Sermon for 3/31/24: The Resurrection of Our Lord (series B)

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Looking for Jesus

Mark 16:1-8

 

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

 

 

“Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him.” The young man in the white robe told the ladies at the grave the Good News! Death is defeated; Jesus is alive. Yes, He was crucified for sinners. But it would all have been for nothing if He hadn’t risen from the dead! The Apostle Paul tells us, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” Jesus is alive! His resurrection means that He really did pay for your sins. It is true that “the wages of sin is death.” Jesus, the sinless Son of God, died because He had your sins on His shoulders. Now He is alive. Your sins are gone, left buried in the tomb. Jesus has accomplished your salvation. He paid the price for your sins. He has defeated death. Jesus, who was crucified, is risen. You won’t find Him in the grave. He is alive forevermore.

“Go and tell His disciples and Peter”—yes, tell Peter, who of all the disciples especially needs to hear this Good News—”that [Jesus] is going to Galilee and they will see Him there, just as He said.” What about you? Where are you looking for Jesus? Where shall you find Him? Look no further. He is right here, present in His church. Don’t go looking in His empty tomb. Don’t go looking in the Holy Land. Instead, look in the places where He has promised to be. Look here at the font, where His water and Word washes sinners, making us spotless, covering us with the sparkling robe of His own perfect righteousness. Listen for His voice in the Word of Holy Absolution and the preaching of your pastors. See Him raised from the dead in His own body and blood, given and shed for you to eat and drink at His holy altar. Right here, in His Church, “where two or three are gathered in His name,” Jesus is present. And right here—present in His Church: present in the preaching of His Word; present in water, bread, and wine combined with His Word—He is delivering His forgiveness for all your sins. He is giving you His victory over sin and death.

So the angel tells the women to go tell the disciples. They run off and do it, right? Not quite. St. Mark says they were frightened and didn’t tell anyone because they were afraid. Oh, sure, later it all came out. But right away, they were still overcome by fear. That’s us. Today we just heard that Jesus is alive! He was dead and now He’s risen. So what? Do we go back to business as usual? Do we go back to arguing with and hating others? Do we go back to cursing the government and those the Lord has given to keep us safe? Do we go back to lusting and fornication and coveting and stealing? Do we go back to doing the things we do as if Jesus isn’t alive at all? The greatest triumph the world has seen, and we will yawn and go our merry way, with the same sins at work in us. Jesus rose from the dead. Does that mean anything? Does it make a difference? Or do we do what we’ve always done? A Lutheran pastor named Ken Korby once wrote, “Nobody is going to go to hell because of his sin. Nobody. Those who are in hell—God have mercy that none of us is there—will be there because they don’t believe the Lamb. Simple as that. And it’s hard to go to hell, because you have to get over the dead body of God’s Son to get there.” So repent! Repent of living as if the stone still holds the grave closed. Repent of living as if Jesus was still dead!

St. Paul calls us to eat “the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” That’s why you are here today: to be purged of your old leaven of sin and to have new life. That’s exactly what your Baptism, Holy Absolution, and the Lord’s Supper give you. Your Baptism has raised you from the death of sin, and you are a new creation. You hear your pastor say with our Lord’s command, “I forgive you all your sins,” and you are returned to your Baptism, your sins taken away, removed from you as far as East is from West. In the Holy Supper, the very body and blood of Christ casts out from you all that is sinful and selfish, and you are fed and nourished in the faith. Christ’s body and blood are the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Your sins, whatever they are, are buried in that tomb forever. There is no need to go and drag them back out! In His death and resurrection, Jesus has taken care of them once and for all.

The Good News, which eventually overcame the women’s fear and sent them shouting what they had heard, is the same Good News by which the Spirit works in you to love God and your neighbor. Your sins have been put away by our Lord’s death. They were buried with Him, and only Jesus came out of the tomb. Our Lord Jesus Christ is alive! Your sins are done and gone. And Jesus, who has defeated death, promises that sin and death have been defeated for you forever. Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!     

