Confessing Thomas [Easter 2]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

 

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Ezekiel 37:1-14

• 1 John 5:4-10

• St. John 20:19-31

Grace, mercy, and peace [are yours] from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. (1 Tim 1)
 
Who speaks to you today, from His Gospel heard in His Service, saying: 
“Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’”
 
Before we set one foot into the Gospel of Christ, I would like to give thanks. Thank God for St. Thomas. Thank God for the man who doubted Easter.
 
Yes, for his pig-headedness, for his doubt, for his denial, for his dyed-in-the-wool skepticism – for all that, I thank God. Why? Because, as St. Gregory put it, “More does the doubt of Thomas help us to believe, than the faith of the disciples who believed.” I thank God that Thomas doubted, for when he later “touched the wounds in the flesh of his master, he healed in us the wounds of our unbelief.”
 
So today we will vindicate St. Thomas, but we will not be doing so in parables. For it is popularly taught that Jesus is teaching blind faith, in this Gospel lesson. That, like St. Thomas, you have to just go by someone’s words, as Jesus says at the end, “blessed are those who have not seen, yet believe.”
 
In this line of thinking, we get any number of movie references to struggles where the future isn’t certain, but if you just take a leap of faith, God will put the path under you, even if the next step appears to be off a cliff. Get out of your comfort zone, they say. do the unthinkable. think the impossible. Follow your dreams. god will be there to catch you.
 
No. None of that.
 
We are also not going to stop our understanding at the Word. For though this lesson is there, that is to rely upon the Spoken and preached Word of God, instead of what we see, St. Thomas teaches something more. 
 
What we see is not Doubting Thomas, but Confessing Thomas.
 
We are the blind leading the blind, as Jesus said in St. Matthew 15:14. But what was He talking about there? Just about knowing yourself and standing up for yourself? Jesus goes on in that chapter to explain exactly what He means about blind leading the blind.
 
He says, “But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person” (15:18-20).
 
This means that being blind is directly related to how much you trust your own heart. It is your heart that tells you to throw your family under the bus as long as it advances your spiritual ascension. It is your heart that tells you “you are right”, regardless of what anyone else says. It is your heart that tells you, you have the truth and no one else does.
 
This turns what we are doing into a circus side-show. Is that all the Resurrection is? Just some form of entertainment. Some nice thing to think about, but we have better things to think about? Right, because when the Twelve told St. Thomas “we have seen the Lord”, he immediately replied, “Oh boy! Now we’re gonna see Him walk through walls and locked doors!”
 
Repent! This is not a show. We do not spend hours of our lives in Church to be entertained or to seek our own truth inside ourselves. 
 
Jesus presents nothing to all people, except Himself. He does not present to them their hearts, their minds, or their deeds. He does not present to them a test or a choice or some other sneaky lie to see what we will do with it.
 
Jesus has done nothing except present Himself from the very beginning. In Genesis, He presented His love in creating all things for man. In the Old Testament, He presented His openness and long-suffering, allowing His Name to be spat upon, while He dwelt with a stiff-necked people.
 
In the New Testament, He opens Himself even further to vulnerability as an infant, ridicule as a teenager, suffering at the hands of sinners, and even literally being opened by scourge, nail, and spear. 
 
This is the evidence that Jesus offers on Easter and it is presented to us in Word and Sacrament. In the case of St. Thomas: when the Apostles saw Jesus, they said, “We have seen Him”. When St. Thomas sees He proclaims, “My Lord and my God!”
 
Thus, St. Thomas gives us the most clear confession of Christ’s Lordship and divinity in the entire Bible! By Faith, St. Thomas saw more than the others. He knew what the Resurrection was really about. No more will we have to deal with voices in our heads, or phantoms in our midst, or ghosts walking on water, as we hear in St. Matthew 14:26.
 
St. Thomas says, I have been addressed. I have been called by the Lord and I cannot see Him with out Him speaking to me. “Peace be with you”, He says, and I have peace. You are raised, I am raised. You send me, I am sent. You forgive, I am forgiven.
 
When confronted with the Resurrection of Jesus Christ one must confess, or rather, there is no way you can stay silent. The Resurrection is all about beholding and confessing. Beholding Christ on the cross, for those were the proofs offered to us today. Jesus is Christ Crucified for us.
 
The resurrection of Jesus does not move us beyond the cross. Jesus does not say, “now that that’s done lets move on to magic tricks”. He says look at my hands. Look at my side. How did I get those marks, guys?? Confess!
 
The true Resurrection message is, that in that cross of death there is life. In that cross of condemnation, there is forgiveness. In that cross of apparent defeat, there is the Kingdom of God and freedom from satan.
 
Now, the Faith given to us sees that life is “take up your cross and follow Me” (Matt 16:24), Power is Christ Crucified (1 Corinthians 1:18), and the Lord is “the Lamb Who was slain” (Rev 5:12) all of which is only made known in His Holy Scriptures, for us.
 
But more than that, by the Power of the Holy Spirit, the same hands and side that St. Thomas’ fingers read like braille, are placed into our hands and mouth today. For we too receive the same exact peace that was given to the Apostles on Easter, in the Body and Blood of Communion.
 
We ask for and can expect no more than was given to St. Thomas. that is that true Faith and forgiveness are found only in the Body and Blood of Christ and that in suffering, death, anxiety, loneliness, despair, hunger, thirst, and tragedy; at that cross we will speak “Peace be with you”. 
 
And there will be peace. The true Peace, Jesus Christ. And we will believe His written Word and by believing, have eternal life in His Name. For the same God-man that told St. Thomas to “put out his hand”, invites you to do the same at His Altar today.
 
Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!
 

