Ezekiel 26:22-28; 1 Peter 4:7-11(12-14); St John 15:26-16:4
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Today may be the seventh and last Sunday of Easter and the Sunday after the Ascension, but the readings and hymns and liturgy are already tilting toward the Feast of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit is everywhere!
In the Old Testament reading, Ezekiel foretold of the heart-transplant that God would effect in His people. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Which is to say, the problem with us is that we are not fully human. Not the way the Lord intended us to be. And the only way to become fully human is for our Lord to effect a change at the very center of our willing, our desiring. Right within our hearts.
This change He promises to effect through the sprinkling of clean water upon you - think Baptism - which sets you free from your false trusts, free from slavery to your idols and ideologies, and humanizes you by the gift of the Holy Spirit whose indwelling causes you to want to walk in God’s statutes and to obey His just decrees.
He also says, You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be My people, and I will be your God. This is bigger than the promise that Israel would dwell in Palestine again after her exile. What is the original land given by God to your fathers in this world? It is Paradise! Where your first parents walked with God and He with them. Where He was our God and we His people. And everything was gift from the hand of the Lord received with rejoicing and praise and love.
This is the Spirit’s work within you. He teaches you to live again in this world as a bit of paradise restored. This isn’t run away and hide, hole yourselves off from society, Benedict Option style. This is living as victors in this world in which you have tribulation where He transforms even your heartaches and sorrows into gifts as He humanizes you and helps you to bear one another’s burdens.
Already you hear how this connects with St Peter’s Epistle. But first, hear from our Lord Christ. When the Paraclete comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness about Me. The Spirit, the Helper, the Advocate and Paraclete, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, Jesus says He μαρτυρησει περι εμου, that is, He martyrizes about Me.
The Holy Spirit bears witness. He speaks. He preaches. And about only One thing. Not Himself. And not you. He wants to talk only about Jesus. He wants to bear witness about Christ and all that is yours by faith in Him. The Spirit wants to open your eyes and your hearts and your minds to see that there is more in Jesus than in all the world outside of Him.
St Paul says it this way to the Corinthians, We have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, that we might know the things freely given us by God. And he goes on to say how the Holy Spirit does this: We impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual (1 Cor 2:12-13).
The Spirit bears witness to the life and love and forgiveness and hope and salvation that is in the Son of God, the Man born of Mary, the Man hung on the Tree and raised from the dead, the Man now ascended into heaven and even at this moment sitting in our human flesh, at the right hand of the Father. The Spirit witnesses to the Man who is fully Man, showing us that be Human is to live under the righteousness and forgiveness this Man brings and to be in communion with Him who alone is fully human, fully alive.
The Spirit tells this, proclaims it, preaches it. But where? Jesus says to His disciples, And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning. The Spirit is at work in those who have seen and heard Jesus, those whom He sets into the Apostolic Office of the Holy Ministry, who speak in His stead and by His command. This is where the Spirit proclaims and preaches these things. Through Pastors!
But not only there. For the self-same Holy Spirit of Christ is at work within you. And He wants to talk. Not about Himself or about you. But about your Jesus, your Hope, your Life. He helps you confess this before the world!
But our Lord tells them in advance that this world - which rejected Him, His life, His love - this world will not welcome their witness, nor your confession. Indeed, the days are coming, Jesus says, when whoever kills you will think he is offering up worship to god. Not the true and only God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - but the their notions and ideologies about god. Their philosophies and worldly gods. They will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor Me.
Anyone who does not know Christ Jesus does not know the Father. Muslims do not worship the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ by another name. There is no other name under heaven by which men may come to the Father. The Muslims worship their father, the devil. St Paul writes, What pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God (1 Cor 10:20). But its not only false religions. Even the areligious are religious. Luther says that in whatever we fear, love, and trust, that is our god. Few worship demons, but many, including ourselves, idolize the State, the 2nd Amendment, the politico-philosophical realm, all sorts of things that are meant to be received as gifts from the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
For anyone who comes to know the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ by the work and Word of the Holy Spirit knows that the Father is not served by making others miserable, by bringing hardship and grief to their lives. That’s the world’s way, the way of our hearts of stone that go their own way, churning out their own idols, like a little factory. This is not the Lord’s way.
The Lord’s way is as you heard in the Psalm: Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within Me. Cast me not away from Your presence, and take not Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation,and uphold me with a willing spirit.
