Sermon for 5/24/15: The Feast of Pentecost

Still down one computer. No audio. Sorry! 

Love and Peace

John 14:23-31

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

It's no coincidence that the first thing Peter does after receiving the Holy Spirit is that he begins preaching about Jesus. After all, the gift that day, the Holy Spirit, delivered to the Apostles the Word of God. That's what the Holy Spirit does: He delivers to us the work of Christ, and He does so through the Word. The Spirit does not tell us what He Himself looks like or how He does what He does. The Holy Spirit tells us about Jesus. And our Lord makes that very plain. "The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you." It's not His job to whisper into your ears new and exciting revelations about the Will of God. It's not His job to bring about faith healings. It's not His job to promise you prosperity. It is His job to deliver Jesus to you. And that's exactly what He does.

This is a dangerous way of thinking today in the Church—dangerous because many who call themselves pastors, even within our own Missouri Synod, teach that it's the Holy Spirit's work to whisper sweet nothings into your ear, to make you wealthy, to make you popular with the world. And such teachings certainly make those who preach them popular and wealthy, but these rich and popular preachers do not deliver to you the forgiveness of sins which Jesus won for you. They deliver to you what they call love, but this is not truly love. What they call love is actually a poisonous mixture of self-affirmation, permissiveness, and even willful disobedience to the will and Word of God. The so-called love they give doesn't condemn sin; it celebrates sin. It wallows in sin. It twists everything so that evil is considered good and good is considered the highest form of evil.

I've told you this before, but Jesus has a different way of looking at love. Hear again the Word of the Lord: "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words." These false preachers and teachers, along with their willing hearers, have chosen their homes. Their homes may be rich mansions, and their church buildings may be enormous structures, but these palaces do not have room in them for Jesus Christ. They do not make a place for the preaching of His Word; they feel no need for His gifts as He gives them. They have no need for the Holy Spirit, for they have given themselves up to the spirit of this world. They have their reward.

On that first Pentecost, the Apostles spoke in tongues they did not know by the power of the Holy Spirit. The tongues of fire upon their heads were not the miracle. The Spirit at work through his Word, burning in the hearts of men, so that they asked, "What shall we do?"—that was the miracle. That was the intervention of the Almighty in the course of human affairs. Luther said it: "I cannot, by my own reason or strength, believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him." But the Holy Spirit does what man cannot do. He converts and gives new birth from above. He changes the hearts of men.  

This isn't some far away, long ago act. This is who He is and what He still does today. He calls us by the Gospel, enlightens us with his gifts, sanctifies and keeps us in the true faith. All of this He does through the Word. Men seek signs and get none but the sign of Jonah, Jesus said, that word of His resurrection from the tomb. If you will not believe that Word and live by faith, then no moving of mountains, however spectacular, will ever change your heart.

What, then, shall we do? Later in the Second Chapter of Acts, after Peter has preached his Pentecost sermon, the people asked the same question.  And this is what Peter told them: "Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For this promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself."

This is the God of the Holy Scriptures, the God of Jonah who brought even the pagan Ninevites to repentance and faith. He forgives. He justifies. He renews. He restores. He encourages. He feeds. He nurtures. He heals. He loves. And He does these things, not in some abstract or philosophical way, but in the real, solid things He has given—in His Word; in those cleansing waters of rebirth infused with His Triune Name; in the body and blood of Jesus Christ, given and shed for you. All of this is by grace, all by the death and resurrection of Jesus, sent by the Father, proclaimed by the Spirit.

Religious fads come and go, but the Word of the Lord endures forever. Here is your hope, your present and your future wrapped up into one: the God of all grace and mercy makes His home with you. This is the gift called Pentecost. This is the love and the peace that come to rest and remain in Christian hearts this day. Rejoice, and live in that peace. In the name of the Father and of the Son (+) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus always. Amen.                                                    

Sermon for 5/17/15: Easter VII

My computer is still down. Though I hope to have it back soon, there have been some complications in getting it repaired. I won't have audio recordings until I get it back. My apologies.

