Psalm 69; St John 19:28-37
“Seven last Words of Jesus” (5-6)
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Dear people loved by God, the Gospel according to St John is remarkably visual. Frequently, the evangelist who saw bears witness, exhorting you, the hearer, to, “Look!” “Behold!” “See!”
Look, then, upon Him who was pierced for your transgressions. Behold the Lamb of God who bears away the sin of the world. See Him, the Innocent One, drown in the deep waters of your iniquity, plunged in the tide of your enmity, see it rising up to His neck as His heart fails within Him. The Ark of the Lord is overtaken by the raging flood of transgression.
For though the waters have come up to His neck, He thirsts. Though the flood sweeps over him, His throat is parched. He who bestows living water, welling up to eternal life, is dehydrated, not merely with a physical thirst, relieved with gall, but He hungers and thirsts for righteousness. His thirst, His hearts desire, is to accomplish the will of His Father who sent Him. And though His eyes grow dim and He shall indeed sleep the sleep of death, shuffling off this mortal coil, still He shall wait for His God and Father.
Do you see, beloved, with the Psalmist, David’s own Son and yet His Lord, hoisted upon the accursed Tree, encompassed by those who would destroy Him and attack Him with lies? The lies and slander of their mouths betray the thoughts and desires of your own heart. How you at times, in your flesh and weakness, long to be free of Christ, His compelling love and obedient way. Do you suppose that to indulge the thirsts of your fleshly heart and the hunger of your passions will satisfy them or keep them at bay?
Repent. He knows your weakness, dear ones. He hears your cries. He knows your spirit thirsts and its languished in the wilderness of this dreary world. How your conscience seeks to be cooled by the living water of Christ. As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God (Ps 42:1). O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh faints for You, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water (Ps 63:1).
This is precisely why your Christ and Lord suffers unquenchable thirst. And why He offers to you living water. The One who satisfies your thirst is dry-mouthed. The One who saves by way of water is parched. He endures the reproach and despair, is pitiless and dishonored, shamed and distressed, given poisoned food and sour wine, all so that you, beloved, would have hope and comfort, mercy and honor, relief and joy; so that He may feed you with heavenly food and the choicest of wines. For the Lord hears the needy and does not despise His own people who are prisoners.
See Him, beloved, portrayed as crucified before your very eyes! Behold His zeal, not only for the House of His Father, but for you. That you would be near to Him, in mind and heart, soul and body. Zeal for His Father’s House consumes Him. Recall how He turned over the tables of the money changers and drove out the animals. He does so because He redeems you not with gold or silver, but with His holy precious blood and innocent suffering and death, so that you may be His own, live with Him and serve Him in everlasting righteousness.
He drives out the animals for slaughter and sacrifice because He is the once-for-all Sacrifice, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Behold how He is pierced and run through! Not only is the testimony of the eye-witness, St John the Evangelist, true and trustworthy, but by his Gospel, read and preached, the self-same blood falls up you. Out of the Temple of His Body flows a stream of living water. Wherever this water goes, it brings eternal life. Behold, the water, together with the Word, fills the font and brings forth life for you.
By this baptismal flood, which is not only up to your neck, but flows over your head and into your heart, you participate in the death of Jesus Christ our Lord. Your flesh and sin is drowned with Christ, buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that, just as He was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father who hears His petition and cry, so also you, beloved, as raised in Christ your Head as members of His Body, lifted up unto life everlasting, to walk in the newness of the life He gives you by His Word and Spirit.
Thus are you given to praise the Name of God with which you are marked with the new song of Christ’s victorious death. “Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle; Sing the ending of the fray. Now above the cross, the trophy, Sound the loud triumphant lay; Tell how Christ, the world’s redeemer, As a victim won the day” (LSB 454:1).
Do you see? This is the triumphant cry of, Tetelestai, “It is complete.” “It is finished.” The work of your salvation is accomplished. Your forgiveness won. Your sins atoned for. This is not defeat, but victory. Thus does Christ the Lord hand over the Spirit to His Father. We shall hear more of this next week.
