Silence, or not [Pentecost]

 

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Genesis 11:1-9

• Acts 2:1-13

• St. John 14:23-31

Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior. (Titus 1:4)

 

Who speaks to you today, from His Gospel heard in His Service, saying: 

“Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me.”

 

Yesterday, silence was golden. Today silence is violence or compliance. The world is bipolar when it comes to silence, either calling it wise on inspirational posters or slamming it in political circles.

 

Here in the Lord’s Church, we have no problem with silence, or at least I don’t. I think there should be silence all over the Service. At some points it should be written in; after the Gospel, after the Sermon, after receiving the Lord’s Supper. Here are beneficial places where you should be silent. Not empty silence, but silent to ponder just what has truly happened to you.

 

At other points, we should not be left in silence. For example, before confessing our sins in the beginning of Service. Though it says “silence for reflection” in the red, as a pastor, I do not want you dwelling on your sins, as if by finding enough of them or feeling as bad as you can about them, will make your coming confession that much more sincere.

 

No, I would rather have you silent after confession, where you can feel you are in front of God with your sins, waiting for His response. And then having that much more joy when His response hasn’t changed, that your sins are still forgiven, and God does not remain silent for you.

 

So what to do about silence? Talking about silence seems to add up to what is the opposite of Pentecost. Pentecost is usually celebrated as the “birth of the Church”, when all the men go crazy and start prophesying and evangelizing under the power of the Holy Spirit. However, Jesus in His Gospel, instead of promoting speaking on our part, seems to be promoting silence. 

 

In the first part of the Gospel heard today, Jesus equates loving Him with keeping His words. What’s strange is that “keeping His Word” is equated with hearing it, by the end of verse 24. Hearing is key, but its strange to us who, in our sinfulness, want “keeping His Word” to be our actions, when clearly, keeping the Word is Jesus’s action.

 

Further, in the next two verses, Jesus goes on to act; to speak. Jesus speaks and the Holy Spirit teaches. Both are actions that require hearing and paying attention on your part, not going and doing. Next He says “peace I give to you”, again passive reception on our part. And finally, “I am going and I will come to you.”

 

Still again, our Old Testament reading appears to condemn speaking as well. Or at least showed us that all men speaking together can produce horrible things and that when they start babbling in all different languages, it is a waste of time!

 

Can our speech be so horrible in God’s ears that we are ordered to listen? But how is the Kingdom going to expand on earth if we are not going out into all nations and spreading the Good News? When faced, today, with two seemingly opposed readings as Pentecost and Babel are, which God are we to obey?

 

Repent. “your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear”, our Lord says in Isaiah 59:2. Our sinful speaking is horrid, as horrid as our sins are. There is no way we could ever hope of pleasing God with our speaking. Even Jesus condemns long winded prayers.

 

And yet we are commanded to pray, to speak. In fact, it appears that if we don’t speak, God will not be with us, just as He commanded that Adam speak in the Garden of Eden, to recite the faith God had given to him. Adam preferred to remain silent and hidden.

 

So…we do both! We do both in faith. What “in faith” means is to watch Jesus do it. This is our real answer to silence or speaking: Jesus.

 

For all these commands of God, to speak or be silent, are for Jesus Christ, first. This is why one of our most beloved Bible verses is, “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth” (Isa 53:7).

 

In the first place, Jesus is silent before the false accusations against Him. This means that not only was He innocent, but that He was unwilling to prove Himself so. He remained silent so that the punishment would be handed out and it would be handed out to Him, not to those of whose sins He was accused.

 

Jesus is silent in the face of this false guilt and condemnation that He is taking on for you. He says in the Gospel today, “I will no longer talk much with you”. Why? First, because the ruler of this world, sin, death, and satan, have come to condemn God in the flesh and it is meet and right so to do.

 

Second, because His actions towards those things that have corrupted and killed His beloved creatures will now speak louder than words: His and theirs. His acceptance of their charges, His acquiescence to their choice of punishment, and His refusal to choose a different way all become the death knell for sin and death. Their fate is sealed in the crucifixion of Jesus.

 

Jesus is silent to pave the way to His suffering and death.

But where does He speak? He speaks when and where it pleases Him to produce faith. When there are questions, doubts, infirmities Jesus opens His mouth and His Word brings wholeness to all. When Jesus speaks, it is to save.

