Ezekiel 36:22-28; 1 Peter 4:7-14; St John15:26-16:4
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
This Sunday, the Seventh Sunday of Easter, is sort of an in-between day. The Ascension of our Lord was a few days back. Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit is a week away. Our Lord Jesus has gone to the Right Hand of the Father, but the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, has not yet descended. Today is Exaudi, Latin from the Introit, Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud. Leave me not abandoned, orphaned, alone. Hide not Your face from me.
And so the Gospel takes you back, again, to the Upper Room, to our Lord’s farewell discourse. He is preparing them for what is to come. He would be betrayed and arrested, handed over to wicked men who would beat and abuse Him and finally end His life. They would suffer too. Live in fear. Isolation. But they could also expect His resurrection from the dead on the third day and His ascension and return to the Father.
The Church, in her wisdom, has so ordered these texts as to reiterate the promises of Christ. The promise of His presence in the midst of suffering. The promise that your prayers are heard. The promise of the Comforter. Before His ascension, Jesus instructed the Eleven to remain in the Holy City awaiting the promise of His Father. The Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness about Me. He will testify of the crucified and risen Christ, the God-Man and one Mediator between God and Man, whose bloody, once-for-all sacrifice atones for the sin of the whole world.
But it is precisely in the world in which they will have tribulation. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. In a modern paraphrase, maybe we could render it, “They will put you out of your churches, take away your freedom to gather and threaten your tax exempt status. Indeed, whoever kills your livelihood and silences your speaking in the public square and suppresses your right of conscience will think he is offering service for the greater good.”
It was the Jews who put the Apostles and the early Christians out of the synagogues. Maligning them, silencing them, persecuting them. Peter and James were beaten by the Sanhedrin and told to cease preaching in the name of Jesus. Instead they rejoiced insofar as they shared in Christ’s sufferings. The Jews did these things to their own.
But it was the Roman state who killed the early Christians, thinking they were offering service to their pagan gods. For Rome the state was sacred and her Caesars were deified. The peace of Rome was only maintained at the peace of the gods. This peace was based on sacrifice. All peace is.
Not a gruesome animal offering, but the simple pinch of incense offered by all good citizens to the genius of Caesar as the reverend savior and liberator of Rome. It was a nod of the had and a bend of the knee that the Emperor was to be obeyed and tolerance was the highest virtue. So long as one publicly stepped in line, acknowledging the values of the State, one could believe whatever he wanted in his own head.
Christians refused. This was an act of sedition. They were labeled “atheists” because they refused to worship the Roman gods. They were known as subverters of the State because they refused to sacrifice. They were called traitors because they would not acknowledge the genius of Caesar. To confess that Jesus is Lord was an act of political treason. Traitors had to be dealt with. They paid with their lives.
You will bear witness, Jesus says. The Greek word for witness is marturia. It’s were we get our English word martyr. They testified with their blood. The persecution of the Christian Church did not end with Constantine’s Edict of Milan in 313. It is a real and present danger unknown by most Westerners, especially Americans. You may be experiencing soft persecution. Your brothers and sisters in Christ around the world are resisting to the point of shedding their blood.
You are not yet being killed for your beliefs. You are beginning to be put out of your churches. Perhaps you sense it in your conscience, the conflict between the church and state and the hostility that surrounds you. You may be apprehensive to speak the truth in love, fearing not physical, but still real persecution. Job loss. Public shaming. Private rejection. Devotees of Allah may not take your life, but statists and secularists will take your livelihood. It will be sacrificed on the Altar of Tolerance in an effort to appease the national deities and the genius of the emperor. St Peter was right nearly two thousand years ago: The end of all things is at hand.
But I have said these things to you that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you. I have said these things to you to keep you from failing away. The Helper, the Spirit of Truth, will testify of Me. People loved by God, the Holy Spirit helps you not by freeing you from such persecution and suffering and cross-bearing, but by preaching Christ to you in the midst of such circumstances!
I know it seems like a moot point when you are being crucified upside down, or dragged before the Sanhedrin or called before Senate hearings, or you’re stripped of your livelihood or tax exempt status, or just that your relatives mock you for your beliefs that the Holy Spirit helps by preaching a good, Christ centered, Cross focused sermon into your ears and heart. But this is what you really need.
This is your greatest need. Not food or clothing, face masks or sanitizer, 501c3s or freedom of religion, not even your home or job or life. Your greatest, most desperate need, not only in the midst of suffering and persecution, but at all times, is the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, the full and free forgiveness of all your sins, the comfort of the Holy Spirit and a good conscience. This is not to say that the other things don’t matter. They do. Jesus knows you need them. Your heavenly Father gives them all to you, by His grace, according to His Word and will.
But even when He doesn’t. If your job furlough becomes permanent. If your business closes. If school doesn’t go back in the fall. If your grandmother dies of Covid. You still have what you truly need: the comfort of the Holy Spirit in the preached Word of Christ and His holy Sacraments. You have the forgiveness of sins, eternal life and everlasting salvation in the shed blood of Jesus the Christ, your faithful Martyr and Paraclete before the Father. You have the scandal of His Cross which keeps you from falling away. You have the witness of His apostles and prophets, the Holy Scriptures which make you wise unto salvation! If you have these things, you have the greatest treasure in all of heaven and earth!
