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Holy Trinity

5/27/2018

Isaiah 6:1-7; Romans 11:33-36; St John 3:1-15(16-17)
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

The Athanasian Creed is wonderful, isn’t it? We ought to use it more often. Perhaps on Reformation Day? It is the youngest of the three ecumenical creeds and therefore the most developed. This is the catholic faith: to believe in the mystery of the Holy Trinity - three coequal Persons who each are God and yet there is one God - and then the mystery of the Incarnation, that God the Son assumed our human flesh into His Person and suffered for our salvation - the more we know the less we understand. All we are left with is adoration. Worship.

And yet the Athanasian Creed is terrifying. It demands that not only my mind be conformed to God’s Word, but my life and deeds too. The books will be opened and I will be judged. Those who have done good will go into everlasting life. Those who have done evil into eternal fire. Its tempting to reject these words from the Creed as unLutheran, contrary to the doctrine of grace. And yet those words come straight from the lips of Jesus. Truly, truly, I say to you, and hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear His voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment (Jn 5:25, 28-29). There’s no getting around them.

So which are you? Are you among those who have done good? The more I know myself, the more I see how much evil there is in everything I do. Every word, every glance, every interaction with others, every moment alone, reveling in my pride or sinking into my despair. Every intention of man’s heart, says the Word, is only evil all the time (Gn 6:5).

We are those who have done evil. That’s the realization of Isaiah in today’s first reading. Isaiah is standing in the earthly Divine Service, in the Temple in Jerusalem, and he sees a vision of the heavenly Divine Service, going on continually. Heaven opens to Isaiah and it is both beautiful and terrifying.

He sees the seraphim, six-winged spirits of fire. With two they veil their faces to the Unity in the power of the Divine Majesty; with two they cover their bodies, down to their feet, in humility. With two they fly, encircling the exalted throne. No gentle angels, powerful energies flow forth from them and they are unlike anything seen in this world. But their immense power bows to the One whose power is infinite and glory beyond compare.

They sing a song of the end of creation, the goal, the telos, which they experience now, and we but dimly. Holy, holy, holy is the YHWH Sabaoth; the whole earth is full of His glory. And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the Voice of Him who called, and the House was filled with smoke. We do not see the earth full of God’s glory. We see it full of man’s vain-glory, his attempts at pride that end in destruction; as you heard last week in the tower of Babel.

Holy Isaiah does not feel holy. He is confronted with his sin. Standing before God he expects judgment and certain death. Woe is me! For I am lost! I am undone; utterly obliterated. For no one can see God and live.

The same is true of us. Whether you feel death or failure or that your life is worthless or without hope, when you hear the Commandments, when you are confronted the terrible holiness of the Lord God of hosts, you cry out with the prophet: “Woe is me! I am undone.” I deserve temporal and eternal condemnation. I do not fear, love, and trust in God above all things. I have not done good, but evil.

Sin costs. That’s what the altar showed. It was not a table. It was a fire. A place for both cooking and destruction. Some food was put there to be grilled, roasted, baked. Other food was put there to be entirely consumed. Entire animals were burnt to ashes on the altar. Along with flour and oil and salt. All mixed together with incense, there was a vibrant cloud of smoke that would rise up, beautiful with a powerful mixture of smells. It was the smell of blood and death, pungent and gagging, but mixed with the sweet and exotic.

The fire there burned continuously. The animals were constantly offered. A visible and visceral reminder of the cost of sin. That animal is me. That’s what I deserve. Its blood should be my blood. Its death my death. And as Isaiah confesses his sin, like the tax collector who went into the Temple to pray, beating his breast, crying, Lord, be propitiated toward me, the sinner; an angel is dispatched. A seraph, a spirit of fire, a messenger of the Lord, takes a burning coal from the altar and approaches Isaiah. Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for. Isaiah has participated in that which participated in the Sacrifice. By the death of Another, he is cleansed.

This anticipates what Jesus does for you this day. Something comes from the altar and purges your sin. It does not burn, for our Lord Jesus felt the burning atoning in His Body. It does not obliterate you, for God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him. For in this way God loved the world: He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

Believing in Jesus is no intellectual exercise, nor simple leap of the will. To believe in Jesus means to stand like Isaiah before the Lord’s altar and say, “I am judged. I deserve death and hell. I have multiplied transgression. I am a man’s of unclean lips and mind and heart. Have mercy on me, the sinner.”

Our Lord has dispatched no mere angel to rescue you. He has sent His sole-begotten Son. In obedience He came from His blessed throne to bestow salvation. He descended from above in order to raise up children of God from below. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so was the Son of Man lifted up, high and exalted upon the Throne of His Cross, by which He draws all men to Himself in the Temple of His Body and the once-for-all Atoning Sacrifice for sin. Whoever believes in Him has eternal life.
For He sends you angels, His messengers, who preaching His fiery Word of the Law, by which you know your sin and confess it, and His sweet Word of the Gospel, by which you are forgiven and redeemed, set at liberty and not undone. In this Word the Spirit is heard. This is where He breathes. You hear His sound, but do not know where He comes from or where He goes. For who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been His counselor?

