Saint Peter's Evangelical Lutheran Church
2525 E. 11th Street Indianapolis, IN
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Resurrection of Our Lord - Easter Day

4/1/2018

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Job 19:23-27; 1 Corinthians 15:51-57; St Mark 16:1-8
Alleluia! Christ is risen!  (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)

What hope does the world offer you?  After the recent death of theoretical physicist, Stephen Hawking, many news agencies reported his own statements regarding death, the afterlife, and belief in God.  He said, “I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail.  There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fair story for people afraid of the dark.”  He believed there was no need for life after death to make people behave well while they were alive.  “We should seek the greatest value of our action,” he said when asked how we should live.  Be nice and then you die.  That’s the hope the world offers.  

What do you hope for?  What is your hope in?  C.S. Lewis recounts a conversation with a young lady.  “Aren’t you afraid of death?”  “Oh no,” she replies.  “By the time I’m old enough for that, science will have it sorted” (God in the Dock).  In Science we trust.  

What do you hope for?  What is your hope in?  We live in a materialist age.  Many believe there is nothing beyond matter.  When matter dies, there is no hope.  Thus writes the renowned scientist Richard Dawkins: “Being dead will be no different from being unborn - I shall be just as I was in the time of William the Conquerer or the dinosaurs” (The God Delusion).  This is, of course, not science at all, but philosophy.  For science can tell us about what is made, but cannot tell us about the Maker.  And Dawkins’ philosophy is a hopeless one, where nothing awaits us after death.  This life is merely a thin veneer covering eternal annihilation.  

That is the hope the world offers you.  Be nice, trust science.  Meanwhile the scientists have turned philosophical and tell us there is nothing at all ahead of you.  if life has no meaning, then individuals persons have no worthy.  Why be nice at all anyway?  Is it any surprise that love has grown cold and we will look to anything that might give us a moment of pleasure or dull the despair?  

I’m not here this morning to give you a different idea, a different philosophy.  I’m not here to give you only a different ethic by which to live.  Christianity gives you a story.  A true story that many have forgotten.  And everything depends on this story.  It’s summarizes in the Sequence Hymn for Easter: “Speak, Mary, declaring, What you saw when wayfaring.”  

The Apostles were not the first eyewitnesses.  The women from Galilee were first, beginning with Mary Magdalene.  She testified to the disciples, who did not believe her.  Can you blame them?  Dead men don’t rise.  Still, she confess what she saw: “The tomb of Christ, who is living.  The glory of Jesus’ resurrection; Bright angels attesting.  The shroud and napkin resting.  My Lord, my hope, is arisen: To Galilee He goes before you.”

“My Lord, my hope.”  The resurrection of Jesus is not just wonderful news, it is wonderful news for us.  When our life is hopeless, His life is our hope.

So Mary declares.  But they don’t believe her.  They must see for themselves.  Peter and John run to the tomb; they see the stone rolled back, they see the grace cloths neatly folded, but Jesus they do not see.  

They see an empty tomb.  But that proves nothing.  Those who saw it supposed the body had been moved.  The Gospel is not an empty tomb.  The Gospel is a risen body.  That risen body appears to Mary Magdalene in the garden.  That risen body appears to the disciples that evening.  They see Jesus, hear Jesus, touch Jesus, eat with Jesus.

The Greek philosopher Socrates called the body a “prison house,” and his doctrine prevails among many today.  Transgender.  Assisted Suicide.  Amputee Identity Disorder.  These all flow from his heresy.  But God’s Word declares the opposite: The body is not a prison house, something to be escaped.  True, our bodies are corrupt, filled with cancer and decay.  Hearts, lungs, eyes and ears failing more and more year by year.  But the Lord is not going to free us from our bodies.  He will remake, repair, restore, regenerate, resurrect them.  He will transform our lowly bodies to be like His glorious body, by the power that enables Him to subdue all things to Himself as both Job and St Paul confess.  

Yet even this is not fully our hope.  For the resurrection would be no good if the world were still filled with malice and manipulation, abuse and discrimination.  This world is filled with promise-breakers in government, church, and marriage.  This world is filled with those who seek pleasure above all, where sacrifice and service are rare, or just for show.  

And that describes our own lives, also, far too much.  We break our word, lust for power or pleasure, share little.  All that must die.  The world must be transformed and that includes not only our bodies, but our hearts.  

This is the new life that will come in the resurrection, when the Lord makes all things new.  This is the new life that we all are invited to begin now, in the Church.  A new life where we confess our pride and selfishness, and begin to speak well of others and share our possessions.  

All this hope rests on the truthfulness that Jesus is risen.  

My friends, the evidence for His resurrection is overwhelming.  We have well documents evidence for Jesus’ resurrection.  But chiefly we have the eyewitness testimony of the women from Galilee, the Twelve disciples, James and Peter, then over 500 disciples, and finally Saul of Tarsus, who persecute the Church and presided over the martyrdom of Stephen.  His encounter with the risen Jesus didn’t just change his mind - it transformed his life!  

That’s what Jesus invites us to, as well: a new life in this new hope.  A life no longer occupied with power and selfish pleasure.  But a life filled with the hope of the resurrection, of the confidence of sins forgiven, and the sharing of good created gifts with others.  

Christ is risen, and you do not have to hope for technological progress to give humanity a better future.

Christ is risen, and you do not have to hope that science will solve the problem of death.

Christ is risen, and you do not have to despair that after death comes nothing, just a great emptiness.

Christ is risen, and you do not have to fear God’s just wrath.

For Christ is risen, and pardons all your sins.
Christ is risen, and death is undone.
Christ is risen, and Adam and Eve are lifted up from hell.
Christ is risen, and you shall rise too.
Christ is risen, and the demons are put to flight.
Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice.

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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Easter Vigil

3/31/2018

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St John 20:1-18; Various Texts
​Rite of First Communion prior to Confirmation 
In the Name + of JESUS.  Amen.

She supposed Him to be the gardener.  She is not wrong.  For He who once walked with His creation in the cool of the day now walks among His restored creation not merely as their Creator, but as one of them, as a Man, the greater Adam, who undoes the curse.  

What had been lost in the Fall has been restored and more in the death and Resurrection of the Seed of the Woman, the Skull Crusher who bears the curse and returned us, fallen Adam’s fallen children, back to the Garden.  God the Father has slaughtered the Lamb and made garments of skin for you and clothed you.  The flaming sword of the cherubim has been quenched in the Blood of the Lamb.  You are welcomed back not only to the beauty and splendor of God’s good creation in Christ Jesus, but to partake and have fellowship with Him in the Tree of Life.  

There is a modern tradition of taking an old Christmas tree and carving it into a Cross for Good Friday.  Its kind of gimmicky, but it serves a point.  This is why He came.  For this reason He was born.  To die.  To save His people from their sins.  

But in the Resurrection Jesus has taken that dead, lifeless wood, and transformed it back into the flowering and blooming Tree, laden with the sweet fruit of His own Body and Blood, from which we are given to eat and worship, to have favor with God and live with Him forever.  That is why we remove the veils from our crucifixes tonight.  They were darkened for Good Friday and our Lord’s Passion, but now, in the light of the Resurrection, we rejoice in the icon of our salvation, the victory trophy of His conquest over death and the grave, over hell and Satan himself.  

