Pr Irmer preached this Sunday.

Proverbs 9:1-10; Ephesians 2:13-22; St Luke 14:15-24
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

“Its a tough job, but someone has to do it.” You might hear a sewer inspector or a hot tar roofer saying that. Or maybe an alligator farmer, owl vomit collector, or sludge recycler. Any of the jobs featured by Mike Rowe would probably qualify. “It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.”

Add to that list another kind of work - being the Servant of the Man who gave the great banquet in Jesus’ parable. For that Man who gave the banquet was obsessed with filling His House with guests. And it was that Servant’s job to fill it.

It was a tough job. You might think that calling people to a great banquet would be a cushy job. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t pleasant at all. Especially when you consider the so-called “respectable” friends that the Master of the House invited. They were fickle friends. Disloyal friends. The kind who would RSVP and then not show up on the day of the event. The kind who would RSVP and then make sorry excuses when the day came.

And that poor servant was the One who had to listen to all their lies and last minute excuses. I bought a field. I bought some animals. I have a wife. Translation: the land, the family vacation is calling. I’ve been swamped with work. The wife made other plans. But He wasn’t fooled. He knew that behind all those flimsy excuses were nothing but lies and contempt for His Master. They had a low opinion of both the One hosting the banquet and the banquet itself. They were hungry. They had more important things to do. They rejected His love. But that dutiful Servant simply took in all the lies and the rejection and reported back to His Master.

It was a tough job. And reporting back was no easy task either. For the Servant knew that nothing made the Master more furious than having His generosity rejected, His love spurned by people He though were His friends. In the parallel account in Matthew’s Gospel it was not just a banquet, but a wedding feast. Not only a Master of a House, but a King, throwing a Feast for His Son. And when those who were invited rejected the invitation, the king was angry and he sent his troops and destroyed those who rejected him and burned their city (Mt 22:7). But for St Luke it is the Servant who has to deal with the Man’s wrath and blistering anger.

Now He had to fill all those empty seats. And it was a tough job. The Master was obsessed with sharing His love. So off He dashed to fill those seats. He went into the streets and lanes and brought into the house the most unlikeliest of guests. People who never would have been invited to a banquet like this in a million years. People who would have never gotten the VIP treatment anywhere else.

He went to the outcasts. The tax collectors and sinners. He invited them to the banquet. He went to the smoky AA meetings. To the prostitutes and pimps. The felons and the junkies. He went off to all the people that society considers riff raft and tries to forget, neglect, ignore and berate. He went to the prisons and nursing homes. To the mentally and physically disabled. To the lonely, the unbalanced, the people who would never darken the door of a church because they thought they didn’t deserve to be there. And He invited them all! And some were even overjoyed to come.

But it was a tough job. And this Filler of the House was not done yet. For there was still room. So He even went tot he highways and hedges and found people. People who worshipped false gods. Who worshipped nature. Gentiles, who were far off, strangers and aliens, those who never even heard of the True God. People of a different skin color who dressed weird and spoke weird. He compelled them to come. And some did. And the house was filled.

It was a tough job because of His generous Master’s obsession. But the servant did it. He filled the House to standing room only, because pleasing the Master was His priority. Come, everything is now ready.

In that Master we see what God the Father is like: obsessed with sharing His love with all. And that’s the purpose of this parable. To show you what God the Father is like. It also shows us how different we are from God the Father. That our wisdom if foolishness to Him and vice versa. Because if we threw a party and all our friends who had RSVP’d didn’t show up it would ruin everything. We couldn’t go on. We’d feel so insulted, so rejected, and so foolish that there would be no more joy or happiness in that event. We would be filled with rage and there would be no banquet at all because we’d be devastated. For when our love, our generosity, our charity is not reciprocated, we plot revenge.

But not so the Father. Rather than plot revenge, He continues to love, continues to invite. And if the Master of the House is God the Father who loves nothing more than to share His love, then we know of whom the loyal Servant is a picture: our Lord Jesus Christ, whose sole priority and obsession was carrying out the Father’s will no matter the cost. No matter how tough the job was. For it was the Father’s will that you might have a place in God’s gracious, everlasting Kingdom. Just as the man at table with Jesus said, Blessed it everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God.