 

He does not save Himself, but He gives His Word to save all who hear and believe. Which may make you take a second look at His temptation…

 

Jesus speaks, because He desires all to be saved. Jesus speaks because He desires all be healed. Jesus speaks, because the Word of God is the power of salvation and the remembering of His crucifixion cleanses from sin. 

 

Jump forward to today. Where is Jesus speaking? Dear Christians, your liturgy is dripping with the golden honey that flows from the mouth of God! There is no end to where Jesus is speaking His salvation upon you. Faith comes from hearing, and hearing from those who preach and administer.

 

This is one of the true miracles of Pentecost. Not the speaking in tongues, but the fact that when the Apostles open their mouths to speak the words of Jesus, the same power and authority that accompanied Jesus, now continues to work through these men. And if through these men, then even through those whom they have ordained after them.

 

Thus, the miracle happens today, for you. Where you are muddled with the babbling of worldly vanities, Christ gives you words of prayer and hymn to silence the sin and death in you, that nailed Him to the cross. Where you seek out heaven through words, philosophy, and reason, Jesus gives you His Word and Sacrament to silence the super spiritual.

 

In the forgiveness of your sins, Jesus is silent, because you are confessing them and dwelling on them. He is silent because He only has one word for them: forgiven. We want excuses, penitence, and punishment. Come on, I did all those horrible things, and you’re just gonna forgive me? Promise?

 

When you receive your full sanctification once again, believing the pastor’s words as if they were Christ’s, then your heart leaps for joy and you can do anything but remain silent. In fact, the joy of faith given and faith received is so monumental that, if you were silent about it, the very rocks would cry out in congratulations.

 

There is more joy in heaven over one sinner repenting, just one, than over 99 righteous men who need no repentance. There is more speaking in heaven when the blessings and work of the only Son of God are given and received in Faith, than there is in dwelling on our sinful, imminent death.

 

So we speak of Christ Crucified and are silent on our confessed sins. Our Lord forgets them, why should we bring them back or dwell on them? There is no room in heaven for them. There is no room in our Lord for them. There is no room in the Divine Service for them. All is Christ, His work, His mercy, His salvation for us, through means.

Church Year, Church half [Sunday after the Ascension]

 

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Ezekiel 36:22-28

• 1 Peter 4:7-11

• St. John 15:26-16:4

Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior. (Titus 1:4)
 
Who speaks to you today, from His Gospel heard in His Service, saying: 

“But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you.”

 
Thus, with this Gospel reading and our snuffed Paschal candle, our Easter season draws to a close. More than that, our part of the Church Year that we call “the Festival half” is also ending. As in, we have finished celebrating all the High Feasts of our Lord’s life. Following the Festival Season is the Church Season, or Non-festival season, in the vulgar. 
 
What these two halves of the Christian year teach us is first, by it, the Faithful faithfully follow Jesus's command to hear His Word and believe. Second, that all of Jesus’s work completed in the first half was to create the second half for you. For understanding of that wonderful gift, we turn to the Holy Spirit, Who is now the main actor in this second half of, well, all of time, basically.
 
For, Pentecost is not the birth of the Church, as some suppose. The Birth of the Church is the birth of Faith in Christ, which happens right in the beginning. Yes, all of history revolves around God and His work so it makes sense that when His Church properly arrives on the scene, she would be sensitive to this and employ it in her worship. This cycle is so natural to creation, that even the world in its sinfulness has adopted, what we may call, the anti-church-year.
 
One part of this anti-church-year is created by those so opposed to anything that even smells Roman Catholic, that they throw out all of Church History as well. These are the people who will, annually, write and share articles and “proof” of how Christmas and Easter are pagan festivals and Christians should not observe them, much less the rest of the organized, Church year.
 
But what do they do instead, that is so much more mighty and holy? They follow their own Lectionary that they don’t admit is a lectionary! For every year they teach about the birth of Christ and every year they will proclaim His miracles, His crucifixion, His parables, and His Resurrection. And since those don’t change in the Bible, neither does their reading schedule. But they feel better so…
 
On the other side, you can sin by thinking that the Church Year is required doctrine for Faith in Christ. As in, when you miss a holy day, God is going to remember on the Last Day and you won’t get in.
 
The root of this grievous misunderstanding is a lack of the knowledge and power of the Church that Jesus created. When all you believe is that God is on a throne, far away, stuck at the Right Hand, then all that matters is us living holy lives in order to reach Him.
 
