Genesis 22:1-14/Hebrews 9:11-15/St John 8:42-59
In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.
Strong words from our Lord today. He called His hearers the spawn of Satan; children of the devil. And as your bulletin cover depicts, He did so from the reading desk, effectively the pulpit, in the Temple! That’s a pretty good way not to grow your church. At least not growth in numbers.
Yet if the Church is going to grow - if we are going to grow spiritually as this season of Lent enters its last stage - we need to hear and believe that these words of Jesus apply to us. We are by nature children of wrath. From conception we are curved inward on ourselves and desire to do the desires of our father the devil.
What are those desires? St Paul puts desires into two categories: of the flesh and of the mind. To the Ephesians he writes, We all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind (Eph 2:3).
These desires are for personal gratification - of the flesh through lust for sex, lust for food, lust for drink, or gratification in the mind - desire for revenge, for prosperity, desire for personal glory. These desires destroy us. They assault and hurt the soul. They drive us further away from the love of God and His will for us in loving our neighbor.
Jesus says that this devilish desire in us naturally closes our ears and our hearts to God’s Word. Why do you not understand what I say? He asks. It is because you cannot bear to hear My word. The defect is not in the Gospel. The fault lies not in the Word, but in ourselves. Our minds are set on the desires of the flesh; which means, they are not set on the things above, on the desires of God who wishes us to hear His Word, hold it sacred and gladly learn it.
St James writes, Each one is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire (James 1:14). Therefore be on guard against this desire and sin in yourselves. We must regard our own wisdom as foolishness and our own righteousness as filthy rags. For the desires of the flesh are against the desires of the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do (Gal 5:17).
According to your birth in the flesh you do not naturally desire God and His Word. But you have been born from above, begotten by water and the Spirit in Holy Baptism. All that was inherited from your first father, Adam, was drowned and died, with all sin and evil desires. And a new man emerged, to live before God in righteousness and purity. The problem is, though, the Old Man is an excellent swimmer. He continues to pop up from the baptismal waters and attempt to lead you away from Christ and His Word. This is why Jesus says, Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My Word, he will never see death.
Beloved, you are God’s children. He is your Father in heaven. He loves you. You are of God and so you hear the Word of God. Abiding in His Word, you do not allow sin to reign in your mortal bodies. Abiding in His Word you do not obey the lusts and desires of the flesh, for they are contrary to His Word. Abiding in His Word you do not see death, for you have the forgiveness of sins and love and righteousness.
Of ourselves we cannot achieve this. This perfection is achieved in our Lord Jesus Christ, who seeks nothing for Himself, but is perfectly, in every way, obedient to the Father. Those who reject Christ in our text, say all sorts of horrible, slanderous things - suggesting He is the child of fornication and has a demon. After this Christ says, I do not seek y own glory; there is One who seeks it, and He is the judge.
This really is the summary of our Lord’s work. He did not take on human flesh to seek His own glory. He did not forgive sins to seek His own glory. He did not suffer the Cross to seek His own glory. In every respect, He obeyed the Father’s will and sought our good. “A Lamb goes uncomplaining forth.” Christ was sent by the Father, who seeks to glorify His Son. And His glory is for our good; as the author to the Hebrews says, But when Christ appeared as a High Priest of the good things that have come, He entered once for all into the Holy Place, by means of His own Blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.
In his sermon for this Sunday in 1534, Dr Luther said, “This Gospel lesson is very rich in meaning and we can hardly do justice to it, because our time is necessarily limited; yet with our Lord God lending us His grace, we want to treat it at least briefly” (House Postils 1:362). And so there is one more thing to note in today’s text. And for this I’m afraid I have to drag you into some grammar. It can’t be helped. Grammar matters. After all, the Word became flesh.
First, the Name our Lord gives to Moses from the burning bush, I Am Who I Am, is spoken in the first person. The Lord says I AM. That is His name. He is the One who is, the living and true God, in contrast to all idols and all creatures. For everything that is, that moved and lives and has its being, only is by His power and at His mercy Nothing else is. Pharaoh isn’t. His gods aren’t. And Moses isn’t either. Neither are we. Only the Lord is. Thus He says, I AM.
