Isaiah 12:1-6; James 1:16-21; St John 16:5-15
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
As it was last Sunday, so today. The Gospel places you back in the upper room, on the night of our Lord’s betrayal, on the eve of His death. He has washed their feet; giving them a part with Himself. He has feed them His own Body and Blood, given and shed for the forgiveness of sins. He is soon to return to Him who sent Him by way of His Cross and Passion, in His blessed death and burial, in the handing over of the Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life.
Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren, Christ Jesus is the Good and Perfect Gift from above, who has come down from the Father of light, full of grace and truth. In Him there is no shadow, but He is Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made. Who though He is one substance with the Father, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, and made Himself nothing, by taking on the form of a Servant, through the work of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
This is not mere information, repeated by rote in the Creed. This is for your advantage. He has joined Himself to in flesh and blood in the womb of His Virgin Mother in order to join you to Himself by way of His Spirit in the womb of Holy Baptism, and bestowing upon you His flesh and blood, crucified, risen, and ascended, that you might have fellowship in Him together with His Father by His Spirit.
Though the prospect of His imminent death fills the hearts of His disciples with sorrow, much as it did Elisha as his dear father in the faith, Elijah, was taken from him. Nevertheless, Jesus says, I tell you the truth; it is to your advantage that I go away. It is to your advantage that He goes to the Cross in His innocent suffering and death. This is for your benefit. His death is for you. It avails for you. His crucifixion sets you free from sin and sorrow. His death slays bitter death on your behalf in order that you may live with Him forever.
For unless He goes to the Father by being lifted up in death, the Paraclete, the Helper, the Spirit of Truth, cannot come to you.
Who is this Helper, this Spirit of Truth? This is the self-same Spirit who hovered over the natal waters of creation. The Spirit, by whom God breathed life into the man of dust, Adam. The Spirit, who spoke by the prophets. The Spirit who descended from heaven as a good gift, bestowed upon and remaining with Jesus the Christ, anointing Him the very Lamb of God who bears away the sin of the world. The self-same Spirit who drove Jesus into the wilderness in order to be tempted by the devil in the place of idolatrous and adulterous Israel, to be tempted in your place, and yet to remain without sin.
Our Lord Christ hands over this Spirit, the Holy Spirit of Christ, to His Father in His crucifixion and death, in the faithful obedience of the Son who obeys His Father’s will.
But the Holy Spirit is the Lord and Giver of Life. He who breathed life into Adam in the beginning, likewise breathed new life into the Second Adam, Jesus Christ, and raised Him from the dead on the third day. He is then bestowed in the expiration of the Word that Easter Eve. Where? Once again in the upper room! The Word, sent from the Father breathes out His Holy Spirit upon His sent ones, giving them as gifts to His Church to preach and teach, baptize and be stewards of the Sacred Mysteries, and to forgive the sins of terrified and repentant sinners.
For you and I would know nothing of Jesus Christ, of His person and work, of His perfect life, His sacrificial death, His victorious resurrection and glorious ascension, and His coming again for the final judgment, apart from the preaching and proclamation of the Holy Spirit. In a sermon on this same text, Dr Luther proclaimed,
Here Christ makes the Holy Spirit a Preacher. He does so to prevent one from gaping toward heaven in search of Him, as the fluttering spirits and enthusiasts do, and from divorcing Him from the oral Word or the ministry. One should know and learn that He will be in and with the Word, that it will guide us into all truth, in order that we may believe it, use it as a weapon, be preserved by it against all the lies and deception of the devil, and prevail in all trials and temptations. The Holy Spirit wants this truth which He is to impress into our hearts to be so firmly fixed that reason and all one’s own thoughts and feelings are relegated to the background. He wants us to adhere solely to the Word and to regard it as the only truth. And through this Word alone He governs the Christian Church to the end (AE 24:362).
This is why St James places such emphasis on the preached Word when he says, Know this my beloved brethren: let everyone be quick to hear. That is, quick to hear the Word of Christ read and preached, to hold it sacred, gladly hearing and learning it. For God desires to make Himself known to you in no other way than in His Word. Lutherans have been accused of denying the Holy Spirit because we don’t talk much about Him as the Third Person of the Trinity. That is for good reason. The Holy Spirit doesn’t talk much about Himself. He is the shy one of the Trinity. He directs all attention to Christ, your one Mediator, Advocate, and First Paraclete.