But how will you ever eat bread in God’s heavenly Kingdom? How will you every have a seat? You are too much like those disloyal friends who think lightly of God’s invitation and banquet and gifts. You take yourself seriously, but not God. Look at what you strive for; take stock of your priorities.

You may not say, “Land and animals and wife,” but you use the other First Article gifts and Daily Bread as excuses. You make the same choices as those who rejected the Servant’s call when you think, “Going to church once or twice a month is surely enough.” Or when you leave your Scriptures closed in your home and do not open them to read them to your children and yourself and you lie to yourself saying “I just don’t have the time,” while you watch an hour or two of Netflix. You make that same choice, that same rejection, when you put recreational or sports activities ahead of attending to God and to His Word. And its a foolish choice.

Well, we’re all fools. Every man. Or as the Proverb says it, simple. The Oracle at Delphi told Socrates that there was no one wiser than he. And in an effort to try to disprove the Oracle the philosopher went around asking anyone and everyone what is truly worthwhile in life. He figured that anyone who knew that would certainly be wiser than him. He questioned everyone he could find, but no one gave him a satisfactory answer. They all pretended to know something when they clearly did not. Socrates finally realized that the Oracle was right. Not about him, but about wisdom. Those who think they have it, don’t. And those who know they don’t have it, do. Everyone is a fool. Its just that some fools know they are fools.

Everyone is a sinner. Some sinners just know they are sinners and repent, heading the wisdom of God and His gracious invitation.

And that’s what else this parable is about. Not only the nature and goodness of the Father, but the priority of hearing and receiving His invitation; His free and gracious invitation to come and participate in the Feast of the Kingdom of Heaven. Tying together Psalm 18 and 34 and Isaiah 49, St Paul preaches, Behold, now is the favorable time; behold now is the day of salvation (2 Cor 6:2). Don't delay. Don’t make excuses, lies, reject the invitation. It is His obsession.

And Christ Jesus, the Servant of the Father, had an obsession too. An obsession with carrying out the Father’s will that you be saved and rescued. Talk about a tough job. A dirty job. But Christ would never say, “Its a tough job, but someone has to do it.” Because He is not just someone and He didn’t have to do it. He is God in the Flesh and He chose to do it. He could have left you in your sins outside of God’s Kingdom with nothing to taste but eternal death. He chose to take on the tough job of seeing to it that you have a place at God’s eternal feast.

And so He went forth and did the dirty work. He went everything preaching, calling men to receive for free what they could never earn. He ate with tax collectors and sinners, prostitutes and felons. He loved Gentiles. He made no excuses. He didn’t complain what it would cost Him. His obsession, His priority was removing the righteous hostility God had for all sinners; tearing down in His own flesh, that separation.

And though He would end up breathless on the Cross, He did it. He bore the insults and the lies and the rejection of His people. He took your place and absorbed the blistering wrath of God the Father’s anger against your sins at the Cross. He did it so that you might have a place forever at God’s eternal banquet. He Himself is your peace.

He was brought to the High Priest’s house as a guilty criminal and mocked so that you could come to Baptism and be brought into God’s Kingdom, declared innocent, holy and approved. He tasted death for you on the Cross until His lips went pale so that you might taste and see from this Altar that the Lord is good and gracious toward you. That you are given to eat Bread not only in His Kingdom now, but you receive the Bread which is His Kingdom; the very Body of Christ Jesus broken for you.

Our priorities may be out of whack. We have much for which we need to repent and amend our lives. This is why He keeps calling us, inviting us, restoring to us the joy of His salvation.

But Jesus’ priorities aren’t askew. His priority was you, bearing your sins to the Cross and triumphing over them to appease the Father’s wrath so that you are blessed in His Kingdom now. Not merely in the future, but now, in the present. Fellow citizens and members of the Household of God. He did the dirty work of redeeming you. This is true wisdom. Come. Everything is now ready.

