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.