And at some point a messenger of the Lord was sent with the coal of Holy Baptism, that which participated in the death of the Sacrifice, is now given to you, that you may participate in its death. It is written, Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus, were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life (Rm 6:3-4). This is how you are born again, begotten from above by water and Spirit. In Holy Baptism you participate in the death and resurrection of the One who atones for your sin.

This is the testimony of which all the prophets and St John the Baptizer spoke. This is the witness of Sam and Sarah again this day and all who make the good confession. This is the heavenly things of which Jesus now tells you, which you receive only by faith through the Holy Spirit.

And this is your worship, beloved. This is the glory of the Holy Trinity confessed in the Athanasian Creed. It is not an intellectual or academic exercise, it is worship. And the highest and chief form of worship is to receive in faith what the Lord gives.

So then, come. Kneel at the Altar of the Lord, where seraphim and cherubim encircle the glorious throne. Join your song to that of the angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth, heaven and earth are full of your glory. Then receive that coal, the very Body and Blood of Christ Jesus, the once-for-all Sacrifice, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Behold, it has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.

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

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Pentecost

5/20/2018

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Genesis 11:1-9; Acts 2:1-21; St John 14:23-31
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

Come, Holy Ghost, God and Lord, with all Your graces now outpoured on each believer’s mind and heart; Your fervent love to them impart (LSB 497:1). You cannot, by your own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ or come to Him. Therefore God the Holy Spirit comes to you, by way of the Father and the Son, who with the Father and Son together is worshipped and glorified. He who spoke by the prophets to our fathers, now, in these last days of great distress, speaks to you by the only Son of the Father, Jesus Christ the Word-made-Flesh. He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies you by His gifts.

All of this is to say, the Holy Spirit comes to you by and in and through the Word; for these two - the Word and Spirit - are inseparable. You cannot have a wordless spirit or a spiritless word. They cannot be divorced.

Though we celebrate today with one accord the so-called birth of the holy, Christian Church. The indivisible relationship, the work of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament, did not begin at Pentecost. Rather, it began at our Lord Jesus’ incarnation when the angel answered St Mary’s query concerning her conception though she was a virgin. Gabriel said, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the Child to be born will be called the Holy One - the Son of God (Lk 1:35).

This relationship between the Word and Spirit continued when the Holy Spirit descended upon the Word at His Baptism in the Jordan, whence the Father declared, This is My beloved Son. Then the self-same Spirit drove the Word into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil according to the Father’s will (Mt 3:16-4:1).

The Spirit remained with the Word-made-Flesh throughout His earthly ministry until He was handed over at the crucifixion and death of the Word (Jn 19:30-31). For in this way the Son goes to the Father, who is greater than He, by way of His Cross and Passion. This is how the Son’s love for the Father is made manifest to the world: He does as the Father commands. He is obedient unto death, even death upon a Cross. This is also the way in which the Father’s love for you is made manifest to the world: in the obedient suffering and death of the Son.

But God the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father, raised the Word from the dead (Rm 8:11) and after His resurrection, the Word exspirated the Holy Spirit upon His chosen Apostles, sending them, as the Father sent Him, to forgive and retain sins in His Name (Jn 20:21-23).

In every case, Christ Jesus, the Word-made-Flesh, and the Holy Spirit are together, according to the will of the Father. It is as Jesus says to Nicodemus, The Spirit breathes were He wishes you hear His sound [in the Word]. So it is with those begotten of the Spirit (Jn 3:8; my translation). This is also why, when you read the epistolary greetings of St Paul or the other Apostles, you need not be concerned that he neglects the Holy Spirit when saying, Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (Rm 1:7). For where the gracious benediction of the eternal Father is present, together with the victorious peace of the sole-begotten Son, there the Holy Spirit is proceeding, carrying, as it were, this self-same grace and peace of the Blessed Holy Trinity to you in and through the Word; a peace not as the world gives.

So too here, at Pentecost, Christ the Word inaugurates His Office of the Holy Gospel by the outpouring of His Spirit, the promise of His Father, upon His Apostles and gives them utterance to speak in other, intelligible languages. And the content of their speech? St Peter goes back to the Old Testament, the promise of the coming Messiah, through the prophet Joel - wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood - the Rock is proclaiming Christ the Word, His Incarnation, His Cross and Passion, His crucifixion, resurrection and ascension which is the great and magnificent day of the Lord.

But we cannot stop there. If ever there was a time for the continuation of a reading, it is today. The lectionary cuts St Peter’s sermon in half! You lose some good parts! St Peter, by the Holy Spirit, proclaims with confidence that Jesus of Nazareth was delivered up to be crucified according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of the Father. But the Father and the Spirit raised Him from the dead! And He ascended, now seated at the Lord’s right hand, His enemies having been made His footstool.

