Acts 11:27-12:5; Romans 8:28-39; St Mark 10:35-45
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
St James the Elder, whose day was celebrated yesterday in the Church, was among the first to be called as a disciple of our Lord Jesus and then to be sent as an apostolic Minister of His Holy Gospel. Along with his brother John, the other son of Zebedee and Salome, and Simon Peter, James is one of the “inner three” who witnessed the raising of Jairus’ daughter, the Transfiguration of our Lord, and the agony and prayer of Christ Jesus in the Garden.
Even though present at some of the most significant events in our Lord’s ministry, James is strangely silent in the Scriptures. And, as our Lord would have it, the special distinction for which St James is best remembered and honored today is that he was the first of the Twelve to be martyred for the Name of Christ. Interestingly, his brother John lived to be an old man and was the only one of the Twelve not martyred.
From the perspective of the world, according to human wisdom, St James’ earthly life and ministry were cut short. He had no chance to achieve anything or make a name for himself. But remember, dear Christians, the goal of the Christian life is not to live to be a hundred and make a name for oneself. The goal of the Christian life, above all else, is to be faithful to our Lord’s holy Word.
Of course, James and his brother did not quite understand this by faith when they asked of our Lord to sit at His right and His left in the positions of power and prestige in His glory. Not unlike St Paul, our Lord Jesus had yet to show them how much they must suffer for the sake of His name (Ac 9:16). This is not unlike you, dear Christians, who still must learn, who are constantly catechized by our Lord, to endure suffering and tribulation, trial and temptation. As it is written, Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God (Ac 14:22). To come to know, by faith, that these are not signs of God’s displeasure with you, but are, in fact, the true glorifying of His Name which is inscribed upon you by His watery hand in Holy Baptism.
You heard it in the first reading from Acts. St Luke does not record James’ martyrdom as though it were some kind of lawful thing, within the proper authority of the king Herod. He killed James with the sword. He was not executed. This Ruler, put in place by Gentiles, lorded it over his subjects and murdered our Lord’s Apostle. James was beheaded for the crime of witnessing to others of the risen Lord Jesus, who blood blots out the world’s sin and whose resurrection sets free His baptized from death itself.
Then, when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he arrested Peter, too. This tyrant, Herod Agrippa, grandson of Herod the Great, the one who slaughtered the holy innocents in Bethlehem, this is how he unlawfully and wickedly exercised his authority, acting contrary to his God-given office, and robbing the early Church of one of her foremost teachers.
Dear Christians, in your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood, as the Preacher to the Hebrews proclaims (12:4). Yet you have endured your own forms of persecution, even at the idle hands of those who are to rule over us as servants. Right now your brothers and sisters in Christ are prohibited from gathering to hear the Word of Christ read and preached, to receive His Holy Eucharist, His Body and Blood for the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. This is not in only in China or India. But right here in our country. In Nevada elected and appointed officials favored Caesar’s Palace over Calvary Chapel in allowing for mass gatherings. How’s that for sad irony?
David knew something of this when he prayed Psalm 56, which you prayed this morning. Be gracious to me, O God, for man tramples on me; all day long an attacker oppresses me; my enemies trample on me all day long, for many attack me proudly (Ps 56:1-2). David prayed this psalm against Saul and his men who forced the rightful king out of the land to flee to the Philistines. He was pressed so hard he had nowhere safe to go. But he had the comfort of God’s Word and the promise and right of kingship. And that was enough. That is sufficient.
Like David, like James, like all the prophets, apostles, martyrs and faithful Christians, we pray this psalm against our tyrants who ceaselessly persecute God’s Word and allow us no place for peace. But you have this comfort: you have God’s Word on your behalf. It is enough. It is sufficient. When I am afraid, I put my trust in You. In God, whose Word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can flesh to do me? (Ps 56:3-4)
What can flesh to do me? When Peter was arrested, earnest prayer was made for him to our God and Father by the Church. An angel came and delivered him from prison, bringing him safely through four squads of soldiers. Would that we would know by faith the might of prayer in our day!
Dear Christians, the Church sings, “He sent no angel to our race, of higher or of lower place, but wore the robe of human frame, and to the world Himself He came” (LSB 544:2). As St Paul writes to the Christians in the capital, suffering needlessly, If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?
Teacher, grant us to sit, one at Your right hand and one at Your left, in Your glory. You do not know what you are asking. It was not St James, but his brother, St John the Apostle and Evangelist, who has made it abundantly clear in his Holy Gospel. The Glory of Christ Jesus is the Hour of His Cross. “Can you drink the Cup that I must drink? Can you be baptized with My Baptism? You can. You must. You will,” He says!
But how? The answer is there in the way that Jesus describes the Glory of His life and ministry in terms of His Holy Sacraments. His Baptism and His Cup really are the heart and center of everything. Of all that Jesus does for you. Gives to you. Shares with you.
His Baptism and His Cup are the means by which His Cross and Resurrection came to James and John and all the apostles and disciples. His Baptism and His Cup are the means by which His Cross and His Resurrection come to you! They become yours. Your sins are all forgiven. You receive “Christ the Life of all the living, Christ the death of death our foe” (LSB 420:1). And you sit with Him in the Glory of His Kingdom!
