Gift of Holy Communion [Trinity 2]

 

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Proverbs 9:1-10

• 1 John 3:13-18

• St. Luke 14:15-24

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 Church, saying: 

“A man once gave a great banquet and invited many.”

 

It is fitting today, as our Lord lays out His great banquet to us in a parable, that we in turn ponder one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit to His Church on earth, that of the Sacrament of the Altar or Holy Communion.

 

It is strange, when we think upon our Lord’s parables. We find the quick lesson of “be kind” and “practice humility”, but when the main character of the story uninvites people and then gets angry at the lack of guests at His banquet, there begin to arise little doubts in our minds of whether or not we got the whole story with these little morals we may or may not listen to.

 

We also may wonder why it has to be a banquet or a feast every time, for Jesus. Why can’t it be a protest or a book club or a mostly peaceful rally? These work out just as well for passing along the message, encouraging each other to work for the cause, and for getting the real work done. Dinners just get in the way and are not the real work, yet God seems to be a fan of getting in the way.

 

We will find truth in Exodus 24, but let me set it up. Chapter 12 was the Passover of eating and drinking and the death of all the first-born. Chapter 14 was the crossing of the Red Sea. 16 was the institution of eating the Manna and the quail. 17 there were fightings. 19 God came down to Mount Sinai and Moses goes up to receive the 10 Commandments and other ordinances. Moses comes down, tells the people, and in 24, he goes up again, this time with 70 witnesses.

 

Now, what do you suppose God did with these witnesses to prove that the Commands Moses gave were His and that He is to be believed? Well, they went up, they beheld God and they ate and drank, says Exodus 24:11. In order to prove His own true presence among them and that they actually saw God face to face, He ate and drank with them.

 

But that was then and this is now, you’ll say. That was the Old Testament. We live after the New Testament. No, no ,no, no. There are not three gods: old, new, and now. There is only one God. He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. What Jesus showed in the Old Testament, He began to do and teach in the New, and gave the same to His chosen Apostles to continue in His Church.

 

For in a re-do of this scene, Jesus takes the new Moses and Aaron, maybe, and walks with them on the Emmaus road, also found in St. Luke’s gospel. At that time, those two disciples were wondering if God was really among them or not, if God had left them or not, and if God had actually died on the cross.

 

After listening to them complain for quite awhile, Jesus yells at them, “You old slowcoach!” and continues to eat and drink with them, breaking the bread, and being revealed and known in that action specifically.

 

Repent. We want to take the God of the cross and turn Him and His preaching into some ambiguous “spirit” of the cross. We want to take the God of the tomb and turn Him into the spirit of the tomb. We want to take the Lord of the Feast and turn Him into the spirit of the feast, making Him invent super secret lessons of morality found only to those who can really hear God. 

 

Even your bulletin cover wants you to picture just some random meal that has nothing to do with anything, because if God is really setting up a meal on earth that He is actually serving Himself, which He says gives forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation and we scorn or neglect it, then that is just too much for our feeble minds to handle, because we would be lost.

 

Jesus is God of those things, to be sure, but He does not try to bring you the spirit of His cross, He hangs on the cross. Jesus does not work tirelessly to bring out the social lesson of His tomb, He lays in it for three days, dead. Jesus Christ does not constantly bring up eating and drinking as a window into the true nature of hospitality. He sits down at the table and breaks the bread. Himself. Literally.

 

Jesus is the God of the living. He is the God Who has created life. All of life. The breathing, the eating, and the drinking. Jesus is fed milk from His mother’s breasts, in His humanity. Jesus feeds 5000 and 4000 men from practically nothing, in His divinity. Jesus demands the Apostles give Him something to eat after the resurrection as the risen God-man.

 

There is no doubt that what Christ is paying for on the cross is complete and perfect salvation. But we are not at the cross. It is dust. We are not on the mountain side, being fed loaves and fish. We cannot go to the upper room and have another Last Supper. We can not even properly perform acts of hospitality to His liking.