Let all the house of Israel - and the inner-city of Indianapolis - therefore know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.

For you are the descendants of Noah; you have sought your own way. Endeavored to make a name for yourself. You have lived as if God did not matter and as if you mattered most. The Lord’s name you have not honored as you should; your worship and prayers have faltered. You have not let His love have its way with you and so your love for others has failed. There are those whom you have hurt and those whom you have failed to help. Your thoughts and desires have been soiled with sin.

Repent. Everyone of you. For the Spirit-Sword of the Word penetrates between joint and marrow, bone and sinew to cut you to the quick. Repent, but do not despair. For the Lord God who came down at Babel and cursed His creation with the diversity of languages on account of idolatry and sin, dispersing the people over the face of the earth, has come down again in the Person of Jesus Christ, the Word-made-Flesh. And by His Word and Spirit He desires to gather all men to Himself under the banner of His holy Name in the City of His new Jerusalem, the Church, under the Tower of the Cross, which stretches from heaven and touches earth.

For He who descended from heaven, Christ the Word, also ascended into heaven, and He leads a host of captives in His train. The ruler of this world has no claim on Him. Neither does he have any claim on you. Satan has been cast down. His accusations silenced in the blood of the Lamb. And by virtue of your Holy Baptism into Christ the Word, by His Spirit, you are given to dwell with the Father in love. Beloved, you have heard and received the Word, the Word of the love of the Father, by which and in which you live. Your home is in Him and He has made His home with you. He does not undo the curse of the languages, but now turns the plurality of tongues into a blessing for His New Israel of the Church.

But there’s more: the sermon of St Peter does not end here, and neither does ours. For those who received his Word were baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins and they received the gift of the Holy Spirit. This promise was for them and their children. So too is it for you and your children. As it is today for Sebastian, who by the grace of the Father through the Son, by the Holy Spirit, shall make the good confession and be received into the communion fellowship of the one, holy, Christian and apostolic Church.

And this is exactly as the 3000 did that Day of Pentecost! Following which they devoted themselves to the doctrine of the apostles and the Eucharist and the prayers in the life together with Jesus Christ the Word-made-Flesh who came from the Father and has bestowed His Spirit.

This, dear people loved by God, is why we grieve over false doctrine. It is idolatrous and leads one away from the true Christ, enslaving you to a false master. Against such things you prayed in the collect, saying, “grant us in our day by the same Spirit to have a right understanding in all things and evermore to rejoice in His holy consolation.” You are praying that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ the Word, keep you free from error, because by right teaching and preaching, through the pure Word of Christ, the Holy Spirit teaches you to know God aright while from exile home you are wending. Again, this is what Jesus means when He says, 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.

Dear Christians, He has heard your prayer and given ear to your pleas for mercy. He sets before you this day the bountiful harvest of this Pentecost Festival: grain, into which is made Bread that by virtue of His Word is His Body. The new, sweet wine of the Gospel, His very Blood, poured out for you and for your children and for all those who are far off for the forgiveness of all your sins. Come. Call upon the Name of the Lord and take the cup of salvation and call upon the Name of the Lord. You shall not be condemned; but you shall be saved.

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

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Scheumann-Casteele Wedding

5/19/2018

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Genesis 2:7, 18-24; Ephesians 5:1-2, 22-33; St John 2:1-11
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

It is truly good, right, and salutary for a bride and bridegroom to welcome and celebrate their wedding day with a unique sense of triumph. When all the difficulties, obstacles, doubts, misgivings have been, not made light of, but honestly faced, discussed, and overcome then both parties have achieved the most important triumph of their lives. Don’t take those dinners at Noodles&Co for granted.

With the “I will” you will say to each other, you will, by your free choice, give new direction to your lives. Living amidst a world indifferent at best and hostile at worst to godly, Christian marriage, you have cheerfully and confidently defied all the ill advised warnings to the contrary, and with your marriage, conquer a new land in which to live. Your home shall be a kingdom of your own; a refuge and sanctuary for one another, with one another. A home wrapped in prayer, the joy of a common Christian confession, and the stability of a foundation built upon Christ. Every wedding must be an occasion of joy that a man and a woman, knit together as one flesh, by God Himself, can do such great things.

But we ought not rush too quickly assigning divine providence to your marriage. We don’t believe in soul mates. You are entering into marriage willingly, of your own choice and will. The course that you are taking is one you have chosen for yourselves, and so you alone bear the responsibility for what no one can take from you.

More exactly, you, Chase, have all the responsibility for the success of your venture, with all the happiness that such responsibility involves, and you, Emma, will help your husband and make it easy for him to bear the responsibility, and find your happiness in that. Your desire for earthly bliss, for enduring love found in one another, to receive comfort in body and soul from the other, that desire good and it is justified before God and man.