However, if God is close, creates His Church, and invites to a feast, then He is to be gathered around and worshipped regularly, wherever He says that takes place.
 
All the Anti-Church-Year crowd accomplishes is to find itself in agreement with the fallen world. The fallen world also believes that the Life of Jesus should not be celebrated on specific holy days. It also wants to replace the proper Church Year with its own calendar of “holy” days and required obeisance towards certain “holy” and privileged groups, dedicating entire months to them.
 
When they come together and try to understand the Lord’s Incarnational Church, we get the popularly understood Christmas and Easter. Christmas is easy for them. They pretty much understand it, on the surface, and so give fanfare and commercialism to it. A double portion of what the sinful world can offer. Hot dog!
 
Easter is second, as it is infinitely harder to understand. So there is no fanfare, no understanding, given, but only commercialism is offered in order to make up for and hide their ignorance.
 
However, there is a third high holy season that we all tend to forget together. One that is neither commercialized nor celebrated. That is the church half of the Church year, which celebrates the Church. 
 
And I mean “we”. We attend Church, but we don’t really “get” Church. We participate in Church, but we don’t comprehend the weight of that. We align ourselves with Church, but like the world, we think we could better spend our time and efforts elsewhere, not on monotonous lectionaries.
 
Repent.
 
Ascension will help us get to a better understanding of this 3rd greatest holy season in the Church Year. It is in Acts 1, the very first verse, that St. Luke’s gift of handling the Word of Truth really shines. There he records, “In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach.”
 
This “began to do and teach” refers to all that was accomplished between Advent and Easter, that is the work of Jesus to produce salvation for sinners. This is the focus of the Festival Half: Jesus does the work.
 
St. Luke’s words also imply a continuation. What Jesus began in the Gospels, continues, somehow. That beginning is His sending of the Holy Spirit, to give the power of Word and Sacrament to the Apostles, and they take it to any and everyone. As in, the real beginning starts now, at the beginning of this second half of the Church Year.
 
Jesus continues to work in His Church, in His Body and Blood. This is cause for celebration, just as much as His work in Christmas and Easter. Why? Because, having been united with Him in Baptism, Jesus now continues to work through you. It doesn’t stop with His Ascension. His Word continues to go out and accomplish what it set out to do in the beginning: create salvation for sinners.
 
His Sacraments continue to be administered according to that Word, accomplishing what they were employed for since the beginning: salvation for sinners. In the Church Year, we celebrate God’s Great, Awesome, Powerful, and Mysterious work…that is done among us also!!
 
Of vital importance to our view of life is the truth that Christ is still among us as one who serves. In other words, the crucified, risen, and ascended Christ is still among us as The God Who Serves.
 
If we think about Matthew 18:20, to “come together in Jesus’ name” means to gather together in keeping with His person, work and Word. In other words, all that He began to do and preach.  His person and His work center in serving us with His gifts of grace.  The living Christ is indeed still present to serve His people, in His Church. 
 
The Bible also makes clear how long Jesus will remain with His Church to serve them: ALWAYS. (Matthew 28:20)
 
In other words, the Gospel isn’t just history and the Church Year is no child’s play!  It is history, the beautiful, gracious history of God’s undeserved love in Christ, but it’s so much more!  It continues! For the Christ of history is also the Christ of this hour.  He still lives!  And He’s still present with His gifts to feed His Church with His Word and His Meal.  That’s why the center of the Church’s life is worship! 
 
That’s also why worship among us is called the Divine Service (Gottesdienst).  In worship, God is present to serve us with His life-giving and life-sustaining gifts of forgiveness.  We also respond in prayer and praise, but the beating heart of worship is God serving us with forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.
 
Christian worship, then, is table fellowship with God.  The risen Christ is present to give us His Word to hear and His very body and blood to eat and drink.  Here something different happens from what happens anywhere else in the world.  Here the Bridegroom is present to serve His Bride the food and drink of heaven.  This is the center of life.
 
The Holy Spirit led the early church to draw her life from the gifts of the risen Christ.  The Apostles devoted themselves to this very same Church (Acts 2:42) with all of their strength. The proclamation of the apostles’ teaching and the Lord’s Supper (breaking of bread) were the gifts at the heart of the church’s fellowship.  Their fellowship in the receiving of Word and Sacrament was formed by “the prayers.”  In other words, there was a liturgy, an ordered way of worship, when Christ came to serve them.
 