 

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

Sermon 3/28/24: Maundy Thursday

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“Do This…”
I Corinthians 11:23-32

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

It must be one of the chief ironies of Christianity that the Lord’s Supper, where we are most intimately united with Him and with each other, has been the center of controversy from the very beginning. The place where there should be the most unity—the very body and blood of Jesus—has become the center of division. But this should not be a surprise, for when the words of our Lord are set aside, there will be only lack of clarity. St. Paul laments the sad divisions at Corinth and says, “There must also be factions among you, that those who are approved may be recognized among you.” Factions are caused when people hold to their own opinions rather than the Lord’s words. Apart from His Word, there can be no unity. To paraphrase Luther, they would make this Sacrament the Christian’s supper rather than the Lord’s Supper.

There came a time the history of the Church when the Lord’s Supper was redefined to be “the unbloody repetition of the sacrifice of Christ.” The Roman Church teaches even today that the body and blood of Christ are offered by the priest to God the Father as payment for the sins of the living and the dead. At the time of the Reformation—and still today—some argued that the words of Jesus can’t possibly mean what they say; they believe that the bread simply represents or symbolizes our Lord’s body which is in heaven, and that the wine represents His blood shed on the cross. Both opinions depart from the clear words of the Lord Jesus; both cause division in the Church. But as we already heard, divisions in the Church over the Lord’s Supper are not new.

The Epistle for Maundy Thursday speaks to this situation. There were some in Corinth who saw the Lord’s Supper to be something other than the gift of the body and blood of Jesus, given to sinners to eat and drink for the forgiveness of our sins. They had transformed the Lord’s Supper into their own party. No longer were His body and blood being confessed as the gifts that they are. No longer were the gifts of His body and blood at the center of the congregation’s life. They would eat and drink, but the Corinthians were no longer partaking of the Lord’s Supper.

We sinners always seem to give a higher priority to our own notions and opinions about what we need rather than what the Lord promises to give. In the Lutheran Church, our public confession of what we receive in the Holy Supper cannot be faulted; after all, we confess exactly what our Lord Jesus says concerning the Supper He instituted. Perhaps our biggest concern, the false notion we cling to most, is that the Supper might become less special if we offer or receive it too often—as if the body and blood of Jesus can be anything but “the highest good” for us, even if we received it every day. But Paul does not begin with his own opinion. Unlike so many in today’s churches, he does not consider it a matter of indifference what one believes regarding the Lord’s Supper. Instead Paul begins with what the Lord had given to him. He says: “For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that our Lord Jesus on the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, ‘Take, eat; this is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’ In the same manner, He also took the cup after supper and said, ‘This cup is the new testament in my blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.’“

These words tell us what the Sacrament is. “It is the body and blood of our Lord given under the bread and wine for us to eat and drink.” The Words of Institution are the Lord’s gift, His invitation to receive what He gives in the means that He gives it. He tells us exactly what it is He gives to us—His body, hidden in and under bread; His blood, hidden under wine; and the forgiveness He died to win for us—and then He invites us to partake of it. It is on the basis of these words from our Lord Jesus Himself that Paul goes on to deal with the problems at Corinth.

In the Sacrament we are given our Lord’s body and blood. The very body that was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary is given into our mouths. The very blood He shed to redeem us is the means of forgiveness which now flows into our bodies. The Lord’s body and blood proclaim to you the complete forgiveness of all your sins—and it does so each and every time you partake of it, no matter how many times you partake of it. As you eat and drink at the Lord’s Table, you confess Jesus Christ to be “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” We may bring no contradiction of Him and His words to His altar.

This Sacrament does not depend on us; it depends on the Lord Jesus who established it: on the Word He speaks to make it what it is and to make it give what He says it gives. It is not your faith which makes the Sacrament what it is. All who come to the altar and who partake of the Supper receive Christ’s body and blood, whether or not they believe what Jesus says about it. That is why Paul goes on to warn the Corinthians that those who partake of the Supper in an unworthy manner are guilty not of bread and wine, but of Christ’s body and blood. This is why we practice Closed Communion—it’s not because we hate or feel we are better than our fellow Christians, but rather out of love for them and concern for their spiritual welfare.

We do give attention to faith—but not because our faith establishes the presence of Christ in the Sacrament. Rather, it is only in right faith that we may partake of the Savior’s body and blood in a way which is salutary and beneficial. Therefore, Paul says, “Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.” There is only one way to worthily eat and drink of the Lord’s Supper, and that is with faith in the words of Him who is the Host and Donor. The Catechism says it well: “He is truly worthy and well prepared who has faith in these words: ‘Given and shed for you for the remission of sins.’“ Thanks be to God, who by His Holy Spirit grants us such faith. Thanks be to God, who feeds us here with the body and blood of Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins. In the name of the Father and of the Son (+) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.     