But marriage is more than your love for each other. It has a higher dignity and power, for it is God’s holy ordinance, established by Him in perfection in the Garden of Eden, blessed by His presence and miracle at the wedding at Cana, and the earthly icon of His own marriage to His beloved Bride, the Church. So today, though we rejoice with you that you have reached this wonderful goal, we are ever more thankful that God’s will and God’s way have brought you here. And however confidently you accept responsibility for your action today, you may and will put it today with equal confidence into God’s hands.

Chase and Emma, you two have good reason to look back with special thankfulness on your lives up to now. Though your roads have by no means been easy, they have certainly been paved by the gracious hand of the Lord who has brought you to Himself. Emma, from infancy and childhood, your parents giving you the gift of Holy Baptism, in catechesis and confession, through steadfastness in the true faith, you have rejoiced to be a child of our Father in heaven your entire life. Chase, you have no less reason to rejoice, perhaps more, as we give thanks that the Holy Spirit called you by the Gospel, enlightened you with His gifts, washed and sanctified you in the waters of Holy Baptism; and according to His good pleasure, will continue your instruction in the Christian faith and be received into fellowship at this Altar.

So as everyone wishes you well, having the support of your families and your congregation at St Peter’s, you can rejoice evermore that not only are you husband and wife, but also brother and sister in Christ, yoked together according to God’s good and gracious will. Today He adds His “I will” to yours as He confirms your will as His will. He allows you, He approves of your triumph and rejoicing, and He makes you instruments of His will and purpose both for yourselves and for others.

Chase, Emma, in your love you see only your two selves in the world, but in marriage you are a link in a chain of generations, which God causes to come and to pass away to His glory, and calls into His kingdom. In your love you see only the heaven of your own happiness, but in marriage you are placed at the post of responsibility toward the world and humanity.

Your love is your own private possession, but marriage is more that something personal - it is a status, an office, a vocation. Just as it is the crown, and not merely the will to rule, that makes a king, so it is marriage, and nor merely your love for each other, that joins you together in the sight of God and man. As you first gave the ring to one another and will soon receive it a second time from the hand of your pastor, so love comes from you, but marriage comes from above, from God. He has established this blessed estate into which you are now stepping. It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.

God makes your marriage indissoluble. What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder (Mt 19:6). God joins you together in marriage. It is His act, not yours. Do not confuse your love for one another with God. He makes your marriage indissoluble and protects it from every danger that may threaten it from within and without. He is the guarantor.

This is evidenced by Christ’s presence and first miracle at the wedding at Cana. He respects marriage as a godly estate, blesses it with His Word and sign, and crowns it with the highest honor when He, through St Paul, speaks of marriage as an earthly picture of the heavenly relationship between Himself, the Bridegroom, and His holy and precious Bride, His Church. For He left His Father in heaven and His Mother Mary, and held fast to His Bride in the wedding of His Crucifixion. The water and wine of Cana prophesy of the water and blood of Calvary. That is His hour and the fullest expression of His powerful and self-sacrificial love for His Bride.

Chase, this is the kind and quality of love, which you are now given to show Emma. To love her as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her. Likewise, Emma, you are called to submit to your husband as the Church submits to her Savior. The is the rule and vocation which God has established for your life together in marriage. You are founding a home. That needs a rule of life, a guide. And this is so important that God Himself establishes it; otherwise everything would be out of joint. To rebel against this rule is to rebel against God. We shall reap the harvest of our selfish cultural sowing.

So you may order your home as you like, chores and dinner, trash and finances, except in one thing: the wife is to submit to her husband and the husband is to love his wife. In this way God gives to husband and wife the honor that is due each other. The wife’s honor is to serve her husband, to be a “helpmeet for him” as the creation story has it. And the husband’s honor is to love his wife with all his heart. He will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and will love her as his own flesh. Self-sacrificial love is the guide and rule of the house, but the content and form of that love will look different within your own home.

God has given you to one another, to have and to hold, to receive in mutual companionship, help, and support. Chase and Emma, this is an honorable endeavor you undertake today; a holy estate. Your marriage and home become a kingdom of its own in the midst of the world, a stronghold amid life’s storms and stresses, a refuge, even a sanctuary. It is not founded upon the shifting sands of outward or public life, but it has its peace in God. For it is God who gives it special meaning and value, its own nature and privilege, its own destiny and dignity. Marriage is an ordinance, a profound mystery says St Paul, of God in the world, the place in which - whatever may happen in the world - peace, quietness, joy, love, purity, discipline, respect, obedience, tradition, and with it all, happiness may dwell. Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain (Ps 127:1).

God has likewise laid upon marriage a blessing and a burden. The blessing is the promise of children. God allows husband and wife to share in His continual work of creation; but it is always God Himself who blessed marriage with children. They are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Acknowledge them as such. They are the blessing, not the burden.