And if there was an ordered way of worship, then there was an ordered way to hear the Holy Gospel each and every time. This we would call the Church Year. It is the Church Year that forms the pillow, or the manger, for Christ’s Word and Sacraments, for you. The Church Year is the place setting, your place setting, at His Wedding Feast.
 
So we will celebrate the beginning of the Church half of the Church Year and we will continue to celebrate it until Jesus returns. What joy we receive when we believe that God still works among us and that we are invited to worship Him. Worship, according to the Gospel, is the desire to receive forgiveness of sins, grace, and righteousness (Apology IV, Tappert, p. 310).  Faith is that worship which receives God’s offered blessings (Ap IV, p. 48).  These blessings God has located in His Word and Sacrament.
 
What a joyous festival! What a blessed Church Year! Rejoice loudly, dear Christian, Your God comes to you righteous and having salvation, humble and mounted on Word and Sacrament. Not stopping for this or that, but offering His Work and Life for you, year after year, culminating not on Himself, but on you.
 
We, the Church of Baptized Believers, employ the Church Year for three reasons: 1) it allows us to fight back against the world’s and our own sinfulness, 2) it creates a place ordered under God’s Word, and 3) it houses and delivers Christ Crucified and Risen for the forgiveness of our sins.
 
Can other readings do that? Sure. Can other lectionaries do that? Of course. It’s based on God’s Word, not vice versa. But we take confident comfort in what has been sent to us through time, remembering Christ’s words, and obeying His command to celebrate His Church.
 

He hears and does Good [Easter 6]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Numbers 21:4-9

• James 1:22-27

• St. John 16:23-30

Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior. (Titus 1:4)
 
Who speaks to you today, from His Gospel heard in His Service, saying: 

“Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”

 
Because it appears to be one of the only works that God has actually given us to do and has attached His promises to it, Prayer is always preoccupying Christians. Give a prayer. Take a prayer. Need a prayer. Make a prayer. Leave a prayer. Have a prayer. 
 
And then there’s the endless bookshelves of how to pray. What to pray. When to pray. Why to pray. But most important for those authors, is who you have to turn yourself into, before you pray. You need to create a prayer space. You need to calm your mind. You need to stop. You need to change. You need to, or else.
 
As it so happens, my conference trip to Baltimore was a few weeks ago and there, they had a presenter who talked about this very thing: prayer. In fact, he is the same pastor who wrote hymn 616 in our hymnal and has a new hymn which we will sing later on today. So this sermon comes from that conference.
 
And the direction Pastor Reinhardt took, then, was that prayer is never private. You are never praying alone, solitary. Even when you are alone, in your room, your prayers are spoken, sung, groaned with the whole host of heaven, who are ever in front of Jesus, praying. You are never facing this life alone.
 
But that is not what false teachers say about prayer. They teach that not only will God possibly forget you if you forget to pray, but that the entire Church will disappear and it will be your fault. This teaching removes all of us from the Lamb’s Book of Life and it is a self-removal! “I forgot to pray”, “I don’t pray”, or “I don’t pray well” becomes for us the unforgiveable sin that finally leads us to hell.
 
Jesus says in 1 John 5, “If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life—to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death” (v.16-17).
 
If we look for effectiveness in prayer from our own prayer life, “O Lord who can be saved?” We find no effectiveness, no answer, and no help. And when we are ineffective, we get frustrated. And when we get frustrated, we quit.
 
Jesus does not comment on our prayer life today, but simply says, “Ask”. He will come to you. He will come asking what your will is. Jesus, God-made-man, prays to you, asks you. God prays! And what does He pray?
“Hear O my people”, He prays in Psalm 50, “hear and I will speak and I will testify against you” (v.7).
 
Lord have mercy! He prays against us! He prays that we see our sin and own it. He prays that we see that our prayer life is in shambles, that our family life is in chaos, and that we are merely hanging on at the end of a frayed knot.
 
Repent. You have taken the Lord’s Name in vain, in your sin. Instead of calling upon it in every trouble, you curse and swear against your brother in the Lord’s Name. Instead of praying, praising, and giving thanks you have declared to your neighbor that God lies and decieves, because in your opinion asking, praying to God accomplishes nothing.
 
Will God hear me? 
 
Yes. He hears and He wants to hear. 
 
When He hears, will He want Good for me?
 
“Call upon me in the day of trouble and I will rescue you”, answereth the Lord (Ps 50:15).
 
