Isaiah 40:1-5; St Luke 1:57-80
Ordination of Paul Schulz
Immanuel Lutheran Church - Terre Haute, IN
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
The Lord your God has given you a Savior, Christ Jesus, who has redeemed you from sin and death, delivered you from all your enemies, and set you free to live in Him and worship Him without fear.
That is what the nativity, the circumcision and name of St John the Baptist mean. For everything about this boy points to Christ, the Redeemer of Israel. The greatness of the Forerunner derives entirely from the Greater One who follows. To borrow a phrase: It’s all about Jesus. Everything always is.
But it may seem unnecessarily complicated that the Lord should bother with St John the Baptist. Why not simply send Jesus in the flesh and start the story there? What is the point of sending St John? His role and service are so relatively brief. Then he must decrease and make way for the Coming One. The Lord certainly could have given Zachariah and Elizabeth a son anyway, and probably much earlier, instead of leaving them childless for so many years. And then sent His own beloved Son. After all, its not as though Jesus needed any help in accomplishing redemption for His people. And what is there for St John to do anyway - he’s not even worthy to untie the sandals of the Lord’s feet! St John is not the Redeemer. He is not the Christ.
Who is he then? What’s the point? He is the Voice. The one who cries out today from his mother’s womb and in his circumcision. The one who will cry out the Word of the Lord in the wilderness. He is a prophet, and more than a prophet, who preached what the Lord has given him to preach, and with his preaching points to Christ Jesus and prepares His way.
It is by such preaching, by His Word spoken and proclaimed, that the Lord visits His people and gives them life and grants them peace. He does this not arbitrarily or because of human weakness. This is His good and gracious will. It is by design that you are verbal creatures, for you are created in the image and likeness of God, who is a Verbal God, a preached God.
For the God who created man in His Image, spoke to His people of old by the prophets, and then, when the time had fully come, sent His Son, the divine and enteral Word, who became Flesh. As He spoke, so He fulfilled. There is consistency and perfect continuity in the Lord’s speaking. So to now, as the Word becomes Flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the last and greatest prophet, St John, is given as gift, and goes before His face as a messenger.
And the message and the messenger are all but inseparable, especially in the case of St John the Baptist. Everything about him points to the coming Christ Jesus, the Word enfleshed who is even there present at St John’s circumcision and name, safely resting in the womb of His virgin mother. It is Him whom even Zechariah extols on the day of his own son’s circumcision, his first day of speech in nearly ten months - the Horn of Salvation, raised up in the House of David! So forgive me if I haven’t yet mentioned the candidate for ordination, Paul Augustine Luther (there’s a name fraught with theological meaning), for he is a bit like St John in this respect, as all pastors are. It’s not about him. It’s all about Jesus.
For the miraculous conception of St John to an old and barren couple anticipates the greater miracle of our Lord’s own conception and birth from the young Virgin Mary. His divinely given name - John, which means “grace” - anticipates and yields before the gracious name of Jesus, which testifies that He is Yahweh our Savior. The rejoicing of St Elizabeth’s family, friends and neighbors anticipates the rejoicing of heaven and earth at the Nativity of our Lord Jesus. Even the canticle of Zechariah already begins to find its fulfillment in the presentation of our Lord Jesus at the Temple in the canticle of Simeon who departs in peace in accordance with the Word of the Lord.
In all of this, fear is giving way to such Peace, as the glory of God is seen in His Word of the Gospel, and comfort is granted in the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of sins.
For this, dear friends, is how God works. And He does so in love. So much so that the eternal Word of the Father, the sole begotten Son of God, takes up Flesh in the womb of His Virgin Mother in order to visit and redeem His people; to save you from your enemies, from the hand of all who hate you. That is, from the fierce rage and fury of the devil, the despotism of sin and the hostility of the world.