Sermon for 3/20/24: Midweek Lent 5 (Psalm 22 series)

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“He Has Done It”
Psalm 22:25-31

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

It is not too much to say that the entire Passion of our Lord and its outcome is pictured in the words of Psalm 22. The Psalm begins with those words of distress and despair: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” As we said before, for that brief time, it was necessary that the Father hide Himself from His Son so that the Son’s hellish suffering would be genuine. Then Jesus identifies His own utter humility by calling himself a worm, one who was scorned and despised, so that He might endure what was necessary to turn aside the Father’s wrath against the sin of all mankind. We are then told of His suffering, the excruciating pain and absolute helplessness as He bore that wrath. Last week we heard how deliverance finally came, and Jesus could commend Himself with certainty into the hands of His gracious Father. Now, finally, the Psalm ends with a look beyond. What was the point of all the suffering, the humiliation, the anguish, and the deliverance? What the psalmist commends to us is a continuing remembrance of the faithfulness of our God in delivering His Son, but also in delivering us from sin and death through His Son. It is a reminder that we must always keep this faithfulness of God before our eyes.

This portion of the Psalm takes us beyond the crucifixion. Jesus has been delivered from His enemies; even death itself could not hold Him. As St. Paul told the Romans, “[He] was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by His resurrection from the dead.” Life had returned! And the return to life enables the Son to praise His glorious Father among the people of God. Jesus says, “My vows I will perform before those who fear Him.” In those days, the paying of vows included a feast to which many were invited. And this is exactly what our Lord has done. The Holy Supper which He instituted on the night before His crucifixion would be the remembrance, and His apostles and the pastors who followed after would continue this remembrance, as it is to this day. St. Paul reminds us, “As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.”

The Psalm continues, “The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek Him shall praise the Lord!” Who are the afflicted? Certainly the sick and destitute are afflicted, along with those who suffer and those who mourn. But there is an affliction which surpasses all of these: the affliction of sin and the death that sin deserves. These are the very afflictions our Lord bore to the cross. But out of His suffering comes relief and the answer to our afflictions. All who are burdened by sin can eat and be satisfied. His word of forgiveness refreshes and satisfies us as we “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest it.” But even more to the point, the very body and blood given and shed for the remission of sins is served to us as the great Feast of forgiveness, life, and salvation. And this Feast on earth is merely a foretaste of the heavenly Feast yet to come, where, as the Psalmist tells us, “hearts live forever” in the presence of the Lamb of God who has taken away this sins of the world and opens the kingdom of heaven to all believers.

The Psalmist goes on to say, “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before You.” Truly, all the world knows what the Savior has done. Even those who hate the Gospel know about it. Even those who would not even for a second entrust their souls to Jesus know what He has done. But the memory of the Church is completely different. For the Church, to remember is to participate. We listen every year to the retelling of those saving events, and they become as real to us as the original because they are as real. We do not need to be transported back in time. We don’t need to be there. The great saving benefits of Christ are brought to us in His Word and Sacraments. Receiving what His passion offers us requires us to travel no farther than the altar, for here the same body given and blood shed for the forgiveness of sins is offered and given to those who live in faithful remembrance of what the Son of God has done. This same remembrance, which has gone before us in time, will go on as long as life is lived on earth, as long as the Church remains.

Even scoffers and unbelievers will have no choice but to remember what Jesus has done. “Before Him shall bow all who go down to the dust, even the one who could not keep himself alive.” They will bow before the One who purchased their lives from sin and destruction. Great and small, haughty and humble—all will acknowledge that Jesus gave His life for them. On the Last Day, as St. Paul writes, “Every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

And in the end, every generation shall serve Him by remembering and telling every new generation what our loving Lord has done. Even those not yet born, to the very end of days, shall know and remember and confess what Jesus has done: bearing our sins to the cross in our place, dying the death we deserved, and then rising again to win for us new, eternal life. The work is complete. “Tetelestai,” Jesus cried out: “It is finished!” This “one little word,” as Martin Luther said in his most famous hymn, has felled Satan. Death has been destroyed. The graves will be empty. And we will remember for all eternity and praise our God for all that our Lord Jesus has won for us, for indeed, “He has done it.” In the name of the Father and of the Son (+) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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

