Monday, May 27, 2013

LSB Holy Trinity Sunday C Sermon - John 8:48-59


May 26, 2013 at Calvary Evangelical Lutheran Church – Mechanicsburg, PA

Blessed be the Holy Trinity and the undivided Unity. Let us give glory to Him because He has shown His mercy to us.

Those words spoken at the very beginning of Divine Service this morning are an ancient liturgical text that Christians have used for a good sixteen centuries or more. They capture the theme of this Sunday that we call Holy Trinity Sunday or the Festival of the Holy Trinity. Today marks the end of what liturgical scholars call the “Festival Half” of the Church Year. From the beginning of Advent, six months ago in December, to the Festival of Pentecost, celebrated last week, we have traced the goodness and graciousness that the Lord has shown to us through the life and work of Jesus Christ.

That divine mercy was behind everything that we heard and did in our worship. In Advent, we heard the great promises from God the Father about the coming Christ, especially His promised recorded in the Old Testament. The Christmas and Epiphany Seasons focused our minds on the Eternal Son, the God who became man and dwelt among us, who did miraculous things that brought restoration. But the message during Lent was that the Incarnate God did not come to earth simply to dazzle and amaze us, but to suffer in our place, so that we would be given life. Easter brought the joyous news that the same Jesus who was crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men had been raised from death, opening the gates of Paradise for us. The Festival of Pentecost reminded us that God Himself is still present with us: Jesus has ascended into heaven, but the Holy Spirit has descended to earth.

Through all those divine actions that we spoke and heard together with our fellow Christians around the world, we were shown how the Triune God has been gracious and merciful to us. He has worked our salvation; He has reconciled us to Himself and to one another; He has purged away our sins and given us life everlasting. That is why we said this morning: “Blessed be the Holy Trinity and the undivided Unity. Let us give glory to Him because He has shown His mercy to us.” That divine mercy, which the Holy Trinity demonstrated to us, is shown again in the readings for this morning’s Divine Service. On this day that caps off the Festival Half, we are given a summary of all the merciful acts that the Lord has done for us.

In the Old Testament Reading, the eternal origin of God the Son was described: “The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of His acts of old. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth.” The author of the Proverbs gives more than a description about God; he also tells what the Lord has done for us, how He has shown His mercy to us. That mercy was first seen in the divine act of creating the world. Notice all the statements about what the Lord did: “He made the earth with its fields…He established the heavens…He drew a circle on the face of the deep…He made firm the skies above…He assigned to the sea its limit.” The divine origin of the world is an act of the Lord’s mercy to us. It is the most basic, providential form of it. The Lord wants us to exist and live, so He creates a world according to His will and design and places us in it.  

But the mercy that the Lord shows to us goes further. The same world that He established in order and perfection has fallen from that state, so He does something about it. He becomes part of His creation in order to redeem it. The Gospel Reading heard this morning shows that further aspect of the Holy Trinity’s divine mercy shown to us. We heard about Jesus and His confrontation with unbelieving Jews. Despite all the divine glory that Jesus possessed and brought into this world, what do we see Him receive? We see Jesus mocked, ridiculed, and blasphemed: “Are we not right in saying that You are a Samaritan? Now we know that You have a demon! Who do You make Yourself out to be?” There is a rejection of the Lord who is present to help His creation.

But Jesus’ response to them shows that He is not swayed from His mission of mercy. He will endure them, so that His creation will still be helped. Jesus says: “If I glorify Myself, My glory is nothing. It is My Father who glorifies Me. I know Him and I keep His word.” Jesus knows that His presence in this world was not to glorify Himself. No, the divine mercy that He shows requires His suffering and dying. Jesus was present to keep His Father’s word—both His commandments and His will that He must suffer insult and total rejection, even being obedient to death on the cross. Jesus’ miracles were not the high point of His ministry; they were only ways that His identity was partially revealed. It is in His crucifixion, in His innocent suffering and death, and His resurrection that we see Jesus truly fulfilling the prophetic words spoken about Him. God Himself takes flesh and dies in our place: that is the act of divine mercy done for us.