All that you sing not only today, but every Sunday after hearing the Spirit’s Word read and preached, receiving His work in you to bring you to repentance and faith once more. Returning you to the clean waters of Holy Baptism and sprinkling you anew, cleansing you from all your idols and ideologies. To call, gather, and enlighten you with the gifts of Christ Jesus. To daily and richly forgive all your sins and keep you in the true faith. This is the Spirit’s way.
And this is the way which St Peter points out in the Epistle. The End of all things is at hand. End, here, means the fulfillment, the culmination of all things, the perfect humanity that stood forth in the Man Jesus Christ, who s also the Eternal Son of God. He is the End as He is the Beginning, the Alpha and Omega. And since He is the End, the telos, the purpose of all things, the Apostle urges you to be self-controlled and sober minded for the sake of your prayers.
He exhorts and invites you to a better way, a better life, a participation in the divine life. To pray together in the Spirit and with Christ, your Great High Priest, who sits at the right hand of the Father and never ceases to intercede for you. This is the very meaning and joy of life itself. A joyful life lived in Christ, which in place of hatred and contempt which silences the confession of Him, St Peter urges, above all, keep loving one another, since love covers a multitude of sins. If we live in union with Christ, His life must be our life. And His life doesn’t expose and shame, but gracefully covers the wrongs done and pleads for the forgiveness of our enemies.
Show hospitality to one another with our grumbling. If we have union with Christ, who has opened up His Father’s house to us and made it our own, we must open up these earthly homes we call our own to each other and extend the same sort of welcome to one another that our Father in Christ by the Spirit has given to us.
As each has received a gift use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace. The gifts are manifold, but they are all there for others. The Spirit puts them into your lap, into your hands, for the benefit of others, to be used for their good. This is the beating work of the heart of flesh and not of stone; hearts in which the Spirit of God is at work, a life lived for others and not merely focused inward upon ourselves.
In order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. This is the driving force of the Spirit’s witness and work to you, and His work in you - the glory of God the Father through Jesus Christ by the Spirit. That you be swept up in the doxology, the holy praising and holy living of God’s joyful people. From this we fell in paradise. To this the Son came to restore us. For this the Spirit now desires to work within you that you may dwell in the land that God originally gave to our fathers; a paradise of plenty, where all is experienced as gift from the hand of the blessed Holy Trinity - Father, Son, and + Holy Spirit - to whom be glory now in the Church and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Today may be the seventh and last Sunday of Easter and the Sunday after the Ascension, but the readings and hymns and liturgy are already tilting toward the Feast of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit is everywhere!
In the Old Testament reading, Ezekiel foretold of the heart-transplant that God would effect in His people. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Which is to say, the problem with us is that we are not fully human. Not the way the Lord intended us to be. And the only way to become fully human is for our Lord to effect a change at the very center of our willing, our desiring. Right within our hearts.
This change He promises to effect through the sprinkling of clean water upon you - think Baptism - which sets you free from your false trusts, free from slavery to your idols and ideologies, and humanizes you by the gift of the Holy Spirit whose indwelling causes you to want to walk in God’s statutes and to obey His just decrees.
He also says, You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be My people, and I will be your God. This is bigger than the promise that Israel would dwell in Palestine again after her exile. What is the original land given by God to your fathers in this world? It is Paradise! Where your first parents walked with God and He with them. Where He was our God and we His people. And everything was gift from the hand of the Lord received with rejoicing and praise and love.
This is the Spirit’s work within you. He teaches you to live again in this world as a bit of paradise restored. This isn’t run away and hide, hole yourselves off from society, Benedict Option style. This is living as victors in this world in which you have tribulation where He transforms even your heartaches and sorrows into gifts as He humanizes you and helps you to bear one another’s burdens.
Already you hear how this connects with St Peter’s Epistle. But first, hear from our Lord Christ. When the Paraclete comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness about Me. The Spirit, the Helper, the Advocate and Paraclete, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, Jesus says He μαρτυρησει περι εμου, that is, He martyrizes about Me.
The Holy Spirit bears witness. He speaks. He preaches. And about only One thing. Not Himself. And not you. He wants to talk only about Jesus. He wants to bear witness about Christ and all that is yours by faith in Him. The Spirit wants to open your eyes and your hearts and your minds to see that there is more in Jesus than in all the world outside of Him.
St Paul says it this way to the Corinthians, We have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, that we might know the things freely given us by God. And he goes on to say how the Holy Spirit does this: We impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual (1 Cor 2:12-13).
