Exodus 19:1-6; 1 Peter 2:1-10
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
The public reading of the Holy Scriptures in the Divine Service always conclude, This is the Word of the Lord. Never, was. Always is. Present tense. Durative and ongoing. The Holy Spirit is active and present in the written and read Word. As the Son is Incarnate and made Man, so the Holy Spirit is enscripturated, as it were, within the voice and speech of the Father through the Son. For He who is the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, gives you faith and life by the hearing of Word of our Lord.
Thus is it that you are transported to the foot of Mt Sinai. Last week Peter addressed you as elect exiles, strangers in a strange land, wandering far from home. For as he addresses the churches in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, the blessed Apostle still dresses you. In the living and active Word, by which you are borne, as on eagles’ wings, and brought to God the Father Himself, in His Son, by His Spirit.
For you, dear Christians, have come through the Red Sea of Holy Baptism, parted by Christ, who stretched forth His arms upon the Cross, so that you may be given safe passage out of bondage to slavery and sin, out of death into life everlasting. You have heard for yourself what He has done. How He has trampled your enemies underfoot, how He has remembered you in steadfast love, and redeemed you out of all your terrible troubles, out of the jaws of death and from the sins which would sink you to the depths.
Thus do you come forth, through the natal waters and the birth canal of Holy Baptism, regenesised, begotten from above, given new life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Obey His voice and keep His covenant as new born infants, long for the pure spiritual milk of His Word, that by it you may grow up into salvation, into mature manhood and a faith active in love. Which is to say, by daily contrition and repentance, put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.
Have you not tasted that the Lord is good? Your forefathers ate manna in the wilderness. They tasted the goodness the Lord provided in the sweet, miraculous bread. They drank from the Rock, tasting that pure water flowing from Christ Jesus Himself, as St Paul says, For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they all drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ (1 Cor 10:1-4).
No less have you been given to quench your spiritual thirst in Christ Jesus, being covered in the watery-blood which flowed from His pierced side. No less have you tasted that the Lord is good as you are given to eat the bread that is His Body and drink from the Cup which is His Blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. For it is by and through these gifts of Christ that you are brought unto God Himself. Israel was led to the holy mountain, but you, dear Christians, as St Peter says, are brought to the Living Stone, rejected by men, but in the sight of God chosen and precious.
Christ Jesus is that Cornerstone, appointed by His Father from the foundation of the world by whose precious blood He establishes His children like living stones, being built up as a spiritual house. Not a structure of brick and mortar, wood and stone, not like the Temple of old, but a household, a family, established upon Christ Jesus the Cornerstone, on whom alone we build, knit together with the foundation of the prophets and apostles, consecrated as His holy priesthood.
The one, holy, Christian and apostolic Church is that Zion of which the prophet speaks. For Isaiah, as all the prophets, were serving not themselves, but you, in the things which have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, as you heard last week. For it was not Jerusalem or the Temple Mount, but the heavenly Zion and the New Jerusalem, the Church, in heaven and upon earth, living together as a holy priesthood, united in Christ Jesus, the Cornerstone of faith and the Rock of salvation.
Did you hear it in the Psalm? It is referenced by St Peter who is inspired by the Holy Spirit, who likewise inspired David to pen that psalm sung tonight and repeated on Palm Sunday: The Stone that the builders rejected has become the Cornerstone.
Do you perceive the goodness of the Lord? Do you experience His trustworthiness in keeping His promises?
You heard on Sunday how our Lord Christ is Israel reduced to one Man. He is Himself the instantiation of the kingdom and our great High Priest before His God and Father. Yet He is also the Festal Sacrifice who rides into the Holy City atop the borrowed beast and is bound with the cords of our sins to the Altar of His Cross. He, the Lamb, enters through the Sheep Gate, to shouts of Hosanna, save us now, we pray, as He comes in the Name of the Lord, being blessed from the House of the Lord.
But He is rejected in the sight of men. Despised and lowly, mocked and shamefully treated and spit-up. He is handed over for the price of a slave and then handed over to death. All those who reject this Stone, it shall fall upon them and crush them. They disobey, that is, they disbelieve the Word, as sin destines us to do. As St Paul says above, Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness (1 Cor 10:5). But for you who believe, it is honor and glory and peace, for this is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the Day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it (Ps 118:23-24).
For you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people. Dear ones, this is a stunningly beautiful and comforting this word! For you, who were Gentile sinners, pagans, uncircumcised in heart and mind, cut off and dwelling in darkness, God, in His boundless love and infinite mercy, has given His own Son into the flesh to die for you, to set you free from sin and death, to shine the Light of His forgiving Word upon you, rescuing you from the darkness and the shadow of death. By this self-same Word He guides your path and footsteps into the Way of His peace. That is, He makes you His own beloved people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.
The mercy you have received in Christ Jesus is now yours to bestow and share. For you, dear priests, are baptized into the death and life of Christ Jesus, consecrated by His blood, set apart in His Spirit, to offer spiritual sacrifices of prayer, praise, and thanksgiving. And to proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you by His Gospel out of darkness into His marvelous light. Having been marked by His name, you belong to Him as His treasured possession among all peoples.
He grants you strength and courage to live the faith your lips confess, turning you from false allegiances and idols, that you may trust in Christ alone.