But the divine mercy goes even further: Jesus rises again to put our great enemies under His feet. The eternal Son of God was raised from the dead, ascended into heaven, and now sits at the right hand of the Father. That is what Peter proclaimed to the people of Jerusalem, as we heard in the Second Reading this day: “Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves know—this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised Him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for Him to be held by it.”

That great summary of Jesus’ life reveals the divine acts of mercy that the Lord has shown to us. “According to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God,” Jesus suffered, died, was buried, but also rose and ascended. These things happened not by accident, but on purpose. And there was one more event, as Peter makes known: “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.”

Peter’s words show us that the divine acts of mercy are not only things of the past. They do not end the moment that Jesus ascended into heaven; they continue today. Through the work of the Holy Spirit, God acts mercifully to us in our own place and time. The apostles and the people of Jerusalem were shown this through the miraculous happenings of Pentecost—the tongues of fire, the speaking in many languages, the mass conversion of people: “[This Jesus] has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.”

But what Peter said about his own day is true for ours. We see the merciful work of God in our midst. It is displayed whenever people are brought to faith, when the Holy Spirit brings them into the divine household through Holy Baptism. We see it in Spirit-given maturation and growth in the faith, as witnessed by the confirmation of our parish youth. We see it when people turn from sinful ways to learn and follow the way of life laid out for us by Christ Jesus. We see it when the Father absolves our sins, no longer counting them against us, but instead reckons us as His holy people. We see it when Jesus offers us His Body and Blood for us to eat and drink for the forgiveness of sins. We see it when the Father takes people out of this life of illness, suffering, and death and brings them to life everlasting.

Every single one of these actions is part of the divine work done among us. They are not relics of the past; they are the acts of divine mercy shown to us in our day. They all have the same origin: “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.” The Triune God, the Three in One and One in Three, has done these things in our midst. Just as the Holy Trinity has shown mercy to His people throughout the history of the Church, He does so now. And He will do so in the future, so long as the message of His mercy is proclaimed in the world and His sacraments are offered and given.

This is why we are gathered here, why we have been made part of the Christian Church on earth, why we are heirs to an everlasting kingdom. We are recipients of the divine mercy; God has acted for our benefit, though in no way have we deserved or merited it. We have possession of salvation; not that we have achieved or won it, but it has been granted to us through the merciful, compassionate, and gracious work of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That is the great truth that the Scriptures reveal to us and that we then confess in our creeds about our Triune God.

So what is our reaction to it? We praise Him, we bless Him, we worship Him, we give thanks to Him for His great glory—the divine glory that has been used on our behalf to bring us from guilt to holiness, from despair to hope, from death to life. Because He has placed His name on us, because He has made us His own people, because He has brought salvation to us, we can always rightly say those words that began our Divine Service: Blessed be the Holy Trinity and the undivided Unity. Let us give glory to Him because He has shown His mercy to us.

+ In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Sunday, May 12, 2013

LSB Easter 7C Sermon - John 17:20-26


May 12, 2013 at Calvary Evangelical Lutheran Church – Mechanicsburg, PA

[Jesus said:] “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one, just as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You have sent Me.”

Last Sunday, you heard Jesus teach His apostles about prayer. Jesus told them that they would ask things of the Father in His name and that the Father would grant them what they asked. Jesus’ followers had been given a status through Jesus’ actions that allowed them to pray this way. That same status has been granted to you. But today, on this final Sunday of Easter, you do not hear Jesus teach you about prayer. Instead, you hear Jesus praying for you. Your Lord asks things of the Father for you to receive and to experience. That is important to note. Even though last Sunday you heard Jesus’ words describing how His followers would ask things of the Father and depend on Him answering their petitions, Jesus still prays for His disciples. It is part of His role as your Great High Priest.