Rather the burden is the dark shadow that lies over the destiny of woman and of man, the Word of His wrath and displeasure against sin. You each carry this in yourselves, as all people do. The woman must bear children in pain, and in providing for his family the man must reap many thorns and thistles and labor by the sweat of his face. This burden ought to cause you both to call upon God in every trouble, to pray, praise and give thanks; to return regularly to the Lord’s House, built by the heavenly Bridegroom, Jesus Christ, for His beloved Bride, the Church.

Chase, Emma this is the foundation of your marriage: Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Live together in the forgiveness of sins that flows from His pierced side; poured over you in the water and Word of Holy Baptism and poured out for you in the Bread and Wine, His Body and Blood, of Holy Communion. Do not insist on your rights. Don’t blame each other. Don’t judge or condemn each other. Don’t fault each other, but accept each other as you are. Be imitators of God as His beloved children; walk in love, as Christ loved you and gave Himself up for you. Above all forgive each other, each and every day, from the bottom of your hearts, as God in Christ has forgiven you.
This is God’s Word for your marriage. Thank Him for it. Thank Him for leading you thus far; ask Him to establish your marriage, to confirm it, sanctify it, and preserve it.

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

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Exuadi (Easter VII)

5/13/2018

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

This Sunday, the Seventh Sunday of Easter, is sort of an in-between day. The Feast of the Ascension of our Lord, His going to the right hand of the Father, is a few days back, the Feast of Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit is yet to be realized. Our Lord Jesus has ascended. The Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, has not yet descended. Today is Exaudi; taken 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 lesson takes you back, as these past three Sundays and again next, to the Upper Room; to our Lord’s farewell discourse. He is preparing them for what to expect, 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. But they could also expect His resurrection from the dead on the third day and His ascension to the right hand of the Father.

The Church, in her wisdom, has so ordered these texts as to reiterate the promises Jesus made. The promise of His presence, 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 to the crucified and risen Christ, the God-Man and one Mediator between God and man, whose bloody once-for-all sacrifice atones for the sins of the whole world.

But is it precisely in the world in which they will have tribulation. They will put you out of the synagogue. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. Perhaps a modern paraphrase might render it: “They will put you out of the Church, taking away your tax status and religious freedom. 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. Rome sacralized her state and deified her Caesars. The pax Romana was only maintained at the pax deus and the appeasement of the gods. This peace was based on sacrifice. Not a gruesome, animal offering, but the simple pinch of incense offered by all good citizens to the genus of Caesar as the revered savior and liberator of Rome. It was a nod of the head 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.

The Christian refusal was an act of sedition. They were labeled as “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 genus of Caesar. To confess Jesus is Lord was an act of political treason. Traitors must be dealt with. They paid with their lives.

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

You are not put out of your churches, not yet. You are not being killed for your beliefs. You may. Presently you feel it in your conscience and sense it in the hostility that surrounds you. In your apprehension to speak the truth for fear of less physical, but still actual reprisal: job loss, public ridicule, private rejection. Devotees of Allah may not take your life, but statists and secularists may take your livelihood. It will be sacrificed on the Altar of Tolerance in an effort to appease the national deities and the genus 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 falling away. The Helper, the Spirit of Truth, will testify of Me. The Holy Spirit helps you not by freeing you from such persecution and suffering, but by preaching Christ to you in the midst of such circumstances. I know it seems like a moot point that when you are being crucified upside down, or dragged before the Sanhedrin or Senate hearings, or stripped of your livelihood or tax exempt status, or merely when 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, 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, and comfort of the Holy Spirit and a good conscience. This is not to say the other things don’t matter. They do. Jesus knows you need them and your heavenly Father grants them according to His Word and will.

But even when He doesn’t. Even if your heart bypass doesn’t result in a full recovery, or your cancer isn’t completely removed, or you don’t get the promotion, 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.

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 is does not come from within, from the will or determined heart or mind, but results a fruit of the promise given by the Lord through His prophet Ezekiel: I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statues and be careful to obey My rules.

This promise if fulfilled in your first martyrdom: your baptism into Christ’s own death and life. There the Lord took you from the pagan lands and gathered 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, and 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 Eschaton, through 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 (Rm 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, who preaches 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 Jesus Christ.

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 the forgiveness of your sins. This is nourishment in both body and soul. This is God’s faithful service to you and the sacrifice of thanksgiving.

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.

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Ascension of Our Lord

5/10/2018

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2 Kings 2:5-15; Acts 1:1-11; St Luke 24:44-53
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

He who is crucified for the sins of the whole world, is risen victorious from the dead. He who is risen from the dead, never to die again, death no longer having dominion over Him, is ascended to the right hand of the Father who puts all things under His feet as He rules over heaven and earth as true God and true Man who will come again to judge the living and the dead.