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

Genesis 15:1-6; 1 John 4:16-21; St Luke 16:19-31
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

Abram believed the Lord and He counted it to him as righteousness. When the Lord made the promise to him that he would be the father of many nations and that from his loins the Promised Seed would come, all Abram had was the Word. The meager Word. No son, no heir. The heir of his house was Eliezer of Damascus. He was already old. Sarah too. He had nothing to show for God’s great promise, only the Word. The Word that God was gracious and merciful to carry through and bring forth the Seed who would bring blessing to all nations. Faith clings to this Word. Abram believed and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness. This faith alone saves. But such faith is never alone.

St John writes, This commandment we have from Him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. Let no one comfort himself that he shares the faith of Abraham if he is without love toward the brother. Faith alone justifies; is reckoned as righteousness, apart from works of the Law. But the faith that alone justifies is never alone. It is always accompanied by the fruits of faith. The works of love.

Did the Rich Man in the parable have such faith? He certainly thought so. Even in the torments of Hades he lays claim to being a child of Abraham. And perhaps odd to our ears, Abraham returns the sentiment by calling him Child.

But his faith was a sham. This is revealed by the fact that he could walk past the beggar Lazarus, the man placed at his gate for him to love. He was a gift. An unusual gift, but a gift. Actually, a repulsive gift, but still a gift. A gift from God to the self-absorbed Rich Man. We like gifts covered in bright wrapping paper. This gift of God was covered with sores. We like gifts surrounded by pretty ribbons. This gift was surrounded by dirty dogs. We like gifts to be useful, but what are you going to do with a useless beggar named Lazarus laid at your front door?

Yet there he was - right at the Rich Man’s front door. It was as if God was preaching to him even after he left synagogue. For it is entirely probable that the Rich Man never missed at chance to attend church. He may have even had a seat of honor - the rich and famous often did. It is also possible that Lazarus attended the same church. St James tells a similar parable about two men like these who come to church. If a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into church and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or “Sit at my feet,” have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? (James 2:2-4).

The Rich Man was there. He heard the words of Moses and the Prophets read and proclaimed in the synagogue. He listened. But he did not take them to heart. He did not let the words sink into him and reduce him to fear. He did not realize that God meant exactly what He said: Cursed is he who does not continue in all that is written in the book of the Law and do it (Dt 27:26). For when he got home and saw the poor fellow lying there - God preaching to him, saying, “Here, Rich Man, show me your faith. Here you go, you can’t miss him. Show me you love me by loving that repulsive beggar. Show me your life is more than just eating and drinking and wanting more stuff.”

But he failed. In the words of St James he dishonored the Poor Man. He showed partiality as he claimed to hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ (James 2:6, 1). For all his pious pretense, for all his worldly possessions, for his pride and vain-glory, all his calling Abraham “Father,” the Rich Man was an unbeliever.

How do we know? He ends up in hell. And being in torment, he still thinks only of himself. Send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue. Make that beggar, whom I despised and ignored, serve me. No. Not possible says Abraham. No one can cross between heaven and hell. The time is gone.

“Than send him back and warn my brothers,” he pleads. And Abraham responds, They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them. And he said, “No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead they will repent. Even in hell unbelievers despise the Word, think little of it, and do not afford it the power that it truly has.

Abraham, though, is no unbeliever. He knows the power of the promises of God, the might of His Word. The Word that called him from unbelief to faith. The Word that brought him from death to life. The Word that gave him a child and through the child the promise of the One who would bring blessing to all. That Word sustained him all the days of his pilgrimage. That Word kept him humble before God so he never trusted in his own deeds or riches or prestige.

Faith alone in that Word alone was reckoned to him as righteousness. It saved him. But the Word also made him fruitful in good works; in charity and love for his neighbor. And that Word at last brought him to the eternal Promised Land to recline with the Seed surrounded by the angelic host and all the company of heaven as numerous as the stars. And so he says to the Rich Man, If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.

Here we sit. Richer in the Word than they. For God has not only given you the witness of the Apostles and Evangelists to add to Moses and the Prophets. Indeed He has fulfilled them! You have not just the foretelling of the One who would bring blessing to all. You have the fulfillment.