Sermon for 3/13/24: Midweek Lent 4 (Psalm 22 series)

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Not Far Off After All
Psalm 22:19-24

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

There’s an old and not-so-nice story about a father who is teaching his son about trust. The father has his son stand on a kitchen counter and then says to him, “Jump, and Daddy will catch you.” His son says to him, “No, you won’t. You’ll let me fall.” “I’ll catch you!” the father insists. “Just jump!” The son says, “But Daddy, I’m scared!” The father replies, “Don’t you trust your Daddy, son? I promise I’ll catch you.” This went back and forth for a few minutes, the father holding out his hands to his son, and the son scared of what his father will do either way. Finally the son lifts his eyes toward the ceiling in surrender and says, “Okay, Daddy. Here I come.” The son gathers himself and takes a mighty leap towards his father. As soon as his son’s feet leave the counter, the father steps back, and he watches as his son hit the floor hard. The son, crying, says, “You promised, Daddy. You promised you’d catch me.” The father replies, “This will teach you not to trust anybody.”

          I have no idea whether or not this is a true story—I hope it’s just a tale told to scare children—but it brings forth the point. We are conditioned from an early age to doubt everyone. If it’s not a story like this, then it’s a story of betrayal, a time when a friend or brother did something wrong and then blamed you for it. Maybe it’s the teammate that missed the last-minute shot. Maybe it’s the parent that forgot about the piano recital. Or it could be the mentor who said what you didn’t want to hear. It doesn’t even necessarily have to be a cruel action. But we take these things very personally, and eventually we think that the only person we can rely on is ourselves.

          At first glance, the Psalm that we have been looking at these past four weeks seems like another story of a trust betrayed. The Son of God is hanging on the cross, dehydrating, bleeding, suffocating, dying. The taunt earlier from the antagonists was this: “He trusts in the Lord; let Him deliver him; let Him rescue Him, for He delights in Him!” The innocent, sinless Son of God cries out for that rescue, that deliverance, and yet He remains nailed to that cross. The Son of God was seemingly betrayed by His own Father! Is there nobody that can be trusted? Can we not trust even God? Is it true that He merely “watching us from a distance,” as Bette Midler would claim?

          Up to this point in the Psalm, we see the psalmist crying out for deliverance for his body and his soul. “But you, O Lord, do not be far off! O you my help, come quickly to my aid!” And up to this point, we have no indication at all that God was even listening to these pleas. But then the whole tone of the Psalm changes. We see the psalmist singing the praises of the Lord. Why the sudden change?

          Looking at our Lord as He hung upon the cross, it’s not immediately obvious what has happened. But if you look closely, you see the change in attitude there, as well. Look at what He says there. First He cries out to the Father, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He cries out that He is thirsty. He is making very human pleas for help and deliverance. But at the end we see Him finally crying out, “Into your hands I commend my spirit.” This is no longer a cry for help, but a cry that He has been delivered, and that, through Him, we have been delivered. Jesus knows that He has not been betrayed by the Father, or else He would not be able to commit His spirit to the Father. The Father has not betrayed Him. The Father knew was necessary all along, and He did exactly what was necessary all along.

          You can see it in the Psalm. It says, “He has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted.” What was the affliction of Jesus? He was afflicted by our sin. We were the cause of Christ’s affliction on the cross. Were it not for us, there would be no reason for Him to be on the cross. He had no sin of His own to atone for; He hung there for our sake, bearing all our sins, suffering the wrath of God which humanity had earned in our sin—the wrath we so rightly deserved.

Have we been betrayed by God? No, never: not His Son, and certainly not us. Even in the darkest moment, even in the pain and suffering of Jesus Christ, even when He rightly should have done so, God did not turn away from us. “He has not hidden His face from Him, but has heard when He cried to Him.” He never turned away from His Son, and He has not hidden His face from us. “O Lord, do not be far off.” And He’s not. He is not watching us from a distance, leaving us to wallow in our own filth, leaving us to bear our shame and scorn. Thanks be to God, for He is always near to us. He is always with us, bringing us the comfort of sins forgiven, bringing us the joy of eternal life in His presence. In the name of the Father and of the Son (+) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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

Sermon for 3/6/24: Midweek Lent 3 (Psalm 22 series)