Today we celebrate the coronation of the King of kings; the rightful enthronement of the only begotten Son of the Father, who came from the Father full of grace and truth, has finished His course in the obedience of faith, laying down His life and taking it up again, now receiving once more, as the Incarnate Son, the power and glory and wisdom and might and honor and blessing that were His from before the foundation of the earth.

But why? Why celebrate the Ascension? Why be the only Lutheran church in the whole of Indianapolis to have a service this Thursday night? Elisha knew the day of his master’s departure and refused to acknowledge its reality. The disciples were confused concerning the full scope of Jesus’ resurrection and imminent ascension. We are a bit more like the Eleven. Perhaps we don’t fully grasp the impressive joy of the ascension of our Lord.

There are ten things that the Ascension of Jesus teaches us; ten wonderful, comforting truths. First, it reiterates that your Lord and Savior is not dead, but quite alive. The victory is won and now the King is crowned. He is seated at the right hand of His Father and your Father, His God and your God, as the hosts of heaven sing out, Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing! (Rev 5:12).

Second, as you shall hear on Sunday, the Ascension of our Lord assures you of the coming of the promises Holy Spirit, the Comforter. I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send Him to you (Jn 16:7); and, as Jesus spoke to the Eleven in Acts, You will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. Apart from the Ascension of our Lord, there is no Pentecost.

Thirdly, the ascension assures us that Jesus went to prepare a place for us. He has gone ahead of you, in life and in death, in resurrection from the dead and in the ascension. He is your Forerunner and Head. You shall follow Him. In My Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to Myself, that where I am you may be also.

The fourth wonderful truth is as you confess each day in the Apostles’ Creed, “He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.” The right hand of the Father isn’s so much a place as it is a power, an authority. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him. He rules and fills all things with His divine power and majesty. He is Lord over all. This is exceptionally comforting when faced with trials and sufferings of various kinds. The Epistle to the Hebrews teaches, Since then we have a great high priest who passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with out weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 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 4:14-16).

What this means, dear ones, is that seated at the right hand of the Almighty Father, everlasting God, is your Brother in the flesh, One Mediator and Great High Priest! Jesus Christ took up your fallen flesh in His Incarnation, but He never set it aside. He is now and always shall be the God-Man, who knows your weaknesses and has compassion on His brothers and sisters in need. He works all things together for good for the sake of those who love Him and are called according to His purposes.

This is evident especially in the fifth truth of the ascension: Christ Jesus sends men to preach the Gospel and administer His Sacraments. That is how He reigns. The Word and Sacraments are the right hand of the Father, as it were. Repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in [My] name to all nations. You are witnesses of these things. He sends men to preach to you. When pastors preach, teach, and forgive in His stead and by His command, it is Jesus preaching, teaching, and forgiving you. He sends men to wash you in His death-defying life, in the fellowship of His Father and the Holy Spirit. Jesus baptizes you. He sends men to feed you on His crucified, risen, ascended and glorified Body and Blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins. Jesus communes you. He sends men to loose you of your sins and set you free from guilt and shame. Jesus absolves you.

Sixthly, the ascension teaches you that Jesus is interceding and pleading for you even now. His prayer for you, Father forgive them, did not cease at the Cross. He is your Advocate and Paraclete before the Father, even as He sends His Holy Spirit to be your Advocate and Paraclete before the world. You will hear more of this on Sunday.

Seventh, the ascension paradoxically teaches that though Jesus has withdrawn His visible presence, He has not removed His actual presence. He is here with us. He is not absent. A cloud took Him out of their sight, and He was, indeed, carried up into heaven, but not in such a way as to be far from us. The Ascension of our Lord can be thought of not so much as Him going away from earth into heaven, but bringing heaven down to earth. Does He not promise, Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age? (Mt 28:20). He is precisely with you in His Word and Sacraments as He fills all in all.

Building on this, eighth, you have the assurance, by the ascension, that Jesus will come again as He went away. This means visibly and bodily. The Son of Man shall come again with the angels and the powers of heaven. St Paul writes to the Thessalonians, For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command and the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first - and this is the ninth comforting truth - Then we who are alive, who are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord (1 Thess 4:14-17).

Finally, the tenth truth the ascension teaches is that you have already received the gift of your ascension into heaven. It is a reality beyond what your eyes can see and your senses can experience, but is known by the ears of faith and believed in the heart. You heard it in the collect this evening, “Almighty God, as Your only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, ascended into the heavens, so may we also ascend in heart and mind and continually dwell there with Him.”

As St Paul writes to the Colossians, If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, were Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth (Col 3:1-2). The Apostle is not despising earthly things. Rather he is exhorting Christians to live and walk by the Spirit and think and desire those things that are in step with the Spirit, namely, that which is the will of the Lord according to the Ten Commandments and within your vocations.