 

We can eat the fish and cheese and fruit and ham from our bulletins, but what is that? Just our abstract imaginations running wild. Then satan runs in: if there is no meal, then perhaps there is no god and He has just brought us out of Egypt to die.

 

You repeat, as God’s people have said before you: “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness” (Ex 14:11-12), with no food.

 

There is another option. We can take Jesus at His Word. We can hear Him say to us, “Look, slowcoach, I said bread, I said wine, I said eat, I said drink. Easy!”

 

He says in Ezekiel 37: “I will raise you from your graves and you will know that I am the Lord, O my people” (v. 13) and “I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it” from Psalm 81:10.

 

Indeed, Jesus says, my flesh is true meat and my blood is true drink, in St. John 6:55. This is no fish and cheese board you can find at any Whole Foods. This is The Meal, for there really is a meal. There is a Great Banquet and it is taking place now, in eternity, with Jesus as Host and host. 

 

And Jesus is here today with His Church. Does He leave the party just to pray with us? No. He brings it. He brings the party with Him. Where the King is, there the Kingdom is. Jesus comes to Church, not to see what condition your condition is in, but to Commune with you.

 

For this Sacrament is the true Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, in with and under the bread and wine, instituted by Christ Himself for us Christians to eat and drink. And while our Lord was uninvited to His own Feast, His own creation, such that He was scourged and crucified, He does not despise the afflicted, miserable sinner.

 

He sets His feast specifically for them, for you. He does not hide His Table, but prepares the Table in the presence of His enemies, anoints heads with oil, and the cup runneth over. In this is the Wisdom of God, which Proverbs preaches today. 

 

He calls to the simple, the sinful, “leave your sinful ways and live”. How? By eating and drinking what the Lord has prepared for you. By believing and having faith in the words “given and shed for you”. 

 

“Do not be surprised brothers”, says St. John from our Epistle, “that the world hates you” or rather that you find yourself hating and despising the holy Table of God. That is your sin and your red flag that you abide in death. 

 

But you have been brought out of death to life. You no longer hate your brother, Who is Jesus Christ, born of St. Mary. You no longer make excuses for shunning, despising, or neglecting His Table to which you have been invited. 

 

For your Savior has taken on your sins. He was the Invited Who became uninvited in His crucifixion. He was poor, crippled, blind, and lame under the burden of the world’s sin. But He has risen to new life, burying all that in hell. He has ascended to the Father’s Right Hand and sends His Word, His Invitation to the ends of the earth.

 

That invitation has not changed and does not change for you today. It is the same. “Come and eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed” “for everything is now ready”. Come, “eat and drink and see God.”

 

 

Bear the cross [Trinity 1]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Genesis 15:1-6

• 1 John 4:16-21

• St. Luke 16:19-31

 

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 Church, saying: 
“And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores”
 
Today, this Lazarus teaches us of suffering, because apparently he got into heaven “receiving bad things in life” and was rewarded, while the rich man received good and was punished. This is not good because the whole of the USA ethos is avoiding suffering with pills, robots, and air conditioning.
 
Thus, we have Jesus speaking against us today and His words echo in our minds when He says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mt 16:24).
 
This sacred and most holy cross our Lord lays on us, in this life. All three of our readings testify and describe this cross and, since it is an holy gift of God and a mark of the true Church on earth, we will explore what it means to “bear the cross”.
 
To be sure, there is suffering in this world for everyone. The Christian by no means has a corner on this market. Meaning, you don’t have to be a Christian to suffer. This is why our Lord must make the distinction for us.
 
“Bearing the cross” is not just suffering “in general” neither is it suffering that we seek out or bring upon ourselves, though there is plenty of that in life as well. Jesus puts it this way in 1 Peter 2:20, “For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure?”
 