For now, hear the words of the Psalm concerning the cruciform trophy of Christ’s victory: Let the poor see and rejoice. Seek God, and your soul will live. The death of Christ is the birth of the new creation. His victory upon the Cross is the foundation of the Church. His resurrection is His coronation. For God will save Zion and build up the cities of Judah. That is, He establishes His Church, His Israel, upon the Cornerstone of the Crucified One and builds His congregation from the very life that flows from the riven side of the Ark of Life.
Christ thirsts, but He pours out His heart for you in love. The baptismal river in which you are planted and yield your fruit in season according to His Word and will. But also His life blood, shed for you, which fills the chalice, and is poured across your sin-parched lips, quenching your thirst and forgiving you all your sins.
Do you behold, beloved, that not only is His side opened and flows forth for you Baptism and His Supper, pouring out from His heart, that He may share them and give life to you, but that this is also how you enter into life with Him, together with His Father by His Spirit? He who is the Ark of Life uses these means to bring you into Himself, into the mystical communion of His Body, the one, holy, Christian and apostolic Church. You climb in by His wounds! And there you find rest for your weary souls. Peace for your troubled conscience. Relief from the storms of life that gather round about you, seeking to sink you deep in the mire.
In such tempests, beloved, Christ is your foothold, anchor and captain. And the Ark of His Body shall not be toppled, though the rains fall and floods rise and the winds blow beat against the House. Christ Jesus has heard the Word of the Lord, He has accomplished, finished, and completed them, and has established His House upon the Rock forever. The Temple was destroyed, but rebuilt three days later.
And in it, He has made a place for you. The people shall dwell there and possess it; the offspring of His servants shall inherit it; and those who love His Name shall dwell in it. Beloved in Christ, that is you. He has marked you with His Name in love and dwells with you and you with Him. He has opened your ears that you may hear the true testimony of His Word. He has opened your eyes that you may see the victory of His Cross. He sets a Table before you, not as a trap and snare, but mercy and in love, to satisfy your hunger and relieve your thirst.
Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad for her, all you who love her; that you may nurse and be satisfied from her consoling breast. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“Seven last Words of Jesus” (5-6)
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Dear people loved by God, the Gospel according to St John is remarkably visual. Frequently, the evangelist who saw bears witness, exhorting you, the hearer, to, “Look!” “Behold!” “See!”
Look, then, upon Him who was pierced for your transgressions. Behold the Lamb of God who bears away the sin of the world. See Him, the Innocent One, drown in the deep waters of your iniquity, plunged in the tide of your enmity, see it rising up to His neck as His heart fails within Him. The Ark of the Lord is overtaken by the raging flood of transgression.
For though the waters have come up to His neck, He thirsts. Though the flood sweeps over him, His throat is parched. He who bestows living water, welling up to eternal life, is dehydrated, not merely with a physical thirst, relieved with gall, but He hungers and thirsts for righteousness. His thirst, His hearts desire, is to accomplish the will of His Father who sent Him. And though His eyes grow dim and He shall indeed sleep the sleep of death, shuffling off this mortal coil, still He shall wait for His God and Father.
Do you see, beloved, with the Psalmist, David’s own Son and yet His Lord, hoisted upon the accursed Tree, encompassed by those who would destroy Him and attack Him with lies? The lies and slander of their mouths betray the thoughts and desires of your own heart. How you at times, in your flesh and weakness, long to be free of Christ, His compelling love and obedient way. Do you suppose that to indulge the thirsts of your fleshly heart and the hunger of your passions will satisfy them or keep them at bay?
Repent. He knows your weakness, dear ones. He hears your cries. He knows your spirit thirsts and its languished in the wilderness of this dreary world. How your conscience seeks to be cooled by the living water of Christ. As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God (Ps 42:1). O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh faints for You, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water (Ps 63:1).
This is precisely why your Christ and Lord suffers unquenchable thirst. And why He offers to you living water. The One who satisfies your thirst is dry-mouthed. The One who saves by way of water is parched. He endures the reproach and despair, is pitiless and dishonored, shamed and distressed, given poisoned food and sour wine, all so that you, beloved, would have hope and comfort, mercy and honor, relief and joy; so that He may feed you with heavenly food and the choicest of wines. For the Lord hears the needy and does not despise His own people who are prisoners.