And He does this precisely in the reading and preaching of the Word of Christ and Him crucified, by which faith is both created and sustained. In this preached Word the Holy Spirit convicts you of sin and righteousness and judgment. He convicts you of sin in the proclamation of God’s Law, which is His holy and perfect Word and will for your life. How you live contrary to the will and commandments of God, not properly fearing, loving, trusting and Him above all things; how you speak ill of your neighbor, gossiping and slandering them with your words. How in anger you explode into all sorts of wickedness and filth, both in word and deed.
And it is precisely the Spirit’s work in the Law which brings you to repentance and faith. He works contrition and repentance in you. And He preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ to you. That is, the righteousness of another, namely of the Paraclete Jesus, which is imputed to you through faith. This is the implanted Word, of which St James speaks. Or as the hymn sings, “The Gospel shows the Father’s grace, who sent His Son to save our race, proclaims how Jesus lived and died that we might thus be justified” (LSB 580:1). It proclaims, that is, in the Gospel the Spirit declares and preaches how Jesus’s death justifies you; it makes you righteous by faith.
For the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ, as Christ glorified the Father and the Father glorified His Name in the Son: precisely in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Father glorifies His Name in the Son by the Cross and the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ by preaching His Cross. For the Spirit of Christ takes what belongs to the Son - namely righteousness, salvation, peace, joy, mercy, forgiveness, love, all of heaven itself - and He declares, that is, preaches it to you, that by His Word He bespeaks you righteous.
It is the Spirit of Christ who works in Holy Baptism, hovering over the natal waters of your re-creation, bespeaking you righteous with the Word of Christ in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
It is the Spirit of Christ who is at work in preaching, convicting you of sin in the Law and bringing comfort to your conscience in the Gospel forgiveness of Christ.
The Spirit of Christ is also present and working in Holy Communion, where Christ gives His blood for life, His own divine life, eternal in the Holy Spirit. For this is the “spiritual drink,” by which you are filled with His Holy Spirit (1 Cor 10:4; 12:13).
I know you don’t always feel righteous, or even forgiven, holy, and justified. But the Holy Spirit is not felt, but heard. His Word is true and He guides you in the way of the Truth, that is, in He who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Even as our reason is subjected to Scripture, when we say, “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength, believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to Him, but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel,” so too do we subject our feelings and emotions to the Truth of God’s Word.
Feelings are not bad, but they can get in the way of the Truth of God’s Word. Jesus knows this when He says, I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. The feelings, emotions, sorrow and even pride of the disciples gets in the way of hearing the truth of His Word. So He waits until after His resurrection to continue to teach them of the true meaning of His Cross and Passion, His reconciling death and victorious resurrection.
So to for you. In the lectionary we are brought back to the Upper Room, to hear again the New Song of the Spirit, the preaching of His Word, always pointing back to the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Here then, the nave, this very sanctuary is the Upper Room for you. Here Christ washes you in His Absolution, giving you, once more, a part with Him. Here He feeds you on His Body and Blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. Here, in this Upper Room, He breathes His Holy Spirit upon you in the living voice of His Gospel, read and preached, which the singing of His Holy Spirit, by which He calms your sorrowful heart.
And here, He banishes the devil, the ruler of this world who is judged. For God the Holy Spirit convinces you of these three things: your sin exposed by God’s Law, your imputed righteousness according to God’s Gospel, and that your wicked foe, Satan himself, has been judged in the Cross of Christ and no longer has any claim on you. Again, you don’t always feel this, but indeed you hear it. You must.
To be and remain a Christian you desperately need to continually return to the Upper Room of His Church where His Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. In this Christian church He daily and richly forgives all your sins and the sins of all believers. For by the work of the Holy Spirit, preaching Christ to you in His Word, the Lord God is your strength and your song and He has become your salvation. Shout and sing for joy, you inhabitants of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel!