God's Sermon [Resurrection Sunday]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

 

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Job 19:23-27

• 1 Corinthians 5:6-8

• St. Mark 16:1-8

Grace, mercy, and peace [are yours] from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. (1 Tim 1)
 
Who speaks to you today, from His entire book of Holy Scripture about the suffering and death of the God-man, Jesus Christ. God preaches to you from His very Word:
And without controversy, great is the Mystery of Godliness: God was manifested in the Flesh, justified by the Spirit, seen of Angels, preached among the Gentiles, believed on in the World, received up in Glory”, says 1 Timothy 3:16, and Colossians 2:3, “In whom are hid all the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge.”
 
    But it is of His suffering and death that the Word Made Flesh brought to us. This is why His prophesies double as Incarnation/Christmass prophesies and Holy Week prophesies. For of Holy Week, as we watch our God of Life battle sin and death, we hear from Isaiah 40:
1. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.
2. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned. . . .
3. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 4 .Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill made low, the crooked straight, and the rough places plain.
5. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. (v. 1-5)
 
    Of His Incarnation and His crucifixion, Jesus says in Haggai 2:6,7, “Thus saith the Lord of Hosts; Yet once, a little while and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; 7. And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come” and Malachi 3:1, “The Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: Behold, He shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts.”
 
    As He hangs on the cross, Malachi 3:2 says, “But who may abide the day of His coming? and who shall stand when He appeareth? For He is like a refiner's fire” and by His sacrifice “He shall purify the sons of Levi. . . that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness” (v.3)
 
    Such is the force of the scene at the cross. That we see the Son the Virgin Mary conceived and call Him Emmanuel (Isaiah 7:14, Matthew 1:23). That through the crucifixion of Jesus, Isaiah can say, 
“O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion, get thee up into the high mountain; O thou that tellest good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, and be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!” (40:9).
 
    At the crucifixion, darkness covered the earth and gross darkness the people, says Isaiah 60:2. But the Lord did arise and was lifted up, showing us His glory and to the brightness of that Light, the Gentiles come to Jesus: through His Passion (Isa 60:3).
 
    In our sin we walked in darkness. In Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection, He is the Light that shines. The only light (Isaiah 9:2, Matthew 3:16). For He is the only Son. the Child that is born to us.
Isaiah 9:6, “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.”
 
    This should take us back to Advent and Christmass. There we heard the Lord Jesus announced in such great ways:
Luke 2:8,9
8. There were shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night.
9. And lo! the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.
Luke 2:10,11
10. And the angel said unto them, Fear not; for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. 11. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.
Luke 2:13
13. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
Luke 2:14
14. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
Zechariah 9:9,10, Matthew 21:5
9. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee. He is the righteous Savior. .
10. . . And he shall speak peace unto the heathen.
  

It is not until Easter that we understand, when we remember His Word. At Easter, “the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. 6. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing” (Isaiah 35:5,6)
Isaiah 40:11
11. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd; and he shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.
Matthew 11:28, 29
Come unto [Him], all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and [He shall]give you rest. 29. Take [his] yoke upon you, and learn of [Him]; for [he is] meek and lowly of heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
Matthew 11:30
30. [His] yoke is easy, and [his]burden is light.

 John 1:29
Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world. Who “was despised and rejected of men: a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. . .” (Isaiah 53:3)
Isaiah 50:6
[He]gave [His] back to the smiters, and [His] cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: [He] hid not [His] face from shame and spitting.
Isaiah 53:4,5
4. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows. . . .
5. . . He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him,
Isaiah 53:5b
5. and with His stripes we are healed
 
    He was numbered with the transgressors. He was numbered with us.
Isaiah 53:6
6. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; 
and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Psalm 22:7
7. All they that see [him]laugh [him] to scorn: they shoot out their lips, they shake their heads, saying:
Psalm 22:8, Matthew 27:43
8. He trusted [in God] that he would deliver him:  let him deliver him, if he delight in him.
 
    And the Father did deliver Him. through suffering and death, God delivered the Lord Jesus Christ.
Psalm 69:20
20. [Thy] rebuke hath broken [his] heart; [He is] full of heaviness. [He]looked for some to have pity [on Him], but there was none; neither found [He] any to comfort [Him].
Lamentations 1:12
12. Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto [his] sorrow. . .
Isaiah 53:8b
8. he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of [Thy] people was He stricken.
Psalm 16:10, Acts 2:27
10. [But] thou [didst] not leave [his] soul in hell; neither [didst]thou suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption.
 
    Of His crucifixion, the psalms say,
Psalm 24:7-10
7. Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of Glory shall come in. 8. Who is the King of Glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. 9. Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of Glory shall come in. 10. Who is the King of Glory? The Lord of Hosts, He is the King of Glory.
Hebrews 1:5, Psalm 2:7
5. For unto which of the angels said He at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee?
Hebrews 1:6b
6. "Let all the angels of God worship Him."
 
    His crucifixion raised Jesus up on high, but death is beneath God. He did not create it. He has no part in it. His resurrection takes Him even higher, where death cannot touch Him ever again, and anyone He chooses to take with Him/
Psalm 68:18, Ephesians 4:8
18. Thou art gone up on high, Thou hast led captivity captive, and received gifts for men; yea, even for Thine enemies, that the Lord God might dwell among them.
 
    So we find ourselves, this Easter day, keeping the command by keeping the Sabbath holy, for we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.
Psalm 68:11
11. The Lord gave the word: great was the company of [the preachers].
Romans 10:15, Isaiah 52:7
15. How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!
Romans 10:18, Psalm 19:4
18. their sound is gone out into all lands, and their words unto the ends of the world.
 