So we find, at the beginning, that the cross is not yours to cling to or find. Rather, it is something given to you and 99% of the time, not what we think it is. This is because, when we hear “suffer for doing good”, our hyper-dramatic minds immediately create the picture of being a part of some great and wonderful, popular movement. One that promises peace, or equality, or a world devoted to Jesus. 
 
When reality hits, we realize we have misidentified the cross, as somehow or another God has not advanced our cause, we panic as Abraham did in our Old Testament reading. He realized the weight of the cross God had given him and he complained, looking for relief.
 
“But Gooooood. What are you gonna give me now? I don’t have any of the things you said and someone else is gonna get all my stuff. Waaaaaaah”
 
Now, I poke fun, but the lesson on the cross is this: when we pick up the cross Christ gives us and understand it, we immediately desire to throw it away.
 
Repent! Both the rich man and Lazarus bear the cross, but who wants to be Lazarus? Not me. Not you. What’s the alternative? As Jesus reveals, the cross was carried by the rich man as well. He had to face down being popular, well-off, and stable. Who would ever categorize prosperity as a cross to bear?
 
Dear Christians, the cross of Christ is more than an aesthetically pleasing decoration for Christians, churches, or Christian-adjacents. It is also more than simply the instrument of torture and capital punishment imposed upon the Christ. 
 
The cross is the Father’s Will. Jesus does not choose it, He does not manufacture and show cross-emotions, and neither does He sell cross-shaped propaganda or souvenirs. 
 
Jesus does the Father’s Will as the Father wants it done. Jesus follows the Father’s plan. Jesus walks the path laid out before Him. That plan and path is the way to the cross. Just by being God, the world is hostile to Jesus. By virtue of God’s Word of truth, the darkness hates Him. Because Jesus exists, He is despised and rejected by His own people and by His people’s enemies.
 
The cross of wood, laid upon Jesus, is the cherry on top. It is the manifestation of all these things, but especially the father’s wrath against sin. The cross is the end of the path. It is the end of the Father’s will. It is the end of the Law. It is the suffering and death of Jesus that pays for and conquers all the corruption, hatred, and rebellion in us.
 
The cross was chosen for Jesus. The God Who was made man was given the task of suffering and dying on the cross to purchase and win you. That is the cross given to Him alone.
 
You are given a cross, for the student is not above his master (Mt. 10:24). You do not get to choose it, but you do not have to seek it out as Abraham did when he made Ishmael. The devil, the world, and your own sinful nature demand that you have it, but they are not in charge of it.
 
This is why in our Epistle, St. John tells us to love our brother. Not only do we not want to love our brother, but we would rather save the world, than love our brother. The Christian’s cross is two-fold then. First, that we suffer for the faith.
 
this does not mean making enemies with people on Facebook. This means regular and faithful attendance to the Lord’s Work that He is doing in His Word and Sacrament, as you promised in your confirmation.
 
Second, that we do our duty. Meaning, without even inventing for ourselves some grand place in this world, our Lord has given us holy orders. These are found in our Small Catechism’s Table of Duties. These mundane, ordinary, boring tasks are part of the holy life of faith and are where the devil attacks incessantly.
 
In all three readings, our Introit sums up the Christian’s cross: to trust and to wait. “O Lord I have trusted in Thy mercy”, but how long must I wait for it? The sinner and the saint that is the Christian, can’t help but be dual-minded, or rather, dual spirited when it comes to God’s Word and the cross.
 
Abraham says, “Great. I’m getting a son. Where is he?” Lazarus says, “Great I’m getting to heaven. When?” You say, “Great. I love my brother. But why that one?”
 
Jesus says, “I am love and I first loved you.” Jesus bears His cross perfectly and He stays with us in order to give us strength to endure our cross, which is impossible. But Jesus makes it possible for even the rich man to enter heaven, as He says, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible”, in St. Matthew 19:26.
 
Jesus bears the cross first and sanctifies it for your use, lowering its bar so low…how low is it? It is so low, that you have already been credited for a perfect life in Christ. You have already been justified and forgiven, for free. 
 
