St Luke 22:1-23:56/Isaiah 62:11-63:7
In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.
Today marks the actual beginning of the events that will reach their culmination in the Crucifixion. The Sanhedrin conspires against Jesus and contracts with Judas, whom the devil had entered. Sometimes today is called Spy Wednesday. Tomorrow is Maundy Thursday, the beginning of the three day period known as the Triduum during which we contemplate our Lord’s passion and death.
Yet even now the hope of victory foreshadowed: At the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, as you spoke in the Introit. Even during these deepening hours, we are given the word of hope concerning Him whom the prophet Isaiah saw returning in glorious apparel, bearing the marks of His awful travail and struggle, but as Victor! Behold, your salvation comes; behold, His reward is with Him, and His recompense before Him. Who is this who comes from Edom, He who is splendid in His apparel, marching in the greatness of His strength? It is I, speaking in righteousness, mighty to save.
And so we have on our minds and hearts and lips the simplest of prayers this day: “Grant that our hearts may be so fixed with steadfast faith in Him that we fear not the power of sin, death, and the devil.”
Note the restraint. There are so many things crowding in, so many things to pray for, but this simple prayer collects and carries all our ills to the one and only Source of healing. This is what we need so desperately – courage and a clean conscience in the face of sin, death, and the devil.
We have sung these past three days: “Grace and life eternal / In that blood I find; / Blest be His compassion, / Infinitely kind! / Blest through endless ages / Be the precious stream / Which from endless torment / Did the world redeem!” (LSB 433:2-3). “Blest be His compassion.” Compassion is “com” meaning with and “passion” as in our Lord’s passion. Passion means to desire so intensely that it causes suffering. Compassion means to suffer with.
We hear this explicitly in our Lord’s words to His apostles: I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. He then institutes and gives to them His Holy Supper of His Body and Blood, the height of His compassion for you.
For our Lord’s passion is indeed His agony and death upon the Cross for the forgiveness of your sins. But His compassion, His suffering with you, is distributed in His Body and Blood. He procures your deliverance from sin, death, and the devil upon the Cross. He distributes it to you here in the Eucharist.
Even in calling His last will and testament His Eucharist, we confess the reality here given: forgiveness, life, salvation, mercy, love, peace, joy, a clean conscience all in the eating and drinking of His Body and Blood in faith; by which we proclaim His death until He comes again.
Note how the centurion responded to our Lord’s death: When the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, saying, “Certainly this man was innocent!” Seeing the kind of death Jesus died, he recognizes, by the grace of God, who Jesus is. He rejoices and praises God. For the death of Jesus Christ is substitutionary. The centurion recognized that Jesus died in his place, that Jesus has substituted His perfect life and death for his. He realizes that he could not have obtained this in any other way. In his sins, he was God’s sworn and eternal enemy, but Jesus died for him, to make him the friend and even the Bride of God. So he praises God.
Let us join him. We have no less to praise God for than he did. We too have been born anew by the water and blood set free by his spear. We too have been made friends and bride of God. This is truly something for which to praise God, for surely this Jesus is a righteous man for us, and by His righteousness we are declared righteous.
And here, in His Body and Blood, He gives you His righteousness. He calls you friends and welcomes you to His table. He calls you brothers and has made you sons of His Father in heaven. He has made you His splendid and holy Bride.
Praise God, Jesus died to make us free. Praise God He did not shrink from His mission by loved us to the end. Praise God, He is not dead. He lives, and we too live in Him. Our “Alleluias” will return. Easter is coming.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.
Today marks the actual beginning of the events that will reach their culmination in the Crucifixion. The Sanhedrin conspires against Jesus and contracts with Judas, whom the devil had entered. Sometimes today is called Spy Wednesday. Tomorrow is Maundy Thursday, the beginning of the three day period known as the Triduum during which we contemplate our Lord’s passion and death.
Yet even now the hope of victory foreshadowed: At the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, as you spoke in the Introit. Even during these deepening hours, we are given the word of hope concerning Him whom the prophet Isaiah saw returning in glorious apparel, bearing the marks of His awful travail and struggle, but as Victor! Behold, your salvation comes; behold, His reward is with Him, and His recompense before Him. Who is this who comes from Edom, He who is splendid in His apparel, marching in the greatness of His strength? It is I, speaking in righteousness, mighty to save.
And so we have on our minds and hearts and lips the simplest of prayers this day: “Grant that our hearts may be so fixed with steadfast faith in Him that we fear not the power of sin, death, and the devil.”
Note the restraint. There are so many things crowding in, so many things to pray for, but this simple prayer collects and carries all our ills to the one and only Source of healing. This is what we need so desperately – courage and a clean conscience in the face of sin, death, and the devil.
We have sung these past three days: “Grace and life eternal / In that blood I find; / Blest be His compassion, / Infinitely kind! / Blest through endless ages / Be the precious stream / Which from endless torment / Did the world redeem!” (LSB 433:2-3). “Blest be His compassion.” Compassion is “com” meaning with and “passion” as in our Lord’s passion. Passion means to desire so intensely that it causes suffering. Compassion means to suffer with.
We hear this explicitly in our Lord’s words to His apostles: I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. He then institutes and gives to them His Holy Supper of His Body and Blood, the height of His compassion for you.
For our Lord’s passion is indeed His agony and death upon the Cross for the forgiveness of your sins. But His compassion, His suffering with you, is distributed in His Body and Blood. He procures your deliverance from sin, death, and the devil upon the Cross. He distributes it to you here in the Eucharist.
Even in calling His last will and testament His Eucharist, we confess the reality here given: forgiveness, life, salvation, mercy, love, peace, joy, a clean conscience all in the eating and drinking of His Body and Blood in faith; by which we proclaim His death until He comes again.
Note how the centurion responded to our Lord’s death: When the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, saying, “Certainly this man was innocent!” Seeing the kind of death Jesus died, he recognizes, by the grace of God, who Jesus is. He rejoices and praises God. For the death of Jesus Christ is substitutionary. The centurion recognized that Jesus died in his place, that Jesus has substituted His perfect life and death for his. He realizes that he could not have obtained this in any other way. In his sins, he was God’s sworn and eternal enemy, but Jesus died for him, to make him the friend and even the Bride of God. So he praises God.
Let us join him. We have no less to praise God for than he did. We too have been born anew by the water and blood set free by his spear. We too have been made friends and bride of God. This is truly something for which to praise God, for surely this Jesus is a righteous man for us, and by His righteousness we are declared righteous.
And here, in His Body and Blood, He gives you His righteousness. He calls you friends and welcomes you to His table. He calls you brothers and has made you sons of His Father in heaven. He has made you His splendid and holy Bride.
Praise God, Jesus died to make us free. Praise God He did not shrink from His mission by loved us to the end. Praise God, He is not dead. He lives, and we too live in Him. Our “Alleluias” will return. Easter is coming.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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