And yet, how often are we the brothers of the Rich Man, for too we have dishonored the Poor Man just as he. The Rich Man hated Lazarus, but that doesn’t mean he kicked him or ordered him off his property. He just hated him in the most common way that we hate: we ignore, we neglect, we don’t see what God wants us to see. We ignore the burdensome, the bothersome, the nobodies, the time-suckers, all the people God puts in our path to exercise and show Him your faith which you confess. Even though God gave him Lazarus as a gift to notice and to serve, he lived as if Lazarus were invisible. And only in hell did the Rich Man finally realize what an opportunity he had missed. And it was too late.

In the Rite of Individual Confession we say, “I have not let God’s love have its way with me, and so my love for others has failed.” That should have been the Rich Man’s confession. He failed to love God in the person of Lazarus whom he could see. But that is our confession too. How many burdensome, difficult, inconvenient people have we hated by our neglect? Even those in our own family? Our church? Our neglect may not have been as heinous as the rich man’s, but based on the quality of our love for others, we could certainly be one of his doomed brothers.

But you are not one of his hell bound brothers. For God is still the great Gift Giver and Lover of man. St James earlier writes, Every good gifts and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no shadow or variation due to change. Of His own will be brought us forth by the Word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of His creatures (James 1:16-18).

Again this morning, in this assembly, this congregation, He has decided to love someone as undeserving as you. For the greatest gift, the Perfect Gift who came down from above, from the Father of lights, is the Gift of His sole begotten Son who came to be your Brothers. He came down from heaven to take on your flesh and to do what we have often refused to do - act in love. To be not only a hearer of the Word, but a doer also.

For Jesus your Brother not only said, “I love God,” but He then showed it by loving who the Father wanted Him to love: burdensome, difficult, inconvenient, troubled, poor, miserable sinners like us. Jesus, God’s Rich Son, for your sake became poor - poor like Lazarus - so that through His poverty, you might inherit the riches of heaven. Jesus, who came not only to be an example of faithfulness and obedience, but even better, came to be affixed to a Cross, to be the Bridge out of eternal torment and into everlasting life.

For hell is real. And if you don’t want the God who is love, you will get the god you desire in hell, cut off from God’s redeeming love forever.

And though He was innocent and perfect and righteous, this is exactly what Jesus suffered on the Cross. He was cut off from God His Father, suffering and experiencing the true hell of anguish and torment of His soul. When He screamed out, My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me, He was experiencing hell in your place. Experiencing hell so you wouldn’t. This is your true Brother!

For who is Lazarus really? Who is the Poor Man referenced by St James? Of whom is this a picture? An image? He is Jesus, who came to be your Brother. Your Brother in the flesh, who came to be so close to you that He was willing to become your Sin, to be covered in the sores of your unrighteousness and guilt and shame. To suffer it. But more, to triumph over it so that by faith in Him you become the righteousness of God. For such faith alone saves. But such faith is never alone. It is bound to bring forth good fruits, works of love and charity and mercy for the good of another. The one whom God puts into your way to help. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the Day of Judgment. We love because He first loved us.

First and last and always. See how He continues to love you. Though a sore-ridden, sin-sick beggar, He clothes you in the fine linen of your Holy Baptism and calls you His child. He sets before you a sumptuous feast, His true Body and Blood back from the dead to strengthen you in faith toward Him and fervent love toward one another. He gives you His Word; meager though it may seem, but the power of God unto salvation. He gives you these to create and sustain the faith which alone justifies. But such faith is never alone. Thus does He give you your particular Lazaruses to help to exercise this faith.

And in such faith you can be confident of dying a blessed death, the prayer of Lazarus your own prayer: “Lord, let at last Thine angels come, to Abr’ham’s bosom bear me home, that I may die unfearing. And in its narrow chamber keep, my body safe in peaceful sleep until Thy reappearing. And then from death awaken me that these mine eyes with joy may see, O Son of God Thy glorious face, my Savior and my Fount of Grace. Lord Jesus Christ, my prayer attend, my prayer attend, and I will praise Thee without end” (LSB 708:3). Amen.

Isaiah 6:1-7; Romans 11:33-36; St John 3:1-15(16-17)

In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.

In the year that King Uzziah died, the prophet Isaiah ought to have died. He was of fallen flesh.  And he knew well the Torah and the Lord’s admonition to Moses,  Man - literally, flesh - shall not see Me and live (Ex 33:20).  