    The Word, the Gospel of Peace is that Christ suffered and died. To deny Christ and His Gospel is to court sin and death.
Psalm 2:1,2, Acts 4:25-26
1. Why do the heathen rage, and why do the people imagine a vain thing?
2. The kings of the earth rise up, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against His Anointed,
Psalm 2:3
3. Let us break their bonds asunder, and cast away their yokes from us.
 
    But the Lord has the last laugh, not in evil revenge, but in justice. 
Psalm 2:4
4. He that dwelleth in the heavens shall laugh them to scorn; the Lord shall have them in derision.
Psalm 2:9
9. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.
 
    And the justice that breaks Jesus’s enemies is that the innocent Lamb of God is punished and the guilty sinner goes free. Jesus is crucified and Barabbas is acquitted. Christ dies for sinners, seeking and saving the lost from the nets and snares of sin, death, and the power of the devil as the King Who Lives! Because His crucifixion brought His Resurrection for Him and for all baptized into His Name.
Revelation 19:6
6. Hallelujah! for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.
Revelation 11:15
15. . . the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ: and He shall reign for ever and ever.

Job 19:25, 26
I know that my redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand on the latter day upon the earth:
26. And though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.
1Corinthians 15:20
20. [For] now is Christ risen from the dead. . . the firstfruits of them that [sleep].
I Corinthians 15:21,22
“Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
22. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
1 Corinthians 15:51,52
51. Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep; but we shall all be changed, 52. In a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet;
1Corinthians 15:52b-53
52. the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 53. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
1 Corinthians 15:54b, Isaiah 25:8
54. then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, 'Death is swallowed up in victory.
1 Corinthians 15:55-56, Hosea 13:14
55. O death, where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory? 56. The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.
1 Corinthians 15:57 
57. But thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Thus, finally, in Romans 8:31, 33, 34
31. If God be for us, who can be against us? 33. Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. 34. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is at the right hand of God, who makes intercession for us.
Revelation 5:12, 13
12. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.
13. …Blessing, and honour, glory and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever. Amen.
Revelation 19:16
16. . . . KING OF KINGS, [and] LORD OF LORDS.
 
Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!
 

Written belief [Easter Sunrise]

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Isaiah 25:6-9

• 1 Corinthians 15:1-25

• St. John 20:1-18

 

Grace, mercy, and peace [are yours] from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. (1 Tim 1)
 
The Lord speaks, saying:

“Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”

 
The world does not understand Easter and so we drop eggs from helicopters and take turns hanging on a cross. For the pastor, Easter is both easy to preach for and hard. Easy because God simply lays all His cards on the table for us, but hard because every waking moment since time began, God has been working towards this day for us. Too much for one sermon.
 
So, I will also lay all my Easter Sunrise cards on the table right away for us to contemplate this morning.
The Bible was written after all the events in it took place. Which means we are not getting a live play-by-play, we are getting a post-resurrection reflection.
 
The perfect example of this is the Pentateuch, or the Five Books of Moses, commonly called Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Genesis is year Zero. Moses is not born until just shy of 4000 years or so after that. that’s right. Let it sink in.
 
How we usually explain this, is that when the Lord descends upon Mount Sinai, in Exodus 19, and eats and drinks with Moses, Jesus dictates to Moses the whole book of Genesis. In this supernatural way, we receive that first book of the Bible.
 
But this only works for that one book. Every other book was written after the fact and most everyone takes that fact and runs with it, creating the doctrine of “the Bible was written by men and therefore is full of errors.”
 
Let’s look at another example. In St. John’s Gospel which we heard this morning, chapter twenty reads like the narration of a movie. Notice how the author is able to be here, there, and everywhere. He was there with St. Mary at the tomb. He knew that St. Peter St John were hanging out together. 
 
He knew about the race between the two and who won it. He knew everything and yet where was he when all this was happening? 
 
Other parts of St. John’s Gospel are similar. Chapter 2:22, Jesus says, “When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.”
 
This is an afterthought. A reflection that came after the fact. 
 
What does this mean? First off, this means, that we are not simply reading a biography about Jesus and the other people of the Bible. We are not discovering the “real” Jesus in the time period and culture He was brought up in, as if we could peer into the true Jesus of history and not just what some people wrote about Him.
 
Second, we are also not reading a diary, hearing a podcast, or watching a vlog. These events took place in time, but we do not read about them in real time. We know over a million people of Israel walked through the Red Sea without getting wet. But who would even think of writing anything down in that moment? Pharaoh’s armies behind, surrounded by water, and the Lord’s pillar of cloud in front. Not a high priority to be sure.
 
Third, this means that something else is going on here. If accuracy is not the point, if timeliness is not the point, and if current events are not the point, then what is? 
 
Belief. Belief is the point. Jesus says in St. John 20:31, “these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.” We do not read the Bible as a textbook, hoping to find the perfect instruction before we die. We do not hear Scripture as a self-help book, seeking that perfect way of life. We do not listen to God’s Word for a secret code to unravel all knowledge of perfection in this life.
 
We hear what God wants us to hear in order that we may believe. There are no errors in that, because the Holy Spirit gave to His chosen writers the thoughts they expressed and the words that they wrote.
 
2 Peter 1:21 says, “For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”
 
1 Timothy 3:16-17 says, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, ¹⁷ that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
 
And 1 Corinthians 2:13 tells us how the Apostles taught: “And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.”
 
So Jesus wants us to hear and He chooses men to preach and teach, even to write that we may indeed hear and fulfill His Word. Now, I already said that timing isn’t important for Scripture, but I do want to know what context was all this writing happening in? What was going on when all this reflecting about the past and writing into Scripture was happening?
 
Well, what do the Apostles say they were doing after all this took place?
 