All your senses, all your instincts and experience insist that the Cross is bad. Both His and yours. They deceive you into thinking you must follow your own heart or your feelings in order to find happiness and glory in your life. Thus do you go crashing into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice. Often without even realizing the danger. To the world and your flesh the Word of the Lord sounds all wrong and foolish and probably fatal. The Cross sounds preposterous. We try, at all costs, to avoid suffering, disease, and death.
This is why the Church must remember the saints. They are not supernatural people. They are not demigods. But they can serve as our true heroes; especially now.
For “the one essential condition in the life of every saint which made it possible for the life of heaven to begin on earth was the one thing we seek so madly to avoid, the one universal fact which faces every single soul on earth - suffering. Not a few angel faced, spineless people. They were human, of flesh and blood. Very human at times, beaten, wounded, scarred, for saints always bear the stigmata of their Lord. When they were persecuted, what did they do? They returned love, invincible, divine love, purified of self, and in union with their crucified Lord they received their foretaste of Heaven. This is the mystery of the Cross. The saints got their love on Calvary. That is where you and I must get it too” (Von Schenk, The Presence, p124).
When St Paul preaches and we learn by heart the great promise - What then shall we say to these things? Christ Jesus is the One who died - more than that, who was raised - who is at the right hand of God, who is interceding for us - we need to hear these words in light of the “cup” of which Jesus speaks. The Cup was used by the Prophets as an image of God’s wrath and judgment against sin. This is how Christ uses it here and again when He prays in Gethsemane, Father, if possible, remove this Cup from Me.
The bodily pain of crucifixion would be enough to cause even the bravest and toughest hearts among us to faint. But the “Cup” that Christ our Lord received and consumed was much worse. It was the everlasting wrath and judgment of hell and damnation, leveled against the sins of the whole world, of all time and places, all of your sins included, carried in the sinless Body of the holy Son of God, and judged forever in His flesh upon the Cross. That is the Cup that He drained down to the dregs for you and for the many by His bloody Passion unto death.
James and John can’t drink that Cup of Christ! Neither could you! But you can. And you do because Christ Jesus has already drained that Cup for you. He shed His Blood of the New Testament for the forgiveness of all your sins. And what was wrath and judgment for Him upon the Cross has become mercy and everlasting life for you and for the many. In receiving the Cup of Christ, which He pours out for you in the Holy Communion, you drink to the dregs the Cup of blessing and receive the fullness of His Life and Salvation. For the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many. Therefore I am certain that neither death nor life, no angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
St James the Elder, whose day was celebrated yesterday in the Church, was among the first to be called as a disciple of our Lord Jesus and then to be sent as an apostolic Minister of His Holy Gospel. Along with his brother John, the other son of Zebedee and Salome, and Simon Peter, James is one of the “inner three” who witnessed the raising of Jairus’ daughter, the Transfiguration of our Lord, and the agony and prayer of Christ Jesus in the Garden.
Even though present at some of the most significant events in our Lord’s ministry, James is strangely silent in the Scriptures. And, as our Lord would have it, the special distinction for which St James is best remembered and honored today is that he was the first of the Twelve to be martyred for the Name of Christ. Interestingly, his brother John lived to be an old man and was the only one of the Twelve not martyred.
From the perspective of the world, according to human wisdom, St James’ earthly life and ministry were cut short. He had no chance to achieve anything or make a name for himself. But remember, dear Christians, the goal of the Christian life is not to live to be a hundred and make a name for oneself. The goal of the Christian life, above all else, is to be faithful to our Lord’s holy Word.
Of course, James and his brother did not quite understand this by faith when they asked of our Lord to sit at His right and His left in the positions of power and prestige in His glory. Not unlike St Paul, our Lord Jesus had yet to show them how much they must suffer for the sake of His name (Ac 9:16). This is not unlike you, dear Christians, who still must learn, who are constantly catechized by our Lord, to endure suffering and tribulation, trial and temptation. As it is written, Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God (Ac 14:22). To come to know, by faith, that these are not signs of God’s displeasure with you, but are, in fact, the true glorifying of His Name which is inscribed upon you by His watery hand in Holy Baptism.
You heard it in the first reading from Acts. St Luke does not record James’ martyrdom as though it were some kind of lawful thing, within the proper authority of the king Herod. He killed James with the sword. He was not executed. This Ruler, put in place by Gentiles, lorded it over his subjects and murdered our Lord’s Apostle. James was beheaded for the crime of witnessing to others of the risen Lord Jesus, who blood blots out the world’s sin and whose resurrection sets free His baptized from death itself.
Then, when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he arrested Peter, too. This tyrant, Herod Agrippa, grandson of Herod the Great, the one who slaughtered the holy innocents in Bethlehem, this is how he unlawfully and wickedly exercised his authority, acting contrary to his God-given office, and robbing the early Church of one of her foremost teachers.
Dear Christians, in your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood, as the Preacher to the Hebrews proclaims (12:4). Yet you have endured your own forms of persecution, even at the idle hands of those who are to rule over us as servants. Right now your brothers and sisters in Christ are prohibited from gathering to hear the Word of Christ read and preached, to receive His Holy Eucharist, His Body and Blood for the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. This is not in only in China or India. But right here in our country. In Nevada elected and appointed officials favored Caesar’s Palace over Calvary Chapel in allowing for mass gatherings. How’s that for sad irony?
David knew something of this when he prayed Psalm 56, which you prayed this morning. Be gracious to me, O God, for man tramples on me; all day long an attacker oppresses me; my enemies trample on me all day long, for many attack me proudly (Ps 56:1-2). David prayed this psalm against Saul and his men who forced the rightful king out of the land to flee to the Philistines. He was pressed so hard he had nowhere safe to go. But he had the comfort of God’s Word and the promise and right of kingship. And that was enough. That is sufficient.
Like David, like James, like all the prophets, apostles, martyrs and faithful Christians, we pray this psalm against our tyrants who ceaselessly persecute God’s Word and allow us no place for peace. But you have this comfort: you have God’s Word on your behalf. It is enough. It is sufficient. When I am afraid, I put my trust in You. In God, whose Word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can flesh to do me? (Ps 56:3-4)
What can flesh to do me? When Peter was arrested, earnest prayer was made for him to our God and Father by the Church. An angel came and delivered him from prison, bringing him safely through four squads of soldiers. Would that we would know by faith the might of prayer in our day!
Dear Christians, the Church sings, “He sent no angel to our race, of higher or of lower place, but wore the robe of human frame, and to the world Himself He came” (LSB 544:2). As St Paul writes to the Christians in the capital, suffering needlessly, If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?
Teacher, grant us to sit, one at Your right hand and one at Your left, in Your glory. You do not know what you are asking. It was not St James, but his brother, St John the Apostle and Evangelist, who has made it abundantly clear in his Holy Gospel. The Glory of Christ Jesus is the Hour of His Cross. “Can you drink the Cup that I must drink? Can you be baptized with My Baptism? You can. You must. You will,” He says!
But how? The answer is there in the way that Jesus describes the Glory of His life and ministry in terms of His Holy Sacraments. His Baptism and His Cup really are the heart and center of everything. Of all that Jesus does for you. Gives to you. Shares with you.
His Baptism and His Cup are the means by which His Cross and Resurrection came to James and John and all the apostles and disciples. His Baptism and His Cup are the means by which His Cross and His Resurrection come to you! They become yours. Your sins are all forgiven. You receive “Christ the Life of all the living, Christ the death of death our foe” (LSB 420:1). And you sit with Him in the Glory of His Kingdom!
All your senses, all your instincts and experience insist that the Cross is bad. Both His and yours. They deceive you into thinking you must follow your own heart or your feelings in order to find happiness and glory in your life. Thus do you go crashing into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice. Often without even realizing the danger. To the world and your flesh the Word of the Lord sounds all wrong and foolish and probably fatal. The Cross sounds preposterous. We try, at all costs, to avoid suffering, disease, and death.
This is why the Church must remember the saints. They are not supernatural people. They are not demigods. But they can serve as our true heroes; especially now.
For “the one essential condition in the life of every saint which made it possible for the life of heaven to begin on earth was the one thing we seek so madly to avoid, the one universal fact which faces every single soul on earth - suffering. Not a few angel faced, spineless people. They were human, of flesh and blood. Very human at times, beaten, wounded, scarred, for saints always bear the stigmata of their Lord. When they were persecuted, what did they do? They returned love, invincible, divine love, purified of self, and in union with their crucified Lord they received their foretaste of Heaven. This is the mystery of the Cross. The saints got their love on Calvary. That is where you and I must get it too” (Von Schenk, The Presence, p124).
When St Paul preaches and we learn by heart the great promise - What then shall we say to these things? Christ Jesus is the One who died - more than that, who was raised - who is at the right hand of God, who is interceding for us - we need to hear these words in light of the “cup” of which Jesus speaks. The Cup was used by the Prophets as an image of God’s wrath and judgment against sin. This is how Christ uses it here and again when He prays in Gethsemane, Father, if possible, remove this Cup from Me.
The bodily pain of crucifixion would be enough to cause even the bravest and toughest hearts among us to faint. But the “Cup” that Christ our Lord received and consumed was much worse. It was the everlasting wrath and judgment of hell and damnation, leveled against the sins of the whole world, of all time and places, all of your sins included, carried in the sinless Body of the holy Son of God, and judged forever in His flesh upon the Cross. That is the Cup that He drained down to the dregs for you and for the many by His bloody Passion unto death.
James and John can’t drink that Cup of Christ! Neither could you! But you can. And you do because Christ Jesus has already drained that Cup for you. He shed His Blood of the New Testament for the forgiveness of all your sins. And what was wrath and judgment for Him upon the Cross has become mercy and everlasting life for you and for the many. In receiving the Cup of Christ, which He pours out for you in the Holy Communion, you drink to the dregs the Cup of blessing and receive the fullness of His Life and Salvation. For the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many. Therefore I am certain that neither death nor life, no angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
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