The Spirit bears witness to the life and love and forgiveness and hope and salvation that is in the Son of God, the Man born of Mary, the Man hung on the Tree and raised from the dead, the Man now ascended into heaven and even at this moment sitting in our human flesh, at the right hand of the Father. The Spirit witnesses to the Man who is fully Man, showing us that be Human is to live under the righteousness and forgiveness this Man brings and to be in communion with Him who alone is fully human, fully alive.
The Spirit tells this, proclaims it, preaches it. But where? Jesus says to His disciples, And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning. The Spirit is at work in those who have seen and heard Jesus, those whom He sets into the Apostolic Office of the Holy Ministry, who speak in His stead and by His command. This is where the Spirit proclaims and preaches these things. Through Pastors!
But not only there. For the self-same Holy Spirit of Christ is at work within you. And He wants to talk. Not about Himself or about you. But about your Jesus, your Hope, your Life. He helps you confess this before the world!
But our Lord tells them in advance that this world - which rejected Him, His life, His love - this world will not welcome their witness, nor your confession. Indeed, the days are coming, Jesus says, when whoever kills you will think he is offering up worship to god. Not the true and only God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - but the their notions and ideologies about god. Their philosophies and worldly gods. They will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor Me.
Anyone who does not know Christ Jesus does not know the Father. Muslims do not worship the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ by another name. There is no other name under heaven by which men may come to the Father. The Muslims worship their father, the devil. St Paul writes, What pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God (1 Cor 10:20). But its not only false religions. Even the areligious are religious. Luther says that in whatever we fear, love, and trust, that is our god. Few worship demons, but many, including ourselves, idolize the State, the 2nd Amendment, the politico-philosophical realm, all sorts of things that are meant to be received as gifts from the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
For anyone who comes to know the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ by the work and Word of the Holy Spirit knows that the Father is not served by making others miserable, by bringing hardship and grief to their lives. That’s the world’s way, the way of our hearts of stone that go their own way, churning out their own idols, like a little factory. This is not the Lord’s way.
The Lord’s way is as you heard in the Psalm: Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within Me. Cast me not away from Your presence, and take not Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation,and uphold me with a willing spirit.
All that you sing not only today, but every Sunday after hearing the Spirit’s Word read and preached, receiving His work in you to bring you to repentance and faith once more. Returning you to the clean waters of Holy Baptism and sprinkling you anew, cleansing you from all your idols and ideologies. To call, gather, and enlighten you with the gifts of Christ Jesus. To daily and richly forgive all your sins and keep you in the true faith. This is the Spirit’s way.
And this is the way which St Peter points out in the Epistle. The End of all things is at hand. End, here, means the fulfillment, the culmination of all things, the perfect humanity that stood forth in the Man Jesus Christ, who s also the Eternal Son of God. He is the End as He is the Beginning, the Alpha and Omega. And since He is the End, the telos, the purpose of all things, the Apostle urges you to be self-controlled and sober minded for the sake of your prayers.
He exhorts and invites you to a better way, a better life, a participation in the divine life. To pray together in the Spirit and with Christ, your Great High Priest, who sits at the right hand of the Father and never ceases to intercede for you. This is the very meaning and joy of life itself. A joyful life lived in Christ, which in place of hatred and contempt which silences the confession of Him, St Peter urges, above all, keep loving one another, since love covers a multitude of sins. If we live in union with Christ, His life must be our life. And His life doesn’t expose and shame, but gracefully covers the wrongs done and pleads for the forgiveness of our enemies.
Show hospitality to one another with our grumbling. If we have union with Christ, who has opened up His Father’s house to us and made it our own, we must open up these earthly homes we call our own to each other and extend the same sort of welcome to one another that our Father in Christ by the Spirit has given to us.
As each has received a gift use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace. The gifts are manifold, but they are all there for others. The Spirit puts them into your lap, into your hands, for the benefit of others, to be used for their good. This is the beating work of the heart of flesh and not of stone; hearts in which the Spirit of God is at work, a life lived for others and not merely focused inward upon ourselves.
In order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. This is the driving force of the Spirit’s witness and work to you, and His work in you - the glory of God the Father through Jesus Christ by the Spirit. That you be swept up in the doxology, the holy praising and holy living of God’s joyful people. From this we fell in paradise. To this the Son came to restore us. For this the Spirit now desires to work within you that you may dwell in the land that God originally gave to our fathers; a paradise of plenty, where all is experienced as gift from the hand of the blessed Holy Trinity - Father, Son, and + Holy Spirit - to whom be glory now in the Church and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
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