Moses had heard the Lord.  He never saw Him. Like you, he got tired of living by faith.  He wanted to live by sight.  Please show me Your glory, he cried out in frustration. “I will make all My goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you My Name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,” God said, “you cannot see My Face, for flesh shall not see Me and live.” (Ex 33:19-22).  

Thus did the Lord place Moses in a cleft of the rock, covering him with His hand until He passed by. Moses did not behold the face of the Lord, but rather His back side. In mercy, the Lord hid His glory from the Moses. For flesh cannot look upon the Lord God and live.

What, then, did the prophet Isaiah see? What is the image of the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up? His eyes beheld the King, Yahweh Sabbaoth, the Lord of Hosts. He ought to have been annihilated, and he knew it. Woe is me! For I am lost. I’m dead meat.  

That is what our flesh is according to its natural birth. Dead meat. That’s what St Paul says, You were dead - νεκροσ, a corpse - in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked (Eph 2:1).  And that’s what Jesus says, That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. The distinction is not material versus immaterial; not tangible versus intangible; not visible versus invisible; not between bodies of flesh and disembodied spirits.  

Rather, the contrast is between that which bears the Spirit of God and that which does not. Flesh that is filled with the Spirit of God is alive and living. Flesh apart from the Spirit of God is dead and dying. It returns to the dust from whence it came. It decays, suffers destruction, and disintegrates.  

And when such flesh comes into the presence of the pure, unmediated, holiness, power, and glory of the Most High God, it rightly ought to be seared as so much dead meat; as the Lord had warned Moses.

And so I ask again: What did Isaiah see? What about Nicodemus? What did he see? With his eyes of flesh he beheld a man - a man come from God, to be sure, who did amazing signs - but a man nonetheless. In seeing he did not see for he was but born of flesh, not yet of water and the Spirit. He was not yet begotten from above and so could not see the kingdom of God.  

Do not be deceived, beloved, we are not speaking of a kingdom far above the heavens, transcended by spiritual sight or metaphysical motion. We are confessing the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God in the person of Jesus Christ. This Isaiah’s divine throne room manifest in the only Son of the Father. What the fleshly Nicodemus could not see without the divine birth of water and the Spirit. Not yet. For presently he still walked in darkness and the shadow of death, even as he came to Jesus by night.  

You are no different. Your flesh, inherited from Adam, is dead meat. You ought to be undone by the holy, holy, holy Lord God of Sabbaoth. You deserve temporal and eternal punishment. And like Nicodemus, in your spiritualizing speculations, you often and mistakenly search for a kingdom far above the heavens, outside of this material existence; something intangible and invisible. Something “spiritual.” But this, beloved, is not the catholic faith; it cannot save.

And so, one last time: What did Isaiah see? What did he behold and was yet not undone? What did Moses see? What did Nicodemus see? The answer is the same for them all: they beheld the sole-begotten Son of God, who was sent into the world not to annihilate sinners, but to save them. Christ Jesus, and Him crucified, is the back side of God.  For no one has ever seen God; but the only Son, who is at the Father’s side, He has made Him known (Jn 1:18).  

Christ Jesus is the glory of the Lord revealed to Moses. For hidden in Him in the fullness of the godhead, revealed among men that they may look upon God and live; that they may believe and have eternal life. The Lord does not want to hide Himself from people.  Rather, He wants to make Himself known, for He desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the Truth. Yet to reveal Himself, He must hide. If He did not, we would all be dead meat.

But Isaiah was not. Rather, in the year that King Uzziah died, he saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up. Hear that: Lifted up. On a throne. The King. The fullness of His glory filling to the earth. Was not Christ the King lifted up on the throne of His Cross, thus revealing the fullness of His glory?  

In John 12, when some Greeks seek Jesus, He tells them, “Now is My soul troubled. And what shall I say?  Father, save Me from this hour?’ But for this purpose I have come to this hour.  Father, glorify Your Name.” This is St John’s Gethsemane scene. Christ Jesus, the Man come from God who is God, wresting with His Father’s will for Him. Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd thought it had thundered, or an angel had spoken, even as the thresholds shook at the voice of Him whom Isaiah saw. But Jesus answered, “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to Myself.”  He said this, St John remarks, to show by what kind of death He was going to die.  