Acts 2:42, “And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”
 
This means that what you hear in every word of Scripture is a reflection upon the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ which is being delivered in Church. A sermon! What you hear in God’s Word is the teaching of the Apostles, Prophets, and Psalmists immediately before fellowship, communion, and prayers, as Acts 2 said.
 
When Jesus speaks of “His Word”, we expect it to show up. We ask, “What word?” 
He replies, “This Word” and points to Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms and the Apostles. 
 
But that is not all. We are not ink and paper and neither is He. The Word was made flesh. He dwelt among us and spoke for Himself. We don’t get to make up what He says or thinks, but receive what He says and thinks.
 
Likewise, flesh and blood have lives to live. Jesus lived His life, fulfilling and perfecting His promise to save His people from their sins. He then gives us His life, that we might live with Him in our churchly life and in our regular day to day life.
 
Too often we make the mistake of thinking that what we read and hear is a play-by-play diary, from the Bible. When we think this way, we begin just searching the Scriptures for ourselves and an uplifting message.
 
We miss, entirely, Jesus Himself. But Jesus does not miss us. He continues to offer His sacrifice to us in Word and Sacrament. What we read and hear leads us to the Church of Christ, who He has purchased, cleansed, and does preserve in His righteousness, to the end of the age.
 
Thus, Easter is as easy to understand as Word and Sacrament, but as hard to understand as God made man.
 
Alleluia! Christ is Risen!!
 

Seeing Jesus [Good Friday]

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Hosea 6:1-6

• Exodus 12:1-11

• St. John 18-19

Grace, mercy, and peace [are yours] from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. (1 Tim 1)
 
Jesus speaks to you on this Good Friday from His suffering heard, saying:
“But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”
 
On Pastor’s “wish list”, so to speak, is a little metal plaque that could fit in the pulpit here. On it, would quote the disciples in St John 12:21, “Sir we would see Jesus.” This, then, becomes the Church’s plea to our heavenly Father and it also becomes the Church’s demand of her pastors and basically the only thing that the pastor is good for: showing Jesus.
 
But this becomes hard to do as Jesus has ascended to the Right Hand of the Father. There is no Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world, as St. John the Baptist got to point to. Neither is there the Man, Jesus Christ, that Pilate says to behold. And neither is there a man to which Phillip may lead us, as I just mentioned in St. John 12.
 
So it becomes very interesting, when Jesus goes back in time, and says things like, “Abraham saw my Day and was glad” (Jn 8:56) and from John 12:41, “These things Isaiah said, because he saw His glory, and he spoke of Him.”
 
It is interesting, because just as it appears we cannot point to Jesus in our time, neither should it have been possible for Abraham and Isaiah to see Him. But, we hear that Abraham only saw Christ’s “day” and Isaiah only saw Christ’s glory. The super-spiritual will then try to convince you that that proves they did not see Jesus before He was born and even that the Apostles did not see His glory until after the Resurrection.
 
They quote St. John 12:26, “but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written of him, and that they had done these things to him.” This is nothing else except a sloughing off of the cross. God’s glory is not on the cross. My God got off that cross. And we sinfully agree.
 
If we tell the truth, we don’t actually want to see Jesus, because of that cross. We want a fake Jesus, Who we can control, because if we were to see the real Jesus, the suffering, serving God, then we would have to admit our sins are real and the world and everything we hold dear is fake.
 
But don’t worry! The crucifixion of Jesus is just an unfortunate circumstance, they tell us, where Jesus was at the wrong place, at the wrong time. We need to move on to glory.  No one would interpret “God’s Glory” as suffering and death and He’d never expect that of us, even if He didn’t even spare His own Son. Glory is resurrection. Glory is exaltation. Glory is power!
 
That’s the God I worship. Power. Eh uh I mean, powerFUL. In fact my God is so powerful, He can make His Word suspicious and probably not true so that every religion can be right and truth is relative to each and every body. Isn’t that a powerful God??
 
Sigh.
 
St. John continues his own explanation of his words in chapter 12, for us. The men who want “to see Jesus” (12:21) get a seemingly cryptic answer from Jesus, that if they want to see Him they must understand that “the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (12:23) and that’s when they will see Him.  
 
Jesus tells them about the need for a grain of wheat to fall into the ground and die before it can bring forth much fruit (12:24).   Jesus clearly explains that the path to glory and salvation will also be the way of sacrifice and denial (12:25-26).
 
Jesus is also clearly asking for this sacrifice and denial from the Father as He prays, “Father, glorify Thy name” (12:28).  The Father answers that His Name will be glorified through Jesus’ death.   Jesus then says that it will be in the process of His being “lifted up from the earth”, referring to His Crucifixion, and God’s plans for the world will be secured (12:28, 32-33) through His suffering and death.
 
So we see that the glory of God is directly related to the Crucifixion of Jesus. More than that, Christ “is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Heb. 1:3). The Glory of the Father is the Son. 
 
“Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” , Jesus says in St. John 14:9. 
 
In this, we now have a direct line of transmission from the Father to our eyeballs. The Father’s glory is found only in the Son. The Son’s glory is found in His suffering and death on the cross. The cross is kept among us in three ways: first, by faith we hear the Word and believe it, second, we keep the body of Jesus on our crosses, and third, we also bear our own cross of suffering in this world.
 
It was necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into His glory (Luke 24:26). It was necessary for our sakes, so that we could also see His glory. Isaiah saw the glory of the Lord, in Isaiah 6, meaning, He saw Jesus. Abraham rejoiced to see “Jesus’s Day”, meaning he saw Jesus. 
 
We proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes by eating and drinking, says 1 Cor 11:26, and thereby see Jesus. We literally feed on His flesh and drink His blood, gaining eternal life, and the solemn promise to be raised up on the last day (John 6:54).
 