In the face of such external persecution or internal suffering, you are able, then, by the conviction of the Spirit and the courage of faith, to confess with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who, when threatened with death by the fiery furnace if they did not worship the golden image of the king, answered, If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up (Dan 3:17-18).
“He will save us from the fiery trial. Or He won’t. Either way, He is the true and living God and we are called, in the obedience of faith, to render service and worship to Him alone.” Such confidence does not come from within, from the will or determined heart or mind, but results as fruit of the promise of the Lord through Ezekiel: I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statues and be careful to obey My rules.
Beloved, this promise is fulfilled in your first martyrdom: your Baptism into Christ’s own martyrdom and resurrection. There the Lord took you from pagan lands and gathering you into His own land, into His Christendom. He sprinkled clean water on you in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. He cleansed you from all your idols and uncleanness. He has given you a new heart and put His Spirit within you. You are a people living in the joy of the Resurrection, the comfort and assurance of the Ascension, and the confidence of the Last Day, though you are surrounded on all sides by slander and betrayal, persecution and death.
This is what St Peter is getting at when he exhorts you: The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. This is true sacrifice and service. This is the liturgy and spiritual worship of the Christian in the face of a hostile and rejecting world. As it is written, I appeal to you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (Rom 12:1-2).
For the Lord is your Light and your Salvation. Whom shall you fear? The Lord is the Stronghold of your life. Of whom shall you be afraid? Jesus says, Do not fear those who can kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. Rather, fear Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell (Mt 10:28). Fear Him, yes. But also love and trust in Him above all things. For He has sent the promised Holy Spirit upon you. He preaches peace into your ears and heart by His external Word. He grants you a good conscience in the vicarious death, life-giving resurrection, and glorious ascension of Christ Jesus.
As you live in the in-between time since Pentecost until His Second Advent, hold fast His Word and the promise of His Holy Spirit. He is your Redeemer, your Armor and heart’s dear Hope.
And behold, Food for your journey, Rations for your fight, the Strength of the Lord and the Medicine of Immortality, the Body and Blood of Jesus, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins. This is nourishment in both body and soul. Without Christ’s faithful Divine Service to you, you cannot live.
So come, dear Christians, eat and drink and do not fear. You are His people and He your God. Remember that He still says to you, “I love you. I forgive you. I shall keep you from falling away. You are blessed for My Name’s sake. Rejoice and be glad, dear child, you share in My sufferings. You shall also share in My eternal glory.”
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
This Sunday, the Seventh Sunday of Easter, is sort of an in-between day. The Ascension of our Lord was a few days back. Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit is a week away. Our Lord Jesus has gone to the Right Hand of the Father, but the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, has not yet descended. Today is Exaudi, Latin from the Introit, Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud. Leave me not abandoned, orphaned, alone. Hide not Your face from me.
And so the Gospel takes you back, again, to the Upper Room, to our Lord’s farewell discourse. He is preparing them for what is to come. He would be betrayed and arrested, handed over to wicked men who would beat and abuse Him and finally end His life. They would suffer too. Live in fear. Isolation. But they could also expect His resurrection from the dead on the third day and His ascension and return to the Father.
The Church, in her wisdom, has so ordered these texts as to reiterate the promises of Christ. The promise of His presence in the midst of suffering. The promise that your prayers are heard. The promise of the Comforter. Before His ascension, Jesus instructed the Eleven to remain in the Holy City awaiting the promise of His Father. The Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness about Me. He will testify of the crucified and risen Christ, the God-Man and one Mediator between God and Man, whose bloody, once-for-all sacrifice atones for the sin of the whole world.
But it is precisely in the world in which they will have tribulation. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. In a modern paraphrase, maybe we could render it, “They will put you out of your churches, take away your freedom to gather and threaten your tax exempt status. Indeed, whoever kills your livelihood and silences your speaking in the public square and suppresses your right of conscience will think he is offering service for the greater good.”
It was the Jews who put the Apostles and the early Christians out of the synagogues. Maligning them, silencing them, persecuting them. Peter and James were beaten by the Sanhedrin and told to cease preaching in the name of Jesus. Instead they rejoiced insofar as they shared in Christ’s sufferings. The Jews did these things to their own.
But it was the Roman state who killed the early Christians, thinking they were offering service to their pagan gods. For Rome the state was sacred and her Caesars were deified. The peace of Rome was only maintained at the peace of the gods. This peace was based on sacrifice. All peace is.
Not a gruesome animal offering, but the simple pinch of incense offered by all good citizens to the genius of Caesar as the reverend savior and liberator of Rome. It was a nod of the had and a bend of the knee that the Emperor was to be obeyed and tolerance was the highest virtue. So long as one publicly stepped in line, acknowledging the values of the State, one could believe whatever he wanted in his own head.
Christians refused. This was an act of sedition. They were labeled “atheists” because they refused to worship the Roman gods. They were known as subverters of the State because they refused to sacrifice. They were called traitors because they would not acknowledge the genius of Caesar. To confess that Jesus is Lord was an act of political treason. Traitors had to be dealt with. They paid with their lives.