This is also why we welcome these little ones to the Lord’s Table tonight.  They confess the faith once for all delivered to the saints.  By the grace of God they understand the Scripture, that Jesus must rise from the dead, or their faith is in vain.  That Jesus must rise from the dead, for death has no claim on Him, the Innocent One, true God and true Man, their Savior and Lord, who died for them and shed His blood for them for the forgiveness of sins.  

How do they know this?  In the same manner as you.  In the same manner as the disciples who were told by Mary Magdalene.  They are catechized from the Holy Gospel and believe the words instituting the Sacrament of the Altar.  And so they join us in the fellowship of the Lord’s Table, to work and fight and pray against the devil who hounds us day and night and never lets us have a moment’s peace.  

Well, not tonight, you wicked dragon!  For tonight the whole Christian Church shouts into the darkness with the Easter acclamation: Christ is risen!  Alleluia!  And He who is the Light, come to scatter the darkness and break the gloom, dispels the darkness of our hearts, drives away the doom of sin and death, removes the burial shroud draped over the world in Adam’s Fall, and illumines the dear lambs and sheep of His Church.

In the Ancient Church this was the night for Baptisms.  The catechumens, having been instructed in the Christian faith over the past few years, received intensified catechesis during the 40 days of Lent, particularly on the Sacred Mysteries of Holy Baptism and the Eucharist.  

Entering into a dimly lit baptistry the catechumens, men and women, young and old, stepped down into the font, dug deep into the floor as a grave.  Renouncing the works and ways of the devil, confessing the Apostles’ Creed, they were baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Immediately upon coming out of the font they were clothed with a white robe and given a burning candle.  They were no longer catechumens, they were the enlightened ones.  Illumined by the Light of Christ and sundered from the domain of darkness and death.  

Then it really got going.  All the candles were lit, hundreds of them, and the baptistry walls were visible for the first time; lavishly decorated with scenes of the new creation.  The doors were opened and the newly baptized entered into the brilliantly lit Sanctuary.  They sang and prayed, heard the salvation narratives of Holy Scripture, and received the Lord’s Supper for the first time as well.  In fact, it would have been the first time they were even allowed to witness the Lord’s Supper, as was the practice of Closed Communion in the Ancient Church. 

We retain the ceremonies because they teach; not only the children, but the adults too.  They are good, right, and salutary.  But even more, we believe, teach, and confess the substance of this catechesis: the Lamb of God who was crucified, but behold He lives!  

Christ is risen and Holy Baptism washes you in His death and resurrection.

Christ is risen and the Holy Absolution bestows the forgiveness of sins.

Christ is risen and the Holy Communion gives life and salvation.  

Christ is risen and your death is defeated.  Life reigns.  

Christ is risen and you are made children of God, brothers of the same heavenly Father, welcomed into the Garden of the New Eden, the new creation, to partake of the Tree of Life in full fellowship with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven who laud and magnify His glorious Name.  

Do not weep dear ones.  The reign of death is ended.  Christ lives!  Cling to Him as He presents Himself to you in water and Word, bread and wine.   

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!  Alleluia! 
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Good Friday - Tenebrae Vespers

3/30/2018

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

The Romans prided themselves in adopting Greek culture, language, philosophy, and architecture.  If they had been consistent, they would have executed their prisoners with poison.  The Phoenicians executed by crucifixion as a more effective form of suppression; leaving a man, half dead, naked upon the cross for days as a public spectacle was a good way to deter nationalist insubordination.  The Romans had done it so often they developed it into an art form.  Practice makes perfect.  For the soldiers, waiting out crucifixions was another boring military detail.  Throwing dice to divine the clothing of the dying man was like player poker.  Playing games release boredom.  Ask any parents taking their children on a car trip.

But something very important was happening in this crucifixion than just another tiresome execution.  A solider pierced the side of the dead body and immediately water and blood came out.  It was such a strange occurrence that one of the witnesses took an oath that he had actually seen it.  He who saw it has borne witness - his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth - that you also may believe.  

But should we take oaths on such trivial matters?  And what was the truth that we should believe?  The bleeding of a man’s dead body is hardly an occasion for an oath or belief.  Perhaps something unusual had happened, but it was hardly miraculous in the same sense as changing water into wine.  There was a medical explanation, even the ancients likely knew it.  The lance of the soldier went up through the ribs behind the lungs and struck both the heart and the waters that filled the sack around the heart.  

Still, the Evangelist who witnessed the pouring out of water and blood thought it was so important that he swore that it really happen: His testimony is true and he knows he is telling the truth. 

The Beloved Disciple, the Mother of our Lord, and the soldiers were standing at the true Temple of God, at the most important Church service the world would ever experience.  Golgotha had become a ground more sacred than Sinai and the Cross holier than the burning bush.  The Crucified Man was God’s High Priest, offering Himself as God’s sacrificial Lamb in the temple of His own Body.  Here was the holy of holies of a temple greater than Solomon’s.  They were standing on just the other side of the curtain which was torn in two.  Jesus was at one and the same time God’s High Priest, God’s Temple, and God’s sacrificial Lamb.  

What the witnesses thought was the end of Jesus was really His triumphant hour.  In a matter of hours He would raise the destroyed Temple of His Body in the moment of the resurrection.  And with that we who believe in Him would become living stones.  The Son of Man had been lifted up on the mountain of the Lord and was now drawing all men to Himself, just as He promised.  All the prophets from Adam to John the Baptist were there.  Through the eyes of the Beloved Disciple and the Mother of our Lord the whole Church throughout the world and at all times was there, gazing upon the divine miracle.  This was not simply another crucifixion, this was the greatest Passover ever celebrated.  It was the last Passover, but it is the Passover that never ends.  Christ our Passover has been sacrificed.  

The Passover regulation required that not one bone could be broken.  This was especially true for the Lamb that God Himself had selected for sacrifice and who was God Himself.  God’s final and everlasting Passover had to be done flawlessly.  The words, It is finished, signified that the sacrifice in heaven had been received and God’s people on earth could be drawn through the curtain, that is, the pierced Body of Christ into the heavenly sanctuary.  

The soldier with the lance became the assisting deacon at the high altar of the Cross.  The body of the crucified victim had to be kept intact since this Lamb of God was going to be placed on the altars of countless churches as the pure and perfect Sacrament.  The wound in the side had to be inflicted quickly and with precision.  And immediately there came out water and blood.  The sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion required flowing water and blood.  In the moment of the Cross the Church was being born and washed and presented to Christ as pure and as spotless as He is.  

In the death of the Paschal Victim ancient Israel had just come to an end and the new Israel, the Church of Christ, was coming into existence.  There would be no more Passovers.  For the Passover of Christ who offered Himself up to God was the eternal sacrifice.  Those who had been baptized into Moses by the cloud and by the sea were now being baptized into Christ by the river of water flowing from His side.  Those searching for the heavenly Jordan had found it.  Those who were fed by God in the wilderness were now feeding on God Himself.  Here was Christ, the new Adam, giving life from His side to the new Eve, the holy Church, His pure bride.  

There at Golgotha Israel was transformed into the church and the Passover was transformed into the Supper of our Lord.  Without Word and Sacraments there is no true and complete worship.  But there was Christ, God’s eternal Word in the flesh, preaching from His Cross a sermon that no apostle or preacher could ever preach.  There were the sacraments flowing in endless streams from His body, flooding the corners of the world with an eternal salvation.