The “yes’s” to these questions are all we need to know about prayer to move us to our knees with bowed heads and folded hands. “Ask” Jesus says and “ask” even Jesus does.
 
Jesus is our great High Priest who constantly prays even now and also during His life. He constantly gives us the example of going to pray whether it be in the wilderness or early in the morning or with His disciples. His final acts on the cross are those of prayer. “Why have you forsaken me?”, “Father forgive them”, and “Into Thy hands I commend my spirit”. 
 
On the cross and in Gethsemane, Jesus knew His Father heard Him, knew He had only Good for Him, even though He had to sweat blood to get the answer to His prayer. The Father answers Jesus with His suffering and death on the cross. There are no two ways around that. Jesus’s answer was the cross.
 
But His prayer was not left in hell, where prayer does not reach God. He was raised. He was delivered up for our transgressions and raised for our justification (Rom 4:25). All answers from God are “yes” in Christ Jesus, and it is the life of Christ that is the answer to ours. “I have heard my people’s cry”, saith the Lord, “and am come to deliver them” (Ex 3:7-8).
 
In that justification, we believe the Lord and it is counted to us as righteousness and we know and have heard that “He hears the prayers of the righteous” (Pro 15:29). How can a sinner do such things? (Jn 9:16). How can a sinner pray such things? Satan said that about Jesus and now he says that to you. Don’t believe. You, a sinner, have been made righteous by the man Who became sin for you, having none of His own.
 
In the prayer of Jesus, we are prayed against and see our sin, but in the words of that prayer, we see our Savior, showing us His salvation, for us, which is the answer to all our prayers. The fact of Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection being done for us, gives us all the confidence we need to ask our heavenly Father as dear children ask their dear father. We may not like the answer we get and it may hurt, but God answers for the best.
 
In Christ, we are adopted as sons, little Christs, and given an already completed life of prayer. This doesn’t mean that we can “not pray”, but it does mean we can be bad at it and still find forgiveness. It also means we can gladly hear, learn, and get better at it and still find mercy. 
 
Prayer is not just a conversation you have with God when you’re lonely or need a shoulder to cry on. It is a conversation God is having with you and the whole Church. It is an act you have to prove to yourself that you still believe. And it is a work you are given to do to unite yourself to Christ and His Church in thoughts, words, and deeds.
 
For when that Our Father hits, not one faithful tongue is silent. 
 
Alleluia..!

In-planted Spirit [Easter 5]

 

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Isaiah 12:1-6

• James 1:16-21

• St. John 16:5-15

Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior. (Titus 1:4)

 

Who speaks to you today, from His Gospel heard in His Service, saying: 

“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.”

 

In this verse from the Gospel today, Jesus is making sure we know exactly what and how the Holy Spirit is going to be doing, first so that we can be sure where to stand with Him, instead of against Him, and second in order that we not be led astray by those who think the Holy Spirit just flits and floats, doing this or that, whatever.

 

As you can tell by verses 13, 14, and 15 of our Gospel reading, the Holy Spirit is coming to speak, to declare, to preach. St. James agrees with St. John. For in our Epistle reading, he speaks of receiving the implanted word. Of course, you can only receive something that's given to you, otherwise that called stealing, so the Holy Spirit will be declaring that you have the gift of “what is Christ’s”.

 

So St. James warns us to put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness. What this reminds us of is our Baptismal rite. St. James actually says “renounce”, as in:

The Pastor addresses the baptismal candidate and asks the following questions

P do you renounce the devil?

R Yes, I renounce him.

P Do you renounce all his works?

R Yes, I renounce them.

P Do you renounce all his ways?

R Yes, I renounce them.

 

What our Rite of Baptism is getting at is what we pray for the candidate during it. That through this saving flood all sin in him, which has been inherited from Adam and which he himself has committed since, would be drowned and die. Even in infancy, we have sins we need to be got rid of, or renounced. 

 

Yet, without faith it is impossible to renounce, to please God, so faith is a part of being baptized. As in, the Holy Spirit had declared to you the things that were from Jesus, that you may believe. As in, the Word is implanted by the preaching of the Gospel. St. James describes renouncing as both putting away and receiving.

 

This is the advantage Jesus is talking about, in the Gospel. When He ascends in order to send His Spirit to us, that Spirit will be the one to preach the power of God for salvation. And in that authority, the authority of the Son of God Crucified and Resurrected, He plants the Word in you.