You will bear witness, Jesus says. The Greek word for witness is marturia. It’s were we get our English word martyr. They testified with their blood. The persecution of the Christian Church did not end with Constantine’s Edict of Milan in 313. It is a real and present danger unknown by most Westerners, especially Americans. You may be experiencing soft persecution. Your brothers and sisters in Christ around the world are resisting to the point of shedding their blood.
You are not yet being killed for your beliefs. You are beginning to be put out of your churches. Perhaps you sense it in your conscience, the conflict between the church and state and the hostility that surrounds you. You may be apprehensive to speak the truth in love, fearing not physical, but still real persecution. Job loss. Public shaming. Private rejection. Devotees of Allah may not take your life, but statists and secularists will take your livelihood. It will be sacrificed on the Altar of Tolerance in an effort to appease the national deities and the genius of the emperor. St Peter was right nearly two thousand years ago: The end of all things is at hand.
But I have said these things to you that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you. I have said these things to you to keep you from failing away. The Helper, the Spirit of Truth, will testify of Me. People loved by God, the Holy Spirit helps you not by freeing you from such persecution and suffering and cross-bearing, but by preaching Christ to you in the midst of such circumstances!
I know it seems like a moot point when you are being crucified upside down, or dragged before the Sanhedrin or called before Senate hearings, or you’re stripped of your livelihood or tax exempt status, or just that your relatives mock you for your beliefs that the Holy Spirit helps by preaching a good, Christ centered, Cross focused sermon into your ears and heart. But this is what you really need.
This is your greatest need. Not food or clothing, face masks or sanitizer, 501c3s or freedom of religion, not even your home or job or life. Your greatest, most desperate need, not only in the midst of suffering and persecution, but at all times, is the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, the full and free forgiveness of all your sins, the comfort of the Holy Spirit and a good conscience. This is not to say that the other things don’t matter. They do. Jesus knows you need them. Your heavenly Father gives them all to you, by His grace, according to His Word and will.
But even when He doesn’t. If your job furlough becomes permanent. If your business closes. If school doesn’t go back in the fall. If your grandmother dies of Covid. You still have what you truly need: the comfort of the Holy Spirit in the preached Word of Christ and His holy Sacraments. You have the forgiveness of sins, eternal life and everlasting salvation in the shed blood of Jesus the Christ, your faithful Martyr and Paraclete before the Father. You have the scandal of His Cross which keeps you from falling away. You have the witness of His apostles and prophets, the Holy Scriptures which make you wise unto salvation! If you have these things, you have the greatest treasure in all of heaven and earth!
In the face of such external persecution or internal suffering, you are able, then, by the conviction of the Spirit and the courage of faith, to confess with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who, when threatened with death by the fiery furnace if they did not worship the golden image of the king, answered, If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up (Dan 3:17-18).
“He will save us from the fiery trial. Or He won’t. Either way, He is the true and living God and we are called, in the obedience of faith, to render service and worship to Him alone.” Such confidence does not come from within, from the will or determined heart or mind, but results as fruit of the promise of the Lord through Ezekiel: I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statues and be careful to obey My rules.
Beloved, this promise is fulfilled in your first martyrdom: your Baptism into Christ’s own martyrdom and resurrection. There the Lord took you from pagan lands and gathering you into His own land, into His Christendom. He sprinkled clean water on you in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. He cleansed you from all your idols and uncleanness. He has given you a new heart and put His Spirit within you. You are a people living in the joy of the Resurrection, the comfort and assurance of the Ascension, and the confidence of the Last Day, though you are surrounded on all sides by slander and betrayal, persecution and death.
This is what St Peter is getting at when he exhorts you: The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. This is true sacrifice and service. This is the liturgy and spiritual worship of the Christian in the face of a hostile and rejecting world. As it is written, I appeal to you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (Rom 12:1-2).
For the Lord is your Light and your Salvation. Whom shall you fear? The Lord is the Stronghold of your life. Of whom shall you be afraid? Jesus says, Do not fear those who can kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. Rather, fear Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell (Mt 10:28). Fear Him, yes. But also love and trust in Him above all things. For He has sent the promised Holy Spirit upon you. He preaches peace into your ears and heart by His external Word. He grants you a good conscience in the vicarious death, life-giving resurrection, and glorious ascension of Christ Jesus.
As you live in the in-between time since Pentecost until His Second Advent, hold fast His Word and the promise of His Holy Spirit. He is your Redeemer, your Armor and heart’s dear Hope.
And behold, Food for your journey, Rations for your fight, the Strength of the Lord and the Medicine of Immortality, the Body and Blood of Jesus, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins. This is nourishment in both body and soul. Without Christ’s faithful Divine Service to you, you cannot live.
So come, dear Christians, eat and drink and do not fear. You are His people and He your God. Remember that He still says to you, “I love you. I forgive you. I shall keep you from falling away. You are blessed for My Name’s sake. Rejoice and be glad, dear child, you share in My sufferings. You shall also share in My eternal glory.”
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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