Artists have painted angels into the scene, capturing the water in a baptismal font and in a chalice the blood streaming from the Savior’s wounds and side.  Crumbs might fall from the Master’s table, but that precious blood and water, bringing salvation, could never be spilled on profane ground.  Flying seraphim cover their eyes before the sacramental mysteries as they cry to one another Holy, holy, holy, is God the Lord of Sabaoth, heaven and earth are full of His glory.

But that sacred water, which no man nor angel dare profane, flowing from the throne of God’s Cross, has washed guilty consciences clean from sin and that blood has quenched the thirst of sinners abandoned in the wilderness of their own sins.  
Every baptized believer is taken to the Cross and plunged into the endless river still steaming from the Victim’s side. 

Every communing Christian is drinking the blood streaming from His side.  

All Christians who have ever lived still stand at that Cross and say with John the Baptist, O Christ, Thou Lamb of God, that takest away the sin of the world, have mercy upon us.  On earth we shall not get closer to heaven than in the wounded side of the Redeemer.  And in heaven we shall gaze in uninterrupted ecstasy at that wound out of which poured our salvation.

In another place St John spoke of the miracle of the Cross: This is He who came by water and blood - Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood (1 Jn 5:6).  So now we have three witnesses to tell us who Jesus Christ really is - the water of Holy Baptism, the blood of Holy Communion, and the Word of the Holy Spirit - and all three find their fulfillment in Jesus.  

Lent is a sad time for us Christians, but it was God’s triumphal hour.  The evangelists tell us that in the hour of His death the weakened Victim shouted out with a loud voice.  In death the weakened Victim became God’s victor and champion.  The time of sacrifice is over.  He won.  The time of sacramental celebration is soon to begin.  One of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water.  He who saw it has borne witness - his testimony is true, and he knows that he is tell the truth - that you also may believe.  

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

3/30/2018

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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.

Our Lord is nowhere described in the Gospels as “happy.”  As Isaiah foretold, He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.  

Twice we are told that He rejoiced.  Once by St Luke and the other by St John.  Luke reports, Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was Your gracious will” (Lk 10:21).  This doesn’t seem like a particularly happy thing, that the Father has hidden Himself from the wise and intelligent.  But it causes Jesus to rejoice.  And if you’re not sure why, come back tomorrow evening for the Great Vigil and hear the good confession for yourself from the mouth of children.  

John details for us the other time Jesus is reported to have rejoiced.  He told His disciples, Lazarus has died, and for your sake I rejoice that I was not there, so that you may believe (Jn 11:14).  So perhaps the next time you see a picture of Jesus laughing, imagine that He is telling the disciples, “Lazarus is dead.”

Jesus rejoiced.  He probably laughed.  But overall the picture the Gospels paints for us is that He wasn’t a happy man.  He was a man of sorrows.  

Yet this sorrow is not in terms of feeling sorry for Himself and the pain He must endure.  It is compassion.  This is the word, “com,” meaning “with,” and passion.  As in the Passion of our Lord.  Passion is a hot word nowadays.  Follow your passions.  Pursue your passions.  But at its core passion is to desire something so intently that is causes suffering.  Compassion means to suffer with.  

Compassion is what happens to you when your daughter is home from college for Thanksgiving and tells everyone that she had an abortion.  You can’t eat.  Food loses its flavor.  You realize the violence done to your little girl and the baby was done out of ignorance or fear.  But it can’t be undone.  The frustration and pain and sorrow.  That’s compassion.  

And this is nearly the constant reaction of the Man of Sorrows.  During His humiliation our Lord looked around this fallen world and lost His appetite.  He sees unnecessary pain and sadness everywhere.  And it hurts Him.  He sees the futility and stupidity of pride, greed, and lust.  He watches us hurt ourselves and those who love us and it wrenches Him deep down in His guts.  This is compassion like no other.  

Our Lord’s other high frequency emotion in the Gospels is anger.  Sin makes God mad.  Mad enough to destroy His whole created world in a flood.  Mad enough to bring the waves crashing down upon Pharaoh and to turn Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt.  Mad enough to make things go so bad that people would think barrenness a blessing and beg the mountains to fall on them.  

Like it or not, Good Friday is about God’s wrath; His anger.  And God’s wrath is revealed when He casts it upon His Son for you.  Not just today, but throughout our Lord’s ministry.  When you see Jesus’ frustration, sadness, and anger over sin, this is His righteous anger, His holy wrath.  He has no sympathy for the demons.  Remember the fig tree He cursed..  Remember the violence He inflicted upon the money changers.  Remember how He called Peter “Satan.”  He is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, ferocious and powerful, but He goes meek and mild as a Lamb to the slaughter.  Do not be mistaken, though, He is no house cat.  He is not a tame lion.  He is the stronger Man and He is angry.  Consumed with zeal for the things of His Father.  

Compassion.  Anger.  Then there is love.  “Jesus loves me this I know.”  The children’s hymn is correct.  There may be no more profound a statement.  But His love is not what we usually think of as love.  Love is not seeing Jesus sitting in heaven thinking happy thoughts about us.  His love is sorrow, pain, and death.  

We tend to think of the highest form of love as romantic.  Not every culture has agreed.  C.S. Lewis classified four types of love: eros, philios, agape, and storge.  What we would label, erotic, brotherly, sacrificial, and love of country or patriotism.  He believed the highest form of love was a tension between philios and agape.  A brotherly, self-sacrificial love.  But we are so crass.  We tend to romanticize the love of Jonathan for David or the relationship between Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.  Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (Jn 15:13).  

I think the problem is what we consider to be love resides mainly in the emotions of the lover.  We sing along to the Beatles and Taylor Swift because they are attune to our sentiments.  We the beloved no longer makes us feel happy and good, positive and enjoyable, we no longer call it love.  You don’t look at the man who raped your daughter and feel your heart grow full of joy and peace and compassion.  You don’t say, “I love him.  I pity him.”

But that is precisely how God loves us.  God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rm 5:8).  His love for us does not make Him happy.  It is a heart-wrenching sorrow that moves Him to act.  That is why we call the last days of our Lord’s life His Passion.  

John 3:16 is a key verse.  The problem, though, is that we misunderstand the translation.  We hear the word “so” as emphasis.  Like grandma loving us so much she wants to give us a big hug.  But in John 3:16 our Lord isn’t writing a Hallmark card trying to tell us the great quantity or depth of God’s love.  He is explaining to Nicodemus how it is that God loves the world: by giving His Son into death as a ransom for rebels who hated Him and killed Him and who chose Satan and Barabbas over Him.  John 3:16 actually means, For in this way God loved the world: He gave His only-begotten Son in order that whoever believes in Him should not be destroyed but have everlasting life.  Remember that right before this Jesus is saying that He must be lifted up from the earth.  He is talking about His death.  His death is how He loves the world; how He makes men His again.  

It is written, In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 Jn 4:10).  This is how God loves rapists, abortionists, liars, cheats, and all the rest.  This is how the Lord loves you.  He gives Himself into death for you.  That love is sadness and anger, sorrow and pain.  

Divine love is self-giving.  God’s love is service.  It is action.  Death.  God’s love hurts Him, causes His heart to break and water and blood to pour out.  We do not rightly understand love, in God or ourselves, when we think of it as an emotion or a feeling.  The emotions of Jesus in the Gospels are mainly sorrow and anger, not love, because love is not how He feels, but what He does, who He is.  