 

Repent. Baptism has been under fire since the Reformation. There, every reformed revolutionary wanted to remove God’s promises from Holy Scripture and replace them with these works of “putting away” as they hear St. James speak. 

 

There is a half truth to that. In this Baptismal life we have been given, we do have apparent choices in front of us: to sin or not to sin. But that is a struggle the Christian will have his whole life, not just before his baptism. Even afterwards, which some churches based on a long-gone holy empire, will say sticks with you and makes your debt towards God valid again.

 

Renouncing does have “putting away” as a continuous work we must engage in, however for St. James, renouncing is only half the battle and only after the war is won. Meaning, the real part of renouncing is receiving, as he says, the Implanted Word.

 

Receive the implanted Word which is able to save your souls? No. Receive the inplanted Word WHO is able to save your souls: Jesus Christ the Word made Flesh.

 

Here is our Apostolic agreement. Here we get to the trustworthiness of God’s Word. St. James basically makes St. John’s point again, that when the Holy Spirit speaks, He gives. When He gives, we receive and are saved. When Jesus sends His Spirit. Its all about Jesus, folks.

 

When does Jesus send His Spirit? Well, now we get into some gray area, because Jesus is God and He is outside time. The real answer is: He always sends His Spirit. Right away, at the beginning, Genesis 1, the Spirit was sent. He was there at the creation of all things, hovering over the waters. Fun fact: an action the Church has continued to relate to baptism!

 

I know its not Pentecost yet, but we’re going to keep going.

In Numbers, the Spirit was sent upon the 70 elders of Israel and then upon Joshua, to take over for Moses (Num 11:25, 27:18). The Spirit of the Lord rushed upon all of the Judges, even clothing Gideon which is another term for baptism (Jud 6:34).

 

The Spirit rushed upon David (1 Sam 16:13), stirred the Babylonian Exiles to rebuild the Temple (Ezr 1:5), and came upon all the prophets. 

 

All well and good, but that doesn’t happen anymore in the same way and even if it did, how would we be able to tell if someone was lying or not? Therefore, the key giving of the Spirit which activates all other givings of the Spirit is this:

“When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and handed over His Spirit” (Jn 19:30).

 

One of Jesus’s jobs was to give His Spirit in order that all be given faith to see their sins and to see their Savior. As He said, it is to our advantage. And what an advantage! Salvation is offered in the preaching and declaration of the Spirit, that is, the preaching and teaching of Christ Crucified.

 

What does the Spirit say? He bears witness that we are children of God, having received adoption as sons (Rom 8:15-16). He testifies, “This is he who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.  For there are three that testify:  the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree” (1 Jn 5:6-8).

 

They agree, because all three are found in Christ, all three proceed from Christ, and all three are given to you in the Divine Service, such that, “the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us… ’I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more’. Where there is forgiveness of [sins], there is no longer any offering for sin” (Heb 10:15-18).

 

God plants His Spirit in you by Word and Sacrament. In Faith, you humble yourself before these means of the Spirit, because you only receive God as He wants to be received, that is by ear, mouth, hand, nostril, and eye. The things of Jesus are what He keeps His promises in. The Holy Spirit locates Himself in Word and Sacrament for you.

 

So that when you go searching for Him, you find Him. When you go looking for Him, you receive the in-planted Jesus Who is able to save you. And when you wish to side with Him, you find yourself reciting Creed and Commandment in renunciation of the devil and all his works and all his ways.

 

In Jesus handing over His Spirit to you, through His suffering and dying on the cross, you are inplanted in His Body and Blood. It is a saving event, a conversion event. Having been converted, you renounce, you follow, and you confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

 

Not only Lord of all things, but Lord of His Church and Lord of how and when you receive His Word, that is by Spirit, water, and blood. And these three agree, publicly. There is no secret or gatekeeping done in Church. Anyone can walk up and receive Christ on his lips. But do you receive for blessing or condemnation?

 

That is Faith’s job. To mark you as one redeemed and not one who is to be cast out. You receive Jesus in your heart, in your hands, and every other way physically and spiritually, so that there is no doubt who is lying and who is telling the truth. 

 

The Good Shepherd saves and redeems body and spirit for the holy work of God. The false Shepherd forsakes the body in preference to the spirit. The Good Shepherd sends His Spirit of Truth so that a man may love God with his heart, soul, mind, AND physical strength. The False shepherd will prioritize private devotion. 