His crucifixion is His inauguration as King. His Cross is His throne and the revelation of the glory of God given among men that we may behold Him and not be undone.  

And only a few verses later, St John cites the prophets Isaiah and says, Isaiah said these things because he saw His glory and spoke of Him (Jn 12:41)! Isaiah saw His glory! No one can see God and live. Yet Moses did! Isaiah did! For they beheld He who is the glory of the Lord in the flesh of man.  

No one has seen the Father, but the Son, who is very God of very God, makes Him known; reveals the glory of the Blessed Holy Trinity in the instantiation of His person - the Word made flesh - and in the work of His Cross, by which He is obedient to the Father’s will and hands over the Spirit. That sounds philosophical. Its not meant to. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is not an academic playground for theologians; a place for them to sit and pontificate.  It is overwhelmingly pastoral; it is for your comfort, your peace, your joy. All pure doctrine is. The Blessed Holy Trinity is for you and for your salvation.   

For flesh could not see God and live. So in Christ, God took up your fallen flesh into His holy divinity, and forever joined the two natures in the One God-Man. In His own flesh He paid the penalty of your death. For He who bestows the Spirit took up your flesh in order that by the glory of His death He might beget you from above by water and Spirit! With the eyes of faith you behold the kingdom of God in Jesus Christ. You are born, as Nicodemus, in darkness, but in His mercy the Lord pulls back the veil and gives you to see, as Isaiah, the heavenly throne room with the Lord Jesus Himself high and lifted up for you.

That is, in Holy Baptism you have been born again by water and the Spirit and given to share in the fellowship of the Kingdom and Life in and with the Blessed Holy Trinity. Thus do you hear and see the Lord your God, your Savior and Redeemer, and you are not undone, but rather atoned for and redeemed. For His Word goes forth, read and preached, sung and confessed, creating and sustaining faith. And His visible Word, that is Baptism and the Sacrament, are for you the material and tangible signs of His kingdom among you.

For now, the whole ministry of the Gospel is the lifting up of the Son of Man, of Christ the crucified, by which you are brought to faith and life in Him, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit.    

One more thing. An artistic thing, for the catholic faith has long been expressed in art and image.  After all, the Word became flesh. In 1525 Albrecht Durer completed a drawing depicting in stunning detail our crucified Lord Jesus Christ. Only in this piece he does not have the bystanders, the crowds, the Virgin Mary or the beloved disciple standing by. He simply portrays the bleeding King, dying upon the throne of His Cross; and three angels - representing the sanctus: holy, holy, holy -  flying around His cruciform throne, with chalices in their hands in which they collect the holy, precious Blood of the immortal Son of God.  

Beloved that holy blood is distributed to you here, from the Throne and the Altar of His Cross, in the material and tangible, and yet truly spiritual, in the bread and wine, the very Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Here the Coal of the Cross touches your lips and you are cleansed, your sin atoned for, your guilt removed. For the Father did not send an angel to ransom and redeem you, but His only Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who has given you His Holy Spirit. And here, the veil pulled back, you see with the eyes of faith your Lord Jesus, high and lifted up, in the liturgy and hymnody, in the preached Word, and you join in song with angels and archangels singing to God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth, heaven and earth are full of Your glory!  

For the fullest expression of the catholic faith is not in academic exercise, nor in dogmatic textbooks, but in worship. True worship is Divine Service, God the Holy Trinity to you, for you.  True worship is the posture of reception, of faith, which receives that which the Trinity bestows from His very essence. For who has given a gift to God that he might be repaid? Oh the depth of His riches and wisdom!  Indeed, from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him - Father, Son and + Holy Spirit, be glory and dominion, now and forever.  Amen.

Genesis 11:1-9; Acts 2:1-21; St John 14:23-31

In the Name + of JESUS. Amen,

Fifty days after Israel left Egypt - that is, fifty days after the Lord’s Passover, after the drowning of Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea, after the redemption of His people - the Lord God directed His people to Mt Sinai where He gave the holy Ten Commandments. Now, fifty days after the slaughter of the innocent Passover Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, after the decimation of hell’s fierce power and the redemption of all mankind, our Lord Jesus Christ directs His Apostles to remain in the city, where He clothes them with power from on high.