But Moses immediately changes the name in Hebrew from I AM to HE IS. He conjugates the verb. Moses isn’t speaking of himself; he is speaking of the Lord. So he doesn’t say, I AM, but HE IS. The name YHWH, which the Jews refused to say aloud, means, HE IS, third person, present tense.
Now Christ speaks in this way here when He refers to Abraham. Only He doesn’t really say, Before Abraham was. Most English translations mistranslate it. Our Lord doesn’t use the past tense verb of “is” for Abraham. He doesn’t say, “Before Abraham was, I WAS.” He says, Before Abraham came to be or was born, I AM. He’s not merely claiming He’s older than the patriarch. Jesus is saying, before Abraham was born, He is. He always is. He never wasn’t. He always will be.
It is a subtle, but important thing. The Jews picked up on it and we ought to as well. They accused Him of blasphemy and sought to stone Him. But for us this is our highest comfort. Jesus is God. He is eternal, without beginning or end. HE IS.
This is why Abraham rejoiced to see the day of Christ. He saw it prophetically when he said, God will provide Himself, the Lamb. God demands, according to the Law, everything we have. For Abraham it was his son, his most prized possession. God demanded the death of Isaac. Yet even that would not, could not, ever be enough to atone even for Abraham sin, much less the sin of the whole world.
So Abraham rejoices to see the joy that in Christ, all sin will be atoned for. For the God who spoke to Abraham from heaven, the One who stayed his hand from slaughtering Isaac, the great I AM, took up flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and became Man. This is why He came to the Temple, where He is now speaking. He comes to the mercy seat, the house of prayer, to prepare Himself for the sacrifice. He uses the divine name and rather than fall down in worship, selfish men, men full of desire for personal gratification, pick up stones to kill Him.
But Jesus hid Himself and went out of the Temple. This is why we veil the crucifixes today. We “hide” them. But they are not taken away completely. They are not removed. Jesus went out of the Temple, but He would return. For we have a High Priest who loves us and who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God. He purifies our consciences from dead works, cleansing hearts and minds, to serve the living God.
Therefore He is the Mediator of a new covenant in His Blood that we might eat, drink, be cleansed, and have fellowship with Him.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.
Strong words from our Lord today. He called His hearers the spawn of Satan; children of the devil. And as your bulletin cover depicts, He did so from the reading desk, effectively the pulpit, in the Temple! That’s a pretty good way not to grow your church. At least not growth in numbers.
Yet if the Church is going to grow - if we are going to grow spiritually as this season of Lent enters its last stage - we need to hear and believe that these words of Jesus apply to us. We are by nature children of wrath. From conception we are curved inward on ourselves and desire to do the desires of our father the devil.
What are those desires? St Paul puts desires into two categories: of the flesh and of the mind. To the Ephesians he writes, We all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind (Eph 2:3).
These desires are for personal gratification - of the flesh through lust for sex, lust for food, lust for drink, or gratification in the mind - desire for revenge, for prosperity, desire for personal glory. These desires destroy us. They assault and hurt the soul. They drive us further away from the love of God and His will for us in loving our neighbor.
Jesus says that this devilish desire in us naturally closes our ears and our hearts to God’s Word. Why do you not understand what I say? He asks. It is because you cannot bear to hear My word. The defect is not in the Gospel. The fault lies not in the Word, but in ourselves. Our minds are set on the desires of the flesh; which means, they are not set on the things above, on the desires of God who wishes us to hear His Word, hold it sacred and gladly learn it.
St James writes, Each one is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire (James 1:14). Therefore be on guard against this desire and sin in yourselves. We must regard our own wisdom as foolishness and our own righteousness as filthy rags. For the desires of the flesh are against the desires of the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do (Gal 5:17).
According to your birth in the flesh you do not naturally desire God and His Word. But you have been born from above, begotten by water and the Spirit in Holy Baptism. All that was inherited from your first father, Adam, was drowned and died, with all sin and evil desires. And a new man emerged, to live before God in righteousness and purity. The problem is, though, the Old Man is an excellent swimmer. He continues to pop up from the baptismal waters and attempt to lead you away from Christ and His Word. This is why Jesus says, Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My Word, he will never see death.
