. An Intercessor greater than Moses. One who was sent to do something for you that Moses could never do. Those people in Moses’ day looked up at that reddish serpent in faith and were cured temporarily. But looking at that red snake on a pole could not bring permanent, eternal healing.

But another Mediator has. Christ Jesus came from the Father as the Mediator between God and Man who is Himself the cure. Moses never had to be lifted up on a pole to offer the cure. But Christ was. For He came into the world to be the cure, the source of permanent and eternal healing for man. He came to become what you are, so that you might be sons of God. He is God in the flesh who was made to be your Sin even though He knew no sin, so that in Him you might become the righteousness of God. He came first to be red, then dead.

For the Body of the Son, the Body of God, became red with blood as He hung on the cross and anted for your mistrust and doubt of Him. First red, then dead. First red with the blood that was shed to cancel your guilt. Then dead. First red on a Cross bearing your sinful condition. Then dead, defeating that ancient serpent of old. First red with the blood, then dead, to deliver you from the bite of that snake from hell.

We are speaking creatively, but this is not a figure of speech. Jesus Himself preached, As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life. For God loved the world in this way, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life (Jn 3:15-16). In the Crucifix Jesus is telling you plainly about the Father, even as He is lifted up from the earth, praying on behalf of all men, Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.

The cure for those dying Israelites was looking up at a reddish serpent that had no poison in it. The cure for all snake bitten humanity is looking up at the Cross and seeing Christ, the Innocent One, dying in place of the guilty. Christ, with not the slightest hint of the virus of sin coursing through His veins, willingly opened them up to pour them into the cup you drink this morning, the cup that is lifted up by the Pastor as the vaccine, the antidote, the source of your forgiveness and healing. The cup that saves you. Christ was not merely snake-bitten by Satan, but swallowed down whole and lay dead in his belly until the Third Day. The day when He burst forth and raised up a fallen world.

People loved by God, like us, Jesus had to learn the art of prayer through bitter experience. Unlike us He passed the chastening and test, facing every possible temptation without succumbing, and by living His whole life in faithful obedience and prayer to God the Father for deliverance from death (Heb 4:15; 5:7, 10). His resistance to temptation qualifies Him to serve as your sympathetic High Priest. He takes over for your when you fail. He intercedes for you. He asks the Father on your behalf, even when you fail to ask.

Even more - He not only prays for you, for your life and salvation, He prays with you so that you can join Him in His praying. This happens for you, right here, in the Divine Service, where he includes you in His praying and has you join Him as He prays for you and the whole world, all who have been bitten by that serpent of death.

There is One Intercessor, One High Priest, One Mediator between God and man, the Man Jesus Christ. And He’s yours. He gave Himself as a ransom for all, including you. God’s anger has been turned away and He is pleased with you for the sake of His Son.

So pleased, in fact, that He invites you to call upon Him as dear children ask their dear father. Don’t tempt Him. Have faith. Trust Him. Pray to Him. Don’t let your unworthiness keep you from praying. Ask as His cherished sons and daughters. Pray regularly. Pray directly. Pray for your neighbor. Pray for the world in which there is much tribulation. Pray and take heart, for He has overcome the world. Prayer honors God and helps your neighbor. He loves to hear your voice, for it is the voice of one who has been washed, washed in His red, precious blood, unstained from the world, but stained with His blood, that you may be His own and live under Him and serve Him everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness.

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

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

Sing to the LORD a new song, for He has done marvelous things (Ps 98:1), the Psalmist exhorts. And He especially loves to do marvelous things by water. Remember that marvelous thing He did by the Red Sea? Remember how God drew Pharaoh and his horsemen and chariots to the Red Sea and made it look like they would overcome the Israelites?

But then the Lord did a marvelous thing. He opened up the Red Sea and His people went through on dry ground while Pharaoh and his chariots sunk to the bottom like a stone. God won a battle they could never have won!

So what does a group of people do by the water after having observed such a marvelous thing? You don’t talk about it. You don’t discuss it. You sing! And there was Miriam, leading God’s people in a new song, a song called the Song of Moses (Ex 15). But the lyrics weren’t about Moses. They were about God who had done such marvelous things for them. A song about His redeeming deeds, making them a new people.