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
As it was last Sunday, so today. The Gospel places you back in the upper room, on the night of our Lord’s betrayal, on the eve of His death. He has washed their feet; giving them a part with Himself. He has feed them His own Body and Blood, given and shed for the forgiveness of sins. He is soon to return to Him who sent Him by way of His Cross and Passion, in His blessed death and burial, in the handing over of the Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life.
Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren, Christ Jesus is the Good and Perfect Gift from above, who has come down from the Father of light, full of grace and truth. In Him there is no shadow, but He is Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made. Who though He is one substance with the Father, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, and made Himself nothing, by taking on the form of a Servant, through the work of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
This is not mere information, repeated by rote in the Creed. This is for your advantage. He has joined Himself to in flesh and blood in the womb of His Virgin Mother in order to join you to Himself by way of His Spirit in the womb of Holy Baptism, and bestowing upon you His flesh and blood, crucified, risen, and ascended, that you might have fellowship in Him together with His Father by His Spirit.
Though the prospect of His imminent death fills the hearts of His disciples with sorrow, much as it did Elisha as his dear father in the faith, Elijah, was taken from him. Nevertheless, Jesus says, I tell you the truth; it is to your advantage that I go away. It is to your advantage that He goes to the Cross in His innocent suffering and death. This is for your benefit. His death is for you. It avails for you. His crucifixion sets you free from sin and sorrow. His death slays bitter death on your behalf in order that you may live with Him forever.
For unless He goes to the Father by being lifted up in death, the Paraclete, the Helper, the Spirit of Truth, cannot come to you.
Who is this Helper, this Spirit of Truth? This is the self-same Spirit who hovered over the natal waters of creation. The Spirit, by whom God breathed life into the man of dust, Adam. The Spirit, who spoke by the prophets. The Spirit who descended from heaven as a good gift, bestowed upon and remaining with Jesus the Christ, anointing Him the very Lamb of God who bears away the sin of the world. The self-same Spirit who drove Jesus into the wilderness in order to be tempted by the devil in the place of idolatrous and adulterous Israel, to be tempted in your place, and yet to remain without sin.
Our Lord Christ hands over this Spirit, the Holy Spirit of Christ, to His Father in His crucifixion and death, in the faithful obedience of the Son who obeys His Father’s will.
But the Holy Spirit is the Lord and Giver of Life. He who breathed life into Adam in the beginning, likewise breathed new life into the Second Adam, Jesus Christ, and raised Him from the dead on the third day. He is then bestowed in the expiration of the Word that Easter Eve. Where? Once again in the upper room! The Word, sent from the Father breathes out His Holy Spirit upon His sent ones, giving them as gifts to His Church to preach and teach, baptize and be stewards of the Sacred Mysteries, and to forgive the sins of terrified and repentant sinners.
For you and I would know nothing of Jesus Christ, of His person and work, of His perfect life, His sacrificial death, His victorious resurrection and glorious ascension, and His coming again for the final judgment, apart from the preaching and proclamation of the Holy Spirit. In a sermon on this same text, Dr Luther proclaimed,
Here Christ makes the Holy Spirit a Preacher. He does so to prevent one from gaping toward heaven in search of Him, as the fluttering spirits and enthusiasts do, and from divorcing Him from the oral Word or the ministry. One should know and learn that He will be in and with the Word, that it will guide us into all truth, in order that we may believe it, use it as a weapon, be preserved by it against all the lies and deception of the devil, and prevail in all trials and temptations. The Holy Spirit wants this truth which He is to impress into our hearts to be so firmly fixed that reason and all one’s own thoughts and feelings are relegated to the background. He wants us to adhere solely to the Word and to regard it as the only truth. And through this Word alone He governs the Christian Church to the end (AE 24:362).
This is why St James places such emphasis on the preached Word when he says, Know this my beloved brethren: let everyone be quick to hear. That is, quick to hear the Word of Christ read and preached, to hold it sacred, gladly hearing and learning it. For God desires to make Himself known to you in no other way than in His Word. Lutherans have been accused of denying the Holy Spirit because we don’t talk much about Him as the Third Person of the Trinity. That is for good reason. The Holy Spirit doesn’t talk much about Himself. He is the shy one of the Trinity. He directs all attention to Christ, your one Mediator, Advocate, and First Paraclete.