But what the New Testament evangelists don’t report in terms of emotion, the Old Testament Gospel according to Isaiah does: Out of the anguish of His soul He shall see and be satisfied.  Satisfaction is not necessarily happiness.  You can’t always get what you want.  But sometimes you get what you need.  Jesus is satisfied because He has fulfilled His mission.  It is finished, perfected, complete.  He has loved you.  He loves His Father.  He has defeated death.  

This is the great and wonderful surprise: You are the labor of His soul, the plunder of hell stolen away, the reward of the Father returned to its rightful place.  In Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting men’s trespasses against them.  For our sake He made Him to be Sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.  Yes, this is the way God has loved: He has given Himself to us in death in order to give Himself, His crucified and risen Body and Blood, to us in the Holy Communion.  If He had not died, there could be no testament.  If His Blood had not poured forth it could not fill our chalice.  And there is no remission apart from blood.

When the faithful went to the tabernacle of the temple, they did so for blood, that their sins might be forgiven.  So also we come to church.  We come for blood, that our sins might be forgiven.  God loves us in this way: He pours His Blood onto our hearts through our mouths that we might be circumcised where it counts, that we might offer sacrifices not of blood, for that is offered to us, but that we might offer sacrifices of praise.  

That is why we call today Good Friday.  It is not bad or sad Friday, but good.  For it is the day that the Lord restored the original goodness to His creation.  It is God’s Friday.  This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it (Ps 118:24); even as a bride rejoices with tears and embraces her wedding day.  For Good Friday is the day when the Son of God, true Man, left His Father in heaven and His Mother, the Virgin Mary, and cleaved fast to His beloved Bride the Church.  Good Friday is the day He became one flesh with Her.  And what God has joined together, let no one rend asunder.  
The consummation is close at hand, beloved.  Not merely when the stone is rolled away and Jesus is missing, but when His risen Body and Blood are poured into our hearts through our mouths that we might receive the remission of sins.  For know this above all dear sinners: Jesus who loves you is risen and lives and is satisfied with you.  He had compassion on you.  He loves you.  You are His.  Redeemed and forgiven.  Beloved.  

In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 
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Christian Funeral - John "Jack" Leroy Jenkins

3/29/2018

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Job 19:21-27; 1 Corinthians 15:51-57; St Matthew 27:45-54; 28:1-6
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

Bonnie, dear children, step-children, grandchildren of Jack, fellow family and friends, dear lambs of God from St Peter’s: grace, mercy, and peace be multiplied unto you from God our Father who delivered over His Son, Jesus Christ, to be crucified for our transgressions and raised Him from the dead for our justification.  

All things happened according to the gracious Word and will of God.  The death of Jesus Christ our Lord happened just as He repeatedly prophesied it would.  The Son of Man was betrayed into the hands of the chief priest and scribes, handed over to the governor and the tetrarch, beaten and bruised, mocked, ridiculed and shamed, and eventually crucified.  For Jesus is was not a shock or surprise.  He prophesied it would happen, and according to His Word spoken by the mouth of His Old Testament prophets, it occurred just as He said.  

All things happen according to the gracious Word and will of God.  Even the death of our beloved brother Jack.  To us it was a surprise.  It happened rather suddenly.  Bonnie, you were startled at the sound early Monday morning.  But it happened according to His will.  You don’t know why.  I don’t know why.  But I do know this: death is a gift from the hand of the Lord.  

Old Job confessed this mystery.  He said, Naked I came from my mothers womb, and naked I shall return.  The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord (Job 1:21).  That is the good confession of faith, of a trust in the Word and promise of the Lord who helps in time of need, even when it feels like chastening.  Bonnie, I know that you echo Job’s statement, but its hard.  

And that’s okay.  This isn’t easy.  You’re not just going to “get over it.”  Death is not a part of life.  In fact, it is the very antithesis of life.  But it is the debt that all men pay as fallen children of fallen Adam.  As St Paul writes, The wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23).  Jack knew this.  From his youth, as a child raised in Lutheran church and school in Texas, Jack knew what is the state of man.  That we are born sinful and unclean.  That we have sinned against God in thought, word, and deed.  

There is a part of the Divine Service liturgy in which we acknowledge and own up to what God’s Word says of us, our sinfulness and what we deserve.  It says, “O almighty God, merciful Father, I a poor, miserable sinner, confess unto You all my sins and iniquities with which I have ever offended You and justly deserved your temporal and eternal punishment.”  This places us in the ash pit with old Job, lamenting the day of our births and grieving for our sins.  

Jack echoed this sentiment.  Jack knew he was a sinner, whether in his years of sobriety or prior, he knew it was more than what he did and did not do.  Jack mourned his sinful nature and repented, daily drowning his old Adam, clinging to his bones, until now, that old man is once and for all mortified in our dear friend Jack.  For in acknowledging his sinfulness, Jack also confessed His Savior, Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of sinners, the Friend of sinners.  Jesus only has mercy on sinners.  Jesus died only for sinners.  Jesus is forsaken and rejected and condemned only for sinners.  He is cast off so that sinners like Jack could be redeemed and ransomed and welcomed into the Father’s loving embrace.  

There is a portrait of Jack and Bonnie that was displayed yesterday at the visitation.  A beautiful, framed photo of the two of them.  To the left of the photo were scripted the words, Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly.  These are taken from the prophet Micah, He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8).  Far from being commands of law one must do in order get right with God, this is a description of who Christ Jesus is, His person and work, His character and heart.  He has done what is right and just.  He has shown unfathomable mercy to us poor, lost sinners.  He has walked in humility before the Lord His God and saves sinners.  

Jack believes and confesses this.  He trusts in the Word of Jesus His Savior, the Friend of sinners.  Like old Job, Jack knows that his Redeemer lives.  Holy Week and Good Friday are not celebrated as a funeral for Jesus.  Rather the Christian rejoices and boasts in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.  For more than race cars and interested in the Civil War, more than model airplanes and NASCAR, the thing that Jack cherished the most is the Cross of his Lord Jesus Christ by which the world has been crucified to him and he to the world.  For it is by the Cross of Christ that Jack shall stand in his resurrected flesh and behold at the last his Redeemer and Lord with his own eyes.  

Behold I tell you a mystery.  Jack is not dead.  Even as Christ Jesus is not dead.  You heard it from St Matthew, how he can’t help but hint toward the resurrection already at the death of Jesus.  How after Jesus handed over His Spirit to the Father, the temple curtain was ripped and the earth shook and the rocks split.  And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they went into the Holy City and appeared to many.  

After Jesus resurrection the saints who had fallen asleep in Him were raised.  That’s how it was after the first Easter.  That is how it shall be on the Last Day.  Jesus died and rose first.  Then we shall follow.  Through death, a mere sleep in Christ who has swallowed up death, then the resurrection unto eternal life, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.  

Bonnie, you’ve said that the last words you said to Jack were, “I love you.”  He said them back.  Then together you prayed the Lord’s Prayer, as you do each night, and went to sleep.  That’s how it is even now!  You said, “I love you,” prayed the Our Father, and Jack has fallen asleep in Christ.  But he shall be raised.  In this body.  Immortal.  Imperishable.  Changed.  Without ache or pain or circulation issues and heart problems.  Perfect in Christ Jesus.  And you shall say good morning to him in the resurrection.  The dawn of Christ’s return.  