In a wonderful reversal, You become Jesus in the story. For as Jesus is walking with the cross to His crucifixion, Simon of Cyrene is ordered to carry His cross for Him. Jesus takes the role of that Simon, when He lives your life with you saying, “This is too much for you. Take and eat, take and drink” as He strengthened Elijah in 1 Kings 19:7.
 
You bear your cross in the strength of Christ and at the direction of His Love. Faith tells you to “Cast your burdens upon the LORD and He will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall.” (Psalm 55:22).
 
So that when you cling to the old rugged cross, know that you are not looking for wood and nail, but your holy duties of everyday life and the holy medicine and relief only found in the Divine Service of the Christ’s Holy Supper.
 
 

The Keys and Confirmation [Trinity Sunday]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Isaiah 6:1-7

• Romans 11:33-36

• St. John 3:1-15

 

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 Church, saying: 
“No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.”
 
Certainly, what Jesus presents to us today through Nicodemus, even before we get to all the “born again” stuff, is a dilemma. The dilemma is of a closed heaven, cordoned off, only allowing exodus and entrance to the Son of Man, Who of course is also known as Jesus Christ.
 
This “closing of heaven” is first introduced to us in the very first book of the Bible. In Genesis chapter 3 we hear, “He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life” (v. 24).
 
There is also the very distressing passage in Genesis 7:16 when Noah, having finished his task of loading the Ark, “the Lord shut him in”. It is not distressing because it happens, for God is the one Who closes the Ark when the correct amount of beings are aboard. It is distressing because there is a closing and you are either on the right side or the wrong side.
 
What is important to note here is that Jesus is the only one. It is only the Son of Man Who is allowed in and out of heaven, as He sees fit. that’s it. Just one man. The God-man.
 
We also have Jesus saying, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Mt. 16:19). 
 
So we have this mix of open and closed, door, and keys on this confirmation Sunday which is also supposed to be the celebration of the Most Holy Trinity. This is not confusing. This is the standard, it’s all about Jesus, stuff.
 
Repent! Not one of you thinks of opening the door to heaven. No one wants that to happen, because there are too many unknowns. Will I have my husband or wife? Will I be with my family? Will I like it there? 
 
Especially the part where all your inner-most thoughts and working will be revealed and it just becomes too much. Heaven can stay closed. Leave me alone in my misery. I can find shreds of happiness here. Just leave me behind.
 
Here is where the actual mercy of Jesus shows itself to you. Jesus opens heaven not without warning, but without your permission. He opens it and all your worst fears come true. All this God, salvation, and everlasting life stuff is true. And so is all your sin. Heaven opens and the light hurts.
 
Jesus ascends into heaven before you do. He descends to take on His own rational soul and human flesh and then ascends before you, in front of you, in your way. Or rather, in the way of that all-revealing light. 
 
In His “being lifted up”, as the Gospel says, Jesus is lifted up and gets in the way of that wrath-filled Light from heaven. His suffering, death, and resurrection make a way, a forgiven way. Heaven is shut and its light is death to sinners, but to the one baptized into the Body of the Son of Man, it is life.
 
Jesus confesses your sins, the sins of the world, in front of God Almighty Himself and is crucified for the trouble. It is a once for all crucifixion as Jesus’s sacrifice atones for all sin of all time, which includes all of yours. He confesses and is justified. Heaven is opened to Him. He ascends in triumph.
 
Which leaves you. But not just you. You confess and are absolved by the Office of the Keys. Jesus has left, but He has only left suffering, sin, and hell behind, never to be touched by those again. He has not left you. He is with you. He sends His Spirit to you. His Spirit is a confessing Spirit. 
 
And you confess your sins, not just because you are told to, but because you know that your sins will be forgiven and forgotten, as Psalm 103:12 says, “as far as the east is from the west,
    so far does he remove our transgressions from us.”
 