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The God Who Suffers
Psalm 22:12-18

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

The Nicene Creed was forged in the fires of heresy, in demonic attempts to separate God from man and man from God in the person of Jesus. The Reformation was a battle fought centuries later on the same ground: first when Luther opposed the Roman church, who in practice denied that the death and resurrection of Jesus applied salvation to penitent sinners, and then Luther and his colleagues had to fight battles against those within Protestantism who denied that Jesus was present in His flesh and blood in the bread and wine of the Holy Supper. Every attack on the true Christian faith is an attempt by the enemies of Christ to discredit His one Person in two Natures and thus discredit His saving work. So if we are to understand this Psalm correctly in this season of Lent, we must confess that Jesus Christ is both God and Man in one Person. We must confess that this God-Man suffered and died to pay the blood debt of all mankind. And we must place all our comfort and find all our hope in His work for us and our salvation.

This particular portion of our Psalm describes our Lord’s intense suffering: physical, emotional, and spiritual suffering all at once. His enemies are described as strong, vicious bulls, ready to crush the Victim they encircled, making escape impossible. They are described as roaring, ravenous lions, seeking to devour their Victim. Imagine what fear must come upon someone facing those circumstances. As a Man, our Lord felt all the danger and horror of the situation. All of the enemies of Christ in all their demonic malevolence face off against our Jesus, with Satan, that roaring lion, seeking to devour both Him and us. To defeat and devour the Son of God would be an unparalleled victory.

The sufferings our Lord endured were awful in the extreme. We will never comprehend how awful they were. He was “poured out like water.” His sufferings brought Him weakness and a sense of utter helplessness that would completely overwhelm anyone. The excruciating pain that accompanied His crucifixion made Him feel as though His bones were “out of joint.” Imagine as best as you can what it would have been like to hang on the cross, and all your weight was supported only by the nails in your hands and feet. It is no wonder His heart became like melted wax within His breast. His strength was completely dried up. You might recall how He cried out from the cross, “I thirst,” as He lacked the moisture to keep His tongue from sticking to His jaw. He was ready to be laid into “the dust of death.”

But even then, note the confession from His lips: “You lay Me in the dust of death.” Even in this grave situation, our Lord confesses that it is the Father who controls all that comes upon His Son. We just heard these words from Isaiah 53: “Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed. 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.” His enemies surround Him, ready to pounce. Even those who should have pitied Him only gaze heartlessly upon Him. They gloat over Him, their eyes feasting with delight on what they have done to Him. Indignity upon indignity is heaped upon our Lord’s outstretched arms and shoulders. Even His clothes were divided among His enemies. The Man was overwhelmed. But all of this is told to us to bring comfort to us, because it was the Father who heaped all of this upon His own Son instead of upon us.

 

If it were a mere man being described here, then, as St. Paul said, “We are of all people most to be pitied.” If Jesus is only a man who suffers, then—at best—He alone can benefit from His suffering; there is no blessing therein for us. If it is only a man who suffers, then it is best that we turn our eyes away from Him and gather what little comfort we can from the fact this His suffering is not ours…at least, not yet. But what truly sets apart the sufferings of Jesus is that it is not only a man who suffers; it is a Man who is also God. And since that is the case, suffering is transformed.

It is like a scale and weights. On one side are all the sins of the world; on the other side is all the sufferings of men. The burden of human sin is so heavy that the sufferings of mankind have no effect. But when the sufferings of the God-Man are placed in the balance, the burden of sin is lifted away! When we are surrounded by the enemies of our soul, when there is no escape to be seen, we need not fear. When Satan seeks to devour us, we know that, to get to us, he must first deal with Jesus. When our sufferings are so extreme that we wonder whether or not we can beat them, we know with certainty that they are momentary, that they cannot be compared with the glory which awaits us with the One who suffered in our place. When we look upon Him whom our sins have pierced, we are seeing the One who said, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” And seeing Him, we know that He has drawn us in faith.

When we confess the Nicene Creed, it can no longer be a dry, lifeless reciting of the faith it sometimes seems to be. It will be a remembrance and a thanksgiving for the life-giving and life-sustaining work of our Lord Jesus, which we find in these words: “who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried. And the third day He rose again according to the Scriptures…” God grant that this thanksgiving would always be the mark of our confession of faith. In the name of the Father and of the Son (+) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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