It is by the preaching of this Word that God the Holy Spirit is given and by which the Spirit lays Christ Jesus upon your heart and mind, upon your body and soul for life and salvation. Which is why those who are filled with the Holy Spirit do one thing above all others: they speak as oracles of God. They pray and sing His Word. They confess. They prophecy and proclaim and preach, each according to his own proper vocation, whether it be the priest Zachariah or the Pastor Paul Schulz. As they believe with the heart, so do they speak. They preach.
As the Holy Spirit enters in and makes ready the way of Christ through the preaching of St John the Baptist, so does this same preaching continue this day in order to open the way of Christ to you. This is the preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. This is the preaching that levels mountains and fills up valleys. It shatters both pride and despair. It straightens what is crooked and bent and makes flat and smooth what is rough and uneven. This is the preaching that wounds in order to heal. The preaching that kills in order to make alive.
This is the preaching of St John the Baptist, the culmination and crescendo of all the Law and the Prophets. He comes in the spirit and power of not only Elijah, but also Moses, proclaiming the Law with all of its demands, its promises and threats, its holy perfection and fiery judgment. It is the rolling thunder of a terrible storm. All hell is about to break loose in the righteous wrath of God and even now the axe is poised at the root of every fruitless tree to cut it down and throw it into the fire.
And this preaching is the Word of God to do what it says. It is fire and a hammer; it crushes and destroys the sinner. But where is the comfort of the Gospel in this? Where is the peace and forgiveness and salvation? How does such dire preaching point to Christ Jesus and prepare the way for His coming?This is the key to understanding St John’s coming and the purpose for which he was sent. Even he didn’t comprehend this at first.
For he was sent to preach not only repentance, but a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. In that baptism was all that he preached: all the Law and the Prophets, the promises and threats, the blessing and curse, the wound and healing, the falling and rising, the death of sin and the life everlasting in Christ. So that Christ Jesus comes and submits Himself to St John’s baptism of repentance. He submits Himself to the Law; He takes His stand with sinners, in order to become their Savior and Redeemer. And yours.
Jesus doesn’t wave away the fire and brimstone of St John’s preaching, but receives them in Himself. He is the Lamb of God that St John proclaims and He takes upon Himself the sins of the world in order to remove iniquity by His own sacrifice and bloodshed. He cleanses the world of unrighteousness through the waters of Holy Baptism. He soaks ups all the dirty water into His own flesh and then hands Himself over to His death upon the Cross where the wrath of the Father against sin is wrung out upon Him.
He already submits to this death when He submits Himself to St John’s baptism of repentance. He dies, in order to raise you up. He comes down from the lofty mountain in order to bring you up out of the deep dark valley of death and despair. He enters upon the way of the Cross for you and for all, that your way might be cleared and opened up; that you might enter through His death into His Resurrection and Ascension and life everlasting.
This is the mercy of the Lord that He reveals in the Nativity of St John the Baptist. Not only to Elizabeth and Zachariah, but to you. He remembers His holy Covenant in that flesh of Christ Jesus, and in His holy precious Blood, given and poured out for you. He remembers you in love, and in remembering, He acts to save you, to give you life. He makes Himself known to you and gives Himself to you and shines His Light upon you through the preaching of His Word - the preaching of His Christ - which is the Gospel, the forgiveness of all your sins. Truly, this Word does and gives exactly what He says.
And His Word gives you preachers of this Word down to this day. Men who come in the way of Moses and Elijah, in the way of St John the Baptist, proclaiming the Greater One who is Come, who is in your midst, in the Covenant of His Holy Body and Blood, in His Baptism for you, and in His forgiving Word. Men like Pastor Schulz, upon whom the mantle of Elijah is placed this day and the yoke of the Lord. Men sent to preach what the Lord has given them to preach. Whose preaching prepares the way of the Lord through His Law and Gospel, and points to Christ Jesus as the fulfillment of the promises and threats, the death and life for you. This Word which comforts you and brings you peace. The Word which sets you free from fear to worship Him in holiness and righteousness all the days of your life.