Remember that marvelous thing He did by the River Kishon in the days of the Judges? Remember how the Israelites cried for help because they were treated so cruelly by Sisera, the commander of the Canaanites, who had hundreds of chariots? Remember how God’s people had a commander named Barak, who was a coward? Remember how God’s people were outnumbered, unarmed, and had no chance? Do you remember what God did?

In a great tribute to mothers everywhere, He raised up a courageous mother named Deborah. She called herself a “Mother in Israel” (Judges 5:7). She was a good mother. She was very concerned about her family; God’s family. She received in meekness the implanted Word and had faith in the God of Israel. She told Barak to stiffen his backbone and get his troops down to the river because God’s outnumbered, unarmed people were going to win big. And there, by the River Kishon, they did (Judges 4). The only man that got away was Sisera. And he was killed by another courageous woman named Jael, who hammered a tent peg through his temple.

So what does a group of people do by the shore after observing such a marvelous thing? They sing! But not about themselves. But about their God who had done such marvelous things to make a new people, with new hope.

Oh sing to the Lord a new song, for He has marvelous things. This Sunday is called Cantate Sunday. “Sing” Sunday. We don’t talk in church. We don’t discuss in church. We sing in church. We chant. We, dear Christians, one and all, rejoice, with exultation springing, and with united heart and voice and hold rapture singing. We proclaim the wonders God has done (LSB 556:1).

These wonders, these marvelous things, God has done for us by water. He baptized you. You have been made new in Baptism. The chains and slavery of that pharaoh the devil have been drowned in Holy Baptism. His chariots are rusting at the bottom of the font. There, in the water, your old Adam was impaled upon the Cross as God did a marvelous thing - He raised up a new man, clothed in the robe of Christ’s own righteousness, who now lives before God in righteousness and purity. Now when the Father sees you, He sees Jesus. What could be more marvelous?

Why did you come to church today? People come for many reasons. Some are looking for help. Help with money, with relationships, help for their troubled marriage, help with parenting, help being a better person. The church can and ought at times to help with these. But so can other professionals and agencies.

Jesus established His Church to give you a different kind of Help. A more marvelous kind of Help. He gives you the Helper, the Comforter, the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit. And you heard what the Helper does. The Holy Spirit is a Preacher who convicts. He convicts the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. Not only the world out there, but the world in you. Your flesh. Your sinful heart and mind.

He convicts you not only of the wicked things you say and think and do, but of the good things you ignore and reject. Above all, the Holy Spirit convicts the world of the big sin, from which all other sins flow, unbelief. Not fearing, loving, and trusting in God above all things. And we’re guilty. The pandemic has exposed our idols. That is, God has. Let the Holy Spirit convict us of this.

For this is a marvelous thing to realize. It is a good and perfect gift given from above, by the Father of lights, through the Word, by the work of the Holy Spirit. For then we can flee to Christ for forgiveness and refuge.

Likewise we are not naturally righteous and godly, but fast bound in Satan’s chains, death brooding darkly over us. But the Holy Spirit likewise convicts us that Jesus Christ is our righteousness. Jesus is our godliness. Our righteousness is not in the good things we do. But in the works of the righteous Jesus, who by His Spirit, in His Word, gives us Himself. What a marvelous thing!

And this is how the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ! By taking what belongs to Him and declaring it, preaching it, singing it to you! Jesus’ righteousness. Yours. Jesus’ life. Yours. Jesus’ salvation. Yours. Jesus’ mercy, His love, His peace, His joy. All yours.

And His victory over the devil? Yours. The devil brainwashes the world by convincing people that the good life is accumulating as much stuff as you can, living happily and healthily unto a nice old age. So they fear disease and death. But the goal of the Christian life is not to live to 100 and have a bunch of stuff! The goal of the Christian life is to be faithful; to receive again and again the implanted Word, which is able to save your souls. This is the help you need. This is what the Holy Spirit brings. What He declares, what He sings to you in the Word, read and preached.

Sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done marvelous things. Marvelous things like being bone of a mother greater than Deborah, a Mother who is a Virgin. Marvelous things like being drowned in the Red Sea of His own Blood through the exodus of His Cross, bearing our offenses to death in His own Body. Marvelous things like being raised from the dead, the First Fruits of the new creation, and leaving Satan’s head more damaged than Sisera’s, that your head might be crowned with glory.  