The Ascension of our Lord who fills all in all, fills you with His Spirit to mortify the old Adam and arise to live before Him in righteousness and purity. The ascension aides in your sanctification even as it assures you of your justification. For it is written, God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together in Christ - by grace you have been saved - and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. He goes on, For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (Eph 3:4-6, 10).

Christ Jesus has taken up and exalted your human nature. He was the whole world in One man upon the Cross, so is He the whole world in One Man before the Throne of His Father. Come, receive in penitent faith the crucified, risen, and ascended Body and Blood of your Brother and Savior, Jesus Christ, who by His ascension brings heaven down to earth in the Holy Mysteries, and by the same brings you up to Him in faith to dwell in peace forever.

He has raised our human nature On the clouds to God's right hand;
There we sit in heav'nly places, There with Him in glory stand.
Jesus reigns, adored by angels; Man with God is on the throne;
By our mighty Lord's ascension We by faith behold our own. (LSB 494:5).

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

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Rogate (Easter VI)

5/6/2018

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Numbers 21:4-9; 1 Timothy 2:1-6; St John 16:23-30(31-33)
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)

Prayer does not come naturally to fallen man. The flesh is curved inward on itself, concerned with self-gratification of its own desires, which are contrary to the desires of the Spirit. If left to ourselves our prayers would most often consist of demands for daily bread and all its accessories; not only for what is essential and needful, but also for what is wanted, though unnecessary for this body and life.

The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, the full and free forgiveness of all of our sins, must bend us away from ourselves and fix our eyes upon Jesus; and peripherally, upon the needs of our neighbors. Prayer, by its very essence, places one in the posture of receiver. Invoking and petitioning One outside of oneself immediately indicates to the old Adam that he is not in control, that he does not matter most, that we are, even in our fallen state, responsible to God and owing to Him. It is our “duty to thank, praise, serve and obey Him” as the Small Catechism teaches.

Thus does prayer, true Christian prayer, begin not from the poverty and selfishness of our own hearts, but it originates within the Word of God and the richness of His promises. If prayer is to be understood as communication between God and man, it is the Lord who initiates. He speaks. We listen. This is the posture of prayer; indeed of the entire Christian life.

Hence the request of the disciples back in Luke 11: Lord, teach us to pray (11:1). Prayer, as the language of faith, grounded in the promises of God, begins the same way you and your children learned to speak: by listening the voice of your parents. You hear the promises and know the love of your Father in heaven, as the Word of His Son, Jesus Christ, is preached and proclaimed to you. Through this Word the Holy Spirit works to create and sustain saving faith; a faith that is active in love and good works, in confession and prayer. In such faith you speak back to the Father, by His Spirit, through His Son, based upon the very promises He speaks.

God’s first word regarding prayer is command. He commands you to pray. Recall the Second Commandment and its explanation.
   You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.
   What does this mean?
   We should fear and love God so that we do not curse, swear, use Satanic arts, lie or        deceive by His name, but call upon it in every trouble, pray, praise, and give thanks.
The Lord your God sets up a protective hedge around the gift of His name. It is to be used and invoked rightly and appropriately. Not in the defense of false teaching or as license for immoral living. We ask God to protect us from this. Rather, His name is to be proclaimed among us as holy, right, and good. For faith comes by the hearing of His Word rightly preached and holy living naturally flows from such saving faith. We ask God to help us do this.

There are two reasons why the Lord’s Prayer, the Our Father, is the Third Part of the Small Catechism after the Ten Commandments and Creed. Firstly, prayer is commanded and because we by nature do not fear, love, and trust in God above all things, the old Adam must be pummeled and beaten into submission to the Word of God. The command to pray pierces our flesh with the stinging reminder that we do not pray often or as we ought. Then the Gospel of the Apostles’ Creed enters and the Father, for the sake of His Son and His shed blood, forgives us our sins by work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit, rightly ordering our wills and desires to conform to the Word and will of the Father, leads us in prayer, crying out Abba! Father! as only adopted children can do.

Secondly, the Our Father, and all prayer, follows the Trinitarian Christian confession, the Baptismal Creed, because the one received into fellowship with the Father by the death of the Son in the Holy Spirit, has entered into a spiritual battle against the devil, the world, and his flesh. Jesus says, In the world you will have tribulation. Prayer is how you engage in the battle, spiritual combat with the forces arrayed against Christ and His Church. St Paul outfits you for battle in the armor of God - belt of truth, breastplate of righteousness, shoes of the Gospel of peace, shield of faith, helmet of salvation - and finally, the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit with all prayer and supplication (Eph 6:17-18).

Prayer to the Father in Jesus’ name is exorcistic. God commands you to pray so that you may not be left unguarded and vulnerable to the attacks of the Evil One. Luther’s admonition regarding the necessity of receiving the Lord’s Supper may also be applied to prayer: if you don’t think you need to pray, just put your hand to your chest and see if your heart is still beating. If so, you have the old Adam haranguing you still; prayer helps mortify him. If that doesn’t motive you, look around you and see all manner of troubles and woes. You also have the devil hounding you with his lying and murdering day and night, never letting you have a moments’ peace. In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world.