Behold tonight, dear ones, you newborn infants who have found refuge and sanctuary within your Mother and true Israel, the Church, your God and Father calls you to Himself once more. From the Mount Zion of His holy altar, He bestows upon you the fruit of His sacrifice, the spiritual food of His own Body and Blood. Here you come up to God Incarnate, receiving His mercy and blessing Him from the House of the Lord, even as He has made you His own household of faith.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
The public reading of the Holy Scriptures in the Divine Service always conclude, This is the Word of the Lord. Never, was. Always is. Present tense. Durative and ongoing. The Holy Spirit is active and present in the written and read Word. As the Son is Incarnate and made Man, so the Holy Spirit is enscripturated, as it were, within the voice and speech of the Father through the Son. For He who is the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, gives you faith and life by the hearing of Word of our Lord.
Thus is it that you are transported to the foot of Mt Sinai. Last week Peter addressed you as elect exiles, strangers in a strange land, wandering far from home. For as he addresses the churches in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, the blessed Apostle still dresses you. In the living and active Word, by which you are borne, as on eagles’ wings, and brought to God the Father Himself, in His Son, by His Spirit.
For you, dear Christians, have come through the Red Sea of Holy Baptism, parted by Christ, who stretched forth His arms upon the Cross, so that you may be given safe passage out of bondage to slavery and sin, out of death into life everlasting. You have heard for yourself what He has done. How He has trampled your enemies underfoot, how He has remembered you in steadfast love, and redeemed you out of all your terrible troubles, out of the jaws of death and from the sins which would sink you to the depths.
Thus do you come forth, through the natal waters and the birth canal of Holy Baptism, regenesised, begotten from above, given new life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Obey His voice and keep His covenant as new born infants, long for the pure spiritual milk of His Word, that by it you may grow up into salvation, into mature manhood and a faith active in love. Which is to say, by daily contrition and repentance, put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.
Have you not tasted that the Lord is good? Your forefathers ate manna in the wilderness. They tasted the goodness the Lord provided in the sweet, miraculous bread. They drank from the Rock, tasting that pure water flowing from Christ Jesus Himself, as St Paul says, For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they all drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ (1 Cor 10:1-4).
No less have you been given to quench your spiritual thirst in Christ Jesus, being covered in the watery-blood which flowed from His pierced side. No less have you tasted that the Lord is good as you are given to eat the bread that is His Body and drink from the Cup which is His Blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. For it is by and through these gifts of Christ that you are brought unto God Himself. Israel was led to the holy mountain, but you, dear Christians, as St Peter says, are brought to the Living Stone, rejected by men, but in the sight of God chosen and precious.
Christ Jesus is that Cornerstone, appointed by His Father from the foundation of the world by whose precious blood He establishes His children like living stones, being built up as a spiritual house. Not a structure of brick and mortar, wood and stone, not like the Temple of old, but a household, a family, established upon Christ Jesus the Cornerstone, on whom alone we build, knit together with the foundation of the prophets and apostles, consecrated as His holy priesthood.
The one, holy, Christian and apostolic Church is that Zion of which the prophet speaks. For Isaiah, as all the prophets, were serving not themselves, but you, in the things which have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, as you heard last week. For it was not Jerusalem or the Temple Mount, but the heavenly Zion and the New Jerusalem, the Church, in heaven and upon earth, living together as a holy priesthood, united in Christ Jesus, the Cornerstone of faith and the Rock of salvation.
Did you hear it in the Psalm? It is referenced by St Peter who is inspired by the Holy Spirit, who likewise inspired David to pen that psalm sung tonight and repeated on Palm Sunday: The Stone that the builders rejected has become the Cornerstone.
Do you perceive the goodness of the Lord? Do you experience His trustworthiness in keeping His promises?
You heard on Sunday how our Lord Christ is Israel reduced to one Man. He is Himself the instantiation of the kingdom and our great High Priest before His God and Father. Yet He is also the Festal Sacrifice who rides into the Holy City atop the borrowed beast and is bound with the cords of our sins to the Altar of His Cross. He, the Lamb, enters through the Sheep Gate, to shouts of Hosanna, save us now, we pray, as He comes in the Name of the Lord, being blessed from the House of the Lord.
But He is rejected in the sight of men. Despised and lowly, mocked and shamefully treated and spit-up. He is handed over for the price of a slave and then handed over to death. All those who reject this Stone, it shall fall upon them and crush them. They disobey, that is, they disbelieve the Word, as sin destines us to do. As St Paul says above, Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness (1 Cor 10:5). But for you who believe, it is honor and glory and peace, for this is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the Day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it (Ps 118:23-24).
For you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people. Dear ones, this is a stunningly beautiful and comforting this word! For you, who were Gentile sinners, pagans, uncircumcised in heart and mind, cut off and dwelling in darkness, God, in His boundless love and infinite mercy, has given His own Son into the flesh to die for you, to set you free from sin and death, to shine the Light of His forgiving Word upon you, rescuing you from the darkness and the shadow of death. By this self-same Word He guides your path and footsteps into the Way of His peace. That is, He makes you His own beloved people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.
The mercy you have received in Christ Jesus is now yours to bestow and share. For you, dear priests, are baptized into the death and life of Christ Jesus, consecrated by His blood, set apart in His Spirit, to offer spiritual sacrifices of prayer, praise, and thanksgiving. And to proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you by His Gospel out of darkness into His marvelous light. Having been marked by His name, you belong to Him as His treasured possession among all peoples.
He grants you strength and courage to live the faith your lips confess, turning you from false allegiances and idols, that you may trust in Christ alone.
Behold tonight, dear ones, you newborn infants who have found refuge and sanctuary within your Mother and true Israel, the Church, your God and Father calls you to Himself once more. From the Mount Zion of His holy altar, He bestows upon you the fruit of His sacrifice, the spiritual food of His own Body and Blood. Here you come up to God Incarnate, receiving His mercy and blessing Him from the House of the Lord, even as He has made you His own household of faith.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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