Even now you have this assurance.  It is placed before your eyes as you confessed with the words of St Paul: If we have been united with Jesus in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.  Underneath that funeral pall Jack is wearing his Navy dress blues with cowboy boats and hat, which I’m sure is against regulations, placed into a casket covered in racing stickers.  But over it is what matters.  For Jack is covered with the robe of Christ’s righteousness that covered all his sin.  He is redeemed by the precious blood of the Son of God.

That self-same blood poured out on the Cross for Jack, was poured over his lips in Holy Communion.  In the Lord’s Supper, which Jack so eagerly received in faith, he partook of the death-defying life of his Lord Jesus under bread and wine, His Body and Blood, given and shed for him for the forgiveness of sins.  Thanks be to God who has given Jack the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.  

Do not be afraid, Bonnie.  For I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.  He is not here, for He has risen, as He said.  Therefore Jack too shall rise, with all believers in Christ, and be given eternal life in Him.  

Dear child of God, I know that you miss him, that you want to talk to him.  Your mourning and sorrow is not sin or weakness.  None who mourn the loss of their loved ones commit sin by grieving over death.  Even Jesus wept at the tomb of His friend Lazarus.  But we do not mourn as those who have no hope.  The centurion keeping watch over Jesus believed and praised God over the death of Jesus.  He knew that Jesus’ death availed for him.  That Jesus’ death is the death of death and the death of sin.

Christ is risen.  He is risen indeed.  Our “alleluias” are near.  Easter is close at hand.  Even now, Bonnie and all who mourn, rejoice and take comfort in the forgiveness of sins, the communion of saints, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.  

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

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Maundy Thursday

3/29/2018

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Exodus 12:1-14; 1 Corinthians 11:23-32; St John 13:1-15, 34-35
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.  

When God bound up the future of all nations in the history of Abraham and his Seed, He made the history prophetic.  Each event and every rite of Israel became flower buds on a tree.  Each bud, each law, each ceremony, as beautiful as it was, was temporary, destined to blossom as a flower and then to ripen into fruit.  

That fruit is the Cross of Jesus Christ, the culmination and central pivot of all history, the gift of God to men as Man.  And under the shade of that Cross all nations are gathered and made sons of God.  

Of all those rites and in all that varied history of grace, in the great testament of the prophets, the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread are the most essential.  They marked the miraculous deliverance from the angel of death who passed over those houses which were marked with the blood of the lamb.  From those same houses, the next morning - really the same day according to Hebraic time - that blood marked release from bondage to Pharaoh as well.  

That was beginning of Israel as a chosen people, a royal nation.  In the Passover, the children of Israel, miraculously preserved and set free, became a people by the direct intervention of the YHWH, the God Who Is, and the blood of the Lamb.  

The Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were kept in all the following years.  God’s people marked those great and defining historical events and gifts.  But that which they marked was in itself only a mark of something else.  They were buds awaiting the light of the incarnation to shine in the darkness, warm the soil, and bring life to light.  

The Passover and all the history of Israel opened as a flower at the nativity of our Lord.  Angels sang and peace was declared.  The earth bloomed in joy, but that bloom was not the end.  That from Mary’s virgin womb matured.  He was the loveliest of fruit: the Lord Himself in the flesh.  And He ripened, because sweet and good for food, given for us upon the Tree of Life in the desolate garden of white-washed tombs, in the Place of the Skull, outside the City of Peace.  There, strung up, hanging like that which once tempted Eve, now tempting Satan, is the fruit of God’s love and the fulfillment of Israel’s history and rites: our hope and salvation, Jesus the Christ.  

It is because the Passover was the most essential and central of Old Testament events that our Lord lays down His life in the mist of its remembrance.  He goes as a lamb to the slaughter; silent, but not without knowledge.  He lays down His life as a sacrifice, of His own will, and He chooses the time.  He is the Lamb whose blood shields us from the angel of death and delivers us from the slavery of that cruel pharaoh the devil.  He is both the new Adam and the true Israel.  He is YHWH, the God Who Is.  

And if that simple, undefinable truth causes Caiaphas to rend his garments in mock piety, it ought o cause us to rend our hearts in humility and repentance.  For the God Who Is and always has been, who set the continents into their places, carved out the oceans by His hand, and carries the sky upon His shoulders, has joined our cause, has been born of the Virgin, been sacrificed on the Cross.  He has become one of us, flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone.  Our God is a man, come to be a sacrifice, a lamb, worthy of our sins, a holy and complete substitute.  The life His veins carried through this dying world is poured out upon the earth and down our throats to cleanse our broken hearts.  Indeed, we ought to rend out hearts and repent, that there be room for Him and His holy Blood.  

For this He was born and for this He died: to have the Body and Blood that would be offered on our behalf, to give us that Body and that Blood as food and drink, sweet and satisfying to sinners desperately in need of forgiving food.  We were once deceived and misled by food and then rescued through food.  As it was for the Passover and Exodus, so for their fulfillment.  First, our Lord Jesus on the night in which He was betrayed, on the eve - or rather the same day, according to Hebrew time - of His crucifixion and sacrifice, while in His humility, He gave His Body and His Blood to us, which He would then give that same day for us.  For this He was born and for this He died. 

He, His precious Body and His holy Blood, is the fruit of God’s love, the culmination of history and the distillation of the entirety of the old covenant in His Cup.  This is the continuation of God’s own people.  It was only a bud in Egypt, only a type in the lambs and bulls and goats, only a promise yet to be fulfilled in the prophetic word.  

It flowered when the Lord preached on the mountainside.  It flowered when He healed the sick and turned water into wine.  But now it is mature.  Not it is ripe.  It has come to what it was intended for all along, to what was prophesied against the devil in the Garden: It is the very means and substance of our reconciliation with the Father.  We have a new tree, a new fruit, and a new way back to God.  Thus we are, by grace, back were we belong.  

The woman has a Seed.  That Seed has grown and is fruit.  That fruit restores us to the garden’s fellowship and beyond.  It undoes death and removes the curse.  Here, in His Holy Supper, the Lord gives Himself to us, to eat and to drink, for the forgiveness of sins.  This is what it is to be a Christian, not simply to be spared death, but to have fellowship with God and to be sundered forever from the power of the devil.  

The fruit of the Tree is on the paten and in the chalice.  The angel of death passes over.  He has no claim on us.  We belong to God.  We bear His watery Name.  We eat at His Table.  We are His people and more.  We are not merely guests, sojourners in His house for but an hour, but we are members of His royal family raised up from stones.  We are not Gentile dogs hoping for crumbs, worshipping what we do not know.  We, by grace, are the Lord’s own beloved and cherished children.  We belong to God.  We are baptized.  We eat at His Table.  We are gathered unto the protecting shade of His Cross.  

This is the Church of the New Testament.  Christ is Himself her Mediator and Lamb.  Like the Church of the Old Testament, it is a testament of blood.  Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed for us.  His Boyd and Blood have been rent asunder in death and joined again in the resurrection.  Let us celebrate the feast not with the old leaven, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, with faith, hope and love.  For it is not merely the beauty of bud or flower that brings us joy tonight, but the full fruit of His love.  And it is not merely our houses that are marked with the Blood of the Lamb, but our very hearts and souls.  

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

3/28/2018

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Isaiah 62:11-63:7; Revelation 1:5b-7; St Luke 22-23
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said, Certainly this man was innocent!