Beloved, you are God’s children. He is your Father in heaven. He loves you. You are of God and so you hear the Word of God. Abiding in His Word, you do not allow sin to reign in your mortal bodies. Abiding in His Word you do not obey the lusts and desires of the flesh, for they are contrary to His Word. Abiding in His Word you do not see death, for you have the forgiveness of sins and love and righteousness.
Of ourselves we cannot achieve this. This perfection is achieved in our Lord Jesus Christ, who seeks nothing for Himself, but is perfectly, in every way, obedient to the Father. Those who reject Christ in our text, say all sorts of horrible, slanderous things - suggesting He is the child of fornication and has a demon. After this Christ says, I do not seek y own glory; there is One who seeks it, and He is the judge.
This really is the summary of our Lord’s work. He did not take on human flesh to seek His own glory. He did not forgive sins to seek His own glory. He did not suffer the Cross to seek His own glory. In every respect, He obeyed the Father’s will and sought our good. “A Lamb goes uncomplaining forth.” Christ was sent by the Father, who seeks to glorify His Son. And His glory is for our good; as the author to the Hebrews says, But when Christ appeared as a High Priest of the good things that have come, He entered once for all into the Holy Place, by means of His own Blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.
In his sermon for this Sunday in 1534, Dr Luther said, “This Gospel lesson is very rich in meaning and we can hardly do justice to it, because our time is necessarily limited; yet with our Lord God lending us His grace, we want to treat it at least briefly” (House Postils 1:362). And so there is one more thing to note in today’s text. And for this I’m afraid I have to drag you into some grammar. It can’t be helped. Grammar matters. After all, the Word became flesh.
First, the Name our Lord gives to Moses from the burning bush, I Am Who I Am, is spoken in the first person. The Lord says I AM. That is His name. He is the One who is, the living and true God, in contrast to all idols and all creatures. For everything that is, that moved and lives and has its being, only is by His power and at His mercy Nothing else is. Pharaoh isn’t. His gods aren’t. And Moses isn’t either. Neither are we. Only the Lord is. Thus He says, I AM.
But Moses immediately changes the name in Hebrew from I AM to HE IS. He conjugates the verb. Moses isn’t speaking of himself; he is speaking of the Lord. So he doesn’t say, I AM, but HE IS. The name YHWH, which the Jews refused to say aloud, means, HE IS, third person, present tense.
Now Christ speaks in this way here when He refers to Abraham. Only He doesn’t really say, Before Abraham was. Most English translations mistranslate it. Our Lord doesn’t use the past tense verb of “is” for Abraham. He doesn’t say, “Before Abraham was, I WAS.” He says, Before Abraham came to be or was born, I AM. He’s not merely claiming He’s older than the patriarch. Jesus is saying, before Abraham was born, He is. He always is. He never wasn’t. He always will be.
It is a subtle, but important thing. The Jews picked up on it and we ought to as well. They accused Him of blasphemy and sought to stone Him. But for us this is our highest comfort. Jesus is God. He is eternal, without beginning or end. HE IS.
This is why Abraham rejoiced to see the day of Christ. He saw it prophetically when he said, God will provide Himself, the Lamb. God demands, according to the Law, everything we have. For Abraham it was his son, his most prized possession. God demanded the death of Isaac. Yet even that would not, could not, ever be enough to atone even for Abraham sin, much less the sin of the whole world.
So Abraham rejoices to see the joy that in Christ, all sin will be atoned for. For the God who spoke to Abraham from heaven, the One who stayed his hand from slaughtering Isaac, the great I AM, took up flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and became Man. This is why He came to the Temple, where He is now speaking. He comes to the mercy seat, the house of prayer, to prepare Himself for the sacrifice. He uses the divine name and rather than fall down in worship, selfish men, men full of desire for personal gratification, pick up stones to kill Him.
But Jesus hid Himself and went out of the Temple. This is why we veil the crucifixes today. We “hide” them. But they are not taken away completely. They are not removed. Jesus went out of the Temple, but He would return. For we have a High Priest who loves us and who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God. He purifies our consciences from dead works, cleansing hearts and minds, to serve the living God.
Therefore He is the Mediator of a new covenant in His Blood that we might eat, drink, be cleansed, and have fellowship with Him.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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