 

The True Shepherd will gather, publicly, those Who believe and confess in their flesh. The False Shepherd wants all your filthiness and rampant wickedness controlled and put away before you can even think about being a first class Christian.

 

Your Pastor has spoken the Word over you. He has declared the intent of the Spirit towards you in the words of your baptism saying, “Therefore depart thou unclean spirit and make room for the Holy Spirit”, invoking God’s Triune Name, and marking you with the sign of His cross.

 

The very cross on which your Savior suffered and handed over His Spirit to you. You were not there then, so you must humbly receive Him as He gives Himself to you today. You bow down at the speaking of His Word. You bow down to His Baptism. You submit to all the gifts the glory of His cross purchased and won by opening your mouth to receive all the fulness of God (Ps 81:10).

 

We should fear and love God so that we do not neglect preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it. 

 

There is no other testimony from the Man Who is Able to Save your souls. There is no other reverence that is heard by our heavenly Father Who is able to save from death (Heb 5:7). There is no other Law or Judge or Word that is able to Save and hand over to you the Gospel; the free forgiveness of sins for Christ’s sake.

 

What the Spirit takes from Jesus is the forgiveness of sins. What the Spirit declares to you is the forgiveness of sins. What you receive in His meekness, inplanted in you, is the forgiveness of sins and you renounce, with every fiber of your new being in Christ, anything that gets in the way of Him giving Himself to you, body and soul, Word and Sacrament.

On Civil Affairs [Easter 4]

 

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Isaiah 40:25-31

• 1 Peter 2:11-20

• St. John 16:16-23

Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!

Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior. (Titus 1:4)
 
Who speaks to you today, from His Gospel heard in His Service, saying: 

“A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me”

 
Jesus is not playing hide and go seek. Jesus is completing His work of total and complete salvation for you. He is Ascending, not just as God, but as man. In Christ, man, humanity ascends to heaven, to the heavenly throne. So we no longer see Him in His humanity. He is not walking around, but He continues to work in His Church especially and in the world. 
 
But us not seeing…how are we to go about our lives and our faith with this divinely inspired blindness? In the first place, we must live the life Christ gives us, today. And since, “I have been crucified with Christ,” says Galatians 2:20, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me”.
 
Meaning, it is good for us to be here, no matter what happens to us.
In the second place, it is good to make a life here, which means, be involved in the world we live in. 
 
Our Confessions state it this way:
“lawful civil ordinances are good works of God, and that it is right for Christians to bear civil office, to sit as judges, to judge matters by the Imperial and other existing laws, to award just punishments, to engage in just wars, to serve as soldiers, to make legal contracts, to hold property, to make oath when required by the magistrates, to marry a wife, to be given in marriage.
They condemn the Anabaptists who forbid these civil offices to Christians.” (AC XVI:1-3)
 
Notice how it says “lawful” civil ordinances.
We focus on the life of faith in the civil realm today, because our Epistle reading specifically mentions topics we began to cover last week. And its not just the “be subject to every human institution” business, which we are talking about. Our main focus is “Live as people who are free”. 
 
Fun fact: free and freedom, in Greek, is pronounced “lutheran”. So if you are living free in the Gospel of Christ, as you ought to do, you are living as a Lutheran. Just thought I’d mention that Biblical point.
 
Our true point today is that these human institutions are not above the law. They should be honored, but not worshipped. They should be loved, but not given a free pass to do whatever they want just because they are “in charge”. At least in the US, its “we the people” who are in charge and that complicates things.
 
Regardless, wrong is wrong no matter who does it, authoritarian status or no. How you “honor the emperor” is by loving him. That means encouraging him when he does right and telling him when he sins. Yes when they sin, for they are not above God’s Law either. This is why St. Peter says, “be subject FOR THE LORD’S SAKE”. 
 
Repent. If you truly wanted to make a difference in the civil sphere, you would uphold honor, which means calling sin, sin. Are you causing suffering upon someone else with your legislation? Sin. Stop it. Are you thieving from others their money, possessions, or inheritance? Sin. Stop it. Is your elected official? Tell them to repent.
 
But that is hard and there are too many “authorities” to keep track of. So I’ll replace my responsibility with a vote and then just ostracize and demonize my political opponents and that's the same thing as loving them. God will be alright with that. I mean He can’t expect me to keep track of every little thing?
 