All songs get old. All new songs become oldies. Outdated. Tired. But not the song the Church sings. For she sings the new song of how God’s anger at our sin was turned away from us and onto Jesus’ head, that He might now turn His countenance upon you at this Altar and grant you God’s forgiveness, blessing, grace and peace.

The Church sings of Jesus Christ, who by water and Word makes old, dead enemies of God into new and eternal creates that serve and love Him. She sings of Jesus Christ, who is coming again and bringing with Him a new heaven and a new earth, where nothing ever gets old, nothing gets sick and diseased, and nothing dies.

Come, dear Christians, one and all, and partake of the river that makes glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High (Ps 46:4). Come up to Mount Zion, lift up your hearts and sing! Rejoice to receive again the good and perfect Gift of Christ’s own Body and Blood. Here what is His is declared and given to you.

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

Ezekiel 34:11-16; 1 Peter 2:21-25; St John 10:11-16
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

Church art that depicts this wonderfully comforting image of our Lord Jesus as the Good Shepherd is dominated by one image - Jesus surrounded by cute, white, fluffy creates called sheep. Even our own beloved Good Shepherd window shows this. Sheep all over Jesus. Sheep in His arms. At His feet. Wrapped around His shoulders. We love that image. And fair enough, it has basis in the Bible - Psalm 23, Ezekiel 34.

But there exits a depiction of Jesus as the Good Shepherd that we should love even more. Its not nearly as common. Its nowhere near as cute. But its much more accurate in capturing what He is all about. And even more comforting. Its Jesus the Good Shepherd with a grown man draped over His shoulder. A sick man, a diseased man, a dying, a dead man. An adult, just hanging there around Jesus’ neck like dead weight. Jesus the Good Shepherd carrying on His shoulders a not so cute creature called “man.” We should love that image.

For that is what He is! He is not the shepherd of cuddly sheep. He is the Good Shepherd of men and women, boys and girls. And despite the simulates between us and sheep, there are stark differences as well. Sheep have the kinds of mouths that make you say, “Oh, how cute.” But man’s mouth is not so cute. Just consider how easily the fangs come out when you don’t get your way.

Sheep have cute little hooves, that, out of ignorance, sometimes go astray. But you are not ignorant. You feet have been instructed in the path of righteousness for His name’s sake, the way of God’s Ten Commandments. Yet how easily those feet wander into the way of hate and indifference.

Sheep have cute little ears that are reserved only for their Shepherd’s voice. They will follow no other. But you have given too much of your ear to that False Shepherd, that wolf in sheep’s clothing, Satan, and his enticements. Too often you have been led astray into the way of death and polluted your soul.

Repentance is needed. Even more, what is needed is not just a shepherd who deals with cuddly sheep. You need a Shepherd who has room on His shoulders for that perverse, foolish, two-legged creature called “man.”

And that is exactly the kind of Shepherd you have. You were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls. A soul He has rescued from Satan. For you heard Jesus today: I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. He is not good merely in affection or love, cuddling and thinking fondly of His flock. What makes Him good is precisely what He did on Good Friday. He laid down His life for all men. For Jesus is God in the flesh, with a neck and shoulders made for your eternal benefit. What makes Him good is what He did with His neck and shoulders. He bore the burden of your sin, the full weight of the Law, and laid them down into the jaws of death. He laid them down for what your mouth has said, for where your feet have traveled, and from whom your ears have listened.

He laid it all onto His big shoulders - those sins that burden you, the past you regret, the present that is trying, the future you fear. He bore it all on those shoulders, along with your sorrows, your sicknesses, your diseases. Onto His shoulders they went so that He could bear them to death in His Body on the Tree, that you might die to sin and live to righteousness. And those shoulders were then laid down into the cold earth of the tomb.

Because for Jesus to be your Good Shepherd, your Noble, Perfect Shepherd, He had to lay down those shoulders somewhere else. Somewhere no hired hand would ever go. Where no guy just hired to do a job would dare to go. For Satan snatched you and had you in His jaws. But your Good Shepherd retrieved you out. You were stuck in the devil’s throat because of your sin. But the Good Shepherd rescued you.

More than that - He did what no other Shepherd could do. And that’s what makes Him Good. He gave His Body over to be wolfed down by Satan. He gave His shoulders and all of His body to be chewed up in place of yours. Usually a dead shepherd is a useless shepherd. No protection for the flock, not safety from attacks. But not here. Jesus doesn’t raise His sheep for slaughter. He lays down His life for them. He dies in place of sheep who loved to wander. And His death means life for His sheep, freedom from sin’s captivity, rescue from the jaws of death.