Martin Luther 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 seeing His heart and will therein must be filled with fear rather than joy, but if we can truly see His heart and will in it, it gives true comfort, trust, and joy in Christ” (Quinquagesima, 1525).  

Here we see laid bare the problem that some have with the crucifix.  They fail to see the heart and will of Christ.  Our focus should not be on the agony and pain that our Lord endured.  The focus should be, as it is in the Bible, on our Lord’s free and loving desire to bear our sins in His own body to death on the cross.  

If you cannot bear the thought of the Cross, then you are not a Christian.  If you will not have a crucified Lord, then you do not have the Lord.  If you want something nice, something kinder, something gentler, then Satan has alternatives galore for your perusal.  He will gladly hold your hand on the broad, easy path to hell.  But if you would be saved, you must overcome the stumbling block of the cross, the scandal of Jesus’ death; rather, you must be overcome by it.  

So the centurion, as recorded by St Luke, when he saw what had happened, he praised God.  Seeing the kind of death Jesus died, the centurion gave thanks to God.  This is not the same sentiment as General George Patton, looking upon the men he sacrificed for victory and urging us not to bemoan the fact that such men died, but to “thank God that such men lived.”  Rather, this soldier, the centurion, recognizes that this wasn’t his sacrifice to win some victory.  This was God’s sacrifice to win him.

So he gets neither gloomy nor triumphant.  He is not filled with terror, horror, or guilt, nor is he self-satisfied.  After sinking his spear into our blessed Lord’s side and setting free the water and the blood, he praises God, saying, Certainly this man was innocent.  Certainly this man was the Son of God.  And that is something for which to praise God.  For if Jesus Christ is the righteous Son of God, both true God and true Man, then His innocent death has rendered payment for the unrighteous sons of the devil; that is to say, for us.  

Jesus, then, is more than a martyr.  His death is more than noble.  There is joy at His death.  Not because He stood up for a cause or was brave or even did the right thing.  Rather, there is joy in His death because this is the atoning sacrifice for all the world and is the heart and will of the Father.  

This is not simply the death of an innocent man who loved His brothers.  This is the great injustice and intervention of God Himself.  God in the flesh lays down His life for His enemies.  Patton’s soldiers died at his command and will for their country.  Jesus died of His own will for His enemies.  If Patton’s soldiers had done that, we would call them traitors.  

Gathered around the cross that Good Friday, only the repentant thief and the centurion really get it.  The majority there - even the inner circle of disciples, Mary Magdalene, and the Blessed Virgin - all beat their breasts and mourn over the sad fact of these three crucifixions.  They see no glory, no power, no love of God there.  Only another human tragedy.  

But the centurion, seeing the kind of death Jesus died, recognizes, by the grace of God, who Jesus is.  He rejoices and praises God.  For the death of Jesus Christ is substitutionary.  It was not a soldier’s death or a martyr’s death.  It was sin’s death.  It was death’s death.  And if Jesus seems a bit like a traitor, dying for enemies, then so be it.  For He opened heaven to traitors and rebels.  

The centurion recognizes that Jesus has died in his place.  That Jesus has substituted His perfect life and death for his.  He realizes that he could not have obtained this in any other way.  In his sins, he was God’s sworn and eternal enemy.  But Jesus died for him and has freed him from his sins by His blood.  Jesus loved him and by His death made him a friend and even a child of God.  So he praises God.  

Let us join him.  We have no less to praise God for than he did.  We too have been born anew in the water and the blood set free by his spear.  We too have been made friends and even children of God.  This is truly something for which to praise God.  For surely this Jesus is a righteous man for us.  And by His righteousness we are declared righteous.  Certainly He is the Son of God who make us His brothers and thereby also sons of God; a kingdom and priests to His God and Father.  Let us sing praises to Him.  

For certain His death is our salvation and His resurrection is the inauguration, the beginning, the breaking out of our own future resurrections.  He, the first born of the dead, we to follow.  The Son of Man has been lifted up on the cruel killing scaffold and it is the Tree of Life.  He has trodden the winepress and poured out His lifeblood.  The banner of His Cross marks the hill where sin and death are defeated.  This event has drawn us to Him.  It is a good day, the best day, the day the Lord has made, the day He made us His.

Praise God, Jesus died to make us free.  Praise God, He did not shrink from His mission but loved us to the end according to the abundance of His steadfast love.  Praise God, He is not dead.  He lives.  And we too live in Him.  Our “Alleluias” draw nigh.  Easter is coming.  

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

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Holy Tuesday

3/27/2018

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Jeremiah 11:18-20; 1 Timothy 6:12-14; St Mark 14-15
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

It was their custom to celebrate the Passover together.  After all, they had become as family, Jesus their paterfamilias, they brothers in bond, and soon to be, in blood.  And so they prepared it as the Teacher had instructed them.  As it was in the beginning and so it is now, all things happen according to His Word.

And when it was evening, He came with the Twelve.  And as they were reclining at table and eating, Jesus said, “Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray Me, one who is eating with Me.”  They began to be sorrowful and to say to Him one after another, “Is it I?”  It is sort of a strange question.  Ought a man not know if he was about to betray the Son of Man?  Jesus knows.  The Lord made it known to Him and He knew, as Jeremiah said.  He knows because He prays the Psalms, which prophecy of the betrayer: Even My close friend in whom I trusted, who ate My bread, has lifted his heel against Me (Ps 41:9).  But the disciples don’t know for themselves. 

They all ask because they all feel guilty.  And they feel guilty because they are guilty.  Their thoughts and words have been soiled with sin.  The full weight of the Law in crushing down upon them.  The Law always accuses.  It always condemns.  It is a constant guest in the hearts and minds of fallen Adam’s fallen children.  It could have been anyone of them.  At some point they all thought about it.  Betrayal would have meant a return home.  It would have meant money in the pocket and no more being run out of towns, no more sleepless nights, no more danger from exposure or famine or sword.  

The life of an itinerant preacher, a disciple of this Rabbi, was not easy.  The spirit may indeed be willing, but the flesh is oh so weak.  Like a deployed soldier holed up in some mountain village, longing for normalcy and peace, each of them at some point ached for the comfort of home.  Even St Peter asked, We have left everything and followed you.  What then will we have? (Mt 19:27).  They had yet to learn contentment.  

And in the face of real danger their macho oath to die with Him rather than deny Him is worthless.  They cannot stay awake even to pray.  Peter fumbles around with his sword.  They all flee.  And John Mark, in an image harkening back to the Garden of Eden and the shame of our first parents, ran away naked.  Perhaps more than the physical punishment, it is this, the emotional abandonment, that is more difficult to bear.  Jesus is left utterly alone.  Betrayed.  Abandoned.  Forsaken.    

Yet shall He die for them, for He is their Captain and their Mediator.  He shall lay down His life for them.  He shall bear the insults, endure the slander and the lies.  Though He committed no evil, He will receive the just punishment under the Law, both of the Roman Court and of the heavenly.  He will make the good confession, not for His own sake, but for yours.  He would not save Himself, but He will save others, precisely by going to the Cross.  He shall climb the Hill of the Skull and allow the Devil to do his worst to Him until he is completely spent and Satan falls on his own sword.  