This blessed and comforting statement of our crucified, risen, and ascended Lord Jesus leads us to the second aspect of prayer: not only does God command His children to pray, He promises to hear you and answer your prayers! He invites you to Himself in love, to ask as dear children as their dear Father, not in fear or intimidation, with a wavering mind, but in the full confidence that He delights in you and your prayers, and will answer according to His will and Word as He knows to be best for you in His fatherly, divine goodness and mercy.

The Father Himself loves you, dear children. You hear and see His heart of love toward you when He offers up His only Son upon the Cross in order to make you His again. Christ Jesus, your one Mediator and Atoning Sacrifice, has made peace between you and God, between His Father and your Father. By His vicarious suffering and death, by His resurrection from the dead, and by His glorious ascension to the right hand of the Father, He has entered once for all into the Holy Place with His own blood, which speaks and better word than the blood of Abel, and pleads for your pardon and forgiveness. Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, is also your Great High Priest, who intercedes on your behalf, lifting His wounded hands in supplication for you.

You heard the account of the grumbling Israelites in the Old Testament reading - a warning and lesson for us concerning our complacency of the gifts and benefits of the Lord, to be sure - but also a proclamation of the mercy and faithfulness of the Lord our God. For as the people of Israel lay dying on account of the serpents the Lord sent, they confessed their sin and begged Moses to intercede for them to the Lord. Moses receives the Lord’s word and fashions a serpent out of bronze and lifts it up on a pole before the eyes of the people. Attached to this odd crucifix is the promise of the Lord: whoever looks at the bronze serpent would live.

Jesus preaches the true meaning of this text to us in His discourse with Nick at night, saying, 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 (Jn 3:14-15). Christ Jesus became the Serpent on our behalf; the grotesque and hideous form of our sin, the very thing that was causing us so much suffering and pain. He is lifted up from the earth in His death, drawing all men to Himself. And there He teaches you plaining about the Father, about His heart and His love, when He prays and intercedes for you as Moses did, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Lk 23:34).

Handing over His Spirit, receiving Him back again in His resurrection, then bestowing His Spirit upon His Apostles and Church in the upper room and Pentecost, Christ Jesus also teaches you so to pray. For not only has God commanded you to pray and promised to hear you, He even gives you the very words to say!

Chiefly and especially in the Lord’s Prayer, the Our Father, which is both the beginning of prayer and the ending. It teaches you to pray and is the summation of any and all petitions. This prayer is a rich treasure and invaluable gift. It is the prayer of the baptized faithful who are given to address their dear Father in heaven as beloved children and heirs with their brother, His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. He who taught you to pray, prays for you and with you in the Our Father.

But it is not only here. When you pray based upon the Word and promises of the Lord in His living voice of Holy Scripture, thus are you given the words to say. I don’t mean mindless meditation or wordless impulses to connect to a higher power, but to verbally and orally to have the Scriptures upon your lips in prayer to the Father. The Psalms, dear ones, are a rich feast of both from God as His Word, and to God, as your prayer. By them, through His Spirit, He conforms your will to His, in holiness and love.

The Prayer of the Church and her collects, assist and guide you, as you heard in St Paul’s letter to St Timothy. Luther believed that the prayer of Christians kept the Turks at bay on the eastern German lands in order to allow for the Reformation. It is not an overstatement to say that the prayer of Christians keeps the world in motion until the Last Day, allowing for the proclamation of the Gospel unto the salvation of many.

Your daily life may be punctuated with prayer as you make use of the Prayer Offices of Matins or Vespers, Morning and Evening Prayer, and Compline. Replete with Scripture, they are the very embodiment of asking the Father in the name of Jesus that your joy may be full.

And do not overlook the simplicity and brilliance of the Small Catechism, dear friends. It is not only a “laymen’s Bible” and instruction for children, but a prayerbook which may be utilized by even the most mature Christian on a daily basis.

Finally, dear Christians, are of your petitions and prayers, the sum of the Our Father, the distillation of the entire Psalter, and the culmination of the old covenant is answered for you here in the New Testament in Christ’s Blood. This is the Father’s love for you: the Body and Blood of His Son, your Lord, risen from the grave and ascended into heaven, bestowed unto you in bread and wine, here at His Table. Take heart and lift them up unto the Lord, for He has delivered you from your distress and given you a city, His own Zion, in which to dwell. Thank the Lord for His steadfast love, for His wondrous works to the children of man! For He satisfies the longing soul and the hungry soul He fills with good things.

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

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Holy Trinity

Pentecost

Scheumann-Casteele Wedding

Exuadi (Easter VII)

Ascension of Our Lord

Rogate (Easter VI)

Pr. Seth A Mierow

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