The miracles of Pentecost mirror the great event of the giving of the Decalogue. At Mt Sinai there was thunder. At Pentecost there was a loud sound which came from heaven, filling the entire house. At Mt Sinai there was lightening and the glory of the Lord, but Moses was unscathed. The mountain trembled as the Lord descended on it in fire.  At Pentecost God the Holy Spirit descended upon the Twelve, alighting on them in tongues of fire. Yet they were unharmed. At Mt Sinai the Lord called to Moses and spoke with him face to face, indicating to him those works which are pleasing to God. At Pentecost the Holy Spirit filled the Apostles and they began to speak in unlearned languages concerning the mighty works of God, which have pleased Him by the faithful obedience of Jesus Christ.

This final one - the Apostles preaching in unlearned languages the mighty works of God - this is the most distinct aspect of the New Testament Pentecost. That miracle is without precedent or parallel in the Old Testament. Except, perhaps, in the negative, as you heard this morning. The curse at the Tower of Babel. The Lord God descending, coming down, confusing the language of the people, inventing language, and dispersing them over the face of the earth. Today the Lord, the Holy Spirit, descends and unites men of various languages. He gathers them together. Pentecost is the undoing of Babel’s curse. Not only in comprehension, but also in reuniting men into one family, that is, the family of God, the holy Christian Church.

But there are other, less obvious miracles, at Pentecost. The disciples had once hidden in fear of the Jews in the same room. The room where the Lord’s Supper was instituted had become for them, the place were they locked themselves away from the world. It is now the same room where the Holy Spirit comes upon them with a loud sound, flames, and languages.

For forty days the the crucified and risen Lord Jesus had appeared to them in His body. Yet they had remained mostly confused and afraid, even as He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.

Then He had ascended, departed visibly from them, engulfed by clouds as He was taken into heaven. But they were not afraid or sad. They rejoiced and returned to Jerusalem to wait for the Holy Spirit. They waited, as the Church always does, in prayer. Not hidden away, cowering in her locked room, cut off from the world. But hearing and receiving the teaching of the Holy Spirit, which the Word of our Lord Christ who came from the Father. When this happened, the Apostles’ were no longer afraid. They were bold. So when the crowd comes to investigate the great noise, St Peter, who had cowered at the voice of a servant girl, now walks out and preaches to them without fear, even calling them account for what they did to the innocent Lord.

You have heard the past couple Sundays from St Peter. His letters to the elect exiles of the dispersion about living amidst suffering, in a world hostile to the Gospel, among debauchery and licentiousness, as people who are truly free. Some of those tho whom he wrote may have been present at Pentecost. Certainly men from their regions are represented here. These are men who were also present at the Passover, that is, at the crucifixion of our Lord. They called for His blood. When St Peter walked into that crowd on Pentecost there was no naivety. They had yelled “crucify Him,” concerning Jesus. He might not be far behind.

It is no different for you, elect exiles living among temptation and vice, suffering for the sake of the Gospel, enduring trials and hostilities. You know that to speak up, to call men to account, is dangerous. The Gospel is scandalous. It is offensive. You know how hard it is for men, yea, impossible for them, to believe.

But this is the first miracle we often overlook at Pentecost. The Apostles were changed. They were emboldened by the Holy Spirit for this purpose: to preach. St Peter and the Twelve were inspired by the Holy Spirit to preach the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the salvation of the world. And he was bold in his Office. For this is what all men need. Whether they know it or not. This is why Christ commissions His Church to open the eyes of the pagans, those lost in darkness, blind to their spiritual condition, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God (Acts 26:18).

Because this is the second part of the miracle: some believed. They heard the mighty works of God in their native tongues. They heard God speaking, preaching through men. And the same Holy Spirit that had lit upon the Apostles, and is always present in the preaching of the Word, came through the preaching and lit upon their hearts too. And they believed.