We baptize in His Name and at His Command, sealing the Promise of salvation to ourselves, meaning in baptism we see Jesus. We keep His Word close and treasure it that we might hear it over and over again and whenever we want.
 
The hour that the Father glorifies the Son so that the Son my glorify the Father is the Son’s crucifixion. The way we see Jesus is not through pretend emotions or visions, but in His Word and His Sacraments.
 
 

 

God remembers [Maundy Thursday]

 

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Exodus 12:1-14

• 1 Corinthians 11:23-32

• St. John 13:1-15

Grace, mercy, and peace [are yours] from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. (1 Tim 1)
 
Who speaks from 1 Corinthians saying:
“In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’”
 
Yesterday, we were doing the remembering, because in our sin the first thing we forget is Jesus Christ and His great work of salvation accomplished completely for us. Today, we will once again contemplate “remembrance”, but this time discover that it is God Who remembers.
 
Because, if God does not remember, then our remembrance is less than nothing. And again, we are beginning at the words of our Lord at the institution of His Sacrament of the Altar, “This do in remembrance of me.”
 
And what I am proposing tonight is that we have been misunderstanding and mistranslating these words of Jesus. We do this in many places, because English is a horrible language or to put it kindly, a very young language, but I digress. 
 
Here are some big words, but hang with me for a moment. Our purpose this evening is to hear, what is called, the Possessive Adjective in God’s Word as opposed to an Objective Genitive. As an example of what we are listening for is the Lord’s words of Institution. Using the Objective Genitive, we hear: “this do in remembrance of me”. Using the Possessive Adjective we hear: “this do in My remembering.”
 
This difference may sound insignificant and best left to those language experts of higher pay-grade, however, the doctrine this difference makes is extremely significant. For with the Objective Genitive we are familiar with, the remembrance is our work and depends on us. In the Possessive Adjective, the remembrance depends on Jesus.
 
And in the depths of our sin-sickness induced fatigue, the Good News would be that Jesus remembers. the Bad News would be that remembrance adds another plank of wood to our cross. If remembrance depended on our noggin, we would be lost. Is it only remembrance once a week that is good enough? Would you want God to treat you that way?
 
In St. John’s Gospel, every time Jesus talks this way, He makes the work dependent on Himself. such as in 14:27, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” Our peace, untroubled-ness, and courage is based on Christ’s Peace, not some peace we may happen to find on our own.
 
In 1 Corinthians 9:2-3, St. Paul defends his apostleship saying, “If to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you, for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord. This is my defense to those who would examine me.”
 
 It would take forever to go through the Old Testament examples of this Possessive Adjective usage. Regardless, we can show that it is not our remembering that accomplishes such great things, but God’s.
 
Genesis 9:16, God remembers when the rainbow appears: “When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”
 
Genesis 19:29, “So it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived.”
 
Genesis 30:22, “Then God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened her womb”, giving her Joseph and Benjamin.
 
Exodus 6:5, “Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant.”
 
1 Samuel 1:19, “And Elkanah knew Hannah his wife, and the Lord remembered her” and gave her Samuel, the great prophet, as a son. And on and on.
 
Even in the Magnificat we chant at Vespers from St. Luke 1: “He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever.”
    
Our job of remembrance focuses on remembering that we are sinful. Deuteronomy 15:15, the Lord says, “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you.” 
 
And it is Jesus Who remembers the sinner and opens paradise to him, as we hear in St. Luke 23:42-43, “And [the criminal] said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ And he said to him, ‘Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.’”
 
The Lord’s Supper belongs to Jesus, the Son of God, Who remembers His Church and His suffering for her. He emphasizes that the remembering belongs primarily to our beloved Savior and only secondarily to us. The Lord’s Supper came from Christ and belongs to Christ, St. Paul was simply passing it along to the Church, so the remembering belongs to Christ.
 
Thus St. Paul, as he ministers to the Corinthians, as a steward and servant of God, required to be faithful to God in all that he said and did, is careful to maintain the proper understanding of God’s remembering. For, the Lord of the Church is the possessor of the Word and Sacraments, the Marks of the Church come from, belong to, and lead the Church back to her beloved Savior.
 
When the death of Christ is proclaimed when the Lord’s Supper is instituted, distributed, and consumed, It is God who remembers and preserves His Church thus Baptism, preaching, and the Lord’s Supper continue and will continue till the end of time.
 
 “In My Remembrance (1 Cor. 11:24, 25)” the Apostle writes in our Epistle, and its meaning can be understood in two ways. The vital question is whether it is God who remembers us for Christ’s sake or we who remember God because of His grace in Christ. 
 
 Certainly both are true, but God is the One who first remembers His promises in Christ and Who prompts our response of remembering in faith. 
 
One day, we may change the words “in remembrance of me” back to their original, “This do into My remembering.” For now, it is good enough that we believe in the action of Christ as He preserves His Church and leads her to eternal life, that it is God Who remembers His people, preserving His Church, and leading them to eternal life, and that great comfort is found in knowing and confessing that God preserves and leads His Church despite the worst efforts of sinful mankind.
 
 

You remember [Holy Wednesday]

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Isaiah 53:1-12

• Isaiah 62:11-63:7

• St. Luke 22:1-23:53

 

Grace to you and peace. (1 Thess 1)
 
The Lord speaks, saying:
“And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’”
 
Day Four of Holy Week and what is Jesus doing? On Day 4 of Creation, He was creating the lights in the sky that we might determine day and night, signs, seasons, and days and years. Today, that same light reveals signs for us in our Lord’s Passion and we can note more similarities as our Lord goes through this drastic regeneration, for us.
 