That You Would Not Fall Away

John 15:26-16:4

ALLELUIA! CHRIST IS RISEN! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

James and John, you may recall, wanted the best seats in heaven, right next to Jesus. Peter denied Jesus three times. Thomas rejected the witness of his fellow disciples to the resurrection. All the disciples hid in fear. Controversies and disagreements would shake the Church to its very foundations. And Jesus had told his disciples: "I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away." It almost sounds as if His words had fallen on deaf ears.  

Luke tells us that, after Jesus ascended, the disciples returned to Jerusalem with great joy. But can't you imagine, human beings as they were, that soon they began to feel the absence of their Master, and discouragement and disillusionment began to set in? Even after the glory of Pentecost, the disciples stumbled, and the Church struggled mightily. They weren't successful by worldly standards. They were rejected by the religious leaders. They were forced to worship in secret. The Pharisees had more money, bigger congregations, political control, and better working conditions. They enjoyed worldly success. The multitudes attended their synagogues and believed what they taught. But that is exactly the point. The apostles weren't sent to preach the kingdom of the world. God's true messengers are measured by different standards. They are sent to teach the truth to a world that would rather not hear it. They are sent to proclaim the coming Kingdom of God.

In the Kingdom of God, Jesus Christ is the Cornerstone, a stumbling block and foolishness to the world. But upon Him the Kingdom of God is established. And He spoke to His disciples as He did that they would not lose that faith. He spoke to them that they would faithfully confess the truth. For doing so, they would face persecution, ridicule, worldly failure, disaster, and death. In other words, they would share in the sufferings of Christ. But with the eyes of faith they would see in these sufferings Christ's victory over the world. They would see the ultimate victory, won for them by the shedding of His precious blood.

So it is for you. Faith in Jesus Christ does not promise worldly success. Christians do not always live happily ever after in this world. Nor does faithfulness to God's Word carry with it any earthly guarantees. That is not how God works; that is not what He has promised. In the Kingdom of God, the last shall be first, and the first shall be last. Those who proudly claim to have earned first place may well have hell to pay. The proclamation of the true Gospel always brings persecution and suffering in this world, not success. What the world counts as truth draws men away from salvation. Love covers a multitude of sins; to remain silent in the face of error is not an act of love. And so we are to speak the truth in love and hold to the Word of God and the teaching of Christ and His Apostles. Do not think it strange, as Peter said, that you would actually suffer for doing this. Rejoice that you are blessed to partake of the sufferings of Christ.

God has called you out from this world; He has set you apart. He has baptized you with that one Christian baptism given to the Church through the Apostles. There all your sins were forgiven. There the sinful creature you were born was drowned and died. There you were brought to new life in Christ. There you received the pure confession of the one true faith. There the Word of God and water washed you clean from sin. There God gave you a new heart and put His Spirit within you. And because Jesus rose from the dead, so will you. Your tomb will be opened and you, too, will rise. And because Jesus ascended into heaven, so you, too, will be changed, given a glorified body like that of the risen Jesus, and then gathered, body and soul, into everlasting life. And there you will live forever in the joy of the Lord. And so, in the face of persecution, in the face of the false beliefs of this world, in the face of worldly failure, and even when facing disaster and death, you have been given to see with the eyes of saving faith the victory of Jesus Christ over this world. This blessed gift is given to you so that you would not fall away. ALLELUIA! CHRIST IS RISEN! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! In the name of the Father and of the Son (+) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus always. Amen.

Sermon for 5/10/15: Easter VI

I apologize for the delay in posting this. My computer is still down, and so there will be no audio recording posted. I hope to have the computer back soon.