Thus, on this Confirmation Sunday, we are not here confirming magical phrases or correct answers. We are confirming faith. We are confirming contrition and repentance. We are confirming that heaven is closed to us sinners, but the Son of God has opened to us the way of everlasting life.
 
The Keys to this He gives to His Church on earth. they are not far away. Our Confessions state, “It is not the voice or word of the [pastor] who speaks it, but it is the Word of God, Who forgives sin, for it is spoken in God’s stead and by God’s command” (AC XXV:3).
 
This is what is meant by Jesus when He tells His Apostles, “Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Mt 18:18) and “He who listens to you listens to Me” (Lk 10:16) and “If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven” (Jn 20:23).
 
Jesus, in His great and mighty Mercy, has ascended into heaven to prepare for our arrival and He has descended again, to be with us until the end of the age, in order that we make it there. His work never stops. He never stops. His Gospel of the free remission of sins keeps going and going and going at His Word.
 
And His Word is with us. He is with us. Heaven is open. Our sinfulness is known and laid bare. We agree and confess we are sinful by nature. He declares and justifies us for His sake. We confess Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from all eternity, and true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is our Lord.
 
In this confession, not about how repentant we are or how Jesus is our everything, but about how Jesus has brought us to this place which He makes holy by His Word and Sacrament, we are saved. 
 
It is on this Rock, the Rock of Christ and His Faith, that Jesus builds His Church “and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (St. Matthew 16:18-19).
 
How can the Office of the Keys do such wonderful things among us? Certainly, not just the Keys, but the Word of God in and with the Keys does these things, along with the Faith which trusts the Word of God in the Office of the Keys. 
 
[Jesus ascends to the treasure house of heaven and descends to bring us those treasures. We hear our catechumens in front of us today and contemplate our own confirmation and the fact that Jesus has confirmed us by His Word and Sacrament, Jesus has confessed us before our heavenly Father, and Jesus has made us worthy to ascend with Him to glory. Unless a man believes this, he cannot be saved.]
 
 

The Word, preached [Sunday of Pentecost]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Genesis 11:1-9

• Acts 2:1-21

• St. John 14:23-31

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: 
“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.”
 
As we celebrate our Lord’s creation of His church on earth in sending the Holy Spirit upon His Apostles, we marvel at the rushing wind and the tongues of fire. For me, the scene recalls Elijah’s standoff with the priests of Ba’al where He calls on the Lord for victory saying:
 
“’O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.’ Then the fire of the Lord fell…” (1 Kings 18:36-38).
 
It was a complete victory for Elijah and for God. The one, true God had answered prayer and Ba’al and Asherah had remained silent. In other words, it was God’s Word, spoken though Elijah, that brought the fire and gained the victory, not the fire itself.
 
Jump back to Pentecost with the Apostles, and it is the same. The flash and the fire outshine everything else and the false teachers mistakenly focus on the fire of life or the fire of love or the fire of the Apostles in their heart for the people, failing to teach the Gospel.
 
But the Holy Spirit does not leave us to that sort of despair, for He Himself is our first clue to unlocking the secrets of Pentecost. The Spirit’s entrance is key for it is a “sound” like a “wind”. Continuing through these 22 verses of Acts 2, we find that these “speaking words” come up constantly.
 
We see and hear the words “tongue” and “speak”, utterance and sound, hearing and language, voice and address, give ear and words, and even prophet, prophesy, and call. This means that the point of Pentecost is not the fire, primarily, but the speaking, the hearing, and the Word, as St. Peter tells us in verse 14, “Give ear to my words.”
 
He does not say “check out these flames bro” or “we got spirit, yes we do, we got spirit how bout you”. 
 
He commands everyone to listen. Listen to his words that he is about to speak, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Speaking the Lord’s Word. Giving a sermon.
 
Article 5 of our Augsburg Confession states:
“That we may obtain this faith, the Ministry of Teaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments was instituted. For through the Word and Sacraments, as through instruments, the Holy Ghost is given, who works faith; where and when it pleases God, in them that hear the Gospel, to wit, that God, not for our own merits, but for Christ’s sake, justifies those who believe that they are received into grace for Christ’s sake.
They condemn the Anabaptists and others who think that the Holy Ghost comes to men without the external Word, through their own preparations and works” (AC V).
 