Remember me, O LORD.  Remember me when you come into Your Kingdom.  Remember me when you create the heavens and the earth.  Remember me as you deal with everyone else.  Remember me as You are crucified, alone, paying for the sin of the world.
 
Asking God to remember us seems so selfish when Jesus is dying, but the Crucifixion of Jesus is how we are to remember.  The cross is where the Life of the world is poured out abundantly and God places that Sign smack dab in front of our faces.  God tells us, “Don’t forget!” and “Don’t turn away”.  For this is where the glory of God is manifesting.  It is here, at the cross, that we will find a washing of rebirth, the Water of Life, a wedding feast, the Bread of Life, the Word of God, and true Peace.
 
Remember that on the second day of earth and time itself God created Heaven in the form of water.  There was water on the earth and there was water in the firmament.  In and with water, God was preparing a place for you in the Waters of Everlasting Life from the start.  Water is significant and God uses it all the time to accomplish His work, if we only remember.  This constant use is noted because of the Sacrament Jesus gave us.
 
Baptism is life saving and faith giving.  Jesus was baptized, He baptized, His Apostles baptized, and His Bride, the Church, continues to baptize even today.  By offering faith and salvation in baptism, Jesus has raised its level of importance.  Not so that every time Jesus steps into a puddle we call it baptism, but that every time we hear water mentioned by God we think, “Oh!  I was baptized in that stuff.  Is that what God is talking about here?”
 
Remember. Remember the Baptism you were baptized with.  It is effective and affective your entire life.  Remember and rely on this means of Grace and you receive exactly what it says: the forgiveness of sins.  It points your trust outside of yourself to His cross and to the water and Blood spilled on the cross for you.  Yes, there was water at the cross. 
 
Remember, after the Palm Sunday procession, Jesus enacts a baptizing of His own in cleansing the Temple of the thieves and robbers.  God was coming home , the place needed to be cleaned up, and He was the only One able to do it.
 
This was the insult that incited Jesus to anger and so He swept through His Temple, His house, as a tidal wave of righteousness, clearing the way for proper prayer and liturgy.  No more will the things of the world clutter His Temple, for it is His Body and He himself is the Head, and He will be cleansed of our sin on the cross, though He had none of His own.
 
Remember, on the second day, heaven, the Temple, was washed for us so that we could come to the spotless sacrifice.  The Lamb of God let loose a Tsunami of His own Blood, cleaning to the tiniest corner, having been found innocent and righteous by the Father.
 
Remember, on the third day of Creation, the LORD caused earth, the dry land to appear.  This was now the solid ground that was not turbulent or subject to the change in the weather, as the seas were.  This rock would not toss about nor would it be moved as easily as the seas.  On it could be built solid things, like a mighty fortress.  On it could stand that which would never be moved.  On it, the Son of Man would be lifted up, a light to lighten the nations drawing all men to Himself.
 
While man had not yet been brought onto the scene, the Word of the LORD had us in mind. This was the point of all of this creating in the first place: that we could be there and that we could bear fruit and multiply, also. 
 
For also on this day third of Creation, vegetation was brought forth from the earth.  All the green stuff that was supposed to bear fruit was created.  And in a moment of uncreation, Jesus caused a fig tree to whither in Jerusalem to prove to us that Creation had been turned against its original purpose.
 
For God’s Temple, even His very people, had turned against Him in sin, doing the things they were not created to do.  A good tree bears good fruit and cannot help but do so.  This fig tree, this Jerusalem, this sinner had ceased to produce the fruit of repentance and therefore produced bad fruit.  The people had become fruitless trees, despising preaching and God’s Word.  The tree needed to be cut down and a new one planted. 
 
And a new tree was planted at Golgotha and the Word of God hung there, paying for the sin of fruitlessness, dying, and yielding a hundred fold fruitfulness in His Blood.
 
Remember, on the evening and morning of the Fourth Day, God created the lesser lights: sun, moon, and all stars.  These were to be markers for seasons and for signs, as we said.  Signs such as the Epiphany star guiding the Magi to the Infant Priest, Jesus.  They were to be heralds, not idols.  The days and the nights were not supposed to be held up as mystical or magical, as if they had powers of their own, such as the Sabbath.  Neither were the lights to be worshipped as if the sun creates life. 
 
Jesus is the Light of the World.  The Light that lightens all other lights.  Not only that, but He is the Wisdom of God, enlightening our hearts and our minds, turning them to repentance that we might be forgiven.  For what does God say in Genesis 1? The Light rules over the day and the night.  The Light rules over the lesser lights and the night.  There is nothing that the Light does not touch or bring in the open.
 
Truly the curse of sin and death is drying up the tree of mankind.  We find ourselves fighting a stronger and stronger enemy, though it is us growing weaker and weaker.  One that not only attacks our bodies and possessions, but that would attack and question the very thoughts in our head calling that which is right, wrong and that which is wrong, right.  For if Jesus, God of God and Light of Light, is crucified when we are supposedly so enlightened, what will happen if time continues?
 
Remember, all of this and more do we poor miserable sinners deserve and more woe is coming.  Gone are the days when the next generation had it better than the previous for the world daily plots their demise. 
 
Remember, the Lord does not. Remember this Body and Blood shed for you. Remember this water and Word poured over you and this Gospel preached to you.  God has truly caused the dry land to appear in the midst of the Red Sea of sin and He names it the Body of Christ.
 
This Body is the Light that reveals salvation in the crucified God-man. This Body is the dry, firm foundation upon which Faith is built. This Body is the fruitful tree, taking in filth, sin, and death, feeding on our sin, digesting it upon the cross, and spitting out Saints. 
 