And He does this precisely in the reading and preaching of the Word of Christ and Him crucified, by which faith is both created and sustained. In this preached Word the Holy Spirit convicts you of sin and righteousness and judgment. He convicts you of sin in the proclamation of God’s Law, which is His holy and perfect Word and will for your life. How you live contrary to the will and commandments of God, not properly fearing, loving, trusting and Him above all things; how you speak ill of your neighbor, gossiping and slandering them with your words. How in anger you explode into all sorts of wickedness and filth, both in word and deed.
And it is precisely the Spirit’s work in the Law which brings you to repentance and faith. He works contrition and repentance in you. And He preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ to you. That is, the righteousness of another, namely of the Paraclete Jesus, which is imputed to you through faith. This is the implanted Word, of which St James speaks. Or as the hymn sings, “The Gospel shows the Father’s grace, who sent His Son to save our race, proclaims how Jesus lived and died that we might thus be justified” (LSB 580:1). It proclaims, that is, in the Gospel the Spirit declares and preaches how Jesus’s death justifies you; it makes you righteous by faith.
For the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ, as Christ glorified the Father and the Father glorified His Name in the Son: precisely in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Father glorifies His Name in the Son by the Cross and the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ by preaching His Cross. For the Spirit of Christ takes what belongs to the Son - namely righteousness, salvation, peace, joy, mercy, forgiveness, love, all of heaven itself - and He declares, that is, preaches it to you, that by His Word He bespeaks you righteous.
It is the Spirit of Christ who works in Holy Baptism, hovering over the natal waters of your re-creation, bespeaking you righteous with the Word of Christ in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
It is the Spirit of Christ who is at work in preaching, convicting you of sin in the Law and bringing comfort to your conscience in the Gospel forgiveness of Christ.
The Spirit of Christ is also present and working in Holy Communion, where Christ gives His blood for life, His own divine life, eternal in the Holy Spirit. For this is the “spiritual drink,” by which you are filled with His Holy Spirit (1 Cor 10:4; 12:13).
I know you don’t always feel righteous, or even forgiven, holy, and justified. But the Holy Spirit is not felt, but heard. His Word is true and He guides you in the way of the Truth, that is, in He who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Even as our reason is subjected to Scripture, when we say, “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength, believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to Him, but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel,” so too do we subject our feelings and emotions to the Truth of God’s Word.
Feelings are not bad, but they can get in the way of the Truth of God’s Word. Jesus knows this when He says, I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. The feelings, emotions, sorrow and even pride of the disciples gets in the way of hearing the truth of His Word. So He waits until after His resurrection to continue to teach them of the true meaning of His Cross and Passion, His reconciling death and victorious resurrection.
So to for you. In the lectionary we are brought back to the Upper Room, to hear again the New Song of the Spirit, the preaching of His Word, always pointing back to the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Here then, the nave, this very sanctuary is the Upper Room for you. Here Christ washes you in His Absolution, giving you, once more, a part with Him. Here He feeds you on His Body and Blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. Here, in this Upper Room, He breathes His Holy Spirit upon you in the living voice of His Gospel, read and preached, which the singing of His Holy Spirit, by which He calms your sorrowful heart.
And here, He banishes the devil, the ruler of this world who is judged. For God the Holy Spirit convinces you of these three things: your sin exposed by God’s Law, your imputed righteousness according to God’s Gospel, and that your wicked foe, Satan himself, has been judged in the Cross of Christ and no longer has any claim on you. Again, you don’t always feel this, but indeed you hear it. You must.
To be and remain a Christian you desperately need to continually return to the Upper Room of His Church where His Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. In this Christian church He daily and richly forgives all your sins and the sins of all believers. For by the work of the Holy Spirit, preaching Christ to you in His Word, the Lord God is your strength and your song and He has become your salvation. Shout and sing for joy, you inhabitants of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel!
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
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