When hearing Jesus pray for His disciples, it is not enough to know that He prays. Attention must be paid to what Jesus prays for, what He requests from His Father for you. Your hope and trust in Jesus is not that He does something for you. Your faith is in specific things that Jesus has done for you and in the specific promises that He has made to you. The same is true about Jesus’ praying. You must know the specific things that Jesus prays for, not just that He prays. You need to hear what He is asking for, so that you know what you should expect to receive from God the Father.

So hear the specific words that Jesus prays to the Father: “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one, just as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You have sent Me.” Looking at those specific things that Jesus asks for, you should notice that they are requests that might not be typically thought about in your prayers. But they are things you need. More importantly, they are what only God Himself can provide. Now you might think that only God Himself is able to provide everything that you ask for. And that is true in a way. But usually God uses things or people of this world to meet your physical needs. This prayer that Jesus offers for you is a bit different. He is asking the Father to grant you spiritual items that come directly from Him, not through the pieces of His creation.

Jesus asks the Father to give you unity, faith, glory, an eternal presence with Him, knowledge of the Father, and love. These don’t come through the general operation of the world. Unity, faith, glory, eternal life, knowledge of God, and love are all part of a realm of things that come directly from God Himself. They are what God the Holy Spirit provides to believers through the word of Jesus, the word that His apostles carry. That is why Jesus prayed: “I ask for those who will believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one.”

On this Sunday between Ascension Day and Pentecost, Jesus’ words focus your minds on what the Holy Spirit delivers to you. Like all of God’s actions, it’s necessary to know what He is doing, not just that He is doing something. Jesus promised His disciples that a Comforter, a Helper would be sent to them. No longer would Jesus be earthly present with His followers. Knowing this, He does not leave them abandoned, but sends the Holy Spirit to them.

Jesus’ prayer is all about what that promised Helper would accomplish among His followers. The Holy Spirit’s actions are how God the Father answers His Son’s prayer. That is how unity, faith, glory, eternal life, knowledge of God, and love would be bestowed to His disciples, both on the first Day of Pentecost and in the present day. These gifts are granted through the renewing, transformative work of the Holy Spirit that Jesus requests the Father to send into this sinful world.

You certainly need that renewing, transformative work of the Holy Spirit. Without it, you would have nothing that Jesus prays for. Without the Holy Spirit’s work you would have no unity, no faith, no glory, no eternal life, no knowledge of God, and no love. These are the things of God, not the things of sinful humanity. To realize this, you need only look around you. There are times when such things are absent even in the community of Jesus’ followers. The absence is seen even more so in what you encounter outside this community of believers. Think not only of what you encounter, but what you yourself even perpetrate.

No unity naturally occurs in the world, while discord and war and hatred thrive. Just again in these past several weeks, the crises in Syria and Korea were back on the front pages. Faith and trust are replaced with cynicism and doubt. Read the polls of how little people believe their government officials or business leaders, or even their own family members and loved ones. Knowledge of God is lacking, even in America that some try to call “God’s country”. Eternal life is nowhere to be found. Look at the way that modern, Western society has even discounted earthly life, with the pursuit of a culture of death, the unbridled manipulation of biology, and the profaning of the gift of sexuality that the Creator has granted. While horrific details of the Gosnell trial in Philadelphia and the decade-long enslavement of the women in Cleveland stand out, they are not once-in-a-lifetime events, but just another in a long series of atrocities.

And what must be confessed about such things? All of the above is humanity’s awful work, the skilled handiwork of sinful beings. But Jesus’ work is the opposite. His work was to reverse all that and to bring to you what you were missing, what you could not provide for yourself or others. That is what Jesus accomplished by His perfect life, His sacrificial death, and His powerful resurrection. In His life, you see the divine things made present in this world: unity, faith, glory, eternal life, knowledge of God, and love. They characterize everything that Jesus did.