Remain in honor and this is how you do just that in the civil and heavenly realms: faith. Our confessions continue in the same article: “They condemn also those who do not place evangelical perfection in the fear of God and in faith, but in forsaking civil offices, for the Gospel teaches an eternal righteousness of the heart. Meanwhile, it does not destroy the State or the family, but very much requires that they be preserved as ordinances of God, and that charity be practiced in such ordinances.”
 
Anything may become a false idol if it gains your fear and your trust, or faith. Avoiding civil offices does not save you, neither does participating in them. However, in faith, the Christian walks through life blessed, no matter what. Any and all works are considered holy in faith. Not because of what they are or who does them, but simply because they are covered by the Blood.
 
This is why the Gospel is of the utmost importance. “Love covers a multitude of sin” (1 Pet 4:8) and the love of God has laid down His life for you (Jn 15:13). This is Jesus covered up. God, covered up in flesh and doing seemingly un-godlike things. Such as eating, drinking and suffering and dying. 
 
Who is so free as God? Above all and over all, God is the freest being. He is so free, that He uses His freedom, His lutheranism, as a cover up for Good. His Kingship is a coverup for His servanthood in serving sinners salvation. His Almightiness is a coverup for His weakness on the cross. His Unreachableness is a coverup for Communion with us, in His true Body and Blood.
 
When we don’t see Jesus, we are looking for Him on His throne or in our country’s authoritarian positions. When we find Jesus, He is with the poor, the afflicted, and the weak. When we don’t see Jesus, we are looking for Him to solve all our nation’s problems so that we don’t have to. When we find Him, He is forgiving sins in Word and Sacrament.
 
In our sin, Jesus is hidden from us. We have difficulty seeing Him, because our sin wants His power before His mercy. Even when we look directly at the places He says He is going to be for us, we still cannot see. But take heart. It is a good thing. 
 
Jesus says in John 9:39-41, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind….If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.”
 
If you could see with God’s eyes and discern the ins and outs of this world and of heaven…you would go insane. The first temptation included the lure of “open eyes” (Gen 3:5, 7). So, really our eyes are already open, which is why the world is so mad and we are “tossed to and fro by wind and wave” (Eph 4:14). We already know what God knows and see what He sees and it makes us afraid.
 
Afraid, because all we see is guilt and wrath and condemnation. There is no peace for us, even in our sacred national and civil places. We scurry about, trying to hide from the light of the Love of God, thinking that we can be like Him if we could just master these eyes.
 
When is it that people “see” Jesus? At the Transfiguration, Sts. Peter, James and John have to cover their eyes at the glorious, shining Christ. They only see Him again when He returns to His humanity, set to go to the cross (Mt 17).
 
When the Marys go to the tomb, Easter morning, they are looking for Jesus. A dead Jesus and do not find Him. Not even when Mary talks to Jesus does she recognize Him until He has mercy and reveals Himself (Jn 20).
 
When the two disciples on the Emmaus road, Easter afternoon, are walking and talking with Jesus right next to them, they don’t know it, but as soon as Jesus sits them down to His Divine Service and breaks that bread before Communion, they knew Him in the breaking of the bread (Lk 24:35).
 
What is the point? The point is, you will not find Jesus in human institutions. You may find bits of His wrath there and maybe some of His justice. But you will not find the peace He promises to you, neither will you find mercy or forgiveness of sins. 
 
So we don’t put our trust in princes, especially if we become one of them. We put all our fear, love, and trust in the true Prince of Peace. The God-man, Christ Jesus, Who has come to rule all. And that rule is with the Gospel, with the free forgiveness of sins for all who believe. 
 
We hold our civil vocations for the sake of our neighbor, working towards peace, justice, and goodness as best as we can for him. In them, there is no law about living out our faith. In fact, those are the best civil servants, who usually go unnoticed. 
 
Do your civil work in that humility: unnoticed. “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward” (Col 3:23-24) and knowing that whatever earthly reward you receive is perishable. 
 
Not that it is worthless, but worthwhile. Because now that your reward doesn’t come from your earthly work, you don’t have to be so bitter and backstabbing. You can actually do work in genuine love, because you have been freed, lutheranized, to see your guilt and the guilt of all others in all things, knowing and believing the necessity of forgiveness for all and all others. Thus, returning in the Spirit to the one thing needful for this world and the next: the Crucified Christ.
 
Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!