Yes, producing abundant life that overflows into the entire world.  For what comes out of THIS Man, hanging on the cross, shows that He is clean. For the uncleanness that goes into Jesus is our sin, not His, but what comes out is a baptismal flood of salvation.
 
Remember, dear Saints.  Remember the LORD’s death until He comes again. Proclaim His death until He returns, taking and eating and drinking as often as you can, in remembrance of Him.  Proclaim His Gospel to all nations by Baptism.
 
For this is the exact moment Jesus came for.  The moment when He places Himself into your ear, on your head, in your heart, and on your lips and tongue in order to forgive you.  The time has come. The season is at hand. The Sign of the Salvation of the LORD is in front of us and upon us and He gives it and sheds it and pours it out for you. Remember and believe.
 
 

Why the palms? [Palm Sunday]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Zechariah 9:9-12

• Philippians 2:5-11

• St. Matthew 26:1-27:66

 

Grace to you and peace. (1 Thess 1)
 
Jesus speaks to you on this day from His Gospel heard, saying:

“But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

 
Traditionally, this Sunday of palms is day of confirmation and baptism. Where catechumens have spent the extra time in Lent intensely studying and memorizing God’s Will in Scripture and catechism. And so as not to overshadow the Great Day of Resurrection, our celebration for that would happen today.
 
For today, we may be dealing with a trail of palm branches, but later this week, we will be following a trail of blood. If you could’ve looked closely at those palms strewn in Jesus’s way, you may have seen tinges of red here and there, for in Jesus’s human nature, He sweats drops of blood in anticipation of His crucifixion.
 
Now we all assume that it was palm branches thrown about on that Palm Sunday, but the only Evangelist that tells us this is St. John, who’s account we did not hear today. And palms are what we’ll focus on today, because first, we want to know what all these palm branches are doing in our church this morning, and second, what all these palm branches have to do with me and my faith.
 
In trying to determine how to celebrate Palm Sunday, we may think that the best idea is just to imitate and ape what we hear in the Bible, in a nice, sanitized way of course: a children’s play or musical.
 
We hear St. John say “palm branches” and immediately run to the flower shop and buy some. This makes sense to a point, but where are your cloaks? Where are your Apostles? Where are your persecutors?
 
The Church has not lasted thousands of years by merely copying biblical actions, just because they’re in there. There is more to the palms than you think, and it begins with a celebration of freedom and victory. 
 
The Feast of Booths is one of three proscribed festivals that required a pilgrimage to the Temple. The people were commanded by the Lord in Leviticus 23 to celebrate this feast for 7 days, by living in booths, topped with branches from different trees, which included palms. All in order “that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt” (v. 43).
 
So important was this festival that it not only included no working and a pilgrimage of varying distances, but this is the first festival of the Lord where He commands His people to rejoice (Lev 23:40). Now, you must remember that, at this time, Jesus was also in a Booth, though the Bible calls it a tabernacle, and even when the Jews took Israel, He didn’t get His own house until Solomon became king, 480 years after the Exodus and 400-some years after everyone got their own home in the Promised Land, first.
 
So we have a decorated booth with palm branches and no house for God. Yet when God’s House is finally built (smaller than the palace, I might add), Solomon is directed to decorate it in this way:
“For the entrance to the inner sanctuary he made doors of olivewood; the lintel and the doorposts were five-sided. He covered the two doors of olivewood with carvings of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers. He overlaid them with gold and spread gold on the cherubim and on the palm trees.
So also he made for the entrance to the nave doorposts of olivewood, in the form of a square, and two doors of cypress wood. The two leaves of the one door were folding, and the two leaves of the other door were folding. On them he carved cherubim and palm trees and open flowers, and he overlaid them with gold evenly applied on the carved work” (1 Kings 6:31-35).
 
He also decorated the baptismal fonts the same way (1 Ki 7:36). All of this to say that the Temple will be decorated, and it will be decorated with palms. Even True Jerusalem, which Ezekiel describes in chapters 40 and 41 of his book, has palm trees all over the place.
 
Thus, when we get to Palm Sunday and Holy Week, we find Jesus’s way littered with Palm branches. But this is still not enough, because the palms are supposed to be in or on the Temple and in the progression of this week, that happens.
 
Jesus is the true Temple, as He says, and He is decorated with palms, too, but these palms are the rods and reeds of sinners, which pile upon Him violent wounds. They inscribe upon Him the wounds of our salvation. From St. Matthew 27:30 “And they spat upon him, and took the reed and smote him on the head.”
 
The palms that decorate for victory on Sunday, continue to decorate the true Temple with wounds as He prepares to accomplish eternal victory and freedom upon the cross. Just as Israel and the Lord dwelt in the booths of the wilderness, so does God make His own tabernacle in being made man, decorating it with the sins of the world, razing Him to the ground, to the tomb, and rising again to eternal life, never to perish again.
 
In this way, the Church does not simply have a new party favor or church art in the palms. what we hold in our hands today are one of the very means our Savior used to pay for your sins and secure your position at His side for all eternity. What you hold in your hand was one of the instruments that it pleased almighty God to use for His own torture and humiliation, and His own exaltation.
 
In fact, in the Greek word for palm is the word for victory. So it is that once again, what we find in God’s Church is more than meets the eye and much more than the world could even imagine. For, even though there is not magical quality to these palm branches, yet they still are able to convey to us the Gospel of Jesus Christ fairly clearly.
 
Not only that, but they are also able to transport us to that Palm Sunday with Jesus. Though we were not there and though the same thing does not happen today, we still have in our midst the path of palms, the “Hosannas”, and the ever-living, resurrected King, come to commune with His people in His Body and Blood.
 