After His work was fulfilled, Jesus ascended into heaven. But with His earthly departure, Jesus is not present to do the same things He did while He walked in Galilee, Judea, and Samaria. But the divine acts are not ended with Jesus’ ascension. The Holy Spirit is sent to continue the work of Jesus. Or to put it a bit more precisely, the Holy Spirit is sent to carry the effects and benefits of Jesus’ work into the world. This is how God the Father fulfills His Son’s prayer.

Jesus’ prayer is answered as the Holy Spirit gathers all believers in Jesus into the one Christian Church on earth. His prayer is answered as the Holy Spirit calls you by the Gospel and enlightens you with His gifts, creates faith in you, and brings you a true knowledge of God. It’s answered as the Holy Spirit raises the faithful to everlasting life, to experience the glory of God for all eternity, to bring you where Jesus has gone.

How does the Holy Spirit do these things? By bringing Jesus’ word to you. He brings that word to you when it is taught and proclaimed. He brings that word to you as it is connected with water and with bread and wine. The Holy Spirit works through that word to carry the message of Jesus to each one of you. He brings you the content and foundation of your faith. He provides you what you need to know about your sin and your salvation. That word of Jesus, recorded for you by those who heard and believed, then becomes what you speak and teach, so that the Holy Spirit may lead others to hear and believe.

This is how Jesus’ prayer is answered in our midst. He asks the Father to help you. For you are the ones that Jesus speaks about: “those who will believe in Me through [the apostles’] word.” And Jesus asks help for you: “that they may all be one, just as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be in Us.” That is what the Holy Spirit has done for you. You have believed through the apostles’ word, the teaching of Jesus that they have handed down. So you are one with Jesus, united to Him, beneficiaries of His work, recipients of His grace and gifts. You are one with each other, united with every condemned sinner who has been forgiven and brought into the Church’s fellowship. You are one with the Father, children of His holy household, with His name on your foreheads.

Like everything Jesus says, this prayer of His has been fulfilled. It has been fulfilled for your benefit. So you can be most thankful, responding by offering your own prayers of worship and praise, both now and in eternity. For Jesus’ prayer is not meant for just this present day; there is a future for you disclosed in His words: Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, may be with Me where I am, to see My glory that You have given Me because You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” That is what God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit desire. And most importantly, that will is what they accomplish for you. That is the specific something that will be yours, just as the same Jesus whose work made it possible asks it.

+ In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Monday, May 6, 2013

LSB Easter 6C Sermon - John 16:23-33


May 5, 2013 at Calvary Evangelical Lutheran Church – Mechanicsburg, PA

“Behold the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave Me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with Me. I have said these things to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

As the Passover Meal on Holy Thursday drew to a close, Jesus wraps up His Farewell Discourse to His disciples. You heard some of that last Sunday, including the statement that closed the Gospel Reading: “So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.” Jesus’ statement foretells the outcome of His death and resurrection. Rising from death, Jesus will return to His disciples. They will have joy replace their sorrow that came at Jesus’ crucifixion.

But the reality of the sorrow is there. We talked about that last Sunday. Jesus’ words heard this morning reinforce that fact for His disciples: “Behold the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave Me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with Me. I have said these things to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” Jesus tells them what they will go through. When He is arrested in Gethsemane, His disciples will run away. Yes, there will be the swordplay of Peter. But after he is told to stand down by Jesus, Peter and the rest will abandon Jesus. One young man will run away naked, leaving his linen cloth behind.

Despite this running away by His disciples, Jesus is not left alone. He is supported by the Father: “Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with Me.” This is why Jesus prays to the Father in Gethsemane. It is why He recites the words of the 22nd Psalm on the cross, a song that speaks of death and resurrection. It is why Jesus can call on His Father to forgive the sin that the soldiers commit in their ignorance—the murder of a righteous man. And when knowing all is finished, everything that the Father willed has been completed, Jesus commends His spirit to Him. Jesus is not alone; the Father is with Him. His words reveal that: “I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father.”

