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.
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