One of the many things I desperately miss during this time is singing hymns with the congregation. We are singing church! Six, seven hymns a Sunday. A wonderful hymn for today is “O Little flock, fear not the foe.” “O little flock, fear not the foe, who madly seeks your overthrow; dread not his rage and power” (LSB 66:1). Even though it is unsung, it is still true. The wolf has been defeated. Even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, his howl is empty. For the head of that liar and deceiver and murderer has been crushed. Those shoulders that were laid down into death for you were also taken up in the Resurrection so that he could be the Shepherd of the Church. The Bishop and Overseer of your souls.

And what a Shepherd He has been for this flock. He, He Himself searched for His sheep and sought them out. He rescued them from the place where they have been scattered. In Holy Baptism He called you by name. He made you His own. He cleaned off all the thorns, bound up all the wounds, and draped over your shoulders the robe of His righteousness that adorns you.

In Holy Absolution you hear the true Shepherd’s voice drawing you away from all the other voices, both without and within, that would burden you and do you harm. He brings you into your own land, the gracious reign of His green pastures where He feeds and cares for you.

Is not His Holy Supper the Table He prepares before you in the presence of your enemies? Here He shows you that He not only your Good Shepherd, but that He Himself is also the Best Pasture! He is food for your body and soul. Food that refreshes, renews, and enlivens your faith and trust in Him. All of these are His rod and His staff by which He comforts you.

For this is Good Shepherd Sunday. We could also call it “Merciful Hearted Shepherd” Sunday, for that’s what the Latin, Misericordias Domini, literally means. But if we had translated it from the Hebrew, this Sunday would have maybe an even more wonderful name. The Hebrew word for merciful hearted is chesed, which means, “unfailing love, loving kindness, loyal love.” As in O give thanks unto the Lord for His chesed endures forever. Maybe we could render it, “devoted.” This is “Devoted Shepherd Sunday.” Christ is your devoted Shepherd. He is completely devoted to His flock and their eternal good.

So devoted that St Peter could say, By His wounds you have been healed. For life has left you broken hearted with disappointment. But He is the Shepherd devoted to binding you up. You have been injured and damaged by others, but He is the Shepherd devoted to healing you. You heart has been shattered, but He is a Shepherd devoted to putting it together piece by piece. You are weak, but He is the Shepherd devoted to strengthening you to live in faith toward Him and love toward others.

You will stray like sheep. But you are His sheep. And He will forever be devoted to calling you back to Him in repentance. All disasters, all illness, all times of fear and crisis are a call to return to Him in repentance and faith. For though you walk through this valley of the shadow of death, He raises you to His shoulder and brings you to His Table. Here He is both Host and Meal. He gives you a foretaste of the heavenly Feast to come. And you shall dwell in your Shepherd’s House forever.

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

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

At the beginning and end of Jesus’ earthly life, God used dreams to communicate important messages. Joseph was about to divorce Mary when God sent him a dream, Don’t do it. After they visited the child Jesus, the Wise Men were about to go back to the bloody tyrant Herod, but God warned them in a dream, Go home a different way. And when God wanted Pilate to hear that Jesus was innocent, He sent a dream to his wife who told her husband, Have nothing to do with that innocent Man.

But on Easter Sunday, God communicates through a nightmare. Easter Sunday is one big nightmare - the devil’s nightmare. The events of those three days - Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday - were one big nightmare for the Author of Death.

On Good Friday Satan though he was going to a funeral for Jesus, but it would be his funeral. God dead in the grave was supposed to be Satan’s victory. But he would lose through the greatest comeback victory the world has even known. And, sometimes before rising on Easter morning, Jesus even descended to make sure hell got the message. Easter is the devil’s nightmare.

It was supposed to be Peter’s nightmare. Peter, Jesus’ friend, and leader of the disciples. Peter, the man who spoke those bold words, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Even if I must die with You, I will never deny You. And sadly, those famous words we heard last week, those words that began Peter’s three-day nightmare: I don’t know the Man.