See how our Old Testament makes sense now! Our King is humble. He humiliates Himself with palm branches which He created, and allows them to strike Him, unleashing His Blood which sets the prisoners free.
 
So also our Epistle. Our humble King is highly exalted by His humiliation. The suffering and death of God made man, Jesus Christ, is the reason His Name is above every name. Though the palms should be bowing to Him, He bows to their blows. Though we should be serving Him, He comes to serve and give Himself as a ransom for many.
 
When the palms appear in our hands, our sin is revealed to us. We are the ones who struck the blow to God, humiliating Him on the cross. But it please our Lord to do just such a thing in order that we believe and confess His great love in accomplishing all things for us. Even death on a cross, that we would be brought into the true Temple, Body and Blood, by His Baptism.
 

Jesus and the Malakh YHWH [Wednesday in Lent 5]

 LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Zechariah 3:1-10

• St. John 19:16-22

Grace to you and peace. (1 Thess 1)

 

Jesus speaks to you on this evening from His book of Zechariah heard, saying:

“For behold, on the stone that I have set before Joshua, on a single stone with seven eyes, I will engrave its inscription, declares the Lord of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day.”

This evening, we encounter our Malakh YHWH, or Angel of the Lord, for the final time in history and in Lent, for us, and it is a doozy. For I have spent this Lententide attempting to convince you that in a prophetic way, the Malakh YHWH is closely related to the pre-incarnate Christ.

This evening’s reading, however, seems to put the kibosh on that thought, because in Zechariah’s vision, we see the Malakh YHWH next to Jesus, or Joshua as our English translation poorly translates.

Yes, the Malakh YHWH and Jesus face off and are seen in the same room together, so we must have to conclude that Jesus is not the Malakh YHWH. However, when it comes to prophesy, we don’t always need a one-to-one correspondence to be a true picture of Christ.

For example, this past Sunday we heard of Abraham and the near sacrifice of Isaac. Isaac is a prophesy or picture of Christ, what He will do and how He will act when Jesus shows up. However, where Jesus actually dies, Isaac does not. Does that mean that Isaac cant be seen as a picture of Christ? No. 

What we look for when we “search the scriptures” (St. John 5:39) for Christ, are the ways all the people acted like Jesus. As Isaac was the son to be sacrificed by the father, he gets to show us that Jesus will die for others.

In our Zechariah 3 reading, what we see in Jesus and the Malakh YHWH are the two natures of Christ. Notice how He is wearing filthy clothes in verse 3 and they were taken away in verse 4 and He was given priestly clothes, the same assigned to Arron and the Levites for pure service in God’s House in Exodus 28:4.

Jesus, in His human nature, is able to take on our filthiness and, as Transfiguration showed, He is able to take up “pure vestments” again on Easter. He is also our great High Priest, as Hebrews 4:14 tells us, “Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.”

Continuing on in Zechariah: that satan is at the “right hand” may seem disconcerting, as the right hand of God is reserved for Christ and the right hand of Christ is reserved for His sheep, from St. Matthew 25. In the case of this vision, satan takes on the role of God’s Law which always accuses as Romans 4:15 says, “For the law brings wrath” and yet remains holy, i.e. at God's Right Hand.

So it is that satan’s evidence and testimony which he brought to stand against Jesus is rebuked, thrown out. This happens because Jesus is being judged for another’s sins, our sins, for which He took the blame. Isaiah 53:12 says, “Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.”

When we come to Jesus’s exaltation, in verses 4-5, it is not the Lord Who clothes and forgives, it is the Malakh YHWH! We know only God can forgive (St. Mark 2:7), so again, we are seeing this vision and it is blurring the lines, but only to those without faith.

So the Malakh YHWH gives Jesus the clothes of Aaron, of purification, of resurrection from the dead, where He is now dead to the Law (Gal 2:19) which accused Him mightily, and lives never to die again (Rom. 6:9) in order that He now sit at the right hand of God and, as He told us on Easter, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (St. Matthew 28:19) just as in v.7 of Zechariah 3.

The “right access” that Zechariah declares is none other than the High Priest’s authority to not only go in and out of the Holy of Holies, but now from life to death, heaven to hell. Hebrews 9:12 says, “through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption” and Hebrews 10:19-20, “we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh.”

As we get to this eye-balled stone in v.9, we come to the reason our Gospel reading was paired with Zechariah tonight. It is the stone the builders rejected, the cornerstone. The seven eyes are explained a little, by Zechariah 4:10, “These seven are the eyes of the Lord, which range through the whole earth.”

Thus, we simply state that this is the stone that Jesus described Himself as in St. Matthew 21:42. So now Jesus is not a man or an angel, but a stone. A stone with an inscription which apparently “will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day” (Zech 3:9).

What sort of inscription could possibly accomplish such a thing? Only the inscription of the Passion of our Lord. The marks of scourge, nail, and thorn inscribe upon the Body of Jesus Christ these words: “This is the King of the Jews” and in those wounds we are healed.

Pilate and the Jews believe it is words that hurt them, making offense and taking offense at the title plate that hangs above Jesus’s head while He hangs on the cross. But they are both mistaken. It is the Word made Flesh that both makes offense and takes offense. 

He is a “A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense” says 1 Peter 2:8 and “the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him” (St. Matt 21:44). 

So it is that the “single day” that takes away iniquity is the day when our High Priest, the Lord’s Branch, the True Vine was crucified and offered up as a ransom for the whole world. This is the prophesy and purpose of the Malakh YHWH, to show us Jesus, how He will live, how He will act, and how He will die for us. 

You can ask Jesus when you get to His side about all of this, but for now, we have the depths of God’s Wisdom revealed to us in His Word in every verse of Holy Scripture and our brother, the Malakh YHWH, the Angel of the Lord is no exception.