See Him, beloved, portrayed as crucified before your very eyes! Behold His zeal, not only for the House of His Father, but for you. That you would be near to Him, in mind and heart, soul and body. Zeal for His Father’s House consumes Him. Recall how He turned over the tables of the money changers and drove out the animals. He does so because He redeems you not with gold or silver, but with His holy precious blood and innocent suffering and death, so that you may be His own, live with Him and serve Him in everlasting righteousness.
He drives out the animals for slaughter and sacrifice because He is the once-for-all Sacrifice, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Behold how He is pierced and run through! Not only is the testimony of the eye-witness, St John the Evangelist, true and trustworthy, but by his Gospel, read and preached, the self-same blood falls up you. Out of the Temple of His Body flows a stream of living water. Wherever this water goes, it brings eternal life. Behold, the water, together with the Word, fills the font and brings forth life for you.
By this baptismal flood, which is not only up to your neck, but flows over your head and into your heart, you participate in the death of Jesus Christ our Lord. Your flesh and sin is drowned with Christ, buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that, just as He was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father who hears His petition and cry, so also you, beloved, as raised in Christ your Head as members of His Body, lifted up unto life everlasting, to walk in the newness of the life He gives you by His Word and Spirit.
Thus are you given to praise the Name of God with which you are marked with the new song of Christ’s victorious death. “Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle; Sing the ending of the fray. Now above the cross, the trophy, Sound the loud triumphant lay; Tell how Christ, the world’s redeemer, As a victim won the day” (LSB 454:1).
Do you see? This is the triumphant cry of, Tetelestai, “It is complete.” “It is finished.” The work of your salvation is accomplished. Your forgiveness won. Your sins atoned for. This is not defeat, but victory. Thus does Christ the Lord hand over the Spirit to His Father. We shall hear more of this next week.
For now, hear the words of the Psalm concerning the cruciform trophy of Christ’s victory: Let the poor see and rejoice. Seek God, and your soul will live. The death of Christ is the birth of the new creation. His victory upon the Cross is the foundation of the Church. His resurrection is His coronation. For God will save Zion and build up the cities of Judah. That is, He establishes His Church, His Israel, upon the Cornerstone of the Crucified One and builds His congregation from the very life that flows from the riven side of the Ark of Life.
Christ thirsts, but He pours out His heart for you in love. The baptismal river in which you are planted and yield your fruit in season according to His Word and will. But also His life blood, shed for you, which fills the chalice, and is poured across your sin-parched lips, quenching your thirst and forgiving you all your sins.
Do you behold, beloved, that not only is His side opened and flows forth for you Baptism and His Supper, pouring out from His heart, that He may share them and give life to you, but that this is also how you enter into life with Him, together with His Father by His Spirit? He who is the Ark of Life uses these means to bring you into Himself, into the mystical communion of His Body, the one, holy, Christian and apostolic Church. You climb in by His wounds! And there you find rest for your weary souls. Peace for your troubled conscience. Relief from the storms of life that gather round about you, seeking to sink you deep in the mire.
In such tempests, beloved, Christ is your foothold, anchor and captain. And the Ark of His Body shall not be toppled, though the rains fall and floods rise and the winds blow beat against the House. Christ Jesus has heard the Word of the Lord, He has accomplished, finished, and completed them, and has established His House upon the Rock forever. The Temple was destroyed, but rebuilt three days later.
And in it, He has made a place for you. The people shall dwell there and possess it; the offspring of His servants shall inherit it; and those who love His Name shall dwell in it. Beloved in Christ, that is you. He has marked you with His Name in love and dwells with you and you with Him. He has opened your ears that you may hear the true testimony of His Word. He has opened your eyes that you may see the victory of His Cross. He sets a Table before you, not as a trap and snare, but mercy and in love, to satisfy your hunger and relieve your thirst.
Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad for her, all you who love her; that you may nurse and be satisfied from her consoling breast. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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