Jesus befriended Peter. The Scriptures have a lot to say about what friendship is to look like. A friend sticks closer than a bother (Pr 18:24). A friend loves at all times (Pr 17:17). One who has unreliable friends comes to ruin (Pr 18:24). Friends are supposed to there when the chips are down. When its inconvenient. In good times and bad. Friends are supposed to be loyal. Jesus is the Best Friend you can have. The Friend of Sinners. Through Jesus we become friends of God. How loyal a friend are you?

How deep is your affinity for Jesus? Do you deny your Friend Jesus when the chips are down? When it might cost you money of the high opinion of someone? Are you loyal to Jesus, His Word, His Church even if it means someone at work might laugh at what you believe? Are you actually embarrassed about the One who created you, redeemed you, and has been nothing but good to you? Does your silence - or your rotten behavior - say loudly and clearly, I don’t know the Man? Peter is the great denier. Clearly he’s not the only one.

What a nightmare for Peter. What could possibly remove the echo of that rooster crow from his ear drums? Only one thing. A Friend who sticks closer than a brother. A Friend who loves at all times. A Friend of deniers. A Friend of the disloyal. A Friend of those who weep when they think of the past they regret. A Friend with such affinity for sinners that He is willing to be punished on the Cross for their offenses, their denials and disloyalty. And then rise from the dead to be the Friend that calls them back by name.

Mark has a detail in his Gospel the others don’t. The preacher in the tomb add a word so heartwarming and tender, so comforting. It’s just a name. In fact, its a nickname. The name this Friend gave him, Peter. The name that is part of that wondrous Easter proclamation: He is risen. He is not here. Go and tell His disciples and Peter. No more talking Peter. Listen. Listen to the word that will end the nightmare. Listen to the word that will mute the crow of the rooster, which really is the crow of the conscience, of the law which condemns us all. Go and tell Peter the devil didn’t win. I did. Go tell Peter his nightmare is over.

And what a difference the news of the Resurrection made in his life. One of the devil’s cruelest lies is leading us to believe that this world is all there is. That what we have in this life is as good as it gets. That we should just be happy with now. That’s why it was so hard for Peter to do the right thing and stand up for Jesus. He was risking his life. And he was living as though this life was the only one he had. Or that his body, in a mortal state, was the only one he would ever have.

The Resurrection of Jesus is the promise of a greater life to come for those who are baptized and trust Him. We’re not just talking about the promise of our own bodies being raised from the dead and made new. But everything made new and perfect. Everything perfect in the new haven and new earth. Where we will have true peace. Complete wholeness, healing, physically, spiritually, psychologically. In every way.

The Resurrection of Jesus is an historical event witnessed by more than 500 people. This is not just some story someone dreamed up. But Easter isn’t just about tipping out hat to the history. The Resurrection is a promise for our life now. Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Gives. Present tense.

That’s why Peter had the courage to be martyred for the faith, to give his body into death to be crucified upside down. That’s why even though Job lost all his possessions, his family, his health, he was still about to confess: 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. That’s why Christians in every century can face the prospect of illness and death with the courage and joy of a life that cannot die.

Don’t let Satan make your life a nightmare. Confess your sins. Trust that Christ was crucified for them. Believe that He triumphed over death in His Resurrection. And if He is risen, you can face the hard things of life. For sometimes the pain does not go away in this life. You can face the loneliness and hurt of losing a loved one, for you have the promise of a joyful reunion with those who have died in the faith.

You can do the right thing, even if it means giving up some money or ridicule or worse, because in the resurrection you will experience true wealth.

You can handle seeing your body or your loved one’s body being eaten up by cancer, because the resurrection means that one day you’ll have a new and better body, fully restored, never to die again.

Don’t let Satan make your life a nightmare. This life is not as good as it gets. Trust Peter’s Friend and your Friend. Believe that in your Baptism you died with Christ and were raised with Him. He calls you by name. Believe that in partaking of the Sacrament again this morning, not only are your sins forgiven, but you are already participating in the resurrection, and being strengthened to life everlasting in the faith that receives the victory.

Let the devil’s nightmare continue. Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.

St John 19
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

A thief to the left of Him, a thief to His right, and thieves all around. For to Christ all are thieves. The elders of the people had robbed Him of His title, Messiah. The disciples had robed Him of comfort and consolation and companionship. Judas, who betrayed Him, had been pilfering the purse all along. The soldiers robbed Him of His clothing and dignity. Pontus Pilate would soon rob Him of His life.