For this is His victory; His defeat of death and hell and the powers of the devil.  He has conquered.  Life and death have contended in that combat stupendous.  The victory remained with Life, Life Incarnate, Jesus Christ.  And He bestows this victory upon you.  It comes only by way of His Cross and Passion, by sharing in His death and resurrection, having fellowship in His persecution.  It comes through the watery grave of Holy Baptism in which you are marked with His crucifix; drowned and died, buried with Christ and dead to sin, alive to God in the righteousness and purity of faith.     

The Christian life is a fight, dear ones, as St Paul reminds young Timothy.  Life lived under the Cross is lived in constant struggle.  Not only against principalities and powers, but sometimes against flesh and blood; most often your own adamic flesh, clinging to your bones, stuck in your very nature.  It is always easier to deny.  Always easier to acquiesce.  Always easier to remain silent.  The flesh is weak.  And it doesn’t merely want contentment, it wants luxury.  It wants to boast of it own accomplishments and milestones; of perseverance and achievements, to brag about swords and manly oaths.   

But the Introit for tonight puts into your mouth the prayer of St Paul, Far be it from me to boast except in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world (Gal 6:14).  This is the good confession.  It has been given to you in grace that you may speak it back to the Father and before men.  The Lord opens your lips and your mouth declares His praise.  

In faith you proclaim the victory of Christ in the foolishness of the Cross.  For it is only in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ that the accusations of the Law are silenced.  Only there can a guilty conscience be at peace through the blood which He shed for you.  Like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter, the SinBearer, took into His own flesh your sins of flesh and soul, and put them to death.  Endured the wrath of God and buried the condemnation of the Law.  

And it is the preaching of the Word of His Cross that brings comfort to your grieving consciences and peace to your wounded hearts.  By these He covers your nakedness with the robe of His own righteousness; the clothing of the Innocent Lamb who committed His cause to the Father.  He judges righteously.  Holy fast to His Word and promise; keep His it unstained and free from reproach.  For in Him there is no shame or guilt.  You are justified by faith in the Blood of Jesus Christ, your Passover Lamb.  Take hold, dear ones, of the eternal life to which you were called. 

And behold, it is here, reclining at Table with Jesus, your conscience accusing you, your weak flesh tormenting you, that in mercy and love He takes bread, and after blessing it with His Word, gives it to you saying, Take, eat; This is My Body.  And so also with the Cup: This is My Blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.  Once again this evening, dear disciples of the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, He bestows upon you the spoils of His victory; He gives you to eat the fruit of the Tree of Life, the Tree of His Cross.  In Him is salvation, life, and resurrection from the dead; by Him are you redeemed at set at liberty.  

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

3/26/2018

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Isaiah 50:5-10; 1 Peter 2:21-24; St John 12:1-43
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

It is the Saturday before Palm Sunday.  Six days before the Passover.  And Jesus is visiting the home of His good friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.  Martha is serving, for that is what she does.  That is her custom and domain. 

Earlier, when Jesus gently chastised her over her anxiety concerning Mary’s unwillingness to help, He didn’t instruct her to give up her vocation.  The Word of the Lord can never be an excuse to abandon our God-given vocations.  But, His Word has something to say about priorities and contentment and piety.  

Thus, some will be here these additional days of Holy Week and others won’t.  That’s fine.  Pray for those who cannot be here tonight.  Pray that they would be gathered around the Table of the Lord later this week, joined together by His Word and promise, to partake of the meal of His Sacrifice.  And in eating the Bread and drinking the Cup, they, together with you, would continually proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.  

In the meantime, recline here at Table with Him, where He is both Host and Meal.  For the feet anointed by Mary are the feet that shall be nailed to the Tree of Life for you.  Those beautiful feet that bring the great good news of peace with the Father, of reconciliation between God and man, of a way back to the Garden.  

And it is St Peter, sitting there at table with Jesus and Lazarus and the others, watching, listening, learning, getting lost in his own thoughts and ambitions, but who later, by the work of the Holy Spirit, sees with clarity, this is the purpose of Christ’s coming.  And to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in His steps.  This is the way of the disciple, who is not greater than the Master, but follows after Him in the Way of the Cross.  The accounts of the Passion of our Lord Jesus prepare you for your death and burial.  

That is ultimately why you are here, beloved.  This night, each night this week, every night and every Sunday.  Here to see Jesus, your Lord and Savior, your Advocate and Defender, your Atoning Sacrifice for sins.  To receive His death-defying life in Word and Supper.  The passion accounts are not merely the narrative of His last days, recounting history; they are the living, breathing, active Word of God into which you are immersed and partake.  In them you receive exactly what they say.  The Word of the Lord does what it says.  

Do you wish to see Jesus?  He is here, in His living Word, lifted up through preaching and His Supper, glorifying the Father by having mercy on poor sinners.  Here He is, the Grain of Wheat that has fallen into the earth and died, producing a bountiful harvest in the souls of His dear ones gathered to Himself.  Here He casts out the ruler of this world, the Prince of Darkness is expelled from the domain of Light by He who is Himself the Light of the world.  For Christ loved not His own life in this world, but loved you to the end.  In loving service to you He lays down His life in order that you may have eternal life; in order that you may become sons of light.  

Do you wish to see Jesus?  Behold, beloved, the curtain is pulled back and the sliver of the eternal light that is the Divine Logos, the Word who is the light of men, shines forth in His holy Word.  Do you see it?  Here in the Divine Liturgy, where the written Word of the Holy Spirit is read and preached and enacted in the Sacraments, here is Jesus, who hid Himself from the people, but is now visible to the eyes of faith.  This is not some production of historical events like a Passion Play.  This is salvation history playing out here in time for you; with you.  Here you participate in your justification; in what makes for peace.

Not sure?  Listen to the words of St John the Evangelist: Isaiah said these things because he saw Jesus’ glory and spoke of Him.  Isaiah the prophet saw the glory of Christ Jesus!  When?  In the year that King Uzziah died, when Isaiah saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of His robe filled the Temple! (Is 6:1).  

You, dear ones, are brought into that throne room.  Where the six-winged angels encircle the throne and chant the Sanctus.  Where the House of the Lord is filled with the incense of your repentant prayer.  We ought to be lost, for we are a people of unclean lips and lying hearts and betraying consciences.  Too often we find ourselves like Judas at the table.  

But fear not, daughter of Zion, for the burning coal of Christ’s sacrifice has touched your lips.  He has taken away your guilt.  He has atoned for your sin.  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.  You shall not die, but live and recount the deeds of the Lord.  

Therefore approach Him on bended knee, here, at His Table, where Christ is both Host and Meal.   Where He who anointed you with the oil of gladness in Holy Baptism comes again to serve you with the fruit of the Tree of Life, His very Body and Blood from the Cross.  This is the medicine of immortality.  For not only does the Son of Man remain forever, victorious from the dead, but He gives this victory to His children, even as He did early this morning to our dear brother Jack Jenkins.  

For gathered at this Table with you are all your Lazaruses; those who have died, but are alive in Christ and seated with Him in the heavenly places.  The crowds came not only to see Jesus, but also Lazarus, whom He had raised from the dead.  So too here.  Your brothers and fathers and husbands, mothers and wives and daughters, all; those who have departed this life in the faith, alive together with Christ Jesus, reclining with you at the eternal Table of the Lord.  

They are among the great cloud of witnesses which surrounds you, ever singing praises at all times and in all places to your holy Lord, almighty Father, everlasting God, though Jesus Christ our Lord, who rode in on borrowed donkey to die for the sins of the whole world and who now rides in under bread and wine, His Body and Blood, bringing salvation with Him.  