Whatever You Ask

John 16:23-33

ALLELUIA! CHRIST IS RISEN! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

What do you want? What do you lack that would make you happy? And if you had it, would you really be content? “Whatever you ask,” says our Lord. Of course, what we want is often far removed from what we need. Earthly desires capture our hearts, and our eyes become fixed on material things. Our anxious minds and grumbling mouths betray our failure to trust God to supply all those things that we need. That was how it was with the children of Israel. They were discouraged. “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?  For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.” They did not trust God. They did not appreciate the gifts He had given them.  

Today we are urged to pray. But what is prayer? Prayer is listening speech. You probably haven’t heard it described that way before, but that’s what it is. In other words, we don’t just begin to pray, but like a child who learns to speak by listening to its parents, we listen first. The Lord has His say first; we listen to Him speak to us in His Word before we respond to Him in prayer. And when we listen first to the Lord, the first thing we learn is that we are sinners. Because of that, prayer begins with confession, just as it did for the children of Israel. They said to Moses: “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you.”

Like those children of Israel, we have a tendency to be careless about this: to ignore prayer, to wallow in self-pity and impenitence. That is one reason why the Lord allows tribulation to come to us: that we might be called back to Him, turning our hearts from hardness to repentance. Tribulation and affliction is the Lord’s instrument to turn us back to Him. I know that many of you have afflictions of various kinds. No one else may know them, but the Lord knows them. He knows the conflicts you have in your family; He knows your problems at work; He knows your loneliness and your ailing body; He knows the sins you struggle with and the sins you should be struggling against. He knows how you despair over such things. Too often we respond with regret and shame, when we should see this as an invitation from God to call upon Him out of the depth of our troubles. In this way, the very things that plague and afflict us will cause the Lord to draw us to Himself, leading us where true joy is found: in Christ's victory over the world. “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

When Jesus invites us to pray to the Father in His name, that means the invitation to pray is based upon His cross, His atonement for sin, His redeeming work, His victory over death, the world, and our sin. The words “in the name of Jesus” are not an incantation that promises some divine magic. They mean that we have access to the Father in heaven, and that He hears our prayers because of what His Son has accomplished for us. Saying His name without faith means nothing. But what that name stands for--His redeeming work--that means everything!

So what do you want? Our Lord says: “Whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you.” Ask for those things that help you in your life as a disciple of Christ and a child of God. If you ask for something that hinders your salvation, if you ask for something that keeps you from leading a God-pleasing life, then you have not really asked in the name of Jesus, no matter what words you have used. The name of Jesus is not a formula that guarantees an answer to prayer. Rather, the name of Jesus is that righteousness that stands outside yourself, righteousness by which we ask for and receive life, forgiveness, salvation, and everlasting joy.  

Ask the Father to have the righteousness of Christ be for you and in you. “Ask anything,” He says. Let us ask, then, for what His Word says. Let us seek His Kingdom and His righteousness, gifts He is glad to give us. And in addition to those holy gifts, He will even provide all that we need for this body and life. ALLELUIA! CHRIST IS RISEN! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! In the name of the Father and of the Son (+) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus always. Amen.

Sermon for 5/3/15: Easter V

I apologize for how late I am in posting this. My computer is still down. I hope to have it back soon. In the meantime, there will be no audio recording posted.

The Spirit Preaches the Gospel

John 16:5-15

ALLELUIA! CHRIST IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN INDEED! ALLELUIA!

The work of the Holy Spirit is not as well known or recognized as that of the other two persons of the Holy Trinity, Father and Son. However, that is by design, because the work of the Spirit is to bear witness, not to Himself, but to Christ. That is what the Holy Spirit does: He bears witness to what Christ has done, and then brings us to faith through that witness. Honestly, though, that is not what usually comes to mind when talk turns to the Holy Spirit. Mention the Spirit, and most think of the wild claims of Televangelists, faith healers, speaking in tongues, and "God spoke to me" talk. All of this misses the real work of the Spirit and perverts the Gospel. 