Jesus has already told us, in the Gospel heard today, “…the Word that you hear”. The Holy Ghost gives the Word, teaches the Word of Christ. We have been given the Word, the Gospel and it is to be preached.
 
Repent. One of the godly marks of His Church on earth is the preaching and teaching of the Word. Did you think that God only sent a book to you when you read the first verse of St. John’s Gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”?
 
God is not so lame as to only leave you a simple book that can be remade, altered, or copied by false prophets. The Word of God is composed in such a way that it has but one author: God. And, in that Word written by men who all used the thoughts and words of the Holy Ghost, comes more power than the Apostles had on Pentecost: that of the free remission of sins without tongues of fire.
 
Since, then, the Word of God provides the forgiveness of sins, it means it is sacramental, that is one of the ways our heavenly Father works among us, giving us spiritual gifts in physical means. Which in turn takes us to the real Word of God, Who is Jesus Christ.
 
Dear Christians, we would not be given such an event as Pentecost and it not be about Christ. Jesus even tells us in the Gospel, that the Holy Ghost will only preach and teach about Christ. Our Large Catechism states that “where Christ is not preached, there is no Holy Ghost who creates, calls, and gathers the Christian Church, without which no one can come to Christ the Lord” (LC 3:45).
 
It must be so, for at the end of the Pentecost Festival, about 3000 men repented of their sins, were baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins, and did receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. All of this, through St. Peter’s preaching of the Word made flesh.
 
Returning to Acts 2:21, “everyone who calls upon the Name of the Lord will be saved”, we can now answer what it means to “call on the name of the Lord”. It means to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ Crucified.
 
Our Apology of the Augsburg Confession says, “For of all acts of worship that is the greatest, most holy, most necessary, and highest, which God has required as the highest in the First and the Second Commandment, namely, to preach the Word of God. For the ministry is the highest office in the Church” (AP XV:42).
 
What is this preaching of the Word? “The very voice of the Gospel is this, that by faith we obtain the remission of sins” (Ap 12:2)
 
What is missing in other churches’ preaching? There is no “…righteousness of faith, of faith in Christ, or the consolation of consciences”. In fact, “…this most wholesome part of the Gospel they rail at with their reproaches. [This blessed doctrine, the precious holy Gospel, they call Lutheran]” (AP XV:42).
 
We keep the Feast of Pentecost most faithfully when we hear the Word of God, hold it sacred, and gladly hear and learn it. The Word of God preached produces faith, converts the sinner, and gives the remission of sins. It is in this way we keep the Word of God among us, that it may work its salvation in us and continue the work Christ began to do, now through men preaching.
 
[For] Today the Spirit of God who brooded over the waters of a lightless creation
Swoops down with tongues of fire to kindle faith in the re-creating work of Christ.
 
Today the Spirit of God who made the tower-builders into foolish babblers
Unites believers in the univocal language of the church-building grace of Christ.
 
Today the Spirit of God who came mightily upon the deliverers of Israel
Falls upon the apostles to proclaim the deliverance from sin we enjoy in Christ.
 
Today the Spirit of God who endowed with wisdom the builders of the tabernacle
Imparts the saving wisdom of the Word made flesh who tabernacled among us.
 
Today the Spirit who gave the law to Israel on two tablets of stone
Gives hearts of flesh for hearts of stone in the [sacrament of His Table].
 
Today the Spirit whom unfaithful David prayed the Lord would not take from him
Pours himself into sinners that they might sing of the faithful love of their Husband.
 
Today is Pentecost, the fiftieth day after the Passover resurrection of our Lord
When we are made holy by the holy-ing Spirit of the Christ who gives us the Father.
 
Today is Pentecost.
Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
 
Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!