Fear not, beloved.  The Cross of Jesus is His glory.  The Cross of Jesus is your glory.  Soon you shall behold Him face to face and be fully known.  For now, recline at Table with Him, eat and drink of His hand.  Follow Him up to Jerusalem.  Follow Him through the crowds and the Temple, to the Upper Room and the Garden.  Follow Him through the trial, the scourging, the mocking, the torture and the death.  Follow Him in the Way of the Cross unto the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.  

In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 
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Palmarum - Sunday of the Passion

3/25/2018

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Zechariah 9:9-12; Philippians 2:5-11; St Matthew 21:1-9; 26-27
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

Have the same heart and mind in you as is in Christ Jesus.  For this is what it means to be His disciple, to be a Christian: to live by faith and trust in the Word of God; in humble submission to His will, obedient, even unto death.  And this is precisely what Jesus does in fulfilling the Holy Scriptures, all the words and promises of God, according to His grace and mercy in love. For His desire is for your salvation and the salvation of the world.

Everything unfolds and happened as it has been written, as the Lord has spoken, and as He fully intends.  Nothing is by chance or accident.  St Matthew has interpreted correctly, for the self-same Spirit who inspired him to believe and write, inspired King David to write and pray.  Indeed He is the very Spirit of Christ Jesus, only Son of the Father, who spoke by the prophets and apostles.  Therefore His Word and will are accomplished accordingly.

For it was not really Judas or the chief priests, scribes or elders, who handed Jesus over to death.  It is first of all God the Father, who sacrifices His Son in order to reconcile the world unto Himself.  Do not weep for Him.  The Son willingly submits to the Cross.  He lays down His own life voluntarily, for your sake, and He will take it up again.  

He is alone in doing so.  He alone accomplishes the salvation of the world, reconciles enemies and rebels, disciples and friends, those far and near, to His Father.  When the Shepherd is struck down for the sheep, to save them, the sheep are scattered in fear and denial; having a guilty conscience and a terrified mind.  Seemingly left without a Shepherd.

How is it for you?  How is your conscience?  Do you have the mind of Christ?

Or do you think and act like Judas or Peter?  Like the other disciples who all fled?  Are you like the crowds, a reed shaken in the wind, tossed about by every gust of popular opinion?  Or are you like the leaders of the people, acting out of self-conceit?  Are you trying to keep your own life? Or what your presume is your own?

Do you know this Man, Jesus Christ of Nazareth?  Or have you forgotten Him and His Word to you?  Do you still not understand?

As you could not be converted by your own reason or strength, neither can you persevere by your own reason or strength.  Its not simply that you’re not trying hard enough.  That your Lenten discipline this year was too little too late.  Its that you can’t do it.  Its not given to you to make a disciple of yourself.  You can’t pull yourself by your spiritual bootstraps into a greater and stronger relationship with your Lord.  That is His good and gracious work.  And it is His good gift to you, by the laying down of His life and taking it up again and then by and through  His Word and Holy Spirit.

As it is for Lee and Jenny and Julia, and all our young catechumens this week, so it is for you: it is solely the Word of Christ that has made you a disciple, there in the waters of your Holy Baptism, and by the on-going catechesis of all that Jesus has taught and commanded you through His Church and His Office of the Holy Gospel.

And this same catechesis of His Word is the way of on-going discipleship.  It is by the catechesis of His Word that you are and remain a Christian.  By the catechesis of His Word that you think and speak and act as Jesus does, with His heart and His mind.  Not that you become the Savior of the world, or of your friends and neighbors, or even of yourself. But that you live by faith within your own God-given vocation and within that vocation, by such faith toward God, you love and serve your neighbor.  

You love and serve with mercy and kindness, anointing the body of Jesus, washing His feet and drying them, by caring for His little ones, His brethren, whether they be big or small, young or old, rich or poor, unborn or imprisoned.   

You love and serve your neighbor also with His Word.  For you speak as God speaks to you by His Son and thereby sustain the weak and the weary with the forgiving Word of the Gospel.  You do this especially with those closest to you, your spouse and children, parents and classmates. Do not run when the going gets tough, scattering with the wind. But stay and freely give as you have freely received.   

For you too are poor and weak and little.  Sometimes faithful and courageous, sometimes faithless and afraid.  Most of the time both at one and the same time.  The catechumens will voice it for you: by the grace of God you pledge to cling to His Word and promise.  For you are not called to sustain yourself.  You are not called to stand on your own.  You can’t.  You are not given to speak your own word, but that of Christ, which He speaks to you in love; perhaps most especially throughout this holiest of weeks as His Passion is repeatedly read and contemplated.  Listen closely dear ones, repent and believe, rejoice and give thanks. For these are the Gospel of the Gospels, the heart and center of the Christian faith.  

It is in them that Christ Jesus shows you what it means to follow Him, to live in Him and from Him: by listening to what He says.  Not only a command, but especially a promise.  Not only a rebuke, but free and full forgiveness of all your sins.  For as you hear these lengthy accounts this week, you search to find your place in them.  Are you Peter?  Judas?  The Twelve?  Barabbas?  The women?  The crowds?  Surely you know that you aren’t Jesus. 

How often have you denied Him?  Betrayed Him?  Fled from Him?  But He has not forsaken you.  He has not fled from serving you.  He has sought you out in mercy and love.  He has saved you, by His grace, in mercy and peace, through His steadfast obedience and His innocent suffering and death.  

Where you have failed Him, repent.  If you have fled, return to Him.  He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, speedy to help and save, eager to forgive you, abounding in steadfast love for you.  

He has known ahead of time that you would stumble and fall, but He has come to save and serve you anyway.  He knows your sins, the you are a sinner, but He is the Savior of sinners.  He has done it.  He loves you.  

He has voluntarily taken your sin and death upon Himself.  Do not mourn and weep for Him.  This week is not a funeral for Christ.  Listen and learn. Mourn and lament your sins which nailed Him, the innocent One, to the Tree.  He is the Festal Sacrifice, bound with the cords of your sin to the Altar of His Cross. 

But also rejoice with repentant joy, for the Father has vindicated the Son in His Resurrection from the dead, and so too has vindicated you, declared you righteous by faith, and set you free from sin and death forever.  The devil who overcame by a tree has, by a Tree, been overcome. Not a single charge against you will stick.  You are not guilty.  Not because you have done so well and managed to keep your nose clean, but for Jesus’ sake, because He has done all things well.  He has marked you with His highly exalted Name by which you are ransomed.  He will keep you firm in His Word and faith, even unto death.  

And here He is for you.  Do not be afraid.  Your King comes in humility and He brings salvation with Him.  He still retains the form of a Servant.  For He comes to serve you here, with His Blood poured out for you which has reconciled you to God and makes peace for you with Him.  With His Body, given for you upon the Cross to atone for all your sins and given to you now for life and salvation in Him.  

Open wide your mouth for He will fill it.  Take your palm branches in hand and rejoice.  For the Son of David comes to save you.  He has opened wide the gate of righteousness and will bring you through, by His own death and resurrection, to enter and give thanks to the Lord.  He has become your salvation.   

And the Peace of God which surpasses all human understanding will keep your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting; to Him be glory, together with God the Father + and the Holy Spirit, now and unto the ages of ages.  Amen. 
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    Pr. Seth A Mierow

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

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