So that even today, the Nativity of St John the Baptist and the Ordination of Paul Augustine Luther Schulz, is still all about Jesus. Everything is always about Jesus.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Ordination of Paul Schulz
Immanuel Lutheran Church - Terre Haute, IN
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
The Lord your God has given you a Savior, Christ Jesus, who has redeemed you from sin and death, delivered you from all your enemies, and set you free to live in Him and worship Him without fear.
That is what the nativity, the circumcision and name of St John the Baptist mean. For everything about this boy points to Christ, the Redeemer of Israel. The greatness of the Forerunner derives entirely from the Greater One who follows. To borrow a phrase: It’s all about Jesus. Everything always is.
But it may seem unnecessarily complicated that the Lord should bother with St John the Baptist. Why not simply send Jesus in the flesh and start the story there? What is the point of sending St John? His role and service are so relatively brief. Then he must decrease and make way for the Coming One. The Lord certainly could have given Zachariah and Elizabeth a son anyway, and probably much earlier, instead of leaving them childless for so many years. And then sent His own beloved Son. After all, its not as though Jesus needed any help in accomplishing redemption for His people. And what is there for St John to do anyway - he’s not even worthy to untie the sandals of the Lord’s feet! St John is not the Redeemer. He is not the Christ.
Who is he then? What’s the point? He is the Voice. The one who cries out today from his mother’s womb and in his circumcision. The one who will cry out the Word of the Lord in the wilderness. He is a prophet, and more than a prophet, who preached what the Lord has given him to preach, and with his preaching points to Christ Jesus and prepares His way.
It is by such preaching, by His Word spoken and proclaimed, that the Lord visits His people and gives them life and grants them peace. He does this not arbitrarily or because of human weakness. This is His good and gracious will. It is by design that you are verbal creatures, for you are created in the image and likeness of God, who is a Verbal God, a preached God.
For the God who created man in His Image, spoke to His people of old by the prophets, and then, when the time had fully come, sent His Son, the divine and enteral Word, who became Flesh. As He spoke, so He fulfilled. There is consistency and perfect continuity in the Lord’s speaking. So to now, as the Word becomes Flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the last and greatest prophet, St John, is given as gift, and goes before His face as a messenger.
And the message and the messenger are all but inseparable, especially in the case of St John the Baptist. Everything about him points to the coming Christ Jesus, the Word enfleshed who is even there present at St John’s circumcision and name, safely resting in the womb of His virgin mother. It is Him whom even Zechariah extols on the day of his own son’s circumcision, his first day of speech in nearly ten months - the Horn of Salvation, raised up in the House of David! So forgive me if I haven’t yet mentioned the candidate for ordination, Paul Augustine Luther (there’s a name fraught with theological meaning), for he is a bit like St John in this respect, as all pastors are. It’s not about him. It’s all about Jesus.
For the miraculous conception of St John to an old and barren couple anticipates the greater miracle of our Lord’s own conception and birth from the young Virgin Mary. His divinely given name - John, which means “grace” - anticipates and yields before the gracious name of Jesus, which testifies that He is Yahweh our Savior. The rejoicing of St Elizabeth’s family, friends and neighbors anticipates the rejoicing of heaven and earth at the Nativity of our Lord Jesus. Even the canticle of Zechariah already begins to find its fulfillment in the presentation of our Lord Jesus at the Temple in the canticle of Simeon who departs in peace in accordance with the Word of the Lord.
In all of this, fear is giving way to such Peace, as the glory of God is seen in His Word of the Gospel, and comfort is granted in the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of sins.
For this, dear friends, is how God works. And He does so in love. So much so that the eternal Word of the Father, the sole begotten Son of God, takes up Flesh in the womb of His Virgin Mother in order to visit and redeem His people; to save you from your enemies, from the hand of all who hate you. That is, from the fierce rage and fury of the devil, the despotism of sin and the hostility of the world.
It is by the preaching of this Word that God the Holy Spirit is given and by which the Spirit lays Christ Jesus upon your heart and mind, upon your body and soul for life and salvation. Which is why those who are filled with the Holy Spirit do one thing above all others: they speak as oracles of God. They pray and sing His Word. They confess. They prophecy and proclaim and preach, each according to his own proper vocation, whether it be the priest Zachariah or the Pastor Paul Schulz. As they believe with the heart, so do they speak. They preach.
As the Holy Spirit enters in and makes ready the way of Christ through the preaching of St John the Baptist, so does this same preaching continue this day in order to open the way of Christ to you. This is the preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. This is the preaching that levels mountains and fills up valleys. It shatters both pride and despair. It straightens what is crooked and bent and makes flat and smooth what is rough and uneven. This is the preaching that wounds in order to heal. The preaching that kills in order to make alive.
This is the preaching of St John the Baptist, the culmination and crescendo of all the Law and the Prophets. He comes in the spirit and power of not only Elijah, but also Moses, proclaiming the Law with all of its demands, its promises and threats, its holy perfection and fiery judgment. It is the rolling thunder of a terrible storm. All hell is about to break loose in the righteous wrath of God and even now the axe is poised at the root of every fruitless tree to cut it down and throw it into the fire.
And this preaching is the Word of God to do what it says. It is fire and a hammer; it crushes and destroys the sinner. But where is the comfort of the Gospel in this? Where is the peace and forgiveness and salvation? How does such dire preaching point to Christ Jesus and prepare the way for His coming?This is the key to understanding St John’s coming and the purpose for which he was sent. Even he didn’t comprehend this at first.
For he was sent to preach not only repentance, but a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. In that baptism was all that he preached: all the Law and the Prophets, the promises and threats, the blessing and curse, the wound and healing, the falling and rising, the death of sin and the life everlasting in Christ. So that Christ Jesus comes and submits Himself to St John’s baptism of repentance. He submits Himself to the Law; He takes His stand with sinners, in order to become their Savior and Redeemer. And yours.
Jesus doesn’t wave away the fire and brimstone of St John’s preaching, but receives them in Himself. He is the Lamb of God that St John proclaims and He takes upon Himself the sins of the world in order to remove iniquity by His own sacrifice and bloodshed. He cleanses the world of unrighteousness through the waters of Holy Baptism. He soaks ups all the dirty water into His own flesh and then hands Himself over to His death upon the Cross where the wrath of the Father against sin is wrung out upon Him.
He already submits to this death when He submits Himself to St John’s baptism of repentance. He dies, in order to raise you up. He comes down from the lofty mountain in order to bring you up out of the deep dark valley of death and despair. He enters upon the way of the Cross for you and for all, that your way might be cleared and opened up; that you might enter through His death into His Resurrection and Ascension and life everlasting.
This is the mercy of the Lord that He reveals in the Nativity of St John the Baptist. Not only to Elizabeth and Zachariah, but to you. He remembers His holy Covenant in that flesh of Christ Jesus, and in His holy precious Blood, given and poured out for you. He remembers you in love, and in remembering, He acts to save you, to give you life. He makes Himself known to you and gives Himself to you and shines His Light upon you through the preaching of His Word - the preaching of His Christ - which is the Gospel, the forgiveness of all your sins. Truly, this Word does and gives exactly what He says.
And His Word gives you preachers of this Word down to this day. Men who come in the way of Moses and Elijah, in the way of St John the Baptist, proclaiming the Greater One who is Come, who is in your midst, in the Covenant of His Holy Body and Blood, in His Baptism for you, and in His forgiving Word. Men like Pastor Schulz, upon whom the mantle of Elijah is placed this day and the yoke of the Lord. Men sent to preach what the Lord has given them to preach. Whose preaching prepares the way of the Lord through His Law and Gospel, and points to Christ Jesus as the fulfillment of the promises and threats, the death and life for you. This Word which comforts you and brings you peace. The Word which sets you free from fear to worship Him in holiness and righteousness all the days of your life.
So that even today, the Nativity of St John the Baptist and the Ordination of Paul Augustine Luther Schulz, is still all about Jesus. Everything is always about Jesus.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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