What Jesus undergoes in His death and resurrection accomplishes something for His disciples. Those who ran away out of fear are changed. They need that change that Jesus gives to them. This is why He discloses the events that will take place: “I have said these things to you, that in Me you may have peace.” He does not keep the future events secret. He does not sugarcoat their experiences. No, Jesus is quite clear that they will abandon Him. He is also very forthright about the troubles they will go through as His followers.

But Jesus is also quite clear about what He is doing for His disciples: “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” That is what Jesus’ resurrection does. It provides victory over the world and the tribulation that the world causes. By rising from death, Jesus restores order; He brings things back to the way that the Father willed it from the beginning. That work includes the reestablishment of the harmonious relationship between God and man.

Jesus discloses the status that His disciples will have after His resurrection. It is preceded by the closing verse from last Sunday: “So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.” Then Jesus speaks the words you heard this morning: “In that day you will ask nothing of Me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in My name, He will give it to you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” Jesus gives His disciples direct access to the Father. They now have a status similar to His own. Just as Jesus could speak directly to the Father, now His disciples can. That privilege is theirs because Jesus has removed the barriers between God and them: “the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I have come from God.”

This status that Jesus gives to His first disciples is extended to you. The negatives that come from that status are present. You do have tribulation in this world because you follow Jesus. But your fate is not to be left wallowing in the troubles of this world. That is not the outcome of Jesus’ work for you. Jesus reminds you that the world has been overcome by His death and resurrection. He has made you part of something greater than this world. He has brought you into His Church, into the company of all those who have loved Him and believed that He has come from God. So the Father loves you. You are given the privilege of calling God your Father. It is how you pray to Him because you have been made His children. You ask for the things that you need, especially during the times of trouble; He answers by providing them for you.

In the prayer that Jesus instructs you to offer to the Father, you make petitions for what you need and desire. You ask help to keep God’s name holy in what you say and do. You want to be included in the borders of His kingdom. You desire that His will for you be accomplished here on earth. You look to Him to give you food in due season. You request the absolution for your sins. You seek aid to be led through the times of temptation without sinning. And then you make the ultimate request of the Father: take us from the clutches of the evil one and bring us to eternal safety.

All the petitions that you make to the Father in the Lord’s Prayer are offered in Jesus’ Name. He has authorized you to do so. He has given you the command to pray this way. And this is given with the promise: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in My name, He will give it to you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” Why can Jesus give this promise? Why will these petitions be answered? Because of what He has done for you. He has overcome the world.

What you ask of the Father is predicated on the death and resurrection of Jesus. The result of those events—order restored, divine will fulfilled—make it possible for you to ask of the Father and to receive. United to Jesus’ death and resurrection in baptism, made adopted children of God through that act, you can call God your Father. You can expect Him to answer you. And you can anticipate the receipt of the inheritance promised to you. It is yours as you love His Son Jesus and believe that He came from God.

The overcoming of the world that Jesus accomplished by His death and resurrection provides the answer to your ultimate request of the Father. You ask to be delivered from the evil one. That petition calls for removal from all the tribulation in the world, from all the opponents of God, from all the effects that your sin and the offenses of others work, from all the plagues and illnesses, from all blemishes and bruises that earthly life causes. Such deliverance is possible because your Lord Jesus bore all these things for you. It is yours because Jesus fulfilled His words: “I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father.”

Jesus’ coming into the world and then His going back to the Father has brought forth the blessed fate that John saw in his vision. What John saw of the Church is what he saw of you: “And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal.” That is where you belong. That is where Jesus’ work takes you. That is what the deliverance from evil looks like: “Nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” You are in that book of life. That is where Jesus’ death and resurrection places you. It is how you have peace in Him. This is the blessing that God has bestowed to you through the gracious, saving power exercised on your behalf. So you may ask of the Father for it. Loved by Him, you shall receive.

+ In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.