We didn’t read it this morning, it comes later in Acts 2, but there were thousands that day that were cut to the heart by the Holy Spirit working through St Peter’s preaching. They asked, What shall we do? St Peter commanded, Repent and be baptized every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then he promised, You will receive the Holy Spirit. For the promise if for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to Himself (Acts 2:27-39). Three thousand were baptized that day and added to the number of the saints. There were three thousand miracles that day.

And the miracles keep going. From Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth. To Indianapolis. You hear St Peter’s preaching today. And by the Holy Spirit you love Jesus. You keep, that is, you believe His Word for which His Father loves you and God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - come and make Their home with you. The miracles continue.

But in the midst of Pentecost miracles there is still hatred and malice. Some hear the languages and mock the Lord and His disciples in willful, deliberate ignorance, saying, They are drunk. The Sower sows His in recklessness. All hear, but not all believe.

The preaching of the Gospel always sounds like drunken speech to the unrepentant. I used to think this was because the good news of God’s unconditional love sounds ridiculous and impossible to sinners. It seems to be good to be true. Sure.

But I remember visiting a former shut-in, Richard. He lived on the other side of the parkway, a short walk from here. His wife had died many years before I arrived. His adult daughter was now caring for him. She eventually had to move him in with her and her family on the southwest side of town. In the last year or so of his earthly life his daughter had hired a middle aged Russian woman, Yelena, to help provide care for him. She had some medical training. She also had some theological acumen. She was raised Russian Orthodox, but had fallen from the faith long ago. Now living in America she never attended the Liturgy. She just didn’t believe it anymore. But we would talk. And the thing she kept coming back to, what kept pricking her conscience, kept worrying her about abandoning Christ and His Church, is, she would say, “But you actually believe this. You speak with confidence that this is true.”

The problem with the Gospel, with the shocking news that God loved and forgives us in Christ Jesus, despite our hatred of and rebellion against Him, is not so much that it is radical and hard to believe. But its that those who preach it actually believe it. What troubled Yelena, what bothers the common masses, what caused the Pentecost haters to hate, is that the Apostles and Christians, both Pastors and people, proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ with actual conviction. And conviction makes sinner uneasy.

And it should. They should be uneasy. We should be uneasy. We should be like those dwelling in Jerusalem who asked, What shall we do? The good news of the Father’s love in Christ is based upon our desperate need for that love. Forgiveness of sins is only good news for sinners. It is only good news if you need it. Well, we are sinners. We need it. And we are bold to say that, in this, we are not alone.

We have acted, said, and though evil and selfish things. We have lied and gossiped. We have cheated and stolen. We have lusted and been proud. We have at least some sense of what is good, of what we should be, but we do not live up to our own standards. Let alone to God’s Holy Ten Commands. We should be scared by the smoke and thick darkness of Mt Sinai, by the thunderings of God’s wrath against sin. We have no right to mercy. We do not deserve to be spared punishment. And if we are left to ourselves we would be damned. What shall we do?

Repent and be baptized, every one of you. Already baptized? Thanks be to God! Repent and return to your baptism. Circumcise your hearts. Turn from your sin. Throw yourself on God’s mercy. Confess your sins because you are baptized. You have been named with God’s own name, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You belong to Him.

But then, He also belongs to you. He cannot and will not refuse your call. For everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. You call upon Him of whom you have heard because you have been sent preachers. God be praised! His Word, by His Spirit, has come to you. And by His grace and Spirit you believe and call upon Him. You have access to Him through prayer, confession and absolution, His Word, and the Holy Communion. Return to His Name, to His way, to His promise. Return to Holy Baptism where the Holy Spirit was poured out upon you and where God’s own Word was made your inheritance. There you find your Father who loves you and is eager to welcome you and make His home with you.

And let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. Do not fear the world, its mockery, and threats. He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. The ruler of this world has no claim on Christ Jesus, who has trounced Satan, death and hell. He also has no claim on you, for you have been named with the Name of the Holy Trinity. You have received the gift of the Holy Spirit. You have been gathered and welcomed home to the family of God in Christ Jesus. You are given to speak the one language of the Holy Christian Church, the confession of saving faith. You are given a seat at the Table and peace which the world cannot give. The absolving peace that surpasses all human understanding, which guards your heart and mind in Christ Jesus.

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