Thieves to the left of Him, thieves to the right, and thieves all around.

And the thievery continues to this day. Modern science has robbed Jesus of the title Creator. Perverse and sinful people rob Him of the obedience that should be His. Authorities rob Him of gathering His Christians together for Holy Week by limiting attendance. Abortionists rob Him of little worshippers, and rob the rest of us of sacred lives, joys of friends and family. Indeed, thieves all around.

But don’t be too smug. You have joined in the thievery. Your complaint that your life should have turned out better than it has, that it just isn’t fair, has robbed your God of the titles Father and Provider. Your fear that there will not be enough has called into question the truthfulness of His promises, and has left you selfish, failing to help others as you ought. Your angry, lusting, and self-pitying thoughts have robbed Him of His sovereignty over you. By your self-justification, your lame excuses, your blaming others, you have robbed Him of the title, the One Who Alone Justifies the World.

Thieves to the left of Him thieves to the right, and thieves all around.

But here is the great, grand surprise, my friends. Here is the “Ah, ha!” from heaven, the great, divine comedy of it all. Thieves to the left and thieves to the right and thieves all around, but the greatest Thief is the on the Center Cross. He is the Prince of Thieves and the King of the Jews.

Didn’t our Lord Jesus say that He would come to judge the world like a thief in the night?

Didn’t the little Lord Jesus slip into our time and space in the deep of night?

Didn’t the sky go dark and the sun hide it’s light when our Lord Jesus was lifted up from the earth?

Didn’t Jesus say that when a strong man guards his house his goods are safe, but when One stronger than he comes He breaks in and plunders all his goods?

Yes! The strong man kidnapped us and took us into his house, but unlike other kidnappings, we went willingly. Like our father Adam, we snatched up the glittering trash that that the Tempter holds out. He’s a liar, but we love his lies. We love the lie that our lives should be better. We want to believe the lie that there is no need for contention in the Church, no need for confession of the truth, no need for taking a stand, obeying God even while you submit to the authorities, no need for martyrs anymore.

We love the lie that our sins are small compared to others, that we are not as bad as most and better than some. We believed the lie that his prison house was actually a mansion and the place where we could find true happiness.

But Jesus would not leave us in the prison of delusion. The Valiant One came to release us. He broke into the prison house of Satan to set us free. He took the one thing that Satan could hold against us, keeping us in everlasting bondage. He took our sin. He who knew no sin became Sin for us. He took our sin and the death that comes with it. He didn’t stay away. He didn’t shelter in place in His heavenly home. He took on the form of a servant, a slave. He came into contact with the sick, the dying, the dead, the unclean. And He took it all into Him, all that sin, and the death that comes with it, and then shed His holy, precious Blood for the remission of the world’s sin. And our’s as well. He slew death.

Through that Blood you have been cleansed in Holy Baptism. Under the cover of that Blood you are given admission into the Supper of the Lamb and His Bride. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Heb 4:16). For here is the holiest of suppers, which we celebrated this day and this weekend, with the saints above, and with all the saints here below, even those who are not able to be with us.

Into that Great Banquet, our dying Lord was about to admit an unexpecting thief. This poor, miserable man, who did not sleep a wink all night for the horrifying thought of the hell he fully expected and deserved. He heard the unimaginable and completely unexpected words, Today, you with be with me in paradise (Lk 23:43).

We know him as the repentant thief. And he was. His brief Christian life was spent in defending his Master, praying to Him, and believing His promises. Yet in once sense he remained a thief. And what do thieves do? They frustrate us, for after working hard for the things we own, they creep in and in an instant take what we labored for so long to achieve.

And so, while our Lord was working to death for your salvation and the salvation of the poor thief, that miserable thief found the treasury of Jesus mercy and grace wide open. By God’s grace He found where salvation is freely given. By God’s grace, so have you.

But the Lord always has the last laugh. For as that poor thief was thinking he was snatching grace and mercy, the Grand Thief, the Prince of Thieves, was snatching him away clean forever. Today, you will be with Me in Paradise.

People loved by God, this thief on the cross found hope in the mercy of Christ. Thanks be to God you have found the same. For in climbing into the watery and bloody side, you are safe and secure in the Body of Christ, who has snatched you from the jaws of hell and the thieving clutches of Satan.

In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen