Number 21:4-9; 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; St John 12:20-33
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
You did not choose Him. Christ the Lord has chosen you. He has called you to Himself by the poaching of His Holy Cross. To follow Him through death into life. To be with Him where He is. To bear much fruit to the glory of His holy Name.
It is in Christ that you come up to worship at this Feast. At the Feast of His Holy Cross and the Eucharist of His Body and Blood, given and poured out for you and for the many. You come up to worship the Lord in this Feast by and in and through Christ the Crucified. In His flesh He has gone to the Father on your behalf. By and through His Cross He brings you with Him.
The very hour of His glory unfolds against the backdrop of the Feast as you heard from St John. As per the Word of the Lord in Leviticus the crowds have come up to Jerusalem for the Passover. And for the Feast of Unleavened Bread that follows immediately after for a full week. It is one of the several pilgrim festivals in which the people gathered together in one place. The place where the Lord caused His Name and His Glory to dwell. In the Temple.
During these celebrations, on the day after the Sabbath in the week of Unleavened Bread, the first fruits of the year were offered and consecrated to the Lord. Do the math. The first fruits were offered on the Easter Sunday when our Lord rose from the dead! The wave offering of grain was brought before the Lord in His Temple. An unblemished one year old male lamb was offered as a whole burnt offering. A grain offering of fine flour mixed with oil was given. And wine as a drink offering. Until then the people were not to eat anything from the grain of the new year’s harvest. But after the harvest was dedicated to the Lord with the first fruits offering, then they could enjoy the produce of the good land.
Consider this Old Testament Feast with its God given rites and ceremonies in light of the Word that Jesus speaks to you this morning. The grain that was buried in the ground has now, by the grace of God, brought forth a great harvest. Returning the first fruits back to Him, He now opens up His hand to satisfy His people with the bounty of the Land. A land flowing with milk and honey, abundant with bread and wine.
This is the hour when the Son of Man is to be glorified. When the Christ is to be lifted up as the Sacrifice of the Lord in fulfillment of the entire Feast. He is the Passover Lamb. He is the Whole Burnt Offering. He is the Grain and the Drink Offering. He is the First Fruits of the New Creation. He is the Grain buried in the dust of the earth, who, by the Tree of His Cross, now bears much fruit. Fruit which includes you and your life. A life hidden in, with, and under His Cross.
You bear and carry that Holy Cross of Christ as His disciple. It is a foolish and offensive scandal in the eyes of the world. It is foolish and offensive to your own fallen and perishing flesh, too. To your own way of thinking. To your feelings and emotions.
Yet that scandalous Cross is the very power and wisdom of God for the reconciliation, resurrection, and righteousness of the whole world. And for your salvation, too. All because of the crucifixion of Christ. His Body sanctifies the Tree with its branches. His Blood stains it scarlet!
The Body of Jesus, nothing else, makes the Cross holy. Not suffering and death for its own sake. But the suffering and death of Jesus Christ, the Son of God in the flesh, for your sake. That is what sanctifies. Not only His Cross, but His Cross, afixed with His holy Body, which is laid upon you in your suffering. And you bear that suffering in your body in His Name!
His Cross is the power and wisdom of God and the Glory of God because His death upon the Cross is the defeat of death and the devil! It is the judgment of God for the salvation of sinners. Sin is condemned in the Body of Christ upon the Cross. Your sin. Atonement is made by His Blood. You are reconciled to God and justified in His Resurrection.
The Father glorified the Son by the Cross. By His obedience even unto death. The Father glorifies and honors the Son by raising Him from the dead and seating Him at His right hand in the heavenly places. The Son of God returns to the Father by the way of the Cross. So too do all those who follow after Him.
This is how the Father honors disciples from all nations - a true diversity - who follow Christ and serve Him in life and death, in faith and love. This is how it is for you. You’ve been called to repentance and faith. Not just once. But daily. To take up the Cross and follow Jesus through the waters of your Holy Baptism, through death and the grace into the Resurrection and the Life.
The whole world is perishing. Clinging to your life here, in this world, can only end in death. But dying with Christ Jesus, every day, brings you into life everlasting with Him in both body and soul.
This dying and rising in repentance and faith in Christ is what it means to have the Lord as your God. To fear, love, and trust in Him above all things. To worship Him above all gods. To look to Him, to trust in Him for all that you need in body and soul. For every good thing. Entrust yourself to Him, even to the point of death. For in so doing, you gladly receiving all things from His hand, both the Cross and the Resurrection.
In dying to yourself and your selfish ambitions you arise to live before God in the righteousness of Christ. And you bear much fruit for the benefit of others to the glory of His holy Name. Or, to say it better, it is Christ who bears the good fruits of His Cross in your body and life on earth.
Beloved, this is the attractiveness of His Cross, as you just sang. “Faithful cross, true sign of triumph, Be for all the noblest tree; None in foliage, none in blossom, None in fruit thine equal be; Symbol of the world’s redemption, For the weight that hung on thee!” (LSB 454:4) It is not visible to those who are perishing. To them it looks as grotesque and useless as a bronze serpent on a pole. But for all those being saved by grace through faith in Christ? The Crucifix of our Lord Jesus Christ is the power, glory, honor, beauty, and wisdom of God! And by it and from it you bestowed the righteousness of God Himself.
For in the preaching of His Cross, Christ is lifted up before the world. He draws all people to Himself. He draws you. By this Word you follow in the footsteps of Christ to see Him portrayed as crucified before your very eyes in the preaching of His Gospel. This Voice comes for your sake! The thunder of the Law and the sweet message of the Gospel and the ways and means of the Cross by which our Lord calls you to repentance and faith, to die and rise with Him.
By the Holy Absolution this Voice is given you again. In the Holy Baptism and ongoing catechesis of the Word. In the Cross laid on its side as the Sacrament of the Altar is given to you and you remember and proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. These are the fruits and benefits of His Cross. By these are sin and death defeated. By these, the devil with all his assaults and accusations, is cast out of your conscience. In them you are drawn to Christ in faith. And the Father in Him. And together given His Spirit of reconciliation and the hope of salvation.
He does not promise to protect you from pain and suffering, dear Christians. Nor to preserve your body and life in this perishing world. But He does protect and strengthen your faith and life in Him, in order to preserve your body and soul for the Life everlasting with Him.
So come up to where He draws you to Himself and bestows to you His Body and Blood given into death upon the Holy Cross for your atonement. For they are now given and poured out for you here in this Feast of the forgiveness of all your sins. Here, you see Jesus.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
You did not choose Him. Christ the Lord has chosen you. He has called you to Himself by the poaching of His Holy Cross. To follow Him through death into life. To be with Him where He is. To bear much fruit to the glory of His holy Name.
It is in Christ that you come up to worship at this Feast. At the Feast of His Holy Cross and the Eucharist of His Body and Blood, given and poured out for you and for the many. You come up to worship the Lord in this Feast by and in and through Christ the Crucified. In His flesh He has gone to the Father on your behalf. By and through His Cross He brings you with Him.
The very hour of His glory unfolds against the backdrop of the Feast as you heard from St John. As per the Word of the Lord in Leviticus the crowds have come up to Jerusalem for the Passover. And for the Feast of Unleavened Bread that follows immediately after for a full week. It is one of the several pilgrim festivals in which the people gathered together in one place. The place where the Lord caused His Name and His Glory to dwell. In the Temple.
During these celebrations, on the day after the Sabbath in the week of Unleavened Bread, the first fruits of the year were offered and consecrated to the Lord. Do the math. The first fruits were offered on the Easter Sunday when our Lord rose from the dead! The wave offering of grain was brought before the Lord in His Temple. An unblemished one year old male lamb was offered as a whole burnt offering. A grain offering of fine flour mixed with oil was given. And wine as a drink offering. Until then the people were not to eat anything from the grain of the new year’s harvest. But after the harvest was dedicated to the Lord with the first fruits offering, then they could enjoy the produce of the good land.
Consider this Old Testament Feast with its God given rites and ceremonies in light of the Word that Jesus speaks to you this morning. The grain that was buried in the ground has now, by the grace of God, brought forth a great harvest. Returning the first fruits back to Him, He now opens up His hand to satisfy His people with the bounty of the Land. A land flowing with milk and honey, abundant with bread and wine.
This is the hour when the Son of Man is to be glorified. When the Christ is to be lifted up as the Sacrifice of the Lord in fulfillment of the entire Feast. He is the Passover Lamb. He is the Whole Burnt Offering. He is the Grain and the Drink Offering. He is the First Fruits of the New Creation. He is the Grain buried in the dust of the earth, who, by the Tree of His Cross, now bears much fruit. Fruit which includes you and your life. A life hidden in, with, and under His Cross.
You bear and carry that Holy Cross of Christ as His disciple. It is a foolish and offensive scandal in the eyes of the world. It is foolish and offensive to your own fallen and perishing flesh, too. To your own way of thinking. To your feelings and emotions.
Yet that scandalous Cross is the very power and wisdom of God for the reconciliation, resurrection, and righteousness of the whole world. And for your salvation, too. All because of the crucifixion of Christ. His Body sanctifies the Tree with its branches. His Blood stains it scarlet!
The Body of Jesus, nothing else, makes the Cross holy. Not suffering and death for its own sake. But the suffering and death of Jesus Christ, the Son of God in the flesh, for your sake. That is what sanctifies. Not only His Cross, but His Cross, afixed with His holy Body, which is laid upon you in your suffering. And you bear that suffering in your body in His Name!
His Cross is the power and wisdom of God and the Glory of God because His death upon the Cross is the defeat of death and the devil! It is the judgment of God for the salvation of sinners. Sin is condemned in the Body of Christ upon the Cross. Your sin. Atonement is made by His Blood. You are reconciled to God and justified in His Resurrection.
The Father glorified the Son by the Cross. By His obedience even unto death. The Father glorifies and honors the Son by raising Him from the dead and seating Him at His right hand in the heavenly places. The Son of God returns to the Father by the way of the Cross. So too do all those who follow after Him.
This is how the Father honors disciples from all nations - a true diversity - who follow Christ and serve Him in life and death, in faith and love. This is how it is for you. You’ve been called to repentance and faith. Not just once. But daily. To take up the Cross and follow Jesus through the waters of your Holy Baptism, through death and the grace into the Resurrection and the Life.
The whole world is perishing. Clinging to your life here, in this world, can only end in death. But dying with Christ Jesus, every day, brings you into life everlasting with Him in both body and soul.
This dying and rising in repentance and faith in Christ is what it means to have the Lord as your God. To fear, love, and trust in Him above all things. To worship Him above all gods. To look to Him, to trust in Him for all that you need in body and soul. For every good thing. Entrust yourself to Him, even to the point of death. For in so doing, you gladly receiving all things from His hand, both the Cross and the Resurrection.
In dying to yourself and your selfish ambitions you arise to live before God in the righteousness of Christ. And you bear much fruit for the benefit of others to the glory of His holy Name. Or, to say it better, it is Christ who bears the good fruits of His Cross in your body and life on earth.
Beloved, this is the attractiveness of His Cross, as you just sang. “Faithful cross, true sign of triumph, Be for all the noblest tree; None in foliage, none in blossom, None in fruit thine equal be; Symbol of the world’s redemption, For the weight that hung on thee!” (LSB 454:4) It is not visible to those who are perishing. To them it looks as grotesque and useless as a bronze serpent on a pole. But for all those being saved by grace through faith in Christ? The Crucifix of our Lord Jesus Christ is the power, glory, honor, beauty, and wisdom of God! And by it and from it you bestowed the righteousness of God Himself.
For in the preaching of His Cross, Christ is lifted up before the world. He draws all people to Himself. He draws you. By this Word you follow in the footsteps of Christ to see Him portrayed as crucified before your very eyes in the preaching of His Gospel. This Voice comes for your sake! The thunder of the Law and the sweet message of the Gospel and the ways and means of the Cross by which our Lord calls you to repentance and faith, to die and rise with Him.
By the Holy Absolution this Voice is given you again. In the Holy Baptism and ongoing catechesis of the Word. In the Cross laid on its side as the Sacrament of the Altar is given to you and you remember and proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. These are the fruits and benefits of His Cross. By these are sin and death defeated. By these, the devil with all his assaults and accusations, is cast out of your conscience. In them you are drawn to Christ in faith. And the Father in Him. And together given His Spirit of reconciliation and the hope of salvation.
He does not promise to protect you from pain and suffering, dear Christians. Nor to preserve your body and life in this perishing world. But He does protect and strengthen your faith and life in Him, in order to preserve your body and soul for the Life everlasting with Him.
So come up to where He draws you to Himself and bestows to you His Body and Blood given into death upon the Holy Cross for your atonement. For they are now given and poured out for you here in this Feast of the forgiveness of all your sins. Here, you see Jesus.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
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