These are the marks of the Church: Baptism, Absolution, Preaching, and the Lord's Supper. These things are the work of the Holy Spirit. Everything else in the Church is really secondary to these, for these are the things that create and sustain faith; these are the things that grant forgiveness of sins, victory over death and the devil, God's grace, and Christ in all the fullness of His grace and glory. God makes Christians by water and the Word, by His gift of grace. Christian faith and life do not happen because God's ears are filled up with our words of promise; those words are untrue and uncertain. Christian faith and life comes by hearing the Word and promise of God, for those words and promises are most certainly true and unbreakable.

So, what happened to the Holy Spirit? Nothing, really. He is alive and well. As Jesus tells us in this Gospel, He is convicting us of sin, because of that stain of unbelief that still wants to live in our hearts. He is convicting us of righteousness, because even the holiest of our good works are but filthy rags. And He is convicting us of judgment because Satan has already been condemned. In all of this the Spirit preaches the Word of God into the ears of the unbelieving and the skeptical so that they, too, might receive life and faith and righteousness in Christ.

And that same Holy Spirit preaches the Gospel into your ears. "Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the virgin Mary, is (your) Lord, who has purchased and won (you) from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood, and with His innocent suffering and death." All of this, so that in His blood You are declared holy.

You don't have to be good to go to heaven. In fact, you can't be that good. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Jesus said that He came to seek and to save the lost, that is, the condemned of the world. Again, He said that those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Of the goodness and mercy of God, for the sake of the suffering, dying, and rising of the Son of God, you needn't lift a finger to inherit eternal life. It is yours as a gift of the Father in heaven, for the sake of His Son, delivered into your ears, and through your ears to your hearts, by the preaching of the Holy Spirit.

The holy Christian Church on earth is a hearing Church, not a seeing Church. It is all by way of the Word of God, preached and taught; the Word that is heard, and not by the seeing of the eyes. Preaching and Absolution are the things. "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." For this reason, everything in the Church is so ordered that the Gospel is preached into the ears of those who would believe such words and promises of God, by the work of the Holy Spirit. And the very same is true of the Lord's Supper and Baptism. If you come to the altar seeking with your eyes, you see only bread and wine. But if you listen with your ears, then you know that the body and blood of Christ are there for you to eat and drink for the forgiveness of sins. If you witness a baptism only with your eyes, all you see is water. Listen with your ears, however, and you hear of the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit.

The Church lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. You are not an apostle; neither am I. We did not see Jesus for ourselves. Our eyes are no good to us, only our ears. Be like Mary, the mother of our Lord, who heard the word of God by the angel Gabriel, and then, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the Word made flesh was conceived within her. In the same way, Christ dwells in the depths of your being through the work of the Holy Spirit, who preaches Him into your ears and hearts.

Dear Christians, you have every reason to rejoice. You have been declared righteous for the sake of Christ, who went to the Father through suffering, death and resurrection. You are righteous because He absorbed your unrighteousness in the font of the Jordan River, and then put it to death on the cross. You are righteous because the Holy Spirit preaches the righteousness of Christ into your ears, and opens your ears and the eyes of your faith to His body and blood which is given to you under bread and wine, for the forgiveness of sins. You are righteous because that same Christ is now your Mediator with the Father in heaven, pleading with Him, praying to Him that He would see you now in Christ's perfect righteousness. That is what the Holy Spirit is about. That is the work He does. He takes what is Christ's and gives it to you. As the Introit today bids us: "Sing to the Lord a new song, for He has revealed His righteousness in the sight of the nations." ALLELUIA! CHRIST IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN INDEED! ALLELUIA! In the name of the Farther and of the Son (+) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus always. Amen.

Sermon for 4/26/15: Easter IV

I apologize for the delay in posting this. My computer is still down, and so there will be no audio recording posted. I hope to have the computer back soon.

Jesus and Time

John 16:16-22 

ALLELUIA! CHRIST IS RISEN! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Seven times in this Gospel reading reference is made to "a little while." It is a reference to time and its passage. There is much that can be said and thought about the passage of time. As Moses said in Psalm 90: "For all our days pass away under your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sigh." You know just how this is from your own experience. All you have to do, especially if you are bit older than the rest, is think about those people and places and times you once had that are now nothing but memories. Memories are often a cause of sadness, of longing, of wishing we had back what we once had. Every joy or gladness this life gives you is transitory. These things will pass away. The things you now enjoy on earth won't last. The people whose company you now enjoy will not always be around. And we tend to ignore this and live only in the present. But we know it's true. It can be a terrifying thing to contend with: time marches on, and there is nothing you can do to stop it.

Jesus knew all about the painful passage of time, and here was His answer. He was with them for a little while. Their Master was with them, but only for this little while, as every little while on earth will pass. "A little while and you will not see Me." But now comes the good news: "Again, a little while, and you will see Me, because I go to the Father." And that's just what happened. Good Friday came. Jesus died and was buried. And while the world rejoiced that He was gone, His disciples mourned and wept, as He said they would, but only for a little while. On the third day, He rose from the grave; their little while of mourning was over.

When someone is dead, they are dead, and there is nothing you can do about it. And that is a helpless experience, as many of you know firsthand. But He who was dead is now alive again. He turned back the clock--or perhaps better said, He turned the clock ahead. The resurrection of Jesus is a foretaste of the heavenly feast to come, a glorious glimpse of the everlasting salvation God has prepared for His people. There He stood before them, having conquered sin, death, and the devil. He had won the forgiveness of sins and, in doing that, guaranteed their resurrection from the dead and everlasting life! And this is the answer to that dreadful passage of time we would prefer to not think about.

Every time He would vanish from their sight, they would still expect Him to return. Indeed, on one such occasion, on the road to Emmaus, He went in to eat and stay with two of them. At first they did not recognize Him. When it was time to eat, He took bread and blessed and broke it, and their eyes were opened and they recognized Him. But then He vanished from their sight. And they came rushing back to Jerusalem to tell the others how Jesus had revealed Himself to them in the breaking of the bread, a phrase that came to refer to How Jesus comes to His Church in the Holy Supper.

And then, the day of Pentecost came, another Sunday, and Jesus returned again, though not in the way He had been returning before--that is, not to their sight, but in the apostolic ministry, where He charged His disciples to preach the Gospel and administer the Holy Sacraments. And from that day, Jesus kept on returning to His people, and they rejoiced. Were they sorrowful the day after Pentecost? No, because they knew He was coming back. And so moves the life of every Christian lived in the light of the resurrection of Christ. That resurrection is an eternal thing. And every single Sunday since then, Jesus has returned to His people in Word and Sacrament. He is here at this very moment!   

But where is He? Can you see Him? That question can only be answered by a confession of faith that says that He is known by us, too, in the breaking of the bread. He is recognized when His Word sounds forth as it is rightly proclaimed and taught among His people today, especially in the words of forgiveness and life. The resurrection of Jesus provides victory, not only over Satan, sin, and the grave, but also, as we may celebrate on this Jubilate Sunday, a victory over the passage of time. Yes, even this He has conquered.

This victory over the passage of time is reflected in the way we worship. Week after week we say and sing many of the same words. This is a reminder that the feast of everlasting life is an ongoing feast that has no end. Time stands still when you come to this place and stand before the Holy One and kneel before His presence. Time stands still--or rather, unending time begins. The reign of the Lamb of God upon His heavenly throne has begun, His unending reign. Do not be sorrowful, therefore, about the passage of time, about people and places and times that you miss and long for. Do not be worried about the passage of time, and those things to which you will bid farewell on some day to come. The little whiles are, indeed, little, but the eternal life our Savior gives us has no end. And every longing, every sorrow, every grief among God's people will be put away. You know this because Christ has risen from the grave. Let us, therefore, continue to sing our Alleluias to Him! ALLELUIA! CHRIST IS RISEN! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! In the name of the Father and of the Son (+) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus always. Amen.